Author's Notes: Written in 2007 for Mc Tabb's Deathly Hallows Challenge.

Dedicated to grazhir, who wanted to see a Voldemort who isn't afraid to be loving even though he's a Dark Lord.

My long-suffering beta is hobtheknife.

The scar had not pained Harry for years. All was well…

Heart thudding wildly, Harry awakened in the process of sitting up in bed. He was clammy with sweat, and his hair felt damp as he pushed it back from his face with numb fingers. The frightening clarity of the nightmare lingered, tainting present reality, and he shook his head in an attempt to clear the remaining wisps of the horrible dream from his memory.

He shivered at scattered memories of the nightmare, relieved that they were fading fast: he had been alone with Ginny in her bedroom, her hand gently touching his arm. She looked just the same as on the day of his seventeenth birthday, just as he had been setting out on his journey to fulfil Dumbledore's mission to destroy the Horcruxes. In his dream, Ginny had been leaning forward to kiss him, and Harry had been struck with the realization that he could never love her as she wanted and deserved. He'd tried to tell her so, but no sound emerged when he tried to speak. Panic flooded over him as he realized that if he didn't say something, right now, he was going to end up marrying her, having children with her, living out the rest of his life as a lie, and all because he had failed to talk to her at this crucial moment…

He rubbed his eyes and threw off the covers. His pulse began to slow and, in a few moments, it resumed a normal rhythm. Something still seemed wrong, though, and he couldn't quite put his finger on it. He looked about the room and, just as his eyes finally focused, two large, luminous orbs suddenly loomed out of the darkness before him. Still unnerved in the aftermath of the nightmare, Harry started back with a gasp.

"Massster,"Nagini hissed. "Are you not well?"

He immediately realised what was wrong, that her weight was the only other presence in bed. "Where is he?" Harry demanded sharply, reaching out instinctively for the reassuring presence of his partner's mind through the special bond they shared.

"It'sss the firssst day of ssschool,"/i their strange nursemaid told him. i "He was ressstless and went to ssseee your offssspring. He sssent me to your ssside when he sssensssed your dissscomfort."

Harry smiled in relief, and chuckled at the thought of the Dark Lord watching their children sleep. "It can't be time to get up yet," he said, pushing back the covers and reaching for his robe. "I think it's sweet the way he can get so sentimental. Not," he added hastily, "that you should repeat that."

Nagini dropped without comment to the floor and slithered into the hallway at his side. Soft light spilled out of a doorway at the end of the hall and Harry made his way quietly to their sons' bedroom.

He felt the frisson of magic even before he stepped through the door. A dark-robed figure stood between the boys' beds, and acknowledged Harry's presence with a glance over his shoulder. Nagini glided past and settled herself in her warm corner of the room, while Harry watched with curiosity as his partner continued his spells, trying to guess from the accompanying gestures what charms he might be using.

When he had finished, Voldemort crossed the room silently and Harry drew him outside and shut the door. "I couldn't decide," the Dark Lord confided, "so I used them all: success, confidence, clarity, protection and the rest."

"You're being so parental," Harry teased.

"I realised that after tomorrow, we're going to be by ourselves for the first time in twelve years. I find the prospect surprisingly…daunting."

Harry spoke with a certainty he did not entirely feel. "There's nothing to worry about. Ambrose will have more confidence at Hogwarts now he's in Second Year, and he'll look out for Griffin."

Voldemort smiled thinly. "I'm not concerned about our boys; we raised them well. I'm more troubled whether we can remember what it's like to live here by ourselves."

"We'll help each other adjust." Harry took his hand almost shyly. "I know – let's go outside!"

"What are you on about?" his partner asked indulgently, but allowed himself to be pulled downstairs and out into the garden. Stars twinkled overhead and an unseen fountain splashed, but Harry led him further along until they stood upon a small rise. Choruses of chirping crickets and trilling toads rose up into the air around them and, below, thousands of fireflies darted and flickered over fields that stretched far into the night.

After a time, they held each other close. And while heroes threatened and monsters endlessly pursued among the constellations in the sky above, and the planet below spun in an eternal circuit through the heavens, the bond between them remained the fixed and unassailable centre of their universe.

"Yes, this is how it used to be," Voldemort whispered. "I remember now."

And as we lie beneath the stars

We realize how small we are

If they could love like you and me

Imagine what the world could be

If everyone cared and nobody cried

If everyone loved and nobody lied

If everyone shared and swallowed their pride

Then we'd see the day when nobody died

~ From If Everyone Cared by Nickelback

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