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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 Nineteen—Elemental, My Dear Harry
I have made the oaths you demanded. It is time for you to fulfill your promise.
Harry swallowed and put the parchment down on top of the chair that he’d moved into his room when he decided that the other one was really too small. He could have used the Elder Wand to Transfigure the smaller chair, but he tried to avoid doing that around his parents. And Lily had looked so happy when he asked for something.
And you’re trying to think about a subject that doesn’t matter to avoid dealing with the one that does.
Harry grimaced, nodded to himself, and picked up the quill that was always lying ready next to an inkwell. His parents thought he wrote to the other children he’d met at carefully supervised parties.
Yes, I owe you the secrets that I promised you. I thought about sending you reading material, but the grimoire I wanted apparently doesn’t exist in this world, or else only in private collections. So I’ll come to you and start instructing you in the blending of the elements. On the new moon, the clearing that we met in when you gave you first oath in blood and snake scales.
Harry held the letter out to Voldemort’s black owl before he could change his mind. The owl promptly winged through the window and out of sight. Harry swallowed as he watched it go.
He did believe the conclusions he’d come to before. Whether it was his lesser number of Horcruxes or for some other reason, this world’s Voldemort really was different from the others Harry had known.
It didn’t make helping him feel any less strange.
*
Lord Voldemort stood waiting in the clearing at sunset. They hadn’t specified an exact meeting time, but the hour when the light drained from the world seemed most relevant to him.
And then he heard the crack of Apparition, and knew he had judged correctly. He smiled with thin lips as he watched Harry stride towards him across the clearing. And it was striding, despite the child’s body he was imprisoned in.
He will not be so imprisoned forever.
Time must pass. For now, Lord Voldemort intended to enjoy the present moment. He nodded and said, “You will teach me how the elements interact with each other in magic? As the fire and stone you showed me interacted?”
“Yes, but more than that.” Harry waved the Elder Wand absently, and a pair of roots rose above the ground and Transfigured into two benches of smooth wood. Lord Voldemort sat slowly on the one nearest him. The Transfiguration was a feat he could have matched himself, which made the rioting feelings in his chest as he watched it strange.
Perhaps I simply admire the smoothness of the movements with which he brought the benches into being. Perhaps that is something he will also teach me.
“Elemental magic theory tends to concentrate on how different the elements are from one another, which makes weaving them together difficult. But it doesn’t concentrate much on the spaces in between, the places where the elements are already blended.”
“I have not heard of such theory. Perhaps you will show me?”
Harry looked at him with those green eyes that Lord Voldemort could watch gleam forever, and then nodded and waved the Elder Wand again. The air in front of him congealed and spun slowly. In seconds, a wheel had taken its place, divided into four large blades like a windmill. Lord Voldemort stared. Even after several moments of study, he could not figure out what the wheel was made of.
“The four elements,” Harry said, and snapped the wand out again, although Lord Voldemort had the sneaking suspicion that he could have used wandless power if he wanted to. Different symbols formed on the blades: a long snag of flowing flames, a curling drop of water, a tumble of stones, and a cloud with a face blowing the wind forth. “You can move the elements around and pair them in different ways.” The symbols began to jump, so that now fire and water were directly across from each other on the wheel, then earth and fire, then air and fire. “But what about the spaces in between?”
The air between the blades flickered with green light. Lord Voldemort felt his mouth open and his tongue dart out before he could stop it, before he could think that Harry might not appreciate it. “Is this a gift for me, Harry?”
“A gift? What do you mean?”
“The light is the exact green of my favorite spell.”
Harry jerked his head back. Then he curled his fingers more tightly around the Elder Wand and said, “You can take it that way, if you want.”
“I so want.”
“But to return to the subject—what about the space between fire and water? What’s there in the space where they overlap?”
Lord Voldemort half-closed his eyes, something he had heard when young returning to him. “That theory is not so esoteric. I have heard speculations. That the mingling of fire and water is steam, for example, and that steam therefore represents an elemental power.”
“Yes, but that simplifies matters. Then people start thinking things like, ‘Oh, air and fire together make lightning!’, and then they think they’re doing elemental magic when they conjure lightning to cast at someone.” Harry rolled his eyes. “The reason that doesn’t work so well and the theory never got off the ground is because it’s too simple.”
He swirled his wand, and new conjurations of light leaped into place between the blades. Only one was green this time, and this one not the shade of the Killing Curse. Lord Voldemort watched beneath lowered lids as the others—blue, red, and gold—mingled with the green and infused it with sparks of radiance.
“So what is the true theory?”
“That if you want to blend elements and come up with forces that are half-fire and half-water, or any other combination, you have to keep all the gaps in mind all the time. And that ultimately, this way of thinking about them—symbolizing them—whatever—is just a human contrivance. The real realm of elemental magic is continually blended, the same way ores and minerals are blended most of the time, and you almost never get a pure vein of gold or silver. If you can’t hold that in mind, you can’t command the blended elements.”
“There are some forces that are pure. A fire is only fire—”
“But it feeds from the air and kindling that probably grew in the earth, and water doesn’t always douse it. Sand can douse it, too. Is fire antagonistic to water? Or does it cooperate with earth or air more?”
Lord Voldemort paused. Possibly this was more complicated than he had thought. “How do you keep all the forces in mind at once?”
Harry grinned. “Constant practice.”
Lord Voldemort did not return the smile. “How long did it take you to master it?”
“Several lifetimes, all told. But I never lived in a world where all the lore was gathered together. It was always scattered across books and different cultures and sometimes intuitive leaps that certain wizards made but never recorded. The only way that I could put it together was remembering my lives. If I forgot until each time I died, I would never have had the chance.”
Lord Voldemort paused. He wanted to hear more about the techniques that Harry used to keep all the elements in mind at once, but there was something else he wanted to know more. “You are softening the blow for me?”
“What?”
“You’re making excuses. Telling me why I have not learned it already.”
“I am not! I’m telling you why no one except someone immortal who reincarnates all the time and remembers his lives could know it! That’s not just you, that’s anybody!”
“I think you are, in fact, softening the blow.” Lord Voldemort lowered his voice. It would not do to speak this truth too loudly, not because he feared listeners here but because he would break the atmosphere and perhaps send Harry fleeing despite his promise. “I think you—care for my pride and ego more than you would admit.”
Harry stared at him with eyes so wide Lord Voldemort could not read them. He settled back and waited for the reaction that should tell him more.
*
I am not softening it! He’s absurd! He’s an idiot! He’s—
But Harry had to admit that he’d been teaching Voldemort like he was one of his students. And he’d always gone out of his way to encourage his students, in the lives when he’d taught, not to worry about being ignorant, not to doubt their intelligence because they had never heard of something. It was—
It’s only the way that I’ve always tried to help students. And that’s what he is for me right now, no matter how strange it may be. If he can forget that I threatened to take his magic from him, then I can forget that he’s Voldemort.
Harry took a breath deep enough to make his cheeks ache, and then said, “Fine. I do. But only because you did actually go through with those oaths.”
“You thought I would not?”
“Of course. I set the price that I needed to be comfortable with teaching you the magic, but also a price I didn’t think you could actually meet because of your pride and ego.”
Voldemort laughed softly, his glance locked on Harry. Harry just stared back. At this point, he genuinely had no idea what Voldemort was thinking, or what he wanted, besides more magic.
“You are more devious than I ever imagined. I adore it.”
Harry stared at him again. Then he moved on from the moment. “You can’t keep all the elements in mind with an ordinary meditative technique. You need to start out with meditation, but that’s not enough.”
“I did not think it was. Tell me what else is needed. And what happens once you master the art of keeping these—spaces between clear in your mind?”
“Then you can use elements in any combination. Do you want to conjure water that, when it strikes an enemy, causes actual burns, but is still cold enough to put out fires? You can do that. Its nature shifts as your conception of it changes. You have to focus sharply sometimes, but then you can pull your mind back. It’s one of the reasons I like this art. It mimics the pattern of human thoughts. It suits us better than some of the magic where you have to keep such a firm conception in mind at all times.”
“Listening to you speak on magic is a revelation.”
Voldemort was staring at him with those motionless red eyes. Harry forced himself to ignore his uneasiness. “Good. I hope it’s a revelation that means you can learn what I teach you.”
“I will give it my utmost effort.”
“Good,” Harry repeated, a little lamely. He coughed and added, “It’s easier to start with an actual representation of one element in front of you. A natural one, not one that you created or conjured.”
“And you wish to begin with earth? As there is no water or fire here.”
Harry smiled a little. Voldemort was reminding him right now of some of the Hogwarts students he’d taught in his twenty-second life, after he’d escaped the terrible circumstances that began it and reinvented himself as an expert in obscure magic. “You’re overlooking the air.” He breathed out, and then focused on the dancing puff of breath. He could feel its difference from the rest of the air around them. “The focusing spell is easy enough, especially if you’re practiced in meditation. Spiro carminem.”
The breath of air picked up the spell and turned glittering and ruby-like. Harry looked at it and fell easily into the facets that blazed at the edges with golden light, given his long practice. He tugged at the gaps that separated air and water and the wood of the trees around them.
Voldemort hissed in shock as the air parted in front of him and a small cascade leaped from nowhere to nowhere, stopping easily far above the ground. Its branches flowed and draped. Voldemort reached out and prodded one with his finger. It didn’t break apart, but bent, like the surface of a firm bubble.
Harry changed his mind, and the whole of the apparition turned back into the shimmer of ruby-colored air.
“You’re holding onto the force right now?”
“Yes.” Harry made his thoughts and the air zigzag at the same time. “That particular combination was wood, water, and air. Air to make it hover, water to give it form, wood to handle a few of the physical properties. You’ll notice that it didn’t break before your touch like water. What did it feel like it?”
“Silken, billowing wood.”
Harry smiled. “Yes, that’s a good description.” He stretched and snapped the ruby-colored air, and made flames dance for a second before they melted into steam, which became a darting wind, which became a shimmering bolt of lightning, which faded altogether. “One of the things you’ll learn is that you can conjure those supposedly blended elemental forces, like steam, or mud, which some people think of as the blending of water and earth. But different people have different ideas about what they are. Is the blending of water and earth actually mud? Or is it swamp water?”
“You have drowned at least one enemy in a swamp.”
“You can read me well.”
“Tell me.” And Voldemort’s voice abruptly hovered on the edge of Parseltongue, and even though that wasn’t unusual, Harry found all his muscles stiffening. “Are you happy where you are, living with people who can never understand you, hiding skills such as these? Or were you not happier with me?”
“You tried to kill my brother. You kidnapped from my family and held me hostage under threat of harming them for three years. You don’t get an opinion.”
Voldemort sat back and blinked at him as if honestly surprised. Then he said slowly, “I do not think you are happy concealing your true self.”
“I told them exactly what I was, and how long I’ve lived—”
“And they don’t believe you in the traditional sense of believing, do they? Otherwise, they would avoid treating you like a child.”
Harry felt a shiver of loneliness travel through him. But he had endured so much worse in his lives. This one was shaping up to be the strangest one, perhaps, but not the hardest. He shook his head a little. “It doesn’t matter.”
“It does. Would you not want to be with people who you can freely show your magic to? Whom you can teach?”
“I can show my magic in front of my brother. He would never betray me.”
“You could do it. I believe that. But you have not done it. I am the first one you have told of this branch of magic since you have come to this life.” Voldemort reached out and seized his hand. “Harry. Listen to me. When Lord Voldemort was young—”
“I’m not going to listen if you insist on talking about yourself in the third person.”
That rocked Voldemort enough to make him blink, but still he went on. “When I was young, I did not realize that other people are envious of the magic that we are capable of wielding.”
“We?”
The force Harry had sunk into that word should have made him stop, but instead, Voldemort nodded raptly, gaze focused on him. “The extraordinary ones. The ones of power. I thought I could show off and expect no consequences. And of course there were. Dumbledore distrusted me. Some Slytherins, who thought that power rightfully belonged only to their families and those they intermarried with, hated me. Some thought my power the result of an artifact I possessed instead of a natural gift and sought to take it from me. I learned, in the end, how precious confidants were. And those I could dominate, but confidants, more. Those who would not envy me because they had power of their own.”
“You don’t have one of those, either.”
“No, unfortunately I was forced to kill the last one,” Voldemort agreed, with a lack of emotion that made Harry stare, speechless. “But now I have found one. We could be that for each other. We already are, in a sense. Those we can trust above all others. The ones who can look at our magic, at our selves, and not flinch or blink.”
Harry stood up. “This lesson is over.”
“Harry—”
“I showed you the spell. I can recreate that grimoire from memory, since my memory’s perfect. We’ll do that instead. This meeting is getting into territory that’s too much about personal lives and not about magic.”
Voldemort stood up, his eyes probing Harry. “You will send me the grimoire. And your presence, again? When might I expect it?”
“Hopefully not until you get past this delusion that we’re friends,” Harry snapped, and Apparated.
*
Lord Voldemort stood in silence, his eyes half-closed, waiting. Waiting for the rage to slam into him and take him from his feet. Waiting for the moment he would snarl and bellow and condemn one of the trees to a fiery death.
It did not happen.
Harry is too different not to be fascinating. Too different to stay away from me forever. Too different from other people—too similar to me.
Lord Voldemort smiled slightly. He had indeed had a confidant before. He had killed him almost forty years ago. But it did not matter. He had something better than a confidant, or a Death Eater, or even a teacher who could lesson him in obscure magic.
It would take Harry some time to see it. But time was an endless resource.
Lord Voldemort drew his wand and concentrated on the air. He murmured, “Spiro carminem.”
For a moment, the air flickered with a spark of ruby. Then it vanished. And he could not draw it back again, no matter how many times he cast.
Lord Voldemort nodded. So it was. He would practice, with the spells in the grimoire that Harry would send him as well as the one he had seen, and some of the more esoteric branches of meditation.
And he would wait, for the ultimate prize. Which was not the magic.
*
Anaelyssa: Voldemort had to make a number of different oaths, including one not to kill or torture Muggleborns and one to use magic in a way Harry approved of. Harry only came to the first oath.
And yes, I think not a lot of people feel sorry for Snape.
Fenrirsboy: Thank you! Jonathan is growing on me, as well.
Voldemort is on the edge of realizing what he wants. He hasn't really considered sex yet, but he defintiely wants Harry's time and attention.
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His Twenty-Eighth Life