In Essence Divided

[ The Possibility of Pain ]

Harry should have known Voldemort would eventually find out what he and the Order had been doing.

They'd been very prudent, only targeting the worst Death Eaters and making their deaths look like accidents. But, after one coincidence too many, Voldemort had pieced it all together and confronted Harry about it.

He'd owned up to it. He could hardly lie to Voldemort when asked such a direct question, and Voldemort would only be more furious if he found out about it later.

"I should punish the Order members. I granted them mercy, and still they conspired against me."

Harry grabbed his arm, "You should punish me first then. I gave them names, I insisted they go after your Death Eaters."

Voldemort shot him an unimpressed look, "You should have given me that list. If some of my Death Eaters are offensive to you, you need only say the word, and I'll give you their heads."

"That's not... I don't want you to kill people because I ask you to! I want you to be fair to everyone, and that includes Muggles. All the Death Eaters the Order targeted were tormenting and killing Muggles for fun. You must have known, you always know everything, yet you did nothing!" A horrible thought came to Harry's mind. "Do you... do you also do it? Kill and torture Muggles while I'm away?" Voldemort could, and Harry would never know about it.

"No," he said curtly. "If my servants' pastimes are so repugnant to you, why not talk to me about it? You said you would rule alongside me, that we would find compromises together, then you go and act behind my back!"

Voldemort had a point there, but Harry was too angry to care, "Yeah, because it took me months to get you to see Muggleborns as less than scum, so clearly I would have been very successful arguing for Muggle rights. Besides, why do I have to tell you everything? You rarely tell me what you think or feel. I have to account for nearly every minute of my day, while I have no bloody clue what you do in your free time. If you don't want me to hide things from you, then maybe you should be more honest with me."

Voldemort stayed silent for a moment, his expression unreadable. "You don't want to," said Harry desperately. "You don't trust me."

Voldemort didn't deny it.

Suddenly, Harry could no longer be in the room. His feet carried him away from Voldemort's office, to his own more modest one. They'd agreed that, with Harry doing so much Ministry work, he needed his own space, and his own secretary.

"Good morning, sir!" said Reggie Cattermole brightly. His smile dropped when he saw Harry's face. "Are you alright?"

"Yeah... er, it's just... personal stuff."

"Anything I can help you with, sir... I mean, Harry?" When Harry had asked him to become his secretary, he had to repeat himself three times to convince Reggie that, yes, he was indeed offering one of the most prestigious positions in the Ministry to a maintenance worker. Ever since taking on the job, Reggie had been very determined to prove himself, so much so that Harry had to regularly tell him that he didn't have to work quite that much.

"No. I just want to think about something else... Do you have your lists of proposed improvements to the archives somewhere?"

"Here they are, si.. Harry." Reggie handed him a thick stack of papers. He tended to go on for too long in writing, but his notes were still well-organised and written in neat, tiny handwriting. He reminded Harry of Hermione in this aspect, though Reggie's personality was much more like Neville's.

"Thanks. I'll review them this morning."

"Err, you asked if my wife could come to your office at ten thirty, sir?"