A Snake Named Voldemort

Chapter 12

Sometime during the evening, Harry fell asleep. When he awoke again, it was dark out and he had missed dinner. Feeling better after his nap though still a bit gloomy and more than a little hungry, Harry got off the bed and stepped up to the door. There, he paused with his hand on the knob. Voldemort really wouldn't still be here, would he? He'd left the wards open for the Dark Lord to Disapparate from, but he wouldn't be able to Apparate back in.

Feeling silly for waiting to go down for a midnight snack, Harry opened the door and stepped into the hallway.

"Gah!"

Harry cried out as he tripped over absolutely nothing. He was about to smack (again, Harry sighed to himself) into the hardwood floor but he never made impact. He squinted at the floor that was inches away from his face as his body hovered over it. The Levitation charm on him was dropped and he landed with a lot less force than what he would have, but it still wasn't painless.

"Ow," Harry more or less whined, pouting as he pressed his cheek into the cool floor.

"Clumsy, aren't we Potter?"

Harry rolled over and propped himself up on his elbows so he could glance up at a smirking Voldemort, who was standing over him, his arms crossed across his chest.

"That was a dirty trick. And what the hell are you doing standing here in a dark hallway?"

Voldemort's grin persisted for a split second more before it was replaced with an expression of insouciance as he shrugged. "This is what I always do when I'm waiting for temperamental teenagers to come to their senses."

"Come to my senses? What does that mean? In any case, I'm just hungry. I'll go now and fix that while you wait here."

Harry moved to get up but Voldemort had magically trapped his legs so Harry was unable to push up off the floor. Harry felt a slight twinge of panic in his gut. This was Voldemort, after all, and it was usually his policy to stop at nothing to get what he wanted...whatever that was. So what did he want now? Surely he wasn't going to call Harry out about his sudden change of heart, was he? While Harry deliberated with himself on Voldemort's motives, there was a voice in Harry's mind that whispered how the confident look on Voldemort's visage made him even more attractive than what his natural looks gave him.

It was in that moment, as he lay pathetically on the floor, Harry realised how earlier he'd been running away from something he didn't want to face. He was afraid of what was happening to him. Never would he ever have guessed that he'd end up liking something about Voldemort as he did now...and that maybe more than he should. Problem was, he was letting his confusion and fear get in the way of what he really needed to focus on. He had been protecting himself from the disappointment his life liked to dish out to him on a regular basis, because now there was something else he might want that was so bizarre as to be unlikely to ever come true. But just because he was having certain...feelings...he shouldn't let them control him and cause him to forget the rest of the important things. Even though he never asked for it, Fate had given him the responsibility to do something about this war, and it was his noble heart that gave him the compulsion to comply.

As a result of his roiling emotions, he had never paused and given Voldemort a chance to think about all he said, never let him make a decision...what happened if he did? He could just keep on ignoring the other...things.

"Voldemort?"

Harry held the man's gaze for several beats of time before the gestured at the younger wizard's legs and said, "If I let go, will you stay and talk?"

Harry nodded with private resolve. "Yes."

Voldemort allowed Harry to stand up. He felt a hand wrap around his wrist in a restraining hold. The touch was warm, which Harry found wholly dissimilar from the ice cold touch of snake-face Voldemort. It was pleasant, soothing, and more so, it felt right. He almost wished it didn't.