Archive of Our Own ^beta

Once, Harry had been sure that happiness was something meant for other people.

Harry’s life had already been carved out before his birth—meant for pain and sacrifice. He was the face of a war he had no part in starting, destined to be a martyr.

But then Harry had somehow won. Then suddenly a future he had never considered stretched before him, ripe with possibilities. 

And now, he looks down at his son, sleeping in his crib, and every old hurt feels more like a distant dream than a memory. James’s hair—so much like Harry’s—is messy and sticking up. He looks so peaceful.

Harry will protect him, make sure that he’s allowed the freedom to be a child—for as long as Harry can keep the world from intruding. 

Harry’s wife, Romilda, is downstairs making dinner. His heart soars when he thinks of her, when he looks down at the life they’ve created together. Romilda is so clever, so beautiful. Harry still cannot understand why he had been so resistant to her back in school. He supposes it’s because his mind had been so fiercely focused on fighting Voldemort. He had been unable to see the beauty that was so clearly in front of him. 

Thankfully, after seeing her around the Ministry for years and occasionally having short conversations, Harry came to his senses one day and asked her out.

Now, Harry gets to enjoy her sweet scent, her contagious laughter, her soft body, her hair—long and smooth like silk…

Maybe Harry will go downstairs and see if Romilda wants to get started on making a sibling for little James…

“He looks nearly the same as you did when we first met.”

At the sound of the voice behind him, Harry’s pulse jumps. His fingers curl around the bars of the crib—unable, unwilling to believe what he’s hearing.

A high, sibilant voice that should only exist in nightmares. 

Voldemort.

“No,” Harry breathes. “You’re not here. You can’t be here.”

“Yet, I am,” Voldemort says simply.

Harry turns on his heels, absurdly reaching for his wand before remembering its pointlessness. Voldemort stands there, his inhuman face contemplative, wearing the same long, dark robes he wore in life. He’s not quite as transparent as a ghost, but not fully solid either.

Harry closes his eyes, teeth clenching. When he opens them again, Voldemort still stands there, a small smile on his face.

“No,” Harry says again. “I made you leave. You’ve been gone. Gone for years.”

“You have not been able to see me,” Voldemort says, “but I have seen everything.” 

Nausea burns at Harry’s throat, his stomach churning threateningly. “You aren’t real,” he states feebly. “You’re only in my head.”

“I am just as real as you are, Harry.”

It had only been weeks after the war ended when Voldemort’s spectre had first appeared. Harry had moved into Grimmauld Place to take a much-deserved sabbatical from heroism when, one day, he woke up to find Voldemort hovering over him, crimson eyes burning with rage.

Voldemort’s anger at his death had been relentless. He ranted without tiring, a constant stream of megalomania and threats. Whenever Harry managed to sleep, he was plagued by nightmares and would be jolted awake by Voldemort’s hot breath in his face—greeted by sharp shards of teeth.

The first time Ron and Hermione showed up unannounced, Harry had been terrified of what their reaction to Voldemort would be.

But they didn’t notice the Dark Lord at all, cheerfully oblivious to Voldemort’s steady barrage of insults directed at them.

Then one day, Hermione came through the Floo and found Harry screaming at empty space and promptly took him to a healer.

While Harry was being examined, Voldemort’s behavior shifted dramatically. Instead of cold and cruel, he became gentle and cajoling, an echo of the charming persona he had adopted in his youth.

He insisted that he and Harry could find a way to coexist in peace. Then he begged Harry not to send him away.

For one short, strange moment, Harry felt a pang of sympathy for Voldemort, brought down so low and made so pathetic. But the healer told Harry that Voldemort was merely a manifestation of trauma and guilt—a figment of his overactive imagination. 

Voldemort had mocked the diagnosis, fruitlessly insisting on the truth of his existence. He said that the healer’s interpretation was too hasty, too neatly explained. 

But Harry had ignored him and reached out eagerly to be cured of his affliction, uncaring of the potential cost.

Since then, Harry has dutifully taken a phial of orange potion each morning. These days, Harry barely spares a thought towards what the potion is holding back. Voldemort has stayed gone. 

Until today.

“Would you like me to explain why you can see me again?” Voldemort asks. “Or would you prefer to work it out on your own?”

Harry swallows thickly, not responding. It’s strange to see Voldemort so calm—pleasant, almost. Perhaps it’s because Harry’s life has so greatly improved in the time since the hallucination last manifested.

“Your wife,” Voldemort begins. “She is a rather nasty sort.” 

Indignation flares immediately. Harry steps forward, his voice a low hiss so as not to wake James. “Don’t you dare speak about her that way.”

Voldemort merely tilts his head. “Funny,” he drawls. “Not long ago, this is one subject we would have easily agreed upon.”

“I was foolish back then,” Harry huffs. “I didn’t see her value.”

He’s not sure why, even now, his first impulse is to argue with a figment of his imagination.

“Do you remember your honeymoon?” Voldemort asks abruptly.

Harry freezes, puzzled by the odd turn. Eventually, he responds, just to see where Voldemort could possibly be going with this.

“Yes. It was the happiest week of my life.”

Voldemort nods. “It was your first time visiting the sea, outside of your trip to my charming little cave, of course. You had been looking forward to it for years. Yet later, you told your friends that you had barely spent any time enjoying the shore. Do you remember why?”

“Romilda was more beautiful—more enchanting—than any of it,” Harry finishes.

“Does that not strike you as odd?”

“No,” Harry says immediately, his chest pushing outward defensively. “It’s love.” 

Love is enough to explain anything. The most powerful of magic. Something, Harry remembers, Voldemort could never understand. 

“Perhaps,” Voldemort allows, “but I wonder if you would consider an alternative explanation.”

“I don’t have to consider anything you tell me!”

Voldemort chuckles. “Ah, Harry,” he says, almost tenderly. “I have so missed your defiance.”

Harry’s brows knit together.

“You have been under the influence of a love potion,” Voldemort says. “A rather powerful one. Do you not remember when your wife first attempted to use one on you back in school?”

“Yes,” Harry says hesitantly. “But she was young. She wasn’t thinking things through. She didn’t realise—”

“Oh, she realised,” Voldemort says. “She has always been completely aware of her actions.”

Harry crosses his arms over his chest. “You’re just trying to make me doubt her. You can’t stand seeing me happy.”

“No,” Voldemort says softly. “What I cannot stand is seeing you so diminished.”

Harry’s mouth opens, then closes, too shocked to speak.

“All these years, observing you silently, I must admit I have grown… fond of you.” 

His crimson gaze moves away, as if he’s suddenly shy. Vulnerable. 

Harry chokes out a laugh. “That’s not possible.”

“You need not believe me,” Voldemort says airily. “But I speak the truth. The reason I have appeared before you again is because the love potion began to lose its effectiveness, prompting your wife to alter the dose of your other potion in hopes that it would resolve the issue.”

Thinking back, Harry can distantly recall times when he has looked at his wife and felt a sudden, sharp panic—like he’s just woken up groggy from a long dream and cannot recognise her. But each time, the feeling had faded as quickly as it arrived, leaving only love and devotion behind.

“Do not drink the tea she gives you tonight,” Voldemort tells Harry. “Then you will know.”

Agreeing should be easy. Harry has always abhorred being lied to. It should be simple—a small test to discover whether Voldemort is telling the truth.

But it makes Harry’s breath seize in his chest. He looks at James, dreaming on, unaware. So easily, all his happiness could be ripped from his hands… all a horrible lie.

“When—” Harry forces out, almost in a whisper. “When did you grow fond of me?”

He feels Voldemort move closer to stand at his back. He very nearly feels the heat of him pressing in.

“When you first banished me,” his voice ghosts against Harry’s ear, “I spent each day in a blind rage. I cursed you and spat upon you, even though you no longer ever turned my way.”

“But then you began to smile again, and for some reason it moved something in me—something I thought I did not possess. Then one morning, you were in your kitchen back at that deplorable townhouse. Suddenly, you began singing along to some terrible song on the wireless. Something about getting up again after being knocked down.”

Harry’s mouth unwittingly curves into a smile. “Tubthumping.”

“Ghastly noise,” Voldemort sighs. “Yet seeing you so light—unencumbered—moving as if you were untouchable with no thought of appearing foolish—” 

“I’m sure I looked very foolish,” Harry says, hating the laugh that escapes him. 

“You did,” Voldemort agrees. “Yet I found myself wanting to witness it again. My anger, my lifelong companion, receded. I began only wanting to observe you, to see every detail I had missed before and commit it to memory.” 

“Bit creepy,” Harry remarks, but for some reason he carries on smiling faintly.

And that night, when Romilda serves his tea, looking as radiant as ever, Harry only pretends to take a sip.

Then, locking eyes with Voldemort, who stands watching from the doorway—Harry waits.