lomonaaeren

Thank you for all the reviews! I’ve increased this story’s length to three chapters, as I decided on a plot turn I hadn’t originally planned.

Part Two

“Harry! What did he say?”

Harry gave Hermione what was probably the most difficult smile of his life. She had started to her feet and moved forwards from behind a tree when she saw him. She’d Apparated him to just outside the gates of Malfoy Manor, and Harry thought maybe the bravest thing she’d ever done was letting him go in by himself.

“He agreed.”

Hermione clapped a hand to her mouth, her eyes wide. It took a long moment, but then they filled with tears. She collapsed forwards into his arms and cried.

Harry held her, stroking her hair. He and Voldemort still had to work out some of the negotiations, but the one thing Harry had insisted on right away was mercy and a pardon for Hermione. Voldemort had agreed in a way that made Harry think he had never really been afraid of her.

He would have killed her because she’s Muggleborn and important to me, but he doesn’t hate her outside of that.

Other things were going to be harder, and Harry knew it. Probably getting mercy for the whole Weasley family would be harder, for instance, since Voldemort was staying in Malfoy Manor and they had fought the Malfoys. But it didn’t matter. He wouldn’t let it matter. He would get some of what he had wanted.

And as for the price he would need to pay himself…

It was going to be paid. That was the only important thing he needed to think about right now.

*

“Harry Potter stands beside me today as my betrothed.”

Harry shivered a little, and not because of the lack of fireplaces nearby. He wore thick, rich robes, red ornamented with silver, and lined with white fur Harry hadn’t wanted to ask the origins of. He felt like a Christmas ornament.

But that was part of the role he was bound to play now. He was ornamental, decorative for the public. In some ways, it was a relief to have something so many people had assumed acknowledged in reality now.

There was still the coldness in Voldemort’s voice, though, and in the fingers that gripped Harry’s elbow as they stood at the podium in the center of the Ministry’s Atrium. There was a huge crowd in front of them, all gaping at Voldemort and Harry, some of them shivering in turn. And some of them shook in rage, staring at Harry.

Harry made himself meet their eyes and say nothing. His guilt would eat him alive if he let it, but for now, he’d locked it in a cage deep in his mind. He kept reminding himself that these people had let him fight alone and said nothing. He didn’t even remember them standing up to object to what was happening at the Ministry.

Because they would have disappeared if they had.

But if they had such strong beliefs, they should have fought for them. Harry turned back to Voldemort as he heard his betrothed wrapping up his own part of the speech. It would be Harry’s chance to speak in a second.

“And now my intended would like to say a few words.”

Voldemort turned towards Harry with his lipless smile and a wide gesture of one hand. It was the first time he’d released Harry’s elbow since they Flooed in. Harry moved up to speak into the crystal infused with a Sonorus Charm at the top of the podium, taking his own deep breath.

“Thank you for listening to us,” Harry told the crowd. They had remained silent while Voldemort spoke, but now they shifted back and forth, and a muttering started up. Harry ignored it. “As my betrothed has said, we have made this arrangement for the sake of peace. Too many of our people are dying and being forced out of the magical world. Too many Ministry bureaucrats have seized on the chaos of war to enrich themselves and grasp power that they should not have.” He and Voldemort had agreed that was the reasoning they would use for people like Umbridge. “We must make sure that are stronger in the future, more united. The union of two sides of the war—”

“How could you? You betrayed us!”

Harry flinched. That was Arthur Weasley, standing in the middle of a rapidly scurrying-away group of people with betrayal in his eyes.

Voldemort’s hand brushed the small of his back, like having a bucket of ice dropped down his robes. They had discussed what would happen if something like this came up, and Harry had to be prepared.

He just hadn’t known it would be Arthur. Someone who had fought with the Order of the Phoenix, believed in the rights of Muggleborns, sheltered Harry in his home.

Someone whose life you saved. Someone who wasn’t out here fighting openly, either.

“How could you?” Harry snapped, and had the petty satisfaction of seeing Arthur’s eyes widen in surprise. “Send a child to do your dirty work? Tell me that I had to fight a war alone? I haven’t seen anyone else volunteering to duel the Dark Lord, the way I’ve done already!”

Arthur looked stunned. Harry felt another pulse of guilt, because what he was saying wasn’t entirely fair, the way it would have been if it had been someone like a Hufflepuff at school asking the question.

But in a way, it was good that it was Arthur. It meant that he didn’t respond quickly because he probably felt guilty, and that shut up some other people who might have complained.

I hate thinking this way.

But he would hate seeing people be murdered and tortured more, so Harry bore straight ahead. “I’ve taken care of it. We’ve taken care of it,” he corrected himself, as he felt Voldemort’s cold hand on his back. “There won’t be any more deaths, unless someone opposes the Dark Lord’s new regime.”

“And yours?”

Harry stifled a groan as Rita Skeeter pushed her way to the front of the crowd. She didn’t look as terrified of Voldemort as everyone else. She was practically bouncing on her toes as she smiled at him. “You’re to be his husband, correct, Harry? What will your title be? Consort? Second Dark Lord? Prince of the Darkness? Will you change your name? What—”

“These questions are inappropriate.”

At least Skeeter had sense enough to shut up right away when Voldemort spoke. Harry turned a little to look at Voldemort, and his—betrothed looked back at him, red eyes glittering. He was probably getting all sorts of things from Harry’s head that Harry wasn’t aware of it, but wasn’t that always the way of it?

“You will address my husband as Mr. Potter until we are married,” Voldemort said, every word like a steel bar clanging on the floor. “And then we will decide on our new last name together. Without your input, Ms. Skeeter.”

Skeeter nodded hastily and backed away, giving little bobs that were probably the short nervous version of bows. Voldemort, meanwhile, straightened up and turned a languid gaze around at the people in the Atrium.

“Does anyone else have any more questions to ask about my husband?”

This time, there was silence. Harry sighed soundlessly. At least it seemed like no one was going to die today.

“Good,” Voldemort said, and directed a smile around the room that looked bloody for all that he didn’t literally have blood on his teeth. “You are all, of course, invited to the wedding.”

And he took Harry’s hand and led him back to the Floos. Harry went with him, ignoring the way that people had broken into whispers.

Their first public appearance was over.

*

“It’s fake.”

Harry glanced up from the long list of conditions he was revising, because Voldemort apparently needed everything Harry wanted from him put into paragraphs. Bellatrix Lestrange was standing in the doorway of the room Harry had been assigned in Malfoy Manor, and while she looked calm, Harry only had to glance at her clenched, trembling fists to know how she really felt.

She’d been outwardly calm when Voldemort had introduced Harry to his Death Eaters the other night, too. Harry had thought then that he was the only one burning with hatred at the sight of her.

“Go away.”

“It’s fake.” Lestrange’s eyes were suddenly bright with rage, and her wand snapped into her hand. “It’s false! You have enchanted our Lord! You will pay for that!”

Harry got to his feet, but slowly, because Voldemort had told the Death Eaters in explicit terms what would happen if they harmed Harry. Voldemort would probably assume that Harry distrusted him if Harry defended himself without being attacked. “Listen, Lestrange—”

“Crucio!”

Harry dived and rolled. He heard something shatter, and hoped desperately that it wasn’t the inkwell, leaking all over the contract and meaning he would have to rewrite it from the beginning.

He ducked behind the bed as another spell hit, and sent a frantic pulse of emotion to Voldemort. It seemed he would need help after all.

Lestrange stalked closer, her movements suddenly slow, her voice a low croon. “Come out, widdle Potter, wherever you are.”

Harry gritted his teeth and gripped the floor. He really, really wished that Voldemort had prioritized getting Ollivander back from the place he was holding him so that Harry could have got another wand.

Lestrange spoke a spell that Harry didn’t know, except that it had “Revelio” as part of it, and he assumed she would be able to see him. He moved again, rolling from behind the bed to under the table, and broke off one of the delicate wooden ornaments fastened to the foot of the table. While she was peering over the bed for him, Harry threw the ornament as hard as he could through the open door and sent another pulse of emotion to Voldemort.

Lestrange whirled around when she heard the tiny noise. “Come back here, Potter!” she shouted, and started out into the corridor with her wand raised.

Harry got to his feet, intending to slam the door shut behind her and engage the wards that Voldemort had claimed were there to protect him, but she heard him and turned back in an instant. Harry froze. Her features already seemed lit by the clear green light of the Killing Curse.

“Good-bye, Potter.”

“Bellatrix.”

Voldemort’s voice was so deep with rage that Harry couldn’t actually tell whether the word was in English or Parseltongue. Probably English, though, because Lestrange whirled around and fell to her knees, cowering.

“Master,” she whispered.

“What are you doing here?” Voldemort took one quick glance at Harry, then froze and stared. Harry stared back. Was he bleeding from somewhere? He hadn’t thought so, but he was also so high on adrenaline that he hadn’t been paying attention to much other than pure survival.

“What spell did you cast, Bellatrix?” Voldemort asked, still staring at Harry. So he must be wounded, even though it didn’t feel like it.

“To reveal the Dark Arts that he practices, Master! The Dark magic that clings to him! So that I could see what spell he used to enchant you—”

Voldemort did something with a gesture of his hand that made Lestrange shriek and clutch her left arm. Probably affecting the Dark Mark, then, Harry thought dazedly. He backed up another step and waited with his hands clenched.

“You have been told not to touch my betrothed,” Voldemort said. His voice was strange, bored on the surface, but—tight underneath. Because Lestrange had almost killed Harry? Probably. “I am not enchanted. Or are you such a fool as to believe that your lord, who has gone further down the paths of the Dark than any other, would not recognize such nonsense as a love spell?”

“No, my lord! Forgive me, my lord!”

Harry bit back his nausea. At least this kind of obedience meant the Death Eaters wouldn’t be just going around slaughtering people anymore, if Voldemort told them not to.

“You may go, Bellatrix. If I catch you speaking to Harry again, I will eat your tongue.”

“My lord,” Lestrange gasped, and then Harry heard her get up and run off. He started to heave a sigh of relief, but Voldemort spun around and confronted him. Harry froze again.

“I didn’t do anything to encourage her or anything,” he blurted, while Voldemort stared at him. “She just showed up at my door and started ranting about Dark magic.”

“I know that you did not encourage her,” Voldemort said, in a gentle, caressing tone that made Harry gape at him. Voldemort strolled forwards, his skin seeming lit from within by an inner glow, and reached out to let his fingertips rest on Harry’s forehead. Harry flinched, but there was no pain from his scar. “Do you know what spell she used on you?”

“No, sir. Just that it had Revelio in it.”

Voldemort smiled. Harry stilled, even though what he really wanted was to fling himself out of Voldemort’s hold. There was—something disturbing to that smile, because it wasn’t disturbing. It was tender and fascinated and triumphant. Harry could imagine Voldemort smiling like that at Nagini, but no one else.

“Let me show you,” Voldemort breathed, and turned Harry around to face the mirror along the back wall.

Harry swallowed when he saw the way that his scar was shining. It did have the clear green light of the Killing Curse. It hadn’t been his imagination, after all, that Lestrange’s face was lit by it. “Does that show where Unforgivables have been cast on your something?” he asked, and reached up to touch his scar. Was it a little warmer than it usually was? Maybe.

“Oh, Harry. Harry.”

Voldemort’s was thick, and the way that his hands moved across Harry’s shoulders suddenly felt like the coils of steel snakes. Harry swallowed and said nothing. What was he supposed to say? Was he supposed to say anything?

“That spell,” Voldemort says, leaning forwards to whisper in his ear and make Harry’s breath come short in ways he definitely didn’t want, “shows the presence of Dark magic. I assume Bellatrix cast it because she assumed it would reveal the love spell she was convinced you had placed me under. Instead, it shows the presence of something in your scar that I never guessed was there.”

By this point, Voldemort sounded almost drunk. Harry tried to swallow again, but it felt like it got stuck halfway through. “But—everyone knows that the Killing Curse hit me there.”

Voldemort laughed aloud, a sound that seemed to cut at Harry’s ears like knives. “And the Killing Curse alone would not have left so strong a trace after seventeen years. No, my darling.” Harry did try to jump away then, but Voldemort’s hands were sliding down from his shoulders, linking together over his chest, like a huge necklace. “This shows that you are my Horcrux.”

Harry felt as though someone had hit him over the head. His vision tunneled abruptly, and he swayed. Voldemort nudged a little closer to him, keeping him upright and murmuring a series of Parseltongue endearments that Harry paid no attention to.

A Horcrux. Harry was one. How in the world—

But Voldemort’s soul had to have been incredibly unstable when he went to confront Harry’s mum and dad, and it made sense that he would have wanted to use Harry’s death to make another of the things. Maybe he’d managed when the Killing Curse was reflected back on him. Why couldn’t it work that way? Maybe it wouldn’t, but Harry had no understanding of the magic that made Horcruxes in the first place. Maybe it could. Maybe he was yet another link in the chain that kept Voldemort alive.

He made a rough noise, one that sounded like the beginning of nausea to him. Part of him hoped it would make Voldemort pull away. But Voldemort gathered Harry closer, kissing the back of his neck with lips as cold as worms, and he—

He was crooning over Harry, all in Parseltongue. “It makes sense, my dearest darling, that you speak the language of snakes, that you can feel my emotions. Nagini can, too, and she is the only one of my Horcruxes that is alive.” He paused a moment, and then laughed, a sound that welled through the room and ran down the walls like fire. “I should say, the only other one of my Horcruxes. Oh darling, darling.”

Harry trembled and said nothing. He wondered if anyone had known about this. Dumbledore? Well, probably he had. Maybe he had given Harry all those lessons in Horcruxes, when he could have just told Harry outright about them, because he had hoped that someday Harry would recognize the commonality between himself and Voldemort’s artifacts.

An object. I’m an object. I’m a container—

He didn’t know what he was doing, there was a long blank flash, but Voldemort’s fingers had closed around his wrist and were holding it still. “You are not to damage yourself, darling,” he hissed.

Harry looked into the mirror to see the long scratches across his scar, the blood dripping down his face.

He closed his eyes, because he didn’t want to see it anymore.

“You are for me. Forever.”

Harry shuddered again. He hadn’t thought about being immortal the way Voldemort was. Why would he? The only thing he could have hoped for was that by the time he died of old age, Voldemort would have become used enough to the way things were to keep governing with some kind of rationality. Or take another spouse.

Or that someone would figure out a way to find and destroy the Horcruxes by then.

Now, instead, he was condemned to live as long as the rest of them did.

“I do not understand what you are feeling right now, Harry. Didn’t you come to me in the first place because you wanted to live instead of dying the way that most of those people would expect you to do?”

Harry swallowed and forced his eyes open. Voldemort was watching him in the mirror, leaning forwards so that his head hovered beside Harry’s much the same way that Nagini’s did beside Voldemort’s when she was around his shoulders.

“I never thought of this. I feel—tainted.”

“You are not. You are wondrous beyond conception.”

Voldemort’s nails were cutting into his shoulders. Harry slowly drew himself up and twisted around in his betrothed’s arms to look at him.

“You really believe that?”

“I can no more lie to you now than you can lie to me.”

Harry had to admit that was true. The flow of Voldemort’s emotions felt as clear and sweet as water for the first time since Harry had started feeling them. There had always been anger, hatred, despair, something poisonous in them. Now they made Harry feel as if he could get used to the Horcrux link.

And now—

“You cannot hide the thought from Lord Voldemort. He knows all.”

Harry just nodded. He had thought there was still the possibility that Voldemort would snap and kill him in a rage, either before the wedding vows could take place or early on in their marriage. Now he knew he was safe. Forever.

Part of him had stopped being afraid for the first time in—years, probably.

“I will destroy anyone who puts their hands on you.”

Harry bowed his head and stood there, feeling Voldemort’s arms bracket his neck and chest again. It was oddly soothing, and he had no intention of trying to move out of reach any time soon.

Who knew all it would take to make me feel safe is a homicidal Dark Lord who just discovered that I’m his Horcrux?