Archive of Our Own ^beta

Chapter Text

It is ridiculously easy in the end to lure all of the boy’s relatives out of the house at once. Especially so, he learns after thorough rounds of Legilimency through all of their minds, in light of the fact that they have apparently fallen for a similar trick before during the previous summer. Then, it had been a letter about some foolish muggle contest presumably sent by the Order so they could safely spirit Potter away to their secret Headquarters before his expulsion hearing, though he does not understand why they bothered with the pretense when these…people…seem more than happy to be rid of their nephew under the flimsiest of excuses in any case.

His own ruse is much simpler, and thus more elegant and foolproof. All it takes is discovering the large man’s place of work and putting his employer under the Imperius, then commanding him to extend an invitation to dinner for the entire family. If they happen to bring the boy along, that is merely a bonus which will make his task one step easier.

They do not bring the boy along. But he cannot claim disappointment, for this is more satisfying anyway. It allows him time and the rare opportunity to indulge in his own personal flair for the dramatic.

In a grim scene not so unlike one he staged many years ago in a terrible backwater little village called Little Hangleton, he is waiting for them in the dining room when they arrive, seated at the head of the table while the manager and his family are all arranged neatly in the remaining chairs, all of them already dead.

The woman is more immediately cognizant of their situation and thus more demonstrably terrified than her husband and son at first. This lends more credence to the theory that it is she whom the blood wards are tied into, as it suggests she is the most well informed of the group, but it could also be that the others are simply that stupid. What little intelligence could be gathered about Harry Potter’s guardians without raising suspicion at the Ministry had been frustratingly meager and vague. A well placed Legilimens confirms his suspicions quickly enough. He will not waste breath actually speaking with any of these muggles, and he has no reason at all to be gentle as he scours their minds for any and all potentially pertinent information about his target.

The more memories he sifts through, the more his lip curls in righteous anger and disgust. This is who they left their precious savior in the hands of for all these years? Dumbledore is even more cunning than he had originally credited. It is just the sort of tactic he might employ himself if he had the time or patience—leave his preferred asset to cold and uncaring people who would make his offers appear all the more gracious and generous by comparison. It will benefit him now, he decides.

That advantage does not make his treatment of his Chosen One’s “family” any kinder however. Even silenced—mustn’t disturb the neighbors after all—their screams as they spend the next hour under Cruciatus are a pleasant accompaniment to the middling but adequate sangiovese he purloined from the kitchen—even upper class muggles in this day and age apparently don’t at least have good wine cellars anymore—and sips idly until their grotesque contortions devolve into pathetic drooling twitches and cease to amuse any longer.

Their deaths follow swiftly. Then he exsanguinates the aunt and the cousin both, since he cannot be certain the wards are not tied to both of them, and brings the flasks with him to Number Four, Privet Drive—an address that was not difficult to attain once he knew the guardians’ names and thus was able to track the uncle to his place of employment. It had been listed right there in the payroll files for anyone to find. The staggering incompetence of wizarding kind to account for muggles’ irrepressible need to document everything is exactly the sort of oversight he intends to correct once he is in power, but at least it is of use to him now.

The muggles’ greatest possible future weapon against his kind isn’t the atomic bomb after all, he muses. It’s their unique relish for and superior skill at bureaucracy.

The house is dark when he arrives, suggesting that if the boy is home, he might have gone to bed early. It would be irritating if he is not home after the effort Voldemort has already gone to for this, but he is confident the boy has not been moved to Order headquarters yet, so he need only wait patiently for his return if this is the case.

Under cover of a powerful Disillusionment Charm, he carefully draws a circle in the combined blood of Petunia and Dudley Dursley around the house, then uses the rest to draw the key runes he needs to undo the blood wards right on the front door.

He smiles as he crosses the threshold of Harry Potter’s childhood home without any further resistance, his Scourgified fingertips still smelling faintly of the blood of his victims like he is some dread vampire come to stalk his favorite prey right in his own home. Lord Voldemort is something far worse than that.

He knows the layout of the house from the Dursleys’ memories and finds the bedroom he seeks on the second floor with nothing more than an intentionally faint Lumos to guide his path. The door is locked. From the outside. His teeth clench once again in anger before he tamps down on the feeling behind his Occlumency shields. It would not do to alert the boy through their connection now that he is finally here.

He opens it with a simple Alohomora and Potter sleeps on, unaware of the unwanted houseguest standing over him now, his lax face washed out paler than normal by the moonlight which filters in through barred windows. A swift Silencio prevents the white owl perched in its cage from disturbing its master’s rest as it squawks and attempts to rattle the bars. A muttered Stupefy puts Harry into a deeper unconscious state he will not wake from until Voldemort releases him from it.

“Accio Harry Potter’s belongings.” Items fly to him from the bedside table, the broken wardrobe to his right, and even from beneath a loose floorboard under the boy’s bed, but it is still far less than he would have expected. A dull knocking from downstairs reveals that the rest is locked within the very cupboard these abhorrent muggles stashed their own nephew away in like forgotten luggage for nearly ten years of his young life. He does not have more time to waste on fury already spent on the offending parties, so he does not dwell on it as he retrieves the boy’s school trunk and opens it to pack the rest inside.

He does pause for a moment to finger the soft, silky material of the Invisibility Cloak folded on top of the rest of his robes. It is of finer quality than any other he has ever seen. Briefly, he allows himself to wonder, his eye catching also on the recently reclaimed family ring on his right hand. There will be time to further consider the ramifications of that possibility as well later. He closes the trunk and shrinks it to fit inside his pocket. Then with one hand he picks up the cage of the still screeching bird. He levitates the sleeping boy to him, floating upright and hovering inches above the ground, tucks Harry’s head against his shoulder, and wraps his other arm around his slim torso. Without another word or cursory glance to their bland surroundings, he Disapparates.

Harry Potter is laid out on a divan in one of the Malfoys’ private studies which Voldemort has temporarily claimed as his own, an oversized dressing gown which has seen better days thrown over his shoulders to cover even thinner and rattier hand-me-downs which he guesses are supposed to be pajamas. His glasses and his wand are set out on the small table beside him within easy reach. Almost an afterthought, he remembers the owl and places it under a gentle sleeping charm before removing the silencing one. That should keep it from disturbing what will be a long overdue chat he has been much looking forward to for several months.

“Ennervate.” Having been unconscious already when he was Stunned, Harry wakes gently rather than with the frightened, gasping shock people usually do when they have been Stunned while awake.

No, the shock comes after he has blindly fumbled for his glasses—the table they are on similar enough in height and distance from him to the one that had been beside his bed that he does not immediately recognize anything amiss—and realizes with wide-eyed confusion that he is not in his own bedroom any longer.

The fear comes when he sees who is sitting in the chair across from him.

Voldemort smiles when the boy instinctively raises his wand to him, his hand only shaking a little. Truly, the brave little Gryffindor he has come to know and admire from afar. He had not been sure Harry would recognize him so quickly. Gone is the snakelike appearance he would be more familiar with, replaced by the man he had once been, older than the teenage Tom Riddle Harry would also recognize from his diary, his dark hair just starting to silver at his temples, yet still close enough apparently that Harry had known him instantly. Only his eyes still glitter like garnets rather than onyx.

“You may keep your wand trained on me if it puts you more at ease,” he states calmly. The boy startles, he suspects because of the unexpectedly deeper, natural timbre of his voice that is so unlike the high, cold snarl his less than ideally reconstituted body once favored. “But know that if you utter a single spell unprovoked, it will not go unpunished.”

The boy wisely keeps silent, though predictably without lowering his wand. He can easily see that the Dark Lord has not similarly armed himself, but is smart enough to recognize that this does not make him any less a threat. After a few more seconds, eerie and tense for him undoubtedly but rather tranquil and unconcerned for Voldemort, he finally distills everything he wants to know into a single word. “How?”

There are any number of answers he could be seeking with that one question. He decides to address them in the order he believes the other wizard will find most pressing first. “The Dursleys are dead. The blood wards are down.” Harry flinches, which is more of a reaction than that family deserves in his own opinion, but for a boy usually so expressive and whom Voldemort has gotten better at reading, this response is otherwise remarkably muted. Voldemort does not show how much this pleases him, but it bodes well, better than he hoped already.

“I have not looked as I did on the night I was resurrected for approximately six months,” he continues. “When I joined my followers at the raid on the Department of Mysteries, I was wearing a glamour.”

“Why?” Harry interrupts. These one word questions are uncharacteristic of the boy he knows, but with a subtle mental prodding at their connection, he understands why. A part of Harry still does not quite believe this is real; the part of him which knows it must be does not yet trust himself to speak without casting ill-advised curses or screaming. Voldemort allows himself another, wider smirk which he knows does nothing to reassure the unnerved teen.

“What do you know of the prophecy, Harry?” he returns with a question of his own instead of immediately answering.

The boy swallows nervously. His arm must be growing tired but he continues to hold his wand steady. “Nothing. It was smashed, or don’t you remember?”

“Liar,” he accuses pleasantly in Parseltongue, enjoying the shudder this elicits from his boy. His boy, not the Dursleys’, or Albus Dumbledore’s, or anyone else’s.

“Is that what this is about then? You plan on torturing it out of me before you kill me?” he asks, sounding resigned but feeling oh so deliciously afraid. Good. That is how one should feel at the prospect of an unpreventable, imminent demise.

Lord Voldemort savors it for a moment longer before he answers. “I have no intention of killing you anymore, Harry Potter. Not if you don’t force my hand.”

“Now who’s the liar?” How did Voldemort never notice, before his recent resolve to “better himself” so to speak, just how lovely the spark of those green eyes and the clench of that narrow jaw are in self-righteousness?

“Does it feel as if I am lying to you?” Unease ripples through the teen, and Voldemort knows it is because Harry has not willingly reached back through their connection like that before and is wary of starting now. Because he is prepared and leaving himself open to it, however, he can tell when the boy sets his caution aside and presses into it gently like a blushing, first-time lover.

The boy’s eyes widen and his wand arm lowers at last, though he keeps it out in his lap rather than put it away. “Okay,” he mutters with more breath than voice, dragging those two syllables out longer than they need to go and appearing to say it more to himself than to the Dark Lord. “That’s…definitely unexpected. Why did you change your mind?”

“The prophecy lent me new perspective on the unique nature of our connection to one another,” he explains, enjoying the adorably confused expression that immediately clouds over the boy’s face.

“But you never heard it! No one could hear it over the fighting when it got smashed.”

“That is the misapprehension our enemies have fallen for, because they foolishly believed Lord Voldemort too weak or too afraid to set foot within the Ministry’s hallowed halls himself,” he sneers. He leans forward a bit in his chair so he can impart this first secret shared between them in a mocking whisper, “But I had already listened to it shortly before Yule, my dear.”

“When Mr. Weasley was attacked,” his Chosen One puts together quickly. “You got past him while Nagini had him pinned down, before anyone else ever got there to help.” Though he shows nothing in his own expression, Lord Voldemort is flattered that the boy remembers his familiar’s name and opts to use it instead of one of the many uncreative descriptors he’s heard over the years, usually some amusing but utterly disrespectful variation of “big, bloody terrifying, poisonous snake.” The correct term is venomous, and he is often inclined to toss out an extra Cruciatus every time he has to hear someone make that ignorant mistake yet again.

“Correct. Unlike your supposed allies, my Chosen One, you are no fool so I assume you can also work out just as easily why I left the orb there and allowed you all to believe that was yet another failed attempt to retrieve it.”

“You also kept sending me visions of the place. You wanted me to hear it too.” Harry’s gaze flickers and seems to turn inward. “But if you already know it too, it doesn’t make sense that you wouldn’t still want to kill me, that’s—” He cuts himself off, immediately realizing his error, but Voldemort is still watching him with placid and polite interest when he dares to look back up.

“I am glad that night was not a total waste,” he responds honestly, and ignores the flash of rage and haunted sorrow that follows this statement. He can guess the reason for it, but now is not the time to address that yet. “Dumbledore obviously realized he could no longer refuse to tell you about the prophecy once you became aware of its existence.” Voldemort clicks his tongue thoughtfully between his teeth. “A version of it that suits him, at any rate.”

The boy narrows his eyes at him. “You expect me to believe that Dumbledore would lie to me but you wouldn’t?” he asks sharply, which is fair given their history.

“The man has done nothing but lie and prevaricate to achieve his own goals since before you or I were ever born, Harry, why should he stop now?” He tilts his head like a shrug. “You won’t have to take my word for it. I will be happy to show you my own memory of it directly, in good faith.”

“Thanks, but I’ve already seen one. It’s not exactly a favorite of mine either so I’m not keen on watching it again.”

If that is true, it would mean this child is more stubborn and foolish than he had hoped, but considering his willingness to listen so far, Voldemort suspects the reality is more complicated than that. “And yet you’ve made the most interesting presumption, my dear,” he points out. “Despite supposedly knowing it as well, you assume it cannot possibly have changed my mind about the necessity of your death.”

He knows that he is right and his patience is about to be rewarded, when after another weighty pause the boy asks so softly that Voldemort has to lean in again to hear him, “You just said…despite knowing it?”

“Perhaps a trade of memories is warranted rather than a simple one-way exchange, wouldn’t you say? How about it? You show me yours and I’ll show you mine,” Voldemort offers, unable to resist drawling his suggestion out like a tease. It makes the boy blush so prettily even as he hides by averting his gaze once more while he seriously considers it.

“You’ve shown me fake visions before,” Harry reminds him.

“I have,” Voldemort admits readily. “In dreams. And as dreams, they always maintained that hazy quality of unreality, of possibility rather than certainty, did they not? But you and I are both awake now, and more importantly…” He stands and Harry, instinctively knowing his intention, sits up straighter on the divan and pulls his legs in, looking more like a child than he ever has as he wraps his arms around them protectively and stares wide-eyed over his own knees when Voldemort sits at the spot they just vacated.

“More importantly,” he continues, half-turned to face Harry. “You feel it as well…don’t you? How in just the last hour, actually talking and listening to each other for once rather than fighting, or you trying to escape me, our connection, our…our bond, it’s already changing, Harry. Deepening and opening up to each other more in a way that won’t allow for continued dishonesty between us now…”

In truth he has only become aware of it himself in the same moment as he tries to articulate it, his usual eloquence halting a little on his tongue, the subtle shake he hears in his own voice not faked. He had not known until this moment how desperately he wanted this new direction for his plans to work, how much he had pinned on his hopes for this already, until he had already given up one of his greatest advantages over the other, his cunning.

Harry recognizes this too, judging by the way he closes his eyes and shudders again. “Alright,” he says a bit hoarsely, before clearing his throat. “Okay, fine. Let’s…let’s share what we know then.”

He instinctively flinches when he opens his eyes and finds that Voldemort has already inched closer with his wand drawn, but he doesn’t move back any further and tenses only a little when the older man rests the tip of his wand against the boy’s temple.

So much trust already. Normally such a realization would have him internally sneering at the weak-willed fool who put such faith in him so readily without guarantee of reward, but Harry Potter he knows is weak of neither will nor mind, and for all his Gryffindor brashness that sends him running headlong into danger time and again, he is surprisingly cautious about feeling out the intentions of others before offering them his allegiance, with only one notable exception that Voldemort intends to rectify soon. Nothing less than intimate, first-hand understanding of the other’s sincerity through their bond would have allowed for this to happen without a struggle, and for that the Dark Lord feels not merely triumphant but honored.

He doesn’t even need to say the incantation, out loud or otherwise, another example of how far things have progressed already. Harry is pushing the memory he seeks to the forefront of his thoughts freely for the taking, unhesitating about giving his own up to Voldemort first.

He sees it all unfolding through the boy’s eyes, and because there is little to no barrier between them left, he feels as Harry felt then as well, all of his horror and awe, his grief, his self-hatred and bone-deep exhaustion. A silvery figure in a shawl rises up from the bowl of the Pensieve and recites the prophecy as he remembers it almost word for word. Almost, he latches onto quickly…except no, it’s not really he who fixates upon that one small, careless word he thought, is it?

Voldemort withdraws as smoothly as he had entered, looking no further beyond the memory freely given, though he could easily spread tendrils across the mind opened so willingly to him now if he chose to. The difference between this and his cruel invasion at the Department of Mysteries only a month ago, between this and the dreams he fed Harry for months before that, is so stark that it leaves Lord Voldemort feeling almost ashamed of his past actions.

“What a clever old goat he is,” Voldemort says with grudging respect. “Did you know, Harry, that memories shown in that shallow manner with a Pensieve can be altered in ways that are harder to detect than when you are pulled into the Pensieve directly to witness the event as though you were present for it yourself?”

It is a little sadistic, he acknowledges, how much pleasure he derives from the miserable hurt slowly spreading through Harry’s expression and the subtle shake of his shoulders already from this revelation alone, the worst of his beloved headmaster’s crimes against him still yet to be shown. Voldemort is not, however, and will never be a good man, and this newfound empathy growing between them will not change the core of who he is. “I didn’t,” Harry whispers.

“The true brilliance is he didn’t even alter it all that much,” Voldemort confesses. “Not much, but enough to steer you exactly where he wants you to be in this battle of wills.” Putting his wand away, Voldemort extends his hand for Harry to grasp. “Now may I show you what it really says?”

“I don’t know Legilimency,” Harry tells him, though he already knew that.

“I think,” Voldemort responds, a little perturbed when it comes out in nearly a whisper as well, unable to disguise his own growing wonder, “that may not matter anymore. Not between us, darling.”

With his other hand, he grasps the boy’s chin, ignoring the indrawn breath that follows as he shifts so that their faces are closer. Following Harry’s example, he allows the memory he wants to float up to the surface and gently nudges it forward as he looks into uncertain but welcoming green eyes.

He recalls holding the orb in his hand, spidery white and with wretched overlong black fingernails as this is when he was still in that ugly half-formed body, before he became aware of how clouded and volatile his mind had gotten over the years and sought to correct a few mistakes that led him there. As the smoke within it swirls and shifts, he hears again the disembodied voice that intoned without opinion or emotion his own destiny, long misunderstood and nearly ruined because of that until this precise moment, which gave him the chance to finally correct its course.

“The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies…and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have power the Dark Lord knows not, unless power between them is willingly shared…yet either may die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other merely survives…the one with the power to strengthen the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”

He feels when Harry retracts himself from this vision and also physically pulls back, not far, Lord Voldemort’s thumb catching on his bottom lip which is shivering and petal soft, before he politely allows it to drop down to his own lap. His boy’s eyes are wet, the subtle shaking that began in his shoulders no longer subtle as his breaths also start to quicken. “That is…but that means…” A high, hiccuping sound which cannot be neatly categorized issues forth before he gets ahold of himself, just barely.

“You mean to tell me,” he tries again, and the look he gives Voldemort now is full of such awe and so much heartbreak it takes the older man’s breath away. Harry Potter is beautiful cloaked in betrayal and tragedy. “That we really don’t have to…that there’s, there’s a choice?”

His voice cracks on the final word, and Lord Voldemort, who has never in all of his years desired to coddle anyone even as an act merely to manipulate and further his own goals, tugs Harry closer by the hand still clasped in his and puts his other arm around him, ignoring the awkward press of knees against his middle.

That Harry lets himself be pulled in like this and even allows himself to sob without shame in his supposed enemy’s arms is the sweetest victory of all, one he could never have imagined and never intends to let go of, now that he has it literally within his grasp.

Not the Light’s victory, nor the Dursleys’, or the Order’s, or Dumbledore’s, but his. His to cherish and hold and no other’s. His Chosen One. His Harry. Mine.