Death Never Stopped Me Before

|Chapter 5|

Voldemort awoke to a stinging sensation in his foot and a head full of cotton. It took a few minutes to convince himself to open his eyes, only to immediately regret it when the light blinded him. He scrunched his eyes closed, fighting off the massive headache that threatened to overtake him, and counted to three in his head before he opened his eyes again. He blinked a few times to adjust to the light before he sat up, his hand coming up to massage his temples.

He's laying on the ground in his office, shards of glass littering the floor around him. He must have fallen asleep here, but his memory of the night before was fuzzy. He felt drained, his eyes red and puffy with dried tear tracks staining his cheeks. He felt more than drained, actually. He felt completely, and utterly numb.

Voldemort slowly rose to his feet, only to stop when he felt the stinging in his foot worsen. He looked down to see a large piece of glass embedded in his heel. He stared at it for a moment, his eyes empty with consideration. Voldemort walked over to his chair, ignoring the pain as the glass was pushed further into his foot, before he sat down and began pulling it out.

The glass shard was fairly big, with jagged edges lined in red. He just stared at it, watching with morbid curiosity as his blood leaked out of the wound, stained the glass, before dripping into a puddle on the floor. The red was startling, standing out boldly against the clear glass and paleness of his skin.

With one quick motion, Voldemort ripped the glass out of his foot and tossed it to the floor. The wound began to gush out blood without the glass to staunch it, and Voldemort did nothing but watch as his blood poured out of him. He felt strangely detached from the world as he watched his lifeblood leave him. A few months earlier and Voldemort would never have done something like this. Losing blood could lead to death, and Voldemort refused to do anything that would push him closer to it.

Now, however, Voldemort felt nothing as his blood puddled on the floor. The blood reminded him that he was alive, even if it didn't really feel like he was, and he couldn't find it in himself to fix it. Voldemort knew he was acting crazy now, but he couldn't find it in himself to care. How strange it must be for him to act so out of character.

"Come on, Tom," he could hear Harry's whisper against the back of his ear. "What you're doing is dangerous. Stop it. Heal yourself."

Voldemort smiled at the voice. He knew it wasn't real, but it certainly reminded him of the little fights they used to get into together. They were always fighting about this and that, their relationship was rather tense and messy. Their petty arguments always ended the same way, however. Voldemort or Harry would either win or stomp off, depending on the topic, and after they had time to cool down, they would make up with fantastic sex and then agree to never broach the topic again.

Probably not the healthiest problem solving, but it seemed to do the trick just fine.

He could recall one such argument that ended with Harry not speaking to him or returning his carefully hidden owls for almost two weeks before Voldemort was able to corner him again to discuss it. Their argument, like all of their arguments, was petty and ridiculous. Harry was being over-emotional and making a big deal out of nothing while Voldemort had nothing but defend his lover's honor.

The fight, funnily enough, had started because Voldemort hadn't healed a wound on his hand.

"Seriously, you make all these comments about how you're the great Lord Voldemort, but you can't even heal a paper cut?" Harry scoffed, crossing his arms as he looked pointedly at the large slash through Voldemort's palm.

"This was a result of a sword," Voldemort said, rolling his eyes at Harry's melodrama. "Not a paper cut. And I can heal it, darling, I just haven't gotten around to it."