If Paths Diverge

Chapter 24

The disconcerting sensation of a beating heart under his palm woke him instantly. Voldemort opened his eyes to see the tousled black hair of his constantly surprising nemesis. Harry was still asleep, his head pillowed on Voldemort's numb arm and his naked limbs tangled with his own under the blanket.

It was unsettling. He had watched Harry fall into unconsciousness last night and had been left unattended but not unsatisfied. The boy had a sharp taste for violence that Voldemort was only too keen to sate. Seeing the boy's arse bloody and purple had ignited conflicted feelings within him.

He had always enjoyed inflicting pain on others. It gave him a rush of rightful supremacy. An acknowledgment of his power and his ability to place others below himself. Yet he had never imagined that another would compliment this desire of his so perfectly. Harry wanted the pain. It was a craving independent of Voldemort's influence. One he had sought himself before knowing of Voldemort's survival.

It was thrilling, but his experiences at the Ministry had not left him untouched.

While delivering the stinging blows last night, he had remembered the taste of the whip upon his own skin. His penchant for violence was not a current that ran in both directions.

He looked down at the boy laying carefree and defenceless in his arms. He trailed a finger down the skin of Harry's strong arm. The boy was a juxtaposition of indestructibility and fragility. He was stubborn, proud, and fatally moralistic, but somehow also needy and uncertain.

Suicidal.

Voldemort would never understand the compulsion. The boy had wanted to die, had been actively suppressing the desire and had not been winning the fight. It was incomprehensible. Terrifying. A piece of his soul was a price he could pay to avoid that.

Voldemort felt himself hardening against the boy's thighs, remembering how Harry had responded to his gift. How his body had flushed and pressed helplessly against him when he had pierced his skin. How he had sounded when Voldemort had mouthed his mark— another mark of his on the boy.

He had made a choice last night to stay despite his plans to make contact with Bella. He had meant to leave, but after the boy had collapsed, bloody and used, trusting and defenceless and unbearably beautiful, it had been impossible to depart. Bella could wait.

He had been exhausted, anyway. Creating a Horcrux was very draining and he had come to Harry last night weakened from the ritual. It had been a gamble, offering the boy a piece of his soul, knowing the boy disapproved of the price, but Harry had surprised him with his vehemence to keep it.

And then, after the boy had fallen into unconsciousness, he had found himself in a startling situation for the second time:

Harry Potter, asleep and completely vulnerable before him.

On the last occasion, Voldemort had been weakened still from his time at the Ministry and without his magic.

Now, he was strong. He was restored. It would have been obscenely easy to steal the Elder Wand and finish his decades-long objective.

He could kill the boy.

He could win and how sweet a victory would that have been after disappointingly accepting that he must forever lose this battle?

Harry had slept on for long minutes while Voldemort had willed his rapacious self-preservation to act. This had been his most solemn desire for so long: the boy, dead. Defeated at his hand so that none could deny Lord Voldemort's superiority. His limitless, uncontrollable dominance and power.

The boy had then shifted in his sleep, eyebrows scrunching together with obvious discomfort, and Voldemort had been immediately derailed. Harry had been in pain, likely from the purple and bloody mess he had made of that pliant skin.