Title: A Passage of Pain and Pleasure
Disclaimer: J. K. Rowling and associates own these characters. I am writing this story for fun and not profit.
Pairing: Harry/Voldemort
Content Notes: AU, extremely dubious consent, heavy angst, mentions of torture, forced marriage
Wordcount: 5700
Rating: R
Summary: It turns out that one Horcrux wasn't destroyed after all, and by the time Voldemort has resurrected himself again, everyone is weary of fighting a war. A marriage between him and Voldemort wasn't Harry's idea, but if it keeps any more people from dying, it's worth it. He assumes that Voldemort will torture him to death sooner or later—but it turns out that his best guess about what his life will be like is wrong, again.
Author's Notes: Another of my "From Litha to Lammas" fics being posted between the Summer Solstice and the first of August. Please heed the warnings.

A Passage of Pain and Pleasure

"I just—I hate the idea that you're going to suffer for the rest of your life, Harry."

Harry squeezed Hermione's hands hard for a moment. Honestly, he was almost looking forward to the marriage ceremony that would take place in less than an hour. Right now, he had to be strong for everyone. He knew that when the door closed behind him and Voldemort, then he would be able to fall apart.

Voldemort will probably prefer that, anyway.

"It's going to happen one way or another," Harry reminded her. He glanced over his shoulder at the mirror that Hermione had Transfigured from a stray piece of glass, and nodded. His marriage robes were Transfigured, too, heavy red with gold embroidery, and his hair was as flat as it was going to get. He looked absurdly out of place in the rough tent that was the Order of the Phoenix's "headquarters."

Then again, fitting in would mean weariness and dirt and streaked tears, and Harry had to look different from that on this day that should save the world.

Walking to a painless death didn't do it. Maybe getting tortured to death will.

Hermione's hands squeezed his again, and Harry glanced back at her. Her eyes were so full of weariness that he didn't know how she still had space for the compassion, but she did. "I looked at the vows he demanded," she said.

Harry nodded. He hadn't demanded any vows other than the ones that would constrain Voldemort and the Death Eaters not to hurt his people. It didn't matter to him what this farce of a marriage looked like. Voldemort was probably better at the gestures the public would eat up, anyway.

Hermione swallowed air. "It says that he has to be the one to give pain and take pleasure."

"What do you suppose that means?" Harry asked, because he knew she wanted him to.

Hermione's hands hurt his. "I think it means that he's probably going to torture you." Harry nodded, but she wasn't done. "But it doesn't say anything about him—fucking you. I think he'll probably fuck a female Death Eater once he's done with you. Maybe make you stay in the room and watch."

Harry shrugged. That would be so little next to something like the Cruciatus, he honestly didn't care. "Thanks, Hermione."

Hermione began to cry, but it was silent, tears making their way down her cheeks without changing her expression. "I wish things were different," she whispered. "I wish we could do something. You shouldn't have to give up your life like this…it isn't fair…"

Harry kissed her cheek, under one of the tears, and guided her outside with a hand on her back. It was sweet that she still wanted to do something for him, but Harry had resigned himself to this.

At least his friends would be safe, his allies, the Muggleborns who would be able to attend Hogwarts and wouldn't be tortured by people like the Carrows anymore. That would be the secret, burning satisfaction in the pit of Harry's belly. Nothing Voldemort could do to him mattered next to that safety.

Voldemort waited for Harry at the end of a long path created by magically-grown rowan trees draped with white ribbons.

Rowan trees were some sort of symbol of protection against evil, Harry remembered reading. He walked between them with his head up, his eyes darting to the sides to absorb the faces of friends, DA members, children born in the years since the war, Ministry flunkies, even ordinary wizards who had done none of the fighting but had turned out to see the marriage.

Some of them sneered at him. Some of them sniffled into handkerchiefs. Ron gave him a stricken look of guilt that Harry smiled to ease; Ron blamed himself for Voldemort coming back to life because it turned out that he and Hermione hadn't stabbed the cup Horcrux hard enough with that damn basilisk fang.

But now, Harry thought it was almost inevitable that Voldemort would have returned somehow. And he wouldn't let his friend blame himself.

Straight ahead, next to another magical tree—this one an oak—Voldemort waited. It was still kind of a shock to look into his face, so different from the serpentine, noseless one that Harry had become used to before that last one died. This version of Voldemort apparently looked like the man he had been when he made the cup Horcrux. His eyes were red, his skin astonishingly pale, but he had a nose and regular teeth and lips and somewhat human features. His hair draped, dark and full, down to his shoulders, held back with a complicated silver chain.

Harry stopped next to him and held out his wrist. Voldemort, staring at him with an intensity that made Harry wonder if he would even live past the "wedding" night, nodded and took out both his wand and a knife.

Harry mightily resisted the urge to draw his own wand. He had consented to this. It was better than anything else that could have happened as an end to the war, bar Voldemort falling over dead of a heart attack one day. And given that the bastard had made at least one other Horcrux right away, Harry didn't think that likely.

"We have come here today to celebrate the marriage that will end a war," Voldemort said. His voice was smooth and, if not as low as that of the Tom Riddle who had emerged from the diary, nothing like the high pitch the Voldemort from the graveyard would have used. "We will speak vows that we have each designed and seal them with blood."

Harry nodded and said, "We will," because just standing there silently throughout the ceremony would be idiotic. He reached out for the knife that Voldemort held. The bastard gave it to him blade first, but Harry only cut himself when he reversed it and made the slice down the center of his palm.

Blood flowed. For some reason, Voldemort hissed at him, "It did not have to be that deep."

Harry raised his eyebrows but didn't try to respond. He could still understand Parseltongue for some reason after the Horcrux's destruction, but he couldn't speak it. He concentrated on smearing the blood carefully down the handle and blade of the knife, until it shimmered faintly with crimson. Then he offered the knife back to Voldemort.

Voldemort accepted it, still without moving his gaze from Harry. He slit open his palm with his own wand. Harry supposed he probably had a lot of practice in Cutting Charms.

"With the exchange of this blood," Voldemort said, turning to face the crowd now, "we bind our wills and our lives to each other's. We bind our magic and the magic of our followers."

Harry grimaced a little. He hated hearing his friends and comrades called his "followers," but he appreciated that there was only so much bending of the vows they could do.

"We bind ourselves to peace," Harry said, the words he had to speak. "We bind ourselves to calm and truthful dealings. We bind ourselves to words before war, thoughtfulness before carelessness, raised voices before crossed wands."

Voldemort's gaze snapped back to him, full of dark delight. Harry just stared. What? Those are the exact words I had to speak. He knew that, since Hermione had drilled them with him enough.

Still looking as if he wanted to laugh, Voldemort motioned with his wand. He had to be the one to cast the spell since he was magically stronger than Harry. Detached, Harry watched the blood he had left on the knife crawl into Voldemort's wound, and that which Voldemort had made flow from his own cut undulate across the air towards him. Harry expected to feel nothing more than the slightly creepy feeling of blood burrowing into his skin and then the skin sealing, but it sent a sharp flash of heat through him.

Harry blinked. Voldemort went on speaking the vows that would mean he and the Death Eaters could never attack or torture Harry's friends except in self-defense, and the same for the Order, and the kinds of punishments that would follow for anyone who broke the treaty. Harry didn't have anything to say in this part of the ceremony, and let his gaze roam around.

People turned away from him, even among the Death Eaters. Harry wanted to shrug. Yeah, well, he wasn't exactly happy to be the "filthy half-blood" marrying their Lord, either. But his life was going to be different than they imagined.

Silence fell. Harry turned back towards Voldemort, spoke the words about how his followers and he would hold the treaty, and moved nearer, reaching out to clasp his wrist.

"Your life will be so different from what it has been so far," Voldemort hissed as his fingers closed around Harry's wrist and pressed tendon to bone.

"Yeah, constant pain instead of occasional," Harry muttered back, standing passive in the grip.

Voldemort said nothing, but released the grip as the magic rose up around them and descended in a sudden surge of red and gold sparks. Harry stared at the band that had formed around his wrist, exactly where Voldemort had pressed. It looked as if it might be made of ruby, but it pulsed and quivered, timing itself with Voldemort's breaths.

Voldemort now wore a golden band that pulsed in time with Harry's. Harry took a deep breath and looked up into the eyes of his new husband.

Voldemort gave a noiseless sound, lips parted, and then began speaking the part of the vows Hermione had told him about, pain and pleasure and the rest. Harry knew he would swear not to kill Harry, but he thought it would probably happen anyway. And the marriage vows weren't strong enough to kill Voldemort if he did that.

If there had been a different way to do this, one that would have meant you had to keep fighting and surviving, would you have done it?

And Harry had to admit he had no idea about the answer to that question. He was so fucking tired.

"Lord Voldemort and his consort!" announced one of the Death Eaters with a deep, booming voice a few minutes later. Harry let Voldemort turn him and hold up their joined wrists, breathing bracelets side by side. Most people bowed. There was only a thread of applause that quickly died away in the silence.

Voldemort's arm slipped around Harry's waist and tightened. Harry stared up at him and just waited.

"Say farewell to your friends," Voldemort said. "It is unlikely that you will see them again."

Yeah, you don't get visitors in a dungeon cell. Harry tried to step away from Voldemort to hug Ron and Hermione, but Voldemort's arm tightened almost hard enough to cut off his breath. Fine. His friends were brave enough to approach him anyway, and Hermione sobbed softly into his shoulder while Ron hugged them both.

"I'm so sorry," Ron muttered.

Harry didn't want that, or Hermione's tears, to be his last memories of them ever. He shook his head and said, "I hope your children are happy, safe, and healthy, and that you have as many of them as you want. Ron, tell your parents that they were like family to me." Molly and Arthur hadn't been able to bring themselves to attend this farce of a wedding.

"Yeah. 'Course I will, mate." Ron wiped his face as he pulled back.

"Please be as happy as you can, Harry," Hermione said. She kept her head bowed, probably because she knew she would only show him tears if she looked up.

"He will be happier than you know," Voldemort said abruptly, and yanked Harry away while he was still reaching out for Hermione. Harry clenched his jaw and forced his hands to drop back to his sides. Hermione, alive and away from the relentless wands of the Death Eaters, was better than Hermione dead and with him.

"Prepare to Apparate," Voldemort snapped at him, and Harry fixed a look on the last trees he would probably ever see as they spun and vanished.

"These will be our rooms."

Harry nodded as he looked around. He didn't recognize the house they were in at all, which could only mean that it wasn't Malfoy Manor. Still, it didn't look that different. Stone walls and floor, tapestries, portraits—although the occupants of these all seemed to be frozen in time—and glittering crystal and gold. The suite of rooms Voldemort had Apparated them into had a huge bedroom, two separate bathrooms, a library, a room with only chairs and tables that might be a study, and another large room that looked as if it was where they would eat.

"Go into the bedroom and prepare yourself," Voldemort said, and then shoved him in the back, sending him to his knees, and Apparated away.

Harry looked around again. The colors of the bedroom were black and silver and green, which he supposed wasn't a surprise. There were tables at either side of the bed, but they were empty. But in the corner…

A huge whip, tilting like a flag in its troll's-foot stand.

Harry closed his eyes. So that was what Voldemort had meant.

He supposed that he wouldn't want to get any blood on the revolting wedding robes, so he took them off, feeling his back tremble and flinch. He'd thought he was prepared for a life of pain, of torture. But it was so much easier to think about than to face.

Harry recalled Hermione's tears and Ron's ashen face, and the people who'd watched him walk towards this: little Dennis Creevey, and Katie Bell, and Angelina Johnson, and George, and even Millicent Bulstrode, who had wanted to lead a normal life after the war and then had unexpectedly joined the Order when Voldemort returned. They were the reason he was doing this. They were the ones who would be held safe even if Voldemort made sure he died of blood loss tonight.

This is worth it.

Harry gave one more glance at the huge whip and swallowed, then tried to think about how and where Voldemort would like him. Well, he probably wouldn't want to get blood on those colorful sheets, either, or have to heave Harry's unconscious body (or corpse) off the bed when he was done. The floor it was.

Harry knelt and stared at the far wall, remembering what Hermione had told him. Voldemort would have sex with someone else later. Not Bellatrix, she was dead, but probably there were other female Death Eaters Harry didn't know about. Multiple people had joined Voldemort's cause for the first time when this new version rose.

He didn't know how long he drifted in silence and misery until he heard the door open, but it still felt too soon. Harry bowed his head and squeezed his eyes shut. At least he didn't have to watch Voldemort walk in.

The man did, and stopped abruptly. Harry felt the muscles in his shoulders tense. He only hoped that he hadn't done something so wrong that Voldemort would manage to find a way around the vow and hurt his friends.

"What are you doing?"

"Trying to—to make myself ready." Harry drew a deep, ragged breath. Shit, he was more of a coward than he'd ever thought he was. He shuffled around on his knees and opened his eyes. Voldemort was staring at him, motionless. "I saw the whip in the corner and I thought you were probably going to—flog me first, and I didn't want to get blood all over the robes or the bed."

Utter silence flowed into the room. Harry watched Voldemort and wondered what he was thinking. At times like this, he would almost have welcomed the Horcrux link back, just so he would have an idea of the bastard's moods.

Voldemort strode forwards and seized his left arm—where the Dark Mark would be if he was going to give him one, Harry knew. He went with the pull, climbing to his feet, while Voldemort bore him back against the wall.

"Did you listen to the vows that we made at all?"

"Of course. I know that our marriage is going to keep my friends and allies safe. Why would I have agreed at all if not for that?"

Voldemort lifted a slow hand and put it on the side of his head. Harry shuddered in remembered pain, but of course the scar didn't burn. And Voldemort didn't slap him, either, something which surprised Harry as much as anything else.

"You did not hear the one where I said that I would preserve our marriage?"

"I—that was probably the part where I drifted off," Harry admitted, searching Voldemort's eyes, his head spinning a little at the mere thought that he was standing this close to the creature who had killed his parents. "But I know there's no vow that protects me from torture, because you wouldn't have agreed to it."

Voldemort's hand clenched abruptly in his hair. "What did you come in here expecting?"

Harry moved a little so that the hand wouldn't tug his head so harshly, and repeated what Hermione had told him. "You have to give pain and take pleasure. I thought you'd torture me and then bring in someone else and have sex with them."

The silence flowed back in. Harry studied Voldemort. His jaw was clenched and he was looking over Harry's shoulder. What was wrong? Was he upset because Harry had guessed correctly, or because Harry was talking about sex aloud?

"She was wrong."

"What?"

"You still have no Occlumency shields worth speaking of," Voldemort said, and his hands moved so that they were both clasping either side of Harry's face. "I can see what your friend told you." His voice changed, deepening into Parseltongue. "She was wrong. I am going to fuck you, Harry."

Harry's mouth fell open. He honestly hadn't anticipated that. Well, maybe rape, sure, but that wasn't what the Parseltongue sounded like. "Why?"

Voldemort laughed. Harry almost relaxed at the sound. Horrible as it was, it was still deeper than the high, cold laughter he remembered, and it also meant that Voldemort was back to taunting him. Harry preferred that to the man whose moves he couldn't predict.

"Because you are married to me." Voldemort's fingers traced the sides of his face again, and this time he seemed to be evaluating each of Harry's features, cheekbones and jaw and all, as if Harry was a statue he'd bought. "Because you once carried a piece of my soul. Because you once walked to death in an attempt to stop another shard of me, and because you are brave enough to stab a basilisk fang through a Horcrux despite dying yourself at the time. Because you know more about me than anyone currently alive. Because you are mine."

Harry's mind was still spinning when Voldemort forced his lips against his. Harry tried instinctively to fight, and then remembered the vows. He had to go along with this, had to make sure that Voldemort wouldn't hurt his friends. He opened his mouth.

Voldemort's tongue curled around his and licked back and forth, slowly. Harry shuddered. He didn't understand the slick taste that was filling his mouth, or the heat that flashed through him. Then again, he hadn't kissed anyone like this before.

Voldemort drew back slowly and said, "Parts of this will be painful. But I am going to take pleasure from you." He glanced up and down Harry's body for a second. "You thought that I would never fuck you?"

"Well, no. What I said earlier about not knowing why you'd want to." Harry's voice was hoarse, which disgusted him. He licked his lips and tried to regain control of his reeling head.

"So you thought—what? That you would exist for decades without sex? Without missing it?"

"How can you miss what you've never had?"

Voldemort's face snapped to blankness again. Then he said in Parseltongue, "You are not a virgin."

"Why does Parseltongue even have a word for that?" Harry asked, but hastily spoke again when Voldemort's hand tightened on his wrist. "Yes, I am. There was just never time. Between fighting and running and the two people who betrayed the Order after the war and not trusting anyone enough to come close and not wanting them to be a target. I know you would have targeted them because they were important to me. You went after Ron and Hermione enough."

More silence. More staring. Harry got tired of it before Voldemort did. "Am I your zoo exhibit or your fucktoy?"

"Neither," Voldemort said. "You are my husband." His hands moved again, tracing down Harry's face to his shoulders and then to his nipples. Harry's head fell back as Voldemort pinched them sharply. He couldn't even define the sensation racing through him now, whether it was pain or pleasure or some bizarre mixture of the two.

"I am going to treat you as such," Voldemort added, and pushed Harry towards the bed. Harry went with it, hearing all sorts of things in his head. The vows, and he should be passive so Voldemort wouldn't hurt his friends, and Voldemort's last words, and his own hoarse breathing.

Voldemort's wand flickered as Harry fell on the bed, and Harry gasped as he realized his pants were gone. Which meant that Voldemort could very well see his cock, and see how it was half-hard. Harry started to turn his head away.

"No. Look, Harry. Look at how Lord Voldemort affects you." Voldemort grabbed and dragged his chin, but moved so slowly that he didn't actually hurt Harry's neck. Harry watched as a flush crept up his own erection, and shut his eyes with a soft whimper.

"I will be taking everything from you, giving you everything," Voldemort went on in a thick, triumphant voice, and gestured with his wand again just as Harry opened his eyes to figure out what was going on.

Harry jerked sharply as he felt suddenly clean and loose and slick and cold in his arse. He glared at Voldemort. The bastard laughed noiselessly and turned him, pressing him into the bed with spider-sharp fingers on his shoulders. Harry closed his eyes and breathed as slowly as he could and tried to accept it.

At least if he was lying on his stomach, neither he nor Voldemort had to see how shamefully hard he was.

"Now," Voldemort said, and his fingers writhed into Harry's arse.

That made a sharp pain spread up through Harry's belly, so he supposed they were fulfilling that part of the vows. He buried his face in his arms and continued to breathe as slowly as he could, trying to relax.

"You will be doing more than that very soon," Voldemort hissed in his ear as his fingers pressed harder.

Harry flinched a little, but otherwise remained still. He would look stupid for objecting to something that was part of the vows and that he would have known about if he'd just listened closer.

Then he abruptly gasped and flinched in a different way as Voldemort's fingers curled to the side and pleasure shot through him like the harsh, hot sensation he'd felt when they kissed. "What the hell?" he blurted.

Voldemort laughed again, and continued to stroke him there. "You truly are an innocent if you've never experimented with this, Harry."

Harry grunted and tried to ignore the thickening hardness between his legs. "I've wanked."

"Hardly the same thing." Voldemort withdrew his fingers, and Harry realized he knew what was coming. He concentrated again on his breathing. But instead of slamming his cock into Harry right away, Voldemort continued, "Did you truly never feel attraction to men? To boys?"

Harry blinked at the wall and tried to convince himself he was actually here, and Voldemort had actually asked him that question. "No. I didn't. I was only attracted to a few girls, even."

"Hmmm." Voldemort circled around to look at him. Harry turned his head and met his eyes. He wasn't a coward, no matter that some people would probably say he was because he'd agreed to get fucked instead of fighting until he died.

Voldemort was naked now. Harry forced himself to look at the cock between Voldemort's legs. Long, thin, flushed with only the smallest touch of pink, otherwise as pale as Voldemort was all over.

This wasn't the worst thing he'd ever seen. Remus and Tonks lying dead, Dumbledore drinking that potion, Sirius falling through the veil, the other Voldemort rising from the cauldron, all of them still beat this. Harry worked through the thought that that thing was going inside him, and made himself accept it.

Voldemort seemed to have found whatever he was looking for in Harry's face. "And that is why we are here," he murmured.

Harry shook his head. He was never going to understand Voldemort, and he thought that would always be true no matter how many years they were "married." He faced the wall again, and Voldemort moved back behind him.

"This is larger."

"I know. I can take it."

"You say that without bravado. I mean to make you say it with a different emotion altogether."

Once again, Harry had no time to ask what that meant, because Voldemort was easing into him. The pain was deeper and harder to ignore than his fingers. Harry still fixed his eyes on the wall and breathed through it.

He remembered the sneering faces at the "wedding" earlier. Yes, they were people he didn't much like and people who would never understand the sacrifice he'd made. But they were still people who didn't deserve to die. He was protecting them as much as—

"Pay attention, Harry."

The hand snagged in his hair again, yanking his head back and pressing his mouth against Voldemort's, certainly got his attention. So did Voldemort plunging ahead with a sharp thrust of his hips. Harry cried out, his head drooping a little. His cock had gone soft against the blankets.

"Yes," Voldemort said into his ear. So at least one of them was enjoying it, Harry thought, closing his eyes, and that vow to give pain and take pleasure was coming true.

Voldemort began to thrust. Harry set himself to endure.

"Oh, no, Harry, that won't do at all," Voldemort said into his ear, and then withdrew. Harry shut his eyes when it felt as if someone was yanking bits and pieces of his bowels out with Voldemort's cock. "There. This way."

There was softer silk than before under his hips, and Harry realized he was lying on his back, his legs spread, a pillow beneath him. And he was staring up at Voldemort as he lifted Harry's legs, bent them quickly over his shoulders, and entered Harry again.

Harry craned his neck with the pain and bit his lips fiercely. Voldemort bent down over him, so close that the heat of his body was more present than the fire.

"Face me, Harry, as you have done so many times." Voldemort's voice was cool and controlled. He didn't seem to be affected at all by the way he was thrusting into Harry.

Well, Harry hadn't expected him to be, really. He let his eyes fall open and fastened them on the blazing red ones above him.

Voldemort hissed at once, and his features twisted in pleasure. "If you could see yourself," he said. "If you could see what you're giving up."

Harry blinked. He knew what he was giving up. The pain radiating up from his belly and spreading out like lightning through his body was telling him. And he knew he would have day after day of this…

It was hard to bear, just as it had been easier to think about being tortured for years than actually face the notion. Harry swallowed and kept looking at Voldemort's face, hoping that this kind of passive obedience was what Voldemort wanted and it would make him finish up that much quicker.

Voldemort slowed, reaching down with his sharp-nailed hands to grab Harry's wrists. Then he slowed even further and seemed to be angling with his hips, searching for something. Harry stared back. What did he think this was? That Harry's arse was a toy that would jangle different tunes when—

Then Voldemort slammed into the same place that his fingers had found earlier. Harry's back arched entirely without his permission, his vision went white, and he cried out again, a low, long sound that had no place coming from his throat.

"There it is," Voldemort said. He kept on thrusting into it, and there was no other place to go, no escape from the pleasure, and no corner of Harry's head that wasn't filled with it.

Harry didn't know how long it went on. He knew that Voldemort's fingers were gripping his shoulders, and he knew that hisses in Parseltongue were breaking around his ears, and he knew that his cock was growing harder despite himself and dripping a mess all over his skin—

And he came.

That pleasure thundered through him, twisting along his nerves, and he spent before he could think about it and hold it back. This time, he sounded shocked to himself when he moaned and fell back as much as he could, a battered puddle of nothing.

Voldemort came inside him, but, while that was warm and disgusting, it was nothing compared to what he'd made Harry do. Harry just stared up past Voldemort at the ceiling, and winced a little when he pulled out.

"I would say that you should get used to that," Voldemort murmured, twisting his wand in lazy circles that cleaned Harry and removed the pillow and sent the covers on the bed flipping back, but did nothing to ease Harry's shock. "But I intend that our time in bed shall be varied."

Harry got another shock when Voldemort lay down beside him instead of leaving. He blinked at the ceiling and asked, "Don't you have mayhem to plot or something?"

"You have put a stop to that effectively, with that truce our marriage has ensured."

Voldemort's arm curled around Harry's waist and tipped him sharply to the side, so that he had to look at that pale face again. Harry was beginning to believe he wouldn't be tortured for asking questions. For whatever strange reason.

He found the breath and nerve to ask another pair. "Why did you agree to this? Why treat this like a real marriage instead of a matter of convenience?"

"I answered some of that earlier," Voldemort said, in a whisper so soft it sounded intimate and made Harry squirm uncomfortably in his hold. Voldemort gave no sign that he noticed. "For the rest, I know things that my predecessors did not."

Harry hesitated, then asked, "What?"

"That you would keep fighting until your last breath if I insisted on war. I did not want to see that strength go out of the world," Voldemort answered simply. He reached up and laid his palm over the faded brand of the scar on Harry's forehead. "And I also studied your loyalty to your friends."

He fell silent again. Harry swallowed, feeling a little sick as he realized how easily he was being lured into taking part in this conversation. "So you knew they would keep fighting to avenge me if you killed me?"

"No. I knew that you were capable of deep attachment as well as simple stubbornness. No one among my Death Eaters has that kind of loyalty to me."

Harry recoiled as far as he could get, which wasn't very. "You're madder than your second version was if you think I'll ever be loyal to you."

"Oh? But the years are long, Harry, the ones that you'll spend with me. I know how you grew up. I paid close attention to the gossip to sort it out from the truth. I know that you would have daydreamed about the day that you were finally old enough to leave them. I did, in the orphanage. What will you do in a captivity you can never leave, with a captor who does not torture you, who in fact considers you the most precious thing he has ever seen?"

Deep prickles ran to and down Harry's spine. He shook his head. "That's ridiculous. You said it yourself. I'll never stop fighting. I'll fight you."

"You could," Voldemort said, adjusting his grip a little as if he thought Harry might be getting cold or some such shit. "But you have already found more pleasure than you thought here, and the mask of your resignation has already broken. You look at me with far more fire in your eyes than you did an hour ago."

Harry shut his eyes. It did nothing to shut out the whispering voice that curled around him.

"That fire is what I want. Working with me, beside me, not against me. And how many decades, Harry Potter, will it take you to surrender to someone who admires you? Values you? Gives you his companionship? Grants your wishes when it appears feasible to him to do so? Makes you feel good?"

"You still can't hurt my friends."

"I have never intended to. From the moment I was reborn, they have formed no part of my goal. Their deaths are as irrelevant as their lives."

Harry shuddered. The prickles of intense feeling were still moving up and down his spine, following Voldemort's trailing hand, his curving nails.

"You are the one I want, Harry Potter. I agreed to the marriage because it put you into my hands. And that is my victory."

Harry said nothing, but remained still. Voldemort kept watching him, he could feel it, the intense, devouring gaze that never ceased even when he started to drop towards sleep.

When he realized that was happening, Harry jerked himself back to awareness, tensing every single muscle. How could he fall asleep next to this creature?

Voldemort laughed softly, and the sound pursued Harry into the sleep that rose to claim him after all.

As did the realization that decades were, indeed, a long, long time.

The End.