“As always, Harry Potter, your powers of observation astound,” the Dark Lord carps. “Care to explain why we’re both here?”
And there’s the million-dollar question. He hesitates for a moment, sticking his hands in his pockets to keep from fidgeting more. “You can feel it, yeah? Everything’s coming to a head.”
After staring for a few beats, Voldemort gives a terse nod.
Harry nods a couple times awkwardly in return, licking his dry lips. “So. We’re expected to fight, and at least one of us is meant to die.”
Voldemort tenses at his side. “If you intend to ask for mercy–”
“No, no,” Harry says, anxiously dragging a hand through his wild hair and leaving it even more of a mess. “I know there’s no middle ground, for either of us.”
His words catch in his throat, stuck in the anger and frustration and exhaustion of years of fighting and losing people with no real gain.
“But,” Voldemort prompts.
“But,” Harry agrees. “Have you ever ridden a Ferris wheel?”
Voldemort blinks and frowns at the apparent non-sequitur. He says, “I beg your pardon?” but the meaning is clearly ‘Are you mad?’
“Because I haven’t. My relatives,” and his voice breaks on the word because it’s only accurate in the most technical of senses. “Used to go to the local funfair every year. My cousin would always come back with candy apples and caramel corn and some gigantic plush animal he’d say he’d won.”
He smiles, but he can feel how ragged it is. “Fat chance, that. Guaranteed my uncle bought it for him.”
“Potter, what in Merlin’s name are you on about?” He’s apparently worn through Voldemort’s limited patience and the wizard is looking vaguely murderous.
“Right, sorry. Point is, I’ve never been, and I’m guessing you’ve never been to a funfair either. I doubt it was a priority at Wool’s.”
Voldemort’s wand appears in his hand and ‘vaguely’ has shifted quickly into ‘distinctly murderous.’
“Y’know, It’s funny what you fixate on when contemplating your mortality and what you’ll regret not having done when you die,” Harry continues quickly, trying to defuse the situation. “There are lots of things I haven’t done, and so many things I’ll miss. But I keep getting caught up on riding a bloody Ferris wheel, of all things.”
He’d considered asking his friends – he had. But it wouldn’t be new for Hermione, who’d had a pretty normal childhood, magic aside, and Ron wouldn’t get why it was important even once he’d wrapped his mind around the idea of a Ferris wheel. Ron had grown up with flying broomsticks, after all.
“I thought about who else might understand why it meant something, and, well,” Harry huffs, shuffling his feet self-consciously. “Here you are.”
He refuses to look at Voldemort’s face – who knows what expression he’s wearing, but it’s probably derisive in the extreme – instead focusing on the Dark Lord’s wand in case he has to defend himself.
“You invited me to go to a fair with you,” Voldemort says levelly. “Because we’re going to battle to the death soon.”
Well, when he puts it like that.
