TITLE: Lord Voldemort and the Ill-fated Dinner Party

AUTHOR: Lady K. d’Azrael
PAIRINGS: Harry/Voldemort, Lucius/Blaise, Draco/OOC
RATING: M
NOTES: Sequel to ‘Harry Potter and the Jealous Husband’ and ‘Lord Voldemort and the Shrewish Spouse’. For some reason Blaise Zabini seems to be channelling the spirit of Anthony Blanche: ‘Where do you lurk? I shall come and chivvy you out like a st-st-stoat.’ Drunk Harry’s dialogue is just a transcript of my friend Laura most nights after work, so I ought to dedicate this to her and her favourite game: ‘I can see you! Bang!’

“So glad you could come,” said Lord Voldemort, opening the door to his semi-detached house in the London hinterlands and taking Blaise Zabini’s hat and coat.

Blaise ran a hand back through his dark hair. “I couldn’t refuse the invitation of the Dark Lord. It would be very un-Slytherin of me, not to mention possibly fatal.”

“Don’t be silly, my husband would never forgive me if I killed one of his schoolmates.”

A clatter of pans came from the direction of the kitchen followed by a stream of colourful and vehement swearing.

“Harry,” Voldemort explained. “always persuades himself that its no trouble to cook for eight people and lives to regret it.”

Blaise laughed. “I suppose he won’t let you help him.”

“Apparently I get in the way; it just makes him more cross. Really it’s best to keep at a safe distance until he’s finished. Besides,” Voldemort added, leading Blaise to a chair, “my job is to do the washing up.”

“I never thought I’d heard Lord Voldemort say that,” Blaise said, half to himself.

“Believe me, I never thought I’d marry a nagging half-blood. Life is strange and bitterly ironic. Red or white?”

“Oh, white please.”

Voldemort poured Blaise a glass from the open bottle of white that sat on the table resting in its cooler jacket.

“It’s a Frascati. I know nothing about wine, but Harry’s crony Bez insists that it’s ‘to die for’.” The reported speech was embellished with a camp intonation. “How are things between you and Lucius?”

“Oh, he’s a grumpy old bastard at the minute. I think he’s jealous.” Blaise smiled. “I expect he thinks it isn’t fair that I should befriend the Dark Lord in five minutes while he’s spent the best years of his life licking up to you, to no avail.”

Voldemort settled back in his chair and crossed his legs. “He should have learned from Wormtail’s example that toadying gets you nowhere. He should also know that I’m not an idiot and that nothing on earth would ever persuade me to trust Lucius any further than I could throw him.”

“Somehow I feel I should stand up for my lover,” said Blaise, without actually doing so. He didn’t think that having a nice arse was really an all-superseding virtue.

“Oh, don’t get me wrong,” added Voldemort, “I think Lucius is a shining example of wizarding aristocracy: handsome, rich, inbred, treacherously self-promoting . . .”

“All power to the pure-bloods,” muttered Blaise, with palpable irony; Voldemort only laughed in response. “Hey, that reminds me – whatever happened to your mud-blood enslaving crusade?”

“Harry,” said Voldemort flatly, but with only a negligible trace of bitterness.

“Are you blaming me for all the ills of the world again, Voldie?” asked Harry, who was carrying a long plate of wheaten bread topped with smoked salmon, black pepper and wedges of lemon through to the dining table.

“Not all of them, mi amor.” Voldemort blew him a kiss.

“Hi Blaise!” Harry called as he bustled back into the kitchen.

“You two are such a funny couple,” Blaise commented warmly and with slight envy, “I mean, however did that happen?”

Voldemort rolled his eyes. “Long story.”

“Go on, indulge me,” Blaise prompted.

Voldemort thought about his husband, all Harry had meant to him in the past and the strange and violent, vacillating emotions he inspired. How could he ever explain these things? He couldn’t; they were so intimate that he wouldn’t want to even if he could. So, he would tell the dinner-table version, the version that skimmed the facts and was peppered with witty details:

“Well,” Voldemort sighed, “It was a long time ago now that that old coot Dumbledore popped his clogs – not in glorious battle, as was reported by those hacks in the Daily Prophet – I can only lament that I never had the pleasure in defeating him myself. No, he shuffled off his mortal coil by choking on a sherbet lemon.”

“There’s a lesson for the kids,” commented Blaise sagely.

“Indeed. So, the Order of the Phallus was in disarray, and Harry had this bright idea. You know how Harry, as a headstrong and angry teen, thought he could save everyone? Well, he had the conceit to think that my obsession was not world domination, but to kill him . . . honestly, like I was Captain fucking Ahab or something! And you know, at the time he was ‘seeing’ that brat Malfoy, so he persuaded the little blond-haired gimp to turn him in, all heroic and Christ-like. Much to his dismay, I simply threw him in my deepest dungeon and continued to enslave all of wizard kind.”

Blaise laughed. “Bet that fettled him.”

Voldemort sighed. “Temporarily. The things is, that power is intoxicating; it makes you do stupid things you’re not proud of. Well . . . with hindsight I can’t pretend that I regret it; I’m only one of the millions throughout history who’ve foolishly and against their better judgement sacrificed their careers for love. Anyway, so instead of chaining Potter up and hitting him with a double-strength Avada Kedavra, I decided I’d spend the better part of my mornings taunting him.” Voldemort rubbed his temples at the recollection of his own foolish arrogance.

Here the story diverged from the truth, or rather it became airborne and skimmed the surface of the deep and murky truth. Voldemort liked to think about how strange and unbalanced Harry was, but he himself in those days had skated the brink of madness perpetually; it was Harry he had to thank for drawing him back, for when he had been punch-drunk with power and had thought himself a god among men Harry’s defiance, his sharp argumentative nature, had brought Voldemort back, had forced him to engage once more with reason.

“Now at first it was all the standard stuff, crowing about how I would finally kill him, what I was going to do with his friends and mudbloods in general . . . oh , and he would get so angry. You should see Harry when he’s angry – he gets all flushed and pouty, and his green eyes glint like sharp-faceted emeralds. And . . . well, I think I got off on it. And the obsession grew – I tried to get him angrier and angrier, I wanted to defeat him, to break him-” at this point Voldemort’s engrossing narrative was interrupted by the doorbell.

He opened the door and glowered at Harry’s first guests. It was Weasley and Weasley-Granger. He ushered them in with minimal hospitality and the four of them were forced to make small talk. Next to arrive was Draco the hateful ex, then Bez and his latest floozy, some munter of the first water, named Chris, or Mark or Dave or something. They were always called something like that, something four-lettered and instantly forgettable, which was handy, since Bez never managed to hold on to them very long. Voldemort thought that it was Chris, but he wouldn’t risk using first names just in case.

“Hey Lord Voldemort,” chirped Bez, who thought it was ‘cute’ to call him that, “is Harry in the kitchen?”

“Yes. I wouldn’t venture in if I were you. You’ll only get sworn at for your trouble.”

“Don’t be silly Voldie,” Harry said, appearing behind him with that uncanny knack he had to enter the conversation just as he was being talked about, “I don’t shout at my friends. Ooh, is that for me?”

“Course it is.” Bez handed Harry a bottle of wine.

“Tokay? That’s so thoughtful. I’ll chill it and we can have it with dessert.”

Bez introduced the floozy: “Oh Voldie, this is Dave.”

“We’ve met.”

“No you haven’t, that was Mark.”

“Oh, sorry. I have a very bad memory for faces.” Voldemort addressed this remark to . . . oh, was it Mark? Dave? Chris? Maybe . . . John?

“I didn’t catch your name,” said the floozy, frowning.

“It’s Lord Voldemort.”

“Wow, are you a real lord?”

“Voldie,” Harry interjected, “stop showing off, we all know you’re the Dark Lord. Put the wine in the fridge.”

Voldemort glared at his husband and Harry pacified him with a cheeky smile and a brief kiss. When Voldemort returned he sat next to Blaise on the sofa.

“Do you mind if I smoke?” Blaise was already half-way down a clove cigarette; Voldemort admired his insouciance.

“Not at all. Shall I introduce you?”

Blaise shrugged. “If you must: I’m not that bothered.”

“Neither am I,” Voldemort confided, “they’re Harry’s friends.”

“Oh yeah, so you were saying?”

“Hmm? Oh yes, where were we?”

“I think Harry was hanging in shackles and you were taunting him.”

”Kinky,” said Draco, who was eavesdropping.

“This doesn’t concern you, Malfoy,” said Voldemort, irritated.

“Hey Draco,” called Blaise sweetly, “your father sucked my cock last night, is that where you got your sweet mouth?”

“Aww,” Harry said, sitting on the edge of Bez’s chair. “Look – Voldie has a friend of his very own.”

Blaise continued to bait Draco until they took their places around the table.

“Thing is,” Voldemort continued, “even then Harry fascinated me. I didn’t realise we had anything in common, you know, other than being parselmouths . . .”

‘But you knew I had a sweet arse – just like you do,’ said Harry in their esoteric snake-language.

Voldemort found it irresistible when Harry spoke Parseltongue, like other people do when they hear French or Italian; just watching Harry’s petal-soft lips forming hissing sibilants got him in the mood.

‘Ah, my love, wear your skirt for me later?’

“No Parseltongue in company,” said Hermione. “It’s rude.”

‘Harry, I think she knows I use it to call her a mudblood bint at the table.’

Harry laughed at this, despite himself.

“What language is that?” the floozy asked. “Russian?”

Blaise rolled his eyes; Voldemort didn’t need to be an expert in legilimency to know that most people around the table were thinking ‘idiot’.

Harry bravely took it upon himself to chat to the floozy, Bez was irritating Draco by arguing about whether the London gay scene was dead or not, and whether Manchester was the new London, Hermione and Ron were having some kind of marital spat about some unwanted relative coming to stay, so Voldemort deemed it safe to continue his narrative.

“The thing was, the arguments Harry and I were having sort of evolved beyond simple trading of insults. I kept demanding he justify his point of view. He would say ‘You’re a monster: killing muggle-borns is wrong.’ And I’d say ‘Why? What do they contribute to wizarding society?’.

“He’d counter with: ‘You’re a hypocrite, your own father was a muggle.’

“I’d say: ‘Yes, and look how he treated his wife and son. It wasn’t my fault I was born into such an ignoble family.’

“Harry would reply: ‘Yes, you’re right, it wasn’t your fault – just as it isn’t anyone else’s fault if they’re muggle-born. You can’t persecute people because of things they cannot change – it’s genocide.’

“‘Ah,’ I’d say, ‘but that’s exactly it. We must stop the interbreeding, we must keep the muggles apart and in their place. To do otherwise, as in my case, causes inevitable tragedy.’

“‘It causes tragedy because you create tragedy with your murderous campaigns!’”

Voldemort’s impression of Harry was high and tremulous, not because Harry sounded this way in reality (Harry’s voice was reassuringly deep and masculine), but because it served to undermine his reported speeches.

“‘No, it is inevitable,’ I would tell him, ‘Muggles have never accepted us and never will. They make us hide in the shadows like rats, when we are the ones with the power – we are the ones who have the right to rule.’

“‘You’re a monster!’ he would cry, with such emotion that it would almost convince me . . . and so, after a while it grew inconvenient to have Harry chained up in the dungeon – there were just so many stairs – so I decided to have him roaming at large in my home, which at that time was the ruins of Hogwarts.”

“Come on Tom,” interjected the Harry of the present, who had been listening to the story with one ear (since the floozy’s banal conversation wasn’t terribly taxing on his intellect), “tell him exactly what you did next.”

“There’s no need for such crass details, is there my love?”

Harry raised an eyebrow. “Go on, tell him about the ‘declawing’.”

“Declawing?” Blaise asked.

“Well . . . I couldn’t very well have an enemy wizard at liberty in the house, especially one as powerful as Harry . . . so I . . . I drained his power.”

“Permanently?” Blaise had a shocked look; a wizard couldn’t suppress such an expression at this revelation.

“Yes. Harry calls it ‘declawing’, like with cats . . .”

The blood had drained from Blaise’s face, and also the eavesdropping Malfoy’s.

“That’s harsh, Lord Voldemort,” Draco said quietly, “I mean, I know he’s was an enemy, but still.”

For possibly the first time in his life, Lord Voldemort felt shamed. He thought of the day he had done it: he hadn’t intended to drain the young wizard’s power, for he had confidence in the impenetrable wards he had erected, but then Harry had said something that cut him close to the bone. Still rubbing his wrists, which had been so long chained Harry had looked up at Voldemort and said with all the considerable venom a teenager could summon: “I suppose I should be grateful.”

“How did you manage it? I didn’t think that was even possible,” Blaise said in a low voice.

Voldemort’s reply was a muffled whisper, from which only the words ‘complicated’ and ‘painful’ could be discerned.

“The funny thing is,” said Harry chirpily, “I’m sort of glad about it.”

“Glad?” said the wizards and witch present, all attention having turned to the story. The floozy was looking on with a creased forehead, and it was obvious to all that he was about to ask a spectacularly ignorant question.

“Yeah . . . I mean, the only good thing that ever came out of me having magic was being able to leave the Dursley’s house and going to Hogwarts. Other than that, all my powers ever brought was trouble.” Harry got up and took up the starter plates. As he was halfway out the door, he added: “Once they were gone I didn’t have to worry about being the saviour of the wizarding world, I was just me again.”

Voldemort looked at the company and moved his index finger in circles by his head, making the universal sign for ‘what a loony’. The other dinner guests (apart from the floozy, who was still considering how to phrase his stupid comment) glared at him.

“What?” Voldemort snapped, “Oh come on! I’m the Dark Lord, what the hell did you expect? The thing that continues to amaze me is that I didn’t kill him and have done with it. Or keep him chained as a catamite, which was my original plan. ”

“Why didn’t you?” Blaise asked.

Ah, now there was a question.

“Because I was falling in love with him. Or at the very least, developing some kind of weird and unhealthy crush. As you may have noticed, Harry is a very attractive young man . . .”

“With a very attractive young arse,” Harry reminded him, from the kitchen.

Voldemort had even then possessed a piquant desire for him, and had indeed thought about keeping him for a catamite. He had had visions of Harry sprawled out on his bed with a smouldering look that expressed both desire and resentment, aroused despite his logical objections. The painful truth was that despite all Voldemort’s blustering intentions of using the young man to satisfy his every perverted whim, he had found that the idea of forcing himself on Harry was abhorrent. He remembered, while Harry was still imprisoned, touching him once and seeing Harry shudder with revulsion. Voldemort didn’t want that - not from Harry – in his fantasies Harry always reciprocated, was yielding and wild with lust. Rape would have distressed Voldemort almost as much as it would have his ‘catamite’, and that surprised him. He wanted to be hard and intractable, to force Harry in line with his desires, but even then there was a strange grey-area in Voldemort’s black and white mind reserved for Harry.

Voldemort smiled. “Yeah, that too. And well, I married him, so I might admit that he has a certain . . . je ne sais quoi . . . about him. Something I see in him, some sort of inner light, that I’ve never known in anyone else. Maybe that’s how it always is with your soul mate . . .” Voldemort broke off here, distracted by Draco’s look of utter disgust. Only Bez looked like he appreciated the sentiment. He was glancing sidelong at the floozy, most probably lamenting his poor choice.

“So Harry was mooching around the castle, at first avoiding me like the plague, but then – I suppose out of loneliness, he started to seek me out, under the pretext of continuing our arguments.”

“Do you remember, Tom,” Harry said, setting down two plates, one before Draco, the other his husband. He paused with his hand on Voldemort’s shoulder. “We used to sit up in your living room to all hours, listening to Bach on that old stereo you had charmed, and we’d drink brandy and argue until it descended to us yelling at each other?”

Voldemort smiled. “Bits of it. I was quite drunk a lot of the time.”

There was a break in the story as everyone got their main courses and began eating; it was Harry’s homemade penne al puttanesca.

Voldemort remembered much more than he let on to his husband. He remembered being an embarrassingly morose drunk, telling Harry earnestly about his childhood. In return, Harry told him about the cupboard under the stairs and all the stock neglected child trauma.

“How is it you don’t hate muggles? I mean they treated you like something subhuman, and you could have taught them a lesson with a simple cruciatus, made them your slaves . . .”

“But,” Harry looked up at him from his place on the floor with the brandy threatening to slop over the sides of his glass as he lolled, “I didn’t want to! They were just some ignorant muggles – they were frightened of me. I’m really sorry Tom-” this was the first time he called Voldemort by his real name “- that your dad didn’t understand and that he hurt you, but you see,” Harry gestured emphatically, some of the brandy was lost overboard, “he was scared, just like my aunt and uncle, scared of what we could do to them. Muggles, the ignorant ones, they’re just so frightened of what we might do to them, and they don’t understand, we don’t fit in their plan . . . and I figure, maybe the other way round is true – maybe you don’t understand them.”

“You’re rambling,” Voldemort had said, laughing. “You’re drunk.”

“No no – serious, deadly serious!” Harry insisted, prodding Voldemort’s thigh. “Listen to me!” Even then Harry had no head for drink. “Let’s dance,” he cried resolutely, staggering to his feet. The charmed record player played a hissing, crackling waltz. ‘How fucking romantic,’ Voldemort thought in retrospect, as images of himself steering a drunken youth with absolutely no training in ballroom dancing round the room.

“You’re good at this,” Harry had commented.

“I had lessons in school.”

“In the olden days?”

“I’m not an ancient relic, you know.” Voldemort let Harry drop down on to a chair.

“I know, I’m just teasing.” Then Harry had looked at him with a definite glint, that look, the spark of possibility that had made Voldemort start to consider that Harry could desire him. Then there followed the agonising days of joy and despair, analysis of conversational subtext and moments of dizzying self-loathing. He had to begin imagining things from Harry’s point of view, divining what he might be feeling, and the uncertainty drove him mad.

“The thing was,” Voldemort continued to Blaise at length, “I don’t know if you remember what I looked like at that time-”

“Like a bald scaly snake-man,” Draco supplied helpfully. “With no nose,” he added, as an afterthought.

“Hey!” said Harry sharply. “You weren’t that bad, Voldie. But not as sexy as you are now, obviously.”

Voldemort was silent, fork in mid-air, restraining himself from using it as a weapon by imagining in vivid Technicolor detail what Draco deserved to have done to him.

“Tom,” Harry prompted, squinting at his spouse, “you were saying?”

“Hmm?” Voldemort safely buried his fork in the pasta, “Oh yes. So, I think we can honestly say I wasn’t looking my best. And well, I don’t know if it was just Harry, or the snake blood running through me – we all know what snakes symbolise . . .”

The floozy looked even more confused. Bez whispered helpfully: “the phallus.”

“So,” Voldemort continued, smiling despite himself, “whatever it was, I was feeling very frustrated.”

“You mean horny?” said Draco bluntly.

Harry snickered softly, Ron kicked him under the table and shot him a ‘don’t be gross’ look but Harry couldn’t help saying something very suggestive in parseltongue, of which the company could guess the substance if not the sentence.

“Frustrated in many ways: because my plans for national take-over were getting steadily more mired, because I had so much power and no outlet, no worthy adversary after . . . well, after Harry’s powers were gone, and yes – sexually frustrated. Harry was there and he became the focus of it all. It’s to his eternal credit that he bore it, that he managed to transform it into something else.”

Voldemort’s eyes became unfocussed, he thought of one day, just a moment of an evening really, sitting hunched in a high-backed chair before the fire, thinking dark thoughts when he heard the soft click of the door behind him. He had not turned, expecting it to be one of his incompetent Death Eaters with a disappointing report, but it was Harry. He sat on the hearth rug and gazed up, the fire hitting the angles of his face.

“Hard day?” he asked after a long silence.

“Yes,” Voldemort had replied, loving the private, domestic nature of the scene. Harry sighed and leaned his head against Voldemort’s knee, then, apparently realising just who he had performed this affectionate gesture with regard to, jerked back upright.

Voldemort had looked down and thought about stroking his hair, about kissing him, but realised, touching his own face, that he was repulsive. He had got up, suddenly, and gone to the door.

“I’m sorry,” Harry had said anxiously, “I didn’t mean to-”

“You didn’t-”

“It’s just . . . I’m lonely, and I feel strangely about you,” Harry continued, impulsive as ever, and without that innate mechanism most people possess that tells them when they ought to just shut up, “I wanted,” he ran his hand back through his hair, “I don’t know what I wanted.”

He got up and came towards Voldemort, who had frozen with his back to the door.

“Can I . . ?” Harry pressed up against him, his arms tentatively closing around

Voldemort’s torso, Harry’s face against his chest. “How is it that I feel this way? I don’t understand. I don’t hate you anymore, I’m such a traitor to my friends and my family, because you’re evil and I don’t hate you . . .” as these disconnected fragmentary thoughts bubbled to the surface, Voldemort brought his hand to the back of Harry’s head and carded his fingers through his fine, silky tufts of hair. Then he leaned down and breathed in the scent, Harry’s face tilted up and touched a soft, uncertain kiss at the corner of Voldemort’s mouth.

Voldemort jerked away and snapped: “Don’t look at me!” as he fumbled with the door handle and turned his back.

That night Voldemort stayed awake in his top tower room and poured through old, forgotten texts written in long dead tongues. In the morning he began preparing the spells that would restore his human looks.

“And I transformed myself to appeal to him – that was the turn around wasn’t it? I had spent my life trying to force people into line with me – it was going to be my world, and everyone else would obey or they would die.” Voldemort paused. “But I had to change, because I wanted him to love me. I had to think about someone else . . .”

“It makes me feel all fucking warm inside,” said Draco, who was getting rapidly bored with this conversation.

“Shut up pretty boy,” Blaise said, filling his wine glass. “You’re just jealous because Harry ditched you for someone with a personality and because you’re not as good a fuck as your daddy.”

Harry rather thought that his party might turn ugly. He should never have encouraged Voldemort to find friends.

“Can we not talk about fucking Lucius Malfoy at the dinner table?” Ron requested.

“What about over the dinner table?” mused Blaise.

Voldemort laughed; he always respected people who were thoroughly inappropriate.

“You’re disgusting.” Draco narrowed his pale eyes at Blaise. “And shameless.”

Blaise gave Draco an evaluating look; the look of someone who is considering whether to say what they know may well be a step too far, the straw that broke the camel’s back.

“You know it’s funny . . . because that’s what your daddy loves about me.” Blaise said, with a little insinuating smile as a finishing flourish.

Draco’s nostrils flared, he was deadly pale. Apparently it wasn’t quite far enough – Draco was a member of the British upper classes, with the privilege of an upbringing that made the repression of painful and passionate emotions second nature. His knuckles clenched around the cutlery, but he stayed seated.

“Speaking about fucking.” Blaise continued, looking at Voldemort, “how did you and Harry finally . . . get together? If it’s not too inappropriate a question-”

“Oh, I think we’ve gone past worrying about propriety at this table,” commented Hermione.

“Yeah Harry, you never told me how you fell for him,” said Bez.

“I’m telling the story,” Voldemort interjected. “Harry gets it wrong.”

Harry snorted: “Oh, because you have a photographic memory?”

“Exactly,” Voldemort wagged a fork at his husband, “and it happened like this: Harry, you were in that front room we used as a lounge, and you were staring out the window, thinking about how much you hated me-”

“Actually, Tom, I was trying to sort out my confused feelings.”

“Angst-ridden teenager?” Blaise asked.

“Yeah, more angsty than goth poetry. I was seventeen.”

“Cradle snatcher,” Draco commented in a stage-whisper to Voldemort.

“I mean of course I was fucking confused,” Harry continued. “I was young, I’d just broken up with my secret boyfriend, I wasn’t even out - not that being ‘out’ mattered since I was technically a prisoner in the Dark Lord’s lair – and I had developed a serious crush on my captor and lifetime nemesis, causing me to question everything I had previously taken for granted about good and evil.”

“Stockholm syndrome?” Hermione ventured.

“So,” Voldemort persevered, “Harry was sitting there, apparently thinking about deep . . . stuff, and I came in the room. He didn’t turn around, he didn’t see that I had changed. I sat next to him, my heart pounding, wondering what he was going to think, and still he didn’t turn around. He was in a reverie-”

“I was fucking ignoring you,” Harry corrected. “I was seventeen – it was all I knew how to do, other than slam doors and wank.”

Blaise gave a deep laugh. Hermione made her perfume tasting face.

“Harry was ignoring me then, and I was wondering how to begin. That’s another thing – before I knew Harry I’d always been very decisive; he makes me dither . . .”

“Stop blaming me for your problems and get on with the story.”

“I can’t even remember what I said to you. I think it was something like ‘Harry . . . I’m sorry’, I don’t know why – something meaningless to break the silence.”

Harry frowned: “Really? I thought you meant it - I thought you were saying sorry, for everything. Our marriage is built on a misunderstanding!”

“All marriages are built on misunderstandings,” said Draco sagely. “If couples truly

understood each other then wild thestrals wouldn’t drag them down the aisle.”

“So young, and yet so bitter,” Voldemort commented admiringly. “So anyway,” he turned back to Harry, “ . . . you looked at me then and went all pale. I thought you were going to pass out.”

“I thought I was going to throw up.”

“Oh thanks very much love – the first time you saw me you thought you were going to vomit? How romantic.”

Harry shrugged. “It’s weird to recognise a voice and then see a strange face.”

“You said something inane like ‘Is that really you?’, to which I prudently answered ‘yes’ instead of ‘duh!’”

“This story is getting too bitter for my liking,” commented Blaise. “Less reality, more sentiment please.”

“Sorry, we were just bickering. We often forget that there are other people around,” Harry explained.

Voldemort smiled and caught his husband’s eye. “What happened next?”

“Oh, I touched your face with my fingertips – I touched your eyelids and your nose and your lips and then I kissed you, yes . . . I made the move, didn’t I? I was leaning forward and pressed against you, you had your back to the wall of the alcove in that window seat . . .”

“I remember, though I don’t remember anything else – there might have been music playing, there might have been the noise of the trees and the wind through the open window, and there might have been lights in the room, but I don’t remember. When you kissed me the world became muffled and far away. Reality existed only in the space between our faces and where your lips touched . . .”

“God, it’s top-shelf Mills and Boone,” Draco commented, wrinkling his nose. Harry, who had been very moved by Voldemort’s description, gave his ex a look of resentment.

“And the kissing got more intense, and we went to bed together and after six months we decided to get married. The end.” Voldemort finished abruptly, with a negligent wave of one hand.

“Oh, don’t stop there! I was getting really into pretending that was my life!” Blaise complained.

“No that’s it. It’s too personal a story to get into in front of those who don’t appreciate it.” Voldemort glared at Draco who was pretending to be impervious.

“Why would you want to live vicariously through maudlin stories like that one?” Draco asked, addressing Blaise.

“Because I’m destined to be a mistress, never a bride,” Blaise said pressing a long-fingered, silver-ringed hand to his breast mournfully.

“What’s so fucking great about being married anyway?” Draco glanced over at Ron and Hermione who had started bickering discretely.

“Well, I like the idea of till death do us part,” Voldemort said. “I suppose I’m jealous and I wanted to bind Harry to me.”

Blaise considered this and asked: “What if you get divorced?”

“We can’t,” Voldemort said with a slightly sinister smile, “not ever. It’s in the contract - he’ll always be mine.”

“Voldie, come and help me in the kitchen,” Harry commanded.

“And I his,” Voldemort added with a sigh as he rose, gathering the finished entrée plates, to obey.

“Weird couple,” Draco commented in an undertone.

“I think they’re sweet, in a macabre sort of way,” Blaise said. “Did you go to the wedding?”

“Ooh, yeah,” interjected Bez, “what was that like?”

“Ostentatious,” Hermione muttered. Blaise thought that her slander resulted from jealousy, for what kind of a slovenly affair could the Weasleys and the bride’s muggle family cobble together between them? He imagined her walking down the aisle in a sack, clutching a bouquet of dandelions and ragwort and smirked to himself.

“There’s a picture of us at it on the mantelpiece,” Harry said, returning. How on earth, the guests wondered, did he seem to hear everything that concerned him, even from the kitchen?

Voldemort entered carrying several plates down his arm like a seasoned waiter. “It doesn’t do you justice, love. You were radiant.”

“Did you wear a white frock?” Blaise asked.

“Very funny,” Voldemort said dryly as he and Harry resumed their seats. Harry had brought the chilled Tokay; he poured the golden wine into fresh glasses and the company began to sink their delicate dessert forks into slices of dark chocolate torte.

“It was an early summer wedding, and all the cherry blossoms were out,” said Harry lustrously as he took a deep drink of the wine, “And we had the ceremony outside, so all the pink and white petals flurried around us like confetti as we stood there together. You had them in your hair,” he said to his husband, “and I kept wanting to brush them away, so I could hardly concentrate on those lame vows you made me learn.”

“They weren’t lame. They were very magically binding,” Voldemort countered.

“And we had the reception in the ruins of the Great Hall, and I kept thinking about when I was at school, because I kept forgetting that the ceiling was gone, so I was seeing the real sky, not just an illusion. I was sad about the way things turned out, but I was glad I had you. Oh, and the meal was lovely, but the speeches . . .” Harry and Voldemort laughed in collusion. “Yeah Ron, what did you say about me?” Harry looked at his ex-best man.

Ron’s face broke out in a grin. “It was short and sweet. I said ‘To a man who deserves much better. Vive la resistance!”

Voldemort glared.

“Who spoke for you, Tom?” Blaise asked.

“I represented myself.”

Draco snorted, “No friends or relatives volunteered? How surprising.”

“I was the only person qualified to speak about my love for Harry.”

“And he did,” Draco muttered, “at length.”

Blaise raised an eyebrow. “You were there?”

“Father made me go. I got very drunk in order to endure it.”

Harry looked contemplative. “What did we dance to first?”

“It was a waltz,” Voldemort replied. “I kissed you and tasted the champagne on your lips.”

“I remember, it started to rain, finely at first in a mist, then it poured and all the guests ran for cover, we ran laughing out into the corridor and towards the more preserved part of the ruins to the Slytherin dormitory. It was tattered and dusty, but the beds were still there . . .”

“I don’t like where this is going,” said Ron.

“Nor I,” seconded Draco.

“I do,” Blaise said with a prurient smile. “What’s Voldemort like in bed anyway?” he asked Harry.

“What do you think? Think I’d marry someone who didn’t cut the mustard?”

“Why are you so interested?” Draco asked Blaise.

“Come on, every little Slytherin boy and girl has fantasies about the Dark Lord when they’re tucked up in their dormitories at night.”

Voldemort laughed, “Oh, really?”

“No, not really!” Draco protested. “Blaise is just a sicko. I can’t believe I shared a dorm with you when you were thinking about things like that . . . gross!”

“You weren’t intrigued by what was making my hangings rustle? Hmm . . . how disappointing. I could have made do with you during term-time . . .” Blaise gave a languid, flickering glance at Draco. No, apparently what was still not far enough. Draco just reddened in restrained fury again.

“Easy Draco. Harry patted Draco’s hand. “Don’t let him bait you.”

“Harry,” said Hermione, “you know that if you weren’t such a good cook I wouldn’t come to your dinner parties, right?”

“Yeah,” Ron agreed, “If it weren’t for this chocolate cake being so good I would’ve walked out ages ago.”

Harry grinned. Blaise, with complete disregard for those still eating, lit a cigarette.

“I still can’t believe you never told us he drained your power,” Hermione shook her head.

“Didn’t I? Hmm, it must have slipped my mind,” Harry gave one of his dreamy, faraway looks. “I suppose it makes me a squib, hmm? Heh – like Filch!”

“I don’t know what’s so great about being a wizard anyway, you guys make far too big a deal about it,” Bez said.

“OH!” the floozy suddenly exclaimed. “I get it!” He looked around at the collection of odd-looking and eccentrically dressed people around the table. “You guys are into those role playing games, right?” Met with blank stares he added. “Like ‘Dungeons and Dragons’?”

Voldemort was about to say that yes, he did indeed like dungeons, and thought that dragons were rather spectacular creatures but Harry shook his head and gave him a warning look, so he just sighed and poured himself a large glass of wine. Hermione laughed behind her hand; Draco, Ron and Blaise muttered ‘muggles . . .’ under their collective breaths and rolled their eyes at each other.

The night went in a drunken downward spiral after that. Voldemort sat next to Blaise and laughed very hard at a story about Lucius and the magical bondage set which they had forgotten the safeword for . . . or at least Lucius had and Blaise pretended ignorance for several hours. Draco had unwisely placed himself just within earshot and was continually flushing with rage while pretending to listen to Hermione banging on about S.P.E.W., her longest-running and most wholly unsuccessful social project.

“Well I can’t help being cruel to him really,” Blaise explained, “I mean I just thought

‘Lucius darling, S&M is so tacky and late nineties’ . . . the poor goose. I’d be much nicer to him if he left his horrid wife.”

“Come on Hermione, if they’re dumb enough to iron their hands then they deserve all they get!” Draco snapped, not realising that this would provoke Hermione to embark on the greatest tirade of her life.

“He’s er . . . nice,” Harry said, referring of course to the floozy, who had gone home so he could get up early and work out at the gym.

“Don’t lie Harry, I know you think he’s a moron,” Bez said morosely.

“I never said that, mate.”

“Well, he is a moron. I mean . . . Harry, why can’t I find someone nice?”

“Draco is single,” Harry offered. They looked at Draco, embroiled against his will in a fierce argument about elfish welfare, then back at each other and burst out laughing.

“What?” Harry giggled, “he’s attractive. It’d be sweet if he fell for a muggle.”

“Nah mate, I think he should get married to Blaise!”

“They’d kill each other on the first evening of the honeymoon.”

“Darling, I don’t think we’d get as far as the reception without me putting ground glass in his champagne,” Blaise commented, turning away momentarily from Voldemort and showing that he had been tuning in and out of the conversations of the others.

“We’re going to head,” said Ron, taking Hermione by the arm and cutting short her partly wine-fuelled rant.

“Night guys, we’ll see you out,” Harry offered; Voldemort rose reluctantly from his seat, his mood of post-prandial contentment dissipating with the effort. They shut the living room door behind them, and the sounds of farewells came as a murmur through the wall from the hallway beyond.

Blaise smiled wryly at Bez. “I like your boyfriend.”

“Cut the sarcasm.”

“Hand to Merlin,” Blaise said, as if insulted. “Nice arse, and if you’re mainly concerned from the view from the back in bed, who’s to quibble about a face?”

“I don’t think I’ve ever met anyone as rude as you, not even Voldemort, not even Draco!” Bez’s voice was strained, his face flushed.

Draco sat up in his chair. “Hey!”

“What is it with you wizards? You think you’re so superior to muggles . . .”

“Barry . . . it is Barry isn’t it? Look love, I act superior to everyone, there’s really no need to get upset. It’s only my nature to be a bitch.”

“Can’t you give it a rest?” Draco asked feeling worn out by the constant efforts of restraining rage, “I’m tired.”

Blaise looked at him, his pale eyes twinkling in the way they always did when he was calculating how to cause the most damage, but, having come to a conclusion he merely sighed in resignation, like an undervalued artist who completes, steps back from, and gazes upon his best piece of work and knows in his heart that will never be exhibited; fumbling in his black bootcut trousers, he drew out a pack and lit another cigarette.

“What are you defending anyway?” Bez asked.

“Whatever do you mean?”

“You’re so,” Bez gestured ineffectually, suddenly realising how drunk he was, “closed, spiky.”

“All epigrams and no substance? Yes, you’re not the first to say that.” Blaise gave a strange half-smile, but this line of conversation was interrupted by the return of Harry and Voldemort. Blaise drew out a silver pocket watch of the wizarding variety; the clock hand had recently ticked over from ‘time to eat’ to ‘time for shagging’.

“Well, I’m afraid I must leave you too, an appointment, or rather assignation to keep, if you know what I mean and I must be swift. Oh yes, where is your mother tonight, Draco, playing bridge, isn’t it?”

“You-” Draco began, but he looked at Harry and, with commendable loyalty and self-control given his intoxicated state, decided not to embarrass him, so he stopped at that.

“I’ll see myself out,” Blaise motioned Harry and Voldemort to remain seated. He stood and one hand went to his hip; he was one of those effeminate men who are so long and thin that they always seem to be crooked at an angle, like a bare tree that has struggled and failed to live in some inhospitable place. “Thank-you, my dear,” he was addressing Harry, “for such wonderful food, and thank-you,” he addressed Voldemort, “for the cordial invitation and for such illuminating conversation.” He leaned down and kissed Voldemort’s cheek. Straightening up he regarded Bez and Draco, adding: “Oh, it was nice to meet you two as well.” And that was the full extent Blaise’s perfunctory goodbye: the living room door clicked behind him, and like an echo, so did the front door.

“All in all,” Harry commented brightly as he stood in the doorway to the kitchen with a glass of wine in his hand to where his husband stood among stacked dishes and pans, “I think it went well.”

Voldemort looked incredulously at his husband and flicked his wand so that the taps started running and the soapy dish cloth began attacking a saucepan encrusted with passata. “Hmm, it’s a pity our friends all hate each other.”

As these words were spoken, Draco and Bez were walking home.

“Why do we go to those ridiculous parties?” Draco asked, he was trudging alone with his collar upturned and his hands dug in the pockets of his black wool over-coat.

“Because we love Harry.”

“We should learn to say no to him.” Draco cursed his soft-spot for Harry which made him agree to walk with Bez rather than apparate (“But it’s not far, and it’s such a nice evening and you really live so close . . .” Harry had said, never happy for a friend to go home alone, especially a muggle one).

Bez shrugged. “It’s difficult. He asks so sweetly . . .”

“Sometimes I wonder,” Draco said darkly, “whether he is sweet. I think he might be an evil genius. He makes us do things against our better judgement . . . I mean, look what he’s done to the Dark Lord. ‘Voldie, come and help me in the kitchen!’” Draco’s impression of the shrewish intonation with which Harry habitually said his husband’s name was so perfect that Bez couldn’t help but laugh.

They didn’t speak for a moment after that and the sound of their footsteps beating the pavement became rhythmical. Then Draco ventured:

“Do you think your boyfriend will ever speak to you again?”

“Mark? Probably – he’s not very perceptive.”

“I thought you said his name was Dave.”

Bez’s eyes went wide and he said, in a shocked voice: “It is.”

They looked at each other and simultaneously burst out laughing. Bez laughed so long that he leaned on Draco’s shoulder for support.

“He is awful, isn’t he?”

“Not as bad as your last.”

“God, I’m hopeless!” They started walking again. “It’s just,” Bez continued soberly, “it’s so difficult to meet people on the scene, you know. You can’t get to know anyone in the clubs and it’s so easy just to get a dance and shag and deal with the consequences the next day. The problem is I always try to make it more . . .”

“I know what you mean,” Draco said, candid from drink and laughter. In vino veritas.

“The wizard scene is even worse. You know everybody and you’ve shagged most of them, the rest you wouldn’t touch with a barge pole except to poke them further away.”

“You’re a wizard, Draco – is there some magical place where all the fit men go?”

“Hmm. Home to their boyfriends. Or husbands.”

Bez gave Draco a knowing look. “You still have a bit of a thing for Harry, don’t you?”

“Nah, not really – I couldn’t take the nagging. I just can’t help thinking . . . well, he was the best thing I ever had. It’s all downhill from here.”

“Until we get old and wrinkled with orange tans, dodgy moustaches and spend all our time perched on barstools leering over underage drinkers?”

“’Fraid so.”

“Damn. Oh, this is me.” Bez had almost walked past his house. They looked at each other

for the briefest moment: Bez took in the fair and still boyish looks of Draco, finding it strangely endearing how emotions seemed to constantly pass like clouds over his face, so swiftly they were barely perceptible. Draco wondered why he had always thought Bez was unattractive and an idiot: he was camp, that was true, and he had silly rectangular-framed designer glasses and overly-styled hair, but he had a nice face and a softness to him that he had been so fond of in Harry.

“Yeah, well . . . goodnight.” Draco lingered awkwardly, wanting the relief of simply leaving and yet pulled back by some taut and unseen thread. They both knew that some hideous mistake was about to take place. “Do you think . . .” Draco began equivocally, “it would be alright if I asked you out to dinner next week, or, or even just a drink, not in a club, maybe somewhere quiet-”

“Yeah,” Bez said breathily, “that would be great.”

“Great,” Draco echoed foolishly. There was a moment of impending kiss, painfully slowly their faces moved closer. Draco was unwilling to actually step closer, he simply tilted his head, his hands clenched in fists by his sides. He felt Bez’s hands settle on his hips at the same moment as their lips met – it was gentle and perfect! - Draco leaned so far forward that he overbalanced and they both crashed back against the railings.

Blaise was lying on his side, his head resting in the crook of his arm, his preternaturally light eyes glittering in the little light that the fire across the large room provided. Lucius lying behind him, propped up on his elbow, running his fingertips in light strokes up and down the younger man’s arm. He dipped his head and kissed Blaise’s neck, but Blaise didn’t move.

“You’re not asleep, are you?”

“No.”

“It’s getting late. You’ll have to go soon.”

“I know.” There was an edge of irritation to his voice.

“Are you in a mood?” Lucius crooked an arm round him affectionately in what seemed like a wrestling move by the way he squeezed him.

“No.”

“Yes you are. You won’t tell me about dinner with the Dark Lord, you won’t look at me and now you’re giving me the silent treatment. What have I done now?”

Blaise rolled onto his back and gave Lucius an accusing look. “You haven’t done anything.”

“And what is it that I haven’t done that you’re so angry about?”

“Married me.”

“This again.”

“Yes,” Blaise replied coldly. “You want to know what the Dark Lord is like at home? Content. Harry calls him ‘Voldie’, and they hold hands when they sit next to each other on the sofa.”

“And that’s what you want, is it Blaise?”

“I want something more than this,” Blaise’s voice was exasperated, then more softly:

“It’s so sordid. And I’m twenty-one . . . practically a hag. It’d be nice to get one proposal.”

Lucius leaned down and kissed him lingeringly, then said in his low, persuasive voice, his grey eyes darting from side to side: “You know it can’t work that way. I’m already married, for better or, as in this case, worse. Narcissa and I have never cared two straws for each other, but that’s wholly beside the point. Appearances are what matter, and so long as we thinly disguise our infidelities – you don’t honestly think she’s playing bridge with at the Lestranges’, do you? – well, that’s just how it is. If I were single it might be another matter, but there’s no sense in even debating it.”

“Convenient for you, isn’t it? Why do I feel like I’m always complying with you? Oh yes, because I know if I don’t I’ll get thrown aside.”

Lucius didn’t reply, his eyes were still now, his gaze unwavering from his raised position; the thumb of one his right hand caressed the downy hairs at Blaise’s temple.

“You think that you are merely a convenience for me?”

“Sometimes I wonder whether it was me in particular you wanted, or would just anyone have done?”

Lucius smiled. “Do you remember when we first saw each other?”

“This is the second reminiscent story I’ve heard this evening. Go on then – yes, I do. It was at that party my mad aunt Rookwood threw for the anniversary of the rise of the Dark Lord . . .”

“No, I first saw you at a quidditch match at Hogwarts, long before the war. It was cold that day, I was in the stands with the teachers, and Draco was letting Gryffindor win, as usual, and I looked across at the Slytherin stands with my omnoculars and I saw a boy, or perhaps a girl, of no more than fourteen-”

“Perv.”

“- huddled up against the wind, looking bored and contemptuous, as if he’d far rather be anywhere else than watching this ridiculous spectacle, with dark, wavy hair and eyes that, as he turned his head seemed to look straight at me, irises so pale that I felt myself shiver. And I thought, ‘what a strange child. Whatever will he grow up to be?’. That moment and that thought stayed with me, lurking in the back of my mind, for when I met you again at that tedious party, and you were sitting in a corner with your legs crossed, hair now straightened, face powdered and fingers weighed down with rings, smoking a cigarette, but with the exact same expression you’d borne in the quidditch stands, it came back to me in an instant. And I thought ‘well, there he is’. And I went to introduce myself.”

Blaise smiled, aware that he was allowing himself to be won over and that Lucius was probably taking advantage of his better, more romantic, nature. Lucius kissed him and pressed him down into the mattress, and he began to draw the sheet down so he could see the extent of Blaise’s impossibly long and lean torso, and that was how Narcissa found them.

“I heard voices,” she said. She was apparently drunk, strands of her hair had escaped from the sleek chignon she habitually wore it in and the pearl buttons of her white blouse were done up wrongly.

“Good for you,” Blaise replied.

“Go to bed, Narcissa,” said Lucius.

Narcissa opened her mouth as if to say something, but she shook her head and stumbled off, leaving the door ajar.

Blaise looked at Lucius, worried at what his reaction would be, but Lucius simply began to laugh richly; Blaise covered his face with kisses.

“But actually.” said Harry, sat on the sofa, “actually, the thing is . . .”

“The thing is, you’re drunk,” Voldemort interjected.

“Just a little bit,” Harry squinted and held his thumb and forefinger an inch apart. “You don’t fancy Blaise, do you Voldie?”

“No, I don’t.”

“That’s good, I wouldn’t like it if you did.” Harry took another deep drink of wine: an Alsace Gewürztraminer, that smelled pleasingly of elderflower when raised to the lips.

“I think you’ve had enough of that. I’m too old to carry you upstairs.”

Harry snatched his glass back and looked at Voldemort seriously. “You could use mobili corpus.”

Voldemort laughed, “Oh Harry, you never cease to surprise me.”

“Voldie, there’s something very important I have to tell you,” Harry said gravely.

“Voldie.”

“Yes?”

“Voldie?”

“What?”

“I love you.”

“I know.”

“But I don’t think you understand: I love you. Whoops,” Harry, who had been leaning precariously towards Voldemort dropped his tipped glass, which hit the floor with a thud but didn’t break. “Bang!” Harry said, grinning foolishly. Voldemort sighed, righted the glass and placed out of harm’s way on an occasional table. Harry wriggled himself into a supine position, his head on Voldemort’s lap and his bare feet dangling over the far arm of the sofa. Voldemort stroked his husband’s hair and let his thoughts travel back to their earlier conversation, cut short by Draco’s discouragement.

“Do you remember, love, the rest of that night when we got together?”

“’Course I do. How could I forget?” Harry’s voice was drowsy, like that of someone under hypnosis.

“It’s funny, how when you remember something, or tell a story, it’s like a film – there’s no sense of real time. If I put it in a pensieve it would be a montage of images, smoothly flowing, but I know that at the time I had to live through every moment of those hours; not all of them were perfect, there was also awkwardness and uncertainty.”

“I had all these moments when I thought ‘this can’t be my life,’ – you know what I mean?”

“Absolutely. Like when I was undressing you I kept thinking ‘what the hell are you doing, Voldemort?’

Harry giggled, “I was thinking ‘why the hell are you doing Voldemort?’”

“And I wondered why you were doing it, so I kept thinking ‘what if he doesn’t fancy me’, and getting paranoid about how I looked, how I wasn’t sure what I was doing . . . I hadn’t had sex in seventeen years, well most of that time I’d been disembodied . . .”

“But then, I just kind of thought,” Harry was gesturing, apparently for the benefit of the ceiling as he was on his back, “‘fuck it’. I knew it would be a disaster if I over-analysed it, so I just stopped and thought about the here and now, that I did fancy you and I wanted you to fuck me. Mmm,” Harry closed his eyes, apparently lost in the memory, or some new fantasy, “very hard.”

Voldemort smiled with a faraway, triumphant look on his face as he reminisced. “I did, didn’t I? Never mind the traumatic bits, the bits I remember best are when I got carried away. You on your knees, with your face buried in your arms, moaning as I thrust into your tight arse-”

“Voldie that’s filthy!” Harry sat up, grinning sheepishly, and lightly batted Voldemort on his upper arm.

“Mmm, are you shocked?”

“No, I’m just glad you didn’t tell that version when my friends were here.”

“They’d be scandalised?”

“Yep, also they wouldn’t like to see me do this to you afterwards.”

“What?”

“Bang!” said Harry, who had slid off the sofa onto the hearth rug and pulled Voldemort

with him.

- Fin