II

"I don't know a thing about realms and Death, but I want to go there. Usually my intuition works well. Come," Harry urged, still not minding angry hisses and insults in low undertone coming from the Dark Lord. "You said we don't know the rules. Well, the king of this realm doesn't know me! I survived for five years with you out for my blood, I might as well try surviving here," muttering under his breath Harry continued walking and dragging Voldemort by the hand with him. "And don't you start again about touches. It is like shield – necessary evil. So deal with it!" Harry raised his voice a bit, when felt Voldemort's wand poking his ribs from behind. "Do you want your curse to backfire again?" Harry reminded, when the wand still wasn't removed.

"Potter, stop!" Voldemort barked in response, roughly yanking Harry's hand with enough force to actually hold him in place for several seconds.

Harry turned to him with a question on his lips, but froze with no sound escaping him.

Right behind the Dark Lord, about a foot from them a black cloud gathered at the approximate level of their knees.

"What is that?" Harry finally managed to find his voice, though it was trembling a bit.

Strangely he hasn't sensed that same terrorizing presence of Death, as he'd sensed it earlier, but that didn't mean anything: Harry hadn't sensed it that first time, when they just landed, maybe this time it was similar, the Death simply hiding better from them.

"That's my means of transportation," Voldemort snorted seeing Harry's horror-stricken face. "Much faster then yours, I suppose. And less tiresome," his smile became more crooked. "You are welcome to share it with me," with a flourish gestured Voldemort in invitation.

"Tra-transportation?" Harry still was in shock.

"I invented it myself. It is much more reliable and faster then brooms," the Dark Lord proudly explained, then with a sigh stepped up onto the cloud and dragged Harry by the hand to him. "It may look like a cloud, but is rather solid to the touch, believe me," Harry was brashly yanked by his hand upwards onto the so-called cloud.

Stumbling Harry tried the substance under his feet: it really did felt solid, like a patch of ground, though the absence of any sort of borders and half-transparent view made him feel a bit sick, when thinking of flying higher up on this 'vehicle'.

"Are you afraid?" mocked Voldemort. "It is perfectly safe, or, well, as safe as it could be with me beside you on this cloud and high up in the air," his eyes glinted with malice and mirth, evil smile never leaving his lips.

"I am not scared!" Harry proclaimed, nose high in the air. "Can you, erm, maybe add rails or something?" he pleaded in next instant. "With your obsession with immortality it's looks rather risky to use it as vehicle like this."

"I like it," Riddle shrugged. "You can go by foot underneath me, of course, but it would be counterproductive, I recon," he offered.

"You need me more than I – you," Harry noted. "I am going with you on this cloud, and that's not up to debate. Move it, will you!"

Riddle snickered quietly but obliged.

The cloud started ascending and gaining speed abruptly, making Harry yelp in badly concealed fright. Then their vehicle continued moving steadily high above the ground roughly in the same direction Harry had pointed earlier.

They flew for some time in silence, Harry trying not to cringe and wince too openly when the cloud dived or gained more altitude. Although now and then he wished it was Ron or Hermione beside him, so it would not be so uncomfortable and humiliating for him to cling to the man's hand, which, surprisingly was met calmly and without the usual hissed insults and demands not to touch him from Voldemort.

At last the Dark Lord broke the silence:

"We didn't finish."

"What are you talking about?" Harry inquired.

"Before we started to argue –"

"Again," interfered Harry.

"As I said, we didn't finish the discussion about our connection. It truly bothers me: at some moments I feel like I am looking in the mirror, magic-wise, I mean. As if you had already had something – my blood or magic, possibly – in you, prior to the first encounter with our host here today. That is strange and wrong, and it –"

"Yeah, yeah, I heard you for the first time, you know. It bothers you, and blah-blah-blah. Can you even start to imagine how it must bother me – that I have some part of you inside me?! That's just gross," Harry made a face.

"What did you just say?" Voldemort interrupted his antics, an odd expression on his face.

"What I said?" Harry repeated stupidly.

"That you have some part of me inside you. What made you say that?"

"Don't know," Harry shrugged.

At that moment their cloud again tried to dive almost to the very ground. Harry yelped and grabbed Voldemort by his elbow to steady himself, digging his fingernails in harshly, which emitted a low hiss from Voldemort. Just when the man started to pry Harry's stone-like fingers from himself, the cloud abruptly turned its nose up and started ascending, making the boy yelp again. Harry slid almost completely from their airborne vehicle, only the vice grip of Dark Lord's hand suspending him in the air.

A brief pensive look crossed Voldemort's features before he suddenly released Harry's hand and taking out his wand weaved a complicated pattern with it, murmuring something under his nose. All this took hardly couple of seconds, then the cloud dove lower again and almost full two minutes after he started falling Harry was back on the cloud beside Voldemort, his again steady and vice grip on Harry's shoulder not allowing the boy to repeat his flight to certain death.

Harry was shaking and gulping big chunks of air in attempt to pacify his scare. At last he pointed an accusing finger at Voldemort and rasped in harsh voice:

"You've said you need me for the shield!"

"So I did," with a strange expression on his features agreed Voldemort.

"Then what was it just now?!" Harry exclaimed, quickly regaining his lost voice.

"An experiment of sorts," without any trace of remorse admitted Voldemort.

"I am not a lab mouse!" Harry shrieked indignantly.

"If I say I am sorry that would be a lie," Voldemort shrugged. "It is most unhelpful to express remorse without really feeling it, when in such a situation, as transpired just now, and especially when one could have been doing something more useful, like charming the vehicle high up in the air, which went out of control."

"What?" Harry blinked, trying to decode this overloaded camouflaged way of apology.

"I apologise," Riddle said simply. "But that was the most certain and most quick way to confirm my suspicions about you. And the information I was searching for could have become either helpful or dangerous for the current situation we are in. I had no choice, if you'd like."

"I don't!" Harry glared at the Dark Lord. "But that's beyond the point. What information did you gain through this sadistic experiment?"

"I suspected something and my suspicions were confirmed."

"Merlin, can you be a little bit more specific?! It was me, who hanged several feet up in the air with only the said air for support and then fell almost to the fucking ground, while you experimented! And it was me, about whom you had your damn suspicions! So will you spill it already?!"

"I don't think so, no. You are still shaken after the near-death experience."

Harry laughed at that.

"You know what? I leave through these near-death experiences since I was ten. I think I'll manage without your, oh, so kind concern, thank you. Now will you talk? Or should I repeat the acrobatics so you'd be totally sure before you can tell at least a fucking word about it to me?!"

"Potter, you are hysterical," Voldemort calmly observed.

"And what does it matter if I have?!"

"We are about ten feet above the solid ground only with the small half-transparent cloud supporting us, and it is just enough in size to hold us both. Beside, this is already a realm of Death. I am not going to become local resident through the fit of hysteria from some stupid teenager," snapped Voldemort, red eyes glinting dangerously. "Either you calm down, or you can go step off this cloud, I don't really care, I have several other soul-pieces to hold me alive!" Voldemort cut himself off abruptly, realising, what he just said, and went white in the face.

Harry went pale, too, when his brain processed what he just heard.

"What did you say?" Harry whispered harshly, all energy leaving him, and plopped down where he stood, his knees giving in. "'Your several soul-pieces'? Did I hear right?"

Voldemort sighed and rubbed his face tiredly, then also sat down, waving his wand to command the cloud to go slower and lower to the ground – just in case.

"Yes, that is correct. I have divided my soul into pieces and put them in special vessels in order to have something to anchor me to the face of the earth in case I met the untimely demise. You happened accidentally."

Is it even possible?" Harry asked in awe. "I mean, that is something even the magic should not allow for: to split a person's soul to gain immortality. That looks like ultimate cheating to me. And I don't really want to start on how another person can hold an alien piece of soul inside him." He shook his head in disbelief. "How one splits a soul, anyway? There should be some ritual to make this happen, right? So how was it made accidentally? Me, as you've put it."

Voldemort shrugged uncomfortably.

"All that really matters is a kill. Taking another's life already dents a killer's soul. The rest is just technicalities, not really important, it seems. I ended the life of your mother and my curse backfired, which led to a piece of me landing in you."

"This shouldn't be so simple," Harry said sadly. "Why something so evil and ugly is so simple that even a toddler can do it?"

Voldemort winced.

"I don't have a say in this, Harry. I did that evil and ugly thing you're talking about."

"Have you ever thought, that maybe, just maybe, you don't deserve to live long and happy life in the place of those you killed?" Harry asked quietly, looking into Voldemort's blood-red eyes intently.

"I may have," the Dark Lord admitted. "At one time, long ago. But I forgot what I felt then."

"So now it's just survival for the sake of it?" Harry inquired in a soft tone. "Neither can live while the other survives –"

"What is it?" Voldemort asked.

"The blasted prophecy. Now I finally get it, I think. Looks like it was not about going for each other's throats." Harry laughed humourlessly. "While you survived for the sake of surviving, I lived miserable and shitty live at my mother's relatives, who despised me and took me for a house-elf. I'd say that wasn't proper living, either. And now we are finally talking. Here. In the realm of Death." He shook his head. "That's sad."

"What do you think of it?" asked Voldemort tentatively.

"Of what?"

"Horcrux. I mean, soul-piece."

"That's how it's called, huh? I better not think, I suppose. You probably agree with me on this one. Imagine someone else's soul in you, what would you do then?"

"Go mad," muttered Riddle. "Though even without an alien soul in me I still managed to go crazy for a while," he admitted bitterly. "That was most unwise of me to do," he grimaced.

Harry patted him on the shoulder.

"Now we just need to escape this place and then make a truce for real," he offered. "To argue with your own soul-piece is really the very most unwise thing to do," he snorted. "See, couple of hours more with you and I'd start to speak in overloaded multicoloured sentences, too."

"It is not that simple," muttered Voldemort. "Besides, there are other reasons for me to oppose your so-called 'Light' side."

"Like what? Killing off all Mudbloods? Rule over the Ministry? Over the whole Britain with muggles too?"

"Something like it," Voldemort agreed. "No, seriously, what do you honestly think of it all?"

"Honestly? I think, that when we return, I'm going to throw a fit or two, then go yell at Dumbldore, because, no way he had not known this all from the start, but he still hadn't told me anything! And then I'll go to the Astronomy tower and jump from it. So the whole Wizarding world would finally stop relying on a teenager to save them and start doing something themselves!"

"Don't tempt me," Voldemort warned him.

"Huh?"

"I might just forget you here, you know. You won't be doing anything brash and stupid when there are no Astronomy towers to jump from or old but powerful fools to yell at. And no Wizarding world to scare into acting." Voldemort let out a mirthless chuckle and smiled crookedly. "Also quite possibly placing a living being in a realm of Death while not killing them would prove to be the ultimate cheating, as you've put it, of Death, too, thus resulting in you never dying while still staying in here. Like stasis or coma."

"Don't you dare," Harry glared in response. "I am not your treasure to put in a safe box, I am a living being, as you remembered just now!"

"Ah, I see you are at last returning to your normal obnoxious self," drawled Voldemort with satisfaction. "Good. We can finally move on."

He waved his wand to lift the cloud under them higher and make it gain the speed it lost.

"How do you know where to direct it?" asked Harry.

"I don't, I had tied it to yourself, so it's really you who commands our way," Voldemort replied.

"What?! Wait, and if I fell, would the cloud go to the ground as well?" Harry exclaimed.

"Of course not. It takes only your sense of direction, the rest is mine to order," Voldemort smirked. "Do you think I'd let unstable teenager to command my life? Especially this particular teenager, who happens to be my sworn enemy?"

"I doubt I am that one now," Harry muttered under his nose, turning away from the Dark Lord in the direction they were flying.

~8~8~8~

"Looks like the end of our trip to me," Harry noticed louder, pointing ahead of them to the strange construction, reminding of a wall, but made of half-transparent glass. "Seems like it encircles this whole area," Harry added, nodding at the wall. "Like a fence or something."

Voldemort hummed pensively, scrutinizing the glass construction.

"I do not think it is real glass, rather some similar looking magical substance – or even being. I am afraid the latter is more correct," nodding to himself assessed Voldemort.

"What? Being? You mean it is alive?!" Harry gaped.

"Yes, I believe it is. Don't you feel this? Like a heartbeat, but more subtle, sensed by your own magic. In this case we may safely assume it is magical, as well. I certainly sense alien magic, which does not belong to either of us, nor – to the local ruler. It may fall under his control, but its magic is different and it is certainly separated from him."

Harry scrunched his nose, but tried to follow the advice and sense the creature with his own magic.

At first he thought the method didn't work, but then he started to really feel something.

Strange half-familiar sensation, warm and cool at the same time, with clear heartbeat, beating in tune with his own, lacing through the flow of magic, just at arm's length from him – that must be Voldemort, Harry realised.

Straining his magical sensations, Harry then caught something else: the unsteady rhythm of alien magical beat, not dissimilar to the one near him, but not very much alike either and out of tune pulse of someone's heart, making his own miss a beat and blood freeze in veins, for some indecipherable reason. It was not clear horror, as with the Death, when he had been coming closer to them, but more subtle – and thus even more scary – feeling of something huge and overwhelming, like a wave covering you during the storm and moving further inside the land to flood the streets of your hometown and break fences and drown cars.

Harry shuddered and unconsciously shuffled closer to the Dark Lord in seek of protection and human warmth, when he thought he saw ice wall constrict a bit around them.

"What did you sense?" tensely inquired Voldemort in harsh low voice. "It seems your senses are much more accurate and precise, then mine," he added in explanation, wincing.

"It is cold and threatening," Harry confessed. "Scary. Like a big inbound wave in the storm. And it reminds me of earlier, though it's a bit different from him as it is alive."

The Dark Lord put his hand unconsciously on Harry's shoulder, when the boy moved even closer to him.

"What do your intuition say now?" with a hint of mockery inquired Voldemort. "If my eyes do not deceive me, this thing is moving in on us."

"You've noticed it, too, then," muttered Harry. "I don't really know what to do. My intuition tells me to run from this: it's too similar to jaws ready to swallow us whole to my liking. Though, if it really is all around us, then there are nowhere to run."

"We still have the option of going up and cross it by air," the Dark Lord suggested. "It is not very high."

"Who said that it doesn't have something invisible up there?" Harry contradicted.

"True," the Dark Lord agreed. "We should simply try then," and before Harry could protest, he was already weaving his wand to move the cloud higher and across the glass wall at fast speed.

"Whai–!" Harry's exclamation was cut short when the cloud collapsed with the invisible elongation of the wall with such force, that both of them fell to the ground.

Their fall was slowed down at the last moment by Voldemort's and Harry's wands. What surprised Harry, though, was the fact the Dark Lord seemed to forego his own security for the sake of Harry's, and if not for Harry's quick reflexes, he would have broken the leg or two upon colliding with the ground.

As it was, Harry got a cushioning charm up at the last second for them both, so the landing was not so harsh. They still ended up as a tangled heap of legs and arms and robes ripped to shreds on the ground, though.

"Get off me, you, clumsy bastard!" Harry exclaimed at the same moment as Voldemort snarled something along the same lines, but certainly more insulting.

This time the Dark Lord got underneath Harry during their fall, and now he was pushing at Harry, trying to throw the boy off of him with a grimace of pain on his gradually whitening face.

"Are you injured?" Harry asked carefully, disentangling his limbs from Voldemort's.

"My back," said the Dark Lord curtly, pursing his lips.

"Are you suicidal?!" Harry snapped. "Why had you been cushioning me, instead of slowing your own fall?! I could manage myself, thank you very much!"

"Are you worried over my well-being?" Voldemort drawled, smirking with satisfaction and his red eyes glinting with badly covered delight. "My, thank you, Harry!" he murmured silkily, hand shooting upwards to stroke the cheek of the boy still lying half on top of him.

"Argh! Pervert! We are both in this together, of course, I'd be worried over my partner, oh, hell, over my comrade!" When Harry mentioned partnership, the Dark Lord's gaze got even more innuendo in it, corners of his lips quirking up in an amused smirk.

"Thank you for including me in your small circle of, oh, comrades, Harry," the Dark Lord purred. Harry huffed and shook his head.

"What's with you and sexual innuendos? One would think you get off on being in mortal danger," Harry remarked.

"You are correct," Voldemort droned. "Danger draws me in, but I am unable to die properly, but this adds even more spice to the danger… it is a witch circle, really."

"So you are immortal adrenalin junkie?" Harry snorted. "One would think you became immortal to avoid danger."

"I want not to die without notice and unrecognised by the world," the Dark Lord corrected. "And I want to live as long a life as I can to do all I planned, am planning or will plan. I love knowledge, it is power, and it is addicting in itself, just for the sake of learning new things, too. The more time I have to live the more knowledge I can obtain."

"Psycho," Harry muttered with a hint of a smile and finally stood up, righting his robe (or rather, what remained of it) and holding out a hand to the Dark Lord, who was still remaining on the ground. "You know, when you was all snake-like it was less uncomfortable," Harry confessed, looking at the almost naked man in front of him. "Are you going to stand up or do you like it here?" Harry inquired with a mockingly raised brow.

Voldemort winced, but grabbed the offered hand and abruptly stood up – to bend on himself immediately in obvious pain, hissing and spitting insults at no one in particular.

Harry whistled and winced sympathetically, carefully examining the man's back: it already started to attain the colour of fresh bruise, sprinkled with brightly red scratches and small wounds here and there. Voldemort remained doubled over for another couple of minutes, then slowly straightened up, grimacing.

"It looks bad," Harry commented, tentatively touching one of the most prominent patches of bruised skin on Voldemort's upper back.

"It feels even worse," the Dark Lord confessed quietly. "And I think I have a rib or two broken, as well."

Harry patted the Dark Lord's shoulder in awkward sympathy, wincing and nodding.

"Unfortunately I don't know any healing spells," he supplied apologetically. "You have to do it yourself, sorry."

"Potter, don't you know that healing magic almost doesn't work when done to oneself? It can heal minor scratches, but not such serious injuries as these ones," the Dark Lord grimaced. "It seems I have to do without, then."

"Oh, you can teach me!" Harry offered readily. "It had worked before, remember?"

"That was far less complicated magic, than healing," Voldemort shook his head. "I'll manage. Better leave this place quicker and not waste precious time on useless things like teaching stupid teenager healing spells."

Harry scrunched his nose insulted.

"You can still support yourself on my shoulder, you know," he said with discomfort evident in his voice. "If it helps, I mean," he added unsure.

"Don't strain yourself on my behalf," Voldemort snorted, his expression darkening. "We deduced already, that I need you more, than you need me in here. You can try to find the exit on your own and leave me here to rot till the end of times, thus freeing the world from my persona forever."

"What's got into you all of a sudden?" Harry looked up at the Dark Lord's grim face. "Why all the depression?"

"What makes you think, it is not a remorse after our discussion earlier?" Voldemort inquired.

"You don't do remorse," Harry snorted. "Even your apologies are lame. And you won't know a sorry, even if it jumps in your face."

He suddenly turned on a heel and went in the opposite form their original direction, back towards the hill.

"You can try your favourite cloudy thing or walk with me by foot," Harry offered over the shoulder. "I am not staying and looking how this thing swallows us."

He didn't look back at Voldemort, who followed him after a moment of contemplation silently, staggering and tripping over flat ground now and then, but stubbornly refused to ask for help from Harry.