Work Text:
“Guilty.”
The restraints on Harry Potter’s chair clamped down on his arms and legs, and Harry was forced to watch as the Minister of Magic took his wand off of the desk in front of him and snapped it in half. A wave of magic ripped out before the wand became nothing more than a broken shaped stick. Something in Harry broke at the sight. He didn’t protest as Aurors advanced. The last thing Harry saw before the Stunners hit him was the smug smirk of the Minister and the pink toady next to him as his broken wand dropped to the floor like trash.
Cell bars and a chill he was familiar with from long nights stuck in the cold cupboard woke Harry. He’d been changed into a prison garb that lacked shoes and was apparently now in Azkaban for underage magic. Harry hit the cell bars in anger and watched in hopelessness as a dementor floated past him, sucking all of the warmth of Harry. He shivered and moved back further into the cell. Harry curled into a ball into a ball on the floor, seeking warmth of any kind. At least being locked up wasn’t new to him.
A kick on the door woke Harry from the almost trancelike state he’d been in.
“Hands on the wall,” an Auror ordered.
Harry just looked at him in apathy. After all, what were they going to do if he didn’t comply? Put him in Azkaban? A few rather sharp stinging hexes later, Harry finally got up and put his hands on the wall. A spell immediately tied his ankles together, and he was rather unceremoniously levitated and spun around so that they could tie his wrists tightly together. The Auror levitated him down several corridors to a bare room with a height chart on the back wall. A wooden plank with his name and number written on it was shoved unceremoniously into his bound hands, and Harry’s picture was taken. He stood quietly, face completely blank, as he was turned first left then right for his profile pictures before the board was snatched out of his hands and he was levitated back into his cell. The ropes faded after a few hours. The raw tattoo he found on his neck didn’t.
Harry was surprised at the amount of food he received daily. He had three meals a day of food that tasted like slop but were obviously nutritious, which was far more than he could say about the Dursleys. They’d put him in high security cells, which meant that he didn’t even have to deal with other people. He’d spent enough time alone to be comfortable with just himself, and if it weren’t for the dementors, this could almost be a vacation. Harry was gaining weight, something that he hadn’t really had a chance to do over the summer ever. He devised a plan to work out in order to keep himself in shape and maybe even get himself stronger for whenever Dumbledore got him out of prison and started immediately, disgusted at the weakness in his own body.
Startling awake at a vivid memory of the ritual that brought back Voldemort, Harry panted in the cool air and thought of his friends. A feeble smile flitted briefly across his face before another dementor passed and sucked that emotion right out of him, right along with the thought and hope that surely all of his friends wouldn’t just leave him there. Harry sighed and began to jog in place once the dementors had passed and he could stand again. He was out of breath quickly but persisted - he didn’t want to be grossly out of shape when Dumbledore finally got him out of the cell. It wasn’t like he’d be able to get back to sleep, at least not yet.
A few days passed, then a week, then a month, and Harry stopped hoping Dumbledore would get him out of Azkaban. He wondered bitterly why he’d even thought the man would when he couldn’t be bothered to show up to Harry’s trial. Come to think of it, Dumbledore had never been there when Harry needed him.
Where was he when the Dursleys starved and beat him, locking him into a cupboard far too small for him? Where was he when Quirrell had tried to kill him multiple times in his first year? Or when the basilisk had been terrorizing the school and Harry had gone after it and nearly died? Or when Sirius had been convicted of a murder he hadn’t committed? Merlin, the man had even forced him into competing in a deadly tournament without his consent and didn’t even attempt to help him. The Supreme Mugwump, or whatever his titles were, surely could have done something about a minor being forced into a competition when that wasn’t even his handwriting on the paper. But no.
Come to think of it, a Death Eater had been the only reason he’d survived the tournament at all. Yes, the man had just been trying to get him to win the third task to bring back his master, but he’d been so good to Harry. The man had defended him when no one else had, not even his head of house. Turning someone into a ferret for attempting to attack him when his back was turned was not necessary and so a pretty good show of loyalty, as far as Harry was concerned. It’d been the son of one of the other Death Eaters too, which just made the show of support even stronger. Voldemort seemed to at least hold his schooling in some esteem, unlike Dumbledore who never tried to help him when he was in danger, because good ole Tom always waited for the school year to be nearly over before trying to kill him.
And what had his friends done? Nothing. Ron spent the whole last year jealous of him and angry that Harry’s life had been put in danger without his consent again. Hermione sided with him, so afraid to lose the guy she liked that she’d left him alone. Only Neville’s friendship had kind of kept him sane and Luna’s occasional wispy comment. Ron and Hermione hadn’t even bothered to contact him this summer, and Dobby hadn’t been behind that. He’d checked. Only the headmaster was. Not one single person had tried to contact him out of those he was close to, and they’d left Harry with those Muggles for four days after the dementor attack. Petunia and Vernon had not taken to that kindly. At least Snape, while completely ridiculing him for no good reason, had been trying to actively protect him since day one. Come to think of it, Snape was a Death Eater too, if the mark on his arm was anything to go by. It might not be, knowing the git, but still.
Harry had found a plant on his windowsill and evidence of a note being torn away one night during the summer and had figured Nev had sent it. He’d looked around for the note, an owl, anything, only to see burning pieces of parchment slowly wafting to the ground. Dumbledore had made it so that no one not on an approved list, which he could tell from the singular note at the beginning of the summer from Ron and Hermione telling him to stay inside, could get paper to him through magical means. That had been the only attempt at contact made the entire summer. A desire for escape and revenge filled him, and a crazy laugh echoed around the cell. A dementor passing by had no effect on him whatsoever other than to strengthen his conviction, because hatred and determination weren’t exactly positive emotions. Was Azkaban supposed to drive the prisoners insane, or even more insane, by leaving them with just negatives and not positives? Harry idly wondered what the suicide rates, or attempted suicide rates, in Azkaban were.
Harry slept only when necessary, eating and working out the rest of the time. When he was satisfied with his physical condition, Harry sat down against a wall and closed his eyes. He cleared his mind of all thought and feelings, specifically those of revenge, and focused only on trying to locate the power that he’d felt flowing through him when he used to use his now-broken wand. A few hours later, Harry had found the general area. He looked out and noticed that a tray of food had been placed in reach of his cell. He hurried over to it and ate hungrily, not bothering with utensils because there was no one to see him and he hadn’t eaten with utensils for the majority of his life anyway, before going back to the wall and sitting down to meditate again.
Two days later, Harry had finally located his magical core. In celebration, he spent the rest of the day working out and went to sleep early, a respite from the ache in his head and the restless energy in his bones. He woke determined to learn how to use the well of power inside him. Harry spent the next four days trying to draw a thread of magic towards his hands so that he could use it with no results. In frustration, Harry tried on an angry whim to pull the power to his eyes. To his shock, the magic went, and Harry instantly fell back, unconscious. He hadn’t collapsed from exhaustion in a while though, something about the dementors or the meditation helping to push back the nightmares that plagued him in Gryffindor Tower.
When Harry next woke, everything was blurry. Remembering what had happened and thinking that maybe his miraculously as-of-yet-unharmed glasses were dusty, Harry took them off to clean them. To his shock, the room around him came into focus, each detail crystal clear. He tossed his glasses to a corner of the cell and sat back against his wall, wondering how else he could use his magic to heal himself. A simple directive from Harry flooded his body with magic. Now that he wasn’t trying to use it and had excessive amounts of magic built up, the magic went willingly, knocking him out again in the process.
Pins and needles pulled Harry out of the blackness. He sat up, surprised at the ease of the motion. He looked down at his body and nearly choked. He’d been getting stronger, yes, but that was nothing compared to what he saw. A healthy body, muscles all filled out, greeted his eyes. He stood up and compared his vantage point to what it was before. Harry was definitely at least a few inches taller. He dropped back down to the floor, exhilarated by the number of pushups he could do easily now. He spent the rest of the day working out, testing the limits of his new body.
The next morning, Harry sat against the wall again, determined to get his magic to work for him now that his body was healed. To his shock, he found that not only had his magical core greatly increased in size and power, he could direct magic to his hands and levitate things with them. Harry tried several other spells and found that they too worked for him. Displeased with how long it took him to draw magic from his core, Harry spent most of the next month practicing with his magic until wandlessly performing spells was as instinctive and easy as breathing, even Apparating within his cell walls, something he’d only seen done and read of, discarding the school roof incident.
The next month was dedicated half to performing wordless magic instead of the little mutters uttered before and half to strengthening himself as much as possible. He didn’t talk at all, and he was quite sure his voice would be in a sorry state if and when he used it again to do anything but cackle with victory. Harry was quite pleased with himself and only felt that he had one more thing to achieve before he was ready to attempt to escape: the Animagus transformation. There was only one problem with that: Harry had no idea how to actually manage the transformation. He didn’t know the spell, and he’d heard somewhere that it took a Mandrake leaf. Harry figured it was rather unlikely that he’d be given a Mandrake leaf, so he would just have to do it on his own.
Harry started by exploring his magic’s connection to his body, noticing how his magic constantly pulsed through his veins, keeping him alive and healthy. Harry then tried to picture what form he would take as an animal. He spent nearly a week focused on picturing every little detail and cementing in his mind the image that had materialized in his magical core when he’d asked persistently enough. That done, Harry began trying to figure out how to transform into something other than his own, human, form. He accidentally pulsed into a column of ice-cold mist after a week of constant effort, the exact same mist that floated around him constantly here in his forgotten prison cell. He spent a while exploring that form, not going to look the gift horse in the mouth and attempt to figure out where it came from, and the possibilities it offered before focusing back on trying to achieve his Animagus transformation.
While escaping as mist would have been easy enough, Harry planned to learn the Animagus transformation while still receiving three meals a day - more than the Dursleys had ever provided - and shelter of some kind. After a month more, he finally felt his body transform all the way into the huge white snake that was his Animagus form. He fell asleep, exhausted by the effort and the cold around him. Over the course of the next two weeks, Harry practiced shifting between snake form and human form until a mere thought could instantly transform him, acclimating himself to the colder temperature of his cell. He also practiced using his magic in snake form and experimented with his snake’s ability to change color. He tried not to hyperfixate too much on what he planned to do once he got out.
When he was finally pleased with the results of his self-training, Harry got one more solid night of sleep, grateful for the lack of nightmares and thinking that maybe his morals relaxing had something to do with the change, not just his constant exercising of his body and magic, and ate breakfast. He then changed into his snake form and slithered easily between the bars of his cell, changing back into his human form immediately after. If Sirius had managed to escape in his Animagus form, there was no reason Harry couldn’t too, though he planned to at least stretch his human legs while he could. Harry transformed back and strolled casually down the corridor. He thought about the Death Eaters that were supposedly in Azkaban as well, decided that leaving them there to rot just wasn’t fair, and so he wandered the prison until he found the section of the high-security area of the prison containing the Dark Lord’s followers. He halted before the first cell and peered inside.
“And here I thought you were dead,” Harry said to the occupant, ignoring the creaking protests of his long-dormant voice and sending a little shock of magic up into it to make sure it would work properly and not demean his words by cracking. “Or at least soulless.”
Barty Crouch Junior looked up in shock. “I thought you were at school,” he responded.
“Guess we were both wrong. Wanna get out of here?” Harry offered.
“And what, defect from the Dark Lord? Never.”
“Why would you defect? No, I have no reason to fight for the Light anymore.”
Barty looked at him, noting the anger and hardness in those eyes, the sneer twisting his face. “Let’s go then. I really did think you were at school or somewhere the Dark Lord couldn’t touch you, not sitting here in prison with us.”
Harry shrugged at that, noting mentally with irony that the man in front of him cared more about his schooling than Headmaster Dumbledore himself, and unlocked the man’s cell, casually breaking the wardings on the lock and cell area, and held the door open for him. Barty exited gratefully, noticing with some surprise that the young man before him looked incredibly healthy and exuded power, a sharp contrast to the scraggly runt he’d met at school and reluctantly admired the fire and will of. He made sure not to touch or otherwise irritate him, because this man looked ready to annihilate at the slightest provocation.
“Now, who else shall we free?” Harry asked musingly.
Bellatrix and Barty followed close behind Harry Potter, neither really believing their eyes. The boy carelessly - happily - killed every Auror in their path and blasted any obstacles out of the way in an impressive display of wandless magic. The fact that he didn’t hesitate to use the killing curse convinced them even further that Harry Potter had changed, as did his complete ignoring the calls for help from the other prisoners. The nine others behind them were in shock at the display of power and silently vowed to themselves to never cross the wizard before them, even if none of them really believed this was really Harry Potter.
“Where to?” Harry asked Bellatrix, a bit of a mad gleam in his eye.
“Malfoy Manor,” she cackled. “But I don’t have a wand to take us there,” Bellatrix pouted.
Without explanation, Harry grabbed her hand tight enough that she couldn’t force him off immediately and felt her magic for just a moment before producing her wand, now unbroken, with his other previously empty hand. Harry then proceeded to do the same for Barty, ignoring the shock of all the wizards there at the unexplainable, impossible act. No two wands, once created out of the necessary raw materials, were the same, yet Potter here had managed to create wands out of nothing that were so similar to the originals that Barty and Bella couldn’t feel a difference when using them.
“Let’s go,” he ordered.
The other nine grabbed onto the three wizards, and Harry forced Bellatrix’s and Barty’s separate Apparitions into one powerful jump that left them all in the driveway of Malfoy Manor. The fact that being able to combine magic on the fly like that with no link was supposed to be impossible didn’t stop him; impossible tasks never had and never would. Harry walked up the drive, casually blasting open the gates for their group, then repairing them without a backward glance once the last member of the group had walked through. Harry strode confidently through the corridors of the huge house to where he could feel Lord Voldemort’s magic emanating from. He pushed open the doors to reveal Voldemort holding court.
Whispers immediately erupted at the odd sight of their greatest enemy and his fellow inmates framed in the doorway, and as the group walked into the room, a path was cleared for them straight to Voldemort, who was seated on a dias at the far end of the room. A sharp, ice-cold glance from Harry silenced the crowd despite the fact that not a single person among them had any reason to obey him, and Voldemort lifted his eyebrow. He didn’t remember the boy having such power, but he was more than willing to kill prey that foolishly presented itself to him. The group stopped, and the eleven Death Eaters bowed to the floor, leaving Harry standing alone as the people who had been in the meeting before the interruption shuffled nervously.
“Leave us,” the Dark Lord said. “My Inner Circle may stay.”
Everyone in the room filed out, throwing curious looks back over their shoulders but not daring to say anything. Only Lucius Malfoy, Severus Snape, Bellatrix Lestrange, and Barty Crouch Junior stayed out of all those previously gathered. Harry, of course, remained planted.
“Now, explain yourself,” he demanded.
Harry looked over at his Potions Professor. “I suggest you examine his loyalty closely first. I know for a fact that he is a rather prominent figure in the Order of the Phoenix.” He’d overheard some rather interesting conversations in his time in the infirmary and at the Weasley home when he was definitely 100% asleep and had definitely been checked on by responsible adults to ensure the privacy of their conversations.
Snape sneered to hide his shock. “And what would you know of that, boy?”
Voldemort looked at the man he’d considered one of his most faithful and plunged into the depths of his mind before the man had time to blink. If the boy was lying, Severus Snape would only benefit from the loyalty evidenced in his mind. If the boy was telling the truth, well, that would change everything.
“Always so carefully toeing the line,” Voldemort said to the man. “Disgusted with the Light but holding a grudge against the Dark. Do you even know what side you’re on? Choose now and swear an Unbreakable Vow.”
Still in the man’s mind, Voldemort knew the moment that Snape decided to truly follow him and relished the powerful magic committed in the Vow. That taken care of, he pulled out of the man’s mind and looked at the boy in front of him with interest.
“Why are you here, Harry Potter?” he asked.
“I have no reason to fight for a side that throws me to the wayside after using me for their ends. Dumbledore,” Harry sneered at the name, “is responsible for my abuse at the hands of my ‘family’.”
“Would you take the Dark Mark then?” Voldemort asked with interest.
“As great as that could be, I think not,” Harry answered calmly. He flexed his connection to Voldemort and watched the man’s eyes widen in shock.
“You’re-” the man whispered.
“Yes,” Harry answered. He’d found a little present in his magic while exploring it that had screamed Voldemort, something he was familiar with after the year-ending encounters, particularly the diary.
“You may go,” Voldemort commanded his Inner Circle. “Severus, report nothing of the last few minutes. You may, however, report much of the meeting before in your usual manner.”
“Of course my Lord,” Snape said with his head bowed.
The four turned on their heels and left the room, Lucius pulling Bellatrix and Barty after him to be examined by Narcissa for lasting injury and to get cleaned up and changed. The other nine escapees had already been examined by another healer, and their conditions from being imprisoned with the more general public were beginning to be dealt with. Lucius just couldn’t stand the clothes the two were wearing, so he called a house elf and instructed it to find some decent robes for his sister-in-law and friend. Voldemort got up and walked off of his dias towards Harry.
“We ought to create Horcruxes for you to preserve your life and the bit of my soul inside you,” he stated casually.
“If I place one in you, I should be set,” Harry said just as casually.
The two shared a smirk and Harry allowed Voldemort to pull him to a Muggle village. Harry callously killed a passerby and fused a tiny section of his soul with Voldemort’s, choosing to only send as much of his soul to Voldemort as he had of Voldemort’s soul instead of a full half.
“Now,” Harry said, “there is some revenge I would like to take.”
He Disapparated on the spot, and Voldemort followed him with the aid of the newly reciprocal soul link out of interest. The two appeared at Number Four Privet Drive. Harry arrived at his old house as the sun was setting, and he called forth mists and clouds to properly set the mood before creaking the door open as slowly and loudly as possible, amplifying the sound so it would echo around the house (he’d liked “Thriller” as a kid. So sue him). He had noted that the garden was in disarray, and the creaky door hinges and plentiful dust only proved that they’d really let all of his hard work go to waste just like that. Petunia obviously didn’t care about the state of her house if she couldn’t be bothered to maintain it when he wasn’t around. Harry cackled madly, and Voldemort, standing back and watching the scene with interest, couldn’t help the stir of interest in his gut.
Harry stalked up the stairs to the bedrooms of the pigs and horse that lived in the house he’d so carefully taken care of. He paralyzed Dudley with his magic first and took him along for the ride as he paralyzed Vernon too and dragged Petunia by her hair out of bed, kicking and screaming all the way down the staircase. He was sure the neighbors had called the cops at the ruckus, but he wasn’t too worried about them. If they interrupted his little party too early, he or Voldemort could always kill them too. Harry stopped in the living room, positioning Petunia cruelly on the couch before setting Vernon down next to her and Dudley in the armchair across from them.
“Look at us, having a nice little family reunion,” Harry crooned. Petunia shook in fear, and a tear trailed down her face. Vernon opened his mouth, his face purple, to yell at the nephew that he’d so easily crushed beneath his fat heel previously, but Harry wasn’t going to have that. His fingers flicked ever so slightly, and Vernon’s mouth was messily sewn shut. “Ah, ah, ah. I didn’t give you permission to speak. Now, I wish I could take more time to drag out your deaths, but my time is too precious for you to waste anymore.”
Harry took a step back, positioning his hand on his chin as if really thinking about how to best take his revenge. A cold light entered his eyes, and Voldemort, standing close enough to Harry now that he’d stepped back to feel the heat of his body and staring at their striking reflection in the window, couldn’t help that same stir in his gut from sending a little shiver up and down his spine. Harry snapped his fingers and grabbed the knife that had zoomed over from the kitchen as it began falling. It glinted in the light, cold steel razor sharp and shining in the solitary beam of moonlight straggling in from behind the clouds and half-open curtains. Harry walked back towards Petunia, who was sitting on the couch shaking like a leaf and frozen to the spot in fear despite the fact that she hadn’t actually been petrified. He stopped right in front of her and slowly turned to face the woman, a manic grin on his face. Voldemort felt the cold loss of body heat dissipate at the look on that lovely face.
“Now, I could kill all of you myself, but,” Harry paused, tapping the point of the knife’s blade on his chin, “having you kill them seems much more rewarding.” He pressed the knife into Petunia’s hand - with a little sticking charm on the handle to make her unable to unclench her fingers - and relished in ignoring her pleas with roiling satisfaction while remembering the many times she’d ignored his whimpers and every time he’d asked for help or less to do. She’d just added more onto the list for him to do after he finished cleaning up the blood or got back up from the floor. “Go on then,” Harry said impatiently as the woman didn’t move. He huffed when it became clear she was too scared to do anything but shake. “I have to do everything around here.”
A wooden cross, the kind used to manipulate puppets, slowly appeared above Petunia’s head, strings unfurling slowly down to connect with her limbs. From the aborted scream, the connections weren’t exactly pleasant either. Harry’s smile was a vicious slash across his face. It faded into a mad frown when she still didn’t get up from the couch. “Move or I’ll make you move,” Harry demanded. Petunia didn’t move a muscle beyond her shakes, tears, and incoherent pleas for mercy, apparently not understanding what was happening around her, to her. Harry smiled darkly at her fear, and Voldemort felt another twitch of something down low. “Just remember, you chose this. You could have made this so much easier on yourself.”
A small wooden cross matching Petunia’s appeared in Harry’s hand, and he jerked it upwards. Petunia screamed in pain and fear as the strings pulled tight, yanking at her skin and lifting her off of the couch to stand up. She took painful shaky steps forward, limbs moving without her consent and leaving just her mouth and mind to her. Harry walked her forward until she stood over her only son, her precious Dudders, before pausing to release Dudley’s mouth from the paralysis.
“I’m sorry!” he shouted. “Please Harry, I’m so sorry!” The force of his sobs cut off any further words.
Harry paused, turning dangerous emerald eyes towards Dudley. “What, precisely, are you sorry for? No matter what you say, you can’t return my childhood, my innocence to me. The cat’s out of the bag!” Harry cackled.
Dudley’s begging and apologies were ignored beyond the simple pleasure they gave Harry. He was pathetic, really. Harry hadn’t cried out like that since he was four and learned that it only made everything worse.
Harry stepped backwards towards Voldemort again until only a sliver of space separated their bodies, both of them facing the show. “Now, Petunia, it’s time for your precious Dudders to die. Say goodbye!”
Petunia’s arm lifted against her will, and she and Dudley both looked at it in terror. It jerked suddenly, and Dudley screeched in pain as his shoulder was cut open.
“Oops! Guess I’m not used to the controls yet!” Harry cackled before lifting Petunia’s arm again. The woman fainted suddenly, the scene too much for her, and sagged in the strings, hanging limply half-suspended in the air with her arm still raised. Harry tutted. “We can’t have her missing the show.”
“Allow me,” Voldemort purred, closing the distance between their bodies again to press his front flush against Harry’s back as he raised his hand and shot a silent Rennervate. Harry leaned back, relishing the contact, as he held Petunia’s arm in the air for a long moment before plunging it down into Dudley’s fat chest.
He whimpered. “Mom?” he asked faintly, horror, betrayal, and fear clear in his glassy eyes.
Petunia’s arm jerked the knife out of her precious son’s chest, and she stiffly turned around towards Vernon as the knife dripped blood on the carpet. Her steps were clumsy and unwilling, and Petunia ached and cried harder as she tried to turn her head to see her baby one last time before he died. Harry denied her that last privilege, and all she could do was weep hysterically as she heard her child breathe his last breath while she carved a large smile into the throat of his father. Harry ripped open Vernon’s mouth stitches just in time to hear the pig scream, and he reveled in it. Blood gushed over Vernon’s fat body and onto the couch Harry had never been allowed to sit on, and Harry turned Petunia back towards the stairs.
She sobbed helplessly as she watched her own hands, the hands of a murderer, the murderer who’d killed her family, reach out for the little knob on the cupboard and pull it open. Harry’s little room in all its dusty, bare glory was revealed, and Harry felt Voldemort take in an angry breath from where they were still pressed together, having simply pivoted to watch the woman as she passed them out into the hall. Voldemort’s magic, angry, icy fire, whipped and crackled through the air as Petunia reached a shaking hand out to touch the little paper that had remained on the door since Harry had put it there despite any of her best attempts to take it down and destroy it. A bloody fingerprint marred the ‘Harry’s Room’ sign, and Petunia abruptly dropped to her knees, strings figuratively and literally cut.
Harry finally left the warmth of Voldemort’s embrace. “You should be grateful I don’t have more time,” he hissed in her face, grabbing her arm and pressing the blade still in her hand into her own stomach. Petunia slumped over once he pulled the knife out and curled into a little shaking ball on the floor in front of his cupboard, still clutching the knife in her now loosening, twitching fingers. “Goodbye, Auntie dearest.”
Harry walked back to Voldemort after a moment spent relishing the pain of his tormentors. He took the silently proffered arm and left himself be pulled through space on the arm of the man who’d acted in a time of war the best he could to protect himself, the man who’d cared enough to allow him to receive whatever education was being offered at Dumbledore’s hands, the man who’d sent a man to infiltrate the school to ensure Harry survived the dangerous tasks he needed him to do. As a faint sound of sirens filled the air, Harry Disapparated on the arm of the man who’d continuously been conscious of his life and been an active player in it to protect his own interests. Harry was his Horcrux, one of his top interests, and he doubted Voldemort would let anyone so much as scratch him now that he knew.
Harry leaned up towards Voldemort, pressed himself up against the other powerful wizard’s body, and whispered in his ear, “Shall we make a deal?”