Archive of Our Own

“Barty, where do I come from?” The boy asked, back against his chest as he ran fingers through the wild hair of the other sleeping boy in his lap. 

“Hmm,” Barty hummed, his own head tipped against his lover's as he snored softly. “Harry found you in the woods, and we decided to make you ours.”

The boy tipped his head back and grinned, mouth full of teeth. Barty knew he was a terrible liar, and the boy knew it too. 

Neither of them seemed to care.

Lord Voldemort was dead. 

Killed by a mere toddler.

At least, that’s what the prophet had emblazoned across its front page on November 1st, 1981. 

Barty knew better. 

The Lestranges had been, rather stupidly he thought, apprehended for the torture of the Longbottoms. They should have been killed when it was evident they possessed no knowledge of where their master was. 

Barty had left the house, irritated and hungry, and that hunger had not abated when he sank his teeth into the muggle he pulled from the street. Their warm body twitched against his, and he wished for the comfort of Regulus’ arms because their sire would not give it to them. Every permitted touch from him was like sunshine coursing through his sluggish veins. 

They had to earn his approval, and Barty knew he was going to be rewarded greatly when he found him and delivered little Harry Potter's head on a plate.

It took two years to find the boy. Two years of slinking in the shadows, living mostly amongst the muggles, their rich blood sustaining them just as well as any wizarding throats. But Barty missed the way magic tasted. 

The town in Surrey was nauseating with its little regimented houses. No gate left unpainted and no weeds choking the pavement. What a sterile environment to raise his sire's killer, Barty thought as he slunk through dappled trees. 

No one noticed him; his disillusionment was charm-iron-clad as he watched across the street as the thin woman babbled away to the blonde child next to her. Barty thought he was a rather large looking four-year-old, sticky hand reaching again and again into a bag of brightly coloured sweets. 

The Potters, he knew, were darker in complexion. His eyes travelled along the street with a frown, trying to spot what should have been another child. Had the people who had hidden little Potter disguised him. Surely the gluttonous thing wasn’t Lord Voldemort's killer? Barty wondered whether he would squeal like a pig when he bit into his fat little neck. 

The skinny woman stopped suddenly with a scoff and turned sharply over her bony shoulder. “Will you hurry up, boy!” 

Barty’s sharp eyes followed her own gaze to the end of the street, where a tiny speck of a child was rooting around on the ground. Auror Potter's wild black hair stuck out in every direction, but his skin wasn’t as tan as he expected. Perhaps little Potter took more after his mother. 

The child ignored his carer, standing up with something clutched between grubby fingers. He was dressed in an oversized jumper that swamped him. It might have originally belonged to the large boy. 

“Look, aunty!” It was then the boy turned, and Barty stepped back, lips parted as he stared at the startling green eyes in the boy's face. 

He felt a sudden lurch, fingers itching to grab. To run. 

“What is it now?” The woman, his aunt, snapped, and Potter opened his hands to show off his prize: a little dormouse. Before she could even contemplate what on earth the child had, he shoved the entire thing in his mouth. 

The aunt screamed, reaching down to clip the boy around his head before hauling him upwards by his skinny arm. 

“You nasty little creature!” She hissed, eyes darting around the street in case anyone had seen their spectacle. Then she proceeded to whack the boy on the seat of his pants several times before hauling both children around the corner into the little cul de sac. 

Barty’s hands shook. His still heart shuddered. 

Sire’s killer was… 

Theirs.

“No,” said Regulus, finally looking up from his piles of annotated notes. “That’s not possible.” The last two years of searching for their master had left both of them miserable and adrift. Barty thought if he hadn’t kept pushing for it, Regulus would have given up and buried himself in the dirt, the selfish bastard. 

“You didn’t see him, Reg. Didn’t feel it. In here.” He reached down, fingers spread against his unbeating heart. “It was like he was there again!” 

Regulus pinched his own nose. “So a weird little boy put a mouse in his mouth? Sirius used to put all sorts of things in his mouth.”

“You didn’t see him!” Barty snapped, pulling his hand away, and Regulus scoffed. 

“Leave the child alone–”

“He killed our master!”

“Thought you said he wasn’t dead, hmm. Thought you could feel it through our stupid bond.” Regulus got to his feet, chair scraping behind him, and Barty scowled at him. 

"Don't start this again–”

“I’ve got leads in East Europe. Do you want to start there or stay in fucking Surrey staring at a four-year-old through a window, like a creep?" 

Barty grit his teeth and swallowed down the spit in his throat and the urge to throw a chair at Regulus' stupidly handsome face. 

“...He looks like Potter.”

Regulus stilled before turning away from him, gathering up his papers. 

“Same stupid hair that sticks up everywhere. Not as swarthy, though; clearly taken after his mum–"

“Shut up.”

“Don’t you want to see him? Your sire's killer? Your–”

But Barty didn’t get to finish as Regulus pulled out his wand; a hex barely missed his head as he ran from the room, and the door slammed behind him. 

The boy had turned five in July, and the Dark Lord had been missing, presumed very dead, for the last three. 

Barty stood out in the cold October night waiting for a child that he knew was going to be sent outside. Nearly every single time he had visited, the aunt had forced him out to either weed or sweep or tend to the garden. As if he were no better than a house elf. 

The porch light clicked on, and out stomped the child in his too-big coat and bare little feet. Off he went to the shed to grab something when he paused, sniffing the air.

Barty opened his mouth, scenting the air back. 

The first time he had scented the air near him, he had almost grabbed him right there and then. The boy smelt of blood; their blood. Regulus wouldn’t be able to deny that! 

“Hello?” The daring little thing stepped up to the tree line, and Barty stepped forward, clutching at the bag on his back. The rats inside squirmed to be let free. 

Staring down at the boy, he couldn’t help the grin that almost split his face. The boy was almost Potter in miniature, sans the eyes and his paler skin. He even wore a pair of little round spectacles that he pushed up his nose. 

Regulus was going to fall in love. 

“Hello Harry…”

Little hands clutched at his neck, sniffling as Barty made his way down the street. There was no way he wanted to Apparate away in front of the house in case it was traced back to him. 

“What’s the matter, little bird?” Because that’s what he felt like in his arms: hollow tiny bones that he could have crushed between his teeth. 

“Have you changed your mind?” It wasn’t like he was going to take the boy back. Harry was coming with him even if he kicked and screamed. 

The boy sniffled again, burying his face in the crook of his neck with a shuddering sigh. “...Left my blanket.” 

“Oh.” Barty paused, rolling his bottom into his mouth. “Where is it?”

Another sniffle. “In my cupboard.”

Barty frowned. “Can’t be that important if it’s in your cupboard.” 

Harry’s little head shot up with an adorable scowl. “It’s my cupboard.” 

“Alright, alright. Which room in the house is it in? We can probably just Accio it.”

Harry frowned at him and then shook his head. “No, the cupboard’s my room.” At Barty’s perplexed expression, he bit his lip and squirmed in his grip. “...I…I want to go home.” The little boy swallowed, trying to pull away. 

“Hey, hey. None of that.” His hand slipped to the back of his neck, fingers curling in the hair at his nape, and the boy went suddenly slack in his arms. Their sire had done it to him early in his transformation, holding him like an irritated kitten. Barty had always collapsed under it, but Regulus had tried to take off his hand in sheer indignation. 

Harry just whimpered where he lay in Barty’s arms. 

“Be a good boy, and I'll feed you again, ok? Now…Where is your blanket?"

There were many things that Barty hated his father for when growing up, but at least he had never made him live in a fucking cupboard. The older vampire stared at the little sheet of paper taped to the bare brick wall; Harry’s room was scribbled in green crayon. 

Harry had climbed in, grabbed a fraying red blanket and stumbled back out with it clutched in his arms. The blanket had once been a nice one, edged in fine golden thread. There were no other toys except for a broken plastic soldier next to a jar of dead spiders. 

“...Like collecting them.” Harry muttered, leaning heavily against his leg. 

Closing his eyes, Barty breathed in once through his nose and let it go. A floorboard creaked somewhere in the house. Only the aunt was in. 

Crouching down, he picked Harry back up, and the tiny boy clung to him with his face buried in his neck. He felt the press of lips against his throat and wondered for a split second if he would feel the press of tiny blunt teeth. When all the boy did was suck at his skin, Barty petted the back of his head and glanced up the stairs. 

He couldn’t wait to make the family's acquaintance once he had Harry firmly stashed away.

“What the fuck have you done!” Regulus all but hissed at him, and Barty clucked his tongue when Harry tried to hide against his neck.

“Reggie! Don’t swear in front of the baby. You’ll scare him!” 

“I’ll scare you in a minute, you stupid fuc–”

“Ah, ah–” Barty wagged a finger, practically vibrating, and very carefully pulled Harry away from himself so Regulus could at least see him. 

Regulus’ eyes turned wide, but he wasn’t looking at Harry. “What did he do to your neck?" He hissed. 

“Poor thing’s not got any fangs yet, but he did really well with the rats, didn’t you, dove?” He pressed his fingers against the boy's side, tickling and making him giggle. 

“Anyway, they were keeping him in a cupboard–" A tiny hand was shoved over his mouth. 

“Barty, shh!”

It was only then that Regulus looked at the boy. Barty didn’t think Harry was shy, but he curled his other hand into his jacket, sucking his bottom lip into his mouth. The two of them stared at each other, and Barty could tell there were a hundred thoughts whirling through his pretty little head. 

“...Hello Harry. My name’s Regulus.”

“Reg-oo–Reg-lus–” the boy tried with a huff. 

“You can call me Reggie.”

“Reggie.” Harry grinned, and when Regulus smiled, Barty knew he had him. 

Harry was out like a light, curled in Regulus’ lap with his face smeared with blood that the other vampire was gently trying to clean off of him with his wand. He had had trouble when Barty had offered him his slit wrist but had latched onto Regulus' neck without abandon. Barty was only a little jealous. 

“...You need to take him back.” Regulus said softly, but his arms were curled around the boy. 

Barty didn’t reply straight away but leaned in close, brushing the messy fringe away from his forehead. There, the long lighting bolt scar drifted down into his eyebrow and the bottom of his eye. It was a wonder the Dark Lord hadn’t blinded him. Then his hand moved to the boy's oversized shirt, pulling it to the side.

Regulus frowned. “What are you–” but his grey eyes turned wide at the thin pink scars on his shoulders. They dipped down onto his back, and Regulus immediately pulled Barty’s hand away and righted the boy's shirt. 

“They’ll not report him missing.”

“He’s the bloody boy who lived."

“They kept him in a cupboard, Reg. They’re muggles, they’re pieces of shit, they’re–” 

“You can’t kill them.” Regulus shot at him, trying to keep his voice low so as not to wake the boy. “The moment you do, they’ll have the place crawling with Aurors.”

Barty opened his mouth. 

“And you can’t torture them either. Just…” He stared down at Harry, brushing a hand through his hair. Leaning forward, Barty pressed his chin against his shoulder, kissing the still oozing wound he had made for Harry. 

“...He made another one.” Regulus murmured, frowning. 

“This is proof.” Barty said. “Proof he’s not dead.”

Barty knew that a million and one questions whirled around Regulus' head. All he wanted to do was suck his pretty neck and soothe away every single worry. Before he could get much further than nuzzling him, the boy murmured, and Regulus shifted so he could stand with him. 

“You know he’s going to have to sleep with us, right?”

Barty blinked.

“For as smart as you are, Crouch, you’re an idiot.” And with that, Regulus turned to head into their poky little bedroom. 

They did not kill the Dursleys. Regulus pointed out that it gave them at least six more years until the wizarding world was scrambling for their infant saviour. They spent their days with their boy tucked between them, half the time with one of their wrists in his mouth sucking greedily. 

“Eastern Europe with a five-year-old?" Regulus pursed his lips, trying to think as Harry curled up on his chest with one hand clutched in his t-shirt, the other on his wrist. He had fallen asleep again, mid-feed. Barty thought it was cute. 

“One who can’t feed himself yet. We’re already having to eat twice as many people. Barty, are you even listening?”

“Not really.” Barty said, leaning forward and pressing his thumb into Harry’s open mouth. The boy’s eyes shot open, little teeth baring down on him. His tiny fangs were only just starting to come through, probably on account of the human blood he was now feasting upon.

Harry, adorably, growled at him, and Barty wrenched his hand back with a high laugh and licked over his dry lips. 

Sitting up, Harry’s bony little elbows dug into Regulus' chest, and the other vampire grunted. He shot Barty an irritated look as they had just got the boy back to sleep. He wasn’t used to being asleep during the day. 

When he had kidnapped Harry some weeks before, he had not really thought beyond the now. It had not occurred to Barty that he and Regulus would have to parent the little brat. It had become evident that Harry hadn’t exactly been parented since his own had been murdered. Mostly it was like having a house elf in the flat, desperate to help with anything if it meant he wasn’t taken back to the muggles. 

“Can we do more magic today? Please?” He pressed his little hands together where he squirmed on top of Regulus.

“Harry James, it’s six am; it’s time to sleep.” Regulus groaned, rubbing at his face, and Harry giggled as Barty grabbed him and rolled away with him to the other side of the bed. 

“You heard Black; it’s bedtime, little dove.” And he threw his arm over the boy, pinning him to the mattress. When he glanced back over, Regulus was smiling at Harry’s giggles, and Barty knew that kidnapping the boy was the best idea he had ever had. 

Barty stared down at Harry and the very dead cat lying at his feet. The boy twirled his little sweater between his fingers, lips pressed in a thin line. Both of them had acquired things for their little charge over the past six months. Sweaters and jeans that actually fit him, but he also liked wearing whatever he could of theirs. Liked to drown himself in their scents.

The child hated shoes but would always relent and slip on his trainers whenever Regulus asked. Now he stood shoeless in front of him, mud still clinging to his toes. 

“Well?” Barty crossed his arms over his chest and arched an eyebrow. Harry let out an almighty sigh. 

“...M’not to bring animals into the flat.”

“And?”

“It just involves you cleaning up dead things–” And then the boy took a deep breath. “But he was going to eat her!” 

Barty frowned, tilting his head down at where Harry squirmed. Every time he had done something that warranted a scolding (which, admittedly, wasn’t often), Harry had expected them to send him straight back to the muggles. As if the brat hadn’t sunk his little fangs deep into them already. 

The excuse was new. Barty looked down at the stiff dead cat with its neck torn out and then back to one very bloody five-year-old. “Who?”

Swallowing, Harry very tentatively reached into his trouser pocket and pulled out the tiniest garden snake he had ever seen. It must have only just hatched. Its grey-green scales shimmered, its tiny tongue flicking out to scent the, admittedly, stale air of the flat. 

“This is Socks.” Harry told him, raising his little chin, but kept the snake close to his body. “She doesn’t even have a mum! And I said… Well…” He squirmed again, and Barty found himself crouching down so the boy wouldn’t have to crane his neck up at him. 

“What did you say, Harry?” Barty asked very quietly, and Harry huffed, not realising the air in the room had changed. 

Harry puffed out his cheeks and took a deep breath. “I said she could come and live with us, because I’ve got you and Reggie looking after me, and it meant I could also look after her–" He took another breath. “And she said yes because she’s very scared, and I could find her bugs to eat and, oh, maybe mice when she’s bigger!” 

“She spoke back to you?”

“Well, yes…” Harry frowned, squirming where he stood but gently running a little finger over the top of the snake's head. “I met a bigger one last summer at primary school, and then Dudley scared him off by screaming.”

“You’re a parselmouth.” Barty swallowed. 

“What’s that?”

Regulus found him an hour later sitting on the old settee, staring at where Harry was hissing softly to his little snake friend, where she had curled up on his chest on the rug. 

Before he could ask what was wrong, Barty got to his feet and took his hand to drag him into the adjoining little kitchen. They didn’t use it for its intended purpose, the small table having evolved into the space for their sire search. 

“What’s wron–”

“He’s a parselmouth.” 

The only sound in the room was the ticking clock and the hum of the refrigerator, neither of them used.

“What–”

“He’s got a little snake, Reg. He talks to it. It talks back.”

Regulus frowned hard, leaning against the sink and crossing his arms over his chest. 

“He’s not supposed to leave the flat on his own.” It was not what Barty expected him to say, making him blink. 

“Absolutely skipping over the fact that our master's killer is also a sodding parselmouth.” Barty hissed, pointing towards the sitting room. At once, Regulus was in front of him, eyes wide and his hand slapped over his mouth. 

“Shut the fuck up, idiot.” He hissed, glancing over Barty’s shoulder in the hope that Harry had not heard them. Barty wrenched himself back but didn’t get far as Regulus grabbed him, hands bunched in his t-shirt. 

“What if he never went there to kill him?” Barty whispered, thoughts frantic. “Shit, what if he went to collect him? What if he’s the Dark Lord's child?"

“Vampires can’t have children. Not like that.”

“Then how–”

“I don’t know!” Regulus hissed at him finally. 

The pair of them fell quiet, each trying to slot the missing puzzle pieces together. 

“...You knew Potter–”

“–Barley.” His cheeks turned pink. 

“Was he connected to Slytherin's line? What about the wife?”

Regulus shook his head. “No more than the rest of us, I guess. And Lilly was a mudblood. I assume that’s why he got left with the muggles.” 

Pulling back, he rubbed at his face until he was groaning into it. Reaching out, Barty gently lowered his hands and brushed his dark curls back, tilting his head to peer into tired grey eyes. Those dark bags seemed more permanent than ever. 

He leaned into his hands, closing his eyes. “...This is a mess. I don’t know what this means.”

“We’ll figure this out. Maybe when we find the master–”

Regulus wrenched his face away. “He’ll kill him.”

Barty fell very quiet, staring down at him. Perhaps that would be the case. That they would find their master, restore him to his former glory and then he would finish what he started. Isn’t that what he had wanted to do when he first spotted the boy, before he had gleefully shoved that doormouse in his maw? 

Barty opened his mouth, but nothing would come out. 

“Reggie! Do you want to meet Socks!” Came Harry’s high little voice as he ran into the kitchen, his face bright and fingers still sticky from the cat's death. In his hands, the little snake peered up at the two older vampires. 

“She says it smells very angry in here.” And just for good measure, he scented the air as well before frowning. 

“Are…Are you fighting?” 

"No," Regulus lied smoothly, guiding Harry back into the sitting room without another look back at Barty. 

They could not get the boy to put the snake back outside. 

What if she gets cold? What if there’s another cat! And what about–

In the end, they both gave up and let him keep the bloody thing with the caveat that he was responsible for feeding her and cleaning up after her. Harry took to his task with all the vigor of any other five year old. Only this one's teeth were growing sharper. 

“...Well at least it’s a good baby sitter when we go hunting.” Barty had pointed out. 

Harry had to feed from them every day which meant they had to feed every day, sometimes twice. It was becoming increasingly obvious what they needed to start doing. 

“I don’t like this.” Regulus muttered for what felt like the ninth time. “He’s too small and–”

“He’ll be with us.” Barty told him again. “It’s not like we’re sending him off into London on his bloody own.”

Regulus turned to scowl at him. “He’s a baby. He’s…”

He was James’ son. He was Sirius’ boy. He was everything to a group of people that Barty did not care about. A mudblood for a mother and a supposed traitor for a godfather. Not that either Barty or Regulus believed what the papers had said. 

They both knew when to smell a rat.  

“He’s killed most of the cats in the neighbourhood, and that snake is getting bigger by the day, just like he is.” Barty pointed out, reaching up to gently cup his face. “It’s time we moved on anyway. We’re outgrowing this sodding nest.” 

It was Harry, of course, who had brought up the awkward question of “Whose flat is this anyway?” Most of the pictures on the walls were of people neither he nor Regulus knew but it wasn’t like the old woman who had lived there had had any contact with the people on the walls; they’d been squatting in her home long enough without alerting the authorities. 

It wasn’t as if they would ever find the singular bone they had transfigured her into. 

“But… I don’t want to kill muggles.” Harry had said in his sweet little voice after they explained to him about the hunt. Barty was secretly excited for it, knowing he was going to have to help their little brother with his first proper human hunt (perhaps even his first kill). 

“You won’t kill them.” Regulus told him and whacked Barty in the arm when he opened his mouth to contradict him. “It’s just like feeding from me and Barty.”

“But…” He chewed his lip, lowering his voice to a whisper. “But what if I do kill them?" 

Regulus blinked, and Barty let out a laugh that startled the pair of them. “Then, oh well! Nothing of value is lost.”

“Bartemius!” Regulus hissed, but then it turned into a scoff when Barty scooped up Harry, peppering his little cheeks with kisses. The boy laughed in his arms, all fear having evaporated, and Barty sent him a smug look over his wild hair. 

The location was a busy city late at night, the early summer sun having long since set. The place they had picked had so many canals that if a blood-drained body were to fall into one, well, it would hardly see the light of day again. 

The man was in his twenties, clean-shaven but in a tracksuit with his hands jammed deep into his pockets. Not drunk, a stipulation from Regulus; “We’re not getting the five-year-old wasted.” Barty called him a spoilsport. 

Standing at one end of the long underpass, Barty made for a rather intimidating creature when he wanted to. Taller than most, there was a gleam to his ruby-coloured eyes. They would have caught on the fluorescent lights of the tunnel if they hadn’t, for some strange reason, been blotted out. 

Sniffing, the man nodded and made to move around Barty. Barty stepped into his path. 

“Prick.” The man spat at the side. “You gonna move or what, dickhead?”

“I pick, or what.” Barty grinned, his sharp teeth immaculate. Sometimes when he smiled, he almost felt like they could split his face. Perhaps it was the nature of his snake-loving sire seeping through into his children. 

The man scrambled backwards. “Fucking weirdo.” He turned, hoping to come back the way he came. 

Regulus stood just behind him, almost making him jump. He looked between the two of them, and the scent of fear in the underpass made Barty’s mouth water. It was the double take, however, that made Barty want to laugh. 

Harry stood next to Regulus, his little fingers curled in his muggle jacket and wide green eyes almost luminous. 

“Kneel.” Commanded Regulus and the poor bloke slumped to the ground. By his side, Harry let out a little gasp. 

“Can I do that!?” 

"Probably when you’re bigger.” Regulus told him with a soft smile, running a hand through his wild hair. 

“...What are you–”

“Be quiet.” Regulus turned back towards their prey as Barty stepped forward, grabbing the man's head to pull it back to reveal the smooth column of his throat. 

Crouching down, Regulus wrapped his arms around the little boy. “Do you want me to start it for you?” 

Harry shook his head quickly, his hands balled into fists. “No. I…I can do it.” He whispered and then stuck his chin in the air, trying to show them just how brave he was being. 

Those tiny little fangs were not sharp enough to cleanly bite into their prey. It didn’t help that Harry had lost one of his front teeth earlier that week, and had cried into Barty’s arms about losing his fangs. That he wouldn’t be a proper vampire anymore. Then he kicked him in the shin for laughing. 

The scent of blood filled the underpass after Harry’s little teeth tore at flesh. Crouching down, Barty took the other side of the man's neck and could not suppress his grin at Harry’s possessive little noises. He seemed less bothered about Regulus taking their victims' wrist. 

The body made a satisfying noise when it hit the water, sinking beneath the murky surface. 

“What a mess!” Barty grinned, holding Harry up into the air to examine his gore-drenched face interspaced with tears. 

“You…” He sniffed. “You said I wouldn’t k-kill him.”

Barty tutted at him, pulling him close and tucking him on his hip. Regulus gently took his chin, aiming his wand with a gentle cleaning spell. 

"Well, you didn’t, silly bird. That was all me and Reg. You’re not big enough.” He poked him in the stomach for good measure, earning a tiny smile. Then Harry rubbed at his eyes, letting out a tired sigh. 

“You did really well,” Regulus told him gently. “The master is going to be very pleased when he meets you.”

They had agreed to start interspersing the idea of the Dark Lord to Harry, especially after he had devoured all of Regulus’ books on vampires and started asking about their sire. They were not quite ready for the ‘Lord Voldemort killed your parents, and you, supposedly, killed him’ talk. 

“Oh.” Said Harry, biting his lip. “Really?”

Barty could only hope, for Regulus' sake mostly, that he didn’t just outright kill the boy. 

Running his fingers through bath-damp hair, Barty watched as Harry’s little chest rose and fell underneath the duvet. The boy had curled himself tightly in the middle of the bed, Socks wound around his arm with her little tongue flicking at him. 

"C'mon, little snake.” He murmured, managing to coax her into his own hand. “You know Reg doesn’t like you in the nest.” 

Very carefully he set her back inside the terrarium where Regulus insisted she be during the day when the three of them slept. Harry had pouted, of course, grumbling that Socks was part of the nest as well, only for his opinion to change when Barty pointed out he might roll over and kill her in his sleep. Regulus had whacked him for making the boy cry. 

Leaving the boy to doze, he wandered back towards the bathroom to the sound of the shower. Steam filled the room; the last remnants of the literal bloodbath washed down the drain. 

They had let Harry take the first bite of a not quite subdued victim, only for her to thrash, causing the boy's little teeth to latch onto an artery. 

“Is he asleep?” Regulus called from behind the shower curtain, and Barty closed the door with a soft click and a muttered spell, leaning against it. 

“...Barty?” The shower curtain opened, and Regulus blinked water droplets from his eyes. Barty watched as clean water ran in rivulets down his pale skin, collecting at his dusky nipples. Ruby eyes roamed the rest of his body, watching as water dripped from his dark thatch of hair. 

Barty swallowed. His cock twitched in his jeans. 

“...Is he asleep?” Regulus asked more quietly this time, averting his gaze a moment before those grey eyes were back on him. 

Nodding, Barty started to pull off his own blood-stained clothes, where they fell in a pile next to Regulus's and Harry’s sodden ones. 

The other vampire had turned back to the shower by the time Barty had climbed into the rickety old tub, his arms curling around the smaller boy. There, he pressed his mouth against his damp neck and shuddered as his hardening cock rubbed against the curve of his arse. 

In the beginning he had thought about Evan. How he had missed his Rosie’s skin against his as a newly turned Regulus fed from him. Their master had not wanted to deal with him beyond what he had to, delegating the awkward newborn vampire phase to him. Barty had been barely out of that stage himself. 

They had clung to each other out of necessity more than anything at first. It had shifted and morphed into something else.

Barty knew that he was loud and chaotic, a bright sunburst against Regulus' cool demeanour. His skin was luminous, moon-like, and he loved lavishing soft kisses upon the many little moles he could find. 

“Are you going to fuck me or what?” Regulus murmured, cheeks pink from the heat of the water or Barty’s fingers rubbing his nipples. He caught one of them between his forefinger and thumb, tweaking it sharply so Regulus would gasp beneath him. 

“Shh,” Barty whispered in his ear, teeth on his lobe. “You’ll wake the baby.”

The shower had been the only place they could now fuck. The door was locked and the boy firmly fast asleep. 

Parenting was exhausting, and it was leaving Barty wanting. 

“...Barty–” Regulus hissed through his teeth, and it morphed into a growl. Suddenly he turned, surging upwards so their wet mouths could crash together. Barty wanted to drown in him, one hand tangled in his wet hair and the other grabbing his arse cheek to push his fingers roughly between them. 

Gasping into his mouth, Regulus' own hand grasped their hard cocks. They slid together, Barty’s thinner one against the girthier one of his lover. Regulus had turned pink when he had first got his hands on it, followed by his mouth, lavishing the worship it deserved. Sirius might have been more handsome of the brothers, according to some, but Barty knew the younger Black was far more gifted in other ways. 

“...Where’s your wand?" Regulus breathed into his mouth. “G-Get–”

Already, Barty had most of a finger in his arse and pushed against the sensitive ring of muscle. It was a tight, all-encompassing heat, paradoxical to the coldness their bodies normally exhibited. 

Blood made them hard. 

The baby made that difficult. 

Dropping his head to Regulus' shoulder, Barty groaned at the feel of their cocks sliding together. The sticky pre-cum mixed with water made him wish he could simply come into Regulus’ waiting hand. That’s not what the other boy wanted, though, pulling away to grab his own wand from the windowsill with a grunt. 

Barty’s fingers slipped from inside of him as he panted, watching as he cast the spell that would slick up his insides. Shoving his wand back, Barty gave him no time to adjust as he crowded him up against the wall and pressed his eager cock against his hole. 

“...I won’t last.” He told him, and Regulus grunted as he pressed the head past his tight ring. 

“Don’t care. Just come in me, please, Barty.”

“Fucking hell, Reg.” Burying his face in his neck again, his teeth sank down into his flesh, and Regulus gasped, hands scrambling for purchase on the cold wet tiles. 

The room filled with the sounds of rushing water, of wet skin slapping together. Reaching down, he wrapped his fingers around Regulus's cock, sliding the pad of his thumb across his slit. Beneath him, Regulus whimpered, his back arched as he fucked into him. 

“Ah, fuck. Fuck Reg i’m gonna–” Winding his arm around him, Barty felt the jolt in his stomach, his bollocks tightening as he came deep inside of him. 

Regulus was whimpering, trying to stay quiet as his own hips became erratic before he was coming in hot spurts over Barty’s fingers. 

They stayed locked together for a moment, breathing heavily as water washed away the cum from Barty’s hand. With a grunt, he slipped out of the other boy but not before spreading his cheeks to watch his own come dribble out. 

“...Are you done?” He heard Regulus ask, unamused, and Barty hummed, pressing a kiss to the nape of his neck before turning him to kiss properly. 

They lingered long enough that water started to run cold and then–

“...Reggie?” A tired little voice said from behind the bathroom door. “...Barty?” 

Barty closed his eyes for just a moment, but when he opened them, Regulus was grinning up at him, water clinging to his eyelashes. 

“...Just a minute, dove.” Barty called, kissing Regulus one last time before he kicked him out of the now-freezing shower. 

Later, curled in their nest with Harry tucked between them, Barty thought it didn’t really matter if they never found Lord Voldemort. 

When Harry turned six, there was no birthday cake, but there was a special little hunt just for him. They had set him down in a quiet play park in a bright red jumper that was far too loud for Regulus's tastes. 

“It makes him easier to spot, I guess," he muttered. 

"Well, that’s sort of the point,” Barty shot back as he took a drag of his cigarette. “If anyone tries to take him, I want him to stand out.” 

Regulus rolled his eyes at him, the pair of them waiting on the other side of the street and hidden in shadows. He would be lying if he didn’t say he was nervous, letting the boy hunt and kill all on his own, but it seemed imperative that he learn sooner rather than later. Especially with what they had planned. 

It was normally teenagers and drunken old men out so late at night. Harry, in his little red jumper and sneakers, stuck out like a sore thumb as he swung himself back and forth on the swingset. They did not discriminate when it came to their hunts or their kills. A warm body was a warm body. Sometimes they begged, crying about children he didn’t care about or family members waiting for them at home. 

“Why don’t we only kill bad people?” Harry had asked innocently enough; the concept of good and bad was so black and white to such a small child, and Barty couldn’t help his grin at him. 

“Wouldn’t that make us bad people as well?”

Regulus had hit him for confusing the boy, but Barty knew that Harry was smart. That it would all click eventually and he would soon stop caring about who was good and who was bad. 

Food was food. 

A teenage girl walked past the gates of the park, out far too late for someone so young. Barty watched as she paused, her head doing a double take at the small boy on the swing. Then she glanced around herself, hands fisted against the straps of her bag, but when she spotted no one else, she stepped towards the swing set. 

The two of them watched in silence, drenched in shadows, as she crouched where Harry had paused in his swinging to peer up at her. 

Harry was not clean or conniving with his kills. His one goal, Barty found, was to latch on hard and not let go. 

The girl let out a yelp when Harry lunged towards her, teeth sinking into the side of her neck. At his side, he felt Regulus twitch as if he wanted to rush forward and help. They kept themselves rooted to the spot, a lookout in case anyone was alerted to the noise. 

Finally, the girl stopped moving, her body prone on the floor with Harry’s little body curled over it as he fed. 

The two older boys finally approached, and it was only when they were within feet of him that Harry let out a small possessive growl. His tiny fingers gripped her jacket. 

“Oi, enough of that.” Barty crouched, flicking his ear. 

The girl's throat was a ruin, her eyes wide as she stared unblinking up at them. A horrible gurgle left her mouth, lips parted with red froth. With what little strength she had left, her hand rose towards them, mere inches off the ground, but the vampires merely stared and watched as their little brother took his fill. 

They left the body to be found, possibly by a dog walker. It was always a dog walker. 

In his arms, Harry’s warm little body curled around his own with his sticky face pressed against his neck. Tiny lips pressed against his throat, his favourite place to suck a livid bruise as he fell asleep.

They had made a killer of the wizarding world's chosen one. 

Barty grinned.

The night they left, Harry walked around the flat with Socks saying goodbye to every inanimate object. 

“Goodbye, weird-smelling fridge.”

Socks’ little tongue flickered out. 

“Goodbye photos of people we don’t know.”

The snake slithered from his hands, winding her way up his arm and settling around his neck. She was now over a foot long and harder to hide on Harry’s person, despite her best efforts. 

"Goodbye bone in the airing cupboard.”

“Are you done?” Barty stood with his hands on his hips, and Harry nodded, closing the cupboard door to grin up at his brother with his own hands on his hips. 

“Cheeky little bird,” sweeping him up into his arms, he couldn’t help his grin when Harry pressed a wet kiss against his cheek. 

The boy had become more affectionate over the past year and a half, constantly wanting to hold their hands or wrap his arms around their necks. A day didn’t go by without him tucked up between them, one hand on Barty and the other on Regulus as if he could keep them both anchored to his side. 

Barty didn’t know if that was normal but didn’t really care either way. 

Apparating with Harry between them, however, was unpleasant. The boy hated it. He always had done. He gagged the moment they reappeared, clutching at Regulus's jacket with a small, panicked noise. 

“Again,” Barty said immediately but Regulus shook his head. 

“Absolutely not,” he snapped, tightening his grip on the trembling little boy. “He’s going to throw up–”

“Again,” Barty insisted, his arms wrapped tight around both of them. “We’ll never reach Europe if we have to stop every time.”

Harry swallowed, pale but stubborn. “I can do it.” 

Regulus looked down at him, features softening. “You don’t have to.” 

Barty clicked his tongue.

"No, I…I want to,” Harry said, quieter now as he looked between the two. “I don’t want to be slow.”

Something unpleasant settled in Barty’s stomach, and his grin faltered. 

Regulus exhaled slowly. “...Alright, but we won’t go as fast. And if you feel sick, you say so.”

Harry nodded, clutching his blanket as Socks buried herself firmly into his little coat. 

They went again.

And again. 

And again. 

By the fourth time, Harry was trembling but upright. By the sixth, he had finally stopped flinching, and by the tenth, he was laughing. 

The continent was different. Even the air tasted older and stranger, and Barty relished in it. They all did. They started in France, with Regulus grumbling his way through it in reluctant and half-remembered french. 

“Grandmother was insistent that I learn a language.” He all but huffed when Harry asked innocently why he sounded so cross in another language. “I bloody hate French.” Though letting Harry’s little eyes widen at the sight of the Eiffel Tower had been worth all of Regulus’ french related tantrums. 

In Amsterdam Barty had gotten so high that he momentarily worried that he would simply forget every spell he had ever known. When he had handed Regulus the spliff, the other vampire had given him a long-suffering sigh and gestured at Harry.

“...Not sure we should be giving it to a seven-year-old, but if you think that’ll help–Opph!” He did not dodge the thump to the stomach. 

Germany had been a trickier one to navigate. The muggles had split the country in half after the Second World War, and though there were rumblings of unification, it seemed like it was still a way off. Still, the American service men had been rather fun to play with. 

Italy, however, was Barty’s favourite, slipping through the winding little alleyways of Venice just because. 

“Ah, belissimo." He had grinned at Harry, hot blood on his tongue as they lowered a body into one of the quieter canals. It would bob for a while before sinking under, and Barty knew in a few hours the place would be crawling with Muggle tourists unaware of what had transpired. 

Harry had grinned back, mouth red, before scenting the air again. He’d been doing it a lot lately, as if he had caught something on the wind the further south they traipsed. They followed whispers and rumours about fragments of dark magic that might have been him, and Harry learnt quickly. How to stay quiet when Barty needed silence and how to watch Regulus’s face for the subtle shifts that meant danger. 

There wasn’t much; the few wizards they did come across barely looked their way; just another nest of vampires. They avoided anywhere too magical just in case, but it seemed no one on the continent cared. 

“...It smells wrong here,” Harry said one night when they had landed in Albania just after Harry had turned eight, frowning at the empty stretch of forest. The further south they went, the more the wilderness pulled them away from the cities. 

Regulus looked down at him, and Barty watched as his now three-foot snake scented the air with her tongue. Regulus had concluded that it wasn’t a normal bloody snake after all, but Barty wondered if magic hadn’t been at play somehow. 

“Wrong how?” he asked. 

Harry hesitated, searching for the right words with a little frown. “Hmm, old, but not like you two–” Barty snorted, and the boy scrunched his little nose up. “Like blood and snakes and–” Biting his lower lip, Harry suddenly turned very quiet and buried his face against Regulus' side. 

“Like what, Harry?” Regulus prompted him, but the boy could only shake his head.

Crouching down, Barty took Harry’s chin between his fingers and turned the child towards him. The boy had grown in the few years he had been with them, learning to hunt and kill, dressed in dungarees and trainers. Barty dreaded what he would have been like if he had simply left him with the Muggles. 

“Like what, Harry?” He prompted again, more firmly this time, and eerie green eyes met ruby red. 

“...Like home.” 

They had lost Harry. 

Barty awoke one early morning to Regulus tearing through the covers, as if the eight-year-old might have simply vanished into them. 

“What are–”

“I can’t find Harry!” 

Blinking sleepily, he turned and squinted at the thin sun shining through the thick curtains of the little hovel they had holed up in. It was a farmhouse, one on the edge of a village near the forest that Harry had latched onto weeks before. 

“He’s here.” He has said with single-minded focus. “I can feel him.” 

It had been a terrifying but exhilarating feeling that had zipped through Barty at his words. 

“...Not in the living room?” 

“No! Get up!” And then Regulus was tearing out of the room, and Barty huffed, throwing on his clothes. 

The door to the kitchen was wide open, the warm summer air blowing dust onto the old scrubbed tiles. Harry was not in the cottage or the little yard. Back in the UK, he would wander out into the estate every now and again but was always back with them before Regulus could yell for him.

He had never vanished on the continent. 

The two vampires stood and stared into the dark forest, and Barty took a great lungful of air, catching his faint scent on the breeze. It was cooler amongst the trees, but he could still feel the pull of the sun through the canopy. 

“Gonna kill the little brat when we find him.” He ground out, stepping over fallen logs and stomping through mud. They had been walking for hours. 

“In fact–” He spun towards Regulus, grabbing his pack of cigarettes from his jacket. “I’m killing the snake. That’ll teach him.”

“Bart–”

“Yeah, yeah. Killing the kids' animal is wrong, but so is fucking–”

Regulus snatched his hand out, slapping it over his mouth. “Shut up.” He hissed, pointing with his other hand, eyes wide. 

Following his hand, Barty frowned as he looked just past the clearing they had entered. For a moment he didn’t see anything, and then his own ruby eyes widened, breath stuttering. 

Nestled between the trees, staring at them with great yellow eyes, was the biggest snake he had ever seen. It rose up, muscles pulsing under its dark green scales as it curled around the little form in the centre, not quite touching; Harry. 

Barty lurched forward without thinking, barely registering what Regulus had hissed at him before he felt it: the bond. 

It was as if it had snapped back into place after years of simply floating. It was an anchor that grabbed hold, sinking its claws deep into his flesh. 

There you are. 

Lord Voldemort’s voice whispered inside his head, and Barty immediately stopped in his tracks. From where he stood, he watched as Harry curled his arms around his smaller snake but seemed equally desperate to touch the large one. 

“Look what I found!” The boy had grinned at him, his mouth full of sharp teeth. 

There was a moment of wonder as Barty found himself sinking to his knees, eyes wide and mouth open as he scented the air. It was dense enough in the forest that the sun barely shone through, but it still picked out the jewel tones on the great serpent's scales. 

"...Master," Regulus said at this side, and then the pair of them were bowing low, foreheads in the dirt as the great snake loomed over the room. 

I must give you both credit. You found me quicker than I assumed you would. 

Their sires' voice sank into them, and Bartemius shuddered. What he wanted to do was grin and brag that it was Harry, it was all Harry. 

What a quaint little gift you’ve brought me. 

“Isn’t she beautiful!?" Harry gushed somewhere above them, but close enough he could still see his little trainers where he bounced. Barty was surprised that he had even bothered to put them on. 

“The master said her name is Nagini. She can’t really talk right now because he’s had to take up most of her head.” And then Harry was tugging on him, pulling him upright before Lord Voldemort permitted him to move. 

Barty stared wide-eyed at the yellow-eyed monster in front of him as Harry climbed into his lap, either unaware or unbothered about the danger right in front of him. Licking his dry lips, all humour vanished as his mind went blank. 

"Feral little thing.” He muttered as Harry clung to him. 

“My Lord,” said Regulus, still bowing low. “I beg you not to kill him.”

Harry’s little head whipped around, frowning. Barty instead looked at the snake and wondered if he too would beg for their boy's life.

“He can be useful.” Added Regulus as the hulking creature curled around them. 

I’ve waited all these years for him. For both of you. 

The long jittery years without their sire seemed to be soothed in an instant. As if he had never vanished. In his lap, Harry was still frowning. 

The boy’s touch… It burns. The snake shifted then, turning to show a bright handprint around Harry’s size seared into the scales. 

“...I said sorry.” Mumbled Harry, who was now squirming against Barty’s tight hold. 

You’ll release me from my familiar, and then perhaps we shall discuss the boy. 

Harry was obsessed with Nagini but was bitterly disappointed that he couldn’t touch her. All the boy wanted to do was plaster himself against her and instead made do with burying his face in Regulus's side. 

“But why do I hurt her?” He stared forlornly at the sleeping snake, warming herself in a patch of autumn sun. 

The master tired easily, and Barty was unsure if it was because of the snake's size or because winter was steadily approaching. He needed to separate the two. 

“We don’t know.” Regulus admitted, running his fingers through Harry’s wild hair where he sulked on his lap. 

“...It’s going to take months.” Mumbled Barty, pouring over the books he had managed to retrieve from one of the master's old hideouts. Everything to remove the wraith from the snake had to be specific, down to the time of year. 

“Unless we go back to the UK, we’ve got no access to the bones or the grave dirt.” He glanced at Harry and then over towards the sleeping serpent. Harry’s smaller family had curled up by her side, basking in their shared warmth. 

“We can’t be dragging him across the continent. Not in the state he’s in.”

After that, Harry had been brimming with questions. Why was the master stuck in Nagini? Who put him there? Why had he been missing so long?

“...When am I going to stop growing?” 

It had been several weeks since they had found their serpent-bound master, and Barty was more determined than ever to separate them, for Harry’s sake more than anything. The boy seemed desperate to be able to touch him. The master, equally so, was irritable, but winter had slowed his temper, thankfully. 

“Why? Do you not want to be as big as me and Reg?” Barty asked, mildly distracted as he made another note on his parchment. Harry, determined to have his full undivided attention, crawled up onto his lap. 

“Harry-Opph!” Dropping his quill, he slung an arm around the boy’s squirming middle as he threw his arms around his neck. 

“Vampires aren’t supposed to age.” The boy mumbled, burying his face in his neck. Then he felt those tiny lips against his sluggish pulse point, and he sighed. 

“If you want to feed, just tell me, don’t–” But he was cut off by the feeling of sharp little fangs in his skin, and he sighed, patting the boy’s back. 

They were trying not to feed him from their own bodies, determined that he was old enough to hunt for himself. But Barty knew he gave in more than Regulus, happy to hold the little monster as he suckled lazily. 

“Thought you didn’t want to be treated like a baby?” Barty muttered against the side of his head, rubbing a hand against his back. 

Pausing in his feeding, Harry pulled away and scowled up at his brother before wiping at his mouth with the back of his sleeve. “I’m not a baby.”

“Oh? Is that why you still feed like one?” Barty did not suppress his sneer, and Harry leaned back, arms crossed over his chest. 

“Well…” He ground his sharp little teeth together. "Well, when the master gets his body back, i’ll feed him.”

“You?” Barty laughed.

"Yes, me! Stop laughing!” Pouting, the boy scowled up at his brother, who could only grin at him. Eventually Harry huffed, slumping forward with his forehead pressed against his chest. For a long time, he sat there quietly, and Barty simply assumed he was seething or had fallen asleep. 

“...Barty?” He eventually asked. 

“Hmmm?”

“You never said why the master went missing in the first place?” Little hands curled into the sweater he was wearing. Though Barty supposed those hands weren’t so little anymore. The boy would be nine in the summer and was growing like a weed still. 

“We don’t know,” he lied smoothly. It was odd how easy it came to him when it was for Harry’s sake. Normally he wouldn’t care about hurting feelings. 

“But it doesn’t matter now, does it?” He asked, and Harry seemed to take a moment to think on it before shaking his wild head of hair. 

“Master.” Crouching in front of the fireplace, Barty bowed his head to the snake piled on the warmed hearth. Sometimes it almost felt as if they didn’t have Lord Voldemort back at all, but a strange sentient snake that his nine-year-old brother obsessed over. 

“The ritual is almost complete, but…”

He hesitated, glancing at the door. Regulus had taken Harry to hunt, just to get him out from underfoot and burn off his abundance of energy. 

But what, Bartemius? You promised me a resolution weeks ago.

Bowing lower, his fingers bunched against the cold floor. 

“With the omitted ingredients, we will need a lot more blood.”

There was a pause as the snake lifted her great head. The sight of her didn’t scare him, but he would be a fool not to be weary. 

How much more?

Lord Voldemort was his master, his sire. There was a shared hatred between them of their terrible fathers and of longing to be seen as worthy in the eyes of those that did not, or would not, care for them. 

Barty cared for his master. 

He hoped Regulus could forgive him. He hoped he could forgive himself. 

Ah. Came his sire's reply. The boy may prove useful after all. Do it. 

Raising his head, Barty swallowed the bitter taste in his mouth and inclined his head. 

“As you wish, my Lord.”

The ritual was simpler than the one he had in mind, but cruder too. There was a cauldron, yes, to be filled with the great hulking snake, but the important ingredients were missing. They could risk travelling back to the UK, but the master was not strong enough, and Barty did not want to leave the other two behind. 

He would have to overcompensate and hope it worked. 

Harry stood next to him, luminous green eyes wide as he slit his own hand and then Regulus'; the blood of servants. Blood dripped into the cauldron and onto Nagini, who thrashed in the creeping heat. It swirled together, and normally the scent of it would have his mouth watering. Not that night. Not if he wanted it to go well. 

Regulus would forgive him. 

“Do you trust me?” He had asked him earlier, the two of them dozing in the nest when Harry had wandered out to roll on the rug with Socks and Nagini. She had been far more present than the master of late. 

Regulus had frowned. “Of course.”

When Regulus stepped back from the cauldron, Barty turned towards the boy he had stolen at five. 

They had parented the boy, yes, but he did not consider them both his parents. Perhaps even brother was too loose a term for what they were. Silently, he beckoned him forward, and Harry stepped up to him with no hesitation. 

A lamb to slaughter. 

“It’s alright, little bird.” He promised him, taking up his offered little hand in his own. Somehow, he managed not to tremble. “It’ll only sting for a second.” 

Then he pressed the knife into Harry’s palm, ignoring his flinch before turning it over the cauldron, where it sizzled with magic. Quickly, he moved his hand to the boy’s mouth, clamped down and shifted the knife. 

Poised with it at the child's throat, he turned his wild, ruby eyes towards a bewildered Regulus. The other vampire took a tentative step forward. 

“Trust me.” Was all he said before running the blade across one small, pale throat. Hot blood soaked his fingers, and the boy below him gurgled and thrashed. 

It was less of a scream from Regulus and more of a guttural cry of anguish. Barty knew he only had a second to tip the body into the cauldron with the snake before Regulus was crashing into him, a snarling beast who quite forgot he was a pureblood wizard. 

The punch to his face happened just as a bright green flash, the colour of acid, illuminated the forest and sent both of them to the floor. 

“What did you do!? What did you fucking do!?” 

At his side, he was vaguely aware of Regulus shouting, but he stared up into the dark canopy of the forest. Harry’s sticky blood still coated his fingers even as he pushed himself up and stared at the scene before him. 

The cauldron had split in two, and Regulus had scrambled over to it, dropping to his knees. As the smoke cleared, two bodies emerged from the mangled corpse of the giant snake. That was a sacrifice he was willing to make. 

Two small bodies curled around each other. Harry, he recognised, blinking wide green eyes at the naked child sprawled against him. 

Nausea wracked him suddenly, and Barty turned, spitting up vomit the colour of ink. It splattered on the forest floor, but he was quick to crawl away from it, stumbling to his feet and towards them. 

“Harry, Harry!” Regulus's fine-boned fingers were checking him over, but the boy's throat was unblemished. 

“Reggie, get off.” He grumbled, tightening his arms around the other, silent boy. With dark hair and pale skin, he had yet to say a word. His eyes, ruby coloured like Barty's, seemed almost…empty. Eyes not yet filled with anything at all. 

Suddenly, Barty was seized by his blood-soaked jumper, and he turned to look down into Regulus' furious but tear-filled face. 

“You could have told me! You could have warned–”

“I asked you to trust me.” 

He managed to dodge the slap that came his way, grabbing Regulus by the hand and twisting. The other vampire thrashed, but Barty wrapped his arms tight around him and pulled him against his chest. 

Harry blinked up at him, head tilted, but his attention turned back to the boy. 

"What's your name?” He asked him carefully, ignoring his brother's spat. 

The boy frowned. 

"I…don't know.” 

Harry’s face did something peculiar. It lit up, not with fear or recognition but with delight. 

“That’s ok!” He said quickly, shifting them both so he could wrap his arms more firmly around the other boy. “We’ll find you one.” Then he pulled back, face still alight. “I’m Harry, and these are my brothers.”

Barty exhaled a shaky sigh, and Regulus stiffened in his arms. 

The boy’s gaze shifted past Harry and towards them, but there was no recognition in dark wine eyes. 

The master, Barty realised, was no more. 

He grinned. 

When day broke, Harry slept curled around the boy, tucked into his side with Socks coiled loosely between them. Harry had been a little sad about Nagini, but the boy had leant into his side, squeezing his hand, and his attention immediately shifted. 

Barty stood at the end of the bed with Regulus, staring down at the pair of them silently before they slipped out of the farmhouse. 

“...Why didn’t you tell me?”

Those horrible dark smudges under his eyes had returned tenfold, and Barty wished he could kiss them away. Cupping his cheeks, Regulus tried to pull away, but he held on tight. 

“I asked you to trust me.”

“That’s not the same! I thought–” He let out a choked sob, stumbling as Barty dragged him against his chest and pressed his lips to his dark curls. 

“...He doesn’t remember,” Regulus finally said, his voice thin. 

“No,” said Barty. 

“Not even a trace of who he was?”

Barty shook his head. 

Lord Voldemort was dead. Barty wondered if one day he would wake up and feel guilt for killing his sire? Or at least for turning him into the blank version he now was. It was as if an empty doll stared up at them, waiting to be filled. 

Did he love the master? Yes. Did he love his sire? Barty wasn’t sure if he could answer that, but he knew who he did love. 

Pulling back, he took Regulus' face between his hands again and pressed a soft kiss against his lips. 

“We don’t tell him.” He said.

Regulus averted his gaze. “...No.” he agreed. 

“We don’t tell either of them,” Barty added, voice firmer now. “Not now. Not ever.”

That made Regulus turn, peering back up at him with those soft grey eyes. 

“...Barty.”

“He’s ours,” Barty said simply. “Both of them. We took them, we made them what they are, and they’re ours.” He said it as if merely speaking it into the world would make it true. “And no one is ever going to take them from us.”

Regulus stared up at him, and Barty could see his determined reflection in his eyes. It was the same look he spotted in the hallway mirror the day he killed his father. 

“...We never tell them.” Regulus agreed softly before reaching up to kiss him. Barty relished the soft feel of his lips against his own chapped ones. 

Regulus nipped him. “But if you ever pull something like that again, I’ll kill you.”

When he awoke that evening, he never realised he would end the day beaming down at his angry, smaller lover. 

“...Vee.” Harry had decided. “You feel like a Vee.”

The boy, Vee, smiled. It was small and soft, entirely unguarded, and he seemed to only have eyes for Harry in that moment. 

"Okay," was his only response before drawing Harry back towards him. 

Years passed and the boys grew. Harry was all sharp edges, bright eyes and teeth that finally fit into his mouth. Vee, however, was quieter and watchful. Intense in a way that sometimes made Barty’s skin prickle; the monster he had caged in the visage of a child. 

The boys were inseparable, always touching and close. It was like something had stitched them together at the moment of their creation. 

Their nest was messy, loud and dangerous for it. It was perfect.

“There are plenty of wand shops on the continent to take them to. We can’t take them to Olivanders, Barty.” Regulus said one evening after they had moved villages again. The part of Europe they roamed was on the precipice of war, and their only logical move was to return west.

“But he makes the best ones!” Barty huffed. “And Harry’s nearly eleven now; we promised–”

“Harry is almost eleven. Vee is…” Regulus waved a dismissive hand. 

“...Do you not want him to have a wand?”

“I–”

“He’s not him, Reg…”

There was a viciousness to the boy's kills that was not evident in Harry, who only killed to eat, uninterested in prolonged suffering. Vee, on the other hand, liked to play with his food, and Barty rather liked it when it was just the two of them on the prowl. 

“Barty?” Vee had peered up at him, all doe-eyes and soft curls. It was slightly at odds with the red stain around his mouth. 

“Does Regulus not like me? He likes Harry, and I know he likes you.” 

Barty had grinned, hands shoved in his pockets as he remembered the delightful noises he had pulled from Regulus early that morning. 

“Regulus likes you. He loves you, just as he loves Harry. And me.” 

Vee wrinkled his nose. “...I don’t think he does. And anyway, only I should love Harry, he’s mine after all."

“Oh, is that so?” Barty asked, leaning down to throw his arm around the boy’s skinny shoulder. Truth be told, he was growing like a weed, and they constantly had to alter his trousers. 

“If Regulus didn’t love you, he wouldn’t let you feed from him during the day.”

“I–” Vee’s cheeks turned pink and he huffed again. 

“...Horrible brother.” He mumbled, shoving him away, and Barty laughed before picking up the boy's hand and squeezing it tight. 

Vee squeezed his fingers right back. 

The house smelt exactly the same as it had done the night he had taken Harry. Too much polish, too much cleaner, as if Petunia Dursley could scrub her imperfections not just from herself but also from everything she touched. 

Barty stood in the middle of that very woman's sitting room, lifting a cigarette to his bloodied mouth. The orange top flared briefly in the dim light of the evening as he took a long, slow drag. 

“Merlin,” he sighed, exhaling a plume of smoke towards the ceiling. “I’d forgotten how much I hate this place.”

Behind him, something gurgled. A horrid wet noise. 

Vee did not look up straight away, holding the large blonde boy by the front of his shirt, his fingers curled easily into the fabric as if he weighed nothing. Dudely’s feet barely scraped the carpet, heels kicking weakly. 

The room was soaked in blood. 

Vee had never been particularly interested in clean kills. Regulus blamed him, and Barty had to concede; he’d not taught either of the boys to eat nicely. 

The uncle lay crumpled near the once-pristine sofa, and his wife not far from him, still breathing but only just. 

Barty flicked ash onto the carpet. 

“We should have killed them years ago,” he said, as if discussing the weather. “But Regulus thought it might bring too much attention.” 

At that, Vee finally paused. Titling his head, he leaned in once more, just enough to drag his tongue across the boy's throat. Letting out a wet choking sound, his arms flailed weakly in Vee’s grip. Then, Vee let him go, and the boy dropped with a heavy final thud. 

There wasn’t enough blood left in him to even pool beneath his quickly cooling body. 

Straightening up, Vee wiped his mouth with the back of his hand and then licked that up for good measure. His new wand was tucked into the holder on his arm, and sometimes Barty caught him running his fingers over it, as if he couldn’t believe it was his. 

“Attention from what?” he asked, stepping over the body as if it were furniture. “And won’t this bring the humans running?”

Barty huffed a laugh, glancing down at him. It wouldn’t be long until they were eye to eye, already taller than Harry. 

“From people who would care,” he said. “Aurors, nosy bastards." 

“...Why would they care?” 

Barty watched him for a moment, the strange, almost ethereal child that he was. It made Barty wonder just what kind of boy his sire had been. Had he been the same as the one in front of him? There was something familiar in the tilt of his head that Barty had trained himself not to see. 

Ruby eyes locked with ruby. It was still sometimes a wonder to him that his eyes had changed colour to match their masters', but Harry’s had not. Regulus had always had grey eyes, but now they shone like moonlight. 

“It’s because of Harry, isn’t it? He’s special.” There was something in the way he said it that made Barty wonder if he was jealous. 

Barty crushed his cigarette out against the wall before turning back to him, crouching slightly with his hands on his thighs so he could really look at the child in front of him. 

“Yes. He was. But he’s not special to them anymore. Now he’s ours.” 

Vee seemed to consider that for a moment before nodding. “He’s ours.” 

Barty’s lips parted. “...He’s yours.” He said it even quieter, and Vee blinked at him, mouth open slightly before he shut it with a sharp snap and a nod of his head. 

A faint wheeze drew their attention. The aunt was still alive, but barely, and Vee glanced down at her, then back up at Barty. 

“Can I?” he asked, gesturing to his wand. 

Barty grinned. “Go on then. First proper use and all. Make it count.”

They had purchased both boys' wands on the continent from a terrified wandmaker they had left alive with Regulus obliviating her. 'Brother wands', she had called the matching yew wands with their phoenix feather cores. They had sat in her shop for a very long time… 

Vee stepped forward, posture straightening just slightly. There was a flicker of concentration on his face as he took out and raised his wand. 

“Avada Kedavra.” Left his mouth easily as a sickly green glow engulfed the room. 

The woman went still. 

Vee blinked, then looked down at his wand, and a slow smile spread across his face. 

“...Oh,” he said. 

Barty barked out a laugh, delighted at the way the boy's eyes lit up. 

“That’s my boy,” he said, reaching out to ruffle his normally neat hair. Unlike Harry, he didn’t automatically lean into Barty’s touch, but he did turn a wide, pleased grin up at him. 

It was not something he thought he would ever see on Lord Voldemort; the openness of a boy. But whilst he could come off as aloof, he was eager to please the older vampire.

Barty had felt momentarily sorry for his old master, who had no one in his childhood, and wondered what kind of man he would have been with any sort of guidance. 

Still…Barty had parents, and he still happily trailed after the Dark Lord. 

Perhaps he would have been worse. 

Perhaps he still would be. 

Barty grinned at the thought. 

“Barty, where do I come from?” Vee asked, back against his chest as he ran fingers through the wild hair of the other sleeping boy in his lap. Socks, far too large now to be mistaken for any ordinary snake, curled tighter around her boys, tongue flicking. 

“Hmm,” Barty hummed, his own head tipped against Regulus’ as he snored softly, something he would vehemently deny he ever did. “Harry found you in the woods, and we decided to make you ours.”

The boy tipped his head back and grinned, his mouth full of teeth. Barty knew he was a terrible liar, and the boy knew it too. 

Neither of them seemed to care.

Seventeen hit Harry and Vee with long limbs and instincts that had been honed over the years. They liked to hunt together; the pair of them were a lethal combination with Vee’s efficiency and Harry’s light feet. 

The muggles had never reported the boy missing, and whilst Barty was certain both his absence and their deaths had been hushed up, they could not ignore Harry’s lack of arrival at Hogwarts.

The Daily Prophet had been wild with speculation for years, but no Death Eaters popped out of the woodwork to claim ownership.

No, the wizarding world's infant saviour had vanished, and they would never find out that he was often hand in hand with the boy who made him that way in the first place. The man who had orphaned him, turned him, was now the boy under him. 

Barty and Regulus lingered at the edge of a quiet village in Eastern Europe, having resumed their trek over the continent. Further afield was calling to them, but Regulus had wanted the boys to at least appear older, first. 

Harry and Vee had disappeared up ahead, and Barty knew they would stumble back at daybreak, crawling into their nest with them with hot blood in their veins. 

“Let’s head back.” Regulus rolled his shoulders, glancing up at the stars above them. “We’ve got a lot of prep to do before–” 

He paused, and Barty blinked as something tickled the back of his neck. It was a faint whisper, one he used to feel just after Lord Voldemort had turned him. He had not felt it since the day Vee had appeared.

“...Did you feel that?” He asked Regulus, his voice barely above a whisper. 

Regulus did not answer. He was already moving. 

They found them in a clearing of a nearby wooded area. It wasn’t quite the forests they were used to, but Harry liked to take to trees wherever they went. Sometimes Barty wondered how they managed to keep the boy on the ground. 

What they spotted was Vee on his back and Harry above him, pinning his thinner arms with Harry’s athletic legs. 

The boys shared their bed. He was no stranger to waking up and finding them in positions he often woke Regulus up in. But this seemed different. There was nothing playful or gentle in the way he had their master pinned because Harry had his fangs deep in Vee’s slim throat. 

Barty almost moved but then stopped because Vee wasn’t fighting back. Instead, he was still with his ruby eyes on nothing but Harry. 

When Harry finally pulled back, his chest was heaving and his mouth was stained crimson. It trailed down his neck, soaking his chest in gore. Beneath him, Vee was unmovable as a doll. 

“...Harry?” Regulus tried carefully, one foot raised as if to walk over to them. Barty grabbed him by the back of his jumper, shaking his head when he looked at him sharply. 

Harry ignored both of them; he seemed to only have eyes for Vee. Then, raising his wrist to his mouth, he sunk his fangs deep into the flesh before offering it to the boy below. Vee did not hesitate to latch on and drink greedily. 

Barty felt something snap tight at his neck, as if something had finally settled into place. Beside him, Regulus sucked in a deep breath before flinging an arm out to grasp at him. They were both drawn towards the noise after that. The wet slurping of Vee feeding was followed by the bright sound of Harry’s laughter. 

After that, the boys didn’t age. Years slipped into decades, and still they remained seventeen and hungry. 

Stories spread of something moving through Europe. Not one monster, but many. A nest of them laughing in the dark, hunting in pairs and leaving behind nothing but whispers and fear. 

No one ever found them. 

Barty curled around Harry’s lithe back, his cheek pressed into the curve of his neck. The boy slept on, with Vee curled under his chin and Regulus curled around him, hand spread against their once master's hip. Usually they slept on one side of the nest, wrapped around each other, with Barty and Regulus on the other side. They couldn’t be coddled forever, bundled in between them. But sometimes, Harry simply wanted his brother, and who was Barty to say no?

Ruby eyes met grey, and Barty smiled with too many teeth when Regulus smiled back. 

Yes, taking Harry Potter had been a very good decision. 

—

The End