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His Twenty-Eighth Life	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Voldemort Views: 18821 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 3
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter. I am making no money from this story.

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Chapter Ten—Uncovered by the Bargain
“You must let me do something to reward you, Severus.”
The Dark Lord’s voice was all around him, chilling the room. When Severus breathed out, he was more surprised not to see a cloud of his own cold breath than he should be. He turned away from the stones that felt as if they should be rimed with ice and gave a short bow. “My Lord, you have let me have my privacy and my brewing. There is nothing else I desire.”
The moment he said the words, he knew they were the wrong ones.
The Dark Lord’s shadow shifted in the flaring light of the torches. He passed close to Severus, staring at him so intently that Severus felt warning prickles and shudders run up his shoulders. “You will tell me what you mean by that,” the Dark Lord whispered. “Nothing else you desire? Then you have no desire to serve me, either?”
Severus immediately fell to his knees. He could feel the Dark Mark on his arm, shifting, ready to burst into flame. He bowed his head. “I have that desire, my Lord,” he whispered. “I thought you might be tired of me voicing it.” That had happened at the last meeting, when the Dark Lord grew bored of Bellatrix’s pronouncements of loyalty and cursed her for them.
For a moment, he thought it wouldn’t work. Then one cold white hand came down and stroked his hair back from his forehead.
“You have a wish you would not speak. Speak it.”
Severus nodded at once. “There is someone I wish vengeance on,” he said. “Someone who once came close to transforming me into a werewolf. And as far as I know, he is not hidden behind the walls of Dumbledore’s protection the way the Potters are. Or Black is,” he added. The last thing Severus had known, Black was living in one of his ancestral homes, a place Severus dared not pursue him.
“You are speaking of Remus Lupin.”
Severus shivered, but in truth, he should be used to the Dark Lord’s near-omniscience by now. “Yes, my Lord.”
The Dark Lord was silent for long enough that Severus wondered if he’d had plans of his own when it came to Lupin. But then he laughed softly, almost under his breath, and said, “It would be fitting. Tell me. How close was Lupin to the Potters? Is he still close enough that they would march to avenge him?”
“He was, at one time, James Potter’s best friend after Black,” Severus said slowly, remembering as hard as he could the news in what he now thought of as the final year of the war. The year my Lord took the Potter child. “But I know that the Potters haven’t worked with him or let him visit for a long time. I think they believed Lupin was the one who would betray them if he could at one point.”
“Based on what evidence?”
“He is a werewolf, my Lord. A Dark creature. They might have heard word that you had recruited Fenrir Greyback, and assumed other werewolves would follow in his path.”
The Dark Lord sighed with chill joy. “And that is all that it would take to persuade Light wizards and witches to turn on something Dark. Of course.” His delight made Severus shiver again, but this time, he could almost enjoy it. It sounded as though the Marauders would get the brunt of that delight. Not Lily.
“That Light wizards and witches…And you are sure that the Potters and Black are Light? There were rumors about Black, at one point.”
“I am sure, my Lord. Black was raised with Dark magic, but he rejected it and the rest of his heritage to run away and live with Potter and serve the Order of the Phoenix. I have heard Bellatrix bragging as well that no true Black could ever betray his heritage,” Severus added, and lifted his head to look the Dark Lord in the face, greatly daring. “But I think she was only boasting to soothe her hurt ego. Black trounced her in the last battle they fought against each other.”
“I had forgotten that detail. Yes, Light.” And the Dark Lord laughed again, and this time Severus lowered his eyes, but he was certain he had glimpsed something, perhaps even through his master’s Occlumency shields. He was happy that they were Light because that made them less likely to try and redeem a Dark wizard.
Or believe one.
And the Dark Lord has a child that he is trying to turn to the Dark—and that a Light family might not be so eager to reclaim.
“Tell me, Severus,” the Dark Lord said, in another of those abrupt changes of mood that made Severus shudder. “What would you do with Remus Lupin if you had him in front of you?”
“My Lord knows that I have experimented with ways to make the Wolfsbane Potion more potent.”
“Yes, Severus?”
“And I have wondered,” Severus said, his body aching again with the terror he had felt when he saw yellow eyes open at the end of a dark tunnel, “what might happen if one made the potion strong enough to kill a wolf—but only a wolf. Without easing the compulsion to transform. What the human body might do if it found itself wracked with tremors each month, with nowhere to go and no extra body to assume.”
The Dark Lord’s hand fell on his shoulder like a blessing. “My Severus. You shall have the opportunity to find out.”
*
Harry’s eyes snapped open.
He’d been trying to meditate more often lately, to form his memories into defenses that would protect some of the more vulnerable areas of his mind without letting on to Voldemort what he was doing. Thank Merlin they didn’t have the Horcrux connection they’d had in his first life. He couldn’t have hidden even his intentions then, but now there was long enough between visits that he could.
But now, something else had happened. And Harry had so many experiences over so many lifetimes that it took him long minutes to sort through the possible sensations and arrive at the answer of what.
It came to him first as the feeling of fur, of heat. He wondered if there was another cat wandering around the house, or if for some reason Voldemort had decided to torture a Kneazle. But the sensation drifted through odd, old places in his mind, and touched a chord of Animagus memory: this was what it was like to transform himself, not be born an animal.
A werewolf.
Harry knew Greyback had sometimes come to visit Voldemort—he always did, he was foul in every world where Harry had known him—but by now Harry knew the shape and scent of his magic. This was something else.
With a growing sense of dread, Harry hopped up and made for the door. He was almost five now, and he felt a pulling sense of gratitude that he could reach doorknobs easily, slide around corners without tripping, and recover most of the muscle memory that he sometimes didn’t get to use until he was older. Then again, few of his lives had had him be five years old and pushed by Voldemort, either.
Except the nineteenth—
Harry cut the thought off harshly, irritated with his own mind. Besides, years didn’t apply in the same way in his nineteenth life.
He came down the grand staircase and saw Voldemort pausing in the middle of lifting Death-of-Rabbits off his shoulder. “Did you need something, Harry?” he asked, in Parseltongue as always, but his voice was milder than usual.
Harry answered in Parseltongue because it might also make his mood milder. “I sensed a werewolf in the house.”
“Your magic is fascinating.” Voldemort crossed the space between them, which was mostly gleaming parquet floor, and knelt down in front of Harry, reaching out to touch his hair. It was as unruly as it had been in his first life, with a few glints of red it hadn’t had then. “Did Lord Voldemort ever tell you that?”
Harry half-smiled. “Is it one of the werewolves from Greyback’s pack?”
“You are persistent when you want something.” Voldemort’s hand slid slowly down Harry’s back, and Harry stifled a shiver. It seemed Voldemort had done something to his nails to make them sharper, perhaps a spell. “It does not please you to have me compliment your magic?”
It didn’t, because Harry thought compliments based on power were mostly nonsense, but that wasn’t something he could say in front of Voldemort, either. He ended up casting his eyes down and saying softly, “My Lord honors me.”
“That is better, Harry. And yes, there is a werewolf in the house.” Voldemort took his hand away and sat there for long enough that Harry thought he might stand and go on, leaving Harry with no more of an answer than that. Instead, he continued, “His name is Remus Lupin.”
Harry recoiled. Voldemort grasped his shoulder. “This was someone important to you? He is not a member of your family.”
“No, but he’s been one of my mentors in several lives,” Harry replied, madly glad now that he’d chosen to use Parseltongue. Any Death Eater passing by wouldn’t know what they were talking about. “He’s important to me. Please, leave him alone.”
“I might merely have summoned him as an ally.”
“Please, I know you didn’t.” Harry stepped forwards and started straight into Voldemort’s eyes. He’d sometimes thought this version was saner and wiser than most of the others. It didn’t mean he had any more mercy, but he might spare someone because Harry begged and Harry was valuable to him. “He hates the Dark part of himself. Please, my Lord, if you wish to have even more of my willing service, spare him from the torture you have planned.”
Voldemort let out a soft, hissing laugh, with no actual words in it. Harry should know. He stood there, heart beating madly, and not knowing what would happen, until Voldemort stood up and shook his head.
“You are not Lord Voldemort’s only servant, Harry, and another of my servants, who has done great things for the Dark, has asked for vengeance on him.”
“Snape?” Harry spoke the word in English, disgusted. The man hadn’t always been on the side of the Light in all the worlds, but he’d never done something as repulsive as this. Then again, he usually wasn’t a loyal Death Eater, either.
“You know I will not tell you.”
“Please, my Lord,” Harry said one more time. His heart was beating as if it would erupt from his chest. He knew there were things worth more than the bargain he had made to save his family, but— “Please. Make this addition to the original bargain. I know he wasn’t there, but I do care for him.”
“That is even more reason for Lord Voldemort not to spare him.”
Harry stared at him blankly. Voldemort’s voice sounded—strange, to put it mildly. But Harry didn’t have time to wrestle with cryptic statements. “You will not add him to the bargain?”
“No.”
Harry dipped his head once. Then he turned and walked back up the stairs to his rooms. He would need to plan. If he had to dip into that disgusting part of himself, to wrestle the cold, he would at least make sure there were as few other people around as possible. Harry killed people in battle, in self-defense, in defense of others, very occasionally as revenge. He didn’t kill random Death Eaters who weren’t doing him any harm at the time.
Because I am not Voldemort.
*
Lord Voldemort watched Harry Potter climb the steps with the tread of the defeated and the broken. His chest seemed to throb and he wanted to laugh aloud. But there were some here who would think that strange.
Lord Voldemort was wise. He shielded his weapons and his sources of knowledge. Harry Potter was the most valuable source of knowledge that any Voldemort in all the worlds had ever had. He would not risk that because he wanted to laugh, and he would not risk that because Harry Potter asked.
Even an immortal being who was born again and again—who did not live forever but disrupted his body and brain as Lord Voldemort would never do—did not know everything. He had not asked what the ultimate purpose of Remus Lupin’s torture was. He did not ask what the end of it would be. He did not know that, after Severus tortured Lupin as much as Lord Voldemort wished to allow, Lord Voldemort, infinite in his wisdom, would kill the werewolf.
And use the death to create another Horcrux.
Lord Voldemort found that he missed his human one.
*
Harry settled himself on the stones and then reached out with those senses that he couldn’t have described in words if he tried, sweeping through the walls and the doors and the different rooms where people slept or ate or tortured victims.
None right now. But Harry was sure that there would be some soon, if he couldn’t stop Voldemort from beginning on Remus.
His anger at Snape burned, wanting to distract him. And there was disappointment about Voldemort, and his own rueful annoyance at himself. He supposed that this Voldemort had never really been saner or more merciful than any other. Harry had simply fooled himself. That was his fault, not Voldemort’s.
But he put them aside. He dived deep, and far beneath the surface of his mind where memories of ordinary arguments and laughter and conversations and families and Quidditch matches swarmed, he found the ones he would never willingly confront.
He remembered the world where he had tortured Voldemort to death and given the credit to the destined savior. He swam past boulders that shut off memories of the world where he had died long and slow, buried alive. He circled through a dark maelstrom that was the one world where he had ever lost his mind after being held under the Cruciatus for hours. That was the one gap in his memories. Only sensations remained. He had awakened in a pool of blood, and known he would never know for sure how many he had killed, only that he had caused the complete extinction of several Dark pure-blood families.
He might never know the number of his victims here, either. Which meant that he had to unleash carefully.
The deepest, the most buried site of memory, was a pit in the ocean floor of his mind. Harry hovered above it for a moment, staring down and feeling his heart rebound with fear. He hated what he had been in that life. He loathed it so much that it hurt to hover here and know he was even considering using it.
He had to wait for the moment when the thought of losing Remus hurt more.
It came. Harry dived.
Razor petals of memory unfolded. Harry reached out and reclaimed the power that he had hated all his nineteenth life. He reached out and wrapped it around himself, and melted to his feet and through solid stone.
He might have been able to Apparate if he had known the room where Remus was being held, but he didn’t. He simply had to flow, through the walls that could not keep him out, and restrain the cold tendrils of his presence. Otherwise, the people he passed would never wake again.
And the animals, as well. Harry didn’t really want to cause the deaths of the snakes Voldemort had set to watch him, both of them more tolerable in this world than any version of Nagini had ever been.
Harry came back to himself in the room with the spark of life he sought. He called the cold and the darkness down, let them become him again, and resumed his human form in the middle of the room. When he opened his eyes, Remus Lupin—thinner and greyer and more scarred than Harry had ever seen him—was cowering back in his chains as he stared at Harry.
“Wh—what—”
“I’m the Potters’ second son,” Harry introduced himself quietly. He knew he wouldn’t be able to reassure Remus completely, and he didn’t intend to try. He only wanted to do enough of it that Remus wouldn’t struggle when they had to move. “Harry. Voldemort kidnapped me a few years ago. As you can see, I’m no ordinary child. I can rescue you. Will you let me carry you? And put you to sleep? That’s the only safe way for me to transport someone else.”
Remus shut his jaw after long moments. He whispered, “A child couldn’t do that.”
“No,” Harry agreed. He reached out again with a tendril of the cold, and winced. As he had suspected, the others were coming, and he wouldn’t have much more time to convince Remus. “Please? I can explain everything once we’re away from here, but right now, there isn’t much time righ.”
“H-how could you do that?” Remus was stuttering because of the cold.
“I’ll tell you. Later. Please?”
Remus hesitated for the longest time. Harry wanted to dance with impatience, but he had come to rescue Remus and break his own bargain with Voldemort because he wanted to keep having Remus in his life. So he waited, and finally Remus nodded and murmured, “You c-can knock me out. But you’ll have to explain to me how you did that.”
Harry smiled with relief and reached out, dancing cold around Remus until he dropped into the unconsciousness that would usually precede freezing to death. Then Harry turned himself back into the darkness and swirled Remus up, and fled, away from Voldemort and his Death Eaters and the others who were coming.
There was an answer, but it wasn’t one that Remus was awake to hear.
“In my nineteenth life, I was a Dementor.”
*
InvidiaRed: Or Harry might act out of the love and the power that Voldemort will never understand. So far, it's only his fear for his family that's restrained him (and fear of what they would think if he escaped this way).
SickPuppy: Thank you! And, well, now Harry has to rescue himself, and, much more dangerous, explain how he did it.
Anaelyssa: Dumbledore is trying to make the best decisions he can based on limited information. Doesn't mean they're great ones, though.
Fenrirsboy: Yes, Voldemort does let him get some exercise, but it has to be when other Death Eaters aren't around.
BookDragon: Thank you! Here is your answer.
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His Twenty-Eighth Life