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One day, when she would be asked why she had decided to become a Dark Lord, Harry decided she would answer - magnanimously, of course. For she would be an amicable Dark Lord and would afford the people opportunity to understand her. She would even deign for interviews with rags such as the Daily Prophet.
And she would be a Lord, not a Dark Lady, which has neither the ring of authority nor the mantle of power she needed. Perhaps this was the point that she had lost contact with reality…
Harry could pinpoint the beginning of this downfall almost exactly. The exact date would be lost on her eventually, but the time period would be forever seared into her memory.
It could and should have been many things; it could have been the death of Sirius, her only family. It could have been those awful Occlumency lessons with Snape. Or even the repeated torturous detentions with Umbridge.
But it wasn’t.
For those were the big things, the slaps in the face, the punches. The moments that truly hurt. That were expected to hurt.
It was something smaller that had done it. Something that had continuously ate and ate and ate away at her, one little bite at a time.
It had been the newspapers.
She remembered the headlines from the Daily Prophet during that hellish year of her life; she even had a scrapbook of them so she would never forget – Dumbledore: Daft or Dangerous? Her own damning articles: The Girl Who Lies?
To be accused of lying was hurtful, but she had often been accused of that. However, there was a flavour to these new articles that she could not abide. Something Hermione archly labelled misogynistic and predatorial.
Not only was Harry Potter considered a liar, led by the nose by Dumbledore himself… but it wasn’t considered her fault because she was a stupid little girl. She had been deemed incapable of maliciously lying about what she had seen with her own two eyes.
That was almost worse than the other articles who found all new ways to slander her, from not only being a filthy and blatant liar, but also a young woman of no morals.
She favoured muggle clothes. Not only were muggle clothes generally too tight and revealing for wizard fashion, the fact that Harry effectively wore rags from her male cousin either implied she was in some kind of relationship with a male muggle and wore his clothes, or she wanted baggy clothes because she didn’t care what she looked like or she wanted to get them off quickly or…
These attacks were easy, after all she was fifteen with no guardians who could stand up for her.
But there were even articles with a more neutral stance point, that were still riddled so many insinuations in them that they were damning without having said almost anything explicitly.
She could not shake them. Little hints and twists that if she had been born male may not have been implicated at all.
From her swimming costume in the tournament (was that a scandalous hint of nipple through her costume?) to her dress at the Yule ball (too much collarbone, too much flesh on display, what does she think she is doing?) to her various relationships with her male peers – as heaven forbid, she have close male friends.
She was scorned for her over-the-top display of grief at the final task; clinging to another girl’s boyfriend’s body at the tournament and crying.
She was accused of fake modesty.
Belligerence.
Being a whore.
Being a prude.
Being mad.
Being led astray.
She was either in complete control of herself and was condemned for every possible offense they could throw at her.
Or she was an innocent little lamb with not enough brain between her ears to realise that she was being a fool.
She was either a child or a full-fledged manipulative bitch.
And Harry? Harry suddenly decided with a cold and clinical detachment, despite the burning fury and upset, that she would show them.
If that’s what they wanted, she would fucking show them!
People were not going to stop seeing Harry as anything other than an object. She was a reluctant celebrity nutjob, who was owned by the public.
She had ceased to be a person.
She hated.
She hated and hated and hated.
But at first, she kept her head down. She studied more, practiced her wandwork day and night. Tried to be the right kind of person and buckle under even though she was burning up on the inside.
It went rather well for the most part, her marks certainly began to creep up. And although she couldn’t manage occlumency for shit, she wasn’t entirely sure she wanted to; the answers being denied her were so close - at the tip of her tongue almost.
If Dumbledore didn’t want to speak to her, then she needed to find out herself. Voldemort was not going to treat her as a child, so why should the headmaster?
It was dark and painful back there in the corners of her mind, in that gaping hole at the back of her head that evidently led to his. Harry found strength in it.
For that was how far she could fall.
She saw what he did to his followers…the pain and torment.
The fear.
How he received a perverted version of respect from all his followers. They cowered from his gaze. Took his word without a moment’s hesitation.
And Harry wanted.
At first, it was more anger and hurt than any desire to be great. Harry couldn’t change what they thought or what they said. But she could prove them wrong.
She could spite them.
Spite was not something she had ever really felt before. But now, something fed on it and it sat in her stomach, churning and spitting out poison.
Harry knew she wasn’t particularly smart, but she had a good pair of eyes in her head; even taking into account her rather extreme myopia. She was the best seeker in the school, not only for her flying skill, but spotting the damned snitch before the other team.
She also had no fucking trouble hearing as far as she was aware.
Harry saw and heard Voldemort return. She heard who he had spoken to, the words he had chosen.
She had felt his Cruciatus Curse.
She wasn’t a liar.
She wasn’t.
She wasn’t some kind of whore either. One of the lads, almost definitely. But a whore?
If she wanted to sleep with the entire school that shouldn’t be anyone’s problem, bar from her own.
But it was a problem here. Here of all places.
She had always dreamed of having a family. One day. But not at the cost of her autonomy. Harry didn’t want to be somebody’s wife.
Because it would still be a case that she needed to get married, she would need to take her husband’s name. From what little she had taken in about wizarding customs, it still seemed that her property would become his.
Her children would be his.
The Potter family name finished with her.
…the Black family name finished with her.
So, as she sat in the great hall, eating a cold breakfast that tasted like nothing, with slow measured bites (for her eating habits had also been criticised by the press too) she read the paper everyday with its litany of her misdeeds.
Ron and Hermione were tense next to her. They always seemed to be now, as attuned to her displeasure as much as they were anything else.
Adjusting the bandage on her stinging hand, Harry thought. Black thoughts. Tired and angry and despairing.
She sat there, looking like she was chewing a wasp and, in all honesty, trying not to cry.
Because it wasn’t fair. And no one…well, no one who mattered or who could do anything, had her back.
Dumbledore could stop this, but he wouldn’t even look at her. Hell, anyone could stop this…but no one would.
Why wouldn’t they stop them saying these things?
And so, she thought viciously, folding the paper and slapping it down on the table violently, that she would give them exactly what they wanted. They wanted a lying, manipulative bitch? Fine.
But first she needed to improve herself, because if she was going to be a bitch, she wanted to know what she was talking about. She needed her armour.
“Hermione?” she asked, sharply.
Hermione flinched from the tone, but looked up, “Yes?”
“Shall we head to the library after lunch? You’re right, I need to take my O.W.L’s more seriously.”
Hermione perked up, a sudden grin spreading across her face, “That sounds great, Harry. I’m so glad someone is taking them seriously.” She gave a pointed look to Ron who was busy buttering his fourth slice of toast.
Ron flushed angrily at that. “What about a game of chess instead, then the library?” He knew games before study was anathema to Hermione.
“Later,” Harry said. Chess, gobstones, perhaps even her beloved Quidditch would all have to come second now.
She put her head down and further into her work. She shut up in Defence about Voldemort and starved Umbridge of her oxygen.
Though there were plenty of reasons for Harry to get detention after that.
She glared back at people in the hallways. She struck back harshly at any jinxes or hexes thrown her way. And she wasn’t shy or sly about it. It wasn’t in Harry’s nature, nor did she have the patience to wear them down one by one.
A single public retaliation would have a bigger effect.
A single public retaliation against someone who also had no one in their corner.
Zacarias Smith may have been a Hufflepuff, but he was not well liked even in his own house courtesy of his disrespect to Cedric’s death. Hufflepuff loyalty would only stretch so far.
Writing with the blood quill in the aftermath had never been more pleasant.
The problem was, Harry then got a reputation for being unpredictable and dangerous. Which more firmly put her in the manipulative whore category.
But Harry wasn’t playing it the other way and crying and moping. Not in public at least. She didn’t know how to be that person. She had never been allowed to be fragile.
Let people be cautious of her rather than coddle and treat her like she was insipid.
When Christmas finally rolled around. When Mr Weasley left hospital, she finally got to go back to Sirius.
Where none of it mattered and he was just there. He was hers.
But even convicts got the papers.
He had spread them out spread out across the table one evening, seemingly just as upset about them as Harry. More so because he could do nothing either. Each headline more defaming than the next. Harry took in a sharp breath.
Sirius looked up at her, guiltily - as though she had caught him at something much worse than reading the most common paper in Wizarding Britain.
Suddenly, Harry wanted to cry, “It’s-it’s not true, Sirius,” she choked out, her breath coming short. “I swear it’s not. I’m not lying or sleeping around o-or…” She shook her head, trying to push away the tears with force alone.
She ducked her head into her chest, swallowing wetly.
She knew he believed her about Voldemort, that everyone in the Order did at least, if only for Dumbledore’s word and not her own. But she couldn’t bear for Sirius to think that she was some kind of cheap floozy or anything else they could say about her.
On the front of the most recent paper, she broke the water of the Black Lake again and again. Her swimming costume pasted to her chest, the stark cold of the day plainly obvious by the steam raising off her body, off Ron’s head as he came around from the enchantment and the great hot puffs of air escaping both their mouths visible even in black and white.
The infamous nip-slip photo, though there was no such thing that happened – even the wizarding world was not allowed to print photos like that of a child if they had caught such a picture - only that it was very obviously a cold day and that Harry, like almost every other person of the human race, might have nipples.
The headline hinted a speculation about a romance with the youngest Weasley son, now that his father was in hospital. But of course, she seemed fond of the twins too – perhaps it was a family romance? A ménage à trois?? Oh, the scandal!
Perhaps the devious girl would use this horrible accident as a further way to get into the family to replace her dead one. Perhaps the Weasley family only told her what she wanted to hear, only supported her due to her finances. Maybe she paid them, maybe they were hoping she would…
Her godfather at the gall to look confused for a moment, before he cottoned on, “Oh, Harry. I know it’s not,” he said, mournfully. It was almost reprimanding, as though he was cut by her remark. As if he could even comprehend for a moment how deeply hurt she was by all this. “Even if you were dating lots of boys, that’s your right. I don’t care what you do, as long as you’re happy.”
“But I’m not!”
Why didn’t he understand? She knew that. It was the implication she was that was upsetting. It was baseless and humiliating. She could not do right in the eyes of the public.
But of course, Sirius was born in a new age - for muggles. He probably loved the hippies and the free-love movement. He didn’t get it. How could he?
There were so many who did care about that kind of thing. That had already discounted her for being female and saw another way to hurt her.
Voldemort did not take her seriously. He had taken more flack for being destroyed by a girl, rather than a child in the following years when people had felt it finally safe to mock a Dark Lord. Hah!
How had He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named been killed? Evidently, he had done something wrong. For it had to be his mistake, rather than Lily or James or Harry’s triumph.
It had been open speculation how Harry had survived that Halloween night for years. Quite rightly speculated too, as Harry had only been a baby. But it always fell back to her mother – who all would agree was a good woman – sacrificing her life for her child’s.
What choice did Lily have? If she had survived and her infant had not, she would have been condemned by certain parties.
But evidently, Harry herself was not a good sort of woman.
She shamed her father and her mother…
Sirius held his hands out to her placatingly, waving away the papers so they scattered on the floor, “They’re all rubbish, Harry. Everyone knows that.”
Harry paused in her cutting denial. Because, she remembered, Sirius would know, wouldn’t he? In a different way.
He was a convicted felon. Convicted almost solely on his family name. Everyone said such terrible things about him, and those critiques and comments were baseless too.
Harry blinked away her tears, her wet eyelashes flicking droplets onto her glasses. “I don’t care about everyone else,” she said petulantly, “I want you to know.”
“I never doubted you for a minute.” He smiled sadly, “I wish I was a free man. My name…my family name alone would have stopped this before they’d even begun printing this utter horseshit.”
Harry nodded wordlessly; it didn’t do to dwell on such dreams. She ducked her head to hide the embarrassed flush and the unstoppable flow of tears. Harry hated how she looked when she cried, her face all screwed up and red.
Then there were arms around her, tight and secure. And Sirius smelled like exactly like Sirius, a scent she barely begun to know, but knew enough that it was safety.
And that made it worse. Because he was saying she could cry.
And she could with him. And it was like an unstoppable damn had broken. It was wretched and foul and mortifying, even if he was the only one to see it.
She hated it. She hated her life.
She wanted it to all go away and leave her alone.
She just wanted to hide away.
She wanted to breathe.
Fuck, all she wanted to do was be able to sleep.
She just wanted it to stop. Please.
Please.
When Christmas was over, Harry had to return to school. Because Harry Potter wasn’t going to fucking hide.
There was a photo of her in her swimming costume, shivering and coltish, posted on one of the walls with a strong sticking charm within days. Like a cruel, early anniversary present of the day of the second task. They were struggling to take it down.
Umbridge had railed her for this soft-core porn. Telling Umbridge she hadn’t bloody-well put it up ended up in more detentions.
Harry couldn’t decide if she wanted to laugh or cry at the fact there was now a detention record assigned to her name for ‘brining shame on her reputation and family name.’
One day, her kids could see that and think she had been caught in a broom closest with more than a hand up her skirt.
Harry had never been shy about making enemies because Harry had always stood up for what was right. But those had been childish feuds. Now they were all teenagers, and suddenly those enemies had taken on a sexual air with that photo out.
She wasn’t just a belligerent child anymore. She was a corrupt young woman.
Even the subtlest jibe in the paper could be turned into the crudest, most demoralising remark by teenagers.
Harry felt seen and not in a way she liked.
The wizarding world was behind the muggle ones in many ways, and in this even more so.
Or maybe it was just more blatant.
…Or maybe Harry hadn’t been paying attention.
Wasn’t Petunia always commenting snidely about the pretty young wife at number 10? The papers always posting pictures about how some female celebrity was dressed. Vernon sneaking Dudley page 3 so Petunia wouldn’t see it?
The boy had a wall of those girls and Harry had begun to hear things through the very thin walls of 4 Privet Drive.
In the muggle world, Harry Potter got to be a no one. But here? Even if she hadn’t been the Girl-Who-Lived she was Harriet Potter, and heir to the Potter family.
She was never going to be a nobody here.
There were expectations.
And Harry decided she didn’t care for those expectations.
It was unfortunate that these personal attacks should have happened at this time, at such a structurally low point for Harry. For she did not know of the horcrux within, or of the terrible thin walls between her and Voldemort’s own mind at this time.
How weak it made her in turn.
For even though Voldemort was not entirely aware of what the connection was yet, and the horcrux itself was not sentient, there was such a well of anger and hurt in her that she fed off the blackness, not realising it wasn’t her own.
As previously stated, it had never started out as an intention to become a Dark Lord in her own right, as that was incredibly far from what Harry wanted. She didn’t want to be dark. She did not want to kill or maim or hurt.
It started off with just wanting to be heard.
To be listened to – not for influence, but to be believed.
She was sick of her words being turned against her or used to demonstrate that she was incapable. Or even seemingly being listened to just to placate her.
But that had taken a backseat due to her exams, and then Sirius.
#
Her Cruciatus didn’t work. It sent Bellatrix to the floor with a shocked shriek, her hands flying out to catch her fall, but it hadn’t hurt her.
Bellatrix laughed at her. And laughed and laughed. “You have the mean them, you foolish girl! You have to want to hurt. Your grief isn’t enough.” She leered, almost prostrated on all fours, “Shall I show you?”
But Bellatrix had fallen with the power Harry had put into that spell; Harry had knocked her down. Bellatrix was just as cocksure as Sirius, even more arrogant and had turned her back on Harry.
Harry knew, she knew, she didn’t have it in her to cause pain like that. Even if her insides felt like agony. Harry didn’t know if she even wanted to cause pain like that…
But she had summoned the evil woman’s wand in her distraction.
If Harry was going to commit something illegal - and actually commit to doing it - she wasn’t doing it with her wand.
But that scorning, irritating baby voice of Bellatrix’s…
Harry didn’t want to try and curse her again, because as much as Harry did mean it, it was still the wrong kind of anger.
It wasn’t true anger. Bellatrix had seen through her.
It was pain. It was grief.
Harry had already put her own wand away. She fingered Bellatrix’s crooked wand, could feel the rigidity in it. It was almost a dead piece of wood in her hands, the sparks of magic only just there. It would not bend easily. But Harry had faced Voldemort’s Imperious and won.
She would break this wand before she gave up on it.
Before she let this bitch have it back.
Bellatrix had finally fallen quiet. In fact, she had stilled, finally noticing the dark wood in Harry’s hands. She was so still that Harry felt a sweat breakout across the back of her neck in anticipation. “Give me back my wand! How dare you put your filthy little half-blood hands on it,” She hissed, low and dangerous. Her mad eyes focusing on the wand. Like a rabid dog just waiting to pounce.
Harry sneered. She brought the wand up closer to her face, as if to say “this?” Her smile was sharp as glass. She felt powerful for a moment.
She would make Bellatrix hurt.
Testing the wood, she applied pressure as though she was going to snap it. It creaked under her hands, whining at the handling. It would serve her. It would serve before it broke.
Bellatrix shrieked, still crouched on the floor, her eyes flashing madly like two black vacuums in her face, “You filthy little whore!” She was clearly panicked.
It must be terrifying to spend fourteen years without a wand, your own snapped. The wand that chose you when you were only eleven years old. Bellatrix would have felt that die, blue-blooded as she was.
And now, she had a new one. For only a few months. Her only strength currently was her wand and Harry now held it in her hands.
If only Bellatrix hadn’t called her a whore….
Harry had frozen at the word, the ever-prickling scar nearly driving her to distraction. For oddly, as inflaming and painful as Lestrange’s chants about killing Sirius were…she had killed Sirius. How irritating it was to be called filthy for her blood…but Harry was a half-blood and proud of it to boot.
But she was not a whore.
Not now, not ever.
Her eyes met Bellatrix’s black ones for a long moment. Harry could see the fine tremble in the Death Eater’s limbs, a readiness to pounce. But she let Bellatrix see her intention first, just to add salt into the wound.
Harry snapped the wand, the crack so loud that it could have been bone. Quick and vicious, a lash as strong as a Crucio in its own right.
A wizard or witch’s wand was scared. To break it was to break a part of the wizard themselves. It was the extension of their arm, an extra finger, their constant companion.
It’s their spine and all their innards wrapped together and Harry had just taken some of Bellatrix’s.
It was more than disrespect. It was anger, it was hatred.
It was control.
And everyone from now on would remember Harry Potter snapped Bellatrix Lestrange’s wand for speaking out of turn.
Harry let out a bark-like laugh, full of knives and pain and threw the sparking remains at the stunned woman.
And Harry? Ever the muggle-loving fool then launched herself at the mad bitch in a crude tackle. Scrambling and scraping, tearing and ripping.
The material of her clothes became abrasive as she skidded across the floor, where it was pulled by Bellatrix in attempts to remove her from her person and control her. But Harry held firm.
Bellatrix howled beneath her, spewing filth about Harry and her family, friends…Sirius.
Harry managed to grab her hair firmly enough to slam her head into the floor. The elder woman was stunned for a moment, her eyes nearly rolling backwards from the force.
Harry felt a rush run through her. Her scar was bleeding, she thought, but her insides squirmed with a dangerous excitement.
Bellatrix stirred again, her own hands scoring Harry’s cheek as she tried to get purchase, but for all her fine battle skills, she was not a brawler.
Harry was.
They slid across the tiling with the force of their ungraceful scrambling, the sticking pull of flesh against floor almost painful.
Bellatrix was still wasted from Azkaban and her bony frame couldn’t stand up against Harry’s younger and stronger one. All in all, Bellatrix was the bigger of the pair, but Harry knew how to apply this anger. She held the mad woman down through her continual bucking.
Harry still had the fistfuls of her curly hair; she pulled the bitch up clear from the floor and slammed her head down again.
And again.
And again.
Something cracked beneath them, Harry’s own nail splintering and being ripped out as her own fingers got caught between Bellatrix’s head and the ministry tiles. The woman’s struggles were weakening now.
A rotten tooth scattered across the ministry floor with the next hit. The sound of flesh being continually cracked against an unforgiving service began to sound wet.
Harry clenched Bellatrix’s limp body between her thighs. She was getting off on this… and wasn’t that twisted. It was so fucked up and Harry didn’t care. She pulled Lestrange’s head up again, a feral part of her quivering – we haven’t broken the skull yet…
But Harry was pulled off her carrion bodily, shrieking and screaming as the touch caused her agony. Harry knew who this was.
Bellatrix was still breathing… Harry howled in anger, trying to get back to finish it.
Harry herself was then thrown to the floor, Voldemort glowering down at her. She licked the blood splatter from her lips.
Fuck, was he ugly.
He didn’t deserve the title of Dark Lord.
“Miss Potter,” he began, falsely polite. His anger was causing her scar to bleed into her eyes, “I see we have lost none of your muggle behaviour.”
He detested crassness and muggle-ness. But then, he hated everything.
She sneered at him, trembling with rage on the floor. Her fingers throbbed. She caught sight of her blood-soaked hands, her soaked sleeves and was shocked at the wave of need that washed over her.
“Voldemort,” she said, softly and breathless. She sounded wanton. He raised a hairless brow at her, and she could read his disapproval at that tone from a fifteen-year-old. Her fingers skittered on the floor, her broken and shattered nails leaving bloody smears. Then she had a strike of belligerent genius, “One might say you were falling to such standards yourself.”
The slightest flare of his serpent nostrils was all there was to reveal his anger. That and Harry throwing back her head and screaming at the abysmal pain in her scar. Her own skull slammed into the floor, back arching as she clutched at her forehead.
Oh, fuck, she had forgotten how truly awful that pain was when in his presence.
His foot came down on her lower abdomen, pushing her back to the floor harshly. Or maybe he had done it with magic, like when he had made her bow before that horrific duel… but she couldn’t be sure.
It felt like a foot.
Her glasses had been flung off with her movement and she couldn’t see him too well anymore. But his scarlet eyes were like a beacon, and they were focused on her. “And how does Lord Voldemort fall to such standards as to be compared to Harriet Potter, The Girl Who Lies?” he hissed in askance.
He wasn’t touching her at all.
He didn’t even have his wand out.
She could feel his presence all over her though. Strong, dominating.
Intoxicating.
She was going to eat that knowledge out of him. Bite it out with greedy, sharp teeth.
She weakly squirmed under his weight, adjusting the pressure until it was just-so. It was amazing and it was awful, “You owe me,” she said from behind gritted teeth, “You stole my blood!”
He smiled softly, deigning to crouch down to her fallen body. He scoffed, “By that logic, I also owe Wormtail.” His long, clawed hand came down, pulling her left arm up. The loose sleeve rolled down to unveil the ugly scar up to the crook of her elbow. It seemed to throb at his attention. Close to bursting open again.
“Wormtail’s life belongs to me,” Harry spat, trying not to arch into that horrific agony. She could barely breathe, “So. You owe me twice over.”
His left hand braced suddenly on the other side of her head, and he loomed over her, so much closer than before and all the fine details of his face came into focus. He seemed willing to play, to indulge her, “And what can Lord Voldemort provide Harry Potter with to assuage this bond of debt?”
Harry hadn’t ever expected it to get this far. Sure, Voldemort had talked to her before – talked at her, but never like this.
Harry had the suspicion he actually meant it. He was like all the intelligent, ruthless people she had ever met – he liked to be recognised. He liked to be seen.
He liked to play anyone who wanted to try their hand. If only for the enjoyment of crushing them.
The Dark Lord leant closer again to her, and Harry whimpered at the pain. A high-pitched truly girlish sound that she hated had left her lips. It sounded needy.
His own quirked slightly.
He wasn’t in a position that she could kick him.
Especially if she wanted to get something. Her head rolled to the side, where his hand was splayed on the floor, like a massive spider waiting for prey.
Beyond that she could just about see Bellatrix’s prone form twitching. And Harry knew what she wanted.
“I want her. Not now, not yet. But I want her. I want her.”
“My dear Bella?” He looked amused, so very caught up with the idea of it. “I’m afraid I can’t be parted from my Bella. She is much too valuable. Much too loyal to be given away to you.” His hand was unbearably gentle when he pulled her face to look at him again. His grin was like a razor, “I can give you Wormtail instead, if you like?”
She hissed at him wordlessly, but more than a hiss. It was a sound only a Parselmouth could make. The Dark Lord looked delighted. “Wormtail already belongs to me and is fuc—” No. No, swearing would be crass to him, and now all Harry wanted was to pander to him. To get what she wanted. “—Wormtail is useless.”
“Then what can Lord Voldemort give you?” He brushed her fringe aside, looking at the weeping scar. “What morsel can he give for you to sharpen your teeth on?”
If he wouldn’t give her Bellatrix, she wouldn’t ask for anyone else. For she could get them herself. She needed something else from him.
She couldn’t ask him to give her everything she needed or wanted. There wasn’t room for them both at the top and she wouldn’t share with him. No more than he would share with her.
That rabid bitch a few feet away groaned into the floor. Harry remembered her impassioned defence of Voldemort.
He wouldn’t give her Bellatrix. Fine. She would take her at a later date, without his permission.
But how to hurt her now? The woman’s blood was becoming tacky on her skin and Voldemort’s crushing weight was bearing down on her, even though he was not physically touching her.
She shifted again, the pressure holding her in a not-unsatisfying way.
“You,” she suddenly gasped, arching a little. There was blood in her eyes and what-kind-of-perversion in her veins, but she wanted him. All of him. His brain, his skills. She wanted to get under his skin and eat her way out.
Harry was rewarded with shock. Her scar went maddingly numb, and for a moment she was sure she had blacked out. For his expression was blank, and even his hellfire eyes were unreadable.
But then there was a rush of green flame and Dumbledore stepped out of one of the many floos, looking exceptionally grim featured.
Both Voldemort and Harry twisted their heads to look at him.
Voldemort’s hand was pressing against her sternum within seconds, and he pushed her away. She slid across the floor at a breakneck speed, her ponytail catching at the back of her neck and baring her throat to the world as she soared by.
There was an almighty crack. The feeling of being doused in warmed water from the very top of her skull. She would have liked the cliché of being knocked out from this pain, but she wasn’t. Her legs twitched and jerked, and she pissed herself, but then she couldn’t move. She lay there slumped and awkward instead, legs akimbo and missed half of the duel she wished to be a part of.
#
She was so angry. Angry at herself. Angry at Dumbledore. There was still blood caked in her nailbeds when she had destroyed his office.
And the papers. Especially the papers.
For now they gushed her praise, her strength. Her endurance.
Yet still had a massive picture of her with piss saturated clothes on the front page.
She had been asked to stay in the hospital wing for the night. A few cracked vertebrae were easy fixing for Madam Pomphrey, but Harry’s exertion in destroying Dumbledore’s property had sent all kinds of shooting pains up her newly fixed bone and tormented her already frazzled nerves.
Spinal cords were much trickier to heal due to their propensity for scarring, even with magical interference. No harm for now but they had only just been fixed and Harry would be staying here until the nurse was happy with her.
It was a relief to hear the others would recover too. Harry didn’t think she could bear more death on her conscience at this stage.
Though, once again, her mental landscape seemed to have shifted. The black backdrop of her mind seemed wider, more expansive. Everything felt like it was a slope, sliding back into that shadow. Something had gone wrong.
But was that such a surprise? Her actions and wants at the ministry had shocked even herself. Her lack of care for it was the most jarring element.
She had penned Hermione a letter whilst the girl slept next to her in the hospital wing and would wait until it was appropriate to send it. But Hermione was shaken, not stirred and so…
“I have a job for you, ‘Mione,” she whispered when it was quiet and dark. She sat in the armchair next to Hermione’s bed, spine twinging unpleasantly. Her own bed was long abandoned. “A little task you can help me with over summer.”
Hermione had given her a considering stare, and Harry realised she had never spoken to her like that before. But Harry’s eyes were raw from crying and her insides felt like they’d been hollowed out and she decided she didn’t care.
And really? Hermione for all her good traits had the capability of being very nasty when she perceived it just. Poor Marietta and her scarred forehead… Hermione was leaning closer, over the edge of the bed. “What do you have in mind?”
Something inside Harry was broken and painful and it bared her teeth, “I want a pet beetle. In a jar. Do you think you can get me one?”
It took Hermione half a second, and her eyes flickered to the discarded paper on the floor. The proud declaration that twelve death eaters were now in prison, and Harry Potter, twitching in her own piss, her shirt pulled around by her shuffling on the floor, so a little bit of her midriff was exposed.
Hermione glanced back, curious and cautious, but willing to help a friend, “Probably. I don’t know how long it will take though.”
Harry nodded, “Good things come to those that wait. By September, yeah?”
Hermione surprised her by laughing dazedly. She was on a lot of potions. “I think by September is possible. There is still a week left of term. I’m sure one will be around you at some point soon.”
Harry smiled, even as she wanted to scream.
She bounced between grief and giddy ecstasy over the next few days.
Voldemort was angry, he was beyond incensed. He had lost twelve of his servants in one fell swoop. Because of teenagers. Teenagers led by Harry. It was glorious.
Harry could have dribbled with the pleasure of it all.
And how to hurt that bastard even more? How could she? She wanted to grind her heel into him.
His thoughts chased her constantly. All night, every night. Inappropriately. “Me, Harry? You want me?” His horrid, high-pitched voice should not have broken her skin into hundreds of goosebumps, “You are more ambitious than I thought.” Damning praise. She could feel the ‘but’ coming, the sneer in his voice, “Lord Voldemort does not need nor want such a creature such as yourself.”
And Harry, who still couldn’t hold her tongue, spat back, “I don’t want you. I want to be you.”
An amused and ugly scoff. But surprise too. He hadn’t expected that.
“I am going to kill you and I’m going to wear your fucking skin. I’ll have your Death Eaters and I’ll- I’ll…” she continued, suddenly caught up in the violent fantasy again.
He was amused. And he was not one to be amused with such threats. He thought nothing of her. Because she was a stupid child. And a stupid girl-child at that.
His hands pressed her, invisible, not there and yet everywhere. “You are sweet, child. And more interesting than I originally gave you credit for, but little cub, you can’t take a bite out of me.”
She let him feel a raze of her hate and her anger in return. He recoiled slightly. Consideringly.
No! No, he didn’t get to leave now. She reached with claws and grabbed at him. Scraps of mental presence. Insubstantial and wispy. She took great bites from what she could get. Don’t you leave me! She snarled.
The whisps became firm. He was holding her wrists. “What a little beast you are, Potter. Hardly befitting your house. Well, now befitting your two houses.”
She writhed in her bed at that. How dare he pick at that wound. How dare he make her bleed! She didn’t want two houses. She wanted Sirius back. She wanted her mum and dad.
Harry tried to pull at her wrists, but he was no more there than she was. She was pinned by nothing other than his will, “There’s no other worthy of my two houses.”
He laughed then, indulgent. “Prove it.”
She awoke with a ragged gasp, sweating and aching.
Something had gone very wrong with her, she could acknowledge that now. This was more than justified anger or spite. Something had gone wrong inside.
She shouldn’t be so obsessed with the Dark Lord. Fuck, she shouldn’t be thinking of him as the Dark Lord. He was Voldemort. He was a bastard.
He was going to kill her.
And she wanted him?
For his skills, his incredible bank of knowledge to rival Dumbledore’s….
Hate-fucking was a thing, wasn’t it?
This was not normal, but then again – didn’t the papers think Harry Potter had daddy issues? What orphan didn’t?
Her occlumency was still awful, but she had awareness enough that she could feel that gaping chasm in the back of her mind, that dark, black anger that connected her to him…led to him. It was bigger and wider than even a couple of weeks ago.
It was eating into her…spreading like toxins to her thoughts.
But who did she tell? Who could she tell? The only person who she truly would have trusted with that was Sirius, but he was gone, and she wanted to scream with the grief. Fuck the muggles and their neighbours.
Returning to school would be a blessing. And it was…
#
A present just for her on the train. A beautiful green beetle, it was stunning with its unusual markings so much like glasses.
Harry didn’t know how Hermione had managed it, but she could kiss her. The jar lid had the tiniest little airholes in it.
Quite a lot of them too. If Harry counted correctly, her and Rita would have thirty days of fun.
She waved Ron and Hermione off to their little prefect carriage before locking the compartment door. Sealing the first airhole, she then shook the glass jar viciously so that the little hard body bouncing of the glass could be heard like a little bell. Beautiful.
In thirty days, she was sure she could think of something to extend their time together.
In the meantime, Harry decided she needed to hurt Voldemort for him to take her seriously. And she thought of his twelve servants.
In the worst wizarding prison in the world. Wouldn’t it be such a shame if the dementors were to forget themselves?
But how could that happen? How could Harry make that happen? She wasn’t sure yet, but she had become adept at listening in the past year, and she heard many a tune and acquired many a spy.
Rough and unhewn spies, but they worked well enough. Everything was a work in progress.
Ulick Gamp II, whose failing family had high hopes for him, had had an internship with the ministry over the summer. Apparently, it had been a bit of a disaster and he ended up working for two weeks in Azkaban itself.
Ulick, named after his famous ancestor, didn’t look like a Gamp. He looked much better than their typically stocky issue, even if he was a bit empty in the head; but he seemed to know how Azkaban worked well enough.
The routine of the guards, how the cells functioned in keeping the dementors away from the prisoners to give them the Kiss. He could be useful.
Harry winked at him as she dismounted the train, barely paying attention to Ron and Hermione’s increasing fraught conversation.
She was amazed he actually seemed to blush.
She could do this.
Harry decided to make some improvements to her appearance with the help of the girls in the dormitory. As a bonding experience.
To ignore half the population in being useful was wasteful. She had wasted too much time being one of the boys playing Quidditch or the bookworm with Hermione and this was something only a girl would be able help with… At least, Harry hadn’t seen any of the boys take to makeovers yet…but she could be wrong.
With a little help and guidance, she got her vision corrected and did away with the glasses.
Did away with the muggle scraps of clothing she had never minded before for custom clothes.
Tighter, more revealing.
Let them fucking look. Let them stare.
They’ll never touch her.
“You’re sixteen, Potter.” Voldemort whispered in her mind, reprimanding as she admired her figure. There was a glint of red in her eyes, like some kind of reflective paper hidden in them.
Harry let out an ugly scoff, “A little late for you to be preaching morals, isn’t it? Or have you decided to play it safe since being blown up by a baby?”
The shriek that came out of her was ungodly, falling to her knees to dry-retch. One hand caught her fall and the other cradled her scar.
Fortunately, no one was in the dorm with her; they had begun to head down to Hogsmeade already. Lavender had lent her some perfume and a hairband. She wasn’t too bad, though Harry would never confess that to Hermione.
Hermione had always gone to bed when the other girls had sat up gossiping and doing each other’s hair and nails.
“Harry, you should wear your hair down more often!” Lavender had always gushed, “You look amazing!” She had clapped her hands together in delight at the style she had created, pulling the thick plait over Harry’s shoulder more.
“She looks like her grandmother,” Parvati said.
Lavender frowned, but Harry caught her hand gently, “She means Dorea Black. I think she was blonde though, Parvati.” She didn’t mention Euphamenia or Fleamont, who were nice but mostly forgettable.
She was the Black Heir now and needed that obscuring of the lines to happen. The most logical way to strengthen her claim was to emphasise that connection to the Blacks.
Draco Malfoy was still the strongest claimant to the family fortune and seat; despite his family being outed as Death Eaters, his father in Azkaban and could only claim from the youngest daughter of the second line.
Tonks would be the ideal other first choice, being the daughter of Andromeda - the middle child - but that would never fly. It was one thing to be a half-blood; quite another when your father was the mudblood of the pair.
It was one thing for a pureblood to stick it in the mud, and for that dirty blood to carry something purer than itself. Somehow more acceptable, expected even for a mudblood chit to want to better itself, but the other way around?
It was more shameful for a pureblood woman to allow a mudblood to fuck her, and then carry that shame within her for nine months than the other way around.
Tonks was out of the running for her mother’s misdeeds.
Fucking ridiculous to Harry, but it benefited her all the same. Harry was the next alternative. At least Harry was the choice of the last male descendent, even if in public record he had tried to kill her family and wanted her dead for his master. Like Sirius would ever have a master.
This held even though Harry herself was widely hated by half the population for how she conducted herself. The ministry itself wouldn’t challenge it, in the face of the fallout and their previous campaign to destroy a teenage girl. But the ground was shaky, and it could easily fall from her.
Charlus and Dorea had had a son too, who had dropped off the face of the earth around the same time her father had died. A couple of sly hints and ambiguities ‘I don’t really know my family beyond my parents” or “I don’t really look anything like Euphamenia, do I?” seemed to do the trick. She could not change her history, but she could muddy the waters.
“Well, you look just as good as any of the Blacks,” Parvati said, plaiting her long hair without looking in the mirror, “Half as mad too, I’d say.”
She shrieked with laughter when Harry thew a pillow at her and Lavender fussed that she smudged her nail varnish.
Harry felt the stares as she walked down to the village, Ron and Hermione on either side of her. Lavender was gushing to Ron with that disgusting pet-name. Parvati had run off to be with her twin, but Harry had insisted she could bring Padma back if she wanted to.
Voldemort was so stupid. Purebloods in general seemed to be. There seemed to be very few female Death Eaters…and Harry could have half the school potentially…but perhaps she was getting ahead of herself.
She was spiralling. Rapidly.
She could hear the whispers following her.
Oh yes, she was definitely the whore now.
Gamp had a small group of friends and was easy to separate. Slytherins he and his family may be, but he was not smart…though Crabbe and Goyle had made it into Slytherin too and they didn’t have much brain either. Ambitious and cunning, my arse. She pushed the thought down that blackhole, before regretting it. What a fool. She didn’t want his attention today.
There was a sleepy kind of amusement before silence. Harry let out a shaky breath of relief. He wasn’t interested at the moment.
Well, he was nearly seventy, wasn’t he? Probably having a nap like all the other oldies. There was a vicious slap of anger from him and she jerked her head forward as though struck.
Gamp looked vaguely alarmed, but Harry brushed it off as though she had tripped on something. Ulick took the lead as clearly Harry couldn’t even walk properly and brought her to Madam Puddifoots…as that’s where most girls wanted to go… she wanted to roll her eyes but smiled instead.
Why not take her to the Hog’s Head? Where Aberforth was inclined to turn a blind eye to the older students drinking lighter booze, and no one was going to be particularly interested in Harry sticking her hands in Gamp’s robes or using a wand on him that was clearly not her own…
Harry drank her tea and picked at her cake, asking him about his internship, meaningless queries that she did not care for, but for Azkaban which became more interesting by the moment.
“You’re interested in the Death Eaters, aren’t you?” he finally asked, looking weary.
Harry blinked, affronted. Because yes, obviously that was what she wanted. “Well, naturally.” She smiled, bemusedly.
He looked sullen and disappointed, “So, you’re not interested me in at all?” He fiddled with the ornate cutlery. “Then why am I here in this awful shop?”
Harry felt a coil of shame sliver down her spine. It pooled in her stomach. Had she forgotten who she was? Gamp was a human being too, a person. And she was playing him and his feelings…That’s not who she wanted to be.
“I’m interested in you, but I barely know you. That’s why I suggested we get a drink…admittedly, I didn’t mean in here.” Her smile turned rueful. She hoped she didn’t look too shame faced. “Why don’t we go to the Hog’s Head? First round is on me?”
He perked up a little at that, looking less upset. Harry paid for the tea and cakes, and he looked irritated again.
Ahh yes, the sexism of the wizarding world. She tucked her hands in her pockets and held her tongue. It would be worth it to let him lead for the rest of the afternoon.
The Hog’s Head was perfect, and they sat in a dark secluded corner with a bottle of light alcoholic wine. Where Harry could press closer than acceptable and rest her hand on his thigh.
Really, he wasn’t too bad. A little fat in the face maybe, but he had straight white teeth and a nice nose.
Far from ugly, but then Harry had seen Tom Riddle. She had seen her own dear Sirius…what beauty could compare to them? Even the mad bitch, Bellatrix, had the remnants of stunning features even after spending fourteen years in Azkaban.
It got worse for Harry’s guilt. Gamp was actually funny. He had a dab hand for charms according to his exam results.
He was a decent boy.
Harry drunk more. She had decided on her course of action and Gamp was her sacrifice.
He was her pawn... He probably would only get a slap on the wrist for what she’d make him do.
She had thought on this for a long time and at first the simplest path had been to earn that reputation she had. Shame on herself and her family name in a broom closet…
That could have been done in Hogwarts.
But it probably wouldn’t work. She was going to make him do something wrong, and she didn’t have the persuasion skill to make him do what would amount to a criminal offense. He would bottle it.
Harry also did not want to sleep with him. Frankly, she didn’t know what she would be doing. It would awkward, fumbling, and awful.
But she remembered that her sense of will was imposing. She could make him do what she wanted. She wouldn’t have been able to hold off Voldemort if that wasn’t the case. Harry slid her hand down to Gamp’s inner thigh. His breath stuttered.
Women were not so forward.
His eyes were riveted to her hand, which looked so small compared to his leg. Her nails gently caught the material as she began to travel up and up and…
He gasped, a soft sigh and then relaxed into her hold.
He hadn’t seen her wand. Had barely even heard her whisper, “Imperio…”
Malfoy’s wand barely resisted against her, and the spell took. It was so easy it was almost sickening.
Because, of course, Draco had reluctantly leant her his wand. With a Crucio on it and the automatic Azkaban sentence that came with it, lending it to Saint Potter was the lesser of two evils. What she could do would be nowhere near as bad as what Voldemort would if Draco failed his mission. Oh, ye of little faith…
Whether Gamp’s will was weak or Harry’s was exceptionally strong, it was almost like there was no fight in his mind. It was like encapsulating a dying butterfly. Weak flutters of its wings against the palms of her hands as she caged it.
But no fight.
Harry’s hand remained on his thigh, drawing idle patterns near his knee as she told him in soft whispers what he was going to do, and when he was caught what he would say. Harry would be no more than a dream to him, an ideal he could not have. Their afternoon had been a meeting between friends where Harry had bored him with talk of Quidditch and Witches Weekly.
She was boring and vapid.
And off he stumbled on his way.
The ragged planes of her mind seemed to slope more and more, causing her slide closer to the blackness. Voldemort didn’t seem to notice so much, though he always seemed to have half an eye on her now.
She loved it. As much as she hated it. She wasn’t ready for him to look at her scheming. She wasn’t as skilled as he was. Even at this age, he was more skilled than she might ever be.
Not that would stop her.
Harry felt the little ball of guilt ebb away, burning unpleasantly at her insides as she followed at a slower, more mediated pace back to the hub of noise that was the central village.
Until a pair of arms came around her. Unfamiliar arms.
“Oh, Merlin. Potter that was awful to watch.” It was a cruel drawl, but the kind that so many affected in the house of green and silver.
She recognised the voice and had to restrain the instinct to struggle too much. This too, was part of the plan. Though she hadn’t expected this approach. “Zabini. Most people approach from the front to sneer at me,” she offered, glibly.
His chest vibrated with a subvocal laugh, and he gently squeezed her closer. “Most girls do not go to the Hog’s Head. At least not respectable sort,” he mused. “But then, using such a curse is not respectable either. And you did it so easily too. You didn’t even hesitate.” Harry stiffened, bracing herself to break the hold. “Oh hush, you used Malfoy’s wand to do the deed - you’ll have to tell me how you got that, by the way. And at this current time, the Golden Girl can do no wrong. No one would ever believe what you just did. Even looking all grown up in your makeup.”
He slowly uncoiled his arms, fingers grazing the material around her body as he untethered her. She elbowed him in the stomach as soon as she had the leeway to do so, spinning sharply and pressing her wand into the underside of his chin pointedly.
Zabini had the gall to look delighted and unflappable at the sight of it. She let the tip of her wand heat up. There was a slight hiss of flesh burning, and he jerked his head back.
He staggered back a couple of paces, dusting clouding around his feet from the worn dirt road. Holding his right hand up in a gesture of surrender, his left clutched his newly acquired burn. But he was smiling. And damn him, he had a winning smile.
“I think you’d like my mother, Potter.” He said, wiping at the burn gently, “She certainly likes you.”
Harry wasn’t expecting that, “Your mother?” she asked, not putting her wand away.
“Yes, she watched the papers avidly last year. And this one too.” Harry’s face must have taken on a black look as he hastily amended, “My mother has had similar experiences with the press.”
Harry was not feeling particularly charitable after having the parasites brought into this, “One cannot have so many husbands and not have a little gossip,” she said archly. She fingered her wand consideringly.
Zabini didn’t even blink at that, tucking his hands into his pockets without care for the bright red mark weeping down his neck, “She’s managed to keep her lovers out of the papers, though.”
“And you don’t mind that she behaves like that?” Harry blinked at him, confused. This was different.
“Why would I? That’s her path, her choice and she’s done well at it.” He shrugged with deliberate nonchalance. “My family do not value propriety when it’s neither profitable nor serving any purpose.”
Harry looked at him assessing, before realising men really do marry their mothers. Zabini wanted an equal. He was used to his strong-willed mother and like her he was driven by power and riches. But he didn’t have a point to prove by it.
Didn’t mean he wouldn’t kill her. Or that his mother wouldn’t.
Well, not whilst Voldemort was still alive.
“And why would she like me?”
“Because she sees a bit of herself in you. She would want to mould you.”
Harry sneered, projecting an arrogance that was not her own, “I’m not for moulding.”
“Evidently. You’re getting there all by yourself. But your Gryffindors?” He laughed and it was a warm sound she would not have expected from him, “Come on, Potter, they make spying less of an art form and a consummate joke.”
“Who says they’re spying?”
His eyes creased as he began to circle her, “They do. They don’t even need to use words. They’re very obvious.”
Harry matched him, spinning slowly on her heel, leaves crunching under foot. “The best advertisements don’t need words.”
“Advertisements?” He stopped. Now he really looked intrigued.
“A Gryffindor doesn’t make a good spy, but they let others know I’m in the market for them.” She made a show of returning her wand to her sleeve, “And here you are.”
His dark eyes were very pretty, “And here I am.” He offered her his arm, “Shall we discuss this on the way back to the village?”
Harry felt the bubbling excitement within her. It’s working! It’s working!! She slowly composed herself, straightening her sleeve cuffs delicately before looping her arm through his. “Lets.”
Harry wasn’t the smartest person around, she knew that. Especially next to Hermione who was a walking encyclopaedia. But she wasn’t stupid.
She wanted to be better than what she currently was. She wanted the adoration and the fear that Voldemort had. And she began to see it.
She was miles ahead of everyone in defence. She liked that.
When teaching the DA, she was somebody. She was listened to, if not on occasion challenged. That wasn’t a bad thing, one supposed. For she had seen Voldemort and how ‘no questioning’ went.
But as the war continued, and scaled up, the threats increased.
She was a woman. And those blasted articles opened the flood gates to all kinds of threats. From the point Dumbledore had been ousted from the castle. There hadn’t even been that fine veil of protection that there used to be even with Dumbledore ignoring her.
It didn’t stop even when he returned to the school. You can’t uncross the line after all, and the press had flown passed the line miles ago.
And suddenly Harry went from wanting to be listened to and trusted, being believed, into making others feel threatened. Scared.
Scared to cross her, to pick a fight. Because Harry would leave them in a terrible state.
Harry wanted that message to spread and spread fast.
Something was eating her up from the inside. Something that told her violence was acceptable.
Harry often dreamed of Voldemort. In the chamber, young and beautiful. He was circling her with a smirk. When she was twelve, she felt fear; this had been a nightmare. Now she could only think of his magic pressing her down, holding her. She wanted. In one blink he was suddenly nose to nose with her, dark eyes sparkling. Ginny was dying between them.
Oh, he knew. He knew.
She wanted him so bad.
To gouge those all-seeing eyes out.
She was going to kill him. She was supposed to. She was destined to.
#
Harry began to adore Blaise, for he helped her in ways her friends couldn’t. He was the ultimate whet stone for her to sharpen herself on.
A blood-supremist he was at his core, but not so rigid to only marry pure-bloods. Or even truly hate muggleborns enough for their destruction, even if he wouldn’t touch one personally.
He was her key to so many doors, and he might only want marriage in return. Or not. Harry really didn’t know what he wanted, and her eyes and intuition were not so keen to pick up on what he wasn’t saying yet.
He also brought more people with him. No Death Eater’s children, but these students weren’t exactly neutral either. Useful people who wouldn’t have spoken to Harry before. Who offered her access to the other houses’ secrets. Blaise turned out to be a fantastic help in that regard.
Though, he brought no one else from Slytherin. Harry supposed she could allow him that, he wanted to be her only source of information there.
She’d find another.
Work continued on expanding her influence.
It was especially important now so many of Voldemort’s old followers were out from Azkaban again.
Gamp had failed her. Not entirely, but enough for he had only managed to get three of the Death Eater’s Kissed before being caught.
But no one came looking for Harry, so he must have not spilled her secrets.
Poor Ulick claimed he didn’t know why he had opened the cells and let the dementors in to feast. Perhaps because he had lost members of his family to the Death Eater’s in the first war and it was so unfair that they avoided the Kiss simply because of their family connections.
Damned fool had been clever enough to get back into Azkaban under the guise of visiting a colleague who had become a friend, but not enough to see the whole plan through.
Those ties of friendship between guards were needed on the island and would help fortify the employee, so of course he had been allowed back – even if the desire had raised a couple of eyebrows.
Gamp’s mistake had been waiting for the dementors to be finished with one Death Eater before starting another. Surely, he could have done at least two at a time?
Harry should have felt guilty, but she didn’t because these were Death Eaters. They were there for a very good reason. And Gamp only got a suspended sentence and a fine as punishment.
As she predicted – practically a slap on the wrist.
His family had taken it badly though, as he would never be allowed a ministry job after doing it. It was considered an abuse of power and privilege. What a fucking joke.
How many of those Death Eater’s had avoided being imprisoned by abusing their power and privilege in the first place?
How many innocent people had the ministry abused with their power and privilege?
And what did these creatures even matter anyway? They were Voldemort’s chattel and had proudly done his bidding for years.
For whilst most had been convicted of being Death Eater’s first and foremost, their lists of war crimes were sickening.
For all the horrors inflicted on Frank and Alice Longbottom…there were some crimes on the list that make it look closer to euthanasia than actual cruelty, which was saying something.
That terrified Harry. There were lows even her imagination hadn’t been able to take her to yet.
It would take something impressive to make them scared of her and Harry wanted to make them fear leaving her alive. Scared to try and bring her back.
She would die on the battlefield or nowhere.
The worst part was most of these people were not intrinsically monsters. But being given the right to do what they wanted in a war had made them into monsters. Under normal circumstances they would never have committed the crimes they had… but they’d done it. And they would do it again.
Harry eyed the Slytherin table. Took a firm look at everyone, regardless of house, in the Great Hall. A few of her spies caught her eye, looked down scared. The ones who were performing well smiled or nodded at her.
They could all do it.
Wars made people cross lines.
Not all, but most of her fellow students were going to kill people.
They were going to torture them for information, they were going to rape them because they could. They would let them be savaged by werewolves for fun and fuck knows what else they would do.
Harry did not want to enable that.
But that’s what would happen. And to pretend that one faction over the other would be saintly and just was wrong.
And to pretend that it couldn’t be her on the receiving end of that torture was laughable.
Voldemort wanted to kill her; she was his and his alone. But he could give her to his followers if he wanted to degrade her first.
Harry knew he used to want that as much as he wanted her dead. He read the papers too. He had laughed and laughed at the articles during the previous year.
He knew she was watching. He must have done.
Hermione hummed into her book and Harry thought of what Death Eaters could do to her friends. There was an apathy there she hadn’t experienced before.
“I’ve noticed something different about you, Harry.” Voldemort whispered, so close that she could almost feel the heat of his breath against her ear. She tried not to spill her tea in shock. She set it down on the table carefully.
Her mind was more his than hers now, she felt herself on the edge. The precipice of what, she did not know.
Harry flicked through her stack of mail nonchalantly as she could whilst he watched; information and information and information from her little birds. All flocking home.
An invite from Blaise’s mother to spend a weekend at her home in Italy. That sounded nice.
A neatly wrapped book and a scrap of paper tucked into the pages. It had another title written on it in a familiar hand. One she could imitate with a scary precision. Ginny had been green for a week. It certainly taught her for taking Harry’s position as seeker.
Either Harry was seeker or no one was. Didn’t they know that?
She smiled at seeing this. A book and a recommendation. From him.
It looked like he had sent it to her in a flight of fancy. Written it down on the corner of parchment and ripped it to send to her.
When she wrapped her shaking hands around the tome enclosed, she took in a shuddering breath. This was it. No turning back. He wouldn’t have sent her a nice book.
“You will read them, won’t you, Harry?” He asked, “I want to test you, to see what you can do.”
Her mental feet slip, more pieces of her falling into the blackness, swallowed into the blackhole which was the connection to him.
The knowledge of horcruxes burned at her, and she wondered.
Ideally, she needed occlumency training again, but she now had real secrets to hide.
“It was me, you know? I had your Death Eaters Kissed,” she confessed, picking up the teacup again. it had left a large wet ring on the mahogany tabletop.
But there was no anger anymore. Not from him. “Oh, Harry, my darling child. You are not as clever as you think. I’ve known for a while. The moment Draco returned from school with your fingerprints all over his wand. I knew.” That wasn’t the response she wanted, she scowled into her cup as she took a sip. “My lack of anger makes you angry,” he noted, musingly. “Read. Read, my darling and show me how far your hatred goes.”
Harry did not want to be a third option in this war. Her only objective was survival, unmolested.
A woman does not have power. Not generally.
A woman doesn’t have political power, not really. Even Umbridge’s reach was only due to the Minister.
A woman’s only power would be what she was granted from her father, her husband, her brother…
Harry had power by being alone in the world. By being an orphan in every single way possible. The book went silently into her bag with his little note.
And she would remain alone. She would be revered and if not that, then she would be feared.
The next piece of mail; a note from Dumbledore. It was time.
What a nice, warm summer’s evening to collect a horcrux…
#
Voldemort was gently prying Bellatrix’s hair out from her clenched fist.
He looked amused and disappointed.
“Are you always so quick to throw your wand away and resort to such common and unbecoming behaviour?”
Harry’s breath was heaving out of her like an exerted horse, and she shook with adrenaline. She had caught the bitch. At last! She had caught her and finished what she had started.
It may have not been the beautiful green of the ministry tiles, but a rock from outside Hagrid’s hut had done the trick.
She didn’t want to waste magic on that rabid, insane woman. She was not worthy of it. Though the woman certainly had remembered Harry.
Blood was running down her face, her neck, settling in her clavicle.
The air was rapidly cooling, even on a summer’s night like this, and the thin material was sticking to her. She must look like an animal. A much more revealing picture than her swimming costume a couple of years ago. She threw her head back, the hard stone of Hogwart’s walls cushioned by her thick hair, gasping out a laugh.
“You’re not as pretty as she was, but there is a feral charm about you, Potter.” Voldemort’s eyes sparkled with ill-kept humour, “Perhaps I should let Greyback and you go at one another. You want to fight like a beast, I’m sure Greyback could show you the meaning of it. He was rather taken with your photo. He likes them small.” His hands ran gently down her sides, “But you’re not so little anymore, are you?”
She snarled at him, maybe something Greyback would have liked from her, but Voldemort wouldn’t give her to Greyback. Harry knew that. He wouldn’t let that beast even look at her.
She was special.
Harry had his interest now. She let him unbend her fingers and take the hair, a lump of scalp went with it.
He looked at it critically before flicking it away carelessly. Oh, how little he thought of a woman who had given her whole life for him.
“Did you not like my book?” he asked instead, returning his attention to Harry – as he should - his fingers pressing into her sweaty skin.
She took in a shaky breath, her body’s demand for oxygen still making her want to pant. “I… loved your book,” she finally said.
She had, even though it was so dark she would have been arrested for merely having it in her possession. It had made reading it very difficult.
“I thought you deserved a reward. After Gamp.” His leer sent a low thrill through her, her hands settling on top of his cold ones. “I’ve heard the rumours…” he pressed closer, inhaling the air around her neck as though he could actually taste the violence on her, “I’ve felt you. Felt your mind as you broke your little classmates.”
She scoffed, “I didn’t break them,” she denied. She was shaking, her bones rattled being this close to him. “I utilised them.”
He was expressionless, but for a small smile. One that seemed genuine. She had seen it directed to Nagini. “Little horcrux. What a wonderous little beast you are.”
She writhed under that name, piercing his hands with her nails. She had known! She was right.
How she had figured it out, how those pieces had fallen into place was still a mystery even to herself. But in one moment she knew that was what she was. Like turning on a light in her mind. She knew why the ledge of Harry Potter in her mind seemed so thin and the rest had become Voldemort.
It was lunacy to imagine he hadn’t realised, especially if Harry herself had figured it out. But to be acknowledged…
He had her pinned bodily to the wall, resting on his knee. It felt obscene. She was only wearing a nightdress, and that had ridden up high over her legs and thighs.
She was effectively grinding on his leg. If she had an ounce of shame left in her, it would have died at this.
She felt small and dwarfed by him with his unnatural height. She had never liked the feeling.
But the way he looked at her…she felt powerful again. Like she had when she had snapped Bellatrix’s wand. When Gamp’s mind had barely fought her control. Not that she could yet challenge Voldemort, but he was impressed with her.
And there was a horrid realisation in her after all this time…she did not hate this creature. She did not hate him for killing her parents.
He burned in the back of her mind, in the scar on her face. He burned up under her hands once.
She had felt him scream and crumble when she was eleven. And then he had come back and cut her in two to allow him his rebirth.
Harry’s palms seared where she had grabbed his wrist, the skin of her thighs under his palms felt like it was burning now.
And this was the Dark Lord. Maybe her senses had changed as the horcrux grew in strength, but he was different. He was commanding. He was powerful and his physical strength made her reel.
She licked Bella’s blood of her teeth.
She wanted him. To be him. To take his skin as her own. To bite. To claim.
Harry would suffer no man, but maybe this one.
“I’m still in the market for a mentor…” she whispered, as though she had any control over the situation.
He blinked his amused, reptilian eyes. “Still so cheeky.” Those eyes scaled her face.
“I’m sixteen, remember?” She reminded him, with no small amount of cheek.
“Yes. So young, so arrogant.”
“I’m just like you,” Harry breathed hungrily.
His long nail scraped down her arm. Over the ever-tender flesh of her scar. “Does Harry Potter truly wish to serve?” he asked instead.
Because of course he wouldn’t turn that away. Not from his horcrux. It didn’t matter to him if she was a whore or a twit or anything they accused her of in the papers.
Despite being a man born in the 1930’s, and coming to a world even more backwards, he was surprisingly as liberal as one could be. For muggles were those terrible conservatives and he wanted to distance himself from them as much as possible.
He took on a female apprentice before.
And she was the deadliest of his servants.
She was.
Was.
Harry’s body ached with her victory.
Voldemort gave Bella a chance and she gave him such loyalty in return. He knew how to twist burning resentment into a weapon. Into a form of love.
Harry was already too obsessed with him
“No,” she whispered, “I gave you life. I am your insurance policy. You owe me some training.” She spat the words out hatefully, but it was too forceful by far. I am already yours. Your horcrux. But she wouldn’t say that. Not yet.
He laughed and shifted his leg under her. She wanted to whimper, instead she grit her teeth against the move, “Don’t do that.”
Those talons he called fingers ran up her leg, “Why not? I am just making sure you’re comfortable.”
He had ensured her legs were splayed in this position and he was not doing the job she wanted, so she might as well finish it. She hooked her right leg around his hip, pulling him closer and sliding up his leg until she was chest to chest with him.
He knew what she was doing.
He was always attracted to himself.
“Are you still planning to try and kill me?” He still wasn’t taking her seriously. Running his nails down her chest, he plucked up her necklace that was coated in a sheen of sweat and blood. “Is this a beetle?”
Oh, to have Lord Voldemort critique her choice of necklace. She started laughing, “No,” she grabbed his robes, pulling herself up higher and even closer, running her nose up his cheek and tasting his skin. “It’s so much more than a beetle. Look.”
Rita’s final moments were not pretty. Her final months were long, and gruelling and though Harry may now be able to cast the Cruciatus Curse perfectly, it was only thanks to Rita’s sustained efforts that she could. Once treated, a beetle’s hard shell made rather amazing jewellery.
One day, when she would finally have that interview, she would acknowledge Rita in helping her pursuit, aiding her fashion sense, but she would never acknowledge the woman’s skill as a journalist.
Voldemort’s arms had wrapped around her during their little memory exchange, his large hands braced across her back.
“Why don’t you understand yet?” Harry asked, “I am going to be you.”
He was broader than she remembered, she was almost completely enveloped by his torso.
She eyed the planes of his chest. There. She decided. I’m going to put the knife straight through this point. I am going to twist the blade and twist and twist until there is a massive fucking hole in your chest.
He brushed his fingers down her scar. Her eyes rolled backwards at the confusing sensation. He looked bemused, pleased…delirious, “I’m sure you will try, little one.”
There’s a thin ledge in Harry Potter’s mind. He pushes her off it.