Lord Voldemort and the Shrewdish Spouse by Lady K. dAzrael

Disclaimer: This story is based on characters and situations created and owned by JK Rowling, various publishers including but not limited to Bloomsbury Books, Scholastic Books and Raincoast Books, and Warner Bros., Inc. No money is being made and no copyright or trademark infringement is intended.
Summary: Voldemort once more suffers the whims of his young husband.
Pairings: Harry/Voldemort
Categories: Humor/Parody, Romance
Notes: Sequel to `Harry Potter and the Jealous Husband', dedicated to Brodie, its greatest fan and propagator and of course Sal, co-creator of Hans Pater . . . Party Boy's German cousin.



Voldemort looked up at the artistically twisted copper lettering of the sign above the door of his recently acquired pub/restaurant. It read `Bar Retro' and behind the frosted glass of the windows, shadows moved and laughter and the hubbub of conversation could be heard. Voldemort shuddered and braced himself before pushing open the door.

Bah, the place reeked of muggles. They were sitting at the glass-and-metal tables in uncomfortable, stylish chairs, chattering urgently and gesturing to each other over tapas and glasses of wine or micro-brewed beer.

At a table in the corner, Voldemort's eyes came to rest on the person he was seeking, that is to say, his husband Harry. Harry was there with his muggle friend Barry, who insisted on being called `Bez', and while this helped to allay the confusion between he and Harry's homophonic names, Voldemort found it hateful. Bez! It was just the kind of name you'd expect a camp, cockney `geezer' to adopt.

"Hello sweetheart!" Harry said cheerily, looking up.

"Alright, mate?" Bez said, with a dumb, good-natured manner that Voldemort had so far been unable to crush.

"Don't `hello sweetheart' me, Harold James Potter."

"Potter-Riddle, I took your name - don't you remember?"

"It's Potter-Voldemort then."

"Don't be silly darling. Anyway, what's this you're all cross about now?"

"I-"

"Come and sit down next to me." Harry suggested in that soft, airy tone that made his madness seem reasonable. Voldemort complied, sliding onto the leather sofa next to his husband, who then proceeded to distract him further by offering him an olive on a cocktail stick.

"Thanks." Voldemort took it and stared at the olive's shiny surface seriously, as if it might help him focus on what it was that brought him here.

"Want some wine?"

"No."

"Darren." Harry waved to a passing waiter. "Bring us a glass of white, would you?"

"House white?"

"No! What are we - steerage? The chardonnay . . . the '98."

"Ooh." Bez interjected. "That's too oakey!"

"You think?" Harry paused, reflecting.

"It's fine." Voldemort snapped and Darren the waiter scurried off as fast as his tight trousers would allow.

"Don't mind him." Harry told Bez, rolling his eyes in Voldemort's direction. "He's a Philistine. Doesn't know the difference between a claret and a red burgundy."

Harry and Bez chuckled at their esoteric joke and Voldemort scowled.

"Sorry, Voldie, I wasn't making fun of you." Harry patted his husband's hand. "Now, what were you saying?"

"You," he said accusingly to Harry, "were supposed to go shopping with me today. You shouldn't just disappear before lunch without even leaving a note."

"Oh, I'm sorry." Harry reached over and brushed back a stray lock of hair, tucking it behind his husband's ear. "I forgot all about it. You see, Bez rang this morning when you were still in bed. He needed moral support, so I had to come and meet him here for brunch."

"And what, pray tell, was so urgent?"

Bez sniffed and looked at his napkin. "Jasper broke up with me."

Voldemort felt a smile tugging at his lip. A myriad of cruel remarks flashed through his mind: No, not Jasper! Ooh, that was unexpected! What happened - did the Imperius wear off? Then Voldemort remembered that Bez was a Muggle and that the scathingness of that last comment would be lost on him. Harry fixed his husband with a steely glare, obviously well aware what Voldemort was thinking, and shook his head in a tacit warning.

Voldemort contented himself with sitting back and quietly revelling in Bez's misfortune. The pain of a broken heart didn't come close to a good Crucio, but it was the most he was likely to witness on an overcast Wednesday afternoon in London. Darren the waiter set down the glass of wine and Voldemort sipped it, appreciating its crisp coolness.

"That's very unfortunate." Voldemort said, now able to regard Bez with something approaching equanimity. "You must be devastated." He prompted, idly wondering if he could make Bez break down in tears in public. Harry glared.

"I don't want to talk about it." Bez looked like a kicked puppy.

Better than Voldemort could have arranged it, Jasper walked through the door. Bez went ashen, as dumped people inevitably do when a dazzling ex walks in and they're aware they're looking rather shabby and pathetic. Jasper was with a tall, muscular, Aryan-looking man. They smoothly ignored Bez and went to sit at the bar.

"Oh my gods." Harry whispered. "Is he with Hans Pater?"

"Bitch!" Bez muttered, draining his glass. "I'm not hanging around here."

"Too bad." Voldemort said, almost meaning it - it would have indeed have been interesting to witness Bez's descent into hysteria.

"Oh Bez! Don't let him chase you out." Harry said, the model good friend.

"He's not . . . I've got things to do." Bez trailed off weakly. "I'll see you tonight." With that he hurried out the door.

"What did he mean by `see you tonight'?" Voldemort felt the unknown dread rising within him like an orchestral crescendo. If Harry was having another dinner party he would cry. Or lock himself in the airing cupboard with Nagini.

"Never mind that now." Harry gave Voldemort a lingering, distracting kiss. "Don't ever dump me, okay?"

"Couldn't. Am legally and magically bound not to." Voldemort wiggled his ring finger.

"You could divorce me."

"No I can't. You really should have read the fine print of the hand-fastening contract you signed, Mr. Potter-Voldemort."

Harry bit his full bottom lip attractively and his brow furrowed. "So . . . what would happen if either of us tried to abandon the other?"

"Magical consequences would be invoked that are too terrible for you to worry your pretty little head about." Voldemort traced the jagged scar on Harry's forehead with an index finger.

"I know I should find that scary, but it's sort of comforting."

"At least our children will never come from a broken home." Voldemort mused.

"We can have children? Do you mean that there magical ways to engineer that?"

"Hmm, tricky. I'm the Dark lord, I can do anything . . . but that would involve one of us being transformed into a hermaphrodite, possibly irrevocably. In that instance, I vote you."

Harry screwed up his nose. "Ugh. I vote you."

"It seems we have reached an impasse. Oh well, I never liked children much anyway."

The door opened again as Jasper and Hans left, carrying take-away frappucinos and in their wake a harassed-looking woman tumbled in. By the looks of her it had begun to rain outside.

"Hey Herm!" Harry called.

"Hey Harry!" Hermione Weasley-Granger's features lit up in a smile, until she saw Voldemort and it faltered and evaporated from her face. She slid onto the sofa opposite them, covering the space next to her in an assortment of shopping bags.

"Hello Hermione." Voldemort said, trying to sound pleased to see her, and finding himself not good enough as an actor to succeed.

"Hello Lord Voldemort." She replied, with a mocking emphasis on his name that he didn't like. He took a deep drink of wine, glaring at her over the rim of his glass. Hermione caught Darren's eye and ordered a glass of ros

"So what've you been up to?" Harry asked, eating an olive.

"Shopping. I cleared out of the house, as Ron's innumerable relatives have descended on us again."

"Swarms of red-headed children about, shrieking and driving you even more insane?" Voldemort asked.

"Yes. It's alright for Ron, he's used to it. I'm an only child." She paused and sighed. "So what are you two doing?"

"Harry's here as usual, loitering with intent to get eat and get drunk. I came to find him."

"That's a lie and a slander! I never get drunk here! I've only had two glasses . . ."

Harry was of the school of drunkenness that taught the best policy was never admitting that which was palpably true. Even the previous New Year's Eve, when he could hardly stand up and required Voldemort to drag him to bed as he slurred earnestly: "I love you. Really, love you lots. Not just saying this because I've had a few drinks. I`m not drunk at all and really do love you. Gimme a kiss-" and then promptly passed out as soon as his head hit the pillow.

"How many fingers, Harry?" Voldemort held up two, with the grin that he knew pissed Harry off considerably.

"Stick them up your arse, Voldie."

Voldemort turned the two fingers into a v-sign and mouthed `later'. Hermione made a face of distaste, as if she had walked past a perfume counter with her mouth open and lived to regret it.

Harry tottered off to the toilet and left Hermione and Voldemort alone together.

"So, what are you doing for the afternoon?"

"Don't feel you have to make conversation, Miss Weasley-Granger."

"Look, I don't like you, but for some reason Harry does. Let's be polite and pretend to get along."

"Alright." Voldemort spread his hands peaceably and sat back. "Harry and I are going shopping in Diagon Alley. I'll make him try on dozens of robes until he loses patience with me, then we'll go to Knockturn Alley so I can procure barely legal potions ingredients and Harry will make me go into that awful `adult bookshop' Thraldom, where he will look at things that turn him on whilst keeping up a laughable pretence that he's being ironic and he just thinks they're `kitschy', like eighties porn magazines."

"I don't need to know these things about my friend, you know."

"You asked. I was being truthful. His favourite is one called Naughty Schoolboys Three: The Teacher's Revenge, in case you're wondering what to get him as an anniversary gift."

"Have you two been married a year already?"

"Two years tomorrow, Hermione. Do keep up."

Harry slid back into his seat. "What are you talking about?"

"Our anniversary, love."

"Oh yes. Last year Voldie took me to Rome for the weekend. That was lovely, wasn't it?"

"Yes. And Harry got me a very thoughtful gift."

Harry blushed. His `gift', which was a spur of the moment idea, was to get a red heart encircled by a green serpent with `Tom' written below it tattooed on his arse. Voldemort had said that it should have been an arrow saying `heaven this way' and laughed until Harry threatened to send him to the sofa for the night.

"Herm doesn't want to hear about that." Harry said quickly and somewhat crossly.

"No, I imagine that I really don't." Hermione made her face of distaste again.

Voldemort's predictions for their shopping trip came true, except that in the end of it Harry went off by himself for half an hour with some abstruse purpose; Voldemort hoped it was to buy him a nice anniversary present. Heartened by this idea, he bought Harry the beautiful emerald ring he had been lusting over in the window of a jeweller's and as an afterthought, that horrible pornographic book that he wanted.

Voldemort sat waiting for Harry in a caf in the wizarding part of Soho and flicked through it. Pornography was really one area where the moving pictures of the magical world came into their own, Voldemort thought, his eyebrows disappearing into his hairline. Harry arrived with shopping bags and they had coffee before apparating back to the house.

They relaxed at home, Voldemort immediately kicking off his shoes and lounging on the sofa, engrossed in a new article that Severus had had published in the British Potions Practitioner Journal. He didn't entirely agree with all of Severus' theory, as it depended greatly on a base which used highly volatile and unpredictable catalysts. Snape had been lucky not to get all his hair burned off.

Voldemort was vaguely aware of Harry bustling around him. He mumbled thanks when a mug of tea was placed on a nest table at his elbow. Harry was tidying and telling him about something or other, but Voldemort only heard it distantly, and did what really annoyed his husband - pretended he was listening and made vague grunts of agreement.

Suddenly Voldemort's legs were lifted and his husband plonked down on the sofa beneath them.

"You're taking this very well." Harry said.

What? What?! Voldemort wanted to say, but he knew he'd be caught out and Harry would be cross and give him another telling off.

"Er . . . yes. I can be very understanding."

"It's so nice that you're willing to help me cheer up Bez. I always thought you didn't like him."

"He's alright in small doses." Voldemort was now seriously worried. Well, it was probably only Bez coming over for dinner.

"We're meeting Bez there, so I thought we could go out for dinner, then come back and change."

Voldemort swore to be a faithful and attentive husband evermore. Where the hell were they going that involved a change of clothes? Joining a cult or some shady, arcane society? He brooded all the way as they walked five minutes to the nice Italian restaurant down the road.

"Come on Voldie." Harry said brightly as they sat down at a table in the corner. "It won't be that bad - it might even be fun. You're into the Dark Arts and all that, I would have thought it'd be the kind of thing you'd enjoy."

Voldemort made a non-committal sound and studied the menu. He thought he'd order a big glass of wine to start with.

"And you're going to look so sexy in the outfit I bought for you." Harry's eyes smouldered; ravens wheeled in Voldemort's imagination. If whatever it was that he had resigned himself to involved him wearing something that had been chosen by Harry, it did not bode well. He thought of the seasonal jumper Harry had made him wear to Christmas dinner and shuddered.

~*~*~

"Merlin's pint! This is madness!" Voldemort looked in horror at what Harry produced from a bag. "Where in the nine hells do you think I'd go dressed like that? Some kind of fetish bar?"

"Aha! I knew it! I knew you weren't listening to me earlier!" Harry cried triumphantly. "You needn't think that there's any way you're getting out of this, Tom Marvolo Potter-Riddle. You'll go to the fetish night and you'll like it!"

Voldemort had one of his moments of scorned Dark Lord indignation; these moments were getting fewer nowadays as the weight of Harry's endless nagging wore him down and crushed the dark places of his spirit.

"Don't you tell me what to do Potter! I put up with enough with you entertaining your bloody friends here or in Bar Retro. I married you, not them - I don't owe them anything, so you can forget it!"

Harry gave him that look. The blood-chilling look of a serpent about to strike, and Voldemort knew that this time, he'd really done it. He steeled himself for the row to end all rows, but as he looked up at Harry, his husband did something unexpected. Voldemort had always been aware that there was something unbalanced in Harry, perhaps due to his being an orphan, or his deprived childhood, or the volley of curses Voldemort had hit him with during the final battle - it was hard to say - but for whatever reason, Harry was as mad as a bag of wire hangers. He acted normally, most of the time, but occasionally Voldemort would catch him staring at the wallpaper like it was a television, or talking to his reflection in the mirror and he often had strange reactions to emotional situations, like a hormonal woman might. So, although Voldemort was expecting the telling off of his life, he wasn't altogether surprised when instead Harry's staunch, handsome face simply fell and his green eyes filled with tears behind his glasses.

No. No no. Nononono . . . anything but that! Voldemort, filled with a wave of horrible contrition, reached out for Harry, but his husband batted his hand aside and ran upstairs to the bedroom, slamming the door hard enough to make their wedding picture fall off the mantelpiece and shatter. Voldemort fixed the glass with an absent wave of his wand and placed the picture back in its rightful place. Harry was facing forward, confetti in his hair and over the shoulders of his dark suit, he closed his eyes and there was the most beautiful smile on his face as little picture Voldemort turned in profile and kissed his cheek. Voldemort sighed and went to put on the hateful leather bondage trousers and be done with it.

The bedroom door was locked but not with any serious intent. He murmured `Alohomora' and it swung open. Voldemort was almost knocked off his feet by Nagini, who sailed out the door as fast as her slithery skin would carry her. He caught a slightly sardonic `Good luck, masssster' as she passed and toyed in his mind with making her a shed outside to sleep in. He closed the door softly behind him. Harry was face down on the bed, sobbing.

"Harry it's alright. I'm sorry pet. Don't cry." He sat tentatively on the edge of the bed, leather trousers creaking and touched Harry's shoulder. "I'll go to the stupid fetish club if it means that much to you, don't cry." He stroked Harry's back in soothing circles.

"It's just." Harry's voice was muffled by the pillow and punctuated by sobs. "I have to help Bez . . . because he's so heartbroken. I keep thinking about what . . . I . . . would feel like if it was me. If you ever stopped . . . loving me."

"Never." Voldemort said hoarsely. "That will never happen."

Harry sat up, his glasses askew and his face red and tear-stained. Voldemort took off the glasses and set them on the bedside table, then dried Harry's eyes with the corner of the bedcovers.

"Promise?" Harry asked.

"Promise." Voldemort raised his left hand in the gesture of a vow. His wedding ring glinted. Suddenly he had an armful of Harry, who pressed tightly to his chest.

"I love you Baby Snake."

Voldemort rolled his red eyes, they'd had discussions about Harry not using that particular pet name. He hugged Harry back anyway, glad to be forgiven.

"I'm sorry I made such a big deal about you going." Harry said. "But I don't want to go on my own. You wouldn't want me on my own in a room full of sweaty, lecherous men, would you?"

Voldemort conceded that he would not.

Harry pulled back and looked at him, stroking a leather-clad thigh and then tangling his fingers in the fishnet top. "You look so sexy." He said, eyes smouldering again.

Voldemort doubted sincerely that anyone but his husband would be of that opinion, but he smiled good-naturedly anyway. He went downstairs to have another stiff drink while Harry got dressed and faffed about endlessly, tramping from room to room upstairs idly looking for things, as he always did before they went out. At length, Harry called down that he was ready and Voldemort went to the foot of the stairs to wait for him.

The hall was dim as Voldemort stood by the door. Harry did not as usual thunder down the stairs with all the grace of pachyderm, and Voldemort turned as he heard measured footsteps.

"Harry!" He cried, stricken, for he hardly recognised his husband. Harry smiled shyly, pausing on the bottom step. It was like the prom-night transformation scene in a teen movie.

"Do you like it?"

Harry's hair was waxed to stand up at odd angles, like a pretty boy from a Manga film. He was wearing his contact lenses, and a hint of dark eye shadow which made his gaze seem heavy and demonic. He wore a tight-fitted, black sleeveless t-shirt and black slave bands on his forearms. Most strikingly of all, Harry wore a skirt. It was of a black satiny material; very long, his feet were invisible, and the bottom of it was pleated at the back like a fishtail. It hung beautifully on his sharp hipbones and the oddest thing was that it didn't look ridiculous at all - he did not look like a man in a girl's skirt anymore than a girl in fitted jeans looks like she's wearing men's clothing. It was a man's skirt, in fact - it was Harry's skirt and nothing could have been fashioned from earthly cloth that would have looked more perfect on his long, wraith-like frame.

"I'm glad I'm going with you." Voldemort said. "I wouldn't want anyone there to think you were single." He took his husband's hand and drew him close in for a kiss. Voldemort slid his hand up Harry's thigh and the synthetic skirt was cold and silky under his touch, he groaned into Harry's mouth. Harry put reasonable hands to Voldemort's chest and pushed him back, breaking the kiss.

"Now don't get carried away. We're going to be late as it is." He said batting his shadowed eyes mischievously.

"Dress like this every day." Voldemort told him.

"Even around the house?"

"Especially then."

Harry laughed. "You're a randy bugger. Come on, let's go."

"Where are we going exactly?"

"Heaven."

Voldemort groaned before apparating.

Heaven is a deceptively named club, for the tortures of the damned in Dante's ninth circle could be performed there every night, and no one would see it over the blinding dry ice and seizure-inducing strobe lights and no one would hear their screams over the pounding music. And since it costs four quid for a nasty alcopop, you can't even get drunk enough to numb the horror of it all. The answer, the patrons have discovered, is Ecstasy. There's barely an undilated pupil in the house. Because Voldemort considered himself too old to take Ecstasy and spend all night dancing like a man demented, and had banned Harry from taking it, as he believed that someone as unstable as Harry should not mess with their seratonin levels, the couple were doomed to full consciousness of the horror around them.

After five minutes, Harry had been chatted up by no less than two men. Harry talked affably, apparently unaware of the sinister nature of their attentions. Fuck. This. Thought Voldemort, taking out his wand.

"Yeah mate?" asked the barman.

"Imperio. Now pour me a big glass of single malt. No, not bourbon you arse. Yes, that one. Come on, keep going. Right, that's enough. Obliviate."

"Voldie." Harry said in his `I don't really approve' voice. "Don't mess with the muggles, it's not fair."

"Will you shut up if I give you a gin and slimline?"

"Yes."

Voldemort sighed and turned back to the barman, who was still reeling with bafflement.

Bez arrived, looking red-eyed and slightly over-styled, but Harry the dutiful friend, bought him a drink, told him he looked fabulous and that loads of people were checking him out. Voldemort hung back in a darkened corner and watched warily from a distance as Harry and Bez danced like maniacs. Harry frequently displayed a beatific expression of pure joy at innocent pleasures such as dancing and licking cake mixture from the back of the wooden spoon. Voldemort secretly admired it, though it went against his character to do so, in the same way that a Christian might secretly admire the energy of Milton's Satan. He couldn't feel angry at anyone when Harry had that expression on his face. He didn't even particularly feel like turning his wand on any of the muggles, except the ones who were leering at his husband.

"Gods, it's a fucking meat market in here, isn't it?" a voice to Voldemort's left said.

Voldemort looked, imperious and slightly indignant that some stranger had the nerve to address him, the Dark Lord.

The stranger smiled, he had almost shoulder-length dark hair, parted to one side so it obscured his left eye. He was thin and pale, dressed in understated, unfetish-like black. "Sorry, I'm not chatting you up or anything. I'm just bored and waiting for my friend." He extended a long, slender hand weighed down by silver rings. "Blaise Zabini."

Voldemort took it for the briefest moment. "Lord Voldemort."

Blaise's eyes flickered in shock for a moment, but he smiled again. "You must be very brave to say his name. I didn't even realise that you were . . . one of the magical community."

"You think that-" Voldemort straightened in indignation. "I mean, you're a wizard and you don't even recognise me?"

"There's a slight resemblance I suppose . . . red eyes and all that. Has anyone ever fallen for it?"

Voldemort was speechless with rage, yet proving he was indeed the Dark Lord to this person seemed impossible. He was aware that the Dark Lord would not be seen dead in this place, especially in muggle clothes.

"You'd be surprised." He answered, after a pause.

"What's your real name?"

"Tom. Tom Riddle."

"Tom." Blaise considered the name. "You look like a Tom."

Begrudgingly, Voldemort talked to this person. He liked him a little more on discovering that he was a Slytherin and that his greatest hates were mudbloods and people who used the word `momentarily' to mean `soon' rather than `for a short duration'. Voldemort went so far as to smile slightly at one of his jokes; he was thinking about recruiting him as a Death Eater. Suddenly Harry was hanging on to his arm, looking flushed and attractive.

"Voldie, buy me another drink, I'm starting to sober up and Bez has abandoned me to chat up a right munter. Hey Zabini, what are you doing here?"

"You know each other?" Voldemort asked.

"Yeah." Harry said, as if this was obvious. "He was in my year at school."

Voldemort saw Blaise's eyes alight on Harry's famous scar.

"Merlin's arse, you're Harry Potter!"

"Yeah, last time I looked. You been chatting up my husband?"

"Nah, I'm waiting for L- . . . er, someone."

"I was just kidding."

"Why is the idea of someone chatting me up so ridiculous?"

"Cause you're the Dark Lord. Now give me some money for a drink." Voldemort pulled out a fistful of coins from his pocket. Muggle money had changed entirely since he had last used it in the 1940s, it was very confusing.

"How much is this?"

"Wait, you mean he actually is Lord Voldemort?"

"Come on Voldie, the gold coins are pounds . . . Yes, don't you read the papers Blaise? We had a wedding notice in the Daily Prophet at the time. `Lately, Mr. Harold J. Potter esq. to Lord Voldemort'."

"I thought he was joking!"

"No." Harry blinked at Voldemort, who smiled grimly.

"He wouldn't believe me. What do the silver coins mean?"

Harry frowned impatiently. "The big ones are ten pence, the hexagonal ones are . . . oh, for Nymue's sake, just give me them." Harry turned away to get served at the bar.

"Nice to meet you, Lord Voldemort." Said Blaise, without missing a beat.

"Not grovelling? That's not very Slytherin of you."

"Neither is marrying a Gryffindor."

"Touch. Mind you, the sorting hat did almost put Harry in Slytherin you know - it's his secret shame that he once drunkenly confessed to me."

"So what are you doing here? I didn't see this place as the hang-out of someone who hates Muggles."

"Nagging spouse." Voldemort's pallid skin showed the hint of a blush. He took a deep drink of whisky. "There are things that even the Dark Lord will do for a quiet life."

He glanced at Blaise, who was certainly not dressed for the occasion. "What's your excuse?"

"I'd rather not say."

"Oh I see." Voldemort gazed into Blaise's ice-blue eyes and used his occulmency skills. "Easy to be incognito in a muggle place when meeting someone on the sly. Which one of you is attached?"

Blaise paled, he had heard that it was impossible to lie to or keep secrets from Lord Voldemort but had not believed it. "Him." He said, hoarsely, fiddling absently with a silver ring on his forefinger.

"Well, well, Lucius Malfoy." Voldemort said.

"How did you know-?" Blaise looked up to see that the answer was obvious. Lucius Malfoy was standing before Voldemort with a shocked expression.

"My lord . . . I had no idea you . . . I mean . . . this is not what it seems . . ."

Voldemort smiled, his eyes half-lidded. "Lucius," his voice caught the soothing sibilants of his servant's name, "much as it would entertain me to hear the spontaneous lie that is about to come gushing forth from your forked tongue, you should save your breath to flatter this charming young dalliance of yours."

Blaise was too shocked that the Dark Lord had called him charming to object to being called a dalliance.

"I don't know what you're-"

"Lucius, it's pointless to lie to him." Blaise said. Lucius' noble and defiant spirit looked as if it might persevere, he had drawn himself up to his full, impressive height and was gazing coldly and imperiously at Blaise, but with a sigh he hung his head.

"Don't tell Narcissa. Please, my lord."

"My dear Lucius, your wife has been having threesomes with the Lestranges ever since they got out of Azkaban. She's hardly a paragon of conjugal faithfulness."

Lucius' eyes widened, but to his credit he kept his countenance. Blaise smiled slyly at Voldemort, the Slytherin in him could not help but be amused by his haughty lover's discomfiture.

Blaise took Lucius hand smoothly. "Don't I get a kiss?"

Lucius looked warily from Blaise to Voldemort, who appeared perfectly calm and indifferent, and back again. He leaned down and bestowed the briefest of kisses to Blaise's lips.

"Ah, it warms the cockles of my black heart." Voldemort said. "Now, aren't you going to buy him a drink?"

Lucius glanced towards the bar and his sharp nose wrinkled delicately, as clearly the thought of bartering with muggles displeased him greatly, but he went anyway.

"What on Earth do you see in him?" Voldemort asked.

"He's beautiful." Blaise looked longingly after Lucius' figure that was swathed in a rich, dark robe and admired the fall of his long, preternaturally pale hair down his back. "And rich." Blaise added as an afterthought, followed shortly by: "And a spectacular fuck."

"Who's a spectacular fuck?" Harry asked, returning with a drink to catch the end of their conversation.

"Lucius Malfoy, apparently." Voldemort replied, winding an arm round Harry's shoulders and kissing the top of his head.

"I wondered what he was doing here. Hang on, Blaise - have you shagged him?"

"Yes."

"But he's married!"

"Harry, pet," Voldemort said gently, "I'm afraid that not everyone marries for love. I'm sure Lucius hasn't been near Narcissa since their heir was conceived."

"Nah." Blaise confirmed. "Separate beds and everything, like loveless Victorians. I don't think Lucius likes girls at all. At least, he seems very keen when I ..." Blaise had enough decency to blush. "Oh no, you don't need to hear about that."

Voldemort caught himself making Hermione's perfume-tasting face. He had never considered Lucius as an erotic object, and did not much care for blonds.

Harry tilted his head to one side thoughtfully before asking: "He doesn't by any chance like being done over a desk and called a naughty boy, does he?"

Voldemort looked shocked.

Harry justified himself with: "I'm only saying `cause it's what Draco liked. I thought maybe it was an inherited fetish."

"Gods I wish I could erase that image from my mind." Voldemort said, fervently.

"Voldie gets jealous over my ex." Harry explained in a stage whisper.

"How irrational."

"Thank-you!" Harry said triumphantly with an emphatic gesture of his hand. "I've been trying to convince him of that for three years."

"My hatred of Draco is not entirely to do with him being your ex."

Harry glanced incredulously at Voldemort. "No?"

"I also happen to think that he's a pompous little shit with a stupid haircut."

"Fair point, well made." Blaise agreed, laughing. Lucius returned and pressed a glass of some dark spirit, rum or maybe whisky, into Blaise's hand.

"Thanks, Luce. Did you hex any muggles at the bar?"

"Only one. He was asking for it, and it wasn't an Unforgivable."

"Very restrained of you." Said Harry, darkly.

"Blaise." Lucius said pointedly. "Let's go upstairs."

"Alright." Blaise smiled indulgently. "It was lovely to meet you Tom." He produced a business card from the inside of his jacket and proffered it to Voldemort between two slender fingers. "Owl me if you fancy meeting for a drink some day."

Voldemort took it, very aware that Harry was smirking at him.

"Bye." He said absently, watching Blaise's back as he was trailed rapidly away by an angry and puzzled-looking Lucius.

"What?" he demanded, staring sharply at Harry.

"I think you've got a friend."

"Don't be ridiculous. The Dark Lord doesn't need friends."

"I think you like him. You enjoy his conversation. You think he's funny."

Voldemort smiled and slipped the card into his pocket. "Lies. Lies and slander."

"Yeah?" Harry hugged Voldemort around his middle. "Maybe you fancy him then. Should I be jealous?"

"Oh don't start. I came to your damned fetish night, I think you owe me a bit of peace. Anyway, where is your good friend Bez?"

Harry looked around before catching sight of Bez getting kissed and groped on a sofa by a different man than last time, but unfortunately one that was no less of a munter.

"Oh bloody hell." Harry sighed. "We won't see him for the rest of the night."

"Does that mean our presence is no longer required and we can go home?"

"Dance with me first?"

"I love you Harry, but there isn't a chance."

"You're no fun at all. What kind of a person doesn't like to dance?"

"I liked to dance when I was young, but the music wasn't like this."

Harry tried to think what someone who had been a young man in the 1940s would have considered trendy. "Voldie, were you a crazy jazz cat?"

"Yes. I had a beret and smoked roll-up cigarettes."

Harry clicked his fingers. "Groovy." He had a lovely picture in his mind of Voldemort when he had been the handsome, dark-haired young man named Tom Riddle, sitting in a dark caf with the cigarette dangling negligently in his fingers and tracing smoke spirals in the air, perhaps surrounded by beautiful friends of his. It was easy to forget that the austere and academic-looking man before him had once been young. Then again, Voldemort only looked half his real age, and was prepared to sacrifice his dignity at his young husband's request. With this thought, Harry kissed him and led him out towards the door.

~*~*~

"Voldie?" Harry was in front of the dressing table taking out his contact lenses. Voldemort lay in bed pretending to read a book, when he was really averting his gaze because he couldn't bear to witness people prodding at their eyeballs.

"Yes my love?"

"I think you should invite Blaise to my dinner party next week."

Voldemort groaned. "Not another one."

"It's only a very small dinner party."

"How many?"

"Six. Well, seven counting Blaise."

"You'll be the death of me."

Harry finished screwing the lids on his contact lens case and shook it. "Oh come on, it won't be that bad. You can sit next to Blaise and spend all night being horrible to everyone else and bitching about them within earshot. I won't mind."

"Alright." Voldemort conceded sulkily.

Harry pulled off his t-shirt and threw it into the washing basket.

Voldemort put down his book and stared hard at Harry.

"What?"

"Don't take anything else off. Come here."

Harry grinned. He went to the bedside and pulled the sheets off Voldemort, who was naked beneath, then gathered up his skirt and unceremoniously straddled his husband.

"I'm not wearing any underwear." Harry told him, stroking Voldemort's chest.

"Yes, that was evident to me." Voldemort's snappy retort sounded strained.

Harry grinned again and shifted himself slightly just for the pleasure of hearing Voldemort moan helplessly. His arms planted on either side of his husband's head, he leaned down to bestow a lingering kiss. As he raised his head, Harry caught sight of the bedside clock. It was past twelve.

"Happy anniversary Voldie."

Voldemort got a mischievous glint in his eye.

"Yes, that reminds me. If you open that drawer you'll find a present. Harry did so, withdrawing the shiny new copy of Naughty Schoolboys Three: The Teacher's Revenge.

"I love you." Harry whispered reverently, opening the front cover and flicking through the leaves to find his favourite, most lurid image. Voldemort smiled happily and put his hand up Harry's skirt, where it trailed egregiously up the back of his thigh.

An hour later, Harry's skirt was lying discarded on the floor, along with one of his slave bands, while the other remained on a slender arm that was thrown over Voldemort's waist. The couple were fast asleep in a tangle of blankets and even the occupants of the book's photograph were sated and dozing against their borders. Nagini slithered back in now that all was quiet and curled herself beneath the radiator. She fervently hoped that her Lord Voldemort would appreciate the young master's gift of faux snake-skin underpants, but in her heart she doubted it.