Posted originally on the Archive_of_Our_Own at https://archiveofourown.org/
works/6524323.
  Rating:
      Explicit
  Archive Warning:
      Graphic_Depictions_Of_Violence, Underage
  Category:
      M/M
  Fandom:
      Harry_Potter_-_J._K._Rowling
  Relationship:
      Harry_Potter/Voldemort
  Additional Tags:
      Voldemort_Raises_Harry, it's_creepy, Mentor_Voldemort, Tom_Riddle_|
      Voldemort_Adopts_Harry_Potter, War, First_War_with_Voldemort, Post-First
      War_with_Voldemort, Harry_is_Voldemort's_little_prince, Hate_Speech,
      Anti-Muggle_Content
  Stats:
      Published: 2016-04-11 Updated: 2018-01-23 Chapters: 11/? Words: 10954
****** As Portioned from a Whole ******
by cannibalinc
Summary
     In which Voldemort undermines the Prophecy and raises the infant
     Harry Potter as his; in all aspects.
***** Abstruse *****
To hold something in one's Hand, Something of great destiny and of potential,
Voldemort will keep his palms open; wait for it to fall into place, for the
moment it slithers into the bars of his fingers: he is a Cage, a vessel.
Enviable.
Mine.
Voldemort drinks in the child curled on his thighs, a scrawny thing, as though
a naked birch-tree curled against a winter wind. White and half-hallow, and
Voldemort holds the child close and imagines he fills the empty spaces in his
small bones, the ice that makes the tree defiant.
"Harry, my Harry," he murmurs, closes his eyes into the boy's temple, briefly
remembers the feeling of eyelashes as dark curls brush his cheeks."Are you
really so obstinate that I cannot leave you in the care of one of my Faithful
while I must travel? Must you run away from them even upon my order?"
Harry feigns sleep, a shuttering breath into the folds of his Lord's glossy
robe, but Voldemort feels the clench of a fist on his chest. A small hand seeks
out his own, and Voldemort willingly folds his knuckles around him, feels nail-
beds bite into his palms.
"You are meek today."
At last, a wriggling, and his child peeks up at his Master's clad collar bones
until just a pale forehead and pinched eyebrows are visible. Voldemort raises a
hand, brushes Harry's long curls from his face so the way to his eyes is
unobstructed. They have always been luminous, an unspeakable verdant, and they
are so sweet when they swim with anxious tears.
"I don't like any of them," he confesses into Voldemort's sternum, and the
words crawl into the gaps of Voldemort's rib cage, a strangling ivy, untamed
and perfect. "I just- I..."
It appears Harry's four year old countenance has exhausted his ability to
further express himself, for his returns to hiding in the folds of Voldemort's
robe, his inky hair blending with the black of the material, and so blending
Harry to him. They are often One, more than Two, Harry slipping beyond all
barrier to press his atoms alongside the Dark Lord's, not-one pace behind him,
swallowed up in the billow of Voldemort's stride and cloak. Many overlook his
Harry until he has crawled up into his lap, looking as an apparition.
"You Apparated," Voldemort says, stroking Harry's back and reclining in the
cushioned chair. Harry forgets his trepidation and squints up at him.
"What is that?"
"You wished to Be elsewhere and so you Are."
"I Am?" he breathes.
"We Are," Voldemort corrects, and brushes a youthful cheek. Harry seems to
sense that he is not in trouble for abandoning his watchman, for Voldemort
never punishes him for Magic, and to Apparate at such an age with no Where in
mind, only Who, Voldemort has only praise. "How did it feel?"
Harry smiles, his eyes still dewy but mischievous, brings his small hands up,
curled into balls and splays his fingers into the air. "Like a pop."
The Lord hums, the noise echoing balefully in the dark chamber of his
apothecary. There is a single candle glowing in the corner, and the light
reflects off of them like the face of the moon reflects the sun, cool and
compelling. They sink like oil into the shadows, and Harry pulls himself
closer; not out of fear for the darkness, but for comfort, as he understands
well Voldemort's place within it, and so his own place in turn.
"Like I was a snake," Harry expounds further, excited, "slithering through a
tunnel. Am I a Snake?"
Voldemort grins, hisses deep in his throat, pulling up from the essence of his
vocal cords My Snake, encased in man's flesh, how I wish to garner you in
scales. Harry giggles, eyes wide, the sound of his Lord's True Tongue one of
wonder. His small fingers reach up to touch Voldemort's mouth and Voldemort
hisses simply for the child's reaction. There is a whisper of forked tongue to
the tips of Harry's fingers, and he laughs and laughs.
"Where is Carrow?" he asks, a return to the voice of English, the blood of
Englishman but traces in his serpent's face. "You will have her in hysterics
over your disappearance."
Harry's smile does not falter, but he shakes his head. "Nagini ate ate ate
her."
Voldemort coos, a high tsk sound that rattles in his chest, and brings Harry to
rest against his heart. "I will need a new following at this rate, My Harry.
You so easily offer Nagini anyone for dinner when you cannot devour them
yourself."
"I don't need to be left behind," Harry says, arms reaching around his Lord's
neck. Voldemort considers this, the various trips into forests uncharted, into
lands of beasts mostly forgotten by his lessers, voyages for Magics unknown,
sees Harry amongst the poisons and glittering teeth...
My Harry is built to be on my side of Inhumanity.
"Perhaps not."
"They want to take me away from you."
"No pity to the Fool who should try," Voldemort says to the dark room, petting
his child, his Dear Snake in human skin.
***** Botanical *****
A mother's breast cannot be imitated.
Narcissa is not one built for motherhood. She, no Saint Mary, takes to infants
as one takes to holy war; with a joyless mouth and with a foreboding sense of
passionless duty. She is the equal to her counterbalance, her husband, in some
ways and his superior in many, but she is not built for motherhood.
Where her body should be soft, she is granite, and where her heart should be
open, she is sealed. She nurses Draco through lightyears, a distance which
cannot be forged even with the most endowed implements. From the distance of
many planets, all of whom direct one another with their masses and never, never
touch, Draco grows up under the care of third-party hands and indirect
affection. She knows not the weight of him in her arms, the pull of his hunger
at her breast. She cares not to know.
She writes; to her wasting sister, and confesses her wish to trade places. She
would kiss a thousand dementors than her pink-faced babe who adores her so
unreservedly.
Though Narcissa remembers the delirium and pain of labour, though she remembers
Lucius' face hovering as a star above her, and recalls the sound of Dear
Draco's first cry in the world, she sometimes doubts that he is hers at all.
How could he be, when her love for him is as severed as a numbed limb? When the
child, from a face so similar to her own, is nearer a stranger than a son, and
her reagard for him is as many impediments?
And then, the Dark Lord calls upon her in the dead of night.
She and Lucius share their confusion. Should He not be out willing new worlds
into creation, celebrating his victory over the loom of a nebulous prophecy?
Should He not be occupied with the liqueur of success and feast of celebration?
She goes to Him, and against all prediction, in battle with every understanding
she has of Him, He is with child.
As though an extension of His own ribcage, as though His heart beat not for
only Himself, but for the life in his arms, as though harboured in His womb,
the Dark Lord cradles to Himself a squalling babe.
"I understand you have recently born a child, Narcissa," He whispers to her,
stroking a finger over the full, wet cheek of a sobbing infant, never turning
his ardent gaze from it. He, the Dark Lord, who could move His heart to love a
child, while hers remains still!
"Yes, My Lord… Draco is one as of last month," she answers.
The Dark Lord appears not to have heard her. He hums, withdraws His wand, and
for a moment she fears He will punish the child for crying so loudly. A soft
burst of multicolored light shines before the child, and the crying stops. The
child reaches for the bone white wand, grasps it in a chubby hand, and puts the
tip in its mouth.
Narcissa holds her breath, but the Dark Lord hisses in apparent approval, His
tongue flickering with the language of snakes, the air alive with His breathy
exhalations.
"I am in need of amenities for a babe of similar age," He says, and at last
looks up at her.
She takes a step back at His red eyes. His face is much transformed in these
last few years, reflecting the image of something Above Humanity.
"You will get them for me now."
Narcissa is infuriated. What does she know of an infant's needs? What does she
know of comforting their cries? Her duty was met when she birthed one, but the
burden still lingers! It attacks her with sporadic contractions, these many
months later, and how she wishes it would end. The Dark Lord himself presents
the picture of a more perfect mother than she!
"Yes, My Lord."
She runs to where Lucius awaits just outside the tea room, calls upon a House
Elf to bring her what the Dark Lord bid.
She and Lucius present the gift together, and Lucius gasps when he sees the
infant.
"My Lord! The Potter child?"
The Dark Lord considers the infant, strokes its head obsessively.
"The Potter child?" He whispers to the now sleeping babe. "No, I think not.
This child has been given a fate, one determined by prophecy. He was born to be
Mine."
***** Chromatic *****
Harry clings to his Lord's hem, wrapping the cloak around himself and glaring
up at the falsely smiling adults. He knows they do not like him, and the
feeling is perfectly mutual. He doesn't trust them. Lord Voldemort is the most
powerful and beautiful person in the whole world, and they are not worthy to
stand before Him. He crushes himself into his Lord's legs and chews on the
fabric wrinkled in his fist.
"Yes, My Lord," Lucius Malfoy says, and bows. "We will be sure your ward is
transported safely."
Harry snarls. "You aren't their lord," he hisses. "You are mine."
A large, white hand splays over his head, and Harry melts into the caress,
glancing up at his Lord's face and silently pleading with him.
"You must use English in front of the others, my treasure."
Harry issues a long, exaggerated sigh, then looks directly at Lucius and
Narcissa Malfoy.
"He is not your Lord. He is mine."
"Very good, Child."
He is petted and praised, and Harry looks smugly up at the pinched face of the
Malfoys, then at Lord Voldemort's pleased smile.
He presses his face into His stomach, altogether much happier.
"Does this mean I can stay?"
The hand in his hair stills.
"No, Pet. You must go with the Malfoys."
Harry wails; in English because he is a good boy.
"I don't want to go to Hogwarts! You said I was special! You said we would be
together forever!"
He sobs as he is lifted from the floor and cradled, a hiss soothing against his
ear.
"Dear child," Lord Voldemort sighs.
"Please don't make me go," Harry begs.
"You must go," and Harry does not miss the slight, that his Lord would refuse
to speak in Their tongue to him. "You must learn to be a sorcerer and return to
me strong. You will be home in a few months for Yule."
"Why can't you teach me?" Harry sniffles.
"I have told you that I attended Hogwarts many years ago, and made many
followers by going. Do you not wish to do the same?"
Harry wraps his arms around his Lord's neck, presses his mouth to His skin.
Harry hates children his own age. Especially Draco, who sulks whenever they're
made to play together. They never get along and all the other kids are always
mean to him, and he much prefers his Lord for company.
"What use have I for followers when I have You?"
His Lord hisses, kisses his head. "Quite. Now, collect your belongings. You
will not stall until the train leaves you."
Harry huffs, caught out. Lord Voldemort pries him from His body and places him
firmly on the floor. He can't help the keening cry as his eyes flood with tears
once more. A hand presses down on his shoulder and pulls him away, but Harry
screams and lashes at Lucius Malfoy with his might. The man clutches his
bleeding, mangled hand to his chest, his face a picture of rage and terror.
Narcissa and Draco shout in alarm.
Harry hisses at them.
"Harry," Lord Voldemort scolds.
"Do you not love me anymore?" he demands, and the whole of the room goes still.
His Lord bends his great height until they are eye to eye, cups his tear-
streaked cheeks in both hands.
"My little snake, I would reshape the earth upon your whim, but in this matter
I will not bend," He hisses softly. His thumb catches Harry's next rolling tear
and brings it to His mouth to taste with the flicker of a forked tongue. "You
will go with the Malfoys, you will go to Hogwarts, and you will excel. Do you
understand?"
Harry lets his head drop, nodding. "Yes, My Lord. But I won't apologize to
Lucius."
He is petted once more before the Dark Lord draws away with finality. Harry
tries to cling for His hand just one moment longer.
"No, I expect not. You shouldn't apologize to those of lower status. Lucius,
put yourself together and go before you are late."
Lucius keeps his mouth shut, visibly bitter, but does as he is told. Harry is
lead to stand in the hearth alongside Narcissa, and he clutches her hand
nervously. He feels his lip wobble again.
"Will you miss me?" he asks his Lord, who looks over his shoulder at him.
"Every aching moment, my Harry."
***** Daedalian *****
There are, in the auspicious halls of the scholarly elite, epics of the most
venerable authority which philosophize and compartmentalize the questions of
Fate, Destiny;
Prophecy.
The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…
To Lord Voldemort, it is a matter not so urgently requiring calculation. To
simply know one commands a Destiny is to hold a power, to evolve beyond one’s
limitations. The soft kiss of promise, that the universe has given unto Him a
child of such potential, and to have Albus Dumbledore so ignorantly dangle this
ill-perceived threat to provoke him!
Then truly, this glorious war is His.
“My Lord, but what is your response to this claim? Can this Prophecy hold even
a drop of truth?” Lucius Malfoy implores.
His Death Eaters sit tall and dark around the table, their bodies still as
gravestones, mercilessly cold and marble. They wait for His divine rage, for
His reply to Dumbledore’s gallantry; though sheer and wispy Dumbledore’s
orchestrations be. He hopes to manipulate a master into revealing His unarmored
skin, but he has given Lord Voldemort a weapon. The symbol Dumbledore seeks to
bleed as a banner is one so easily stolen.
“The thing about Prophecies, Cousin,” Bellatrix hisses through her bared teeth,
a snarling grin which glows white in the darkness of the chamber, “is their
notorious trickery. Their meaning is malleable, ephemeral. And like the
Universe from which they are borne, always in perfect entropy. There are only
two Souls who could possibly discern the truth from the riddle, and it is Our
Lord and the babe.”
Lord Voldemort bestows his protege with a curling smile.
“Surely if this child does exist, we must find him,” Dolohov cries to a chorus
of murmurs. “At the very least we must crush this assertion that you could be
defeated in such an absurd way, My Lord!”
“Most assuredly, the Child does exist,” Lord Voldemort says, and He knows it to
be true, can feel the pressure of it weighing down upon Him since the Prophecy
was spoken. “He will be the progeny of Dumbledore’s Michael and Gabriel, for
only archangels could inspire strength of such magnitude in their offspring.”
“Do you intend for us to destroy him, My Lord?”  
“It would be vulgar to send back a gift the Fates have so generously delivered
to Me,” He muses, pleased. “Identify the child who falls within the parameters
of the prophecy, but do not approach him. He is Mine to harness.”
They do not understand, but for Bellatrix, who knows how He has touched the
very essences of the Natural World and come away with its secrets pulsing in
his blood. How the physical rules by which mortals abide cannot bind him, how
He no longer toils under the limits of human psychology and understands More.
He  is More.
There is  homo sapien . He is  homo sapien deinde .
The yawning chasm of Immortality, in which Voldemort has alighted, elevates him
from the reach of a third of this dimension; time. He sees endlessly forward,
his trajectory a pillar of unchanging light in the fluidity of time, and He
sees endlessly backward, into the burning first breaths of an unfurling cosmos.
Prophecy is a language to which he has the device.
Peter Pettigrew comes to Lord Voldemort days later, solitary and bowed, paves
for Him the way to His child, whispers his name, His Harry Potter.
He can recall vaguely the parents, their fearless violence and faces not much
older than that of babes themselves. Are these child soldiers, these young
flames that flicker and twist on wicks just-lit, capable of giving Him an equal
as promised? Could it be that when he steps over their bodies, the sprawl of
Michael and Gabriel sent forever into silence, when he sees for the first time
the eyes of an infant, that they will reflect as windows all that He can
conceive of the universe?
Harry Potter weeps when his mother dies with his surname, his lungs gasping in
the clumsy way only children can, but Lord Voldemort assures him that such
bonds are easily forgotten, replaced. He lifts him into His embrace, his weight
solid and finite, and He tells him that all is well.
“I shall be your mother,” He vows. “Your father, your lover, your Lord.”
His child cannot comprehend His oath yet, small and new as he is. Their only
witness is the magic which binds Lord Voldemort to His word, and binds them in
turn to one another. He, Himself hardly fathoms the depth  of it, and peering
into that reddened face, touching the fevered skin, He divines immediately  the
power the Dark Lord knows not  as it sweeps over His being.
Lord Voldemort knows that the infant is made to be More as well.
***** Efficacy *****
“What is the Dark Lord’s prince like?”
Daphne looks up from her game of Gobstones with a glare, but Astoria doesn’t
mind it. Ever since Daphne turned seven last month, she’s been terribly
snobbish and disagreeable, claiming she doesn’t have time for Astoria’s  kiddie
stuff  anymore. As if six is so different from seven!
“We don’t talk to him much,” Draco says, not looking up from the game. He is
losing, his hands splattered with the vile puss in the stones. “He’s always
around  Him .”
“You wouldn’t want to, anyway,” Daphne sneers. “He once made Vincent stick his
head in Nagini’s mouth.”
“He told Pansy she must be a Squib when she couldn’t do magic like he can,”
Draco adds.
“He doesn’t know which spoon is for pudding and which is for soup. What sort of
person doesn’t know that?”
“No person at all, Daphne. No person at all,” Draco says with a shake of his
head.
“But!” Astoria can’t contain her shock and disappointment. “He’s the prince!
And, and I get to meet him!”
Any moment, now really.
She glances at the grand clock swinging, swinging. They’ve been in the playroom
for an hour already, and the Dark Lord is sure to arrive soon, bringing with
Him the heir of His legacy. Is he fun? Smart? Is he… dashing?
“Was I ever that naive?” Daphne mutters.
Draco rolls his eyes.
Astoria stomps back to the couches and reaches into the jar of sweets and pulls
out a chocolate frog to watch it melt in her palm while she waits. Daphne is
just bitter because everyone knows when  she  met Harry, they didn’t get on at
all. She’s sure Harry wouldn’t make Vincent put his head in Nagini’s mouth
unless it was all just a silly game, and she can’t imagine Harry would
intentionally insult Pansy, who is sensitive by nature anyway, and not knowing
anything about cutlery is only maybe the fifth worst sin one could commit, not
like the  second  or  first .
There is an echoing, warm gong that vibrates through the house from the hearth.
“That’s them!” Astoria cries, heart racing. She looks at herself, her chocolate
smeared hand and robes, and panics. “Daphne! I’m not fit to be seen!”
Daphne, who is sprawled on the rug in her wool trousers and afternoon shirt
rather than her evening receiving robes, appears to care not a whit.
Astoria frantically tries to straighten herself, stands by the door, and hides
her hand behind her back.
“You’ve got chocolate on your forehead,” Daphne snickers.
“You—!”
The door opens, the one connecting the playroom to the larger antichamber, and
suddenly she can hear all the voices rushing around as the gathered adults
mingle.
At first, she doesn’t see him. All she sees are a bunch of boring, shapeless
robes gesturing and sweeping about.
Then, a hush falls over the crowd, and  He  appears, tall and terrible. Astoria
almost hides behind the doorframe, but she would never forgive herself, and
stays where she is right in the doorway, chin up.
Clasping the Dark Lord’s hand is a boy.
“He’s so…,” Astoria struggles. They’re coming this way, and she gets a good
look at him. “...Smallish.”
“What were you expecting?” Draco whispers. “He’s just a kid like us.”
The Dark Lord makes a strange sound, like a sputtering faucet, and it takes a
moment for her to realize He is  speaking , some strange language, cupping
Harry’s face and pushing the reluctant boy into the playroom. The Dark Lord
sweeps away, paying no mind to the hem of His robe as it’s yanked from Harry’s
sullen grip.
“Prince Harry!” Astoria says with flourish, bowing. “A pleasure to meet your
acquaintance.”
She offers him the half melted, twitching leg of the chocolate frog.
“M’not a prince,” he mumbles, accepting the morsel.
“Told you,” Daphne mutters, but clams up when Harry looks at her.
“What are you playing?” he asks Daphne and Draco, walking into the room. The
door shuts behind him, cutting them off from ‘grown-up business’.
“Only two people can play,” Daphne lies.
“You’ve never played Gobstones?” Astoria asks, mystified.
He shrugs. “Nagini only plays with mice. I normally play games with magic or by
flying.”
“You can play Quidditch?” Astoria gasps.
“‘Storia’s only excited because every time she gets on a broom, she falls off
the back!” Daphne laughs.
Astoria feels her face burn.
“I’d give anything for a game of Quidditch right now,” Draco moans.
“Too bad Daddy says it’s too cold out today,” Daphne sighs.
Astoria dreams wistfully, peering out the bay window. It would be ever so
scenic to fly with the snow falling like it is.
“Take me to your broom shed,” Harry says.
Daphne scowls, sitting up. “Didn’t you hear what I just said? My father won’t
let us!”
Harry doesn’t seem all that bothered. “I can do whatever I want.”
He turns to Astoria then, takes her sticky hand in his and looks deep into her
eyes. She holds her breath.
“Astoria, I’ll teach you to fly if you show me where the brooms are.”
She grips his hand and runs for the door.
“‘Storia!” Daphne shouts. There’s a clatter of stones and the sound of hurried
feet in pursuit.
No one stops them in the foyer as they dash past, giggling. They nearly knock a
glass of wine from Mr. Lestrange’s hand and their raucous clearly interrupts
the discussion going on around the dining table in the room adjoining, but not
a single word of rebuke is given.
This is the power of a prince, she realizes, looking back at Harry.
They are  untouchable !
The four of them burst out onto the West veranda into knee-deep snow. The cold
is biting, but Astoria tucks her one free hand under her arm and pulls Harry
down the icy steps and onto the perfect, white lawn.
“Astoria, it’s  freezing !” Daphne complains. “Let’s at least get our cloaks!”
“I thought you weren’t a baby anymore,” she replies.
Daphne doesn’t complain again, but inside the shed is a huge relief compared to
the open wind. Her robes are soaked through. She points to the rack of brooms
in their stands and smiles proudly.
“I’m ready for my first lesson.”
Harry laughs. He reaches up for the broom on the highest rack, the adult sized
one. It’s taller than them all when he stands it up in his hand. Astoria grows
worried.
“You don’t want to start with the kid ones?”
“What for?”
Harry leads her out of the shed into the snow again, and Daphne and Draco are
quick to grab their own brooms.
“Here, I’ll sit on the back,” Harry says, swinging a leg over the broom. “You
sit on the front.”
Astoria gasps, delighted. A broom ride with a prince? She hops on, squeezing
the broom with all her strength. Harry pushes off the ground, and Astoria
screams.
She can hear Daphne and Draco laughing at her as they zoom around them. She’s
just getting her breath back when Harry dips to the ground and scoops snow into
his hand.
“They laugh now,” he tells her, leans forward and races after them. He hits
Daphne in the head with the snowball, and it begins a game of tag.
They are soaked and shivering in minutes.
“We should see who can fly the highest,” Harry says as they float aimlessly in
circles.
“A-aren’t you cold?” Astoria asks, shaking. She can’t feel her hands where they
haven’t released the broom handle once, and her ears are burning.
Harry shrugs.
“I’ve been flying on a broom since before I could walk,” Draco says. “I bet I
can fly higher than anyone.”
With a jerk, the broom is perpendicular with the ground and Astoria feels
herself slip a few inches down the shaft. She falls against Harry as he forces
the broom to fly up, up, up. Astoria clutches on with all her might, squeezing
her eyes closed. The wind cuts through her wet clothes and takes her breath,
and it seems like forever they just keep climbing and climbing, higher and
higher, Draco’s taunts following close behind.
“Harry, please stop, I can’t hold on anymore!” she cries.
“Just a little higher!” Harry shouts over the wind. Draco’s voice falls away,
and Astoria grows so cold, she has a hard time opening her eyes.
“Please,” she whispers.
“Look, Astoria. We’re at the top of the world.”
The broom levels, but Astoria just shakes her head.
“Hey, Draco!” Harry calls, and Astoria looks down. She swallows. The house
looks like a beetle from this distance and Draco is just a dark smudge. “Race
you to the ground!”
They’re falling.
At first, Astoria can’t even scream, but when she finds her voice, it tears
from her painfully.
“Harry! Harry, stop! Please, stop!”
Her eyes are streaming, and she sees the frozen surface of the big pond below,
racing toward them.
“I can’t swim, Harry! We’ll crash, and I’ll drown!”
At the moment she is certain they’ll smash into bits on the ice, she’s jerked
in a different direction. The toe of her boots grind against the frozen surface
as they slow, but not enough to avoid smashing into the bank.
The snow pillows her fall, her ears ringing and her body numb. She hears Harry
laughing and instantly begins to cry.
“You were going to kill me!” she wails.
Daphne lands in the snow and runs to her side, broom forgotten.
“He was going to knock me off!” she cries, clinging to her sister’s waist.
Harry’s smile fades. “It was just a game.”
“What is the matter with you!” Daphne shouts at him.
“Please, I just want to go inside, I just want Daddy.”
She hides her face, anything to keep from seeing Harry’s blank eyes, her own
reflection staring back, wet and blue from the cold. As if she really had
drowned.
Astoria doesn’t ask about the Dark Lord’s prince anymore after that.
***** Fulminate *****
Lord Voldemort stands a King to His realm. Mighty where others have fallen,
with the forbearance to forge the pollutants of lesser beings into greatness;
mountains bow to Him.
“This is where Muggle London once stood, my Harry.”
Harry peers at the rubble then up to Lord Voldemort, unimpressed. It’s a half
constructed kingdom, a wound of war just beginning to scab. Its edges still
fester with embers and lines of black smoke that divide the orange horizon like
cellar bars.
“It’s all Yours, now?”
He strokes Harry’s hair. “Ours, pet.”
Harry’s nose wrinkles as the stench of scorched earth wafts to them on their
little hill. He is as a shuddering creature of the wood, and he grasps his
Lord’s robe.
“Where have all the Muggles gone?”
Lord Voldemort hums.
“The majority have been taken to work-camps in New Wales. Where they can better
serve their natural masters. The remaining, my legion killed so that we can
continue the Rebirth of the United Kingdom.”
They stroll into the city bounds proper, the jagged entrails of stone buildings
a gaping maw. But for the distant rumbling of battle, the electric and
mechanical whir of the city has died. Only magical functions remain. Harry runs
ahead, turning over rubble and climbing piles of rock. He collects bent nails
and brightly colored wires that spark at his touch.
“A tomcat!” Harry cries, peeking under a fallen wall. The creature has been
made feral with war and resists as Harry drags it into the light, but the child
is determined. It claws the boy’s arms and hisses, and Harry hisses back, teeth
bared.
“My wild serpent,” He says affectionately and Harry smiles, cat forgotten.
A black-cloaked senturion looms upon every corner of the broken streets. They
bow low, foreheads pressed to the rough pavement as they pass, chrome masks
reflecting scarlet flame.
“Silver and red were made for each other,” Harry says, and demands a mask from
one of His Death Eaters.
She offers it to him without raising her head, eyes closed, as though His
little prince were a basilisk. Harry runs back to Him, holding the mask to his
small face. His bare feet flash from under his over-long, child’s robe, pink
and raised from the abuse of the wilds.
“I am Your Death Eater!”
Voldemort lifts the child, runs a nail down the metallic sheen of the mask’s
chin, it’s face forever frozen in a grin.
“My most faithful servant. You would walk upon thorns in your soft flesh to
follow me.”
He smears his thumb in the blood on Harry’s scraped arms and cups a small foot
in His hand where the skin is raw. Harry hugs His neck.
“I don’t like shoes,” he mumbles as he had every day for the last week. “You
don’t wear shoes, My Lord.”
Lord Voldemort concedes, rubs His stained thumb on Harry’s mouth until the lips
match the red tongue that swipes at His sharp nail.
He apparates, feels His atoms twist with Harry’s, their souls as One. If He
could keep Harry like this: devoured and contained within Himself; if he were
such a specter that only Lord Voldemort could reach, it would still not be
enough to satisfy His hunger.  
They appear before the husk of Buckingham Palace. The grassy plot is scorched
wine dark, mottled with the sensuous sprawl of nude corpses. They are
symmetrically lined in rows, each accounted for, and burning in succession. The
walk to the front gate is framed with their frozen faces, their mute screams.
“What’s that smell?” Harry complains, tucks his face into his Lord’s shoulder
and neck, his open lips wet on His skin, his puffs of breath searing.
“A more unpleasant way to purge the bodies to be sure, but the debris is an
inevitable shelter for filthy, crawling things and there are Muggles among
them. There is no stronger message to be sent than that of the stench of their
burning queen.” Lord Voldemort tells him.
“I thought Nagini is Queen.”
“The very finest, child.”
The gate opens to them soundlessly. His servants dart about the palace hastily,
the cogs of a crumbling polit-bureaucracy smoking at their heels. They freeze
at his presence, fold their spines with military precision.
“My Lord and Heir,” Rosier greets with flourish. “Welcome to the New Ministry
Palace. Would you care for a tour before we go meet with the Wizengamot?”
“I want to jump from the highest window,” Harry says, wiggling from Lord
Voldemort’s arms and running to peer up the towering stairs to the first level.
“Rosier, my General of the North, does Scotland still resist?”
Rosier swallows. “They insist on remaining independently neutral, My Lord. Our
army has not gained traction.”
Voldemort smiles.
“My heir might like a tour,” Lord Voldemort says, and watches with pleasure as
Rosier pales. “You will entertain him while I am otherwise detained.”
“Of course, My Lord,” Rosier bows, though it pains him. “I must confess, I know
nothing of child care...”
“Harry will not hesitate to tell you what he wants.”
The child is exploring the lavish tapestries and gold furnishings, his soiled
feet marking his path.
“My serpent, Evan Rosier is yours for the evening.”
Harry looks upon his new playmate with a grimace. “He doesn’t look like much
fun.”
“I have no doubt you’ll think of something.”
He leaves Rosier to his fate, Harry’s first command of many echoing along the
grand hall of the Ministry.
“Give me your wand.”
***** Galvanize *****
Draco has never been alone with the Dark Lord. There’s always been miles of
barriers between them, all of a socially constructed nature. What would the
Master of all of England want with an eleven year old child, a child other than
that of Harry the Horrid? Draco, unlike many of his peers, doesn’t take it
personally. He’s not like Pansy, getting an ulcer over it. His mother and
father are members of the Inner Circle, after all; his upward mobility in the
Dark Lord’s ranks is predestined.
It stands to reason then, that he would have be alone with the Dark
Lord eventually.
He just hadn’t expected it to fall on the day before he leaves for his very
first year at Hogwarts.
“You are a clever, ambitious boy, I’m told,” He says, and the high sound of His
voice makes Draco press back into his chair. From the corner of his eye, he can
see the writhing creature called Nagini, her tail undulating scant inches from
his left foot.
“Yes, My Lord,” Draco answers at His prompting. “It is what I aim to be above
all. Ambitious, that is.”
“Above, even, to be my servant?” the Dark Lord asks with a terrible grin.
“Above all, but that, My Lord!” Draco says quickly, amending his mistake.
There’s a long, slippery hiss from the serpent, and Draco wonders if he’s
imagined the feel of her tongue brushing his exposed ankle. Her muscled body
begins to slowly circle his chair. Draco breathes rapidly, grips his knees. He
tugs his robes until they pool at his shoes.
The Dark Lord appears tickled.
“Nagini says your heart is that of a rabbit’s. It makes her hunger.”
Draco feels he might fall faint. The Dark Lord turns his back to Draco and his
small chair, places both hands on the fireplace mantel.
“If what you say is true, then it will please you to receive my order. If it is
not true, then your existence will be shortened significantly.”
“Yes, My Lord,” Draco says in a small voice, giving in to the urge to fold his
legs up to his chest, eyeing Nagini’s flickering tongue all the while. She
seems to smile up at him.
“You are due at Hogwarts tomorrow, as is my Harry. It will be your duty to be
his loyal companion. You will follow him, protect him if need be, serve his
needs. He will be your master as I am.”
He turns around, and His eyes glow a scarlet deeper than that of the simmering
coals in the hearth.
“Do you understand?”
Draco swallows. Says the only thing he can.
“Yes, My Lord.”
Only, Harry does not take to Hogwarts. Much in the same way that Draco has
never taken to Harry. He is sullen and resistant. Contrary for the sake of it,
and finds the rules and expectations at the institute wholly incomprehensible.
It makes him more the menace than ever.
Draco is the top of his class in weeks, perfect marks in every subject.
Harry doesn’t attend a single lesson, not once.
“You must attend your classes with the rest of the children, Mr. Potter,”
Headmaster McGonagall tells him and Draco in her office one evening. As though
Draco can do a thing about it! He sees the predictable glare of distaste
curling Harry’s features; for the mention of scholarly obligations or the
surname Potterequally as likely.
“The classes are dumb,” Harry says baldly. “It’s much better to practice magic
the practical way.”
He means on the unsuspecting House Elves, but for once, has the sense to not
say it. Draco sighs in relief.
“And there are mudbloods in all my classes.”
So much for sense!
“Mr. Potter,” the Headmaster says in a pinched way. All things considered,
she’s been very lenient. “Hogwarts is very different from your home. Scotland,
and therefore Hogwarts, is neutral. It is common ground for all students. This
is not your domain to do as you please!”
Harry’s face grows red. “All the world is My Lord’s domain, and so it’s mine!
This was once the province of the great Salazar Slytherin--”
“As I have told you on several occasions,” Headmaster McGonagall interrupts,
her lips trembling with rage, “the four houses no longer exist here. You are as
much a Slytherin as Neville Longbottom!”
“That blood traitorisn’t even half the wizard I am!”
“And yet,” McGonagall says with a deadly tone of voice, “his marks are thrice
as good.”
For the first time, Draco is witness to a Harry who is silenced.
“If you do not follow the rules, you will be given detention.”
Harry blinks. “Detention.”
It sounds as though the word is foreign to him.
“Punishment, Mr. Potter,” she reiterates, eyebrows raised.
“Punishment..?”
Draco rolls his eyes with an exaggerated groan.
Headmaster McGonagall appears to lose her patience.
“Off you go, the both of you. To class.”
Harry hisses something long and viscous, and storms out of the office, and
Draco trails reluctantly after. When their afternoon Potions class arrives,
Harry doesn’t leave the first year dormitory.
Draco knows that Harry writes to the Dark Lord every day, has since the
Welcoming Feast. He’s  never seen Harry receive a reply,  but that does not
seem to diminish his determination to make known his every complaint to the
Dark Lord.
Their days continue like that uninterrupted. It is a challenge since the other
first years all avoid him, but Draco makes many connextions, and Harry makes
few. Draco endures every obnoxious order Harry can conceive, subjecting Draco
to his own deep unhappiness. Games with complicated rules and even more
complicated penalties for losing. Embarrassing stunts at Draco’s expense to
cure Harry of boredom. Introductions to all of Draco's friends, though he
doesn't mind since it gives Harry someone else to boss around. Only,
ironically, the mudbloods are spared of his forced company.
And then, one morning Harry the Horrid is gone.
Draco peeks around corners in apprehension all morning, but by midday and still
no sign of the Dark Lord’s heir, he and the rest of the first years give a
collective sigh of relief. For once, Draco doesn’t have to spend his day
belaboured with the looming spectre that poses such a nuisance! In fact, the
whole castle seems much more chipper.
“Where is your ghoul?” Daphne asks him at lunch.
“Who cares?” he asks, beaming.
“We’re going to the quidditch pitch later,” Blaise tells him. “Want to come?”
Draco graciously accepts.
For an entire fortnight, Harry is absent. It’s truly wonderful.
When he returns unannounced to breakfast, Headmaster McGonagall leading him to
the seat beside Draco, Harry is dour and quiet.
“I want to go on a vacation,” Ronald Weasley complains from down the table of
first years. “Why does Potter get one?”
“Don’t call me that,” Harry mutters, face a thundercloud.
“You know he killed your parents,” Hermione Granger says, matter-of-fact like.
Harry looks up, and Draco hastily leans away from the look on his face. He
knows what tends to happen to the people who upset Harry. He suspects Nagini is
missing her regular dinners.
“The Dark Lord,” Harry says very fiercely, “is my father and king, and the
greatest and most powerful sorcerer to ever live!”
He’s practically standing by the end, voice raised. But when he sees everyone’s
cowed faces, Harry seems to control himself. He sits down again. Draco sighs in
relief. He isn’t sure what kept Harry from cursing the stupid mudblood, but he
isn’t going to complain.
“Of course I know he killed my parents. Everyone knows that,” Harry finally
says, and that’s that.
Draco goes to class after breakfast with his friends and only notices as
they’re taking their seats that Harry has come too. Harry goes to the class
after without a single comment, and the next, and the next.
He does his assigned reading and homework in the library with Draco and the
rest of his friends, head bent low and quill scratching furiously. Draco’s a
tad peeved Harry isn’t struggling more with catching up. He’s even in the first
year Common Room by curfew.
“Where did you go for so long?” Draco asks later in the darkness of their dorm,
staring across at each other from their beds.
Harry’s jaw clenches. He rolls over so that his back is to Draco.
“To the Dark Lord, of course.”
***** Halcyon *****
 
When Harry looks upon his Lord, a metallic and shining pillar, and he like
crawling ivy upon Him, he sees a convalescence of himself, a past and a future;
the whisper of an Old promise braided into the soft hairs of a baby’s cheek… He
sees the cup of His palm, whose convex matches the shape of his own hand and
who drinks in the whole of his finite form, fingers first, until he is made
Infinite.
Harry thinks one day his Master will stretch him and mold him until he is as
Nigini, coiled and never ending, jaw hinged on Him. A boneless garland for his
Lord’s neck, Harry’s angles have learned to grow in proportion to the space
against His side. The Dark Lord calls it nuclear fission, the way their atoms
mingle and collide. Harry calls it breathing.
“The other children at Hogwarts say things,” Harry whispers. He feels the heat
of his own breath pool into the valley of his Lord’s shoulder, chases the
warmth with the flush of his cheek and rests skin to skin. He feels the harmony
of their Being One, the answer of the Lord’s soul inside him.
They’re on a veranda, somewhere in a hazy German countryside, where they lie
together, melted in the sun. There are dozens of villas and patios like it
dotting an endless Wild, places that cradle them in an untamed lushness that
contrasts so violently with the scorched earth of a recovering war zone. There
are dragons a few kilometers east that they’ll be surveying tomorrow. A magical
lake that has no bottom a few kilometers south. It is a purely magical region
with no taint of mundanity. They Belong.
It is tranquility, relief.
Harry has promised to kill the first Death Eater who intrudes. It will be some
more days yet before they are brave enough to test his efficacy, and longer
days after that they will wish they hadn’t.
Lord Voldemort hisses like the breeze, a velvet sigh to Harry’s heated skin. He
pets Harry’s forehead with the sharp tip of a talon, runs it over and over the
zigzag scar, where it rests red and looking always New. It burns, infallible
and perfect, the brand of Lord Voldemort’s might.
“I’m sure they have much to say,” He replies, turns the page of a levitated
tome, a book Harry cannot read as it is, he is told, written in Cyrillic. “And
hold dearly that Hogwarts will protect them meanwhile.”
Harry has seen this brazenness for himself. The effervescent mouth of a Daphne
or a Draco when they believe the walls of a Scottish castle are thick enough to
mute their words.
They speak about the war.
“Such brave things fall out of a child’s mouth when they are far from home. How
obediently they quote their Hobbes to mothers and fathers.”
They speak about their parents and their Muggle slaves. The banned newspapers
that they can only see in Northern Ireland. Their brutish fantasies of broken
Muggle bodies.
“And how quickly they trade him for Thoreau at Scotland’s borders--”
They speak about kissing.
“Would you kiss Thoreau?” Harry asks.
It occupies them to a frenzy. Harry himself has kissed many times. The
fingerprint of his lips can be lifted from the hem of his Lord’s robe, His
ankle. His hands. Each of His temples.
That isn’t the same, they tell him.
How smug they become for a mouth kiss.
They laugh at him for not owning one.
“My eyes have kissed the pages of his anthologies many times, pet. I cannot
imagine a kiss to the mouth that birthed them would be any the more
illuminating or impressive. Thoreau suffered acutely under the delusions of
democracy; egalitarianism. He suffered a schizophrenia.”
Astoria and Draco kissed on the train platform at the end of their Third year.
To practice for when they are married, they said.
A promise between lovers, a gift of breath.
Harry had asked if it were a powerful spell, for them to covet it so; a ritual
of flesh, an alchemy of saliva. Draco calls him naive.
“Would you kiss me?” Harry hisses, leveling his face with that of his Lord’s
and grasping the hand that caresses him.
He can see the flare of slitted nostrils, the dilation of His vertical pupils.
A hand strokes his head, gentle and consuming.
“Child, sweet child,” his Lord coos, the pink tip of his forked tongue flashing
bright behind his white mouth. "Take what you need.”
Harry obeys. He leans forward, closes his eyes.
“Kiss me,” he begs.
***** Ictus *****
“Where is the boy, Tom?”
Albus Dumbledore fancies himself a Medium. He speaks with the dead name of Lord
Voldemort’s youth and holds court with pitiably perishable memoirs. He fancies
himself a philosopher. Lord Voldemort tells him so.
“I killed Tom, Myself.”
Dumbledore appears as a great flourish and a burning rage; the unmaking of the
New World depends on his spectacle, and he thinks himself the god to do deliver
it. Lord Voldemort has always remarked to Himself upon the commonality between
them. The destiny for greatness. A shared hunger for legend.
Perhaps Dear Albus might have better suited Slytherin.
The divergence is that Albus Dumbledore is not a god. He has not conversed with
the Divine laws of this world.
They battle, Lord Voldemort and his paler image, that odious Albus Dumbledore,
reactive and violent elements; their antagonism determined by the very
properties of their electrons. Chemistry is not compatibility.
“Where is the Potter child?!”
How Lord Voldemort laughs.
His wand carves new mountains, ravines; commands the earth to devour His enemy.
“That name, too, is dead! I relish your foolishness.”
For a moment, Dumbledore falters, his agile repose stilted, weak. They stand on
the English Channel as water walkers, their robes soaked and cumbersome. A
misty silhouette of a burning Canterbury glows on the horizon. He will not be
satisfied until the flames can be seen from Dunkirk.
He assuages Dumbledore.
“The boy sleeps in My den, and runs to Me when I return. He is My sweetest
servant.”
Lord Voldemort duels.
The very air shivers around the aura of His might; space accommodates Him, and
gifts Him with volatile vacuums that ripple against His skin and propel His
curses.  
“Where is he?!” Dumbledore demands, a ghoul of fury, an inferno in defense of
an infestation, a fool who fights for mites.
He is formidable, but Lord Voldemort is the universe spun.
They apparate and wage war on a perch of dead and dying muggles, a burning
scape that writhes in the distance with fleeing vermin. Canterbury is but
another unnameable British city in the process of Wizardization. In but a
moon’s cycle, there will be a village in its place, the mundane and stupid
beasts of before a long forgotten blight inhomo sapien evolution.
“He is Mine,” He answers simply.
“You cannot keep the boy, Tom!” Dumbledore shouts across the battlefield, a
canyon of destruction betwixt. “The prophecy—!”
A strike as fast as lightning shrieks through the air.
They are a heat storm, a monsoon, and Lord Voldemort appreciates His opponent’s
skill, how it makes Him thrill with the challenge. He dreams one day His Harry
will dance with Him like this, and reshape this indifferent celestial sphere in
their wake.
His child is as powerful as undisciplined.
Lord Voldemort will feed him like a wildfire.
“You mean to manipulate him to killing Me. You are welcome to try. He is
commanding My army in the east this very day. You need only reach Brussels
within the hour to meet Harry der Horrend.”
Lord Voldemort smiles beatifically at Dumbledore’s distaste.
His treasure, his child; how he flares in Lord Voldemort’s mind, the brightest
point an eternal constant, as constant as Avogadro. There souls are such that
distance is made meaningless— He can turn thousands of kilometers in a single
step to reach His child’s side and watch the splash of blood color his skin and
scent him with the pall of death and Magic. Always Magic.
The war around them swells and dies as victims grow scarce, and the Death
Eaters grow bored of their own savagery. They sing their victory as they march
on.
“If this is true,” Dumbledore says softly, solemnly, “it will make no
difference to let the Order take the boy.”
Lord Voldemort hisses. “It is My Word that determines the Ferrel winds and the
Westerlies. I took a babe and Birthed a monster. An Equal. The child you seek
does not exist. Bid him go with you; but he will not.”
“You have caged him!”
“On motherhood’s sweet milk?” Lord Voldemort smiles wickedly. “He has never
lamented the taste.”
The duel begins anew, neither willing to defeat nor be defeated. The earth
bears the marks of their deadly flirtation, craters carved from wands. They
converse better this way, these two old friends or enemies. Lord Voldemort
understands Dumbledore with clarity in the sting of his hexes.
Duelship is their Lingua Franca.  
It is clearest to see Albus Dumbledore worships Prophecy. He will fight a war
but he will not kill Lord Voldemort. To him, only Harry Potter wields such
power and the Right to employ it.  
Either must die at the hand of the other.
But Albus Dumbledore is a fool.
Lord Voldemort has already killed Harry.
***** Janiform *****
 
There is a Manor, an old thing with no name or known origin, only that it is
the Lord’s Dominion. It’s location is mystery, and those who upon reflection
attempt to remark on The Manor, suddenly find themselves unable. There are
scarce known characteristics of The Manor, but one prevails above the others.
Id est, that the Dark Lord’s most precious possession resides there.
Lucius Malfoy on one such lazy morning, finds himself portkeyed to The Manor. A
message awaits him at the entry that his Lord will arrive shortly, to be
prepared to impart to Him all of his recent progress. It is vital that there be
progress to report.
Lucius glances at his engraved pocket watch. The hands swing from Familial
Recreation to settle firmly upon Business Afoot.
It had been bright at the Malfoy Manor, a pleasant summer morning. He can still
hear Narcissa and Draco speaking softly over tea, something about a weekend
excursion to Croatia. The windows of The Manor by contrast are dark, a
featureless void beyond the glass.
Lucius takes the hall to the Dark Lord’s primary conference chamber, the only
room he’s seen before. The secrets of The Manor are concealed behind winding
halls that seem to glow an ethereal blue, halls that beg for poor fools looking
to lose their way. Lucius does not wish to play the fool.
A door jumps ajar as he passes, and out tumbles the most precious possession.
“Lucius Malfoy,” Harry greets breathlessly, with a boyish grin.
He wears but a large, obviously borrowed open robe, one of Lord Voldemort’s he
can assume, and nothing else. Lucius averts his eyes, keenly uncomfortable. He
is but a boy in a king’s position, barely fifteen, a reality the Dark Lord’s
army tries mightily to forget.
The nature of the relationship has always been suspect.  
Aside, there is something… strange about Harry’s body, strange and unsettling.
There are rumors of course, within the inner circle, that the Dark Lord’s heir
is as otherworldly and strange as his Master. It is another matter altogether
to see for oneself the unnatural sleekness, the hairlessness, the sheen of
scales.
“I’ve done something terribly wicked,” Harry confides with relish.
Lucius belatedly notices the blood soaking his small hands and feet.
“Come see, Lucius, and have a laugh with me.”
Harry grasps Lucius’ arm with his wet, scarlet hand and pulls him into the
room.
It is unremarkable, but for the body that sprawls in its center.
“Good Godric,” he gasps. “Is that Severus Snape?”
The man lies prone on the rug, his neck torn open. Nagini is coiled around the
man, bloodied tongue flickering in the air.
Lucius covers his mouth with a hand.
Harry steps up to Snape’s body, feet dragging carelessly through the blood
that’s pooled under Snape’s head. He bends and plucks a stained roll of
parchment from the man’s chest.
“You see, I found him writing a letter to Albus Dumbledore. Harry Potter
remains the Dark Lord’s closest companion,” he reads, preening. “Rumors of the
Potter child’s apparent vampirism remain unsubstantiated.”
The boy bursts with laughing, holding his stomach.
“A vampire? The Order thought I was a vampire! Why, I could have told them
everything in this letter myself.”
He nudges Snape’s slack face with his foot.
“I’m afraid your usefulness was long expired. Poor sod.”
Lucius swallows, his mouth very arid. He knows, with highest certainty, that
Severus Snape was named among the most vital instruments in this war, that his
life was an orchestration of carefully misled espionage, that it was imperative
he remain untouched so as to maintain an image of ignorance; that the Dark Lord
did not know He was being double crossed.
He knows this because he is here today to discuss the exact topic.
“I knew what he was, of course,” Harry says with glee, stroking a sullied hand
over Nagini’s undulating back. “He was always so smug. How mighty the mouse
feels afore caught in the mousetrap!”
Harry spins around, and Lucius diverts his gaze once more. The boy is flushed,
glowing. Lucius swallows.
What will await Harry when this is discovered?
“You should never think yourself too important to die,” Harry laughs, looking
down on Snape. “Though I’m not sure this is a lesson pitiful Severus
appreciates so much now.”
Lucius suddenly feels this  diversion has a deliberate message; a message for
he, himself.
“Of course, Master Harry,” he says smoothly.
The door behind him creaks, and his Lords stands tall in the entrance, an icy
surveyour.
“My Lord!” Harry blossoms with the Dark Lord’s appearance, stepping again into
the puddle of blood and tracking his maroon steps all over the carpet. He sinks
into Lord Voldemort, plasters his front into Him and clings.
“My treasure,” He says, a hissing whisper of breath. “The one man I bade you
must not kill lies dead, and you greet me with a cat’s smile.”
Harry withdraws, face petulant.
“I did it for You. He mocked You by his betrayal!”
“I gave you but one order,” the Dark Lord replies.
Harry turns his back on Him, silent for a moment.
“You once told me I was the sun that sets the day. Yet you would make a man,
Severus Snape, more important than me!”
Lucius presses himself upon the dark wall, heart beating and face wet with
fear. He has been fortunate enough to avoid the legendary tantrums; it seems
fortune has at last abandoned him. Lord Voldemort bears the force of His
creature’s rage without challenge. He looks upon Harry unchanged, immovable.
“My Harry has rather forgotten who the Master is,” He says, withdrawing His
wand and caressing its length, savoring. “What do you think, Lucius? Does he
need to be reminded?”
“You should have killed me at the start, if you were going to make me so
worthless. I hate you! Avada kedavra!”
Lucius is thrown to the floor, locking eyes with Snape’s blank stare. He
watches with terror as the acidic green curse slithers through the air from
Harry’s wand and into the wall; the place he had been standing moments before.
“My—My Lord,” Lucius stutters, trembling in Snape’s blood. “I—I—You saved me.”
Of all the servants lost to Harry’s rage, for naught a one has the Dark Lord
raised a hand in aid.
“Look at me!” Harry screams at the Dark Lord.
“I look at nothing else,” Lord Voldemort says, raising His wand. “Crucio.”
Harry’s scream is terrible. It renders Lucius immobile. He watches the boy
writhe and jerk, claw at himself to escape the pain, yet finding no relief. He
rips off the robe as though it will free him, becomes covered in blood. It
seems to stretch on forever.
At last Harry’s body falls still, the room echoing with his wretched sobs.
“Oh, My Harry,” the Dark Lord sings. He kneels and wraps His fingers under
Harry’s jaw to lift his face up. “I would not have to hurt you if only torment
did not suit you half so well. Love Me, hate Me; all you feel is Mine.”
Harry curls into the touch, clutching to His hand. He hisses something in the
Snake’s Tongue and kisses His palm.
“Lucius.”
Lucius startles and jumps to his feet, eager to escape unscathed.
“Yes, My Lord?” he says, looking away as Harry runs his red hands over Lord
Voldemort’s face, smearing Him with blood.
“Retrieve Severus’ hair and go to my antechamber. We will need to conceal
this.”
“Yes, My Lord.”
***** Kintle *****
Minister Fudge steps down quietly on a Thursday morning, with little fanfare
and not a word to the press. It seems overnight the Wizengamot is swept by
supremacists newly branded with their radical ideology. Those who are not Death
Eaters are their sympathizers, and those who are not sympathizers are bribed
around their reservations.
In a mere week, a blink, Molly Weasley has witnessed her peers abandon
humanity, decency, to maintain their paltry, wage-based lives, to close their
eyes and shuffle papers, to swear allegiance to a new and cruel king.
Wizarding Britain is transformed in a matter of hours.
She is made unrecognizable to Molly; a stranger, disfigured. Where the scum of
Wizarding culture once remained in shadow, it crawls into the light, unmet and
unchallenged.
They come for the Muggleborns first.
A simple seizure of properties in alphabetical order. The Ministry has a
registry, a list, of Muggleborns, for governmental aid, for resources and
liaisons, for Wizarding children and their Muggle parents. For arranging
visitations and secrecy. For post-graduate stipends.
How were they to know it would come to serve as a blacklist?  
Molly knows it will be only a matter of time for her family to be targeted
next. She’s made it no secret what she thinks of blood status.
“You’re Pureblood!” Great Aunt Muriel exclaims, face red and hawkish. She
stands between Molly and her half-packed carpet bag. “Keep your head down,
swear an oath of loyalty or two, and nothing has to change. Arthur can keep his
Ministry position. Don’t uproot your life for nothing!”
“Nothing,” Molly parrots, indignant, furious. “Nothing!”
Muriel is unchanged. Molly regrets having agreed to host her for the few days
Muriel’s house is being treated for gnome infestation.
“There isn’t that much a difference in Parliament and Autocracy! Not on a day
to day basis,” Muriel sniffs, idly adjusting the baubles and springs popping
out of a truly alarming chartreuse hat.
Molly gnashes her teeth.
“State sponsored slavery! Torture! Blood supremacy! To name a few, Muriel.
They’ve already seized Ted and Andromeda’s estate! Snapped her wand. Her wand!”
“Well it wasn’t a very nice estate to begin with, was it?”
Molly forcibly grabs Muriel by the robes and moves her to the side, waving her
wand and directing belongings into her bag. The room slowly disappears as it’s
swallowed up. She’s already packed away the attic.
“Politics change constantly! In a few years, when this blows over, why, the
next Minister may well be a Muggleborn. Think of the children, Molly.”
How dare she, Molly rages, hand coming up to hold her just-slightly rounded
stomach. Her Ginerva. Such a wondrous gift, a daughter, but unarguably
conceived with ill timing.
“I think of them most of all,” she tells Muriel softly. “There is evil taking
root here, and it is my duty and my desire to fight it. I can’t do that here
where we are vulnerable. It’s already decided. We’ve got portkeys out of the
country. We’re going, Muriel!”
To where the Order is establishing themselves, to Ireland, something Molly
keeps to herself. Muriel is a renowned gossip.
There’s a raucous above their heads, the sound of little feet stomping, the
chimes of laughter.
“Give it back, Bill!” they hear Charlie laughing.
They look at one another, mouths tense. Muriel steps close, voice lower so as
not to disturb the children.
“You have lost your sense, Molly. There is no fighting this. There is only
surviving. If you run now, you’ll forever be a fugitive.”
“My home has made me a fugitive.”
“You would take your children away to some unknown place. They will never know
Hogwarts. Bill has only just got his letter, and you would take that from him?”
Molly sighs, rubs at her temples. She paces, whispers just as fervently.
“There’s no guarantee that Hogwarts will be safe in the coming months. It is
under the jurisdiction of the Ministry, the very same Ministry that is right
now reigning terror on innocent people!”
Molly sits on the edge of the bed, exhausted. Muriel sits beside her and takes
hold of her hand. She pats it gently.
“Things haven’t got so bad, dear,” she says. “The Ministry is only securing
suspicious persons for our safety. Everything will settle, and your panic will
have been for nothing. If anyone knows the goings on around here, it’s me!”
Molly shakes her head.
“Oh, don’t fuss over it for tonight at least!” Muriel insists. “It’s Hallows
Eve, for Merlin’s sake. Have a butterbeer. Amuse yourself with the children.
Commune with the dead! They have so much to say on these nights, you know.”
Molly listens to the racing steps on the stairs, the banging of her children
rushing in and out of the house, their lighthearted shouts carrying through
their knobby home. She stands and walks to the window to watch them. Charlie
has Ron lifted on his shoulders as they tumble about the dark yard. George is
trying to convince a skittish Percy onto a broom.
“We’ve fought evil once before, when Grindelwald tried to rise to power, and
the world remembers who folded and who fought. My family will be remembered for
fighting.”
She turns to Muriel, who appears already to have a scathing rebuttal when the
room is suffused in a cool blue. A nimble weasel manifests above their heads in
the creaking rafters, and her husband’s voice shakes the house whole.
“Godric’s Hollow has been attacked, James and Lily are dead. You must leave the
Burrow immediately. They are coming.”
Molly does not cry. She does not waste time to mourn as she rushes to pack only
the essentials now, her belongings left half abandoned and forgotten. She does
not try to convince Muriel to join them, leaving the woman to her own choice.
She does not look back as she leads her boys to the edge of the property to
Apparate away in the night.
She believes firmly that one day she will see this home again, that her family
is strong and will persevere in this hour of darkness. That light will triumph.
Fifteen years later, in an Order war room in Ireland and two of her children’s
deaths behind her, she believes this still.
Please drop_by_the_archive_and_comment to let the author know if you enjoyed
their work!