Chapter Text
“I can’t fall asleep like this.”
“That is your problem, Potter. Have a good night.”
“You will just try to, I don’t know, choke me or something the very second I start to snore.”
Voldemort’s porcelain-white skin wrinkled, as he grimaced with annoyance.
“If you snore, I just might do that.”
Harry’s back was on the hardened wooden floor of the cabin and he fell asleep like that, with a chill running down his spine.
***
“Run, Harry! They’re here!”
Hermione’s cry made him spur into action. His legs bolted forward as he looked back, to make sure that she and Ron were safe.
Or, as safe as they could be, with Death Eaters chasing after them. And it had been all his fault, because he said his name.
The fact he had no wand made it all worse, but even if he had one he would not dream of facing those Death Eaters head on. Even Hermione, who probably was the only one that could have some chance against them, didn’t even take out hers.
“They called him!”
It was Ron’s laboured scream that cut through Harry’s mind like a knife at that moment, together with the Death Eaters’ cries of triumph over their master’s incoming.
The air seemed to snap and vibrate to accommodate his arrival; Harry stumbled and fell, but quickly Hermione was by his side to help him up.
“You and Ron need to run away, don't follow me!”
“My Lord! We found Potter!”
“Harry, we won’t leave you here!”
“You have to, it’s me that he’s after.”
His friend had some mud and tears on her cheeks, she looked like she wanted to say more, but a hex ran straight in between the two of them, effectively pulling them apart.
Harry’s right ear was buzzing.
“‘Mione, Harry!” Ron was some meters in front of them, to their right.
“Do not touch the boy, he is mine alone!” Voldemort hissed, Harry was scared to turn around, but he could not allow his friends to get caught. Someone had to hunt for the Horcruxes, and the hunt could be done without him.
“Go away!” he had tried wandless magic before, but he had only managed with extremely simple tricks, not at all impressive, and they did not even always come out.
Maybe it was the adrenaline rush, or the genuine fear of seeing his two best friends get caught because of him, but he was able to push Hermione away from him, basically launching her in the air, to where Ron was.
He turned left, and didn’t look back.
He tried to use the trees as a shield against Voldemort’s magic.
“Confront me like a proper wizard, Potter!”
As if he could, he thought, without any wand even.
He realized he could not run much longer, his muscles were begging for him to stop, and his mouth was dry with dehydration, and even worse, he realized it was getting dark.
“Harry Potter!”
Could he manage to Apparate? The possibility of splinching himself was so high he was not comfortable at all in attempting it, but he did not have much of a choice. It was either a couple of limbs less, or the most atrocious death Voldemort could think of. And that was only if he could even manage wandless apparition. He had to give it a try, but imagining a clear destination was proving to be extremely difficult with Voldemort still in tow.
As he was getting ready and felt his body start to apparate, he felt his hip being torn apart.
As he screamed, a bony hand seized his shoulder and then everything went black.
He woke up with a pulsing head and a dull pain in the hip, on a hard floor, and the first thing that he saw was a ceiling.
The second, was Voldemort’s serpentine gaze, staring down at him.
“What have you done, Potter?”
Fear was a secondary factor, as fatigue had the best of him at the moment. And pain, there was a lot of it.
He assumed he managed to apparate somewhere, the downside was that Voldemort caught him in time and was dragged away together with him… wherever they may be.
“I am not splinched,” he murmured.
Voldemort’s slitted nostrils gave away his anger, and his gaze travelled to his hip.
“Take a better look at yourself. Where are we, Potter? This is the last time I am asking nicely.”
Harry’s hand travelled down his exhausted body, as he tried to get up. His head spun around.
There was blood on his pants.
“This is your doing, I did not splinch, and I don’t know where we are!” Only at that moment he finally realized Voldemort was in front of him, in all his proud high and blood-red eyes. Why was he still alive then?
“Don’t lie to me, child. And that,” he gestured to his hip, “is not my doing, unfortunately. But I will kill you if you do not tell me where we are.”
Harry didn’t know if he couldn’t focus because of the blood loss, the apparition, or because he somehow hit his head, but a thought was starting to form.
“If you wanted to kill me, you would have done so already.” He felt exhilarated in seeing how Voldemort was evidently trying to come up with something that could scare him.
As if he was not about to piss his pants already.
“We are in a cabin in the middle of nowhere, and I can’t get out,” he said, as he raised his wand and pointed it at him.
“Tell me where we are, and maybe your death will not be as gory as I had planned.”
Harry took a look around them, and Voldemort was right: it did look like a cabin, made of wood. He could see dead trees outside of a window, with snow perched on their branches.
That made no sense, it was not winter.
“Potter!”
“I don’t know!” he yelled, holding himself up as best as he could.
“You don’t know,” Voldemort repeated, tasting each syllable as if they had the worst meal he had ever had.
“You apparated us here, so you must know the place.”
“Why would I tell you, even if I did?”
“Do you want to die–”
“You said you can’t go out.”
Voldemort went quiet, his lips a thin, dark line on his otherwise white face. Harry limped to the door, not without some difficulty, and tried to open it. Nothing happened.
“Have you tried with magic?”
“Of course I have,” Voldemort replied, matter-of-factly. “Potter, this is the last time I am asking nicely. I will torture the truth out of you.”
Harry looked back at him. “Why don’t you try Legilimency first? You will find nothing, because I-don’t know.” he spat, forgetting for a second who he was talking back to.
“Don’t test me.”
“Then do it! Crucio me if you want, but I- Ah!”
Voldemort actually did it and Harry was writhing on the floor within a second. “Where are we, Potter?.”
“I don’t know!”
He crucio-ed him again. And again. And again. And Harry kept on saying that he didn’t know, until he wished he actually knew where they were, so Voldemort could finally kill him.
Amidst the pain he thought that he actually begged him to kill him at some point, for he had never experienced something so horrific done to his body.
Just as quick as it came, pain went away and he could breathe again.
“You really don’t know.”
“I… told you,” he breathed out, and it came out as barely more than a whisper.
Voldemort looked at him for a long time, before he spoke again. “Tomorrow we can figure it out. You must know what happened, even if you don’t remember. You can’t apparate somewhere you have never been.”
Harry slowly peeled himself up from the floor. “We?” he questioned.
“Why, yes, Potter. We have to figure this out. Believe me, I would much rather do it myself after getting rid of you, but alas, you are needed. Now, go to sleep, before I lose my patience again.”
Harry wanted to scream.
1st day
Harry had slept on the floor, as Voldemort had taken (without bothering to offer, of course) the only bed that was available in the cabin that they were forced to share.
The small space accounted for a small bathroom, a bed and a kitchen table with two chairs. There was a fireplace too, and Harry found Voldemort already wide awake, sitting on a rocking chair facing the fire, reading a book.
“Where did you find it?” his voice was still groggy from sleep. Voldemort did not look at him as he answered.
“There are a few books about magic, standing in a corner over there,” Harry looked around, and saw said book cases jutting out from one of the walls.
“We are stuck in the middle of nowhere, and you decided to read?” Harry asked, in disbelief. He knew Voldemort was mental, but still.
At that point, his red eyes travelled to him. “I know this might be hard to comprehend for someone like you, but I am in fact trying to look for some cues as to what kind of magic this cabin is built upon. All the while you were sleeping, not being useful at all, so be glad I did not wake you up by brute force.”
“Well…” now Harry was feeling slightly guilty about that. “Have you found anything?”
He tried to stand up, but the pain in his hip shot a pang down his leg all the way to his toes, and he choked on air.
“Do you like staying on the floor that much, Potter?”
As if he could actually feel guilty with anything concerning Voldemort, he thought, chastising himself. “My hip is killing me, and it’s your fault.” he still didn’t believe that Voldemort had nothing to do with it. He must have hexed him during the chase, right before he was able to apparate. That was not a normal splinching wound.
The man sighed. “I already told you, it was your own doing. There was not even that much blood.”
He didn’t want to look so weak in front of his mortal enemy, but he had to admit, the pain was almost unbearable, and he had no wand to make it better. And even if he had, he had always sucked at healing magic and he doubted that a simple Episkey would make it all better.
Summoning all the strength he had left, he managed to stand up, albeit on wobbly legs. All his weight was shifted onto his left one. He limped to the bathroom, glancing behind him the whole time.
Even though he slept in the same room as him, he felt uneasy giving his back to Voldemort at that moment.
He closed the bathroom door with a click and was glad to see there was a mirror inside. The room was poky and there was not enough space to put even two tiny steps one after the other, and the mirror had an opaque glass, bearing more than one sign of the time.
He slowly started to undress, biting back a moan when he was removing his pants.
He looked back at his reflection, and what he saw horrified him. The flesh of his right hip was so churned it was various shades of red and purple darker than the rest of his milky skin. It looked like a cat had scratched it multiple times, with extremely long claws. The blood was encrusted in the various creases of his skin, and was giving off a sickly stench, which felt even stronger in the narrow space he was in. He was surprised he had not realized how filthy he smelled up until now, of rotten flesh and damp ground.
His face wasn't in better condition: his hair was plastered on his forehead by old sweat; the rest of it pointing out in all directions; he had some tiny scratches here and there.
He tried to open the sink, but the water that came out of it had very weak pressure and was extremely cold to the touch, and it looked a little too dark for Harry’s taste, but since that was all he could rely upon, he still tried to use it to clean his wound up a little from the old blood and the dirt attached to it, as well as his face.
When he put back his clothes and went out of the bathroom, Voldemort was still reading. He appeared to be deep in thought, with one long-fingered hand lightly scratching his chin.
“Do we have food here?” Harry asked, looking around. He didn’t know if Voldemort, given the condition of his body, needed to eat at all, but while he was cleaning himself up, he realized he was starving. The last meal he had was way before the snatchers came to track them down.
“Yes,” Voldemort said, slowly, still not looking up from the pages. “Over there,” he pointed to a corner of the cabin, where there was a pantry. Harry walked over there, trying not to stress his hip more than necessaryt.
He opened it and some a bunch of bread and crackers, as well as canned food and even some cartons of milk and butter.
He frowned, as they looked, especially the butter, in perfect conditions. Wasn’t butter supposed to go bad extremely quickly, if kept out of a fridge? He took it and smelled it, and it definitely did not smell bad.
“Is the food magically preserved?”
“It has to be,” replied Voldemort, right behind him. Harry almost jumped out of his skin, turning around to look up to him. How did he move so smoothly, without any sound? “Don’t stand so close to me,” Harry backed away a little, holding onto the butter and a piece of bread. He moved towards the little round table and sat down. He rubbed some of the butter on top of the slice and gave a tentative first bite. He noticed some unnatural-looking scratches on the surface, but paid them no mind; his focus was on the food melting in his mouth now.
He moaned in appreciation as his stomach grumbled in satisfaction as well. He finished everything in seconds.
“If there is food here, this might be someone’s home,” he realized. “There is also running water in the bathroom.”
Voldemort sat across from him, putting his book on the table. “Of course it is someone’s home, Potter. Would books be here if it wasn’t?”
Harry snorted. “I meant, someone might come back soon, if they left food behind.”
“Do you want to stay here and figure it out? Moreover," he continued, while tracing the book cover, “you should try to remember. You can’t apparate somewhere you have never been.”
“You can, if you have an accurate mental picture or a map of it though,” he retorted, recalling the lecture on Apparition he had had months ago.
Voldemort raised one skeptical brow. “I meant that you, specifically, can’t. You don’t possess the skill to do so, and you do not even have a wand on yourself, apparently.”
“How do you know what I’m capable or incapable of?” he would lie if he said he wasn’t a little bit offended. He did not have the knowledge that Hermione had, and he knew Voldemort was way more powerful than he was, but he knew his way around with magic, thank you very much.
“Then by all means, Potter, employ your formidable skills and get us away from here, so that I can finally kill you.”
“If you are so powerful, why don’t you get us out?”
Voldemort’s jaw twitched. “I have tried, as I have already said.”
“Then try again! Is that book even useful?”
The audacity of this abominable man, to blame him for the situation they were stuck in. His hip sent a jolt through his leg again, and he bit his lower lip, to try and mask the pain.
“This one is about History of Magic, so no, it is not useful in that sense I’m afraid.”
“History of– You are reading a history book instead of an actual useful one?”
Voldemort looked at him with contempt and impatience.
“History is always worth knowing, Potter, but I don’t expect a simpleton like you to appreciate it in the least. It’s astounding how your Mudblood friend knows more about it than you do.”
Harry stood up, despite the pain. “Do not ever call her that again. You are not worth her fingernail, bastard!”
Voldemort did not answer; instead, he Crucio-ed him.
Harry agonized on the floor, his hip and leg in flames.
2nd day
They had not spoken again after Voldemort had tortured him that second time, after which Harry had limped again to the bathroom, checking his wound. It was still inflamed, and he was more than convinced that it had been Voldemort to cause it in the first place. He did not understand why he kept denying it.
He had slept again on the floor, more uncomfortable than ever, and he missed the tent he, Ron and Hermione used to sleep in.
That night, he had wondered how they were doing and he fell asleep hoping that they had been able to get away from the Snatchers.
“I need to look into your head, Potter. Properly.”
It had taken Harry more than a few seconds to process that request, after which he almost spilled his milk.
“Not happening.”
He tensed his shoulders as Voldemort stood up and walked away from the fireplace, sitting calmly in front of him at the table. Harry averted his eyes.
“Be grateful that I am not using Imperio. Now, look at me,” he pointed his wand at him.
Harry wanted to laugh. “Imperius doesn’t work on me,” he challenged.
“Shall we test it?” Harry could hear the faint mockery in Voldemort’s voice and decided that, at least for now, he did not want to test it.
He slowly looked back, still unsure.
“I don’t trust you in my mind at all.”
“I don’t need your trust, I need your compliance.”
Harry was about to come back with something, but Voldemort was faster to cast the spell.
“Legilimens!”
Harry had never been good at Occlumency, the private lessons he had had with Snape were proof enough of it. But while Snape had always felt like an aggressive presence in his mind, having Voldemort roaming around felt uncannily mild in comparison.
He could feel him opening doors, searching for any useful clue, but he had no desire to actually fight him off, weirdly enough.
It was a similar experience to having a song stuck in your head for too long, wanting to get rid of it did not necessarily mean you found the song itself unpleasant. That thought gave him chills.
The only actual terrifying part was being forced to revive the last moments of the chase in the woods, and the fright that had come with it.
Voldemort was evidently not satisfied, as Harry was thrust back in time, again and again. However, the more Voldemort was not successful in finding what he was looking for, the more his intrusion became painful to bear.
Then, as soon as he had come in, he left his brain, leaving Harry breathless and a bit lightheaded.
“Well?” he asked.
Voldemort was clearly displeased, as he said: “I found nothing useful, I might have to keep searching, the memory I am looking for might be buried deeper, stemming from your early childhood even. Stay still.”
“No, that–”
“Legilimens!”
Gone for good was the initial gentleness. Voldemort had become like a mole aggressively digging into the ground, searching for food as if it had not eaten for days. Harry ‘s mind was the pliant ground underneath its claws.
Painful memories that he had hoped no one would ever know were brought back to the surface, by the worst possible person. Voldemort watched him when he lived with the Dursleys, when he was still a child, unaware of his magical legacy. Harry felt a pang of hunger when he saw his younger self eating scraps, and trembled when he heard uncle Vernon's angry voice when he had broken a glass.
Using every ounce of willpower he could muster, he tried to fight off Voldemort’s invasion, but he simply pushed him back.
His eyes were tickling with tears he had never shed before.
Voldemort looked even further back, when he was just a toddler, to memories Harry did not even know he had.
Had Dudley really shoved him that hard against the wall that time?
Had he really never had any friends in elementary school?
Had he always watched with such longing in his eyes, when aunt Petunia’s love for her child was so evident?
“Stop…” he choked, still pinned in place.
Voldemort stopped his brutal onslaught, and Harry took a deep breath in. Not even in the graveyard, when Cedric had died before his eyes and he was tied to that headsotne, he had felt so vulnerable.
Voldemort scrutinized him long and hard, but said nothing for what seemed to Harry a very long time.
“The audacity of Muggles to abuse magical children…” he commented lightly. “And yet, you still like them, and befriend them even. Your stupidity is beyond any comprehension, Potter.”
He got up then, and went back to his reading beside the fireplace.
Harry said nothing. He never noticed how the fire seemed to never go out: the flames danced before his eyes, but he could not feel any warmth.
3rd day
Voldemort had not said anything about doing another session of Legilimancy, for which Harry was really glad. But at the same time, that meant they were back to square one, with no lead whatsoever as to where they were.
Harry had tried to take the cabin in, all of it, every minuscule detail: from the cracks in the walls, to the way the bookshelves were arranged, he even looked carefully at the brands of the food they had. Nothing rang a bell.
There was also the fact that something was wrong with the weather. Snowstorms were frequent, and that could mean two things: it was either winter, or they were in a place with lots of snow, even outside of season. Harry could not think of a single place in England that was like that, and he had not travelled anywhere that could explain that sudden change of weather they were used to in the Forest of Dean.
So far, he hated to admit, he had mostly relied on Voldemort to get them out of that place, but they were now at their third day of forced imprisonment– and proximity– and he still had not come up with anything.
Harry thought that the most plausible explanation was that he had somehow looked at the map of this place sometime in the past, and for some inexplicable reason he had apparated here, but Voldemort ruled that option firmly out of the question. He kept on saying that Harry was not magically powerful enough for that. Even the most experienced witches and wizards struggle with that kind of apparition, let alone without a wand.
Voldemort himself had tried to apparate out of that place, more than once, but without success.
Now Harry was watching him on his umpteenth attempt to explode the door. For how much he hated him, he had to admit that watching him perform magic, with such precision and authority, was enthralling. He pronounced each syllable in a low voice, with quick flickers of the wand, which responded to him anytime without fail, almost as if it was just a natural continuation of his arm, rather than another, separate object.
Some of the spells Harry had never heard of, and some others sounded like they came straight out of a book from the restricted section of the Hogwarts Library.
Voldemort even tried his luck with runes, and complicated arythmancy equation, but the handle was unmovable, and he stopped performing anything after three or so hours.
By that time Harry knew it was lunchtime (only because the only way he could tell the time was by relying on his own hunger).
He fetched himself some ham and bread. he took a longer look at the table, and could swear the scratches on it looked different than the last time. He touched their rim with his fingers, finding them deeper than he thought at first. He spared them one last look, before taking a bite and forgetting about them. It was just a table, and he was probably just too tired.
The only positive thing about that whole situation, he realized, was that Voldemort could not harm anyone, so all in all, he could not really complain. He should try to find a way to escape, and leave him behind, to rot in the cabin forever.
But would he even? Harry took a long look at his body, wondering if it would decay at some point.
“Has anyone ever told you that staring is rude, Potter?”
Harry coughed.
“Do you even need food anymore?” he asked, “You haven’t eaten once in three days.”
Voldemort turned a page. He was reading a really beat-up Ancient Runes book.
“My body doesn’t require nourishment. I am above that now.”
“So you don’t eat? Like, at all?”
“I indulge myself, from time to time.”
“What about other things? Do you sleep, or drink?”
“Why the sudden interest in my person?” he sounded mildly bored, like Harry was a petulant child, annoying him with silly questions.
“I’m just curious. You are the only one I can talk to, and that is horrible enough, but I need some distraction or I’ll go mad, stuck here with you.”
Voldemort looked up. “If you are so bored, why don’t you try to find a solution to this problem?” he vaguely gestured around him, “That would be more productive”. he pointed to some books on the shelves behind him, “you can start with reading something, do try to stay focused for one hour at least, and make yourself useful.”
Harry took another bite, unfazed.
“Why so secretive?”
Voldemort sighed, and stopped to read.
“Since you are so curious, no, I do not require either sleep, or water. My body is self-sustaining, it is its own magic that keeps it functioning perfectly,” he said, haughtily.
“That is not normal, don’t you go mental? What do you even do at night, if you never sleep?”
“My body is perfect, Potter. I transcend mundane necessities. I put Death itself on its knees before me.”
Harry’s stomach did a somersault. How could Voldemort even think of such things, and say them out loud like they were normal?
He could never fathom of wanting to live forever, or not needing sleep, or food.
“You killed innocent people.”
He smiled in amusement at Harry’s retort.
“I did, yes. And I will kill many more, if it means I will reach my goal. Although,” he caressed his scalp, tapping two of his fingers on it, deep in thought.
“I would prefer not to spill magical blood in vain. Your side should surrender and avoid more casualties.”
Harry put down his sandwich. “You will lose. I won’t let you kill anyone.”
“And how do you plan to do that? Do you think yourself more magically powerful than me?”
“Power is not everything.”
“Oh, but it is.”
“Is not. There are more important things.”
“That is something only weak people say.”
“You’re a monster.”
“Am I?”
“Yes, for Merlin’s beard!” Harry could not keep it in anymore.
“You killed people, you quite literally mutilated your own soul, and for what? That?,” he pointed his finger at his body. “You don’t even look human anymore!”
“Because I am much, much more than that now.”
“You used to be beautiful, you could- could have done so much good, but-” Harry realized too late he had just called Voldemort, or rather, Tom Riddle beautiful. He sincerely hoped the other would not point that out.
He did not.
“I did good for myself.”
“You-”
“Life exists to please itself, Potter.”
“What are you now, a philosopher?”
“They tend to overcomplicate the most simple things.” He got up, walking slowly to the window. He was giving his back to Harry.
“I don’t like them, mostly.”
“For how much you say that you hate Muggles, you sure read their books.”
“Knowledge is knowledge.”
“You make no sense.”
Voldemort turned around again, tilting his head slightly.
“Do you want to know what is really simple, Voldemort?”
Voldemor’s eyes narrowed dangerously. “Don’t say-”
“I will say whatever I want, and you can even Crucio me again!” he yelled. He was actually terrified of that, but he could not let it show.
“You are just a sick fuck, a killer and a liar, who thinks too highly of himself and who doesn’t give two shits about life, yours included.”
It was getting harder to breathe, the cabin felt immensely narrower for some reason, and Voldemort much taller.
“Because if you really cared so much about your own life, you would have taken better care of your soul, instead of going around killing people to rip it apart.”
He realized he was panting, his hip was starting to hurt again and Voldemort was just staring. He had his wand out, but he was not pointing it at Harry.
“You will never understand love, and I feel sorry for you,” he concluded and it felt so cathartic that at that point, he really did not care if Voldemort wanted to torture him again. He was at that moment, a hundred percent sure that he would rather die in that cabin, if it meant keeping that monster inside forever.
Minutes seemed like hours in which they just stared at each other, neither of them breaking the silence. At some point, Harry realized something else. “If you don’t need to sleep, I want the bed from now on.”
Voldemort smiled mellifluous. “No.”
“What? Why? You don’t need it, and I am even injured!”
“I am comfortable in it.”
Harry was left speechless. “A god like you shouldn’t care about comfort,” he mocked him.
“What does a mere mortal like you have to say to a god?
He got closer, but Harry did not flinch, staying firmly rooted in place.
“A god is never questioned in its ways, child, nor understood.”
“Are you implying you are too great for the rest of us?”
Standing so close to him, Harry was taken aback by the height difference. He barely was as tall as his shoulder, and he loathed having to look up at him.
“Precisely.”
“A god should be merciful.”
Voldemort raised one eyebrow. Head not hair, but the muscle movement was evident enough.
“Are you asking for my mercy?”
Harry felt himself fuming. “I’d rather die.”
“Then be my guest, Potter,” he said, spreading his arms, “And take the floor.”
4th day
It had been another long and unfructuous day, and not only because they still could not find a solution to the problem, but also, Harry’s hip hurt more than usual.
When he had shut himself in the bathroom earlier that morning, he saw that the wound looked much worse and when he dared to touch it, he retrieved his hand quickly, suppressing a pained moan. It was clearly festering, and there was nothing he could do about it, except trying to clean it as best as he could with some water.
He was struggling to fall asleep, the pain keeping him awake. The cabin was now dark, save for some small light emitted from the fire and Voldemort’s wand, which he was using for reading. It was still the same book about Runes.
“What is it?”
Harry stilled. “What?”
“You are breathing too hard, I can’t concentrate properly.”
“Well excuse me, but my wound has gotten worse, and I have no wand to take care of it.”
It was the first time he was voicing that clearly out loud, and that felt daunting. He could even smell the distinctive smell of rotting flesh.
“You managed to apparate wandlessly, I am sure you can figure something out. It smells, so do it quickly.”
“I tried, damn it. I can’t. I tried.”
He felt hot tears running down his cheeks. He bit his tongue to not let out a sound: he didn’t want to let Voldemort hear him cry.
“There are simple enough healing spells I am sure you can manage to perform wandlessly. You need to concentrate.”
Silence followed suit, and Harry saw Voldemort’s wand turning slightly toward him.
“Potter. Do it, it really smells horribly.”
Harry said nothing, but did as he was told, even though he was not sure to which simple spells the other might be referring to. He did the right hand movement three times in a row, but nothing happened. His hip pulsed painfully, mocking his attempt.
“Wandless magic is hard enough without you trying to perform something voicelessly too. Say it properly.”
“Shut… up.”
“This is not the time to get insolent. Do it properly, Potter,” his voice became harsher and impatient, and Harry was reminded of the time his aunt Petunia was teaching him how to cook uncle Vernon’s steak just how he liked it.
Several failed attempts and scoldings later, he managed to get it right. The meat had looked blurry through his tears, just how he could not see anything in the dark, beside the glow of the wand, and Voldemort’s side illuminated by it.
“You are crying.”
“Yeah, no shit,” he let out a sob, and managed to get the incantation to come out of his lips, but still, it failed. He could not even feel the familiar warmth of his magic coming off his fingers.
“As you can see, it doesn’t work. You’ll have to live with the smell, sorry not sorry,” he laughed, tasting salt on his lips.
“Come here.”
“What?”
“Do not make me repeat myself.”
“I don’t trust you.”
As if Harry would voluntarily get closer to him. As if.
“I am offering nicely to treat your wound. A god, as you pointed out, should be merciful,” he parroted Harry’s words.
“You will make it worse on purpose.”
“I will not. I told you, it smells.”
Even if Harry wanted to get up and go to him, he felt so much pain that the tears swelling in his eyes were not even of shame anymore. He wasn’t sure he could move, it felt easier to stay where he was.
“Come on, get up. I am not doing it for you, but for myself,” he added, almost tenderly.
With a sob and a pained groan, Harry started to move, slowly, helping himself up as best as he could. He only managed to get in an awkward position, still half sprawled on the floor, but at least his torso was somewhat upright.
He was panting from the exertion, and he heard Voldemort shifting. It sounded like he was sitting now, he heard the faint thud of his feet hitting the floor.
“Come here,” he hissed, and Harry did, very slowly, go to him.
He was doing all he could to not let out too many sobs, but dragging himself on the floor like that was testing his self control.
He wasn’t even looking ahead but kept his blurry gaze fixed downward, on the wooden floor, which had assumed a dark orange shade, from the everlasting light of the fireplace. He came to a halt when he bumped into something which felt like a knee.
“Well done, Potter. Now, come on up on the bed.”
“I can’t. It hurts.”
“If you want me to make it stop, you have to come up.”
“Why don’t you come down here?”
“No,” Voldemort said softly, like a caress, and Harry sobbed again, and then again, and then uncontrollably, as he hoisted himself up. His hip was ferociously hot and heavy, almost too much to not let him up properly.
But he clawed at the mattress, sweating, and made it eventually.
He felt weak deep into his bones as he just lay there, his gnawing wound looking up, his face down on the bed, the mouth touching the sheets.
“Mmh,” Voldemort murmured, touching him where it hurt. Harry mewled like a kitten.
“Was that so hard?” he kept on touching him through the pants, until there were not even those to separate his hand from his rotting flesh. He had vanished his pants, leaving him in his underwear.
Now his bony fingers were touching him directly, frost to scorching hot. Harry sobbed uncontrollably through the pain.
“Do… something,” he knew he sounded like he was begging, but he could not bring himself to care.
“I shall,” he said, and brought the tip of his wand near his flesh.
Harry heard the familiar incantation, and felt the loveliest tingling tickling his skin.
The pain was gone so fast it had felt like a nightmare, but he could still not move a muscle, his breath was still uneven.
Voldemort’s hand was back on his skin, and this time it didn’t make him flinch. Rather, it was almost soothing, the way his fingertips were slowly moving up and down, almost tracing the way from his bent knee, to the last of his ribs.
“Have I been merciful enough, Potter?”
The voice felt so distant and distorted, like crackling fire, and it had been such a long time since Harry had felt the comfort of a bed, that he almost thought he was back in Gryffindor Tower. His limbs aching after a long Quidditch practice, he was wondering who could ever be this person, whispering nonsense.
It could never be Ron, he was always the first one to fall asleep.
5th day
Harry had never slept so comfortably, not on a hard, cold floor but on the softest of clouds. And the pain in his hip was finally gone. He delayed as much as possible the time he had to finally wake up. He was probably late for his first lesson anyway.
“Potter, you have slept enough.”
“Mmh,” he mumbled on the cushion, turning away from the molesting voice, which he could not pin to any of his dorm mates.
He slowly opened his eyes, still full of sleep, and zeroed on a person that was definitely not any of his friends.
As reality came crushing down on him he rose abruptly, and the memories from last night came back one by one, making him blush with shame.
Voldemort cocked his head in amusement.
“It is a bit late to regret asking for my help, and as I told you,” he turned a page, moistening his lips, “I did it for myself”.
“I will not thank you for it,” he had the urge to clarify. Crying in front of him had been embarrassing enough, without adding any gratitude to the picture.
Voldemort did not reply, and Harry got up from the bed, going straight for the bathroom.
“Stop.”
Harry turned around. “What?”
Voldemort was pointing his wand at him, and he froze.
Did he change his mind in wanting to kill Harry, right after having healed him? He backed away, looking around for anything he could use as a shield.
Voldemort sighed. “Scourigfy,” he said, and Harry felt a wave of freshness hitting both him and his clothes. He looked down at his shirt and pants, now rid of all the dirt and blood stains he had carried around for days.
“It was not just your injury that stank,” he clarified, resuming his reading.
Harry had the weird urge to burst out laughing. Thankfully, he refrained himself.
“Why don’t you conjure a new set of clothes too, now that you’re at it?” he didn’t wait for an answer, shutting the bathroom door behind him.
Later that afternoon the both of them were reading: Voldemort on what had become his chair, and Harry on the small table. He had picked a book about Mind Magic and was browsing the index; Voldemort was still set on that same book.
“Do you think you will find some clues there?”
Harry asked, as he looked for the chapter about Occlumency.
“There must be something. This appears to be the most used book, and there are annotations inside. Given the fact that I can’t open or even break the cabin to go out, it must be protected by some extremely potent runes.”
“I’m surprised you don’t know about that,” commented Harry, trying to provoke him.
“I never claimed to know everything there is to know about magic, Potter. I am not omniscient.”
“Do you at least have some ideas about what this place is?”
“A cabin,” he answered easily.
“I meant–” he began, exasperated. It was not the time for the Dark Lord to start being sarcastic. The sole thought of it repulsed Harry to no end.
“I know what you meant. The most plausible idea is still that we somehow need you to get us out of here, since it was you that Apparated us inside.”
“But I can’t Apparate out, or even open the door.”
“Keen observation indeed.”
“Look, I am trying to help, stop being an asshole.”
Voldemort side-eyed him. “Careful, Potter.”
“This is already hard enough without you shutting me out. I want to get out of here as well, and then kick your ass properly,” Voldemort looked at him then, up and down. He did not seem impressed by the challenge at all.
“But to do that, we need to properly talk to each other and come up with a plan.”
“I will kill you the moment we are out of here,” Voldemort stated calmly.
“I did not think you were such a coward, I don’t even have a wand” Harry crossed his arms on his chest. “But then again, you tried to kill me as I was an infant, so it is not surprising.”
“But you survived,” the other reminded him, and Harry heard the slightest inflection in his voice, that suggested displeasure.
“And wand or not, you can’t compete with me in a duel.”
Deep down, Harry knew that was true.
“I still want the chance to properly defend myself. What, are you scared?”
“Your childish provocations don’t work on me. But if you insist,” he hummed to himself, “I will grant you the chance to get your wand, and duel you properly.”
“I want us to make a Vow,” Harry proposed. He did not trust the other’s promise at all. He had to secure himself a safe way out of there.
“Voldemort doesn’t make Vows with anyone,” the edge of his voice became sharper, dangerous, daring Harry to ask that of him again.
“But–”
“Be grateful that I am not crucio-ing you on the daily just to amuse myself, and stay silent.”
Harry dropped the subject, realizing with a pang of horror that Voldemort was probably bluffing, and that he would really kill him the moment he realized how to leave the cabin.
That left him with no other choice but to try to keep him inside for as long as possible, to allow the others to hunt for the Horcruxes.
“Will you make it quick?” he asked in a low voice, without fear, just out of curiosity.
“Maybe,” was his laconic, unbothered answer.