Title: "You Set My Soul Alight"

Author: Shaitanah

Rating: R

Timeline: post-HBP

Summary: During the battle between Harry and Voldemort a curse backfires and takes them to some isolated room which they can't get out of. Sounds banal, I know, but give it a try! Might be a hint of slash later. Please R&R!

Disclaimer: Harry Potter belongs to J. K. Rowling… unfortunately! ;) I wouldn't mind owning Voldie! The name for the fic comes from a song by Muse, the name for the chapter comes from a song by Pink Floyd.

A/N: I've been working on this story for a long time. It didn't turn out the way I wanted it but it's fairly alright, so enjoy! Reviews would be very appreciated.

YOU SET MY SOUL ALIGHT

Chapter 1

ANOTHER BRICK IN THE WALL

The first thing Harry saw when he came to his senses was a pair of glimmering red eyes, huge as stars, preventing him from seeing anything else. It was like a delusion. Harry thought he had never seen anything so beautiful, so expressive and so scary. And then he recognized the owner of these eyes.

He shot his hand out so rapidly that his wand very nearly took Voldemort's eye out. The Dark Lord stumbled backwards and hissed something inaudible. Harry sprang up on his feet, his breath harsh and shaky, and kept staring at his enemy with eyes wide open. The situation began to seem pretty silly. Nobody tried to speak. None of them moved. Finally Voldemort broke the awkward silence:

"Honestly, Potter! I had noticed you are very ill-mannered last time we met but this–".

"What do you want me to say?" Harry snapped. "Hi?"

The Dark Lord chuckled quietly and walked about the room. Harry followed him with his tired yet attentive eyes. When the Dark Lord was completely out of sight, he took a brief moment to examine the place itself. It was a dark, dusty room, apparently to Voldemort's liking for Harry heard the Dark Lord murmur something like: "At least, they have taste". Harry wondered how long he'd been unconscious – and helpless at Voldemort's mercy! The thought sickened him. He ran after the older wizard and blurted out:

"What is this place? Some of your secret torture-hideouts?"

"Not mine".

Harry felt too tired to ask more questions all of a sudden. He leaned against the wall and shut his eyes for a moment. It started coming back then. The war. The meetings with the order, plans, strategies. The final battle. Harry turned his tear-stained face away from many of those who fell. Green fire all over. Voldemort's predatory smirk. Cruciatus – and Harry lost his balance, and fell down on his knees, he felt like vomiting his guts out, and crying, and then he cast Avada Kedavra on Voldemort and missed…

And after that some vast, cold abyss opened its embrace and welcomed Harry. He swinged in it, and he fell, and he fell, and he just carried on falling…

Harry looked at the Dark Lord who was obscured by thick shadows flowing down from the walls like waterfalls of darkness. His bloodshot eyes were fixed on the boy.

"I guess I'm lucky again", Harry murmured wearily. He didn't really care but he asked, nevertheless: "How did it happen?"

Voldemort shrugged. "My curse… My Killing Curse must have backfired somehow. You're asking the wrong question. It is not how it happened that is important. But it is how we get out of here!"

"Err… 'kay. Got any ideas?"

Harry clutched the wand tighter. The enemy didn't seem to move – didn't even seem to want to move – but hey, precaution could save lives! At this, Voldemort suddenly laughed.

"Your magic won't help you now, Potter! I had plenty of time before you decided to remain in the world of the living. I tested every incantation known to me. And believe me, that is a lot".

Harry's head began to ache. He made a few deep, harsh breaths and sank down to the floor. He stuck his head between his knees and prayed he wouldn't throw up. Must be concussion. Shit! Shit! Double shit, come to think of it. Being alone with Voldemort was horrible beyond any nightmares. Being sick with Voldemort was just… indescribably horrible!

Harry wanted to know how long he'd been unconscious. But he was afraid to ask. Even a possibility of starting a conversation with Voldemort frightened him. He hoped it wasn't all too noticeable.

Hours passed in silence. Every time one of them moved, he had to deal with suspicious intensity of the other's gaze following him closely. Voldemort attracted Harry's attention more frequently since he'd found some charcoal and used it to draw weird lines on the dusty floorboards. The boy's curiousity intensified but he didn't dare ask what the purpose of all that was. The man seemed very busy. Feeling sick and cold, in desperate need of attention and also to keep himself from falling asleep, Harry finally mumbled:

"S-so… you cast Avada Kedavra on me?"

"Was it the first time?" The Dark Lord didn't even bother to lift his head. To Potter's amazement, his voice sounded soft and somehow warm. All its coldness had been drained from the tone.

Harry gave himself a mental slap on the back of his head. Soon he'd actually begin to like the villain.

"And it backfired. So basically it's your fault we're stuck here".

The Dark Lord looked up abruptly. His eyes became narrow slits full of anger. "Yes, it's my twisted idea of summer vacation, you know!"

Harry hunched his shoulders a little to make himself look less significant. He searched his soul for any emotions but there were none. As if his feelings had been frozen. He didn't care anymore. Something good, something bad, Ginny, and Hermione, and Ron – everything was blurry, a relentless dream of no importance. Harry saw things for what they were now. Voldemort was a maniac who intended to kill him. But Harry kind of liked being locked up with him. It served them both right.

"Why aren't you trying to kill me?" he asked.

"Do you want me to?" The Dark Lord's lips curved into a hideous smile. Harry's shoulders tensed. He wrapped his fingers around the wand again, just in case. "Isn't it obvious? My knowledge is not enough to get me out of here. Perhaps you could be of use".

The Dark Lord kept on working on his sketches. Harry lost track of time. His thoughts trailed off on something that seemed so unimportant now. The start of his final year. He wasn't going to come back to Hogwarts, but he kind of missed school now. It was never safe there but at least, he had never been alone with Voldemort before (except for his younger self, of course). That pushed Harry to the dangerous edge of dreams and reflections on Tom Riddle. How many nights after 'additional studies' with Dumbledore had he lain in his bed in silence, wondering what had driven a handsome, powerful youngster to become a monster that Voldemort was!

The Dark Lord stared at Harry intently. The youth shuddered as he noticed his gaze. He protruded his lips to form a question but he decided to abstain from that. Voldemort looked down. The subject was closed without having been started.

"What are you doing?" Harry asked, pretending to be annoyed with the sound: the piece of black chalk screeched unpleasantly as it connected with the floor-boards.

"Honestly, Potter, you are very much like your father!"

Harry swallowed, cold sweat dripping along the back of his neck. He clenched his teeth, and a low rumbling growl rose in his throat. He hated it when people reminded him of James. James was dead. Dead, dead, dead!

You're so much like your father. Except for the eyes. They are your mother's eyes. Sirius, Lupin, hell – everyone! Everyone had been so kind to remind him of that. But Harry had never known his parents. He was deprived of that privilege. He couldn't look into his mother's charming eyes and compare their color with his own. He couldn't stand before James and see the exact copy of himself, the one that everybody marveled. All that he had was a few old photographs and a rather disappointing image of his father borrowed from Snape's Pensieve.

"Never speak of him again!" Harry hissed.

The Dark Lord (No, time to stop calling him that. First of all, it was a pathetic, groveling Death Eaters' manner, and second of all, the man Harry was looking at was nothing more that a man, stripped of a horrid myth he had worked so hard to dress himself into.) skewed his eyes upon the boy. He looked vaguely amused by his reaction. Honestly, was it really so easy to sting him?

"Why is that so?"

"You have no right! You – have – no – right!" And suddenly Harry burst into tears. He couldn't understand what was wrong. He had been in far worse situations before.

He laughed and cried at the same time. He must have lost his mind. Tears bit his cheeks and tasted like blood, he gulped forcefully and went back to crying. He suppressed an animalistic desire to scream, to roar and express all his pain. His throat was on fire. He wheezed and, having found the sound incredibly funny, almost choked with laughter.

Finally he felt sort of strange relief.

Voldemort cast him a cool glance. "Is that it? Then, I suggest, we think about our way out".

"I hate you", Harry said wearily.

"I know". The simplicity of that statement touched Harry. After all, everything between them had always been so artless, so black-and-white. Harry's hate bred from his childhood tragedy plus Voldemort's appetite for destruction.

Harry smiled.

"What can I do, then?" he asked.

Voldemort beckoned the boy to join him by the sketch. It turned out to be a huge, elaborate pentagram, very advanced magic. In utter silence Harry followed Voldemort as he traced the outlines of the symbol with his paper-white fingers and tried to memorize all the difficult words Voldemort pronounced. They lay in heavy layer inside his mind, but all in all, he felt empty, and brainless, and dull. 'He'd make a fine teacher', a thought came. Harry wondered why Dumbledore hadn't given him a job, after all. Was it mutual aversion? Was it some twisted motif of his? It didn't matter now. Professor Dumbledore was gone, just like Sirius, like his parents, like thousands of Voldemort's victims. Dissolved into nothing.

Harry got up and moved backward, fixing his eyes firmly on the Dark Lord. The spell was yet to be finished. Harry sat down and began to work on his part of the mosaic.

Voldemort chuckled.

"Right, Potter. Don't turn your back on me".

The boy ignored the taunt. Cold, placid feeling spread in his chest, encircled his heart and he allowed himself to bathe in it. He dipped into its safety. He wouldn't let emotions blind him from his goal.