Perfect Places

Chapter 4

Dancing of angels: – No...the gold current slid

Moving its dark arms, tired, cool above all, and green.

She, sombre, having the blue Heavens for canopy,

Summoned, as curtains, the arch and the hill's shade.

- Arthur Rimbaud, Memory

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The boy refuses for them to view the memories separately.

He speaks of reasons that elude Voldemort, of privacy and the importance of different visions, and with it, gesticulates so much that it is these gestures and not his words that attract Voldemort's attention.

Voldemort accepts, words contradicting his acceptance already on the tip of his lips, ready to be poured out in half a second, but he knows the fire of trust to be fanned by repetition. He knows the fickleness of it, how fire can suffocate under his eyes, for a single word that would have escaped the barrier of his lips.

He accepts thus, sweet nothings that make the boy give him a confused glance. Potter knows, Voldemort thinks, how incongruous it is for him not to satisfy his desires for the benefit of others.

But if the boy's heart is filled with suspicion, he does not speak of it. Instead, he mumbles some words about Quidditch, and needing to get back to his previous level, and flees the room.

For a Gryffindor, Voldemort thinks, Potter is so very fond of fleeing from danger. Or perhaps, it is the danger of his own thoughts and desires that the boy decides to flee, before they grow strong enough that their voice can no longer be stifled.

~*~

"Alright," Potter says, the last vestiges of his recent shame still flushing his cheeks. "We"ll begin by me, so when we will get to your memories, perhaps It'll outshine the very probable embarrassment of this one."

"There is no shame in recognizing beauty and skill," Voldemort answers, because he still cannot explain the satisfaction he feels at the boy's acknowledgement of his superiority. Perhaps, he thinks, and this is a hard thought, painfully brought to the surface, it has to do with Potter being the embodiment of Dumbledore's principles. By correlation, it feels as if it is the old fool himself who is saying the so desired words.

"Talk for yourself," Potter distastefully murmurs; because it seems that age did not remove the teenage-like moodiness he had borne.

Voldemort hums and says nothing, his long fingers stroking the head of a summoned python. It bears no resemblance whatsoever with Nagini, except perhaps for its length, for its scales shine of the whiteness of albinism.

Potter had laughed upon seeing it, after the initial fright, recommending for Voldemort to call him Junior. The suggestion would have been met with a Cruciatus, had the curse not been impossible to cast at the boy.

Instead, Voldemort had merely gritted his teeth, and given no name to the serpent. It would name itself, should it feel the urge to.

Potter, him, had taken to obey his own advice and referred to the snake solely by the name of Junior.

"Let's go then," Potter whispers, unusually tensed.

There is an urge then, quick, and terribly surprising. It makes him halt, even for a second, to realize the strangeness of the thought. He had almost whispered words of comfort, and Voldemort frowns at his reaction before easing. Merely the reflexes he had built, the thinks, and it pleases him, for his body to always answer his will, for his mind to be so easily trained.