Perfect Places

Chapter 7

(now)

His right eyelid twitches.

It is light, first and foremost, that wakes Voldemort. Insidious and yet nonetheless desirable, one rendered haughty by the delight it rises in hearts. One that, by every right, should cause him to fight it.

He does not, however. He keeps his eyes close, for there is something pleasurable in indulging in a second more, perhaps two, in the dizziness that comes with sleep. Something that makes him think of his reptilian friends leisurely sprawled under the occasional sun rays.

There is warmth, then.

A treacherous kind of warmth, one tenfold more insidious; for it crept not only on the flesh but managed to pass through it. A warmth, Voldemort knows, that still feels so alien to him.

He is a creature of cold blood, that he is certain, but still has difficulties realizing the consequences that inevitably lay with the fact. Notably this bitter-sweet craving for warmth.

~*~

(then)

Potter looks at him. His eyes speak of a thousand apologies, coated in that expressiveness that had always fascinated Voldemort.

"I'm sorry," he says again. He shakes his head. "I'm sorry."

~*~

(now)

Voldemort finally opens his eyes, then.

He keeps them wide open for a few seconds, riveted on the white ceiling that faces him. White, as every wall, as every corner of light, as the magic he both fears and craves. White, he thinks, bears so many connotations.

The very picture of health; perhaps wrongfully so. He remembers the white walls in St-Mungo's; remembers the white walls of the Hospital Wing in Hogwarts (and as ever the name rings with another, linked so closely to it that it can only mean home) remembers the white walls of the Avery's townhouse. But, most importantly than all, he remembers the dirty, white, walls of the orphanage. He remembers gazing at them, hearing the bombs fly over his head, and counting the days before his freedom.

It had been white at least, he vividly recalls, before he had destroyed it.

He remembers letting his gaze linger on those walls; and how he had thought of the pureness that such colour implied. One, he had thought, that was so frequently painted as the colour of goodness when it most often than not was used as a veil over the truth. White, he had thought, bore that same hypocritical sanctimony that laced every of Dumbledore's words.

He had chosen truth instead, and to not hide behind carefully crafted masks.

It surprises Voldemort, then; to not be annoyed by its presence in his house. In his home.

He gazes at it, and feels none of the ill feelings the colour had ever caused in him.

He moves then. Swiftly, in that silent grace he had adopted so many years ago. Decades even, he thinks, and then, inevitably- feels frustration. Years did not matter.

Not anymore.

~*~

(then)

"I am the Master of Death," Harry Potter says. His eyes burn with decisiveness. He looks nothing like the boy Voldemort had treated him as. His voice is firm, firmer than it ever had been, and when he speaks again, his whisper has nothing to envy to the soft threats Voldemort had given his followers. "I command you. You do not command me. You do not give me ultimatums. I give you my decision and you respect it."