Here I am again. You know the drill.

(Kitsune's input: Twenty reviews or more and this might become a story of sorts with different P.O.V.s (wink). (zombie voice) Click the button!)

-So Closely Tied-

Harry's P.O.V.

I'm not even asleep now and I can feel him stir.

Oh, not stir stir. Voldemort doesn't sleep as far as I can tell from our bond (and believe me, these days I can tell a lot). But he was—maybe a good word is dormant—and now he is not. He is conscious. Prepared. Ready.

Ready for what?

With a good delve that I don't even have to want, I'm sure I'll find out. Just give it a second...

Ah. Yup, he's planning again. Images flow across my mind like water trickling through a once-rusty pipe: Azkaban, dementors, mad prisoners, Death Eater raids and lots of dead Muggles. Oh, and me. He's always thinking about me these days. Is that, you ask, any surprise to me, or cause of any fascination on my part? Not really.

It's a little disgusting, actually—whenever he thinks of me it's like I'm seeing an alternate version of myself, weaker and younger and definitely not the focused young git (Ron's words) I've become. Honestly, that he chooses to remember me in that way when I've already changed so much in two years shows how much of a weakling he is deep down. He thinks of me as he wishes I still was.

Pathetic.

Voldemort's anger at this summary becomes my own irrational fury. We are so closely tied that I could taste what he was eating (if he ate) at this very second. We are so closely linked that I can feel and see the pale white skin of his arm just by looking down at my own arm. His joy is my joy, my joy is both his weakness and his joy because there is no escape from our closeness. If ever there was a 'point of no return', we were both blindfolded as we passed it.

Seriously, you think I'm kidding? If I thought of it right now, I could delve into his mind and learn his darkest secrets, and he could get a glimpse at the childhood memories even Severus Snape dares not access. And not just because I've become a terrific Occlumens, either. Hermione's been teaching me, but that's beside the point.

Ah, here he is again...grudgingly seeing my early memories of Hogwarts—encountering "Fluffy", Quidditch matches, holding the ruby-colored Stone in the palm of my hand. In exchange I see his excitement at being put into Slytherin, his "friendships" with the boys who gravitated to him...and his first discovery of the Chamber of Secrets. Again, without wanting to.

Did I ever have a choice?

Did I get to decide if Sybil Trelawney would be an all-out fraud? Did I get to nullify the prophecy and save my parents and, thus, my own childhood? Did I get to be strong enough to save my mother from the cursed green light I swear I see at least once a year, now?

No, I never got a choice. And that's not quite fine with me.

I hate to sound like a whining, raving boy, but I didn't ask for all this. I didn't ask to be treated like I'm the best thing since the newest peanut-butter brand. I didn't want to be stalked everywhere I go by mad men in black, muttering Dark curses under their breath that make me reach anxiously for the nearest friend's hand. And if I had gotten a choice I would not have been up for all the pain, the horrid visions, the confrontations with someone who makes most Aurors run for the bathroom.

Did I tell you the scar doesn't hurt anymore?

...Well, that's a bit of a lie, so I'm glad I didn't tell you in those words. The scar hurts occasionally, when something majorly violent is about to happen; but otherwise there is nothing. The connection has intensified to the point where the scar might be glowing (you have a mirror I can check that with?) but there is nothing but the vision, but the memory, but the feeling.

Ron isn't speaking to me again. He says I'm "acting a prat". –Well, we're speaking, but it's only civilized conversation the politicians would be proud of. If they cared. Which they don't. Which is why I cut off any contact I had with the Ministry of Magic long ago. I even suggested to Voldemort (after a particularly heated fight with Kingsley Shacklebolt (of all people), the newest Minister) that he attack the place once all the people I knew and loved were gone.

He must have thought I was joking, because he didn't take my suggestion seriously. Yet.

Thoughts of Ron plague my mind, but thoughts of Hermione plague them more—she's moving her family to one of the only safe places left—that is, America. I haven't talked to her in six weeks or more—time passes fast in my hideaway. I told her the usual in my last reply—I love her and Ron, blah blah blah, tell Ron to get his arse over to my cave and make up already (that part is to make her happy; at the moment, being as dangerous to other people as I am, I couldn't care less), more blah, oh and everything's the same back here. No Death Eaters after her yet, otherwise I'd be in Nevada with her before she could blink.

I'm protective like that.

I know what you're all screaming now. What about Ginny? Well, what about her? She's a mediwitch's intern at the moment, but she still says her ultimate goal is to be an Auror. I visited her (disguised, of course) two weeks ago and she gave me a big hug and reminded me that I had to kill Bellatrix Lestrange for her because she was still too busy. She attempted an attack on the twins' lives, you see. The whole Weasley family is up in arms against her. If Arthur couldn't hurt a fly before, he'd hurt her and a couple thousand now.

I have no time for romantic love of any sort. And even if I did...the girl I love is 'in the same country but a different world', if you know what I mean. And it's not my good-as-a-sister Ginny. Or Hermione. Thought I'd clear that up for the fangirls and all their ilk.

Her name is...none of your business. Never mind.

I guess you could say that with no friends around life has become pretty bleak for me. I could agree and disagree with you: it's certainly boring, but they're safe and that's all that matters when their best friend is practically glued to his mortal adversary. It's the way life goes. And Professor McGonagall (who killed Lucius Malfoy, by the way; WOW) keeps me informed on what all is going on in the wizarding world I hardly feel a part of now.

Maybe it's depression; but it never gets me completely. After all, Professor Dumbledore always said...

No. We won't go there either.

The friends I have left here now (Neville and Luna) I see every day. They are my spies, my Hogwarts-is-fine-no-one's-burned-it-down-yet-so-all's-fine-and-dandy informants. It's nice sometimes to just walk down Diagon Alley with them, even if no one knows it's me. Sometimes I want to tear my clothes off and beard and wig and yell, "HEY! GUESS WHAT? IT'S HARRY POTTER IN THE FLESH! PLEASE DON'T MOB ME, I'M ONLY HERE TO BUY SOME BOOKS ON THE DARK ARTS!"

That was a lie, I swear. Only a fabrication. Don't believe everything you hear me say unless it's about Voldemort. Because he is real. He is here.

He is listening.

And I don't really care.

Slowly I become one with him again. There is no stopping this, I'm afraid. I see his memories meld with my own—especially our feelings for people we both know. Dumbledore, Snape, the Malfoys, Ollivander...

It isn't right that we're so close. It shouldn't be right that because of him, I will not be sleeping again tonight, being kept up by the sheer power of Voldemort's non-sleep syndrome (if you could call it that). And it is not right that no one in the whole world, even the girl that I love, can ever understand the powerless feeling that comes with being so closely tied.

Like strong, touch rope.

Steel cable.

The reed versus the breaking oak.

Rubber bands—boing!, back in contact.

Anything you come up with.

Life just isn't fair when you're so closely tied to another excuse for a soul.

Fin

Very short. Very non-sweet. Hope you liked it!

(Kitsune: And remember what I said!)