A/N: Trigger warnings: two characters are forced into a fuck-or-die situation by a third character. Also, an insincere rape threat is made but not followed through on.

This fic is canon-compliant through chapter 9 of Deathly Hallows. Takes place right after Harry, Ron, and Hermione decided to hide out at Grimmauld Place, but before they talk to Kreacher about the locket.

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Harry woke up to a wand in his face as unfamiliar hands roughly pulled him to his feet.

"What—?" his groggy mind struggled to catch up to what was happening. Someone was dragging him down a hallway, but he didn't know who or why. And where the hell was he?

He struggled against the unknown person.

"Cooperate, Potter, or I will stun you again." Harry didn't recognize the voice, but it sounded distorted, as if it had been magically disguised.

"Who are you? Where are you taking me?" Harry demanded, trying to pull away. He reached for his wand, only to realize he didn't have it.

"Incarcerous," the person snapped, and Harry found himself bound by thick ropes, then unceremoniously levitated down the hallway towards a lone black door at the end.

"What do you want with me?" Harry asked, craning his neck to look at the person behind him. The figure seemed male, but whoever it was had pulled the hood of his black robes up to hide his face. There was also an unnatural darkness magically concealing the person's face.

Harry's scar was aching like mad—meaning Voldemort was either close by or exceptionally angry, and Harry started to ask his captor if he was a Death Eater; but just then Harry realized there was something metal around his own neck—he could feel it whenever he moved his head. "What is that? What's on me?" Harry demanded.

"Your roommate will explain everything, Potter," the figure said. Even with the magical distortion, Harry could hear the sneer in the man's voice.

"What? Did you hurt my friends? Are they here too?" The last thing Harry remembered was deciding with Ron and Hermione to hide out at Grimmauld Place for the time being.

"Your little friends are fine," his captor said, sounding bored. They reached the door, which opened on its own, and the hooded figure shoved Harry inside. "You have twenty-four hours, starting now," the hooded figure announced, then he vanished Harry's bindings and dropped him to his feet. Harry spun around to confront him, but the door slammed in Harry's face.

"Hey!" Harry yelled, pounding on the door as his scar gave a particularly nasty throb. "Let me out of here!"

The confusion in Harry's mind was quickly giving way to anger—he had no idea where he was, or how he had ended up here, and the only person he'd encountered had just locked him in a room with no answers. His scar being on fire didn't help things, either.

"Don't bother, Potter," came a voice from somewhere behind him. A very familiar voice.

Harry froze. Oh please no, he thought desperately as he turned around.

Harry's green eyes met and locked with the red pair gazing at him from across the small room.

"You," Harry breathed in shock and anger.

"Me," Lord Voldemort answered coolly.

A thrill of fear joined Harry's maelstrom of emotions—he was locked in a room with Voldemort and he was surely about to die. Harry clamped down on the fear, shoving it away—he would not cower, he would fight and die with as much dignity as possible.

"So this is your doing?" Harry accused, glancing around at the small, unremarkable room. It was entirely empty except for a mirror that didn't seem to reflect anything at all. The door Harry had just come through had no doorknob on this side.

"I see you remain as dense as ever, Potter."

Harry's wand was missing and there was nothing around to use as a weapon—except, perhaps he could break that mirror and use a shard of glass to defend himself. Not that it would do any good against Voldemort's wand, whenever he decided to draw it. But it would be better than doing nothing and waiting for death.

"Yeah?" Harry retorted, edging slowly towards the mirror, keeping his eyes on his enemy. "How so?" If Harry could keep him talking, keep him distracted, maybe his daft plan would actually work.

Voldemort studied Harry for a second, then glanced at the mirror and back at Harry with a hint of amusement in his red eyes. "That mirror is protected by unbreakable and permanent-sticking charms," he said, as if commenting on the weather.

Harry blinked, but didn't bother to play dumb about his intentions. "Why should I believe you?"

"Don't believe me." Voldemort suggested. "Break your hand."

Harry stared. Why would Voldemort warn him instead of just letting Harry hurt himself trying? Maybe it was reverse psychology? Maybe there was nothing odd about the mirror at all. Or maybe Voldemort was counting on Harry not believing him—maybe he wanted Harry to touch the mirror because it had something much worse than an unbreakable charm on it.

It was clearly no ordinary mirror—Harry was standing a few feet away from it, yet it didn't show his reflection, or any reflection at all. The glass that should have been reflective was instead a shiny yet translucent substance that resembled frosted glass and reflected nothing.

Harry finally decided that the last thing he should do in this situation was trust Voldemort, so he gave up on subtlety and walked right up to the mirror—keeping a wary eye on the Dark Lord—and rammed his elbow into the glass as hard as he could.

Really bad idea.

"Damn it," he shouted, cradling his throbbing elbow and letting out a pained hiss when, at the same instant, a quick but intense shock of pain came from the metal object around Harry's neck. The mirror remained unharmed.

A short exhalation that might've been a laugh came from Voldemort's side of the room, and Harry glared at him.

"Finally given up on trying to kill me, have you?" Harry taunted, having no other outlet for his anger. "Realized that inanimate objects have a better chance of succeeding than you do?"

Voldemort's expression darkened and quite suddenly he crossed the space between them and shoved Harry against the wall. Harry's eyes widened, but he was long past the point of letting Voldemort intimidate him; Harry grabbed the front of Voldemort's robes and tried to push him away.

Voldemort kept him pinned and hissed, "If you think I am responsible for this, you're a bigger imbecile than I thought."

"What?" Harry was unnerved by the physical proximity, but didn't look away; why hadn't Voldemort just Crucio'd him? In fact, Harry hadn't seen Voldemort draw his wand once, despite Harry's provocations.

"Use your eyes, Potter."

Harry's brows furrowed and he finally pulled his eyes away from Voldemort's deadly gaze. Harry's grip on the front of the Dark Lord's robes had tugged them down enough to expose his neck…which was adorned with a thin silver collar, for lack of a better word.

Harry stared at it, then detached one of his hands from Voldemort's robes to feel his own neck. Harry's eyes widened as he realized that the object on his neck had to be a similar device.

"What are these?" Harry asked.

"Haven't you realized?"

"Obviously not, if I'm asking you," Harry snapped.

Voldemort snarled and slammed Harry's back against the wall before releasing him and stalking away. "Of course you—pathetically repressed wizard that you are—wouldn't even notice your magic locked away from you." He paced furiously across the room. "You wouldn't notice that all of your power was suddenly inaccessible, making you little better than a common Squib," Voldemort sneered.

Harry stared. He didn't feel any different, and he almost opened his mouth to ask Voldemort how he could tell, but then he remembered that Voldemort was a master of wandless magic. Even if Voldemort was—inexplicably—without his wand at the moment, he still could have tortured Harry quite effectively without it…usually.

Harry's eyes widened as the implication finally dawned on him.

"You're a prisoner here too, aren't you?" Harry asked.

Voldemort's attention snapped back to Harry, and Harry barely resisted crying out as his scar seemed to split open. "Very good, Potter," he taunted, taking his fury at the situation out on Harry. "You took ten minutes to make the most obvious of deductions. I must have damaged your brain when I gave you that scar."

Harry didn't rise to it—he was too busy wondering who the hell was powerful (and suicidal ) enough to capture Lord Voldemort and fit him with a magic-repressing collar, and why that person would've locked the two of them up together, magic-less. Maybe their captor was hoping Harry and Voldemort would just get it over with and kill each other with their bare hands.

"Yeah, well, speaking of my scar—can you try to calm down? You're splitting my head open here."

Voldemort gave him an inscrutable look. "Has anyone told you why we've been brought here, Potter?"

"No, the one that threw me in here said my roommate would explain. I guess that's you." Harry's scar seared, and he said, "Ow! Seriously, calm down!"

"Calm down?" Voldemort hissed, and slipped into Parseltongue in his rage. " 'Calm down' you say, when I have been humiliated and disrespected by some coward who hides his face and DARES to restrain MY magic?"

"Setting my scar on fire isn't going to solve anything!" Harry hissed back, clutching his head.

Voldemort's eyes riveted to him, and his rage seemed slightly dimmed. "It's true, then—you really do speak it," he said contemplatively.

Harry wondered whether he should've kept that tidbit to himself, but before he could respond, an ominous, distorted voice boomed out from the strange, blank mirror.

"YOU WILL SPEAK ENGLISH!" it commanded at a Howler-level volume. The voice was stilted, artificial sounding, and creepy as hell.

Harry jumped in surprise, but the mirror shouting out commands didn't seem to be news to Voldemort.

Voldemort snarled at the mirror, obstinately refusing to switch languages. "I will speak however I wish, you—" he proceeded to string together several colorful insults that had Harry raising his eyebrows, "And when I am free of this collar, I will make you regret every second of your pathetic existence."

The metal collar around Voldemort's neck emitted a sudden buzzing noise and a flash of light, and the Dark Lord hissed in pain. Harry's scar burned as well.

"YOU WILL SPEAK ENGLISH! ACKNOWLEDGE!" the mirror boomed.

Voldemort hissed under his breath and looked ready to attack the mirror, unbreakable charm or not, so Harry quickly shouted, "Okay—acknowledged! We'll speak English."

Voldemort threw a displeased look at Harry, but Harry merely raised his eyebrows at Voldemort and glanced pointedly at the mirror.

"Acknowledged," Voldemort spat bitterly.

"YOU WILL EXPLAIN THE CONDITIONS TO HARRY POTTER."

Harry's scar gave the worst throb yet as Voldemort glared at the mirror in silence.

"YOU WILL EXPLAIN THE CONDITIONS! ACKNOWLEDGE!"

"You will lie at my feet, broken and bleeding," Voldemort snarled in fury, "and you will beg for the mercy of death when I regain my magic and tear apart every cell of your being! Acknowledge!" he roared at it.

For a split second, Harry appreciated the fact that Voldemort's rage was rather impressive when it was directed at someone else for a change. Then the collar shocked Voldemort again, much longer and harder than the first time, sending him to his knees; Harry's collar did nothing, but Voldemort's pain made Harry felt like his head was being turned inside out, and he also sank to the floor in agony. Both wizards were out of breath when the collar finally relented.

"YOU WILL ACKNOWLEDGE THE COMMAND."

Voldemort's fury flared up and he opened his mouth to argue, but Harry shouted, "Stop it! This isn't helping anything—just do what it says!"

Voldemort caught his eyes and stared at him. Harry understood very well the satisfaction of resisting on principle, but in this situation it didn't seem to get them anywhere. And his head was killing him—between the pain from the shock collar and Voldemort's fury frying Harry's scar, it was almost unbearable.

Voldemort stared at him for so long that Harry worried the collar would shock him for the silence, then the Dark Lord finally muttered, "Acknowledged," and the mirror went silent.

Voldemort moved from his rather undignified kneeling position, getting back to his feet. He tilted his head and watched Harry, who chose to remain on the floor, resting his back against the wall.

After a long moment of silence, Voldemort spoke again, much calmer now. "I wonder, Potter, whether you will prefer the mirror's punishment to what is expected of us."

Harry swallowed, and tried not to look too nervous. "What is expected of us?"

"Something utterly pointless that is, without a doubt, meant to humiliate and degrade us both."

That certainly didn't sound good.

"Specifically…" Harry prompted.

Voldemort watched Harry for another silent moment before continuing.

"I have been told that these magic-inhibiting collars will be removed and you and I will be released unharmed, on one condition." He paused and looked away from Harry. "I have been instructed to—with or without your consent—" Voldemort paused again, and Harry's scar gave a severely unpleasant twinge, "—have sex with you within the next twenty-four hours. Or else we both die."

Harry's jaw dropped and his brain stuttered to a halt.

"What?" he shouted.

This had to be a joke, and a bad one at that. Him and Voldemort, have sex? What kind of deranged lunatic would demand such a thing? And…wait…

"With or without my consent?" Harry repeated, horrified, as the meaning sunk in. "They ordered you to—to rape me?"

"If you resist, yes." Voldemort answered, still not looking at him. "But that would make things more difficult, because the instructions also specified that we must both…" he paused, and Harry's scar throbbed, "…achieve orgasm, for it to count."

Harry laughed humorlessly. "Well that's great. Might as well just kill us now, right?"

Voldemort met Harry's eyes and leveled him with a glare. "I have no intention of dying here."

Harry gulped as Voldemort took a predatory step towards him.

"But—you won't die," Harry blurted, panic kicking in and causing him to reveal information he normally wouldn't. "You have your—your Horcruxes," Harry said, switching to Parseltongue at the last minute—Voldemort would surely be furious if Harry revealed that secret to their captors.

Voldemort, far from being reassured, grew even angrier at the mention of them. After a momentary flare of surprise that Harry knew about them, his eyes hardened and he hissed back, "They have two of them! Maybe more. I cannot rely on my Horcruxes when their safety has been so severely compromised!"

Both collars flared to life and briefly shocked the wizards.

"YOU WILL SPEAK ENGLISH!" the mirror thundered.

Harry glared at the mirror, and made a quick decision—he knew it would cost him his advantage in the war, but at the moment he had more pressing concerns. Like not getting raped.

Harry braced himself for a shock, and launched back into his Parseltongue plea, "I destroyed the diary years ago. Dumbledore destroyed the ring. We thought we had the locket but it was a fake. The others are Nagini, Hufflepuff's cup, and something of Gryffindor's or Ravenclaw's, right? At least one of those has to be safe, somewhere out there! You don't have to go along with this—you won't actually die."

As expected, the collar gave Harry a severe shock that sent him to his hands and knees, and the mirror bellowed, "YOU WILL SPEAK ENGLISH! ACKNOWLEDGE!"

"Fine!" Harry shouted at it, lifting his head to find Voldemort giving him a strange look. Part of that look was fury at the confirmation that that two pieces of his soul were destroyed and a third was missing; there was also a significant amount of shock that Harry not only knew but had willingly divulged this information.

Harry's scar seared, and he wondered whether Voldemort would attack him in a rage.

But after a very long moment, Voldemort simply hissed back, "I cannot know for certain whether the locket still exists, or whether Ravenclaw's object remains safe. Our captors have Nagini and the cup, and I will not sacrifice them merely for the sake of our dignity."

Voldemort's collar came to life and briefly shocked him, but he barely flinched this time. Perhaps he was building up a resistance. Perhaps Harry could as well.

"YOU WILL SPEAK ENGLISH!"

"Do you understand, Potter?" Voldemort asked in an oddly civil tone.

Harry sighed, breaking eye contact. "Yes."

There went Harry's only chance at convincing Voldemort to join him in defying their captors.

After a very tense silence, Voldemort said, "I would much rather not have to force you. The thought of it repulses me. But I refuse to die here, Potter."

Harry glanced at him, surprised. "Er—thanks, I guess." As far as rape threats went, that one was almost considerate.

He wasn't sure what would be better in the end. He could cooperate, and hopefully keep this from being any more traumatic than it had to be. Or, he could fight and preserve a shred of dignity by knowing that he did not willingly submit to having sex with his parents' murderer. But…wasn't there actually more dignity in walking into the inevitable with his head held high, rather than being dragged kicking and screaming? And of course, Harry wasn't the only one being forced into this—cooperating would make it easier on both of them.

Harry studied Voldemort out of the corner of his eye; the Dark Lord was clearly infuriated about this situation, and yet, he seemed to have resigned himself to it—he was even being civil to Harry about it. Merlin help him for even thinking it, but maybe just this once Harry should follow Voldemort's example…at least until he slipped back into Psychotic Dark Lord Mode.

Harry glanced around the bare room and said, "So do we get a bed, or do they expect us to do it on the floor?"

At Harry's comment, the mirror spoke up. "DO YOU ACCEPT THE CONDITIONS?"

Harry glared at it. "Do we have any other choice?"

"YOU CAN CHOOSE TO DIE."

Harry briefly glanced at Voldemort, but as the Dark Lord had already made his opinion on the matter perfectly clear, Harry answered for both of them.

"We accept the conditions," Harry told the mirror.

"DO YOU REQUIRE A BED?"

Harry almost laughed. "Er—yes?"

A bed materialized on the other side of the room, facing the mirror.

Harry blinked and thought fast. "Er—you want us both to get off, right? Well I'm into some pretty kinky stuff, so I'll also be needing my wand, and, er, a big snake and a golden cup, if you happen to have any of those laying around."

The mirror didn't respond, nor did anything else materialize in the room.

Harry shrugged after a moment. "Worth a try."

"Idiot," Voldemort muttered.

Harry rounded on him. "I didn't hear you suggesting anything!"

"What exactly did you plan to do if it returned your wand? Your magic is bound by that collar, and having a wand won't change that! The only way out of here is to do as they say."

"How do you know they'll keep their word?"

"The one who brought me here swore an Unbreakable Vow to me. My magic being bound didn't matter, the Vow only used his. He swore to remove these collars and release us both if I fulfilled his request of…bedding you."

"Why would he go to all this trouble for that?" Harry asked.

"He refused to say. Believe me, I asked."

Harry puzzled over this for a moment. "And he swore an Unbreakable Vow that only bound him?"

"He is only bound to release us if I comply with his conditions to the letter," Voldemort explained, impatience creeping into his tone. "If I do, he cannot go back on his word."

Harry nodded, crossing his arms and looking at the floor.

"You're welcome, by the way," Harry said after a moment.

Voldemort narrowed his eyes at him. "What, precisely, am I supposed to have thanked you for?"

"Trying to get your belongings back," Harry said pointedly.

Voldemort scoffed. "It was a stupid attempt."

"The point is, I tried," Harry snapped. "But don't worry, I won't bother in the future."

"You only wanted them so you could destroy them, didn't you? Tell the truth!" he snapped, just as Tom Riddle had in Dumbledore's memory.

Voldemort's attempt at wandless magic resulted in a quick shock from the metal collar, and he hissed in frustration.

Harry just looked at him. "That wouldn't have worked on me anyway."

Voldemort's eyes seemed to zero in on Harry, and there was a vaguely hungry look in them as he said, "Yes…I had almost forgotten about your resistance to the Imperius Curse…It's very impressive."

Harry was about to mumble an awkward thanks when Voldemort continued.

"…especially for someone who can't master even the most basic principles of mind magic." And, there's the insult.

Harry glared. "You can thank Snape for that. And I doubt Occlumency would do much good anyway; you don't have to use Legilimency, you're just always in my head."

"Am I?" Voldemort asked in a silky voice, the barest of smirks twitching at his lips.

Harry's brow furrowed for a second, then his eyebrows shot up. "No way—don't do that—don't flirt with me. This situation is weird enough already."

"You're the one who said I'm always in your head," Voldemort argued, still smirking a little.

"Because you are—it's a fact," Harry said, pointing at his scar and trying to stop his cheeks from reddening. "I don't want you there—and I certainly don't enjoy watching you torture people, or being in your snake's head when she attacks somebody!"

All traces of humor fled Voldemort's face and his eyes snapped back to Harry. "You what?"

Harry looked back at him suspiciously. "You know all of that already." Their mental link had allowed Voldemort to send Harry false images that resulted in Sirius' death, after all. Why on earth did he seem surprised?

"You have seen through Nagini's eyes?"

"Yes," Harry answered cautiously. "What's the big deal? I see through your eyes all the time, and you were possessing Nagini when she attacked Arthur Weasley, and—"

"I wasn't possessing her." Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue. He stared at Harry for a very long moment, deep in some very disturbing thoughts if his expression was anything to go by.

"Come here, Harry," Voldemort said, stretching out an arm.

Harry blinked; Voldemort's abrupt switch to using Harry's first name threw him off a little. "Are we—er, getting started already?" he asked nervously.

Voldemort didn't elaborate, he just beckoned and repeated, "Come here."

Harry narrowed his eyes a little in suspicion, but complied.

As soon as he was within reach, Voldemort seized Harry by the arm and dragged him uncomfortably close. Harry tried to take a step back, but Voldemort's other hand held the back of Harry's neck.

"What are you—?"

"Be quiet, and don't struggle," was all the warning Harry got before Voldemort leaned in and pressed his forehead to Harry's.

Harry gasped as his scar seared painfully, and suddenly he wasn't in that tiny room anymore—he was standing in a replication of the Great Hall at Hogwarts, but it was empty except for himself and Voldemort and there was something off and slightly hazy about their surroundings. And they weren't standing in that awkward embrace anymore; they were standing about five feet apart facing each other.

Voldemort looked at him strangely. "It worked," he said, almost to himself. He seemed to be caught somewhere between being satisfied and being horrified.

"What worked?" Harry asked.

This was a vision, it had to be, but it felt remarkably real—and he was in control of himself for once, instead of seeing through Voldemort's eyes or wandering around with the confused urgency of a dream.

"How are you doing this? I thought our magic was bound—?"

"It is," Voldemort interrupted. "But the soul has its own separate kind of magic. The collar couldn't prevent me from mentally communicating with Nagini, because she is nearby and shares part of my soul; my Horcruxes are connected to each other as well as to me. It was Nagini who told me our captors have her and the cup—the mirror only told me that they had something 'very precious' of mine; they might not even understand just how precious."

"Too bad Nagini couldn't tell you how to get out of here," Harry said distractedly.

"Harry," Voldemort said quietly to bring back his attention. "You feel my emotions. You can speak Parseltongue. You see through my eyes…Oddities that I always ascribed to the scar I gave you—surviving the Killing Curse was unprecedented, and I believed our connection was merely a side-effect of that… But…if you've seen through my Horcrux's eyes…"

Harry's eyes widened as he thought understood what Voldemort was getting at. "You're not saying that—that I'm…" Harry trailed off, horrified.

Voldemort nodded, stepping closer, and that hungry gleam was back in his eyes. "You are my seventh Horcrux."

"No," Harry said, backing away. "No, you're wrong. You're wrong!" Harry shouted. "Let me out of here!"

"You must calm down first; our captors cannot suspect—"

"Calm down?" Harry had an uncomfortable sense of déjà vu, thinking of Voldemort's earlier tantrums. "Calm down, when I just learned I've had a piece of your soul inside me all along?"

Voldemort grabbed Harry's shoulders and forced him to face him. "You will calm down, and you will be grateful that you are now under the protection of the most powerful wizard in the world!"

"Grateful?" Harry nearly shrieked. "Grateful to be a possession of my parents' murderer? No fucking thank you!"

Voldemort snarled, grabbed the front of Harry's robes, and threw him down on one of the house tables before Harry even knew what hit him. Voldemort leaned over him, their faces only inches apart.

"Do you think I am pleased to realize I've been trying for years to kill a part of my own soul? Do you think that, having dozens of more talented and loyal wizards at my command, I would ever have chosenyouas a human Horcrux?" Harry struggled to sit up but Voldemort pushed him flat on his back and pinned him there. "I am not happy about this either, but there are more important issues at hand, and both of our lives are at stake. So you will calm down, so we can return to our bodies before whoever is watching through that mirror gets suspicious."

Harry stared defiantly into the red eyes above him, wanting nothing more than to keep fighting, because fighting Voldemort was familiar. It made sense. Cooperating with him against an unknown enemy, and being told he was now under Lord Voldemort's protection, and knowing he had to have sex with him soon was all just too much to handle.

Nevertheless, Harry closed his eyes and took a series of deep breaths, trying very hard to reign in his emotions. After a moment, Voldemort released him and stood, moving away. Harry took the opportunity to scoot off the edge of the house table and stand.

Harry glanced over at Voldemort to find him not-so-patiently waiting for Harry to get himself together. His arms were crossed, and his red eyes were pinned to Harry's face.

"I'm fine," Harry muttered, even though that couldn't be further from the truth. Voldemort frowned slightly at the lie, and Harry amended, "I'm calm. For now."

Voldemort accepted this with a nod, and said, "Good. We will return now—come here."

Harry approached him, and resisted the urge to pull away when Voldemort pulled him into the same close embrace with their foreheads touching.

But they didn't return right away.

"When we return," Voldemort said casually, as though the two of them stood around like this all the time, "I am going to kiss you. You will not fight me."

"What?"

There went Harry's calm state.

"Time passes slower in here than in the real world, but we've left our bodies standing still in an awkward position for far too long to do otherwise. Remember we're being watched, Harry—we mustn't let our captors realize that we can communicate this way. We cannot let them know that you are my Horcrux, especially since I never formally solidified the bond and you lack the proper protective enchantments. Now come," Voldemort said, dragging Harry's consciousness out of the vision and back into his body before he had a chance to protest or ask questions.

Harry gasped at the strange abruptness of being thrust back into his body after the vision. He resisted the urge to pull free from Voldemort's grasp; Voldemort acted unfazed, like nothing odd had happened, and was already saying something in that silky voice that made Harry suspect that his words were more for whoever was watching than for Harry.

"I'm not happy about this either, Harry, but you must understand that we have no choice," he said, stroking a white finger down Harry's face. "But it doesn't have to be awful." The finger slid beneath Harry's chin and tilted his face up. "There's no reason we can't—" he leaned in, and Harry closed his eyes and tried not to panic "—enjoy this," he whispered against Harry's lips.

And then the world stopped because Voldemort was kissing him and…damn it…it wasn't entirely disgusting. Thin lips moved against Harry's with gentle yet insistent pressure while long fingers threaded through his hair; Harry just stood there frozen in shock, until he felt Voldemort's hand squeeze the back of his neck and Harry figured he was supposed to kiss back. Harry mentally shook off the weirdness, stopped thinking, and just felt his way through it. His scar was tingling pleasantly, but he had barely started to respond when Voldemort pulled back and the tingling stopped.

"You see, Harry?" he asked in that silky voice.

But when Harry opened his eyes and met the red pair in front of him, Voldemort's expression didn't quite match his voice. His eyes narrowed slightly, wordlessly seeming to ask whether Harry felt that too.

"Yeah," Harry said, answering the verbal question along with the nonverbal. "That…wasn't awful."

"Of course it wasn't. Lord Voldemort is not awful at anything."

It slipped out before Harry could stop it. "Except killing infants."

Voldemort's eyes flashed, and his hand went from resting on the back of Harry's neck to gripping a handful of Harry's hair and tilting his head back almost painfully. The other hand traced a fingernail threateningly along Harry's exposed neck.

"Harry," he said, still using that silky voice but letting the dangerous undertone bleed through just enough to make Harry shiver, "if you want it rough, just ask. You don't have to keep provoking my anger."

"Wh—what?" Harry spluttered, his face flushing. "I wasn't—"

Voldemort chuckled under his breath and released Harry, stepping around him towards the bed.

"Regardless," he said, taking a seat on the edge of the bed and starting to undo the topmost buttons of his outer robes, "the sooner we do this, the sooner we'll be free. So, shall we?"

Harry swallowed, then caught his eye and nodded. Harry screwed up his courage and approached, stopping in front of the Dark Lord and standing there awkwardly; Voldemort's unwavering stare made Harry feel like he was already naked.

"You, er, think they're going to watch?" Harry asked, glancing uneasily at the mirror.

"Probably. Shall we give them a show, my Horcrux?" he asked, hissing the last two words in Parseltongue.

Harry blushed; he'd only done this a few times before, and never with a man (a bloody Dark Lord for that matter) or with a psychotic mirror watching him—he didn't know what kind of show he could possibly put on when he was nervous as hell about the whole thing. "Er—I guess, if—if you want," Harry answered awkwardly.

Voldemort raised a hairless brow. "That wasn't very convincing—you'll have to do better than that, Harry."

The challenge in Voldemort's voice and eyes pushed every button Harry had; he narrowed his eyes at the Dark Lord, then gathered up every ounce of bravery and confidence he'd ever possessed and shoved it to the surface. He forced his body to relax, then threw back his shoulders in what he hoped was a confident stance.

"Sorry," he said, sounding anything but. "I meant—" he dropped into Voldemort's lap, resting his hands on Voldemort's shoulders and bravely leaning in close "—yes, my Lord, let's give them a show."

Harry licked his lips, then flicked his eyes up to meet Voldemort's, quirking his own brows up briefly. Voldemort's lips curled into a smile, and his hands moved up Harry's thighs and came to rest on his hips.

"Am I your Lord?" he asked in that silky tone.

Harry imitated the tone, answering, "You are tonight."

"Well, in that case…"

Voldemort leaned in and closed the distance between their lips, once again igniting that amazing tingling in Harry's scar. Distantly, Harry realized one of Voldemort's hands was undoing the buttons to his robes, then his shirt, and exploring the skin beneath without removing either garment. It was entirely too easy for Harry to lose himself in the sensations of those hands and lips, and even a sudden painful scar twinge didn't faze him.

But Voldemort suddenly pulled back, looking horrorstruck.

"Nagini," he breathed.

Harry frowned, irritated and already missing the feeling of those thin lips against his.

"No, I'm Harry."

"Didn't you feel that?" Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue. "She called out to me—she was in pain and terrified, and now I cannot contact her."

"So she's—dead?"

The only answer Harry got was the raging fire in his scar.

"YOU WILL SPEAK ENGLISH!" The mirror blared out.

"You will die!" Voldemort replied, managing to sound smug and pissed off at the same time. "You have broken your vow."

"THAT IS FALSE!"

"You swore to release us unharmed if I complied with your request within twenty-four hours. That time is not up, and the snake you just killed held part of my soul—meaning, you have attacked a part of me and broken your vow!"

Harry wanted to believe that, since it would mean the end of his captivity, as well as one less Horcrux to deal with…but…shouldn't the Unbreakable Vow have taken effect instantly?

"IT IS UNHARMED."

"Stop lying and drop dead," Voldemort snarled.

"IT IS UNHARMED."

Harry looked back and forth between the mirror and Voldemort, then quietly asked, "Can you really tell if it's lying? With the—you know," he glanced at the collar.

Voldemort's eyes returned to Harry's and he replied with a tiny shake of his head that could've passed as an irritated twitch.

"Can you—contact—the other?" Harry murmured, although he had no idea how one went about talking with a cup.

Voldemort gave a nearly imperceptible nod, then flicked his eyes quickly from the mirror to Harry's eyes to Harry's lips, then back to Harry's eyes, tilting his head expectantly.

Somehow, Harry understood that to mean cover me so the mirror won't realize what I'm doing.

Harry blinked and leaned in, suddenly nervous again—every other time, it had been Voldemort who had initiated this—and although it shouldn't matter at this point, it hit him really hard that he was about to kiss Voldemort.

Voldemort seemed to catch the gist of Harry's sudden reluctance, and leaned forward, muttering, "Ridiculous brat."

But Harry's hands on Voldemort's shoulders stopped him, holding him back. I can do this, damn it, Harry thought. Then he shoved the Dark Lord backwards onto the bed, following him down and capturing his lips, welcoming the exquisite tingling in his scar at the contact. Bloody amazing, Harry thought, immediately followed by what the hell is wrong with me?

He thought he felt Voldemort smirk against his lips, but then the Dark Lord closed his eyes and stilled as he entered into mental communication with the cup Horcrux. It felt weird, but Harry kept kissing his unresponsive lips, hoping that the mirror wouldn't notice anything amiss.

Seconds later, Voldemort's eyes shot open and he gasped against Harry's lips.

Harry started to back off, startled, but Voldemort seized his robes and pulled him back into a kiss…and—Harry's scar turned inside out—back into the mindscape that looked like Hogwarts' Great Hall.

Harry stood there, dazed, as Voldemort released him and started pacing.

"What happened?"

"They moved it," Voldemort spat, sounding offended and shocked in equal measure.

"What?"

"There were two parts of my soul in the cup! Nagini is alive, but she is no longer a Horcrux."

"You can do that?"

"Apparently," Voldemort snapped. Then he abruptly stopped pacing and glared at Harry, who blinked in surprise at the sudden raw hostility. "This is your doing," he accused.

"What? How could I—?" Harry backed away slowly as Voldemort advanced towards him.

"Instead of destroying them, you're trying to put them back together, back into me to make me mortal!"

"No, I—"

"And that mirror's ridiculous demand—it reeks of Dumbledore's precious belief in love," he sneered, ignoring Harry's protests and matching his backwards steps. Harry's back hit the wall and Voldemort's hands seized his shoulders to pin him there. "Is this the best you can do? Trying to defeat me by making me love you? I will never love you, Potter, Horcrux or not."

"I don't want you to love me!" Harry shouted, ignoring the twinge of hurt that he absolutely should not be feeling. "Sex isn't the same as love anyway, especially when it's not by choice. And I didn't do this—I've been in here with you the whole time! I don't know how to move Horcruxes—I barely know how to destroy them."

"You're working with whoever is behind the mirror!"

"No I'm not! And if I was going to deliberately lock myself in a room with you, I would sure as hell come up with a better plan than shagging you to death!"

Voldemort's eyes narrowed and he opened his mouth to argue, but Harry didn't give him the chance.

"Stop it—stop lashing out! You know I'm not lying to you!" Harry boldly lifted a hand to rest against Voldemort's cheek, stroking his thumb across a sharp cheekbone in what he hoped was a soothing way.

Voldemort blinked, then looked into Harry's eyes and through them.

"There is no audience here to fool, Potter," he said.

"I know," Harry said, not removing his hand and not looking away.

Voldemort stared directly into Harry's eyes for a moment longer before calming, the paranoid gleam leaving his eyes.

"You should know, Harry, that although being my Horcrux gives you certain liberties, I will not tolerate treachery."

"You're talking as if I'm suddenly on your side now."

"You are mine. My Horcrux." One of Voldemort's hands found its way to the back of Harry's neck.

"I'm also me. And the 'Chosen One', remember? That's not going to change."

"Chosen because I chose you," Voldemort mused, his intent gaze never leaving Harry's face.

Harry swallowed. "Yeah—well," he stammered, growing uncomfortable under Voldemort's attention.

It was one thing when they were faking it for whoever was behind that mirror, but here, in the privacy of this mindscape, when their interactions were real, it was almost too much to be under that touch and that stare.

Harry let his hand slide down Voldemort's cheek to his shoulder instead, and nervously cast about for a change of subject. "Er—what were you saying earlier, about solidifying enchantments, or…?"

Voldemort either didn't get the hint or deliberately ignored it—instead of removing his hand, he began massaging the back of Harry's neck as he replied, "Horcruxes require a final, simple ritual to solidify the bond between the soul fragment and its container—yours was never finalized, which explains why your scar causes you pain."

"Could you fix that?" Harry asked, without really thinking. Then he caught himself. "Er—wait—what does the ritual involve? I won't agree to human sacrifices or any such rubbish."

Voldemort's eyes softened a bit in amusement. "None of that. It's not a spell per se, but there's an incantation to focus the soul's energy. It merely requires physical contact and a strong intimate attachment between the original soul and the object; the stronger the attachment, the stronger the Horcrux…why do you think I went to such lengths to find objects from the Founders?"

Harry risked a glance back up at Voldemort's eyes. Dumbledore had attributed the choice of Founders' relics to Voldemort's massive ego and sense of superiority—and perhaps that was part of it, but…

"Because Hogwarts was home," Harry answered without hesitation—it was true for him too, after all.

"Precisely."

Voldemort's hand snaked up to Harry's cheek now, his thumb moving slowly across Harry's lower lip.

"Er—when you say intimate attachment…?"

The last thing Harry wanted to think about was Voldemort doing naughty things to Nagini and a handful of inanimate objects.

Voldemort seemed to read Harry's thoughts, and narrowed his eyes a bit at the implication.

"Emotional intimacy—although, the act we are already sworn to should help solidify the bond as well."

"Right," Harry said nervously. "Speaking of that—shouldn't we be getting back?"

Voldemort made a wordless noise of agreement and brought his face closer to Harry's. He caught Harry's eyes and looked for a moment like he was about to ask something, but decided against it.

"Let us return, then," he said, touching his forehead to Harry's and pulling them back into reality.

Harry jolted back into awareness with a gasp as Voldemort rolled both of them over, so he was on top now, and captured Harry's lips. Harry gave into the sensations and kissed back eagerly as his scar thrummed with pleasure at the contact.

It was so much easier here, when Harry had the excuse of being forced into this, and of 'performing' for whoever was behind that mirror—he didn't have to think about the fact that he was enjoying snogging Voldemort way more than he should be, or wonder how many different ways the world would crucify him if they knew about any of this.

Then a horrible, bone-chilling mood-killing thought occurred to him, and he froze. Voldemort kept kissing him but Harry ignored it.

If anyone knew about this…if anyone saw… Perhaps Harry had trusted Voldemort much too quickly—while improbable, it was entirely possible that Voldemort could've put that collar on himself and made up everything else. Maybe he was recording all of this somehow to destroy Harry's image and credibility? Harry could see the headline now: The-Boy-Who-Lived-To-Be-The-Dark-Lord's-Fuck-Toy-And-LIKED-It.

"Harry?" Voldemort paused after a few seconds of unresponsiveness, and pulled back slightly, trying to catch his eye.

Harry avoided his eyes but didn't let go of his train of thought. He wanted to be sure before he threw any accusations around—if he was right, then there would likely be a fight, and if he was wrong then he would look really stupid.

Would Voldemort really put himself through being shocked and ordered around by a mirror, just to trick Harry into this? Somehow, Harry doubted it—Voldemort was too much of a narcissist to humiliate himself just to gain an enemy's trust. And, even more obviously, wouldn't he have stopped the charade after realizing Harry was a Horcrux?

"Harry."

Harry finally met his eyes.

"Is there a problem?" Voldemort asked coolly, probably perfectly aware of what was bothering Harry, thanks to their connection.

"Yeah," Harry said. Voldemort's eyes narrowed in annoyance, but Harry continued, "You're wearing too many clothes."

Voldemort blinked, then relaxed and replied, "As are you. Perhaps we should rectify that." One long-fingered hand trailed down Harry's bare chest and started unfastening his trousers. "And for the record, I also would have come up with a better plan than 'shagging you to death'."

"Good to know," Harry mumbled, embarrassed by his momentary foolishness. But he couldn't honestly be expected to instantly undo years' worth of seeing Voldemort as the enemy and start trusting him instead after a little bit of snogging

Harry propped himself up on his elbows, shrugging one arm at a time out of his undone robes and his unbuttoned shirt, leaving them trapped where they were underneath him on the bed. Voldemort tugged at Harry's trousers, and Harry lifted his hips to make it easier to pull them off.

"Er, your turn?" Harry said, feeling self-conscious in only his underwear and a magic-restricting collar under a fully robed Lord Voldemort.

"Of course." Voldemort sat back and efficiently removed his robes, then the form fitting black shirt he wore underneath, then he briefly shifted off of Harry and stood beside the bed long enough to remove his trousers. Harry stared at the expanse of pale skin on display, surprised by the difference between the Voldemort in front of him and the emaciated, skeletal nightmare that had emerged from the cauldron in fourth year.

"You're, er, fit," Harry babbled, then immediately blushed and wanted to smack himself.

Voldemort smirked, climbing back on the bed over Harry. "You're hardly an eyesore yourself."

Something over Harry's shoulder caught Voldemort's eye, and he reached past Harry to retrieve a vial of lube, half-concealed beneath their pillows.

"Shall we?" Voldemort asked, his tone nonchalant but his eyes locked intently on Harry's and seemingly much more concerned with his answer than earlier.

Harry gulped, but gathered up his Gryffindor courage and forced himself to nod. Voldemort slipped his fingers underneath the waistband of Harry's boxers and had just begun to lower them, when another searing pain shot through Harry's scar, and Voldemort froze and hissed.

"What—?" Harry asked, but Voldemort swooped down over him and pressed their foreheads together again, pulling them into the mindscape for a third time. Harry had a split second to notice that they were both fully dressed in comfortable robes here, and in the empty, slightly hazy Great Hall again.

"Fucking FUCK!" Voldemort shouted, furiously pacing in front of the house tables, while Harry leaned against one of them and tried to stay out of his way. Harry also failed to hold back a shocked giggle at hearing such an outburst from the Dark Lord. At the noise, Voldemort's eyes riveted to Harry, whose amusement instantly fell away at the murderous look Voldemort threw him.

"What is it?" Harry asked, cautiously.

"They moved them again!"

"Moved them where?"

"I don't know—the Horcruxes don't even know! They're not in the cup any longer. They're, they're sluggish, not responding to me." Voldemort stopped pacing and strode right up to Harry, his eyes full of barely-restrained fury and panic. "We have to get out of here. Now. Before they destroy the Horcruxes or somehow hide them away."

Voldemort put his hands on Harry's shoulders, and despite his mouth suddenly going dry, Harry nodded and managed to say, "Okay. Okay—just…" he trailed off, looking awkwardly at the floor. One of Voldemort's long fingers gently traced up Harry's neck to his chin, tipping his face back up and forcing eye contact.

"Harry?"

"I've never done this before—I mean, I've had sex, but only with girls so far. I'm bi, but I've never had anyone, er, inside of me," Harry trailed off for a moment, his face flaming with embarrassment at having to tell his (former?) moral enemy these things. He looked down at the floor only to have Voldemort tilt his chin up again. "So just, er, be gentle? Please?" Harry closed his eyes then, unable to bear the eye contact anymore.

After what felt like an interminable moment, Voldemort whispered, "Harry," and waited for Harry's eyes to open, for green to meet red before continuing. "I told you, you're under my protection now. I won't hurt you."

Harry dared to relax, dared to trust, and when Voldemort leaned in to press his forehead to Harry's to return them to reality, Harry dared to press forward that extra inch and steal a real kiss from the Dark Lord. Voldemort paused, leaving them in the mindscape where there was no one to perform for and no need to lie, and then he kissed back. He deepened the tentative kiss Harry had started, sliding his tongue into Harry's mouth and his long fingers into Harry's messy hair. "Harry," he whispered, nearly slipping into Parseltongue, before collecting himself and pulling both of them back into reality.

Harry opened his eyes, disoriented for a few seconds. Voldemort was staring at him with an intensity that he couldn't quite decipher. Had he gone too far? What the hell was he thinking, just kissing the Dark Lord like that, when they didn't have to, when it was just them and no one forcing it? But…but Voldemort had kissed him back and whispered his name like it meant something, and Harry felt a little bit of warmth where before there had only been panic.

He caught Voldemort's eye and said, "I'm ready."

Voldemort nodded, leaning down to kiss Harry again while he unceremoniously pulled down Harry's underwear and then removed his own. Their cocks brushed together and they both hissed, breaking the kiss as Harry's scar buzzed with pleasure. Harry glanced down between them, feeling a bit unreal. That was Voldemort's hard cock touching Harry's own. He was going to have sex with Voldemort. Holy fuck.

Voldemort's hand reached between them, slick with the lube he must've opened while Harry was distracted. His long fingers wrapped around both of their erections and stroked them together. Harry's eyes fluttered shut in pleasure, and Voldemort caught his lips with his own.

After a moment, Voldemort pulled away slightly and glanced over his shoulder at the infernal mirror.

"Mirror?" He called, not waiting for a response before continuing. "Repeat the stipulations for our safe release and the return of our magic and my possessions, if you would be so kind."

Harry blinked, missing the wet warmth of Voldemort's lips on his, and not liking the sudden pause. Boldly, he reached down and wrapped his hand around Voldemort's which was still wrapped around both their cocks. He squeezed slightly, but Voldemort gave him a look that clearly said to wait.

The mirror deigned to respond after a moment. "LORD VOLDEMORT WILL HAVE PENETRATIVE SEX WITH HARRY POTTER WITHIN 24 HOURS OF HIS ARRIVAL, WITH OR WITHOUT HIS CONSENT, AND BOTH MUST ACHIEVE ORGASM."

Harry's face went red, mostly from being subjected to such clinical sex terminology being boomed at him from a psychotic mirror.

"Acknowledged," Voldemort said in a bored voice, before the mirror had a chance to get cranky. "Any other stipulations? Any fine print? Does the position matter, or duration? Do we have to come at the same time?"

There was a pause. "NO."

"Stop talking to it," Harry muttered, embarrassed.

Voldemort leaned back down, reaching past Harry for the vial of lube again, pouring more in his hand before stroking their cocks together again. He shifted his weight to his knees, used his clean hand to guide one of Harry's down to take over the stroking, then removed his slicked-up hand from between them, leaning down to kiss Harry before he could ask any questions. He leaned on one forearm, which rested on the mattress near Harry's head, dry fingers carding through dark hair while Harry stroked the two of them with increasing confidence. Voldemort's tongue was incredibly distracting, so it took a minute for Harry to pause and ask, "What are you d—?"

Voldemort interrupted, sitting back a bit and again calling, "Mirror? Just to be absolutely clear, position doesn't matter?"

A pause. "IT DOES NOT."

Harry gave Voldemort a questioning look, but Voldemort didn't answer in any way, just kept staring at him with that intense look for another moment before addressing the mirror again.

"So then it doesn't matter which of us does the penetrating, correct?"

Harry blinked.

"THAT IS CORRECT."

"Well then," Voldemort said, and shifted just enough that Harry could see past his shoulder to where his slicked-up hand was moving behind him, and had apparently been working his own arse open for the past few minutes.

"Holy fuck," Harry breathed.

Voldemort grinned, and Harry could only imagine what his own expression must've looked like because he had never even considered this way as a possibility. This was the Dark Lord Voldemort, for fuck's sake, and he was going to let Harry—Harry cut off a moan and squeezed the base of his cock to stop himself from coming just at the thought of it.

Voldemort shifted, moving out from between Harry's legs to straddle him instead, while Harry just laid there and watched, still half in shock. Voldemort reached down, nudging Harry's hand away and wrapping his own hand around Harry's cock instead. He leaned down, lips next to Harry's ear, and whispered in Parseltongue, "If I'm ever inside you in that way, Harry, it will be because you want me there, not because some faceless coward demands it."

"Voldemort," Harry whispered, but words failed him and he tilted his head to steal a kiss that, despite the audience, felt more real than any before it. Voldemort deepened the kiss, adjusted his grip on Harry's cock, and then finally, slowly, pressed back and started to sink down onto it.

Harry moaned against the Dark Lord's lips, overwhelmed by the tight slick warmth that was engulfing him inch by inch until he was fully inside. Voldemort stilled, seated on Harry's hips, with his Horcrux's cock buried inside him as deep as it could go. Harry's hands wandered, smoothing over Voldemort's thighs, his sides, grasping, gently urging him to move. "A moment, Harry," Voldemort said, a bit breathless. He caught Harry's hands, stilling them and breaking their kiss, then resting his forehead against Harry's—directly against his scar.

Voldemort pulled them into the mindscape, but this time they were positioned as they were in reality—Harry beneath Voldemort, inside of him—and they were not in the Great Hall, but rather on a dark green bed in what looked like a Slytherin dorm room. And there was one other very visible difference that became obvious when Voldemort leaned slightly back.

"Oh," Harry said, surprised. "Er, Voldemort?" he asked, uncertainly.

Red eyes narrowed at him, and Voldemort said, "Don't you dare forget who I am while you're inside me, brat." He grasped Harry's hair a bit rougher than he had before, but then paused when he caught sight of his own hand. "Oh…"

"Yeah oh," Harry said. "You look like Tom Riddle right now." An older, maybe 30 or 40 year old Tom Riddle rather than the one Harry met in the diary, and still with Voldemort's red eyes, but unmistakably Tom Riddle.

Voldemort hissed slightly at the name that he hated, but his grip on Harry's hair loosened and he started to stroke it almost absentmindedly while staring off somewhere to the left. "Earlier, the Horcruxes felt like they were drifting," he murmured, still stroking Harry's hair. Voldemort closed his eyes, and Harry took the opportunity to run his eyes over Tom Riddle's naked, amazing body. Harry's hands wandered, smoothing up Voldemort's thighs before daring to grasp his cock and give it a firm stroke. Voldemort's eyes snapped open and he said, "Stop that." Harry blushed and jerked his hand away as if burned, but Voldemort gave him a look and clarified, "I meant stop for now. I'm trying to contact the others. You're…incredibly distracting."

"Sorry," Harry muttered, keeping his hands away from Voldemort and fighting the urge to thrust up into the tight welcoming heat of him. Keeping still for this long was absolute torture.

Voldemort's brow furrowed, and after another moment he shook his head with a rueful, bitter smile and opened his eyes.

"Find them?" Harry asked.

"You're looking at them," Voldemort snapped. "They've returned to me."

Harry's eyebrows shot up. "And you didn't, you know, feel them come back? When it happened?"

"I've been very, very distracted, Harry. Perhaps you've noticed." Voldemort punctuated that with an ungodly roll of his hips that had Harry gasping his name again. "Besides, such a thing shouldn't be possible."

"Then how?"

"I'll figure it out later. Right now we need to anchor the Horcrux in you properly, and finalize the bond."

"Don't we need our magic back to do that?" Harry asked.

"Not for this part. This part is down to…connection. Intimacy. It's all done within and between the souls. The protective enchantments will have to wait though."

"This feels—oh god—pretty intimate," Harry said, gasping as Voldemort idly rolled his hips again, lifting up slightly before sinking back down on Harry's cock. "Don't you already feel connected to me though? Isn't that why you chose me that night, when there was another baby who fit the prophecy? Because I reminded you of yourself? That's what Dumbledore thought."

"Ugh, Potter—I'll thank you not to mention that name while you're fucking me."

"Sorry," Harry said, but he was holding back a laugh that turned into a choked-off moan when Voldemort clenched around his cock before rolling his hips again.

"And I don't think discussing the night I tried to murder you is going to help here."

"Fine," Harry said, "then…just, tell me something real. Tell me why you've been so patient with me…why you decided to do this," Harry thrust up a bit to make it clear what he meant, "with me inside you instead of the other way around."

Voldemort just looked at him for a moment before answering, "Because the idea of forcing you—of being forced to force you—was completely disgusting and infuriating."

Harry paused. "Yeah, I er, got that impression. My scar was on fire every time you mentioned it… and technically we're still both being forced into this no matter who goes where, but… you'd said you would if you had to," Harry added, quieter and unsure whether he should bring it up.

"I refuse to bow to death." he said quietly. "And even with the Horcruxes, if this body died and I had to spend more years as a formless spirit before I could return—every day of that was agony. There aren't many things I wouldn't do to avoid that fate." There was a long silence, as Voldemort stroked Harry's hair and searched for his next words. "But I…I don't think I would've been able to follow through with it, physically—the idea of rape sickens me. But people will believe any threat that comes from a monster," Voldemort said quietly.

"I don't see you as a monster. I haven't for a while now, actually. Dum--I mean, that person I'm not supposed to mention," Harry said, smiling a little and internally cheering when Voldemort huffs a small laugh in return, "he showed me some memories, about you, when you were younger. I think he regretted it, because it made me see you as a person, made me sympathize with you, and he could tell."

"What memories?"

"A few of you growing up at the orphanage. When you found out about Hogwarts. A few from school. Some about your parents. A few about trying to make Horcruxes."

"And what was his point in doing this?"

Harry shrugged as well as he could while laying down and having a Dark Lord lazily riding his cock as they talked. "Know your enemy, I guess? And he was trying to confirm how many Horcruxes you made, and what they are."

Voldemort glanced down and caught Harry's eye. "Six—intentional ones, anyway. My diary, Slytherin's Locket, the Gaunt family ring, Ravenclaw's Diadem, Hufflepuff's Cup, and Nagini."

"Oh," Harry said, blindsided that Voldemort just casually told him. "So you didn't get ahold of anything from Gryffindor?" he said, meaning it as a joke.

"I did, eventually," Voldemort said pointedly, smirking at him. He leaned down and pressed a kiss to Harry's lips.

"Right," Harry said into the kiss. "You know, the hat wanted to put me in Slytherin."

Voldemort pulled back and just looked at him. "Of course it did," he said after a moment, with a faint fond smile.

Harry smiled back, then said, "Um, we've been in here longer than usual. I know you said time passes slower, but, is this okay?"

"Out there I'm adjusting to your cock up my arse, Harry, it's fine if we seem to be sitting still longer than usual."

"Right," Harry said, blushing even as he feels himself get a tiny bit harder at the words. "So, er, are we bonded yet? The Horcrux, I mean."

"There's an incantation to do. But the most important part is that the Horcrux feel like an anchor for the main soul. Something that's part of me—something I can't help returning to."

"And do I feel that way to you?"

Voldemort gave him another long look, then leaned down and pressed his forehead to Harry's scar again. This time they didn't leave the mindscape—this time, Voldemort started murmuring the incantation, something long and melodious that Harry didn't even try to pay attention to. He let the sound of Voldemort's voice wash over him and closed his eyes, embracing their closeness—physically and mentally they were as close as two people could possibly be right now. Harry's scar jolted with a sudden burst of pleasure that seemed to vibrate and extend out through his entire body and into Voldemort as well before dissipating and leaving them both a little breathless.

"Was—was that?" Harry asked, involuntarily thrusting up into Voldemort, his cock harder than ever after that display.

"Yes," Voldemort hissed, capturing Harry's lips in another desperate kiss, "it worked. You'll still feel what I feel, but the scar won't hurt you anymore."

Voldemort clenched around Harry's length, then slowly raised himself up before dropping back down onto Harry's cock. Harry's hands flew up to clutch at Voldemort's hips as he moaned, "Oh my god yes please do that forever," in one breathy jumble.

Voldemort smiled against Harry's lips. "We should return now."

"Do we have to? I hate that pervy mirror."

"I'm going to take great pleasure in destroying it and whoever is behind all of this. I'll even let you help."

"Oh I definitely want in on that," Harry agreed, and Voldemort kissed him again, before pausing and pulling back.

"I'm not going to look like this out there," Voldemort warned, Tom Riddle's features wearing a cautious expression.

"Hmm? Oh, yeah, I'm fine with both, er, either," Harry babbled.

"Both," Voldemort mused, "now there's an idea."

Before Harry could even ask, Voldemort pulled them out of the mindscape and back into reality, where his pale and serpentine form nuzzled his face against Harry's while scratching his nails lightly down Harry's chest. He planted his hands on Harry's shoulders, using that as leverage to lift up and slowly start riding Harry's cock. He leaned back down, hips still rising and falling, and gave Harry a filthy kiss while pulling them back into the mindscape. Voldemort leaned back again, and now he was wearing Tom Riddle's face while riding Harry, his perfect hair in disarray and his kiss-swollen lips smirking down at his Horcrux.

"Oh," Harry said, awestruck. "Yes." He reached for Tom Riddle's cock, and this time instead of pushing him away, Voldemort bucked forward into Harry's grip, the mindscape shuddering around them. Harry blinked and they were back in the real world. Now, Harry reached for Voldemort's thick, bluish-white cock and the Dark Lord thrust into his grip again, repeating themselves like a mirror, like déjà vu. "What happened?" Harry whispered.

"My concentration's a bit…divided at the moment," Voldemort admitted, riding Harry's cock a bit faster now while Harry kept a slow, almost lazy rhythm of stroking Voldemort's. "If my magic weren't bound," he muttered, expression shifting from bliss to annoyance.

"It's fine," Harry interrupted, cutting him off before he could work himself into another strop. "Here's fine. Stay with me."

Voldemort caught his eye, nodded, then leaned back down to kiss him, clenching around Harry's dick as he did.

"Fuck," Harry muttered against Voldemort's mouth, "I'm so close."

Voldemort smirked against Harry's lips, and said, "Then come for me, Harry," while raising his hips until Harry's cock nearly popped out before sinking back down hard and fast, then doing it again. "Come, my Horcrux," he whispered, switching to Parseltongue at the end.

Harry moaned, thrusting up to meet Voldemort's undulations, but it wasn't enough—he needed to move, needed to do more than just lay here. "Vold—oh fuck," Harry breathed, as a particularly well-timed roll of the hips almost sent him over. "I need," he abandoned his grip on Voldemort's cock to place both hands on the Dark Lord's pale hips. Harry tried to roll them both over but had no leverage in this position. "Roll us over, please, I need to—" he trailed off, unsure how to explain exactly what he needed.

Voldemort caught his eye and paused a moment, giving him another of those intense, searching looks. Then, carefully, without letting Harry slip out of him, Voldemort rolled them over so he was on his back with Harry above him, Voldemort's legs spread with Harry between them, his knees pulled up and bracketing Harry's sides. Their eyes never left each other's, faces close and breathing each other's air.

"Go on," Voldemort said, after a still, silent moment where the two of them simply adjusted to the change, "but do try to control yourself… I've never exactly been on this side of things either," he admitted.

Harry blinked. "Really?" He pulled back slowly, carefully easing out halfway before gently sliding back in.

Voldemort held in a moan, turning it into a scoff instead. "Who do you imagine I would have allowed this privilege? Or did you think I had regular orgies with the Death Eaters?"

"Gross," Harry said, but it was half-hearted. He was stuck on the fact that he was the first one to ever be inside Voldemort in such a way—probably the only one who ever would.

He pulled out most of the way then slid back in, a little faster this time. "This okay?"

Voldemort nodded, but said, "Shift the angle—yessss, there," he sighed, eyes drifting closed as Harry managed to hit his prostate.

Harry made a mental note of the angle and made sure to hit it every time he thrust back in, speeding up as he raced towards completion. He pressed himself closer to Voldemort, their chests heaving against each other, lips catching in uncoordinated, sloppy kisses.

"Come on," Voldemort hissed, his hands on Harry's hips urging him on. "Come inside me, Harry, make me take it, make me yours."

"Fuck," Harry choked out, because somehow that was exactly what he needed—why he'd needed to be on top. Somewhere in his mind—despite the new understanding between the two of them—some part of him still framed this as another struggle with Voldemort, and he couldn't surrender, couldn't let himself go, couldn't give in to this man unless he had the upper hand, so to speak. And he realized, even through the haze of approaching orgasm, that Voldemort probably felt the same, but had given Harry what he needed anyway.

His thrusts became harder, more erratic as his hips lost the rhythm. Voldemort's hands slid around to Harry's arse, clutching him, urging him on. Harry thrust in one, two, three more times before pressing in as far as he could go and spilling inside Voldemort, hissing "Mine," against the Dark Lord's lips.

Everything dissolved into a moment of bliss as Harry came. When he recovered he was still buried inside of Voldemort, their foreheads pressed together and Voldemort's hands stroking up and down Harry's sides as they both caught their breath. Harry shifted and pulled back far enough to meet Voldemort's eyes.

"Hi," Harry said, stupidly, then grinned.

Voldemort huffed a quiet laugh. "I thought for a moment that I actually had shagged you to death."

"Sorry to disappoint," Harry said, and when he shifted his weight and started to pull out, something brushed against his stomach and he glanced down. Voldemort was still hard. "Oh…you didn't?"

"There's still time," Voldemort murmured, taking one of Harry's hands and guiding it to his cock, then pulling him down for a kiss as Harry's cock slipped out of him.

Harry stroked him, a bit embarrassed that he had come before making sure Voldemort did. Voldemort, who had—surprisingly selflessly—volunteered to bottom so that Harry's first experience with it wouldn't be tarnished by being forced into it—never mind that it had also been Voldemort's first experience with it. Voldemort, with whom he shared a soul, and a mindscape, and a lot more in common than he had realized. Voldemort, who had promised to protect him from now on, who was looking at him right now like Harry was everything.

"Harder," Voldemort murmured against his lips, wrapping his own hand around Harry's to force his grip tighter.

"Actually, wait," Harry said. "I want—" he paused, as the sudden realization hit him with the force of a Bludger. He gasped in a breath, and said, "I want you inside me."

Voldemort's breath caught, and he stilled. "Harry," he whispered, pulling him closer and then into the Slytherin bedroom mindscape, and then abruptly pulling back.

"I mean it," Harry said to the severe look Voldemort (who once again looked like Tom Riddle within the mindscape) was giving him.

"Did you miss the part where I bottomed so that your first experience with it wouldn't be under duress?"

"No, I got that," Harry said, smiling. "Thank you. It was very selfless of you—almost Gryffindor-ish, actually."

Voldemort rolled his eyes, but said, "Well, the Sorting Hat did consider it before deciding I was inevitably Slytherin."

"No way," Harry said, his jaw dropping. "You're just fucking with me, right?"

"Not at the moment," Voldemort said, smirking.

"You were almost a Gryffindor? You? The bloody Dark Lord?"

"Hardly. I said the hat considered it. Very briefly. Forget I mentioned it."

"I mean I guess you are pretty bold, and reckless, and protective of what you consider yours," Harry mused.

"I said stop," Voldemort said, tilting Harry's chin up with a long finger and making him meet his eyes.

Harry leaned in and kissed him. For a moment, they both simply fell into it, enjoying the closeness, the feel of one another, the connection between them that had expanded beyond anything they'd ever thought it could be. Harry ran both hands through Tom Riddle's soft, dark hair, enjoying the novelty of Voldemort having hair for a moment. Eventually, Harry broke the kiss.

"I mean it," Harry said, looking directly into Voldemort's eyes. "I want you inside me. I want you to have me that way. This is—I don't know what's going to happen, after… Even if whoever has us keeps their word and returns our magic and lets us go, who's to say they don't have something worse planned?" Harry pauses for a moment, his hands still in Riddle's hair, carding gently through it. "But I want to enjoy what we can right now, while we have the chance."

Voldemort looked at him for a long moment, then said, "If you're sure."

"I'm sure," Harry answered immediately. "So come on then," he said, smiling down at Voldemort, "make me take it," he whispered, throwing Voldemort's words back at him, "make me yours."

Voldemort surged forward to kiss him, launching them back out of the mindscape. "You're already mine," Voldemort nearly growled in between kisses.

"Prove it," Harry breathed, and then Voldemort was on him.

He flipped them back over so Harry was underneath him, and then moved down his body in a flurry of kisses and caresses that left Harry breathless and with the beginnings of another erection already. Voldemort trailed kisses down Harry's chest, his abdomen, edging closer to his cock before taking it into his mouth all at once and sucking hard. Harry nearly choked on a moan, glancing down to watch Voldemort's head bobbing as he swallowed Harry's cock, and just like that he was hard again.

After a few glorious moments, Voldemort pulled off of Harry's cock and nudged his legs apart, pushing his knees up towards his chest. Harry blushed but watched eagerly as Voldemort glanced up briefly to meet Harry's eyes before plunging down and—holy fuck—pressing his hot tongue against and then into Harry's hole. Harry's entire body spasmed in pleasure, but unfortunately it made him flinch away from that delicious wet pressure.

Voldemort caught his eye again, one hand pressing down on Harry's hip to help keep him still. "Is this okay?"

"Yes, fuck yes," Harry gasped. "You just surprised me."

Voldemort hummed and then dove back in, licking past Harry's rim, stretching him and getting him wet. Harry couldn't hold back a loud, shameless moan. He knew that they were probably being watched by their captors through that damned mirror, which is why he'd at least tried to keep his composure before, but there was no helping it now.

"God, yes," Harry breathed, "more."

Voldemort pulled away and Harry actually whined, but Voldemort was back soon enough, this time with the vial of lube, carefully slicking up two of those long white fingers. He leaned down and pressed his tongue back into Harry's hole, giving him one more lingering lick before pulling away and easing in a slick finger instead.

Harry bit his lip and tried not to tense up. It didn't hurt, but it felt weird having a finger swirling around in there, prodding deep inside him. At least, it felt weird until Voldemort found his prostate, and then it just felt fucking amazing. "Oh fuck, right there," Harry babbled, jolting up into Voldemort's touch.

"Patience, Harry," Voldemort murmured, brushing a teasing kiss against the head of Harry's cock.

"Don't tease, that's evil," Harry said. Voldemort smirked and traced his tongue feather-light over the slit in Harry's cock. "Evil," Harry repeated, but it came out as a moan.

Voldemort shrugged. "Dark Lord," he said, but this time when he leaned down, he took half of Harry's cock into his mouth at the same time that he eased a second finger into Harry's tight hole.

"Oh fuck ohfuckohfuck," Harry babbled, nearly overwhelmed by all the sensations—the warm suction over his cock, the prod of one finger against his prostate while a second gently stretched his rim and sunk inside, scissoring alongside the first. As Harry relaxed into it, Voldemort pulled off of his cock, licking his lips and glancing up at Harry.

"That's it," he encouraged, voice gone a little rough but still silky and enticing, "let me in, Harry." He slid his fingers in and out of Harry, who was relaxed and open for it now, who wanted more.

As if reading Harry's thoughts, Voldemort added a third finger, his face ducking down to nuzzle against Harry's cock.

"Please," Harry breathed, hips jerking as Voldemort's fingers prodded his prostate again.

"Please what?" Voldemort said, sitting up and leaning over Harry to kiss him, his fingers still working Harry open.

"Take me," he said, grabbing Voldemort's face and pulling him down into a deep, filthy kiss. "I'm ready. I want you inside me. Show me I'm yours."

Voldemort moaned into their kiss, and Harry felt his fingers retreat. He had two seconds to hate the feeling of emptiness left behind, and then something bigger and hotter was pressing against his hole.

"Mine, Harry," Voldemort murmured against his lips, pressing forward until that tight ring of muscle relaxed and let him through. He slid inside, slowly, gently, claiming his Horcrux—this amazing boy, his only equal—claiming his body as well as his soul. "Always mine," he whispered, pausing once he was fully inside Harry's body.

"Yours," Harry hissed back, adjusting to the fullness, blinking back tears not from pain but from the raw intensity of the moment. This didn't feel like just sex—this felt like the whole world was shifting off its axis into something new and beautiful and terrifying.

Voldemort pressed a gentle kiss to his lips, then pulled them back into the Slytherin dorm room mindscape.

Tom Riddle's face looked positively beautiful with flushed cheeks and hair in disarray, muscles tense as he forced himself to stay still for Harry to adjust. "Harry," he murmured.

"I'm not going to last long," Harry admitted. "This is—it's amazing. It's too much."

"I know," Voldemort said, easing out just slightly before gently pushing back in. "Neither will I. That's why we need to talk now. We need a plan."

Harry huffed out a laugh, then moaned when Voldemort gave him another slow, careful thrust. "The plan," Harry said, "is we finish this, we get our magic back, and we fight our way out."

"That's what you call a plan?" Voldemort said, raising Tom Riddle's aristocratic eyebrow into a look of disdain mixed with concern. "How are you still alive?"

"Probably because of your Horcrux," Harry said, knowing it to be true even though the thought had only just occurred to him. "What's your plan, then?"

"How skilled are you at wandless magic?"

Harry shifted, feeling self-conscious. "I mean, nowhere near as good as you, but I can manage a few spells."

"No one's as good as me," Voldemort said, waving it off.

Harry snorted. "Or as humble."

Voldemort ignored that. "We need to plan for if these collars come off right away, or if they don't and someone approaches us, or if no one approaches us and we're left alone with the mirror, or—"

"What if we can get the collars on whoever brought us here?"

"Yes, good. If someone approaches us when the collars are off, I'll subdue them wandlessly, and you put the collars on them."

"What if there are more than two people and they all have wands?"

Voldemort's eyes narrow. "Don't underestimate me, Harry." He punctuates it with a sharp thrust, less gentle than before.

"Fuck, I'm not. Take it easy," Harry snapped.

Voldemort's expression softened, and he smoothed a hand down Harry's face in apology, tracing over his scar. He carefully pulled out almost all the way, then slowly pressed back in, making sure to hit Harry's prostate.

Harry tilted his head and caught Voldemort's lips with his own, slowly getting used to the cock moving in and out of him. "I'm just saying," Harry said, minding his tone, "there are too many variables to plan ahead. We just need to be ready to react to whatever they throw at us. Just, go with it."

Voldemort didn't look happy with the plan to not make a plan, but he didn't argue. "I suppose we should get on with it then." He gave Harry a long, searching look. "We probably won't have time to safely come back to the mindscape once we finish and the shit hits the fan, so to speak," he said, with a hint of a smirk. The novelty of Voldemort using such a Muggle expression startled a laugh out of Harry. "So," Voldemort continued, "if there's anything you need to ask, or to tell me," he trailed off, his expression sobering as he stilled to let Harry concentrate.

Harry met his eyes, and was quiet for a moment. "I want to say thank you, for—for treating me kindly. For not forcing me into anything…And, I guess, I know if we both make it out of this, it's not going to miraculously fix everything—the war, our politics—we still have a lot of shit to work out. I'm not going to join the Death Eaters and I'm not okay with you and your followers terrorizing everyone. But I'm also not sure I can trust the Order anymore…Dumbledore had to know, he had to have figured out that I'm a Horcrux, but he still had me hunting them—I would've had to die too, to defeat you. Could he really have—all this time—been planning to sacrifice me?" Harry's voice broke and he finally paused for a breath.

"Harry," Voldemort said, tracing his hand along Harry's jaw.

"Did he really not care about me at all?"

"Dumbledore," Voldemort said, Tom Riddle's lips twisting into distaste as he said the name, "had a long history of manipulating students into doing his dirty work for him. Especially in regards to fighting Dark Lords."

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, thinking that maybe his parents had been manipulated and sent into the crossfire as well.

"When I was still at Hogwarts, he tried to get me of all people to challenge Grindelwald because he couldn't bear to fight his former lover."

Harry choked. "Former lover?"

"Oh yes. It explained a lot about how he treated me, once I found out… I reminded him of Grindelwald—my power, my personality, my attitude towards Muggles. He saw the similarities and wrote me off the day he met me…and then he had the gall to try to manipulate me into fighting his battles."

Harry just shook his head—that was too much to process on top of everything else. He mentally backtracked to the start of the conversation, and said, "Well…So, er, was there anything you wanted to ask me, or tell me while we're here?"

Voldemort's expression softened a little, and he said, "I suppose I should thank you for taking care of my Horcrux, even though you didn't know you had it. For working with me in this instead of fighting me. For…showing me affection and understanding—I'm not sure you realize how rare that is for me, Harry." He brushed a lock of hair out of Harry's face and leaned down to kiss him, before continuing. "I know this experience won't miraculously fix everything," he says, using Harry's phrase back at him, "but you are mine now, Harry Potter, and I protect what is mine."

Harry's eyes teared up at the unexpected outpouring of devotion from someone who had wanted to kill him less than 24 hours ago. "We can sort it all out, find a way to make it work. We will," Harry insisted, feeling like—even though this was crazy, this was his parents' murderer for fuck's sake—this was what he'd always wanted, deep down. A true, intense connection. To be protected, cared for. To belong.

"We will," Voldemort agreed, leaning down to kiss Harry again, deep and full of meaning and sending Harry's scar into a frenzy of buzzing pleasure. "When we go back out there, you'll need to come first—since you already did once, as soon as I come we'll have fulfilled the requirements, and we need to be ready for whatever happens," he said, stroking Harry's erection, which had flagged when the discussion got upsetting. Voldemort coaxed him back to full hardness, then asked, "Are you ready?"

"Ready," Harry whispered back. He closed his eyes, and Voldemort sent them out of the mindscape, back into reality.

Harry's eyes flicked up to Voldemort's for a moment, and then they were kissing again. Voldemort shifted, pulling halfway out before easing back into Harry's tight heat. Harry swallowed a moan around Voldemort's tongue, clenching around the exquisite hardness that was filling him up. "All right?" Voldemort murmured.

"Perfect," Harry gasped. "Come on, more," he said, hands reaching for Voldemort's hips and urging him to move. Voldemort obliged, pulling out almost all the way before sliding back in, harder and faster than before. "Fuck, yes, like that," Harry moaned, wrapping his legs around Voldemort and shifting his hips to meet the thrust.

Voldemort picked up the pace and hit Harry's prostate with every thrust, breathless gasps of "Yesss, Harry," falling from his lips.

It didn't take long at all for Harry to reach for his own cock and murmur, "I'm close."

Voldemort nudged Harry's hand away and replaced it with his own. "Go on," he said, stroking Harry in time with his thrusts, "Come for me, Harry."

Harry bit his lip, trying and failing to hold back a moan as he came, spilling between them and splashing both of their stomachs with his release.

Voldemort slowed his pace, waiting until Harry recovered from the post-orgasmic bliss that Voldemort could feel echoed back at him through their bond. "Back with us?" he asked, teasing a bit.

Harry grinned. "Shut up, you're brilliant at this," he said, then blushed. "Are you, er, close?"

Voldemort nodded solemnly. "Are you ready?"

Harry's expression shifted into something more serious, more suited for preparing for battle—which, for all they knew, they could be. "Whenever you are."

Voldemort nodded again, then leaned down to capture Harry's lips in another intense kiss as he sped up his thrusts. Harry was tighter now after his own orgasm, and it wasn't going to take long at all.

"Come on," Harry whispered against his lips, "fill me up—show me I'm yours."

On the next thrust, Harry clenched hard around him, and that was it. "Mine, Harry," Voldemort whispered before claiming Harry's mouth again as he spilled inside him. Everything whited out in bliss—his nerve endings, his mind, his soul, the connection between him and Harry—and for a moment he was inside Harry, and yet he was Harry, and then he was only himself and he was breaking apart and violently becoming whole again.

There was a loud metallic ringing and a surge of magic, and then a long moment of blurry confusion before he returned to awareness.

"—n you hear me? Wake up, Voldemort—come on!"

"Harry?" he mumbled, blinking as his vision cleared, and his eyes met Harry's extremely worried, extremely green pair hovering above him.

"Oh thank fuck," Harry sighed, shoulders sagging in relief. He was leaning over Voldemort, both of them still naked.

"What happened?" Voldemort asked, reaching up to brush a lock of Harry's hair out of his face, but when his hand came into view he paused. "Oh." It was exactly as it had been in their mindscape, after the two soul shards had returned to him. He'd regained the appearance of Tom Riddle in reality now as well as in the mindscape.

"Yeah, oh," Harry said, grabbing Voldemort's now-very-human hand and pressing a kiss to the back of it. "That happened, and you were really out of it for a few minutes, and um, the collars disappeared. No one's talked or come in here yet."

"Hmm." So there would be no using the collars against their captors. But on the bright side—Voldemort stretched out his free hand, and both wandlessly and wordlessly summoned his and Harry's clothes from the floor. It worked, but took more effort than it should have. "Get dressed," he told Harry, gently easing the boy off of his lap so he could do the same.

"Are you all right?" Harry asked in Parseltongue, eyeing the mirror but not worried about retribution now that the collars were gone.

"Exhausted," Voldemort hissed back. "A huge amount of my magic is tied up in stabilizing whatever caused this," he gestured vaguely to indicate the appearance change. He paused a moment, then reached over to place his hand over Harry's, and closed his eyes for a brief moment. Whatever he was doing made Harry's scar tingle, but before Harry could ask, Voldemort opened his eyes and told him, "Your Horcrux is still there, unharmed."

"Good," Harry said.

The two of them pulled their shirts back on, then stood to put on their underwear and trousers, then their robes. Voldemort kept a wary eye on the mirror, but asked Harry, "Is the door still locked?"

"Oh, er. I don't know."

Voldemort gave him an incredulous look. "You didn't check?"

"You were hurt! I wasn't just going to run off," Harry said.

Voldemort shook his head, muttering something along the lines of "Bloody Gryffindors," but then a third voice joined in.

"I really can't decide if you two are adorable or disgusting," the voice said, a hint of an accent coming through.

Harry and Voldemort both whipped around to stare at the mirror, which was no longer obscured and instead acted as a window, showing a different room and an older man with truly hideous spiky white-blonde hair standing in front of a very familiar portrait.

"Grindelwald," Voldemort snarled at the man.

At the same time, Harry focused on the portrait and demanded, "Dumbledore?"

"Oh good," Grindelwald said, "we all know each other."

"Gellert, play nice," Dumbledore's portrait said. "We owe them an explanation."

"Damn right you do," Harry shouted, but Voldemort's hand on his shoulder cut off his rant before it could start.

"Harry," he hissed in Parseltongue, "don't mention that you're a Horcrux. Grindelwald still might not know."

"Not bloody likely. If Dumbledore knew, and they set this up together—"

"Even so, admit nothing."

"Fine," Harry snapped, crossing his arms and biting his tongue, looking away from Voldemort and back at the mirror.

"Oh, are you finished?" Grindelwald said. "Done rudely excluding everyone else from the conversation?" Clearly, Harry decided, Grindelwald had been the one speaking to them through the mirror, demanding that they speak English and acknowledge his orders.

Voldemort tilted his head slightly and gave Grindelwald a cold and positively murderous look. "I am going to have so much fun tearing you to pieces," he said, the softly spoken threat giving Harry chills.

"I look forward to seeing you try," Grindelwald replied, his voice just as chilling, his mismatched eyes locked intently on Voldemort.

"If the Dark Lords could all settle down," Harry interjected, "I believe Dumbledore was about to explain himself?"

"Harry, my boy—" Dumbledore's portrait started.

"I am not your boy," Harry snarled at him.

The portrait sighed, and seemed to twinkle sadly at him. "I suppose I deserve that… And in the interest of full disclosure, you and Tom deserve to know that Gellert knows about the Horcruxes. He knows, as you both do now, Harry, that you're one of them."

"God damn it," Voldemort hissed in Parseltongue.

"Oops," Grindelwald said, covering his mouth for a moment before grinning. "It was ever so amusing watching you two pretend not to know after you figured it out."

Harry looked to Voldemort, raising an eyebrow. "Still admit nothing?" he asked dryly.

Voldemort rolled his eyes and made an annoyed 'go ahead' gesture towards the mirror, but then interjected his own question. "Where is Nagini? And the cup?"

"Dropped them both off on your Malfoy's doorstep, safe and sound," Grindelwald answered, sounding bored.

Voldemort gritted his teeth in annoyance, but accepted the answer before turning his attention to the portrait. "Dumbledore. What was the point of all of this?"

Dumbledore's portrait gave Voldemort a long look, then turned to Harry, then stared somewhere between the two as he started to speak. "To put it simply, I decided that despite the astronomical odds against it working out, I would rather save the two of you than destroy you."

"So," Harry said, his voice threatening to break and betray him, "you really did mean for me to die after I destroyed all the Horcruxes, then?"

"It seemed unavoidable, Harry," Dumbledore said. "The more Tom split his soul, the more irrational and unstable he became. Reasoning with him seemed impossible, so the only other option was to destroy him, all of him."

"I'm right here," Voldemort muttered irritably.

"And you're looking better than you have in ages, Tom," Dumbledore acknowledged. "How are you feeling?"

"Oh, you know," he said faux-casually, "betrayed. Violated. Murderous."

"Protective of Harry? Affectionate? Connected to him?"

"Obviously," Voldemort bit out.

Dumbledore smiled. "Then there's hope for us all—I think the two of you have a lot to discuss still, about the war, about the future. But you've always been resourceful, Tom, and I don't doubt your ability to make yourself a new identity, and to find a better way to change the world. Harry's heart is his biggest strength, and I hope he will guide you down a better path."

"That's noble and all," Harry interrupted, "second chances are great. But can we talk about the part where you ordered him to rape me if I didn't go along with this? Because I'm angry about the whole fuck-or-die thing, but I'm especially angry about that part."

Dumbledore's face fell and he looked away. "I didn't entirely agree with the method, or with the wording of the demand," he started. Harry could almost sense a but it was for the greater good coming, and if he said it, Harry was going to scream.

"But," Grindelwald interrupted, "you're a fucking portrait, and I'm the one who had to do all of the work." He shot an unrepentant smirk at Voldemort and Harry. "Albus was so determined to fix you, Tom Marvolo Riddle. So set on putting a few pieces of your soul back together. Do you know how fucking hard it is to move a Horcrux without destroying it? Or to get it to return to the original soul?"

Voldemort sniffed haughtily. "I never intended to return them, so no."

Grindelwald sneered. "You call yourself a Dark Lord, bah! You're a child playing with forces he doesn't understand. The sheer depravity of splitting the soul—a true Dark Lord understands the inherent laws of magic and the forces of the universe instead of breaking them all for the sake of proving you can…but I digress. To undo the damage you did, Albus and I had to invent a ritual, combining blood magic and soul magic and sex magic—all very illegal, mind you. None of it would work unless you and the boy had sex. And once I started working on moving the Horcruxes, there was a limited amount of time to get them back into you, so," Grindelwald shrugged, "you needed an incentive and a strict time frame."

Harry stared at him in disbelief, and repeated, "We needed incentive?" before glancing to Voldemort. "We're going to kill him, right?" Harry asked in Parseltongue.

"Definitely going to kill him, and then burn the portrait," Voldemort hissed back.

"Also," Grindelwald continued as if they hadn't spoken, "clearly I was wrong, but I thought the boy wouldn't want to have sex with the whole," he sneered and gestured vaguely at Voldemort, "freaky snake-face thing you had going on before. Thought you would have to force him."

"You know what?" Harry snapped, "You don't have much room to talk. You look like the lovechild of Mad-Eye Moody and Guy Fieri."

Voldemort side-eyed Harry and asked, "Who's Guy Fieri?"

"A muggle. With," Harry gestured towards Grindelwald, "terrible hair."

"Ah."

"I mean," Harry said, turning his attention back to Grindelwald, "did a Dark spell go horribly wrong, or do you look that way on purpose?"

"Harry," Dumbledore interceded, wearing his best disappointed-professor look.

Harry scoffed and crossed his arms, muttering "Yours started it. I'm just defending mine."

From the corner of his eye, Harry caught an inordinately pleased look on Voldemort's face before it was hidden behind a deliberately blank expression. Harry wondered whether anyone had ever actually spoken up to defend Tom Riddle before.

Voldemort cleared his throat and said, "As delightful as this little chat has been, Harry and I have places to be. Return our wands."

Grindelwald tsked and said, "Ask nicely."

"It wasn't a request."

"Ah, but you see, I'm not inclined to help you speed up the locator spell that you thought I didn't notice you doing on us through the mirror. Much trickier to do nonverbally and without a wand, isn't it?"

Dumbledore cleared his throat before Voldemort and Grindelwald could get into it again, and said, "Your wands will be returned and the door unsealed when Gellert and I have had sufficient time to relocate and cover our tracks. You're not the only one I've arranged a second chance for, Tom."

"So," Harry said, "you, what? Broke him out of Nurmengard from beyond the grave?" Harry was still extremely angry with Dumbledore for manipulating and lying to him, but he still had to admit that that was very badass.

Dumbledore just smiled mysteriously and said, "Something like that."

Voldemort scoffed and glared at Grindelwald. "And we're supposed to believe that you're just going to retire into obscurity and trust that you won't attack us again?"

"Believe whatever you want," Grindelwald said lightly. "But I have no plans to interfere further with either of you. I wouldn't even have done this if it hadn't been, let's say, a condition of my release." He shot an annoyed look at Dumbledore's portrait, who simply smiled back at him.

Voldemort clearly didn't believe him, but he let the topic go, and instead he asked, "Is this mirror necessary for you to return our wands?"

"No, I'll portkey them into the room, but as Albus said—"

Whatever Grindelwald was going to say was interrupted by Voldemort blasting an overpowered wandless spell at the mirror, tearing through the Unbreakable Charm and shattering it to pieces.

Harry flinched and raised his arm to shield his face from flying glass shards, but he needn't have bothered—Voldemort had also raised a wandless Protego around the two of them.

"That was," Harry started, caught between finishing the sentence with a fucking hot display of power or alternately really stupid since we could've got more information out of them, and settled instead on, "something I rather wanted to do."

"Yes, well," Voldemort said, not sounding sorry at all, "I couldn't stand listening to them another second. And it was incredibly cathartic."

Harry shook his head, then casually walked back over to sit on the edge of the bed. He sighed and said, "So…we're still stuck in here for who-knows-how-long until they give our wands back. However will we pass the time?"

Voldemort looked at him and smirked, taking a step closer. "That wasn't subtle at all."

Harry smirked back. "Wasn't trying to be."

"Hmm," Voldemort approached the bed, stopping in front of Harry and stepping between his legs when Harry spread them to allow him closer. Voldemort reached out, tipping Harry's chin up with one finger. "You know, Harry, between our soul connection and having my magic back now, I could really," he leaned down to steal a kiss, "thoroughly," another kiss, "blow your mind."

"Mmm," Harry said into the kiss. "I don't know," Harry teased, kissing him again and remembering how brilliant and earth-shattering it had felt even without magic. "I think you should prove it."

Voldemort smiled, pushed Harry backwards onto the bed, and proved it.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~

A/N: So, I didn't tag Grindelwald or Dumbledore's portrait in order to avoid spoilers, but obviously I imagined Gellert as having an aged-up version of his Crimes Of Grindelwald look :P (I know Guy Fieri wasn't well-known in 1998 but just let me have my bad joke, ta.)

I... might continue this fic, if inspiration strikes... but for now it is a one-shot.

Comments and con-crit are very welcome. Thanks for reading :)