Oct. 8's Promptober fic is for the poppies + dahlia prompt from @hp-flowers autumn 2024 prompt challenge card #1! (It's last week's card, but time is a human construct, oh well). I've wanted to do this challenge for a while since I love flower/plant language.
Tags: AU - Voldemort wins; Voldemort is his own warning; non-consensual somnophilia; Draught of Living Death; non-graphic smut; soft (・・；)
Silence answers him, as it should.
Voldemort’s eyes trace the contours of a body tucked under the duvet – one he’s long since memorised. His mind had been in this room today more than it was present in the tedious meetings he’d endured, and now that he’s here Voldemort is keen to enjoy his spoils of war.
Harry Potter, Boy-Who-Lived, saviour of the light, is dead. He died at the Battle of Hogwarts. It had taken effort and some sleight of hand (and a fair bit of mind manipulation), but even the most sceptical members of the resistance eventually believed it.
The only one who knows otherwise is Voldemort.
When he’d called the boy to him in the Forbidden Forest that night, years ago, he’d intended to kill him. There had been no doubt in his mind that this was the correct course of action – the culmination of all his plans, and the only way to ensure his victory.
But upon seeing the boy standing before him, shaking but resolute, Voldemort decided he’d rather have a trophy. So, he took a risk. He hasn’t regretted it yet.
Now, Harry spends his days and nights warming the Dark Lord’s bed in an enchanted sleep, courtesy of the Draught of Living Death. Forever almost-eighteen, forever Voldemort’s.
He replaces the bouquet of bright red poppies and grey-purple dahlias in the vase on the bedside table, since they’re starting to wilt. (A task fit for a house elf, but Voldemort has warded this space so none but he can enter. It’s a small price to pay for their privacy – for ensuring no one else is aware of what Voldemort has hidden away in his chambers.)
Removing his robe and hanging it in the wardrobe, Voldemort strides across the room to slip under the covers before he can catch a chill, despite the crackling fire casting heat and flickering light into the room.
Pushing up against the warm, lithe body of his former nemesis, he runs his hands along the boy's dark green silk nightshirt before dragging his hands and the shirt hem higher and higher, up past Harry’s chest. There’s something titillating about leaving the shirt rucked up around the boy’s shoulders, somehow more obscene to leave it on than stripping the boy bare.
“Look at you.” Voldemort sighs in contentment, burying his face in the boy’s wild hair. “You feel wonderful, darling.”
It’s been years, but Voldemort still wonders at how hot Harry is. He has run cold ever since his resurrection, but the heat that radiates off of Harry Potter’s body warms him through to his bones. He’s in danger of becoming addicted to the sensation, and on long, tedious days like this one, curling up pressed skin-to-skin against the boy is better than anything else at soothing his frustrations.
…Among other things. It appears it’s one of the rare days where the heat of the boy kindles a corresponding heat in Voldemort’s gut. Carnal desires have never been a frequent occurrence for him, but from time to time the mood strikes him.
(And never so often as they have since he acquired Harry.)
He tilts the boy’s head back and kisses the slack and unresisting mouth, nipping at his lips to see them darken and swell. Pulling one of Harry’s hands back to rest on the nape of Voldemort’s neck, he rocks their entwined bodies together. Today is a day to lazily chase his pleasure, drawing the moment out and luxuriating in the slick slide of skin, the friction of his cock against the small of Harry’s back tracing trails of precome. His other hand wraps from the boy’s hip to shoulder, holding them together as tightly as he can. Harry’s head rolls limply back and forth. Voldemort muffles a low groan into the boy’s neck when he finishes.
Magicking away the mess between them, Voldemort pulls the boy’s pliant form further into the curve of his body, stroking Harry’s bare stomach and thighs absently. The boy’s body rarely reacts to Voldemort’s attentions, and his cock remains soft between his legs now. As fast asleep as the rest of him.
Sometimes… sometimes, Voldemort considers waking Harry up. There are days where he misses the fight and fire in those always-closed green eyes; he misses the challenge, having someone he couldn’t predict, someone who wouldn’t let their fear of him rule them. In the absence of their saviour, most of the magical world had surrendered easily. The remaining dissidents are tenacious, but too few and too poorly organised to mount much of a rebellion.
The obedience of his followers and the sheep-like nature of the general magical populace appeal to his ego and his need for control, but he can admit in the silence of his mind that the absence of any real challenge can occasionally be. Well. Exceptionally boring.
Sometimes he considers waking Harry up, if only for the sake of feeling alive again.
(Sometimes he wishes Harry would touch him in return. An asinine fantasy, but a compelling one all the same.)
But no. Harry Potter must remain dead in order for Voldemort to keep Harry.
