Why did you choose me?

      Harry looked at the happy faces of his former classmates and sighed grimly, dragging his fork across the cold breakfast. Not that he wanted Voldemort to attack Hogwarts like he was going to, but there wasn’t much to be happy about either.       The Order and the Ministry decided everything without him — for him! They agreed behind the back of their Chosen One, from whom, as before, even his best friends hid important news. Dumbledore may have been dead, but the Order’s leadership seemed to have adopted his habits of keeping Harry in the dark until the last moment.       “Harry, talk to us,” Hermione pleaded. “We’re really sorry…”       Easy for them to say, Harry thought, finally pushing his plate away. He still didn’t have an appetite. Ron and Hermione spent a week at the Burrow and learned of Voldemort’s intentions from the older Weasleys, while Harry at Kingsley’s request was left at a half-empty Hogwarts — many students went home to celebrate the sudden peace. Harry, wanted to be with his closest people in a quiet place, as well, wanted it so badly that he almost begged, but McGonagall and Kingsley both said a firm no.       “It won’t be that bad, mate,” Ron muttered nervously, but his attempt to cheer up only made Harry angrier.       They didn’t even see the problem with the situation — not with what Harry had to do, but with keeping information from him, which, in fact, was more about his own life than anyone else’s. Harry would agree, his friends and Order’s members were right, but was it so hard to ask him? To give time to accept his fate, after all!       “And what makes you so sure, Ron?” Harry snorted, getting up from the table.       He didn’t want to communicate with anyone, not now. He only had a few hours of freedom left.       The day when Harry, Ron and Hermione had robbed — and slightly destroyed — Gringotts, they thought they were twenty-four hours at most before the final confrontation. Voldemort screamed in Harry’s head, accidentally showing him the storage location of the next Horcrux, and in the morning the three of them set off for Hogwarts.       Warned teachers and students from Dumbledore’s Army helped them to search the most possible locations discreetly. Everyone was in a hurry and made the stupidest mistakes, but thankfully neither the Slytherins nor the Death Eaters noticed any suspicious activity. By evening, the diadem was found and destroyed at once with the cup.       Harry knew the rest of the story only from Kingsley and the others, he didn’t know if the whole truth had been told to him at least.       Snape, summoned by Voldemort then, watched him collapse after losing two more Horcruxes and, taking advantage of the Dark Lord’s weakness, burned Nagini with the Fiendfyre.       There were no more Horcruxes left — Harry was certain.       He was barely surprised when Kingsley explained that Snape had always been a double spy, that Dumbledore had ordered the professor to play his murderer. It was horrible, but… not surprising. Not after flying on a dragon, killing the last pieces of Voldemort’s soul and the war ending so unexpectedly.       Snape escaped from the Malfoy Manor alive and even passed the information about the killed snake to the Order, but after that the healers forcibly plunged him into a magical coma — there was no other way to save Snape from all the curses he had received. Voldemort and his inner circle were not shy with deadly spells and never spared traitors.       Something had changed in Voldemort after he lost Nagini. Harry suffered from the pain of his scar, nausea and blackouts for days, was unable to eat or sleep, locked alone in the Hospital Wing. He caught Voldemort’s emotions: fear, anger, frustration — and his agony, but the visions remained hazy and too distant to make sense at all.       And then Voldemort’s mind closed and the ‘Prophet’ declared a truce.       Ron and Hermione sneaked him a paper and said a curt goodbye before leaving for the Burrow. Harry, on the other hand, was summoned by McGonagall, the temporary Headmistress of Hogwarts. Together with Kingsley, they convinced him that it was safer to stay at the school until any orders to stop his pursuit were issued.       Having a private room, which he’d learnt from Dobby was usually reserved for guest teachers and located near the charms classroom, Harry was not exactly isolated from the rest of the students, but he didn’t want to see them himself. All his friends were away, and it was too much for him to catch the doubting stares and not know what to answer to the nasty questions about the last year.       So Harry didn’t notice how they were looking at him at first when he came down for breakfast a week later.       The other students weren’t due back until the evening, so sensing something was wrong, Harry walked towards Chou, who had stayed at Hogwarts. He awkwardly asked her what was the matter, and she… cried. After apologising, Chou slipped him the latest issue of the ‘Prophet’ and ran out of the Great Hall.       ‘Harry Potter becomes the guarantor of the truce with the Dark Lord! The marriage contract will be prepared by the Ministry’s best lawyers!’ said the headline that took up the entire front page.       Harry felt betrayed, empty and sick.       He didn’t remember how to breathe for a while. His hands trembled and his eyes glared blindly at the paper. He hoped it was someone’s crappy joke, another of Skeeter’s lies, but one look at the teachers’ table showed him that everything written was true. Also, meeting McGonagall’s pitying, but not at all shocked gaze, Harry realised something else: they knew. The Order knew.       Harry’s feet carried him away, he could feel the magic rushing out. As he reached the doors, he could hear the stained glass rattling in the windows. And then he ran without looking, stumbling, bumping into obstacles, and kept running until he tripped over a root and ploughed his nose into the ground in the Forbidden Forest. He didn’t remember how he had got so deep into the forest, but he thanked the gods that there were no humans or centaurs around.       His rampaging magic blasted the space around him, burning dozens of trees, bushes and probably any living creatures in the area. And it also extinguished everything, leaving only the stifling smell of smoke. Harry screamed and cried until he lost his voice, beat his fists against the ash-covered warm earth.       He returned to school in the middle of the night covered in soot and dirt, tired and lost. All he wanted to do was go to bed and sleep forever. But his friends had a different plan.       Ron and Hermione were waiting for his return, snoozing on the sofas, and Hermione, who was used to sleeping sensitively, heard him through her sleep. They immediately got up, started wailing that they were sorry, that they would definitely support him, that they were unfortunately forbidden to contact him, so they couldn’t warn him…       And then Harry couldn’t take it anymore. It was ten times more hurtful than after fourth year. He didn’t have the energy to argue, so he asked them in a murderously cold tone to leave him alone. This seemed to frighten them much more than if he would have yelled.       As it appeared they had been denied access to the owls, but there were still the enchanted galleons, the Patronuses, the twins, after all, could figure something out, couldn’t they?       The Ministry, the Order or Voldemort himself had rushed things, so it was only five days from the announcement of the impending marriage to the official engagement itself. The best experts drew up the truce agreement, like the marriage contract, and both were published in all the newspapers and magazines.       Harry read them alone in the Room of Requirement. He was afraid and didn’t want the whole school to see his reaction again. Most of the terms of both compacts were clear and expected, the rest were either written in the same illegible language that the laws were compiled in or seemed strange, uncomfortable and conflicting.       For example, all participants of the war would receive amnesty for any violence committed, even murder. To Harry’s surprise, the lists included the names and crimes of not only Death Eaters, but members of the Order of the Phoenix as well.       Dark magic would be partially legalised.       Voldemort would receive seats on the Wizengamot, but wouldn’t be allowed to hold any ministerial positions. The same destiny awaited Harry.       Not that he still wanted to be an auror, but being deprived of that opportunity had hit him hard. However, being married to the Dark Lord would have left him with little reason to catch dark wizards…       Harry grinned bitterly, striding towards his room. Ron and Hermione didn’t follow him, which was both pleasing and disappointing. He really didn’t want to talk to them, or anyone, to be honest, but a foreign — or, conversely, familiar — support was lacking.       Harry spent the rest of the day under Dobby’s care. The house-elf helped him pack his things and even put himself in some proper order. Unaccustomed to eating large meals after a year in the woods with meagre rations, Harry hadn’t put on weight yet. His hair had grown long and split, nails looked awful, and the burns from the break-in at Gringotts had turned into pinkish scars.       Thanks to Dobby, he looked less like a tramp, was shaved, combed and dressed in a nice robe that did nothing to hide his unhealthy thinness and only emphasised his pallor. And that ‘handsomeness’ was supposed to belong to the Dark Lord. Harry chuckled darkly at the thought.       According to the marriage contract, they were both permitted to have sex only with each other, although the use of surrogacy to produce an heir was not forbidden. Harry read all of those paragraphs with mild disgust. Not only because he couldn’t imagine how he would become aroused over Voldemort, but also because he didn’t want to have children in the next ten years at least. And with the Dark Lord as his husband, maybe never at all.       “Harry Potter, sir, time to go,” Dobby squeaked, tugging Harry’s sleeve. “Dobby shrank things and put in the pocket of formal robes.”       “Thank you,” Harry whispered and took one last look around the modest room he was just beginning to get used to.       The engagement, because of the unusual reason for the marriage, was being held at the Ministry, the same place where representatives of all the sides had signed the temporary treaty of peace. According to the new treaty the Ministry would have ten years to satisfy the participants before considering a new compact — not a shaky truce, but a full-fledged peace.       Harry said his goodbyes without too much emotion to the professors and friends who had volunteered to see him off. Ron and Hermione hugged him tightly, but received only faint pats on the back in return. Harry was mentally already there, facing Voldemort.       The Ministry hadn’t changed much since his last visit, except that the old fountain had been restored and wands were checked at the entrance not for identification the muggleborns.       Kingsley took Harry to a spacious hall built in the shape of an amphitheatre. Most of the people were crowded together on the lower tiers, discussing something. On the large table in front of them laid a long scroll of parchment. Harry threw a blank stare at it and turned away.       He was asked to wait for the Voldemort’s arrival and seated away from the politicians.       The Dark Lord burst into the hall abruptly, like a thunderstorm that split the cloudless sky apart. He was dressed in a grey-green robe with runic embroidery on the sleeves and breast lapels. To Harry’s great surprise, instead of a bald snake-like monster, there was a sort of hybrid of this ugly version of Voldemort with the external image of Tom Riddle from the diary in front of everyone.       His hair had grown back!       Stopping at the entrance, Voldemort assessed the situation and, after giving Harry a brief icy glance, went downstairs. He argued with Kingsley and some officials for nearly an hour and then, accompanied by an unknown plump woman, went up to Harry’s side — to a distant upper tier from which the entire hall was clearly visible.       “Good evening, Mister Potter,” the woman said softly. She was very excited, but kept her composure. She smelt something warm and homely, like Professor Sprout. “My name is Libitina Shafiq, I perform magical marriages. I will witness your engagement today and in a month’s time, unless, as you know, it is not announced otherwise, I will perform the marriage ritual.”       “A month, madam?” Voldemort interjected. Harry heard more of Tom Riddle’s languor in his husky voice than he had expected.       “You have the right to request the ritual earlier,” Madam Shafiq replied immediately. “Only by mutual consent.”       This information seemed to annoy the Dark Lord, but he didn’t interfere with the process again. He and Harry silently signed the engagement contract with the blood quills, and Voldemort, without getting down on his knee or uttering any pretentious words, handed Harry a box with an elegant, if not girlish, silver ring with seven tiny green stones.       “White gold and emeralds?” Madame Shafiq gasped in admiration. “An unusual combination. It will suit you very well, Mister Potter!”       Only after the rest of nuances of the ceremony were completed Harry realised what the woman had meant, and he looked up belatedly at Voldemort, who came down to the lower tier again to sign the agreement about the long-awaited truce. The Dark Lord picked Harry’s ring to match his eye colour — it was hard to believe. Most likely, Harry decided, it had been bought by Narcissa Malfoy or someone like her.       Soon enough the treaty was signed and sealed by the magic of everyone present, including Harry. After that, the meeting participants quickly began to disperse to avoid the reporters waiting outside, and Harry cautiously moved closer to Voldemort.       “Why are you not wearing the ring yet?”       “What?” Harry was taken aback. “Ah… I was just thinking… I wasn’t trying to insult you or anything.”       He waved his hands around worriedly and pulled out a thin ring, almost dropping the small box. Suddenly a strong cold palm gripped his fingers.       “Allow me, Harry.” Voldemort placed the ring gently on Harry’s finger and immediately released his hand from his own, as if he’d been burned. “All things considered, I see no point in lingering on formalities. Call me Marvolo in public.”       Harry nodded slowly. He was curious what had made Voldemort stop the war and even let him use his old name — even if not the muggle part. However, nothing had been said about addressing in private…       “The portkey will take us to my house.” With those words, Voldemort held out a porcelain figurine of some bird to Harry. “Llyn Tegid.”       There was an unpleasant tug, and Harry and Voldemort were carried dozens of miles away from London in an eyeblink.

+++

      The boy was suspiciously quiet. He showed up at meals, never started a conversation first and seemed to avoid eye contact with Marvolo. He did not blame Harry Potter, but it had been a fortnight, they needed to make some connection before they married. Otherwise, their first night together would end in disaster…       “Harry,” Marvolo called after dinner, before the boy could escape from the table. “This land may not be very settled, but the northern park is big enough to fly over on a broomstick. I thought you liked Quidditch.”       “Er, yeah,” Harry mumbled, clearly embarrassed. “I didn’t know flying was possible here. Muggles are pretty close…”       Doubts crept into his voice, and Marvolo could hear them clearly behind the pretence of worry about the insignificant muggles.       “The whole area is covered with spells, you can fly and practise magic outside as much as you want.”       “Really? You’ll let me?” The green eyes sparkled happily, but quickly faded. And the question threw Marvolo off balance.       “Have I ever forbidden flying on a broomstick?” he mused. “Please, Harry, ask me such things if you are in doubt. I have asked not to distract me from work without a good reason when I am in my office, and not to make noise at night. And, I think, not to eat in the library. I said nothing about flying.”       The boy’s cheeks turned a funny rosy hue. Marvolo grinned.       “I don’t have a broom anyway.” Harry shrugged after a short silence.       “Then you will have one tomorrow.” Marvolo noted to himself that he should send an owl to Lucius. He must know what kind of broomsticks the youngsters were using these days.       “Th-thank you,” Harry mumbled and was about to leave the dining room, but Marvolo gestured for him to stop.       “Wait, hold on. Will you join me?” He rose gracefully and, beckoning the boy to follow him, led him into the garden.       The manor had once belonged to the Gaunts, before the family was ruined. It seemed the last owner had been the uncle of Marvolo Gaunt, father of Merope and Morfin. Marvolo was not very fond of his grandfather’s name, he had been an abominable, worthless wizard, but it sounded much better than Tom.       Harry had never used that muggle name during the past two weeks, though Marvolo had expected the little Gryffindor to get angry and snap at something or just try to piss him off sooner or later. But Harry was humbler than the dust.       Marvolo held open the plate-glass door leading to the garden, letting Harry pass through.       “I inherited this house from my great-grandfather,” Marvolo started, not knowing how best to begin his conversation with the boy. They hardly shared any hobbies due to their age. Defence against the Dark Arts, perhaps? Harry often dug into Marvolo’s books about the subject, but never showed any desire to discuss any of them. “He had a fight with my grandfather and made a will so that the estate would go only to Half-Blood Gaunt.”       “Whoa!” Harry exclaimed in a plebeian way. Marvolo sighed — the boy had no manners whatsoever. “That’s very… Wasn’t that strange for those years?”       “Use words, Harry,” Marvolo scolded gently. He ignored the question, not intending to admit aloud that in the past he had refused to declare himself eligible for the terms of the will out of inordinate pride. “Construct the sentence in your head before you say it. Then there will be no stuttering and no muggle exclamations. Speaking correctly is a useful skill, do not deny it.” He smiled with just the corners of his lips and invited Harry to sit down in the gazebo with a slight nod. A moment later, the house-elf set tea and light desserts in front of them. Marvolo nodded contentedly. “You have been avoiding me, why?”       “I’m n-not avoiding you.”       “Are you afraid to be alone with me?”       “No,” Harry blurted more firmly, looking at Marvolo like a wolf cub. How sweet.       “Is there something wrong with the prenuptial agreement?”       “I don’t know,” the boy said with a hesitation. “It’s not that I don’t like it… I’ve had questions.”       “Like what, for example?” Marvolo prompted him, sipping warm tea with milk and no sugar, as he liked it.       “There was a paragraph about the inheritance of family names. Also about rituals of… purification?”       “They should have explained that to you before you got engaged, Harry,” Marvolo said, a little surprised. Wedlock was the first condition of the truce he had voiced to the Order. Why did they not prepare the boy?       “I read the contract in the ‘Daily Prophet’,” Harry spat out and folded his arms across his chest, frowning. He reminded Marvolo of a crestfallen little raven. “Even my friends found out before I did.”       “Regrettable.” Marvolo sighed and tapped his fingers on his lips, considering how to solve the problem. “I think I can set aside an hour every morning. We will discuss the paragraphs of the contract and also go over etiquette. Ritualistics is a more difficult subject. Have you studied runes?” Harry shook his head dejectedly. Sad, but unfortunately expected. Education at Hogwarts was pretty dismal in the current times, and the boy had not even finished school — due to his, Marvolo’s, fault. That was worth fixing. “Then I shall briefly explain to you the nature of the purification rituals during our morning lessons. Later I will hire tutors in runes and other subjects so you can prepare for the N.E.W.T.s.”       “Yeah, because the Dark Lord’s husband can’t walk around without a diploma…” grumbled Harry. Marvolo snorted, making the boy blush at the fact that his remark had not been ignored.       “Do you have any suggestions, requests you were afraid to mention?” Harry shrugged, a crease forming between his brows. Probably after getting the broomstick he would become a little bolder. Marvolo hesitated before bringing up another important topic. “Given our past, shall we say, disagreements, I did not wish to rush you into unwanted intimacy, Harry. While I have not been averse to using other people’s pain to achieve my goals, sexual violence has always been taboo for my people—”       “What are you implying?” The boy tensed. The cup trembled in his hands, and he sipped hastily.       “Do you know what the consummation is?”       “It was in the contract too…” Harry set the tea aside. “What does it mean?”       Marvolo sighed. He did not want to be the one who would explain everything to an unintelligent child. Why had none of the professors done that? Surely, they had some idea of the difference between magical and ordinary marriages.       “For a marriage to be recognised by magic, it must end in sexual intercourse. Usually on the first night, which is why it is known as the wedding night. Without consummation, the wedlock will not be valid, and if it is not valid, the truce treaty will not take effect. Do you understand what I am saying, Harry?”       The boy squirmed all over, his pupils dilated, almost displacing the emerald iris. Marvolo reached out and comfortingly squeezed his future spouse’s sweating hands. They had to get used to touching each other, no matter how uncomfortable it would be for both of them…       “I—” Harry was shaking. “I thought it was just a formality. You know, to have me around to pressure the Ministry or whatever it was you were planning?” He chuckled nervously and moved his hands, but did not pull them out of Marvolo’s grip. “Why didn’t anyone tell me?”       “I guess everyone thought you knew what was in store for you,” Marvolo said simply. “There are books on all kinds of wedlock at Hogwarts, but I thought one of the professors would talk to you. McGonagall and Flitwick were in a magical marriage — not to each other, gods, do not look so amazed. I am sorry you found out only now.”       Harry shook his head and finally released his hands, immediately occupying his trembling fingers with a cup of charmed not-to-cool tea.       “My education on the subject of marriage was hardly your responsibility before the engagement.”       “It was not.”       The gazebo fell into a tingling silence. Marvolo did not like sitting on pins and needles, but he did not distract the boy from his thoughts, lest he frighten him further. Perhaps if he had learnt of the pact from the newspaper, he only had a little over a fortnight to accept their life together.       A life with his parents’ killer.       Of course, the child was in shock.       “What about the prophecy?”       “What about it?” Marvolo did not understand.       “And either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives,” Harry whispered, suddenly going pale. He dropped the cup on the saucer’s edge, and the remnants of the tea spilled over the table.       Marvolo made no attempt to touch the boy again, not wanting to provoke a magical outburst. Harry’s power distorted the air like a campfire or hot asphalt.       “We can come back to this later,” Marvolo said as gently as possible. Although he was not sure if these were all the remaining lines of the prophecy, the meaning was obvious: until they turned against each other again, no one else would kill them. That was a little reassuring. “Harry, little one, take a breath. It is in my interest to protect you from any harm, I mean no harm to you.”       Marvolo reached out his hand to the boy unhesitatingly, but the boy recoiled.       “Why did you choose me?”       If only his memories of those years had contained some semblance of logic, Marvolo thought angrily to himself. After the madness was over, all his past decisions seemed disgusting, unforgivable, low. Why did he choose Harry Potter?       “—not some perfect pureblood heiress who would know exactly which fork to use to eat salad with and could have a baby, after all!” the boy continued, almost shouting. He was panting heavily as finished venting his frustration.       Marvolo had to take a few deep breaths to comprehend the previous question again. He had misunderstood him.       “Why did I choose you as a guarantor? Even leaving out the prophecy and our long feud, Harry, you are not just a favourable match, but also the only one who knows so many things about me and who, in the long run, has as much influence over the masses.” Marvolo bared his teeth with satisfaction. As if he would consider anyone else as a partner after what he had learnt. “You are brave, strong beyond your years, not bad-looking, rich. Poorly educated, infantile, yes, but that is fixable.”       Harry laughed bitterly. He hid his face in his elbows folded on the table. Good, the elves had already cleaned up the spilled tea.       Marvolo hesitated. He could tell the boy the truth, demonstrate a deep degree of trust in his future spouse, but was it really worth it? How would Dumbledore’s little pupil react? Marvolo was not going to lie, however. A misunderstanding here, a deception there… He did not want to get bogged down in this game in his own house.       “I am not attracted to women, if you mean my preferences.” Marvolo added with a sly smirk. “I daresay it is still taboo in the muggle world. In my day, homosexuality was punishable by imprisonment.”       Harry lifted himself up, his mouth hanging open comically.       “Magic world has it easier, although under the influence of muggleborns there are far fewer same-sex marriages than there were a century ago.” Marvolo dismissed that detail as unimportant. “Come, I will accompany you to your bedroom. I will have to upset you with one more thing, but I want to be sure you will stay in the safety of your room, digesting everything you have heard today.”       “Can’t it wait until tomorrow?” the boy asked quietly, already knowing the answer.       Marvolo rose from the table and reached out his elbow to Harry. The proximity frightened the former Dark Lord as much as the young man in front of him. Harry hesitantly put his arm across his bicep.       It was getting colder outside, and the boy instinctively snuggled closer to Marvolo as they made their way back into the house. The corridors were chilly too, so Marvolo did not let Harry go all the way back. Feeling someone warm next to him was intoxicating, though unnerving. He wanted to dominate, to gain the upper hand before the battle even began.       It was so strange…       “You know all about my Horcruxes, right, darling?” Marvolo purred, pressing Harry against his bedroom door. The boy shuddered visibly. “Biggest mistake of my life,” Marvolo admitted, ignoring the trembling of the skinny body in his arms.       His and Harry’s eyes met: red and green, burning cold and fearful. Marvolo stepped back a little, sensing the other’s fear at last.       “Sorry, little one, I got carried away,” he said with all the sincerity he could muster and, after taking a deep breath of air, returned to the Horcruxes. “You destroyed the diary, Dumbledore destroyed the ring. There were four left, I thought. The locket, the cup, the diadem…”       “Nagini,” Harry said huskily.       “That is correct. Nagini was the last receptacle of my soul that I created,” Marvolo confirmed. “I found out that you and your friends had unearthed the locket and decided to protect the rest Horcruxes from total annihilation. Without their storage, they would be gone, because Horcruxes cannot exist without binding to something material. I had wanted to solve this kind of vulnerability.”       “H-how?”       “A dark, very dark ritual, Harry. You do not need the details,” Marvolo sighed. “My goal has been accomplished. Nagini became not just a Horcrux, but a kind of magnet for pieces of my soul. When the Horcruxes were destroyed, the shards were drawn to Nagini. She absorbed all three on top of what she already had. Needless to say, it made her insane…” His fingers touched Harry’s cheek and slid upwards to his forehead, hidden beneath black curls. The boy did not move under his intense gaze. “What I had not considered, however, was that someone would kill Nagini as well. The ritual was even more effective than I had hoped, all four shards returned to me. It was…”       “Pain.” Harry opened his eyes wide. There was so much understanding. “I felt it. Then you declared a truce… Is your soul healed? Is that why you look different?”       “As different as possible without the other Horcruxes. The shards from the diary and the ring are forever lost to me, it affected my physical appearance, certainly. But there was another Horcrux I did not know about.” Marvolo stroked the lightning-shaped scar with his thumb. “An accidental, unplanned one that had caused us so much annoyance.”       He lowered his hand and stepped away from the dazed child.       “To defeat me, you should have to sacrifice yourself. I doubt Dumbledore did not realise that.”       “No…”       “I am sorry, Harry.”       “It can’t be true!” Tears streamed down the boy’s cheeks, but he hardly noticed them. His lips twitched and his stare became so painful that Marvolo felt genuine sympathy for the poor young wizard. Sympathy, yes, not regret. “Don’t lie to me! It’s not true!”       Weak fist blows landed on Marvolo’s chest. He was not going to endure all of them and pressed the crying boy to himself. He did not stop screaming and lashing out for a few interminably long minutes, but then his strength left him. Harry hung in Marvolo’s arms, sniffling his nose and gnashing his teeth.       “How is this possible…?” he sobbed. “Did D-dumbledore know? Why didn’t you realise b-before?”       “The details are not important, little one,” Marvolo whispered in a soothing tone. “Our connection: shared dreams, emotions and pains… The answer laid on the surface. I was too deranged to even think of such an oversight on my part. Dumbledore may not have been one hundred per cent sure, but he certainly suspected it.”       “An oversight? Is that what I am?” Harry gave Marvolo a weak push, and he let him break free of his comforting grip. “Why didn’t he tell me? Why do they always leave out the most important things?!”       Harry wiped his nose and grinned grimly.       “Why did you tell me? I wish I’d never known…”       “You asked me why I made you a guarantor, Harry,” Marvolo said, raising his voice slightly. He wanted the boy to understand. “No one can touch you, or the truce is over. I can protect you as a spouse. We both win.”       “Is that what you want?” Harry snorted in a completely unaesthetic way. “To shag your own Horcrux. Missed an opportunity with…”       A palm covered his mouth, and angry red eyes made the boy swallow loudly.       “I did it to protect you, stupid child,” Marvolo hissed. He did not hide his anger. “I have been kind to you, Harry, but there is a limit to my patience. Nagini was my familiar, my dear friend during a period of terrible madness. Do not insult my memory of her.” His fingers shifted from jaw to thin throat, which trembled shortly under the pressure of his hand. “I promise I will keep you from harm, fulfil your every whim, I will be so tender in bed that you will be over the moon… The fact that you are my Horcrux is only an excuse, one of many reasons. Let me get to know you, Harry. Cannot our wedlock be real? It takes effort, does it not, little one? Think about it at your leisure.”       Harry was no longer crying, a faint blush flickered on his cheekbones, and his unseeing eyes were looking far away.       Marvolo gently stroked the boy’s unruly hair and, pushing the door’s handle, nudged him towards the bed. After such a nervous shock, Harry needed a long rest.       “Drink when you lie down,” Marvolo ordered, and, at the snap of his fingers, the house-elf placed the dreamless sleep potion on the bedside table.       Harry said nothing as Marvolo left, but he did not expect him to.       Was it worth the risk to tell the boy the whole truth? Marvolo hoped they would have a chance at a strong trusting relationship. It would not come to fruition in one month, of course…       He was not lying when he said the Horcrux was just an excuse to marry. Marvolo doubted he would have gotten along with anyone else but the one who had accepted his damaged soul as his own and lived with that shard for so many years.       All night Marvolo replayed the conversation in his head, noting his mistakes and the boy’s reactions that were more important to point out. It was interesting to study him.       At breakfast, Harry wished Marvolo a good morning and sent him a wry but sincere smile. This was a good sign.

+++

      Severus Snape woke up in St Mungo’s ward and the first thing he did, despite his weakness, was ask for Kingsley Shacklebolt. There was no time to delay. The healers said that today was the last day of July. It was three whole months past.       “Severus.” Kingsley nodded with a bright smile. “Dumbledore’s portrait confirmed your innocence, so once you’re discharged, you’re free to go. Congratulations!”       “What about Potter?”       “He’s fine, according to his friends. Healthy, cheerful as can be. I haven’t seen him myself.” The auror shrugged. His brow furrowed into long creases. “Is something wrong, Severus?”       “Is he alive? Did the Dark Lord lose— What happened?”       Severus breathed deeply, the pain in his chest were preventing him from producing long sentences. He tried to understand what had happened, but the truth kept eluding him.       “Ah, you don’t know yet. It’s a long story, old friend, for another time.” Kingsley patted him on the knee and after looking around the ward for a suitable seat, sat down on a vacant chair. “Voldemort is no longer a threat.”       “Oh Merlin.”       “Marvolo Riddle, formerly known as Voldemort, had made a truce with the Ministry and the Order of the Phoenix. The war is over — the treaty came into effect a month ago. Potter became its guarantor. You should have seen how the Ministry was shaking over the delay—” Kingsley cleared his throat and returned his face to a serious expression. “The details are in the papers, I don’t have much time, unfortunately…”       “W-what?”       “Peace, Severus. No more casualties.” The auror frowned. “Pity about Potter, really. Nice bloke. Nevertheless, he is still in good spirits, he found some common ground with his husband. Studying now, preparing for his exams, so they said. The Dark Lord must have really changed if he cares about his progress.”       “It can’t be—”       “Get well, Severus,” Kingsley said in a reassuring tone and stood up. “Minerva can’t wait for you to return to Hogwarts, so gain strength!”       He left the ward, leaving Severus alone with his vague premonitions.       Potter had become a guarantor. A truce… The Dark Lord… Caring about Potter’s progress. Finding common ground with his husband. The realisation came suddenly, making Severus jump on the bed.       “What have you done, you moron?” Severus whispered, sinking back onto the pillows and closing his eyes. He had failed Dumbledore.       The war was over, and the Order of the Phoenix had lost it.