Dark Lord's Pet

I know.

Voldemort

Sharp fangs sank into his ankle, and reflexively he jerked, sending Nagini tumbling off the bed. The jerk hadn't been too hard, and she was a very large snake.

Ice water seemed to poor through his veins, it seemed there was only one reason his most beloved pet would leave Harry, and he knew he didn't have much time. He hadn't thrown on a shirt before leaping out of bed, though the sheet caught his ankle and he wasted a second taking it off, continuing to the room next door.

His magic sent the door crashing off its hinges, and he saw Harry, emaciated and collapsed beside the dog bed, his lips blue as if he wore makeup. The skin around the collar was pinched, and a single touch of his finger released it.

The boy didn't immediately start breathing, and there was no pulse. Quickly, he laid Harry down, opened his airway, and performed two rescue breaths. Two hands on the breastbone, and he began quick, hard compressions an inch and a half deep. Thirty compressions, two breaths, thir-

Harry sputtered and coughed so hard it was as if he were choking up his lungs. Voldemort sat back on his heels, looking down at the child, face empty. The boy had tried to kill himself, and he'd goddamn nearly succeeded. He wanted to yell at the boy, scream, but he couldn't.

The boy wanted to die.

Harry's eyes were clenched tightly shut.

"Harry," he said, voice ragged.

The child turned his face towards the direction of his voice, and opened his hollow, despair filled green eyes, "Why-" he said, voice rasping as if it hadn't been used in months and wheezingly breathy from the CPR, "Why did you even bother?"

Voldemort didn't know what to say, because only I am allowed to kill you, seemed to ring false in his own head. Once, perhaps that had been true, but now. . . He didn't know what he was feeling. He just. . . he needed Harry to stay alive.

"You have to live. . . " Vold- Tom said.

Crystal blue eyes filled with pain and fear met the dull green pair, and Tom reached out messily and scooped Harry into his arms. Cradling him to his chest.

"You have to live." he repeated, voice ragged.

Tom rocked back and forth, cradling the child in his arms, remembering- remembering- no. He wouldn't. He refused to. It wasn't even about that, this was about Harry. This was about a child that Dumbledore had put through torment. This was what he wished someone could have done for him, all those long years ago. He wished he had someone to tell him. . .

"You aren't a freak, you aren't worthless, you're special, and no one, no one, deserves to go through what you have. Harry- I know I'm not the right person, probably never will be, and this isn't the right time either, but you can't trust Dumbledore-"

"I know," Harry said, voice as dull as his eyes, "I know. He paid my relatives to abuse me."

Tom fell still, his rocking ceasing, rage tearing through him. A snarl built low in his chest, and he began to tremble with the fury inside of himself. Eyes flashed back to a ruby brighter than ever, shining with bloodlust. Nearly seventy years of life he'd been through, the majority permanently ruined because of the meddling old man, who hadn't been able to give a scared kid a chance because he was a parstlemouth and it wouldn't best serve his purposes.

He'd done the same thing to this boy, this precious, innocent boy, who appeared to have gone the opposite route. Where Voldemort attacked others, this child attacked himself. 

It had to end. 

It had to stop.

It would stop, if he had to kill every wizard in the world to accomplish it.

Save Harry, that is.