mizstorge (mizstorge) wrote in team_darklord, @ 2009-04-15 13:38:00 |
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Current mood: | Reading |
RE: Anonymous Kink Meme
I am pleased to introduce the first response to our Anonymous Kink Meme!
Title: Shadowtime
Author: Anonymous
Prompt: Harry doesn't throw off the Imperius curse in the graveyard. Lord Voldemort sends Harry back to Hogwarts with orders to act like nothing has happened. Over the summer, Lord Voldemort visits Harry, teaching him the Dark Arts and rewarding him with sex.
Bonus points: Harry wears a gold collar and is called Pet.
Extra points: Draco and Lucius Malfoy in a relationship or Ginny is the willing plaything of Bellatrix.
Rating: R
Summary: Sometimes, you break things just to see what noise they’ll make. An unknown affliction causes Harry to succumb to Voldemort’s Imperius curse in Greater Hangleton’s churchyard and become the Dark Lord’s slave. But the "sickness" is affecting Harry’s master as well, the iron collar around his neck is pushing him into madness and death, and he must face the truth: he is only half-human.
A/N: This is not a songfic, but it takes its title from the song by Siouxsie and the Banshees, which can be read (loosely) as a summary of the idea of this story.
Much thanks to sadademort and mizstorge (pipenerd) for general inspiration through the sixth day of writing this thing.
Chapter 1: Timelessness
It was the hottest day yet, and Harry was cleaning the kitchen. The smell of bleach hung in the air, refusing to escape through the open windows. Through the closed door to the living room he could hear Dudley complaining loudly about the odour. Harry grinned widely as he heard Vernon Dursley reply in a rumbling voice and Petunia shush them both. Evidently the Dursleys were so afraid of him that they would endure the smell rather than go out and leave the house in his hands.
Those hands were rather blistered now, and an alarming shade of red. He rinsed them in the sink, sighing as the cold water stung then numbed his fingers, and dried them on his T-shirt. He stood there at the sink and watched the sun shine through the gleaming windowpanes. He watched it for four days and nights, never stirring -
Harry looked at his hands. They were healed. The water was just draining out of the sink. The sun hadn’t moved. He shivered and touched, almost unconsciously, the gold collar round his neck; it pressed invisibly on his collarbones.
Everything was going to be all right.
He pulled the door open and watched the news as inconspicuously as he could. To his increasing disappointment, the announcer did not mention the date. He heard her mention “last Wednesday”, but there were plenty of Wednesdays he hadn’t checked the news.
Dudley tipped the last crumbs of a bag of crisps into his mouth and, still chewing, prodded his father sharply. Vernon’s eyes darted in Harry’s direction. “What is it?” he barked.
There was nothing for it now. “I – I was just wondering. What day is it?”
Uncle Vernon swelled so he was in danger of crushing Petunia. “What? Why do you want to know?” He gave a nasty laugh. “Your w – your people’s drugs messing up your head, boy?”
Harry practically heard Dudley’s ears prick up at that. He swallowed down the bitterness in his throat. “No. I’m not taking drugs. I – I think my memory’s just going… weird.”
“Hah! Comes of being an unnatural –”
A thin, reedy voice broke against his uncle’s. “The eighteenth. Sunday.” Aunt Petunia sat, brittle, her face turned away from Harry.
He nodded, in the half-hope she would turn and see, and backed out of the room.
Sunday! At least it wasn’t as bad as last week – no, three days ago, when five months had gone by with suspiciously sparse memories. After finding out it had only been two days on the outside, he had stumbled to the toilet and thrown up. Seasick – timesick, rather. He’d had to scrub out the toilet bowl with bleach, too. He was starting to hate the stuff. Great work, Zaphod.
There was a persistent pink cloud over his mind, too, damping all the shocks and making him feel relaxed at the most helpless of times. He knew why that was, too; yet it wasn’t half as bad as the way time seemed to run and drip and flow around him. He felt feverish, his mind buzzing, as if he were falling in some other direction.
It wasn’t the first time. The earliest he could remember – well, he’d put it down to nerves, but it had been before the second task of the Triwizard Tournament. He had woken up ten minutes before the task started. He could remember a week of frantically searching the library with Hermione and Ron. Yet he was sure that it had only been an hour since he had run to the library in a panic.
There had been a bundle of plant matter lying next to him – in fact, some of it had partially adhered to his hair – with a note. It had said, in crude block letters, “Gillyweed. Eat me.” Not knowing what else to do, lost and bewildered, he had run down to the lake with the weed, and… succeeded, actually. The cold water had at the first shock driven the panic from him. He never found out who had given him the plant.
The worst had been sitting down for one and a half hours to write an essay and feeling a year go by. Ron had told him the stubble was normal at that time of day, but in bed later Harry doubted the Adam’s apple had turned up overnight.
Right now, whenever now was, Harry decided he would clean the kitchen again.
Most of the silverware was gleaming, but in the third drawer lay a trove of forgotten things – broken rubber bands, asparagus ties, oil-stained paper bags – amidst a layer of crumbs and vegetable peelings. With great reluctance he pulled out the entire drawer and lay the largest of the old utensils on the counter and shook the detritus into the bin. He replaced the drawer and set about putting the remaining items back in.
A shock went through him, sliding his glasses further down his nose, and he dropped something. It was a spatula, ancient, black with oil and weighing about as much as a small shovel. It fell in a very solid way into the crack between the counter and the refrigerator.
Harry reached in and grasped it. There was a small metal magnet stuck to it as it came up. Harry barely had time to slam the whole affair on the counter before the shocks came again.
It was like passing through fever and out the other side. Harry’s vision went deep blue with pinpricks of light. He felt as if he had previously filled the entire of Number Four and now was being shrunk down to Harry-size. Something began to trickle, possibly blood, behind his nose.
In the end it was the Imperius curse that saved him. It rose up and relaxed his grip on the iron. He even seemed to land on the floor gently. He looked calmly at his hand. There was a new red mark on the palm.
All his senses returned. There was still the invisible collar on his neck, still the warm mists of the Imperius curse in his mind. The other sense was worse – the sixth sense that was permanently off-kilter, that raged against his blood and presented a world that was a gyroscope running down – because he didn’t know where it came from.
He knew who had cast the Imperius on him. In the churchyard on the outskirts of Greater Hangleton, Voldemort had made him bow, and he’d bowed. Voldemort had cast the Imperius curse on him – and he hadn’t thrown it off.
His voice had emerged, small yet damnably his own. “No. Please... no.” And on a whim he’d knelt, as the jeering laughter of the Death Eaters gave way to silence. Then he’d looked up defiantly.
Something else had risen in his mind then. Not his own will, not his stubbornness and pride, but something still his. It was proud too, but in a different way. It said: I’ll kneel now because it benefits me, but we’ll see who’s doing the kneeling in the end. It said: I’ll give you what you want now but I’ll take more than that when the time comes. It said: And I’ll make that time my own.
It swept around the circle, sensing the tingle of thoughts within the great storm clouds of emotion. The Death Eaters were afraid, and jealous, and angry. About a third of it was directed at Harry. They felt that Harry had bested them somehow, reached greater heights while still, of course, abasing himself before the Master. And he had suffered far less.
Voldemort, now... Voldemort was curious, insofar as any emotion could be added to the tightly controlled want and hatred surrounding him. Yes, even as Harry felt the sphere of the Dark Lord’s mind darken and hide itself at Harry’s touch, he was curious.
So Voldemort had dismissed his followers instead of gloating. He had plucked the wand out of Harry’s lax hand and raised him to his feet.
“Why, Harry Potter,” he whispered in Harry’s ear, “you surprise me.”
He was terrifyingly close to Harry. His mind crackled and crawled with the rich sparks of rage.
Harry had laughed; there was nothing else to do. The laugh was not his own. “Surprise me,” he replied mischievously, and turned his head a little so his cheek actually touched the cold, waxen one of Voldemort.
The Dark Lord drew back suddenly. Then he smiled a reptilian smile, his thin lips drawing back from the teeth a moment too late. His head darted forward and his cold mouth kissed Harry on the lips.
Harry felt skin and bone press hard against his teeth. The breath that issued from the slit nostrils of his partner was corpse-cold. He, or the electric silver force inside him, moved his lips against the stifling mould, wetting it with his own saliva. Voldemort’s tongue entered him and started doing interesting things to the roof of his mouth.
He moaned and broke the kiss, hot breath spilling from his mouth. Arching his hips, he took two fistfuls of Voldemort’s robe and pulled him even closer so his aroused member was pressed, throbbing against his jeans, between their bodies. He thrust forward a little, holding onto the other man’s narrow hips, and grinned up at Voldemort. The Dark Lord’s eyes glittered in that pale head; his nostrils were flared in excitement.
“You’ll need more than that to get a rise out of me,” Voldemort said softly.
Harry continued grinning at him. I’m giving you what you want. Surely I’ll take what I want in time...
Lord Voldemort bent down, almost gently, and kissed Harry on the mouth again. Then with a sudden dart, he bit the teen’s lower lip hard enough to draw blood. This elicited a gasp from Harry, drawn in through the nose; Voldemort smelt of snakeskin and a trace of something bitter, something foul like toadstools.
The recollection was strong enough that Harry went weak at the knees, falling rather than breaking away from the Dark Lord's mouth this time. “Mama,” he whispered.
Whatever had come over him ever since the Imperius curse was now draining away. Oh no, what had he just done...
He found Voldemort looking at him with a calculating expression on his face. Then Voldemort reached out a finger and dabbed something off Harry’s lip, turning his gaze to the equally scarlet drop of blood on his fingertip. A twitch flitted across his face; Harry could not tell what it was. Was it doubt? unease? – Surely not.
With a flick, Lord Voldemort produced a wand from his pocket and directed it at Harry. “Imperio.”
Mind spinning between panic and despair, lost and confused, Harry did not resist as the curse’s floating sensations took him.
“It will doubtless be difficult for you, after this,” Voldemort murmured, “but you must behave as if I am not – active. You will pick up the Portkey and return to the school...” His voice, if it was that, was oddly beautiful: it echoed and buzzed in Harry’s mind long after the Dark Lord stopped speaking.
Lord Voldemort paused, raising a finger to his lipless mouth, and produced a thick, plain gold ring from his robes, which he threw into the air. It rose spinning end over end. He pointed his wand at it and chanted something; there was a flash of violet light and the ring, stretched to a thin gold hoop, landed in his hand. It gleamed faintly and faded from sight. The Dark Lord placed it around Harry’s neck, where it contracted so it could not be removed.
“A limb will triumph where the core has failed,” he had said with a death’s-head grin; then, enduring a mocking caress on the cheek, Harry had walked over to the Triwizard cup and returned to the outside of the maze.
The next few weeks had passed in the space of two hours. Harry remembered conversations, events, and days passing like déjà vu. Moody’s face alarmingly twisted; the curse had made Harry calmly explain most of what had passed in the graveyard to him, whoever he was. No; the first thing he had seen was Cedric’s face with its relieved, sympathetic smile. Snatches of conversation in his confined memories twisted around each other:
“Some problem with the Portkey -”
“- Department of Magical Transportation to send someone -”
“- that business with the Vanishing Cabinets in the sixties, hah, where were they -”
“Fudge wanted him to be Kissed right on the school premises but Professor Dumbledore flat-out refused, had a row -”
“- Moody’s trunk, I heard he’s keeping Sirius Black in it -”
“A fair trial? Crouch junior offed his own father! Still, you’ve got to admire Dumbledore’s ideals.”
“- poisoned, heard that the Headmaster put Snape up to it -”
“Harry, are you alright? You won. Er. Really.”
“’S like one of those liar’s oath things, then. Dumbledore couldn’t well release Crouch to the Ministry, ‘cos he knew they’d have his soul like a shot. But he couldn’t keep Crouch at school forever, either, ‘cos of the students. One of them philosophical things. Whatever you say, the man’s -”
“A neutral party from the Ministry of Magic has checked the Triwizard Cup and found it to be tampered with. Capable wizards and witches have been sent –”
“Nothing happened. Really. I’m fine.”
“- think it’s like the Lovegood incident, remember –”
“- in the forest out of nowhere, and you know you can’t Apparate in Hogwarts.”
“- the Void –”
“- turned up a fortnight later –”
“The way I reckon it, it was a mercy.”
“Hah! You’d think of a bleeding vampire as a mercy killer.”
“You’ve got a bruise on your neck, mate...”
“- OK, just disoriented from his time spent in limbo between the portals –”
“I... I think I’ll put half of it in the bank. You can have half, really. Please... please take it. Please. I don’t want to argue.” He had said that. And also:
“Vault six hundred and sixteen, please.” He’d forgotten most of Lord Voldemort’s orders – the words, at least. The meanings still echoed around his head.
Now in the evening he was pacing his room, hands still smelling faintly of bleach, and his mind turned over under the fog. As tiring as it was, he sensed that he would only survive by balancing between the Imperius and freedom.
Harry was startled by a clatter at the windowsill. Quite matter-of-factly, an owl soared in through the window. Harry removed the slip of parchment from its leg. The message was written in a brown ink; there was no signature but the Dark Mark stamped in one corner.
Walk to the closest drain. Make sure there are no lighted windows nearby. An envoy will be sent to collect you.
Wear your Invisibility Cloak, which I know you have, and bring your wand -
Harry read that far before the message burst into flame. It floated, turning to grey cinders, to the floor from his loose grasp.
Ten minutes later, he was startled by a clicking noise from the drain beside him, and a grey rat swarmed up between the bars of the grille and swarmed further up to become the form of a short, plump man. Harry realized who it was before he saw the flash of a silver wrist between glove and fraying coat sleeve.
"You," he said. The look Peter Pettigrew darted up at him (or, as was usual when he was wearing the Cloak, a point above his right ear) was one of curiosity, but it immediately resolved itself into one of terror directed at the street.
The Death Eater gripped his still-invisible arm and stepped into thin air. Before a horrible squeezing sensation took him, Harry swore he heard a shrilling, hissing laugh from the sewer.
They landed in, of all places, an eight-sided tent of glass and metal with the warm evening air moving pleasantly around them. Trying to reinflate his lungs, Harry looked up at the tall, skeletal, black-garbed man before him. Lord Voldemort gave his attention to Pettigrew first. At his curt nod, Pettigrew scrambled to kneel and kiss his master's robes before Disapparating halfway through a cringing bow. With mock grace the Dark Lord extended an arm to Harry: "May I take your cloak, sir?"
Harry pulled his Invisibility Cloak off and handed it to the Dark Lord silently. He felt a headache coming on, as if his brain were vibrating in phase with something independently of his skull.
The Cloak glimmered silver, draped on Voldemort's arm. Harry fixed his eyes on it, taking hold of the Dark Lord's other arm when it was proffered to him. His headache receded as they walked out of the gazebo and along a gravel path.
"This is my summer house," said Voldemort: "it belongs to me, and it is where you'll spend the nights, when I will it, with me. You will also be instructed in magic and sorcery of a long and great tradition."
"The Dark Arts," murmured Harry; Lord Voldemort looked at him balefully, his scarlet eyes flickering over Harry's face as if to sift his every thought.
"You have no objections?" the Dark Lord said.
"No," replied Harry calmly.
Voldemort smiled - perhaps it was a smile - and touched the ring around Harry's neck. "I know it must be difficult for you to appreciate the full span of my power. Still, I remain confident that you are worthy."
Harry's scar throbbed with warning pain, but it was distant underneath the Imperius. He decided it was best to let the other sense have free run. He tilted his head. "Are you always angry?"
Voldemort's face became a mask: its lines were quite relaxed, almost charming as much as the intrusive skull beneath would allow; but Harry felt the Dark Lord's rage suddenly surge, as brief and terrific as lightning.
"Manners," he said, his high-pitched voice almost casual in direct contrast to the mental touch of his rage. He stepped into the house and shut the door after Harry.
The inside of the house was so dark that Harry could see nothing, not even the Cloak, but from the feel of the air he guessed they were in a narrow room or hallway.
Something cold and dry, like living ivory, gripped Harry's hand tightly; it was the Dark Lord.
"Follow me," he said, "and don't touch the walls."
Harry obeyed, having to execute an awkward skip and a couple of hops as they went around a corner. Finally they stopped, still in darkness. Several minutes – it seemed longer to Harry – went by.
He realized that they were in silence, and that Voldemort was not breathing. He tried to move, but strangely his arm wouldn’t respond. He realized he wasn’t breathing either.
Motion and sound – time – returned, the stirring of the air in the large room like the ocean’s roar in Harry’s ears. His hand slid off Voldemort’s arm and he collapsed on his knees, breathing hard and in a cold sweat. From the corner of his eye he saw flame; it seemed the Dark Lord had a handful of fire raised in the air, directing it to stream over to several branches of candles about the room and severally light them.
Then he realized that he could feel panic; he must have thrown off the Imperius Curse somehow. With a tremendous effort he got to his feet and drew his wand.
Voldemort did not turn to face him, but a snakelike grin stretched over his chalk-white face. He joined the tips of his fingers and touched them to his mouth, as if he were praying, and whispered something.
Pain exploded in Harry’s neck, sinking into his skin and eating deeper. His throat was on fire, swelling up so he could only emit a harsh whisper… he wished to vomit, abdomen seizing, but nothing came up. He felt the vertebrae creak as he doubled over, barely stopping himself from hitting the floor, eyes streaming and vision darkening. Then the immediate pain ceased. All that was left was a throb in his veins. He kept his gaze fixed on the wand lying on the floor where he'd dropped it. His wand. His wand...
Lord Voldemort nudged it toward him with a foot. "Disappointing. Pick the wand up and hand it to me."
As Harry did so automatically, he realized that Voldemort must have put him under the Imperius Curse again. The thought brought only a distant regret.
He stood there for a while, head full of pleasant nothing, while Voldemort tapped his forefinger to his chin in thought. "This won't do. No. Can he endure the pain in future? Depending on the strength of the field - No. Fortunately, we have a better solution, even if dear Nagini cannot sense it... Yes. He will learn. Even the strongest spirit..."
The Dark Lord strode out of the room, robes swishing. "Stay here. You will not communicate with anyone, with the exception of myself, of course."
A few minutes later Voldemort returned without the Cloak bearing a wide flat box, which he set on a side table and opened. Inside was a heavy gold collar, wider and more ornate than the thin gold band currently around Harry's neck. He tugged the former ring; it obediently expanded and slipped off. Then he closed the new collar round Harry's throat, locking it with his wand. Harry winced at the touch of his hand, which still seared his scar, but kept still.
Then Lord Voldemort turned to the gold hoop that he had removed. Under his eyes it shrank back into a ring, which he slipped onto one of his own long fingers. He seemed to concentrate even harder on it, his other hand clenched to a fist at his side - with the result that the ring began to emit smoke.
There was the stink of - what? burning flesh? Harry wasn't sure whether Voldemort's skin could burn, as bloodless as it was. Nevertheless, the Dark Lord's face twitched and his eyes narrowed in pain.
"No," Harry heard him whisper. "I shall not be vanquished by my own devices."
He made a fist, then; one or two blue-green veins stood out at his hairless temples. There was a brief moment - Harry knew it to be distinct from his own confused sense of time - where he heard sounds like whispers and cries and echoing howls played backwards. Then the whirl of sound shrank in towards Voldemort and was cut off.
He frowned and rubbed at the skin beneath the ring; black flakes floated down.
To Harry it seemed as though Lord Voldemort had become more beautiful and terrible overnight; his skin fairly gave off a pallid glow and the wide red eyes dominated his face. He clapped his hands; half the candles snuffed themselves out.
"Now, Harry… Undress for me, pet."
The epithet was hard and shocking after the sigh of 'Harry'. It rang in Harry's ears. Warmth rose in him: hate.
“If I have a fault, it is impatience. Hurry up.”
Harry pulled off his glasses, looking defiantly at Voldemort until he found he couldn’t effectively glare at the black-and-white blur. He set them down carefully by his feet, feeling a lot more relaxed. He didn’t need his glasses to know where Voldemort was.
“Shall I embrace you? Shall we dance the night away? Shall I kiss you now, or make love where the whole world can see –
“With an endless despairing scream: this is the destiny, the brave delirium, Freudian dreams in the sky above; the festering itch to destroy; as pipes and flute triumph over lyre, so does love lose out to desire.
“I’m waiting, pet!”
So saying, Lord Voldemort swiftly stepped closer and plucked at Harry’s T-shirt before stepping back.
Outwardly resigned, Harry unbuckled his belt; his jeans were so baggy that they fell down about his ankles straightaway. He stepped out of them and removed his shoes and socks, feeling vaguely silly.
“Good…” the Dark Lord whispered, sweeping over to a branch of candles and extinguishing them, caressing the warm soft wax with his long fingers.
As the room darkened further Harry pulled his T-shirt over his head and dropped it on the floor. He turned; Voldemort wasn’t there. He jumped and nearly screamed as a drop of hot wax landed on his bare back. Lord Voldemort laughed just behind him.
Another burning drop landed on his skin, and another.
He closed his eyes – it hardly made any difference – and stripped off his underwear and dropped them unceremoniously on the small pile of clothing.
“What is it you wish, pet?”
“I want…” Harry blinked away a bead of sweat on his forehead. His scar was sending pain into his eyes, a soft crackling like a radio station out of tune. “… I want you. To please you.”
“And what am I called?” Lord Voldemort said softly, his finger tracing the edge of Harry’s collar. Every time it threatened to touch his skin, his scar gave an extra-painful throb.
“Master,” he forced out of his throat, “Master.”
Voldemort pushed Harry’s head forward playfully and started stroking his hair. Harry sighed, involuntarily; the Dark Lord laughed, and whispered in his ear: “I will give you all you want, pet. It shouldn’t be hard. Make your little noises; they don’t bother me. Go on and moan your lust for the least of what I can provide…”
Harry did moan, and leaned back against the Dark Lord’s body. Voldemort was so thin that his robes seemed no more than a skin over his bare bones. He felt the odd sensation of rough cloth rubbing parts previously sheltered, sparking both fear and arousal.
“I remember…” he murmured, arching his back and sighing. “Clothes… they were only armour against us… against the world.”
Lord Voldemort grasped Harry’s shoulder and pulled him around so they were face-to-face. His eyes, glowing red in the faint candlelight, betrayed some of the compressed fury Harry knew was perpetually there. “Who are you, pet? What do you know of such things?” Coldness shimmered off each syllable. “You… you aren’t simply fourteen, are you?”
As in the graveyard, Harry laughed to his face. “I’m just me. And all that is yours.”
Voldemort crossed his arms and tapped his mouth with a finger. “Yes. You have a most insolent laugh, pet. I suppose I’ll let you keep your voice after all.”
Harry’s hatred boiled over; he raised an arm to strike. But Voldemort, perhaps sensing his anger, caught his wrist easily; his scar lanced pain into his skull.
“Claws in, you cat. It’s the bed for you tonight…” He lifted a hand and Harry felt the Imperius cloud his mind further. He started walking after the Dark Lord, still naked, down a hall.
“Tomorrow your instruction starts.”
The bed was a large one but less sumptuous than the four-poster he had slept in at Hogwarts. Still, it was a far cry from anything he’d slept in at Number Four or The Burrow, not least because the Dark Lord was lying next to him.
Actually, Lord Voldemort was propped up on an elbow, reading a book. He was still dressed in his black robes. The only sounds present were their breathing and the turning of pages.
Harry tried to sleep, but the feel of the sheet against his skin and the presence of Voldemort (despite the Imperius Curse) made it an impossible venture. What he thought of as the silver force inside him took over, and he started moving about on the bed. Perhaps what he felt was fatigue after all, for his mind felt disconnected from his body; yet it was with a secret pleasure that he turned to rubbing against Voldemort.
“Pet –” and Lord Voldemort gave an annoyed sigh – “oh, very well.” He closed his book and tucked it under a pillow. Harry felt one of his master’s cold hands brush his thigh – and then came the pain.
He arched against it, trying to escape it, yearning towards it and the touch that caused it. He threw his hips into it, squirming towards it on skin newly gilded with sweat. He was breathing in rough gasps, and he heard himself cry out.
Then Voldemort’s hand moved to his hand, and moved it between his legs; their hands joined, wrapped one in the other round Harry’s shaft, pain and pleasure squeezed together inseparable in the heat of friction. Their wrists, due to the different angles, were like pistons, and when combined with the minute creaking of the bed made the whole affair seem like a machine, steaming and grunting and complicated. Especially when Harry – Harry threw a glance over his shoulder, and found the Dark Lord staring at the wall with blank red eyes, as if he were doing nothing more than watching a film. So it went, Voldemort’s long-fingered pale hand always covering Harry’s smaller, heated one. Somehow a few minutes later Harry got himself turned around, his buttocks pushed up against Voldemort’s abdomen, straddling his master’s leg. When Voldemort tugged on the collar and kissed the exposed skin of his neck, his scar seared as if it were a brand. His mind was invaded by the unbearable whiteness. Somewhere in the pain, he was conscious that he had climaxed.
His master Vanished the spill; then, retrieving his book and opening it again, he said, “If you still find yourself unable to sleep, I hear that laudanum generally works. Now sleep, pet.”
“Harry,” Harry murmured, a trickle of drool sliding from one corner of his mouth, and slept a dreamless slumber.
The next day Harry wandered Four Privet Drive in a daze – one only partially caused by the Imperius Curse – earning himself warning looks from Aunt Petunia, but since he had cleaned the kitchen yesterday she couldn’t find much to complain about.
Finally, when Dudley had slouched out of the house to meet up with his gang, Aunt Petunia lost patience with Harry and forced him out the door too. Not especially keen on being spotted by Dudley or any of his cronies, Harry took a wandering route to the park.
He sat on one of the large rocks at the back of the park, screened by bushes, and put his head in his hands. He wondered if he could pretend last night had been a dream – but the invisible, heavier collar around his neck was material proof. He rubbed his scar.
Voldemort – now that he had a body again he seemed even more terrifying, so inhuman was he. Harry felt that if he had spent more time in such close quarters with the Dark Lord he, too, would have gone insane.
Why not? and what was the strange thing inside him that enabled him to twist out from under the force of Voldemort’s anger?
That night Harry had just started to relax in his bed when he was pulled forward at a sickening speed by what felt like a hook behind his entrails; he found himself back in the Dark Lord’s summer house, and realized he must have been transported there by Portkey.
Once again Voldemort bade him to strip. He did so wearily and was lead, by means of a leash and a blindfold, to another room, as before bright and warm with candles. The sight brought a ball of anxiety to Harry’s throat.
“Now, pet,” said Lord Voldemort, “before your first instruction, you must be… what is it that you must do?”
Harry was already feeling scalded by his presence, by that cold, high voice. “I don’t know,” he muttered. He licked his lips and focused on something far away. “Master.”
Again the reptilian grin. “Why,” the Dark Lord said, “you must be punished – you must be cleansed of all your sins against me. For one can’t begin a new saga without ending the old, hmm? Go stand by that desk.”
While Harry obeyed, Voldemort fetched a bundle of long whippy twigs from one of the desk drawers, held them out and said, “Now – kiss the birch.”
Harry did, wondering what the purpose was. Then he was maneuvered into bending over the desk at the narrow end, and his legs bound to the legs of the desk and his arms higher up. He winced as bits of him rubbed against the cool wood; heat rose in his face and neck at the mental picture of his situation.
He heard Voldemort’s voice: “For the destruction of the Philosopher’s Stone.” The birch whistled, akin to the voice, as it came down. Harry nearly bit his tongue off as another blow landed, and another. The tip of the birch teased his inner thigh before laying a fierce stinging one there.
“For the desecration of my diary, and of my own precious soul.” Harry’s hips jerked before the rod came down, but the desk was heavy and all that resulted was his skin scraping against the wood. It was no use to delaying the five strokes that rained down.
“For the delaying of my plans.” For the first time, Harry realized, the Dark Lord’s voice was sharper from excitement, and his breathing was more rapid. It had not been so last night in bed – He screamed outright as a particularly vicious blow landed in the soft flesh between his buttock and thigh. Several more stripes followed, stinging and smarting in the hot aroused areas. Dread and shame rose in him as he felt a trickle of something down the backs of his thighs.
Finally – the desk surface warm from his face and breath, and smeared with his unwilling tears – the ordeal was over. Something cool passed over his stinging, aching backside; the cuts and welts from the birching were healed. His arms were untied from the desk only. Steadying himself, he looked round; Voldemort was standing at the other end, holding his wand.
“What now?” he asked.
“Your first lesson,” the Dark Lord replied, rolling the wand toward Harry along the desk top; Harry expected it to reach him, but it rolled to a halt halfway.
“Er, what?” He felt vaguely helpless without his wand, to say nothing of the cords still binding his legs, spread out, to the legs of the table.
“Summoning your wand to you. It is a useful skill, for obvious reasons.”
“You want me to fight – for you?”
Voldemort’s eyes flashed. “I wish you to do this – Now, pet.”
Harry stretched his arm out and tried. “Accio,” he said, concentrating on the wand. To his surprise, it moved a foot or so and stopped, rocking uncertainly.
Conscious of the sweat running down his shoulders and bare legs, his left hand planted firmly on the hated desk to steady himself, he spoke the Summoning Charm again. On the second try the wand flew all the way into his hand – only to have it slip out from the tips of his fingers and clatter onto the desk a further distance away.
He looked at Lord Voldemort; the snake-faced man smiled mockingly at him and lowered his hand, walking round and picking up a fresh birch rod.
After the fifth successful attempt – the wand now at the very other end of the desk by now – Harry’s legs gave out, and since his ankles were still bound to the desk legs he ended up on the floor on his still-tender backside.
“Magic is quite a suggestive art, I have always felt,” commented Voldemort. “All those wands and broomsticks, magic grails and rings and such.”
To Harry’s surprise the Dark Lord came over and sat on the floor beside him, but this turned to painful embarrassment as Voldemort placed a long white hand on his erection.
“But then, so is any other art,” Voldemort said, his fingers fluttering, touching Harry’s skin one by one like a pianist’s. The Dark Lord’s eyes were half-lidded, his face expressionless. His other hand reached out and tugged at Harry’s gold collar. His voice returned to its usual coldness: “Summon your wand from here, pet.”
“I – I can’t see it,” protested Harry, then gasped as Voldemort pinched him lightly.
“Just because one doesn’t see it,” he murmured, his fingers sliding down further to caress Harry’s balls, “doesn’t mean it isn’t there. Hmm?” – The hum that a normal person would make was instead a hiss.
Harry reached out a trembling hand. “Accio.” But his scar was softly blinding him with pain, and the Dark Lord’s hand on him, so near, his breath on Harry’s neck…
“I don’t know where it is now.” Harry’s arm was so tired, both his arms trembling from holding himself up in that ridiculous position. He tilted his hips, rolled them back and forth. So desperate for release, been throbbing for far too long… he was tired but knew it would be worse to stop.
“Call it,” hissed Voldemort, and a voice in the back of Harry’s mind said, How grating that voice is, how coarse – How could you have ever thought it worth listening to?
And of course he was no better. He jerked his hand back with one last mental effort, nearly hitting himself on the head, and was relieved to see his wand roll reluctantly over the edge and drop between his calves.
Lord Voldemort gave his short exhalation of annoyance. “Good,” he snapped. His fingers pressed, rubbed, released…
By now Harry was so tired that he spent, his whole body spasming painfully, into Voldemort’s hand.
He remembered Voldemort allowing him to untie himself, remembered holding up what had been used – not cords or ropes, but vivid scarlet ribbon.
“Nice,” he said.
In the morning he found himself in his bed in Little Whinging as before, fully dressed in yesterday’s clothes. He put his hands behind his head, stared up at the ceiling. How disgusting.
The following night had gone past midnight before Harry could sleep. He kept waking with a start, his fingers going to the invisible collar, before dropping off uneasily again. Eventually he dreamed.
There was a very bright light.
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