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This Body is My Prison	By : JBankai89 Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male > Harry/Voldemort Views: 25130 -:- Recommendations : 1 -:- Currently Reading : 1
Disclaimer: JK Rowling owns Harry Potter, I gain nothing from this but a way to pass the time.

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A/N: Much shorter than I would have liked, but I didn't want to stretch it out too much and make it drag. Enjoy!
Part IV: Rebirth

It happened suddenly.
The birth of her previous children Cassiopeia had expected, and the moment when the contractions began she could all but predict with alarming accuracy. This talent gave her some semblance of control over her out-of-control existence, and the brief flashes of surprise that always crossed her husband's face when she announced that it was time before anything had happened yet always left her with a deep feeling of satisfaction.

This one was different.

Cassiopeia woke one morning in mid-December, her body bruised and aching. Voldemort had already vacated the bed, and left her to rouse herself and tend to the bruises he had left upon her alone, without the aid of a house elf or servant.
She had been in the lavatory, not yet dressed for the day beyond a thin, almost translucent dressing gown that was just barely long enough to cover her arse. With the swell of her pregnant belly beneath it however, it rode up and exposed her lower half completely, much to the pleasure of her husband.
Cassiopeia was withdrawing a bottle of dittany from the cabinet when it happened.

The small bottle tumbled from between her fingers, and smashed against the cold stone floor.

She hardly noticed that she was no longer holding onto the bottle as she stepped barefoot in broken glass and spilled dittany. Pain beyond pain lanced through her; her knees buckled, and with her hands tightly gripping the edges of the marble sink, she just barely managed to keep standing.
Her breath escaped her as a trembling gasp, and she glanced down when she felt something warm begin to trickle down her inner thighs. However, what she saw staining her flesh was not the substance that she had expected to see there.

Blood.

So much blood.

Panic filled her, and Cassiopeia opened her mouth to cry out for a house elf, for a servant, someone—but no sound escaped her. She did not know what was happening—all she knew was that something was very, very wrong.

Cassiopeia staggered to the door, back through the bedroom, and had almost made it into the hall when blackness enveloped her vision, and she sunk into unconsciousness.
Darkness took her then, but it was a peaceful dark, hindered only by the cries of voices that were not her own. She did not know whether or not she had imagined them, and knew only that they sounded panicked and afraid, where in contrast she felt an overwhelming sense of peace.

She's hemorrhaging! I need a Blood Replenishment Potion now, or they'll both die!

We don't have any more! We'll have to do without, we need to do a caseran, there's no way that she can birth this child naturally!

Pain lanced through her again, and she fell further into a near-comatose state. She was not even aware enough to hear the cries of alarm as Lord Voldemort swept into the infirmary and promptly collapsed, nor did she notice that her heart had stopped beating.

When Cassiopeia next opened her eyes, there was no pain. She felt comfortably warm, and her mind felt strangely peaceful. This seemed a little strange to her, for she could not recall the last time that she felt any sort of peace or joy that did not carry an undercurrent of fear to it.
Cassiopeia sat up and looked around, and found herself in some sort of nowhere place. Soft white mist obscured everything around her, and though she knew that she was laying on some kind of hard surface, it was so blank and featureless that she felt mildly unnerved by it. It took her a moment to realize that she was also completely naked, but given that this was nothing new to her, she did not feel particularly perturbed by it.
Ever so slowly, the mist began to clear, and she began to recognize the space—the glass ceiling, the benches, the tracks...she gasped sharply when she realized where she was.

King's Cross.

Suddenly, she did not feel as though she enjoyed being so exposed, and the moment that the thought crossed through her mind, she immediately found herself clothed.
What she found herself wearing was not one of the uncomfortable, revealing outfits she had grown used to in the last few years, but soft, comfortable robes that covered her from throat to ankle, and she felt as though she wanted to weep. The soft velvet felt expensive, but wonderful against her skin, and it smelled of a sharp tang of body odour that was far from unpleasant, and in fact made her feel more at ease, like she had been wrapped in a warm blanket.
She was distracted from her new robes by a sudden, soft noise. It sounded to her like a sort of muffled weeping, and she stood to walk over to the source of it, but lurched back in disgust almost at once when she caught sight of it.
The thing was tucked away underneath a bench, like someone had surreptitiously hidden it there, hoping that no one would see it. It was a baby, but unlike any baby that Cassiopeia had ever seen. It was frail and bony, covered in some sort of black, viscous fluid, and it seemed to be crying. Its vocalizations came out like a wheezing hiss, less like a dying human, and more like some sort of large, angry reptile or insect. Despite the horrifying nature of the thing, she wanted to help it, but at the same time, there was a deep sense in the pit of her stomach that told her she shouldn't.
Despite her reservations, she took an uncertain step forward.

“You cannot help.”

Cassiopeia spun around.

Standing before her in robes of deep, midnight blue, was the last person that she expected to see: Albus Dumbledore.
He looked the same as he always had in life, with his long silver beard, his half-moon glasses, and twinkling blue eyes. He was beaming at her with pride, an expression that she did not completely believe that she deserved. She hadn't done anything...had she?
“Oh my boy,” Dumbledore said, his arms spread wide, “Harry, you brave, brave man.”
“Am I still Harry?” she asked weakly as she continued to stare at Dumbledore in shock, “I—but, sir, you're dead...aren't you?”
“That, I think, is up to you,” Dumbledore replied with a familiar smile, “whether you are Harry still, or you choose to be known as someone else, at your core, you are still the same resilient, amazingly brave person you have always been. As for myself, oh yes, I am most definitely dead.”
“So...am I dead?”
“On the whole, I think not,” Dumbledore said, while she continued to stare up at her old headmaster with wide-eyed wonder.
“Not?” she asked.
“Not,” Dumbledore answered while he folded his arms behind his back and spun on his heel, “come, let us walk.”
Cassiopeia fell into step with her old mentor, and it took her a moment to work through all that he had said before she posed her next question.
“Sir, if I'm not dead...then what is this place?”
“We are at a crossroads, of sorts,” Dumbledore explained, though he never glanced in her direction as they walked, “and I am its guardian.”
She nodded her head to the explanation, though she didn't completely understand it. She looked back, but she could no longer see the thing that she had caught sight of earlier.
“So, if I'm not dead, then...what happened?” she asked uncertainly. Dumbledore finally looked over at her, and smiled kindly.
“The fluke of the dangerous complications surrounding the birth of your son did something very important,” Dumbledore explained, “do you perhaps know what that is?”
For a moment, Cassiopeia could not think; two simple words in Dumbledore's explanation rang through her mind, and she skidded to a halt.

Your son.

She pressed a hand to her flat belly, and turned away from Dumbledore as tears welled in her eyes.
“I have a son,” she whispered weakly, “Voldemort won't kill him.”
“Indeed,” Dumbledore agreed, and when she turned back around, he was still smiling at her in that familiar, placid way that she'd come to know so well in years past. “Something else, my dear—” he broke off abruptly when she winced.
“Please, sir, don't call me that, he—” Cassiopeia cut herself off with a shudder, and Dumbledore's eyes seemed to glow with understanding and sympathy.
“Ah, yes, of course,” he replied softly, his tone remorseful, “my apologies, I had not intended to cause you any distress.” He paused, and despite the formality of his phrasing, she could hear that he truly was sorry. “As I was saying,” he continued, “he did something else. Can you perhaps figure out what it is?”
Dumbledore fell silent while he waited for her answer. His expression never wavered, and he looked as though he had all the time in the world to wait for her answer.
At first, her mind was too clouded to think clearly. She was overwhelmed with relief that her child would live to see a second sunrise, and her joy made it difficult to focus on anything else. It took several long moments before she felt calm enough to approach the question that Dumbledore had put to her rationally.
Something else, something else... she thought while she looked around the space, and her eyes fell to the spot some distance away where she had seen the thing.

Of course.

“The Horcrux!” she cried, and Dumbledore beamed at her.
“Yes, indeed,” he agreed, “your son, quite by chance, broke the bond that connects you to Voldemort, and now it is very possible to put an end to him, if you wish.”
“If I wish?”
“Well, as I said, we are at a crossroads,” Dumbledore said, repeating his words from earlier, “you can go back to your son, and to Voldemort, and possibly finish him once and for all. Or, you can go on.”
“On? On where?”
Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, and his lips stretched into a small smile.
“Ah, well, that would be telling, now wouldn't it?”
“If I go back, I might die,” she said softly, “it might all be for nothing. But...my son...”
“Your son will be cared for, regardless what you choose,” Dumbledore said, “it is no selfish act to decide that your journey has ended. Indeed, to go back you risk everything, but there is a young man back there, whom, I believe, would offer the assistance that you need to, as they say, get the job done.”
“Young man?” she asked, and Dumbledore's eyes twinkled, though he did not answer. She thought that he might be alluding to Draco, but even he would never go so far as to defy Voldemort openly...would he? The thought raised more questions than it answered, and she moved on to another subject.
“What will happen to me if I am able to kill him?” she asked tentatively, “will I go back to normal?” Dumbledore's face fell, and her heart sank.
“The kinds of transfiguration Voldemort performed on you is highly advanced,” Dumbledore explained while he regarded her with another sympathetic look. “much of it is now locked in your genetic code, and in your magical signature. It is no longer connected to Voldemort, but to you. You will not go back to normal, but if you so choose, I am sure someone may be able to help transfigure you back to something close to the way you were, perhaps Minerva, or Miss Granger, for example.”
Dumbledore paused, and he levelled his gaze with her, and she felt that all-too familiar sensation that she was being x-rayed by him. “I believe the question you may wish to ask yourself is this: do you wish to go back to being Harry, do you think that you can live out your life in this new identity that was forced upon you, or do you wish to choose another path entirely?”
Cassiopeia did not answer straightaway, but gazed around the space thoughtfully. It was a big question, one that she had never had an opportunity to ask herself until now. She had to be Cassiopeia for so long that the idea that she now had some sort of choice struck her as decidedly odd.
“I...don't know,” she replied honestly, and glanced briefly back at Dumbledore before she looked again to the white, almost featureless horizon. “I still sort of miss the old me, but I've gotten used to the new me, too. Both Cassiopeia and Harry are me, now, if that makes sense.”
“It does indeed,” he agreed, “we cannot stay who we are at any one given moment. Much like the magic that shapes us, our experiences, both good and bad, will shape us. And sometimes, we are become people that the old us would never fully recognize. However, that is not to say that such a thing is bad—change is constant, it is natural. It is neither good nor bad.”
“But how do I know if that's really me talking?” she asked, a note of desperation in her voice as she rounded on Dumbledore again, “Voldemort did all sorts of things to my mind that made me...made me...”
“I can assure you that any enchantments Voldemort has placed upon your mind will break the moment he dies,” Dumbledore said gently when her voice seemed to fail her, “the transfigurations are another issue, but those enchantments—the desire for, his ah, his essence—” Cassiopeia blushed a deep crimson, and Dumbledore chuckled as he continued, “—and the desire to bear children will disappear and diminish respectively to what they would have been in your natural state, as will any other mind-altering spells that he may have cast.”
“That's something, at least,” she replied as she dropped her gaze her feet. They were bare, but her toenails were painted a shiny burgundy, just as they were in life. “I—I think that I need to go back. I need to finish this, and I don't want to do to my child what Voldemort did to me. I can't orphan him. I need this done.”
“An admirable sentiment!” Dumbledore cried as he beamed at her again. “In going back you have much to gain, and so much to live for. I do believe, in going back, you have every chance in the world of finishing Voldemort, but that, in the end, if up to you.”
Cassiopeia did not speak for a long moment. She dropped her gaze from her old mentor, and thought of what there was to gain and lose in returning to her life. To see her son grow up, that was certainly the biggest draw, but who was the young man that Dumbledore mentioned? Was it really Draco Malfoy that he meant, or was it someone else?
In all this time, she had not been given a real choice in sex partners, and she had gone from a relationship with Ginny now little more than six years earlier, to being forced into Voldemort's bed. She hadn't any time to really come to terms with whether she preferred men over women, or vice versa, or both.
She lifted her gaze again, and her eyes invariably fell upon the spot where the thing lay, now silent. Did she really need to do this? Could she even do this?
“Do not pity the dead,” Dumbledore said gently, “pity the living, and, above all, those who live without love. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. If that seems to you a worthy goal, then we say goodbye for the present.”
As white as the rest of the place, a ghostly train pulled into the station, and its doors opened with a soft hiss. Cassiopeia approached it nervously; she knew that she had to go back, and her heart swelled with excitement and fear in equal measure at the prospect. The thought of seeing her child, alive and healthy, was too wonderful for words. But the idea of taking a life, even one as twisted and horrible as Voldemort's, was still a terrifying thought.
One of her feet had rested on the train's stairwell when she paused and turned back to her old, smiling headmaster.
“Tell me one last thing,” she said, “is this real? Or has this been happening inside my head?”

Dumbledore beamed at her, and his image wavered, as though the air had suddenly grown very hot.

“Of course it is happening inside your head, but why on earth should that mean that it is not real?"
A/N: I think it sort of goes without saying that this chapter contained a lot of dialogue pulled directly from DH: King's Cross.
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This Body is My Prison