Voldemort slipped through the glamour-warded doorway into his new home. It wasn't much of a hideout. A damp little cottage in the middle of nowhere, roof sagging, walls thin enough that wind whistled straight through them. He had once had mansions to choose from. Estates. His followers' homes. Now he was living like a fugitive with a talent for mould.
He shut the door and leaned on it for a moment. His fist tightened until bone clicked.
Rosier. Dumbledore.
Two names that had stripped him down to this.
After the Ministry debacle, the last of his remaining Death Eaters had been swept straight into Azkaban. Some died resisting. Some were dragged off screaming. Malfoy, the Lestranges, Dolohov... gone. The ones still roaming free were the sort he wouldn't trust with a kettle, never mind war. He couldn't even linger in the Manor of a loyalist without risking the Aurors landing on the doorstep.
He was reduced to this cottage.
This life.
Power... that was slipping. He could feel it. All the work he had poured into the illusion of strength, the aura of immortality, the fear he had cultivated for decades... it was fraying.
He needed something to tip the scales back. Fast. Bathael's offer buzzed at the back of his skull. The ritual. A chance to stitch the soul back stronger each time it reformed.
Dangerous, yes. But everything he'd done had been dangerous. And if it worked...
The ring and the locket were gone. He checked. The diary, destroyed by Potter and that meddling Rosier before he had even clawed his way back into a body.
The cup...
The cup was supposed to be safe.
He'd entrusted Bellatrix with that because she was obsessive enough to guard it with her life. But Bellatrix had escaped Azkaban last year, or so the papers claimed. He didn't doubt she'd try, she was loyal enough and mad enough to claw her way out. But something about it stank.
After the last breakout, no new Minister would let a second escape happen that soon. Not without losing their job by sunset. So it was most likely staged to get at the cup in her vault.
Could Rosier and Dumbledore have reached it?
He pressed a hand to his forehead.
That left the diadem.
Hidden in the castle. Hidden well enough that Voldemort himself had spent days threading through old magic to put it there. No one alive knew the path he'd used. Hogwarts wasn't simple stone, it twisted for those it favoured, and shut itself against those it didn't.
If anything survived, it was that.
Nagini slithered in the corner. She lifted her head and hissed, tasting the frustration in the air.
Voldemort glanced at her, eyes narrowed. "You're still with me," he muttered. "That's something."
He looked away.
Only two Horcruxes left. Two anchors.
He'd once believed himself untouchable because seven fragments made him myth. Because splitting the soul was the path to eternity. That was what the scrolls had taught him. That was what he'd built himself around.
Now he knew better. The Covenant laughed at Horcruxes. Bathael smirked at them. Marauder had practically patted him on the head.
There were older forms of survival. Proper ones. Ones he'd never known existed.
He felt stupid for the first time in decades.
He rubbed his thumb against his sleeve, restless.
Should he take Bathael's offer?
Let a stranger tear at the structure of what remained of his soul?
Let it rebuild itself stronger, sharper, more resilient?
Or was it bait? A trap? A way to prise him open and see what fell out?
He closed his eyes.
He'd trusted the wrong people before.
But he also couldn't stay here, dwindling, watching his power drip out of him like a punctured cauldron.
He opened his eyes again.
"I will not be diminished," he whispered to the empty room.
Nagini hissed in answer.
He pushed himself upright.
If he wanted to survive, he needed more than fear and remnants of an old plan. He needed to adapt. He needed to grow in ways the old Voldemort had never considered.
He needed that ritual.
But not yet. Not without checking the last piece still in his reach.
The diadem.
If it lived, he still had two anchors. Two was enough to risk one.
He reached for his cloak.
He would go back to Hogwarts. Not into the castle, he wasn't suicidal, but close enough to sense whether the diadem had been disturbed. Close enough to test the boundaries.
If it had been touched...
His jaw tightened.
***
Bathael swung the slab of stone aside with one hand, as though the cave door had only been pretending to be heavy. Cold air rolled out. Voldemort stepped in after him and stopped short.
From outside it looked like a foxhole wedged between two boulders, inside, it opened into a cavern big enough to hold a small hall. Bare walls. Bare floor. No furniture or runes. Nothing that suggested a home or a lair. It felt more like a waiting room for something unpleasant.
Voldemort looked back over his shoulder to the entrance. He honestly wasn't sure how he'd ended up there. One moment he was standing inside the circle Bathael had told him to enter, and the next he'd walked out into this chamber. No Portkey pull or Apparition snap. It felt like stepping into a cupboard and wandering out of a different door entirely. How that was even possible, he had no idea.
Bathael stepped in behind him as he let the stone fall shut again. "Well then," he said, grinning. "That's a yes, is it?"
Voldemort gave him a nod. Nagini slid off his shoulders and coiled beside his boots.
Bathael eyed her. "A living Horcrux," he said, far too amused. "How exciting."
Voldemort didn't bother to explain himself. He'd gone close, uncomfortably close, to Hogwarts to test something he'd learnt the hard way... his Horcruxes were linked through one another. Not speech really, more a shared pulse of emotion and pressure. When he reached the edge of the wards, something answered Nagini's call from inside the castle. Only one Horcrux could be in Hogwarts, the Diadem. With one left to gamble, he'd taken the risk.
Bathael didn't press. He wandered forward, crouching to look at Nagini as she lifted her head.
He frowned.
"Mm," he murmured. "She isn't a snake."
Voldemort froze.
Bathael tapped the ground lightly with two fingers. "Come here, sweetheart."
Nagini slid closer.
"She was a person," Bathael said. "And something cursed her so hard her bones folded into scales."
Voldemort's expression flickered, anger first, then something darker, then gone again. "She wasn't a human."
"She was," Bathael said simply. "You can lie to the room if you want, but magic doesn't lie to me."
Nagini hissed.
Bathael shifted his weight, elbows on his knees. "Blood malefication," he said. "Rare one. Takes your form, locks it, and feeds on whatever's left. Not the usual curse either. This is old. Messy work."
Voldemort's jaw clenched. "Does it matter? Do the ritual."
Bathael's hand twitched like he'd nearly reached for his sword without thinking. "No."
Voldemort's wand was out in a heartbeat. "What do you mean, no? Don't tell me you're squeamish about killing a snake that used to be a witch."
Bathael looked down at him as though Voldemort had missed something obvious. "A person's magic isn't the same as whatever you stuffed into an item. The ritual won't take." He nodded at Nagini. "Leave her with me. I can run tests."
Voldemort's wand lifted a fraction higher.
"You misunderstand," he said softly. "I am not asking whether it will take. I am asking you to make it take."
Bathael's smile thinned. "That's adorable."
Voldemort narrowed his eyes. "Are you toying with me?"
Bathael tapped the hilt at his hip, thought better of unsheathing it, and let his hand drop. "I'm really not. I agreed to this because I wanted to see what the ritual does to a soul. She's another branch of the same magic, so I'll study that instead."
He shrugged lightly. "Still an experiment either way."
"You will do the ritual," Voldemort repeated, quieter this time.
Bathael lifted a brow. "You keep saying that as if repetition will make the magic line up. It won't. What you carved out of your soul follows a pattern. Hers doesn't match it. You can force blood into a lock, doesn't mean the door will open."
Voldemort's expression froze.
"And why," He said, voice thinning, "should I trust you to examine her at all?"
"That's entirely up to you," Bathael replied. "But if you're about to attempt soul magic on a snake without understanding the consequences, someone in this room ought to be competent."
A vein ticked along Voldemort's temple. "And if I demand you try regardless?"
Bathael's eyes glowed a deeper red. He looked Voldemort over from head to toe, amused rather than annoyed.
"Since when do you get to demand anything from me?" he asked, tone warm enough to be insulting. "Don't mix this up. I'm doing you a favour. You walked in here asking for help, not the other way round. I'm good enough to help you. Or experimenting on you. Haven't decided which. Either way, you're not in charge here. You'd better keep that in that shiny head of yours."
Voldemort's fingers twitched. Whether it was a curse or pride, he didn't let it show. He said nothing.
Bathael lifted a hand and waved him off, lazy and dismissive. "There we go. You remember. Good. Take your snake if you're getting sentimental, leave her if you're not. Makes no difference to me. I've already found something interesting to poke at."
Nagini shifted beside them.
Voldemort held still, teeth grinding. "I can make more Horcruxes."
Bathael gave him a flat look. "Can you?" His brows rose. "From where I'm standing, you're held together with scraps. If you try to split yourself again, there's a fair chance you'll scatter across the floor."
Voldemort's breath snagged. He didn't argue.
Could he take the diadem back? Could he risk stepping inside the castle? Should he risk it? Even in his best years Hogwarts wasn't tame.
He said nothing.
Bathael dusted his armour lazily, not bothered at all. "Anyway. If you're worried about your snake, don't be. I'm not killing her. She's interesting. A blood-curse twist I haven't poked at yet."
"What'll you do if I leave her with you?" Voldemort asked.
Bathael lifted his hands in a shrug. He tilted his head. "I'll see if I can shift that Horcrux into something else."
Voldemort stilled.
"You can move it?" he asked.
Bathael shrugged. "That's what I'd like to find out. If I manage it, you get your spare anchor back. Then you test your ritual without risking your last piece. Very tidy arrangement."
It wasn't tidy. It was a gamble wrapped in a smile.
Voldemort stared at Nagini. She lifted her head and brushed her tongue against his sleeve.
If he left her... he'd know whether Bathael was lying. If she died, Bathael had no intention of helping him and Voldemort would be down another anchor. If she lived... and the Horcrux migrated, then Bathael was worth something after all.
Either way, the outcome told him more than standing still.
Voldemort didn't look at Bathael when he spoke. "If I leave her, and you fail?"
Bathael shrugged again. "Then she dies."
Voldemort's gaze flickered. Then he simply withdrew his hand and stepped back.
Bathael clapped with a laugh. "Brilliant. Then let's begin."
The grin he gave Voldemort didn't reach his eyes.
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