Dabbling With The Dark

Chapter 21

After having spent a good chunk of the previous two days taking potions, being nagged to eat by Bellatrix, and sleeping he was still a little sore. He could sit, stand, walk, and breathe again without much pain, but turning quickly or twisting a lot was still out of the question. The pain wasn't anything he couldn't handle even without pain potions after so many years of dealing with Dudley and playing Quidditch, but everyone in the house was still keeping a close eye on him. If he winced more than once, he was back in bed with another vial of pain potion. He knew whose order it was that the Death Eaters did.

As much as the Death Eaters were merciless assholes in battle against the Order, he thought he'd be taunted just as mercilessly by them over what had happened when he saw more of them than just Bellatrix and Lucius. He'd been surprised when that hadn't happened. Instead, when Voldemort had called a meeting up in his chambers, a meeting he knew Voldemort held there just so he was a part of it, those who had been there to level the Cruciatus on him had given him apologetic looks. The most surprising thing had been how much Bellatrix and Lucius really were checking up and taking care of him. It was Bellatrix more than anything that made him feel more comfortable about being there by saying they'd all been where he was and he'd get used to it.

While he wasn't sure about that, he was starting to relax around Voldemort again. Though he was sure a part of it was that Voldemort wanted to keep him loyal, he had a feeling that part of Voldemort being so gentle with him was another part of an apology that he'd never hear with his ears. Honestly, he didn't really need one. He'd heard the words 'I'm sorry' or 'we're sorry' so many time that they were empty to him now. He'd take waking up to an arm draped across his waist over one of Ron's 'sorry for being a backstabbing prat' excuses any day. And that's what he'd been receiving for days now.

Usually when he woke up, Voldemort was there. Either the man was lying in bed with him, one of Voldemort's arms across his waist or hands on his hip, or the 'Evil Dark Lord' was walking towards him from the table in Voldemort's chambers, the stack of parchments Voldemort was going through forgotten for the moment because he was awake again.

Admittedly he was still nervous about pissing the man off again, he doubted that would ever completely go away, but as the hours went by he relaxed more and more. His first spoken wisecrack about Voldemort taking care of him had slipped out before he could stop it and caused him to tense, but Voldemort just smirked at him, made a wisecrack back, and he'd cracked a smile relaxing again. And relaxing with his lover was a hundred times easier after the first time Voldemort had lead him into the man's bathroom to soak away his soreness in the tub. That he hadn't spent an hour soaking in hot water alone was worth a damned lot more than the words 'I'm sorry'.

With all the attention Voldemort was showing him, forgiving the man for torturing him hadn't been so hard. After all, it was his fault he'd been tortured in the first place. A part of him acknowledged that he deserved the punishment, at least some of it, because when he'd started collecting the Horcruxes he had intended to betray Voldemort by destroying them. He and Voldemort had a long talk about that; one where he'd kept his mind completely open to Voldemort while they did. To prove himself to his lover so that Voldemort never had any doubts about him again, he'd even opened that small portion of his mind he'd always kept occluded without Voldemort asking him to. And just like Voldemort's actions proved that the man was sorry for torturing him, him doing that had proven his loyalty to his lover and restored the man's trust in him.

Slouched in a chair turned sideway with his feet up on another chair, he read from the book on his knees. He'd actually started reading from another book, but that one had been taken from him and replaced with another. He hadn't even blinked at Voldemort doing it before he opened the book and started reading it. For once it wasn't a book on Dark Arts, but on healing spells. He got the point of why Voldemort gave it to him when he saw an entire chapter of advanced charms used to heal curse damage. The half-filled sheet of parchment on the table next to him was evidence that he'd found more than a few that might come in handy.