Chapter Text
“Does the wand in your hand know its last master was disarmed? Because if it does, then I am the true master of the Elder Wand.”
Of all the absurd claims the boy has made tonight, this one has to be the most audacious of all. Voldemort is tempted to laugh it off entirely, to lift the wand now to cast the Killing Curse a second time and be done with it. That he must do so a second time is a curiosity in itself, however, one which the boy has chosen not to enlighten him on yet, despite being so forthcoming now about much else.
As the sun rises—ah, no longer night then but morning, a new dawn approaching, how apt—it emblazons Harry Potter’s determined features in scarlet and gold, the colors of his house, as proud and lovely as Apollo himself made flesh. Would this not cast Lord Voldemort then as Python, chthonic son of the earth prophesied to be overthrown by this upstart young god and banished from his own kingdom at the center of the world, his omphalos?
It may be that Lord Voldemort has little soul left to spare, but he has always had an eye for beauty, and a mind to understand the power and poetry that a symbol can hold. Is that not why he created the Dark Mark, and why he heeded the words of a madwoman’s prophecy almost eighteen years ago?
He looks more closely at the wand in his rival’s hand. It is indeed hawthorn like young Malfoy’s, not the holly twin to Voldemort’s yew. He reconsiders the possible veracity of the boy’s claim and then, with slow deliberate care, lowers his own arm to tuck the Elder Wand away into the folds of his robes, to the awed gasps of their audience and the widened surprise of Harry Potter’s own pretty green eyes.
Python will not be felled for his own arrogance by underestimating his opponent on this day.
“Very well,” he intones softly, having no need to raise his voice in the hush that has fallen around them. “Then you will do me the honor of a fair duel instead,” he says, and retrieves from the same inner pocket the yew wand which chose him at age eleven. It thrums with a feeling of warmth and rightness in his hand which he realizes had been missing whenever he wielded the other.
Harry Potter nods and lifts his own wand arm at last, holding it out in front of him firm and steady. Voldemort has always admired his bravery.
The boy holds his own against the Dark Lord well despite his rudimentary and incomplete Hogwarts education. Their duel is a long and drawn out one, uninterrupted by spectators from either side, but in the end his superior knowledge and experience wins out as he knew it always must.
With a playful, mocking twist of his lipless mouth, Voldemort disarms his opponent in the end with his own “signature spell,” as some of his followers have taken to calling it, the “Expelliarmus” on his tongue somehow a sweeter victory for him today than every “Avada Kedavra” he has ever uttered previously.
“I suppose I am the wand’s true master now,” he says, though it matters little really. He only ever wanted the Deathstick because his own wand could not face off against Potter’s, but the fact that the boy would choose not to wield his own now suggests that this may no longer be a problem. He will know soon enough.
Harry Potter, sprawled and battered on the ground, completely wandless now, nonetheless glares up at him defiantly. The sight of him stirs something in Voldemort’s breast which cannot be adequately defined. He has never wanted to ruin someone more, to break and own them as entirely as he wants this boy lying at his feet.
He crouches low now over the boy’s waist, uncaring of how it looks to anyone else, and grabs him roughly by the chin. “You seemed so confident and all-knowing just a few minutes ago, my Chosen One, yet I can’t help but think there’s more you weren’t telling me earlier. Legilimens!”
He quickly finds that the holly wand is not merely lost but in fact broken beyond repair—almost a shame, this sad fate of the brother to his own—but there is a more pressing question he wants answered. Just how did the boy survive his curse in the forest earlier?
The answer to this, when he finds it, makes his fingers clench tighter and his other hand start to shake. Potter looks almost smug now for one so utterly defeated. “Doesn’t feel good, does it?” he whispers. “Knowing that you helped put an end to your own immortality?”
“Stupefy,” Voldemort snarls before his darker impulses can take hold and lead him to utter another spell he may come to regret later. The boy slumps backwards unconscious and Voldemort rises to stand over his fallen enemy, his victory suddenly hollower than it had been only moments before.
He can fix this, however. He can make what little hard-won success the boy and his own pitiful army wrested today from the jaws of defeat completely empty and meaningless, his attempted sacrifice a waste never to be repeated. His own cruel smirk returns as he thinks on it some more. Yes, he will do exactly that.
“Your precious savior has been defeated once and for all before your very eyes,” he announces to the crowd still looking on fearfully. “Will you still fight, having now witnessed for yourselves how hopeless it is?” He glances from face to face, lingering particularly on the mudblood girl who looks back at him like she would indeed like to do something foolish despite her rumored intelligence, if not for the red-headed boy beside her wisely holding her back, unwilling to lose her as they have most certainly lost the final member of their adorable little trio, though he yet lives.
The Malfoys are notably absent, presumably having fled during his duel with Harry while everyone else was distracted. If they are smart, they will be out of the country already within the next hour before Voldemort has them hunted down for their treachery. He will also have his remaining Death Eaters search the family estate for anything missing or any ill-advised traps left behind upon their return there.
His gaze lingers next on Neville Longbottom, the boy who pulled the sword out of the hat, but he is obviously injured and panting just from the exertion of holding himself upright, though he also glares hatefully at the Dark Lord. So do many others, yet none of them dares lift a wand now.
None save one—another red-haired Weasley who comes tearing out of the crowd now at a full run, a wildness to her eyes and her long hair billowing behind her as she shouts curse after curse in rapid succession, admirably ferocious though he deflects every one of them with ease before freezing her in place with a strong Impediment Jinx.
“Thank you, Miss Weasley,” he tells her loudly enough for all to hear, “for volunteering yourself for a little experiment I have planned once you and I and dear Harry here return to headquarters.”
“No!” an older woman’s voice wails as she too runs forward, although visibly disarmed with her hands raised. It is the Weasley matriarch who felled Bellatrix during the earlier chaos, her husband similarly empty-handed and following swiftly on her heels. “Not my daughter!” she says again as she had to Bellatrix, but now in abject fear and despair in place of her previous rage. “Not her, please! Use me instead for whatever you’re planning, I beg you!”
“No, use me!” her husband tries to shout over her. Voldemort would roll his eyes at the sentimental melodrama of it all if he wasn’t to a certain extent also enjoying it thoroughly. How the self-righteous crumble and plead when it is someone near and dear to them on the line rather than some lofty ideals!
With a flick of his wrist, he tosses the frozen girl back toward the crowd where many attempt to catch her, though he can’t be bothered to look and tell who succeeds in holding her upright until the spell wears off. “It makes no difference to me. You shall both come along in her stead then.” He only needs one, but his Death Eaters could use some entertainment as their reward for a battle hard fought and won.
The remaining adults are rounded up and arrested, the students given leave to gather their belongings and board the train which will come to pick them up in an hour, and the dead all swiftly cataloged for Ministry records and then burned in one pile together without ceremony, even his own losses for Lord Voldemort makes no special distinctions between one corpse over another.
Their families shall be given high honors, however, and much gold from the Malfoy vaults after he has paid another visit to Gringotts. The goblins are of late ever so much more cooperative than they were before in their desire to appease the Dark Lord after their abysmal failure to defend the Lestrange vault from burglary. Claiming the Malfoys’ fortune and whatever remaining assets they have not secretly absconded away with for his own will be a relatively simple matter now, he suspects. He will hold over them the matter of Gryffindor’s sword, which they have also allowed to slip from their grasp once more, should they prove resistant after all, however.
His very first order of business upon returning to the mansion is to order the property searched and secured against the Malfoys’ own possible return in secret, the wards modified and keyed only to him now, their ancestors’ portraits torched and their entire staff of house elves put to death since not one of them can be trusted. He will have to procure new staff later. Molly and Arthur Weasley are left bound in the cellar while he locks away the unconscious teenager in his own warded chambers for now, trusting him to be safely guarded and kept nowhere else.
He pries open the boy’s plush but chapped lips to carefully tip in a dose of Draught of Living Death and keep him under until he is given the antidote. He cannot be left like this indefinitely without irreversible damage, of course, but the Dark Lord only needs to keep Potter stable, manageable, and secured like this for a few weeks at most, more than enough time for Voldemort to fully recover himself.
Now that the war is officially won and he can safely rest on his laurels for the first time since this all began, he has his own regimen of potions to take to jumpstart the long and painful process of restoring his body to its prime, making it stronger and incidentally more human again in appearance, which he freely admits to himself will go far in flattering his own vanity better than his current form.
Before that, however, the Weasleys must be dealt with. His vanity will take a backseat to re-securing his immortality first.
His boy and his manor now properly secured, Lord Voldemort summons his followers to the main chamber where most of their meetings are held and has the wretched couple brought before him. They stand together, hand in hand, wary and afraid as they are surrounded on all sides by enemies but still with a touch of that lingering defiance which made them such valuable assets to Dumbledore’s cause.
“Arthur and Molly Weasley,” he says. “Today is the first time we have properly met, but I have heard much about you before nonetheless.” A few of his Death Eaters begin to snicker, but a sharp look from him quickly quells them. “As you have no doubt gathered by some of the rather rude reactions just now, much of what has been said has been in mockery or jest, primarily about your family and your circumstances. Your loudest detractor is, of course, Lucius Malfoy, though it has recently become clear to me that his is not an opinion I should value any longer.”
He pauses to allow them to absorb what he has said, their expressions cautious and uncertain as they try to determine silently where he might be going with this. “And now I have seen for myself today that, all jokes aside, the pair of you are both quite capable duelists and a credit to your former cause,” he continues. “Lord Voldemort admires competence and conviction, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley, and so I wish to propose a deal. I only need one of you for the experiment I mentioned, an experiment which I tell you freely and openly now that you will not survive. One of you will die by my hand this day, and your death shall fuel a dark ritual of my own special devising.” His lipless mouth curls into a wide, cruel smile. “You are going to duel each other, here before us now, to determine who will be granted this honor.”
This time he allows the laughter to spread loud and unchecked as his followers cheer while the Weasleys simply stare at him aghast. As wards are erected around them to prevent any attempt at escape or attacking their audience, Lord Voldemort continues. “You are undoubtedly tempted to refuse to fight each other, but I would advise against this foolishness. While it makes little difference to me in the end, I despise waste, so should you refuse I promise an especially painful, drawn out, and humiliating death for each of you, which to further add insult to injury every one of your remaining children shall also be rounded up and forced to witness.” Both of them pale considerably, especially at this last detail.
Their wands are returned to them, both of them visibly uneasy as they look from each other back to the Dark Lord when he again speaks. “The terms are simple. The winner of the duel shall remain and be killed. The loser, however, shall be released and reunited with their children. Now, begin!”
Molly Weasley wastes no time in casting a particularly powerful stinging hex at her husband, to the delight of the spectators, as Arthur throws up a shield charm to deflect it just in time and send it sailing back in her direction. So begins the next highly entertaining hour, as two fairly balanced and well-matched duelists give it their all in a fierce non-lethal battle with co-mingled sorrow and determination in their eyes, knowing that the stakes which they equally vie for are not their own lives, but each other’s.
In the end it is Molly who stands the victor, Arthur falling to his knees and beginning to openly weep as he is disarmed by his beloved wife. Molly’s lip trembles, but her eyes are dry and relieved as a portkey is made to return the man to their home and forcibly shoved into his hands after his wand is returned. Her own wand is seized again once he has departed, which she does not bother to protest since it would be a fruitless endeavor when so outnumbered, but she gives a baleful glare to the one who takes it and another for the Death Eaters who guide her back to the spare cellar that serves as a makeshift dungeon.
One unique feature of the horcrux ritual is that it is a beautifully simple one which requires few delicate trappings or complicated steps. The danger of this, as he has quite recently learned, is that this is what also apparently makes it possible to be performed accidentally. While he does not think it likely to ever happen again, he will take great care moving forward to ensure his mind and intentions are clear before he kills.
He retires to his chambers for a few hours to begin preparations for the ritual and to rest up beforehand, since for his purposes this evening the magic works best when invoked in the hour of twilight. It will require a few more implements and more steps than usual, as it did with Nagini, since he has not intentionally anchored a part of his soul into another wizard before, and suspects that there were unseen faults in their previous connection due to its wild unplanned nature. That the boy could be injured and even killed so easily before is evidence enough of this.
He will remake Harry Potter into a proper horcrux this time, one as nigh invincible as the others had been once, and truly immortal as he himself will also be again when it is done. A dangerous gift to bestow upon his once-prophesied enemy, yes, but what is life without a bit of calculated risk after all?
He has defeated the boy and stood victorious over him as he lay panting and beautiful as a fallen idol in the dirt in front of all of his allies. Now he will own him entirely, an unwilling trophy to flaunt before others and one last spiteful taunt to remind his loyal little band of friends of the high cost, should they ever consider going against Lord Voldemort again. To end him, they would also have to end the boy they had once fought so fiercely for—not that he will allow any but his own most loyal to ever come near enough to the boy again in the first place.
His remaining servants are dismissed as evening approaches, every one of them dispatched to some menial duty or another so that he is left alone in the manor with only Harry and the matronly witch downstairs. Chained just inside the outer circle of blood runes while the unconscious boy is laid within the innermost circle, Molly Weasley dares to break her silence at last.
“He’s just a boy!” she implores fearfully, as if Harry Potter could ever be just anything. “He never asked for any of this! What exactly is it you’re planning to do?”
Such impudent questioning would have earned anyone else a Cruciatus by now, but since these are to be her final moments and she has the grace not to beg for her own life even now, Lord Voldemort deigns to oblige her with an answer. “I do not expect you to understand really, but young Harry here has recently relinquished something which, had I known it was in his possession all this time, I would have insisted he keep instead.” He raises his wand to her chest and subtly dips his head in a gesture of courtly gratitude. “Your sacrifice shall allow me to rectify his mistake now, madam. Avada Kedavra!”
After it’s done, he looks down at his prize still slumbering unawares, trailing icy fingers along the boy’s scar and smiling in satisfaction as an answering warmth blooms within his own chest. Then, for the simple tactile pleasure of it, he continues to trail them further down the side of his face and presses a thumb to the boy’s bottom lip hard enough to feel the indent of teeth leaving an impression on his own skin.
When he pulls his thumb back, the thinnest stream of red can be seen pooling at the seam of Harry’s pink and bruised mouth. His appearance is like something out of a penny dreadful novel, that of a neglected waif turned fledgling vampire, recently fed and returned to his crypt now to lay there as sweetly innocent as a spring lamb prepared for the slaughter.
Curiously transfixed, Voldemort dips the tip of a finger inside, smearing mixed saliva and blood which leaves a glossy sheen along the boy’s mouth like a grotesque balm when he pulls it back out. He wants to taste it.
The Dark Lord stops himself from leaning in and vanishes away the mess instead, then transfigures the corpse at his feet into that of a field mouse and burns it with a contained ball of flame within a heat resistant glass jar. Normally he leaves the task of body disposal to others, but in this instance it is best if no one else is given the chance to examine it and try to determine from there what ritual it might have been used in.
A few days later, once other matters are settled following the final battle and he has procured new staff for the manor, Lord Voldemort withdraws to his private chambers with strict orders that he is not to be disturbed except by a singular house elf at mealtimes unless there is a dire emergency requiring his immediate attention. When he is confident that it has been made expressly clear to his followers what actually constitutes an emergency, he takes the first in a series of several potions brewed by himself—glad now after recent discoveries that he did not entrust this particular responsibility to Severus Snape—to begin the uncomfortable process of properly restoring his body.
After weeks of near-constant fatigue and physical soreness, he emerges from his prolonged seclusion a changed man, no longer the ghastly and grotesque husk of a creature that stepped out of that cauldron three years ago. At last he feels like himself again and needn’t rely solely on the social graces of his most influential followers to exert his will in the public eye. The wizarding world will soon be reminded that Lord Voldemort is a powerful figure capable of inspiring loyalty and awe just as well as fear. The masses are always eager and willing after all to be swayed by good bone structure, nice hair, and a charismatic smile.
Even his Death Eaters appear to carry out his orders with a renewed sense of pride and duty to their cause rather than mere terror of the consequences they should face otherwise. He doesn’t know whether to be more gratified or annoyed by this shift in attitude to his presence. Only Bellatrix, it seemed, had remained truly earnest and steadfast as ever in her devotion regardless of his appearance, and she is no more.
Perhaps this is the reason for the subtle, anticipatory thrill he experiences when he finally administers the antidote to Harry’s sleeping draught. Will his little human horcrux also be so quick to forgive and forget that nothing about his new master has actually changed beyond the surface level?
Given how the boy recoils from him more viscerally upon waking than he had from his touch when he first went under, it would seem his fears are unfounded as this is decidedly not the case. Voldemort grins sharply at this reaction and the boy, who once held his gaze so proudly on the field of battle, actually shivers to see it. Oh, he is a delight!
“Welcome back, pet,” he greets with genuine affection which disturbs and confuses Harry all the more. “Sleep well?”
He seizes Harry’s face suddenly between both hands, making him yelp with startled fear, though he is too weakened and disoriented still to pull away as he clearly wishes he could. The connection between them burns brighter than ever before, and without the accompanying sting of sharp pain which, secretly, he had still experienced as well whenever he used to touch the boy though he always feigned otherwise, a side effect of the fractured and fractious grip his soul unknowingly had on Harry’s.
Still, the last sliver of it he has been able to spare for this is so much smaller even than that one had been, and smaller still than the one he gifted Nagini. He cannot use it exert his own will over the boy’s and possess him as he had attempted a few years ago at the Ministry. He cannot decide whether he is truly disappointed by this or not, however. The temptation to control him in that manner constantly would have been quite strong were it an option, which would have ultimately made for far less interesting and less spirited company.
He would not, for instance, be able to watch his face crumble deliciously like this as his boy recognizes what this means, that Voldemort must have restored his horcrux status to him as he slumbered. He would not be able to feel the very room around them vibrate with magic in the younger wizard’s horror.
‘No,’ Harry mouths silently, unable to find his own voice in his all-consuming, wretched despair, those lovely curse-green eyes swimming now with unshed tears. Harry Potter is more than simply beautiful in defeat. He is divine to behold. For a few stunned seconds, Voldemort is rendered mute himself and breathless with want.
He does not think Harry can sense this, or at least not well enough to understand and recognize the feeling, for if he did he would almost certainly be screaming by now. Instead, he finds his voice at last to ask him, “Why would you—why?! Why would you put it back instead of finding something else to make another one with? Why wouldn’t you just kill me??”
Truthfully, he doesn’t know that he could have done the ritual again using any other object as his soul’s vessel, considering how much of himself has already been chipped away and lost forever. The boy’s previous attunement to him is quite possibly the only reason he was able to do it this one last time, but his pretty little horcrux doesn’t need to know that.
“Harry,” the Dark Lord croons and tucks a strand of hair behind the boy’s ear just to enjoy the full-body shudder his touch elicits. “After all that you’ve done and all that I now know, why would I ever grant you the mercy of death?”
He grips his hair tightly now, forcing Harry’s eyes back up to meet his own, and smiles again, the expression almost soft and more than a little fond. “Now come, I have something I want to show you.”
He Apparates them to a lonely prison cell, but it is not for his Harry. No, Harry will be staying at his side more or less permanently from now on, which means living at the manor and—despite the earlier implied threat to his words—in relative comfort, perhaps even luxury if this demonstration convinces the boy to behave well enough to deserve it. The boy is his after all, and Lord Voldemort takes very good care of what is his.
The cell is not for Harry, but it is occupied. For now at least.
“Neville!” Harry runs to the other teen sitting on the narrow coverless cot nailed to the wall.
“What are you doing here? What’s happened?” he asks, dropping to the floor to kneel in front of the other boy and get a better look at his downturned face when he doesn’t immediately get an answer. “Nev, are you alright?”
Neville Longbottom does not respond to his questioning. Neville Longbottom does not react at all, nor will he ever again. Nagini’s killer merely sits and breathes, head bent forward, eyes open but glazed, seeing nothing. A thin line of drool drips from his slightly agape mouth to land in a disgusting puddle that has already soaked through his trousers on his right knee.
“Neville…?” says Harry more quietly, his voice subtly shaking. Without turning to look behind him, his voice hardens as he addresses the man who brought him here next. “What have you done to him?”
Voldemort smiles, though it goes unseen when Harry still refuses to turn his head. “You’ll recall I once had a rather competent follower of my own who was also rendered useless in the same manner, after his cover was blown during the Triwizard Tournament.”
“You…” Harry’s hands clench atop his own thighs and he sucks in a sharp, dizzied sounding breath. Voldemort wishes he would turn to look at him so he could see the beautifully tortured expression on his face. “You…you let the dementors…” He apparently cannot bring himself to finish that sentence.
“The rest of your friends…” Voldemort intentionally pauses, pleased when this finally makes Harry stand up and spin around, terrified and frozen in place. “…are all under house arrest and being closely monitored at all times,” he finishes. Harry’s limbs lose some of their stiffness, but he looks only marginally relieved. Smart boy. He does not need Lord Voldemort to spell out for him the tenuous and highly conditional nature of their continued safety and wellbeing.
“Nothing more need be said, I think,” he continues anyway, stepping in closer now to tilt Harry’s head up with fingers curled under his chin, forcing him to meet Voldemort’s gaze once more. “Other than our mutual acknowledgment that you’re going to be very well-behaved for me from here on out, aren’t you, my dear?”
Even pure unvarnished hatred looks charming on this fetching young creature. Unable to nod curtly in answer with Voldemort’s hand on his face, he grits his teeth and tersely spits out, “Yes.”
“Yes, what?” the older man prompts.
“Yes, Voldemort.” Magic sparks invisibly around them, for Harry is not an exception to the Taboo even now, but it has been modified for him specifically to alert the Dark Lord and only the Dark Lord if Harry is the one to speak his name. There will be no Snatchers coming to interrupt them at any time, now or in future.
Contrary to how he would react if anyone else showed him this much defiance, Voldemort is most pleased. The boy has such fire in him even now, which Voldemort often vacillates between wanting to snuff out and stoke higher all at the same time.
When they return to the mansion, he takes Harry immediately back to his own room, what was once designated as the lady of the house’s boudoir, directly adjoining the master bedroom which Voldemort has recently claimed as his own now that the estate is officially his. There is a lock only on Voldemort’s side of the door connecting them, an architectural artifact of a bygone era that has likely not seen much use in centuries, but it still functions perfectly well.
He pushes him in the direction of the large standing wardrobe and commands him to dress. At the moment he is still wearing the same appalling threadbare jumper and ripped jeans that he first came here in, and while Voldemort has since used spells to both clean him up and repair some of the worst holes and shoddy patchwork, it is not an outfit befitting of his new station. Realistically, he should be ordering the boy to bathe first, but he has no desire to deprive himself of Harry’s company yet so soon after waking him, however brief the duration of a quick soak might be.
He also possesses enough presence of mind to know he should not be alone with Harry while he is wet and nude, lounging in lightly steaming and sweetly floral-scented bathwater, not yet. Voldemort may be a master of rigid control and self-discipline, but he is made of neither ice nor stone and cannot be held responsible for what he may do under those circumstances. There is a reason he has refrained from changing the boy’s clothes himself all this time.
The boy goes resentfully to the wardrobe, still angry and shaken up about what he just saw but obedient nonetheless. He sorts through its contents almost haphazardly at first, brow furrowing more and more, however, as he slows down and begins to examine each article more carefully, taking note of rich fabrics, delicate embroidery, silk lining and tasteful light traces of lace or gossamer trim. Many of these robes also lack the clean and simple straight lines he would be most accustomed to, instead favoring softer sloping cuts which taper or flare in a more subtly feminine or androgynous fashion.
“Um…” Harry glances from the wardrobe’s contents to the Dark Lord again without meeting his eyes, forgetting to maintain an air of contempt in his shy, sudden uncertainty. “There’s been, I mean I think there might have been, er, a mistake? Maybe? I’m pretty sure these are ladies’ robes.”
“They are not,” Voldemort assures him. “They are yours. I had them designed and tailor-made for you.” Although, admittedly, he may have taken some inspiration from what he had thrown out of this room before moving Harry into it, such as some of the Lady Malfoy’s elegant accoutrements left behind and a small collection of high-end witches’ fashion magazines, when sending out design specifications and fabric preferences along with the boy’s measurements to the clothiers. He is eager to see Harry in them now, to see if they meet expectations and draw the eye as they should to the natural lines of his beautiful horcrux’s slender frame and enhance the loveliness of all that surprisingly soft, supple skin even as they cover up most of it.
He wants everyone who looks upon Harry Potter, from now until the end of time, to see exactly what he sees. And he wants all of them to know, in looking, both how privileged they are to have eyes and how thoroughly damned they will be if they dare ever presume the body hidden beneath those robes is meant to feel hands upon it other than his own.
Harry is staring not at the Dark Lord now or at the robes hanging in front of him, but down at a patch of carpet around the midway point between both, his expression frozen blank and his fingers curled ever so slightly tighter around the gilt edge of the wardrobe’s door. His breathing also goes still for a moment, before finally he plucks one of the robes out at random without looking, one in smoky grey satin with a shimmery black inner lining and embroidery in the same midnight shade of creeping flowered vines curling out along the trim and up the sleeves from the wrist, as if to give the impression that they are growing outward over the fabric from within.
His hands may also be shaking as he pulls it down, but it is difficult to tell with how Harry’s body has now angled away from him. His lips part, head slightly turned over his shoulder, as if he is about to ask the Dark Lord something else, only to change his mind and quickly duck behind the folding screen nearby that allows him some privacy to disrobe.
The screen is opaque but thin and sheer enough that Voldemort can still make out the shape of him through it in a play of light and shadow as he changes, trying to move fast but fumbling through the motions a bit. Hands definitely shaking then, just a little. Just enough to make another small, hidden smirk creep over Lord Voldemort’s face as he continues to watch.
Though Harry still fidgets and keeps his eyes averted for now as he steps back out from behind the screen moments later, he is nonetheless every inch the enviable fae vision that Voldemort always knew he would be adorned in fine raiment that actually suits him. Like an unwilling snake charmer, Harry draws him in more and more every time Voldemort sees him anew and is reminded yet again what a perfect prize he has taken home to keep for himself. He will never tire of looking.
Lord Voldemort does more than just look, however. He moves in closer again, pleased when Harry almost involuntarily shrinks back, only at the last second making himself stay and hold his ground instead. Standing next to him and staring as intently as he does, Voldemort can now tell that the flowering vines are indeed moving, steadily growing longer and unfurling their tendrils out further at a nearly imperceptible slow pace.
He reaches for Harry as if to inspect the cool silken texture of the robe and assure himself of its quality, but in truth it’s to feel how the boy’s muscles tense and quiver under his hands as he again forces himself to fight instinct and remain still. The little indrawn breath of fear he makes and cannot disguise in time is so soft and lovely as well. Does he make those sounds when he’s crying too, the man wonders?
“Defeat is such a splendid look on you, my dear,” Voldemort tells him, enjoying the shudder he gets for his honesty. Or perhaps it’s not the words themselves but how he says them, soft-spoken and sweet. He leans now to whisper the rest into his ear.
“You wear your sorrow magnificently.”