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All his life, as long as he could remember, Harry felt pain. Dull, phantom pain, located nowhere in particular. It was always a mystery, set at the background of his existence, until during his first year in Hogwarts he learned of soulmates. Everyone in the magical world felt pain that wasn’t their own, but that of someone else, someone connected by the most intimate of bonds. A soulmate.
It finally made sense, because even if he learned to live with this strange pain, he somehow had an inkling it wasn’t his own. Having an explanation was a relief, but it didn’t relieve him from the pain itself. From what he learned, others experienced it rather differently. With sharp bouts of pain of varying degrees here and there, people could usually tell what was happening, if someone hit their head, or cut a finger, or fell from the stairs. As for Harry, he had no idea what could have caused this dull never-ending and never changing aching echo.
In a way, it was comforting to know that his soulmate existed at all, even though sometimes it felt like half existence. Harry welcomed pain, uncaring as ever for his own wellbeing, if it meant there was a chance to signal to his soulmate: I exist, too. He could handle pain, life with the Dursleys taught him to tolerate it. In Hogwarts, it wasn’t even as bad, since a remedy could be found for practically anything.
When he touched Professor Quirrell only for the man to disintegrate as the soul of Voldemort possessing him got expelled and fled, Harry felt as if his own soul was ripped apart. Pain like none before engulfed him, and he passed out only to wake up in the Hospital wing to Dumbledore’s twinkling eyes.
Harry was concerned before, if he and Voldemort were similar, if him being almost sorted to Slytherin was bad. Those things seemed trivial now, as he was certain. His soulmate was Voldemort.
What should have been a shock, a string of denial, grief and regret, turned into a twisted sense of glee. Wholeheartedly accepting his fate, Harry waited. Waited for Voldemort to return. To acquire a body capable of fully registering the pain, instead of this half nonexistent echo Harry was already sick of. If at first it brought him comfort, to know his soulmate was somewhere out there, it irritated him now as a constant reminder his soulmate wasn’t really quite there.
To distract himself from it, Harry became bolder, more fearless. His peers would call him brave, Snape would call him reckless. Nonetheless, he got injured more often, and even during summer, he got punished more often for he no longer had patience to be polite around his relatives. Huddled in his dark corner of a cupboard, Harry’s eyes would gleam, inspecting yet another bruise, hoping that Voldemort received the message too.
When he got infatuated with a Slytherin boy from the pages of a diary, it was just another form of distraction. Proof to no one in particular that he doesn’t need a soulmate to get along in life just fine. That, until said boy tried to kill him too, confessing to being none other than Voldemort’s past.
Harry laughed as he stabbed the cursed book with Basilisk’s fang, his own body ripping apart as if dying. He shuddered, convulsing in pain like no other, blood trickling from his scar. Smile never left his face, and he stabbed the diary again and again, feeling torn from within, yet utterly justified.
“You tried killing me, too, Tom. And look where it got you.”
Oh, how he loved calling Voldemort by his birth name.
The entity from the diary was gone, the whole ordeal settled and forgotten, yet in his mind, Harry never stopped talking to Tom. Sometimes, he regretted destroying the diary like this, but then he’d argue:
An eye for an eye, Tom.
You hurt me. Now it’s my turn to hurt you.
We are connected, don’t you see?
My pain is your pain.
I’ll take yours as well.
“Soulmate…”
The last bit he would whisper with a smile playing on his lips, and Hermione would look at him strangely but never comment, only exchanging a glance with Ron, who just shrugged. Both his friends were used to Harry acting weird at times.
“Never did I kill you, Harry.” A velvety whisper that could only be Tom’s voice countered Harry’s argument.
“You started this, Tom,” Harry replied in his mind, nonplussed, rubbing his pulsating scar.
Suddenly hearing voices didn’t scare him, it actually made him feel better than talking with himself.
“You destroyed a part of me.”
“You destroyed my life.”
“Sorry, Cedric.” Harry pushed the Hufflepuff champion out of the way, eyes flashing with mad intensity. “It’s mine.”
Voldemort is mine alone.
With that, he grasped the Triwizard Cup, immediately sensing the tugging sensation of a portkey. He saw a glimpse of Cedric’s sad face before vanishing from the labyrinth completely.
He ended up in the graveyard and nodded to himself, reaffirming that this was far from the place Cedric would have wanted to end up. Nor anyone for that matter, apart from Harry, who learned all about Voldemort’s evil plans from the visions and other hints. His inner voice in particular was rather helpful in deciphering the Dark Lord’s psyche.
And now Harry was here for the whole show. His beloved hated soulmate will finally have a body of his own. A body, capable of feeling tangible pain. All that delicious pain Harry was gathering through years in an echoing solitude. He’d return it tenfold to the man who’d wish he wasn’t ever reborn.
Predictably bound to the tombstone, Harry waited with bated breath. His eyes rolled into the sockets to the friction of the magical binds, as they thrashed his clothes, digging into the skin. His heart rate quickened and he heard a whispered laughter at the back of his mind.
Voldemort was about to ascend from the cauldron, and like a predator watching his prey, Harry looked, and looked, and looked, until his eyes met electrifying red.
He couldn’t help it, he smirked, struggling against the binds, and glee flooded him along with sharp pain as Voldemort’s pale monstrous face contorted, paling further. Harry couldn’t tell what hurt the newly reborn Dark Lord more, the physical pain or realisation as to why he was even experiencing it. Harry’s taunting smile certainly didn’t make any of it better, and in a few strides Voldemort crossed the distance between them, the hastily conjured robe flowing behind him.
“Harry Potter,” he hissed angrily, so low, Harry wasn’t sure if it was in Parseltongue.
“Tom.” Harry absolutely loved putting another layer of irritation on Voldemort’s face. And to hit the final nail, “Soulmate…”
He laughed as much as Voldemort’s fingers on his neck could allow, watching closely as the pale neck with scattered snake-like scales also spasmed, and the hand withdrew sharply as if burned. Harry coughed, his smile not wavering and eyes burning, soaking up the look on Voldemort’s face, the utter shock, denial and frustration.
“Oh Tom, after all this time, is this all you have in store for me?” Harry banged his head against the cold stone, to emphasise his point. “Go on, torture me, kill me, like you always wanted to. What is stopping you?”
He hit his head harder, watching in satisfaction as Voldemort held his own head in his hands. There was only snivelling Wormtail for an audience, but it was still more witnesses than Voldemort was prepared to accept.
“Avada Kedavra,” he threw the curse without as much as sparing a look at the traitorous rat, and Harry mentally applauded the magnificence of this moment. He hoped, collecting the corpse would be enough proof to clear his godfather’s name, but this could wait. There was still a freshly resurrected soulmate of his, going through the excruciating process of accepting the truth.
“You think I cannot handle the pain?” Voldemort sneered, giving Harry an annoyed once over. Without missing a beat, he dropped an almost whispered, “Crucio.”
Harry had to give him that, Voldemort barely flinched. Harry on the other hand, he moaned.
Voldemort lifted the curse after however many seconds passed, jaw clenched, and Harry relaxed against the binds, shuddering from the aftershocks. Magical or not, the binds still had a physical thread and Harry had a magically induced knife. Wormtail, who cast the spell, was dead, so the magic weakened marginally, and at last the rope snapped, freeing Harry from its hold.
Appearing unaffected, Harry waited for the right moment to strike.
“Say, soulmate,” Harry started, twirling the knife between his fingers, careful not to cut himself accidentally. He wouldn’t care for such minor scratches, but it would alert Voldemort for sure. “Happy you finally met me? After all those years, decades… you must have been so lonely.” Harry mocked, looking Voldemort straight in the eyes. And oh.
Behind all the irritation and anger, there was longing. Barely visible, yet aching, infinite longing.
For a moment Harry stopped breathing, perplexed as to how beautiful those crimson eyes were, shadowed with the raw emotion Harry deep down felt himself. He almost got dizzy, but there was one thing always grounding him. Pain.
In a swift motion, Harry aimed the blade at Voldemort’s chest, right where the heart would be. The Dark Lord took an unstable step back, not expecting the attack. Using this to his advantage, Harry threw all the binds off, further attacking to make Voldemort fall. The Yew wand almost fell to the ground, before Harry gingerly caught it, hiding in his back pocket. Feeling victorious, Harry straddled his nemesis. The wound from his strike reverberated in his own chest, and Harry absolutely loved it.
He smiled widely, looking down at his soulmate, digging the knife deeper and drawing more blood. Voldemort struggled, grasping Harry by the hands, but his newly resurrected body was still weak compared to years of Harry’s vigorous Quidditch training. Realising this, Harry felt drunk. The bony pale fingers dug into his fairly thick and toned skin, and it barely did anything. Whatever pain it induced, Harry only drank it up akin to a delicious sweet liquor.
“My lord…” Harry removed the blade, absolutely loving the contrast between such an address and their positions. He watched in wonder how pools of blood gushed from the open wound. Voldemort wouldn’t die from it, this wasn’t Harry’s intention, but getting access to what was unavailable to him for so long, prompted Harry to indulge in it without restraint. Tracing the bloodied knife over Voldemort’s chest, Harry opened up the robe to get more access to that fresh body both of them so longed for.
The figure was impossibly thin and almost fragile. He probably could crack open the bones, and for a moment Harry considered doing just that if only to see the structure inside.
Voldemort kept silent, nostrils flaring from anger, most of his concentration going into concealing all the pain he felt. Harry knew exactly how painful his ministrations were, and if his own pain tolerance was any lower, he would be already screaming from the sheer amount of it.
There could be more.
“Crucio,” Harry pointed Voldemort’s own wand at him, remembering all the demonstrations from the fake Professor Moody’s lessons. It didn’t work, and Harry tried again, digging the white tip of the wand into the flesh, staining it with bright red.
“Crucio,” he repeated, conjuring the image of a convulsing spider from his memory. He also recalled that he has to genuinely wish for the other’s suffering, and on the third try both of them cried out as the curse coursed through Voldemort’s body.
Harry’s cry morphed into a triumphant laugh, and he laughed, and laughed, and laughed.
“Potter… Harry…” Voldemort sounded like he was dying, and maybe he was. The garbled whisper got through the intoxicating fog of Harry’s mind, and he cut the curse off, his breathing uneven.
His whole body vibrated with dark energy, and shifting a little, Harry became aware of a notable boner straining his trousers. He chuckled, more from unexpectedness of it, but far from shyness. He caught Voldemort’s eyes, and grinned.
“Potter,” Voldemort attempted to add dangerous notes into his voice, but it got lost on Harry.
Out of curiosity, he palmed the man between his legs, feeling up an unmistakable hard-on.
“What?” Harry lifted an eyebrow.
Voldemort looked like he couldn’t decide between relaxing or tensing up.
In the end, he sighed, closing his eyes as if extremely tired. His body couldn’t lie; just a little push and he’d be fully accepting his fate at Harry’s hands.
“Don’t fall for his act,” a voice inside his head warned, but it was too late.
A bout of wandless magic threw Harry high in the air and he landed some feet away. His vision went blank for only a moment, but it was enough for the Dark Lord to gain the upper hand. He summoned the closest wand, which was Harry’s Holly, confiscated by Wormtail earlier, and roughly healed himself, enough to rise up into a duelling stance.
Harry was quick on his feet, still tightly clutching Voldemort’s wand, and they stared at each other, none of them making the first move. From the corner of his eye Harry saw the cup nearby, and suddenly feeling fatigued as all his heightened sensations crashed, he took a deep breath considering his next move.
Some distance away, there was also Wormtail, who Harry would rather take along in order to clear Sirius’ name than leave behind.
“I will make you suffer,” Harry promised. Already he was looking forward to all the possible ways to maim himself, knowing that his messages would now be received for sure.
“Harry,” Voldemort’s voice acquired a warning tone, but Harry was already sprinting towards Wormtail’s body, picking the cup on the way, and in a swoosh he was gone.
Landing in the middle of the Quidditch pitch, Harry relished the hard thud before the loud mismatched chorus of spectators reached his ears. Dumbledore was rushing towards him, along with Professor Snape. Behind them, he spotted Minister Fudge trying to keep up, as well as other people curious about the commotion, from all three of the schools.
Harry wasn’t fast enough to do anything, still disoriented, and so he couldn’t escape a question from a sickeningly paling Snape.
“Whose wand is that?”
Dumbledore’s eyes widened, too, and Harry shrugged, side-eyeing the white Yew still stained with blood.
He pocketed it as casually as possible, to avoid Fudge seeing it too. The minister might not recognise the wand, but he would definitely see that it’s different from what Harry had registered for the tournament.
“It is mine now.” Harry shrugged nonchalantly, and in a lower voice, added, “Since Voldemort is keeping my Holly wand, I’d have to replace it anyway, this one I know will work the best…” Harry rambled on, in futile hope that they would let it slide. “You see, Ollivander once told me that we have brother wands with the core of a feather from the same Phoenix, which to be precise, was actually Fawkes, Professor…”
“Voldemort is back?” Dumbledore asked calmly.
“Yes, and he killed Peter Pettigrew.” Harry gladly switched attention to another no less pressing matter.
“Peter Pettigrew was alive?” Wondered Fudge, who finally caught up, breathing roughly from all the running.
“Yeah, you know, when people were accusing Sirius Black of betraying my parents and killing Pettigrew and all those muggles? That didn’t actually happen.”
Minister paled, lost for words, staring dumbly at the corpse.
“Potter,” Snape gritted out, grabbing Harry by the arm with such force, it would definitely bruise.
Harry turned to him with an innocent smile.
“I think I’m tired. Can I go, Professor?” With a smile still on his lips, Harry peeled off Professor’s fingers, applying some extra pressure. Snape let go, but not before sending Harry his worst sneer.
Harry dismissed it, giving a round of looks to all his imminent spectators. “Headmaster? Minister? As I understand, I won. Can I have my prize?”
“Of course, Harry. That’s totally fair.”
He didn’t expect Fudge to just whip out the sizeable pouch and hand it over without much fuss or ceremony, which suited Harry just fine. Hearing a snap of a camera nearby told him there’d still be a fuss later in the papers. Not that it bothered him.
He made a show of yawning, as he moved away from the group. “I’d like to rest now, don’t you mind?”
“My boy,” Dumbledore tried to stop him, but Harry didn’t care, summoning his broom and, before anyone could realise what was happening, flying away high in the air. He wasn’t anyone’s boy. Only Voldemort was in the right to claim Harry as his. The thought brought peace to his swirling mind, just as the cool wind washed over his body faster, and faster, and faster.
Now that he did it, he couldn’t fathom, what was holding him back from leaving just like that all these years. The adults could deal with their problems on their own. They don’t need a broken teenager to do the job for them. Maybe, getting a feel of the real breathing soulmate in his hands, an unshakeable proof he definitely existed, gave him a final push, a final tethering to the link that always connected them.
Harry mentally gasped in mock horror as he played out the conversation in his head that hadn’t happened yet, but most likely eventually will.
“You expect me to kill my soulmate, Headmaster?”
“My boy…”
Harry rolled his eyes, laughing at the look on Dumbledore’s face his mind conjured.
“Not your boy. Not yours, no, no, no, old man.”
Harry looked up to the sky, having no idea where he was actually going. They’ll never find him. If they trace his wand, it’ll lead them straight to Voldemort.
“Mine,” Tom in his mind helpfully supplied.
As if Voldemort could hear his thoughts, there was a sharp sense of headache like a message sent. Harry took it as a confirmation, and grinned.
Brimming with excited anticipation, he angled his broom towards the forest, rushing through the trees. The branches slapped him on the face and arms, but Harry paid no mind to the little cuts, wondering if Voldemort would be able to tell where the pain was coming from.
Harry still had no idea where he was going, yet one thing he knew for sure. He and Voldemort will cross paths again.
And hopefully, next time they wouldn’t have to separate.