Chapter Text
"I love you," Voldemort whispered with his mouth against Harry's forehead. “I’m sorry, I’m trying, I’ll be better, I… I love you.”
He lowered his head, intent to kiss him. Harry almost let him, wanting nothing more than to feel his lips one last time before falling asleep, but he stopped him at the last moment.
“Wait.”
He drew in a deep breath. He rubbed his wrists where the shackles no longer were, bare and exposed skin, his magic free.
“I… have to tell you something.”
Voldemort paused, red eyes wide and attentive. Harry ignored the voice in the back of his head, one that sounded too much like Snape, screaming at him: No, stop, don’t be stupid!
But Harry had to. He couldn’t rest until he did.
“When I came here,” Harry started, uneasy, “I… well, I didn’t know what to expect.”
Voldemort still said nothing, only listened.
“Well, that’s not quite true,” Harry continued. “I thought I knew what to expect, we all did, we just—we were wrong.” He swallowed hard. “Very wrong.”
Voldemort’s hand trailed up his side as he spoke; gentle, warm touches.
“I thought you would… force me to do something I didn’t want to,” Harry went on, unprompted. “And so—we, er—planned for that. Just in case. To protect me, you know, if that happened.”
Voldemort’s hand froze. Harry felt a lick of dread that wasn’t his.
“…What do you mean?” he asked in a quiet voice.
Harry swallowed hard again. He was beginning to regret bringing this up so soon. It could have waited. Damn my bleeding heart and stupid morals. “Er… I sort of have a, uh. A curse on me.”
There was a beat of silence. Then Voldemort was up and away from Harry and standing across the room, the movement so fast that Harry barely had time to yelp before he was readjusting himself on the bed, trying not to fall off after being released so harshly.
“Cursed?” Voldemort repeated, his eyes now a flaming, vibrant red. His wings twitched behind him, spreading and casting wide shadows across the room. A frightening, glorious sight. “Explain , Harry.”
“Calm down, I am, I—I’m going to!”
Harry sat up, putting both hands in front of himself defensively. “It’s not what you think—I don’t think—it was—it’s a curse that only becomes activated if you force y-yourself on me! I’m only telling you about it now because—I dunno, I just thought I should, because I felt it, when the bands came off, and—it didn’t seem right, to not tell you. To not have everything out in the open, finally.”
He lowered his hands. “So… there it is. I don’t have any more secrets to hide from you.”
Voldemort assessed him with narrowed, spiteful eyes. “Severus placed a curse on you,” he said. Not a question.
“Yes,” Harry confirmed. “He did.”
“Then it is a lie.”
Harry might have laughed if he didn’t look so deadly serious. “It’s not a lie, it was… well, it was a trap, I guess. But it doesn’t matter, because it only would have worked if you would have forced yourself on me, and—and you didn’t. So.”
Voldemort didn’t look reassured. “Do not move,” he said softly.
He burst into flames.
Harry startled so badly he fell backwards on the bed, swearing. He didn’t have time to recover before another wall of flames lit up the room and Voldemort had returned, appearing at the end of the bed, only now he had a wand.
Harry’s wand.
He pointed the holly directly at Harry’s chest. “Woah—hold on,” Harry said, inching away from him. “Let’s not do anything drastic.”
“I want to assess exactly what kind of curse Severus put on you,” he said. “Only assess. I’m not going to do anything… drastic.”
The word yet felt heavily implied. “What does that mean? Assess?”
“Exactly what it sounds like.”
Voldemort sat on the edge of the bed. His wings folded into his back—Harry was momentarily distracted when they moved, once more lost in the sheer beauty of them—and he lowered the wand. “You did the right thing, telling me about this,” he said, and Harry could tell it took a great deal of effort for him to keep his voice calm. “If you have a curse set upon you, dormant, I need to examine it myself. To see exactly what parameters are on it, to know how dark or powerful it is. To know what might set it off and what will happen when it does.”
“I already told you—”
“Harry.”
His eyes flashed bloody again, and Harry felt it, the bolt of white-hot anger. Voldemort reeled it back at once, closing his eyes and taking a moment to gather himself. “…Let me look at it and see for myself. Please.”
Harry considered him for a long time. Was there any harm in letting him? He wasn’t sure. He didn’t think so. “You promise that’s all you’ll do?” he asked.
“Yes.”
Harry bit his lower lip, thinking. His head hurt. God, he was so spent, so exhausted. “Fine,” he said. “You can… assess. But that’s it. Make it quick.”
Voldemort did not say another word. He closed his eyes again, pointed the holly wand at Harry’s chest, and began speaking in a low, murmuring voice. Harry couldn’t make out the words. It reminded him of when Snape forced Occlumency barriers onto his mind, and…
Well, when Snape had put this curse on him in the first place.
It went on for a long time. Harry felt the uncomfortable but gentle pushing and prodding of magic around him, into him. Voldemort’s face remained flat, seemingly not needing to take a breath as he chanted, exploring the curse Snape had placed on him.
Then it all stopped. Voldemort pulled away, his expression suddenly livid as he inhaled sharply—then he smiled. It was a crooked, cruel grin. He opened his eyes.
“Severus,” he hissed into the air.
He laughed. The sound was chilling.
“What?” Harry asked. “What, what did you—er, feel?”
“Tell me exactly what Severus told you when he did this to you,” Voldemort demanded, ignoring his question. “What precise words did he use?”
Harry frowned, thinking back to their time in Safe Haven. Back when Harry had first told Snape that Voldemort loved him, really and truly. “He said it would only work if I didn’t want it,” Harry said confidently.
Another beat of silence. Then Voldemort was laughing harder and louder than before.
“ Diabolical!” he shouted, but he didn’t seem to be talking to Harry. “He is diabolical.”
“What are you going on about?”
“I was right,” Voldemort said, and though he was grinning widely, he looked far from happy. He looked manic. “Severus lied to you.”
“I—what?
Voldemort leaned in closer, touching the tip of the holly to Harry’s chest. “Perhaps I should not say he lied; rather, he misled you,” he elaborated. “This curse—it’s tied to you, to your actions, your intentions—not mine. Much easier to implement that way. It’s ingenious, really. Sophisticated, dark magic. One of my own spells is there, even. I can feel it. I taught him well.”
He said the last word with such venom that Harry flinched. “He knew what would happen. He used you, he used your forgiving nature against you. This curse—the only thing that could activate it was your refusal. You not wanting it.”
Harry blinked, not understanding. “Yeah, I—”
“No, Harry,” Voldemort snapped. “You not wanting it. You not wanting the curse.”
Harry still didn’t understand. “No,” he said. “That doesn’t—that doesn’t make any sense.”
“Doesn’t it?”
Voldemort’s returning smile was darker than any expression Harry had ever seen on him. Hateful, toxic, yet still frightfully lovely. “Severus never believed in you for a second,” he said. “He never trusted you to come here and not listen to me, to not soften your heart. He knew it, and so he contrived this curse to bloom in love, because he knows how strong yours is, how resilient. He used you. He used the purest thing about you and turned it into a weapon against me.”
Harry’s ears were starting to ring. He shook his head, inching further back on the bed until his back hit the headboard. “No,” he said. “No, that’s—that’s not right. He wouldn’t do that.”
“Yes, he would,” Voldemort hissed. “He doesn’t care about you, he doesn’t care about what you want. He knew you could… you could love someone like me.” His voice, previously so deep, low, and smooth despite his rage, broke.
“He knew it,” he went on, more quietly. “So he made a plan based on that, with no concern at all for you. He did it knowing that the only way it would work would be for you to not want to harm me, for you to want to save me. He used that inclination against you.”
Just like you did, Harry thought numbly. He shook his head again, faster. “No. You’re… stop it. You’re lying.”
“I’m not,” Voldemort went on. “He placed this curse on you, and its focal point… the place where it would blossom and unfold, carrying out its magical arc… is right… here.”
He gently tapped the tip of Harry’s wand to his lips.
“True love’s kiss,” he all but whispered. Voldemort’s gaze flickered from Harry’s mouth to his eyes and back, his head tilting as though curious. “A brilliant plan, truly… I imagine there are few things more powerful when it comes to such ancient magic… love, this kind of love, born here… a kiss… why, I imagine that whatever curse he’s created is… catastrophic in nature. To me, I mean, the intended target. And then, after whatever spell would have befallen me… the Dark Mark.”
“The… what?” Harry shook his head again. “No, that wasn’t what he… He didn’t say anything about the Dark Mark.”
“Of course he didn’t,” Voldemort said. “Why would he tell you everything? The less you knew, the better. But it is there. A debilitating curse to undo me. Some additional enchantments to shatter wards which would, once I was weakened, be simple. And then a mark in the sky —my mark—that would summon all that’s left of the Order of Phoenix at once. The mark that has always been used to signal the death of one of my enemies… It’s perfect. It’s poetic.” He touched his thumb to Harry’s chin, tipping it up so he could look at him better. “And it would have worked.”
He stared at Harry’s lips for a long time, tearing his eyes away only when Harry wet them, nervous. “Y-you’re saying… if you were to kiss me, now, right now—because I’m not wearing those bands anymore… that…”
“I would likely be worse than dead. No violations of any magical contracts required.” Voldemort said, and he seemed oddly emotionless about it all. He was still staring at Harry’s mouth. “Funny how knowing this makes you disturbingly more enticing,” he murmured. “Your kiss has become the forbidden fruit.”
Harry was overwhelmed. His face flamed while at the same time he felt like he was going to be sick.
“Hold on, just—wait.” Harry pushed Voldemort away from him. “I can’t… none of that can be right, it just can’t.”
“It is.”
“No, it isn’t, it—how do I know you’re not lying? How do I know you’re not making this up to make me mad at Snape?”
Voldemort was quiet for a moment. “The only way for me to prove that he lied to you would be to do exactly what he led you to believe would happen,” he said. “If I were to… to force myself on you right now, nothing would happen, because that’s not how this curse is designed. The reality is that Severus never anticipated that I would do such a thing, though he surely led you to believe I would. But if I did, right now—if I did any number of terrible things to you—it would not activate. No one would save you.”
A cold wave of fear flooded over Harry. Voldemort grabbed his hands. “Which I would never do,” he said. “I would never, not—not—”
His voice broke off, and Harry knew why. He wanted to believe in himself, in what he was promising, but he didn’t. He had just lost control only minutes ago, taking Harry against the wall, ripping into his back and feasting on his screams, ignoring his protests until Harry called him Tom.
Was he being honest, though? Would nothing have happened then if he hadn’t been wearing the cursed shackles? Snape had led him to believe that the curse he carried would come to life in such a situation, though he had been awfully vague about the details. Harry had assumed it was because it was uncomfortable all around to discuss, but…
Was Snape actually crossing him now, exactly as Voldemort proclaimed?
“Hey—don’t, stop,” Harry said, for Voldemort’s emotions were swelling perilously. “It’s okay.” He rested his hands on his face. “Just… tell me you’re not lying. Tell me this is the truth, what you’re saying about this curse… because if it’s not, if this is some ploy to try and turn me against Snape, I…”
Harry hardened his resolve. He didn’t like making threats, especially not such painful ones.
“If this is a lie and you don’t admit it right now, I will find out, and I will never forgive you. I will never be willing to try and learn to trust you. You will never have my heart. Do you understand, Tom? Tell me you understand how serious I am.”
He looked like Harry had just punched him in the gut. He nodded in Harry’s hands.
“Good,” Harry said. “Tell me, then. Tell me this is real, if it is. Tell me Snape set me up, tell me he… he… knew… I would want to save you.”
Voldemort put his hands on top of Harry’s. “I’m sorry, my perfection,” he murmured. Harry felt a twinge of relief and annoyance at the same time—a strange sensation that was short lived.
“He knew.”
“…What?”
“Severus sent you here to want to save me,” Voldemort said, soft but firm. “He sent you here knowing your love would be the end of me… He knew.”
Harry stared, letting his words, and what they meant, sink in. He felt the weight of it on his heart.
“You would have… I would have lost you, if I had let you kiss me?” Harry asked, his voice coming out as barely a whisper. “You could have… The Order would have… I… I really would have lost you?”
Voldemort nodded again. Harry’s world went cold, then a burning, furious red.
He barely knew himself. Too many emotions assaulted him as he imagined it, what he had come so close to doing—he had almost doomed him, right when he had finally explained, when he had finally asked to experience love, had wanted it, had gotten it— when he finally wanted to be better—
Harry was on his feet without knowing how he’d gotten there. The dresser and nightstand fractured and broke apart, sending wood chips flying. He was so sick of being lied to, manipulated, used—he felt static on his tongue, felt thunder in his blood, pounding—
“Harry!”
Harry slammed his fists against the wall, sending fissures up the peeling wallpaper. “SNAPE!” he bellowed, pounding again. He let out another wordless, angry cry; his eyes watered with hot tears. Snape had told him to be brave. He had brought him to the graveyard and called him by his first name and said, Be brave.
“I know.”
Voldemort’s arms, warm and soft, wound around his waist from behind. Harry’s burst of fury had already fizzled out—he was too tired to maintain it. He fell back into Voldemort’s embrace, ignoring the pain in his back.
“I know…”
Harry twisted around to face him. “Can you remove it?” he asked. “Can you get rid of this curse?”
“…Perhaps.”
“Perhaps? You’re Lord Voldemort, don’t tell me you can’t undo some lousy curse—”
“If it were some lousy curse, it would not be an issue, Harry,” Voldemort said. “This is intricate, using the most powerful, ancient magic available… I may be able to undo it. But even if I can, it will not be easy.”
He paused, grimacing. “In fact, knowing Severus, it will be very, very difficult.”
“I don’t care how difficult it is. Do it. Get rid of it, now.”
Harry pushed Voldemort away from him, then stood, arms spread wide—before folding into himself and shivering violently. “I would like some pants first,” he declared.
Voldemort pulled Harry back into his enticing, warm arms. “I mean it,” Harry said, allowing it. “I want it gone. I want it gone now.”
“You should re—”
“No. I don’t want to rest, I won’t be able to, not until this is off me. I don’t want—I don’t want some doomsday love curse on my lips. What if I kiss you by accident?”
“I could replace the—”
“No! I’m not wearing your stupid, magically repressing shackles again, either! I want this curse removed, and I know you do too, so just do it!”
He didn’t respond to Harry’s demands. Voldemort brought him back to the bed, then turned him around so he was sitting on his lap with his back to him. “I am healing you,” he said quietly, then proceeded to do exactly that. Cool, soothing magic crawled over Harry’s back where his wounds were, and he felt them as they disappeared, presumably until his skin was as good as new.
“Thank you,” Harry said when he could tell he was done. He twisted around to face him again; Voldemort’s wings unfurled to wrap around him like a living, angelic blanket. “Do it now.”
Voldemort’s emotions—conflicting and uncertain, flickered at the back of Harry’s mind. “I’ll look at it again and see what can be done,” he said.
Which was far from the ‘yes, of course, right away,’ response Harry had been hoping for, but he didn’t say anything. He nodded and waited.
Again, Voldemort closed his eyes, and again he began chanting, using Harry’s wand. It went on for even longer than the first time. His face did not remain blank this time; he frowned and flinched, and Harry felt every flicker of magic with much more intensity. Voldemort’s emotions, too, were more lively this time around.
None of them were pleasant. Annoyance, anger, anxiety. Dread. More anger.
Harry became impatient too soon. “Are you–?”
He screamed.
It was gone almost as soon as it had come, the whiplash of pain. He jumped in Voldemort’s arms, and just as he thought he might cry from how awful it was, it slipped from his mind, forgotten. It had hurt, he knew it had, but he couldn’t hold onto the sensation.
His body seemed to remember it, though. Harry was shaking and his blood was whooshing loudly in his ears. “What—?”
“I’m sorry, Harry—”
Voldemort held him tight. “I didn’t think—but I should have–I should have guessed— that fucking traitor—”
Fury and spite, dense as a brick wall, threatened to crash over Voldemort. Harry did his best to ignore it. “What? Should have known what? What was that, what—what did you just do?”
Voldemort didn’t immediately answer. He kept his head buried in Harry’s shoulder, holding him, barely containing his turmoil.
“Tom,” Harry prodded, because for as much as he feared the explanation, the silence was worse.
Voldemort lifted his head. “When Severus did this to you,” he began, “did he spend a long time placing this curse?”
“Er… define what a long time is.”
“More or less than five minutes.”
“Oh, yeah. Way longer than that.”
Voldemort’s rage spiked, and his nails dug into Harry’s sides.
“What? What does that mean, what did he do?”
Voldemort loosened his hold to something more comfortable, but his anger didn’t settle. “Curses like this… they need to be anchored in a specific way to a host, if they’re going to lay dormant,” he said. “Usually, they are anchored in blood, but it’s possible to do it elsewhere. In bones, for example, or in minds… each has their benefits and downsides… but he didn’t anchor this curse in any of those places.”
Harry wasn’t sure he understood, but he acted like he did. “Is it—is it anchored to my lips?”
“No. That’s merely the activation point. The kiss… is a trigger.”
“Okay. So, what is it anchored to, then?”
“Your soul.”
“…Oh.”
He didn’t need Voldemort to explain that this was not good. “Oh,” he said again. “Well. Does that—can you still undo it without activating it? Is that possible?”
“It… is possible, technically.”
“Great.”
Harry pushed himself a bit further away from him, though he remained on his lap. “So, how do we do this? Should I stand? Lay down? Stay right here? I’m just assuming that knocking me out wouldn’t help anything, by the way, so correct me if I’m wrong—no? No good? Ah, well. Whatever you think, then—probably shouldn’t stand, I might fall over—”
“Harry. I can’t do it.”
“—and that wouldn’t be—what? Why not?”
Voldemort looked anguished as he slowly shook his head back and forth, an action he’d started doing when Harry had started talking. “I can’t remove it… It would be too painful.”
“Painful? Ha!” Harry forced his biggest, bravest smile. “I can handle the pain. Don’t worry about that. Just do it.”
But Voldemort was staring at Harry like he was a child. “No, Harry.”
Anger. This time, it was all Harry’s.
“You can’t be serious right now,” he said. “Who cares if it hurts? It won’t damage me in some irreparable way, will it? No? Then fucking do it. Because we both know we can’t just leave it here.”
“Harry…”
“Stop, stop talking like that, looking at me like that—God, can you just—can you try it, at least? Please?”
Voldemort’s face hardened. He seemed like he wanted to argue, but then he sighed heavily. “I can try,” he relented, sounding hopeless.
Harry ignored that, too. “Wonderful.” He closed his eyes. “Ready when you are.”
Voldemort did not do anything for a long time. Harry felt his emotions swirling around in conflict, chaotic, like a snowglobe that had been roughly shaken. He really did not want to do this, that much was clear.
But then Harry felt the sweeping sensation of magic, and—
Screaming.
The pain he had felt before—the shock of it that had been sharp and brief—was nothing compared to what he felt now. This was deeper, heavier. A horrific sensation gripped him—no, sank into him, like a dagger, both cold and hot, impossibly jagged—it buried itself inside of him, in a place that he could not pinpoint on his body—he screamed, the agony of it tearing pleas from his mouth before he even knew what he was saying—
“—please, please, please, stop, please, please, stop, stop, stop–”
“Harry, I’m sorry, I’m sorry, Harry—”
Harry’s words turned into an incomprehensible jarbling of sobs, deep and rattling his very bones with every breath. Voldemort never stopped speaking, keeping up a steady stream of reassurances, of apologies, of soothing words as he rocked him, consoling.
Harry didn’t know how long it went on—the assault or the subsequent wailing. Eventually, he was able to steady his breathing, though it took a great deal of effort. The pain was no longer fresh in his mind, but again, his body held onto it. He was trembling and sweating. His heartbeat was erratic. He couldn’t seem to stop tearing up.
“D-d-did you g-get it?” he asked in an uncontrollable stutter.
Silence. A wave of deep remorse.
“No,” Voldemort whispered, carding his fingers through Harry’s hair. His forehead fell against his. “I wasn’t even close.”
Devastation hit Harry like a cannonball.
“No,” he gasped. “That… not even…?”
Voldemort shook his head against him. “I’m sorry,” he said. “I can’t remove it, Harry. I told you.”
His eyes flared back to a scorching hot red. “Which Severus knew, of course,” Voldemort spat. “He knew I wouldn’t be able to do this to you. He knew I wouldn’t be able to put you through this… This was always his back-up plan, just in case I checked to see if you had anything on you— which I should have… He anchored this curse deeply in your soul so that if would be excruciating for you if I tried to remove it… He knew I wouldn’t be able to.”
Another memory flashed across Harry’s mind. Him, being held in Snape’s arms, a cursed blade at his throat… Snape, casting the Cruciatus, sending pain bolting up and down Harry’s body… and Voldemort, broken, relinquishing his wand, willing to do anything to make it stop…
“B-but you have to,” Harry said, even as his body continued to quake. “You have to, you have t-to get rid of it!”
“I can’t, Harry,” Voldemort said. Harry knew it was the truth. He couldn't do it, because Voldemort couldn’t bear to listen to Harry scream like that, to feel the pain he was inflicting as he was doing it.
“I am sorry… I won’t ever hurt you like that again, I swear…”
Harry’s mind raced, no longer listening to Voldemort as he fed him more apologies. He knew what he had to do.
“Stay here.”
Harry pushed himself up and away, crawling out of Voldemort’s lap and managing to keep his body steady as he stood. Voldemort allowed it, reluctantly. “What are you…?”
“I said stay here.”
Harry snatched a blanket off the bed—the white fabric was still stained with his blood—and wrapped it around himself. He wanted some things, but they weren’t in the room. Unlike Voldemort, however, Harry could not burst into flames and appear wherever he liked at will, so he had to retrieve them the old fashioned way—by taking the stairs.
He found those easily enough, and he made his way back to the dining hall they had been in before. The table was still broken. Harry spotted the most powerful wand of all time on the floor under a chair, and beside it, looking as unimportant as a used napkin, the contract. Harry fetched them both and sat at a desk in the adjacent room. He went through four dusty, old pens that wouldn’t write before he finally transfigured one into a full inkpot and another into a quill, then began to write.
Maybe Voldemort felt his intentions; maybe he simply couldn’t be away from Harry for more than a full minute. It didn’t matter—he was too late. By the time Harry felt the warmth of his flames behind him, he had already written enough.
“Harry, what are you —”
Harry whipped around with the Elder Wand raised high. “I told you to stay upstairs,” he said.
But Voldemort didn’t seem to hear him—he was staring not at his wand but at the quill in Harry’s other hand, and then the lightly glowing, magical contract on the desk in front of him.
The one that Harry alone could modify however he liked.
“What have you done?”
What have you done?
Harry saw him, then—in the horror on his face as he rapidly put together what Harry was doing.
Tom. His Tom. His Riddle. His solace in the shadows of his nightmare, his angel.
It was him.
No—it’s not.
Harry clenched his jaw and forced himself to focus. “Don’t come any closer.”
Voldemort’s whole body went rigid. He looked confused, if also more afraid.
“Now stay there until I tell you that you can move from that spot, and no magic until I say so, either. Trust me, you want me to finish this. Unless you’d like the contract to stay as it is now?”
He held it up for Voldemort to see. At the bottom was a new addition, a single sentence that Harry had not yet completed.
‘Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, will obey every command’
“Don’t imagine you’d like to keep such a vague phrase implying you’ll be obedient to any old person who gives you a command, would you?”
Harry took the contract back to the desk.
“Wait—Harry—wait, don’t do it, cross it out, Harry, cross it out—”
“That ought to do it,” Harry announced, cutting him off. Out loud, he read:
“Tom Marvolo Riddle, Lord Voldemort, will obey every command given to him by Harry James Potter.”
Then he looked over his shoulder. “You think that’s enough? Do I need to add the word only in there, too? Or will this suffice? I think so, yeah?”
Voldemort was properly panicking, now. He still could not move any closer, nor could he cast so much as a summoning spell until Harry allowed it. “Harry, please cross it out, please, you cannot keep that there—”
“I will. Eventually.”
Harry left the contract, the quill, and the Elder Wand on the desk. He rewrapped the blanket around shoulders, then stood across from Voldemort, keeping himself just out of arm’s reach. Good, he brought my wand with him. He’ll need that.
“Harry,” Voldemort whispered, his voice raw. His wings twitched and drooped behind him.
He looked so tragic. Heartbreakingly lovely and so, so sad.
“Please don’t do this,” he pleaded. “Please don’t make me do this to you. I am begging you, please.”
“Do not fall to your knees again.”
Harry had to command it, because he could feel that’s what he was about to do, and that would only make this harder.
“Harry, I can’t—”
“Yes, you can. And you’re going to. I’ll command it if I have to, but I’m hoping I won’t.”
He stepped closer, then put his hands on Voldemort’s face again. “I know it will be hard for you. But this isn’t about you and what you want. This is for me. I am done with people making my decisions for me. You, Snape, even Dumbledore before this. All of you. I didn’t agree to this curse, and now I am asking you to remove it, knowing that you can, knowing how badly it will hurt. I want this. So… please.”
Voldemort had never looked so pained. He shook his head in a silent no.
“Please,” Harry tried again.
Voldemort wouldn’t meet his eyes any longer. There was a single tear sliding down his cheekbone, glinting like a crystal on his marble skin. Harry thought it too beautiful to wipe away.
“Don’t make me do this, Harry,” he whispered again. “I can find another way to get rid of it—let it runs its arc in a controlled environment, perhaps, or—”
“No. I’m not waiting for you to try and figure out something crazy that might not work. Not if it will risk you. This will work, yeah? So this is the safest thing.”
Voldemort didn’t argue the point, but he didn’t say anything else, either.
“Please, Tom,” Harry asked, one last time.
Still staring at the floor, Voldemort said, “No.”
Harry sighed. “Okay, then,” he said. Voldemort looked up, a glint of hope in his eyes.
Harry crushed it.
“Tom, do whatever you have to do to remove the curse Snape anchored to my soul.” A pause, then he added, “Even if I beg you to stop.”
The first thing Harry registered was a rush of disbelief, followed quickly by anger, like two slaps to the face. Some part of Voldemort hadn’t believed that he would do it.
But Harry had, and unless Voldemort acted quickly, he was about to lose all of his power, if not worse.
“Harry, take it back, take it back now—”
Harry didn’t say or do anything. Voldemort could move again, he noted—probably because he needed to in order to remove the curse—but he wasn’t free. He seemed to try and retrieve the contract, like maybe he could force it and a quill into Harry’s hands. He couldn’t. He was clearly fighting against the magic compelling him to do as he was told; screamed in anguish.
“HARRY!” he shouted, and something had definitely started to happen. The contract was glowing brighter. Voldemort clutched at his chest, still fighting it, despite what would become of him if he did.
“Obey,” Harry murmured, swallowing back his own guilt.
Voldemort let out another angry cry—the broken table burst into flames, as did one of the chairs—but then he moved, and a few things happened very quickly.
First, his emotions—the crazy, enraged cyclone of them—vanished. Occlumency. Voldemort was once more practicing Occlumency against him.
The next thing Harry registered was that he was falling. He was pushed back, landing gently on the floor, the blanket still around him and bunched under his head like a cushion. Voldemort knelt over him, wings fanning out, no emotion whatsoever on his face. He pointed the holly wand at Harry’s throat.
“Silencio,” he said, though he surely only uttered the incantation aloud for Harry’s sake.
His fiery eyes found Harry’s as he aimed the wand at his forehead. It’s okay, Harry thought, though he knew Voldemort couldn’t hear him. He nodded encouragingly, and even managed to smile.
Harry was terrified. He didn’t let it show.
Voldemort didn’t hesitate again.
Pain.
It assaulted him just as before, like a dagger sinking into him, searingly hot yet ice cold. It tore and shredded on the way down.
Harry’s spine arched, then, as the pain skyrocketed, he left his body.
It was the most horrific experience of his life, and he had experienced a number of great horrors. The closest he had come to this level of agony was when Voldemort had possessed him at the Ministry, but this was, somehow, worse. The pain never let him go, yet he felt the bizarre sensation of floating as well, and he swore—despite his eyes being so tightly closed—that he was looking down at himself, at Voldemort bent over him, ruining him.
Stop, stop, stop, please, stop, his mind chorused, but it wouldn’t have mattered even if he could have screamed. Voldemort couldn’t stop. Harry took that choice from him.
He wanted to die. He would have begged Voldemort to kill him, if he had a voice. The blade of magic was ripping him apart, eviscerating his soul.
Death would be better than this, he thought. Anything to make it end.
Please stop please no please no please please kill me please I can’t please no please
He was breaking. He had to be. He wouldn’t have a soul after this, surely, let alone whatever sliver of Voldemort’s that was attached to him. He hadn’t considered that before. A small part of his tortured, floating mind wondered if he could feel this, too—but no. He doubted it, not when he was practicing Occlumency.
He hoped not.
Please stop this I can’t take it I want to die please kill me kill me now kill me kill me kill me
Harry thought he heard—saw?—a flickering. A vein of light flashing across the room. Voldemort’s hand, it—he was pushing it against his chest—he was hurting him, pinning him down…
Yes, kill me, Harry thought, hopeful. Please do it please yes please—
Something tore.
The pain, which was so indescribably bad Harry never could have imagined it could get worse, spiked, somehow greater, sharper. Like that jagged blade had turned, then was yanked out, hard.
All at once, Harry was back in his body.
“PLEASE!” he screamed, frantic. He was clawing and pushing, as wild as a rabid animal—but Voldemort held him in place. “Please, kill me, please—!”
Voldemort gathered him up as he screamed, pinning his flailing limbs to his sides, burying his head into the crook of his neck. It took Harry a long time to stop shouting enough to hear him.
“It’s over, I’m sorry, it’s over, I’m sorry—”
Harry sobbed, shaking and wailing uncontrollably. How could you? he thought, irrational, hysterical. How could you do that to me, how could you?
He didn’t think Voldemort could hear his thoughts. Harry certainly couldn’t feel his, which was probably a good thing—not that he could focus on anything outside of himself. The pain had stopped, but he couldn’t control his body at all. His sobbing was uncontainable.
“It’s over,” Voldemort said again. He stood, taking Harry with him, cradling him as he continued to convulse. “It’s over, Harry, it’s gone—never again, I promise, I will never hurt you again…”
Harry couldn’t stop crying enough to respond. He didn’t know what to say anyway; his thoughts were a mess. I hate you. I love you. Thank you.
Voldemort pressed the wand to Harry’s forehead again. “Rest,” he said.
Harry’s body went limp and then, finally, he did.
Warm.
It was the first thought Harry had upon waking. He was warm, very much so. Comfortable. Held. Fingers were carding through his hair, and over his shoulders was the silky, soft sensation of feathers. He was resting against what could only be Voldemort’s chest. When he breathed in, he inhaled the scent of him—a mix of something like a roaring fire and another smell he couldn’t place, but was undeniably him.
Nothing hurt. He wasn’t shaking.
He’d never felt more at peace.
Harry cracked one eye open. He was surprised to see that they were not in the dining room nor the bedroom, but seemed to be outside… on a balcony. They were under an awning, and below them stretched a lovely, if unkempt, garden. The sun was setting. The sky was beginning to turn from blue to a cascade of oranges and yellows.
Glancing down, Harry could see that Voldemort had him bundled in his arms while he sat in some giant, cushy armchair. He must have moved it to the balcony while he was passed out, because Harry could not imagine anyone putting a piece of furniture like this on a balcony. And around his shoulders, swaddling both of them in a cozy, soft cocoon, was the blanket.
Not that they likely needed a blanket, given the ridiculous amount of heat that Voldemort gave off, but Harry supposed that had more to do with them both still being naked.
He turned his lazy focus back to the sunset. With the way Voldemort was stroking his hair, with how lovely and warm and safe he felt, it was tempting to go right back to sleep.
“You should.”
Harry startled at the sound of Voldemort’s voice, low and calm, reverberating against his ear where his head rested against his chest.
He frowned. So Voldemort had stopped practicing Occlumency, then.
“I wanted to know when you woke up.”
Harry tilted his head up. Voldemort’s eyes left the budding sunset to meet his. “Hello.”
Harry wasn’t sure why that made him blush like a schoolgirl, but it did. “…Hi.”
“Go back to sleep.”
“How long was I out?”
“Only a few hours,” Voldemort answered. “Go back to sleep, my heart.”
My heart. Harry blushed even harder, but forced himself to keep it together.
“Hours… hours?” He tried to sit up, but Voldemort kept him against his chest. “Hours! Oh, no…”
Back at Shell Cottage, a group of people he cared deeply for were waiting. Ron. Hermione. Draco. Luna, Ginny, Fred, George, Bill, Fleur…
Snape.
They had all assumed that Voldemort would unintentionally activate the curse and that Snape would come to save him… quickly.
Hours?
“I imagine they’re climbing the walls,” Voldemort murmured. He sounded—and felt—quite pleased about it.
“Hey,” Harry said. “That’s not—that’s not okay. My friends—they don’t deserve to be going crazy, worrying about me.”
“Severus does.”
“Well—okay, yeah. Snape does.”
Harry’s fingers curled into fists. “I can’t believe he tried to do that…”
“He is reprehensible.” Voldemort grinned at him darkly, his eyes glinting. “We should kill him.”
“What—no, no! We are not killing anyone!”
“He deserves—”
“Do not finish that sentence.”
He didn’t. Voldemort’s mouth clicked shut, and he gave Harry a venomous look.
Oh. Right, Harry thought.
“…I can make you do anything right now,” he said, as though Voldemort could have possibly forgotten.
“Yes,” he said tersely. “An addition to the contract you should cross out soon, before you accidentally tell me to do something foolish.”
“I will. I swear. Later. But… Is… the curse. Is it really gone?”
Voldemort’s expression softened. “Yes,” he said. “It’s gone.”
“Really?”
“Yes.”
“Then kiss me.”
Voldemort only looked surprised for a second, then, smiling, did as he was told.
He was soft, slow. His mouth was so immediately enticing that Harry’s mind went blank and that fluttery, light feeling in his gut almost overwhelmed him. This, he thought—or maybe it was Voldemort who thought it; it was hard to tell —is something I will never get used to.
Harry’s lips parted and Voldemort took advantage at once, his tongue sliding against his, hot and gentle and everything. His kiss was everything.
I love you, came the thought, fluttering across his mind. Harry deepened their kiss, his hands winding around Voldemort’s neck, into his hair, pulling him closer. I love you, I love you.
Harry finally broke away when he needed a breath. Voldemort kissed his cheek instead, then his neck. A feeling that was much heavier was settling in Harry’s gut. Something hotter, needier.
“What else,” Harry whispered in Voldemort’s ear, feeling a thrill of daring as he did, “should I make you do?”
There was a second where Voldemort went tense, a flash of worrying emotions whirling, but he brushed them away. “Whatever you want,” he responded. “I am yours.”
“It’s less fun for me when you’re not bothered by it, you know.”
“Oh, I am deeply bothered by it.” Voldemort ran his tongue along Harry’s neck before sucking and lightly biting him there, likely leaving a mark. “All the love in the world wouldn’t stop me from being as infuriated with you as I am enamored with you…”
Another bite, a bit harsher than the last. “Well th-thank goodness for that,” Harry said, his words coming out raspier than intended.
“Command me, then, Harry… Tell me exactly what I should do…”
Heat flooded over him, and Harry was flushing even as he was scowling. How was it he always did that? How did Voldemort manage to make it feel like he was the one with all the power when it was so clearly Harry who was?
“Stop. I can’t—we can’t… my friends.”
Voldemort’s face and emotions soured. “What about them?”
“I need to let them know I’m okay. I can’t just let them sit around climbing the walls or whatever. And…”
He sighed heavily. “This is a real mess, huh?”
Harry rubbed his eyes with the heels of his hands. Voldemort was right, he probably did need a good deal more sleep, but there was no time, not right now.
“What—?”
“Just let me think for a minute.”
Harry’s mind raced and raced. If he was really going to do this… to forgive Voldemort, to… to stay with him… then he needed to get him far, far away from Snape. From all of Britain, really. For his protection and for theirs.
What would that mean for the Wizarding World? It was wild for Harry to think that, back at Hogwarts, students were still in class. The Ministry of Magic was still running, presumably under Voldemort’s newly established rule, just as the school was—where there was no sorting, so Quidditch, no muggle-borns allowed.
What would happen to everything if Voldemort suddenly… vanished?
Which were only some of the many questions Harry had. He sighed again, already feeling as exhausted as he had before Voldemort removed his curse.
“I know what to do.”
“No.” Voldemort tensed, for he surely felt Harry’s thoughts as he had them, planning. “No, Harry.”
“Yes. I have to talk to him. I have to let them know… and this is the only way that will guarantee everyone’s safety. Where’s my wand? I—”
Harry hadn’t even meant to do it. He merely lifted his arm, his hand extended, thinking, come— and then his wand flew into his hands, lightning fast.
The Elder Wand.
“Wow,” Harry breathed, surprised. He felt Voldemort’s feelings as well, a bundle of emotions that ranged from awe to jealousy to trepidation. Since when could he do that?
“Er. Right, then.”
“Harry, you—”
“Be quiet. Let me do this.”
Harry sat up, disentangling himself from Voldemort’s arms, wings, and the blanket. He pointed the Deathstick out, and said, “Expecto Patronum.”
The stag appeared in a flash of silver, as vibrant as ever. Harry grinned at it, then paused, thinking.
Oh, he had a litany of things he wanted to say. He knew Voldemort did too, but he couldn’t voice any of them now. He was murderously mad, but Voldemort was forced to hold his tongue.
“Midnight,” Harry finally said. “Tonight. Be asleep, and I’ll invite you into my dream… to talk.”
He nodded. The stag cantered off, disappearing into the sunset. It would soon appear in Shell Cottage, relaying that message to Severus Snape—in front of everyone else, too, assuming they were all still gathered together.
The patronus would tell them a few things. It would let them know that Harry was alive and well, which was the most important.
It would let them know that Voldemort had not attempted to rape him, because the curse hasn’t activated, and that’s what they believed would set it off, too.
And to Snape and Snape alone, a message that was conveyed in Harry’s cold tone, in the fact that he was sending a patronus demanding to talk to him at all:
I know what you did.
“…D’you think he’ll respond?” Harry asked once the stag was gone. He imagined a silver doe suddenly appearing at an awkward moment, yelling at him in Snape’s voice. “You can speak now,” he added.
“What was that?” Voldemort hissed.
“A stag patronus,” Harry answered. “I’m kind of known for it.”
“Why do you want to speak with him at all?” Voldemort glared, ignoring his cheek. His eyes, always clashing with his emotions, were glowing a bright and ominous red. “You owe him no explanation. Because you want to yell at him? To tell him just how upset you are, to make him feel bad? Nothing will make him feel as guilty as he is. Yelling at him won’t serve any purpose. Your silence and disappearance, leaving him in the dark, would have been infinitely more devastating for him, if revenge was your intent.”
“It—no, that’s not it at all. I just need to let them know I’m okay.”
“You did that by sending a patronus in the first place. You could have sent any message to any of them conveying that and been done with it. Why Severus? Why do you want to speak with him, in a dream or otherwise? He doesn’t deserve to see or hear from you ever again.”
His expression was fierce. Harry… didn’t have an immediate answer.
Why did he want to talk to him?
Voldemort, somehow, seemed to figure it out first. “…You want an explanation,” he said, his anger dulling somewhat. “You want to hear him out. To be given some kind of apology, perhaps.”
He laughed harshly. “You think Severus will give that to you? No, the only thing he will do is attempt to convince you to destroy me again, by any means necessary. If he does feed you some pitiful explanation for lying to you, for using you and your goodness to ruin me… it will only be to manipulate you. He doesn’t care about you. He never has, not since the moment he laid eyes on you when you arrived at Hogwarts. I will say it a thousand times if I must, Harry—he only cares about killing me.”
Harry winced, his words seeming to stab a wound he’d forgotten he had. Memories flashed before his eyes; countless memories of Snape, Professor Snape, being cruel to him as a mere child, ridiculing him in front of his peers, unfairly docking points, calling him names and comparing him, cruelly, to his father…
He shook the thoughts away. They had come so far from that… hadn’t they?
“No—I’ve already made up my mind. I’m going to talk to him. I need to. You’ve made your point, I understand what you’re saying, but… I need to do this.”
Voldemort opened his mouth to argue again, but Harry interjected. “Don’t try and talk me out of it.”
A spike of bitter rage. Harry kissed him on the forehead, then his cheek, then lightly on his lips. He felt his muscles relax beneath him, his anger melting away like snowflakes in the sunlight.
“You didn’t answer my question,” Harry said between chaste kisses. “Do you think he’ll respond before then?”
“…Unlikely,” Voldemort answered, and though Harry could tell he was trying to hold onto his anger, he was having a hard time doing so with Harry lavishing him with attention. “Knowing Severus, he will be spending the next few hours until midnight planning in great detail what he’ll say to you… He won’t waste time constructing an immediate response. Not when silence is powerful enough on its own.”
Harry frowned. “Yeah, I guess you’re right… Well, good. That gives us plenty of time, too.”
Harry settled himself so that he was straddling him. Sitting like this—an obedient Dark Lord beneath him, the true Master of the Elder Wand—Harry had never felt more powerful.
“We have a few things we need to do before then,” Harry went on. “And a lot to talk about… I really want to know how this happened, for example.”
He gently touched one of his wings. Voldemort shuddered under him; Harry pulled his hand back.
“I’m sorry—does that hurt?”
“No.” Voldemort sat up straighter, and Harry felt the rising tide of his emotions: Pleasure. Want. Need. “It feels nice.”
He started kissing Harry’s stomach and moving his hands up his thighs. Harry stroked his wing again, feeling the hot, silky texture of the feathers. Voldemort let out an appreciative moan that did things to Harry’s stomach he wouldn’t have thought possible.
Oh, well, he thought as Voldemort started inching his fingers higher, closer. Harry grabbed him by the chin and kissed him, the currents of lust dragging him under. Behind him, the sinking sun painted the sky red.
There will be time for talking later.