Chapter Fifty-Three of 'His Twenty-Eighth Life'- Dancing the Ring
Chapter Fifty-Two.
Title: His Twenty-Eighth Life (53/?)
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Eventual Harry Potter/Voldemort; mentions of others, including canon pairings, in the background, and past Harry/others
Rating: R (more for violence than sex)
Content Notes: violence, torture, gore, manipulation, angst, Master of Death Harry Potter, reincarnation, suicidal thoughts, suicide attempts
Summary: Harry Potter has been reborn again and again into new bodies as the Master of Death, some of them not human, none of them exactly like his old one-but he has always helped to defeat Voldemort in each new world. Now he’s Harry Potter again, but his slightly older brother is the target of the prophecy, and Harry assumes his role is going to be to support Jonathan in his defeat of Voldemort. At least, that’s what he thinks until Voldemort comes that Halloween night, discovers what Harry is, and kidnaps him. The story of a long fight between Voldemort’s sadism and Harry’s generosity.
Author’s Notes: This is going to be a very long fic, exploring some fairly dark character interactions. While the heart of the story is Harry’s relationship with Voldemort, that’s going to change only slowly and over time, and there will be plenty of concentration on other characters, too. Also, please take the tags/content notes seriously.
Thank you again for all the reviews!
Chapter Fifty-Three--Dancing the Ring
"I don't know how to take back those memories. Telling them to you and retrieving the ring from the place where I had it hidden was painful enough."
Harry watched Voldemort staring at the ground, at the small fire Harry had lit hours ago, while he said those words, and knew it would do no good to say that he looked more human than ever now. Voldemort would reject the compliment and make it into an argument, somehow, to send Harry away. Harry had to be with him now.
"I know a way that you can absorb them and it would muffle the pain."
Voldemort turned towards him. "Why did you not say so at once?"
"Because I wasn't sure if you would agree. It muffles the pain by letting someone else bear it instead. You have to let me into your memories--the literal ones, not just the story you already gave me. Do you want me to see those things? To feel them?"
Voldemort gave him a skull-like rictus that was not a grin. "You would feel my emotions."
"Yes. This is the memory inside your head, not the degraded copy that you put into a Pensieve."
"Degraded?"
"That's a theory we can discuss after you've decided if you want me to look at your memories. Whether tonight or sometime later."
Voldemort bowed his head. Harry waited in silence, the fire flickering. He extended his awareness outwards and found the mouse dying in a burrow under the soil, the owl swallowing another mouse, the rotting tree on the edge of the clearing, the manor house far away filled with Death Eaters. No one was near them. They had all the time and privacy they would ever need to perform this ritual. But he still wasn't sure Voldemort would agree.
Harry did hope his parents wouldn't worry too much about him, that they would remember how powerful he was and that he could take care of himself.
"Yes."
Harry started. He'd thought either Voldemort would agree eventually but put him off for tonight, wanting to hang onto the memories and the Horcrux for a while, or that he would choose a less painful way. "Why?"
Again he got the rictus, but this time, Harry thought there was humor in it--humor directed against Voldemort himself. "I spent decades thinking I was the most powerful wizard ever to exist. The moment I knew what you really were, I should have discarded that belief. And yet, I did not. I continued to cherish my weaknesses and believe I could control you. Now you are here, a powerful wizard offering to perform a task I am too weak to perform."
Harry sighed a little. "I'm glad to do it. We're friends."
"Jeremy said much the same."
Harry smiled a little wistfully. He thought, from the story, that Jeremy Selwyn was a mortal wizard he would have liked to call friend. He was almost looking forward to the ritual, if only to know him a short time from Voldemort's memories. "But there's still something you're forgetting. I'm really not human anymore. Not a wizard. That's one reason that I hope you'll give up your notion of us spending forever together."
Voldemort's face set in stubborn lines. He said nothing, but took out the ring Horcrux and extended it towards Harry on his palm.
Harry accepted it. He knew, in part, this was a test to see whether he could do what he'd claimed. The venom in the Horcrux tried to climb his arm as it had climbed Dumbledore's. Harry ignored that and cleaved through it, speeding his soul, his essence, down towards the ring, while he sang under his breath the chant that a centaur had taught him long ago.
The song spiraled around the Horcrux, sealing it within a matrix of sound. When Harry reached the end of one full chant, he lifted his hand, and a ball of blue energy appeared beside him, singing the same song. That would keep the poison and the essential Dark nature of a Horcrux contained. Harry had no desire to meet the shard of Tom Riddle that lived in this ring.
Harry held out his right hand without looking away from the Horcrux in his left. Voldemort's strong fingers clamped down on his wrist. Harry nodded once and then dived forwards and into it.
*
He is not a wizard. That does not make him less beautiful.
Voldemort wondered if Harry knew how truly wonderful he was as he knelt on the dirt and grass in the clearing, gazing at the golden ring in his palm, his mouth open slightly even though it was the light beside him that sang the song. Light crowned his head and shoulders, then shadows, slowly rising and falling, fantastic towers that had not the slightest thing to do with the fire in front of them. Voldemort began to feel Harry's fingers dissolving, turning into rings of pure power.
He made no attempt to keep a further grip on them. He only leaned back and watched as the power slid up into a white glow that assumed a lightning bolt shape for a moment before it became a wand, then a tower, then a spread wing, then a cloak. Lord Voldemort saw the shapes of all the Deathly Hallows before the white glow turned the color of embers and whirled down around him, but he thought that might be a coincidence.
"Breathe me in."
The words weren't Parseltongue, but some kind of rushing command that swept around Lord Voldemort like the wind. He looked and found ash hovering in front of him, streams of it separating into smaller grains. They rested at the level of his mouth and nose.
Lord Voldemort had not done such things for pursuit of power in years, but when he had, he had not hesitated. He opened his mouth and his nostrils as wide as they could go. The grains swept towards him and funneled into him.
He could feel them attaching to his memories in the moments before his view dissolved into rolling sparks of light. He ignored the panic that wanted to begin. He trusted Harry, and he trusted that Harry would do what he said and accept this pain without exposing Lord Voldemort to it.
The last thing he saw before the advent of unconsciousness was a pair of brilliant green eyes filled with all the stars of the universe.
*
Harry appeared in the forest, and saw Jeremy Selwyn kneeling before him.
All around him, the memory flickered and danced, not much different than the light of the fire that Harry had so recently left behind. He felt the emotions surging through him as well, burning into his mind like curses from the Elder Wand.
Fondness. Pride. Anticipation as he thought of what he would do with the cup and ring that Jeremy had brought to him. Amusement as a memory arose of when Jeremy had pretended to plead with him on his knees, as he was kneeling now, when they were both still in Slytherin.
No trace of the fear or suspicion that the story had portrayed Voldemort as having. He truly had never thought Jeremy would betray him. He had been incapable of foreseeing his friend's request.
That's why it hurts so much. He really did believe in him, and it required almost splitting his soul before the murder in order to conceive of what Jeremy did as a betrayal.
"My lord," Jeremy breathed.
Harry bent down and held out his hand. Around him, the memory spiraled and split, becoming the darker one of reality, and the brighter one where he stood. The magic congealed in the center, guarding Voldemort's mind in a shell.
This was why this particular bit of magic was risky, something Harry wouldn't have been able to do if he wasn't the Master of Death. Even as he bore the pain of what had truly happened to Jeremy, he would be letting Voldemort picture an alternate path, one where he accepted what his friend was saying and reversed course. It wouldn't replace his memories--something that might happen if the shell was lowered--but it could help reconcile him to the truth that he hadn't ever thought of his friend as a traitor before this.
"I hear what you are saying, my loyal and faithful servant," Harry said in Voldemort's voice. "I will consider it."
Jeremy's face lit up, and Harry felt a tug of despair. He would have liked to know him. Voldemort had made that impossible.
But before he could despair too much, or undo some of his own work by being here, he turned and flung himself into the real memory.
He accepted and absorbed the pain, the shock, the soul-fracturing moment when Voldemort convinced himself that Jeremy had never been his friend. It made part of his mind shake, but it was the most mortal part, the part that had been afraid, until recently, to have a life that didn't center on defeating Voldemort.
He was a monster. He killed his friend. He killed part of himself that day.
Harry acknowledged that, mourned that, watched the moment when Jeremy flew onto his back and the light of the Killing Curse struck him, and also enveloped the realization with the calmness of his own immortality. He had done worse than this. He had borne worse than this. Let him be the one to bear it, because Voldemort was incapable.
And, in a way, it would still lead to remorse; it would let Voldemort accept and live with the fact that he had never truly thought Jeremy was a traitor until the moment he asked Voldemort to leave the Horcruxes behind.
*
Lord Voldemort walked back down the path that led to Malfoy Manor, Jeremy by his side. The day was filled with shadows and exultation.
He was not sure why he had agreed to give up the Horcruxes as his friend's boon. Yes, it was what Jeremy had wanted, but on the other hand, Lord Voldemort did not always grant his followers the favors they asked for. Refusing would not have been the end of their friendship. And Lord Voldemort would now have to find some other kind of immortality.
On the other hand, it was hard for him to imagine treading the path that had ended in Jeremy's death. Or perhaps the one where he turned his back and led the Death Eaters into a rebellion. Nearly as many would follow Jeremy as followed Lord Voldemort himself--
A ripple of darkness cut in front of him, shattering the vision of Jeremy, and Harry's exasperated voice said, I'm trying to spare you and heal your wounds, not increase your paranoia, you berk.
Lord Voldemort jerked back with a hiss. The vision of Jeremy in sunlight wavered to the point that it seemed he stood in shadow and Jeremy was walking on alone. What are you doing? I do not want this to replace the true memories!
Letting you come to terms with the fact that you never "foresaw" him "turning" on you.
Lord Voldemort would have answered in similarly cutting terms, but Jeremy was speaking with a worried frown on his face. "My lord? Are you all right?"
The sunshine came back, and the image of the other path and the darkness disappeared. Lord Voldemort stood tense and waiting for a moment, a hand on his wand. He could have drawn it. He could have distrusted Harry the way he had learned to distrust Jeremy.
He could have. But he chose to pull his hand away, smile at his dearest friend, and say, "Yes, I am. We need to plan for how I'm going to absorb the other Horcruxes I've already created, if you're serious about this being your boon."
"I thought of that," Jeremy said, his steps light and his smile brilliant. He obviously wasn't going to respond to the question about whether he really wanted Lord Voldemort to absorb the Horcruxes as his boon or not. "We'll tell the others that you took a Contagious Disease Curse and you have to rest up."
"That would hardly prevent some of them from wanting to come get a look at me, or pamper me."
"We'll tell them that it's Exploding Pustules. A really bad case. Red and yellow streaks of pus all down the walls."
Lord Voldemort laughed, and could not remember the last time the sound had left his lips so freely. From the way that Jeremy slowed and turned towards him with a slight smile, he also thought that the laughter Lord Voldemort had used in the clearing hardly counted.
Lord Voldemort continued walking, and continued planning. He realized at some point that he was trusting Jeremy with the location of his Horcruxes, something he had never done before.
And he was trusting Harry to accept the pain for him and bind his thoughts in the sort of matrix they needed to survive the pain and endure the magic of someone else standing in the memories for him.
He walked on, and gave up on figuring out exactly what was happening and exactly when he would wake up. He would adapt as necessary. Because he could trust Harry.
*
Harry sighed into the void and unwrapped the congealed bubble that had protected Voldemort's mind. Enduring the pain hadn't been pleasant, but Voldemort had done his part, accepting the vision that was what might have happened if he had given in to Jeremy's pleas.
He was ready to integrate the soul shard from the ring.
Harry opened his eyes and saw the hovering glow above the ring. It was human-shaped and had a crown on its head. Harry gave it an unimpressed look. He still wasn't going to meet the piece of Tom Riddle Voldemort had bound to the ring. Instead, he held out the former Horcrux that now felt merely greasy and magical.
Voldemort accepted it without hesitation, but his eyes were on Harry. Harry waited expectantly, wondering if Voldemort didn't know how to make the integration work when he hadn't felt the remorse himself.
"Will you show me what you might have looked like at Jeremy's age?" Voldemort whispered.
Harry raised his eyebrows. "Why would you want to see something like that?" He nodded towards the Horcrux so that Voldemort would remember what he needed to do here.
"I have seen what he would have looked like had he lived, and I have relived what he looked like dead. I need something to replace those visions." Voldemort hesitated for a moment. "Especially the first. I understand that you meant it as--kindness, but now I have that vision haunting me."
Harry nodded, not sure whether those were the only reasons Voldemort was demanding these things, but willing enough to go along with them. He reached down into the center of himself and yanked sharply on the magic, making his body melt and swirl and flow like the power had when he was busy shielding Voldemort's mind.
He grew taller in a way that had once been uncomfortable for him, and was now usual. He had taken disguises like this before, although always out of the sight of people in his other worlds who didn't know what he was.
He blinked at the ground from a new height, took an unsteady step on new legs, and glanced at Voldemort, silently asking if this was what he had had in mind, and if he would absorb the ring Horcrux now.
*
Voldemort drank in the sight. Harry was much taller than he had been, lean, sinewy, his hair and his eyes wild in a way that fit this body better than they had ever fit the one of a child. He looked to be perhaps thirty-nine. He did not have many muscles, but the ones he did were the ones of a trained duelist.
And if he has done it once because I asked, he may do it again.
"Thank you," Lord Voldemort murmured, and clasped his hand around the ring Horcrux, and willed it to rejoin with him.
It was still far from painless, the blurring whirl of different thoughts and perspectives and memories around him, and the sensation of being at once younger and more lost, as that faded Tom Riddle poured back into him. Voldemort hissed and closed his eyes. The heat that shifted through him seemed to focus on his face, and he wondered how his features would be reshaped this time.
"That's different."
The strange voice nearly caused Voldemort to seize his wand, but he realized a moment later that it was the same voice he had heard speaking to him for weeks, just deepened so that it came out of an adult chest. He opened his eyes and looked out at Harry, whose brows were raised, his eyes gone as deep as his voice.
He held out a conjured mirror, and Lord Voldemort examined the skin that had deepened in color to nearly a tan, his hair that had grown in grey and shaggy and would need to be trimmed, and his slightly thicker fingers. He nodded and leaned back to indicate when he was done.
Harry swirled and melted back into his child self at the same moment. Lord Voldemort held back a noise of disappointment and stood. "Would you assume that form again, if I asked?" he murmured.
"If you had a need, not a desire."
"Why make so much difference between them?"
Harry gave him a single look and turned into darkness and air. Lord Voldemort closed his eyes. Perhaps he had been unwise to push, when Harry had been the means of enabling him to be more human and to absorb the Horcrux that had haunted his life without his realizing it for so long.
But he would continue to push. He would continue to ask.
And he would not yield until he saw the corresponding desire in Harry's eyes. Were they not both immortal? Compared to that, ever was not too long to wait.
Chapter Fifty-Four.
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