Voldemort x reader Lacuna Memoria ~tsula

Fighting the Addiction

Seclusion was not ideal, not for your state of mind or your particular situation. Yet you strived for it every chance you had. Rather than spending your weekends with family and friends, you made up excuses to be alone. Homework to grade, books to read, feeling under the weather—anything you could think of to hold people at a distance.

Because you knew what was coming. You knew that one day Voldemort would grow tired of these games. That one day you would have to leave to spare the people you loved. You would have to cause them pain to save their lives and that meant vanishing on them yet again, but with a permanence that made you sick to your very core. After all, once he had you again, he wasn't going to let you go. You knew better than to think otherwise.

It wasn't as though you hadn't tried to think of another way, that you weren't still trying to think of something that wouldn't hurt them. Never mind how much any choice hurt you in the end, you wanted nothing more than to spare them. Yet every path seemed to lead back into darkness, back into the waiting arms of the Dark Lord himself. There was no escape simply because he wouldn't allow it. There was only a willing return or doing so by force and you knew the price the latter would come with. Force would mean a fight and one in which you would lose either way. Someone you loved would die that day. You couldn't live with that. No matter who it was, the loss would be too great. Even if it was him.

Victory or death for him, either way you would lose something irreplaceable. The best you could hope for was a way to mitigate the pain. A lesser evil. A safer place to suffer. You would settle for anything that didn't require the death of any of them. It might have been too much to ask, but it was the only way you could survive.

Perhaps Voldemort would at least give you that if you returned. Maybe, if you asked it of him, he would spare those you loved. You were willing to pay any price for that.

***

It wasn't just in your waking hours that Voldemort haunted you. He stole your dreams as well.

There was no escape from him, nowhere to hide. Even when you slept you saw those red eyes watching and you knew it was him. A glint in the dark, a familiar presence, a whisper that struck out at your heart like a cobra's bite... He always found you in your dreams.

This time though: you seemed to have found him instead.

The hallway had been familiar even in the dark and the room beyond even more so. You were home and Voldemort was sitting on his throne with one of his Death Eaters kneeling at his feet. The nostalgia of seeing him hit you hard. Even though you knew it was a dream, knew you were still in your bed at Hogwarts, you felt compelled to touch him. Just to see if you could. Just to prove that he was a dream and that you weren't really there.

Though you weren't sure if that would cause comfort or heartache. Because seeing him hurt in ways that had nothing to do with anger or betrayal, but were more akin to longing and despair. It was like seeing a ghost of someone you loved and knowing that if you moved you might lose them again.

You didn't even notice or care about the other person in the room until you heard him speak.

"Forgive me, my lord." It was Lucius and he was afraid. Even with his mask in place and no quiver in his tone you could taste it in the air. Feel it in his wavering thoughts. "She refused to return..." He seemed to hesitate, but spoke on. "She wanted me to relay a message."

"Tell him that if he steps foot on the grounds I will see myself dead before I let him near me."

You heard the words before he said them and the most startling thing about that was that you heard yourself speaking them.