[Songs of Summer]: Frazil, sequel to Rotten Ice, R, Harry/Voldemort, 4/4

[lomonaaeren]

Thank you again for all the reviews! At some point, I will add a third part to this story, perhaps during my next seasonal arc of stories.

Part Four

“How are you finding it, holding his mind?”

“It’s more difficult than I suspected,” Harry has to admit. He stepped through the front door of Grimmauld Place with Sirius right behind him and Apparated holding his godfather’s arm. It was as simple as that. But they stand in a sitting room of Voldemort’s manor now, and adrenaline is no longer hiding the strain playing through Harry’s mind. “I can feel it like a weight that someone is slowly adding more weight to, bit by bit.”

“Yes, that is a common experience,” Voldemort says, and paces for a moment around Sirius. He’s standing in the middle of the room, staring straight ahead. Voldemort cocks his head. “What commands have you given him?”

“So far just to follow me and stay silent, my lord.”

“Try something more complicated.”

Harry wants to ask what he should do, but he does know that Death Eaters have to take initiative at times, or they would be useless to their lord. He nods and faces Sirius, his brain whirling for a moment before locking onto something that will benefit him.

And maybe be a stronger demonstration of his skill, as well. One thing Harry has learned in his weeks of practice with the Imperius Curse is that it’s much harder to make someone do something they violently don’t want to do than just command them to perform neutral tasks, like he has with Sirius so far.

“Tell me the truth,” he says. Speaking English feels almost unnatural now, but Sirius won’t understand otherwise. “Tell me why you pulled away from me and let James dictate your actions.”

Sirius’s eyes widen, and his hands fly to his throat. Harry concentrates and forces them down, forces pleasure through Sirius’s mind. It’s hard when he hates someone as much as he hates James and all of James’s friends now, but he has to.

My lord is watching me.

“It’s—not—no—”

“I’m not interested in your excuses,” Harry hisses, almost dropping into Parseltongue again. He reins himself in sharply. “I want to know why you didn’t tell James that he was being a shitty father and maintain contact with me anyway.”

The more he pours his own will on top of Sirius’s, like water wearing down a stone, the more Sirius’s mind gives way before his. Harry’s lip trembles, and he snarls, but then he seems to pass an inner barrier and break it, and Sirius begins to babble.

“We all knew something was wrong with you, but not what. Albus just said it was a connection to You-Know-Who, but he didn’t know what it was and we didn’t know how to fix it.” Sirius sniffles then, until Harry wields the Imperius like a whip and again drives him on. “But we couldn’t chance that you would overhear us talking about the war and try to pass the information on. Or even just do it unwittingly. Or get captured by him and get your mind read. We knew you were going to die early on. That was just the way it was. You could be manipulated or someone would use you as leverage to get to James even if You-Know-Who never came back. That was the way it was.” Sirius sounds pleading now, but Harry doesn’t care. “They were my best friends, James and Remus, and Wormtail until he betrayed us. I had to stand with them. Otherwise, I would have been out in the cold, and where would I go when I had no other friends and no family?”

Harry curls his lip. “Why didn’t you have any other friends?” He’s at least interested in that part, and Voldemort, watching with a still face and blazing eyes, doesn’t seem inclined to stop him right now.

“Because—because we were all in all to each other. Because we played pranks on everyone else. Because Lily was dead.” Sirius tosses back his head and laughs wildly, although Harry certainly hasn’t commanded him to do that. “She would have hated this. She would have hated everyone!”

Maybe Harry, too, that probably means. Harry finds himself shrugging. He doesn’t hate his mother, but if she was going to influence events, she should have remained alive.

“And your family?”

“I turned my back on them when I ran away to live with James.” Sirius sounds absurdly proud of it even as the words spill out of him like water. “Got burned off the tapestry. Only found out that I wasn’t formally disowned when my mother died.”

“Ask him about his brother,” Voldemort murmurs.

Harry could control Sirius so that he would obey Voldemort as easily as he now obeys Harry, but his mind is bucking and tumbling under Harry’s control, and he knows that Voldemort wants to see how well Harry can maintain his so-far effortless drawing of Sirius’s will through this imaginary ring he has him in. “What about your brother?”

“Regulus? He died a Death Eater. I don’t know what happened to him. All that I know is that his death date appeared on the tapestry and our horrible house-elf came back wailing that he’d died.”

Voldemort snaps upright. Harry turns to stare at him. There’s an aura of menace spreading around Harry’s lord that makes all the lights in the sitting room flicker dimly, and Sirius cower and whimper.

“The elf?” Voldemort whispers in a curl of Parseltongue that makes Harry long to sink to his knees. “But it should have died.”

Harry doesn’t need explicit instructions for everything his lord wants him to do. He turns back to Sirius and bears down with his will again. “What was the elf’s name? Why did it come to tell you that Regulus was dead?”

“Kreacher,” Sirius says. There’s a swell of hatred in his mind for the elf that challenges Harry’s own hatred, and Harry has to shake the reins of his will and bear down until Sirius’s jaw opens again. “He was devoted to Regulus and to my horrible mother. Never did what I wanted. I ordered him to leave me alone when I inherited Grimmauld Place.”

“Why did it come to tell him Regulus was dead?”

“Why was Kreacher the one to tell you what happened?”

“Regulus vanished. Just vanished. Some kind of bloody Death Eater mission, I’m sure. He was always devoted to licking You-Know-Who’s feet.”

Sirius cowers again as Voldemort’s magic once more extends throughout the room. Harry keeps a careful eye on his lord. Voldemort makes him cautious, but doesn’t frighten him, now. Harry knows he’s special. Harry knows he’s treasured.

He knows that no matter what Voldemort is finding disturbing in Sirius’s recitation of Regulus’s death, Harry will help him find out what really happened.

“Tell him to call the elf.”

“Call your elf,” Harry says, and then finds himself engaged in a brief but intense battle that rages throughout most of Sirius’s mind. Sirius hates the elf so much that he doesn’t care about Kreacher getting killed, but he doesn’t want to be near what his thoughts shriek is a filthy beast and a prejudiced bastard.

But in the end, Harry wins, because his hatred and his rage are older and deeper and stronger. Sirius cracks his jaws and calls, “Kreacher!”

There’s a sharp crack, and a house-elf who is indeed filthy appears in the room beside them. He wears only a tattered, dirty loincloth, and he looks half-mad, his eyes rolling back and forth, muttering to himself.

Not mad enough not to try and escape when he sees Voldemort, though. His eyes bug out further, he squeals, and Harry can feel his magic coiling up and around, getting ready to remove him—

Voldemort anticipates it, somehow. His magic shoots out and clamps around the elf, and in seconds, although Kreacher can still move, he can’t pop out.

Harry is fascinated. He has no idea how elves like Katsy move around the manor, and he has no idea how you would stop one from doing whatever it wanted. But Voldemort can do that, somehow.

He’s amazing. Brilliant and powerful and—

Harry cuts his own thoughts off as Voldemort takes a single long stride forwards and whispers, “Tell me how your master died, elf.”

“Master Sirius is standing right here,” Kreacher mutters. His fingers are twitching desperately, and Harry wonders if that’s some means of trying to call his magic and escape. “Horrible Master, filthy son of my esteemed mistress, my—”

“I wish you to tell me about Regulus.”

Kreacher jerks and looks horrified. Harry watches closely. He wants to someday inspire fear the way Voldemort does, with his mere presence. Of course he won’t aspire to outshine his lord, but surely his lord could use some help, sometimes?

“Master Regulus is being dead!”

“Tell me how he died.”

Kreacher is twisting and shaking all over. Harry watches him, but he doesn’t think the elf is actually going to succumb to a seizure. It’s likely that he’ll just start shrieking and screaming again in a minute.

“Legilimens.”

Harry starts, but then reaffirms his control over Sirius’s mind. The spell isn’t aimed at him or Sirius. It’s aimed straight at the twisted elf in front of him, who starts to scream even before Voldemort probably gets all the way inside Kreacher’s mind.

Voldemort doesn’t seem bothered by the screaming. Whatever he’s digging for in Kreacher’s thoughts, he soon finds it, and pulls back with a roar. Harry barely manages to make himself stand upright. Once again, Voldemort isn’t aiming his anger at Harry.

“Go and get it! Go and get it!”

“No! No!” Kreacher is actually shaking wildly now, closing his hands into fists and waving them around as he shouts at Voldemort. Harry feels his eyebrows rise. No one can say that Kreacher isn’t courageous. “Kreacher was to destroy it, on Master Regulus’s final order! Kreacher not be disobeying Master Regulus’s final order!”

Harry cocks his head. He wonders about something. Yes, Regulus commanded Kreacher to do—something—and Kreacher is obviously loyal to him, but he still had to come here even though he hated Sirius.

Harry exerts sharper control over Sirius and whispers the order directly into his mind via the Imperius Curse, just in case hearing it aloud before it happens will give Kreacher the strength to resist.

Command him to obey Voldemort.

This time, Sirius’s mind bucks only once before falling into compliance. Controlling him is easier the more Harry does it. He could even see it being addictive. He smiles as Sirius opens his mouth and shapes the words.

“You’re to obey every order Voldemort gives, Kreacher.”

“No! No!”

Hmm, Harry thinks, and tightens his grip on Sirius’s mind again. A bit more is needed.

“Yes. This is my will. I command you to obey Voldemort before every other master for the rest of your life. That includes Regulus. You will do whatever he says and not talk back to him. You will not attempt to escape. You will not lie to him.”

Kreacher keeps screaming, but the moment Voldemort says, “Shut up,” he does. His eyes are bulging and streaming water now, and he keeps tugging on his ears. Harry watches without much pity. Kreacher might have been someone also mistreated by Sirius, but he never tried to help Harry or anything like it.

“Go and fetch the locket and return straight here,” Voldemort says. “Do not stop and talk to anyone else or try to inform them what is going on by other means.”

He releases the control he has over Kreacher’s Apparition, and Kreacher vanishes with a sound like a cracking whip. Harry keeps his mouth and Sirius’s both shut. Part of him doubts the wisdom of this, but it isn’t his place to question his lord.

Besides, Voldemort is doing this because he trusts Harry, and Harry’s plan of getting Sirius to command Kreacher. It would be beyond stupid to question this now, and make himself look incompetent.

Kreacher pops back in before Harry can start wondering if he’s managed to disobey. His hands are wrapped around the chain of a massive gold locket with what seems to be a slash of emeralds on the front, and he’s weeping bitterly.

Harry snorts. I never even got to shed tears. Everyone just said I was unreasonable when I did.

Voldemort takes the locket from Kreacher and gives a long sigh, spinning it on its chain as he stares at it. Harry is suddenly and absolutely sure that this locket is a Horcrux.

He has no idea how Regulus got hold of it, or why he would give it to Kreacher of all people, but Harry knows the truth.

“You will keep this for me,” Voldemort says, and holds out the locket to Harry. “It would corrupt an ordinary person and exaggerate their temper, but you are my Horcrux as well and your intentions are perfectly aligned with mine. You will wear it and defend it with your life.”

Harry nearly stops breathing. Voldemort lost the locket once before. It was just in someone else’s possession. And now he’s willing to trust it to Harry?

Voldemort’s eyes shine as he drops the locket into Harry’s hand. “I want you to keep it for me.”

Harry nods, his throat dry, and then reaches up and loops the chain around his throat. Voldemort watches him the whole time as if—

As if Harry is putting on a ring at a wedding.

Harry can’t help the tide of crimson sweeping up his face as his mind catches up with what he was thinking. Voldemort laughs softly, a hint of a forked tongue darting out of his mouth for a moment, and then turns and looks at Sirius.

“Come. I will tell you what I want you to command him to do.”

Harry nods and bends his will to once more controlling Sirius carefully, delicately. He will do nothing to damage Voldemort’s trust in him.

*

Voldemort sighs as he reaches out and runs his fingers down the edge of Hufflepuff’s cup. He asked Bella to retrieve it from her vault, mostly so that he might behold it once more and make sure it was in the right place. The locket being stolen…

Voldemort shakes his head. He never would have known that the elf survived and managed to reveal the locket’s hiding place to its master, or that Regulus decided to go and get the real one, or that the real one was at the Blacks’ family home of all places, if not for Harry. He had Harry ask Black about Regulus merely because he did not know Regulus’s fate himself and thought Black might.

Harry is a wonder.

He now has four Horcruxes with him, and plans to retrieve the ring soon. The diary was destroyed thanks to Lucius’s foolishness in exposing it to Dumbledore, and he cannot easily enter Hogwarts to reach the diadem. On the other hand, there truly is no sign that Dumbledore is aware of Horcruxes, or he would have recognized what Harry was more easily.

Voldemort touches the cup once more, and then stands and steps out of the hidden alcove behind his own bedroom where he is keeping it. The wall shifts into being behind him, stones springing up from nothingness to hide any sign that there is another space there.

He does what he does most often these days when he is not dealing with conflicts among the Death Eaters or attempts to recruit more followers: he goes seeking his new favorite Horcrux.

He expects to find Harry dueling with Bella or Evan, or perhaps drilling in magical theory that Bella thinks (and Voldemort agrees) he should learn. But his sense of the link between them leads to the uppermost floor of the manor, where Harry is sitting with his back to Voldemort on a large window seat. He’s speaking seriously to Katsy.

Voldemort lifts his eyebrows and stops. Harry hasn’t sensed him, and Voldemort is curious what he could have to speak to a house-elf about.

“—wards of some kind?”

“It has never been necessary,” says Katsy with a slight frown. Her legs are propped up in front of her, and she peers over her knees at Harry with some doubt.

“But just in case,” Harry says, and leans forwards. “I’m not worried about someone using the Imperius Curse on our lord, believe me. I know he could resist it. But what if they used it on you and made you betray him? Just to make sure, will you ask him about warding you against it?”

Voldemort does not hear Katsy’s response. His blood is roaring in his ears like the tide.

Even after the debacle with Regulus’s elf, he did not think of how house-elves might betray him. He looked at a source of danger and glanced away. And it is a weakness he did not even notice.

Harry noticed it. Harry is trying to defend him, even if he has absolute trust in Voldemort’s competence to resist the Imperius Curse at the same time.

That is it. I want him, now.

Voldemort takes a step forwards. Katsy doesn’t move, but Harry turns towards him with a slight gasp. “My lord,” he says, bowing his head.

“Harry.”

The hiss that emerges from his throat doesn’t sound human. Most of the time, Voldemort would not care about that, but he does worry for a moment that it might drive Harry away.

Harry, though, looks up with wide eyes, and wider pupils. “Yes, my lord?”

Voldemort doesn’t hesitate, even to remind himself that Harry is a virgin. This is the way that he is. He takes, and Harry will give, he is certain. He lunges forwards and pins Harry against the wall behind the window seat. Harry shudders.

Voldemort kisses him, without lips, with a scrape of tongue, and then teeth. Harry jumps in his arms, but kisses back.

Voldemort doesn’t even need Legilimency at the moment to read Harry’s mind. The thoughts tumble past him, full of glory and desire and wonder. I want him, he wants me, being wanted is wonderful, I thought he wouldn’t want me like this but I was wrong, I want him, I want him, I want him…

Voldemort snarls and kisses harder. Harry doesn’t just want him for his power or to improve his standing in the Death Eaters, the way so many of Voldemort’s followers would. He wants Voldemort.

Voldemort will make sure Harry has him.

*

Harry doesn’t remember traveling through the corridors. He knows they’ve reached a room, and from the size and the huge white bed they’re on with carved serpents coiling up the wooden posts, it must be Voldemort’s room. But he can’t remember anything except the kisses and the heated thoughts that entwined with his own like snakes.

Does it matter? They’re here now.

Voldemort has dropped his robes and now looms above Harry, all pale white like marble and shining red eyes. Harry reaches out to him fearlessly. Voldemort rent Harry’s robes already with one long nail.

How can Harry be afraid, no matter what happens next, when he’s part of Voldemort? When he carries two Horcruxes? When Voldemort stares into his eyes while caressing the glittering locket around Harry’s neck?

This is what he wants. This is something he sees now as what was coming from the moment he knelt before Voldemort.

This time, Voldemort is the one who kneels, one knee on the bed and one between Harry’s legs. Harry arches against it, suddenly aware of every drop of sweat on his body, every bone beneath his skin.

Voldemort remains motionless, staring at him. Harry is the one who has to open his legs wider, crowd closer, and rub himself off against the Dark Lord.

Harry feels as if his face is on fire. He can’t take his eyes from Voldemort, and he can’t speak, and he can’t stop.

Voldemort’s leg is all bone and coldness, the skin that sheathes it as chilled as marble. Harry stares, and keeps meeting the stare, and he rubs, and he comes.

The pleasure is such a shock that he half-shouts, garbled Parseltongue, and then Voldemort leans forwards and hisses soundlessly as he empties himself all over Harry’s stomach and groin. Harry thinks, with the part of him that can still think anything at all, that Voldemort came because he watched Harry come.

It’s the most powerful thing that Harry’s ever felt.

He reaches out and slides his finger down Voldemort’s knee, and Voldemort turns his head and hisses in Harry’s ear, “I want you drowning in my come.”

Harry, in a new world that has broken open and hatched him like a serpent from an egg, smiles and lifts his legs. “Why not now?” he says, and Voldemort hisses again and moves forwards.

*

“James!”

James looks up and blinks. Sirius is standing in front of him, eyes half-wild. His hands are clenched on his robes as though he intends to tear them into pieces. James feels a bubble of interest move under the surface of his desolation.

Maybe he should stop crying about Harry, he thinks. He’s an Auror. He’s the Man-Who-Conquered. He has to protect the world. And Harry was corrupted and lost to James so very long ago, on the night Voldemort came to kill Lily.

“Whazzit, Padfoot?”

Sirius wrinkles his nose and lets go of his robes long enough to cast a Sobering Charm. James gasps a little as full consciousness rushes back in. Then he blushes. His robes and his hair stink. He can’t even remember the last time he had a shower. Or a Refreshing Charm, for that matter.

“Good,” Sirius says, tucking his wand away. “Now pay attention. I think I know a way we can get Harry back from Voldemort.”

James smiles, a little impressed that Sirius is saying Voldemort’s name. Normally, he doesn’t. “All right. What is it?”

“Have you thought about the idea that he might be acting under compulsions, even if it’s not some form of the Imperius Curse?”

James feels his hear leap into his throat. No, he didn’t think of that, and he should have. After all, compulsions are something that Albus has had some of the Defense professors teach the students, specifically how to resist them.

Maybe that should have made Harry better at resisting Voldemort, but Harry’s never been the strongest wizard. And it’s true that compulsions don’t leave the same kind of physical trace that the Imperius Curse does.

“You think…?” James breathes.

Sirius nods fervently. “It’s at least a possibility, right? And I think I know the perfect way to see. What if I reach out to Harry, pretend to agree with him? Pretend that my past as a Black is catching up with me and I’m sympathetic to him and can see some reasons for him turning to the Dark? If we make Voldemort think he’s getting a new recruit, then he might let Harry come close enough for us to remove the compulsions.”

James would have laughed at the idea that Sirius is a good enough actor to fool Voldemort, but what Sirius is saying about his family makes James nod slowly. There are people who would believe that Sirius is Dark enough to be interested in joining Voldemort, or at least hearing his godson out. And the compulsions make Harry hate James enough that asking Harry to come to him isn’t an option.

Harry never really knew Albus, Remus was distant from him and is too vocally opposed to Voldemort, and James wouldn’t risk Elinor or the kids. This stands the best chance of working.

“Do you really think he’s under compulsions, though?” James has to ask. “He seemed pretty willing to curse everything he should stand for during that parley.”

“Which a compulsion would make him do,” Sirius points out. “And if he really believed in Voldemort’s side, why only start stating things like that after he was captured? Hell, why not join him last year or the minute he turned seventeen? The Dark Wanker’s been back for years.”

James nods, once and then again. Maybe he has too much hope, but the worst thing that would happen is they lure Harry close, cast the anti-compulsion charms on him, find nothing, and are then able to give him the merciful death he won’t have otherwise.

“Yes, Sirius. Let’s do it.”

Sirius grins at him. “Let’s show Voldemort what for!”

“Since when do you call him Voldemort?”

Sirius seems to freeze for a second, and then coughs and rubs the back of his neck. “Well…it seems a little silly to be afraid of a name when my godson’s been captured and is probably being compelled against his best interests. The reality is so much worse than Voldemort’s name, you know?”

James laughs. At least Harry’s capture has taught Sirius the meaning of courage. That’s one good thing to come from it. “Let’s do it!”

*

That was close, Harry scolds himself as he drifts in the back of Sirius’s mind and listens to James’s words. I should have remembered that Sirius usually calls him You-Know-Who.

But at least he made up for the slip, and James doesn’t seem to suspect anything. Harry relaxes and listens to the man who was once his father natter on about plans, before silently commanding Sirius to agree enthusiastically with everything James says and report back to him that evening.

Voldemort looms over him. They’re still in the large white bed, and his hand rests above Harry’s heart, sharp nails turned as if he plans to scoop it out of Harry’s chest.

Harry meets his gaze fearlessly, and feels Voldemort take the information about Sirius from his mind. Voldemort chuckles.

“Yes, it is the best plan to lure Potter close and away from his protectors.” Voldemort leans nearer still. “And you do not find the task of controlling Black so hard now.”

“No. It gets easier with practice, my lord. You were right.”

“I am always right.”

“You are,” Harry says, and watches Voldemort’s eyes darken. His lord moves towards him again.

“Let me prove that upon your skin,” Voldemort hisses.

Harry tosses his head back and surrenders, more than willingly, to the man who found him, took him, valued him.

And is about to take him again.

*

Deep in his mind, locked behind walls of obedience and the whispering voice that forces him to betray his best friend, Sirius Black screams.

The End.