Burdens

To carry two deaths
Is a burden for any man:
And it's a heavy knowledge that tells me
Only the death I was born with
Will destroy the other.
(Norman MacCaig, Triple Burden)

His scream when he realises what final victory has brought on him will stay with me until the moment of my final death, if that should ever come. It is almost enough to recompense me for thirteen years of non-being, a parasite clinging to the minds of the weak. Almost enough to make me forget that I am now reduced to that again. But there will be no frantic flitting from host to host this time - now we are welded together by forces far beyond our power to sever, even mine, considerable as it is.

Of course he should be dead by rights; he should have suffered a gruesome and final demise at my hands. But if I have to be trapped in another's body once more, none could be more fitting for me - and more torturous for him - than his.

The boy ripped us away from the realities of the battlefield in his initial moment of terror after realising what he had brought on himself. Sheer, mindless panic, and the urge to flee from me no matter the cost, not realising that there is no place he could escape to, nor will there ever be.

He Apparated, wandless, no goal in mind but away, and all of my power could not keep him from splinching himself. The damage is minor - a dislocated shoulder, an arm twisted at an awkward angle. Nothing serious, nothing that a bone-setting spell couldn't easily remedy, if we had a wand. But ours is - are - gone, breaking on each other during the battle. Too close for combat, as we are. Not that he would be ready to accept that realisation, of course.

The injury pains him more than it does me. I have studied the darkest of Dark Arts over decades, and pain is one of the hurdles one has to overcome to achieve Dark mastery. At night, curled painfully on the unforgiving stone ground of this accursed cave, unable to find a position which doesn't hurt, tears spill from his - from our - eyes. He makes no sound, as if he could hide his misery from me. As if he could hide anything from me!

It would be so tempting to crush that stubborn soul into submission through agony. But it would require a wand to cast Cruciatus, or any of the myriad of pain-inducing curses at my disposal, to break him and drive out his hateful spirit. Without a wand, I could only inflict lasting injuries on this body, and this body is all there is.

So I choose to play with the mind instead, which lies nudged against my own, so terribly tempting and vulnerable. So easy to draw out strand after strand of memory from the little bone bowl of a Pensieve that is his head, holding them up, examining, twisting them to view all sides. He screams his mute protests, writhing with rage but utterly helpless to stop me from shedding light on his fears and failures.

Trapped like a trembling mouse in a circle of bullies in a Muggle schoolyard. Scorned, shunned and rejected, again and again, by his loathsome Muggle kin, his Hogwarts house, even some of those he loves. Watching destruction befall those he cares about - a little girl, lying motionless in the Chamber of Secrets, the boy I had Wormtail remove before my resurrection, his arrogant godfather stumbling - literally - to perdition over his own stupidity.

And unlike Tom Riddle, he has allowed those blows to wound him. Even now, the memories shrivel up his soul like salt shrivels up a horned slug, and yet do not cow him sufficiently for me to take control of this body myself. I observe his dogged refusal to give anything, and realise that we may be matched fairly for all our inequalities.

Deciding that if he can't be beaten he can at least be made miserable, I turn my attention to the little sins that tend to accumulate in a child's mind, even this one who had almost as little opportunity for childhood as I had. Throwing a badge into a friend's face in anger. Admiring the way the wind flattens a girl's robe against her chest during a Quidditch match, and the adolescent stirring that accompanies it. Tentative, awkward touches under the bedclothes, or in solitary showers. He squirms in shame as I riffle through his dirty little secrets.

Of course, he could easily retaliate, given that there are no barriers left between us, but he refuses to even speak to me, far less touch my memories. Which may be wise, knowing how they would traumatise him, and yet it is... annoying.

It should not vex me so - he does not deserve to know me, that little piece of nothing who put himself into my path like a brick, to stumble over at every step! It only deserves to die, as painfully as possible. What should vex me is that I'm forced to try and barter for a truce with something so worthless!

Speaking mind-to-mind would be the easiest thing for us now, and yet his mental back is turned against me, stubborn silence drowning out my every attempt to instigate conversation. But he has to see reason, and soon. We can't remain here, stretched out in dogged inertia on some anonymous cave floor in some nameless woods, dying by degrees. Which looks like the extent of his plan.

A while back - the passing of time becomes rather opaque when one is browsing through another's mind and the only sight that meets the eye are woods - I dragged us out to hunt for a handful of frozen berries and mushrooms, and could stop his hand just in time to prevent him from popping a fly agaric into his mouth along with our meagre findings. In acute danger, it seems, his primal instinct of self-preservation allows me to take control - for a few moments. I can't say whether he did it on purpose or not - his memories are open to me, but his thoughts are very much not.

I suspect that's what he's up to, though. I shake our head in dark amusement.

Even if our lives were not joined together, I would not let you escape so easily, Harry Potter.

Though for the moment, he seems hell-bent on denying me rest rather than on outright suicide. Whether he thinks I'd be able to steal away with this body once he falls into oblivion or he believes lack of sleep will weaken it more quickly I don't know, but he resolutely keeps his burning eyes open, biting his knuckles from time to time to keep us awake. It makes me so edgy with unrest and exhaustion that I'm tempted to wrap our unsplinched hand around his throat and strangle him. A gratifying vision, if it weren't for the obvious disadvantages.

But exhaustion acerbates my anger to a point where extreme measures are not only desirable, but essential. I will put that infuriating child to sleep!

Leafing through the boy's memories, I settle on a particularly humiliating one and let my borrowed mouth curl into a nasty smirk. Even half-delirious as he is, Potter registers the expression that is not his own with a flutter of apprehension. I take control of his undamaged arm so stealthily that he hardly notices how my hand wanders down his side until it slides under his tattered robe to curl around his hip for a moment, and then moves to the front buttons of his scuffed Muggle trousers. His terror surges like a living creature, a snake springing out of the darkness, jaws wide, to swallow his world. He blindly struggles for control, but it's too late - he did not see this coming, and now he's going to pay.

Adrenaline whips through our body, creating a dizzy buzz in our over-tired head.

I do not undo the buttons immediately; instead, I skim my fingers over them, pressing each very lightly down into the dormant, quivering flesh underneath. The teasing touch makes him freeze and hold his breath. A single tear trickles from his eye as he relaxes into the touch, and I smile with it. I can feel how he struggles frantically to regain control over his lower body and his hand. In panic, he flexes the other one for a moment, resulting in a near-unbearable stabbing pain from his splinched shoulder. It drives tears to our eyes, and he falls back with a strangled moan. As the pain fades slowly, I tackle the buttons again, and this time undo them without paying attention to the flutter of protest that beats against my mind. He still doesn't address words to me, but I feel his rage.

There is an exquisite sense of... duality to this. Only when I feel the shivers travel up our neck do I realise that I'm doing this to myself as well, not just to him. It only heightens the elation of victory. It would be pleasant all on its own, but it's the sense of violation that makes it perfect, far more than self-gratification.

Not that I have much experience with that kind of thing - the boy who once was Tom Riddle had never fully shaken off the fear of touching himself instilled by bigoted, ignorant Muggle teachers and abusive guardians in that orphanage. He had carried that mark into Hogwarts, and there discovered the quest for magic, which eclipsed the trivial urges of his body. And a younger Lord Voldemort had sacrificed the capacity for desire on the altar of power too soon to explore it in more detail.

The trousers I'm exploring are surprisingly large for his slender frame, and probing inside makes me realise that the buttons have in all likelihood been moved to ensure a better fit. Albus Dumbledore should have fitted out his champion better, I smirk to myself. You never know who might see you like this.

I stroke along warm, sweaty, unwashed flesh, and find only a hint of hardness. Our lips form an unbidden, soundless protest as I caress him - us - a touch more insistently. His wrinkled, trembling flesh grows with increasing hardness, and the pleasure is rare enough to take my breath away. Stroking him leaves small specks of grime between my fingers, but it doesn't deter me. My hands aren't exactly clean either, not after digging for roots in the ground. But then, there is nothing at all clean about this.

He doesn't have enough control to do anything more but squirm furtively as I push him along the way to completion, picking up on his instincts and recollections to reduce him to a trembling mess. Oh yes, he will always remember that his own weakness and carnal desire allowed me to do this to him.

He makes a soft, breathless, pained noise as he spills himself into my hand, and allows our shared body to go limp. The flash of pleasure is almost blinding, white light searing over the insides of my eyelids. It has been so long that I can't remember if it ever felt like this, or if his body is just more libidinous than Tom Riddle's ever was. Our head falls back onto the stone with a thud, but the twinge of pain is swallowed up by delicious languor in the aftermath of release. I casually dry off my hand on the tattered remains of his Hogwarts cloak.

Our eyes are wide open, but I know he sees nothing. It's dark in the cave, and I can feel him cringing inwardly, blinded by shame and so very violated by his own hand. I cannot read his thoughts, but his emotions are vivid - my cheeks burn, and the urge to curl up and cry myself into oblivion sits in my bones like a physical itch. When he finally surrenders, it's more like unconsciousness than sleep.

Very well, I muse as I let myself sink back into that blissful dark. It is a start. Tomorrow, he will be more inclined to negotiate, now that he's seen what refusing me will bring on him.

***

The following morning the dead quiet is back, with an undertone even more cutting than before. I am thinking against an ice wall.

'Potter, listen!'

Emphatic silence.

'I can do that to you again, you know, if that's what it takes to penetrate your foolish skull.'

I feel him cringe against his own better instincts, and decide to dig deeper at that little sign of acknowledgement.

'Potter, we have to get out of here. We need shelter, and food, and a wand!'

'No!' His mind's voice expressively marries growl to hiss. Still, it floods me with relief. A response, finally, after days of painful silence.

'Your intransigence is killing us.'

'Good!' His vicious satisfaction pours over me.

So we're trying to walk the path of noble suicide, Potter?

'It won't work,' I point out patiently, with only a hint of glee. 'You and I, Potter, are probably the most famous survivors the Wizarding World has ever seen. You don't want to die, otherwise you'd have lain down right there in Godric's Hollow - it goes against your very essence. And I won't die because of you.'

Not again. I don't think the last bit aloud, but it must certainly ring in his head anyway.

His mind recoils, rejecting my words almost physically, but I know he listens. He has no other choice, after all.

'Sooner or later your body will have weakened enough for your survival instincts to take over, and then I will be able to take control.' I allow myself a short flick of amusement at his expense. 'You've seen what can happen if I do. If you don't want that, I'd suggest you cooperate.'

Nothing.

I finally snap. 'For the love of Merlin, stop whinging, Potter! It was your spell! It's not as if you had no idea what would happen.'

He doesn't merely go quiet at that; his mind practically rolls into a ball like a caterpillar curling in on itself at a touch.

'What?' I realise the implications quicker than he does, and my delighted laughter titters over his inflamed brain. 'You heard the old codger yourself in the Ministry - "merely taking your life would not satisfy me, I admit". What did you think it meant, Potter? Great Albus Dumbledore, the epitome of Gryffindor nobility, succumbing to vengefulness?'

He shifts under my sarcasm, and I laugh again, realising that that had indeed been what he thought.

'No, the true beauty is that the old man finally lost; he has become what he despises most. He used you to trap me; that was his plan all along. He knew what would happen, and he never told you.'

'Let's agree on a truce, Potter.' I put all my power of conviction into the thought. I've talked older, much more experienced and intelligent wizards and witches into following me unquestioningly; I'll be able to convince one stubborn boy with delusions of grandeur. 'Let's agree on a truce for as long as it takes to undo this... curse we're trapped in. And once we have thrown it off, and are separated into two different bodies again, we'll duel and settle matters once and for all.'

'It's impossible, can't you see?' he yells at me. 'I can't let you go - it'll all start again. All that spell ever intended was to contain you for good - to put you into the perfect prison: me. I'll never have a chance at a normal life now, a lover, a family. You've done worse than kill me - you've destroyed my life.'

Oh yes, I know that this was Dumbledore's plan, and a good one, too, except that it will likely drive poor Potter mad with despair, unless I decide to do that myself. But I realise that I can't afford it. I want his spirit gone, or bludgeoned into submission deep enough to keep him from taking the reins of this body. But I can't drive him mad - uncontrolled, he'd put us at too much risk.

'Me?' I inquire mildly. 'Potter, it was Dumbledore who betrayed you in the most outrageous manner imaginable.' I don't have to lie about it - the way the old bastard used the child was inspired, more than worthy of myself.

'He should have told me,' Potters voice murmurs through my head, lost as a ghost's.

'But you would have been stupid enough to agree if he had, would you not?' I point out.

'Probably,' he agrees simply.

'But he didn't trust you enough to ask,' I prompt again, aware that I'm ripping out the blade stuck in his soul just to shove it in deeper. 'And that means you don't owe him loyalty any longer. You have a chance at regaining your life - I'm not saying it can be done, but we can at least try.'

'I can't let you return again,' he repeats, like a mantra. 'I brought you back before - I can't let it happen again.'

'We'll have our battle once we've solved that little problem,' I promise. "Just the two of us. And you'll be able to search through my mind until we do, just as I have access to yours. You'll be so much better prepared to fight me then.'

I feel his soft gasp at that... he knows he shouldn't, but freedom is so very tempting.

'And believe me, you won't want to return to your Master with me lodged inside your body,' I add. 'Oh, I'm sure there won't be anything so crude as a cell in Azkaban for you, but he would lock us away. In the most comfortable of prisons, no doubt, but you would never be free again.'

He knows only too well that most of what I promise is rhetoric, of course. But there is truth in it too.

After what feels like a small eternity, he sits up heavily and pulls his legs under him to rise.

"A truce then, until we've separated." He says it out loud, as if he was still speaking to a separate entity.

I let his mouth curve into a smile in reply.

"Until we're apart, Potter."

***

It takes five years to undo his foolish spell. Five years in which we bargain over every move. He finally accepts that turning to his allies is out of the question - they would only lock him - us - up for good. The Ministry has fallen into a self-congratulatory stupor after what becomes known throughout the Wizarding World simply as 'The Battle'. I can imagine Dumbledore becoming ever more frantic over the continuing absence of the Boy Who Triumphed and his... guest, while an ignorant Minister of Magic showers them both with First Class Orders of Merlin, Potter's posthumously, of course. Potter tells me curtly to shut up whenever I bring it up, but I know that the thought of Dumbledore still haunts him.

After hitchhiking our way to London - no small risk because the stupid Muggle driver wants to drop off the poor injured boy at a hospital, not in an inconspicuous backstreet of a dodgy neighbourhood - we nick a wand from a very shady sorcerer in Knockturn Alley, with skill borrowed from Tom Riddle's half-buried childhood memories.

We find Bellatrix Lestrange prowling the outskirts of the Forbidden Forest like a wild thing, raving and madder than ever. Locating her is more bothersome than it would have been before, since Potter's body is not attuned to her Dark Mark.

But when we do, I get to see the Cruciatus Curse used on the little brat at last, because mad or not, Bella turns the full force of her rage against the Boy Who Murdered Her Master when he steps out of the woodwork.

It almost breaks him. Almost. I feel his mind bending and twisting, until it's a breath away from snapping like a frost-glittering twig. The curse tears at the corners of my soul, more insistent and immediate and unbearable than ever before. His flesh - his nerves - are not hardened yet, touched by the searing flames of the Cruciatus only long enough to scorch away protective layers, not yet enough to scar. It's not just the mind that is writhing, it's the body, and in the body both of us suffer equally under the unceasing flames of hate.

When I call out to her to take off the curse, it takes her a long instant to distinguish between the command of the Mark and the face behind the voice that utters it. In those endless seconds I feel the barriers of my mind crack, preparing to let the quivering voices of madness swamp it. They hold, but it's a close call.

Potter lies near-dormant at the back of my mind during the time I need to clarify the situation, and to calm Bella's endless self-recriminations at having assaulted the body that hosts the soul of her beloved Master. I can sense that he's wounded, worse than I am, but he's aware, and somewhat sane still. Where I am too strong to break, he's just... obstinate, but that seems to be enough. So much for my brilliant plan.

Much as I appreciate having found one of my loyal ones, Bella is not quite the brightest torch in my dungeon, even if she is the most devoted. Potter hides us in Hogsmeade for a few days, his first useful contribution to our new cause apart from providing memories for my personal amusement. Although I had been aware from Wormtail's incoherent babblings that the 'most severely haunted building in Britain' was actually Dumbledore's idea for a werewolf retreat, I had not given it any more thought after Severus Snape made clear that Dumbledore had warded off that passage into Hogwarts. Now, however, it provides a shelter, and time for planning.

Mentally, I tick off what remains of my allies. The Lestrange brothers have fallen in The Battle; Wormtail allowed Potter to come near me, and died for it - a pity, in retrospect, because treacherous rat or no, he had had a brain. As had Severus Snape, who has betrayed me to Dumbledore. One day, it will be my pleasure to take him to account for that. I raise an eyebrow at the flash of rage that runs through both of us at the thought of Snape - it seems as if little Potter's capacity for hatred is not limited to those firmly on the Dark Side. Of all my Inner Circle, the only one apart from Bella who has ostensibly eluded capture is Lucius Malfoy, vanished without a trace, and disowned by his wife and son. And yet his disappearance has been strangely neglected by the Ministry... He's always been well-connected, my slippery friend Lucius.

I send Bella to inquire with her sister about his possible whereabouts, knowing altogether too well how Potter would react to the degree of interrogation required to drag information out of Narcissa Black and her son where the Aurors had failed. He is so very squeamish when it comes to the Cruciatus. But Bella returns, flushed with pride and excitement, and brings me the information like I had known she would.

Lucius Malfoy, so his son had revealed under a touch of duress, has fled the British Isles to take refuge in the ancient wizarding enclave of Grindelwald, tucked into the Swiss Alps. It would make, I have to concede, an attractive sanctuary for one lone Death Eater and a boy hero sought by the collective Order of the Phoenix.

In order to avoid wizarding attention, we travel by Muggle ferry and trains, where Potter proves invaluable in dealing with a Muggle world advanced far beyond the one I remember from my youth. Thankfully, his aversion to bending the laws of the Muggle world with magic does not extend to Transfiguring scraps of paper into Muggle currency to finance our travels. I'm left with the task of restraining Bella from hexing Muggles who get underfoot - she reacts to their presence like a high-strung mare stabled with a swarm of horse-flies.

I still know my way around Grindelwald, having travelled there in the aftermath of the Dark Wizard's fall to study the Dark Arts with some of his surviving disciples. The ancient wizarding town is populated by a strange breed of old magical families. They live, quietly drawn inward on themselves, unmolested by any Ministry or central authority - none would dare - and practice their arcane arts without much regard for legislation or morality. They will accept the occasional visitor as long as he doesn't disturb the magics at play, and will ask no questions about them.

We arrive on Lucius Malfoy's doorstep, and are admitted without a second Cruciatus incident. I have the strong suspicion that he has been forewarned of Bella's impending arrival by his lady wife, but don't inquire further. Lucius's eyebrow lifts as he scrutinises Potter's body, and the boy's scowl that greets him. But Potter's predicament - and by extension my own - seems to evoke no more than slight amusement. He accepts me as his Master, and Bella as his guest, though I'm aware that he's not happy about her volatile presence.

So we settle into the handsome, narrow half-timbered house, overlooking the cobblestoned wizarding town square, that Lucius has rented from the Council Elders, and set to work. Unknowingly, Lucius has made the perfect choice of residence. Grindelwald's town archive holds one of the most extensive collections of Dark tomes in wizarding Europe, far superior to Hogwarts's pitiful Restricted Section, and enough to rival Durmstrang's famous libraries. The wizened old Archivarius permits us access. Or rather, he permits it to Lucius. The town dignitaries have accepted 'Meister Lucius's as one of their own, due to his breeding and ancient name, and likewise they accept his newly arrived 'wife' and 'son', and ignore what they get up to in the confines of their own home.

We are offered a few Brownies, who serve in place of house-elves on the Continent, although they're less subservient, even more shy about being seen, and possess a fierce sense of pride. We lose two to Bella's repeated tantrums and threats of decapitation before I leave Harry to handle them. He treats them with unfailing politeness, and likes to sit in the kitchens and chat after sweet-talking them into giving up their invisibility. Watching the body that houses her Master making small talk with uppity house-elves is a worse punishment for Bella than anything I'd be able to come up with.

If I were not trapped in the body of my enemy, restricted in my movements by his suspicious mind, I would be enjoying this time. Knowledge and research are what I live for. Lucius's mind is sharp as a knife and uniquely suited to the task, and untrained as Potter is in matters of this kind - his memories tell me that he hasn't been the best of students at Hogwarts - he has a lively intellect and his unique way of looking at problems provides unexpected ways forward more than once.

He has learned to sift through my memories nearly as skillfully as I can examine his, though he still recoils from many at first glance. But those he allows to wash over him, he makes good use of. We duel often, both against Lucius and Bella, just to keep ourselves entertained and in shape, cooped up in a small house as we are. It allows me to see how skilled he is becoming, when he fights on his own, handed the reins of his body completely.

Sharing a house, and posing as a family, leads to a few unusual arrangements. Being stuck in the body of an adolescent, hormone-driven seventeen-year-old boy poses some other, different problems. Myself, I have always been drawn to Bella, despite my former, unsuitable body and her marriage. And I know that she is attracted to my power, moth to candle. Bella is the perfect companion - adoring, passionate, prepared to do anything to please me. But, of course, Potter hates her with undying passion for daring to best that blood-traitorous dog of a godfather in battle, as well as for her skills with the Cruciatus - which is one of the things about her that intrigues me the most.

His youthful urges are distracting, and not only does he rule out any overtures to Bella, but ever since our very first 'encounter' in the cave, he also refuses to touch himself in my presence, or to grant me enough control to take care of matters myself. Once again, it makes me wish I could have another try at the Cruciatus myself, or wrap my hands round his stupid neck in front of the bathroom mirror in the mornings. Here I am, in a body suitable for experimentation of a sexual nature for the first time in decades, and his Gryffindor obstinacy denies me!

It takes months to negotiate another arrangement between us, and when we reach it I suspect it's because his own self-control is fraying badly. He finally agrees to retreat to the background of our conscious mind to allow me to be with Bella. In return, I offer to do the same with whomever he should choose as a lover. It looks like a safe bet, Gryffindor that he is.

He curls at the far recesses of my mind and secretes acid like a leaking phial whenever I join Bella in her bed, oozing hatred in a way that stokes rather than douses my desire. It pleases me no end to have found a means of subtle torment for my intimate enemy.

And it's easy to fan his hatred. He searches through my memories with increasing frequency, although he still tends to shy away from their darkest depths; but there are plenty left to make him rage at Bella even further, and I push those at him so subtly that he does not realise I'm influencing his selections at all. And since Bella is not particularly useful for research, with her mind erratic and damaged as it is, Harry's increased antagonism is not endangering our progress.

It takes a few more months of very careful goading until his fury burns brightly enough to persuade him to take the reins in the bedroom, to take revenge on his enemy. I want to see this stubborn mind's oppressive nobility shattered, if only once, to confront him with his own capability for cruelty. And he is spectacular in his rage, far more violent than he's ever allowed me to be, not that my Bella would have minded. Once she had accepted that her beloved Master is inhabiting this hated body now, she's submitted to its every whim, although sometimes open confusion shows in those night eyes when Harry is in control, and doing the unexpected. A violent session in the bedroom, however, is not something designed to unnerve her. I know she believes herself deserving of punishment, not the least for cursing me almost to madness in the Forbidden Forest. At times, she practically begs for it, to restore her peace of mind, or whatever passes for that.

No, it's my little Harry who balks when he realises what he is doing. It's not my fault, I'm sure - I observe from a detached corner of his mind, gloating only very quietly so that it will not translate into a physical response as I observe his vicious thrusts, and his fingers, curved into claws, digging cruelly into skin, winding into long hair.

But then he jerks, face contorted in pain, and scrambles from the bed so fast it almost throws us onto our face on the floor. I can feel tears running from our eyes, and a sudden wave of sickness wrenches in our stomach. I quell it on its way up to his throat.

"I'm sorry!" he grates out to Bella, who just stares in confusion, and then he stumbles from the room.

'I was offering you the revenge you wanted,' I tell him, just a hint of smugness to my mental voice. I don't have to add 'stupid little Gryffindor', because I know he hears it ringing in his skull.

"I know what you tried to do," he says, aloud and very, very cold, leaning his burning forehead against the glass of the corridor window that looks out over the deserted, dark market square of Wizarding Grindelwald as he tries to fight down our unfulfilled desire with sheer force of will. "And you'll pay," he promises quietly after a moment's silence.

His eerie calm actually gives me a twinge of apprehension. My Harry is indeed most dangerous when he pushes his emotions out of the way of his rational thought. But then my lips quirk into a grin.

It's war, then, little one? Let's see how well you do at it.

I have to concede, a few weeks later, that he indeed does far better at it, and more subtly, than I was prepared to give him credit for. Holding me to our agreement, he doesn't even wait a full twelve hours before throwing himself at Lucius Malfoy in a fashion so blatant that the breaths of us three Slytherins catch at the sight of it.

I feel the ripple of satisfaction that runs through him when I can't suppress my anger at the display. I am not quite comfortable with the thought of sex with a male. I am far less comfortable with the idea of being at the receiving end of such... ministrations.

Lucius does not push the issue to an extreme, knowing well enough that he would have to pay as soon as my mind is transferred back into an independent body. But he doesn't refuse Harry, being the twisted creature he is, and does not hold back particularly much either, especially with Potter egging him on. He's always been quite bad at resisting temptation, my 'faithful' friend.

And Harry's comfortable slip into utter physical submission is jarring. No matter how far back I retreat into our head in those moments, the intense physicality of the act is impossible to ignore, and no matter how well I know that it's him who controls us, it still feels as if I'm violating my very nature, surrendering myself, and to a servant to boot.

'Turnabout is fair play' he sneers when he nudges my resentful mind one night as we lie, weak-limbed and curled up against the warmth of Lucius Malfoy's chest. Which is an infuriating situation all in itself. But what is almost as insulting is that he should submit so wholly to someone who is hardly less his enemy than I am, after I have banged up against the steel walls of his will so often in vain.

***

After two years of research, we have settled on the modification of an ancient ritual. The Cleaving of Souls was once developed as a means to separate souls welded together by the strongest of love potions. In combination with Dementor-inspired, soul-stealing Dark magic, it promises a hope of success at last.

One year later, I travel with Bella to the northernmost reaches of Italy to secure the core ingredient for the ritual - a stone rose. As even the local Muggles know, the Rose Garden in the Dolomites has been transfigured into stone by its master, the dwarven king Laurin, to prevent thieves from stealing his blossoms. Only for a minute each day, at sundown, when the dying light spills over the stones, are they returned to their original glory. Picked at that very moment, living flowers heavy with the anticipation of stone, their immense magical properties will be realised.

I take Bella on the precipice above the stony garden the afternoon before we make our move, and feel an irrational temptation to ruffle Harry's hair as he grumbles, though not very emphatically, against the back of my mind. He growls a bit more when he picks up the image.

We make our escape with the vehement Old High German curses of the dwarf king ringing in our ears. That is one breed of magical creature I've lost any chance of seducing to my cause, but the hope of an independent existence is well worth that small drawback. In the pocket of my robe, I am clutching the blossom that - no longer touched by the light of the evening sun - has reverted to a fist-sized, finely-chiselled stone rose. Almost too delicately beautiful to destroy and grind into sand, but the rose dust is the core ingredient of the potion we'll have to ingest at the onset of the ritual; and for me, survival will always take precedence over beauty.

Having found the central ingredient, we are prepared, as well as anyone can be, for the Cleaving of Souls. The last hurdle proves to be the body.

Predictably, it is Harry who vetoes the abduction of a Muggle, or wizard, for our purposes - not that I would settle on a Muggle host, of course. It is Lucius who comes up with the perfect solution.

In one of his rare communications with his family - Madam Malfoy still has issues with her son's treatment at Bella's hands - he learns that one of young Malfoy's schoolmates, a boy called Blaise Zabini, has been condemned to the Dementor's Kiss for having been a minor follower of mine. Harry blows up at this most spectacularly. Zabini did far less in my cause than Draco Malfoy or the sons of Victor Crabbe and Andrew Goyle, all of whom have been released with a slap on the wrist despite their crimes. To make a scapegoat out of a boy like Zabini because he doesn't have a support network like the Malfoys in the British Isles... Knowing the Ministry and their cowardly hard-handedness when no opposition is to be expected, this hardly surprises me. Harry's rage blooms when I point that little detail out to him.

But the important thing is that Zabini's body has been returned to the care of his Italian extended clan. His body is alive, young, strong, and well-suited in its ancient wizarding heritage and blood to host my considerable powers. And he still wears my Mark, faded and dormant as it is after my physical death and his loss of a soul. It should help the transition. Not as naturally suited to host me as Potter has been, linked to me as it is through a prophecy and an old curse, but Zabini will serve me well enough. Equally important is that his family might be enraged enough to allow us the use of it.

After a few weeks of careful negotiation, it turns out that they feel that way indeed. Although they do not learn of the details of our plan, even less of the peculiarities of the spirit we intend to instil into young Blaise, the House of Zabini is more than prepared to offer us the violated body of its child in return for a promise, however unspecific, to use it in the cause of revenge.

It is only after Lucius and Bella have brought home the bodily remains of young Zabini that it hits me - this finally is the moment for which we've been waiting for five years. Looking down at it, I find it agreeable enough. It is slender, of medium height, and with the same dark hair as Tom Riddle's original form. Darker complexion, eyes black instead of dark grey, a different facial cut altogether, but pleasant enough to look at. I smooth my fingers over the cheekbone below a vacant dark eye, and promise quietly to bring that dead face to life again. Strangely enough, there is neither comment nor objection from my host soul for once.

Of course, if things go wrong, it'll kill us both. Again and again, I go over the potions, ingredients and Arithmantic equations in near-paranoid detail. My nemesis mocks me softly for being so scared of losing my existence. He, I know, wouldn't care, would throw it away for anyone ranting at him about morality, and duty, and right.

The Cleaving of Souls lasts from noon to midnight, and the twelve hours that lie in between are draining indeed for the seven participants whose presence is essential for the rite: Harry and I, Lucius and Bella, Madam Angeletta Zabini, and Johannis Bellum, the old Archivarius of Grindelwald's Dark Library, with his son. Even Legilimens that I am, I can't discern whether the latter three know whose resurrection they are assisting. Madam Zabini will think on nothing but retribution for her nephew's fate, and if I judge the two Bellums correctly, they couldn't care less about whom they restore to life as long as they get to see a rite as ancient and as rare as this.

Twelve hours to perform, and thirteen more will follow until the link between us has lessened enough for each of us to bear the other's absence.

The sheer, raw feeling of loss begins to gnaw on me as soon as I regain consciousness a few hours after the successful Cleaving. My hand is curled around Harry's, because the aftershock of partition would still be impossible to bear without physical contact. This new hand is strange; long-fingered and slender, but it feels puffy, clumsy, not like that other one that holds it, and which I should feel from the inside, not wrapped around my own. When the green eyes open in front of me, I think for a second that I must surely be staring into a mirror. Even the look of confused desolation is exactly my own. It's only when he wraps his free arm around my shoulder and pulls me close - unthinking, on sheer impulse, I can see it in his expression - that the Cruciatus-level pain of isolation recedes a little.

In my Hogwarts days, Tom Riddle came across an ancient Greek myth about the origin of the sexes while doing extracurricular research for History of Magic: that the Gods had split a perfect being into two separate halves, who were then forced to search for their lost unity through the insufficient means of sexual intercourse. It made not much sense to young Tom, who had elevated self-sufficiency into an artform. I do understand it now.

I wonder if Harry - if Potter - does, too, but when I reach out to his memories, I just crash against the barriers of my own mind, trapped in my own skull. He stares into my face as if he were also searching for the touch of my mind behind unfamiliar eyes, my - no, his - face contorted in an unconscious grimace of pain. Then he takes my head between his hands and kisses me, with a wet, open mouth and as urgently as if he were trying to suck my soul away through my mouth, Dementor-like, back to where it belongs.

We do make love that last night, and although I'm still uncomfortable with a male body under my hands, touching him is different. More as if I were touching myself, although the sense of violation of our memorable first encounter is absent. This is... as if it were meant to be. Being handled by him welcomes me to this strange new body, takes away the gnawing sense of loss, and lifts my spirit like a divine blessing. I do not believe in any god but myself, of course, but this... is right.

Before I finally close my eyes, I realise that I should give orders to have him restrained in the morning, when the remains of the link between us have vanished, but in the end, I don't.

When I wake up hours later, the pull has diminished to a dull tug at the corners of my mind, and he is gone.

***

Three months later, I receive an elderly snowy owl with his challenge. I scan over the archaic wording and recall spending a night in the library of our Grindelwald house, curled up on a couch by the fireplace, while Harry read an ancient Mooncalf-hide bound tome on pureblood duelling customs and my mind wandered over the Arithmantic equations for the set-up of ritual space for the Cleaving. I recall asking him, half-mockingly, whether he was reading up on how to challenge me. Now I see that he was.

Being the one challenged would allow me to reject each and every one of his proposals for the time and place, but I decide not to - this has been long in coming between us, and I want it over with. Once Potter is defeated, there will be nothing left to stand in my way, to tie me to the past. And I know beyond any hint of doubt that he will not lure me into a trap.

I, on the other hand...

I play with the idea of a trap for several nights. The thought of taking Bella and Lucius with me, and watching them curse Potter to the ground until I decide to step in to deliver the final blows... It's seductive, that vision, and it excites that new body of mine quite a bit. And they would be oh so eager for it - Bella has waited a long time for revenge, and Lucius... Lucius reacts adversely to being used and discarded. I do not owe Potter honour, after all - he has mocked me a Mudblood often enough in anger, has harped on my heritage that is lower even than his, chucked my beliefs back into my face just to aggravate me. But then, it is personal between us, and I know that in later years, looking back on his proper defeat at my hands will be so much more sweet than recalling him writhing under torture through treachery.

So I send back that beautiful owl with a no less formal answer and agree to the day and the spot he has chosen - a deserted strip of beach on the French coastline, across the Channel from Dover, at sunrise. No seconds.

He is already waiting for me in the dull grey of early morning when I Apparate in, the sea breeze turning his hair into a flyaway ruffle of ragged raven wings. I recall the feel of it, imprinted on my fingertips. He appears like a dark silhouette against the flat beach and the leaden grey of the sea. Too real.

I flinch inwardly as he turns to face me. He looks older somehow, sharp cheekbones dominating his face, his mouth a thin line that has lost once and for all the traces of childish softness he still had when he made love to me in the aftermath of the Cleaving. He looks like myself, I realise in shock. Tom Riddle after the Chamber, at the time of leaving Hogwarts all those years ago. For five years I have woken up every morning to face Harry Potter in the mirror, and only now that we have separated do I see myself in him.

I wonder whether he went crawling back to Dumbledore to confess his failure, or to confront his betrayer. It's too much to hope that he went back to kill the old bastard.

We do not speak. We had five years and one night and said nothing. It's too late to start now.

Instead, he draws his wand and bows to me in ancient, proper wizarding fashion, waits for the three seconds it takes me to acknowledge him in return, and strikes.

There is nothing flashy, nor showy, about a wizard's duel. Certainly nothing elegant. It is a sheer, brutal battle to the death, with no concern but to do damage, as much and as quickly as possible. He battles without any sense of self-preservation, doubling up, bleeding under my curses, but not backing down to spare himself injury even once. He is atoning, I realise, for giving in to the weakness of bringing me back to life. For not suffering patiently in our own little hell as his Master had ordained for him.

It will not be enough, I know - brute force cannot defeat me, no matter how much he's learned from my memories. I am Lord Voldemort, stronger and more experienced.

We go shy of the Unforgivables, though, both being immune to the Imperius and too wary to even think about the Killing Curse - not again! I consider Cruciatus for a split second, only to recall one of his more vivid memories that has stuck with me - Bella, smirking at him, lines of pain still sharp around her mouth. 'You need to mean it, Potter.' No, better not go there.

His final spell claws into my very essence, hooks talons into the source of my magic and begins to suck it away, like a Dementor sucks on a soul. I was there, by that very same fireplace in Lucius's library, when he pored over the ancient tome that contained the curse. It is a spell not designed to be cast without magical augmentation. It will drain the strongest caster in turn as it drinks away the last of the victim's magic.

For the first time since my encounter with Harry Potter the infant, in Godric's Hollow, I experience a flash of sheer, uncontrollable panic. A few more moments, and he'll have drained my power, damaged me beyond repair.

I strike without conscious thought, stabbing my wand forward and throwing the spell in a voice so strangled with terror I don't even recognise it as my own. Even the minimal effort of wrist flick and word is nearly enough to make me pass out.

And there is nothing he can do, caught up as he is in the coils of the curse he is upholding. He looks vaguely puzzled at the light tingle in his chest when the curse strikes, and then the magic transforms into a snitch-sized ball inside him. He is dead as soon as the tiny spikes that cover its surface have shredded his lungs. The surprise in his eyes is extinguished before it can begin to spread onto his features.

I stare at the broken thing at my feet and at the patch of liquid black that begins to soak through the front of its robe, and feel nothing at all. It has wounded me deeply, that thing, so much so that I know it will take me weeks and months to recover. For the moment I can only slump next to the body on the sand and try to stop my magic from spilling out through the cracks he's hewn in my armour. I sit so close I could reach out and touch him, but there's that irrational fear that he might jump up, or thrust his soul into me if I lay a finger on that clammy skin. Though in my delirious state, I cannot say for sure whether it is really apprehension that he might come back to life, or that he might not.

The early hours pass very slowly, though it remains dreary and no sun dares to show its face. That much, at least, is appropriate to mark the fall of the Wizarding World's hero. A stiff breeze blows fine sheets of sand in front of it, and covers the unsurprised face with a translucent layer of dust.

The voices, at first, are indistinguishable from the jabber of the seagulls. They flutter around the dunes like birds in search for carrion on the sands. Then the sounds turn into shapes, and at last into wizards.

I may be too weak to rise to my feet, but my mouth curls in disgust at the sight of that grandfatherly face framed by white bushes of hair and beard, and dominated by glacial blue eyes. For once, they do not twinkle.

He keeps his wand trained on me as a forward Auror steps up to kick mine from my hand. I hadn't even noticed I was still holding it. Not that it would matter - drained as I am, even casting a single curse would be enough to kill me. He did very well, my nemesis.

For a moment, I hope that they might see only an awkward young man, still bearing the marks of adolescence, but the way they draw into a defensive half-circle around the old codger, grim-faced and wands at the ready, though with trembling hands, tells me that they know. I look at the dead boy with an eyebrow raised in quizzical surprise, and wordlessly salute him. So you've betrayed me after all.

Dumbledore must think so, too, despite the artificial sadness with which he stares down at the face of the child he has thrown at my mercy, at the cracked shell of a life that is no longer reflected in its eyes. I feel his urge to close them quiver in my fingertips.

"Don't look at him!" I growl, surprised at the sheer intensity of my anger. "You hurt him worse than I ever did, and I killed him."

His company jerks and draws closer together at the sound of my voice, but he just stills and transfers that mournful gaze from the body to me.

"Do you still believe there is nothing worse than death, Tom?"

"Yes," I answer. It is an incredible effort to put sound to my voice, but I refuse to double up coughing and wheezing. It grates, because the everflying sand left its residue in my throat as well. "But knowing that you'll have to exist with memory of this day makes death look a little more worthwhile."

He bows his head. "That will be my burden to bear," he concedes. "Though I had hoped-"

I bare my teeth in a reflexive gesture that is neither mine nor his but a deeply ingrained expression of the boy whose body I'm wearing, a little ghost reminder of the personality that is now gone - a soul that this man obviously did not consider worth the effort to save.

"You hoped for what?" I growl. "That little Potter would be able to withstand me and keep me contained for the rest of his natural life?" I stare into his face, at the pretentious sadness, and realise that no, as always with Albus Dumbledore, it goes deeper than that.

"Oh, no, you never believed that at all, did you? You hoped he would talk me around." I shake my head, only very faintly because it starts to spin immediately. "You thought your little hero would reach out to whatever human weakness might still rest inside me? You really thought I would hesitate to kill him..." I let my voice trail off, saturated with condescension.

I can live with the guilt, as well as I could have lived with the receding sting of pain at the loss of a voice that has been part of me for so long - too long. The only one who could not live with either guilt or pain lies dead at our feet.

Between the two of us, we've destroyed this child utterly. Of course I'll always be proud of that achievement, but at least I never claimed to care about him.

Not for the first time I wonder whether his oppressive kindness is anything but a mask - he has won splendidly, after all. Even after his incredible betrayal, his former charge has delivered me to him on a silver platter and then conveniently died to spare him time wasted on recriminations. He certainly has achieved a degree of control and mastery over others to rival mine - all with a bit of eye-twinkling and a well-projected image of benevolent goodness.

"You will just fall asleep," he promises, as if that were a gift.

He aims his wand and I resist the urge to throw my hands up in defence. It's the second time I hear the spell this day and, unlike my Harry, his Master comes prepared. Perhaps his precious Order has fortified him with borrowed magic.

I sense how the scabs that have settled over the holes Potter struck into my essence are being ripped off, leaving my power - my essence - to flow out with no means to hold anything back. I gather whatever strength I've got left in a vicious, wandless, helpless strike at the old bastard, but to no avail. Harry has done too well. The blue eyes cloud for one instant only, and then he lifts his hand a fraction and my rage slips off him like water off a duck.

And then the world turns very tired, and dark, and the little that is left of Blaise Zabini falls asleep without a cramp of resistance, and Tom Riddle follows with a parting flash of dull hatred, and finally it gets too hard to even keep my eyes open, and so I close them with a final, mental salute to the fighter who has won the day.

***

He sits on a stone that looks as if it has been created for just that purpose, one leg tucked in his lap, the other kicking not-dust on the not-quite ground. He looks like the adolescent who faced me in our first real duel in the Riddle graveyard.

When he notices me, he looks up with a nondescript expression. I'm vaguely curious as to what shape this strange not-place has given me, but not enough to actually make the effort to look, or ask.

"You've waited for me?" I inquire casually.

He shrugs.

"You knew they would come."

"I had an owl, telling me to expect reinforcements in the morning."

"So why insist on a duel at daybreak?"

Another shrug.

"Ah, you know. Gryffindor honour and all that." He looks down as if fascinated by the foot in his lap. "I didn't ever want to see him again."

"He knows," I assure him.

"He doesn't matter."

He raises his hand and I pull him to his feet. He responds with a sardonic glance from half-closed eyes before surveying the nebulous plain. At last his eyes wander back to mine and he takes his hand back almost as an afterthought.

"You know, he told me about death once," he remarks, "about it being-"

"-the last great adventure?" I finish with no less sarcasm. "Yes, I suppose he tells that to everyone he tries to rope into one of his more lethal schemes." I grimace. "Odd to think that it's him who's still alive."

"Ah, well." He shrugs again, less serious this time. "Shall we go see?"

I surrender to the grin that tugs on the corners of my mouth and reach out to ruffle his horrible hair, something I've wanted to do ever since I saw him standing on that dune this morning.

"Oh well - why not?"

~ finis ~