lomonaaeren

Chapter Fifty-One.

Title: His Twenty-Eighth Life (52/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Eventual Harry Potter/Voldemort; mentions of others, including canon pairings, in the background, and past Harry/others
Rating: R (more for violence than sex)
Content Notes: violence, torture, gore, manipulation, angst, Master of Death Harry Potter, reincarnation, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts
Summary: Harry Potter has been reborn again and again into new bodies as the Master of Death, some of them not human, none of them exactly like his old one—but he has always helped to defeat Voldemort in each new world. Now he’s Harry Potter again, but his slightly older brother is the target of the prophecy, and Harry assumes his role is going to be to support Jonathan in his defeat of Voldemort. At least, that’s what he thinks until Voldemort comes that Halloween night, discovers what Harry is, and kidnaps him. The story of a long fight between Voldemort’s sadism and Harry’s generosity.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a very long fic, exploring some fairly dark character interactions. While the heart of the story is Harry’s relationship with Voldemort, that’s going to change only slowly and over time, and there will be plenty of concentration on other characters, too. Also, please take the tags/content notes seriously.

Thank you again for all the reviews!

Chapter Fifty-Two—Memories of a Ring

Lord Voldemort glanced up with a lazy motion of his head. He did not yet have all the words to the speech he wanted to give his new Knights written down, but he had time. And he always had the time for Jeremy.

Jeremy grinned at him. He was nothing remarkable to look at. He had blue eyes, which were common in his family, the Selwyns, and curly brown hair that perhaps sometimes people commented on more than they should. But Lord Voldemort had noticed that those comments had diminished as they grew and left Slytherin behind. And Jeremy had never had his head turned by them, anyway.

“Wanted to show you this,” Jeremy said, and made a big, dramatic show of throwing a golden cup at him.

Lord Voldemort caught it before it could hit the table that his papers were spread out on, and stared at it with his eyes widening. It was—he could see that it was—

“Yeah.” Jeremy looked enormously pleased with himself. “Hufflepuff’s cup. I found the person who stole it from Hepzibah Smith all those years ago. Before you could steal it.”

Lord Voldemort gave him a glance, but in truth, none of Jeremy’s teasing right now could distract him from this prize. He ran his hands slowly up the sides. The badger at the handle sparked deep, cool desire in him, as cool as the cup itself. He placed it in front of him and regarded it with hooded eyes for a long moment.

“That’s not all I found.”

Lord Voldemort disliked being torn from the contemplation of his spoils, but then again, a better one might take its place. And the teasing tone in Jeremy’s voice said this was the better one. He turned in his chair, his fingers beginning to tap on the table.

Jeremy was kneeling in front of him, the way he only did when he wanted to make a joke. But what set his palm on fire with reflected golden light was no joke.

“The ring of my ancestors,” Lord Voldemort breathed. “The Gaunt ring. How did you find it?” He had sought it years ago, wanting to make a Horcrux out of it, but there had been a useless scuffle with his uncle instead, and the discovery that the ring had already disappeared.

“Magic,” Jeremy said in a sepulchral voice, and winked at him. “You like?”

“More than that.” Lord Voldemort held the ring up. He knew the setting didn’t hold the original stone, which had to have been something as powerful and magical as befitted a ring belonging to the trueborn descendants of Salazar Slytherin, but that hardly mattered. The heavy gold did, the fact that his ring would have been set on the fingers of ancestors who could speak Parseltongue and who had made him the wizard he was. Lord Voldemort turned the ring around and couldn’t help smiling.

“Any boon you want,” he said, turning to Jeremy. “You have only to name it, my most loyal and faithful servant.”

Jeremy leaned back on his heels and stared with his mouth slightly open. Lord Voldemort tapped his fingers on the table in response. Had Jeremy thought he would be less than generous? He still might be, if his friend gaped at him in such surprise. After all, if he did not expect that kind of boon, then Lord Voldemort did not have to give it.

But it seemed Jeremy was only thinking of what he might use the boon for, because he murmured, “Anything? You mean it?”

“I will not die for you,” Lord Voldemort said at once. He could think of enemies who would name that as their boon, of one in particular who was both twisted and clever enough to perform a service for him and then ask that.

Jeremy uttered a shaky laugh and stood. “I would never ask that of you. In fact, I’m going to ask the opposite.”

“Oh?” Lord Voldemort laid the ring down to focus on his one companion, the one who had followed him for friendship and the thought of helping him achieve his dreams rather than the dreams Lord Voldemort might try to help him achieve. “What does that mean?”

“I’d rather tell you outside. Can we? Inside is too stuffy.”

They were in a fine room at Malfoy Manor, one done in the height of pureblood fashion with delicately rose-colored marble walls and long mirrors in between the landscape paintings. But it was true that Jeremy’s family had grown up with lost wealth thanks to being sued by some Mudblood and unwise investments. Lord Voldemort nodded and stood.

Jeremy was silent on the way out of the house, despite Lord Voldemort’s efforts to tell him how pleased he was. In fact, he was silent until they walked into the small forest that surrounded the Malfoy property, made of rowan and ash trees that would look splendid in the spring but now dripped with rain and ancient leaves.

Lord Voldemort expected that at any moment they would halt and Jeremy would ask his boon. But Jeremy kept restlessly walking, as if he was seeking some place he would know only when he saw it, until they reached a wet green clearing overrun with moss.

Jeremy turned to face Lord Voldemort and abruptly fell to his knees, burying his face in the moss. Lord Voldemort watched impassively. There were no likely objects nearby to Transfigure into a throne.

“Please,” Jeremy said. “The only thing I ask of you is that you live.”

Lord Voldemort laughed in delight to find the desire of his friend’s heart so easy to fulfill. “Of course I shall. You know more about the path I have walked towards true immortality than any other wizard alive. I assure you that I shall use the trinkets you brought me to safeguard my life even further.”

“Not that.” Jeremy sat up and stared him in the eye. “Before today, when was the last time you laughed?”

Lord Voldemort thought carefully back. The question hung in the air like a cloud promising rain, although he could not tell why it so concerned Jeremy. “It was the day that we heard the Averys had decided to support us despite the death of Jason.”

Jeremy nodded. “But that was almost a year ago. And before that? I can’t remember the last time I heard you laugh.” His words were racing and spluttering now, his eyes wide. “I need you to be able to do the ordinary things. To laugh, live, rejoice in something other than the gathering of power.”

Lord Voldemort considered him. Now and then he had followers who declared their romantic feelings for him, but he had never thought Jeremy would do so. It wasn’t in his nature. “You wish me to date you?”

“Ugh, no!”

Lord Voldemort laughed again. That sentence matched the sentiment within him. “Then what is it? What exactly do you want me to promise you?”

Jeremy hesitated one more time, as if he wanted to plan the exact right words. Lord Voldemort well understood that impulse; it was the same one he had when recruiting followers. And Jeremy was dear to him. So he waited.

“I want you to stop making Horcruxes. And reabsorb the ones that you’ve made.”

Lord Voldemort remained still, but that was because of the roaring chaos that had opened inside him, a maelstrom of emotions so intense that he could not have moved. Jeremy seemed to think the response was encouraging, and continued in a slightly stronger tone.

“It’s making you less human, my lord. It means you don’t laugh, you don’t smile, and your emotions grow more volatile, but only aimed in certain directions. Like fear and torture and rage. I’m afraid for you. Not of you, never of you. But I’m afraid what you’re going to turn into if you keep going like this.”

“And of course,” Lord Voldemort said, his voice sounding high in his own ears and far away, “you would be the one to make the decision about the proper limits of my immortality.”

“You can find some other method of immortality. I know you, Tom. You’re brilliant. You can find one that costs less than that. You found this one and made your first Horcrux when you were sixteen. You can figure out something else now that you’re more than twice that age.”

The sharp drop inside him was as if he had fallen from a Muggle aeroplane. Lord Voldemort drew his wand in what felt like a dream. But he halted himself before he could cast the Cruciatus Curse.

No. He could not curse someone who was his oldest and dearest friend. He could not. He thought. He wavered back and forth for a moment. He did not want to do this. But his friend was suggesting he give up his Horcruxes.

He couldn’t do it. He had to. He could not stop being immortal.

“The Horcruxes are the best method of immortality,” said Lord Voldemort at last. He was proud of his voice. He did not scream. He did not yell. He had already seen that he barely persuaded his followers when he did that, no matter how satisfying it was to a part of him that had always stayed in the orphanage. He sounded calm.

Jeremy sat back on his heels and met his eyes directly. Lord Voldemort’s hand twitched. It wasn’t the seeming act of defiance that did it; it would never be defiance from a friend so dear. No, it was the damnable fact that Jeremy’s eyes were full of hope.

“You don’t need to do this,” Jeremy breathed. “I promise you don’t need to, Tom. You can find something else, something that will leave you your humanity—”

“What makes you think that I want to be human?”

“Because to be human is to be the kind of lord you want to be.” Jeremy now looked as he had when they were Slytherin students in Hogwarts together and he had been working on a difficult Arithmancy problem, never his best subject. “You need to remain in contact with human emotions so that you can persuade people to join us. And you need to remember what joy is like so you can feel it when you’ve achieved everything you wanted.”

It was a more cogent argument than Lord Voldemort had expected, and part of him wavered.

But only part of him. Because the rest of him was snarling in diseased satisfaction. He had known, deep down inside his mind, which meant more to him than his soul, that Jeremy’s pretense of friendship was only that. No one could really reach out to him and mean it. Jeremy had only pretended, and well, until it was time to try and deprive Lord Voldemort of what he wanted most.

“You are the best actor I have ever known,” Lord Voldemort said, because he could offer praise when it was due.

“What?”

Jeremy's eyes had jerked up, his whole head had jerked up, and his attention was fixed on Lord Voldemort. Lord Voldemort smiled at him almost tenderly and spun his wand between his fingers. His wand was the only loyal friend he had. It had never betrayed him since the day it chose him. Yew, symbol of resurrection, tree that lived and was immortal. Lord Voldemort should have listened to the lesson of the wand long ago.

Yew trees did not depend on other trees to grow. They achieved their goals slowly, through long decades. Of course he could not depend on another human.

"The way you acted out the pretense of being my friend," Lord Voldemort said, slowly, luxuriously. He could feel the darkness spreading out of his soul, and he knew that he had long distrusted Jeremy in part of himself. He hadn't wanted to believe his own intuitions, but this was not exactly a surprise. "I have to say that you are an excellent actor."

"I was always your friend!"

"Not if you want me to be mortal. Not if you want me to die."

Lord Voldemort almost sang the last word, as snarling and malice clawed its way up from inside his chest, and then he swung the wand. The spell was there without his speaking it, as if all the words he needed had been taken up by what he'd said to Jeremy. The pain curse, not the Cruciatus but not one much milder, took Jeremy by the limbs and sprawled him across the ground. He opened his mouth and tried to scream.

He could not. Lord Voldemort found that appropriate. If he couldn't speak, then he couldn't lie.

Lord Voldemort lifted the spell at last, when his superior senses told him that Jeremy's heart was on the verge of rupturing. Then he knelt down next to the man who had schemed to be his friend and smiled at him tenderly. Jeremy turned his head and looked at him with bloodshot eyes.

"This still isn't you," Jeremy managed to breathe. "You still have the chance to be mortal. The lord we deserve."

Lord Voldemort sighed at the thought that Jeremy still thought Lord Voldemort didn't understand his treachery. "The man you could supplant. the man you could destroy. It is all right, Jeremy. I have seen to the bottom of your plans, and I forgive you." And he truly thought he could. They could move forwards from this moment, as long as Jeremy never again pretended to be anything but one of his followers. As long as he said nothing else about wanting Lord Voldemort to give up the instruments of his immortality that he alone had been clever enough to devise.

"I don't want to destroy you."

Lord Voldemort lifted an eyebrow and laughed a little. "Then I suppose you would have me believe that you were trying to strengthen me?"

"I--I was. I care for you greatly, Tom. Please. Understand me. Give up the mortality so that you can be the man who's my friend."

"Even now you persist in these lies!" Lord Voldemort hissed, though he knew from the blankness in Jeremy's gaze that he could not understand him. He stepped back, shaking. He had thought that he might welcome the chastened traitor back into the fold, that he might say that Jeremy had learned his lesson and was a loyal follower once more.

He had learned much of his own foolishness today. Jeremy had taught him that. He could not welcome someone back into the fold who did not wish to belong there, and once a traitor, always a traitor.

"I think I understood a little of what you said," Jeremy whispered, and his hand fluttered out to the side, groping like a broken-winged moth. "I'm not lying. You should give up the Horcruxes. You should be mortal again--"

And Lord Voldemort stepped back, and aimed his wand, and there was nothing but singleness of purpose in his voice as he intoned, "Avada Kedavra."

He had not prepared the ritual of the killing as he normally would have, but that did not matter. Not when he had made so many other Horcruxes, not when he had the control to keep the torn shard of his soul fluttering around him in the void until he had the object ready to store it in.

Jeremy was there one moment, and then he was not, sprawled on the ground, his motionless eyes staring at the sky. Lord Voldemort stared at him in turn, and had the notion that he should close the eyes.

He sneered violently and turned away. That notion belonged to the mortal that Jeremy had tried to wrench into existence. The mortal he was not. The man he had left behind when he became an immortal being, a force of magic, instead.

He straightened up and went back to the manor house, striding along with his ring in his hand and the piece of soul that would make the Horcrux-to-be fluttering around him in the void, content to know that he was less human than ever.

*

Harry listened to the story Voldemort told, his words sometimes stumbling. Sometimes he went backwards and said things he'd already said, and he hesitated a long moment before the end, as if he thought Harry would turn away from him in the moment of the murder. But Harry had heard far worse things than that.

When he thought he'd received the whole story, he reached out and tightened his hand around Voldemort's Voldemort's long fingers reached out and writhed around his and held them.

"That explains a lot," Harry said quietly. "But it also sounds as though absorbing the ring Horcrux might be easier than the others, because you partially regretted killing Jeremy even at the time."

"I would have--to face the other emotions that I experienced at the time," Voldemort said in a low voice. Harry was about to ask why that was so different from absorbing the other Horcruxes, when he added, "The fact that I thought he was lying to me, and he was telling the truth. I would have to admit he was right."

Harry held back a smile. He could understand, now, how much that hurt Voldemort to admit. Hadn't he just gone through his own revelation about something he'd always believed to be true, and then it hadn't turned out to be true at all?

"You will help me."

Harry looked into his eyes and ignored the desperate tightness of Voldemort's fingers. "Help you do what?"

"Go through the process."

He does want to give up the ring Horcrux, and face his memories, and learn how to be human.

Faced with all that, there was only one answer Harry could give, although he dipped his head a little and spoke softly when he said it. "Yes."

And Voldemort smiled the way he might have smiled that afternoon long ago, before the murder, when Jeremy was still alive.