A feeling of vertigo woke Harry. He cracked open his eyes to find himself being levitated towards the bed. Groggily he wondered why he wasn't there already, if he had been asleep.

Ah, of course. He'd fallen asleep on the rug with Nagini. His Master had worked late, away from their rooms, and Harry had preferred the company of his sister to the cold loneliness of the empty bed.

Not empty anymore. Lord Voldemort was sitting against the high headboard, still dressed in his voluminous black robes.

"You're finally home," Harry said, barely supressing a yawn. When he was lowered on the bed, he automatically curled into his pillow. What had he been dreaming about? A snitch glinting above the lake, no—above a house. A perfect snitch, and it was his. He just had to reach out and—

"It is morning, Harry. Time to wake up."

"Then why did you bring me to the bed?" As much as he tried, he couldn't stifle a second yawn

Voldemort traced his index finger along Harry's cheek. "I need to ask you a few questions, pet. After that, you'll find that we make good use of the bed."

Harry smiled sleepily. He was already stiff with anticipation, as he often was in the mornings. He hoped the questions wouldn't take too long. "Okay. Ask away."

A dark chuckle. "I wanted to ask about the incident in the library yesterday. Harry, why did you ask Nagini to engage with the Mudblood's escort?"

It was too early in the morning for Harry to remember clearly. He tried to recall the incident; with a bit of effort, the fuzzy memories cleared. "He was making it hard for Hermione to work and Draco was trying to help. The guard got irritated—he wanted to leave—and began insulting the Malfoys."

"Draco told me as much yesterday." The Dark Lord's finger trailed lower, down Harry's jaw, to his throat. "That does not answer my question about Nagini."

Didn't it? Harry couldn't quite recall. "I don't know," he admitted. "I asked her to chase him away. I can't remember why."

"Had he threatened you? Or her?"

Harry shook his head. "But I was getting so tired of listening to him."

"Nagini is there to defend you. I don't care what some low-ranked Death Eater insinuates, accurately or not, about the Malfoys. She is there to defend your life, not Lucius's honour. Do you understand me?"

Harry disliked the hard, disappointed edge lacing his Master's words. "All right," he said. His cheeks flushed with shame.

"That goes for you, too. Draco is there to defend against threats to you, not the other way around."

Harry nodded. He hoped the questions were over. He turned on his side and began stroking up his Master's leg beseechingly. "Is that all?"

"Hardly. But you've answered my questions, if that is what you mean." A murmured word and Harry was cold, his robes gone.

Harry reached out to loosen his Master's robes, but his hand was smacked away. "I spent much of the night wondering how exactly to impress upon you the importance of following my directives, Harry. I don't wish to cause you pain, darling. Not anymore. So how to punish you?"

Harry wished he could hide beneath the sheets. He remembered clearly how Voldemort had tortured Bellatrix, naked and lashed to the bedframe.

"Tied up, yes. We'll start with that." Voldemort flicked his fingers and silky coils sprang from the bedposts to wrap around Harry's wrists, pulling them above his head. "But I don't think only your wrists should be tied up, do you?" He held something that Harry recognized at once.

Oh sweet Merlin, no.

"Please Master," Harry whined. "Not that." He would take a Crucio over this.

Voldemort slid the cock-ring down to the base of Harry's penis. "Don't worry so much, my dear. You only need to wear it until the message gets across."

And how long would that be? Harry whined as his Master played with his foreskin, sliding it up and down the head of his cock. Harry willed himself to stay soft.

Voldemort had other ideas. He lowered his hand to the base of Harry's semi-hard member and conjured some lubricant. His other hand massaged Harry's perineum expertly.

Harry licked his lip and tried to ignore the build up of pleasure. "How do I prove I…ah…will listen to your orders?" He tried not to buck as a finger teased into his opening.

But his Master was too busy to answer. For the first time, he lowered his mouth towards Harry's cock.

Harry's hope to not respond was dashed as all the blood in his body flooded between his legs. With wide eyes, he watched as Voldemort closed his lips around his hard shaft, encircling it with delicious heat. Meanwhile, his long finger was pressing deeper into him. No, two fingers.

Voldemort licked up to the tip of Harry's cock, then swirled his tongue around the glans before looking up. His red eyes were blown but full and eager. The fingers in Harry's arse never stopped their probing thrusts. He pressed against Harry's prostate and, in response to Harry's gasp, said, "I expect you will have completely learned your lesson by the time I am done with you."

As Harry watched Voldemort's tongue slip in and out of his slit, he decided that he would never survive the lesson.

"It is possible to stimulate your prostate this way as well," Voldemort said as he looked up once more. Harry was trying not to feel any more stimulated than he already was, so didn't even try to understand. His Master pressed a fingertip into his slit to get his attention. "I think a glass stirring rod would be about the right length to fuck your pretty cock, don't you think?"

"What?"

But Voldemort's mouth was busy again, this time sucking down Harry's cock. When the head reached his throat, he swallowed with ease. Soon Harry was completely engulfed in warm, wet perfectness.

And it was awful.

The fingers finally pulled out; Voldemort came up for air. He shifted down the bed and with a rustle pulled his own hard member from his robes. He wasted now time pressing the blunt head to Harry's hole and sliding in. "Hmmm, so tight still. Look at me, Harry."

As their eyes met, all at once more than a cock was thrusting inside as Harry's mind was swiftly invaded. He was pressing into himself, relishing in the embracing heat of his own arse. He lost himself to the building rhythm of thrusts, his long white fingers tightening around his own slender hips.

Deeper. He needed to get deeper, to feel his Horcrux's flesh cinch around him. As it was always meant to.

"Faster," Harry said, relishing in tightness, in fullness.

Voldemort slung Harry's legs over his shoulders and pressed in even deeper. Harry groaned out in bliss, though some distant part of him could still feel the tight ring of silver pressing painfully around the base of his cock. He ignored the reminder that this wouldn't end well and focused on the brilliant green of his own eyes gazing up at himself.

Voldemort paused balls-deep inside of him. "Are you ready to be punished?"

Harry had thought this was the punishment, as glorious as it was turning out to be. He nodded stupidly and braced himself for whatever pain of pleasure was his due.

As soon as he'd received confirmation, Voldemort smirked wickedly and resumed thrusting. He kept their full mind-link open and Harry's mouth fell open as their shared orgasm approached. His Master pulled out right before he came, and also—devastatingly—dropped their connection. Harry was coldly shoved back into his own mind. Red-eyes, black robes, and a hard, spurting cock filled his vision. His own arse was all at once empty, his own cock hard and straining. Not ignored, though. His Master was directing his own thick stream of come onto it.

Voldemort pulled off and tucked himself back into his robes. A wave of his wand and Harry's feet were similarly bound to the footboard of the bed. He trailed one long finger through his own emission, smearing it up Harry's painfully hard cock.

Harry couldn't help arching his back and gasping when his Master swirled his creamy ejaculate around his swollen cockhead. "Please, Master…I've learned my lesson. Please let me come, too."

Voldemort raised his wand. Harry held his breath, wondering if he'd be cursed or freed.

But Voldemort incanted another string of Latin and Harry felt his Master's will seep into all the bonds holding him in place, including the cock-ring. "The magic will know when you truly recant your deeds, Harry, and you will be released only then. Hopefully it will be before the Malfoy heir comes to escort you onto the grounds this afternoon." Then the bastard actually waved goodbye to him and retreated through the tapestry.

Harry laid back on his pillow and groaned. He had how long until Draco came? The mantle clock was out of sight from here but, judging from the light streaming through the window, it was still fairly early. Nine o' clock, perhaps. He had at least three hours before he'd be found in so compromising a position.

He hoped it wouldn't take that long, and not only because of the humiliation factor. Not only was he still hard and aching, but his stomach was growling. Not to mention his Master's sperm was starting to grow clammy. He strained his neck up to see how it clung to the dark hairs surrounding his own genitals. As uncomfortable as it was starting to feel, looking at it made his prick pulse again with desire.

That was good, though. He had more motivation to free himself this way.

"I won't put myself or Nagini in danger to defend a friend," he stated.

Nothing.

He said it twice more. Magic worked in threes, didn't it?

Still nothing. Sevens?

"Oh, for fuck sake," he growled when that didn't work either.

Perhaps he wasn't meant to free himself. Maybe being found by Draco was part of his punishment. But no, Voldemort had been quite adamant from the get-go that Harry was for him and him alone. Which meant that there was a way to free himself, and Harry was meant to find it.

What if he couldn't?

The sun was moving higher up the sky. The house-elf invisibly popped breakfast for Harry onto the bedside table—fat good that would do him—and a large rat for Nagini to chase. When she had swallowed down her meal, she climbed onto the bed and scented Harry. To his embarrassment, she flicked her tongue right against his groin. He tried to squirm away, but he could only move so far.

"Why did Master miss?" she asked him.

It wasn't all that hard to figure out what she meant. "His aim was spot on," he told her. He tried not to hiss too sharply at her. This mess (quite literal in one sense) was not her fault. Hell, he was the one who had put her at risk. "Did you enjoy your rat?" he asked, needing to change the topic.

She said she had but that she was hungry for more. "Brother has not eaten his meal," she observed.

He pulled at the bonds of silk rope securing him to the bed. "I can't reach. Master is angry I involved you in Draco's argument yesterday. He tied me up to punish me."

"Why?"

Harry slumped back on the pillow and closed his eyes tight. "The guard had a wand. He could have hurt you."

"Nagini was not in danger," she hissed emphatically. She slithered over to stare into Harry's eyes. He took in her constant gaze and melted a bit with affection for her. "And this way, others will not think to hunt brother. Not when Nagini is close by."

Harry swallowed down the lump in his throat. He remembered his fear for her when Ginny had attacked, his certainty that she had been killed defending him. What had he been thinking yesterday? He had purposely put her in danger. "Master was right to be angry. I was wrong to ask you to attack for so small a thing. I won't do it again."

Harry leaned forward and was stroking Nagini, petting down her neck, wiping at his eyes with his other hand, before he realized he'd managed to get free.

"I'm sorry," he whispered to her. "I'll be more careful, I promise."

His sister hissed with delight at his attention, until his stomach growled. Then she scolded him for ignoring his breakfast.

Laughing, he gave her one last pet. Then he turned to his poached eggs and toast, which were still piping hot.

...

Draco was not alone when he fetched Harry that afternoon. Luna stood a few feet away, staring with rapt attention down the long hallway.

"Oh, hi Luna," he said, but he was mostly looking at Draco, giving him a 'are you quite sane' look.

Draco shifted uncomfortably, then said, "Luna and I were taking lunch on the terrace, taking advantage of the sun. When I made to leave to keep our appointment, she said she should come along."

Harry blinked. These days, he usually forgot that Draco was raised a poncy rich-boy. "I think I'm cancelling that appointment, thank you." He didn't really want to be third wheel. What was he supposed to be, anyway. Their chaperone? Did Luna even realize that Draco was trying to court her?

Frowning, Draco opened his mouth to reply to Harry's bitter words. Before he could say anything, Luna turned to Harry and said, "You should be careful with bottomless pits, Harry. Didn't you ever hear the story of Ambrose the Abstruse?" At Harry's head shake, she went on. "No of course you haven't, because he dug a bottomless pit and fell in. No one has heard of him."

Harry looked to Draco. Judging from the equally confused look on his friend's face, his ignorance wasn't due to his Muggle upbringing. Then again, maybe Draco was more bothered by the architectural repercussions of having such a pit in his home. "A bottomless pit," he echoed, his face pale.

"There isn't anything there," Harry said, instead of asking her how she had heard the story if it had been so lost. Still, he mostly wondered how it was that she had sensed such a thing at all. He remembered, of course, the horrid void that Ginny had been imprisoned in. It had been there, a soul-sucking nothingness—he had seen it, had felt it. But then it was gone. His Master had reassured him of that. Well, not exactly, but close enough. He hadn't felt anything strange or unworldly coming from further down the corridor since that day. It was as if some ghastly portal had closed.

If that were the case, hopefully it was gone for good.

Luna was still looking at him closely. Softly, she said, "Of course there isn't anything there. Promise me you'll be careful, Harry. I would hate to lose you."

"Um, sure," he agreed, mostly to get her to stop talking about it. To Draco, he said, "I'll grab my coat and wake up Nagini, then we'll head out. Unless you've already taken enough sun on the terrace."

Draco shook his head. He was in his full aristocratic mode and didn't even notice the barb. "I was hoping to show Luna the autumn wildflower display on the south side of the grounds this afternoon, and after that I thought we might take tea in the gazebo."

Harry rolled his eyes. He went back into his and Voldemort's chambers and grabbed his cloak from off the stand near the door. "Wake up, sister," he hissed to Nagini. When she groggily raised her head to look at him, he was again flooded with relief that his idiocy yesterday had not brought harm to her. "We're going outside now. Come along."

The day was warm. To Draco's chagrin, Luna led them along the grounds in what appeared, at first, to be a haphazard direction. Amazingly, when she finally called a halt to their wanderings, they found themselves at the menhir Harry had discovered at Midsummer. She leaned against the standing stones and closed her eyes, holding her hands out to rest on the weather-worn rock.

Nagini was happy. She scaled onto her favourite stone and promptly fell asleep. Harry meandered in and out of the all-too familiar stones until he came to the one he'd long hoped never to see again. It didn't look like much, this old prison of his. He looked up, trying to recall the dizzying days of his confinement. He rubbed his fingers along the hard rock, lost in thought.

"That's an interesting standing stone," he heard from behind him. He looked over his shoulders at Luna, who stepped up and followed the trail of his fingers, almost exactly. "It feels more alive than the others."

Harry pressed palm to rock. He only felt the thump of his own pulse. "How can you tell?"

Luna tilted her head and sucked in her lower lip. "I don't know," she admitted. Draco came to stand beside her. He pressed finger to stone, too, looking as though he was trying his hardest to perceive whatever she did.

Harry thought about it. "The Dark Lord warded it in June," he said finally. "Could you be sensing residue of his spellwork?"

She considered it, then shook her head. "The magic feels more earthy than his. It is far older."

More than anything, Harry wanted to know what Luna thought his Master's magic felt like, but he didn't dare ask. Besides, he pretty well knew the answer. It was the warm bliss of waking with long arms wrapped around you. It was sybillant moans of delight when Harry managed to please his Master. It was long fingers brushing through his hair. It was a soft kiss to his scar and promises that everything would be okay from now on.

That was all that Voldemort's magic meant.

It certainly wasn't a cold, hard stone, no matter how alive it might feel to Luna Lovegood.

"What about the snake's stone?" Draco said, breaking Harry from his reverie. "She seems to like it well enough. Do you think she's drawn to it for any particular reason?"

Luna walked to the stone where Nagini slept and considered it. After a long while, she said, "It feels…sunny."

Harry smiled; good on Luna for catching all that was important to his sister. "It gets the best light, all the way until evening," he agreed. He didn't bother telling them how he knew that with such certainty. He reached out to stroke along his sister's coiled back. There. There was the soft hum of his Master's magic, emanating from her very scales. Beautiful sister Horcrux.

Then Luna asked something that Harry was completely unprepared for: "Can I pet her?"

At least she'd had the courtesy of asking.

Meanwhile, Draco had grabbed hold of Luna's arm and pulled her back a few steps. "I don't think…" he began, before glancing over at Harry with wide eyes. "Harry, tell her that's a bad idea."

Harry was hesitant to rouse his sister to ask what she thought. He suspected that Nagini might relish the attention. But did he want to share her? And more importantly, what would Voldemort think? Then again, Luna was a Pureblood witch and for some reason that still perplexed Harry had been granted a great deal of freedom in a very short space of time. In time, she might be the next lady of the manor.

In the end, Harry did ask his sister what she wanted. To his relief, she curled up more tightly and said to ask her later when she wasn't so very sleepy.

Luna skipped away when Harry told her, as if she hadn't just been disappointed. Draco shared a wary glance with him. With a half-smile, he whispered to Harry, "I think you'd best ask our Lord what his position on that is before she tries again."

"Or about her coming to fetch me," Harry said, pointedly. "Has she been granted leave to enter the Dark Lord's wing of the manor? I thought that was rather reckless of you, Draco."

Draco gave a pained sort of grimace. "She insisted on coming. I figured it wouldn't be so bad. You're probably right, though." Then his eyes widened with remembered fear. With a shiver, he asked, "What did she mean about a bottomless pit?"

"One of the Dark Lord's experiments, I think." With a hushed voice, he described what he'd seen when he had gone with Voldemort to fetch Ginny from the void.

By the time Harry had finished, Draco looked even more horrified. "I knew he was doing something strange down that corridor. My parents told me years ago to keep away, and I knew better than to disobey, but I would never have thought he was breeding something down there."

"He was breeding darkness," Harry said. Forgetting the void at the end of the hall, it was true for his own soul.

"Rather apropos," said Draco. "I just wish he wasn't breeding it in my house. Not that I'm complaining or anything, of course. We Malfoys are—"

"Please stop," Harry groaned. "I don't want to hear it. Besides, I don't think you have anything to worry about. If whatever is down there wasn't contained, surely he wouldn't have his chambers so nearby."

"I suppose," Draco mumbled. He didn't seem at all mollified.

"So, tell me more about these stones," Harry said, trying to get Draco's mind off so dire a subject. Judging by the look on the Slytherin's face, he hadn't been successful.

Fortunately, Luna was more easily distracted. She asked Draco, "Does your family observe Samhain in the old ways, with a ritual around the stones?"

Draco's anxious look evaporated. "Yes, we do. What about your family? I know not all of the more…um… liberal families stopped the practice earlier this century."

Harry was lost at 'Samhain.' He almost asked Nagini; surely if it was such a big event, she would know. He could ask her in Parseltongue, and the other two wouldn't know of his ignorance.

Of course, Nagini was asleep again. Harry hopped up next to her, carefully so as not to disturb her. There was just enough room for the both of them.

Draco was saying something about a party that would precede the Samhain ritual.

"Will it be a masquerade?" Luna asked.

Draco raised a brow. "Not unless Death Eater attire is considered fancy dress."

"Why would anyone dress up for—?" Harry nearly hit himself. He knew exactly what Wizarding holiday was but weeks away.

Halloween.

Luna just nodded, neither disappointed nor alarmed. With her calm, dulcet voice she asked, "Are you going, Harry?"

"Am I?" Harry asked Draco.

Draco shrugged. "Shouldn't you know that?"

"He hasn't mentioned anything, but then he rarely gives me advance notice of these things," Harry admitted. He worried the inside of his cheek, then dared, "Will it be much like the party after…?" He trailed off. After his mission to the Chamber, he had meant to say, but Luna was right there.

Draco raised his eyebrow in question. Harry gave him what he hoped was a weighty look, hoping to get his point across. For one miraculously rare moment, Harry wished Draco was a Legilimens.

Luna looked back and forth between them. "Can I come?"

"No!" Draco blurted. He reddened and apologized immediately for coming off so harsh. "It's only for the Dark Lord's followers."

But Draco's outburst was confirmation enough.

There would be orgies. Or torture.

Likely a blend of the two.

Harry had but one more question, and only one person could answer that.

Who would be servicing Lord Voldemort?