Chapter Text
The time between being in contact with people had been limited, and he’d mostly sat in hibernation. Being a horcrux, a sliver of someone’s soul, was an odd experience. Not that he had any true complaints outside of being bored. Then a warm hand touched him.
He wasn’t awakened immediately- his magic so subdued from being left alone for so long it was hard to see or hear or feel much of anything. Still, he could just barely smell cinnamon and spices and a warmth like vanilla and fire that made him twitch and move just so, trying to lazily wrap himself around whatever idiot had dared to try and retrieve him from the cave in the lake.
Later on, when he’d think back, he’d remember slowly taking in the magic like it was a cool glass of water and he was a drowning man, the memories and visuals of the world around him coming into focus slowly as he slowly siphoned enough energy from the vessel carrying the locket, gifting him their magic and energy enough to awaken fully. It felt familiar, like home. A small part of him assumed that he must have gifted the locket to someone special, someone important, because none of his followers or anyone had that same spark of his own magic curled around them like a safety net, not just anyone would have felt like coming home to him unless it had been intentional.
Harry. Harry Potter. Tom drank in the smells and tastes and sounds and sat back and watched from his eyes and shifted slowly and delicately through his memories, learning everything he could about the boy without drawing his attention to the fact that Tom was there, waiting, watching.
What he learned surprised and shocked him, and before he knew what he was doing, he realised he had already begun taking all of his plans and tearing them to shreds metaphorically in his head, or Harry’s head, the locket, whatever- the point was he saw now what making the horcruxes had done to himself. He had thought that making them, removing that human element of fear and doubt, so he could focus on logic and facts, would make him smarter. Now he realised he’d lost any sense of hubris and had brought about his own demise and downfall as a result. Seven had been too many- he’d proven his ability as a wizard in being able to even make more than once in the first place, but now he knew that he’d gone past the limit of even the greatest of magical beings, where he was no longer human, but in all of the worst ways.
He was a complete madman, willing to burn everything out of spite to rule a pile of ashes. That was never what Tom had wanted- Burn it down to rebuild, yes, but there was a threshold, a point of no return where the earth was salted and the world barren and so utterly ruined that there was simply no point. For the first time in a very long time, Tom was worried.
There was only one solution.
He continued to hide his presence and drink slowly from Harry, spending their evenings silently fighting off the boy’s nightmares with tight embraces and loving words in his ears- there was something so beautiful and so heartwrenching listening to his omega’s little cries and whimpers only to purr gently in his sleep when Tom kissed the unbroken skin over his mating gland.
It was miraculous that it was this clever little boy who had managed to find him, procure him. That Voldemort had unknowingly created what might be the only human horcrux in existence, his own little soulmate, which made Tom shiver in anticipation.
He’d never been able to understand the fascination with courtship, the alphan desire to conquer a partner, to procreate with them. Children as a concept were necessary, but the idea of having his own? Disgusting. He knew on some level now it was the fact that he’d made his first horcrux before he’d even presented- he’d never had a true rut, never looked at any of his classmates with anything less than disdain. He did not need a mate, a wife or a husband. Any dalliances were exclusively to get something he needed out of them, not for his own pleasure. He could have an erection, could perform, had learned to perform well for his partners, but it had always felt like he was simply an outsider controlling his body like a puppet on its strings. He could do the necessary duties that were expected of an alpha of his status to do and act on, but he had always been in control.
But now…
When he’d woken, he’d smelled the remnants of a broken heat and had curled into the warmth, practically rolling in it before he had even realised what he was doing with it. Before he was even fully conscious of anything. He had no physical body, and while he was certain he could manifest it if needed, it still felt hollow. A shell. It wasn’t a real body like Voldemort’s, the one Harry had encountered when he’d presented-
And God, what a fucking glorious presentation it had been. He’d only been able to see it through Harry’s eyes so he knew what the teen thought of it, but Tom was in the unique place of knowing what an alpha might think and what he, Lord Voldemort, might think, and watching the look on Voldemort’s face as he watched the small omega, a whole foot shorter than himself and likely half his weight, fight through his first heat, nearly straight up ignoring it? Breaking through an Imperius like it was nothing but child’s play?
It made Tom want. It was an odd circle to get into, a thought experiment of whether his soul had bound to Harry because of Harry’s innate strength, or if his soul being attached to Harry’s had boosted his strength, but either way, they were where they were. There would be no undoing it. He could feel his magic and soul so intertwined and woven into Harry’s, nestled and nurtured in such a way that there would be no pulling it free of the boy to be reabsorbed.
Perhaps this was why there had never been a human horcrux before: it could not continue to exist as a separate entity in a human host, and eventually it would merge with the host’s soul.
Either way, it made his planning easier. He knew eventually the omega would notice him, had already noticed him to some degree. Harry kept thinking he needed to be rid of the locket, but without any conviction to do so. Tom hadn’t even needed to influence him at all, and wondered if the portion of his soul attached to Harry’s simply recognised him as his own, or if Harry, as the omega to his alpha, recognised his mate. Either would make sense; both together certainly explained why even a boy so stubborn kept giving in about it, keeping the chain around his neck, stroking his thumb over it each night as he fell asleep.
Tom shouldn’t have been surprised about how visceral Harry’s reaction had been when he’d finally remembered Tom’s voice upon waking one morning in early November, but he had still panicked a little bit when Harry had made good on his mental threat to throw him in his trunk. He’s absorbed enough of Harry’s energy over the last month that he didn’t immediately fall back into a state of hibernation, and instead, he’d floated, making contingency plans.
He was fairly certain Harry would come back for him- both the horcrux in him and the omega in him were too attached to him to let him go so easily. Tom might have found that weak in anyone else, but he’d been in his omega’s head and knew his boy was anything but weak. On the off chance that Harry didn’t return for him, he suspected he wouldn’t turn him over. As much as Harry trusted Dumbledore, his faith in him was slowly eroding, and rightfully so, seeing the inconsistencies and feeling the lack of support and safety net from one of the first people who had ever given him positive reinforcement in his life. Harry had previously withheld information and the like from the staff and his other parental figures because he’d worried that they were either too incompetent or did not want to be seen as troublesome.
Tom refused to categorise the warm feeling in him as relief and instead tried to feel smug that he was correct when he felt a hand encompass the cool metal and smelled the familiar smell of cinnamon and sweet, fiery spice. Harry didn’t put the necklace back on, though, and Tom worried when he felt the hesitance. He tried to reach out and see through his eyes. But when the only point of contact was his hands on the locket, Tom found it was difficult to maintain any kind of connection.
Frustrated, he pushed his magic out against the limitations of his vessel and found himself kneeling on a small twin-sized bed, rich red curtains drawn. Harry’s eyes were closed, and he had his legs crossed and pulled up, almost hugging himself as tears gently trailed down his cheeks.
Tom had never enjoyed coaxing something from someone so much- Harry was so responsive, like he’d been in his dreams and sleep, but now there was so much emotion behind it that it was nearly bewitching in itself. He finally convinced the boy to put the locket on, and then the following day, had a significantly more productive conversation at length.
His omega was… perplexing. Bewitching. Frustrating. Clever and maddening. Delicate and ferocious. When Tom touched him and brought Harry pleasure, Tom was able to feel it in the feedback loop of their bond. It made him ache with want. He had never wanted to fuck someone before, never desired to feel anyone on his knot in the way that other alphas waxed poetic about. However, Tom was fairly certain he would find a way to capture the moon if it meant he could feel Harry on his knot, to work it into him during a heat, to sink his teeth into his neck and taste his blood on his tongue.
At first when he’d skimmed the surface of Harry’s memories, he’d scoffed at the idea of “Dumbledore’s Army” (and still did because while he completely understood the desire as a teenager to do something completely out of spite, naming it as such had been utterly ridiculous)- but as he lingered there in Harry’s thoughts, watched the circus act that was Professor Umbridge’s Defense Against the Dark Arts Class, he’d agreed with the notion on the whole.
Watching Harry teach was exhilarating. At first, Tom assumed it was from the hum of magic, the power welling up under his skin that he could taste, that made him feel that way as Harry unfurled magic that had been bottled up through the days and weeks. It was frustrating to watch the boy in class. He didn’t apply himself and was lazy when he didn’t see the practical application of the things being taught- when he did bother and focus, the magic was effortless, coming to him easily, as if it lived just under his skin, waiting to be called forward.
Harry rarely had an issue with being unable to summon his magic, which was the usual sort of problem when learning new spells and techniques, and more that, it was usually too much too quickly, and he had difficulty regulating and directing it. Tom breathed a sigh of relief when Harry finally realised he was there, hovering over his back and promptly began making suggestions and coaching the teen in the classes. At first, it had irritated Harry, who bristled and steadfastly ignored the man, but at one point, after a few days, Harry had given in and tried altering his gestures as Tom suggested in Charms, and then the boy saw reason, and it continued from there.
Tom found that, outside of making suggestions for some darker spells, there was little he truly could offer the teen in his Defence classes for DA (Tom steadfastly only thought of it as the DA and refused to think the full title out loud). In defensive lessons, Harry was a savant. His magic was like a coiled snake or a lion dipped into a crouch, waiting to strike.
He duelled efficiently and with an instinct that any auror would kill for, while his spell repertoire wasn’t wide-ranging in his duels, the spells were still unexpected. His omega thought outside of the box, using spells that had no intended purpose in a duel to work creatively on the fly and tended to stick towards common and simple spells that were becoming easier for him to complete wordlessly. His Magic responded to him instinctively. Harry wanted, and his magic did. It was like watching art.
After the first DA lesson since Harry had become aware of him, Tom offered to work with him on wordless and wandless magic- he wished he could duel him, but given he was only a shadow of himself and did not even have his own magic at his disposal, there was little else he could effectively offer.
Occasionally, Harry would feel pain through their bond from Voldemort, or visions at night of a hallway that Tom found himself unable to intercept, unable to shoo from Harry’s mind as he slept with his presence. They were… annoying, not only because they distressed his mate significantly, but because Tom was unable to discern if Voldemort was doing it deliberately, or if he was truly so far gone that he did not realise this information was slipping through. The latter concerned him more than the former, especially since his plan hinged on it being the former.
As December further progressed, Tom slowly revealed more of his plan as he found it necessary. Because he was fairly certain that if he didn't, Harry, as fucking magnificent as he was infuriating, would find a way to turn it arse over tea kettle, and with what he knew of Voldemort's current temperament, he couldn't have that. He needed to know everything would go according to plan, and the only one between him and getting back to his body was his little mate saying something incredibly stupid, as he was prone to do.
They both knew it was likely that Harry's next heat would start sometime around Christmas, given the timing of the previous two. If Voldemort were using the mental connection with Harry, or even vaguely aware of it, he might mentally check in if and when he felt Harry's heat, which would give Tom a connection to his body. Even if Voldemort only skimmed the surface of Harry's consciousness before raising his barriers, he would feel Tom there.
That should catch his attention, even if his omega in heat didn't.
Harry didn't much care for any of the plan, but did admit when prodded that he didn't particularly have a better one. He seemed concerned about the idea of Voldemort making an appearance during his next heat, even if only mentally, but was doing his best to put on a brave face.
Harry collapsed into his bed after the final DA meeting of the year, and Tom felt a pleased sort of warmth when the teen flicked his hand and closed the curtains wandlessly. He crowded in on him almost immediately, but this had become their new normal, Tom wrapping himself like a snake around the younger man. His little omega was tired after running drills and working with his little defence group, and Tom's hands only strayed enough to stroke and pet in a soothing manner instead of trying to rile him up. He did not wish to trigger his heat too quickly- it would be easier if it began during the Winter Holidays, when there were fewer people around.
But like everything with Harry, as Tom was beginning to become aware, there was no ability to properly plan for anything. No, that would be far too fucking easy.
When Tom felt his mate tense and coil and whimper, he sank into his mind and found the hall, but did not find Harry. Instead, he found Nagini. The snake was found after his creation, but he was aware of her existence, both from before he’d been placed in the cave and from Harry’s knowledge of her. He was confused as he felt his mate’s growing panic as the snake attacked the sleeping man and tried to wrench the pair apart, but it was like the piece of the soul inside of Harry was seeking out and clinging to the piece of the soul within Nagini.
It would have been terribly fascinating to witness if it hadn’t been so infuriating, and his omega wasn’t in a full panic. Everything escalated quickly from there, and Tom watched his mate fight his own heat as it consumed him, burning the teen up hotter, far more quickly than it should have. Likely accelerated by both his connection with Nagini and also Tom’s presence.
Once he finally had the omega tucked safely away in Grimmauld Place, finally calmed all the raging fears and worries of the boy, and he was able to open the floodgates between them and feel everything. Like having seen the world only in black and white and suddenly having the full spectrum of colour poured out around him, he could feel Harry’s pleasure rock through him, more intense than any of their previous couplings. He felt more from the boy and his heat than he ever had in any of his ruts, and he needed it. Needed more, needed all of it. Needed his mate on his knot, needed to tuck Harry away where no one could touch him or hurt him or look at him so Tom and Tom alone could worship his miraculous little mate. He felt like he was drowning in sensory overload, his whole body lit up like a goddamn Christmas tree.
And Harry? Harry looked divine. He was a sopping wet mess of desire. He smelled like a dream, and Tom wanted to gorge himself on him. His fierce, delicious little mate. He sucked the omega off, moaning loudly and wantonly, desperate for the sensations Harry fed him through the bond- addicted to them. He had never felt so whole and complete in his entire life.
He had enough sense to keep from trying to mount the boy in truth- he wanted him desperate and writhing when Voldemort appeared, and he also had an idea that the sensation, while enough for now, would pale in comparison to the feeling of him in truth once he was back in his body.
And Tom had always been a little traditional. He wanted to slide home inside his omega with the view of a bite on Harry’s neck, wanted to send him over the edge with his cock as he filled him with cum, but it could wait. They would have eternity to couple, to fuck lazily, or frantically. However they desired, wherever and whenever they desired.
Tom felt the shiver of cold up his back while Harry keened and struggled with his heat. Voldemort had arrived. Before the older man could close off the connection, Tom struck, reaching out with his magic and grabbing for the other, anchoring him there.
That did it. Voldemort crowded immediately in on Harry’s mind, which was in shambles as deep into heat as he was, and he was rewarded with the sight of Tom pinning the omega to the bed and rutting his cock beside the omega’s. The conversation went how he’d planned, except for Harry. His Harry with his ridiculous Gryffindor courage and pride, mouthing off to the most dangerous being in the British Isles and then snogging him.
Tom watched, transfixed, as Harry responded brilliantly, his magic trying to interweave with Voldemort’s immediately. His body recognised him, who he was to them. Mate. Alpha. Voldemort became transfixed as well, and Tom let himself relax marginally. Game. Set. Match.
From there, everything went mostly as he expected, though Harry did enjoy throwing wrenches in where he could. Tom was impressed by his mate's ability to inspire devotion in his followers- his friends, Harry insisted they were. But that was good, that was the point.
Voldemort had never had enough time or ability to win everyone over with honey. He’d done the math, run those numbers. A violent coup had been the quickest, and if it had been done properly, would have done the least amount of damage to the Wizarding World overall.
But with each horcrux those calculations became more and more skewed until they were all incorrect. But with Harry by his side, he would seize it. Bridge the gap between the Light and the Dark. He would still take over, but it would be absolute. He and his mate would be loved, and those they could not inspire love in would instead inspire fear.
On the bright side, restoring the Ring and the Goblet did seem to help a considerable amount with Voldemort’s mental state, so far as Tom could tell. Everything was falling into place. The planned outing in Hogsmeade, Harry keeping the meddling Headmaster at bay, and their interview with the Quibbler.
Even the Ministry, which escalated far past what he’d wished for, still turned out well. Voldemort was still treating Harry as though he were lesser. Tom knew better. Knew his little mate was a ferocious thing, and knew he would send all of them to hell in a hand basket before he let Voldemort or Tom win unless it meant his loved ones were safe. The display of dominance was breathtaking. Tom was only disappointed he was not there to help his mate during his heat, but this time, Voldemort would.
Voldemort did not wear the Locket like Harry did, and Tom was forced into a semi-sort of hibernation. If he had, Tom would have been able to warn him of what a danger Umbridge was to Harry and prevent what had transpired, but once the Horcrux was aware, at least it had turned into a decent bonding experience. It had won Voldemort points from those on Harry’s side, especially with the Weasleys, and earned him credit and respect in the Ministry for steadfastly defending his mate, the Boy Who Lived. Won him consideration from some of the more centre-leaning Light Families who no longer simply discounted the Lord of Slytherin as someone they could not work with.
Their heat was everything he’d hoped it would be. He and Voldemort were slowly converging, the sanity restored to their body, with the absorption of two horcruxes and the grounding presence of both their familiar and their omega, more sections of their soul. Harry’s own, whole soul added to that, in Tom’s opinion. He was the epitome of light, of goodness. Too pure, but he had seen enough that he still somehow had darkness within him that he continued to conquer. That piece of Lord Voldemort that had been clinging to him like a parasite, a lure, a temptation to darker tendencies. But instead of being overwhelmed and overcome by it, he channelled it.
Four days of maintaining a corporeal form without draining either Voldemort or Harry too much was exhausting. And Tom had foolishly hoped that Voldemort would contain the situation when Harry revealed how much he knew. But Voldemort failed, and Tom manifested as Voldemort lunged, trying to grab Harry, and Tom shouted his name, slamming into the wall where Harry had rolled to as the omega disappeared from the room.
For what might have been seconds, or minutes, neither moved, neither said a word, frozen in silence as the implications reigned down on them.
“What have you done?” Tom finally snarled viciously, glaring at Voldemort.
“Me?” Voldemort demanded, his voice deadly, an anger to match what Tom's.
“Yes,” Tom hissed, barely keeping his composure as every fibre of his being and instincts screamed at him to find and comfort his mate, “You, you froze, and now he is gone-”
Voldemort slammed into him, a hand wrapped around his neck, but Tom was not a mortal wizard; he was a fragment of a soul, trapped in a locket that was in Voldemort’s pocket. The only reason he was able to maintain the form was how much energy he’d been sucking up from the pair over the past few days. Tom snarled back, both baring canines in a display of dominance and aggression, both Voldemort and his horcrux feeding into each other’s anger.
“We must go after him,” Tom growled. “We must merge and go to him, a distraught Harry is the worst possible thing for us to unleash on the world-”
“He is being a weak, emotional mess,” Voldemort snarled, “He worked himself up into a state I had no way of containing. Were you accounting for that, since you know so much?”
Tom grimaced, “No, but I also put more faith in our mate than you. I have been in his head; you have not. He needed reassurance.”
“I have spent plenty of time in his head,” Voldemort snapped dismissively.
“Yes, after we had already taught him occlumency,” Tom huffed, rolling his eyes, “He managed to keep the fact that he knew about the horcruxes a secret from both of us.” Tom felt a panicked laugh escape him, feeling delirious. His impossible little mate, he thought fondly, even with his exasperation and delirium. “Dumbledore has single-handedly ripped the rug out from under us and regained his position back in his confidence, while putting us at a disadvantage yet again. Harry knows, but I know Harry; I have lived within him without any limitations for months.”
“Then what would you have me do?” Voldemort demanded, looking more desperate than angry, which was not necessarily a bad thing.
“We need to rejoin. Harry values honesty in his relationships with him above all else, especially after the betrayal he felt from Dumbledore. This is the only piece, to my knowledge at least, that we have still kept hidden from him that directly impacts him, yes?” He paused and waited for Voldemort to dip his chin in a silent agreement, “Then we do something we do not do for anyone but Harry,” Tom winced even as he thought about it, “We grovel, we prostrate ourselves, because the issue here isn’t that Harry knows-”
“If that isn’t an issue, I would love to know what is,” Voldemort growled, and Tom fought the urge to smack him.
“If Harry is correct, and Dumbledore told him about the horcruxes after our break-in at the Ministry, then Harry has known about them, about himself, for months,” Tom said, more gently, trying to calm the elder version of himself rather than shake him. “Harry shared dreams and sought you for help when in trouble, and continued marriage negotiations and shared a cycle with us, knowing about them, about what I am, about what he is.”
He let that linger, the implications hanging there between them. Their precious omega had known for months he was a horcrux, was a being born of the darkest magic, and was marrying and tying himself to an alpha who had committed the darkest magic not once but multiple times.
And he had still proceeded. Still, he claimed he was falling in love.
“We do not grovel,” Voldemort hissed quietly.
“We do when we have offended our queen,” Tom hissed back.
“Our queen is a love-struck fool falling back under Dumbledore’s control,” Voldemort snapped, finally pulling away and pacing towards the bed. It was only then that they both saw Nagini had joined them in the room, wrapped herself around one of the bedposts, watching them silently, judging them.
“We have made plenty of people love us before,” Tom scoffed, sliding his hands into the pockets of his trousers. “We have made them adore us. How is this any different?” Tom knew the answer, but he wanted to hear Voldemort say it out loud.
“Because… this is Harry,” Voldemort said, his voice quiet, either unable or unwilling to look at the horcrux.
“Because, unlike the rest, you do not wish to simply manipulate him, use him for what he is worth, and then discard him,” Tom said, trying to keep his tone light. Not an accusation, but the truth was a hard realisation for both of them. Only Tom had had months of waiting and watching and seeing the very core of his precious omega. He'd accepted this. Voldemort was coming to terms with it piece by piece, resisting it, kicking and screaming. “We wish to keep him.”
“Yes,” Voldemort finally breathed, his shoulders tense.
“Just because I spent all that time in his head, I will not claim to suddenly understand love any better,” Tom said slowly, contemplatively. “But from what I have gathered, our desire to put his wants and needs before our own, to protect him, is a form of it. Perhaps even the baseline of it, even if we do not understand all the deeper intricacies.” Voldemort scoffed, and Tom narrowed his eyes. “Lily Potter thwarted us because she was willing to die to save her son. What are we willing to sacrifice to keep Harry beside us?”
Voldemort did not answer and held out one hand to Nagini so that she could climb onto him as she always did, but the snake did not move from the bedpost, glaring at him.
“You upset your little mate,” she accused. “I like him. Fix it.”
“You are a traitor,” Voldemort snapped, glaring at her. “Come, if we are to do this ritual, I need you safe, away.”
Nagini blinked slowly at him and then acquiesced, slithering her large form up his arm and onto his shoulder so that he could take her away from the estate.
• ⋅ • ⋅ ⋅ • ⚡️ ⋅ ⬩ ⋅ ❤️ ⋅ ⬩ ⋅ 🐍 • ⋅ ⋅ • ⋅ •
Normally, Voldemort would take great pleasure in the terror that dumping Nagini on Barty brought about, but he was unsettled, distracted, and only instructed the man to check in if he did not return in forty-eight hours. He had no way of knowing how the ritual would differ, given his soul was already three cut pieces being tied together with magic and spite alone. Would the joining be harder this time, now that he was more whole? Or would it be less difficult? Would it differ because the Locket had grown a sort of sentience that the Goblet and Ring hadn’t? He had no idea what the recovery time could look like because what he’d done, making more than one horcrux, was unprecedented. And tying them together like this? Even more so. There was no tome he could reference or person to torture information out of. He was going in blind, and he was on a ticking clock, because every moment he let Harry out into a world feeling wounded was a moment he might receive an owl alerting him that the omega was dissolving their agreement. The chances were not high, but they were there, and that was enough to make his chest constrict.
He also knew to some degree they were likely both experiencing a major emotional drop. It was their first cycle as a mated pair, and it was also the most Voldemort had ever spent with another human being so intimately. He craved Harry’s touch, was missing it with a desperation that made his skin crawl and hated it.
Hated every moment that brought him to being reliant on another living creature, and still, he was also not willing to lose it.
When he returned to his office, he was hit in the face with a wall of pine and cinnamon, and the smell of their fading heat and rut made him want to hurl something out of the goddamn window. His magic, usually so controlled, lashed out irritably, unsettled, rattling the furniture ominously. He pulled his notes out from the first binding and made the necessary adjustments and tweaks. The Locket was quiet and made no further attempts to scold him for allowing Harry to leave in such a state. The reminder, along with a foreign emotion clawing inside his chest, made him feel irate. He wanted to lash out, to maim and scar and set fire to the whole estate, but instead he focused on making sure all of the runes he wrote out on the stone slabs of his office were perfect, the same as before.
The spell and the ritual were, at their most basic components, a binding ritual, and that part was the simplest. The rest was chaotic; elements of the ritual he’s performed each time he’d made a horcrux had been undone and reversed, in addition to the binding to connect the pieces back together. This was especially important given that the Locket had formed its own sentience.
Voldemort paused before he activated the spell, eyeing the circle and the candles lit with a nudge of his magic, trying to ignore the memory of intense pain he’d felt six months prior when he'd done this the first time. He cut the palm of his hand and allowed the blood to drop onto the locket before beginning the ritual.
This time, he was more prepared and knelt before the pain could bring him to his knees, and the Locket hung heavy around his neck as his entire torso burned, his chest constricting his breathing into harsh wheezes as his body burned hot. The pain in his body was eclipsed by the throbbing in his head, his brain filled with a horrible buzzing of static. Almost as if his brain had been a neatly stacked deck of cards, only to be shuffled in with another stack entirely. He braced himself on the stone as he gasped through the pain, a whirlwind of too much filling him again. He had still not fully acclimated to it since the ritual in winter, but it had become bearable, especially since he and Harry had exchanged mating marks. Like his omega was helping to filter the emotions and senses through so they were more manageable, but this... This wasn’t just adding senses. It was thoughts, memories, emotions.
At some point, he bit his tongue and tasted the blood in his mouth and smelled cinnamon. He heard a loud whine only to realise with horror that it was from him, and he curled in on himself in the tightest of balls on the floor, his body shivering violently.
The grating magic from the ritual subsided, and he extinguished the candles as he tried to ignore the sensory overload. Using his desk, he managed to get both of his feet under him. He stumbled, but was proud that at least he kept his feet under him and didn’t have to summon one of the house elves to get back into the bedroom. Though it was a close call- he nearly tripped once or twice and had to lean heavily on the wall. By the time he made it, it was fully dark outside, and the room was cooling. He was sweating. He’d sweat a bit during the rut with Harry, but not this much. He shuddered as he smelled his omega’s scent on the bed again and grabbed a pillow and shoved his face into it, inhaling as if his life depended on it.
His own hubris would have been amusing if he didn’t feel like his chest was about to explode. The Locket had sought to control their body, not accounting for the fact that the Ring had possessed double the substance it had, and therefore, they were all merged, a monstrous amalgamation of pieces of Tom Riddle. But they were all him. And with his omega, he was whole.
He would fix this.