Disclaimer: All recognizable people and situations are the intellectual property of JKR, but I am playing with them as I see fit.

I decided there was not nearly enough Voldemort in this fic. My propensity for HPTR was difficult to get around, but I think I managed all right to portray awkwardDaddy!Voldie.

Also a very Barty-centric chapter, as this is a bit of a transition and halfway-point in the coming plot.

Notes at the bottom.

Concilliabule
All the knowledge I possess everyone else can acquire, but my heart is all my own. ~Johann von Goethe

The holidays were passing in a buzz of forced nothingness. Barty had been gone for a week now, escaping the castle with the students without more than a small note on Harry's pillow telling him he would be back for Yuletide. Harry refused to think deeply on this, could not bring himself to focus on the recriminations and the emotional pain the distance put upon him

Everything about Barty had only become more terrifying with distance, and he couldn't bring himself to concentrate on that.

Harry studied the Golden Egg that Barty refused to tell him the secret of yet, trying to eke out on his own what the screeching was supposed to mean to him. He studied ahead in Defense and Ancient Runes, finished his holiday work from Potions and Charms. He buried himself in the library for days, only resurfacing for meals to keep suspicion at bay.

No one had stayed behind that could really call suspicion to him for his behavior, after all.

The night before Yule was stormy, and the ceiling crackled with magicked lightning. Harry listened to the near constant rumble of thunder from outside, straightening the line of brussel sprouts that formed a hedge around the slab of roasted goose he'd been neglecting. Spears of roasted parsnip made posts along his hedgerow, and tiny carrots cut into triangles by some industrious House Elf arranged on top of the goose meat in some kind of decorative edging.

"Well, my boy! It's like a savory gingerbread house you have there!" Harry froze and scowled as the bench rocked with the man's weight and forced on a smile before facing the Headmaster. "Though, I must say, eating it would be the most satisfying option."

Harry carefully didn't meet the man's eyes, instead spearing one of his sprouts and nibbling on it. "Is there something I can help you with, Professor Dumbledore?"

"I haven't seen much of you this year, Harry," the old man said breezily, placing a spongy treacle pudding on the empty plate he'd sat before. Drat on the small, "personal" feel of holiday meals at Hogwarts, anyway. "I worry for you, with the stress of the Tournament. Are you faring well?"

Harry resisted a sneer, jamming a chunk of goose and gravy into his mouth to delay his answer. The old man hardly even looked his direction, it wouldn't do for him to start doing so now, not when plans were in motion as they were. Since he'd been "too late" to save Ginny and had not immediately capsized under the disappointment in Dumbledore's gaze, the Headmaster had taken a step back from him. At the end of last term, though, he'd been there to help with Sirius, pointing he and Hermione in the right direction.

Harry couldn't decide how to play this, though. If he seemed too flippant about the tasks or too buried under the weight of them, he could see Dumbledore becoming more involved. He grabbed a napkin and wiped his mouth finally turning back to the man with Occlumency shields firmly in place. "So-so, Professor. I still can't figure out the hint for the next task, but after how the first task went, I'm more confident in myself. I've been studying Defense and Charms more heavily to try to make sure I'm well-rounded."

This seemed to please the Headmaster, as he grinned brightly, pale blue eyes crinkling. "Well done, my boy. I'm very proud of how you've handled this unfortunate responsibility. I do wish we could have had the Yule Ball tonight as planned; it would have been lovely, I had plans drawn up for decorations that would have taken even Severus's breath away! It is meant to be a respite for the Champions, but the Ministry—" he broke off with a scowl, then shook his head. "No matter. I am proud of you, my boy. Keep that chin up, and if you need anything, you know where my office is. For the beginning of the year, I am thinking that Licorice Wands sound appetizing, don't you?"

Harry watched him, dollop of treacle in his beard, stand and float around to the few other people at the table, perplexed as he always was after speaking to the man. Even a few words and he was left with the same, wary uncertainty of just how much of the man's persona was truth and lie.

He demolished the hedgerow in one swoop, realizing his appetite had totally abandoned him. He eyes scanned over the dozen students who had remained over break, the Professors who had deigned to come to dinner. He found himself aching for his familiar companion and begged out, smiling at those who noticed him retreating, pulling himself under the Entry stairs to throw on his invisibility cloak.

Though Barty had always told Harry he was welcome at any time, Harry had stayed from his rooms in the week that he'd been away. Now, though, his feet took him on the familiar path to the rooms, finding them dark and lifeless. He cast a spell to light the fireplace and sunk into his usual chair, curling in on himself.

Against his will, his eyes drifted to the only door leading from the main chamber: Barty's room. He'd been in there before, of course, usually just to cut through to the privy linked there. He ached, suddenly, to enter there, to shuck his robes and climb in under Barty's cold sheets and blankets, curl in on himself surrounded by the scent of the man's soap and sweat. But no… that was more of an invasion than Harry felt comfortable with and, honestly, roused those terrifying thoughts he'd been tamping down to the surface.

He closed his eyes tightly, curling tighter yet, and let the crackle of the fire lull him.

"Idiots," Voldemort hissed, flute of bubbly champagne in one long-fingered hand. Harry smiled up at him with fond amusement.

"You think everyone is an idiot, Father."

The man hummed, eyes charmed green like Harry's tonight, face slowly aging to be something timeless rather than the 16-year-old youth it had been when he'd taken over the shade. His father commanded respect with just a look, even to these Ministry peons who had no idea who he was. No one knew who he was, really.

"That is because they are, Harry, and the sooner you realize this the sooner you will evolve. Few people in all the world are worthy of my time, of your time. None are worth investment, but a few are worth at least a second glance." He drained his glass and set it on a passing House Elf's tray, gesturing to a small crowd around the Minister. "Lucius Malfoy, for example. He is worthy due to his birthright, the status he did little work to achieve but has nonetheless. In the years before my… accident, he was a boon to my operations. He has clout because his father had clout, and his father's father. He himself is a decent strategist and has a… creative streak that has always intrigued me. He is worthy of note."

Voldemort swiveled, motioning to a more shadowed corner of the ball room where a few people sat at tables. "Augustus Rookwood, there, he too is worthy of note. He works as an Unspeakable in the Department of Mysteries. He's an asset; getting a mole in that organization was something that took me years to achieve. He is worthy, at least, in that."

He led Harry back to their table, empty now as everyone caroused. Harry's hair was charmed honey-blonde, as was his father's, the small change more than enough to keep anyone from recognizing him. Vapid, blind souls were politicians. He sat at his father's side, relishing in the light stroke of fingers over his shoulder as Voldemort continued, nodding here and there to point out former Death Eaters and informants. It was a lesson, as most things turned out to be with his father; he had a streak for teaching, and Harry loved being his student.

Harry's eyes traced the path of a girl, 16 perhaps, long dark hair plaited down her back. She paused beside a man his father had said was an auror, tugging his sleeve. He didn't recognize her from Hogwarts, but he didn't know the upper years very well.

The lapse in his attention was caught. His father frowned. "Ah, so you are getting to that age, then?" he said with a sigh, removing his fingers from Harry's shoulder to push them through his hair. Harry wanted to lean back into his father to ask them back, but didn't. He was nearing 14 now on Ministry record, it wasn't proper to be so attached to the simplest of touches.

"What age, Father?" he asked, his voice cracking annoyingly. He hated that it did that.

"Puberty. The human propensity for copulation, eugh," said Voldemort, an exaggerated shiver making him shake his head. "I cannot fault you it, I went through the same, but I can guide you in safety and intelligence through it, at least."

Harry, who had thus far slept with no fewer than three people, two girls and a boy, kept his mouth shut.

"Always use your contraception charms – assuming you're bedding a woman, of course. Additionally, though potions can cure nearly everything, if you have no wish to have purple hives covering your balls or green sap leaking from your orifices, use protective spells as well."

Harry made a face and reddened, ducking his head. "That is really gross."

"Human interaction generally is," Voldemort said wryly, eyeing the lithe young woman Harry had been watching. "As a rule, sex should be about pleasure or power. Never let another put their pleasure or power over yours. You are born to rule, Harry. Even before your birth your destiny was set in place at my side."

Harry smiled and stopped resisting the urge to scoot closer to his father, just close enough for their shoulders to touch. Voldemort patted his knee with an awkward pause, still so unsure how to deal with Harry's uncomplicated affection. "You didn't always think so."

"No… no I didn't," he said, unrepentant. "But I see it now. You were always meant to be mine, Harry."

That warmed him and he stopped looking out at others, meeting his father's pseudo-green gaze. Voldemort's face was serious; this was not rare, but the slant of discomfort was more so. "In the coming years there will be confusion for you, Harry. Oft times…" his face screwed into a moue of distaste, and for the first time that Harry could remember, his father seemed to be at a loss for words.

He bumped his shoulder lightly, smiling unsurely. "You can just say whatever you need to outright, Father. These years beside you have taught me to understand context in your lessons."

Voldemort looked away, back towards where the Minister was shaking hands. His fingers tapped against his knee. "Emotions, Harry. Emotions are the downfall of so many men, the end of illustrious careers, the death to an able fighter, the detriment to the most brilliant. Sex and emotion seem tied inextricably in society, but one does not need the other. Sex should be and is release, it does not need to herald tidings of love and commitment." Voldemort cut a glace back at him and grimaced. "I should have waited to have this conversation when at the manor."

Harry laughed. "I understand. It is fine, I think… I think I understand what you mean. Don't just get attached willy-nilly, right?"

Voldemort shook his head. "Ideally, never get attached. Friendship, love, these things are the hallmarks of the weak and feeble. We are above these things, Harry. We need no one but each other. Love makes man weak, leaves openings for enemies to strike."

Harry stilled and frowned down at his legs, twisting his fingers. No friendship? No love? It wasn't distressing, not really, not with the way his life had been thus far, but it still raised questions from someplace deep within him, the areas he'd squashed the life out of when they cried for connections, affection.

Long fingers wrapped around his own. "Come, Harry, let us get back to the party. I've heard whispers that one of my former Ministry spies – him, there, in the green – was less than upright when the trials were on. I would like to get some information from him so I can decide what to do with him later."

Harry nodded, shoving the conversation away.

But it would be repeated, time and again over the long, repeated months of summer at his father's side. Had been stated before countless times but less plainly, only now coming to the fore. Harry hunched in on himself but smiled the picture-perfect smile his father had taught him, shaking hands as he was introduced.

In the middle-time, somewhere between sleep and wakefulness, hours before Harry's internal clock told him to rise, he was aware of movement. Weight draped over him with warmth and the scratch of wool, the scent of spiced soap. Fingers tangled in his hair, lips pressed feather-soft to his brow, his eyelid, the ridge of his cheekbone. Murmurs played in the background of his dreams, possessive whispers of need and belonging.

Harry curled tighter into the warmth, now, a whisper like an exhale on his lips. "Barty."

Barty's rooms had no windows, so Harry could not say what woke him that morning. Nonetheless, he found himself abruptly thrown into wakefulness, crick in his neck and shivering where he was half tumbled out of the chair. He frowned at his lap, a woolen cloak there still soaked in warmth, his body cold where it had fallen from covering him.

It took long moments for his sleep-addled brain to put the clues together, but when he did he was out of the chair with a start, grinning, moving towards Barty's rooms and tossing open the door.

And there he was, sprawled and tangled in the bedding, snoring loudly with drool pooling on his pillow. Harry couldn't help the surge of warm affection, nor his obnoxious leap onto the man's bed, jostling him awake even as he began singing Muggle Christmas carols as loudly as he could.

Barty groaned and pantomimed sobbing, slapping a pillow over his head. "This is how you welcome me home, you pest?"

He bounced a bit more, making Barty curse. "It's Christmas morning, wake up. I have a gift for you."

Barty muttered about Muggles taking over Yule but sat up regardless, shirt buttoned improperly and hair all pointing in one direction. He yawned as he scrubbed his hands across his face. "Haven't seen me in a week and this is my greeting; woken after three hours rest."

The reminder of the week away seemed to freeze both of them, the smile falling from Harry's face even as Barty's hands dropped to his lap. He stared at Harry, who was drooping now, lips turned down and fingers clenched at his knees. What could he say? The terrifying, clawing things like emotion raged back up from where he had buried them, clambering for attention over one another, fighting to reach his mouth first. Apologies, denials, and professions all fought to be first, and Harry felt as if he may burst from the strain of deciding what to say.

Barty decided for him, standing abruptly and yawning again. "Well, get moving, Young Lord. Where is this present you've promised?" Deft fingers began undoing the buttons on his pajamas even as his other hand reached for a set of robes and underclothes.

Harry stood and shuffled his feet, blood travelling in too many directions at once. "Right, I'll just… get that." He was a coward for running, but he did, going to his bag and pulling out the small, shrunken package he'd had since before the first task. He restored it now and stroked the small box, nervy suddenly at the idea of giving it to the man.

He'd spent hours of research he should have been using on the task to add charms and enchantments to it, learning how to anchor the spells and add permanence. And that wasn't even counting the several hours spent looking through trinkets until he'd alighted, finally, upon something that called to him for Barty.

He turned the box over and over in his hands now, simple brown paper covering a plain white box, rather than any of the thousands of enchanted designs for wrapping. The paper was coarse and the twine knotted, and suddenly Harry didn't even know if he wanted to go through with this.

Barty entered then, plopping down on the ground beside Harry's feet, leaning against his legs and making a humming sound of content. He smiled adoringly. "Happy Yuletide, Young Lord."

Harry's breath caught and he smiled back, shakily. "Happy Yule, Bartemius." His fingers moved to card through Barty's hair and the nape, making him coo in pleasure and drop his forehead against Harry's knee.

The hand that still held the gift tightened, then released. He could do this. It was… it wasn't that big of a deal if Barty didn't like it. Sure, he'd spent hours wracking is brain, hours more searching, then days enchanting it with the best of his young, incomplete abilities. He swallowed and thrust the package into Barty's limp hands, cupped in his lap as they were. "Here you go."

Barty's eyes popped open and he sat straight, removing his head from Harry's knees and looking down at the parcel in his hands. "I thought you were joking about a gift."

"It—it's nothing." He tried not to sound as nervous and awkward as he felt suddenly, though the questioning look on Barty's face made him believe he hadn't succeeded.

Nimble fingers plucked at the twine, letting it fall away. The paper was shredded in an instant, leaving only the small, square, plain white box in Barty's bony, slender hands. Harry steeled himself for some sort of mischief, teasing Harry by not opening it at this point, but Barty's hands – were they shaking? – did not pause long, going to the notch in the side and prying the box open.

Harry looked up to the ceiling at the first flash of gold, twining his fingers. He didn't need to look more at it; he'd stared at it for ages. It was simple, plain pocket watch, antique gold, with only a ring of simple, flowing etchings circling the edge, Bartemius woven into them near the clasp. On the back, looking as flowing etchings themselves following the same circle, the words "Be not afraid of growing slowly; be afraid only of standing still," ringed the watch. That had been a silly addition, but one he'd added to try and make the whole gift seem more meaningful and less juvenile.

Within the watch, which told time like a proper Muggle timepiece rather than many of the enchanted Wizard's sort – it had always annoyed him, that – there was a single, additional hand that, with an activation word, could be set to count down to any event. Harry had charmed it, currently, to read "Third Task" in tiny letters on the hand, and its stubby circle noted it as being many, many days and hours away.

He'd left the inside cover blank on purpose. He wanted Barty to be able to add whatever he wanted there.

The watch was charmed waterproof and shatterproof, at least as well as he could manage. He'd been too afraid to test. He'd tried to charm it into a Foeglass or to warm with danger, but it was so far over his head to do so that he'd been sorely disappointed. He'd cast a spell trying to get it to work as a Secrecy Sensor then, heating if someone was lying to the holder, but despite various tests on it there had been no response form the watch.

Barty was silent through all Harry's ruminating, and that was odd, indeed. Harry tipped his head back down now that he thought he would not glow red from his flush, a pink dusting across his cheekbones difficult to see in the dim firelight. Barty had the watch clasped between both hands, held close to his chest, and was staring at the fire with an unreadable expression. Harry squirmed.

Barty turned at that, onto his knees at Harry's face, staring at him with that same expression. One hand, though, separated from the watch and reached up, slowly, hesitating to cup Harry's cheek, the unreadable look morphing into one of wonder. "Oh, Young Lord."

"I hope you like it?" Harry said in a rush, hunching a bit, but not moving to escape Barty's warm hand.

His breathing stuttered to a halt as Barty's thumb stroked across his cheekbone, gently, slowly. "It is a fine gift, Harry. A beautiful gift. It…" Barty paused, his hand dropping back to the watch, opening it and closing it again, pressing it to his chest. "When I was a boy, the day I left for Hogwarts, my mother gave me a pocket watch. My father had always had one, a silver antique, and I had gotten in trouble a thousand times for touching it, playing with it, when I was a lad. But she gave me one that day and told me—" Barty's head bowed and Harry made an apologetic sound, which was waved off instantly. "I lost it, when they took me to Azkaban. Thrown out like all my other personal affects, I reckon. Thank you, Young Lord. Thank you, Harry." His eyes came up to meet Harry's and Harry didn't bother breathing, afraid that he would begin babbling nonsense at the man. He kneeled there with such open eyes, a smile unlike any Harry had ever seen on his lips, and Harry realized in that moment that he couldn't be without this man.

He was in love with Barty.

He was in love with Bartemius Crouch, Junior, his father's servant, his own teacher, a man at least a decade his senior who was a condemned felon. And those things mattered so little to Harry in that moment that he could sob. He wanted to fling himself forward, gasp his confessions into Barty's hair, the skin of his throat, breathe the words into his mouth and take his own breath from there. He wanted to—

Barty was on his feet, pressing the watch into his waistcoat's breast pocket and keeping a hand there, over it, grinning manically all the while. "Well, suppose it is time for your gift then as well, isn't it?"

Harry felt faint, the dramatic comedown from his realization too much for him. He vaguely nodded, and that was enough to encourage him.

"Perfect!" Barty was dashing off to one side of the room now, pulling down a book and muttering as he flipped through the pages. "Just let me get a protection in place here; I don't want any snooping while we use this. Now, you can't leave grounds, sorry to say, Dumbledore has too many of his little knickknacks trained on you to know if you go anywhere, but I thought this might be the next best thing. Ah!" he stopped and pulled his wand, fluttering it through the air and pointing it back at Harry. The spell missed and went over his shoulder and into the fire.

"Umm…"

Barty's grin was infectious and he felt a small smile creeping onto his lips. He darted to him, clasping Harry's shoulder and pulling him up and towards the fireplace. "Well then, on your knees, Young Lord," and didn't that make his pulse pound, "and here we are. Riddle Manor!"

And Harry understood. His breathing caught and he latched himself to the man's legs, tightly, hugging them awkwardly for all he was worth. "Oh, Barty!"

That fantastic, manic grin was his response and the man was pushing his head into the green flames, cooing as he stroked down Harry's back.

"Father!" Harry called, his head swiveling to take in the familiar room. His father's study had been the first place they had fixed up after their bedrooms. "Father?"

With a dramatic snap of his robes, Voldemort strode into the room, grin wide and showing his straight, white teeth. "Harry! I see Bartemius has given you your gift?"

"Oh, Father, it is so good to see you!" Harry found himself near tears, swallowing to keep them down. "I thought you wouldn't open the Floo?"

"It isn't open. This is a direct connection from that fireplace to this one, the only connection that will be available. I agreed when he pointed out the benefits to your being able to contact me, and him besides. But enough of that, Happy Yule, Harry. Has Hogwarts been agreeing with you?"

He rambled to his father then, his great and terrible father who sank to his knees before the fire, still regal but on the floor nonetheless, nodding along as Harry breathlessly regaled him with the recent events. There was no need for this, not really, no update that Barty had not likely given while outside of the castle, no plans gone awry. But to just have a moment with the man who had raised him, seeing his wry expressions and patient doting, made Harry's heart quiver.

The conversation was not long, Barty joining him in the fire to remind him that he was expected down for breakfast in the Great Hall, shoulder jostling his. If Harry leaned into him a bit, it wasn't something either of them pointed out.

"I am glad to see my most loyal and my most treasured working so well side-by-side," Voldemort murmured as he rose fluidly to his feet, nodding down on them as Barty cooed happily. "You shall keep up your good work, Bartemius. Watch over him."

"Even without being told, m'lord," Barty said breathlessly, bowing his head until it looked nearly in the embers. "Until my dying breath."

"So no poison, then?" Harry sighed, tugging at an overlong bit of fringe that was tickling his nose. Barty was sprawled in his chair upside-down, more and more upset by their conversation as the evening went on.

"Too easy," he said with a scowl, fingers rolling his wand back a forth between them, keeping his hands busy. "I want to be able to look him in his eyes so that he knows who has done him in, what his ineptitude has wrought for him. I want him to know that I live and am thriving, away from him, despite of him."

Harry stifled a sigh. Barty's usual stealthy cunning was completely out of play when it came to his father. Harry feared what would happen to him when he had lost himself in the heat of the moment, faced with the man he credited with his entire life's ruin.

But that was why Harry would wind himself into whatever plan Barty made, make himself inextricable and unable to be left out of it. Because he needed to be there for him in that moment, to hide him away if need be, to extract Barty from whatever danger he put himself into.

"What is the second task? If I knew, I would be able to plan more thoroughly."

Despite his mood, Barty found a smile for him at that. "Now, now, Young Lord, that would be telling. You'll get it soon enough, I have faith. You have plenty of time, yet."

Harry sighed. "At least tell me whether it will be indoors or outdoors?"

"Out," Barty said, twisting a bit to be flopped across the chair with his head dangling over the arm at Harry's side. "But he'll be here for the weekend, and likely have rooms within the castle."

"Is he the sort to do so?" asked Harry, wiggling his fingers. "He isn't snobbish like Lucius Malfoy who will, undoubtedly, Floo home to his mansion every evening?"

"My… father has always been a sentimental man," Barty ground out. "He has fond memories of his time in Hogwarts. He was a Slytherin before the Dark Lord's reign, and though he came to despise his housemates in later years, he has a loyalty to the school and his beginnings. He credits his Anti-Dark Arts campaign with beginning right here, as a first year under Head Boy Tom Riddle, and later seeing what became of him."

"I do hope you appreciate how rare it is that you know of my father's past. Other than a few of the very oldest Death Eaters, I think you are the only one to know… or to be allowed to live, at least. Only you would love him all the more for his background, despite his blood status. I think that is what let him keep you alive despite harboring a few of his secrets."

Barty smiled, a weak and forced thing, but his eyes still held that adoring spark. "I do know how lucky I am. I know so much of your father that I feel I know his story better than my own. When I was a boy, my father would tell me stories of how a charismatic, intelligent half-blood boy in his house had been driven mad by Dark magic, lost everything he once had had. It was meant to put fear in me of the Dark Arts, but deep down, I admired the lengths my lord had gone to for betterment."

"His learning, his travels?"

"Those as well. But I mean his Horcruxes, of course."

This time Harry was the one to fall out of his chair, eyes wide. "Barty!" he gasped as he scrambled to his knees, beseeching. "Do not ever let him know you know of them! How do you know of them?" Harry felt panicked; his father would kill Barty for knowing this, most loyal or not!

"I was friends with a boy in school, a Slytherin. He was a year older and I snuck out of school to go with him to his induction into the Death Eaters, earning myself a place as well. I look back now and know I was blessed that my Lord did not kill me where I stood for coming uninvited."

He ran his fingers over the top of Harry's head gently for a moment before sitting back. "The boy was my best friend, a cousin. My father would have disapproved very much of our friendship, had he taken even a moment to care who my friends were." The last was said with a growl, Barty's fingers tightening on the chair's arms before he seemed to force himself to relax. "I still do not know what turned him away. But something made him run, made him plot against our great and magnificent Lord. The night before he died, he told me of objects of untold power, the key to immortality, seeming mundane and scattered across Britain. He wished me to take up his cause, I think, and seek them out, but he made a mistake."

"What was that?" Harry asked, settled back on his rear now, face propped in his hands.

"He believed my love for him and our friendship was deeper than my love for my Lord. He was wrong."

Harry shivered. That level of devotion was nearly frightening.

"Regardless, he died then, taking the secret with him. I would never tell another soul, of course, and I never bothered looking into what the objects may be. I do not need to know. It gives me comfort, however, knowing my Lord's power is so absolute, that his mastery of life will go unchallenged, that even death cannot keep him from our glorious purpose." Barty sighed and relaxed back bonelessly. At least the ruminations had gotten him out of his slump.

Harry pulled himself up into his chair, thinking about Barty's knowledge. He knew nearly as much as Harry himself did. That was dangerous, and it made Harry's stomach clench, not in fear for his father's safety but for Barty's own. It was only after the incident with the Diary that his father had explained anything about his soul-containers at all, briefly and vaguely telling him of their purpose as failsafes. Harry, too, had not asked or looked deeper into what the objects were. Too much information was a dangerous thing.

Harry gasped suddenly, sitting forward in his chair with his eyes alighting on Barty, in repose, staring into the fire. "I've got it. I know the perfect place we can take your father to give you all the protection you need."

"Oh?" Barty asked, face swinging slowly to face him.

Harry grinned. "The Chamber of Secrets."

A/N: THANK YOU for 100 reviews! With such an obscure pairing and being so long out of practice writing, I didn't expect such a response. This chapter was a bonus for thanks in this.

Additionally, on the profile of Couture Girl (fanfiction dot net slash u/2270025) there is a poll going for Best Slytherin Author, and I was nominated… I don't actually want you to vote for me, per se (I didn't!) but you should vote anyway, as several amazing authors are on there. :)