[From Samhain to the Solstice]: Retreat, R, Harry/Voldemort, 1/4
Title: Retreat
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Voldemort
Rating: R
Content Notes: Forced marriage, AU (ignoring DH), angst, torture, extremely dubious consent, disassociation
Wordcount: This part 4500
Summary: AU. Harry didn’t understand why Voldemort had suggested their marriage as a solution to the war. He didn’t understand why his friends were supporting the suggestion. But he goes into it, trying to be as numb as possible, trying to retreat into his mind and just let the world play out around him-no matter how difficult that is.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics that are being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. It should have four parts, to be posted over the next four days. This is very dark; please pay heed to the warnings.
Retreat
“Tell me why, Hermione. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Oh, Harry.”
And she hugged him as they stood together in the little anteroom off the Ministry Atrium, where he would be going to-to marry Voldemort in a few minutes.
But she didn’t tell him why she had pushed him to agree to the marriage, along with Ron and the other Weasleys and Professor Lupin and everyone except Snape, who seemed to think that they were all mad together.
“Just trust that there’s a reason,” Hermione breathed into his ear. “Please, I promise. There’s a plan. I’ll be able to tell you someday.”
Then she released him with a little push. Harry looked down at his gleaming white robes. He had laughed at the idea when Voldemort suggested it, because, well, why would he want to mimic Muggle wedding customs? Although it was true enough that Harry was a virgin.
But Ron had told him that white robes worn to a wedding were traditional in political marriages used to seal a peace treaty or signal the end of a blood feud, because it signified that both parties were coming to the wedding with pure intentions.
Ron had known that because apparently one of his ancestors had married into the Malfoy family in an effort to stem the feud, although it’d broken out again later for some reason. He’d stuttered out the story while fiercely blushing and avoiding Harry’s eyes.
They all did a lot of avoiding of Harry’s eyes, lately. He wanted to scream at them that he hadn’t turned into a Legilimens when they weren’t looking, but he already knew that it wouldn’t do any good. So he’d kept silent, and sleepwalked through the days, letting other people handle the “peace treaty.” The only thing he knew for certain was that it included provisions that the Death Eaters couldn’t conduct raids and Muggles and Muggleborns couldn’t be harmed unless they attacked a pureblood wizard. He supposed that was good.
He also supposed that Voldemort would torture him to death minutes after they got “married,” but his friends seemed to think that wouldn’t happen, or they wouldn’t have pushed him into this. They did believe he would survive. Harry clung to that. Hermione had promised to tell him the reason for this “someday.”
He had to take what he could get.
That was always true, Harry thought numbly as he walked out to face the monster.
*
The incongruous sight of Voldemort in white robes would probably stay with Harry until the end of his life, he thought as he came out to find Voldemort standing next to the golden fountain in the center of the Atrium.
Someone had rebuilt it so that there were two figures seated in thrones, lounging there above a tangle of centaurs and goblins and probably other magical creatures. Harry saw that one of the statues had Voldemort’s features before he jerked his eyes away. He didn’t want to see if the other person had his face.
“Harry Potter.”
More than one person out of the crowd gathered there gasped or screamed as Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue. Harry just stared back at him. It was such a short time after Dumbledore’s funeral. It was moments before their marriage. Did Voldemort think he was going to scare Harry by speaking to him like a snake?
“It would please me if you spoke Parseltongue during this ceremony.”
Harry met the monster’s eyes and just held them for a long moment. They shone glittering red, because of course they did, but Voldemort didn’t look as if he wanted to kill Harry right that moment. Then again, doing it in public wouldn’t be the point. Voldemort would want to savor it.
And for some reason, his friends thought it was a good idea.
A warning sting came from his scar, and Harry dipped his head a little and said, “All right.”
For some reason, Voldemort’s face blazed with triumph, and a few more people cried out in fear, but no one rushed for the Floos or the lifts. Harry didn’t understand these people. They probably didn’t want to be here, but no one was trying to leave? Were they here because Voldemort had threatened them somehow?
Or because the wizarding world’s appetite for gossip was just too deep to let this go?
Honestly, at the moment, Harry felt as if he didn’t give a shit. He moved forwards and extended his hands when Voldemort directed him to do so with another hiss, ignoring the way his flesh crept and chilled. So he was going to feel Voldemort touch his hands now. What did it matter, when in a few hours Voldemort would kill him?
Or maybe it would be days, or months. Who could know?
“Look me in the eyes, Harry.”
That wasn’t anything Harry hadn’t done before. He looked up, and Voldemort gave him a lipless smile and tightened the hold on his hands before he began, “I swear to protect my husband with every bone in my body.”
He didn’t say from what, Harry thought, but his mind was still spinning sometimes, and numb the rest of the time, so when Voldemort prodded him with a little burst of pain in his scar, he said, “I swear to protect my husband with every bone in my body.”
“I swear to hold him safe, and cherish him.”
He didn’t say what way.
“I swear to hold him safe, and cherish him.”
“I swear to give him what he needs, privacy, space, and life included.”
A muscle twitched above Harry’s eye before he could stop it. What the hell did that mean? But he didn’t want to ask, in case Voldemort took it out on some innocent person at the ceremony. Concern for other people was trailing back to him, like a muscle he’d forgotten to exercise, trembling and unfolding inside him.
“I swear to give him what he needs, privacy, space, and life included.”
Voldemort paused for a long moment. Harry wondered if he was having trouble thinking of another vow that had enough loopholes, but then, to his enormous surprise, Voldemort asked, “And what else do you think we need, Harry?”
Harry didn’t have to pause as long as Voldemort. “I want safety for my friends. For innocents.”
“That was already settled as part of the treaty. I meant what else you can think of as part of the marriage.”
Harry was at a loss. He wished now that he hadn’t been so distant in the last few days, that part of him hadn’t shut down when Hermione had announced the “compromise” that the two sides had come up with and just resigned himself to being a sacrifice. He didn’t know much of what had happened in the last month, in fact. He’d either been shut up at the Dursleys’ house, or at Hogwarts, where McGonagall had placed him after she’d fetched him from his relatives’. He thought that his birthday might have come and passed. In fact, it had to have, right? That was the only way it made sense to have a legal marriage.
Then again, what did Voldemort care about legality?
“Harry.”
There was that warning tone to his voice again. Harry sighed and looked at Voldemort, wondering what it mattered when his lifespan was now on a timer.
Then again, when had that ever not been true? Born as the seventh month dies…
“I suppose I want my own room,” Harry admitted with a shrug. It wasn’t like he could think of anything else, not when he would be going to a prison in reality and a prison of a marriage. “And regular meals.”
Voldemort stared at him in silence, then nodded and said, “I swear to provide you with a room and regular meals.”
Harry nodded back, since it seemed to be the safest thing to do. “What do you want?”
Voldemort gave a soft, creepy laugh that raised the hair everywhere on Harry’s body that wasn’t actually his head. “I already have what I want.”
Harry only nodded and faced the cloaked Ministry representative who had come forwards with a pair of silver rings on a cushion and stuttered out something about the rings reinforcing the magical vows they’d made when they put them on. Harry didn’t know the Ministry man and didn’t care to know. He slid the cold ring onto his own finger, and felt something snap shut around him.
He sighed. What else can I do?
And then it occurred to him that, maybe, there was something.
After the summer when he got his Hogwarts letter, he didn’t remember every moment of his time with the Dursleys. Only when something spectacular happened, like the Dementors attacking him and Dudley or Dobby showing up to Levitate that cake. Harry had learned to curl up inside himself and put his mind more or less in a storage box. He could lie on his bed in the smallest bedroom and stare up at the ceiling for hours and not get bored. He could read his textbooks over and over, when he was allowed to have them. He could talk to Hedwig and just listen to the sound of his own voice without marking the time.
Could he do the same thing in his marriage to Voldemort? That was also a prison he didn’t have any way to get out of. And if he came back to life for the sharp moments, the important ones like when Voldemort was going to torture him, it ought to be okay.
He glanced up and caught Ron’s eye where he was standing behind a bulwark of people in Death Eater robes. Ron mouthed to him, “There’s a plan,” which Harry could only lip-read because he and Hermione had been saying it so often in the last few days.
Of course there was. His friends would have fought this marriage until the bitter end if there wasn’t. Harry had to have patience, and faith, and trust, and hope the others could carry it out.
He turned back to Voldemort, who was watching him with what looked like mild curiosity, but the triumph thrummed this time behind Harry’s scar. It was a faint, sickening sensation, but better than pain.
“Where will we be staying?” Harry asked in English.
*
“The Malfoys have graciously agreed to give up a wing of their house to us.”
Harry was sure there had been nothing “gracious” about it, but he trapped the thought before it could escape and stuffed it in the back of his mind. “All right,” he said, glancing around the room. It was blank and white, except for a touch of blue here and there along the windowsill and the pillows. At least the bed was large and it looked like there would be room for the robes he owned in the cupboard.
“Harry.”
Harry turned around to face Voldemort, dipping his head a little when their eyes met. “Yes, sir?”
Voldemort paused as if he was going to say something, but then went on. “I expect you to obey the orders that I give you and the Death Eaters give you. Within reason, of course. I would not expect you to go along if they told you to harm yourself.”
“Or if they told me to harm anyone else.”
Harry winced at the tone that burst forth in, but his scar thrummed with more pleasure as Voldemort nodded. “True enough. I suspect few would give you those orders, but you shall not be made to torture.” He leaned nearer, and Harry had to hold his breath and think hard about being at Privet Drive to dim his hatred. “But I do not expect to hear an endless litany of complaints, even about the Death Eaters you may have interacted with-less than pleasantly-in the past. Is that clear, husband?”
He had spoken the last word in Parseltongue. Harry met his gaze and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Again, Voldemort paused, as if he was expecting something. An explosion of rage, maybe? Harry had less than no interest in doing something like that, not when he didn’t have any idea what plan of Ron and Hermione’s he would be endangering.
If it depended on a certain time limit or something, though, wouldn’t they have told him?
Voldemort gave a sudden half-bow that startled Harry enough to make him flinch. Voldemort seemed to choose not to notice. “Then I will leave you until this evening.” He paused. “I expect you to obey me.”
Rage did strike Harry then, but it burned out in an instant, as if it didn’t have any kindling in his soul. Maybe that was another thing that being married to Voldemort and staying with the Dursleys had in common, Harry thought. He couldn’t do anything about either, and so he would just get angry sometimes-and even when he was with the Dursleys, he had usually got upset about things like being denied news from the wizarding world, not them-and quiet the rest of the time.
“Okay, sir.”
“You will have dinner with me at six this evening, along with some honored guests from the Ministry. I expect you to wear formal robes and show your very best table manners, and speak to me when I speak to you. Is that clear?”
Harry nodded, but he did ask, “What kind of formal robes? I’ve only worn dress robes to the Yule Ball.”
“I forget how young you are.”
Voldemort sounded disdainful about it, so Harry ducked his head and waited.
“The formal silver robes that you’ll find in the cupboard. Call a house-elf to help you if you don’t know how to put them on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Voldemort turned and left, and Harry sat on the bed, turning to look at the cupboard. The door was half-open, and he could see the glimmer of silver cloth there. He supposed those were the robes.
He sighed and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling, while setting up a reminder in the back of his head to pay more attention as six-o’clock approached. He didn’t have his wand, or any books, or anything else to do. But that was all right. He was good at staying in his room and pretending he didn’t exist.
Whatever you need to do, Ron and Hermione, hurry up and do it.
*
In the end, Harry didn’t have to worry about calling a house-elf, because one of the Malfoy ones appeared in his room at something that the glittery crystal clock on the wall said was five-thirty. The elf bowed and was silent, not giving him her name. At least she didn’t look as horrible as Dobby had when he was still under the Malfoys’ care, Harry thought, glancing at her. She wore what looked like some kind of skirt made of a pillowcase.
“I need help putting on the formal silver robes, please,” Harry said. His voice was dull in his own ears, but he supposed that was a good thing. The duller, the calmer, the quieter he was, the less there would be for Voldemort to punish him for.
The elf bowed again, and then got the robes out of the cupboard by the simple expedient of snapping her fingers. Harry stood there and let her dress him like a doll. Resentment touched him and vanished again.
This was his life now.
The mirror on the wall showed a pair of robes that looked absolutely starched and uncomfortable on him, but Harry reckoned it didn’t matter. Voldemort had chosen the robes, and maybe if Harry looked ugly in these robes, that was part of the message.
“Thank you,” Harry told the house-elf, who stared at him with huge eyes and then turned and padded out of the room instead of vanishing. Harry supposed he was to follow her, so he did.
Malfoy Manor had more staircases than six houses needed. Harry worked his way down two of them and to the top of a white one that seemed to be made of marble, and where the house-elf pointed the way ahead, down, and to the right, then vanished.
Harry started down the staircase, and something shoved him from behind.
Harry flailed his arms for a second and would have fallen, but the marble staircase’s banisters were something else, some black material that was less slick than marble. He grabbed one and righted himself.
Meanwhile, someone laughed behind him, in a voice he was more than familiar with.
Retreat, Harry chanted to himself. To the center of your mind. The fight doesn’t depend on you being defiant right now. Just on you buying time for Ron and Hermione.
Harry turned around and looked emptily up at Malfoy, who was sauntering down the stairs to join him. Malfoy shook his head. He looked gaunt still, like the boy Harry had stalked through most of their sixth year, but he was smiling in a way Harry hadn’t seen since Malfoy had broken his nose on the train at the start of sixth year.
“You couldn’t even catch yourself with magic. You’re not allowed a wand, are you?”
Harry had assumed he wouldn’t be. There was a pulse of loss in the middle of his soul, but, well, there wasn’t much he could do about it. He just shook his head and continued walking down the stairs.
“You’re a pathetic idiot,” Malfoy continued in a voice that sneered more than his face. “You could have run away, but no, instead you had to sacrifice yourself on an altar to save the wizarding world.” He paused. “It is going to be a virgin sacrifice, isn’t it?”
Harry felt himself flush, but he just kept walking. He and Voldemort hadn’t discussed anything about sex. The vows didn’t have it in them. Harry assumed Voldemort would press the matter sooner or later, and, well.
He would do what he had to.
“I knew it!”
Harry sank himself into himself, and the sound of Malfoy’s crowing voice faded. They made their way to the dining room, a place so huge that Harry could barely see the walls, although some of that was probably the enormous glass windows that showed the light of a brilliant summer sunset. The table was huge and white-surprise-and Voldemort sat at the head of it, with the adult Malfoys near the foot, and some wizards and witches in formal robes in between them. No one else Harry recognized.
Harry paused near the doorway, and Voldemort caught his eye.
“Here,” he said in Parseltongue, making half the room jump, and tapped the chair beside him.
The chair looked like it was made of silver wood, the back full of twining branches melded together. Harry noted that in a distant, calm part of himself, thought it would be uncomfortable to sit on, and immediately tucked that thought away, too. He walked over and sat down in the chair next to Voldemort.
“And how has your afternoon been, dear?”
More than one person was flinching and cowering, and a few of them were trying to get away with shooting hateful glares at Harry. Probably thinking that Voldemort wouldn’t be speaking Parseltongue if he wasn’t here, Harry thought clinically. That wasn’t certain, though. Nagini was curled up around the feet of Voldemort’s chair, staring at him unblinkingly.
“Quiet,” Harry answered in the same language, and let Voldemort heap food on his plate. Most of it seemed to be meat, to his distant surprise. Then again, he didn’t know why he was surprised. He watched from the corner of his eye to see how others handled their forks and knives, and while he didn’t think he was perfect, he gave a good enough accounting of himself that Voldemort ignored him and talked with the others about unfamiliar places needing to be “pacified.”
Harry breathed through it. Ron and Hermione were alive. The other Weasleys were alive. Remus and Tonks were alive. They were going to live, and the treaty protected them. And if Ron and Hermione had a plan, they would be smart enough, because Hermione was there, to keep it under the surface and away from the Death Eaters.
Voldemort’s hand landing on his thigh was unexpected enough that Harry jumped and let his fork clatter to the table. Malfoy laughed obnoxiously from his place next to his parents. Harry ignored it, because Voldemort did.
“May I come to your room tonight?”
And Harry wasn’t ready for this, not at all, if the way his heart picked up was any indication. But it wasn’t about him.
Not even my wedding is about me. But why should it be different from anything else in my life?
“If that’s what you want,” Harry answered quietly in Parseltongue, looking at Voldemort’s chin since he couldn’t meet his eyes.
“But what do you want?”
Harry paused, trapped. Voldemort wanted obedience. Did that mean that the right thing to do would be to answer yes? Or would he be in trouble if he lied?
Voldemort’s hand squeezed a little, only a little, but Harry didn’t have trouble imagining him squeezing Ron or Hermione’s hearts after they were ripped beating from their chests. He would give the true answer, and see what happened. At least Voldemort would probably take his rage out on Harry instead of his friends.
At least right away.
“I want to wait.”
Voldemort paused, tilting his head down so that their eyes met whether or not Harry wanted that. Harry braced himself, but there was no explosion of pain behind his scar. He was unsure whether that was a good thing or not. Since when did Voldemort have the self-control necessary to do something like this?
Or swear to a peace treaty, for that reason?
“Then we shall wait,” Voldemort said. “I want your surrender to be willing.”
“I wasn’t-I mean, I chose to marry you rather than continue the war.”
Voldemort laughed, a sound that silenced the dining room in a way that Malfoy’s hadn’t managed. “Do you think me a fool? You walked into the Atrium looking as if you wanted to stab me through the heart.”
Harry flinched. He had thought he looked perfectly numb by that point. He sighed out and offered the sincerest apology he could manage at the moment. “I’m sorry I looked that way, husband.”
Voldemort squeezed Harry’s leg once more and then let go of him. “One day, you shall not.”
Harry just nodded, and then focused on the pudding in front of him, some chocolate confection covered with whipped cream that he probably would have really enjoyed otherwise. He let the taste wash through him, reminding himself again that he couldn’t afford to react unless something extraordinary happened.
He didn’t have as good a control of his expression as he’d thought. Then again, the Dursleys hadn’t looked at his expression most of the time because he was locked up in his room or the cupboard. Voldemort would probably demand Harry stand behind his throne or kneel next to him or something.
I don’t want to-
The tide of resistance rose up inside him, and Harry crushed it. He had to. He had to.
He repeated that mantra over and over to himself, until by the time that dinner ended and Voldemort dismissed him back to his room, Harry felt as if he was floating along on a sea of words. He climbed the stairs like a robot, and had just opened the door to his room when he heard quick footsteps approaching him from behind.
Malfoy slammed his hands onto Harry’s shoulders, slammed him into the wall, and shook him hard enough that Harry heard his glasses break. Harry closed his eyes and tried to let the pain wash through him, too, rise up and wash and not leave a trace behind.
He couldn’t attack the Death Eaters. He had to obey them. He couldn’t complain about them, either. Voldemort had to know about the rivalry he and Malfoy had had in school. Harry breathed out and just made sure that he could breathe in between the times Malfoy slammed him into the door.
Malfoy finally took a step back, his lip curled up, and said, “You had better not think that you’re anything more than a glorified whore. You’re here as a toy. And you can’t replace my father in the Dark Lord’s Inner Circle.”
That was what he was worried about? Harry straightened, his head whirling. It felt like he had a rising bruise on his cheekbone, and a lump on the back of his head. Again, nothing that he hadn’t gone through before.
He would never replace Lucius Malfoy, that was certain. Malfoy seemed to think that Harry was some kind of master manipulator who would-what? Seduce Voldemort away from his plans for the magical world? Which was laughable, but Harry had the strong feeling that laughing right now was the worst mistake he could make.
You can’t tell Voldemort. He won’t want to hear you complain.
Harry nodded when Malfoy sneered down at him. “I understand. I won’t do anything that could-”
“See that you don’t, Potter,” Malfoy said in the middle of Harry’s little speech, and strutted out of the room.
Pompous little git.
But Harry smoothed out the thought. Smooth everything out, he thought as he took off the formal robes and hung them back up in the cupboard. He found pyjamas in a drawer after a bit of searching, although they were made of silk, weirdly. Well, maybe Voldemort didn’t want to feel rough cloth against his skin when they finally had sex.
Harry closed his eyes and waited until the threat of tears went away.
His role, he repeated to himself over and over as he showered in the ridiculously luxurious bathroom and brushed his teeth with the supplies that a house-elf brought him when he called, was to hold strong. Distract Voldemort. Buy time. Ron and Hermione had something important to do.
Maybe even hunting down the Horcruxes?
That thought got tossed from his head with particular violence. Voldemort was a Legilimens, and had that weird connection to Harry’s mind besides. Just because he hadn’t sent visions lately didn’t mean he couldn’t. And Harry couldn’t imagine what would Voldemort do if he found out Harry knew about that.
He lay in bed and made a long list of things in his head it wouldn’t be good to think about. Freedom. Having a normal life. Dating and marrying who he wanted to. Punching Malfoy in his smug face. Dueling Voldemort. Having his wand back. Attending Hogwarts again. Seeing Hedwig. Reading books. Doing anything other than lying on his bed day in and day out, and going to dinner parties and galas and whatever else Voldemort wanted to show him off at. There had to be things like that.
Then, carefully, Harry lit all the thoughts on fire. He watched them burn in his mind, and scraped the ashes flat where they had been.
Then he lay in the darkness and listened to the clock chime to itself and time go past, in the endless summer that would be the rest of his life unless Ron and Hermione’s plan worked.
Part Two.
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Voldemort
Rating: R
Content Notes: Forced marriage, AU (ignoring DH), angst, torture, extremely dubious consent, disassociation
Wordcount: This part 4500
Summary: AU. Harry didn’t understand why Voldemort had suggested their marriage as a solution to the war. He didn’t understand why his friends were supporting the suggestion. But he goes into it, trying to be as numb as possible, trying to retreat into his mind and just let the world play out around him-no matter how difficult that is.
Author’s Notes: This is one of my “From Samhain to the Solstice” fics that are being posted between Halloween and the winter solstice. It should have four parts, to be posted over the next four days. This is very dark; please pay heed to the warnings.
Retreat
“Tell me why, Hermione. That’s all I’m asking.”
“Oh, Harry.”
And she hugged him as they stood together in the little anteroom off the Ministry Atrium, where he would be going to-to marry Voldemort in a few minutes.
But she didn’t tell him why she had pushed him to agree to the marriage, along with Ron and the other Weasleys and Professor Lupin and everyone except Snape, who seemed to think that they were all mad together.
“Just trust that there’s a reason,” Hermione breathed into his ear. “Please, I promise. There’s a plan. I’ll be able to tell you someday.”
Then she released him with a little push. Harry looked down at his gleaming white robes. He had laughed at the idea when Voldemort suggested it, because, well, why would he want to mimic Muggle wedding customs? Although it was true enough that Harry was a virgin.
But Ron had told him that white robes worn to a wedding were traditional in political marriages used to seal a peace treaty or signal the end of a blood feud, because it signified that both parties were coming to the wedding with pure intentions.
Ron had known that because apparently one of his ancestors had married into the Malfoy family in an effort to stem the feud, although it’d broken out again later for some reason. He’d stuttered out the story while fiercely blushing and avoiding Harry’s eyes.
They all did a lot of avoiding of Harry’s eyes, lately. He wanted to scream at them that he hadn’t turned into a Legilimens when they weren’t looking, but he already knew that it wouldn’t do any good. So he’d kept silent, and sleepwalked through the days, letting other people handle the “peace treaty.” The only thing he knew for certain was that it included provisions that the Death Eaters couldn’t conduct raids and Muggles and Muggleborns couldn’t be harmed unless they attacked a pureblood wizard. He supposed that was good.
He also supposed that Voldemort would torture him to death minutes after they got “married,” but his friends seemed to think that wouldn’t happen, or they wouldn’t have pushed him into this. They did believe he would survive. Harry clung to that. Hermione had promised to tell him the reason for this “someday.”
He had to take what he could get.
That was always true, Harry thought numbly as he walked out to face the monster.
*
The incongruous sight of Voldemort in white robes would probably stay with Harry until the end of his life, he thought as he came out to find Voldemort standing next to the golden fountain in the center of the Atrium.
Someone had rebuilt it so that there were two figures seated in thrones, lounging there above a tangle of centaurs and goblins and probably other magical creatures. Harry saw that one of the statues had Voldemort’s features before he jerked his eyes away. He didn’t want to see if the other person had his face.
“Harry Potter.”
More than one person out of the crowd gathered there gasped or screamed as Voldemort spoke in Parseltongue. Harry just stared back at him. It was such a short time after Dumbledore’s funeral. It was moments before their marriage. Did Voldemort think he was going to scare Harry by speaking to him like a snake?
“It would please me if you spoke Parseltongue during this ceremony.”
Harry met the monster’s eyes and just held them for a long moment. They shone glittering red, because of course they did, but Voldemort didn’t look as if he wanted to kill Harry right that moment. Then again, doing it in public wouldn’t be the point. Voldemort would want to savor it.
And for some reason, his friends thought it was a good idea.
A warning sting came from his scar, and Harry dipped his head a little and said, “All right.”
For some reason, Voldemort’s face blazed with triumph, and a few more people cried out in fear, but no one rushed for the Floos or the lifts. Harry didn’t understand these people. They probably didn’t want to be here, but no one was trying to leave? Were they here because Voldemort had threatened them somehow?
Or because the wizarding world’s appetite for gossip was just too deep to let this go?
Honestly, at the moment, Harry felt as if he didn’t give a shit. He moved forwards and extended his hands when Voldemort directed him to do so with another hiss, ignoring the way his flesh crept and chilled. So he was going to feel Voldemort touch his hands now. What did it matter, when in a few hours Voldemort would kill him?
Or maybe it would be days, or months. Who could know?
“Look me in the eyes, Harry.”
That wasn’t anything Harry hadn’t done before. He looked up, and Voldemort gave him a lipless smile and tightened the hold on his hands before he began, “I swear to protect my husband with every bone in my body.”
He didn’t say from what, Harry thought, but his mind was still spinning sometimes, and numb the rest of the time, so when Voldemort prodded him with a little burst of pain in his scar, he said, “I swear to protect my husband with every bone in my body.”
“I swear to hold him safe, and cherish him.”
He didn’t say what way.
“I swear to hold him safe, and cherish him.”
“I swear to give him what he needs, privacy, space, and life included.”
A muscle twitched above Harry’s eye before he could stop it. What the hell did that mean? But he didn’t want to ask, in case Voldemort took it out on some innocent person at the ceremony. Concern for other people was trailing back to him, like a muscle he’d forgotten to exercise, trembling and unfolding inside him.
“I swear to give him what he needs, privacy, space, and life included.”
Voldemort paused for a long moment. Harry wondered if he was having trouble thinking of another vow that had enough loopholes, but then, to his enormous surprise, Voldemort asked, “And what else do you think we need, Harry?”
Harry didn’t have to pause as long as Voldemort. “I want safety for my friends. For innocents.”
“That was already settled as part of the treaty. I meant what else you can think of as part of the marriage.”
Harry was at a loss. He wished now that he hadn’t been so distant in the last few days, that part of him hadn’t shut down when Hermione had announced the “compromise” that the two sides had come up with and just resigned himself to being a sacrifice. He didn’t know much of what had happened in the last month, in fact. He’d either been shut up at the Dursleys’ house, or at Hogwarts, where McGonagall had placed him after she’d fetched him from his relatives’. He thought that his birthday might have come and passed. In fact, it had to have, right? That was the only way it made sense to have a legal marriage.
Then again, what did Voldemort care about legality?
“Harry.”
There was that warning tone to his voice again. Harry sighed and looked at Voldemort, wondering what it mattered when his lifespan was now on a timer.
Then again, when had that ever not been true? Born as the seventh month dies…
“I suppose I want my own room,” Harry admitted with a shrug. It wasn’t like he could think of anything else, not when he would be going to a prison in reality and a prison of a marriage. “And regular meals.”
Voldemort stared at him in silence, then nodded and said, “I swear to provide you with a room and regular meals.”
Harry nodded back, since it seemed to be the safest thing to do. “What do you want?”
Voldemort gave a soft, creepy laugh that raised the hair everywhere on Harry’s body that wasn’t actually his head. “I already have what I want.”
Harry only nodded and faced the cloaked Ministry representative who had come forwards with a pair of silver rings on a cushion and stuttered out something about the rings reinforcing the magical vows they’d made when they put them on. Harry didn’t know the Ministry man and didn’t care to know. He slid the cold ring onto his own finger, and felt something snap shut around him.
He sighed. What else can I do?
And then it occurred to him that, maybe, there was something.
After the summer when he got his Hogwarts letter, he didn’t remember every moment of his time with the Dursleys. Only when something spectacular happened, like the Dementors attacking him and Dudley or Dobby showing up to Levitate that cake. Harry had learned to curl up inside himself and put his mind more or less in a storage box. He could lie on his bed in the smallest bedroom and stare up at the ceiling for hours and not get bored. He could read his textbooks over and over, when he was allowed to have them. He could talk to Hedwig and just listen to the sound of his own voice without marking the time.
Could he do the same thing in his marriage to Voldemort? That was also a prison he didn’t have any way to get out of. And if he came back to life for the sharp moments, the important ones like when Voldemort was going to torture him, it ought to be okay.
He glanced up and caught Ron’s eye where he was standing behind a bulwark of people in Death Eater robes. Ron mouthed to him, “There’s a plan,” which Harry could only lip-read because he and Hermione had been saying it so often in the last few days.
Of course there was. His friends would have fought this marriage until the bitter end if there wasn’t. Harry had to have patience, and faith, and trust, and hope the others could carry it out.
He turned back to Voldemort, who was watching him with what looked like mild curiosity, but the triumph thrummed this time behind Harry’s scar. It was a faint, sickening sensation, but better than pain.
“Where will we be staying?” Harry asked in English.
*
“The Malfoys have graciously agreed to give up a wing of their house to us.”
Harry was sure there had been nothing “gracious” about it, but he trapped the thought before it could escape and stuffed it in the back of his mind. “All right,” he said, glancing around the room. It was blank and white, except for a touch of blue here and there along the windowsill and the pillows. At least the bed was large and it looked like there would be room for the robes he owned in the cupboard.
“Harry.”
Harry turned around to face Voldemort, dipping his head a little when their eyes met. “Yes, sir?”
Voldemort paused as if he was going to say something, but then went on. “I expect you to obey the orders that I give you and the Death Eaters give you. Within reason, of course. I would not expect you to go along if they told you to harm yourself.”
“Or if they told me to harm anyone else.”
Harry winced at the tone that burst forth in, but his scar thrummed with more pleasure as Voldemort nodded. “True enough. I suspect few would give you those orders, but you shall not be made to torture.” He leaned nearer, and Harry had to hold his breath and think hard about being at Privet Drive to dim his hatred. “But I do not expect to hear an endless litany of complaints, even about the Death Eaters you may have interacted with-less than pleasantly-in the past. Is that clear, husband?”
He had spoken the last word in Parseltongue. Harry met his gaze and nodded. “Yes, sir.”
Again, Voldemort paused, as if he was expecting something. An explosion of rage, maybe? Harry had less than no interest in doing something like that, not when he didn’t have any idea what plan of Ron and Hermione’s he would be endangering.
If it depended on a certain time limit or something, though, wouldn’t they have told him?
Voldemort gave a sudden half-bow that startled Harry enough to make him flinch. Voldemort seemed to choose not to notice. “Then I will leave you until this evening.” He paused. “I expect you to obey me.”
Rage did strike Harry then, but it burned out in an instant, as if it didn’t have any kindling in his soul. Maybe that was another thing that being married to Voldemort and staying with the Dursleys had in common, Harry thought. He couldn’t do anything about either, and so he would just get angry sometimes-and even when he was with the Dursleys, he had usually got upset about things like being denied news from the wizarding world, not them-and quiet the rest of the time.
“Okay, sir.”
“You will have dinner with me at six this evening, along with some honored guests from the Ministry. I expect you to wear formal robes and show your very best table manners, and speak to me when I speak to you. Is that clear?”
Harry nodded, but he did ask, “What kind of formal robes? I’ve only worn dress robes to the Yule Ball.”
“I forget how young you are.”
Voldemort sounded disdainful about it, so Harry ducked his head and waited.
“The formal silver robes that you’ll find in the cupboard. Call a house-elf to help you if you don’t know how to put them on.”
“Yes, sir.”
Voldemort turned and left, and Harry sat on the bed, turning to look at the cupboard. The door was half-open, and he could see the glimmer of silver cloth there. He supposed those were the robes.
He sighed and leaned back, staring up at the ceiling, while setting up a reminder in the back of his head to pay more attention as six-o’clock approached. He didn’t have his wand, or any books, or anything else to do. But that was all right. He was good at staying in his room and pretending he didn’t exist.
Whatever you need to do, Ron and Hermione, hurry up and do it.
*
In the end, Harry didn’t have to worry about calling a house-elf, because one of the Malfoy ones appeared in his room at something that the glittery crystal clock on the wall said was five-thirty. The elf bowed and was silent, not giving him her name. At least she didn’t look as horrible as Dobby had when he was still under the Malfoys’ care, Harry thought, glancing at her. She wore what looked like some kind of skirt made of a pillowcase.
“I need help putting on the formal silver robes, please,” Harry said. His voice was dull in his own ears, but he supposed that was a good thing. The duller, the calmer, the quieter he was, the less there would be for Voldemort to punish him for.
The elf bowed again, and then got the robes out of the cupboard by the simple expedient of snapping her fingers. Harry stood there and let her dress him like a doll. Resentment touched him and vanished again.
This was his life now.
The mirror on the wall showed a pair of robes that looked absolutely starched and uncomfortable on him, but Harry reckoned it didn’t matter. Voldemort had chosen the robes, and maybe if Harry looked ugly in these robes, that was part of the message.
“Thank you,” Harry told the house-elf, who stared at him with huge eyes and then turned and padded out of the room instead of vanishing. Harry supposed he was to follow her, so he did.
Malfoy Manor had more staircases than six houses needed. Harry worked his way down two of them and to the top of a white one that seemed to be made of marble, and where the house-elf pointed the way ahead, down, and to the right, then vanished.
Harry started down the staircase, and something shoved him from behind.
Harry flailed his arms for a second and would have fallen, but the marble staircase’s banisters were something else, some black material that was less slick than marble. He grabbed one and righted himself.
Meanwhile, someone laughed behind him, in a voice he was more than familiar with.
Retreat, Harry chanted to himself. To the center of your mind. The fight doesn’t depend on you being defiant right now. Just on you buying time for Ron and Hermione.
Harry turned around and looked emptily up at Malfoy, who was sauntering down the stairs to join him. Malfoy shook his head. He looked gaunt still, like the boy Harry had stalked through most of their sixth year, but he was smiling in a way Harry hadn’t seen since Malfoy had broken his nose on the train at the start of sixth year.
“You couldn’t even catch yourself with magic. You’re not allowed a wand, are you?”
Harry had assumed he wouldn’t be. There was a pulse of loss in the middle of his soul, but, well, there wasn’t much he could do about it. He just shook his head and continued walking down the stairs.
“You’re a pathetic idiot,” Malfoy continued in a voice that sneered more than his face. “You could have run away, but no, instead you had to sacrifice yourself on an altar to save the wizarding world.” He paused. “It is going to be a virgin sacrifice, isn’t it?”
Harry felt himself flush, but he just kept walking. He and Voldemort hadn’t discussed anything about sex. The vows didn’t have it in them. Harry assumed Voldemort would press the matter sooner or later, and, well.
He would do what he had to.
“I knew it!”
Harry sank himself into himself, and the sound of Malfoy’s crowing voice faded. They made their way to the dining room, a place so huge that Harry could barely see the walls, although some of that was probably the enormous glass windows that showed the light of a brilliant summer sunset. The table was huge and white-surprise-and Voldemort sat at the head of it, with the adult Malfoys near the foot, and some wizards and witches in formal robes in between them. No one else Harry recognized.
Harry paused near the doorway, and Voldemort caught his eye.
“Here,” he said in Parseltongue, making half the room jump, and tapped the chair beside him.
The chair looked like it was made of silver wood, the back full of twining branches melded together. Harry noted that in a distant, calm part of himself, thought it would be uncomfortable to sit on, and immediately tucked that thought away, too. He walked over and sat down in the chair next to Voldemort.
“And how has your afternoon been, dear?”
More than one person was flinching and cowering, and a few of them were trying to get away with shooting hateful glares at Harry. Probably thinking that Voldemort wouldn’t be speaking Parseltongue if he wasn’t here, Harry thought clinically. That wasn’t certain, though. Nagini was curled up around the feet of Voldemort’s chair, staring at him unblinkingly.
“Quiet,” Harry answered in the same language, and let Voldemort heap food on his plate. Most of it seemed to be meat, to his distant surprise. Then again, he didn’t know why he was surprised. He watched from the corner of his eye to see how others handled their forks and knives, and while he didn’t think he was perfect, he gave a good enough accounting of himself that Voldemort ignored him and talked with the others about unfamiliar places needing to be “pacified.”
Harry breathed through it. Ron and Hermione were alive. The other Weasleys were alive. Remus and Tonks were alive. They were going to live, and the treaty protected them. And if Ron and Hermione had a plan, they would be smart enough, because Hermione was there, to keep it under the surface and away from the Death Eaters.
Voldemort’s hand landing on his thigh was unexpected enough that Harry jumped and let his fork clatter to the table. Malfoy laughed obnoxiously from his place next to his parents. Harry ignored it, because Voldemort did.
“May I come to your room tonight?”
And Harry wasn’t ready for this, not at all, if the way his heart picked up was any indication. But it wasn’t about him.
Not even my wedding is about me. But why should it be different from anything else in my life?
“If that’s what you want,” Harry answered quietly in Parseltongue, looking at Voldemort’s chin since he couldn’t meet his eyes.
“But what do you want?”
Harry paused, trapped. Voldemort wanted obedience. Did that mean that the right thing to do would be to answer yes? Or would he be in trouble if he lied?
Voldemort’s hand squeezed a little, only a little, but Harry didn’t have trouble imagining him squeezing Ron or Hermione’s hearts after they were ripped beating from their chests. He would give the true answer, and see what happened. At least Voldemort would probably take his rage out on Harry instead of his friends.
At least right away.
“I want to wait.”
Voldemort paused, tilting his head down so that their eyes met whether or not Harry wanted that. Harry braced himself, but there was no explosion of pain behind his scar. He was unsure whether that was a good thing or not. Since when did Voldemort have the self-control necessary to do something like this?
Or swear to a peace treaty, for that reason?
“Then we shall wait,” Voldemort said. “I want your surrender to be willing.”
“I wasn’t-I mean, I chose to marry you rather than continue the war.”
Voldemort laughed, a sound that silenced the dining room in a way that Malfoy’s hadn’t managed. “Do you think me a fool? You walked into the Atrium looking as if you wanted to stab me through the heart.”
Harry flinched. He had thought he looked perfectly numb by that point. He sighed out and offered the sincerest apology he could manage at the moment. “I’m sorry I looked that way, husband.”
Voldemort squeezed Harry’s leg once more and then let go of him. “One day, you shall not.”
Harry just nodded, and then focused on the pudding in front of him, some chocolate confection covered with whipped cream that he probably would have really enjoyed otherwise. He let the taste wash through him, reminding himself again that he couldn’t afford to react unless something extraordinary happened.
He didn’t have as good a control of his expression as he’d thought. Then again, the Dursleys hadn’t looked at his expression most of the time because he was locked up in his room or the cupboard. Voldemort would probably demand Harry stand behind his throne or kneel next to him or something.
I don’t want to-
The tide of resistance rose up inside him, and Harry crushed it. He had to. He had to.
He repeated that mantra over and over to himself, until by the time that dinner ended and Voldemort dismissed him back to his room, Harry felt as if he was floating along on a sea of words. He climbed the stairs like a robot, and had just opened the door to his room when he heard quick footsteps approaching him from behind.
Malfoy slammed his hands onto Harry’s shoulders, slammed him into the wall, and shook him hard enough that Harry heard his glasses break. Harry closed his eyes and tried to let the pain wash through him, too, rise up and wash and not leave a trace behind.
He couldn’t attack the Death Eaters. He had to obey them. He couldn’t complain about them, either. Voldemort had to know about the rivalry he and Malfoy had had in school. Harry breathed out and just made sure that he could breathe in between the times Malfoy slammed him into the door.
Malfoy finally took a step back, his lip curled up, and said, “You had better not think that you’re anything more than a glorified whore. You’re here as a toy. And you can’t replace my father in the Dark Lord’s Inner Circle.”
That was what he was worried about? Harry straightened, his head whirling. It felt like he had a rising bruise on his cheekbone, and a lump on the back of his head. Again, nothing that he hadn’t gone through before.
He would never replace Lucius Malfoy, that was certain. Malfoy seemed to think that Harry was some kind of master manipulator who would-what? Seduce Voldemort away from his plans for the magical world? Which was laughable, but Harry had the strong feeling that laughing right now was the worst mistake he could make.
You can’t tell Voldemort. He won’t want to hear you complain.
Harry nodded when Malfoy sneered down at him. “I understand. I won’t do anything that could-”
“See that you don’t, Potter,” Malfoy said in the middle of Harry’s little speech, and strutted out of the room.
Pompous little git.
But Harry smoothed out the thought. Smooth everything out, he thought as he took off the formal robes and hung them back up in the cupboard. He found pyjamas in a drawer after a bit of searching, although they were made of silk, weirdly. Well, maybe Voldemort didn’t want to feel rough cloth against his skin when they finally had sex.
Harry closed his eyes and waited until the threat of tears went away.
His role, he repeated to himself over and over as he showered in the ridiculously luxurious bathroom and brushed his teeth with the supplies that a house-elf brought him when he called, was to hold strong. Distract Voldemort. Buy time. Ron and Hermione had something important to do.
Maybe even hunting down the Horcruxes?
That thought got tossed from his head with particular violence. Voldemort was a Legilimens, and had that weird connection to Harry’s mind besides. Just because he hadn’t sent visions lately didn’t mean he couldn’t. And Harry couldn’t imagine what would Voldemort do if he found out Harry knew about that.
He lay in bed and made a long list of things in his head it wouldn’t be good to think about. Freedom. Having a normal life. Dating and marrying who he wanted to. Punching Malfoy in his smug face. Dueling Voldemort. Having his wand back. Attending Hogwarts again. Seeing Hedwig. Reading books. Doing anything other than lying on his bed day in and day out, and going to dinner parties and galas and whatever else Voldemort wanted to show him off at. There had to be things like that.
Then, carefully, Harry lit all the thoughts on fire. He watched them burn in his mind, and scraped the ashes flat where they had been.
Then he lay in the darkness and listened to the clock chime to itself and time go past, in the endless summer that would be the rest of his life unless Ron and Hermione’s plan worked.
Part Two.