Chapter Text
“I’m a Horcrux.”
The words came out evenly. Bluntly.
In an instant, the humour fell off Voldemort’s face. He sat up in his seat abruptly and narrowed his eyes.
“Repeat that,” he demanded, voice flat.
Harry swallowed nervously, and explained.
“On the night you killed my parents, you were going to create a sixth Horcrux with my murder,” he said. “When the killing curse rebounded, a piece of your soul managed to break off from the rest just like you’d planned. But in the aftermath of everything, somehow, it attached itself to me.”
Voldemort’s eyes burned into his with a precise, and calculating intensity.
In a swift motion, the Dark Lord raised his wand and aimed it directly at him.
Terror squeezed Harry’s heart tightly as he stared down the point of Voldemort’s wand.
He’d miscalculated. Voldemort didn’t care about his leverage. He was going to kill him anyway.
Before panic could take over completely, Voldemort began an incantation in a language Harry didn’t recognize.
Powerful magic swept through into the room, thickening the air between them and filling every available crevasse. The pressure of it built, gathering as a storm cloud might. It pressed down on him like a heavy weight. And then…
A flash of white!
Harry squinted.
Blazing light exuded from Voldemort’s wand…no. Not from Voldemort’s wand — from Harry.
The branching lines of his lightning-bolt scar warmed as a bright, white light emitted from the curse mark. The scar that had defined the trajectory of his whole life was lit up like a beacon. It was almost blinding.
Slowly, Voldemort lowered his wand from Harry’s face and the light disappeared. The suffocating magic seemed to evaporate on a breath, falling away completely, as if it had never existed at all. He blinked rapidly to clear the spots from his vision.
Voldemort pressed his mouth into a hard line and visibly tried to suppress his shock. He leaned forward, rested his elbows on the desktop, interlocked his fingers, and considered the Boy-Who-Lived without a word.
Harry didn’t dare to break the silence. A minute ago he was trying to make a play for the upper hand in the negotiation, and for a second he thought he might have had it, but now…now he couldn’t read the situation at all.
A clock ticked over the mantle place and seconds stretched out into minutes. Harry couldn’t tear his eyes away from Voldemort, too afraid of what might happen if he looked away. Meanwhile, Voldemort stared thoughtfully at Harry in return. It was impossible to guess what he could be thinking.
Somewhere outside, a bird call echoed, loud and resonant. It faded into the silence, leaving Harry’s galloping heartbeat as the only remaining sound.
At long last, Voldemort spoke.
“And how did you become aware of this?” He asked in a dark voice. Harry swallowed nervously.
“In September Dumbledore started giving me private lessons on how to defeat you,” he said clearly but quietly. “I was expecting that eventually he’d give me duelling lessons or something, but instead he just made me watch memories in his Pensieve. They were all about you.”
Voldemort’s expression was livid, but Harry kept talking, too afraid to do anything but power through.
“Last night Dumbledore and I watched a memory where you asked Slughorn about Horcruxes. Dumbledore told me that you made several. He told me that you wanted to use my murder for your last Horcrux that night in Godric’s Hollow.” Harry grimaced. “Then he tried to tell me about how important it was to hunt and destroy Horcruxes. But he forgot something that he’d already told me in second year: That on the night I got my scar, you accidentally transferred a piece of yourself into me… I was able to put the rest together from there.”
Voldemort ground his teeth.
“Did Dumbledore happen to mention how he discovered my Horcruxes in the first place?” He asked dangerously.
Harry frowned and remembered the anger that invaded his dreams over the summer. Surely Voldemort already had some idea? Surely he already guessed that Dumbledore might be aware?
“Yeah,” he said pointedly, “from the diary.”
Voldemort blinked and arched his eyebrows in response.
“From the diary?” He repeated evenly. Harry nodded again.
Voldemort reached down with one hand and opened one of the desk drawers. Pulling out the damaged husk of Tom Riddle’s diary, he dropped it on the table between them.
“You wouldn’t happen to mean this diary, would you?”
Slowly, Harry nodded once more.
“Funny thing about this diary:” Voldemort said in a slightly too-casual tone, “a number of years ago, I happened to leave it in the possession of Lucius Malfoy. For safe keeping. Yet, when I arrived at Malfoy Manor this summer, I discovered it in the state of disrepair that you see before you now. In what could be considered the most uncanny bout of good luck that Lucius has ever experienced, he currently finds himself in Azkaban Prison and is therefore unavailable to answer my questions about the matter.”
Harry winced, imagining the sort of punishment that was waiting for Lucius upon his return.
Voldemort looked at him carefully.
“Am I to understand that you know how my diary managed to get into this condition?”
Harry hoped that Lucius’ punishment wouldn’t be turned on him instead. He nodded and braced himself for a cruciatus curse.
But Voldemort didn’t raise his wand at all.
“I’m all ears,” he simply said, when Harry didn’t immediately begin explaining.
“He, uh…” Harry hesitated before restarting. “Lucius slipped the diary into Ginny Weasley’s cauldron in Diagon Alley before my second year.”
Voldemort scowled.
“And why would he do something like that?” He asked irritably.
“Rivalry with her father, I think,” Harry said. “Ginny took the diary to school with her.”
Voldemort cursed under his breath but allowed Harry to continue his explanation.
“It possessed her and released the basilisk from the Chamber of Secrets. A bunch of students got petrified and then at the end of the year Ginny was taken down into the chamber to die, so the board decided to shut down the school — ”
“How is this the first time I’m hearing about this?!” Voldemort interrupted before Harry could go any further.
He gave a small, nervous shrug.
“Everyone was talking about it at the time. It was a huge thing during my second year.”
The muscle in the older man’s jaw jumped in agitation.
“And yet, the school obviously didn’t get shut down and my diary is now destroyed,” he pointed out tensely. “How did that happen?”
Harry cringed a little.
“Um… well, Ginny is Ron’s sister, and he was really scared for her. So Ron and I asked Myrtle how she died and found the chamber that way,” he admitted. “We went to rescue Ginny and got separated. But in the end… I found her, killed the basilisk, then destroyed the diary with one of its fangs.”
He said the last part quickly, hoping to rip the bandage off as cleanly as possible.
Voldemort paled with shock.
“That’s impossible,” he said in a strained voice, eyes blazing, “even you can’t have killed a centuries-old basilisk when you were twelve.”
Harry made a face as he remembered the fight beneath the school.
“Fawkes blinded it and I was able to get close enough to kill it with the sword of Gryffindor.”
If anything, Voldemort looked more disturbed to hear about the Chamber of Secrets than he was when Harry announced his status as a Horcrux.
In an anxious attempt to redirect the Dark Lord’s anger back to its original target, Harry made one more comment.
“I gave the destroyed diary back to Lucius Malfoy and tricked him into freeing his house elf with it.”
Voldemort scowled at him in irritation.
“Not before Dumbledore took a close look at the diary, I presume?” He commented flatly. “And heard your account of what transpired?”
Harry nodded.
Frustration burned in Voldemort’s eyes.
Tension poured of the man as he stared at the living Horcrux before him. Eventually, he picked up the diary in one hand and examined the puncture Harry had left with the basilisk fang.
With a shake of his head he dropped the book back to the desk top and looked at Harry contemplatively. The violent anger that Harry’s was anticipating from Voldemort never came. Instead, his expression settled into one of irritable curiosity.
“Would you still have destroyed it if you knew what it was?” The man inquired. “If you knew then, what you know about yourself now?”
Harry hesitated, for a brief second, he considered lying. But Voldemort’s crimson eyes bore into his own with a speculative danger, and while the truth might not be the answer the Dark Lord wanted to hear, Harry got the sense that a lie would be even more poorly received.
“Yes,” he admitted, “It was going to kill Ginny.”
Voldemort’s face twisted with displeasure, but he made no move for his wand.
He was handling the situation far too calmly in Harry’s opinion. At this point, a short bout of the cruciatus would almost be preferable to the terrifying anticipation that accompanied every aspect of their discussion. At least then they could get it over with. Instead, he was waiting on tenterhooks for Voldemort to snap. He was waiting for the Dark Lord to lose his temper and start attacking him in a violent fury. But even when it seemed imminent, Voldemort remained level headed.
Clearly, whatever he’d done to fix his appearance had extended to his sanity as well. It was possible that he was, now, more dangerous than ever.
And harder for Harry to predict.
“And the prophecy?” Voldemort asked after another pause, “Where does that fit into this revelation?”
Harry bit his lip.
“I don’t know anymore,” he said warily. “Before coming here it might have made sense, but now…”
Voldemort frowned.
“Divination is not always as straightforward as we would wish it to be,” he said slowly. “What did it say?”
Harry picked at a hangnail absently.
“I don’t know if it even means anything anymore,” he deflected. “I think I’ve changed things.”
Voldemort gave him a hard look.
“What did the prophecy say, Harry,” he repeated.
Harry took a shaky breath. He knew that he could still try to withhold the prophecy in exchange for his demands, but now that his true leverage over Voldemort was out in the open, the prophecy wasn’t a good bargaining chip any longer.
His life was the only bargaining chip that mattered.
And yet… he didn’t want to speak the words. What if, after hearing the prophecy, Voldemort decided he had enough Horcruxes and Harry wasn’t worth the risk?
Would Voldemort consider Harry’s agreement and imprisonment enough security against the prophecy?
The older man cleared his throat pointedly and Harry knew he had no other choice. With his heart pounding in his ears, he began.
“…The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches…Born to those who have thrice defied him…Born as the seventh month dies…” his voice came out more quietly than he intended, but he gathered all his Gryffindor courage around him and spoke the damning words regardless. “…And the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal… But he will have a power that the Dark Lord knows not…and either must die at the hand of the other… neither can live while the other survives…the one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies…”
Voldemort’s brows lifted and a hint of surprise flashed across his features.
“I don’t think it’s true anymore,” Harry rushed to say, “Because I just told you that I’m a Horcrux. So there’s no more ‘power you know not’… or whatever.”
The Dark Lord didn’t seem to register his words.
“…neither can live while the other survives…” Voldemort whispered to himself with an odd expression.
“I’m not gonna try to kill you!” Harry interjected nervously.
Voldemort looked directly at him then and he huffed an amused laugh.
“Kill me?” He asked, “is that what you think that means? That one of us is going to kill the other?”
Harry opened his mouth to respond, and froze as the question registered.
What?
“…doesn’t it?” He said. “That’s what Dumbledore said…that’s what it means, right?”
Voldemort shook his head.
“Divination is not always as straight forward as we would wish it to be,” he said again. “Some words we must take at face value, others we must read a deeper meaning in. It doesn’t surprise me that Dumbeldore interpreted the Prophecy as he has. But I don’t share the same understanding of it.”
Harry shook his head, feeling lost.
“W-what does it mean, then?”
Voldemort leaned back in his chair.
“I’m not sure yet,” he told Harry, “Perhaps you’re correct and it no longer holds any meaning. But more likely, its words were alluding to something that we have yet to see.”
“How?” Harry demanded, “it says that I’ll vanquish you, it says neither of us can live while the other survives!”
Voldemort shook his head.
“That’s not quite what it says, though, is it Harry?” He looked at the boy like he was a fascinating anomaly that he couldn’t quite make sense of. “The prophecy — assuming that your recitation was accurate — said that you have the power to vanquish me. Not that you will.”
Harry huffed. It sounded like nitpicking to him.
“And ‘neither can live while the other survives’?” He said pointedly.
That strange emotion flickered across Voldemort’s face once more, but it was gone almost as soon as it came.
“Surviving is not the same as living.”
Harry’s brow furrowed. It wasn’t?
Before he could press the issue any further, Voldemort picked his list of names up once more.
“You only have the two demands?” He asked, examining the list.
Harry shifted in his chair.
“Just the two,” he said with a nod, shifting back to the negotiation. “If you agree to both, I’ll turn myself completely over to your mercy. I won’t try to escape. I won’t contact the Order. I won’t act against you, now or ever. Unless you violate the agreement, in which case, I’ll take my own life.”
Voldemort’s eyes darted sharply toward Harry. He clenched his jaw but gave no comment.
He looked back to the list.
“Very well then,” he announced, folding the list up and setting it back down. “It appears we have an agreement.”
Harry blinked.
“Just like that?” The question was out of his mouth before he could stop it. Don’t question it, you idiot, this was what you wanted, he scolded himself silently.
Voldemort simply nodded.
“They’re terms that I’m happy to agree to.” He reopened his desk drawer and put both the list and the diary inside.
Harry bit his thumbnail and tried not to think about the future that was awaiting him. In one single conversation, he’d signed his freedom away.
Voldemort pushed his chair back from the desk and stood. The sudden movement caused Harry to lurch defensively to his own feet. Was he about to be tortured? Or would his imprisonment be straightforward and quick?
Voldemort shot Harry an amused smirk for his jumpy behaviour. He circled the desk and held out a wand.
Harry’s wand.
The Dark Lord offered it to him, handle first.
He frowned and made no move to take it.
“Why are you giving me my wand?” He asked slowly.
Voldemort raised a single brow in response.
“Why wouldn’t I?”
For a moment, Harry had the brief — slightly hysterical — thought, that maybe he’d come to the wrong place and was talking to the wrong Dark Lord.
“…because I’m supposed to be at your mercy now.” He said, voice unsure, “That was our agreement.”
“At my mercy,” Voldemort huffed in amusement, “you’re quite dramatic, aren’t you?”
Harry only barely managed to restrain himself from pointing out how ironic that accusation was, coming from him of all people.
“Keep your wand,” Voldemort said, offering it to him again. “You’re not a prisoner here, Harry.”
Not a prisoner?
Carefully, in case it was somehow a trap, Harry wrapped his fingers around the hilt of his holly wand. Voldemort relinquished it easily.
“Chester!” Voldemort said abruptly, causing Harry to start.
A house elf appeared a few feet away.
“Yes, Master Dark Lord?” The house elf asked. Harry noted that this house elf was different to the one who’d met him outside the gate.
Chester was a small thing, with disproportionately big ears. He wore a clean dish towel, and his eyes darted nervously around the room as he spoke, as if he were checking his surroundings for something.
Voldemort turned back to Harry.
“Have you eaten?” He asked.
Harry blinked.
What?
Voldemort stared at him flatly, waiting for a response.
Harry shook his head, confused.
“No…” he said carefully. Voldemort turned back to Chester.
“Harry requires breakfast,” he said. “You can set it up here, in the study.”
Breakfast?
Chester nodded — the motion causing his large ears to flap in unison — and disappeared.
The Dark Lord returned to his desk.
Harry stood there dumbly while the older man sat down and began sorting through his paperwork.
What was supposed to happen now? Was he just supposed to…eat breakfast? Were they not even going to discuss what was going to happen?
Voldemort couldn’t have been serious when he said that Harry wasn’t a prisoner. Could he?
He looked down at the wand in his hand. The familiar warmth of its magic assured him that he wasn’t imagining it. But…
“If I’m not a prisoner, then what am I?” He asked, a vaguely defensive edge creeping into his voice, “A permanent guest?”
Not looking up from the documents before him, Voldemort answered calmly.
“You are no more, a guest, than Nagini is.”
Silently, Harry wondered if that meant he was going to be a pet then. He shifted from foot to foot. This wasn’t what he’d expected and he had no idea how to react to it.
“The Manor and its grounds are at your disposal,” Voldemort said, picking up a quill. “Feel free to make use of them for your entertainment. Should you wish to leave the manor, I would prefer if you told me in advance so that I can provide you with adequate protection.”
Harry stared at him, completely bewildered.
“Protection?” He asked, somewhat unsure, “You mean guards. To stop me from escaping.”
Voldemort looked up from his paperwork and levelled Harry with a serious stare.
“You came here of your own volition, did you not?” He asked.
“Yeah. I did,” Harry said firmly.
“I agreed to meet all of your demands, is that not correct?” Voldemort pressed. Harry swallowed and nodded.
Voldemort tilted his head at him.
“Are you satisfied with the outcome of our agreement?”
Harry could only nod once more. He was satisfied. He got everything he wanted. He got more than he expected to.
“Then why would I need to stop you from escaping?” Voldemort asked, raising an eyebrow. “You’re here by choice.”
It was true. He was here by choice.
Harry came to Malfoy Manor looking for Voldemort. No one forced him to be there. It was his own idea to come. They negotiated, just as Harry wanted them to, and Voldemort met all his demands.
Everything went to plan.
His friends were safe, and the persecution of Muggleborns — which was the biggest issue of the war in the eyes of most people — would stop.
Harry would cooperate with Voldemort, because if he didn’t, then his friends would become targets. So, no, he wasn’t going to escape. It would be idiotic. He never planned to try.
But last night, when he was sitting in the dorm, imagining how this would go, he couldn’t have pictured this. Even in the best case scenario he thought he’d be locked up somewhere.
Voldemort was right, he didn’t need to worry about Harry escaping, but shouldn’t he at least be more paranoid? Shouldn’t he be trying to put Harry in a dungeon? Just in case?
Voldemort watched him closely as he tried to process his new reality.
“I intend to make myself accessible to you at all times, so that you’re capable of reaching me in the event of danger,” the Dark Lord said, clearly. “But if I am not present and you’re elsewhere, then I would like you to have protection nearby. Additionally, I would prefer to know where you are so that I’m able to intervene if something does happen. As I said before, you are not a prisoner here. But your safety is paramount.”
There was no argument that he was able to make to that — their agreement was based around Harry’s protection for the sake of the Horcrux, after all.
“If I’m not a prisoner, I can just go wherever I want, then?” He asked.
“Within reason, yes,” Voldemort told him. “You, me, and Nagini will reside at Malfoy Manor for at least a while longer before we depart to a more permanent residence, but you’re not being forced to spend all your spare time at the Manor until then. You can go out if you’d like.”
“So, what does that mean? I just live with you and Nagini now?” His tone came out a little confrontationally.
Voldemort sighed exasperatedly.
“Yes, of course,” he said. “What did you expect would happen when you ‘put yourself at my mercy’?”
“I expected to be a prisoner.”
Voldemort gave him a wry smile.
“Would you prefer a prison cell?”
“No,”Harry said quickly.
“Good.” Voldemort pointed to a small table a few meters from the desk. “Your food’s getting cold.”
Harry glanced over at the space in front of the open balcony doors, and sure enough, the table there was piled high with food.
Fruit, croissants, breakfast sandwiches, savoury pastries, eggs, sausages, roasted tomatoes, juices, cheese, and a steaming pot of tea. Chester had brought him breakfast.
His stomach grumbled and he felt completely out of sorts.
It all seemed a little too good to be true. He’d shown up on Voldemort’s front door, told him that he was a Horcrux, that he’d destroyed another Horcrux, and that there was a prophecy about them killing each other. But not a single crucio had been tossed his way. Instead, Voldemort agreed to his terms and ordered him breakfast.
It was like he woke up in an alternate universe. Except he never went to sleep.
He was waiting for the other shoe to drop. Surely, this wasn’t it? Surely, Voldemort was going to change his mind any minute?
But the man in front of him was different from the Dark Lord he’d come to know since first year. Yes, he was dangerous and cunning, but now he was level-headed, too — sane and careful. He was able to think critically, as evidenced by their discussion of the prophecy, and he wasn’t lashing out violently at the slightest provocation.
Even still, he didn’t want to tempt fate. Voldemort might be claiming that he wasn’t a prisoner here, and he might be strangely lenient in regard to their new circumstances, but Harry wasn’t going to risk making his life more difficult than it had to be.
He approached the table and sat down.
A few moments passed and he didn’t start eating.
Eventually, Voldemort put his quill down once more and looked over at Harry.
“It would be a little counterintuitive for me to poison you, don’t you think?” He said dryly.
Harry met his eyes.
“I’m not sure,” he admitted. He didn’t feel like he was sure about anything all of a sudden. Could he trust the man so easily? After all these years, was a single conversation enough?
Voldemort exhaled heavily.
“Your life has just become very important to me,” he said. “I’m not a danger to you. Furthermore, your friends are in no danger from me as long as you hold up your end of our agreement and do not act against me.”
Harry eyed him hesitantly. He wanted it to be that easy. He wanted to have faith in the negotiations.
“And the muggleborns?” He asked, needing that extra bit of confirmation still.
Voldemort grimaced.
“It will require a bit of finessing,” he said, begrudgingly, “But yes, I will adhere to our agreement. There is plenty of incentive for us both to cooperate.”
After a long minute of consideration, Harry nodded. Voldemort wanted to keep his Horcrux safe so he wasn’t willing to risk losing Harry’s cooperation. Just like Harry wasn’t willing to risk his friend’s lives.
For now, it was enough.
“Eat your food,” Voldemort said finally. He watched as Harry turned to his plate and reached for half an egg sandwich, before going back to his work.
As it turned out, Harry was hungrier than he thought he’d be. And the food was good. Very good. Chester was obviously a culinary genius. Or, at least, he knew a culinary genius.
He sampled the eggs and potatoes and eventually filled his plate with fruits and pastries, all the while, glancing at Voldemort out of the corner of his eye. The man was busy writing something with a black raven’s quill, and either didn’t notice Harry’s scrutiny, or was purposefully not acknowledging it.
Sometime after Harry finished his first pastry, Voldemort summoned Chester again.
“Deliver this list to Narcissa,” he instructed. “I’ve marked which items she is required to procure by this evening. Everything else will be necessary by the end of the week.”
The elf took the list in his small hand and disappeared once more. Voldemort went back to his paperwork.
Harry wondered what a Dark Lord would put on a list like that? What sorts of things were considered essentials for Voldemort? Poison? Dark artifacts? Stolen goods? He looked around the room, with its tightly packed shelves. Books?
There were so many books, most of them old and probably rare. He couldn’t help but think that Hermione would rather enjoy Malfoy Manor…if it weren’t for all the Dark Lords and Death Eaters milling about.
Shortly after Chester’s departure, the door to the study opened of its own accord.
Voldemort didn’t look up to acknowledge the new arrival, but Harry’s attention flickered quickly to the door.
Green scales caught his eye.
Nagini, slithered across the threshold.
She must have been twelve or fifteen feet long and her body was nearly as thick as a bludger in width. He knew, logically, that he should have been afraid of her, but Harry simply watched her slip into the room with interest.
She was just a snake, really. A gargantuan snake, yes, but still a snake.
As her tail passed the entryway, the door shut itself behind her silently.
“Nagini,” Voldemort said in a soft hiss, still focused on his paperwork, “Harry will be living with us from now on. I would appreciate if you did your best to refrain from biting him.”
Harry abruptly whirled around in his seat to face Voldemort.
“Am I at much of a risk of being bitten?!” He demanded in irritated Parseltongue.
Voldemort’s wide crimson eyes snapped up from his parchment and toward Harry. He stared at the young man in shock.
Nagini perked up enthusiastically.
“He is a speaker!” She hissed with delight. “My venom wouldn’t work on him anyway!”
Voldemort didn’t hear her, he appeared to be frozen in place as he stared at Harry.
“Venom or no venom, I’m not particularly keen on having your fangs ripping into my flesh at all, thank you very much!” Harry told Nagini with a glare.
In a sudden motion, Voldemort pushed his chair away from his desk, stood up, and crossed the room. His paperwork lay forgotten behind him.
“How are you a speaker?” He asked, bewilderment lining his voice.
He looked at Harry like he was seeing him with new eyes.
“Because of you,” said Harry, scowling. “Because of the Horcrux inside me.”
Nagini slithered up the back of the sofa to get a better look at Harry.
“Is he a Horcrux, too?” She asked excitedly. “Is that why he’s living with us?”
Voldemort ignored her.
“That’s not possible.”
“Well, clearly it is,” Harry told him with a huff.
Voldemort shook his head.
“No, really,” he said, “It’s impossible. Parseltongue requires a genetic adaptation specific to a single species. It can’t be passed magically.”
Harry frowned.
“The only conceivable reason that I could be a Parselmouth, is the Horcrux,” he argued.
“A Horcrux can’t cause physiological change,” Voldemort said in return, examining Harry with intense crimson eyes, like the answers to some unknowable question might be written somewhere on his face. “If you are able to speak and hear the language, then you have the physical features that make it possible. There’s no way that the Horcrux made you a Parselmouth. You must have been born as one.”
“Physical features…?” Harry furrowed his brow, thinking about the small translucent fangs that would occasionally descend from his upper gums when he got especially angry. He thought about the metallic tasting venom that sometimes pooled in his mouth. Was that what Voldemort was talking about?
“There are small bones and chambers that exist inside the ear canal of a Parselmouth. Without them, it’s impossible to hear the lower tones and subtle nuances of the language. It can’t be understood by someone without those features. At best, Parseltongue could be magically translated, but never correctly heard by a non-speaker.” Voldemort explained. “And there is a structural difference in the palate and dentistry of a Parselmouth. The sounds of the language are impossible for an ordinary person to make. It can’t be taught.”
On instinct, Harry raised a hand to his ear, and ran his fingers over the curved appendage.
“One of your parent’s must have been a Parselmouth,” Voldemort insisted passionately.
One of his parents?
Harry dropped his hand and narrowed his eyes. Confusion was instantly replaced by aggravation. He might have to cooperate with Voldemort, he might have to live with him, but there was no chance that he was going to let him talk about his parents.
“I don’t know if either of my parents were Parselmouths,” he said tightly, “but wouldn’t it be nice to be able to ask them? Such a shame they were murdered.”
Voldemort clenched his jaw. Nagini let out a hissing laugh.
“I like him,” she said to Voldemort. “He is not fearful of you.”
Nagini slithered along the back of the sofa and onto the arm rest.
“I will share a nest with you,” she told Harry matter-of-factly.
He gave Nagini a wary look.
“I don’t know why you’re making such a big deal about it,” he said to Voldemort. “It’s not exactly a secret that I’m a Parselmouth, everyone’s known since my second year.”
“Clearly, I did not know,” Voldemort said through gritted teeth.
Harry shrugged, “What does it matter? I can chat with snakes and I have two extra teeth that show up when I get angry, so what?”
The words seemed to sharpen something within Voldemort, he looked at Harry intently.
“It absolutely matters,” he said.
“Why?”
His eyes roamed Harry’s face.
“It changes things.” He appeared a little distracted.
Harry’s stomach twisted.
“‘Changes things’, how?” He asked cautiously . Suddenly, sharing a nest with Nagini sounded quite nice — at least in comparison to the prison cell he was imagining.
Through his distraction, Voldemort appeared to sense his nervousness, and refocused on the conversation.
“Not in relation to our agreement,” he assured him. “But, if anything, your safety is even more important now than it was before.”
“Why?” Harry asked sarcastically, “Has Nagini stopped listening to you? Do you need someone more persuasive to get her to do your bidding?”
“I don’t do anyone’s bidding,” Nagini announced pleasantly, “Unless there is food involved. I will do your bidding if you give me a soft rabbit.”
“It is important,” Voldemort said meaningfully, “Because our kind is not exactly abundant.”
Harry furrowed his brow.
“Nagini, keep Harry company,” Voldemort said, giving him a lingering look. “I have work to do.”
He returned to his desk and began banishing paperwork and summoning new files.
Nagini slid off the sofa and crossed the room to Harry. She wound herself around the back of chair next to him and started chattering.
“How did you get here?” She asked.
“I apparated,” Harry said, peering over at Voldemort. The man was busy summoning books off various shelves. None of them were in English as far as he could tell. He wondered what exactly was changed by him being a Parselmouth.
“I don’t like apparition. It squeezes me too tight.”
He didn’t respond, just went back to eating the elaborate meal in front of him. Whatever had changed, as long as it truly didn’t affect their agreement, Harry couldn’t summon the energy to care about it right now. There was already too much for him to adjust to. His friends were safe and the persecution of muggleborns would stop. That was enough for today. It wasn’t even noon yet, for Merlin’s sake.
“What are you eating?”
“An apple.” He poked around the fruit salad with his fork and pointedly skewered another slice of green apple.
Nagini hissed in displeasure.
“Disgusting.”
“It’s delicious,” he said.
“Two-Legger food is disgusting.”
“What do you eat, then?” Harry asked. “Rats?”
Nagini bobbed her head.
“Rats and rabbits and those animals in the forest with knobbly limbs.”
Harry could not, for the life of him, guess what creatures she could be talking about.
“That’s pretty gross,” he told her. “Snake food is disgusting.”
“It’s delicious,” she countered haughtily.
In that moment, Harry had to forcibly remind himself that Nagini was evil and he wasn’t supposed to like her. (Not even a little bit.)
“Do you ever eat people?” He asked.
Nagini hissed a sigh and rested her head on the tabletop forlornly.
“I’m not allowed to eat two-leggers or house elves.” She sounded extremely put out by this rule. “Just rats, rabbits and the knobbly animals.”
Harry thought of Pettigrew then.
“What about rats who are also people?” He asked. Maybe if he played his cards right he could convince Nagini to take a bite out of Wormtail.
“Voldemort told me not to eat him, specifically,” She said, immediately understanding who he was referring to.
“That’s a shame,” Harry commented.
“I think he’d be quite juicy,” Nagini said, “and if I ate him then he wouldn’t be sneaking around stinking of fear all the time. But I can’t. I asked.”
“Pity,” Harry said with a grimace. He wondered how long it would be until he saw Wormtail for himself. Hopefully not for a long while. He glanced at Voldemort again, who seemed to be too focused on his work to pay them any attention.
“I’m allowed to eat the white squawking birds outside, but only if they attack me first,” Nagini informed him.
He hadn’t been outside long enough to see any ‘white squawking birds’ but he imagined they were doves or something equally pretentious. The Malfoy’s were definitely posh enough to keep something like that.
“Do they try to attack you a lot?” He asked, finishing his meal.
“They’re too afraid to try,” Nagini said. “They always run away. But I think they might attack if I corner them.”
Somehow, he didn’t think that was what Voldemort meant when he told her she could eat them if they attacked her first, But Harry wasn’t about to rain on her parade.
“Do they live in the garden, or in a house?” He asked, wondering just how far she was pressing her luck here.
“In the garden,” Nagini told him. “I can show you where they like to hide.”
Harry nodded. Though, looking over at the closed door, he wasn’t sure he wanted to leave the relative safety of the study anytime soon. With his luck, he’d run into Bellatrix Lestrange the second he stepped into the hallway.
“Is there anything interesting to do inside this part of the Manor?” He asked.
Nagini wiggled herself into an upright position excitedly.
Evil, though she may be, it was hard not to be slightly endeared. And by the sounds of things, Harry was going to be spending a lot of his time in her company, so he decided not to fight against himself too much when it came to liking her.
“There’s plenty of interesting stuff!” She said. “Fireplaces, sunny spots, music, the warm room!”
Perhaps his own idea of what might be considered ‘interesting’ was a bit different to a snake’s idea of the word. Personally, he wasn’t too enthusiastic about fireplaces and sunny spots, but not all of her highlights sounded too terrible.
“Music?” He asked. Nagini bobbed her head.
“There’s a contraption and a piano.”
Voldemort stood up from his desk then, waving his hand absently and sending all his documents and books back to where they belonged. Harry tensed slightly.
The man pressed his thumb into the Dark Mark on his forearm for a brief moment. Then he approached the table where Harry and Nagini sat.
“I need to meet with my Death Eaters,” he told them, rolling down his sleeves and buttoning the cuffs as he spoke. “I won’t be terribly long, but do try not to cause any trouble in my absence.” He shot Nagini a chiding look.
“Trouble?” She hissed innocently, “I’ve never caused trouble before in my life.”
Voldemort hummed doubtfully.
He turned to Harry and gave him a long look. His crimson gaze lingered on the lightning-bolt scar before dropping to meet Harry’s eyes.
There was no hatred or anger in his expression, no disdain or irritation. He wasn’t smirking or taunting him, and there wasn’t a threat being made. Yet, Harry’s heart beat faster as man’s eyes rested on him.
Breaking eye contact, Voldemort turned away, summoned his cloak wandlessly, and left the study.