Warnings: Crack, mental instability, AU, angst (with a happy ending), temporary (repeated) death

Pairing: LV/HP (in a manner of speaking)

The one thing Voldemort learns about dealing with Harry Potter is that one does not simply deal with Harry Potter. He's a curse all unto himself with no counter spell, a menace, a—

"Hey," Harry bloody Potter says, covered in rabbits. He's got at least four in his lap. The one sitting on his head flicks its ear at him.

Voldemort slams the door and walks away.

"Okay, so I was thinking—"

"Don't," Voldemort says.

Harry wrinkles his nose at him. Can he be anymore plebeian? It's most likely a habit he picked up from those dozens of bunnies he has closeted in his room, and how long will it take a Dark Lord to train him out of that? Again? He has more important things to be doing than teaching his old arch-nemesis manners, of all things. Maybe he can delegate the task to a Malfoy.

(Yes, and maybe Malfoy Manor will be burned down in the process, yet again.)

"Alright, first of all: rude. Second of all, I really think you should hear this—"

"Potter, that is exactly what you said the last thirty-seven times."

"Uh, yeah, and guess how many times you really should've listened to me?"

"Three."

Harry makes a face, and Voldemort, unfortunately well-versed in Harry Potter body language, speeds up his stride.

"I counted fifteen," Harry begins, following right behind him, "And that's being generous. Er, I mean, strict? Well, my point is, there could've been a lot more."

"Your judgment leaves much to be desired."

"You're so rude to me," Harry complains. "But that's okay. I understand and accept that it's a deficiency in your personality. We can't all be perfect, and you, well…your attitude's got more holes than my apparently piss-poor judgment." He coughs. Voldemort wants to strangle him. "Anyway, this is important this time. To me. Ergo, it should be important to you, too."

In the beginning, he did strangle him. Multiple times. Ah, those were the days… Unfortunately, Harry Potter has a penchant for coming back from the dead. Also unfortunate is the week after his return, when he decides to be particularly insufferable to "make up for the time [he] was gone." After this gem of a revelation, Voldemort decided that killing him simply wasn't worth it anymore.

"I don't see why."

Harry sighs. "Oh come on, Voldie. Work with me here. We share a soul? We live under the same roof? Our soaps are on the same soap rack, we eat three meals a day together, you gossip about your Death Eaters with me. I'm probably the most important person to you in the entire world except for, well, yourself. Personality deficiency. I get it. Anyway—"

Voldemort stops walking. Harry, who would be sharing his robes if he was any closer, collides with his back and falls flat on his bottom.

"A word of warning would've been nice," Harry grumbles, rubbing at his bum. "Merlin, what're you made of, bricks? And really, must you loom over me like that?"

Voldemort levels him with an unamused stare. "Do you ever shut up?"

"Around you? Of course not," replies Harry. He bats off the stinging hex and gets right up, brushing off his clothes like a muggle. There are charms for that. Voldemort distinctly remembers handing him a book of them. "Hey, why'd you stop?"

Voldemort resists the urge to sigh, yanking Harry's robes to pull him back from peeking behind him. Harry Potter is a public embarrassment. Why anyone thinks he's the icon of anything is beyond him.

"If this has anything to do with the contents of your room, leave. Now."

In lieu of an answer, Harry sends a pointed look toward the hand gripping his clothes. For a moment, Voldemort forgets who he's dealing with and releases his hold.

"You know, for someone who glares at anyone within a ten-meter radius, you're awfully handsy," Harry says, righting his clothes. "A couple comments: next time, you should ask before you pull something like that—ha, pull—always check consent. On that note, just for future reference I would appreciate the pull before I fall, which you have my explicit consent to. And if you can't catch me, a cushioning charm would be nice—"

Voldemort opens the door.

Harry blinks. "Oh, why thank you," he says, stepping through.

Without pomp or circumstance, Voldemort slams the door shut and locks it for good measure. Then, he walks away.

Unfortunately, even a Dark Lord's locking spell isn't enough to keep Harry Potter from lunch.

When Voldemort enters the dining room, it's to the welcoming sound of someone else already eating. Harry isn't exactly a noisy eater; it's the acoustics of the room, void of all decoration and furniture save the long ebony wood table in the center. A set of chairs seldom occupied line the sides, and the two most often in use lie at the two opposing ends.

The lighting is also dim compared to the rest of the house. As per usual, it takes his eyes a moment to adjust—the only lighting is centered on the table, candle sticks tall and white. To supplement the poor light source is a single chandelier that sits high above, all glass and ghost with a glow independent from fire.

On some occasions, the chandelier will take to float about the room, but for the most part, it maintains its guard equidistant from them both. Perhaps it has learned its lesson from the last one, or perhaps the house-elves have charmed it to be less flighty in advance. Whichever the case, Harry seems content with it, and that's all that really matters.

Voldemort doesn't want to be the first person to talk, but seeing as Harry's already stuffing his face, he takes a seat at the other end of the long table and reluctantly asks, "When did you escape?"

At least he has the decency to swallow before he speaks. Harry wipes his mouth with a napkin and says, voice echoing across the empty room, "Took about fifteen minutes. I was going to stay a bit longer—fantastic view, would've been perfect for tea and biscuits—but my bunnies were getting hungry…and no offense or anything, but your house-elves probably shouldn't feed them. Just saying."

Voldemort sighs into his tea cup. He blames Dumbledore for the boy's reflexive insubordination. In fact, he blames Dumbledore for many things about Harry Potter. "Dully noted."

They both return to their meal. Unfortunately, barely a minute passes before Harry coughs.

Voldemort ignores him in favor of his casserole.

Harry coughs again, pointedly. Not that it was any more pointed than the last time; the room's echo makes each sound its own solo.

Voldemort idly considers spending good time to create a stronger locking spell. A rune or ward, while it would certainly perform the service required, isn't as temporary as he would like. Harry will escape one way or another. It's the convenience of shoving him into the closest room and locking it that he needs—he'd stick with the current one, but fifteen minutes is too absurd. Voldemort would lose his reputation if he didn't do anything.

"So," Harry says, deciding to loudly make his point rather than wait for any sign of acknowledgement, "About what I was saying earlier."

"I could care less as long as you keep it to your room."

It's a rule they've had in place since some months after their arrangement began: a final, immutable line of privacy is necessary for their continued coexistence. Basically, Voldemort is in no rush to define mutually assured destruction between two immortal wizards, and though Harry's respect for his authority is a constant zero, his respect for privacy is a whole other story.

"Well, yes, but that's not what I was going to say! They're kind of related topics, though."

Does he really want to have this conversation? No. But Harry is persistent enough that they're going to have it anyway. Voldemort sets down his silverware and gives him a look.

"We will have this conversation once and only once."

Harry isn't cowed. In fact, he straightens right up and exclaims, "Great! Okay, so you know how I've been on a journey of self-discovery, right?"

No.

"Well! I've finally figured it out. Voldemort," Harry clears his throat, "We've been living with each other for a long time now. That said, though I'm a little uncomfortable with it, I think you have a right to know—you know, since we've been through so much together. So, I have a confession to make."

"Get on with it, Potter."

Harry frowns. "Hey! I thought you of all people would understand the need to build some suspense. I let you have your dramatic monologues. You could at least extend the same courtesy to me."

The Longbottom brat could've been his horcrux instead. Meek, spineless, obedient… He could've locked him in the dungeons and forgot he ever had a human horcrux. But no. Voldemort is stuck with Harry bloody Potter instead. He has so many regrets. So, so many.

"You do no such thing."

Harry opens his mouth, then closes it. A pensive look flashes across his face for all of five seconds before he's brightening up again. "You're right. I really don't. Maybe if you made them more interesting, I'd be more inclined to listen to them. Like this! Okay, okay. Here I go. Watch me. Where was I? Oh, yes: Voldemort, I have a confession to make."

Voldemort sighs. Harry looks at him expectantly.

"What is your confession, Potter."

"I," Harry pauses for dramatic effect, failing utterly, "am not a human."

…

Harry Potter is a public embarrassment. This, Voldemort knows.

He has to physically swallow back his retort, draining his cup of tea to help it along the way. After that's done, and still seeing that Harry is completely serious, Voldemort fixes his poker face and steeples his fingers. Hopefully, this conversation won't be going on for much longer.

"And you think this why?"

A house-elf refills his beverage. This is going to be a long conversation, isn't it.

Harry looks delighted at his prompt. "I didn't see it either," he prattles, voice lilting with all the pleasure a madman has when finally engaged with conversation, "but! It's so obvious now! Look, all the evidence is there. My accelerated healing, how I never seem to age, the parseltongue… Creatures like me! Of course they do! I'm one of them!"

Voldemort eyes him as he takes another delicate sip of tea.

"Have you tested for creature blood?" he asks, mild.

"Well, no," Harry says, wilting. He recovers quickly enough. "But! I mean, of course they wouldn't find anything. I haven't gone through a creature inheritance, so I figured that my blood, that part of me, has been suppressed or something. You know, for safety purposes."

Voldemort is noncommittal.

"I could be really dangerous otherwise," adds Harry.

"Potter," Voldemort begins, and then changes his mind as he backtracks to: "Harry. How does this connect to…"

"Oh, my bunnies?"

Unfortunately, yes. Voldemort closes his eyes. "Yes."

Harry fidgets. "Well, y'see, this is the other part I wanted to tell you. Um," he averts his gaze, "You know…I do… W-well! We're roommates, right, Voldemort?"

No. Really, no. "In a manner of speaking," he says instead.

"This is important to me," Harry stresses. "I'd like to include you. It's only right."

He will never understand the mind of one Harry Potter. On that note, Voldemort will never understand what Harry Potter does to people, people like Dark Lords and their mildly insane followers. He doubts Grindelwald ever had to deal with this. He chose to abandon Dumbledore. Then again, seeing as Dumbledore went on to defeat him, perhaps the road less traveled is a better choice.

"The manor wards are tied to me," he says, always instead. "You would be physically unable of keeping a secret here, even if you tried."

Harry beams at him. It makes Voldemort feel like he's made the right choice, and that isn't necessarily a bad thing.

"I'm so excited," Harry tells him. "Let's finish lunch first. Wouldn't want to put Matty's hard work to waste, right?"

"You are a dragon," Voldemort slowly says, as if saying it in that manner will make it any less ridiculous.

Harry, one hundred percent serious, nods. "Mhm," he adds for good measure.

Voldemort looks at the bunnies, looks back to Harry, then eyes the bunnies again. One is sniffing at his robes. He has half a heart to kick it away, but this is Harry Potter's bunny. Harry Potter's 'bunny,' which means it can be anything from an XXXXX creature to an experiment gone wrong…or an actual bunny, but let's be honest: that's the least likely possibility.

"I was under the impression that dragons hoarded gold."

"Oh, they do."

"And?" Voldemort demands.

"Well, I already have a hoard of gold," says Harry. "It's called a bank vault. But I wanted a more personal collection—you know, something that relates to me as a person."

He wants to spin on his heels and walk away, but he's already done that before. So, instead, Voldemort sends Harry a glare that would kill just about anyone else and says, "No creatures."

"What about snakes?"

They've been there before. Never again.

"No."

Then he leaves, just quick enough to escape the sounds of Harry's protests.

For the most part, Harry does succeed in keeping his 'hoard' confined to his room. Well, except when he doesn't.

Voldemort stares at the floppy-eared black bunny hopping its way across the hall. He considers killing it. Harry has dozens; what's it matter if he loses one?

The bunny sits down for a brief moment, nose twitching with every breath it takes. Then it gets up and resumes its journey, leaving a trail of black pellets behind it. Voldemort raises his wand and sends a killing curse at it before heading for his floo. He has a meeting at the Ministry to attend.

"I have a bone to pick with you," Harry says, standing at the doorway to his study. "You can't just mess with my hoard and expect me not to do anything about it."

"It was out of bounds," Voldemort replies. He doesn't even bother looking up from his notes. "You would do better at restraining your pets." Or not have them at all. Preferably that, but Merlin knows Harry's probably already emotionally attached to the lot.

Not for the first time, Voldemort wonders: why is Harry Potter like this? He's supposed to be the Dark Lord's horcrux. One would think that would make him a hardier creature, less controlled by fickle emotions.

Harry huffs. He enters, footsteps ginger like the biscuits he instructs the house-elves to make during Yuletide. The path he takes is the least disruptive as possible, which isn't hard because Voldemort keeps his study well-organized, but one would think Harry would take petty to a whole other level.

He doesn't, until he does.

Harry drops a vaguely familiar floppy-eared bunny right in the middle of Voldemort's desk. Judging by the twitching of its nose and the motions of its head, it is still very much alive.

"Venomous, or immortal?" asks Voldemort, neutral.

"Neither," Harry replies, because between two actually immortal wizards, the definition of the word is taken rather seriously. "Well, not this one, at least."

Voldemort finally looks at him.

"Apologize to him," Harry insists. "A killing curse from behind is just rude. You didn't even give him the chance to dodge!"

Out of spite, Voldemort flicks another killing curse at it. The spell hits true, but the rabbit keeps moving.

"Potter," he begins, voice measured and slow, "If your pets are undead, why do they still produce excrement?"

It's the wrong thing to say. Harry tenses, and in the next moment, swipes up the bunny back into his arms. He clutches it to his chest like a lifeline and coos at it incessantly.

"Shh, don't listen to old Voldie. He doesn't know what he's talking about," Harry whispers to it, stroking the rabbit's head. "A real downer, that one. He's lucky I put up with him." Then he throws a nasty glare at him like he's just committed an unforgivable wrong. Given, in the eyes of the law, Voldemort technically did, but one, his target was undead, and two, he's a Dark Lord in the process of making the laws, so.

"You've harmed my hoard both physically and emotionally," declares Harry. "Don't talk to me or my children ever again!"

Harry stomps out of the room, taking the same path he came.

Voldemort returns to his work. Harry doesn't come back, nor does he appear for dinner.

In fact, Harry doesn't appear for meals for the next three days. It's unnerving. While Voldemort has no illusions of the idea of 'family dinner' or other such rot, it's the principle of it. The unspoken law is to have meals together in the dining room, three times a day. Voldemort skips any and all appointments for it. People have learned.

Harry doesn't show up. It's not worth being angry over. Seldom about Harry is worth anger over—frustration, yes, but rage is wasted on one he's bound to for eternity. The next day, Voldemort doesn't bother heading to the dining room. He gets his meal served to him in the comfort of his study, then doesn't touch it.

The house-elves put a bezoar on his desk. Voldemort's lips curl, and he throws it out the window.

It's ironic. The public as a whole consider Voldemort to be the heartless one, and Harry Potter to be the kind-hearted saint. But in truth, Harry Potter is the one who chooses an undead hoard of rabbits over his self-proclaimed roommate, and Harry Potter is the one who locks himself away out of spite.

Voldemort doesn't need that draft of a locking spell after all. Harry does it for him, though it's not half as satisfying. At least the house-elves are happy—fewer doors are being slammed, and he's sure that saves on repair costs somewhere.

He's not angry. Logically speaking, he knows this phase will fade. Time is all they have together, and time erodes all things—is Harry even sane enough to recall his own reasoning? Odds are, he isn't. Things will return to normalcy soon enough; all Voldemort has to do is wait.

So he waits, but it doesn't feel like waiting at all.

Another day passes, and the house-elves inform him that Harry has been refusing his meals. There's no reason to worry about it. Harry dies of suffocation, he comes back. Harry dies of blood loss, he comes back. Harry dies of decapitation, he comes back. When Harry inevitably dies of starvation, he'll come back, too.

They know this from experience. Harry will come back, forget about his hoard of rabbits and foolish delusions of dragon blood, and then they'll go back to three meals a day accompanied by one-sided banter.

Voldemort waits. The house-elves nervously inform him that Harry's corpse is cooling in his rabbit-infested bedroom. This information, he does nothing with and goes to bed at ease.

When he wakes up the next day, he waits outside Harry's door. Any moment now, they'll go eat breakfast in the dining room again.

Harry breathes again, and through the door, Voldemort can hear him crying.

The next time he encounters a rabbit in the hallway, Voldemort takes care not to kill it. This is a fairly easy task considering that it's already dead at certainly no fault of his, but who knows in what ways Harry's mind works.

He picks the bunny up by the ears, holding it like a carrot, and heads for Harry's room.

"Oh! You found Wallace!" Harry exclaims, wide-eyed as he greets him at the door. A familiar bunny sits on top of his head. Behind him, Voldemort can spy several more.

Wordlessly, Voldemort passes him the bunny. Harry takes it into his arms like it's a priceless treasure.

"I was looking everywhere for you," he coos. "You little troublemaker, you. In you go—go on, go play with Laurence, okay?"

There's a pause where Harry watches his rabbits, and Voldemort watches Harry.

There's nothing to say. Harry is clearly recovered from whatever madness had struck him, though unfortunately not enough to attend meals in the dining room. Perhaps he truly does value the company of his undead pets more than Voldemort's, which is fine. Preferable, even. Having been free of his insufferable presence for the last week, Voldemort is better than ever. It's a relief to know this paradise can continue.

It's another unspoken understanding. Harry the kind-hearted saint has been dead for a long time already; Voldemort should know, because he's the one who murdered him.

He turns around and makes to leave.

"Voldemort?"

Voldemort stops.

"Thanks," Harry says. "For finding Wallace."

"The one on your head," Voldemort begins, "What is its name?"

"Tommy," Harry whispers.

Voldemort whirls around, wand at the ready. He knows his eyes are wide and red, a snake's gaze before it strikes—his reflection stares back at him in Harry's own eyes. Bile he has forgotten the taste of builds in the back of his throat. Acid burns. He won't need a wand to kill him, his venom will be enough—it'll be more satisfying that way, to make up for all the doors he hasn't needed to slam—

"Tommy's like me," Harry says, reaching up to stroke its fur. "They all are. Wallace and Laurence and Barnaby, Angus and Jeremiah and Matthias… They're my children. You get it, don't you?"

Harry's hands are trembling.

Voldemort lowers his wand. "Come to dinner," he says.

"Okay," Harry says back.

Voldemort incorrectly assumes that that'll be the last he sees of Harry's bunny collection. Tommy the bunny sits atop Harry's head during dinner, perfectly balanced against all odds.

There are worse things, he supposes.

Then Harry starts to speak to it in parseltongue, and no, things really can't get any worse than that.

"Potter," Voldemort begins, fork-and-knife frozen over his grilled chicken breast, "Harry."

"Mmh?"

Rabbits are not snakes. They do not speak parseltongue. The undead do not speak at all. Therefore, undead rabbits certainly do not speak parseltongue. This is a fact.

Voldemort thinks: unfortunately for the universe, Harry Potter does not, in fact, like facts.

"Oh yeah," Harry begins, starting to recover his usual incessant cheer, "You know how I said Tommy wasn't venomous?"

Yes. "No."

Harry ignores him. "Well, he is now!"

Why is his horcrux like this. Why.

"Do I want to know?"

"I wouldn't be able to tell you even if you did," Harry assures him. "It was a bit of, um, transfiguration. And charms work. Um, and I finally got through that book of runes you gave me. Really, Voldie, did it have to be in Cyrillic? Cursive Cyrillic? I could barely read a thing—oh. Oooh. Maybe that's why…"

"Keep your hoard in your room," orders Voldemort. He does not want to go shopping for replacement house-elves.

Harry pouts. "I do try, you know. They're sneaky little buggers when they want to be. You'd think bunnies are perfectly docile creatures, but they're the farthest from it. You know, the other day, I caught Matthias taking a bite out of Laurence! Like, how rude is that? Clearly I need to give them a crash course in manners. I mean, a little nibble here and there is probably okay, but biting! No. Ironically, Tommy's probably the nicest of the lot—"

Voldemort leans back, steeples his fingers, and idly begins to count how many regrets he has. Leave it to Harry bloody Potter to have a hoard of carnivorous, venomous, undead rabbits. He blames Dumbledore for many, many things, but honestly, this is a bit of a stretch. Necromancy was not part of Dumbledore's M.O., and—

His thoughts pause. Voldemort recalls a certain cave of Inferi he has. They aren't venomous, but…

As Harry prattles on, Voldemort grows pensive. Venomous Inferi. Now there's a thought.

As Voldemort is preparing for bed that night, a knock sounds at his door. He knows indisputably that it's Harry, and he's proven correct when the door swings open at the flick of his wrist.

Notably, Harry isn't carrying any furry pieces of his hoard.

"My room is sort of full tonight," Harry says, eyes bright above the rim of his glasses.

When Voldemort beckons, Harry licks his lips and steps through the threshold. The door closes soft behind him, and contrary to popular belief, the sound is not so uncommon between them. It's a different sort of satisfaction, Voldemort supposes, but not an unwelcome one.

Harry's footsteps are all spice and ginger as he makes his way to the bed, which he tumbles into with barely half as much of the grace he used to get there. He quickly makes himself at home, wrapping himself in the majority of the blankets to form a misshapen cake roll. Voldemort, unamused but somehow content, takes a seat on the other side.

"Voldemort," Harry begins, and his voice is muffled by the absurd amount of layers he's put himself into, "I have a confession to make."

"Your definition of suspense leaves much to be desired," Voldemort tells him.

"According to my roommate, I've got a piss-poor sense of judgment, so bugger off." Harry pauses, and then his head pops up out of his cake roll. Voldemort notes the skew of his glasses, and Harry obviously notices too, judging by his wriggling. However, no amount of work can free his arms.

There's a spell for this. It's in one of the books he gave him. Harry has to know there's a spell for this, but he still dares to send Voldemort a pleading look anyway.

Sheer impertinence.

Voldemort sighs and reaches over, tweaking Harry's glasses back into place. Harry beams at him.

"Thanks. I take it back, you don't have to bugger off anymore."

"What is your confession, Potter."

Harry sobers immediately. He ducks his head so all that's peeking out over the blankets is his eyes, and Voldemort waits.

"I," Harry begins, whisper muffled, "I don't think I'm a dragon."

Carefully diplomatic, Voldemort asks, "And you think this why?"

"I don't think I ever was one," Harry reveals. "I'm not a creature. I'm a wizard, aren't I?"

Voldemort closes his eyes. "Yes."

"My healing…is from our magic? We're linked. You give me magic."

"Yes."

"And the parseltongue…it's from your soul. The part of your soul bound to mine."

"Yes."

Harry takes in a shaky breath. "And my age. Seventeen forever. That's because…that's because you kept killing me, isn't it. I remember. I'm not fully human anymore, right? I remember that. I remember. We went to Gringotts. I took a blood test. There were problems… I'm more you than me, they said. And just as well; I'm more magic than me, too."

"Yes."

Trapped in his blanket prison, all Harry can do is roll over, bumping into Voldemort's side. "Will you kill me again?" he asks.

After some time, Voldemort places a hand on his head. Harry's hair is as soft as always, but the sensation of it against his hand catches him by surprise each and every time. "It is not one of my intentions, no," he replies.

"You'll keep me around."

"It has been a long time. It would be a waste otherwise."

Harry rolls around again and presses his face into Voldemort's night clothes. "I'm sorry," he says. "It's hard," he says. "It hurts sometimes," he says.

Voldemort's fingers bury themselves in his hair. "You will grow accustomed to it," he tells him. "You will learn to enjoy it and all its fruits, given time. Immortality is a blessing."

"'There be dragons,'" Harry says, "on the path you walk. That's what I wanted to tell you. I remember now." And then, in a moment of clarity, he adds, "You'll regret this, I know. I'll be there when you do."

Harry's glasses dig into his thigh. Voldemort yanks him back, meets his eyes that burn a nostalgic fire. These eyes, he knows. They're the eyes of Dumbledore's man.

Something softens them. "I'll be there for you when you do," Harry tells him. His glasses are crooked again.

Voldemort pulls them off and places them aside. During the time he has his back turned, Harry has magically freed himself of his cake roll. He stretches his arms and yawns with all the manners of a beast, but then again, that would probably be an insult to beasts everywhere.

He sends a stinging hex at him as a reprimand. Harry bats it away.

"You no longer have an excuse to hoard a collection of undead rabbits," Voldemort informs him. "I expect them gone by the end of tomorrow."

Harry frowns. "You say that like you expect me to know how to un-undead them."

For once in his entire life, Voldemort has a solution to the problem known as Harry Potter.

"Give them to Gringotts as a gift. They'll serve better than any dragon."

Grinning like a loon, Harry says, "Yeah, my children are pretty amazing, aren't they?"

Voldemort hums, first noncommittal, and then: "Considering who their parent is, it is quite the surprise."

"Hey! Alright, first of all: rude. Second of all—"

Yes, he thinks. Things could certainly be worse than this. For one, he could've had the Longbottom brat as his horcrux. Meek, spineless, obedient…

Now, that. That would've been a disaster.

I still don't know what this fic is, and I'm the one who wrote it.

¯\_(ツ)_/¯