“What’s with the lolly?”
“I was eating it when I died,” Harry said slowly. “I’d never had a lolly before. I suppose it just... came with?”
Harry frowned. “Magic? That’s what I could do?”
Voldemort inclined his head. “Yes, child. No muggle is strong enough to leave behind an imprint.” Especially such an odd one.
“Huh,” Harry murmured thoughtfully. “So my family wasn’t just awful, then. They had a reason for calling me a freak.”
“What?” Voldemort said softly. His voice was cold. Dangerously so. But... if Harry was already dead, he really had nothing to fear, so there was no harm telling him.
“The Dursleys,” he explains. “My aunt, uncle and cousin. They all hated me - treated me like a servant, more than family - called me a freak. I’m just saying, I suppose it makes sense now.”
The man hums thoughtfully. His eyes are a bright red, intent and gleaming, when they meet Harry’s. “You were a magical child,” he says softly. Then, “Where was it that you lived with this family of yours?”
Never tell strangers where you live was right up there with never tell strangers that we lock you in a cupboard. Harry hesitated, the rules ingrained. “Why?”
“You were magical,” the man repeated. “Every drop of magical blood is special. And they spilled it, didn’t they, child?”
“All kids bleed,” Harry says. Dudley had scraped his knees plenty.
“Most kids are given bandages,” Voldemort said softly. “But you are no longer able to accept them. So consider this a kindness from your Lord, child. I will kill the filthy muggles who dared harm you.”
...
“I’m busy, Potter. Run along and play now.”
The boy squints at him in confusion. “Play?”
“Yes. Play. Or lounge, stare at the sky, whatever you please - just cease pestering me.”
When Voldemort looked up again the brat was gone.
He wouldn’t see him again for weeks.
“You know, when I said stop pestering me, I didn’t mean I didn’t want to ever see you again. I just didn’t wish to be distracted by you.”
Harry shrugged, legs swinging back and forth. “It’s all right, I’m used to being alone.”
“As am I,” Voldemort said. “Hence my annoyance at your continued presence.”
“So you do want me to leave,” Harry concludes, pushing himself off the couch. He lands on the hardwood soundlessly.
“Is that what I said?”
“Sometimes the answer is in what people don’t say,” the seven-year-old said wisely.
“Harry,” he snaps, before the boy can vanish again to Merlin-knew-where. “You can stay.”
Harry blinks at him dubiously, but then shrugs and settles back on the sofa. “Alright. Should I be quiet and pretend I don’t exist?”
“No,” Voldemort says definitively. “You will listen to me. You wish to know about magic, do you not?”
Harry visibly perks up. “I’m allowed to learn?”
The more of these seemingly innocuous questions the boy asks, the more Voldemort wants to murder his relatives. One day, he thinks, he will convince the boy to slip. To give him the address.
“You are expected to,” he says shortly. “I will ask questions at the end.”
Teaching was different than he expected. The boy raised his hand often, and once Voldemort finished his thought and nodded his permission, he asked a question—sometimes several at once. What did a word mean, or why did wizards use Latin for spells, or why did people need wands.
“Your wand is an extension of yourself,” Voldemort lectures. “It is a tool used to channel magic. People can learn to use magic without a wand, but it is never so powerful.”
Harry’s lolly was hanging loosely in his hand. He stared down at it thoughtfully. “I’ll never have a wand,” he says thoughtfully. “I have this, though.”
He meets Voldemort’s eyes briefly before pointing his lolly at the cushion and mimicking Voldemort’s wand motions perfectly. “Wingardium Leviosa,” he says firmly.
Before Voldemort can tell him that such a thing would hardly work, the cushions shot into the air. Harry watches them with open delight, moving his lolly to and fro like a conductor. The cushions follow his antics smoothly, before slowly sinking back into place on the couch. Harry turns to Voldemort, expectant.
The man is watching him cooly, eyes analytical. “Just what are you, Harry Potter?”
What. Not who.
Harry shrinks, but then puffs himself up and glares back. “Just the same old freak,” he snaps, and then vanishes.
When he comes back a month later his hair is longer.
He’s incorporeal, but he’s growing. Ageing. Able to do magic.
Voldemort is fascinated by the phenomenon.
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Finally decided to upload this unfinished Steven Universe AU comic I sketched out in 2020 that went along with the animatic I made.
The premise was that the Diamonds found out about Steven’s existence earlier than canon and stole him away as a small child. The Diamonds retrieve Spinel for Steven to have a playmate, though she initially doesn’t believe Steven isn’t just Pink playing another cruel trick on her. It takes some sort of small but scary accident to prove to Spinel that this is a human (because gems don’t bleed), and she slowly warms up to him after that. (More notes if you’re interested under the cut.)
I had the plot laid out roughly as Steven seeking answers to his cryptic repetitive dreams, then hearing the Diamonds converse about Earth. The planet name sounds familiar so he winds up chasing Peridot to Earth and to the warp hub, warping from there and finding a half built beach house (which the Crystal Gems and Greg couldn’t bring themselves to finish after Steven’s kidnapping) and knowing it seems familiar but not knowing WHY. Steven meets and befriends Connie, there’s some almost-encounters with the Crystal Gems, but ultimately Peridot catches Steven and Spinel and says she won’t report a Diamond but they know they’d all be in trouble if they get caught so everyone keeps their mouth shut and go back to Homeworld.
Steven returns in secret to see Connie, but this time the Crystal Gems warp back in time to see him, attempting to stop his escape. Steven believes himself to be in danger and Spinel warps in at the wrong time, also assuming the same. Garnet says something that sparks a memory in Steven, but before he gets answers, Spinel springs into action to get him out of the perceived harm’s way and they return to Homeworld. Pearl and Amethyst make to follow through the warp, but Garnet stops them, saying if they follow, they would be shattered, and that Steven would return.
(That’s the tldr of it but here’s my chapter plans up to where I stopped working on it. I never officially typed it up but hopefully it’s legible.)
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1-17-19
Hux curls his fingers in your hair, gently brushing the nape of your neck. “What do you like about me?”
“What do you like about me?” You evade, burying your face into his soft shoulder. No doubt this whole thing’ll crumble if he sees the disinterest glaring in your eyes when responding to his sweet nothings.
A rare grin splits his face. “I asked first.”
I have no idea. I kind of hate you, to be honest. That would get you kicked out of bed, and probably demoted. What a fine fucking mess you’ve gotten yourself into. Now you really are sleeping with your superiors, and lover boy holds your tit with one hand and the strings of your career on the other.
What does he really see in you? Apparently, he thinks you’re pretty. Like it means anything. Everyone thinks you’re pretty, but everyone hates you and you have no friends. Never even had sex before this pervert. Has he found some redeeming quality in you that you have yet to discover?
You want to ask, but too much time has gone by and the conversation has ended. You don’t want to seem desperate for validation. Even if you are.
Instead, you squirm to find a more suitable position so your bare tits don’t touch him as much. But he’s insistent on having as much of your skin touch his as possible, and pulls you flat against him, sighing contentedly.
“I’ve dreamed about this for so long.” He murmurs, caressing your ear, your spine, the small of your back. He plays with you, and you let him, trying not to go too stiff.
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