Age: 14

A large cluster of students clad in blood-red robes and thick fur cloaks waited in their designated section of courtyard in the hidden wizarding section of Oslo in Norway, their breath misting in the freezing cold air. The clouds were grey and thick overhead, and the students chattered in a mix of languages about their guesses as to whether they could expect rain or snow later. Two teachers stood by as sentinels in watchful silence, watching for the incoming trickle of parents collecting their respective charges for the winter holidays.

Some of Harry's friends – like his best friend Draco – had already left via Portkey, but there were still plenty of children still waiting to be picked up and soon enough it was Harry's turn to leave. A chorus of farewells in English, Norwegian, and a handful of other languages rang out as Harry caught sight of his dark-haired adopted father and waved eagerly to him.

"There's my dad!" he cried out happily. "Bye everyone!"

"Bye Henry!" called one of the larger and stockier of the boys in his group.

"Hadet, Henry! Ha en fin ferie!" a smaller brown-haired boy said with a friendly smile and a wave.

"Bye Greg! I'll see you at the Malfoys' for the Yule Ball!" Harry said, grabbing his pre-lightened trunk and hefting it easily with one hand as he moved towards to his father who was patiently chatting to Herr Johansen and getting Harry's name marked off their list of departing students.

Harry waved farewell to the smaller boy with his free hand. "You have a great holiday too, Lars! Ha en fin ferie!"

"Hello Henry," Lord Voldemort said with a smile. "Your Norwegian sounds like it's improving."

"Hi dad!" Harry said, hugging him with one arm – the other being encumbered with his school trunk. Voldemort stood stiffly, tolerating the friendly hug but still not terribly good at returning them. He patted Harry awkwardly on the back.

"I prefer father."

"I know... dad," Harry said, with a grin that dared him to make a scene about it in public.

Lord Voldemort huffed in irritation but didn't bother trying to correct him again. "Well, shall we head home to Riddle Manor straight away, or do you want to visit the Christmas Markets again this year?"

"Just straight home. I did my shopping for Yule gifts in the wizarding section already."

"Much better. Did you know that the etymology of the name 'Oslo' is that it originally meant 'meadow of the gods'? That's us, son. We are far above the Muggles, remember, and need not mingle with them."

"I know, dad."

Lord Voldemort nodded, his blue eyes alight with satisfaction at his son's obedient agreement. "Here, take hold of the teacup, it's time to go."

"A broken teacup?" Harry said, looked at the proffered chipped and grubby formerly-white cup disdainfully as he took a hold of one side gingerly.

"Ministry-issued."

With a great tug originating from behind his navel and a whirlwind of magic around him, Harry reappeared with a thud on the grassy lawn outside Riddle Manor, which a lightly Imperiused Muggle kept in good condition. Relatively accustomed to the sensation albeit still having trouble with his landings, Harry got back on his feet fairly quickly. "Ministry-issued? Does that mean…?"

His father smiled smugly. "Yes, I'm officially acknowledged at last. I have impeccable paperwork establishing myself as my own son. Being known as Lord Voldemort's son has of course been somewhat of a social hindrance, but I've been suitably aghast and apologetic at my father's actions… in the appropriate circles. Allegedly, I never knew that Tom Riddle was the feared Lord Voldemort while I was growing up on the Continent. Dumbledore is widely regarded as a senile crackpot for his wild and unsubstantiated theory about the charming young Marvolo Riddle being You-Know-Who himself, newly rejuvenated.

"Additionally, the scorn he continues to face for placing Harry Potter in an abusive home he clearly felt compelled to run away from like evidence showed – lost to the wizarding world for good – also continues to hamper him socially and politically."

"I'm glad Uncle Vernon lost his job over that," Harry said with remembered satisfaction.

A young man in black formal wizarding robes opened the front door of the manor as the duo approached, and a giant patterned snake slithered out past him through the door and onto the grass to meet them. "You were gone forever," she hissed in outraged complaint to Harry, winding around his legs so he couldn't walk.

"I'm here now, Nagini," he soothed. "I had to go to school again."

"I deserve a rabbit. It was forever," she insisted once more.

"Hush, Nagini. You can play chase-the-rabbit with Harry later. Harry and I have to talk first. Let him go," Lord Voldemort hissed commandingly. "Barty, take Henry's things upstairs."

"Yes, my Lord," his servant said with a respectful bow.

Lord Voldemort and Harry settled down in front of a roaring fire that had already been lit in the parlour. Nagini slithered in to coil up in her favourite corner of the room under a coffee table.

Harry shed his cloak and gloves and held his hands out to the crackling flames to warm up. "So what's the local gossip from Hogwarts? How is the Tournament going? They say we're winning, but that could be local bias."

"I don't know if he can really be said to be winning after only one task, but Krum is in the lead and representing your school very well – you can be justifiably proud of your schoolmate. Quirrell continues in his role of mild-mannered Defence teacher, and Snape continues his recruiting of the students and spying for our cause. But that's not what I wanted to talk about."

His father paused and leaned forward as he said intently, "Son, I believe I know why we continue to switch places when our emotions run too high."

Harry straightened up and listened with rapt attention. "Well? What is it? Aside from accidental magic, of course?"

"You remember of course how we determined that your scar may be acting as one of my Horcruxes? Created unknowingly after the death of your mother which caused a tiny portion of my soul to splinter off?"

Harry nodded. He knew that already. Snape had seemed much nicer towards him after he'd found out and relayed that snippet of speculation from Dumbledore, and had stopped his theoretically subtle hints about how Harry might prefer to study at Hogwarts. His hints and comments about his Lord had verged on disloyalty at times, and Lord Voldemort had been watching him carefully. Lately he seemed much improved.

"Oddly enough it was something that Dolohov said that gave me the clue: 'I thought you were dead.' It reminded me that I died at your hand, back in 1980."

"Huh. Really? Well technically you didn't die-" started Harry.

"Perhaps not precisely. One could say 'vanquished' if one wanted to be pedantic about the matter, but the point remains that my body was destroyed when you rebounded the killing curse at me, leaving nothing but a drifting spirit. Close enough to death by most definitions. Close enough to a murder for the accidental creation of a Horcrux of your own. The precise equal of mine."

Harry blinked.

"The thing we have been overlooking is that you too created an accidental Horcrux that evening. Our souls are inextricably linked to each other. There are few records of that kind of bond that aren't sentimental and inaccurate rubbish. And there is no speculation at all on what happens when a living vessel is used for a Horcrux. It simply hasn't been done before – or if so it hasn't been recorded. The whole point of a Horcrux, after all, is to pick a non-living and enduring container that will last for centuries. Mortal flesh is logically a poor choice to host a Horcrux.

"The closest and most reliable comparison to our situation can be found in an ancient technique of bonding with a familiar and seeing through its eyes while in a trance state. It is accomplished through blood magic rather than Horcrux creation, but the element of mutual and shared sacrifice through blood-letting is very similar, magically. Both the master and the familiar are cut and bled, and the blood shared."

"So unaccustomed and strong emotions trigger accidental magic-" Harry started summarising, before being interrupted.

"Previously accidental. I have noticed a distinct trend of 'accidental' swaps this year – two duels and an exam. Once is happenstance, twice is coincidence. But the third time it's enemy action, Henry," his father said sternly.

"…I panicked?"

Lord Voldemort glared at him. "I will ensure you fail any future test miserably if you 'panic' in an exam again. You are a smart and magically talented boy, and skilled at duelling as well – you can succeed on your own account."

Harry slumped resignedly. "Alright, I won't do it again. I just didn't want to get an E."

"An exception can be made for duelling if your life is in actual danger, not just your pride."

"Sorry. But you know… you did it to me first. That boring meeting about property taxes with the pink woman who wanted to talk about cats, remember?"

"That was an accident," Voldemort said smoothly. "It was an emotional overload of unaccustomed deathly boredom. Or possibly it was helped along by my urge to kill. In either case, the swap was purely accidental."

"Sure it was," Harry said sceptically. "I spent a whole hour dutifully admiring her plate collection with kittens on them." His father was too good a liar to really tell for sure, but Harry had his suspicions. Listening to stories about taxes and cats wasn't much of an emotional trigger. "Maybe I was deathly bored in my exam too, dad. It was History and Geography."

"Father."

"Dad," insisted Harry. He was wearing him down, he knew it. Lord Voldemort used to get much more irritated at the informality. "Anyway, so as I was saying, when accidental magic triggers it tends to make us swap because I'm like I'm your familiar? Is that right?"

"Essentially correct, though we are in a way something like each other's familiar – that is why the swap can be activated from either end. It has always been more common for you to trigger it, due to young children being more prone to outbursts of both strong emotions and flares of uncontrolled magic. I see you have increasingly begun to master both of those elements. What prompted your mastery?"

"It was something from Transfiguration class. Our teacher explained how most spells have an emotional component, and with sufficient training casting a spell becomes a more automatic act of pure will and then you don't need the emotional trigger any more," Harry explained. "That was my big revelation."

"I told you to get control of your emotions years ago," Lord Voldemort snapped with irritation.

"Yes, but I didn't really understand it then," Harry apologised. "I was just trying to not get upset or angry at things, I didn't really understand it was connected to magical control."

"Of course it is! And in our specific case, if we are not focused emotionally on achieving a magical goal when feeling something intensely, the unfocused magic runs into its default path triggering something like a more powerful version of a familiar bond, and we fully inhabit the other's body instead of just merely seeing through the other's eyes temporarily. With an ordinary familiar bond by the way, the wizard stays in a trance after they have triggered the link, and thus the animal's mind is asleep while present in the wizard – unresponsive and unaware."

"Well I think it's a good thing you stay awake instead of napping after ending up in my body," mused Harry. "Or the other way around. I can think of a few times that would have had things go very badly."

"Like when I showed up on the school roof long ago," suggested his father.

"True. Or when the Jötunn almost ate me."

"I still don't understand why you went into the giants' territory. Ridiculous."

"I was trying to hammer out a treaty for you," Harry mumbled. "They would make good allies for your war. I thought you'd be proud. I didn't realise they'd become so bloodthirsty when they started to get hungry."

Lord Voldemort's expression softened. "You make me proud every day, son. You don't need to prove your worth as a Death Eater with me by acts of valour or cunning. It's just like how we discussed that you don't need to earn your place at home here by doing chores. Just be patient, and stay safe – that's all I ask. Study hard at school. One day, when you are fully grown and trained, you can join me in our cause. Together we'll do great things indeed."

"Yes, father," Harry promised. "I'm studying as hard as I can."

Voldemort looked at him with a proud smile. "…I suppose you can call me dad, if you really want to."

A/N: That's all, folks! There's no more of this story, and no sequels are planned. I hope you enjoyed this bonus final wrap-up chapter. You might like to know that this bonus chapter is all thanks to prompts from Veysha and LepiaStalis who wanted just that little bit more closure.

I'm just thrilled to have the fic wrapped up at last after it had been languishing for three quarters of a year half-written and unposted.

I hope you enjoyed my story. Let me know what your favourite part was! Also, as always for any of my fics, don't be shy about letting me know if there's any typos that eluded my editing. :)

Jenny – thanks for beta checking my snippet of Norwegian in this chapter.