His Twenty-Eighth life

9. All Years in a Day

"This is your new home."

Harry looked around the secure room that Voldemort had deposited him inside. It was bigger than the stone room that he'd spent most of the year and a half in, perhaps because Voldemort knew that he was getting bigger in body. This one had tapestries on the walls, although most of them depicted bloody hunts, and the fireplace took up the majority of one wall. There was a stool and table as well as a bed, a chair that was too big for Harry to climb into and probably intended for Voldemort, and a writing desk with parchment and ink on it. There was a portable desk, too.

Harry turned to Voldemort and cocked his head.

"Use your tongue, Harry," Voldemort hissed mockingly, stalking towards him. He'd spoken in English during most of their packing and journey, probably because other Death Eaters were helping them, but he would speak Parseltongue with a vengeance now, Harry knew. "You are not a child. I find it tiresome when you act like one."

Harry nodded. "You want me to practice my writing?"

"I know you remember how."

"Yes, my Lord. But I can't always practice it well when I'm this young, for the same reason that I can't practice much magic. My muscles are weak and not used to the motions, even if I remember how to make them."

"Then you are to practice until you can write passably," said Voldemort indifferently, and turned away. "I intend to have you send messages to my enemies."

"Why would you want to do that?"

Voldemort turned back around, his own head cocked, his hand resting on his wand. Harry kept his eyes on the wand. He had seen more than enough of the harm that it could inflict, in every world.

"Who are you to question me?"

"The person who's going to be writing these letters, my Lord. And would understand a lot better if he knew why."

Voldemort considered him in silence for long enough that Harry nearly gave up and turned to the writing desk. But he knew how long it had taken him to master writing the one life that he wanted to try it early: his second, when he was still invested in the notion of telling other people what he was, and not to treat him like a baby. It had taken him months to write even a passable scrawl, and by then, he had thought better of telling his parents in that life who he actually was.

It took him longer to give up the notion of him having an essential being, rather than one that flowed and changed from life to life, but he'd even conquered that delusion at last.

"I wish to make the status quo clear to your parents and Dumbledore," Voldemort said at last, and Harry started and paid attention again. "It is possible that they have not connected the lack of raids with your presence in my home. And the bargain not to harm your family will be useless if the—other side does not understand and abide by it."

Harry nodded. That had been something that had kept him awake more than one night: the notion that one of his parents might kill a Death Eater, and enrage Voldemort enough to declare open season again. "And you'll let me send letters when I'm passable enough at writing them?"

"Yes," Voldemort hissed, giving Harry an approving, if scaly, look for the Parseltongue. Then he flowed out of the room. The green-and-golden snake went with him. Death-of-Rabbits remained to keep an eye on Harry.

Harry closed his eyes and wondered for a moment whether Voldemort would let him see the replies that his parents were sure to make. Then he sighed and turned towards the desk. Whether or not he ever saw them again, they were still people he wanted to protect.