❝ I Heard Someone Say, 'Do Or Do Not'. There Is No Try. People Could Die. ❞

Old Tom × Auror Harry / post-warAU Thanks for the art trade 🌹 @tlwos

Reminder that communications in all of Gaza have been cut off for the past three days. This means no one can make calls to check on family members within Gaza or to report and call for help/ambulances following Israeli airstrikes. As a result, many end up dying due to injuries or being trapped under the rubble with no possible way of notifying anyone. Of course this also goes hand in hand with Israel intensifying their bombardment of every part of Gaza after having isolated it from the world.

You can help by purchasing e-sims. I will share a long post with all the details and instructions shortly and you can also Venmo smaller amounts if you're unable to buy a whole bundle so that bigger plans can be bought for families.

LMFAO I need more of this

“Expulso!”

The force of the magic slammed him through one wall and into another, and Harry could not breathe. It felt like the time Dudley sat on top of his chest, pressing all of the air from his lungs. He gasped and choked to no avail, the sensation of breathlessness more distressing than the stars dancing before his eyes and the ringing of his ears. 

He was dying, dying, dying.

After a too-long moment Harry managed a shuddering inhale, getting a lungful of concrete dust for his troubles. He doubled over, coughing violently. His wand. He needed his wand.

His right arm was screaming in pain, and Harry squinted through hazy eyes to find a bone sticking out of it at a decidedly odd angle, having ripped through his shirt and robes. Harry had a half-hearted thought of relief that Lockhart wasn’t here to vanish all the bones, which was strange because he should be focusing on the fact that he still couldn’t breathe properly. 

He blinked blearily and twitched his left hand with a desperation that had his wand—blessedly whole—slapping into it. Harry wasn’t used to casting with his off hand, but he was still able to twist it enough to cast a bubble-head charm. 

The spell was silent, because he had no breath for words and no time to think that he couldn’t manage. He had to.

Harry gasped again, this time into a clean pocket of air, and the panic receded a little more at the hard-won oxygen. The pulsing of his temples began to ease on his next breath, but the world still looked too-bright and decidedly crooked. 

“My Lord,” came a smooth, even voice, “shall I take his wand?”

Harry’s eyes focused slowly on the two figures in front of him as his fingers tightened almost compulsively around his wand. His.

“Let the child learn his lesson in full first,” said Lord Voldemort generously. 

Harry swallowed around a dry mouth, glad to taste no blood. At least he hadn’t bitten his tongue or gotten any teeth knocked loose. He inhaled deeply again, revelling in his ability to do so, though the motion made him notice an ache in his sternum as well. Bruised ribs, maybe?  

‘Lesson?’ Harry wondered blearily, a few beats too late. 

Though perhaps he said it out loud, because Voldemort replied, “That you are no match for Lord Voldemort.”

Of course he wasn’t. What a stupid point to try and make. He was fifteen. He barely knew any magic at all. Voldemort had been given decades to learn, versus Harry’s five years. Any competent adult—and wasn’t that an oxymoron—could easily outmatch him, nevertheless a Dark Lord. 

“Well,” Voldemort’s voice came dryly, “you have more sense than I expected, having been raised on Dumbledore’s knee.”

Harry let out a vague approximation of a laugh. He hadn’t known Voldemort had a sense of humour. Dumbledore couldn’t even stand to be in the same room as him. They’d spoken—what, six times since he was eleven? Dumbledore hadn’t so much as looked his way the entire year. 

Not that Harry exactly wanted his attention. He was still angry with the Headmaster for that stupidity with the Triwizard Tournament, and his assault after returning from the Graveyard, and the resulting announcement made (on Harry’s behalf, as if he had any right to speak for him) that Voldemort was back. Really, Harry could have avoided a year of carving ‘I must not tell lies,’ into his own hand if it wasn’t for Dumbledore deciding to tell the world about Voldemort’s resurrection. 

Or maybe not, if Umbridge was one of Voldemort’s and he’d told her to torture Harry for revealing his return. Who knew? That would certainly have been a neat, simple solution. The woman was prejudiced enough to be on par with Malfoy, and he was a Death Eater. But if being prejudiced was the only qualifier to being a part of Voldemort’s army, or movement, or whatever the hell it was, then everybody would get an invite. Dudders could be a Death Eater; make his parents proud. 

“He has quite a mouth on him, My Lord.”

Wow, how observant. Snape would love this guy. 

Was Harry concussed? That was weird. Normally if he was concussed he stayed very, very still and quiet until he was able to sleep and his magic saw him to rights. If he got talkative with a head injury, the Durlsey’s would’ve probably dropped him at an orphanage like they always threatened, or maybe just left him in the middle of nowhere in hopes that he’d drop dead.

“What nonsense is he blubbering about?” the voice said again, and the trace of discomfort was slight but obvious to a boy who had been forced to pick up on such subtleties to survive. Did he not like to hear about the fact that some kids did not get coddled?

Did Death Eaters coddle their kids? Like, as a whole? Draco Malfoy had definitely been coddled; he acted just like Dudley, if not as stupid. He’d definitely grown up with a bed and food and people that would say ‘yes’ to his whims. He just had that sense about him.

Not that Harry wished that the boy hadn’t grown up with that stuff. Harry wouldn’t be intentionally cruel enough to hope for that. Just, he didn’t have to rub it in people’s faces so much. Then again, the brat would have to have manners or something not to do that, and with each passing day Harry was becoming increasingly sure that no witch or wizard actually possessed any matter of manners at all. Everyone was so rude, all the time. Well actually Riddle hadn’t been rude at first, but then he sicced a basilisk on Harry, which was not only rude but also attempted murder. 

Wait, where was he again? Oh. Halfway into the wall he had flown into after bursting through the first. Attempted murder again. That made sense.

The only question was, why was Voldemort so bad at actually murdering him? That had to be a little embarrassing. Oh wait, no, ‘lesson’. The man wanted to teach him something. Harry wondered if he wanted to be a good student for the Dark Lord, or if he’d rather just decline the opportunity. So far, he taught like a muggle.

“A muggle?”

Ouch. Harry’s scar hurt more than his arm; how did Voldemort do that? Harry needed to learn so he could hurt the man right back. Fairs fair.

A finger pressed cruelly into Harry’s brow, right over his scar. It hurt it hurt it hurt it hurtithurt!

“Just like a muggle,” Harry gasped out. Physical violence. Just like Vernon. Voldemort. Vernon. Maybe everyone in the world who had a V-name was the worst.

Cold fingers felt surprisingly nice against Harry’s overheated face. The pain of his scar ebbed abruptly, leaving a dizzying confusion in its wake. Harry might throw up sometime soon.

“Would you like non-physical violence, boy?” Voldemort asked.

Harry carded through the options. Isolation and containment. Starvation. Maybe mental violence, the kind that Snape preferred. Verbal violence of Petunia’s ilk seemed a bit below the Dark Lord, but then her words about how much of a worthless, unnatural freak Harry was did circle his head to this day, so there was no doubt that kind of thing was effective. Just, probably it would’ve been effective if Voldemort had started before he could remember like Petunia had. 

“Do you have a non-violent option? Or is there a box I can check to be killed quickly? Is this a survey? I would rate your services as abysmal. Or wait. Uh. Troll. That’s it, right? Yeah. Bad… bad grade. Probably your first. You’ve failed pacifism. A truly bleak thing for a Dark Lord. You have my greatest sympathies. Surely this will hurt your future career options and they’ll have to lower your salary.” 

Are revolutionaries paid? Or does Voldemort take his own payment? What would be a suitable payment for a Dark Lord? The bodies of his opposers? But then, all his opposers are magical, and didn’t Riddle have that Magic is Might thing? Or was that just something he said? The man had ordered the death of Cedric, who had been the most worthy of age wizard at Hogwarts according to the cup. Apparently Cedric’s completely attractive competency hadn’t mattered, because Voldemort hadn’t hesitated to kill one of the brightest of a generation when a stunner and memory charm could’ve worked just as well. 

Then again, he’d wanted to kill a baby, once, and the death toll of the last war had officially been tallied at one-hundred and seven magicals, after Harry’s parents, so obviously he could care less if he was decimating their population, so long as he got to rule the world or whatever. 

“Potter, do shut up.”

Huh? Had Harry been talking?

“Rambling,” the voice of the oddly not simpering sycophant chimed in helpfully. 

Well. That was something. Normally Harry went very quiet when he was concussed and waited for his magic to—oh. His magic. Harry had magic. What had he done last summer, when Sirius was no longer an adequate threat? He could probably just… 

Harry looked down to see his wand in his left hand. He set it down very gently, then stared blankly at said hand for a long, long moment. Then the air around it began to do that cute little vibrating thing that his magic would do when it hadn’t been let out for long enough, because of the stupid Dursley’s, and the stupid rules, (why the fuck weren’t students allowed to use magic at all over the summer? Didn’t it make them feel like they were going to burst apart with all the suppressed energy? It was near painful sometimes unless Harry found some way to use it, which invariably the Dursely’s gave him.) 

A hand grasped over his wrist and held him at bay. “Do not do whatever you are considering, you stupid, reckless child—”

Harry was a child, and he had chosen to be reckless when he had chosen Gryffindor over Slytherin, so he let his wrist spark with electricity that was enough to get the touch away from him. Why did people always feel so entitled to touching him? He shivered in revulsion even as he placed his hand to his head and let his eyes fall shut.

His magic went to work, effective as always. This was only the second time it hadn’t waited until Harry was asleep. That was very nice of it.

“Thank you,” he told it quite seriously, in the middle of its work. It buzzed against his temple, a current of energy, and Harry quieted and let it continue.

When Harry re-opened his eyes, his vision was not blurry, his head not pounding, and the world not an unsteady bouquet of water colours with a diagonal slant. When he opened his eyes, he met the red gaze of the Dark Lord Voldemort, and swallowed.

“Oh. Just… lovely. Hi?”

The man behind the Dark Lord snorted. Harry spared him a glance—no features were visible beneath his cloak and mask. 

Harry’s throat worked around a swallow. “Fancy seeing you here,” Harry offered, and then set his hand on his arms, because why not, and winced when his bone snapped back into place. 

Ithurtsithurtsohshit. 

Voldemort’s eyes were gleaming with an odd sort of hunger. “I wonder if you will be so eager to talk now, Harry Potter? Tell me… when was the last time you encountered me treating you politely?”

Voldemort didn’t know about the Chamber?

Harry swallowed. “Okay,” he said.

Voldemort stared. “Just like that.”

 “It’s not like I’m opposed to you knowing. I thought you already knew, but apparently you and Tom Riddle weren’t as connected as he implied. Though, you know, if you want me to spill all, you should at least say please.”

Harry’s scar ached, but his arm didn’t any more. Unlike his ribs. “Pardon?”

“You would actually prefer to use Crucio than say please,” Harry noted. “That says mildly concerning things about you, you know. Common courtesy—Troll.”

“He’s stalling,” the Death Eater noted, when Voldemort moved as if for his wand. 

“Of course I am,” Harry rebutted. “He’s clever; you should keep him around to control your terrible temper.”

Why was Harry doing this? Was he waiting for a rescue that would never come, or an opening that was twice as unlikely given the multitude of people involved. 

The Death Eater laughed, and Harry saw a flash of green light. Heard his mothers scream. 

“Oh,” he said, eyes going a bit wide. “There’s two of you.”

Both figures went unnaturally still. “Why would you say that?” The cloaked Voldemort asked. 

Harry tilted his head. “Your laugh,” he said simply. “Your voice is different, but your laugh is the same. Also, you’re not nearly frightened enough of ‘Your Lord’’.”

The cloaked figure hummed, then lowered his hood. “Clever boy,” he said lightly, eyes just as intent and intense as Voldemort’s own, though they were dark rather than bright. His hair was curly, Harry noticed, longer than Tom had kept it when he was in school, though this man didn’t look very old at all. He still had his nose, though his cheekbones were sharper than they had been as a boy, and unlike Voldemort he had lips as well. Harry catalogued these differences with some interest. The evolution of Voldemort, he thought vaguely.

“Technically,” he adds, as he finishes taking the other Dark Lord in, “I’d be doing the both of you a favour by sharing the story of my Second Year.”

His implication was clear. He wanted two pleases. 

“You’re positively suicidal, aren’t you?” the human Voldemort murmured. “Very well, Harry. Please tell me about the circumstances surrounding your encounter or encounters with Tom Riddle, as well as the encounters themselves.”

Harry watched him thoughtfully. “What are you going by?”

“Marvolo,” the cloaked man answered easily. 

“Marvolo,” he repeated thoughtfully. “Your middle name. Tom wrote it in the air for me—rearranged the letters to spell,” he gestured to Voldemort with his newly healed arm. It didn’t so much as twinge. He was more than a little impressed with his magic. 

“How did you take the revelation?” said Voldemort, something cruel in his voice. 

Harry's lips quirked. "I told him he was nothing special," Harry admitted easily. "I told him Dumbledore was the greatest wizard in the world. Mostly, I just wanted him to shut up. He kept asking questions,” he allowed his gaze to drift over both of them, mouth speaking absently even as calculations flashed through his mind. How was he going to get out of this unscathed? There had to be something… some way… 

“He was desperate to know about the night you lost your body,” he told Voldemort. “He thought I would have the answers, somehow. I told him it was my mum. Muggleborn,” he informed Marvolo, in case he didn’t know. Harry’s lips curled in amusement. “He didn’t like that very much. Went on and on about how alike we are. Then he decided it was luck and chance that had saved me, said I was nothing special, and called the basilisk.”

“Maybe I proved him wrong when I killed it and then shoved a basilisk fang into the diary.”

Rage bloomed in two sets of eyes, but it was Voldemort that hissed, “You what?”

“Well, I was dying too at the time,” he defended. “I’m nothing if not spiteful. If I died, I was going to take him with me.”

“Yet here you are,” Marvolo said with clear menace. “Apparently you did not get close enough to death.”

Harry watched him, unimpressed. “The diary wasn’t the only thing that got stabbed with a basilisk fang.”

“You lie,” hissed Voldemort, redrawing Harry’s gaze as if he’d ever truly lost it. 

Harry’s eyes narrowed. “Who’s the liar, here? My parents died begging you for mercy?”

“Didn’t they? Your father begged for his wife's life, and yours. Your mother for yours alone.”

Harry’s lips pressed tight. “Really fucked yourself, didn’t you? You told my mum ‘very well’, when she begged to trade her life for mine. You agreed. You didn’t think she was powerful enough to form an unbreakable vow without the official bindings? You would think you would be smarter than pureblood rhetoric when you’re hardly pure yourself.”

“That's it?” Marvolo murmured, tilting his head thoughtfully. “You couldn’t tell me that?” He glanced at Voldemort, then straightened. “You didn’t know.”

Harry felt the silent chastisement in the words. ‘How is it that a child realised what you didn’t?’

relent

Harry gaped as he watched Ron disapparate, his heart shuddering and squeezing tight in his chest. The actual audacity. The fucking cheek of Ron.

Harry stood in the middle of the Forest of Dean, mouth agape, as Hermione quietly began to cry. Every molecule in Harry's body burned and his vision blurs; it's not until he feels the hot splash of tears against his cheeks that he realised he had begun to cry silently as well.

Hermione's fingers threaded through Harry's and he held her hand tightly. It seems like it's just going to be the two of them.

It is fine. They can do this.

They’ll have to.

"I guess it'll just be us against Vol – " Harry began sourly before Hermione's hand squeezed tightly.

"Don't say his name, Harry," Hermione whispered. "I don't know why, I can't explain it – but just, don't say his name."

Harry sealed his lips in a tight line, frowning, as they looked at the spot Ron had once stood.

— — — —

"Do you remember, Harry," Hermione began pensively, rolling her wand in her hand, "When Dean Thomas nearly ran into us in the forest?"

Harry looked up from his spot near the fire, pulling himself from his dark thoughts. His chest still ached from where Hermione had cut the locket off his flesh the night before, the searing oval scar shiny and tingling.

“I do," Harry answered at last. He tossed the sealed Golden Snitch between his hands, finger pads gliding over the engraved gold. He used to play with his wand this way, before – before it was splintered into shards. The wound of losing his wand sears hotter than the locket scar, than Nagini's venom-less bite.

"Remember when Dirk said... That he thought you'd run off?" Hermione continued slowly. “Abandoned the wizarding world?”

Harry was too tired to bristle at her carefully chosen words, too exhausted to get annoyed at her slowly leading questions.

After the last twenty-four-hour's events, Harry would very much prefer to not go into the subject of eavesdropping on Thomas and Dirk, as the immediate nasty row that occurred following said eavesdropping had resulted in Ron leaving. Abandoning them in the Forest of Dean.

That's a subject both Harry and Hermione are too raw to broach, despite all of the time that had since passed.

Ron’s cold laughter echoed in Harry’s head. 'I get it. You choose him.'

Harry sighed and nodded.

"I think... I think maybe Dirk had a point," Hermione whispered, brown eyes glazed as she stared into the inky forest.

Harry's head jerked up at that, mouth dropping open. "What are you suggesting?" Harry asked through a rushed exhale, shocked.

Hermione did not look at Harry as she laced her fingers together and gripped until her knuckles grew white. From her seated position on the log across from the fire, Harry could see the dark bags under her eyes, the sallow dip of her cheeks.

They've been in the forest too long, lost as to what their next step should be. They’re starving, scared. Barely no longer children in a world that is too dark and cold.

"It's a zero sum game, Harry,” Hermione said slowly. “The muggles are war driven. As are the wizards. Once the muggles discover the threat You-Know-Who poses, they'll deploy their armies. They'll attack. And the wizards will fight back just as hard. Muggle weapons are stronger than any single spell, but magic will disrupt their systems. It'll be a standstill and yet they'll just keep fighting," Hermione whispered, lips pale from cold and fear. "The wizards and the muggles will treat you as nothing other than a threat."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, words heatless. He genuinely didn't understand her point.

"You're... You're a horcrux, Harry," Hermione answered so quietly he barely heard her over the sound of the crackling fire.

Harry's heart froze for a timeless moment and then it near exploded in his chest, beating with the frantic tempo of a startled rabbit.

"How do you – what are you – " He began to stammer, horrified, before Hermione quickly continued.

"It's just a theory," Hermione said sharply, voice growing louder as she began to rally her resolve. "But please, just think about it – the connection you have with him, your ability to speak Parseltongue, Dumbledore's insistence that it has to be you to fight him. I think Dumbledore knew, that he's been raising you to fight Him to the death. That you won't survive this war."

Harry felt something shift inside him, like a cog sliding into gear. The idea fit too well; within a moment, Harry could see it all through the eyes of the new perspective. The Parseltongue, the mood swings he feels and unintentionally acts upon, the dreams.

In his mind’s eye, Harry sees the strange way Dumbledore introduced the horcruxes to him, carefully and gently, leading Harry down a path to knowledge.

"I have to die," Harry whispered weakly. It feels true, like everything Harry has ever been taught, like everything Harry has ever known has suddenly accumulated in this single, morbid epiphany. "I am going to die."

The Snitch breaks open in his hand.

Harry jolts, surprised, and in his shock he drops the small thing on the ground. At his feet, a gold ring with a cracked black rock falls out of the snitch.

Harry looked up at Hermione and was startled by the look of icy anger on her face.

"He charmed it to open when you accepted your death," Hermione stated blankly, appalled. She stood abruptly and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

Harry knew this look – she was attempting to console two opposing thoughts in her head, cognitive dissonance burning her logical mind to the ground. "Dumbledore knew you had to die. He knew. And he made it so that you could only inherit the ring once you accepted it."

A feeling of complete, overwhelming betrayal stabbed through Harry's heart. Was that... Was that all Harry had been to Dumbledore? A martyr to a cause? A weapon, his grand Chosen One?

For the Greater Good.

"We have no help. Ron is long gone. We led Vo-ugh, You-Know-Who to discovering the identity of the thief," Harry hissed quietly, reeling, "We're being hunted. I have no wand and no idea where to look for the next horcrux – well, we know where at least two horcruxes are," he said, waving at himself and to the tent where the locket had been stashed. Harry released a barely-human noise disguised as a brittle laugh, a sound he'd never made before. It was high pitched and weak, bursting through his throat without warning. "Hermione," Harry said, turning to his best friend. "I – I'm going to have to die."

Hermione looked as if he had physically slapped her. "No. No, that's not going to happen," she protested vehemently.

"But it is," Harry answered dully, sitting down at the fire. "There's no other way."

Just as Harry said those words, something strange shifted inside of himself. Something oddly feral and desperate, an idea borne from a creature backed into a corner.

"We'll figure something out," Hermione promised solemnly.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, mind whirling with the new idea, breathless. "Yeah we will."

— — — —

That night, after Harry finished his lookout shift and was tucked into his chilly cot, he thought of the people who had supported him over the years. He thought of the names that well wishers carved into his dead family home's miserable epitaph in Godric's Hollow. He thinks of Remus' quiet support and Sirius' wild grin. He thinks of Hermione and Luna and Ginny and Neville and Ron –

The memory of Ron sours the growing feeling of happiness in Harry's heart. Harry thinks of Ron's betrayal, his best friend's cruel words and demanding that Harry do something. As if Harry was supposed to know it all, as if he were failing them. Harry thinks on the fury Ron had expressed that Harry had no plan. Harry then thinks of Sirius' glazed eyes, when he called Harry James. He thinks of Remus disappearing from his life after Sirius' death, of Dumbledore avoiding Harry in fifth year, scared he'd see Voldemort lurking in Harry's eyes. Of Dumbledore hiding secrets from him, that Harry is a horcrux, even after he promised no more secrets. Harry thinks of the Dursleys, being left at their doorstep. Of the teachers who saw his skinny body and bruises and never said a word.

Harry got out of bed and relieved Hermione of her post. She was so dead on her feet that she nodded off immediately.

Harry lifted her wand and strengthened the spells around the camp-site, makes sure no one would ever be able to find it from the outside. He laid Hermione's wand at her side and slipped off into the night, passing through the camp wards. He turned back to where he knows is a warmly-glowing hearth, a spacious tent, his best friend – but all he sees is dark vacant forest. Harry turned his back on his closest friend and walked deep into the Forest of Dean.

Only when Harry had walked far enough to feel confident Hermione wouldn’t be caught in the cross-hairs, Harry parted his lips and whispered, “Voldemort.”

— — — —

The capture was swift and merciless. Harry was taken to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire and Harry can only feel relief that Draco Malfoy isn't there to laugh in his face, though the cold look of darkening glee on Lucius Malfoy's face raises the hairs on Harry's neck.

They ask him questions, try to make him speak. All Harry lets himself say is, "Voldemort."

They grow tired of shooing away summoned Snatchers when the tabooed name calls them over and over, and they stop asking him questions eventually. The cruciatus hurts, yes, but it does not make Harry speak.

After, Harry sits in the dank dungeons of Malfoy Manor, fingers pressing against the thick fabric of his battered coat hems. They've searched him for weapons and only found a golden snitch. That had been taken from him, yes, but the ring on his finger wasn’t. Harry wondered why – does it have something to do with how their eyes skate over it, unseeing? Can the ring hide itself from others?

Harry didn’t know but he struggled to care.

— — — —

Harry's scar has always been a better Voldemort detector than any Sneak-O-Scope, than any seer ability or omen. Harry flinched as his scar sears and he looked up through his eyelashes from his dozing spot, seated against the wall in the dank dungeon.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort whispered from the other side of iron ore bars.

"Voldemort," Harry greeted him quietly, eyes flicking down. He has no interest in testing how long his terrible Occlumency wards would last against the greatest mind reader of the millennia.

"Have you come to surrender?" Voldemort mocked, his terrible voice burning shudders of disgust down Harry's spine.

"Never," Harry replied with defiance he does not feel, tilting his head back against stone and glancing up at Voldemort with wry amusement.

"You are pathetic," Voldemort snarled.

"That only reflects poorly on you," Harry countered, laughing.

Voldemort hissed, low and dangerous, and he raised his wand to Harry’s chest.

Harry closed his eyes, the magic burning so luminescent at the end of Voldemort's wand, so bright, that Harry can see it through his closed eyelids – soft relief echoing in his mind, it's over its done he can rest now –

The wand lowered. Harry opened his eyes in surprise. He's... Alive.

"Relief," Voldemort said abruptly, head tilting eerily in a mockery of a human behaviour. "Why do you feel... Relief?"

Harry closed his eyes once more. "Because I know without a shadow of doubt that if you try to kill me, you'll just fail again. And again. And again. Like every other time. In fact, I'm safest when you try to kill me," Harry jibed back, unsure why Voldemort has stopped. But Harry found himself unwilling to play games with the monster. The quickest way to return to course is to insult Voldemort.

For the first time in Harry's life, the monster does not let his wounded ego get in the way of thought.

"You want me to kill you," Voldemort said. There is a strange quality in his voice, contemplation perhaps. "You, Harry Potter, are many things, but you are not a coward. You would only willingly come to me for one reason: self sacrifice." Voldemort spat the words as if they burned his thin lips as he spoke them.

Harry jolted, surprised, eyes opening as the words hissed to him grew near. Harry flinched back in horror as he realised Voldemort was right there, directly in front of him not two feet away, crouched and boring his hellfire red eyes into Harry's wide, blown pupils. Voldemort had melted through the bars of Harry's cell silently, a ghost with no presence.

'What is your secret, Harry Potter?' Voldemort hissed.

'Not everything is a conspiracy,' Harry replied sharply, his running mouth barely audible over the sound of his thundering heart in his ears.

'Nagini was correct – you can speak Parseltongue,' Voldemort whispered, his vertical pupils dilating, 'But you are no Slytherin ancestor.'

Harry felt his heart freeze in his chest, terror race through his blood – did he figure out – could Voldemort know he is a –

There's a rough, jagged glass-shard scrape of Voldemort's mind brushing against Harry's own and it catches his thoughts, brutally sharp in its cruelty, diving deep into Harry’s mind with reckless need to understand.

'It cannot be,' Voldemort breathed, red eyes flaring bright, reptilian pupils lost in sea of fire.

Before Harry can respond, can attack, Voldemort strikes out, presses his fingers against Harry’s forehead, pain searing burning agony, and all Harry knows darkness.

💔

I have to say, in my own blog, sometimes I think fans don't really like Harry (even if they ship him and create content with him), so they basically reinvent his entire character.

Some takes are just so doctored it leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

For example, Tomarry. If you're looking for a young man who worships the ground LV walks in, despises Dumbledore, despises the corruption of muggle born (despite being an half-blood), is fascinated by purebloods' gold, etc...

why do you not ship LV with one of his death eater?

Also the tendency to exaggerate Harry's less than perfect traits is frankly boring. Ohhh, Harry crucrioed Bellatrix after she killed Sirius! This shows that Harry is B A D and loves using unforgivables!!

No, it shows that Harry is human, he has capacity for evil like everyone, he just decides not to use it, as exemplified by him never using an unforgivable in DH.

While I admit I don't think Harry is the most intriguing character of HP, I think he's interesting and very impressive on his own. I adore his compassion for Albus, Severus, and even Tom.

I adore his quiet nobility and full metal moral compass.

for the drabble ask:

15."What would happen if I'd kiss you right now?"

Harry looked at him. It was too insane to even consider. “Kiss me? Are you out of your mind?! I don’t even like you.”

“I don’t like you either, you absolute–” Tom stopped himself by taking a deep breath before he could insult him further. “I’m saying, It would get them off our backs. They wouldn’t be worrying about where we snuck off to each night. You can go do… whatever it is you’re up to, and I can do the same.”

“You’ve got to be joking. I don’t trust you,” Harry glared. His eyes darted to the other nosy students pretending to read their books while they tried to listen in on their conversation. 

“I don’t trust you either. Consider it mutually assured destruction. If anyone asks where the other is, we just say we were with each other doing… well what couples do I guess. We would only have to keep up the act every few days and the rest of the time we don’t have to speak to each other. Deal?”

It was tempting, but Harry didn’t know if he could say yes. If he did, then he would just be letting Tom get away with some horrendous act and Harry might one day be an accessory to murder. 

But if he did, then it would be so easy to sneak off into the forbidden forest and find a way to fix that damn spell so he could go back home. Then he wouldn’t have to worry about it ever again.

“Fine,” Harry whispered harshly. “But don’t go poking into my business.”

“I can only ask the same of you, darling.” Tom’s smile was charming because of course it was. Tom Riddle did not know how to be anything but. 

The kiss was not anything dramatic or romantic. A quick peck on the lips was all it too to cause loud gasps and giggles from their onlookers. Harry felt himself blush from the attention and turned his head back to his Herbology homework. 

“See,” Tom said with a strange tone in his voice. “That wasn’t so hard was it?

WIP Wednesday

Thank you @cindle-writes for the tag! 💕

Tagging (no pressure!): @st-lady @hazelnut1 @solavonn @leafiloaf @cringe-queasy @racfoam @mishqua @youknowmevj

So this is the last one of Mermay, still in its ugly phase (Also the way merpeople look is valid, I just don't like their design jsdjlakd)

There's this scene in the movie where, after Harry saves Ron and Gabrielle and is attacked by squid creatures, the gillyweed stops working. He begins to sink and he seems to be losing consciousness. Until he suddenly recovers and casts a spell to get out of the water.

In this mermaid AU, Tom saw Harry struggling and he was the one who made him recover (maybe with a kiss?)

Idk the specifics. Maybe Merman!Tom was the result of a horcrux in the Black Lake gone wrong? Maybe he wants to learn magic so badly that he wants to become a human, and he's an outcast among the merpeople because of that. Maybe he saw Harry threatening the merpeople with his wand, using his magic against the other lake creatures and Tom hated him because he wanted to do that and life was so unfair.

And yet, he saved him because he was also captivated.