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It is well known of true seers, and some select members of the Unspeakable, that tapestries woven by fate are terribly complex and intricated. Each work is unique, its beauty in threads of tragedy or violent passions, or soft genteelness.
Still, fate being its own, there are things that keep from work to work. A persistence of a sort, or the signature of a craftsman.
And there are things that change.
***
Lord Voldemort was well aware of who Harry Potter was.
Outcast of Slytherin house. Brooding, mildly intelligent individual. If the face he presented to his peers is anything to go by.
He wouldn’t have minded keeping an eye on the boy, if he could have spared any. But as things were, between worming himself back into British politics, the brewing war and Longbottom being a persistent thorn in his side, Potter had quite managed to escape the scrutiny he certainly deserved.
For he was, after all, the second candidate to stand as his prophesised enemy.
Not that the boy had shown any worrisome tendencies to oppose him. Yet.
Still, it remained that Potter was the one he had believed the prophecy was designating. A boy born a half blood, would have been... Fitting.
His decision to pay the Longbottom a visit first was the only thing that had kept the fate of Lord Voldemort and Harry Potter apart. Until today.
Voldemort twirled his wand between his long, pale finger, pensively considering how peculiar that Potter would seek him out of his own initiative.
Now that they were at the eve of the final battle of a war that had dragged too long on miserable hope and strokes of luck.
Whatever the Longbottom boy had been doing, he would be done hiding soon. Too many people were dying, too many relied on him to be a beacon of hope. If he waited any longer, this trust would be broken, and hope snuffed out.
The blurry snippets he got filtering from the Longbottom boy’s side of the connection were getting more confused and active. Battle was brewing.
The man that had brought him the new of Potter's arrival shifted, clearly anxious of his master’s mercurial mood.
‘Bring him in,’ Voldemort stated coldly.
Whatever Potter's game was, Voldemort was curious to see it play out. And for Potter's sake, he hoped the boy would not disappoint.
***
The young man was brought in by his follower and walked the length of the hall with a straight back and a weary look. Their steps echoed against the stone of the empty room, barren floor and walls letting the stonework show the remarkable architecture of the ancient house of the Malfoy family.
Despite the proud cut of his features, Potter collapsed without resistance when Avery shoved him to his knees, his dislike only showing in the thin line of his pressed lips.
The death eater presented Potter's wand to his master before bowing and taking his leave.The door shut behind him with a definitive sound, and the two wizards were left alone. The low light of the day draped the room in dying hues, giving the dark lord an air of majesty as he took his time to leisurely examining Potter’s wand.
Most wizards would be uncomfortable seeing such a personal artefact in the hands of another. Wands were fused to their owner's magic after countless hours spend pouring power through the conduct. Wands usually felt like dead wood, or wrong to any other wizard than their owner's. Especially spunky ones would zap or burn foreign hands. The prickle of familiarity that ran along Voldemort's arm was therefore entirely unexpected. Not a recognition as such. But a form of acknowledgement.
How peculiar.
Voldemort's eyes snapped up to the owner of this curiosity with newly piqued interest.
Harry Potter was keeping his gaze respectfully lowered in front of him, but a coiled tension in his back showed the young man was smart enough to be uncomfortable in presenting his neck to the most powerful Dark Lord of their generation.
Voldemort slowly approached the Potter heir, circling his guest like the tightening coils of a great serpent and taking in every side of the peculiar creature that had willingly thrown itself into his maw.
‘Harry Potter,’ he tasted the name, ‘what purpose does the heir of such a powerful light line have in seeking me out, I wonder?’
The young man kept respectfully silent, waiting patiently for Voldemort to come round and face him again. Long, thin pale fingers reached out to grab his jaw and force him to raise his head and meet the lord’s crimson gaze.
‘What purpose has Dumbledore’s pet in throwing himself amongst his enemy?’ Voldemort asked lightly, tilting his head inquisitively to the side.
The mention of Dumbledore had the boy’s green eyes flares with a poisonous fire.
‘I am not Dumbledore’s pet,’ the boy seethed, showing his temper was on a short leash.
Voldemort clenched his hand in a vicious, punishing grip on the boy’s jaw. To Potter’s credit, it hardly made him flinch.
‘Don’t lie to me, Potter. I know Dumbledore has been grooming you in case Longbottom’s luck ever comes to fail him.’ He released his jaw and let his hand wander in a mockery of caress on his cheek. ‘How does it feel, Harry, to be brought up as a replacement to the Chosen One?’ The Dark Lord asked derisively.
‘Dumbledore,’ Potter spat the name with disgust, ‘has not been doing any grooming since I was old enough to ask after my magical guardian. He had a couple things to answer for then that he never quite made up to me.’
Voldemort hummed pensively and took a step back, quizzically considering the boy kneeled before him. His eyes were hard for one so young. His soul was cold, and Voldemort could taste his barely contained fury in the flurry of his magic.
It was strong. Strong enough to be a problem if Potter decided to hone his skill and rank against him in a decade or so.
He should kill him now and be done with him.
Yet…
Voldemort gave a twirl to his wand, looking as Potter’s eyes flickered there to fix on it, as he could sense the thin thread his life was balancing on.
‘You would have me believe that at the eve of the brewing battle, you have chosen to switch side?’ Voldemort asked his tone woven with mocking disbelief. ‘Most would wait until the dust is settled to stand by the victor.’
‘I have a bone to pick with the light, my lord. There are some people I would not want to stand victor when the dust settle,’ Harry answered coldly. ‘My allegiance is yours, if you would have it,’ he finally offered carefully.
‘The light has grieved me gravely,’ he continued in the face of Voldemort’s ensued silence. ‘As a child, and each year of my life since. I am done with empty promises. I won’t stand their victory.’ His eyes flickered up to meet Voldemort’s. ‘I know the price you ask of your followers. I am ready to pay. I want to serve.’
Potter’s words were sweet to his ear, but Lord Voldemort never forgot that the deadliest traps were often crafted with the sweetest baits.
With inhuman speed, Voldemort grabbed onto Potter’s black hair and tugged his head back violently, breathing in his magic and tasting the edge of his mind.
‘Harry, Harry, Harry,’ he murmured. ‘I am going to wreck through every corner of your mind, and I hope for your sake that you are not attempting to foil me. If I find any shadow of falsehood,’ he added, locking his second hand on the boy’s throat, ‘you will beg for my cruciatus to end you long before I am done with you.’
Harry screamed when the Dark Lord dived into his mind, and he screamed until his voice broke and he taste of blood coated his tongue.
***
Hogwarts.
Alight with the fires of the battle, its mighty gates in ruin.
Who would pay attention to a lonely, and forgettable Harry Potter, making his way to the front of the crowd, when Neville Longbottom, the bloody Chosen One, was battling in a final duel the Dark lord of their age?
Against the skin of his forearm the Dark Mark burned, but only so much as his hatred for those people.
Those who had let him rot his whole childhood under the hand and abuses of his muggle relatives, who left him like a puppet on a shelve, to take dust in wait of finding a use to him.
Useless.
They were all useless.
Only Tom had found him and seen through his cloak of lies and into his heart.
And he had made a promise to Tom, a promise to the diary he had preciously kept hidden since his second year. A promise that he was still to fulfil.
When spells were finally fired, Fate again twisted the odds. For some inexplicable reason, his Lord’s wand turned against him, and his own curse struck him in the chest.
Nagini trashed against her invisible prison, desperate to strike and avenge her fallen master.
Harry wasn’t bound. And nobody ever paid attention to him.
His whole fury pooled in the darkest spell he had yet casted, and in a smooth arc a bolt of sickly, poisonous green light hit Neville right at the base of his skull.
Yells echoed through the crowd, still dumbstruck of the duel, and now thrown in the throws of a new panic.
With a snarl, Harry apparated by his lord’s body, right as Voldemort’s magic finally failed and Nagini was released. She coiled possessively around them, and Harry disappeared in a flash before the first spell could catch him.
***
Fate took a thick thread as black as night and set back to work.