A/N: Welcome to my attempt at writing something a bit darker than my usual fare.

Title inspired by the song "Cold Soul" by Angie Mattson. There's another song called "Cold Soul" by Trevor Moran (which I found while failing to find the first one on Spotify) which is also a great Harrymort song although it doesn't quite fit the tone of this fic.

WARNINGS: consent issues, mentions of past attempted sexual assault, frank discussions about rape and consent, slavery, technically non-con (Harry is never going to force Tom into sex but since Tom becomes his slave and can't legally consent, all sex between them is technically non-con). Also there's an onscreen animal death (of a certain rat—LOL spoiler).

Some slight changes to canon: for the purposes of this fic, Wormtail survived book 7, and Voldemort survived the final battle—he cast something other than Avada Kedavra and when it rebounded and hit him, it incapacitated him instead of killing him; Harry refused to kill him in cold blood, so Voldemort was fitted with a magic-restricting collar and put in Azkaban.

Chapter 1

All was not well after the defeat of Lord Voldemort. The Ministry and the newspapers claimed otherwise of course, all too eager to consider Voldemort's defeat permanent and absolute, and to assume that he would follow suit with Grindelwald and live out his days as a prisoner, isolated from the world with his magic bound, a shadow of the nightmare he used to be. But all was not well—Harry Potter, most especially, was not well.

Human beings were not meant to be Horcruxes—but even more than that, they weren't supposed to stop being a Horcrux after hosting another soul for several years. Harry was losing sleep over vague nightmares from which he awoke gasping and feeling so goddamn hollow, reaching up for his empty scar and wishing that it would come alive again. As fucked up as it was, he missed the way his scar used to hurt. He missed the Horcrux. If he was being completely honest with himself—which he occasionally managed during those lonely post-nightmare moments—he missed his connection with Voldemort.

His magic missed the Horcrux too, it seemed, since it was more difficult to control than it had ever been, and he was having bouts of accidental magic far more often than he ever had as a child. It was embarrassing, and it was worrisome, and it was entirely his own secret right now. He'd been unwilling to burden Hermione and Ron with something he knew would worry them and make them feel obligated to help him fix it. But there was only one way to truly fix it, and it was something his friends would never let him do—it was something he would never let himself do, despite having tracked down every book in existence on the process. It was completely insane…so, naturally, it only took him three months to cave. Three sleepless, hollow months of feeling like a ghost of himself.

Harry apparated just outside the gates of Azkaban, one hand clutching his wand inside his right robe pocket. His left pocket was occupied by a warm, motionless weight that seemed to burn into his skin through his clothing—but that was probably just the guilt.

There weren't many Dementors left at Azkaban these days, which Harry was grateful for. He would have to pass a few of them, inevitably, but at least there were no swarms of them blotting the light from the sky anymore.

He swallowed as the guard in charge of the visitors' apparition point approached him. The man didn't seem to be much older than Harry and he looked bored, and Harry tried to calm his nerves by counting down until the guard realized exactly who was in front of him. Three…two…one…

"Mister Potter!" The guard exclaimed, looking starstruck. "Wow—how can I help you, sir?"

Harry forced a smile, then said, "I'm here to visit a prisoner."

The guard frowned and asked, "Which one?"

"Who do you think?"

The guard paled, then stammered, "Not—surely not Him, Mister Potter?"

"Am I not allowed?" Harry asked calmly, raising an eyebrow and trying to channel some of the coolness and superiority that Snape had always seemed to exude. Harry never would've thought he'd end up thinking of Snape as a role model, but after seeing his memories and learning the truth about the man, Harry found it difficult not to.

"Well, he's not officially allowed visitors," the guard said reluctantly, seeming terrified of disappointing Harry Potter.

Harry gave him an unimpressed look and asked, "And unofficially?"

The guard swallowed and said, "I'll have to ask the warden."

"Do that, then," Harry said.

The guard nodded, then closed his eyes and conjured a Patronus, a songbird of some sort, which flew off towards one of the ground floor windows of the prison. Then he cleared his throat and awkwardly said, "It'll just be a moment."

Harry nodded and crossed his arms.

It took more than a moment. It took several cold and uncomfortable minutes, and Harry was fighting the urge to shiver—he didn't quite dare to use a warming charm in front of this guard, since half the time his spells tended to either go wild or come out overpowered these days, and neither result would be helpful right now.

Finally an answering Patronus—a particularly grumpy looking bulldog—swept towards them and told the guard to bring Harry into the Warden's office.

Harry followed the guard inside and only flinched a little bit when the heavy door slammed shut behind them.

The warden's office was close to the main doors, in the same wing as a waiting room area that seemed cold and uninviting. The warden himself vaguely reminded Harry a bit of Uncle Vernon—not nearly as enormous, but with the same aura of superiority and reigned-in malice, and a horrible moustache. He made a shooing motion with his hand and the guard fled the room, leaving Harry alone with the warden, whose badge read D. Hayden.

"Harry Potter," the warden said, making it sound like an accusation.

"Yes sir," Harry said.

"You-Know-Who isn't allowed visitors. Surely you knew that?"

Harry, hating himself a little bit, straightened his posture and tried to muster up some of that arrogance Snape had always accused him of. "Surely you can make an exception for the Savior of the Wizarding World," he said, using the Daily Prophet's new favorite title for him.

The warden let out a little snort of amused disdain, then bluntly asked, "What do you want with him? It's going to be a lot of nasty paperwork for me if you decide to finish him off now while he's in my custody."

Harry blinked. "I'm not going to kill him—I thought I made that pretty clear the day I defeated him." The warden gave him a dubious look and remained silent. Harry added, "There are things I want to ask him. Things I want to say to him. And I would appreciate as much privacy as you can allow."

If anything, the warden looked even more dubious. He stared at Harry for a long, silent moment, but then he said, "I'll give you half an hour—but there are rules."

Harry nodded, trying to keep his face blank and restrain the sudden rush of glee he'd felt.

The warden continued, "He has a magic-restricting collar around his neck—do not try to remove it. That's non-negotiable."

"Of course," Harry said mildly.

"You can take your wand in, since the collar blocks him from using it even if he got ahold of it," the warden said, lowering his voice a bit, "but you should know that the collar also reduces and sometimes completely blocks the effects of most spells cast directly on him. If you need to…discipline him…you'll have to do it the Muggle way," he said conspiratorially, raising one hand and clenching it into a fist to illustrate his point. Harry swallowed uncomfortably, realizing that his intuitive comparison of this man to Vernon Dursley had been spot-on. "Just try not to do any permanent damage—it's terrible PR if word gets out, and it always riles up the bleeding hearts and the politicians."

Harry blinked a few times, then frowned and said, "Right," not bothering to correct the man's assumption that Harry was there to torture Voldemort, since the warden seemed disturbingly into it. He didn't care at this point what misconceptions got him his visit as long as he got in.

The warden looked off to the side, then licked his lips while seeming to decide what to say next. Harry waited politely, and the warden finally said, "You probably haven't heard, since we didn't exactly announce it—but he looks different now." The warden paused, and Harry raised an interested eyebrow. "Something happened a few weeks ago—no one can explain it, but he doesn't look like a bloody snake monster anymore."

Harry's eyebrows went up, and he asked, "What does he look like now?"

The warden smiled, but there was no warmth to it—it was an oily nasty smile that made Harry feel like he needed a shower to wash it off of him. "You'll see for yourself. Just—if you change your mind about how you want to spend your visit, I wouldn't mind…supervising. The last one who tried him alone ended up missing some important parts," he added with a grimace.

Harry wasn't quite following, but he forced a tight smile and said, "Of course."

The warden looked at Harry for another silent moment, seeming to evaluate him. Then he clapped his hands together and stood from his chair, walking around the desk towards Harry. "Come along then. I'm required to search you before allowing you in."

"Yes sir," Harry said, standing still while the warden cast a round of detection spells on him. When one of the spells sparked a flare of red light by Harry's left robe pocket, the warden's eyebrows went up.

"Mind turning out that pocket?"

Harry shrugged, though his heartbeat had picked up—if this went wrong… But when he pulled the unconscious rat out by its tail and held it up for the warden to see, the man just cringed and said, "There's already bloody rats all over the place here—we don't need more of the buggers."

"Well," Harry said as casually as he could manage, "you know, snakes eat rats. I thought it'd be funny to bring old Snake-face a snack." Harry shrugged, "Like you said, I didn't know he looked different."

The warden seemed slightly dubious, but also like he really didn't want to ask why else Harry would've brought it. "Just don't let it loose in here," he said gruffly.

Harry nodded, then put the rat back into his pocket, inwardly letting out a huge sigh of relief.

The warden headed for the door and motioned for Harry to follow. They left the office and followed a confusing, twisting path through narrow hallways of dark stone. Harry suspected that the warden had gone in circles deliberately once or twice—perhaps it was policy to keep visitors from remembering the way out in case they tried to stage a break-out or something. Constant vigilance, and all that.

Finally, after descending a dizzying spiral of stairs, they arrived in a dungeon.

"There's a visiting room upstairs for the regular ones," the warden said, breaking the silence that he seemed uncomfortable with. "But this one's kept far away from anybody he might manipulate—private dungeon, private floor. Private visiting room too, but the only use it's had until today was to get him out of the way while we did the routine cell searches."

The warden nodded towards a particular door next to a charmed pane of what looked like the one-way glass the Muggle police used in interrogation rooms.

Harry approached the window and then sucked in a gasp when he looked through the charmed, tinted glass. Instead of the pale and snakelike man who haunted his nightmares, Harry was looking at an older but still unfairly handsome Tom Riddle, who looked to be 30 something at the most.

The warden let out a dark chuckle, then pointed and said, "His hands are bound and chained to the table, and he's only got about two feet of slack. But like I said, he bites."

"Right," Harry said automatically. "Erm—I had hoped for something a bit more private—"

The warden crossed his arms and gave him a look that managed to be chastising and a bit leering at the same time. It made Harry even more uncomfortable than he already was. "Unless you've decided that you want a second set of hands, so to speak, I'll either be watching or listening. You can decide which one, but I'm not letting the Chosen One in there without some kind of monitoring. They'd toss me to the Dementors if something happened to you."

Harry looked down at the ground, considering the choice. Finally deciding that it would be best to be able to speak freely, he said, "You can watch."

The warden smiled, then said, "Good choice."

Harry ignored that, and asked, "So you won't interfere with any silencing spells I cast?"

"No, but if you try to block my visual, I will haul you out of there in a heartbeat. Understood?"

"Of course."

"Well," the warden said, giving Harry another of those creepy smiles. "Have fun."

Harry swallowed, looked away, and let himself through the door into the visiting room. Much like the Muggle interrogation rooms on the telly, the room was bare except for a table with two chairs affixed to the floor on either side of it.

Voldemort didn't look up at first…a power play of some sort, Harry assumed—a grasp for just a small amount of control over the situation. Harry didn't mind, to be honest—he appreciated having an extra few seconds to gather his wits.

He pulled out his wand and cast "Muffliato," extending the spell to cover the entirety of the small room.

Voldemort finally looked up at that, with some kind of witty sarcastic comment primed on his lips—but when he saw who his visitor was, he blinked and remained silent, tilting his head slightly to stare curiously at Harry.

"Er—hello," Harry said awkwardly. He immediately wanted to smack himself for sounding like a stammering bumbling child—that certainly wasn't how he wanted or needed to present himself today.

"'Hello'? Really?" Voldemort asked, raising a critical eyebrow at him and not bothering to hide the amusement and disdain in his tone. "That's what you choose to say to me after everything? How cathartic," he added sarcastically. "What a weight that must've taken off your shoulders."

Inexplicably, Harry found himself smiling at the man instead of losing his temper. "Oh yeah, definitely. I feel loads better now," he said, playing along as he stepped towards the table, "years of trauma just wiped right out." Voldemort tensed slightly at Harry's approach, but he kept his eyes (still an unnatural dark red, Harry noticed) locked warily on Harry and kept his expression seemingly calm and impassive. Harry sat down in the empty chair across from Voldemort, boldly meeting his stare. The air around his face seemed to shift and buzz slightly, and Harry blurted out as he realized it, "You're wearing a glamour."

"Yes, of course. Must look my best for the Chosen One."

"They told me you couldn't do magic with that collar on."

"I didn't cast the glamour," Voldemort said tersely. "If I had, it wouldn't be shoddy enough for you to notice its presence."

Harry frowned, then boldly took out his wand and cast, "Finite," then gasped when the glamour faded to reveal the same face but with a black eye, purpling bruises on both cheeks, a split lip, and a few scratches down one side of his face and neck. "What the hell happened?" Harry asked, despite knowing logically that either the warden or one of the guards had done this.

Voldemort scoffed and ignored the question, saying instead, "I suppose it makes a sick sort of sense that they would send you this time…The boy who defeated me, back to do it again." He paused, then leaned forward slightly and asked viciously, "Are you here to break me in for the rest of them? I promise I won't make it easy for you." He twitched his hands to deliberately rattle the chain that secured his wrists to a metal ring built into the table, startling Harry as intended.

Harry's heart had started beating faster when the loud clank of the chain startled him, and he closed his eyes for a second to regain his composure. "No, I'm here—" Harry started, with his eyes still closed but Voldemort interrupted.

"Look at me when you speak to me," he snapped, and Harry's eyes flew open in response. "It's the very least amount of courtesy you could spare, considering what you're here for."

Harry frowned and said, "I'm not here to hurt you, all right? The warden thought the same thing, but that's not it." Voldemort huffed a disbelieving laugh, and Harry lost his temper just a little and he snapped, "I'm here because I want it back."

Voldemort raised an eyebrow at him.

"The Horcrux," Harry clarified, tensing when Voldemort's expression shifted into a terse and deliberate blankness.

Voldemort flicked his eyes towards the one-way glass and then said airily, "I'm sure I have no idea what you're talking about."

Harry resisted the urge to glance towards the window himself, and instead he said pointedly, "We can speak freely—the warden's watching but he's not listening. He said he wouldn't interfere with my privacy spells."

"How naïve of you to believe that," Voldemort said with a sneer that looked very out of place on Tom Riddle's handsome face.

Harry ignored the jibe and said, "Did you not hear me? I want it back," he repeated.

Voldemort's expression tightened and he glared at Harry and snapped, "Then perhaps you shouldn't have so callously thrown it away when you had it."

Harry flinched back slightly from the raw fury in Voldemort's eyes, but he said, "I know—I know that now. I feel hollow all the time and my magic is flaring up randomly and it's harder to control all of a sudden—I need it back."

Voldemort met his stare directly, then said quietly, "You do realize what you're asking me, Harry, and what it would involve?"

Harry nodded and said, "I want you to make me your Horcrux again." He reached into his left pocket, pulled out the unconscious rat, and set it down in the center of the table. He wasn't sure whether or not he should be proud that his hand only shook a little bit.

Voldemort stared at the rat for a moment before commenting faux-casually, "It has a silver paw."

"Yes it does," Harry said. He prodded Wormtail with one finger, nudging the unconscious rat closer to Voldemort. "Will it be enough, if he's like this?"

"You're asking whether it'll count as murder if I kill him while he's a rat?" Voldemort said, looking amused.

"Yeah, that," Harry said uncomfortably.

"Yes. It'll count. And as long as the—intended vessel," he paused to look Harry up and down, "has been prepared ahead of time," he paused again and raised a questioning eyebrow, to which Harry nodded. Voldemort smiled slightly and continued, "I wouldn't even need the use of my magic—just a few drops of my blood and contact with the vessel to place the soul shard inside."

Harry swallowed nervously, then said, "All right, good." He cleared his throat and said, "The warden only promised me thirty minutes, so we should—"

"I haven't agreed, Harry."

Harry gaped for a second, then said, "Why wouldn't you? You'll get a Horcrux back, be immortal again."

"Immortality, in this place, would be a curse," he replied quietly, a trace of exhaustion and something like defeat betraying itself in his voice.

Harry's eyebrows shot up, and he said, "I can't break you out of Azkaban—I'd get thrown in here myself for trying."

Voldemort met his eyes and gave him a long, serious, searching look before he seemed to come to a decision and spoke again. "I'm not asking you to break me out, but I do have one non-negotiable condition."

"I'm listening."

"Before we do this, you will hold up your wand and call on your magic exactly as if making a Wizard's Oath, and incant 'I, Harry Potter, invoke my battle-won right of Magical Conquest over Lord Voldemort'."

Harry waited, but Voldemort didn't continue. "That's it?" Harry asked.

"That's it," Voldemort echoed, with an odd hint of resignation in his tone.

"What exactly will that do?" Harry asked.

Voldemort smiled mysteriously but didn't answer. Harry blinked, and felt a stab of anxiety as he tried to calculate how many minutes they'd been speaking already and how much time they had left.

"Is it going to hurt anyone? Or set you free?" Harry asked.

"Not at all."

"What does it do?" Harry tried again.

Voldemort still didn't answer.

Harry sighed and ran a hand through his already-messy hair. "How obvious would it be to the warden watching us that I've done something?"

"Very, I would expect."

"So if I do what you've asked, you'll have to make the Horcrux right away before the warden bursts in here and hauls me out. What's the fastest way to get the soul to go into me?"

Voldemort smirked and answered, "The same way Dementors get souls out of people, of course."

Harry blinked, then blushed severely once he processed the meaning. "You're going to—"

"Time's wasting, Harry," Voldemort interrupted, seeming unbothered by the prospect of kissing his sworn enemy.

Harry took a deep breath, accepted the fact that agreeing to this mysterious Magical Conquest was apparently the only way to get what he came here for, then he reluctantly agreed, "Fine, I'll do it."

A relieved look flashed across Voldemort's face before he schooled his expression back into neutrality. "Excellent decision." He casually raised one of his hands to pick at the scratches on his neck, reopening them for the fresh blood.

"What are the words again?" Harry asked, trying not to stare.

Voldemort looked him in the eyes and said, "I, Harry Potter, invoke my battle-won right of Magical Conquest over Lord Voldemort."

Harry swallowed, then twitched his wand slightly and shot a discreet locking spell at the door, thanking the universe when it didn't come out overpowered or fizzle out halfway there. Then he held up his wand as if for an Oath, quickly gathered his magic, and recited, "I, Harry Potter, invoke my battle-won right of Magical Conquest over Lord Voldemort."

The effects were immediate—Harry felt a flare of magic and a wave of dizziness and a brief burning sensation in his left wrist, and he glanced down to see some kind of rune magically inked into his skin. A hiss came from across the table, and Harry glanced at Voldemort's wrist to find a similar symbol on his skin.

Harry heard the doorknob rattle, and he knew his locking spell wouldn't hold up for long. "Hurry up, do it!" Harry demanded.

Voldemort met his eyes, grinned, then raised his chained hands and brought his fist down quickly to smash the rat's head in. Harry winced, fairly certain there was blood spatter on the front of his robes now. He ignored it, unceremoniously knocked the rat carcass to the ground, and then climbed onto the table to put himself in Voldemort's reach as Voldemort stood up from the chair.

Voldemort swept one finger over the bleeding scratch on his own neck, gathering a few drops of blood before pressing his finger into Harry's mouth. Harry tasted the coppery blood and licked it off almost by instinct. Then the finger was gone and replaced with warm, demanding lips on Harry's, and an insistent tongue pressing into Harry's mouth to war with his own. Voldemort's chained hands grabbed a fistful of Harry's robes to pull him closer as he tilted his head for a better, deeper angle. Then, something intangible that felt like light and ice and fireworks all at once was pressing inside of Harry, past his lips and into the very core of his being, into his soul—there was a sudden twinge in his scar, a pleasant tingling where there had only been emptiness for so long—and Harry's entire being rejoiced in a silent 'yes' as the new Horcrux settled into Harry's scar. Harry smiled against Voldemort's lips, then he reached up to bury one hand in Voldemort's hair and tilted his head to a better angle, intensifying the kiss even further.

After another moment the door finally burst open and the livid warden rushed in. Harry pulled back just far enough to break the kiss, and he abruptly realized that he'd continued snogging Voldemort for several more seconds than necessary—but the Dark Lord hadn't stopped either, so Harry supposed the mental breakdown over it could wait until later.

Neither Harry nor Voldemort made any attempt to move away from each other until the warden marched up to them, wand drawn.

"Potter, get off the fucking table," the warden growled, jabbing his wand into Voldemort's sternum until he took half a step back from Harry, which was all the distance the chains attached to the table would allow. "This is not what we discussed."

Harry climbed off of the table as casually as he could, then said, "We never really discussed anything—you just tossed out a lot of vague comments, so—"

The warden's face started going Uncle Vernon purple, and he shouted, "I thought you were going to beat him or fuck him! Not—whatever the hell that was. What was that?" he demanded.

"Excuse me?" Harry demanded right back, his voice a bit higher than usual from both shock and indignation.

"Why did you think I warned you that he bites? You're lucky to still have a tongue. He bit Anderson's dick off yesterday, for Merlin's sake!"

Harry's jaw dropped.

Voldemort shrugged faux-casually and said, "No means no."

The warden sneered at him before ignoring him to ask Harry, "What the hell kind of spell did you do? It completely fried the wards in this room—"

"And the collar," Voldemort added.

"And the—what?" the warden yelped, raising his wand and pointing it at Voldemort as the Dark Lord reached up and easily removed the metal collar with no hindrance or consequences. On his skin where the collar had been was a line of tiny runes similar to the one on his wrist, circling his neck and forming a different collar of ink and magic.

Voldemort frowned and said facetiously, "I'm almost disappointed, I was starting to enjoy getting shocked every time I touched it. Oh well," he added, flinging the metal collar aside. He stared down at his bound hands with a look of concentration, and a few seconds later, the chains released his hands and fell to the ground as well.

Harry raised his wand as well, but kept it pointed vaguely between Voldemort and the warden, ready to swing towards whichever one decided to attack.

"Potter," the warden repeated, not amused. "What spell did you do?"

Harry caught Voldemort's eye and nodded towards the warden, and told him, "You explain."

Voldemort frowned, but then answered as if compelled by the Imperius, "He claimed his right of Magical Conquest over me."

The warden turned horrified eyes on Harry and demanded, "What the fuck, Potter?"

"What?" Harry asked, startled by the man's intense reaction.

"What do you mean 'what'? You just tied him to you with a permanent fucking slave bond!"

Harry gaped at Voldemort and repeated shrilly, "Slave bond?"

Voldemort gave Harry a pointed look that seemed to say 'play along' and then in a placating tone he said, "Yes, I know you morally disagree with that aspect of it, but I am eternally grateful that you've taken on the burden of my custody rather than leaving me to suffer years of assault and abuse." He knelt down—knelt on the fucking ground in front of Harry—and reached one hand up to take Harry's right hand and then kissing the knuckles where a Lordship ring would be if Harry had worn one. "You are a kind and generous master."

"Erm," Harry felt himself blushing because what the fuck, and he stuttered out an awkward, "you're welcome?"

The warden interrupted, "Potter, you don't even understand how badly you've fucked up, do you?"

"Er," Harry said, tearing his eyes away from Voldemort to glance at the nauseous looking warden instead.

"I have to report this to the Ministry," the warden said.

"Excellent," Voldemort spoke up, his presence in no way diminished by the fact that he was still kneeling on the floor at Harry's feet. "I'm sure they'd be interested to hear about the way prisoners are being treated here under your leadership."

The warden's face went purple again and he bellowed, "You'll keep your fucking mouth shut—"

Voldemort swiftly and smoothly stood up, his height towering over the warden as he took a step closer, "Or what?" he asked in an icy, murderous tone. "You have no power over me now, Warden."

The warden paled, reflexively raising his wand and taking a step back. He turned to Harry instead and said, "Potter, order him to keep quiet about Anderson and all of that."

"No," Harry said immediately, "I don't think I will."

The warden blinked, "But—"

Harry interrupted him. "At first I didn't understand half of the little comments you were making in your office, but looking back, I do now." He paused and looked the warden right in the eye, his lip curling slightly as he continued, "You thought I was here to either torture or rape him, and you bloody offered to help. You disgust me, and if it were up to me, you'd be in a cell here instead of that cushy office."

The warden backed away towards the door with his wand raised. "Well," he said, "It's your word against mine, Potter. And since you've just invoked an illegal slave bond upon a prisoner, I'm betting my word will hold a bit more weight."

Harry gave him a humorless smile and said, "We'll see." Then he clutched his wand and quickly cast, "Expecto Patronum!" The familiar stag materialized from Harry's wand and stood beside him, awaiting orders.

At the same moment, the warden raised his wand towards Harry and shouted "Stupify!"

Voldemort lifted his hands, palms facing outward, and wordlessly cast a Shield Charm around Harry before the spell could hit. Then he casually flicked his hand again, tossing a silent Expelliarmus at the warden and sending his wand clattering to the other side of the room.

Harry blinked in shock, forgetting for a moment that he had intended to send a Patronus message. "How did you—?"

Voldemort gave him a smirk that managed to be at once smug and bitter. "It's my duty to protect you, Master," he said, with an almost sarcastic emphasis on the title. "And you haven't forbidden me from using magic."

Harry blinked again, then swallowed and said. "Right, erm," that was definitely something they would have to discuss later.

The warden took Harry's distraction as a chance to try to flee the room, but Voldemort stretched out his hand again, and with a casually elegant gesture he sealed the door with what Harry thought was a Colloportus, and then pointed a finger and hit the warden with a Stupefy.

Harry felt both awe and jealousy towards the effortlessness with which Voldemort did wandless and wordless magic. In the past he would've also felt a frisson of fear, but right now Harry was very aware of the fact that, impossibly, he held control of this powerful wizard who used to call him an enemy but now called him Master. Harry could order him not to do magic and Voldemort would have to obey—the thought was a little bit overwhelming. After what must've been an unusually long silence, Voldemort glanced over at Harry and quirked an eyebrow, which inexplicably made Harry blush. Voldemort's eyes narrowed slightly as he studied Harry curiously, but then he smiled.

"You were about to send someone a message, I believe?" he said, nodding towards the stag Patronus that was still standing beside Harry.

"Right. Yeah." He paused, but then he waved his wand and dispelled the Patronus without sending anything. He cast another Muffliato and asked, "But before I do—if there are any more surprises in store about this bond you tricked me into, I'd rather you tell me now and not in front of an audience."

Voldemort met Harry's eyes and took a few steps closer to him. "I can't harm you or attempt to, obviously. There's also a proximity requirement—unless I've been specifically ordered otherwise, I have to remain within the boundaries of your home or within fifty meters of you at all times."

"Or what?" Harry asked.

"Or this," Voldemort said, tracing a finger along the runes around his throat, "will constrict and slowly strangle me until I get back within the boundaries."

"All right," Harry said, thinking that none of that seemed like too much of an imposition on him as the 'master'. He'd expected much worse. "Anything else?"

Voldemort seemed to hesitate for a moment before saying in a faux-casual tone, "Well, there is the matter of the…consummation."

"What?" Harry demanded. Surely that didn't mean what it sounded like?

Voldemort averted his eyes and elaborated, "This type of bond isn't finalized until the master claims conquest of the slave's body as well as their magic and will."

Harry blinked, and felt himself paling. "No. I won't—I'm not doing that."

Voldemort paled as well, then gave him a disbelieving look and explained, "If it isn't finalized, the bond will become unstable and it will start leeching my magic to sustain itself—when it eventually drains all of my magic," he said, looking nauseous at the thought, "it will start draining my life force instead and kill me."

Harry opened his mouth a few times but couldn't seem to find the words. Finally he managed, "But I can't just—just rape you! I thought that's what you were trying to get away from?" he said, sweeping his hand out and gesturing vaguely to the prison at large.

Voldemort blinked, then said, "It won't be rape. I chose this, Harry. I knew what the requirements would be."

"Well I didn't know what the requirements would be," Harry snapped. "Did you think about that at all?"

"Oh, you poor thing," Voldemort said insincerely, his tone growing bitter. "You got a piece of my soul back just like you wanted, and now you get a free slave and a free fuck as well. My heart weeps for you, truly."

"Shut up," Harry snapped. "Why would you want to be my slave anyway? How is that any better than just staying here?"

Voldemort gave him a cold look and remained silent.

"Answer me," Harry ordered, feeling a brief thrill of power as he did.

Voldemort's expression tightened for a moment before the bond forced him to answer. "Because ironically I'm both freer and safer as your slave than as a prisoner here." He went silent again after that.

"Okay, elaborate on that," Harry ordered.

After a brief glare and a moment of trying to fight the compulsion to answer, Voldemort said, "Wearing that magic-blocking collar felt like slowly suffocating every second of every day. And after my appearance changed, certain of the guards decided that they would rather try to fuck me than just beat me senseless. Anderson was the first one to try, but he certainly wouldn't have been the last—they would've just worked in pairs in the future and I wouldn't have been able to fight off more than one while chained and without magic."

Harry rubbed the back of his neck and awkwardly said, "I'm sorry that that happened to you."

"Nothing happened to me," Voldemort said immediately. "I bit off his dick when he tried to make me suck it—I rather think that means I won."

"Right, of course," Harry said, feeling far out of his depth. "But what made you so sure that I would be any better? Technically I could order you not to use magic and it'd be the same as the collar, wouldn't it?"

Voldemort met his eyes and said, "True, but I know you, Harry Potter. You aren't needlessly cruel, and you aren't the type of person to abuse someone under your care."

"Except I'll have to," Harry said, a hint of anger leaking into his tone. "If we have to—to consummate the bond."

"It won't be rape."

"It will, because you can't consent if you're already my slave!"

"I consented beforehand."

"I didn't!"

Voldemort blinked, as if he truly hadn't considered that Harry would be upset by this. "I didn't realize it would bother you," he said, before carefully and awkwardly adding, "if it wasn't already clear, you'll be the one buggering me, you won't have to—"

"It doesn't matter who goes where," Harry said tersely, blushing a bit because now he was bloody picturing it. "That's not the point!"

Voldemort tilted his head and studied Harry for a moment before something finally seemed to click and he concluded, "You think that by not explaining the full terms of Magical Conquest before asking you to invoke it, I'm both raping you and forcing you to become a rapist?"

Harry averted his eyes and mumbled, "More or less, yeah." When he looked up again after a long silent moment, it was to find Voldemort studying him with a curious, appraising look. "What?" Harry asked, crossing his arms self-consciously.

"Imagine that we've gone back in time," he said in a smooth, calming voice. "You've just walked in—you want the Horcrux back, I want out of this place. This time, I explain everything beforehand—you know then everything that you know now—about the guards and my situation, about the slave bond, about the consummation." He paused, caught Harry's eye, and asked, "What choice do you make?"

Harry didn't even have to think about it very long. "I'd still do it, but—"

"But nothing," Voldemort interrupted. "So I saved time by manipulating you into making the choice you would've made anyway—quit trying to make this into a tragedy."

Harry glared at him, then huffed and looked away.

He took several deep breaths to calm down, then focused on a happy memory and conjured his Patronus once again. "Expecto Patronum," he said, opening his eyes to the comforting presence of the luminescent stag. "Tell Kingsley Shacklebolt that I need to see him at Azkaban immediately, alone. The warden has been abusing his power and he's incapacitated. Tell Kingsley to have the guard out front bring him to Voldemort's visiting room." With that he sent the Patronus off, then turned back around to find Voldemort watching him.

Harry raised an eyebrow but didn't speak, and for a few moments there was an almost comfortable silence.

"Shacklebolt is Minister now, isn't he?" Voldemort finally asked.

Harry nodded. "Yep."

"And you believe he'll just drop everything and come running because Harry Potter says so?"

At that moment an answering Lynx Patronus shimmered through the wall and said, "I've just arrived—I'll be down shortly."

Harry looked at Voldemort and grinned. "Yes, yes I do," he answered.

Voldemort, rather than looking annoyed, looked both mystified and impressed. "Do you even realize the extent of the power you hold in our world, Harry?" he asked.

Harry shrugged and looked away uncomfortably. "I never wanted power, or fame, or any of it."

There was a heavy pause, then Voldemort quietly asked, "What do you want?"

Harry didn't know how to answer. He was fairly sure that no one had ever actually asked him what he wanted before—people had just piled expectation after expectation on him and then vilified him whenever he failed to live up to them.

Harry turned back around to face Voldemort, but he was saved from having to answer by a knock on the door. The Lynx Patronus made another appearance, phasing through the door and saying in Kingsley's voice, "It's me, and I'm alone. A guard escorted me down here but I've sent him away."

Taking a deep breath, Harry started towards the door.

"Harry," Voldemort called.

Harry paused and turned around.

Voldemort seemed to struggle with himself for a moment before saying quietly but sincerely, "Thank you."

Harry's eyebrows went up, but even through his shock he realized that this was definitely behavior he should encourage. "You're welcome," he said, giving him a small smile. Then he tapped his scar pointedly and said "Thank you." Voldemort gave him a curious look, but nodded.

The knock sounded again, more insistently this time, and Harry hurried over to unseal and open the door.

"Harry," Kingsley greeted, stepping inside. His eyes warily glanced from Voldemort to the unconscious warden before landing back on Harry. "I assume that's the warden on the floor?"

"Yep," Harry said, taking a few steps backwards to put himself between Kingsley and Voldemort.

As expected, Kingsley looked over at Tom Riddle's battered face and asked, "And you are?"

Voldemort chuckled, then at Kingsley's raised eyebrow he explained, "I haven't needed to introduce myself for years—although I looked much different until just recently." He stepped closer until he stood right beside Harry, then held out his hand and waited for Kingsley to accept the handshake before saying, "Lord Voldemort. Pleased to meet you."

Kingsley froze, but didn't pull his hand away or attack or do any of the things Harry had worried he would. Instead he blinked, regained his composure admirably quickly, and ended the handshake by introducing himself as etiquette dictated. "Kingsley Shacklebolt, but I imagine you already knew that."

Voldemort nodded politely and let go of his hand, and Kingsley cautiously watched him for another moment before turning his eyes to Harry.

"Exactly what kind of mess have you dragged me into?" Kingsley asked Harry.

"Well, er," Harry said, unsure where to even start.

Voldemort quietly interjected, "Might I explain, Harry?"

Harry blinked at the uncharacteristically polite tone and timidity, and decided immediately that it was all for show. Nevertheless, he said, "Sure," and decided to see what story Voldemort would try to sell—Harry could always contradict it if he didn't like the way Voldemort played it.

Voldemort nodded towards Harry, then turned his eyes and his focus to Kingsley instead. "As an Order member you're somewhat aware, I presume, of the unusual mental connection that Harry and I have always shared?" Kingsley nodded. "And you're aware that my magic was bound immediately upon my imprisonment?" Kingsley nodded again. "Well," Voldemort paused again, "no magic meant no Occlumency to block the connection, and," he paused again, wearing a very convincing expression of embarrassment and defeat, "well. Certain…upsetting experiences…were conveyed to Harry, and he very graciously came here to put a stop to them."

Kingsley gave a scrutinizing look to the injuries on Voldemort's face and neck. "The guards were beating you?"

"At first," Voldemort said, pausing and looking down at the ground as if ashamed. "Until my appearance changed, and they decided there were more satisfying ways to punish me." Voldemort crossed his arms, and his shoulders seemed to slump slightly, and he steadfastly kept his eyes on the floor.

Kingsley's eyebrows shot up at the inference, and he looked from Voldemort to Harry. Harry swallowed uncomfortably, then simply nodded to confirm Voldemort's story. "Merlin," Kingsley muttered, before glancing at the unconscious warden and asking, "And the warden knew? Or was he part of it?"

"He knew," Harry chimed in. "The sick bastard encouraged it—he misunderstood why I was visiting, and he practically offered to hold him down for me," he said in disgust.

"The warden also told Harry there was a way to keep me perfectly under control and tricked him into invoking Magical Conquest," Voldemort casually chimed in.

Kingsley's reaction was even more extreme than the warden's—his eyes bugged, his jaw dropped, and he blurted out, "Fucking hell, Harry—you didn't!"

Harry flinched slightly, but then forced himself to meet the Minister's eyes and said, "I did…Is it really that bad?"

"Yes!" Kingsley shouted, before taking a breath and continuing in a quieter but still agitated tone. "It's one of the most barbaric ancient rites in existence—it was outlawed a millennium ago, but if it's illegally invoked it's still magically binding and there's no way to undo it. It's worse than the Unforgivables."

Harry looked at the ground and rubbed his neck uncomfortably. "Does that mean I'm going to end up locked in here with him?" he dared to ask, nodding towards Voldemort.

Kingsley sighed, rubbed an agitated hand over his forehead, then replied, "No. I won't let that happen—even if all of us have to lie through our teeth about what happened here," Kingsley explained, looking thoroughly disgusted.

Harry subtly side-eyed Voldemort, who met his gaze but looked unbothered that the two of them were already lying through their teeth to Kingsley.

Harry looked back at Kingsley and tried to squash down his guilt when he asked, "So what now?"

Kingsley looked back and forth between Harry and Voldemort before telling Harry, "According to the law and to Magic, he's in your custody now. He's your property now," Kingsley said, his disgust with the concept clear in his tone. "If you ordered him to stay in Azkaban, he would have to do it, but—"

"No," Harry said immediately.

Kingsley glared at him for the interruption, then said, "As I was saying—with the situation being what it is, even he doesn't deserve that. He'll be going home with you, but before I let him out of my sight, we're going to agree on a preliminary set of orders for you to give him."

"Harry is my master, not you," Voldemort said coldly.

"And he did something highly illegal," Kingsley replied, "which could see him thrown in here right next to you if it ever becomes public knowledge. We're agreeing on a set of orders right now, or neither of you are leaving."

Voldemort raised a dubious eyebrow and said, "Do you truly expect me to believe you'd throw your 'Savior' into Azkaban?"

"Do you truly want to test me?" Kingsley replied.

Voldemort looked like he very much did want to test him, so Harry interjected with, "All right, it's fine—you just mean orders like 'no killing' and that kind of thing, right? I'm not going to treat him like an actual slave."

Voldemort studied his fingernails and replied, "It'll need to be more specific than 'no killing', unless you want these runes strangling me if I happen to swat a fly."

Kingsley suggested, "No killing or harming any human beings or humanoid magical creatures."

"Am I not allowed a self-defense exception?"

Harry, feeling exhausted and already starting to get a headache from this, said, "Right, Voldemort, I order you not to kill any humans or humanoid magical creatures, and to not harm any either unless it's in self defense. There."

The runes around Voldemort's neck seemed to glow with a silver sheen for a moment, accepting the orders.

Kingsley frowned and said, "Harry, don't be rash with this. We need to put the proper consideration into every order so he can't work around them."

"Kingsley, I'm exhausted and still kind of in shock over all of this—I want to be done and go home."

The Minister sighed, then said, "Fine. Order him not to harm, manipulate, or otherwise sabotage you, and that should cover it for now."

Voldemort immediately chimed in, "I already can't harm him. And I think the term 'manipulate' is too open to interpretation."

"You would," Harry muttered.

Voldemort quirked an eyebrow at him and said, "If I brought you your favorite dessert to try to make you eat more because you were looking too thin, that would technically be manipulation. Do you really want me to be punished for something like that?"

"Are you really planning to bring me treacle tart that often?" Harry asked, amused.

Voldemort's eyes gave him a brief once-over and he replied, "Perhaps. You do look a bit peaky."

Harry rolled his eyes, then asked Kingsley, "What if we go with 'malicious manipulation' or something?"

Kingsley was giving the two of them an odd look, and he said cautiously, "I suppose that will do."

"Good," Harry said, before glancing at Voldemort and asking, "Any objections?" which earned him a surprised and concerned look from Kingsley. Harry was very aware that it probably wasn't normal to ask a slave his opinion on an order before giving it to him, but he honestly didn't give a flying fuck—he was going to do everything he could to make this experience easier and less disgusting for both himself and Voldemort, which meant treating him with dignity and giving him as much choice and agency as possible.

Voldemort gave him an unreadable look, then finally said, "Add the word 'deliberately' in front of sabotage. Otherwise, I have no objections."

"All right," Harry said. He cleared his throat, then told Voldemort, "I order you not to deliberately sabotage me or maliciously manipulate me." The runes shimmered again, and Voldemort looked slightly nauseous. "What?" Harry asked, a bit concerned.

Voldemort blinked, then answered, "It isn't exactly pleasant having my will stripped away."

"Sorry," Harry said awkwardly. "We're done now though."

Kingsley said, "No, we aren't. He's clearly already manipulating your emotions and your kindness, Harry. You need to restrict his magic, at least partially."

Harry saw Voldemort's expression tighten and felt a swell of dread through their connection, and he argued, "I already did, more or less—no killing or unprovoked harm means no Unforgivables."

"You need to expressly forbid him from using Dark magic and harmful spells."

Voldemort spoke up and asked in a deceptively mild tone, "And who decides what's considered Dark or harmful?"

"It's fairly self-evident," Kingsley said tersely.

"Is it? Any spell can be harmful if it's misused. Wingardium Leviosa could be used to kill—all you'd have to do is levitate someone up high enough and then drop them. And certain healing spells are considered Dark because the caster sacrifices some of their own life force to heal another person."

Kingsley opened his mouth to argue but Harry cut in with, "Look, I'm not restricting his magic any further and that's final. It'll be on the table as a punishment if he does something awful, but I'm not doing it right now."

Voldemort's face remained intentionally blank, but Harry felt a flicker of satisfaction and relief and gratitude through their newly-reinstated mental link.

"Harry—" Kingsley tried.

"It hurts him," Harry interrupted, quietly but with conviction. "I can feel it through our connection—wearing that collar made him feel like he was constantly suffocating. It's too cruel to cut people off from their magic."

Kingsley looked at Harry for a long moment before finally sighing and saying, "Fine. I think we're both going to come to regret this lenience, but fine." He glanced down at the warden on the floor, and said, "Wake him up. I hope you're decent with Memory Charms, because I've always been pants at them."

"Erm, I've never really tried any," Harry said. Hermione had been the one Obliviating their attackers left and right while they were on the run.

Voldemort cleared his throat and said, "If I might offer my services, Harry? Although, this isn't something I can do wandlessly. It requires precision."

When Harry looked over at him, Voldemort held out his hand expectantly. Harry blinked, but after a moment of deliberation, he placed his own wand in Voldemort's open hand.

Kingsley face-palmed and said, "Harry!"

"It's fine," Harry told the Minister without breaking eye contact with Voldemort. "Isn't it?" he asked Voldemort in a warning tone.

"Of course." Voldemort smirked then added in a smooth and almost teasing tone, "I live to serve you, Master."

Harry felt himself blushing and looked away. "Right," he said, clearing his throat. "I order you to wake up the warden and make him forget what he saw us do," he said, making it intentionally vague. He paused, then as if clarifying he added, "Erm, make him forget he ever even knew about Magical Conquest. Make him believe Kingsley's here to arrest him for how he let the guards treat you."

"Gladly," Voldemort said, giving Harry a subtle look of approval for the leniency in the order that would let him erase the kiss and the Horcrux ritual along with the Magical Conquest.

Voldemort flicked Harry's wand at the warden and woke him up with an Ennervate, then wordlessy levitated the man to his feet. Before the warden even got his bearings enough to speak, Voldemort pointed the wand again and said, "Obliviate." For a long moment, Voldemort silently removed and replaced the warden's memories. Finally, he lowered Harry's wand and said, "All done."

The warden blinked a few times and glanced around in confusion, seeming only half-awake.

Kingsley caught Harry's eye, then cast a Muffliato encompassing just the two of them and said quietly, "Take him home, and for the love of everything, keep him contained. I'll arrange some kind of statement saying he's been moved to a private cell in the Ministry for security reasons. And I suppose I'll have to set up a new identity for him—the public story will have to be that he's your bodyguard or something. Do not," he said sternly, "tell anyone the truth of what you've done. Do you understand?"

"I can't keep this from Ron and Hermione, or Ginny—she'll recognize him like this, since she had a run-in with a memory of his younger self in a cursed diary," Harry said, deliberately not calling it a Horcrux. Dumbledore had kept the knowledge of Voldemort's Horcruxes very close to the chest, and Harry had decided to follow his lead.

"Harry, no—do not tell a single soul about this. The consequences are too risky." He hesitated, then added reluctantly, "And if you stupidly and recklessly ignore that order, then you better make anyone you tell swear a Vow of Secrecy. I'm dead serious, Harry," Kingsley said. Harry nodded along, feeling rather exhausted all of a sudden. "And take your wand back!" Kingsley snapped, with a suspicious look at Voldemort, who seemed to have half of his attention on them and the other half on the disoriented warden while he idly twirled Harry's wand between his fingers.

Harry nodded, and Kingsley cancelled the Muffliato and gave Harry an expectant look.

Harry cleared his throat and held his hand towards Voldemort. "Wand?" he said, which wasn't quite an order. Nevertheless, Voldemort handed it over with only the slightest hint of reluctance.

"It works remarkably well for me," Voldemort commented. "Barely any resistance. Dare I ask what became of mine?"

Harry rubbed the back of his neck and said, "Er, I kept it, after the fight. Tried it once, too—it fought me. Seemed to find me lacking," he said pointedly.

Voldemort understood the inference, and glanced at Harry's scar before replying just as pointedly, "It probably won't now."

Harry forced an awkward smile and said, "I suppose we'll see."

"Right, well," Kingsly butted in, sounding profoundly uncomfortable. "You two go home and play with each other's wands, and I'll arrest this creep. All right?"

Voldemort chuckled at the innuendo, and Harry's face went red as he wondered whether Kingsley knew about the 'consummation' requirement of the bond.

Kingsley conjured his Lynx Patronus again, sending it off to fetch the guard. Then he approached the warden, who seemed to finally have returned to coherence. "Warden Hayden, you're under arrest for abuse of power and for knowingly allowing and facilitating the abuse of prisoners in your care." Kingsley approached the warden and cast a spell to bind the warden's wrists together with black cord. Then he summoned the warden's wand from across the room and pocketed it as evidence.

Harry tuned out the rest of the arrest spiel and the warden's blustery protests, choosing instead to study Voldemort, who stood beside him with immaculate posture and the same aura of power and superiority that he'd always had. Being legally and magically a slave didn't seem to have affected his demeanor much.

After a few moments of silent scrutiny, Voldemort said quietly without even looking at him, "You're staring, Harry. I can feel it."

Harry startled and looked away, embarrassed. "Sorry. This is all just—weird, you know?"

"Indeed," Voldemort said wryly.

Harry was saved from further awkward conversation by the arrival of an unfamiliar guard and two Aurors who had apparently accompanied Kingsley to the prison but waited outside. The guard looked alarmed at seeing his boss tied up, and then even more alarmed when he caught sight of Voldemort out of his chains and collar.

Kingsley told the guard, "Warden Hayden is being arrested for knowingly allowing prisoners here to be abused. I'm taking this prisoner," he said nodding towards Voldemort, "to the Ministry, where he will be placed in an isolated maximum security cell, for his safety and everyone else's."

The guard blinked a few times, but unsteadily agreed, 'Of course, Minister…Is that Harry Potter?"' He looked torn between being terrified of Voldemort and being thrilled that Harry was within autograph-requesting distance.

"Don't worry about it," Kingsley said in a withering tone. "Show us out."

The guard hurried to comply after one last hopeful glance at Harry, and he led them through a much more direct pathway back up to the ground floor and then out through the main doors.

When they all stepped out into the fresh air, Voldemort closed his eyes and took a deep breath, seeming to savor it as a subtle blissful expression made his features seem even more handsome, despite the cuts and the bruising. He opened his eyes and quirked an eyebrow at Harry when he caught him staring again. Harry just shrugged before glancing away.

"Harry?" Kingsley said, giving him a serious look. "You'll take him to the location we discussed, and keep him secure?"

Harry nodded, and said, "Yes, of course." He held out his arm for Voldemort, who took it at once, clearly eager to get away from Azkaban. "Thank you, Kingsley," Harry said.

Kingsley nodded, and said somberly, "I'll be in touch."

Harry closed his eyes, concentrated, and then Apparated himself and Voldemort back to Grimmauld Place.

A/N: So, I already had this fic's opening scene fully imagined with Harry visiting Voldemort in prison and demanding the Horcrux back, bringing Wormtail as the sacrifice. Then I read "Poetic Justice" by Vickironica (on AO3, where my fic is crossposted as well) who really really wants more slave!Tom fics, and I decided to have Voldemort trick Harry into making him his slave, because why not? ;) Obviously I'm subverting the trope a bit, as Tom chose his own fate and he's not going to be perfectly docile or broken, and his status won't be publically known—and meanwhile Harry's going to try to make things as equal as possible because he's disgusted by the situation… But anyway, welcome to this carnival ride of codependence and consent issues and enemies-to-lovers smut and eventual romance.

FYI this is my 3rd WIP (bc I have no chill), and my updates tend to be long chapters (10-15k ish although I'm trying to get in the habit of shorter chapters) but approx 1-2 months apart, sometimes slower when RL gets hectic.

(Edit 2/14/20: I changed the time frame, so this is 3 months after the final battle instead of 6... because reasons.)

Comments give me life!