On the Other Side

~I~

 "I've warned you!" Harry snapped, violently kicking and thrashing under heavier form, which happened to fall on top of him, the Dark Lord's robe covering them both. "My eyes!" Harry screamed, squinting said eyes in disgust: as it happened, Voldemort was wearing nothing beside the black robe, which was now lying half on his head and half beside them on the ground. "Do you mind?!" Harry exclaimed, when the Dark Lord did nothing to cover himself.

"Actually I do not," came the indifferent reply. "You, on the other hand –" the Dark Lord trailed off, when he righted his clothes and looked at Harry, who was in the similar state of undress: his robe tangled around his collarbone and only underpants beneath it.

Harry went red in the face, quickly shuffling with his own clothes to cover badly healed scratches and old bruises covering his thin form.

"Whatever those are from?" with mild curiosity inquired Voldemort.

"None of your business," Harry mumbled darkly. "Dress yourself already, will you?" he added, wincing and not too gently dragging the Dark Lord's robe closer to the man, not minding if it caught on any twig or sharp stone on the way.

"As you wish, Harry," Voldemort murmured suavely with almost seductive smirk on his face.

"What's gotten into you?" Harry asked nervously, peering into Voldemort's red eyes intensively.

The Dark Lord gave out a graceful shrug, then finally stood up and put his robe on in one fluid motion not unlike that of a snake.

"Absolutely nothing, boy. You may rest assured I do not take to fancy skinny scrawny bony teenagers with bird nests on their heads and dirt under their fingernails," Voldemort responded with strange undertone to his voice.

Harry scrambled to his feet and, eyeing him warily, moved away from the oddly behaving Dark Lord as quickly as he could without being seen as scared as he really was.

"So, what now?" Harry asked after a long moment of pregnant silence between them.

Voldemort cocked his head to the side in contemplation, looking at Harry with strange glint in his eyes.

"I may not possibly know," he supplied in low tone of voice, still pondering over some thing bothering him. "It seems some power forced us both to come here, wherever this might be, for some reason beyond my understanding."

"Are you so sure this is not afterlife or something?" Harry inquired. "Because for me it certainly looks like it –"

"Quiet," the Dark Lord suddenly ordered in the undertone, grabbing Harry by the shoulder for good measure and squeezing it with force.

"Wha –?" Harry's question was cut off by pale cold bony hand on his mouth.

'Do not speak up, boy,' Harry looked at the Dark Lord with wide eyes, hearing the familiar ghostly whispering in his head. 'Someone... No, something approaches. It has unkind intentions towards one of us. I do not know, towards whom exactly, but I am not ready to risk it. I will shield us both, if you only keep silent and allow me to bleed you,' before Harry could protest, the Dark Lord grabbed his hand in his own and made a slicing motion with his sharp index fingernail across Harry's palm, bringing out a thick drop of blood out. Harry tried to take back his own appendage, but his attempt was futile: Voldemort took Harry's hand to his own mouth, then licked and lapped at the wound. It immediately closed, but not before Voldemort acquired a drop of dark-red liquid from small scratch and swallowed it with seeming difficulty, making a face at the taste.

Harry somehow managed to get a glimpse of his sensations: Harry's blood burned the Dark Lord's tongue, its sweet coppery taste almost unnoticed behind the discomfort of the burn.