Brief intro to a little pwp/character study I was working on under the break, shamelessly inspired by the question of "what would sub!Voldemort/dom!Harry actually look like?"
They go through their days, and Harry is distracted by friends, loved ones, strangers on the street. Voldemort hates it. He hates their touches, their affection, hates the time that Harry spends, hates the attention that Harry grants them. He feels like one of the old gods, jealous and capricious, when the shriveled monstrosity of his heart dares to object. Intellectually, he knows that other people are necessary to keep the boy happy, but knowing is not the same as feeling and even then he hates that it is true.
Hate has been his bosom companion for over seventy years, and even now it curls like a viper at his left-hand side. Most days, there is little Voldemort does not hate.
How strange then, he thinks to himself, that he does not hate this.
There are no other people in the bedroom with them, no one to steal away Harry's attention, his countenance screwed up with focus that is for Voldemort alone. Harry, having shed his outer robes several hours ago and now donning a soft pair of long cotton sleep pants over his underclothes, finishes tying the knots on the silk rope that bind Voldemort's hands to the headboard. Harry isn't wearing a shirt, scar from the locket still emblazoned proudly on his chest, but he's still clothed in more than Voldemort who has long since been stripped down to nothing. Harry is too considerate a lover to permit Voldemort to catch a chill -- there are plenty of warming charms upon his person and the room at large -- but the exposure of his own alien form to the soft lamplight of their room makes him want to pull back, retreat from view.
He does not. The ropes hold, and Harry is tracing his ankles in a way that Voldmort knows means he will soon want to spread them wider. Demanding boy.
