Chapter Text
This pattern continued on for days, then weeks, then months, until Harry came and went of his own accord, simply enjoying the variety of life the portal offered. Sometimes, if Harry was dressed ‘appropriately’, Voldemort allowed him into the village. Other times Harry would just go into the woods and wander around, enjoying the quiet birdsong and the rush of leaves.
On rare occasions, Harry would creep into the large bed at the end of the room, where Nagini resided. He’d sleep there, then, while Voldemort worked, to the pleasure of Nagini. Sometimes he’d sit in the parlour, or one of the more cozy sitting rooms, and Voldemort would silently join him with a book. Sometimes, very rarely, Voldemort would start up conversation and explain concepts like rituals and runes to him. The portal stayed ever up, allowing for free movement between the two locations; Harry learned he’d been situated in Albania for the better part of his life, to his surprise, and that Voldemort’s manor was situated in South London, just beyond where the fields started.
Often, he’d take long walks over the vast hills that made up the landscape, allowing Ether to come with him. She and Nagini had become acquainted, and he could swear they were plotting something. It was on one of these walks that something quite terrible happened.
Harry’s power had been building for months under his skin, agitated at not being let out, not being used. He’d felt the building pressure and resolved to take long, exhausting walks to let free some of the energy it sparked in his muscles.
It was a warm day, spring blooming into summer, and the hills were tinged a soft lilac with heather, dips and rises in the landscape curving along to the ghosts of long-lost rivers. Ether had accompanied him and had wandered off a few minutes ago in search of small critters she could torture, staying always in hearing range.
Harry was staring at the light grey sky -there was almost never blue in England, only the blanket of clouds hanging over the great blue- from under a lone tree. He was clad, again, in his comfortable furs and cotton shirt, them having been graciously tended to by the house elves a few weeks ago. A man appeared out of nowhere, clad in bright purple robes, a tad too saturated for the hills behind him. He was holding a little pocket watch in his hand, and was stroking his long, white beard with the other. Then he looked up and spotted Harry.
Harry tensed, putting his arm down to push himself up and away in case the man meant any harm. Harry couldn’t see very well, he never could, but the surprise was noticeable in the way the man held himself.
The man approached, hesitantly at first, but sped up a little as he came closer. Harry backed up against the tree, fishing for the knife on his belt.
“M’boy!” the man cried, throwing his hands out with a jovial smile. “Oh, you must come with me at once, my dear boy; it’s not safe for you here, so near Voldemort’s manor.”
Harry blinked at him and shook off the hand the man had set on his shoulders. “ Ether, ” he hissed, hearing her rustle in the distance. A fierce wind had started, shaking the fragile branches of the trees above them. “ I believe it’s high time we return. ”
He stood, furs shifting into place, amulets and jewelry slipping back into place and jangling softly against one another in the wind. He stood eye to eye with the bearded man
“What do you mean, stranger?” he demanded of the bearded man, eyes sparking dangerously.
“I have no time to explain right now, dear boy. We simply must leave; here take my hand.”
The man put out his hand in invitation; one that Harry declined. He stepped away, allowing Ether to curl round his ankle, near-invisible in the grass. His eyes narrowed, fixing on the man.
“I demand an explanation.” His eyes narrowed further, neat slits of toxic green focusing on Albus. Voldemort had once told him that his eyes reminded him of the Avada Kedavra, and then promptly demonstrated it to a wall. When Harry asked what it did, as there was nothing that had happened to the wall, Voldemort had simply smirked and told him it was his “ favourite spell: it kills people, simple as that. ” Harry hadn’t understood why they needed so many spells just to kill people, nor a spell with only that function, but hadn’t questioned it.
“There’s simply no time,” the man told him in an almost pitying tone, his eyes twinkling annoyingly. Then he proceeded to grab Harry’s hand.
It was the most awful sensation Harry had ever experienced. He was squeezed through a narrow, awful tube, and it was dark, so dark . His ears built with pressure and his lungs emptied in one breath, before he landed, hard enough to feel it all the way up to his knees. His stomach heaved, and he stumbled, ripping his hand out of the stranger’s. Panic began to build under his skin. Ether was still there, but she felt what was about to happen, and quickly dislodged herself from his ankle, hurrying behind a nearby obstacle.
“Where am I? Where did you take me?” Harry wheezed, eyes darting around. He hunched over to vomit violently on the floor. The darkness hissed, aggravated, dancing around him. “ Answer me! ” Harry roared when the bearded man tried, again, to dance around the point.
“You’re safe here, you’re in Hogsmeade; I’ll take you to the castle, just calm down, Harry-”
“Where is Voldemort?” Harry whispered, eyes wide in his panic.
“He’s not here, you’re safe now, m’boy-”
“Take me back,” Harry commanded, rounding on the man. “Take me back this instant .”
“I’m afraid I can’t do that, Harry; it’s not safe for you.” The man tried to usher him up the path, toward a large castle.
Harry scoffed, a tendril of dark smoke escaping his skin. “Safe? What do you know about safety? ” He pointed an accusatory finger at the man. “I don’t even know you. I know Voldemort ; he’s never harmed me- and you’ve taken me from him !”
He brandished his knife, baring his teeth at the stranger.
“Harry, I must insist you come with me-” the man began, and then did the most stupid thing he could do, in Ether’s humble opinion. He approached Hari and came into the reach of his powers, and tried again to touch Hari.
Ether gasped, covering her eyes with her clear eyelids as Harry screamed in rage and terror and exploded , taking the other man with him.
“ No !” She screeched as loud as she could, trying to come out of her hiding place, but there was rubble flying at her, and she’d be no use to her hatchling crushed. The sky turned dark above them, and the houses collapsed in the resulting shockwave. Ether was thrown backwards, saved from a nasty head injury by the hard scales that lined the raised parts of her head. As soon as things stopped falling, she slithered out, into daylight, eyes covered against the ash. There was smoke in her lungs and ash on her tongue as she darted around, trying desperately to find her Hari, her hatchling .
“ No, no, you have to be alive, Hari, answer me! ” she hissed desperately, but as the smoke cleared and her sight expanded, her heart fell. Hari was nowhere to be seen. A large crater was left in the middle of the village, all the houses destroyed, windows shattered and wooden beams collapsed. At the edge of the crater was a corpse, burned and torn apart. In the middle, there was a puddle of molten gold. Ether felt an emotion she rarely felt before.
Her heart nearly stopped in dread.
Harry awoke with his nerves on fire, eyes staring painfully into familiar, lovely, blood-red ones.
His eyes promptly filled with tears and he curled into Voldemort’s tight embrace, uncaring for his torn, burnt skin, sobs wracking his body.
“You’re alive,” he heard Voldemort whisper in his ear, voice thick with emotion, unlike it had ever been. “Thank the gods, you’re alive .”
Harry clutched at his robes, sobbing harder. “ I was so scared, ” he told Voldemort in the snake language.
“When Ether came to me… She was hysterical, she couldn’t find you. She said you exploded.” Voldemort gripped Harry tighter.
Harry kept crying into the man’s shoulder.
“I searched for you everywhere… I thought you’d died. But you didn’t. You’re a miracle, Harry.” Voldemort laughed wetly and placed his forehead against Harry’s, reveling in the feeling of him in a way he’d never done before.
“ My little god. ”
Fin.