Chapter Text
Chapter 1: Pallor
/ˈpalə/
noun
An unhealthy pale appearance.
[…] A grim ferryman guards these waters and streams, terrible in his squalor – Charon, on whose chin lies a mass of unkempt hoary hair; his eyes are staring orbs of flame; his squalid garb hangs by a knot from his shoulders. Unaided, he poles the boat, tends the sails, and in his murky craft convoys the dead – now aged, but a god's old age is hardy and green.
-VIRGIL, AENEID. BOOK 6.
Lord Voldemort faces bright green eyes and finds death behind them, the very first time.
And the next time,
and the next one,
and the next…
First, there was just light. Bright, blinding light, a cacophony of sounds and screams.
Pain in his throat as he roared, the rush of a spell leaving his fingertips. A stick, flying across the air. Turning and turning, black against the sun. A wand.
The whole scene felt familiar, like something he had already lived through, many, many times. Something rehearsed, practiced for.
He saw the wand turn once, twice, feeling his heartbeat roar between each gentle movement.
Then, he saw no more.
●●●●
When he opens his eyes there is still light. It squeezes itself from the hole in the ceiling, a perfect circle of broken stone, but then he blinks and the hole is gone.
Lord Voldemort stands up from the floor —and when, pray tell, had he even laid on the ground? — confused. He looks around, trying to adjust to the light, a strained feeling in his chest. His body aches like he has something to do, but can't quite catch what it might be. He is not even sure where he is. His knees feel weak for just a second before he finds footing. He turns, spinning around on his heels and, slowly, the more he looks around, the more the edges of the objects around him seem to crisp and become more real. He starts to recognize the place. There they are, the big wooden tables, empty of food or students. The tall, tall ceiling and beautiful stone arches. The lonely, long table at the end, where the chairs facing Lord Voldemort look more like thrones than faculty seats.
The Great Hall. Hogwarts.
He almost sighs. Home.
For a moment he thinks he might be naked, feeling a cold air brush his skin, but as he looks down he sees his familiar black tunic around him. He touches his chest, his mind slightly fogged, as if he has just woken up from a long sleep. But that can't be, right? He does not remember the last time he slept more than a few hours. Certainly not after his take over the Ministry of Magic, for sure. Lately, his mind is troubled with thoughts of war, and Horcruxes, and… and…
He blinks, thinking about the battle. There should be a battle going on.
“Huh,” he hears a voice behind him say, “I thought it would take you longer to wake up.”
He turns, quick and deadly, ready to strike, and there he is. Stiff muggle pants and a shirt, looking as plain and muggle as ever. Standing a few steps ahead of him, hands in his pockets and a suspicious look in his eyes.
“Funny seeing you here, Riddle.” the boy says.
Voldemort snarls. “Potter.” He spats the name out as if it was a curse.
The boy just stares, and very slowly, he smiles. “Ah,” is all he says.
"What are you doing here?" Lord Voldemort takes a step closer to him, and to his surprise, Potter does not step back. He stands there, looking at him with those defiant green eyes, bright with a small knowing glint in them. Just like he had before, standing on that very same spot, as they circled each other…
Voldemort blinks, and the memory is gone. Just as they what?
“Here?” Potter asks, innocent.
The Dark Lord opens his mouth just to close it again. He feels tired. The scene of Potter, dirty and covered in blood, circling him, replays in his mind before dissolving again, leaving him more exhausted than before. He tries to hold it, but the face of the boy vanishes before he can grab the rebellious memory. There is something he cannot remember. Something important that keeps slipping through his fingers. Is he dreaming?
"In the Great Hall. Aren't you supposed to be hiding? From me? One would think you would know some other place in Hogwarts to hide, after studying here for six years." Voldemort´s jaw tightens. Yes, he remembers now. The war, the battle of Hogwarts. He is here to kill Potter. There is something else, but he can´t quite put his finger on it. "Not that you were ever particularly bright, but I expected at least that."
He should be hiding. Lord Voldemort knows Potter is not brave enough to face him like this, both alone, with no one to jump and die for him. Except, maybe that was not true, was it? The boy came to the forest, he suddenly recalls. The forest is a foggy memory, and he can't tell what happened or why that moment feels important. He shakes his head, getting rid of the mental image of Potter standing still, very still, in a dark forest. Lonely and defeated, and still the memory feels painful for some reason Lord Voldemort can't understand.
The real Potter, the one looking at him right now, makes a sound on his throat. "We really are very different." Potter looks down at his feet, covered in hideous muggle shoes, old and dirty and half undone. "For me, it was easy to understand. Barely took me a second."
When he looks up again, Voldemort is half convinced that the boy has lost his mind.
“Well,” Potter shrugs. “I guess it all goes down to me not having that much trouble accepting it.” And with that, Potter kicks some invisible rock with his feet and turns around, as if he is about to abandon Lord Voldemort in the Great Hall.
It takes only a minute for the Dark Lord to follow him.
“Potter!” he curses, reaching for his wand. It is time, he thinks. If Potter is foolish enough to turn his back on him, Lord Voldemort would not waste the opportunity. He had wasted enough already. The yew graces his fingers, and he points it at the back of the idiot child, the death curse on the tip of his tongue.
Potter stops, looking back at him with disdain. "Don't be ridiculous. You cannot hurt me, Tom."
Lord Voldemort sees red. “You dare use that name, again?” his fingers curl around his yew wand, tighter, as he raises the wand. And, for the first time, Voldemort's hand enters his line of sight.
Gone are Lord Voldemort's unnaturally long fingers. Gone are the long nails and milk-white skin. In their place stands a perfectly human hand, with a healthy if slightly pale skin. The Dark Lord blinks, incredulous, and almost lets the wand slip from his fingers in shock. What is happening? He must be dreaming. That is the only explanation for this whole ridiculous situation. Unless…
"Is this another of Dumbledore´s tricks?" he hisses. Just to check, Lord Voldemort touches his face and, sure enough, there he finds a long, perfectly straight nose. He looks at Potter as if dumb-struck. "What did you do to me?"
Potter just gives him another of his nasty looks, one Lord Voldemort is well acquainted with. He found himself at the end of that very same stare every time he crossed paths with the boy. For a moment Potter looks disgusted, revolted. "You didn't think you could bring that here, did you? And, for the record, I didn't do anything.”
The Dark Lord feels himself rage. This body feels alien to him. He looks down at his hands again, at the exposed skin of his arms, with near horror. The oppressive sensation of nakedness, true and pure nakedness, forms a heavy lump on his throat.
His body, his perfectly crafted body, is gone. His body, that never required food or sleep. His body, that never grew cold or fell ill. It had been ripped from him. He had spent years perfecting it, working with the consequences that the use of dark magic had on him, rather than against them. Understanding magic further than any magical being before had… all to end up like this, again.
Lord Voldemort´s otherworldly, monstrous appearance had held meaning, once. It was pure magic in itself, a raw expression of its holder´s magic. Now, he thinks as he stares at the pale but indubitably human skin, it means nothing. Just a vessel, empty and hollow of meaning or real purpose. He wonders if he should conjure up a mirror, just to see the extent of the damage, but he can't. Just thinking about looking at himself like this makes his stomach turn. How dared they.
Of course, Potter would not admit any wrongdoings. The child wouldn't even know where to begin unraveling the spells that held Lord Voldemort´s physical form attached to him. Something is obviously wrong, and Voldemort knows it is Potter's fault. For the last several years of his life, it always was Potter's fault, one way or another. Or Dumbledore´s. Lately, those two names and the intentions behind them are pretty much interchangeable.
Before he can even think about it, he casts the killing curse with every bit of rage he can hold in his being. The green light leaves his wand, hitting the boy square in the chest.
The boy does not fall. A feeling of Deja Vu seems to linger in his mind, but it quickly dissolves into nothing. He tries again. The boy still stands.
Potter doesn't say anything, just looks at him. His earlier words feel like a slap across Lord Voldemort's face. A third spell has to land on the Boy Who Lived before the Dark Lord begins to accept them.
The wand in his hand is warm under his fingers. He can't hurt Potter. He is trapped in his old body. He feels somewhat dizzy, and can't quite figure out what is going on. This is some kind of plot, surely. Another strategy from Dumbledore, who couldn´t even die properly enough to stop pestering Lord Voldemort and his plans. Voldemort bows to drag that old man´s corpse out of his pretty marble grave and throw it into the ocean to rot, as soon as he leaves this place.
Then, an uneasy thought enters his mind.
Surely, when he tries to apparate away, the image of Malfoy Manor crystal clear in his mind, nothing happens.
"What is this?" he orders more than asks, trying to control the way his body feels ready to betray him and shake. He hates being out of control. He hates this bloody boy, and that coot old professor, and how Albus Dumbledore never fails to make Lord Voldemort feel like a pathetic child backed into a corner. He checks for a simple Lumos, hating the overwhelming relief that hits him like a curse when the tip of his wand lights as if nothing is wrong. Thank Merlin, his magic is not gone. Not all gone, at least. The way his body reacts to the idea, showing how grateful he feels for something as simple as not being suddenly reduced to a squib, is revoltingly visible. "Where did you bring us, Potter?"
But Potter doesn't seem to be interested in answering any of his questions. The boy raises an eyebrow at him, in a way that he has seen a thousand times before through the memories of Severus and the Malfoy´s heir. That dumb-founded face, as if he didn´t know what Voldemort was talking about, as if he hadn´t very specifically stated he knew what here was and how it worked just moments ago. As if he wasn't painfully aware of what was going on.
“I told you, I didn't bring us anywhere. I was minding my business, not that I need to give any explanations to you, when I suddenly appeared here, with you.” The boy says, his voice sounding truly angry. At least he was a good actor. “Believe me, I´m not any happier than you are.”
The Dark Lord studies him and finds Potter to look truly innocent. He doesn't dare use legermancy against him, the bone-breaking pain from last time still fresh in his mind, but Lord Voldemort always had a way of knowing when people lied, even before learning propper legermancy. Of course, the boy knows something, but the longer Voldemort looks, the more evident it becomes that Potter is as out of place here as he is. There is something strange about the sort of easiness in the way Potter carries himself, but it's plain to see that the child had no plans on ending up here, or with him. The more he looks at Potter, the more the thought makes place for itself in his mind.
So he is stuck with a dumb child that was destined to be Dumbledore´s blind puppet until the Dark Lord put him out of his misery. Great.
Just as Voldemort is about to curse him again -he doesn't care what kind of magic he is subjected to, he will find a way to make that boy pay for doing this to him- something catches his attention. From one of the windows of the Great Hall comes a shimmering light that bathes the inside of the room, and the Dark Lord sees something that should not be there.
The entrance door, getting clearer and clearer the longer he stares at it. Except it is not the entrance door to the Great Hall at all.
“Potter,” he calls again, and the boy looks at him with curious eyes at the change of tone of the Dark Lord. “Where on earth are we?”
Potter blinks, confused. “Hogwarts?” he says, matter of factly. “You said that yourself just a moment ago.”
Lord Voldemort sends him an irritated look, “Are you blind?” he hisses, pointing at the columns that stand where the heavy doors should be, “Have you ever seen one of those in Hogwarts before, child?”
"Don´t call me child," Potter grunts. But Lord Voldemort walks past him to reach the structure that raises in front of them, the Great Hall all but drafted by the massive size of the gates. “I´m almost 18, you know?”
The Dark Lord ignores him, mesmerized by the dark stone. The usual walls of the Great Hall, in that musky dark brown color Lord Voldemort had associated with home, once, flawlessly merged into the black columns that framed an equally dark wooden door. The structure is so tall that the end of it gets lost in the sky charms that cover the ceiling. The stone is not marble, or gneiss, or any other stone Lord Voldemort has ever seen. Instead of reflecting the light, the surface seems to pull it in, remaining matte. The wood is plain, mundane. The stone radiates mystery. It calls onto him like a siren song.
His hand hovers over the polished surface. There are no spells on it, no trace of curses the Dark Lord can detect. Yet, he can taste the magic on the back of his mouth.
Every rational part of him suggests he should not touch the stone. It could be cursed, he doesn't know where he is or why he is trapped here, but he can't help himself. Just like Tom Riddle, who had opened the chamber of secrets without making sure the bathroom was empty, just as Lord Voldemort had jumped headfirst into destiny with just a half-heard prophecy, the Dark Lord feels his impulses getting the best of him. The excitement, the curiosity of finding something unknown to anyone but himself, something to discover and own, is always stronger than the voice in the back of his hand hissing like a worried mother. When Voldemort's fingers touch the stone it is not cold or hot, but pleasantly smooth, as if it had the very same temperature as his fingertips.
For a moment nothing happens, and then the doors crack open with a loud, banging sound.
Voldemort backs away fast enough that he almost crashes onto Potter´s chest. The boy is approaching the doors as if the same siren song that had pulled Voldemort towards them is working on him, too.
The foolish child looks at the wooden doors as they slowly open, his eyes so big and bright they could have belonged to any house elf. “Wicked,” he whispers under his breath, so low Voldemort could have missed it.
Behind the doors stands what the Dark Lord easily recognizes as the entrance to the Great Hall, the big stairs that lead to the upper levels of the castle proud in the middle of it, and the endless amount of paintings covering the entirety of the walls. But even from where he stands, Lord Voldemort can see that something is not right. Something about the place feels… off.
Of course, Potter thinks nothing of it.
“Potter,” he hisses, just in time to stop the fool from stepping out of the Great Hall and into the next room. “What do you think you are doing? Do you want us to get killed?”
That seems to shake Potter off whatever has gotten to him. He turns back to look at Voldemort, annoyed. "Get us killed?" he says, angry and dismissive, "What, so you can touch the scary stone but I can't move or I might kill us both?
Voldemort feels his anger stir. "I touched a stone," he says. "You are about to cross a door you have no idea where it came from, reeks of dark magic, and opened on its own."
The boy flushes in anger, just the faintest tint of red on the highest points of his tanned cheeks. "So we are both a couple of bloody idiots. Nice to know." Potter´s voice is harsh, but his frown slowly turns into a slightly amused look. Voldemort doesn't like it one bit. "I didn't know you were scared of doors, though."
Voldemort grinds his teeth. “I don´t speak in fear, you dimwit.”
"Oh no, I get it." Potter is quick with his words, there is no denying. It is easy to tongue-tie him, but the child has a way of always talking back, defensive when insulted. He doesn't seem to have much talent or grace when speaking is involved, outside of those quick remarks. That, and a mean brand of angry sarcasm. "You and your paranoias, Riddle. Babies, big gates… the stuff of nightmares, really."
Oh, how Lord Voldemort wishes the killing curse would work now.
"Don´t be simple-minded, Harry. Here," he says, reaching for a silver cup from the nearest table. It is heavy, cold and familiar, with Hogwarts´ crest beautifully engraved on it. Voldemort twirls it between his hands and, with a quick movement, throws it directly at the boy's face. Potter reacts quickly, all those years of Quidditch reacting before his mind can. He catches the thing mid-air. He has just enough time to send a confused look to the Dark Lord before the spell Lord Voldemort just placed on the cup acts up.
Right as the cup is caught, it becomes heavy. The force of the impact hits Potter as if Voldemort had just thrown a bludger to him. It makes the boy lose his footing, sending him crashing to the floor. He rolls on the ground… right through the door.
The atmosphere does not even stir.
The cup spins away from Potter, shining as it rolls away from Voldemort´s vision. Potter´s bottom lip is swollen, and the fabric of his pants scratched. When his hands come up to touch his face, they look red. "What was that for?!" the boy near screams, spitting slightly pink-colored saliva to the floor.
Voldemort ignores the tactless act. “It was therapeutic,” he says. “Feel any discomfort?”
The boy sends him a disbelieving look. “Well,” and his tone alone already makes the Dark Lord regret ever asking, “aside of the burning knees and bruised hands and overall painful experience of being hit with that,” he points at something behind the doors that Voldemort supposes is the cup, accusatory, “and the overwhelming anxiety of being near your psychotic arse, I'm just fantastic, thanks for asking.”
Voldemort's lipless mouth twitches. Sending the ungrateful brat flying across the floor had felt incredibly good. Maybe that would teach him to keep his mouth shut.
“Good. We will give it a few more minutes, just in case there is any slow-activation curse lingering in your system.”
Potter just looks at him as if Voldemort has lost his mind. Lord Voldemort pays him no mind, reaching for a light wooden spoon from the very same near table. He gives it a quick look before tucking it in his robes. “Close your mouth, Harry. It is not a very flattering look on you.”
The boy closes his mouth so quickly that Voldemort hears his teeth crash. He can't help but hope that the kid would bite his tongue off. That would be a refreshing change.
“Did you just—”
There does not seem to be any spell threaded in between the gates, which can only mean crossing is safe. The Dark Lord all but steps over the Chosen One as he enters the new room, hearing nothing of all the vile curses the kid is spitting out. Voldemort turns around to inspect the mysterious gates from the other side.
The place looks uncannily similar to the entrance to the Great Hall, even down to the House Points hourglasses hanging at the sides of the door. The impressive marble staircase is an exact match, too. The place is so big that a young Tom Riddle had been sure half of Wool could fit inside of it. Voldemort spins carefully, taking in the room. The wooden spoon feels heavy in his pocket.
"I can´t believe," Potter continues with his incessant chatting, "that you—"
"You know Potter, I did not get the feeling that you were this annoyingly talkative from our previous encounters.”
Somehow, miraculously, that does make the boy stop. Curious that all it took to cut the chatter was an off-hand comment, Voldemort looks back at the boy. Potter is still not off the floor, and the look in his eyes is cold as ice. Between the green of Potter's irises and the look on his face, Lord Voldemort thinks of a popular muggle saying. If any look could ever kill anyone, it would be one just like that one.
Something in the thought troubles him for a moment. He had noticed once before that, under the right light, Lily Potter's eyes looked rather similar to the green of a death curse. Last time he had seen it, the Dark Lord had been hit by his own killing curse. A small chill runs down his spine.
The Mudblood´s eyes are on him again, as green as he remembers them. "We haven't talked that much, Riddle, maybe that's why." Potter´s voice sounds like nails on a chalkboard. Voldemort has always hated that sound. "It's hard to have a witty conversation when over half the time I spend in your presence I´m either screaming or crying. Or, quite literally, fighting my balls off to stay alive. Or, you know, on very memorable occasions, all three at once."
The accusation is fair, Voldemort supposes. “Don't be like that, Harry.” Under Potter's watchful gaze, Lord Voldemort smiles. “You know it is not a party unless you go through all three of those.”
When Harry screams, suddenly moving towards Voldemort at full speed, as if he wants to tackle him to the ground, Voldemort gracefully gives a little step back. Potter misses him by just an inch, and his whole being seems to… glitch. For a second, Voldemort is sure he can see through the boy, his body blurring at the edges. He blinks, and the blurriness is gone. The only thing left behind is Potter, looking angry and cold, standing before one of the biggest portraits in the hall. Voldemort stares for a second too long, to make sure he had imagined the incident.
The frame of the painting lines perfectly with Potter´s figure, as if he had just jumped out of a painting. “I hate you,” the boy hisses.
Silence dances around them. Voldemort shares a soft, cruel smile with the boy before his eyes move on their own accord, looking around the room again.
There is something in this room that rubs the Dark Lord the wrong way. Just like with the Great Hall, this place seems a carbon copy of a place Voldemort knows intimately well, just not quite.
“Tell me, Harry,” he asks, “do you see something strange here?”
The boy huffs at him, but ends up obediently looking around. He truly seems to have no idea where they were, at least to some extent. He looks around like someone seeing the room for the very first time. Voldemort starts listing every incarceration artifacts and spells he can think of, trying to look for similarities to their predicament. Absolutely nothing comes to mind.
Imprisonment spells don't work on two different locations. There could not exist both a Great Hall and an entrance, if they were separated by a door. And he has never heard of a prison that could recreate a place, such as Hogwarts, with the level of accuracy he could see here. And there is no way he is trapped in his own mind, since Potter is also here.
Something in must be wrong, Voldemort thinks. There must be at least one flaw in this recreation, and wherever it is, that must be a clue to solve their problem. The Dark Lord moves closer to the walls, looking at the ceiling and the floors, waiting for any flick of magic that could give away at least what type of spell had been used for the creation of this place.
“What are you looking for?” Potter asks.
Voldemort scans the room again, his feet automatically leading him to a small painting near the left wall. It is one Voldemort knows well, it used to be one of his favorites. It was an oil painting, in which a group of humble-dressed ladies played near a river. They usually complained to Tom Riddle that no one paid them any attention, but him. During his first years, when Tom had been bullied and ostracized by his fellow Slytherins before he could set the record straight, those ladies had been almost the only people he would talk to. Of course, he had used them to obtain blackmail material against his peers wherever necessary.
“Something out of place,” he answers.
The painting held no small amount of homesickness for him, and so Voldemort found himself walking directly towards it. A naive part of him whispered about how they would have answers, like they always did. He lets his eyes travel over the familiar frame.
Except, it is not familiar at all. The painting is not how Lord Voldemort remembers it.
Where there used to be a closeup or a river there now is more vegetation, greens and emerald colors almost popping off the painting, and electric blue river waters in the middle of it. The ladies are nowhere to be seen, and the painting frame is marked.
No, Lord Voldemort realizes, a smile spreading across his face in glee. The frame in not marked, it is covered in arcane runes.
A quick look at the near paintings confirms it, those frames are also engraved with runes. The lines curve around the designs, hiding in plain sight. And not any kind of runes, either.
“Portals,” Voldemort breathes out.
Potter creeps behind him, trying to see what Voldemort is looking at. "What?"
"Portals, Potter," Voldemort explains, too excited to feel annoyed with the brat. He caresses the runes on the painting frame with reverence. "These are ancient elvish portals, Potter. This right here... is elf-speech."
The Dark Lord has not seen elf-speech in decades. He presses his fingertips, greedy, to the carvings. The pressure is so strong that when he lifts his hands some of the lines are printed in his skin.
Elvish portals were almost a myth. They appeared in some old, dark books, with stories of how, when certain elvish runes were carved around certain surfaces, like a mirror or painting frames, they could turn them into portals. Undetectable under magic, easy to hide. Lord Voldemort had once known a dragon smuggler back in Korea who claimed to own an elvish portal in the form of a hand-mirror.
Of course, the mirror had been a fake portal. The Dark Lord had stolen the thing after killing the man in his sleep, and found a simple goblin double-ended mirror. A waste of time. But not now. These runes are truly elf-speech.
Every single frame has them, he realizes. This has to be one of the biggest discoveries of the last few centuries.
“... So you think house-elves put us in here?”
Voldemort turns, snarling at the child. "House-elves have little to do with elves, Potter. Elves are extinct, house-elves are but a sad ghost of what their ancestors—" he stops himself. Potter´s idea is not completely stupid. House-elves had residual magic from their ancestors, kinds of magic not even wizards could stop. Lord Voldemort would have never considered it if Potter had not brought it up.
He studies the child. Potter is looking at him as if Voldemort has lost his mind. And yet, this boy had escaped the wards of Malfoy Manor using house-elf magic, hadn't he? And Hogwarts was filled with house-elves. Maybe Dumbledore had found a way to weaponize the meek creatures.
Maybe the idea of being trapped in Hogwarts with house-elf magic is not as stupid as it seems.
Potter keeps looking at him. “So…”
“So what, Potter?” Voldemort hisses back, somewhat annoyed by the child. The fact that the idea of house-elf magic had not occurred to him irks him. This would be the second time Lord Voldemort gets tricked by the pitiful excuse of magical power house-elves have. It's almost embarrassing.
And the fact that it had been Potter the one to point out the most probable explanation to their predicament, not him, a wizard that easily doubled him in age, experience, and magical talent, was also somewhat embarrassing. Voldemort had spent years studying and researching elvish, yet he had never really thought that, maybe, he only needed to look at those pitful house-elves to answer some important questions.
It hits too close home. Like how he had been oblivious to his Slytherin heritage, just because he had considered his mother unworthy of attention, weak and pathetic.
Lord Voldemort never liked making mistakes. Making the same type of mistake twice, well. He loathes the feeling.
But, when he tries to pin Potter to the spot with an icy glare, the Dark Lord fails. Potter is surprisingly close. His eyes are strangely bright, and he is very, very still. For a moment, Voldemort even doubts the boy is breathing at all.
"Well, you said yourself, didn't you?" Potter says. He doesn't even blink. For a moment, Voldemort wonders if Potter has been this still all along and he just hadn't noticed. "These are portals. If you don't want to be here I guess you could just... go through them. Leave."
Harry Potter looks at him as if he is expecting something to happen.
"Don't be stupid," Voldemort whispers, but the idea is now floating in his mind. "We don't know where they would take us. Do you want to get yourself killed that bad?"
“So you just plan on staying here, in this hall, until the end of time?”
Potter has a point, of course. The Dark Lord looks around, feeling just a distant buzzing of magic coming from the painting frames. Carefully, he tries the apparition spell again -and, again, feels his magic curl and snarl at nothing, unable to free him from whatever this place is. But there must be a way out, something Voldemort has not thought about. Yet.
The child doesn't give up. He gets even closer, and something about the way he moves makes Voldemort want to step back. He doesn't do it, of course. Potter is just a brat. “I saw you taking a spoon from the Great Hall. Why did you do that?”
At that, Lord Voldemort does recoil. Potter has him trapped against the wall, and while that would usually not be a problem for him, there is something about Potter right now that makes Voldemort´s skin crawl. A sort of energy around him.
He thinks about not answering, but Potter's eyes are too fixated on him. "It's an anchor point." Voldemort finally says between his teeth. "If anything happened, I could pull myself back to the Great Hall with a very simple spell."
Potter frowns, and the Dark Lord doesn’t need to be too familiar with the boy’s moods to know Harry is angry, but not surprised, to learn that Voldemort had crafted a contingency plan to save himself if anything went wrong, but not Harry. Voldemort half-thinks he imagines the raging specks of betrayal he sees in those green eyes.
“Let me guess,” Potter says instead of whatever useless recrimination he obviously wants to voice, “I´m too stupid to understand why that contingency plan of yours won´t work if we cross the portals?”
The Dark Lord´s frown dissolves, one brown raised. “We, Potter? When did you and I become we?”
The blush in Potter´s cheeks is more angry than it is shameful. "Excuse me, for a moment there I thought that the fact that you can´t get yourself out of here on your own meant both you and me —you know, we,” he mocks “might try to work together for five minutes to get us out of here. I forgot I was talking to someone who spent eleven years as a bloody ghost, until that coward, Wormtail, showed up. All because you couldn't be bothered to ask for help until you hit rock-bottom.”
All smugness Lord Voldemort had felt evaporates. The boy has a tongue on him that the Dark Lord might very much like to remove. Potter looks at him as if his eyes could turn Voldemort into stone.
Voldemort stares. The boy is suggesting crossing ancient portals that lead to unknown destinations using an anchor piece as ridiculous as a random wooden spoon. It´s stupid, suicidal, but technically? It could work. On paper, it should work. There was nothing purely academic, on paper, about actually walking through one of those portals, though. Lord Voldemort doesn't even know how to activate them in the first place.
No, the best thing would be to remain the Great Hall. Study the place, figure out what kind of magic powered it, and work around how to break it. His Death Eaters were in the middle of a war in Hogwarts before Lord Voldemort got stuck here, he couldn't waste time chasing maybe answers through portals. How, again, had he ended up here?
He shakes his head, his mind still confused around the details of the battle. It must be a side effect of the spell that had gotten them there. It is clever, in a way. If Voldemort could not remember how he got in here, he doesn´t have any clues on how, exactly, he got trapped. one
In any case, he doesn't know how to open the portals. Being able to identify a language and being to successfully cast magic on the said language are two very different things.
He is about to say as much when Potter scoffs at him, giving him the cold shoulder. “Forget it,” he ends up muttering between his teeth. “I don't even know why I thought a truce would work with you.”
“A truce,” Voldemort says instead, “would mean that there is some way you can hurt me, Potter. Now that is just delusional.”
The boy seems keen on ignoring the Dark Lord. Still, as Potter leans in to study the runes on one of the frames, Lord Voldemort sees the carved lines twist a bit. They undulate and, as Potter leans away and focuses on the next portrait, they glow.
Oh, Lord Voldemort thinks. Of course, Potter would be miraculously able to interact with the ancient elvish runes. That boy had gotten out of every single mess he had ever found himself in, why would this be any different? Not even Gringotts had been a match for the Boy Who Lived.
The Dark Lord breaks the silent spell he has been working on since crossing the dark doors. The sharp, deadly knife in his pocket turns back into a harmless wooden spoon. There goes his plan of stabbing the boy in his sleep, then.
Soon enough, they learn that time does not seem to pass in this place. The light coming from the Great Hall windows is never-changing, always stuck in the glimmering feel of mid-day.
Soon enough Voldemort also learns that, while Harry might be immune to magical damage thanks to whatever magic they were subjected to, the boy was still affected by thirst. And hunger.
Unfortunately, so was Lord Voldemort.
Potter has trouble sleeping, and mostly spends his waking hours glaring at Voldemort as the Dark Lord meditates. Harry studies the runes, tries to sleep, and complains that Voldemort is going to get them both killed. In some memorable occasions, the boy tries to physically confront him. Lord Voldemort has enough magic to keep the kid away from him, but his irritation with the brat grows at the same rate that his hunger and thirst do.
There is no way out, he is sure of it now. There is a string of familiar magic in the air, something that vaguely felt like home, but it was too subtle for their magic to use for an apparition. It was as if someone had closed them in a basement, and the residual magic Lord Voldemort felt was a thin ray of light coming from in between the cracks in the wooden floor over their heads. The only thing the Dark Lord can even grasp at is the dense magic surrounding the Great Hall doors, which leads nowhere and just seems to hover over the stone, and the runes of the portals. Conveniently, those runes only act up when Potter is near.
Maybe that is why it takes Lord Voldemort so long to accept that the only way out of their current situation is crossing the portals. If he wants to use the portals, he will have to drag Potter with him. Keep him safe until Voldemort either discovered how to use the portals himself, or they got out and back to their world. One of those portals could very well be the door to their world, although Voldemort would not bet on it. Dumbledore would not have made it that easy. The old coot never did.
The idea of having to be around Potter any longer is most unpleasant. But, if they don´t at least try and see what is beyond those portals, Voldemort might end up having to cannibalize Potter's body for survival. Dark rituals had gotten Lord Voldemort used to the taste of human blood and meat, but it is not an experience he is fond of. There is also the matter that, if Potter dies, so does the runes´ magic. And there is also the little detail that, even if Voldemort has his old body back -something he very much refused to even think about- Potter is a young man, versed on at least some sports, while Lord Voldemort was… not.
As much as it pains him to recognize it, half-starved and weak as Voldemort is, Harry Potter could easily overpower Voldemort if they got into a physical fight for survival. The boy would not go down easily, that much was clear as day for anyone to see.
So there was only one thing to do. Potter looks at him with that painfully obvious distrustful look in his eyes when Lord Voldemort accepts his truce. He only presses his lips tight when Voldemort speaks of walking through the worlds together to look for magic familiar to them. The theory of it goes beyond Potter's school work, and so Voldemort dumbs down the concept as much as possible.
Find a string of magic that felt like home, stronger than the one present in this place. Use it as a ladder to apparate themselves back to Hogwarts. Go back to try and kill each other.
Potter doesn't trust him but, really, what else can he do? The boy's lips are dry and sharp. He needs water just as much as Voldemort does.
“Where is your sense of adventure, Potter?”
“Oh, so when you suggest it, it is having a sense of adventure, but when I suggest it, it is reckless stupidity. Good to know.”
Thirst is what decides it for them both, in the end.
Lord Voldemort doesn't need to tell Harry what to do. they choose a painting that depicts a small muggle town. The boy takes a deep breath and touches the center of a painting. They both stare as the runes around the frame undulate, and both the runes and the space where the painting should go turn into shining glass.
Voldemort goes in first.
➊●●●
As Lord Voldemort emerges from the other side of the mirror, the world he lands in takes his breath away.
The first thing he notices is the sun. A big, white ball in the sky that looks too big to be the sun from their world. It bathes the whole land with a bright, warm light. A breeze runs through his hair —and how strange it is, to have hair again. Lord Voldemort had forgotten how good it felt when the air messed up his carefully styled locks.
Everything is in vibrant green. The trees, the grass, the moss that grows on the stone stairs that lead towards a river.
A river.
Voldemort all but flies downstairs, but soon a shadow passes him by. Potter reaches the end of the stairs first, hesitating only a second before dipping his entire face in the water and drinking in like a man dying. Voldemort is right next to him in a heartbeat, cupping the fresh, crystal clear water in his hands and taking it to his lips.
Potter takes his head off the water with a satisfied grunt, just to dip his whole head back in to wet his hair. This time, when he pulls it out, he sends water everywhere, including Lord Voldemort´s self. The Dark Lord can't bring himself to care, the water running down his dry throat almost making him cry in relief.
It's not like he had entertained the thought that he might die of thirst in that empty hall, with Potter for only company, no. That had only been a very present possibility. But he is glad for the liquid pouring down his throat.
Of course, Potter takes it a step further by throwing himself into the water, his eyes bright with actual tears.
It takes them a bit to recover from the shock of not being dead. Potter alternates from sunbathing and dipping back into the water, while Voldemort is contempt with lying in the mossed stairs. He studies the door, the wooden spoon in his robes pressing lightly against his chest.
The gate they had come through has no doors. It is just a big stone arch, covered in moss and other plants, just as the rest of the stairs that lead from the door to the river is. The gates are tall, far taller than Voldemort. They would tower over him even if he wasn´t wearing this inferior body, but not as tall as the dark stone doors from the Great Hall. On the very top of the arch there are two pillars, each one ending in a moon-shaped stone. Between them, a perfectly rounded crystal.
It floats between the pillars, undisturbed by the light breeze or the way the sun should be passing through it, reflecting light on its surface. The crystal is not glowing. It rests, suspended between the two pillars at each side of it, and Voldemort knows that it will only glow if Potter is near. Just like the runes. He looks at the crystal as if it has personally offended him.
The space between the gates has nothing special to it. Lord Voldemort can see the green of the plants covering the hill behind it. There are no elvish runes anywhere.
The spoon in his pocket is warm. From it comes a pleasant feeling of belonging, that tugs Voldemort lightly towards the door. Whatever it is that ties the false Great Hall to their world, it is not present in this other world. As pretty as it is, it doesn't seem like this place has much else to offer other than water and, maybe, food. The Dark Lord had never been big on eating, especially not these past few years, but right now he would kill for something to chew on.
He gives one last look at Potter, who is laughing like a kid in the water, before he stands up. They are not here only to alleviate their thirst, after all. Potter seems to sense him coming down the stairs, because he tenses. The stairs lead well into the river, the water covering a big part of them before they end in a broken edge. Clearly, there must be someone in this world, for portals and stairs don't build themselves.
Thankfully, he doesn´t have to explain himself to Potter. The boy sends him a knowing look before swimming to the other side of the river.
And so, their search starts.
The Jungle World, as Potter calls it, probably because the boy has never seen a real jungle before, turns to be a pretty, but inconsequential, world. They walk till near dawn and, although Lord Voldemort won't admit it, it feels good to see the passage of time in something as simple as the dawn, after being trapped in the still midday light of the Great Hall for so long.
They find nothing.
Not a village, like the one depicted in the painting. Not a strain of magic that feels remotely like home, not like the spoon Lord Voldemort has with him does. And certainly not a single living being but plants.
It is easy to overlook, at first, but soon enough it is obvious that there is not a single bug in the air. That the only sound is the one made by the air as it rushes through the trees. For a moment Lord Voldemort fears that the water might have been poisonous, but neither Potter nor him seem to have any strange reaction to it.
There should be more sounds, like the ones they make as they move, but Voldemort is surprised to find that Potter is surprisingly quiet in his step. Potter walked a few steps behind Voldemort, just quick and steady enough as not to annoy the Dark Lord. He kept his mouth shut, too. That was a nice change.
In the end, Voldemort must admit that this world has nothing to offer. There are no more ruins to follow, the broken stairs and the arched gates being the only man-made things they have encountered. The point-me spells do not work if Voldemort doesn't know what he is looking for, and night is closing in on them. They should head to the Great Hall soon, for there is no way Lord Voldemort is about to spend the night in this unknown place, signs of life apparent to him or not.
There is no telling if this world is filled with vampires or other nightly creatures. Since there is no way for him to test if lethal magic could work in this world, for killing Potter is sadly not an option anymore, he doesn't want to risk it. Potter seems like he is about to protest when Voldemort all but orders him to turn around, back to the gates, but thinks better of it at the look Voldemort sends him.
He does, though, react when Voldemort orders him to pack some of the fruit that hangs from the trees. "You are aware that I'm not one of your brainwashed followers, right, Riddle?" Potter growls when Voldemort tells him to use his shirt as a bag for the berries he is picking. "The deal was working together, not me working for you."
"And you are aware that I´m not one of your foolish friends, and will not ask again, don´t you?" Lord Voldemort feels his lips stretch in a cruel smile. "Be good, Harry. Or you won't be getting any water once we are back in the Great Hall."
Voldemort leads the way, the warmth of the spoon´s essence guiding them back to the doors of its original world.
When they get back to the gates it's nighttime. The round crystal glows as soon as Potter sets a foot on the top of the stairs. Voldemort has not told the boy that he is the only thing activating the doors. As far as Potter knows, Voldemort had found a way to use their combined magic to activate the runes.
Before crossing to the other side, Potter takes a look at the glowing crystal and, then, at the Dark Lord. There is something Voldemort can't quite place in his eyes.
➊●●●
They run out of food and water soon. They go back into the Jungle World for food one more time before deciding to move on to other worlds.
They are careful, not knowing where they might land next. It looks like the paintings have little to do with where the portals would end up getting them.
➊●●●
Their second world is opened by an all-white gate and leads to a desert world. The stone arch is similar to the one from the last world: big, with two smaller pillars that end in moon-shaped stones, and between them, suspended in mid-air, a crystal. This one is long and angular, nothing like the smooth disc from the other world. There is another staircase, longer this time, leading down into what seems like the ruins of a city, or a temple.
The air is dry and hot, and Voldemort is grateful for the water they carry with themselves from the jungle world. He is not so glad that the stupid nickname stuck.
Again, there seem to be no people or animals here, either. Just Potter and himself.
They walk for a long time, searching for either familiar magic or food, and find nothing. The spark of home is still stronger in the Great Hall, and in the small spoon carefully guarded in Voldemort's robes. When the unforgiving heat of the sun starts to fade, slowly turning day into night, they go back to the portal, empty-handed. Again.
From afar, the view of the stone arch and the impossibly long stairs is breathtaking. Potter plays with his wand by Voldemort's side, as harmless to him as a baby with a mock wand, the Dark Lord muses.
“It's nice,” Potter says.
“It's a dessert,” Voldemort replies, because no matter how much he agrees with the statement, it is hard not to antagonize and mock Potter at every opportunity. It is one of the only things that bring him something resembling joy in this place they are trapped in. “And it is a prison, not a paid holiday. Do try and remember that, Potter.”
The Dark Lord can almost hear the way Potter grits his teeth. "You are such a prat," the boy says, casting a Lumos. The sunlight is fading quickly, and not one, but two moons wink at them from the sky.
Voldemort does not dignify the comment with an answer. He is not here to entertain Potter with small talk. The brat should be thankful Lord Voldemort is sparing his life, for the time being.
➊●●●
Their third world proves to be the most interesting yet. It also is, by far, the most tedious.
“Maybe we should go back,” Potter screams from in front him, his silhouette smaller than a child´s.
"Not having fun anymore, Harry?" Lord Voldemort taunts back, careful to not miss his step. The old wood moans under his feet.
They have been walking on this never-ending bridge since they arrived in this world. The portal, opened by one of the biggest paintings in the gallery, had been standing in the middle of the bridge, a small circle of wood suspended over a pitch-black abyss. Technically, they could have gone the other way around, since the bridge extended on both sides of the portal, the end of it too far for either of them to see.
The more they walked, the more they could see that the only thing waiting for them at the end of the bridge seemed to be more bridge, opening a dark path between a white fog. The only thing that made Voldemort think it was still day and not night was that some sunlight cut through the fog.
There seems to be nothing around them. No mountains or hills, and above them only fog. If they look down, there is only dark nothing. Voldemort had made a point of not looking down once he had tried to fly and had felt how, the instant he had hovered a single foot over the edge of the bridge, a sudden force had almost sucked him into the darkness.
Yes, he would not be trying that again. Especially not after he had sensed in his bones hunger coming from the darkness underneath them.
(“We should leave,” Voldemort had said right after. “I can't feel any connection to our world here.”
“What, Riddle, scared of heights?”
Lord Voldemort had just sent him a nasty look “I could leave you here to rot, brat.”
“Go on,” Potter had looked at him as if he knew. “I'll stay. I want to see what is on the other side.”)
“The wind is getting a bit strong,” Potter says, ignoring his taunts. “Not that you would know, walking as slow as you do. I can hardly see you back there, Riddle.”
Not for the first time in this trip Voldemort fantasizes with throwing the brat over the bridge and into the darkness.
➊●●●
The fourth time they cross a portal, something is wrong. Lord Voldemort can feel it even before he is finished walking through the painting.
First, there is the air. Cold and hard and wet, it crashes against Lord Voldemort's face with such force that it both blinds and deafens him for a moment. Then, before he can even open his eyes to look for Potter, the Dark Lord feels himself fall.
There are wind and rain everywhere, and in the middle of the fall, when he tries to open his eyes, he only sees thunder in a stormy sky.
Lord Voldemort crashes into a mass of water, salty, cold, and dark water that chills him to the bones before he gets pulled underneath it as a wave crashes over him. Not only can´t he breathe, but all his muscles seem to hurt at the same time, his skin burning from the crashed in the water. Voldemort swims upwards, the salt hurting his eyes, but manages to break the water surface and take a mouthful of air.
His lungs scream, his eyes water. He doesn't even see the next wave hovering over him until it is too late. Right before he is tossed around the water he looks up, terrified, not understanding what is going on, and he sees them. The stone doors are hanging in the middle of the sky, the opening looking down at Lord Voldemort, not a single staircase in sight. Just the portal, hollow and unforgiving, standing in the sky like another glowing cloud in the storm.
There is no land anywhere. Nowhere to swim to.
Water fills his vision once again, and Voldemort feels the growing pressure of the water around him, pushing him deeper and deeper into the bottom of the ocean. He calls to his magic, the panic in him growing exponentially as he finds out that his magic does not respond.
Voldemort finds in horror that he cannot fly.
There is no way of getting back to the portal. Worst, he has no magic. He tries to break through the surface again, desperately moving his arms and legs, but a current pulls him down, down, down to his death. A new wave, bigger than any of the others must crash on top of him, for Voldemort´s body is pushed around like a ragdoll until he can only hear a loud noise in his ears, and that's it.
Suddenly there is no up, or down. All the water around him looks the same. Dark and heavy and deadly, no matter where he looks.
He cannot die here. Not him, not like this. But there is water in his lungs and he is lost, and he is going to die, isn't he?
No. Something curls in his chest, ugly and vicious and forces another erratic movement from his limbs.
He cannot die.
Something tugs at his foot, and Voldemort kicks around like a wild beast, the burst of energy making him desperate and rabid. Is not until he looks down, his eyes bloodshot and savage, that he sees Potter. Harry.
The boy looks at him, his cheeks puffed and gaze unblinking. His hair forms a dark halo around him, and his eyes shine a brighter green than they ever have. They even seem to make the water glow around Potter.
Down there, with the darkness surrounding them, Lord Voldermort looks at those bright green eyes and thinks that death is haunting him, again. Ever since those eyes were worn by a crying baby in a cradle, they found Tom Riddle wherever he went, and they killed him.
Not yet, he thinks, still rebellious till the very end. Not ever.
He is not going to die,
He is not dead, not yet, not
ever .
Potter looks at him, and he doesn´t even try to breathe. They stare at each other, strangely hollow green against fervent red. They stand still, suspended in the middle of the freezing waters, like a painting of a sinking ship. Potter's black hair matches the darkness of the Dark Lord's robes in ominous perfection. Curious, Lord Voldemort thinks. He had never realized the exact color match, before.
Out of the blue, Potter blinks. Slowly, very slowly, the boy points down.
When Voldemort looks, he almost opens his mouth in shock. Further down there is a light. A soft, green light that gives the water around Potter that strange color that Voldemort had thought looked like a killing curse. The portal. The portal is right under them, on the bottom of the ocean. They might make it yet.
No, not the portal.
The portal underneath them is very similar to the one they had come through -round, grey, with a compact, square cristal standing between two moon pillars. But this time the crystal is not a clear white, but a bright green. And it glows.
He doesn't even spare Potter a glance. He starts swimming, not even checking for Potter, or thinking. Lord Voldemort will live. Death is not his destiny. Never was, never will.
Just as he is about to reach the portal does he stop, looking around for the only thing that can turn the portal into an escape route. Potter takes a hold of his arm, and before Voldemort can say anything the boy already has his hand over the not-there surface of the portal.
Just then does Voldemort think of what they are doing. This is not the portal they came from. There is no way to tell where this door will lead them to. Of course, Potter doesn't seem to care, as he pushes through the smooth surface of the portal with ease.
Lord Voldemort finds himself getting dragged into the portal too, and it is just by chance that his anxious gaze is directed upwards, towards where the surface of the water must be. There is a white wink in the sky, which makes the Dark Lord wonder if the other portal is right over them. Then, he sees it.
A small, long thing drifting upwards, far and away from him, black against the light coming from above. There is a sense of familiarity on the sight. For a moment he thinks of his wand, but he can feel it, safe in the wand holder of his arm. Relive washes through him.
It is just as he is about to leave this ocean nightmare, just half of his body still in the water, that the panic comes back full force. He knows what that is.
No, he roars, water filling his mouth and throat, fighting against Potter iron grip. he extends one arm, as far as it can go, like a helpless child trying to catch an already lost toy. NO!
The stick shifts and moves in the water, drifting slowly towards the surface.
His lungs burn. His sight betrays him. He gets sucked into the portal.
The wooden spoon floats.
[…] Sprung from blood of gods, son [...], easy is the descent to Avernus [...]; but to recall one’s steps and pass out to the upper air, this is the task, this the toil!
-VIRGIL, AENEID. BOOK 6.