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If Harry had to name her favorite thing about Voldemort's newest home, a gift from one of her eager-to-please followers, she wouldn’t hesitate.
The garden is lovely.
The library is incredible.
Hell, even the floors are beautiful, covered in sprawling mosaics that stretch from one wing of the manor house to the next.
But none are as nice as this, she thinks as she leans her head back against the edge of the tub. In the five months since she first swept in through the open window of Voldemort’s study, finally accepting the offer made years ago, she’s taken more baths than in all her years previous.
With a pleased sigh, she sinks lower in the tub and lets her eyes drift shut. Just for a moment, she tells herself as the heat leeches all her worries away.
Just a moment longer, just to rest for a little while.
The next time Harry opens her eyes, it’s to the sight of Voldemort watching her from the doorway. Harry watches her back, a familiar, giddy warmth spreading in her chest at the sight of her.
“How long’ve you been standing there?” she asks.
Voldemort shrugs, carelessly elegant in a way that still manages to catch Harry off guard. “Not long,” she says as she steps forward, bare feet near silent on the marble floor. “You look comfortable.”
Harry sighs happily, lets herself sink lower in the tub until the water reaches her chin. “I was.”
“Shall I leave?”
“No, thank you,” Harry says with a grin. She bends one leg, enough that her knee pokes out of the water. “Join me?”
“Hmm.” Voldemort tilts her head, eyes narrowing as she considers. “I’d hate to disturb your rest.”
“Too late,” Harry says, laughing.
“I won’t fit.”
Harry sits up, presses back against the tub and pulls her legs to her chest. “There’s room.”
“I’m covered in filth.”
For all that the dark robe she wears covers most of her body, Harry knows this is true by the sight of her hands alone. There’s dirt beneath her nails, as if she’s been digging in the garden Harry keeps. Although, knowing her lover, she doubts the explanation is so innocent.
“Good thing this is a bathtub,” Harry says. She gestures to the array of fancy soaps that Voldemort, closet hedonist that she is, always keeps well stocked. “It’s got soap and everything.”
Voldemort sighs. “Brat,” she mutters, looking away.
Harry isn’t too offended; her voice is fond.
“You don’t have to,” she says, because she thinks it’s important she does. “I’d like it, that’s all.”
Voldemort sighs again, but this time Harry knows she’s won.
She looks down at the water, smiling when she hears the whisper of Voldemort’s robes falling to the floor. The water ripples as Voldemort steps into the bath, settling without a splash.
When she looks up again, Voldemort is sitting opposite her in the tub, looking like an odd, spindly gargoyle as she tries to fold her limbs enough that they fit beneath the water. Harry watches her, unabashed, and trails her hand across the edge of the tub, imagines it’s Voldemort’s spine beneath her fingers instead.
“Now what?” Voldemort asks, voice flat as she hunches forward.
Harry uncurls, just a little, and scoots forward.
“Give me your hand?” she asks, offering her own, palm up.
Voldemort spares her a skeptical look, but she does as Harry asks. Slowly, carefully, Voldemort rests one hand in hers, and Harry feels the usual jolt of interest, of pleasure, at seeing the contrast of Voldemort’s long, thin hand against her own. Where Harry’s hands are scarred, fingers bent just so after breaking them too many times against too many faces without the aid of magic to heal them, Voldemort’s are elegant in an alien sort of way, as carefully sculpted as the rest of her pale, jutting body.
Holding her breath, Harry dips Voldemort’s hand in the warm water, massaging the back of her hand with her thumbs. For all that Lord Voldemort is quite possibly the strongest magic user in all of Britain, her hand feels oddly fragile cradled between her own.
She feels as if she’s holding a small bird, as if one wrong press of her fingers could snap its wings.
Swallowing past the sudden lump in her throat, Harry forces herself to breathe again.
With careful focus, she lifts Voldemort’s hand from the water, traces lightly across her knuckles as water drips back to the tub and bites her lip when Voldemort’s fingers twitch at the touch. Her nails are more like talons at the end of each finger, dark and slightly curved, perfectly shaped for tearing into flesh.
These, too, Harry treats with care.
She grabs a small bar of soap with one hand, the other cradling Voldemort’s hand still. Slowly, gently, she cleans the dirt from beneath each nail, heart beating faster at every near-silent hitch in Voldemort’s breath.
She releases Voldemort’s hand just long enough to lather her own with soap, and then she takes hold of it once more. “I love your hands,” she says.
Voldemort scoffs, but it’s half-heated at best.
“You don’t believe me?” Harry asks as she massages soap-covered fingers between Voldemort’s own, across her palm, down her wrist.
“You shouldn’t,” Voldemort says.
“And why’s that?” Harry asks as she dips Voldemort’s hand in the water one last time, rinsing the soap away.
“You know what they’ve done. Is that not enough?”
“Hmm.” Harry takes Voldemort’s other hand, lifts it to her lips and presses a kiss to her fingertips, though her nails are still stained with dirt and what might be blood. “I know what you’ve done, yes.”
Voldemort’s whole hand twitches, as if she wants to snatch it back.
Harry grins, bites at one of Voldemort’s knuckles. “Don’t tell me what to do.”
“Harry—”
“I’ll love your hands as I please, yeah?”
Voldemort looks away. “As you say.”
Knowing a losing battle when she sees one, Harry turns back to her task. One day, she tells herself. One day, she’ll profess her love and Voldemort won’t doubt her. At the thought of it, she has to bite back a smile. They have time, after all. They’ll get there.
Once she’s finished, she lets Voldemort retreat back to the far end of the tub, where she holds her hands curled tight against her chest. “Satisfied?” Voldemort asks.
“Well, that depends,” Harry tells her.
“On?” Voldemort asks, sounding resigned already, though she doesn’t know what Harry’s about to say. A fair reaction, Harry thinks with a grin.
“On whether you’ll let me get away with more.”
Voldemort sighs, but when Harry gestures for her to turn around, she does.
She rises up onto her knees and grabs another bar of soap. With measured strokes, she washes as much of Voldemort’s body as she can reach, from the knobs of her spine to the flat panes of her chest. Once all that remains is her head and neck, Harry lathers her hands once more and rubs them firmly against Voldemort’s neck then up across her scalp.
At the first firm touch to her scalp, Voldemort moans, and the sound echoes. Then her shoulders tense, as if she’s embarrassed by the sound, by the sensitivity she goes to such great lengths to hide.
Harry only grins and keeps working until slowly, so slowly she wouldn’t notice if she hadn’t done this countless times before, Voldemort begins to relax again.
“I love the way you moan for me,” Harry says, digging her fingers into Voldemort’s nape until she sways back, letting Harry take her weight.
“Don’t—” Voldemort says, only to cut herself off with a hiss.
Harry hums in response, presses a kiss behind Voldemort’s ear as she halts her massage and lifts her hands away, giving Voldemort a moment to recover.
“I’ve got you,” she says, “take your time.”
For a long while, Voldemort only breathes. Then, she whirls to face Harry, looming over her and sending water splashing over the edge of the tub, her lips pulled back in a snarl. “Why are you doing this?”
Harry sighs, fond. “Because I want to.”
“Liar,” Voldemort hisses, trembling.
Harry can’t say she’s surprised by this response, but it’s been a while since Voldemort has had such a strong reaction to vulnerability. She’d hoped… Well. It doesn’t matter.
“It’s true.”
“You’re a fool.”
“Maybe.” She reaches forward, presses one hand over Voldemort’s heart and feels its beat flutter against her palm. “I still love you.”
Voldemort hisses again, as if the words are a knife to the gut. “You can’t.”
“Why not?” Harry asks, voice soft.
“Look at me,” Voldemort commands.
And Harry does; she lets her gaze drag over Voldemort’s pale frame, all its angles and unnatural parts. Beneath drops of water, the scales that dust across her ribs and shoulders glisten. The red of her eyes is bright, burning.
Harry meets her eyes again, but whatever Voldemort expected to see, it isn’t there.
With a snarl, she grabs Harry’s hand where it’s pressed to her chest and lifts it to her face, until Harry can feel her too-sharp cheekbones beneath her hand, the slits of her nose, her thin lips.
“You can’t,” Voldemort says again, softer this time.
Harry softens in turn, lets the beginnings of a glare, of a lecture, slip away. She presses her hand flat to Voldemort’s cheek, traces her thumb across her jaw. She says, “I can.”
Voldemort snarls again, wordless. She lets go of Harry’s hand, and Harry lets it fall back to her lap. She waits.
“I made this body to be powerful,” Voldemort tells her.
“I know, and you are” She tilts her head, watches the rise and fall of Voldemort’s chest, remembers all the times she’s laid her head upon that chest and listened to the sound of her heart beating. “You can be beautiful, too.”
Voldemort scoffs, an ugly sound. “Spare me,” she says dryly, “I know what I look like. I know what they all think, what they see when they—”
Harry interrupts before she can get too far. For all her pride, Lord Voldemort is a creature prone to fierce insecurity. She always has been.
It’s best to stop her early.
“I like your body,” Harry says, and she means it. She nudges one foot forward, until she can curl her toes along Voldemort’s thigh and press their legs together. “You made it, and it’s beautiful ”
“How could you possibly—”
“It’s yours,” Harry says.
She braces her feet against the tub on either side of Voldemort’s hips and grips her legs, just below each knee. Before Voldemort can catch on, she pulls, until Voldemort slides toward her, close enough for Harry to tuck her head beneath her chin.
“It’s yours,” Harry says again. She curls her hands over Voldemort’s hips, up her ribs and across her back to cup her shoulders, holding her close, until their chests are pressed together and she can feel Voldemort breathe. “That’s enough.”
Before long, they drift mostly apart again, sitting at either side of the tub with their legs folded together in the middle.
Before her, Voldemort is finally relaxed, basking in the heat of the water that will never go cold, thanks to the enchantments on the tub. Her eyes are closed, so Harry takes advantage, looking her fill.
“Stop looking at me like that,” Voldemort says eventually, voice soft and eyes heavy-lidded. Harry bites her lip, smiling and trying not to.
“Like what?” she asks.
Voldemort’s mouth curls in a snarl, as if she’s afraid Harry might be laughing at her. This fear is a persistent one, and Harry finds she can’t blame her for it. So she weathers it as she always does, until she can put something new in its place. Voldemort leans forward, then, the sudden move sending water splashing over the edge of the tub, until she’s close enough to touch. Harry holds herself still; she doesn’t flinch.
Voldemort lifts one hand to her cheek, presses her thumb against Harry’s bottom lip. Usually, her lover’s hands are cold, but the heat of the bath has made them warm.
She stares, eyes wide and gleaming red.
Harry lets her. She waits, patient. Fond.
“Like that,” Voldemort says, quiet.
Harry grins, and Voldemort’s thumb slips, presses against her teeth. “Ah, well. In that case, I’m afraid I can’t help it,” she says. “Sorry.”
Voldemort scoffs. “No you’re not.”
“No,” Harry agrees, “I’m not.”
Voldemort reaches forward, grips the back of Harry’s neck and pulls her forward, until she’s straddling Voldemort’s thighs with her face pressed into her shoulder.
“What’re you doing?” Harry asks, voice muffled against Voldemort’s skin.
“If you won’t stop looking at me like that,” Voldemort says, imperious, “You can do it where I can’t see it.”
Harry laughs, wriggles closer until she can wrap her arms around Voldemort’s shoulders in a proper hug. “I love you,” she says again, because she never tires of it, and because it’s true.
Voldemort stills, but she doesn’t push Harry away.
“I—” Voldemort stops before she can say anything more. She wants to hide, Harry knows, or maybe break something. But instead, she keeps holding Harry close.
“It’s okay,” Harry says, and this is also true, “Just tell me you know.”
“I do,” Voldemort says. “I do know, only…”
“I know.” She pulls away, enough that she can cradle Voldemort’s face in her hands and press a kiss to the corner of her mouth. “It’s alright.”
And it is alright, Harry thinks.
And maybe, one day, it’ll be better.