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When you have conquered the world, what more is there?Voldemort had no need to ask this question. He went through his days, quite at ease. His enemies were dead or imprisoned or cowering in whatever nations dared shelter them. His subjects did not trouble him and gave him the deference he deserved. Truly, Lord Voldemort was content.Thus, he remained untroubled, until he met a dead man in the middle of Diagon Alley, just outside the shuttered remains of Ollivander’s wand shop. He had no doubts of this man’s demise. He'd watched his body go up in smoke with relish. Voldemort dug the claws of his left hand deep enough into his palm to draw blood, as rage rose —hungry and keening —behind his teeth."You!" Voldemort spat, grasping him by the wrist and drawing him to a halt. "The likeness of Harry Potter is forbidden in all forms."The man gazed back, unblinking. "Why?"Voldemort snarled, tightening his grip enough that the bones of the impostor's wrist creaked. "Any use of Harry Potter's likeness is punishable by death.” With that, he Disapparated, dragging the foolhardy rebel —what else could he be?—along. He had no need of reinforcements. They would get in the way of justice.He threw the impostor to the unforgiving stone, where he lay with almost perfect stillness. Voldemort retreated to stand with his back to the farthest wall. If there was to be vomiting or blood-spilling, he didn’t want it spattering on his robes."Crucio! Tell me where the rest of your filthy rebel friends are." Heavy-handed, yes, but it was always best to start blunt, to exhaust them before the more intimate, fine-tuned inquiry."There is only me." The impostor seemed to shrug off the curse as if it had never been cast and rose into a sitting position, his hands resting palm up upon his knees. "I am Harry Potter.""Liar!" Voldemort raised his wand to cast again, but it flew from his hand at a motion from his prisoner's fingers and seemed to…vanish into thin air. Or had the prisoner tucked it away in his robes? Voldemort was unsure, for the motion had been almost too quick to catch.Wandless magic? Ah, now that was interesting. He could do it once, in the years before Horcruxes and experiments with magics of body and blood and soul had left him transformed from what he had been.Voldemort itched to wrap his hands around the impostor’s neck and shake him until he sang his secrets like an Augury. "What sort of wizard are you?"His prisoner smiled without mirth. "No wizard at all, these days."Curiosity winning out, Voldemort began to pace, his path bringing him ever closer to where his prisoner sat. "Tell me, or I shall take it from your mind.""Without your wand?""I always keep one in reserve." His old yew wand was holstered beneath his sleeve, on the off chance—impossible though it should have been—that someone won the Elder Wand from him."Do you want your wandless magic back?"How did he know?"It's gone forever," Voldemort murmured, coming to an abrupt halt. "This body is a marvel in many ways, but it cannot sustain what my first one could." With this body, he had broken free of his father’s face, had set aside all resemblance of human weakness, and yet invited new pains—in joints, in fingers—and he could never get properly warm.Potter rose to his feet, hands spread invitingly. "For a price, I can offer you three wishes.""What are you?" Voldemort repeated."I am the master of Death," Potter replied.He did not think to question the veracity of Potter's claim. The truth of it assaulted him: In the raw magic that emanated from Potter, suffusing the chamber; in Voldemort’s own lack of suspicion; and the Wand’s eagerness to leave him."Three wishes are arbitrary, then," Voldemort accused. "The master of Death is said to be nearly all-powerful."Potter chuckled, almost rueful. "If only it were arbitrary, but even the Master of Death is bound by magic’s fundamental laws. Gifts of magic must be given in threes, as the Hallows were. Would you rather I didn't offer any wishes and left you here to wonder what it is you could have had?""No," Voldemort admitted. "What is your price?""Your last horcrux."His last— he came to an abrupt halt. He felt his face go slack with horror and strove to school his expression into something unconcerned. "All right." (No no no, you fool! What are you doing? His thoughts were wild.) Voldemort withdrew it from its place at his hip and held it out, hilt first. "My first wish is true immortality, anyway."And if this was all some hoax put on by his enemies, he had given up his last, greatest artefact. But no, he would keep Potter—if Potter he truly was—here, at all costs."Of course. You will never truly die." Potter took the Sword of Gryffindor—once Horcrux bane, now Horcrux itself—and stowed it away in a pocket of his robes that disappeared as soon as he had placed it inside.Voldemort felt no different."What will your next wish be?" Potter asked, almost resigned. "Choose carefully. You will never have such an opportunity again.""My wandless magic." It didn't require any thought. "But not just that. I want all the magical abilities I had before." The innate, rudimentary Legilimency, for example."I can only give you that if you have a whole soul. You did not ask for that, only immortality."Voldemort shook his head, gazing around the bare room he had brought them to. There was nothing personal about it. Undecorated walls. Plainly curtained windows. He regretted his choice of interrogation chamber, for there was nothing to inspire wishes here."But you have taken my last horcrux," he protested. "I can't wish for a whole soul."Potter smirked. "That's absolutely right. So, what will it be, instead?"Voldemort did not reply. What more could he want? An hour ago, he had thought himself satisfied, but here was at once an opportunity and a denial; his attention was caught. What else was there to ask for?"Would you like any help in your decisions?" Potter broke into Voldemort's reverie.Voldemort stared at him. "Would I...like suggestions?" Preposterous! Potter had never been more than a lucky fool, until his luck had run out and he’d become an unlucky martyr. Suggestions? From him?"I'm ‘nearly all-powerful’, as you say," Potter continued. "And, given that, I may also know things you don't.""What sorts of things?" Voldemort leaned forward, feeling absurdly like a dog begging for scraps."Is that your second wish? Any knowledge I might possess?"Well, that was unexpectedly devious, almost Slytherin of him. Voldemort was impressed, despite himself. "Yes," he decided, unhesitating. "Show me what you will."And then they were no longer in the chamber. Voldemort's mouth opened, but he could not speak for the rush of air and the kaleidoscope of sounds and sights. Wait! he shrieked, but his teeth were stuck fast."You asked for knowledge," he heard Potter say—in his mind or in his ears, he could not tell. "Look, and know."The Forbidden Forest. Voldemort saw himself and Potter, facing off across an expanse of leaves and tree debris."I know what you are." And instead of casting his preferred curse, he cast a beast of flame that rushed from his wand on four fiery paws that swallowed Potter whole. (He had a another extant Horcrux. Potter dead was more valuable to him than Potter alive.)Voldemort had no time to protest, for in the next moment they were in what had once been the Ministry of Magic, but was now a ministry for one, and none would ever take it from him. "Harry Potter is dead. His likeness shall be banned from use, and all records of his existence shall be Vanished."Voldemort remembered this day. It had been his greatest achievement. The last of the resistance crushed, the prior government fully upended and remade in his chosen model—"I know all this! There's nothing to be learned.""You wished for my knowledge," Potter replied. "You should have been more specific."Voldemort bared his teeth in a snarl, but subsided to watch.The Ministry vanished, to be replaced with the Forest once more. But here, Voldemort cast his favorite curse. Potter fell; and moments later, Potter rose."What is this?" Voldemort choked.Potter cocked his head, that same awful smirk on his lips. "This is the world from which I came."Their surroundings contracted as if in Apparition, and Voldemort saw…A woman stood alone, her surroundings difficult to make out, messy brown curls falling about her face. "I have nothing to give," she said. Her companion was invisible to Voldemort's persistent searching. "I've got nothing more than a cat and an incomplete Hogwarts education.""You're hired," her companion said."What world—" Voldemort began."Yours." Potter's hand went over Voldemort's mouth. "So hush!"The woman walked through a corridor decorated with awards. Voldemort didn't recognize any of them. "Where?" But he stopped short.There was an archway, and within it fluttered a veil."I disbanded the Unspeakables!" Voldemort raged. "What is this?""Did you?" Potter looked at him with pity. Voldemort ground his teeth and clenched his fists. "They have their ways of hiding. Do you want to know what they're studying?""Of course." What a question!The veil hanging in the arch rose, leaving an opening between the crumbling stones. The woman looked into it, and a smile spread across her face. "I can work with this," she said. "I can work with this."The scene changed again. “Wait!” Voldemort snapped. “I want to see what it is she’s ‘working with’.”“Not yet.” Potter turned Voldemort to face him with uncomfortable ease, and Voldemort had not felt so small since the days he’d spent in Wormtail’s dubious care. Their eyes met.This was not the Harry Potter he remembered, not the boy he had killed. His expression was remote. A ring—an all-too-familiar ring he had last seen decades ago, now with a crack now running through the Stone’s center—weighed down his left hand. His eyes…His eyes were the same, but they were different. They were more, but he couldn’t understand just how. Voldemort felt dissected under that gaze.“What will you show me?” And now, he wondered if he shouldn’t have agreed to this bargain. He didn’t want to know.“The rest of the world you refuse to see.” And they were spiraling away once more. There was a gathering in a remote Rocky Mountain retreat, where European fugitive heads of state whispered closely with rebels he’d assumed dead. Just another one of the Americans’ interventionist plots, he concluded. They had not troubled him up to now. “Keep watching.” Potter’s grip tightened about his shoulders. A masked figure revealed their face, and it was his right hand.“How?” This was wrong. Bellatrix was one of the worst at Occlumency he had ever known, despite her brilliance in other areas. How could he have missed her betrayal?“He cannot be assassinated,” she was saying, her audience leaning close to catch every word: some with Dicta-Quills racing across pads of parchment, some typing on Muggle laptops, and still others sitting with hands folded in their laps and mouths hanging open. “Not outright. He claims immortality, and we have nothing more than suspicions as to what it is.”“But you are in his inner circle.” An older man, almost Dumbledorian in aspect, frowned, the wrinkles about his eyes deepening into grooves.“He trusts no one, not even his most loyal.”“You sound like nothing more than a woman scorned,” the old American continued.To Voldemort’s surprise, Bella did not curse him, instead settling for a raised eyebrow. “I’m your only source for most of this information. You won’t find another with access like mine.”"Traitor!" Voldemort exploded, shrugging out of Potter's grip. "I will trap her in her worst nightmares. I will make her beg for pain.""Who will replace her? Is there anyone who could?" Their surroundings coalesced into the cell in which they'd begun, and Voldemort began pacing once more."She would have succumbed to her mortality. There are always replacements.""Hmm." Potter massaged a spot on his forehead."I know everything I need to know," Voldemort decided. "I wish for—" But his voice failed him. He tried to speak again, but no sound emerged."Nope," Potter replied, popping the P, which Voldemort found absolutely obnoxious. "I decide when you've seen enough. You made your wish. You don't have a say in its consequences."Un-Silence me, brat! Voldemort mouthed. Potter ignored him.And they were back in the Death Chamber, the Veil's curtain fluttering as if in a high wind. "Bring forth the Master!" Voldemort heard, and the archway exploded in a cascade of splintering stone.There was the sound of galloping hooves, the feeling of universal implosion. Then with a final, shuddering boom, a figure on the back of a pawing thestral appeared in the midst of the archway's rubble."Why have you summoned me?" This was not the voice of a mere man, but of something far more.The curly-haired woman stepped forward. "W-We have nothing left. The Dark Lord has made a world in which no one can live. We're out of options. He can't be defeated. Please help us!"The thestral cantered forward, shaking the dust from its dark coat. Its rider raised their head—after murmuring “Whoa, Holly” into the thestral’s ear—to reveal the face of Harry Potter. The woman gasped. "Harry? But you're dead!""In this world." Potter gave a half-smile. "But only in this world." His expression softened. "Hermione, it's good to see you.""You can help us?" Hermione was crying, her hand held out. Potter took it."I'll do whatever I need to do.""Will you kill him?" Hermione asked.Potter considered her. "I will do what I need to do," he repeated.*"What in the name of god, Merlin, and Salazar do you want from me?" Voldemort interrupted, pleased to find he could speak again. "You are giving up my enemies' plans. You are showing me traitors I did not know of. This all seems like some ridiculous redemption ploy.""I don't intend to save you," Potter sighed. "Only them."In that moment, when Potter was gazing at him with something like pity and he knew that there was almost certainly no one powerful enough to help him, Voldemort regretted agreeing to this wish deal. But it was too late, as so many bouts of trenchant hindsight were, and he could do nothing. “Pick up the pace.”"Gladly. We're almost there."Bellatrix again. "I could bring you to him," she promised the august gathering of which she was a part. "We can't kill that bastard, but we can make him as helpless as a newborn baby.""That's sweet of you—" the old man began, but he was interrupted almost immediately by a hooded wix at the far end of the table."Captivity is the best we've got for now," they said, words falling with inexplicable weight."And you're the best for it, aren't you?" All those sitting near the wix were leaning as far from them as they could, a few with fingers clenched about their wands."I believe I am." The wix threw their hood back, to reveal Potter, yet again. He was everywhere.“Bella ran to the Order?” Voldemort queried as the scene faded away. “And conspired with your old friend to summon…you?”“There are far more traitors in your ranks than Bellatrix,” Potter replied.“Then I will weed them out!” Voldemort snarled. “They can’t hide from me—"“You would never have known of them, if not for me.”Voldemort shook his head from side to side. That couldn’t be true."Don't you see? They will never stop fighting you. No victory, not even yours, is final.” There was a weariness in Potter's voice that had not been there before. Studying him, Voldemort could now find a resemblance to the boy he had killed. So brave, so certain of the justice of what he did, so…(It wasn't quite weakness, if Lord Voldemort himself had been reduced to an impotent, helpless fool.)“I am immortal. They will always die.” He sounded desperate, even to himself. But what did that matter, if there was no one to live for him to rule over? What did it matter, if his empire was as ephemeral as the lives of its citizens?"What do you wish for?" Potter—Harry, he corrected himself, for what was the point of this distance if he had become his destiny—leaned close. Voldemort met him, his left hand reaching out to encircle the back of Harry's neck. He craved this power Harry had. He could not abide this… weakness."I wish to be what you are. I wish to have what you have."Harry’s eyes flashed in triumph and surprise, then he gave a smile that was disconcerting in its radiance. "So be it." The three words were thunderous, final, divine.There was a final moment in which Voldemort could have turned his head away, refused what followed before it was offered, but Harry’s scent and magic and…Their mouths collided.It was not, as Voldemort assured himself later, that kissing this otherworldly Harry Potter was a transcendent experience that he never could have imagined. No, certainly not. It was more that kissing this otherworldly Harry Potter was a transcendent experience, and he had no proper words for it.Harry tasted of ozone and magic and utterly human spit. It was not the sort of kiss Voldemort had read about in those morbidly curious moments of his earlier years, but that may have been due to the lack of a protruding nose on the part of one of the participants, and not that it was enjoyable. No, of course not."Goddammit, stop thinking and keep kissing me," Harry complained. Well, that wasn't difficult.Voldemort pulled back, short of breath. “What is it now?” Harry sighed."What is their plan? Where will it end?" Voldemort gasped."It is done. Don't you see? They begged me to take care of you, and I think I've pretty well accomplished it. You haven't got time to oppress them when you're pursuing the Master of Death.""I still want my vengeance.""No," Harry said, his voice going sharp. "I will never allow you that.""Then what—"Harry hushed him with another kiss, this time with teeth worrying his lower lip and the taste of his own blood. (Foul!) I'll save them from you, Voldemort heard. It's the very least I can do."There will be time for more of that, later." Harry ended the violent kiss, leaving dribbles of blood at the corners of Voldemort's mouth, which Voldemort wiped away peevishly with the sleeve of his robe. "But I can't stay here much longer. I have other places to be." Harry put two fingers in his mouth and gave a piercing whistle, and the thestral from the Death Chamber reappeared. Harry gave it a good scratching behind the ears in greeting, and it thudded its head against his shoulder, nickering."Get on behind me," Harry said, swinging a leg over the thestral's glossy back. Voldemort grimaced. It would mean lifting his robes above the knees. How plebeian."Oh please." Harry rolled his eyes. Sighing, Voldemort sat astride the thestral readjusting his robes—to reveal the dark pair of very Muggle trousers he wore underneath—and it began a slow, languid flapping of its wings."Bella will fill your place, you know. She's watched you a long, long time."Oh, now there was the understatement of the century. "May it ruin her," Voldemort bit out.The thestral picked up speed. The world churned them with sickening, chaotic spinning. Voldemort squeezed his eyes shut. When he opened them, they were in the Forest, yet again. "What is this?" he asked, swallowing down the urge to vomit from the abrupt motion."Another world," Harry said, "where your first lessons shall begin.”