Chapter Text
Did you sweep us far from your feet?
Reset in stone this stark belief?
Salted eyes and a sordid dye
Too many years
But don't despair
This day will be their damnedest day
Oh, if you take these things from me
Did you feed us tales of deceit?
Conceal the tongues who need to speak?
Subtle lies and a soiled coin
The truth is sold, the deal is done
Cowboys - Portishead
The Gryffindor kingdom accepted their proposal.
It was the ideal outcome—their wars were near habitual, their crops dead and land unattended, rivers constantly falling into disputed territory and hindering trade. A Treaty declaring a reign of Peace, Prosperity, and Unity was drafted by the court. The War Room amended it, as did King Potter of Gryffindor. They debated and compromised on the final article, to be published to the citizens of each kingdom alongside the announcement of each respective prince's engagement.
Tom knew it was advantageous for the kingdom and for his positioning in his Emperor's eyes. Voldemort had trusted him with the task of bringing Prince Gryffindor under his control, thus securing the future of Gryffindor within their hands. Tom would do so easily—the prince was a mere omega, docile and sweet, easily swayed—and then Gryffindor Kingdom would be folded into the Slytherin Dynasty. He would prove himself undoubtedly useful, and Voldemort would finally let him rule at his side.
So he prepared to play the doting lover. He was equipped with all his tools and tricks; the sharpened edge of his lips, the pointed spear of his eyes, the pronounced allure of his cheekbones. He looked good. Add to that the lull of his Word, the cadence of his voice; he could make anyone beg for a touch.
Alas, he could not make use of these weapons on the omega prince, if the prince decided he'd rather not face his prospective spouse.
"What do you mean he's not here?" Tom didn't bother to keep his expression pleasant. "I'm aware he arrived three dawns ago. How could he not be here?"
The servants traded nervous looks again. Tom slammed the table, shaking the bowl containing his dinner.
"Say something."
Both of them stammered over each other, flinching. This served to annoy Tom even more, and he pinched the bridge of his nose to stave of a headache.
"What—seems to be the matter?"
A hiss. The Great Hall was doused in silence. Voldemort walked to the High Table. Walked—it would be better described as levitated, for his robes concealed any motion. His pale face was in its default expressionless facade, but his eyes disagreed; a minor mistake would set him off.
Everyone in the vicinity swallowed.
"Hmm." Voldemort looked at them all. "Nothing? Not even you, Crown Prince?"
Tom clenched his fist, hating having to peer up as Voldemort stood in front of him. "The Gryffindor Prince has failed to show his face at dinner. It is the third full night he spends at our castle, ungrateful and absent."
Voldemort made a face resembling understanding. "I see. You are foolish, then. Did you expect the prince to be at your every beckoning? You are the ruler of a dynasty that has caused Much Strife in his kingdom. Tell me, why should he grace You with his presence?"
"Why should he—we're to be wed."
"And what could that entail, in the grand scheme of our worlds? He is a man far removed from you. He serves his kingdom, not you. He has completed his duty of arrival at the castle of his future spouse. There is nothing more that is required of him."
Tom saw red. "I'm to be his alpha," he argued. "He has a duty to see to me."
Voldemort raised an eyebrow.
"Does he?"
The door swung open and Prince Harry Potter revealed himself. He was in a nightgown, a yawn slipping out as he squinted against the hall's torchlight. His hair was shockingly messy.
This?
This was his omega?
He was too tall. He was as tall as Tom. His shoulders were nearly as wide as Tom's. And his hips—well, they were there, certainly, but they were not omegan. His face was scarred, for Salazar's sake. Who had allowed an omega to scar himself?
The man scowled, unseemly. "Can I help you?"
Tom cleared the disgust on his face, but before he could answer, Prince Potter continued.
"Oh, it's not the Prince of Arseholes sending another messenger is it? You all have got to grow a spine. I told the last dozen, I'm sick, and I injured myself on the carriage here, and my fever's grown worse. Really, what does it take for Riddle to stand down? This is getting absurd."
Tom halted.
So… he did recall something about the prince becoming injured and feeling ill. He had heard of it the very night of his arrival, and had brushed it off as an omega being… well, sensitive. Sure it had been nothing but a thorn's scratch from the roses that Tom had ordered the servants to gift to the man. And it was true, yes, that some servants had returned with the message that the Gryffindor was bedridden, but what was Tom to believe? It'd been three sundowns, and nothing.
"I'm not a servant," said Tom, but before he could introduce himself to clear the air, Prince Potter went on.
"I know you're not. He's sent cooks, gardeners, hell, he's sent the court scribe. The court scribe. It is written in his job description that his only duty is to record! He has no obligation, in any form, to attend to Riddle's whims, and yet Riddle makes him do so." The man sighed and rested his head against the door. Now that Tom could observe his face, he noticed the redness around his waterline and nose, the fatigue beneath eyes. "A husband who utterly refuses to listen. I will see to Riddle, and I will let him know exactly what sort of behavior is to be expected. This can't go on."
Tom stared, jaw still open, at the door that shut on him.
He'd made an impression. Just—not the one he'd been hoping for.
It was alright. Omegas were forgiving, weren't they? Motherly, and all that? Tom wouldn't know. Tom had never met one before.
Whatever the norm, this one was certainly surprising.
It was unfortunate that Prince Potter had come to believe Tom was a certain way. While it was true that Tom was a controlling, demanding master, Prince Potter needn't know that. Now, Tom would have to persuade him from his radical perspective until he was besotted. It demanded much more labor than simple seduction away from neutral.
Tom had visited Potter's chambers in order to officially ask him to the grand ball, thrown in honor of their engagement. 'Arsehole' though he may be, he had also been trained to be a gentleman.
That had not gone according to plan, clearly.
But Tom was unshaken. He knew he could get the man to see reason—he'd just have to work at it a little. Tom always loved a challenge. As long as that challenge eventually bent its neck to him, of course, but all the same.
He'd dressed in his finest robes and lined his eyes. An attractive appearance would win him some points, consciously or not.
Potter was sure to fall for him.
Tom was one of the first to arrive at the ballroom. Tall columns braced the walls. A grand statue of the titan Atlas loomed over the far end of the hall. Upon his shoulder, the ceiling, woven with enchantments to look like the starry sky outside that night. At his knee, there was one throne: Lord Voldemort's.
There would be two thrones, one day. One for Tom, grand and close to Voldemort's. Tom swore it to himself.
He spent the first hour coordinating the servants. Tables strained with bowls and trays, laden with veritable feasts. The chandeliers were lit, curtains pulled aside to see into the garden. After the set-up, he took to welcoming the first guests, allowing them to come to him and waving them in graciously.
"Bella," he said.
"My lord." Bella bowed deeply, smirking, before joining her sister inside.
"Thaddeus," Tom greeted, and the old man smiled like he could recite Tom's every mistake on command.
"Riddle," said Nott, and Tom barely held back a disgusted snarl.
Barty stepped forward as the codger walked away. "Do you want me to kill him, sir?"
Tom sighed. "No. He is useful. Make yourself the very same, keep Bellatrix away from—"
"Lucius, I know," said Barty.
"Do—not—presume to interrupt me," Tom hissed and Barty paled. "Go forth and keep Bellatrix's games to a minimum. She no longer listens to that beta husband of her's, so if anything goes wrong tonight…"
Barty gulped. "Yes, of course, my lord." Bowing, he quickened his step, headed towards the Blacks, Lestranges, and Malfoys.
Time passed this way, until it seemed as if everyone had arrived — even the caretaker, Argus Filch (his date was his cat, Mrs. Norris), had deigned to greet Tom for some unfathomable reason.
Everyone, except for one omegan prince.
A vein in Tom's forehead was pulsing visibly. He had looked everywhere. Near the drinks. At the recreation area. The food. Even the restrooms, Tom checked. The audacity, the humiliation, and Potter was still nowhere to be found, except—
Who was that in Voldemort's arms?
Tom's gut plummeted.
This couldn't be right. Voldemort had never brought dates to any gathering, not once throughout the history of the man's reign. How could—? Yet there he was—Tom Riddle's prospective spouse, Harry Potter, the Prince of Gryffindor—being led through the great doors on the arm of Voldemort, the parasitic root cause of near all of Gryffindor Kingdom's despair, the Emperor that brought Terror—casual, unceremonious, as you please.
This was… unprecedented.
Tom stalked forward, and the two—were they truly smiling at one another?—halted in their path, still attached by the arms, as if Tom was a nuisance, an unexpected factor rather than one's heir and the other's betrothed.
"Ah, it's you," said Potter, a look of recognition passing on his face. Tom held back a curse, silently threatening the man not to reveal anything about their one and only conversation together, eyes flickering to Voldemort.
The Emperor shifted. "I see you've met. Harry, darling, I'll let you get further acquainted. And do let me know if the willow remedy works, hm?"
Potter smiled, Tom all but forgotten. "Of course. And you'll let me know about—"
"The lasting obscuration spell, quite so, I will. See you later, my dear."
They watched Voldemort elegantly walk away, Potter looking amused, Tom as aghast as he'd ever been in his life.
"What are you playing at?"
Potter turned to him, blinking his green eyes. "Sorry, what do you mean?"
"Entering your—our ball—in the arms of another—do they purposefully skip manners classes in Gryffindor?"
Potter's face shuttered.
"You're Tom Riddle," he appraised.
"We've seen one another's portraits."
Potter shrugged one shoulder—careless and uncouth, this omega. "You look about as common as the next man that will walk by me. Oh, see—dull brown hair, brown eyes—pale as a ghost. Besides, your portrait didn't have… your moles."
"It seems you've lost touch with your position here." Tom inhaled. "Allow me to remind you."
Potter defended the first engagement. Their swords clanged together, singing against one another. Potter tried an opposition parry, but Tom avoided his maneuver, shifting to a near guard position to Potter's ox guard.
They were circling each other, now, a clearing in the middle of the room unfolding just for them. Somewhere in the distance, the orchestra strummed the violin. Potter advanced and beat his sword against Tom's.
"Heavy, that," said Potter.
Tom looked at Potter's sword. "Light. You throw it."
"Only a dead swordsman doesn't use his one weapon in all the ways it can be used."
They disengaged and lunged at each other, as if they were one. Tom parried and Potter compounded, Tom compounded and Potter parried. They spun at the turn of the music and crossed their swords, their other hands behind their respective backs.
"That's how a fool finds himself without a weapon at all," said Tom, and Potter scoffed.
"Don't throw it if it's not going to kill."
The glint of Potter's steel looked bloody in the corner of Tom's eyes.
"You've killed?"
They held their swords together from handle to tip. Potter's fingers were warm against his.
"I killed before I became a swordsman, but if I'd never killed, I couldn't call myself a swordsman now."
Tom dodged the sudden strike, though he knew from the dance that it was to be expected. Potter wielded the sword like an extension of himself, a fluid, phallic weapon for a glorious, Gryffindor knight. In his eyes there was not a flinch of worry—that he might maul the Crown Prince in his own Empire, before the Emperor himself, with thousands of eyes upon them, on the celebration of their engagement—no, Potter was utterly secure, even as his sword seemingly moved before he made the decision to; he knew he would not kill Tom.
Or, he would kill Tom, and it would be of no consequence to him.
"The Treaty hasn't gone into effect," said Tom.
Potter blocked and rebounded. "It will the night we are wed." The sound of their swords grinding was near melodic in its pattern, followed by the supporting footwork, grounding stomps that could shake the Earth in their righteousness.
"You will need to participate in it."
"What?" Clash—parry, disengage. Engage. "My own wedding?"
"You laugh, but our ritual will tie us together, you will never be able to—"
Potter stepped out of line.
Out of the dance.
"What is the meaning of this?" Tom hissed as he blocked and swung to kill. Potter's hand was too quick to see—Tom was surviving off the instinct to feel the brush of wind before steel, rather than waiting for his laggardly eyes.
A second of weakness would see him in pieces. He forgot about the dance, pushing Potter back towards the edge of the circle. They turned and Potter's light sword bent beneath Tom's. Though his technique was equal to Tom, the steel used gave different advantages, and this was to Tom's favor.
Potter stilled at the bite of Tom's blade, staring at the pressing edge of it at his neck.
"You do not raise a sword to me," said Tom. "I will kill you where you stand. I will end the lives of your father, your mother; your very kingdom will burn. Do you understand?"
Unimpressed, Potter raised a brow, and then swung his sword. Tom leaped, but Potter was not trying to gut him—he was beheading Thaddeus Nott behind Tom. Blood gushed in a spray out of the man's neck as the body collapsed. Nott's head rolled across the ground in a crescent, painting a red moon on the hardwood.
Someone screamed. The attendees gasped and rushed away from the scene, clearing the space for Voldemort to descend on them.
"What Is the Meaning of this?" His red eyes scorched Potter, who sheathed his sword smoothly.
"Thaddeus Nott," said Potter, "I met him at the doors of this castle, one of the few Lords who deigned to greet me. He had a limp. An incident on the warfront, he said, leg was never the same. This creature, whatever it is, wore Lord Nott's face well, but it seems to have forgotten that detail."
They watched Potter's words become true before their very eyes. The blood dyed black, the body decomposing into ashes.
Whatever that was, it had not been human.
Voldemort raised himself to his full height. "I See." Blank, in control.
"A changeling, sir, they come from the west. White demons. They specialize in surveillance and deceptive magic," said Potter. "But I don't want this to ruin our celebrations."
"Ruin our celebrations?" Tom repeated, baffled. "We must halt the celebrations. You have bloodied your blade once. If that managed to successfully infiltrate, how many more are there?"
"No," said Voldemort, "Halt Your Sword."
"But—"
Voldemort looked at him, and Tom gritted his teeth.
"We Shall Continue the festivities," proclaimed Voldemort, turning away and walking towards his throne. Before he sat, he faced his subjects. He barely had to project his voice. "There is No fear to feel. There is No terror to witness. We have Accomplished plentiful Victory tonight, a Triumph in the Joining Between Two—worlds, monarchs, Prophets. Lovers." Tom jolted. "Harry Potter of Gryffindor has Raised his Blade. For who?"
He looked upon them like a deity did its creations.
"Harry, step forward."
Potter walked toward the throne, Atlas beyond him, carrying the weight of everyone's gaze.
Voldemort put a hand on Potter's shoulder, near affectionate. Tom could not suffocate the irrational, burning jealousy that coursed through him at the touch. "An honorable man; in Him runs the blood of the Great Godric Gryffindor. His worker's boot Upon Slytherin Soil—his artist's Sword and Soul led by Prowess, for the Life… and Safety… of his Promised, Your Crown Prince, Tom Riddle. Of his Subjects—You, your Children, your Neighbor."
He turned Potter to face them.
"Will You not applaud His Devotion to Our Nation?"
The Lord's listeners screamed. They were sobbing, pushing towards them in unison, yet not stepping over an unspoken boundary. A circle, like the one that formed for their sword dance, a space carved for Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort. Where Tom and Potter were greeted with intrigue, with excitement, with gossip, Voldemort and Potter were met with reverence, with worship, with appetite—a manic ecstasy escalating together in the spirit of the crowd.
They rushed past Tom in their haste.
A marriage of two nations. Potter—tall, broad. What seemed sickly before looked like depth now. A compulsion to come closer. Voldemort—regal, the repulsor. Bask in them. Breathe them in, beside each other, kings of the cities crumbled beneath their feet, blood abound, become addicted. Pull and push.
Tom turned. He snagged Barty by the shoulder. The young man looked away from the magnetic sight in the center, blinking and bowing. "My lord!"
He had forgotten Tom.
"Fetch the others. Meet me in the War Room," Tom commanded. "My Sword is Still. My mind is not."
"Yes, my lord, of course—"
He walked past before Barty could finish.