Chapter Text
“So maybe I wanted to give you something more than a catalog
of non-definitive acts,
something other than the desperation.”
-“Litany in Which Certain Things Are Crossed Out,” Richard Siken
“You look like you could use this today.” Quirrell takes the whistling kettle off the hob and pours two cups of steaming tea.
He’s not exactly the flower of health himself, is he, says the Voldemort in Harry’s head. It’s true: Quirrell’s hands are shaking slightly, and his voice sounds tired, even aside from the stammer he’s barely bothering to put on for Harry anymore.
“It was a late night,” says Harry, taking the tea gratefully.
“I heard. You were the talk of the staff table this morning.”
Harry winces. “How bad was it?”
“Bad? I think Minerva wanted to drag the Hat out to have you re-Sorted on the spot. ‘A Potter, playing for Slytherin!’”
Harry nearly spits out his tea when Quirrell’s voice rises to mimic McGonagall’s brogue. “I don’t think she’d have much success, but I do appreciate her reminding Professor Snape why he shouldn’t be too terribly furious with me.”
“He was still quite angry, in that silent, tight-jawed way of his. But he was quick to set Minerva straight regarding your chances with the Sorting Hat.”
“He didn’t think a midnight Seeker’s match and a fifty-meter dive for the Snitch made me too much a Gryffindor?”
“Not when he knew he might have been delivering what remained of you to the Hospital Wing after a wizard’s duel with a fifth year, had you not cunningly turned the challenge to something you had a prayer of surviving.”
“He said all that?”
“Not in so many words.” Quirrell’s eyes seem all the brighter for the deep shadows beneath them. “Marcus Flint should take care not to run his mouth where any passing professor might hear.”
Harry’s breath catches. “You heard us.”
“I heard enough.”
Harry stares into his tea, mind spinning through everything he can remember of yesterday’s confrontation outside the Great Hall. “Flint is loyal to what he knows. I can hardly fault him for that.”
Quirrell scoffs. “And what have the Flints done to come to their lord’s aid? What have your Malfoys done?”
“What have I done? I mean, I’m the whole reason…”
Quirrell lets Harry’s words hang in the air for a few seconds after he trails off. “The far more interesting question is, what would you do?”
As Harry holds his gaze, he could swear Qurirell’s eyes flash red for a split second. There is an answering throb in his scar.
Should we tell him that you would travel through time, treasuring the piece of his soul he abandoned to you, just for the chance to be near him again? hisses the horcrux.
Harry can’t stop the blood rushing to his cheeks. I’m certainly not going to say it like that, he thinks back.
Why not? It’s true.
It makes me sound infatuated, Harry thinks.
The answering silence is loud.
Quirrell cocks his head, still observing Harry sharply. “When the Dark Lord returns to deal with you, Potter, what will you do?”
Harry shivers involuntarily to hear his own words to Marcus Flint turned back on him now. He bites his lip. “Whatever he asks, I expect.”
Quirrell’s eyes flash red again. He leans forward slightly. “Will you really?”
Careful, warns the horcrux. Don’t overcommit yourself before you know what he’s thinking.
Harry shifts in his seat. “I mean, I won’t kill innocents for him.”
“What a fascinating qualification. Whom would you kill?”
“Well, if someone was trying to hurt me, I’d defend myself, wouldn’t I?”
“And if someone tried to hurt the Dark Lord?”
“I think Voldemort can take care of himself,” says Harry, noting the way Quirrell’s mouth almost twitches into a smile. “But…yeah. If you’re asking if I’d fight for him…I mean, I really hope there doesn’t have to be another war. I think if I help, there’s a chance we could avoid it.”
“I thought Voldemort didn’t need your help.”
“He doesn’t need my wand. My name might come in handy, though.”
Quirrell raises a brow. “You would support him publicly?”
“If he asked me to.”
“The Boy Who Lived…at the Dark Lord’s feet,” Quirrell muses, almost to himself. Harry closes his eyes at the image. After a second, Quirrell asks, “Would you take his Mark?”
Harry looks down at his bare forearms, then back up at Quirrell. He is acutely aware of the scar on his forehead. “Hasn’t he already marked me?”
Quirrell inhales sharply. Harry sees his hand twitch as if it wants to reach out and touch, but then Quirrell collects himself and straightens in his seat.
“Do your housemates know the extent of your…sympathies?”
“I haven’t told them. They know I’m uncomfortable being the other side’s symbol for something I don’t even remember doing, but I think they probably see me as fairly neutral.”
“That is not how you see yourself?”
Harry pauses. “No, sir.”
Quirrell studies him for a minute, his expression unreadable. Harry wonders again if this is the right time to come clean about all his secrets. If Quirrell’s reactions are any indication of what Voldemort himself is thinking, he’s fascinated by Harry, at minimum. He seems pleased at the suggestion that Harry’s loyalty is his for the asking. But Harry still has no idea what the other man plans to do with him, or with the wider wizarding world.
Steady, counsels the horcrux. We have time yet.
The moment passes. Quirrell sets his tea things aside and draws his wand. “You sidestepped Flint’s challenge quite neatly. But I cannot help but think that not all your enemies will be so courteous as to offer you a formal duel, nor so naive as to accept a counteroffer.”
“You think that Voldemort’s sympathizers might start attacking me unprovoked?”
“I think you ought to be prepared to defend yourself in any number of unexpected circumstances. What do you think the Dark Lord would think if he returned to find you already dead at the end of Marcus Flint’s wand?”
“Flint and I will be fine.”
“That is not my point.”
Harry sighs. “I know. But the fact is that I don’t know what Voldemort would think. For all I know, he might just be angry someone else killed me before he could.”
“You don’t really believe that.”
He doesn’t. Not really. “I don’t know, though, do I? I don’t know if he still wants me dead, I don’t know if he wants a bloody war. I don’t know if the world he wants to build will have any room for my friends in it. I wish I could just ask him.”
Quirrell is silent for a beat. “I will not pretend to know the Dark Lord’s mind.”
I can’t imagine why he wouldn’t want to confide in such an impressive host, says the horcrux, and Harry presses his lips together to avoid smiling.
Be nice, Harry replies. I like Quirrell.
You like Voldemort, says the horcrux.
Quirrell continues, unaware of the conversation happening in Harry’s head. “But I imagine that he will want to discuss it with you directly. I would like to make sure that you survive long enough to get the chance.”
“Sir?”
“Tell me, Potter, did you read the book of offensive magic I bought you in Flourish & Blotts?”
“Of course.”
“Show me.”
“You want me to…hex you?”
“I want you to try.”
Harry’s heart rate picks up. He stands and draws his wand. Quirrell hasn’t really seen him cast with it yet—the first-year Defense lessons are still all theoretical, and Harry hasn’t had cause to use magic when he visits for tea. He wonders how Voldemort will feel about seeing Harry’s phoenix feather wand in action.
“Ready?” Harry asks, trying not to sound nervous.
“Don’t worry, Potter, you won’t touch me.” Quirrell looks amused. It makes Harry want to surprise him.
“Locomotor Wibbly!” Harry flicks the Jelly-Legs Jinx at his professor, who is still sitting motionless behind his desk.
Quirrell’s wand barely moves. The jinx bounces harmlessly off a nonverbal shield charm. “Good. Again.”
Harry tries a Stinging Hex next, followed by a Diffindo. Quirrell bats each aside effortlessly.
“Come on, Potter, you can do better than that.”
Harry knows he’s being baited. It’s working anyway. He wants to prove himself to Quirrell—to Voldemort. He’s not just Harry Potter, eleven-year-old legend, he is Harry Potter, who defeated a dark lord with a disarming charm.
Harry lobs several spells at Quirrell in quick succession. “Titillando! Tarantallegra!” They’re not meant to hit but to distract. “Aqua Erecto!” A jet of water streams from Harry’s wand, and while it doesn’t hit Quirrell behind his shield, it splashes onto a pile of books on the desk, drenching them.
Quirrell’s eyes only flit away for a second. It’s enough.
“Expelliarmus!” cries Harry, whipping his wand up sharply. Quirrell’s wand jerks out of his hand and shoots across the desk to smack into Harry’s open palm.
The rush and the rightness of it feels like catching the Snitch.
Quirrell is frozen. For a second, Harry sees something like fear flash across the man’s face, before it smoothes away into mere slack-jawed disbelief. Then Quirrell masters even that, and he smiles tightly, an avid look in his eye.
“Well done, Potter. Impressive strategic thinking.”
“Thank you, sir.” Harry hands Quirrell’s wand back. He thinks he sees the man’s hand shaking as he takes it, but then Quirrell snaps a drying charm on the stack of wet books, and Harry wonders if he imagined it.
“Next time, you will defend. I suggest you practice your shield charms this week.”
Harry nods. As he leaves Quirrell’s office for the dorms, he marvels at the strange world he’s walked into, where Lord Voldemort wants to duel him educationally instead of lethally.
What do you think he wants with me? he asks the horcrux.
It seems obvious he wants you for himself.
But he doesn’t even know about you yet, says Harry.
And already he wants you to live. When will you tell him?
Harry tries not to shiver as the air changes down by the dungeons. Soon. I promise.
Potter arrives three minutes early for his first detention. Severus leaves him standing by the door while he finishes marking the fifth-year parchment he’s been scowling down at for the last ten minutes. Finally, at precisely eight o’clock, Severus puts his quill down and looks up to scowl at Potter instead.
“Mr. Potter. How good of you to be so…punctual,” Severus says, as if the boy had been late after all.
Potter tries to hide a smile at the insinuation, which is both charming and obnoxious, depending on whether Severus decides to see more Lily or James in his young face.
“Put your things down. You will be scrubbing the N.E.W.T. students’ cauldrons tonight, as their time can be spent much better elsewhere.” As Potter discards his outer robes and draws his wand from its arm holster, Severus adds, “ Without magic.”
Potter looks up. “I was just getting it out of the way, sir.” He stows his wand in his back pocket, and Severus is hit with the memory of James Potter and his gang strutting around the castle, proud and careless in their Muggle clothes.
Potter drags the first heavy cauldron over to the sink and gets to work. The only sounds are the gentle splash of water and the clang of the cauldron against the sink.
“No complaints?” Severus says after a minute of unnerving quiet.
“What am I supposed to be complaining about?” asks Potter.
“Your classmates would have been informing me that they have no aptitude for such menial labor.”
Potter’s mouth twists bitterly. “Aunt Petunia made sure I knew my way around a pot.”
All of Severus’ thoughts grind to a halt on that casual revelation. He struggles not to let it show on his face. “Call my professional-grade cauldron a ‘pot’ again, Mr. Potter, and I will double your detentions.”
“Sorry, sir.”
Severus makes a valiant attempt to focus on his marking, but he can’t get Petunia Evans’ sharp face out of his head. “You were raised by your Muggle relations, then?”
Potter snorts. “If you could call it that.”
“What would you call it?”
“Housed, maybe.”
Severus frowns. “They mistreat you?”
“Ignore me, mostly. As long as I don’t cause them any trouble or draw attention to myself. You can imagine I haven’t always been great at that.”
Severus finds himself growing angry in a smoldering, protective way that feels decidedly uncomfortable. He shifts in his seat. “Elaborate.”
“Well, it was worse before I got a handle on my accidental magic. Not that I knew that’s what it was. I never knew about magic until I got my Hogwarts letter. And I never got my Hogwarts letter until Hagrid tracked us down and made the Dursleys let me read it.”
Severus files away the name for future reference. “How did they explain that scar on your forehead?”
“They said I got it in the car crash that killed my parents. Drunk driving, they said.”
Cold fury spills down Severus’ spine. To reduce Lily’s murder to drunk driving—it was unconscionable. A desecration. But he would expect nothing better of Petunia bloody Evans.
An unpleasant thought arises. Potter has seemed so savvy in his handling of the complex social hierarchies comprising Slytherin House that Severus may have taken Potter’s historical and political knowledge for granted. But is it possible that he’s been getting on so well with the Death Eaters’ children because he has no concept of them as such?
“Has anyone explained to you the true circumstances of your parents’ deaths?”
“Hagrid told me a little. But then I read everything I could get my hands on this summer. From…a variety of perspectives.”
Severus tries to envision the young Potter nose-deep in some unreadable pureblood propaganda. “Are you trying to tell me that you see both sides of your orphaning?”
Potter is quiet for half a minute as he sets the first cauldron aside to dry and drags over another. “It sounds horrible when you say it like that. I’m just trying to understand, before I jump head first into my parents’ war like…like some kind of…”
“Gryffindor,” Severus supplies.
Potter seems to choke on a laugh. “Yeah. Like some kind of Gryffindor.”
“Try to remember that caution the next time you are tempted to taunt an older student into a midnight Quidditch match.”
Potter wrinkles his nose. “Would you have preferred a duel?”
“I would have preferred that you’d come to me, as your Head of House, if a student were harassing you.”
“Is that what you would have done, sir? When you were a student?” Potter looks over his shoulder at Severus with an expression of studied innocence.
Severus sees that face, that hair, those glasses laughing up at him as their spell dangles him upside-down for all the school to see. He sees himself putting all his rage into a new spell that will cut as deep as his resentment, scrawling for enemies next to the incantation. “Perhaps I expect you to be somewhat better than I have been, Mr. Potter,” he says quietly.
Potter rinses off his cauldron and fetches the next. “I’m not better than anyone,” he says into the mouth of it.
Is that what those Muggles taught him? Or is he saying something deeper about how he views the war and his place in history?
“If it happens again, you are to come to me first. This is not tattling in primary school. I am not head of Slytherin House for nothing. I would handle it with all the subtlety which the situation required.”
“I—thank you. I really don’t think it’ll happen again, but I appreciate it. I’ll try to remember I don’t have to fix everything myself.”
Potter sounds less than perfectly convincing, but Severus lets it slide.
“I spoke to the Headmaster today,” he says offhandedly.
“Oh?”
“He’s willing to make an exception allowing you to play Quidditch this year.”
Potter turns around, sopping sponge in hand. “It’s official?”
Severus bites down a smile. “I expect you to keep your grades up. Special privileges can always be revoked.”
“It won’t be a problem, sir.” For once, Potter sounds every bit the eleven-year-old boy Severus knows he is. “When do I start?”
“You’ll report to the pitch Monday at dawn. Don’t make me regret it.”
Potter whirls back around to grin into the cauldrons that he attacks with redoubled force. He works quietly for the rest of the hour, no doubt lost in juvenile fantasies of cheering crowds and Quidditch Cups. Severus smiles faintly at Potter’s back, telling himself he’s just pleased about the renewed prospects of the Slytherin Quidditch team.
It is a constant joy for Harry Potter’s Voldemort to spend the days in communion with his Harry. Sometimes they speak, in that lightning-fast exchange of words and impressions which may be enjoyed only by two souls so closely bound as they are. More often, Voldemort is content simply to watch and listen and feel, experiencing life alongside Harry from a position of most privileged intimacy.
Voldemort spends most of Harry’s first detention with Severus in this sort of quiet observation. He is glad for the uncomplicated happiness it brings Harry when Severus confirms that he’ll be playing Quidditch for Slytherin. Voldemort bears no great love for the sport, but a great deal for Harry. Despite his teasing, he has no intention of subsiding during the games the way he does when Harry wants privacy in the toilet. Voldemort intends to drink greedily of Harry’s adrenaline and fierce delight with a broom between his legs and a Snitch in his sight.
Once Severus has returned to his marking and Harry to his pots, Voldemort tells him as much. You are a marvel in the air. What an exquisite pleasure it will be to ride with you again to victory.
Voldemort feels Harry’s cheeks heat.
Why do even your compliments make you sound like a supervillain?
I cannot help that I am the product of a more eloquent time.
I mean, so was Hagrid. I think you’re just a swot. Harry’s mental voice is affectionate.
You do seem to attract capable minds with a tendency toward grandiosity, Voldemort rejoins, along with a mental image of Draco Malfoy and the Granger girl arguing the finer points of the Summoning charm in the library last week.
Harry is surprised, and then pleased, at the comparison. Voldemort catches his last thought more as a feeling than as words: I’m so lucky to have you.
After detention, Harry stops off at the library to return a few books. Granger’s bushy head is bent over a table in the far corner, only just visible from the desk. A blonde head and a black can be seen opposite her: Malfoy and Parkinson.
What do you suppose that’s about? Harry wonders.
Worried that they’re getting along without you?
Is getting along what you’d call that? Harry glances dubiously at his friends’ pinched faces as they stare down at something Granger seems to be sliding across the table to them.
Go over and see, Voldemort nudges him.
Harry does. “Hey, guys.”
Granger jumps. “Harry!”
“How was detention?” asks the young Malfoy.
“Fine. He just had me scrubbing cauldrons.”
“Without magic?” Parkinson casts a scandalized look down at her elegant fingernails and gives an exaggerated shudder.
“It’s supposed to be a punishment,” says Granger. “Honestly, he got off easy. We all did. We could have been expelled for being on the grounds past curfew. I looked it up.”
“I’d hardly say we got off easy. We almost got eaten,” says Malfoy.
“Is that what you’re looking into? The dog?” Harry picks up the book that’s open to an image of a mean-looking hellhound with three heads.
Parkinson huffs. “Dog, he says. You didn’t see it, Harry.”
“The Cerberus, yes,” says Granger, taking the book back. “Ignore that picture, it was nothing like that. More like an overgrown mastiff. In triplicate.”
And you call me a swot, says Voldemort. Who talks like that?
You do, Harry replies, fighting back a smile. Aloud, he says, “What are you trying to find out?”
“What it’s doing there, of course!” says Granger.
“And that’s…going to be in a library book?” Harry says carefully.
“Well, not as such, but we might find out all sorts of other useful things. Like how to get past it.”
Harry turns an incredulous look on Granger. “You’re trying to get past it?”
Malfoy huffs. “Of course not, because most of us are not idiot Gryffindors with no bloody sense of self-preservation!”
He has no idea, Voldemort says wryly.
That was the old Harry. I love self-preservation! We are all about self-preservation now! Case in point… “Are you sure that’s smart?”
“I’m not planning a raid or anything,” Granger protests. “I just think that everything is worth knowing, whether you do anything with the knowledge or not.”
Smart girl.
“Be careful,” Harry says. He looks over at the two Slytherins. “I’m surprised she’s roped you into this.”
Parkinson shrugs, exaggeratedly casual. “It is curious, isn’t it? Do you think the Headmaster knows? If he does, what could he possibly be thinking?”
“And if not, who else could have put it there?” says Malfoy. His eyes betray the interest he’s trying to keep out of his voice.
“I guess it never hurts to research,” Harry says after a second. “Don’t do anything stupid without me, okay?”
Granger beams up at him. “Want to join us?”
“Maybe next time. I’ve got to feed Hildegard tonight, and I’m getting pretty tired.”
He is. It wasn’t just the manual labor for Severus; Quirrell had worked Harry hard in their impromptu duel, as well, and it’s starting to catch up with him. Harry’s magic and mind might belong to a nineteen-year-old war hero, but his body is still just eleven.
“Let me know if you find anything,” says Harry. His friends promise, and he takes his leave.
Back in the Slytherin common room, Crabbe and Goyle are hunched over a set of Gobstones with the same fierce concentration Granger had devoted to her text in the library. As Harry passes their corner, one of the stones explodes, forcing him to twist out of the way to protect his robes from the foul-smelling liquid.
“Alright, Harry?” says Crabbe, barely looking up.
Voldemort wants them to hex Crabbe for the near miss, but Harry just laughs. “No thanks to you!” he tells Crabbe.
“Early night?” Goyle asks.
“Yeah, I think I’m just going to feed the snake and then head to bed with a book.”
Crabbe makes a face that suggests he cannot imagine anything more tedious, but Goyle seems to brighten. “Can I do it?”
I don’t know, can he read? wonders Voldemort uncharitably.
Oh, hush, thinks Harry. To Goyle, he says, “You mean you want to give Hildegard her mouse?”
Goyle stands up, wiping a spare bit of Gobstone juice on his trousers. “Yeah, can I?”
“Sure, why not?” Harry leads the way into their dormitory. He sets his things down by his bed and walks over to Hildegard’s terrarium, given pride of place on a shared dresser.
“Hello, darling,” he coos, lifting her out of the tank. It’s fortunate that the snake understands English; Harry is hardly ever alone with her so as to speak her own tongue.
It doesn’t stop her from hissing back, of course, in sounds that no one else will recognize as speech. Master, why do you starve me?
It amuses Voldemort that the snake is always doubly dramatic when she knows Harry cannot respond to her directly.
Harry points Goyle to a small case beside Hildegard’s enclosure. “Open that and get a mouse out. You can levitate it if you don’t want to touch it.”
“I don’t mind.” Goyle reaches into the case to pull out one of the little mice sleeping under stasis charms, his pudgy fingers surprisingly gentle. “It’s warm,” he says in surprise.
“Yeah, they’re not dead, just sort of…stopped. Okay, set the mouse on the floor. Now you just have to hit it with a Finite , and maybe a Renervate if that doesn’t do the job.”
“I don’t know that second one.”
“That’s okay, I’ll help if I need to.”
He doesn’t need to. When Goyle lifts the stasis charm, the mouse jumps awake and takes off running under one of the beds. Harry crouches down so Hildegard can speed off after it, hissing as she goes about the hunt.
They don’t see her catch the mouse, but she must know she has an audience because she drags its limp body back into the middle of the floor before swallowing the thing. Goyle watches, transfixed, as she opens her jaw wide to work the mouse down her gullet.
By the time Harry finishes washing up for bed, there is a mouse-sized lump in the middle of the snake.
“That was wicked,” says Goyle.
He’ll make a decent Death Eater, observes Voldemort. Quite bloodthirsty.
Harry’s mental cringe gives the impression of having wrinkled his nose. Maybe we don’t want to sort for bloodthirstiness anymore?
Nonsense. You’ll always need a few drones to do the dirty work.
Harry carefully picks up the snake and returns her to her enclosure. “Did you happen to see where she pounced?” he asks Goyle over his shoulder.
“I think it was under Blaise’s bed.”
Harry goes over to check. “Mind giving me a Lumos?”
Goyle shines his wand under the bed as Harry crouches down.
“Ah, here it is. Evanesco. ” A flick of his wand vanishes the tiny mess the mouse made when it soiled itself in its death throes. Harry tries not to think about this too hard. He is happy to provide for his snake; as soon as she’d expressed a preference for live prey, he’d ordered the case of mice under stasis. But Harry has little stomach for suffering, even when it’s necessary. Even when it’s just a mouse.
Voldemort finds this both exasperating and enchanting. How do you expect to work with Voldemort if you cannot watch a mouse die?
“I’m gonna go finish my game. Thanks, Harry.”
Harry bids Goyle goodnight and climbs into bed before answering Voldemort’s question.
Who says I can’t handle it? I can’t help feeling a little bad for it, but the mouse’s death isn’t pointless. I don’t regret it.
Voldemort’s presence in Harry’s mind flashes warm as if in a hum. Shall we inform the Dark Lord that you have no objection to a nice clean Avada when necessity requires?
I’m not naive, Harry insists, drawing the curtains closed around his bed with a wave of his wand. I know that people will die. But it doesn’t have to be so many, or so senselessly.
You could always try to force his hand. Go get the Stone yourself, or collect a few horcruxes and negotiate for them. This is a well-worn path of conversation for them. Voldemort knows what Harry’s answer will be.
I don’t want it to be like that.
There’s no way to know what it will be like until you tell him.
Harry buries himself under the covers. I know. Not yet.
What are you waiting for, a sign?
Maybe so.
They find each other in their dreams, as always. Harry is lying on his side in the same position he fell asleep in, with Voldemort facing him as if in a mirror. Their heads rest on folded hands and their bent knees only just touch.
They are nearly the same size, now, nineteen-year-old dream-Harry and the still-growing Voldemort. Voldemort knows his skin is smoother than when they first met in this dream version of the cupboard under the stairs—Harry remarked on it the last time. From what he can tell, the horcrux looks very much like a smaller version of the Voldemort who killed Harry's parents.
The cupboard, too, has grown. It still has the general shape of the little room under the stairs, sloped ceiling and all, but it's tall enough now that they could stand up if they wanted. The mattress on the floor has become a little bed: still too short for an adult man to stretch out on, but big enough for the two of them if they curl into each other, as they always do.
Harry’s eyes open, gleaming green in the low light. Sometimes Voldemort wonders if it's because of his own bias that Harry is so pretty here in their dreams. Is it just that this is how Voldemort sees Harry in his mind? Or did he always look like this at nineteen?
“It's because I'm happy now,” Harry had told him the last time he tried to explain that Harry was actually glowing.
Voldemort had floated on the warmth of that knowledge for days.
That was the first time Voldemort held Harry here in their shared dream, instead of the other way round. They both prefer it this way, with Harry’s head lying on Voldemort’s chest and Voldemort’s arm around him. His Harry likes to be taken care of, and Voldemort loves nothing so much as being the one to take care of him.
Now, Voldemort rolls onto his back and throws open his arm in invitation. “What are you waiting for, a sign?”
Harry’s solemn expression melts into a fond smile that Voldemort feels in the skittering beat of his heart. “It helps to be sure of my reception,” Harry says, scooting over until his cheek is pressed to Voldemort’s heart. His limbs cling to Voldemort’s thin body like he’s afraid Voldemort might disappear at any moment.
“You will always have me, Harry. No matter what happens with him,” Voldemort murmurs into Harry’s wild hair. He wraps an arm around Harry’s shoulders to pull him even closer against him.
“I know.” Harry nuzzles his face into the hollow under Voldemort’s collarbone. “It would have been worth it just for you. Coming back, I mean. The rest would be nice, but even if I’m not able to change anything else, it was worth it just to know you. To keep you.”
Voldemort tightens his hold on Harry. “Likewise, dear one. To know you is a reward in itself. And...my Harry, if my other self has any sense left in him at all, he’ll feel the same.”
Voldemort feels Harry smile against his chest. “I hope you’re right.”
“I usually am. I’m very clever, you know.”
“You really are. Whatever would I do without you?”
The briefest flash of unpleasant memory strikes Voldemort. “Drive yourself mad until Death himself shows up to stop your sulking with a handy bit of time travel?”
Harry huffs a laugh. “I suppose so.” He is quiet for another minute, and so still that Voldemort thinks he must have fallen asleep, but then his whisper breaks the silence of their dream one more time. “You know I love you, right?”
Voldemort’s heart freezes, then speeds up. “Oh, my sweet Harry. Soul of my soul. It is your love that feeds me day by day. It is the finest nectar in all the world, to make me not a god, but something almost human.” Voldemort buries a kiss in Harry’s hair. “But I do love to hear it.”
“Good.” Harry’s breath slows as he sinks into sleep. “Goodnight, Voldemort.”
“Sleep now, love.”