The Man in the Diary

Posted originally on the Archive of Our Own at http://archiveofourown.org/works/10890636.

Rating: Mature
Archive Warning: Choose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Category: M/M
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Relationship: Harry Potter/Tom Riddle
Character: Tom Riddle | Voldemort, Tom Riddle, Harry Potter, Albus Dumbledore,
Ginny Weasley, Luna Lovegood
Additional Tags: Tom Riddle's Diary, diary!Tom Riddle, Possessive Tom Riddle, Horror,
not a fluffy story, horcrux!Tom Riddle, canonical child abuse and
neglect, Slow Burn, eventual Tom/Harry, I swear its a romance, Just
when both are of age, Tom learns to love, Harry's horcrux is a tad more
responsive
Stats: Published: 2017-05-12 Updated: 2020-04-19 Chapters: 11/? Words:
104144

The Man in the Diary

by Reneehart

Summary

Harry pulls the diary from Ginny's cauldron after having seen Malfoy slip it inside. What
begins as a friendship with a kind man trapped inside a book turns into a story of obsession
as Tom Riddle seeks to protect his horcrux and Lord Voldemort returns to find his throne
threatened by none other than himself.

Notes
See the end of the work for notes
 The Diary, A Promise, and a Lie

It was something so simple. Something so unassuming, so innocent seeming. It was just a book
after all, and what harm could ever come from a book?

Of course, harm could come from a book, in the form of tears spared at the death of a beloved
character, sleepless nights spent hunched over a novel with only a dim, singular light for comfort.
But it was never real harm, nothing that followed you when you closed the book and set it back on
your shelf, ready to continue about your day.

But this book...

It was different.

It was dangerous.

It hummed with energy, with magic that Harry did not know- he was not familiar with it but knew
without knowing how he did that it was dark. Terribly dark. And he could feel it pulse out to him in
waves, feel his stomach twist and a dull ache settle behind his right eye as fingertips grazed over
the leather bound journal. It was soft, the leather worn and pages yellow but it was in well enough
condition. At the very bottom of it, embossed in golden lettering was the name T.M. Riddle.

He did not know who that was, or why Lucius Malfoy had had it in his possession and felt it
appropriate to drop it within Ginny's cauldron. But Harry had not trusted it in the slightest, fingers
plucking it from her small collection of texts when she wasn't looking and hiding it in his own,
promising to investigate it further, when it was later in the evening.

And it was later- several evenings later to be exact, and he sat on his bed in the Gryffindor
dormitories, the thick, crimson curtains drawn and the journal settled in his lap. An index finger
traced over the printed letters, the sharp turns of the T and the M, the rounded bellies of the R and
the D's. It was as if a syringe had been placed to the tip of his finger, injecting something into his
veins that made his arm itch and burn as it coursed through him- venom, acid, or something
euphoric.

He opened it, the heel of his palm smoothing down the center of it to flatten it and keep it splayed
open. The pages smelt crisp, ancient, like dust and the less frequented corner of a library. He
reached for his quill, unscrewing a bottle of ink and settling it on his knee, dipping the brass tip of
the quill into the black well. He brought it to the right hand page, hesitating for a moment as he
chewed his lip.

What had he intended to do, exactly?

If Malfoy had slipped the diary to Ginny, it had to be for a purpose. And what purpose was it?
What was it capable of? It was just a book. A blank one at that.

A bead of ink fell from the quill, landing on the page and splattering against it, specks of black
dotted randomly throughout. It glinted, the gloss drying down rather quickly, when a curious thing
happened. Of course, many a curious thing happened in Harry's life, ever since his eleventh
birthday, beginning with a flurry of letters with red stamps raining from the sky. Though curiosity
was commonplace long before then, if he was being honest. Snakes slipping from once enclosed
cages, hair regrowing overnight.

But this was curious in particular in that the ink seemed to disappear into the paper- saturating the
yellow pages until there was nothing left but blank space. And surely that was odd, even in the
magical world. After all, what was the purpose of a blank book if all writing on it vanished?

Before he could ponder the thought any further, words appeared before him, curling, elegant script.

Hello?

-xXx-

Tom Marvolo Riddle was who the journal had belonged to, and there was something about the
name that did not quite settle in Harry's mouth. It was metal on his tongue, it was a twinge behind
his eye. He did not know why a man existed within the slightly too stiff pages, and he had thought
to ask Hermione of it but decided against it. She was oddly suspicious of things, and surely a diary
that wrote back to him would be cause enough for her to alert McGonagall. Dumbledore even.

And there was no sense in bothering the headmaster with something so silly. It was just a book.

'I was trapped in the pages of this diary long ago,' Tom had explained at Harry's prompting. 'The
effects of a spell I used that had not gone as planned.'

'But what is it like in there? How can someone exist in a diary?' Harry asked, his own words
looking sloppy, hasty against the fading calligraphy. But they disappeared soon enough, replaced
with Tom's own answer.

'I am left with nothing but memories. Empty rooms and empty halls from my life before I was
locked within this book.'

Harry frowned at that. That sounded awful! He couldn't imagine what that might be like- spending
eternity with nothing but the paths he once walked, rooms he had familiarized himself with enough
to recall them in imprisonment. No Ron or Hermione, no Hedwig or Hagrid. Nothing at all except
his own meager supply of memories. Worse than that, what if it wasn't even Hogwarts at all laid
out before him? What if he was trapped within the home on Privet Drive, stuck within the
suffocating walls of his cupboard beneath the stairs, not even the spiders for company?

'What spell did you use? Maybe there's a way to undo it.' After a moment, he added, 'I can ask
Dumbledore. He might know.'

The words came back faster, a bit spikier this time as if Tom was rushed. 'No, it was a spell of my
own creation, and as such, it is impossible for anyone but myself to undo. I am just happy to have
someone to talk to. Tell me about yourself, Harry.'

Harry blinked owlishly, a hand reaching up to slide the glasses back up his nose. No one had ever
really asked him to talk about himself. Either no one cared, believing he was the disturbed
delinquent nephew of Vernon and Petunia Dursley, and as such, nothing he had to say was of any
worth, or they already knew everything there was to know about Harry Potter. More than even he
knew of himself.

He didn't even know where to begin, exactly. His family, or rather, lack there of? Or perhaps that
was too personal, too intimate to share with a book. School? Tom was a wizard himself- or had
been- and surely they would have something of common ground? A favorite subject shared
between them, complaints about particularly challenging studies?

A question from Tom settled the discourse for him. 'You said you're a Potter? Any relation to
Fleamont Potter?'
Harry shifted in his bed, spine straightening in interest. Fleamont Potter? The name bore no
meaning to him- the only Potter he knew was his father, James- but Tom seemed to know. Had he
known his family from his own time? Wasting no time, he scrawled back, 'I'm not sure. My parents
died when I was young, and I was raised by my aunt and uncle who were muggles. My father was
James Potter. Did you know him?'

'I'm afraid not, and I'm sorry for your loss. I don't have parents either.'

And even as he was filled with disappointment at having nothing more of his parents than some
photographs, he was filled with something else. Something thrilling. It was strange, Harry thought,
the source of comfort that came from shared tragedy. The way your shoulders slumped, you
exhaled deeply, when you learned you were not alone in this world. That others knew your pain,
the absence that came with having no proper family to speak of. And perhaps it was rude, but in his
excitement- the longing reach to a kindred spirit- he glossed over Tom's own admission of loss,
adding, 'My parents were killed by a dark wizard. You probably don't know him, I don't think he
was around in your time. Lord Voldemort- have you heard of him?'

His heartbeat pulsed out of rhythm.

A snore disrupted the silence.

He worried if he had offended Tom, if he should have offered comfort as well instead of losing
himself in the desire to share with a fellow orphan- someone who knew what it meant to have no
mother to tuck you in, no father to ruffle your hair.

He brought his quill to the page, ready to right an apology, when Tom wrote back. 'No, I haven't.
Dark wizard you say? How terrible. I could never imagine something so awful. Would you like to
talk about it?'

-xXx-

Harry decided he liked speaking with Tom. He was smart and kind, and he seemed to understand
Harry in a way that Ron or Hermione could not. He was an orphan as well, raised in the muggle
world until he was eleven and learned of his true identity, that there was an entire world hidden
below him. A delightful world, vibrant and technicolor, full of life and energy and wonder and
literal magic. The muggle world was not like that. The muggle world was grim, dull.
Monochromatic, several shades of gray and beige and nothing more.

He carried the journal with him, bending the front cover backwards so as to keep it small and
hidden on his lap, and he wondered how Hermione might admonish him if she saw him treat a
book in such a way. But she never noticed him scribbling away, he never intended to tell her.

Tom would help him in his studies, explaining things that had not made sense in class and putting
them into words that he could grasp onto, fingers curling triumphantly around the concepts. But he
never supplied the answers, instead forcing Harry to come to the conclusion on his own.

'You'll get nowhere if I just tell you what to do. You need to understand it yourself. You could be a
great wizard, and it would be a shame to waste it all because it was easier to tell than to teach,' he
would explain, making Harry blush at the praise. Everyone assured him he was a great wizard- he
had to be after all, he defeated Lord Voldemort when he was only a baby. But the words seemed
genuine coming from Tom- he was not handing him praise, cooing him with it. He was simply
holding them above him, like a goal to be reached.

Because Harry wasn't a great wizard, really. He was lucky. He had survived a terrible thing; a
terrible thing that had claimed the lives of many an actual great witch or wizard before him. That
was all. He had no memory of the event that earned him the taunting moniker, and he was not the
smartest boy in his class. Far from it. He was decent on a broom, but that was hardly the marker of
someone great.

Tom had to have been a great wizard when he was alive. Perhaps he still was alive, though. Not
quite dead, not quite living. Caught on some unfathomable plane in between, trapped in something
flat and two dimensional.

There wasn't a subject that Tom did not seem to know of. There wasn't a spell that he couldn't do, a
potion he couldn't make. Harry was in awe of his brilliance, really, and he thought it quite a shame
that someone with so much potential- someone who could have done some truly remarkable things
for the world- had been removed from it. He had considered bringing the journal to Dumbledore
once more, in an attempt to free him from the confines of it. But Tom assured him it would be
useless.

'Besides,' Tom wrote, in his looping and neat script, 'I think I may have found a way to reverse the
spell. But I will need your help, Harry. Can you promise me you'll help?'

-xXx-

Of course Harry agreed to help Tom, the words scribbled earnestly back before he had even
realized he was writing. Though Tom wouldn't need his help right away, he was still researching
his options, he had explained. And so they continued to speak, of nothing and everything and all
the things in between.

There was a pleasant hum surrounding him, muffling the world and reality away as Harry sat with
the journal propped on his thighs, back against the rough textured tree. His head felt heavy, but not
in weighted, dreadful way. Like the sort of heaviness that befalls you right as your about to sleep
after a particularly exhausting day, reality distorting into the nonsensical worlds of dreams.

His dreams had been a tad funny, as well. Blurs of things not remembered, things that could not
have possibly existed in his own mind. Of a stern faced and frightened woman, of tides crashing
against jagged rocks of a deep and dark cavern.

But dreams were always funny, and he thought nothing of it. Sometimes he even shared the dreams
with Tom.

'I was in a cave and a bunch of snakes slithered out from the rocks and crevices, winding around rib
cages and other bones. But they weren't scary, they just wanted a chat. It was sort of funny. I think
they were lonely.'

'Snakes can get lonely, too.'

'I know. I met one once, at the zoo with my cousin. He told me he was lonely, and I let him out.
My cousin fell into the enclosure-'

Tom wrote back before Harry could even finish the story. 'This was a dream?'

'No, it wasn't.'

-xXx-

'Tell me about the night your parents died, Harry,' Tom wrote, and Harry settled back against the
propped up pillows of his bed, skewing his lips in thought. He had never told Tom everything
about that night, only that he had been young and both his mother and father were killed by the
dark wizard. Some called him You-Know-Who. Others He-Who-Must-Not-Be-Named. Harry told
him he thought such names were ridiculous, that he was just a wizard- not a monster or a
boogeyman. Tom had told him that it was possible for those things to be synonymous, that
sometimes the most terrifying monsters are the men and women you pass on the streets.

But that was it. He had not told him that he himself was meant to die. That he had a terrible scar on
the right side of his head; like he was porcelain doll, dropped once and fractured with little white
fissures cracked permanently into him. He had liked that Tom didn't treat him like a celebrity, a
pariah. He liked that he spoke with him because he wanted to, not simply because he had become a
modern day myth and he wanted the opportunity to speak with the great Harry Potter.

But they were friends, he supposed. Tentative friends- as much as someone could be a friend with
someone when they existed as nothing more than vanishing black text against yellowed paper. It
was November now, and they had been speaking for a little more than two months- surely if now
was not the time to divulge such secrets, there would never come a time.

And so he shared it with him, a dissonant and perturbing whistling sound filling his head all the
while, itching at the back of his brain. He told him how Voldemort had supposedly died that night,
that his own curse had rebounded off Harry and struck him. That his parents were dead, and he had
nothing to show for it except a distinct scar. That his aunt and uncle reviled him, that he had been
made to sleep within a cupboard for most of his young life, having nightmares within the small
space of bright, green flashes of light, a woman screaming his name, and motorcycles flying
through the air. He was a hero in the Wizarding World, but 'the boy' in his own muggle home. That
he thought it very funny when he freed the large snake and trapped Dudley inside the enclosure.

Tom did not respond for quite some time, and Harry chewed his lips, worried that he had done
something wrong. The whistling was growing louder, and he palmed his ear, pressing it tight
against it and releasing it in the hopes that the pressure might stop the sound. But it did not, and it
continued to ring achingly against his skull.

When Tom wrote back, his words were curt. Short and too the point, and Harry wondered if he had
upset him. For some reason, the thought of such a thing was devastating. He did not want to upset
Tom.

'Harry, I'm sorry to leave like this, but I think I need to do some more research.'

He did not write back for about two weeks.

-xXx-

Harry knew Tom had finally written him, though he did not know how he did. It was as if it were a
premonition, a tingling within his brain that let him know that there would be words inscribed for
him when he opened the journal. And perhaps it was because it had been so long since he spoke
with the wizard, perhaps it was because he was growing more and more agitated as the week
progressed, snapping out for the smallest slight against him. Perhaps it was all the reasons, or none
of them, but he excused himself from class- feigning an illness and threatening to vomit
everywhere should he not be allowed to head to the infirmary- and ducked within the nearest
empty classroom, opening the diary eagerly with his back pressed against the door.

'Terribly sorry for my absence, Harry. I hope you are doing well. But I've made great strides in my
research.'

Harry fumbled in his bag for a quill and bottled ink, fingers trembling as he assembled them and
put the brass tip against paper. 'That's good. Do you still need my help?' He wanted to help Tom,
needed to, he felt. Something ached within his chest, his heart pulsed erratically and harsh against
his sternum. It was strange, and had he not felt so clouded, so ill to begin with, he might have
sought out help, realized that he was not well, not in the slightest.

'Yes, in time. Until then, I'd like to meet you, Harry. Would you like to meet me?'

Harry licked his lips, blinked once, twice at the words. Of course he would. He had been
corresponding with him for what felt like years, finding him as easy to talk to as if he was a long
ago friend, forgotten by nothing more than time and distance. But it was impossible. Least,
impossible until Tom could put his research to good use.

When he did not write back promptly enough, Tom added, 'It won't hurt, and you'll be back before
you're missed.'

He narrowed his eyes at that, frowning at the vague, enigmatic words. What did he mean? Before
he could ponder it any further, the words begin to glow, shifting in color from black to glittering
gold, the diary vibrating in his hands and becoming hot to the touch. He dropped it to the ground,
shuffling to his feet. He thought to run away from it, that perhaps it wasn't a simple book after all,
but there was a pull from behind his navel, a great tug and it was if he had jumped into a lake, the
water warm from the sun and seeping into him. Dragging him further and further into its void.

The sensation dimmed, his feet once more landing on solid ground, and he lifted his head to find
that he had been transported.

Where was once an empty classroom, desks and chairs neatly pushed aside, was now the library.
Or rather, a version of the library. It was nebulous and gray, dull. Like he was viewing it from
behind a thick black veil, the gossamer fabric distorting the shelves and books and making them
appear nothing more than the phantom traces of a forgotten memory.

It was empty, a terribly disconcerting thing since it had been well into the day and the library
should have been full of studying students, heads bowed over parchment and tomes. There was
something awful about places that should have been full with life, suddenly absent of it.

“Harry?”

He twisted around at the voice, hands sinking into pockets, patting around the fabric in an attempt
to find his wand. It wasn't there, and something sunk into the pit of his belly, heavy and weighted.
Where was his wand? He had had it when he left the classroom!

“You can't do magic here, you needn't have a wand,” the voice spoke again, softly and sympathetic
sounded, legs of a chair screeching across marble floors. Harry looked up, blinking at the sight of a
wizard- only a few years older than himself, but much taller. He was impossibly sharp and clear
against the distorted library, a very real, concise thing against a world of nothingness.

It was Tom Riddle, and he was incredibly handsome, with dark, luxurious hair that was combed
neatly in place, a swooping curl over his brow. His face was angular, with sharp and high
cheekbones that cast shadows over the hollows of his cheeks. Everything about him was perfect,
like marble statues he had only seen in pictures, depictions of Roman Gods with slim noses and
sinewy muscles.

He felt much smaller in his presence, diminutive in every sense of the word as Tom practically
towered over him, gazing at him with a curious, intense look in his dark blue eyes. It made him
swallow, made the incessant ringing in his ear grow thrice as loud. It was not an unkind look, the
exact opposite really, but it was the sort of look one had when they knew something that they
weren't quite ready to divulge.

“Tom? How...” Harry choked out, brows furrowing as he glanced about him, at the insubstantial
bookshelves. He might have been relatively new to the magical world, but he was certain that
books weren't supposed to consume you.

They weren't really supposed to talk back either, but he shoved the thought away. His head was
beginning to ache, the twinge behind his right eye turning into a sharp pain.

“Don't worry, you'll not be here for long,” Tom assured him in a quiet, placating tone as he reached
outward. Fingers brushed over Harry's forehead, pushing aside the hair to reveal the jagged lines of
his scar, like the traces of a lightning bolt sinking into the soft earth. He shifted under the
appraisal, tipping his head back so that the hand fell away and his dark hair was left to stick up in
an awkward angle. He patted it down.

“That doesn't explain how you got me in here,” he asserted, something within his stomach coiling
intensely. Perhaps he had made a terrible mistake, trusting Tom. He should have marched to
Dumbledore's office the moment the thought first crept into his head, should have sought out the
help of someone much wiser. What if he never got out? What if he was trapped here for eternity,
stuck within the nonexistent world that quivered in and out of focus, as if someone had wiped a
dirty rag over it all?

A hand settled on his shoulder, and his chin whipped upward to meet Tom's soft, friendly gaze, his
lips raised in a small smile. “Harry, relax. It's just magic is all. Surely, this isn't the strangest thing
to happen to you?”

No, honestly, it really wasn't. He hardly even knew what was considered odd in the magical world,
so skewed was the absurdity of it all. People lived within the pages of books, the brushstrokes of
paint, and who was he to know which of it was meant to be that way?

Harry chewed his lip. “So, I'm not trapped here, then?”

Tom frowned. “No, just me. You can come and go as you please.”

He swallowed, thickly, like he had something lodged within his throat. “I'd like to go, then,” he
asked. It wasn't out of fear- in fact, he hardly felt any fear at all. He was terribly intrigued by it all,
and what he really wanted to was lob questions at Tom, to speak with the man- properly speak-
about anything and everything, from the subjects they had discussed prior to all the ones left
untouched.

He wasn't afraid, he just wanted to leave to make sure that he could.

He thought he saw Tom's jaw clench, his eyes flash from blue to something else entirely,
something dark, but it must have been a trick of the light. Or perhaps he had blinked, distorting the
image of Tom before him, because he looked just as pleasant and kind as he had from the few
minutes he stood before him in the library. Tom nodded his head, smiling as he waved a hand
through the air. “Well then, until next time, Harry.”

Something pulled behind his navel.

He was submerged in water once more.

And within seconds, he was back in the empty classroom, blinking at the edges of his world which
suddenly seemed too sharp, too clean. The colors too bright and saturated.
The journal was on the floor before him, Tom's final words to him disappearing.

'Until next time, Harry.'

-xXx-

“Do you think it's possible to be drawn into a book?” Harry asked, attempting to sound casual
about the question, fingers thrumming over the table. He had not written back to Tom since he had
been consumed and then spat out by the diary, though his heart always seemed to skip a beat
whenever Tom attempted to reach out to him, his veins and capillaries pulsing with the sensation as
ink sank into paper.

Hermione huffed. “Is that a joke? Of course you can get drawn into a book, why do you think
people read in the-”

“No, I mean literally. Like the book sucks you in?”

She looked at him, her eyes narrowed, lips pursed. “No, absolutely not. Why would you ask such a
thing?”

He felt that he should tell her. That he should tell somebody. But the words died on his lips, his
tongue unable to meet the roof of his mouth, press against his teeth to make the sounds that
became syllables which became words. He needed to tell someone, but he needed to protect Tom
more.

He shrugged. “No reason.”

-xXx-

His face was hot, fevered, and he could taste blood, tinny and vinegar in his mouth, from where his
teeth dug too deeply into the soft flesh of his cheeks. Fingers curled into his palm, nails digging
into skin, and his hands shook, knuckles turning white.

It wasn't fair. He had been trying to help Justin. Why on earth would he tell a snake to attack him?
He was telling the snake to stop. To leave him alone. But of course, no one listened to him, rumors
spreading around the school faster than a fiendfyre, talking of how Harry Potter was a parselmouth.
That Harry Potter was surely not to be trusted. After all, no good or respectable witch or wizard
spoke to snakes.

It wasn't fair.

Even Ron had looked at him with uncertainty, as if seeing him for the first time. He hated it all, the
way the familiar and kind eyes had become that of a stranger, and just like that his veins were hot,
his skin prickled. He turned away from them, walking fast in the opposite direction, ignoring their
pleas to him, begging him to just stop so they could talk.

But he didn't want to talk.

Not to them at least.

-xXx-

When he arrived in the journal, it was not into the library, but instead outside, to the tree beside the
lake that he, Hermione and Ron often sat under when the weather was favorable. It was just as
distorted as the library had been, the greens not quite green enough, and the blue of the sky was
instead a murky gray, a mirror reflection of the lake below.

Tom was sitting under the tree, inclining his head only slightly when Harry traipsed until he stood
just before him.

“Hello again, Harry,” he said without looking up from the book in his lap, long fingers turning a
page over. “I've missed our talks. I thought I might not see you again.”

He blinked, shrugging his shoulders as a blush crept up from the collar of his shirt. It was always a
surprise when someone actually missed him, that someone might enjoy him and his presence. He
sat down beside the older wizard, crossing his legs.

“They found out I can speak to snakes,” he said after a moment, reaching down to pluck at a blade
of grass, more brown than green, as though it were dead. “They weren't impressed,” he added,
laughter bubbling from his throat and then dying almost immediately.

Tom hummed. “No, they rarely ever are. But they were frightened I'm sure, and isn't that just as
good?”

He wasn't sure if Tom was joking, but he smiled all the same.

-xXx-

Months passed, a blur of golden leaves, fat, fluffy crystals of snow, and heavy droplets of rain that
splattered against the ground, left Harry's glasses a fog. The diary sat snug in the inner pocket of
his robe, where it always did, beside a spare quill and some ink just in case he needed it in a pinch.
He spoke with Tom more than he did anyone else, either visiting him in his empty castle, or
scratching quill against paper. It had become a need, and a ball of tightly wound wire would settle
in his chest if he did not have the journal with him, the wire unwinding and coiling around him if
he did not feel the indent of the diary against his chest.

He needed Tom almost as much as he needed oxygen to breathe. It was something he had not felt
about anyone else, and he thought it strange, foreign. One day when he was feeling particularly
brave, he mentioned this to Tom, writing it down in the middle of class when Professor Binns was
drawling on about something uninteresting.

Tom's response was smug, and he could imagine his full lips curving into a smirk. 'Good.'

-xXx-

'Have the rumors of you being a dark wizard in disguise settled down at all?'

Harry snorted derisively at that, shaking his head as he wrote back. 'No, I've been blacklisted.
Might as well join You-Know-Who and live the life they all seem to want of me so badly.'

Tom wrote back after a moment. 'Always good to keep your options open.'

Harry frowned. 'I was kidding, of course.'

'I know.'

-xXx-

Harry was freezing. It was the first thing he knew. Consciousness came to him slowly, dizzily. He
felt airy, light, as if whatever was weighing him down was gone. He blinked. Wrapped his arms
around his chest.

He was outside, bare feet sinking into damp earth, the sky navy, purple at the horizon, a soft pink
and orange glow seeping into the palette of colors. He was shivering, nothing but a plain t-shirt and
flannel pajamas bottom. Hardly enough to keep out the chill of spring, crystals of frost iced over
every individual blade of grass.

How had he gotten out here? Had he been sleepwalking?

He flushed, embarrassed to have done something so...well, weird. It was bad enough he had
become the kid who talked to snakes, he certainly did not need to be the kid who sleepwalked as
well.

It took great doing, and he had to duck behind several statues to avoid being caught, but he was
able to make it to Gryffindor tower unnoticed. He slipped into his bed, but he was unable to sleep,
too wired, his brain too alive with thought and activity. He reached beneath his pillow, pulled out
the slim journal.

-xXx-

Harry awoke from his sleep with a start, sputtering and coughing, hands clutched tightly onto the
curtain as he attempted to pull it apart. He was covered in a thick sheen of sweat, his heart
palpitated wildly, as if it might burst through his ribs and his skin at any moment. His head spun on
his shoulders, bright, white lights prickling into his vision, and his foot caught on his blanket,
causing him to fall to the floor.

He groaned, entangled in the sheets and the blankets and his drenched nightshirt which clung to his
skin, and he turned on his side, vomiting.

Lights flicked on.

Feet padded around him.

Hands tugged at him.

But he could not respond to their questions, could not hear them over the loud, ringing sound in his
head. His eyes remained closed, too heavy to lift.

He had had a terrible nightmare.

Of blinding green lights, dead white rabbits, and a giant snake with fangs the size of his forearm.

-xXx-

“Harry,” Dumbledore asked, his voice low and soft and warm, filled with concern and it made
Harry twist his head to the side, burying his face in the white pillow slip of his bed at the hospital
wing. He had no memory of how he came to be here, no memory of the what had occurred several
hours prior to it as well. There was a chunk of time and thought missing from his recollection-
having fallen asleep at precisely 10:02 the night before, and was found wandering the halls at
exactly 4:28 by Peeves, who made such a commotion that Filch came to see the cause of it all.
What he found instead was an unconscious Harry Potter, and the poltergeist claiming that he hadn't
done a thing- that Harry had just collapsed all on his own.

“You can tell me why you were outside your dormitory, you know that, Harry? You won't be in
trouble, I'm just worried and we need to make sure you're alright,” the elderly wizard said, blue
eyes gazing at him over half-moon spectacles. After a moment, he added, “Mr. Weasley and Miss
Granger have informed me that you've not been feeling well. That you've been having nightmares,
have been very irritable lately.”

He wished he could tell the Headmaster why he was out in the halls- he really did- but he couldn't.
Because he genuinely didn't know and if he had meant to wander the halls wouldn't he have the
forethought to bring his invisibility cloak with him? But he couldn't very well say that, insisting
instead that he must have been sleep walking.

Dumbledore frowned. “Is there something you wish to tell me, Harry? Anything at all.”

Harry shook his head, the motion dizzying him. “No sir, nothing at all.” The words sounded cold
even to him, foreign on his lips as if they were not his own. Dumbledore sighed.

“Very well.”

-xXx-

Tom's fingers threaded through Harry's locks, smoothing the hair back as his head laid in the older
boy's lap. His eyes were closed, and he was enjoying the peace of the world. It might have been a
prison for Tom, but it had become a solace for him. There was no Hermione with her worried,
furtive glances, no Ron with his clunky jokes. No Dumbledore gazing at him in a way that made
him shift uncomfortably in his seat, no students whispering behind hands about him.

But more importantly, there were no chunks of time left unaccounted for, no blank spaces between
one moment and another. When he was in the diary, the quell of his stomach settled, the ringing in
his head began to get quieter, and it was as if he ceased to exist. A nothingness surrounded by
nothingness.

It was simply him and Tom in the crude facsimile of Hogwarts. And it was enough.

“I feel sick all the time,” Harry muttered. “And no one will leave me alone about it. I get so angry,
I just want to scream. I snapped at Ron for no reason the other day. Well, okay, he was chewing
with his mouth open which is not only rude but just disgusting and the sound was grating on my
nerves and I just-”

A hand settled down on his chest, pressing down lightly. “Harry, I think I've perfected the reversal
spell,” Tom said.

Harry lurched forward, elbows pushing him upward from the soft ground and raising to his knees.
He twisted to face Tom, his lips curling into a wide grin. “Really?”

He nodded, leaning his head against the tree. “Yes. You're still willing to help me?”

“Of course. What do you need me to do?”

Tom smiled. “Don't worry. You'll know.”

-xXx-

There was blood on his hands. Not in the figurative sense of the term, where he had just done
something very bad and was caught. But in the literal sense. His hands trembled, sticky and warm
from the viscus fluid, looking almost black in the low light of the lavatory. Beads of it slipped
down the curve of his hand, down his wrist.
He had blacked out again. He had no idea of why he was here, how he had gotten here, or why
there was blood. Not just on his hands. His shoes were stained with it as well, the hem of his cloak
saturated and heavy and there was so much of it and he didn't think it was his but then whose was
it?

He couldn't breathe, his chest was constricted and would not expand, his throat was swollen and
searing from the strain of not breathing or not breathing enough. Panic racketed through him, made
his body convulse, his stomach twitch. Slowly he pulled himself up from the floor of the
bathroom- how had he gotten here?- and turned to the sink, not knowing of what to do but knowing
that washing off the blood was as good a start as any.

The water ran red, swirling around the drain until it varied in shades, from deep crimson to pink.
His hands sat underneath the faucet, wispy strands of steam rising above him as his skin burned at
the too hot water. But it never ran clear. The water remained at least pink, and his hands were
stained, the pigment deep within valleys of his skin, the lines of his individual fingerprint dyed
deeper than the rest of him.

It wouldn't come off, not fully.

When he could bear the pain no more, he pulled his hands against him, cradling them to his chest
and bunching them in the fabric of his cloak to dry.

He needed to speak with someone. Someone he could trust. Someone who might tell him what to
do. What he had done.

What did he do?

He found the diary, slipped within the pocket of his robes, beside a near empty bottle of ink and a
small quill with a bent tip. His hands shook as he opened the ink, having to try four times to get it
as each time his hand slipped from the lid, and he propped the diary on the lip of the sink. His
writing spiked, curved with his shivering.

'Tom? Are you there?'

He waited, his head shaking when the words didn't disappear, when they remained etched on the
page, the glossy black ink drying and not once sinking deeper-

He ripped the page from the journal, crumpling it in his fist before bringing the quill to a new,
separate page. He wrote again, the words even messier than before. 'Tom?'

They remained, a taunt, a contrast between the dull yellow pages and the sharp ink. The did not
disappear, and he wrote again, pressing the quill too hard into the page that it ripped through, left
an impression on the pages behind it.

'Tom, please, I need you.'

Nothing. No response. No vanishing words.

Tom was gone.

-xXx-

Everyone was still asleep by the time he made it back to the dormitories, and he sat on his bed,
hands tangled in his hair as he tried to even his breathing. As he tried to make sense of the events
that alluded him. The diary sat before him, several pages ripped from its binding so that he could
see frayed white thread that ran down the center of it. It was just an ordinary book now, nothing
special about it. The engraved name on the front cover had disappeared, not even an impression of
what once existed.

Had he imagined it all then? Had it all been a hallucination, a series of dreams that cropped up
throughout the entirety of his school year? Had it been a- what was it called? Psychotic break? Had
he lost his mind?

He did not know, and that was the most terrifying thing of all. He was not certain of anything
anymore- had Tom Riddle even existed? Was he a real person at any point in time? And whose
blood had he cleaned off his shoes?

His chest burned with his panicked, frightened sobs, oxygen searing his lungs. Hands shook as they
gripped onto his hair, as his glasses fell from his nose. He couldn't breathe, he couldn't think. All he
could hear was his blood in his head, like waves of an ocean were crashing over top him, like he
was drowning, the undercurrent of the ocean pulling the sand away from where he stood.

He fell asleep after his eyes burned, no more tears to shed, his cheek tacky and salty. The blanket
was twisted over his head, and he hoped that when he awoke it would be to learn that this had all
been one elaborate nightmare.

-xXx-

The curtains surrounding his bed were pulled open, and Harry sat up, his pink hands diving to wind
in his comforter. Ron stood at the part of his curtains, white hands holding them in place, his eyes
wide and wet with tears. Light streamed in from the window, warm and golden. It was well into
the morning.

“Ron?” Harry asked, his voice hoarse from the night before, from his inability to breathe and his
constant tears and the amount of times he hunched over a toilet in the lavatory, emptying his
stomach until nothing but dark green and black slime rose from his throat.

His lip trembled. “Ginny-” was all he managed to whisper before his face crumpled, his knees
giving out before him.

Something flashed within Harry's mind, the glimpse of something forgotten. Of red hair and blood-
so much blood. Dark blue eyes and a diary with pages so soaked in blood that they clumped
together, curled and warped.

Ginny was dead. He didn't know how he knew this, he just did.

He knew that she was dead, that Tom Riddle was gone, and that his hands were still stained with
blood.

What had he done?

-xXx-

Harry sat on the bench at Gryffindor table, a somber silence settled over the whole Great Hall.
Trunks sat behind each student, heads bowed in whispers, in gossip. Some wondered why they
were being urged to leave so early, what had happened to summon so many Ministry officials. But
the Gryffindor table was the most silent of all, seeming too empty with the absence of the
Weasleys, every one them gone, yet their presence weighing down heavy on them. There were
even gaps between the students that they might have sat beside, Hermione sitting opposite Harry,
no one to her left, no one to his right. Just an empty space where once presided Ginny, Ron. Lee
Jordan and Katie Bell were separated by the space of two Weasley twins, no one daring to pass the
divide. An unspoken rule.

“I wonder when Hogwarts will reopen,” Hermione muttered, to no one in particular.

Harry had not spoken, not a word since he left Dumbledore's office, the conversation echoing
around in his head on repeat, an unending stream of words and letters that ran into each other.

'How long will Hogwarts be closed for, Professor?' Harry had asked quietly, knowing that perhaps
it was a selfish question. A selfish concern. Someone had died. His best friend's younger sister was
cold and pale and dead somewhere and he was wondering when he might return to school.

'Until the cause of her death is determined and it is no longer considered a threat,' he answered, his
blue eyes dull, void of all mirth. He seemed much older all of a sudden. He should have told him.
He should have told him about the diary and Tom Riddle and of the hands which were still pink in
his pockets. But he couldn't. He wouldn't be believed, there wasn't any proof of it. He wasn't even
sure if he believed himself.

'This isn't the first time a student has passed away, I'm afraid,' Dumbledore spoke, and Harry lifted
his head, wondering if he knew he was talking aloud. If he meant to share this information. But he
still continued to speak, his eyes not quite meeting Harry's as he added, 'We almost closed then,
too. But the creature who caused it was believed to have been found. By a former student of the
time, a Mr. Tom Riddle.'

His spine straightened, his jaw clenched. 'Believed?' he asked, licking his lips. 'Tom Riddle?'

Dumbledore lifted his chin, gazing at Harry with an indiscernible expression. 'Yes. He was lauded
as a hero, even awarded for his services to the school. But that was a long time ago. Things have
changed since then.'

'How so?'

'Tom Riddle is better known as Lord Voldemort these days.'

Tom Riddle was Lord Voldemort. Ginny Weasley was dead. And Harry Potter had blood on his
hands.

-xXx-

Dumbledore sighed heavily, placing his glasses on the desk beside him so as to rub his eyes with
long, bony fingers. The Weasleys had left his office only moments earlier, a weary and broken unit
of red rimmed eyes and wretched sobs. There was something inherently tragic about the death of
someone so young, with lips sticky and sweet from treats and eyes wide, blind to the horrors of the
world.

People were meant to grow. People were meant to be broken. They were meant to leave behind
their mothers and fathers, to marry, to conceive children of their own. They were meant to be
buried in their own cemetery plots, separated from their parents by a fence, a town, a country. They
were not meant to be buried beside the two graves that would someday belong to their father, their
mother. Families were not meant to remain whole in death, they were not meant to be buried side
by side like that.

And the school would be closed, a decision that he agreed with. It was unsafe, and he would be
damned if another child fell victim to the same cruel hand that had ended young Ginevra's life.
Though, he didn't think that anyone else were in danger, if he were being honest.
He didn't know for certain, but whatever role the youngest Weasley's death had played in, there
was no more need for it. No more need for another child to die.

But children did not need to die to be lost, and the thought alone made Dumbledore sigh once
more, his shoulders sagging.

He was concerned for Harry, concerned by the wide and frightened look in those green eyes.
Concerned for the way he made himself small, shrinking into a ball. Concerned by the way he
perked up at Tom Riddle's name, as if he had heard it before. As if it meant something. Concerned
by the silence, the tightly pinched lips that seemed too purposeful to be unintentional.

Concerned by the fact that over the past several months, Harry had evidently become quite an
accomplished occlumens, and that no amount of prying on his part could allow him in.

-xXx-

Harry sat against the tree, the letter clenched within his fist. He read over the words, eyes scanning
the page, flicking over them as if they might change. As if he could will them to change.

'We are sorry to inform you that Hogwarts will not be opening this year...' 'Students have been
enrolled into nearby schools, taken into consideration location and eligibility...' 'Mr. Harry Potter
has been accepted into Beauxbatons...' 'Travel accommodations have been made and a train will
depart from the usual platform of 9 ¾ at King's Cross Station...' 'Students are encouraged to leave
the morning of August 31 so as to have time to familiarize themselves with their new schools...'

He crumpled the paper, holding it in his hands as he chewed his lips. Hogwarts was closed. It was
his home, the closest thing he had had of such a thing, and now it was gone. For how long, he did
not know.

His hands were clean, and yet if he strained, he thought he could still see the pink tint.

He had tried to tell Dumbledore of everything, he really had. He had even on more than one
occasion sat down to write a letter, sitting up in bed after trying and failing to sleep for several
hours. But the words would not come, and his scar would hiss in pain, roaring to life, blinding him.
It was as if a hot poker was being pushed through his eyes, searing his brain. He was bound to
secrecy, signing a contract he had not meant to sign.

He pressed the heel of his palm against his head, breathing in the fresh, earthy scent. Much of the
town he lived in had been paved in concrete, buildings clustered together to fit as many in a row as
possible. The woods he sat in now were perhaps the only of it's kind for miles, and it had become a
haven. Away from the Dursleys. Away from excitable and screaming children at the playground.

They had not been pleased at all to find that his school had let out early, and that he was expected
to return home in May instead of midway through June. A student had died, and they suffered for
it. They had taken away his room as punishment, locking him within the cupboard once more, the
walls and cobwebs familiar, the spiders that inhabited the corners more of a family to him than the
ones beyond the little space underneath the stairs.

He had written to Hermione and Ron, though Ron was slow to return them, his letters short, bare.
He couldn't imagine what the Weasleys were going through, they had even turned down a trip to
Egypt offered as a reward from the Ministry.

He carded a hand through his hair, fingers trembling, tugging too hard at the roots. He exhaled, his
chest shaking with the breath. Months had passed, he had not found the diary- the real one, crisp
and hardened with blood. He had not spoken to Tom Riddle- to Voldemort- in the same amount of
time, and hung his head, heavy with shame.

The entire time. It had been Lord Voldemort the entire time. He had not known how, he had not
known exactly what sort of magic led to a young version of Lord Voldemort existing within the
pages of a book. But he did, and Harry had spent an entire school year conversing with him, had
confided in him, trusted him.

He had promised to help him escape the prison, and his hands were coated in blood.

He could hardly eat with the guilt of it all, and Dudley's old clothes hung even looser on his skinny
frame, the contours of his bones pressing too sharply against his skin. He looked sickly, with thick,
shadowed bags below his eyes and his skin a sallow color, looking just as gray as the world within
the diary had been.

He hadn't slept, not properly, and all he wanted to do was confess, to tell someone what he knew
and the role he had played and apologize because it was all his fault, if he hadn't written in that
bloody book none of this would have happened.

But even the thought of doing so left him with crippling pain, and once when he had brought pen to
paper, ready to write it all down for Dumbledore, blood had dripped from his eyes, from his nose.
Trickled down his neck from where it slipped over the shell of his ear. He had fainted before he
could even write the u in the Headmaster's name, his body thudding to the floor of the empty
dining room.

He had not seen an optometrist, but he had held a hand over his left eye with no glasses on to
determine that he had lost most of his vision in his right eye. That there was a bit of a film over it,
like a cataract.

He physically could not admit to it, and he wasn't sure why.

He startled at the sound of rustling leaves, a twig snapping under someone's weight. He looked up,
jumping to his feet and shuffling backwards at the sight of Tom Riddle standing between two trees,
his forearms resting against them. He was smirking, lips skewed unevenly so one side was lifted
higher than the other, a slight crescent of a dimple forming in his cheek.

Lord Voldemort had dimples.

“You,” Harry hissed, lacing the one singular word with as much venom as he possibly could.

Tom chuckled. “Me.”

Harry shook his arm, sliding the wand down from where it sat tucked in his sleeve and into his
palm, curling his hand around it and aiming it at the wizard in defense. This only made his smirk
deepen, his dark blue eyes gleam. “Not happy to see me, Harry? Pity, seeing as how happy I am to
see you.”

“You tricked me!” Harry roared, his voice cracking over the words.

“Guilty,” Tom said, unabashed by the claim. He took a step forward, pausing as he flicked his gaze
over Harry, humming in thought. “You've grown so much over a single summer. Funny how that
happens, isn't it? A child one month, practically a man the next.”

It wasn't funny at all. Nothing he said was funny.

He should have cursed him, underage magic rules be damned. Surely, defending oneself against
the Dark Lord was a special circumstance. But he didn't curse him, chewing his lip instead as he
asked the question that had tormented him since the night he awoken covered in blood, “What did
you do to Ginny?”

He needed to know. He didn't want to know, but he needed to. Perhaps if he knew what sort of
spell Tom had used to free himself, he could reverse it, vanish him from the world permanently.

Tom frowned. “I protect you from being arrested for murder- hide all the evidence for you, even go
to the trouble of occluding your mind, and you want to repay me by killing me? That isn't very
fair.” His tone was light, playful, and it made Harry's stomach coil into a tight knot.

Occluding his mind? What had that meant? And was he able to read his thoughts?

His green eyes fell to the ground for a moment, flinching when Tom barked out a sharp laugh. “If
you really must know, yes I can read your thoughts. And I did nothing to Ginny. You did it all
yourself.”

He shook his head. “No, I would never-”

“It's a shame you forgot it all. You might have enjoyed it, the way she cried, begging you to not
hurt her. To not kill her,” he said the words as if reminiscing over a fond memory, his lips curled
into a small, wry smile.

Harry's lip trembled, his wand wavering in his grasp. “Why...why would I do that-”

Tom shrugged. “Because I told you to. You'll find I can be rather persuasive when I need to be.”
After a second, he added, “If it wasn't her, it would have been you. The diary leeches onto a soul,
whichever one pours itself onto the pages, and siphons the life from them, feeding it to me. I
decided I rather liked you, and that another soul would have to do in your place. It took a bit of
doing- some rather archaic usage of blood magic, but it did the trick you see.” He thumped a hand
against a side, as if it was evidence of how alive he was. That he was flesh and blood and muscles
and tissues instead of ink and paper.

So that was it then? Ginny had died so that Harry wouldn't- yet another instance in his life in which
he had lived, another falling in his place. If possible, the guilt mounted even more within him, and
he clenched his jaw, ground the crowns of his teeth together.

Tom took several steps forward, kicking pebbles out before him as he did so. Harry made to step
back, to jab his wand forward, but branches burst through the earth, flinging dirt as they wrapped
around his ankles, winding tightly around his clothed legs and locking him in place. He stumbled,
waving his arms to prevent himself from falling backwards, when an unseen force tugged at his
wand, pulling it from his grasp.

It flew in an arc in the air, settling in Tom's outstretched hand as his fingers curled around it. He
held it up, twirling it within his fingers experimentally, skewing his lips in thought. “It's not as
good as mine was, but extraordinarily close. Phoenix feather?” he asked.

“Go to hell,” Harry seethed, digging nails so deeply into his palm that he drew blood.

Tom took another step forward, until he stood directly before Harry, using the tip of the wand to
push aside the air that had fallen over his face. A hand rose, cupping his chin to hold him in place
as he looked at the scar with interest, blue eyes narrowed. “You are far more special than you give
yourself credit for, Harry Potter,” he murmured. And then he bent his head, placing a chaste kiss to
the small fragments cutting over Harry's skin. It sparked, as if electrified, and something shot
through him, something delicious and euphoric as if he were whole and complete and Harry was
horrified to realize that he had leaned forward, a hand raised pressed flat against Tom's chest to
steady himself.

He quickly brought it back to his side, struggling against the hand that held onto his chin, a second
hand reaching out and wrapping around his upper arm. “I'm not special. I'm nothing. Why don't you
just kill me and get it over with then? Isn't that what you want- why you tried to kill me in the first
place when I was a baby?”

Tom eyes flashed, the blue turning into red so quickly, so wholly, that it seemed to happen all at
once, instead of a transition. The fingers around his chin tightened their hold, nails digging into
flesh. “NO!” he roared, and Harry stiffened at the fire in his voice, at the warning that lurked
beneath the words. Tom spoke again, his words lower and quieter yet far more frightening, the hair
on Harry's arm standing on end. “Nothing will harm you, not if I have anything to say about it. Not
me, not Dumbledore, and certainly not that pathetic creature, searching for a new host to play
parasite with until he can fix the mess he got himself into.”

It took only a second for Harry to understand what he meant by creature. Voldemort, the sliver of
the man that had fed off Quirrell in his first year. He furrowed his brows at that. Were there two of
them then? The younger version of him, stepping out from the encrypted pages of a book, and the
one that had always existed, the one that had killed his mother and father?

And Tom was planning on...protecting him from Voldemort?

The hand on his chin moved, running through Harry's hair and disheveling it before settling on the
back of his neck. “Yes, it does mean I'm protecting you from him.”

If anything, it was more disconcerting to be offered his protection than to be threatened, and Harry
squirmed against the hands that wrapped around him. The roots had risen to his hip, snaking further
along him and holding him in place, and he could only wriggle his torso.

“Let me go,” Harry hissed, raising his hands and shoving against Tom. Not as if it would
accomplished much, as he couldn't run anyway, bound by the branches that were thick as his
calves. But Tom's grip was too tight on him, and he was too sturdy, and he remained standing
before Harry, fingers dinging into his arm, hand cradling his neck.

Tom shook his head, making the curl fall in front of his face. "You can't leave me, you can never
leave me. Where ever you go I will follow, and where ever you hide I will find you. Even in the
deepest depths of the ocean, or in death. You are mine and you belong to me, my love." He spoke
the words, his voice hardly above a whisper, as if he were making a vow to a lover.

A desperate sob broke from between Harry's lips, and he shook with anger. Anger that he had ever
seen Malfoy slip the journal into Ginny's cauldron, anger that he had taken it and wrote within its
pages. Anger that he fell for it, for every caring word, for every pretty lie and broken promise.
Anger that he offered his soul away, that he had killed someone else in his own place.

And all over a book; a simple, blank diary.

It was something so simple. Something so so unassuming, so innocent seeming. It was just a book.
What harm had ever come from a book?
 A Dog, A Bus, and A Letter
Chapter Notes

Hello again! Yes, this will be a multichaptered fic (I could not resist). Each school
year will be only about a chapter or two long, and the events will be fairly similar to
canon for the most part with me changing and manipulating whatever I need. There
will be romance between Tom and Harry, though not until Harry is off age as I am not
comfortable with it otherwise. That is all for now. Thank you all so much for all the
comments and support of the first chapter! There aren't enough words to say how
appreciated it is! Enjoy!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter Two: A Dog, A Bus and A Letter

Harry sunk his hands into the hot, soapy water, fingers wrapping around the heated metal of a fork.
Pulling it upward, he rubbed at the prongs aggressively with a sponge, jaw clenched as he tried in
vain to block out the words being spoken behind him.

“Getting ready for school to start, Dudley-Dear?” Aunt Marge asked, her voice loud and brash and
like a bolt of lightning to Harry, setting his nerves on fire, his body thrumming with irritation.
“What teacher has he got? A good one, I hope. Nothing like the sort he had at the beginning of
term last year. She was absolutely wretched! You won't be letting the teachers bully you around
like that this year, of course, Dudley?”

The response was smug, spoken through a mouthful of chocolate cake that made his voice sound
thick, congested. “Absolutely not, Aunt Marge.”

She made a hum of approval, and Harry curled his hands into a fist at the sound.

The woman was dreadful in every sense of the word, refusing to allow Harry out of her sight but
unable to keep from ignoring him. Not a span of ten minutes could pass before she would turn to
him, lips skewed into a frown, disdain evident in her beady eyes. Her words were cruel- cutting-
and every syllable that left her tongue tied another knot in his frayed composure, permanent cuts
indented on the inside of his cheek from biting down on them so hard and often.

Five days had passed since he had seen Tom in the woods. He had thought for certain that he
would never return home that afternoon with the tree branch wound tightly over his legs, Tom
bruising his arm with his tight grip. He had been surprised when Tom left him, disappearing with a
crack, the feel of soft, pliable lips still lingering over the scar on Harry's head. His parting words
still echoed in his ears, reverberating against his skull: 'I'll be in touch.'

They were a promise, a threat. But why hadn't Tom just taken Harry with him? He had claimed he
wanted to protect him, that Harry would never be able to leave him. And yet, Tom had left him.
Easily. Swiftly. Vanishing in a flourish of a cloak, a crackle of heated air.

And the roots unwound, sinking back into the earth. By the time he had found his wand- tossed
among the strewn about sticks and overgrown brushes- and ran home, Marge had arrived for her
week long stay. She had whacked him with her walking stick several times for his tardiness,
calling him rude, pathetic and a scoundrel all the while. When he retreated into his cupboard below
the stairs, knees knocking into his chin as he fell to the cot, he heard Marge congratulate Vernon
on finally putting his foot down. 'It's enough that you opened your home to him, took him in when
no one else wanted him. You were spoiling him by giving him a room- he wasn't very grateful for
it.'

Five days of Marge had left him worn, adding onto the already mounting well of emotions. The
anxiety and paranoia that left him looking over his shoulder, examining every shadowed corner
with impossible scrutiny. Looking to the places beyond the glass of a window that were too dark,
too distorted by the light from within a home to see properly. If Tom Riddle had been hidden
behind the bushes, he hadn't seen him. Though it did little to ease his mind. He was fairly certain
he could keep a well enough eye on Harry without having to lurk around the streets of Privet Drive.

“What's wrong with you boy?!” an unkind voice bellowed, and he startled, releasing the fork that
he had been cleaning for several minutes. “Can't even figure out how to clean some silverware?”

His jaw clenched as Dudley snickered at the quip, Uncle Vernon leveling a stern glare in Harry's
direction. “St. Brutus is far more fond of corporal punishments than they are in chores, though
perhaps I should call the Headmaster about the oversight.”

“While you're at it tell them to be more forthcoming with the cane on the boy. Must not be using it
on him enough.”

Harry twisted sharply away from the conversation, the muscles in his jaw clenched, aching with
the pressure of the tight clamp. Settling the damning fork aside, he reached into the sink for a
plate.

“It's lovely that you've got some place to ship him off to for the school year but I still insist that
you should have sent him to an orphanage. No sense taking on the burden for someone so
unappreciative,” Aunt Marge drawled.

Fingernails dug into the porous sponge as he scrubbed at the plate a bit too harshly, a muscle in his
jaw twitching in the strain. Funny that they spoke of an orphanage as if it were some sort of hell, a
circle even lower and more vile than the one he had already been imprisoned in. Surely, a state
home would be far more preferable to sleeping in a cupboard, his knees bent to accommodate for
the considerable amount of growing he had done since he was eleven. Far more preferable to eating
only the scraps that were left behind, portions so meager it was more a taunt than an act of
kindness. Surely, an orphanage would not be so bad.

'Tom had hated it though,' he thought, the idea enough to still him, his eyes raising from the dishes
he was washing to the window above the sink, the sky newly darkened as the day faded to night.
Had Tom- Voldemort, not Tom, he's Voldemort- really even lived in an orphanage? Or had it all
been a lie? A carefully constructed ruse in an attempt to trick Harry? Relating to him on such a raw,
intimate way- a way that no one else had managed as they did not know what it was like to grow
up without a loving family, to be 'the boy' and nothing more.

Who had mentioned being an orphan first? Had it been Harry, with To-Voldemort latching onto the
confession and seeing the opportunity that it presented, eyes shining with greed and want? Or had
Voldemort mentioned it first, a lucky guess or perhaps a grain of truth buried within a mountain of
lies?

After a moment, he shook the thought from his head. There was something disconcerting about
thinking of Voldemort as anything other than the behemoth, the terrible monster he had become. It
seemed perverse that at one point in time, he had been like Harry. A thirteen year old boy. A
student at Hogwarts.

That he had been a baby, would have cried and wailed for the attention of a mother that may or
may not have been there to dote on him. What sort of mother would give birth to a child like him?
What man had fathered him?

It was too normal. Too human.

“Boy!”

It was Uncle Vernon this time who roared, and Harry craned his neck around to see four sets of
eyes looking to him.

“Marge is talking to you and you're being incredibly rude to her!” His face was ruddy, his own
frustration with Harry mottling his complexion into an ugly palette of reds and violets.

“I'm sorry-” he began to say, struggling to sound appropriately apologetic.

But his words were cut off, Marge's nostrils flaring in disgust. “That's to be expected I suppose.
Look at his genes- no offense to you, of course, Petunia, you're lovely. But in all honestly that
sister of yours would have done well to keep her legs closed and away from that degenerate
Potter.”

The plate slipped from Harry's hand, shattering as it fell to the floor. It was loud, a piercing sound,
and he was dimly aware of the shards of porcelain which splattered at his feet. Marge rose, her lips
forming an 'o' in the beginning of a taunt that never left her mouth as Harry roared loudly, “Don't
you dare talk about my mother and father that way!” His voice cracked, the young, prepubescent
warble of a not quite man.

Marge stepped forward, shoving her chair to the side with a screech as the legs scraped along
wooden floors. She extended an arm outward, a plump finger poking at the air before him
accusingly. “I'll talk about your mother and father however I want to! They were no good- that
mother of yours was a foul and dirty thing that would give it to anyone who asked politely enough
and your father-”

“ENOUGH!” he shouted, his throat aching at the intensity. His hands were balled at his side,
fingernails carving half moon shaped cuts into his soft palm. He was shaking with rage, trembling
in a way that made him feel anxious, like his energy could not be contained within the structure of
his bones and skin. He could feel the floor shake as several other chairs scraped along it, as Marge
pounded towards him. Saw her lips twist and contort and he knew that the kitchen was a
cacophony of noise and yells.

Yet, he could hear none of it. The only thing he could hear was a high-pitched whistle, like steam
escaping a forgotten kettle. And the voice whispering in the back of his skull.

'Show her, Harry. Show her why she should never talk to you like that. Show her just how different
you and your parents are. How special you are.'

There was a clatter behind him, dishes bursting with an unseen force. Bulbous wells of wine
glasses shattering as they sat drying on the counter, water glasses and plates following in like
fashion. And with a hiss, they flew into the air, jettisoning beyond Harry and at Marge with such
great speed that he could hardly see them slice through her exposed skin before they fell to the
floor, sticky with blood.

Anger left him, air escaping a balloon, and his eyes widened in horror as the tip of her extended
index finger, sliced at the second knuckle, fell a half second later.

It was as if the world had been put on pause, mute, only for it to sped up, noise and color and
reality sinking in all at once.

There was blood everywhere, deep cuts along Marge's haggard face only adding to the carnage of
her severed finger. She was bellowing in rage and in pain, pausing in her tirade to scream as her
uninjured hand clutched feebly at her wrist. Petunia was squealing, her long, bony fingers wound
nervously in her blonde hair as Dudley asked over and over again what was happening. Only
Vernon seemed capable of action, roaring obscenities as his face turned a brilliant shade of
crimson. He took long strides across the kitchen to Harry, who startled at him before taking off in a
run.

In his entire thirteen years of existence, he had never been so thankful to be so fast and wily,
slipping just out of reach of the man and darting down the hall, his heart thudding in his chest.
“GET BACK HERE!” Vernon roared behind him, his gruff voice booming over the chaos.

But Harry was out the door in seconds, leaving behind the blood and the screaming as he ran
aimlessly down the street, not sure of where he was headed but simply knowing he needed to get as
far away as possible.

He had made it two blocks before he came to a stop, bent at the waist and his hands gripping onto
his knees. His legs were shaking, his breath coming out in raspy, uneven spurts. He stood like that
for some time, attempting to steady his breathing and thinking of what to do, of what had happened.

What had happened?

He was no stranger to accidental bursts of magic, though they were few and far between since
attending Hogwarts. But never before had it been so...malicious. It had felt as if he was submerged
in ice cold water, his blood freezing in his veins as something else had taken over, a hand over his
and something sinister within his mind that wanted to hurt.

Something sinister that had enjoyed hurting her, that enjoyed showing that horrid woman just what
he could do.

He swallowed thickly, shoving the thoughts away for now. Further examination could occur later,
when his thoughts were less jumbled and he wasn't standing outside on the street, the skies already
darkened. The night was cold, and he felt his flesh prickle underneath his lightweight jumper,
wrapping his arms around his torso for some warmth.

What was he to do? Where was he to go? He couldn't very well turn back after that.

His thoughts were interrupted by the sound of whimpering, the distinct whine of a dog.

He twisted where he stood, stumbling at the sight of an impossibly large dog in the center of the
road. The thing was massive, despite looking quite underfed, matted and mangled black fur
covering what he was sure would be visible ribs. It stepped forward, one huge paw that looked as
if it had been chewed at, patches of fur missing, coming down on the pavement, and Harry took an
involuntary step backwards.

He stumbled, tripping over the lip of the sidewalk. His head smacked against the gravel bed of a
path that lead to the front porch of a home, his arms splaying outwards. A low groan slipped from
between his lips as he slowly sat back up, rubbing a hand over a tender spot of his scalp.
Wonderful.
Just what this evening needed.

A concussion.

Brushing dirt and small, embedded pieces of gravel from his jeans, he stood, just in time to jump
out of the way of a careening vehicle, one which seemed to appear out of thin air. Tires screeched
harshly over the road, one thumping over the sidewalk as what appeared to be a triple-decker bus
came to a halting stop, forced at an angle by the uneven tires.

A dog barked, massive paws thudding into the ground.

The bus- a brilliant shade of violet that Harry had never before seen on transport- let out a hiss,
doors squeaking open. A thin faced, mousy looking man poked his head out, looking about him
before settling his eyes on Harry.

When Harry made no motion to move forward, he said, “Well? What're ya waiting for? An
invitation?”

Tentatively, Harry took a step forward, peering through the curtained windows. He thought he
could see what appeared to be beds in the interior of the bus. How curious, he thought, knowing
that it surely had to have belonged to the Wizard World.

How muggle of them, appropriating a bus.

“Are...are you stopping at...the Leaky Cauldron?” he asked, licking his lips. It was the only
establishment that came to mind, one that offered both a warm meal and lodging.

His stomach quivered at that. He hadn't had the opportunity to eat all. The Dursleys insisted he
wait until after they finished eating before he was allowed to have anything at all, and their dinner
had come to a rather unfortunate end.

“We can go whereva ya need,” the man said, extending a thin hand outward. “Eleven sickles.
Thirteen for a hot chocolate.”

Harry's mouth went dry. In all his haste to leave, he hadn't grabbed any of his belongings. He had
only the clothes on his back and the wand in his pocket. “I-er,” he mumbled, slipping his hands
uselessly into his pockets. His fingers met something hard and cold, and with wide and grateful
eyes, he pulled out a handful of coins that had not been there before. He wasn't certain how they
managed to sit in his pants without his knowledge- several galleons and about seventeen sickles
was not exactly a light amount- but he had never been more thankful for his stroke of luck than in
that moment.

Counting out thirteen sickles, he handed them over before slipping the rest of the coins back in his
pockets.

“I'm Stan Shunpike,” the man said as he stepped aside, his lips moving noiselessly as he counted
the change. “You?”

Harry grimaced. “Neville. Neville Longbottom,” he lied, entering the bus without any a thought to
Marge and her severed finger, or the stray dog that had all but disappeared.

-xXx-

The Leaky Cauldron was busy, lively witches and wizards with reddened faces laughing, huddled
together in earnest conversation. The bar was so crowded that Harry could hardly see the barkeep
scurrying around between all the patrons, all the surrounding tables full with plates of hearty
dishes- shepherd's pie, roast beef, and steaming potatoes- and he stood in the doorway awkwardly,
feeling quite out of place.

His shirt stuck to him from where his hot chocolate had splashed onto him during a particularly
sharp and frightening maneuver the Knight Bus had taken. His hair was still tousled from when he
had been sent flying through the interior. He was immediately self conscious, running a hand
through his hair and wondering what to do.

Surely, he had enough for a night stay in one of the rooms, and hopefully even a plate of food, his
stomach growling at all the tempting smells surrounding him. He could figure out the rest later. Of
what to do. Of how much worrying he should do.

Accidental or not, he had used magic outside of school.

Had harmed a muggle.

And even worse, like a common criminal, he fled the crime scene.

He frowned. Not as if it wasn't his first time fleeing such a thing.

“Ah, Mr. Potter! I had hoped I'd find you here!”

Harry startled at the loud declaration, turning to find a rather plump wizard coming towards him, a
large congenial smile warming his face. His hair was thin, graying, and his arms were extending
outward as if he might wrap them around Harry in a hug once he got close enough.

Thankfully, he had stopped just short of that, letting one arm fall to his side while the other reached
out, expectantly. “Minister for Magic, Cornelius Fudge. It is a pleasure to meet your acquaintance,”
he greeted, shaking Harry's hand vigorously.

Harry felt his heart plummet as he took his own hand back, curling it against his chest. There
would be no time to figure out the rest later, it seemed. No putting of anything off until he had
some food in his belly or a proper rest on a bed that he could fully extend out on without having to
contort himself.

He might have wondered just how much trouble he was in, if he would be expelled from
Beauxbatons before he even got to attend, but he was too distracted by the merry tone of Fudge's
voice as he placed a hand on Harry's shoulder, leading him towards a table by the fireplace.

“I must say, we're certainly relieved to see you're alright. When we had heard about the Auror
report, we had assumed the worst-” he said, causing Harry to skew his brows in thought.

“We?” he asked.

As if to answer the question, Fudge came to a stop, pushing Harry down into a chair opposite none
other than Albus Dumbledore.

The older wizard smiled, leaning forward in his chair. “Hello, Harry. Glad to see you're well,” he
said, his blue eyes noticeably absent of their familiar twinkle.

“You are well, right? You don't need us to find you a healer?” Fudge cut in as he sat in a chair
between Dumbledore an Harry. He exhaled in relief when Harry shook his head, muttering that he
was fine.
A moment passed in which nothing was said, Fudge rubbing his eyes as though he were exhausted
despite it only being about nine in the evening; Dumbledore gazing at Harry in that way that made
him feel as if he were invisible, vulnerable and stripped and raw.

He shifted in his seat.

Coughed.

“Is this about what happened to Aunt Marge?” he asked. Best to get it over with. No pleasantries or
kindness. 'We're sorry, our hands are tired. Magic in front of muggles and by underage wizards is
strictly prohibited. You're being expelled. Hand over your wand, we'll bring you back to the
Dursley's. Perhaps if your lucky, they'll let you stay in that roomy closet and not stick you in the
one with the water heater for punishment.'

He was surprised when Fudge shook his head. “Marjorie Dursley has been healed and her memory
erased by the Accidental Magic Reversal Squad. Hardly the least of our concerns, really, what with
everything that happened tonight,” he said.

“Right,” Harry said, trying to hide his confusion. He was beginning to get the distinct impression
that his version of the night's events might have been a bit different from the version Fudge had.

“The Aurors were called in by the use of dark magic, you see, and when they arrived, they
interviewed your family. You gave us quite a fright, running off like that! But that was quick
thinking, summoning the Knight Bus. I'm sure that scared Black off right and well!” Fudge said,
chuckling nervously as if he had something funny. He didn't.

Harry frowned. “Black?”

“The Wizard who attacked you and your family tonight. That is his name,” Dumbledore explained,
his eyes narrowing from behind the half-moon spectacles. “I understand you don't get the Daily
Prophet delivered over the summer, but you might have heard about him through muggle reports.
He escaped some time ago, from Azkaban-”

Before Dumbledore could continue, Fudge interrupted, leaning forward as if to bodily get in
Dumbledore's way. “We've been working tirelessly at the Ministry to find him, I assure you.
Aurors working around the clock, top researchers trying to figure out how exactly he did manage to
escape in the first place. I myself wanted to make certain that we had several Aurors maintain a
watch outside your home just in case this exact scenario should occur. But the director of the Auror
Department wouldn't hear it, said we didn't have enough men,” he said, the word disingenuous
coming to the forefront of Harry's mind unbidden. Fudge chuckled inappropriately again. “She'll
certainly be hearing about how her oversight nearly found our Harry Potter in grave danger.”

Dumbledore flicked his eyes over to fudge, opening his mouth before closing it, as if thinking
better of what he had to say.

Harry swallowed a lump in his throat. “I'm fine. Really. Just a little hungry and tired now that it's
all over,” he said, choosing his vague words carefully. It was a great deal of information-
confusing information, that didn't quite match up with his own memory and it made his head ache
to even begin to think of how both truths could exist simultaneously. He had no idea who Black
was or why he would attack him, no guess to what an Azkaban even was.

And yet, he knew better than to ask. Afraid that doing so might dissolve whatever carefully
fabricated story that Minister had discovered at that house on Privet Drive. He didn't know what
was going on, but he somehow knew that maintaining the lie was the only thing between him and
expulsion.

If they knew the truth- that Harry was not pursued by anyone, that he was running away from
himself and his own mistakes instead of some escaped wizard. That no one but Harry and him
alone had injured a muggle. If they knew any of it, they would ask for his wand without a moment
of hesitation.

He hated to lie, least of all to Dumbledore, but he couldn't risk expulsion. Couldn't risk being sent
back to the Dursley's where punches and kicks and empty plates were readily offered to him.
Where he was locked within a closet with hardly any food in his belly and bruised ribs from when
Uncle Vernon lost his temper when Harry didn't retrieve the mail fast enough or didn't clean to his
liking.

It was a matter of survival.

He wouldn't live another month of the Dursleys.

This, he knew too with certainty.

“Let's get you some food then,” Fudge said, rising from his seat and disappearing into the crowd.

“You have two nights before school commences. You can stay here, until then. I am told a staff
member has already procured a room for you, you can fetch the key from Tom at the bar when
you're ready. Your stuff, as well as that lovely owl of yours have all been dropped off and are
waiting for you upstairs. You've been accepted into Beauxbatons, yes?” Dumbledore asked.

Harry nodded, finding it difficult to not look away when the blue eyes bore into him so painfully.
Dumbledore had been the first- if not the only- person Harry thought he could trust, that he could
believe with little hesitation when he said he cared for him and wanted the best for him. It felt
terrible to lie to him- profusely, it seemed, ever since he had found himself in possession of the
damnable diary. Tom's diary.

He curled his hands into fists at the thought of the other boy.

The Dark Lord.

Further proof that Harry was rarely ever good at knowing who to trust.

Dumbledore sighed, though at what he didn't know, as Harry had become too distracted by the start
of a headache, the throbbing pain making his vision bleary. He placed a hand to his temple,
wincing as he nodded along to Dumbledore's stories of the French school and the Headmistress, a
beautiful if not unique witch named Madame Maxime.

A plate of food was placed before him, and he hungrily tore into it, feeling his headache subside
the more satiated he became. He assured Fudge several more times that he was fine, that Black had
not managed any damage during the attack. He asked Dumbledore questions about his new school,
asked if there was any chance of Hogwarts reopening.

“I'm afraid not,” he had answered solemnly. “Not until the cause of Ginny Weasley's death
becomes clear to us.”

Harry opened his mouth, the words he had wanted to say all summer dying on his tongue as his
headache returned with such force that stars burst in his vision.

He clamped his lips, waited for the pain to abate, his right eye blurry, unable to see anything but
half formed shadows.

Dumbledore watched him, scratched his chin in thought.

“That's too bad,” Harry said after a minute before sinking the tongs of his fork into a piece of
chicken.

Lying was survival, he reminded himself.

-xXx-

Harry came to a stop in front of the marked room. Room 4. He ran a hand through his hair,
untidying it further than it already was as he slid the key into the lock, twisting it until it clicked.

He had never before looked so forward to sleep. The night had been exhausting and perplexing and
he wanted nothing more than for it to end. He knew there was much to do- he still had yet to even
shop for his school supplies- and now he needed to learn about this Azkaban and Sirius Black and
how any of it had even tied together so that his own assault on Aunt Marge could be mistaken by
Ministry officials.

He had bid both Dumbledore and Fudge a goodnight, sighing a breath of relief when they allowed
him to go. He was safe, at least for the night. With any hope, he wouldn't be returning to the
Dursley's until the school year would come to an end.

He pushed the door open, taking only a step inside before pausing.

The light hanging from the ceiling in the center of the room was on, casting a warm glow over the
scene before him. His trunk was placed at the foot of the bed, just as Dumbledore had promised.
Hedwig's empty cage sat on a desk placed beside an open window, the breeze rustling the curtains.
But most curious of all was by the small complementary kitchenette, where Tom Riddle stood in
front of stove, pulling a steaming kettle off a burner, the coils an angry red.

He looked up at the intrusion, blinking at Harry before tipping the spout of the kettle over a mug.
“I've made us some tea,” he said simply, as if they were old friends.

Harry spun on his feet, retreating back down the hall as fast as he could. With any hope,
Dumbledore or Fudge would still be there, exchanging long farewells within the dining hall. And
he could end it. End the torment and the guilt and the lies and the fear that over his shoulder was
the young Lord Voldemort. He wouldn't have to tell them, wouldn't have his tongue bound in
silence if he could just show them because he was right there, in the flesh, casually making tea in
his room.

“Professor!” he yelled just as he made it to the top of the stairs.

He shot on arm out, bracing himself against the wall as the world begun to spin rapidly, colors and
movements blurring into mottled shapes. The sounds from below- of laughter and conversation and
goblets clinking on tables- dimmed, fading as it was replaced by a high-pitched hiss. The sound the
Knight Bus made when it came to a halt. The sound of the tea kettle.

His face was numb, the pain behind his eye so immediately intense that it gave way to nothing, the
nerves unable to take much more torment.

He wavered on his feet.

Touched a hand to his face, feeling something wet and warm.

Tears or perhaps blood.

When he fell backwards, it was into waiting arms.

-xXx-

Harry awoke nearly nine hours later. The sky outside the window was blue and bright, and he was
greeted by the hooting of Hedwig, her wings rustling through the air as she flew freely about the
room. She fluttered down to the bedside table, leaning forward and pecking playfully at his pillow
as he twisted around to look at her.

He smiled, knowing that it was the first time all summer she had been able to stretch her wings,
confined to the cage and spare bedroom at the Dursley's, where Harry could only see her once a
day to feed her.

'She doesn't deserve that,' he thought rubbing a hand over his face, stilling when it found the gauze
bandage covering his eye.

He sat up in bed, the events of the previous night rushing to him in quick succession, like the
recollection of a nightmare as one sat panting and heaving in sweat soaked sheets. 'Tom was here,'
his mind screamed at him, and he looked up from his lap and around the room, his one uncovered
eye settling on the figure sitting before him. The dark curls pushed neatly in place as Tom bent
over the table, a copy of The Daily Prophet in front of him.

“Morning,” Tom said, reaching for a cup beside him and bringing it to his lips. When Harry said
nothing in return, he settled the cup back onto its saucer, turning to meet his gaze. “Are you feeling
well?”

He might have snorted at that if not for the sheer incredulity of it all. Instead, he asked simply,
“You did something to me. And I can't tell anyone about you. Or even think about telling them.” It
wasn't a question. It was a statement.

The edge of Tom's lips quirked, tipping into an smirk as he said, “Very astute.” He turned back to
the paper, adding, “A security measure of sorts. A necessary evil I'm afraid. It would be very
unsafe if word got out that I'm back, and as much as I hate to cause you pain I had no choice.”

At this, Harry did snort.

Tom looked up at him once more, his dark blue eyes wide. “You don't believe me?”

“You haven't exactly given me reason to,” Harry answered, shuffling out of bed and pawing
through the covers, tossing them aside. “Where's my wand?”

Tom ignored his question. “I'm being quite sincere. I know that may be hard given what occurred
between you and the one they call You-Know-Who-” he paused here, a small smirk flitting across
his face- “But I urge you to try to keep us separate. I am no more him than you are.”

Harry ceased his search for his wand, glowering at the older boy as his lips pulled back in a snarl.
“No! That's not true because you are him. I don't know what you did or how you did it but you're
him just younger and you're nothing like me.” The last few words were spoken through his teeth.

If Tom was startled by the anger in Harry's words and the vitriol with which he spoke, he didn't
show it, only frowning as he said, “I wasn't lying to you. I was doing research, experimenting with
things I had no business with, admittedly. I trapped myself- a part of myself- within the diary.
What went on after that...” He paused, sighing as he rubbed at his eyes. “It wasn't me. Something
happened to my soul and the part that remained in this world was merely a sliver of myself.

“I don't pretend to believe that Lord Voldemort is no monster. I have read of him. Tried to form a
timeline using all the information I gathered to understand what he did with the life he took from
me. He may have once called himself Tom Riddle, but I swear that is all we have in common.
Something inhuman was stripped of me that night I locked myself in the diary, and that was the
only part of me that continued to exist.”

His words were pleading, a desire- a need- to have Harry believe in them. And for a moment, Harry
felt himself soften at the sincerity of them.

Only for a moment.

“That's a real beautiful story. Got another one? I could use a laugh,” he sneered, tearing through the
drawers of both bedside tables. “Where is my wand?”

Tom sighed. “You don't have to believe me. I didn't think you would. That's why I had to curse you
to silence. You never know whose ears are listening. If word spread that I got out of the diary, he
would be after both us. More ardently than he already is, at the very least in your situation.”

“Why?” Harry asked, feeling his patience wearing thin. “Why would he want me dead anymore
than he already does?”

Tom blinking owlishly. “Because you helped me. You can condemn me all you want, Harry, but
you're the one who killed Ginevra that night. Not me,” his words were soft, as if to comfort him
even as he accused of something so heinous.

Harry shook his head, something scratching his throat. “No. You made me. Somehow, you made
me.”

Tom rose from the chair, taking several cautious steps forward until he stood before Harry, still
much taller than him despite his recent growth spurt. Tom reached out, fingers brushing against his
jaw as Harry jerked away from his touch, flinching as if Tom was fire and acid and all things that
would consume and destroy him.

“You wanted to free me. You trusted me. I made you do no more than you were willing to do.”

“Get out,” Harry said, his voice low and rough and as threatening as he could manage. He clenched
his jaw, the crowns of his teeth grinding so viciously over each other that he thought his entire
mouth might shatter into a million fragments of bone and tissue. “Leave me alone.”

To his immense surprise, Tom nodded, turning away from Harry and gathering a cloak that had
been draped over the back of the chair he sat in. “Very well. I'll leave, but only for now. You might
not believe me, but it doesn't make my concern for you any less legitimate. I will still keep in touch
with you.”

Turning back to Harry, he tapped a long finger on his cheek bone, just below his right eye. “The
patch can't be removed until tomorrow morning, taking it off early will compromise the potions
I've treated it with. And do read that newspaper when you get a chance. From what I've read, this
Sirius Black seems quite intent on harming you.”

And with that, he was gone, the door clicking shut as Hedwig hooted at his departure, as if to bid
him farewell.

The headlining article that morning had been about Sirius Black's attack on an unnamed muggle
house the previous night. One muggle injured. Alert all authorities immediately if spotted. Do not
approach. Dangerous and Mad. Former servant to He-Who-Shall-Not-Be-Named.

Harry tossed the paper from him, making a frustrated grunt. There were two Lord Voldemorts
running about. One who is Tom, and one who is not but also once was. A deranged prisoner was
hunting him. Ginny was still dead and he was still the one who did it. He wasn't even sure of his
memory of last night and why it conflicted so much with the reports the Ministry made.

He looked up from the table.

His wand was just underneath the bed, perhaps kicked under from his hasty search of the blankets.

-xXx-

Tom wound his way through the crowd of Diagon Alley, parents dragging their children through
the last of their shopping for school, children whining in that frequency that made mothers cluck
their tongue. He kept his head bowed low, his hair curling around the edge of the soft cap he wore.
It was a bit too hot for such adornments, but the precaution was necessary. If a bit extreme.

He was certain that nobody alive today would recognize him as the young Lord Voldemort, before
his looks and charm had been so heavily distorted by dark magic and rituals. Well, nobody except a
certain Headmaster.

'Former headmaster,' he corrected.

No, Tom Riddle had surely all but faded away. A handsome, promising young student who never
lived up to his potential. Disappeared into obscurity.

He took a turn down an alley way, the crowd substantially thinner. Substantially less savory.

He smiled a rare, genuine smile at the thought of Harry. He was a stubborn one. Typical
Gryffindor. Headstrong, too emotional for his own good. He supposed it was admiral, how he
stood his ground, baring teeth that weren't nearly as pointy or scary as he thought. Like a kitten
imitating a lion.

It was certainly not ideal, starting from square one in earning the boy's trust again. He, like many
Gryffindors, could be loyal to a fault once it was earned, but Harry was not the most generous in
that department. It did not take a genius or a muggle therapist to see that his tumultuous and
abusive home life had made the boy distrustful, doubtful of any adult no matter how kind and
trusting they seemed. Tom had spent a great deal of time within his head to know that he was even
becoming a bit more shrewd to Dumbledore, avoiding his glances and skirting around questions.

Lying to him.

It made him proud, if he were being honest.

Tom wandered through Knockturn Alley, slowing by shop windows and inclining his head in
interest at the displayed trinkets. A witch with a broken nose and glass eye stood only several feet
away, calling out to come and see her collection of blood vials.

'Unicorn! Merfolk! Siren! Virgin! Each only 40 galleons! A right bargain!'

Tom considered her for a moment. Merfolk blood could certainly be useful, several potions
popping in mind that he wouldn't mind having a go at. The Dursley family would be suitable
guinea pigs, he thought, a wry grin twisting and marring his features.
No. He doubted it was even authentic Merfolk blood. Forty galleons was too much a bargain for
that.

Still, the idea of teaching the Dursleys a lesson or two lingered in his mind, and he stepped into the
shop, hoping to find something a bit more genuine.

He shivered at the remembrance of drinking the polyjuice potion, his skin bulging and sagging
until he resembled Vernon Dursley, giving the Aurors an account of an event that had not
happened. As proud and delighted as he was- watching Harry slice and dice that wretched woman
until she resembled raw meat- it would do no good for the authorities to make wind of what had
occurred.
Sirius Black had proved to be a handy excuse. A bit of memory work here and there, disorienting
them until none of them could make heads or tails of whom the true attacker had been. Damaging
the property a bit more- exploding a door out of its frame, bursting a window.

From there, it was only a matter of issuing a few unforgivables to alert the Aurors. A pluck of the
hair and tossing the patriarch into the cupboard beneath the stairs- an irony he paused to chuckle
at- Tom had assumed the role of Vernon Dursley and told the harrowing tale.

'That escaped loon came bursting in! Did something to my family- confounded them! Then he went
after the boy! Chased him out the door and down the street!

It had, of course, been successful, though he rather loathed having to take the form of that oafish
muggle. Just the thought of it made his lips curl into a snarl. Filthy.

But it had all been for Harry. The Ministry sent Marge to St. Mungo's, where she would be healed
and obliviated. They had offered they Dursleys several healing potions, but Tom had vehemently
denied them- no doubt the muggles would rather suffer through several days of lingering effects of
the confundus before accepting magical help.

He paused in front of a display of potions, slim and oblong bottles of varying colors and clarity,
yellowing tags wrapped around the necks of them with their price. He picked up a bottle of
something dark silver, metallic and shimmery as he held it up to the light.

“Elixir of Odium,” a voice said, and he turned to find the shopkeep- an attractive woman with
waist length straight black hair and dark olive skin- approaching him. “Even a drop of it can inspire
one to give in to their darkest and most poisonous hatred. Turn friends into enemies, lovers into
bitter rivals.”

He quirked a brow. “What if I just wanted it for some fun? As in making a family tear each other a
part? Literally.”

She grinned, gray eyes flicking over him slowly, drinking in his appearance before leaning
forward, exposing more of her breasts to him. “I'd say you and I have a very different idea of fun.”

He frowned, settling the bottle back on the table before leaving, ignoring her calls to come back.
Snake oil salesmen. Knockturn Alley was overrun with them.

No matter, he could teach the Dursleys a lesson without their assistance.

When he was through with them, they would regret ever laying a finger on his Harry.

His horcrux.

-xXx-
Beauxbatons really was a lovely school, with all the charm and romance one would come to expect
from France. It was smaller than Hogwarts had been, and the entire castle was raised on large,
arched pillars over the river that ran through the countryside. The water was clear and pristine, the
brilliant rock bed below the surface displaying an array of colors. Of greens and grays and blues.
Wildflowers grew along the side of it, lilies and daisies racing on the water's edge, coloring the
landscape in yellows and pinks.

The castle itself, from where it sat above the running water, was built in white stones, ivy growing
over top it, snaking over the rough texture of the exterior. It stood clear among the world, no trees
to hide behind, no mountains to be nestled in. It was surrounded only by a large valley of sweet and
spicy herbs, of aromatic flowers. There was, not too far in the distance, a stable house, equally as
stately as the castle itself. The silvery sheen of the Unicorns' coats could be seen from across the
way, brilliant in the glow of the orange sun.

Really, it was very lovely, with high ceilings that contained picturesque and dizzying murals, so
intricate that one would make themselves sick as they leaned back to take in the view of it all,
turning about in circles. Paintings of all things lovely; of Aphrodite born from sea foam, of swans
swooning through a blue sky, dancing around chubby cherubs with protruding bellies and full
cheeks, golden curls. With tall windows and parapets, stained glass inlaid so that when the sun
shone through it created a kaleidoscope of colors.

It was stunning, but it was not home. It was not Hogwarts.

The soft, silken tendrils of a willow tree shrouded Harry from the world beyond it, from the field
and the gardens that enveloped the castle. It was cool and dark, bits of sunlight streaming through
the small spaces left between the slim and looming branches. It was the first day of term, and he
had already started off on quite the wrong note.

He was supposed to be in class- History of Magic to be exact, but it had all been too much. Too
overwhelming.

From the feel of Hermione's small arms as they wrapped around him, and the hurt look on her face
when he had not returned the embraced, slinking away from her and disappearing into the crowd
(Ginny was dead and it was all his fault and his parents were killed protecting him and he was
cursed and he would not drag anyone else down with him, no matter how much his heart ached at
the absence.) From the food served at breakfast which was alright but not like Hogwarts's feasts-
croissants and fruit and soft cheeses instead of hearty porridge and plump sausage which burst with
oil when pierced with the prongs of a fork.

From the tilted accents. From the unfamiliar faces.

But he had managed. He had gotten through the morning well enough, quiet and to himself and
with his head bowed. It hadn't been until lunch that it had decided he couldn't do it any further,
when he had risen from his seat- plate untouched, and left the hall with a racing heart. A letter
clutched in his fist, dropped on his lap by an unknown owl, with his name written on the envelope
in a terribly familiar scrawl.

History of Magic had started ten minutes ago, and instead of sitting in class, he was hidden by the
shadow of a looming tree, a wrinkled letter from Tom Riddle in his hands.

He toyed with the envelope, fingernails dragging over the wax seal until there was bits of smooth
silver wax stuck under them. He would not open it. Not now. Perhaps not ever. He unwound the
cord bunching together his rucksack, tossing the letter inside, where it would be out of sight though
not out of mind. He couldn't imagine Tom ever would be.
 He had wound himself in to the wrinkled organ that was his brain, wrapping around the synapses
and the amygdala and all the other primitive parts. The parts that dictated fear, terror.

He stifled a yawn, pressing a hand against his mouth. He hardly slept the night prior, a bundle of
nervous energy about the unfamiliar surroundings, the place that was an impostor of the school he
had known (it was fine, but it wasn't home) and even when he had managed to fall asleep, he was
startled awake by a nightmare.

Blood warped pages, dark blue eyes flashing crimson.

He was haunted by the ghosts of things he couldn't quite forget, things he couldn't really
remember.

And yet, the air was cool and it was dark and quiet and he could hear the water as it ran over the
rock bed, could hear the distant sound of songbirds tweeting into the morning. And his head fell to
his shoulder, heavy, eyes blinking into the world that became less focused around him.

He wondered if it was possible to hallucinate if you were tired enough. To see things that weren't
there as your brain ebbed between consciousness. It must be.

He could have sworn he saw a large and mangy black dog in the distance, only seconds before his
eyes closed for good, snoring softly beneath the canopy of leaves.

Chapter End Notes

I hope you all enjoyed! Follow me on tumblr at reneehartblog for sneak peeks,
fandoms, and any answers to questions!

Thanks for reading!

 A Dog, A Visit, and A Seed of Doubt
Chapter Notes

A huge thanks to everyone who has left reviews, kudos and subscribed! You are all
wonderful!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

'Not right.'

That was the only thought running through Sirius Black's head as he circled nervously in a tall
patch of lavender; his tail tucked between his scrawny hind legs, a low whine emitting from
between his teeth. It was not right. Something was not right with Harry.

He didn't know how he knew this, he simply did.

When had first seen the boy, hunched over in the garden in Privet Drive, hands dirty as they tugged
up weeds and tossed them into a small bin beside him, he had been overjoyed, an energy
overcoming him that he had not felt in over a decade. He had fought the impulse to bark, trotting
down the road until his canine tongue lopped out from between his teeth, his breath coming out in
pants.

He slowed when he approached the home, a ball of anxiousness, desperation. But he refrained
from causing a scene- muggles weren't always kind to stray dogs, especially when they looked as
feral as he knew he did. He had spent the better part of the day prior outrunning a muggle who
wielded a long metal stick, the end looped off into a circle. He rode around in a veehickle he
thought they were called, seemingly at every corner Sirius ran to.

He had no idea of where the man would take him should he catch him, but the thought of being
caught alone was enough for instinct to take over, hackles raising in protest as he snapped out with
sharp teeth, catching a gloved hand in his mouth.

Caught meant cold. Isolation. Iron bars interlocking before you, trapping you within a too small
space. It meant meager meals and somber bellows of nearby inmates. It meant being forgotten- by
friends and society and the world. It meant unable to sleep, awaking in cold sweats in the middle of
the night when dreams soured and turned dark and anguished as dementors roamed through in
patrol, unable to breathe without feeling as if the prison of your rib cage was crushing, cutting into
you.

No, caught was never good, and mangy mutts such as himself were surely not be treated well by
muggles. And so he hid, lurking around the manicured bushes that separated Harry's home from the
others on the block. He watched Harry for some time, the day hot and searing the flesh beneath his
black fur. He could see nothing but a mop of untidy black hair, clinging to Harry's head in sweat.
The collar of his shirt was damp as well, and occasionally he would pause to wipe his forearm
across his face, careful to keep his dirty hand limp and turned away.

When he finally stood, it was to empty the bin of weeds and dead leaves he clipped from the
blossoming flowers, kicking a spade out of his way as he hoisted the bin up and trudged closer to
where Sirius sat, the garbage cans tucked by the side of the home. It was the first time he could get
a good look at the boy, and Sirius rose to a standing position, all four paws excitedly pounding at
the ground below him in turn.

The familiarity made his heart ache, a tightness constricting his chest uncomfortably. He looked so
similar to James- it was as if Sirius had been plucked up and deposited into a pensieve, and was
instead looking at a remembrance- the memory- of his long ago friend. His hair was unruly, curling
around the ends of his ears, the frames of his wire glasses. The glasses- much too round and large
for his thin face- sat on the bridge of his narrow nose, magnifying the eyes behind them. Green.
Brilliantly and defiantly green. They were Lily's eyes, and they sat below the thin white lines of a
scar, fissures burrowed into his skin.

Upon closer inspection, he really didn't look like James at all. Perhaps enough to fool a casual
observer, a former classmate of theirs or a teacher, or at first, quick glance. But to Sirius, the boy
was a haphazard copy of the man he once knew, more different than similar the more he looked.

He was far too thin, lanky. Too thin for the broad shoulders he was developing. His gait was
cautious, bowed as if he was trying to make himself smaller to the world- so unlike the confident
and near arrogant stride that James traipsed about Hogwarts with even as an eleven year old. His
shoulders slouched, and when he lifted his head to gaze at the world about him, it was with a
hesitation to his eyes, a calculating quality to them that looked far too old and world-worn on one
so young. James's own gaze was hungry, covetous. The world was his to explore and his hazel eyes
never shied away from the prospect of it, never a shadow of doubt to them that he belonged.

He was nothing like James, or Lily.

He was Harry. Just Harry.

And he was wonderful.

He forgot himself in his excitement, feeling young and free for the first time in so many years. His
tail thumped against the ground, a whine turned into a clipped yapping sound.

Harry startled, the lid of the garbage falling shut as he dropped the now empty weed bin. His eyes
were wide, his lips twisting as he looked expectantly to the bushes Sirius had hidden himself in.
The fingers of his right hand curled around something- his wand? - as he said, “Who's there?”
Then, after a second, he swallowed thickly and whispered, “Tom?”

He took a step forward, his wand now slipping out from his sleeve and settling in the palm of his
hand, when a veehickle (smaller than the one the man who was chasing him had driven in) pulled
up. Harry twisted his hand behind his back to hide his wand, moving back until he was flat against
the side of the house, the drivers of the contraption seemingly ambivalent about whether or not
they hit him. The doors- four of them- all opened in quick succession, a large, red faced man and
thin woman stepping out of one side; a plump, older woman with gray hair and a boy about Harry's
age stepping out of the other.

The older woman, propping herself up on a wooden cane, turned to Harry with a suspicious look to
her eyes. “What are you up to, boy? You're filthy!” she admonished cruelly, the venom in her
words causing something to stir within Sirius. Something protective.

“Aunt Petunia asked me to tend to her garden,” he said, a slight exasperation as he spoke. It was
the same way Sirius and James had spoken when they felt as if they were being punished for
something unjust.

The woman shook her head, swinging the cane as if to balance herself to take a step only to smack
it across Harry's ankle, making him wince. “Clean yourself up! You should have started dinner
ages ago and now we've got to wait for you to shower,” she barked.

With a resigned sigh, Harry nodded, mumbling that he would be quick. The mysterious noise in the
bushes forgotten, he disappeared into the house, followed closely by his muggle family, muttering
unkindly about him.

Sirius refused to leave, not until night had fallen and Harry had bolted from the house with
impressive speed, not bothering to close the door as it swung on its hinges. There was screaming
and shouting coming from inside the house, the large man following Harry for only a moment
before turning back to the chaos inside the home in a panic. And Sirius, worried and fearful for his
godson, chased after him.

He followed him to the Knight Bus. To the Leaky Cauldron. And then all the way to Beauxbatons,
turning into his human form long enough to apparate before turning back to Padfoot. Several days
had been spent observing him when he could, when he wasn't hidden behind a wall or classroom.

And something was not right. Not as if he knew him well enough to truly know what was or wasn't
out of character. Not that he was applying his knowledge of James and how he had reacted when
something wasn't right.

There are just some things that do not have to be said. Slumped shoulders, purple bags beneath his
eyes, weighing them down. He curled up beneath the canopy of leaves, looking too small for his
school robes, practically hidden by the foliage and the heavy shadows they cast. And he fell sound
asleep, in the middle of the day. He no doubt should have been in class, or at least skipping with a
group of friends- not by himself, huddled at the wide base of the willow.

'Not right.'

-xXx-

A week had passed since returning to school and Harry allowed himself to slip into the banality of
school life; the routine a comfort, the mundane a relief. They had been re-sorted- a special
ceremony held for the transfer students in private before the official ceremony began for first
years. Like Hogwarts, Beauxbatons had four Houses as well: Feu, Terre, Eau and Air. Hermione
leaned forward, whispering in his ear that they were the four elements, the four facets of magic
when they were broken down to their very core, raw and stripped. She went on to say that she had
read about it, that the founder of the school- a witch whose name he had already forgotten-
believed that all magic and its uses could be categorized into the four elements, and that each witch
and wizard held a magical core, a signature, that was simply more inclined to one than the others.

This was, of course, before he had tried to avoid her, fearing that he might lose her too.

He had been sorted into Incendie, the Fire House Hermione had said, her mutterings a bit louder
than she realized. She into Terre. Earth.

Avoiding her became considerably easier when they did not share a common room, it turned out.
Though he felt terrible, knowing she had no other friends- Ron and his brothers had not accepted
the invitation to Beauxbatons, choosing instead to remain at home and to receive tutors.

Harry's common room was hardly a solace however, with or without her presence. He grew
anxious in his dormitory, irritated by the furtive glances, whispers behind cupped hands. Hogwarts
had long since tired of the novelty of him- the Famous Harry Potter- but Beauxbatons did not, and
his new housemates had no interest in hiding their intrigue. And so, with an annoyed grunt and
sigh one afternoon when he could hear nothing but giggles and his name being spoken in a hush,
he packed his bags and headed to the gardens, knowing that Hermione would surely be in the
library.

It was overcast, the clouds gray and melancholy and it reminded him vaguely of the world within
the diary; the colors unsaturated and diluted. He half expected to see Tom sitting beneath the
willow tree, as he was quite keen on sitting under the one oak tree by the lake at Hogwarts.

It was strange, knowing such intimate details about the Dark Lord. He had long since decided
everything that Riddle said to him was a lie, saying whatever needed to be said to achieve his ends.
But there were things Harry had noticed, quirks that were so habitual that he doubted they would
be worth the time or energy for Riddle to fake.

That he furrowed his brow, bit his lip when he was in thought.

That he never smiled unless it was predatory, all teeth and as if he had gotten away with something
either very clever or very cruel.

And he was vain. Not in the sense that Harry thought he placed attractiveness above any other
asset, but in the sense that he was constantly smoothing out his robes, reaching a hand to his head
and ensuring that all his hair lay flat and in place. There were moments where his gaze would
flicker, his lip twitch, and Harry thought that if he could, Tom might have reached out and fixed
Harry's own hair.

It was still jarring, how handsome and proper and normal he looked.

It was perverse. Monsters were supposed to be frightening, with red eyes and sharpened teeth and
an otherworldly tint to their skin. Hooked noses and warts and jagged claws.

He knew he was being childish, but it had been easier when he thought of Voldemort as some sort
of inhuman demon.

He bent low, sweeping a hand out to brush aside the tendrils of the willow, only to stop short,
frowning. “Oh...sorry,” he mumbled. He had not realized that someone was already there, a girl
whom he thought he recognized from Hogwarts.

“No reason to be sorry,” she hummed, her voice light as if in sing song. There was a distinct air
about her, a lightness to her. Her blonde hair fell just below her shoulders, limp curls that looked as
if she had been distracted halfway through her morning ablutions and left it partially undone. Her
eyes were light gray, almost silvery in the light that hit them, streaming through where Harry had
pulled aside the leaves.

But most peculiar was that a loose crown sat atop her head, made entirely of flowers. Some were
quite pretty and vibrant, others were hideous- the color of straw, dry and crunchy. He thought that
he even saw a mushroom in the mix.

He pursed his lips, feeling as if he should say something but not sure of what, only for his jaw to
slack open a second later when he caught sight of the dog beside her. She had one hand rested on
his shoulder blades, idly petting him as he looked curiously at Harry, his head tilted to the side,
some unidentifiable slab of meat between its massive paws, half-eaten.

It looked like a stray- not unlike the one he had seen on Privet Drive before the Knight Bus
appeared. Odd, though a coincidence. Surely they were not the same.

“I didn't know you could have dogs,” Harry said, stepping forward and releasing the wisps of
leaves so that they fell behind him, swaying as they curtained off the rest of the world.

The girl- he couldn't remember her name, try as he might- shrugged. “You can't. I saw him in the
gardens and he looked so hungry, I couldn't leave him.” She turned to look at the dog, a small
smile gracing her lips. “He's very sweet, not afraid of people at all. I wonder if he's been
abandoned.”

Harry frowned, feeling sorry for the creature. It was large and it's visible teeth were menacing, but
he could see the indentations of ribs, bare patches of skin where fur was bitten off in either a fight
or in a desperate attempt to rid an itch of fleas. He moved closer, tentatively, lowering his hand
towards its snout- he thought he might have heard that it was the correct way to approach a dog
once.

But the dog- just as friendly as the girl had said- did not hesitate in leaning forward, licking Harry's
proffered hand with a wet and scratchy tongue.

“He likes you,” she said, appraising, leaning back on her ankles.

Harry smiled as he settled down onto the grass, running a hand through the dog's fur as he
continued to paw eagerly at him, nudging his wet nose against Harry's cheek. “I've always wanted a
dog. Asked my aunt and uncle once for one but they said as far as they were concerned, they
already had one,” he said, not sure of why he was saying such things to someone he hardly even
knew. He couldn't even remember what House she had belonged to when Hogwarts had closed.

The dog growled, briefly, before whining as he nudged his nose once more into Harry's face.

“I don't think you're a dog, for what it's worth, Harry,” she said, and he blushed in embarrassment.
How terrible to not know someone's name when they knew yours!

As if sensing his predicament, she added, “I'm Luna. I was in Ravenclaw, but now I'm in Eau.” If
she thought he was rude, she didn't seem it, her small smile not leaving her face, a serene look
about her.

He decided he liked her. She was subdued, her very presence calming, and she spoke in a way that
was reminiscent of poetry and fairy tales. It was as if someone had managed to capture all the awe
and intrigue, the curiosity and wonder he felt when he was an eleven year old learning of a new
and magical world, and placed it within her.

She named the dog Argos, and Harry agreed that it was very fitting indeed, though he wasn't quite
sure of why. And he spent the better part of an afternoon sitting beside her, Argos between them as
he eventually returned to his meat, saliva dripping from his maw, his homework forgotten.

-xXx-

Tom continued to send Harry letters, and Harry continued to ignore them. He thought of burning
them, watching the parchment burn and furl with the heat, turning to ash. But- for reasons he
couldn't discern- he settled for just tossing them in his trunk, a growing stash of them coating the
bottom, hidden beneath his clothes. He wondered if there would be any repercussions for ignoring
the wizard, but pushed the thought from his mind.

Some time had passed, and his life had a reached a semblance of normal. There was no need to
avoid Hermione, as she took it upon herself to ignore him as well. He was surprised by how badly
it stung when she lowered her head as they crossed paths, but reminded himself it was necessary.

He saw Luna from time to time, though they often sat in relative silence. She was a bit...unusual.
She spoke of creatures that he doubted even existed, but he never dared to say anything. It might
have been naive, but he quite liked that she preferred to blame the nargles for her stolen things than
to blame the more likely culprits of her housemates. She made him flower crowns, similar to the
one she had been wearing when they first met, with the promise that each flower, each herb, had
been selected to ward off some unsightly creature.

She had shown him where the kitchens were, and the elves that had worked there- thin, knobby
creatures with leathery skin and bulbous eyes- had gotten so used to them that there was often
some scraps left out for them to take. Argos would meet them in the garden- he was intelligent, and
Harry wondered why an owner might abandon such a loyal companion- and they fed him the
scraps.

It had been a pleasant routine, until four days had gone by where Argos did not meet them among
the lavender.

“Perhaps he was just lost and his family found him?” Luna had suggested, and Harry hoped she
was correct. He had grown quite fond of him, and he hated to think something might have
happened.

-xXx-

The morning of October second was a chaotic one, the dining hall a flurry of twirling robes, robin's
egg blue, as students flitted about the tables, chatting with friends at different tables. Harry had
wondered what had stirred them all into such a fit, sitting down at his own table and pulling a
forgotten copy of the newspaper towards him. He reached a hand out, grabbing the ladle to spoon
some eggs onto his plate only to drop it, scrambled eggs spilling across the table.

Sirius Black had made headlines once more, after he attempted to break into the Burrow.

No one was hurt.

The Weasleys were relocated for the time being.

Aurors were guarding the premises.

Sirius Black was injured but escaped.

And he was once again nowhere to be found.

-xXx-

Harry had left breakfast early, leaving to scrawl a hasty letter to Ron, asking if he was alright and
wishing him and his family well. He hadn't spoken to him in some weeks, the letters growing
further and further apart until they ceased coming entirely. But he was worried, and he knew he
would crumple under the weight of guilt if he didn't reach out to his friend. Tying the letter to
Hedwig's leg and freeing her from the owlry, he went about his day, his head full; his thoughts
erratic.

Why had Sirius Black gone after the Weasleys?

What did they have that a servant of Voldemort's might want?

Perhaps it had something to do with Ginny? Tom had said that Voldemort was still out there- the
one who had murdered his parents, the parasite that fed off of Quirrell's soul and body in his first
year.
Did he know that his younger self was out there somewhere, and did he figure out that Ginny's
death had been the catalyst?

Had he sent Black out to investigate?

It was confusing, and he still did not quite know how two copies of the same being could exist at
once. They had separate bodies, but did they share the same mind? A conscious that transcended
distance? Tom had said that he was reading up on Voldemort's legacy- was his knowledge and
memories limited to when he had been trapped in the diary, leaving years- decades- of time
unaccounted for?

Would the allegiance that Voldemort's followers pledged to him, offer the same loyalty to Tom?

He wrinkled his nose at that. He didn't think Voldemort would like that very much. He didn't seem
like the charitable sort to share power with another, even if it was a version of himself.

He spent his classes dazed and distracted, earning himself a detention after he forgot to stir his
potion at the appropriate intervals; nearly resulting in an explosion the professor had just managed
to contain. When his free period came around, he was thankful for the respite, bounding from the
castle and into the garden.

He inhaled the air greedily, crisp and fresh. The air within the castle seemed stale and pungent, like
there wasn't enough oxygen in it to fill his lungs. The peace that he had found was slipping from
his grasp, the dams he had carefully built and structured crumpling.

For a few weeks, he was able to forget about Tom, Voldemort and Sirius Black. It hadn't been
normal necessarily- he still wasn't home, and Ron and Hermione's absence continued to ache in his
chest- but it was calm. There had been certainty in knowing that Luna would meet him in the
kitchen for lunch, that Argos would be in the garden, hidden by the lavender.

But Argos had disappeared and Sirius Black was not only in the news again but had attacked his
best friend's house in the middle of the night. Why?

He slowed his pace as he wandered through the rose bushes. They were bare, clipped by students
for use in their Potions assignment. He thought he overheard some of his housemates talking about
love potions, and how roses were necessary for them. How terribly cliché.

A hand reached out, twirling a clipped stem. He pulled it back, a bead of blood on his finger from
where a thorn pierced it. He almost rubbed it over his cloak but stopped himself when he
remembered they were no longer a forgiving black but a light blue; the blood would make an
unsightly stain. Instead, he wrapped his lips around it, sucking gently. It tasted like pennies.

Something rustled, whined.

He twisted in the direction, a breath leaving him. It was Argos, and though Harry knew it was
incredibly selfish to be thankful that Argos had not been found by his family, he didn't care,
running up to the dog as a wide grin stretched over his face.

“Hey, Argos! Luna and I thought we weren't going to see you again,” he said, feeling a bit strange
for talking to an animal. But the dog seemed to enjoy the attention, and Harry ran a his hands over
the matted coat. He petted him enthusiastically, frowning when he saw the front paw that he kept
lifted, bent to keep it towards his chest. The fur was shiny, hard and clumped together.

“Is that...blood?” Harry asked, gently running his fingers over the injured leg. Argos only whined,
pulling it out of his grasp. “What happened?” The blood was dry, older, and he could see a thin cut
that ran down a good length of his leg, clotted with blood.

Harry pulled his bag off his shoulders, digging through it until he found his charms book. He didn't
have any experience with healing spells, but perhaps there were some simple ones- at least some
charms that might ease the pain. Argos was patient as ever, laying on the ground and resting his
head on Harry's knee as he flipped through his book, pages crinkling in his perusal.

He wasn't sure how long he sat huddled like that, but he heard someone approach, and he shook his
head, raising it from the book.

“Luna, what do you know about healing spells? Argos was attacked and-” he paused mid sentence,
words dying on his tongue when he turned to see Tom Riddle standing behind him, a somewhat
amused expression on his face.

“While I'm flattered you think I carry the same presence as a twelve year old girl, I'm sorry to
disappoint,” Tom said, inclining his chin as he looked over Harry and at the dog splayed over his
lap. “What are you doing with that mutt?”

Harry scowled. “That mutt refuses to leave me alone. But as for the dog, he's injured,” he snapped,
repressing a smile when Tom's lip twitched in fleeting irritation.

“You won't find anything to help it in there. Healing spells come at a much higher grade level than
your own. You'd have better luck with Murtlap Essence. The infirmary should have some; just tell
the mediwitch a professor has sent you to replenish their personal stocks for emergencies and you
shouldn't have a problem getting any. Avoid Dittany, however, as it has several herbs that are toxic
to animals,” he said, taking a long step around Harry so he was standing in front of him instead of
behind. Argos lifted his head, following his movement carefully. Tom narrowed his eyes at it.

“Er...thanks...” Harry said after a moment, feeling uncomfortable and flustered. “What are you
doing here?” he asked suddenly, looking around at the grounds. There were several students he
could see off in the distance, but no teachers or anyone who might question what the strange man
was doing on the premises.

Tom smirked. “Grief counselor. Sent by the Ministry. Here to ensure that all of our transfers are
acclimating well. Madame Maxime and I spoke before I came out here,” he answered. Harry
merely rose a brow, not wanting to admit that he was impressed by his manipulations. It couldn't
have been an easy task to forge Ministry documents.

Turning his attention to Argos, he asked, his voice bitter, “What do you want? Is it because of the
letters?”

“No, though it is terribly rude to not maintain your end of correspondence. My visit here has many
reasons. First of which, I should ask how you're doing? I read of Black's attack on the Weasley
residence. It must be hard on you, given how close you were,” he said.

He sounded quite sincere, a kindness and concern in his eyes that reminded Harry of the time they
shared together in the diary, when he had thought Tom was his friend. But he wasn't his friend, and
he had used him. And he was the reason that Ginny was dead and Hogwarts was closed and why
Harry was afraid to become friends with anyone other than a forgotten stray-

He sneered, lips pulling back in disgust as he felt his voice darken, deeper with every day that
passed. “You have no right to talk about them. Not after what you did.”

Tom opened his mouth, only to close it as if thinking better of what he was going to say. No doubt
a correction on who exactly had done what. After a second, he said, “I wasn't asking about them. I
was asking about you.”

“I'm fantastic,” Harry said, his voice bitter and laced with sarcasm. He turned his attention back to
Argos, scratching behind his ears. The dog however was hardly paying attention to Harry, dark
eyes fixing on Tom, unwavering. His lips were pulled back, revealing his yellowing teeth, and his
muscles felt tense beneath Harry's touch. It was as if he were just waiting for the command, the go
ahead, to lurch off from where he was lying and attack.

Tom's own gaze had settled on the dog, brows knitted, worrying his lower lip between his teeth. He
was in deep thought, and Harry flicked his gaze back and forth between Argos and Tom, not certain
of what was so peculiar about the canine that Tom couldn't take his eyes from it.

As if sensing that he was under great scrutiny, Argos whined suddenly, raising a hind leg and
bending as he began licking at the exposed flesh there. Tom averted his gaze, lips curled in
repulsion.

Clearing his throat, Tom turned his attention back to Harry. “The other reason for my stopping by-
seeing as how you seem intent on not even reading my letters- is to inform you that you will have
another visitor. Tomorrow I believe, but it could be later. Depends on how the investigation with
the Weasleys goes. Rumor has it that Dumbledore is planning to stop by.”

Harry perked at that, pulling himself up so he was standing. He was still at least a foot shorter than
Tom, forcing him to raise his chin to make eye contact, but it was better than having to have to
crane his neck, looking up to down-turned eyes. “Really? Why are you telling me?” he asked,
immediately suspicious of the older wizard. Surely Tom would only tell him if he thought there
was something to gain.

Tom rose a brow. “Because I care about you, Harry. And I thought you should know when
someone is coming to visit with the intent on lying to you.”

He laughed. Actually laughed.

“If that isn't the pot calling the kettle black,” he said, reaching down to grab his bag, slipping it
onto his shoulder before giving Argos a pat on the head. “Dumbledore doesn't lie to me. If
anyone's been lying, it's me. Thanks to you, I can't seem to do anything but. What has he even got
to lie to me about?”

“Sirius Black,” he answered. “He'll warn you about him, but he won't tell you who he really is.”

“What do you mean?” Harry asked, brows knitted, abandoning his earlier decision that Tom spoke
only in lies and empty promises. “He was a servant for him. That's all.”

The dog whined, but Harry paid him no attention, his focus solely on Tom.

The older wizard arched a brow, picked at a piece of lint on his cloak. “Of course. But there's more
to him than that. Dumbledore won't consider it worth sharing. There's quite a bit he doesn't
consider worth sharing isn't there?”

Harry scowled. “How would I know? Why don't you tell me then?”

He feigned innocence, widening his blue eyes. “Why should I have to tell you when you're so
certain that Dumbledore will?”

Harry felt his face redden, the tips of his ears turning scarlet as he became irritated, flustered with
the conversation. “Forget it, I've got class anyway,” he said dismissively, taking a step towards the
castle only for Tom to reach out, clasp a hand onto his shoulder and pull him back, his grip
remaining even as Harry turned to face him once more.

“Why do you trust him? He's the man who handed you off to the Dursleys when your parents died,
the one who was content to send you back there after each school year. He knows the answer to
every question before you even ask it, yet even when you do ask he withholds information. Why?
What has he got to gain from that? What could possibly be so vital that not even you can know,
even when it directly involves you?” His words were coaxing, soft, and Harry frowned.

Unbidden, his thoughts turned back to his first year of school, the cryptic manner in which the old
man had spoken. The promise that Voldemort would be back, with no explanation as to why. Or to
what he would want with Harry, why Harry was so special to begin with.

Why Harry had been targeted in the first place, his parents dead and he alive and orphaned and
famous only to be shoved into a corner of the world below a set of creaky stairs. Bruised and
starved.

Tom's hand moved from Harry's shoulder, slipping up the curve of his face until he was cupping it
in his hand, a firm hold. “You cannot trust him, Harry. He is a man who is fighting a forgotten war
and warlords are never kind. Honesty doesn't win war. And he is merely grooming you to be the
perfect soldier.”

As if startled from a trance, Harry shirked away from Tom's touch, took several steps back. There
was a darkness to his eyes, shadows making the green deeper, muddier. He looked conflicted,
confused. He did not like the words that Tom was saying, though he had no argument against them.
The fact of the matter was that he didn't know Dumbledore- not very well. He knew he was
respected, trusted to some wizarding families, despised by others. He knew he was a bit batty,
though he had his suspicions that it was an act. Make believe.

And if so, what was it a cover for?

“I-I've got class, Tom,” he stuttered out before making his leave. And this time, Tom let him, his
attention turning to the stray which had taken off in the opposite direction.

-xXx-

Sirius didn't stop running until he was beyond the gates of the school, through the valley and over a
bridge that stood atop a river. It was a little over a kilometer away from the school, but he found
himself in the small French village in no time, wandering into an alley.

He was exhausted, and his leg throbbed in agony, quivering as he held it up to keep the weight off
of it. But the pain was forgotten, his thoughts returning to Harry and that odd boy who had been
talking to him.

Who was he? He had claimed to be a grief counselor for the Ministry but he looked far too young-
older than Harry, sure, but only by a handful of years. And Harry had seemed familiar with him-
not in the way he would be with some random grunt. In fact, he had known him before he had even
made such introductions.

But how? He clearly wasn't a student or a teacher, and the way he spoke of Dumbledore-

Sirius growled before he even realized he was doing so, the reaction so carnal and visceral. There
were many people who certainly disagreed with and distrusted the older wizard. And none of them
were the sort that should be associating with Harry.

His worried pacing- a frantic circle in the small space of the alley- came to an abrupt stop. What if
the boy had connections to You-Know-Who? He was too young to have been around for the First
War, but Sirius wasn't so stupid as to believe that there wasn't still a great deal of sympathy for him
and his ideology. He had spent twelve years of his life with nothing but iron bars and warped
screaming to know that his death did little to hinder his followers. Each day was filled with the
promises that he would return, each night with the desperate pleas for it to be soon.

He wouldn't be surprised if the followers that had managed to evade jail- either by having excellent
ties or turning in others- had gone on to tell their children that it was only a matter of time, raising
them with the same archaic prejudices. And Harry-

Harry would just about be a beacon, a prize for either side to claim.

Sirius whined, pawing at the ground and lowering his head. Peter was out there, masquerading as a
common house pet (vermin was more appropriate) and yet, Sirius knew his duty was here, to
Harry. If he was in danger- dark wizards breaking into the school to turn him against Dumbledore
in preparation for something- than Sirius owed it to James and Lily to do what he could to protect
him.

He'd have to tell someone.

It was not an ideal prospect. He would barely have time to even so much as hug the boy before he'd
be hauled off, locked back within Azkaban. Or given the Dementor's Kiss. But it would protect
him, and wasn't that all that mattered? Wasn't that what all of this was about? Harry?

No, this was the right thing to do. This was what James and Lily would want of him, revenge and
Peter be damned. He would find Dumbledore and reveal himself to the man- if anyone would
listen to his concern because having him arrested, it would be him. He might have been cryptic,
dotty at the best of times, but he was no fool. Whether or not Dumbledore believed him capable of
the crimes for which he was convicted, he would still come to Harry's aid.

He nodded in his resolution, knowing the action looked a bit silly as a dog. He would visit Harry
once more, however. One more time, just to say good-bye. He had only known him for some
weeks, only for some hours at a time, but he had grown attached to him, in a way that made the
bitterness and anger at Peter only grow, fester within the wounds of his betrayal. Twelve years
wasting away in prison when he could have been with his godson, spent birthdays with him,
Christmases. Summers had ticked by in a windowless cell when he could have been playing
Quidditch with the boy, teaching him all the tricks that James had been fond of-

Harry was kind and smart and broken and Peter was the reason for the brokenness, in the end of it
all. And he hated that the only way he would ever get to know Harry was as Argos.

But it was something, and he turned on his hind legs, ready to return to the castle-

Someone stood at the end of the alley, their body acting as a shield to the light of the sun, a long
shadow stretching outward towards Sirius. He growled, a small effort of intimidation, but the
person only chuckled darkly, moving forward.

“Frightening- shaking in my boots,” the familiar voice said. It was the boy- the one who had
cornered Harry, said such cruel and unkind things about Dumbledore. The growl deepened, hackles
raised. He was not above biting at him- he would take full advantage of his sharp and plenty teeth.
The boy came to a stop, tilting his head to the side, his dark blue eyes narrowed in thought. “You're
a curious dog, aren't you? I'd call you a mutt, but that wouldn't be appropriate seeing as how you're
pureblood. Black, isn't it?”

Before Sirius could even think to act- run away, attack him, continue to act the part of a stray dog
and hope to sway his belief- the boy had raised his wand, a flash of light filling the alley, bright
blue.

It was painful, being pulled from his animagus form without his desire. It was as if hands had
wrapped themselves around each of his limbs- fingers around ankles and wrist- and tugged with all
their might in opposing directions. His skin stretched and pulled, trying to accommodate for the
bones that had shivered and then sprouted in size, clicking into place. His rear legs ached as they
were straightened, his spine tingled as his tail shrunk in its base. Fingers burst through skin where
there had once been paws, flexing experimentally, and fire seared up the length of his injured arm
as the wound was reopened by the shift of his body.

The world continued to hum around him, even when he had changed. His skin buzzed, electric and
prickled with goose flesh, a lingering ache settled in his bones and muscles. He groaned, raising a
hand to his head before suddenly remembering himself, snapping up to his feet despite the pain and
protest, a swell of adrenaline overcoming him as he recalled that he wasn't alone.

“Petrificus Totalus.”

Heavy arms fell to his side, bound by unseen ropes; knees forcibly straightened. He fell to the
ground, wincing at the contact, as the boy came to stand over him, a wry smirk twisting his lips.
He wasn't very handsome like that, Sirius decided.

“Now, I wonder what on earth one of Voldemort's servants is doing playing doggy and master with
my Harry?”

Sirius struggled to speak against the spell, his lips clamped tightly shut, his tongue like stone in his
mouth. He wanted to curse him, ask him who he thought he was that Harry belonged to him. The
spell was powerful- surprisingly so, for someone so young- and all attempts to break free were
futile. He was too weak, too injured.

“How rude of me, to not make proper introductions, of course. I know your name after all, it's only
fair,” he started, his voice light and airy and entirely unsettling. “The name is Tom Riddle. I know,
terrible, isn't it? I had crafted a new name for myself- a better one- but someone's gone off and
tarnished the reputation of it, forcing me to stick with this pathetic muggle one. For now, at least.”

If he could move, Sirius might have flinched at the way he said the word muggle- like it was
poison and he wished to spit it from his lips.

Riddle considered him for a moment, dark eyes flicking over his face, before he reached out,
cupping his chin loosely with one hand as though he didn't really want to touch him. The once
handsome wizard had seen better days- his face was grubby, unwashed for Merlin knew how long,
haggard and gaunt with cheekbones that protruded high over hollowed cheeks. His jaw and upper
lip were coated in scraggly hair that grew in uneven patches. The hair atop his head was hardly in
any better condition, lank and limp and hanging below his shoulder like stringy curtains.

His gaze was unwavering, and it only emboldened Sirius, making him struggle harder against the
petrification charm even as Riddle leveled the tip of a wand against the center of his forehead.

“Legilimens!” he hissed, and suddenly Sirius was reeling, sinking sinking sinking into the ground
below him. Distantly, he was aware of shouting, knew somehow that it was his own and he was
crying out in pain at the sensation of his mind being torn into.

Tom Riddle was not gentle in the slightest, tearing through his brain and memories with such
reckless abandon that Sirius wondered if it was his intent to kill him through such action alone. His
life flashed before him, dizzying scenes slipping by that he could hardly place before they were
moving on to the next. Memories of his somber childhood within Number 12 Grimmauld Place,
his defiant behavior as he fought against his mother and father. Hogwarts faded in a rush of
crimson and gold, of late night explorations beneath a silken cloak. Riddle lingered only for a half
a second longer on James Potter, on the boy who looked so similar to Harry yet so unlike him.
Large paws thudded on dusty wooden floors, sharp claws carving into them. A howl filled the
night.

There were flashes of light, air crackling with energy and magic and battle, reds and blues and
golds jettisoning across the battlefield. There was a shrill cackle, a woman who might have been
pretty if not for the depraved glint in her eyes, the horrid line of her cruel smile.

There was a wedding, a woman with crimson hair and green eyes wrapped within a pure white
gown.

There was the same woman, a hand smoothing over a swollen belly, green eyes rimmed in red
from tears.

A goodbye.

A secret change of plans.

A disappearance.

Poof.

Like magic they were gone, not to be found.

Until they were, a disappearing act gone sour. There was a collapsing little house- a home- with
knitted blankets and crude, childish scribbling hung on walls. The front door had been blasted off
its hinges, lay hanging to the side, the frame charred and splintered wood. A body was draped over
the stairs, a forgotten and useless wand had slipped from cold fingers and rolled to the foyer. Up
the stairs, brushing beside Aurors, was a nursery, the walls the collar of toffee. Another body- face
unseen by red curls- was slumped against an empty crib.

There was a third body, and Sirius gave it a good, harsh kick, pausing only to spit disgustingly at it,
before racing back down the stairs, trembling with-

Rage.

Hatred.

Grief.

Desire. A deep and penetrating desire to hurt and harm and kill. It was a sensation Riddle knew all
too well, and he reveled within it, chasing down the rest of the memory, following after the shadow
of Sirius has it apparated away from the little crooked house. He reappeared with a pop, and Riddle
could see nothing but a blur of chaos, of action. The room Sirius had appeared in had almost
immediately been dismantled, the walls and floor shuddering with the force of his magic as if the
room was not enough to contain it, too small a space for the swelling emotions and frazzled
energy.

He almost didn't see the man that Sirius had taken his ire upon- a man who Riddle had seen before
in his earlier memories, easy to miss, forgettable. The word mousy came to mind as he looked at
the short and stout man, brown hair falling into his plump face as his eyes widened, his lips
trembling as he ran out the door, Sirius on his heels.

He was yelling all the while, a venomous and passionate rage filling him and tainting his words. It
was wrath that seemed unfamiliar even to Riddle, who had thought himself so acquainted with such
feelings. It was the wrath of betrayal, of loving so deeply and so thoroughly only for it all to be
wretched away, leaving nothing but a gaping wound in its absence.

“You! How could you betray them?! They were your friends! They loved you!”

It was piercing, desperate. A need to know answers yet a desire to know nothing at all, too terrified
to learn of what it took for a man to betray his brother. The price that he had sold them at.

They were on the streets, and a crowd had formed- foolish muggles curious by the scene and
unaware of the smell of curses in the air. There was more shouting, more bellows-

“What about Harry? Did you even care about him! You were prepared for him to die for what? So
you could know what it was like to matter, you filthy rat!”

“IT WAS YOU! YOU WERE THE ONE WHO BETRAYED LILY AND JAMES POTTER!

The air erupted, a blinding light filled the street as the night boomed; as if a great storm was on the
horizon, preceded by a roll of thunder. Sirius had been tossed by the propulsion, lay dazed and
disoriented in a pile of rubble, a trickle of blood trailing down his ears. It was as if his head was
swathed in cloth- he could hear nothing except a pitched ringing. He could not hear the screaming
of the survivors, the frantic sound of car alarms that had gone off, the heavy streams of water from
exposed and ruptured sewage pipes- the sirens that followed only a minute after. His vision swam
in and out of focus, bleary and wet and he knew that there were bodies strewn about the street,
disembodied limbs mingled with shattered glass. Yet he saw none of that, his vision becoming
steady- impossibly so and only fueled by the adrenaline that surged within his veins- and he could
see clear and sharp against the blurred background a rat scurrying away from the scene.

He was being dragged away, trying and failing to dig his hands and heels into the pavement in
protest as he was hoisted up by invisible hands. He was fading, his energy gone and his body
exhausted from the the abuse he had put it through. His words were barely understood garbles-

“Wormtail! The rat! We trusted- I wouldn't-I wanted to kill him! He deserved to die!”

The misunderstood rantings of lunatic. The crime of a century.

Perhaps it was the madness in his eyes, the desire to kill that lingered on him for weeks after the
incident, or perhaps it was the want to be over with the whole business of You-Know-Who and his
followers, but he was foregone a trial. Days bled into weeks into months into years of monotony,
of limestone and iron encased rooms and horrific creatures that haunted the corridors.

And it was all revisited, every decision that had led to this moment playing through Sirius's mind
like a muggle film reel. Every mistake, every misstep.

He wanted to give in- it might have been easier. But he couldn't- not when that rat was still out
there, dwelling within sewers or within the plaster walls of homes. It became the diet he sustained
himself on, the ember that continued to ignite the fire even as it waned and bowed to the winds.
A visitor stood opposite his cell, unnerved by the calm. The unbroken man who feasted on the
thought of revenge and vengeance. A polite request.

“Can I have that? If you're done. I like to keep in the know how of Quidditch when I can.”

A newspaper was passed through the bars.

He unrolled it, hands shaking at what he saw before him. The headline: In The Wake of Tragedy,
Former Hogwarts Professors Offer Aide to Grieving Family. The photo: A candid shot of a family-
Weasleys, as noted by the line underneath- sitting in a small and cramped living room. Minerva
McGonagall was present, looking just as stern though a bit older than Sirius remembered. But what
drew his eye was not the several solemn faced children or former head of Gryffindor but the rat that
had sat itself on the youngest Weasley's shoulder.

How queer that it was missing exactly the same finger that was all that remained of Peter
Pettigrew.

Sirius felt the pressure within his head lift as Riddle ceased his perusal of his mind, as if a knife
had been pulled from his skull and he might have sighed in relief if he had not still been under the
effects of the petrification charm. He opened his eyes, wincing at the light that spurred the dull
throb left behind by Riddle's intrusion, and watched as the boy knelt beside him, a shiny shoe
placed beside his head.

“How tragic,” he hummed, his words mocking. “The entire world thinking you a monster when
you've only been mourning the loss of your friends.”

He gritted his teeth, grinding the crowns together. He hated him. He did not know who this boy
was and he hated him. He needed to get out, he needed to find Dumbledore and use what precious
time he had before the Aurors would arrive to tell him of the silver-tongued yet cruel wizard who
had taken a shine to his godson.

“Don't worry. I'll reunite you with them soon enough,” he said, raising his wand once more.

“Wait!” Sirius yelled, surprised to find that had partially broken through the bind, his teeth
clattering as he fought against it. “How will you explain it to Harry? You can't lie to him if you
want his trust.”

Riddle was nonplussed, a brow raised. If he had been surprised by Sirius's small- though vital-
victory against his petrification, he did not show it. “What will he care if one less servant of
Voldemort's exists in the world? As far as he knows, that's all you are.”

His lips shook with the strain as Sirius said, “He'll find out. He will. Pettigrew can't hide forever.
Others will put two and two together. He's a smart boy himself. What will he do when he realizes
you killed his godfather? An innocent man? He'll condemn you the way you're trying to make him
condemn Dumbledore.”

A falter in his expression; a crack in the armor.

A flash of red in his eyes before they dimmed back to blue.

Licking his lips, Sirius added, “Dumbledore lies to him, but not you. You can't lie to him. Not
about this. And he will return the favor with loyalty.”

Riddle lowered the wand some, his brow furrowed. Sirius swallowed harshly, wincing in pain as
his throat constricted around the action. He could move nothing except his mouth, and he could
only pray that it would be enough. That somehow he'd be able to keep the boy from killing him
long enough for him to protect Harry.

He looked up at the sound of a sigh, followed by a chuckle.

“I suppose you're right. That rat will no doubt return to his side when the opportunity presents
itself, and there will be no keeping it a secret then,” Riddle said, standing up and brushing off his
slacks. “Besides, Harry has grown quite attached to you, hasn't he, Argos?”

He flicked his wand, not waiting for Sirius's retort. “Semper anivinctum.”

The invisible binds dissipated around him, hissing as they did so. But there was no chance to enjoy
it as his skin began to itch, crawl uncomfortably over his bones. His entire body was thrumming
with the unknown curse, his shoulder blades hitching sharply together, forcing his arms to bend at
a painful and grotesque angle. His hips had followed, pinching along his tail bone as they widened
in his front, spine extending into the long tail of his animagus form. Skin prickled into
goosebumps, long black hairs extending from the raised skin, his face pulled and stretched until
there was a long snout where there had once been an angular nose and square jaw.

The black dog rolled from his back to his legs, running away from the boy despite the searing pain
in his front leg, the ache that settled onto him as if he had been thrown against a wall. Wind- cold
and sharp as autumn began to wrap her icy fingers around the town- stung at his face, chilled his
longs so that they could not expand. But he did not stop, not until he was in the gardens that he
often sat with Harry and Luna, letting himself fall into the lavender, his breath ragged.

Dumbledore would be there tomorrow, Riddle had said. And it had been the truth- or the truth as
far as he knew it- because he would not lie to Harry. For whatever reason, the idea of losing
Harry's trust was so appalling that he had allowed Sirius to live. A terrible mistake, as he would be
certain to warn Dumbledore of him when he came to the castle.

Or had he allowed him to live? He had cast a spell on him, an unrecognizable one which had
forced him to assume his animagus form. Was that all it did, or were there lingering effects? Ones
that would not show themselves until hours from now, until the moon was high in the sky and he
was writhing in agony? He whined, low and pathetic, surprised by how second nature his instincts
had become.

He didn't need much time however- just enough time for Dumbledore. After that? Surely any fate
would be better than returning to Azkaban or the Dementor's Kiss.

But he did not get sick, much to his relief. Not as he ate the slab of roast that Luna and Harry had
delivered for him that evening. Not as the sun fell or rose once more, heralding in a new day.

He even felt better, the Murtlap Essence Harry had give him doing a (begrudgingly admitted)
spectacular job on his injured leg, easing the pain and cooling the heat of infection.

No, he didn't feel ill until he saw the Headmistress of the school (taller than Hagrid himself he
swore!) walking towards the entrance to the school, Albus Dumbledore by her side.

It wasn't so much the sight of the wizard that had made his stomach coil uncomfortably within him,
or even the knowledge that he was to expose himself- months of careful hiding and plotting only to
toss it all away.

No, it wasn't until he attempted to revert back to his human form that sickness settled into him,
made his stomach flip until he was vomiting frothy white liquid beside clipped rose bushes.
 He couldn't change back.

Tom Riddle had trapped him in his animagus form.

Chapter End Notes

Argos: The loyal dog to Odysseus from Homer's Odyssey.

(I firmly believe that if Sirius ever had to convince someone he was really a dog, his
go to method was to lick his crotch and I will literally fight anyone who says
otherwise.)

I originally planned on killing Sirius and then I...I just couldn't. I didn't have the heart
to go through with it.

Also I wanted to do something other than Smart, Brave, Sneaky and Misc. for the
houses and I thought the four elements would be nifty- plus, it added the interesting
dynamic of placing people in houses based on inherent characteristics and magical
style as opposed to beliefs or values they held.

NEXT UP: Harry and Dumbledore have their visit, a rat makes a daring escape, and
Tom makes Harry an incredibly tempting offer.
 A Betrayal, a Rat, and an Offer
Chapter Notes

I return! I apologize for the state of this chapter- a bit more set up and building for
future chapters than anything truly meaty. Enjoy!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter Four: A Betrayal, a Rat, and an Offer

“Settling in well, Harry?” Dumbledore asked congenially, entwining his fingers together and laying
them flat along his chest, resting them above the satin belt that cinched his robes close.

Harry nodded, shifting in his chair. It felt odd, having his former Headmaster sit beside him instead
of before him, behind the large and intricately carved desk. Instead, Madame Maxime held that
position, towering over the two of them in a way that should have made Harry feel small, like a
nothing being scrutinized. But he didn't feel small, merely odd, a bit lofty and heady from the shift
of power that had occurred with nothing but a small change in seating arrangements.

Dumbledore was beside him. An equal. He held no office here, no authority. Harry didn't even
have to be here, as Maxime had made very clear. If he would rather be in class, he just need say so
and she would send him back.

“I admit I was worried about the transition. Not only for you, but all my former students. Though
I've no doubt that Madame Maxime and her staff have been as welcoming as possible,”
Dumbledore began, smiling kindly in the direction of the Headmistress. “Classes have been well?”

“Fine,” Harry snapped, his tone more curt than he had intended. He could hardly help it, Tom's
words twisting within him, sinking and rising to the forefront of his mind even as he hastily tried to
push them away. Their conversation the day before had tainted this moment now, he knew. Made
it seem off, as if Dumbledore was skirting around a topic. That he knew more than he was sharing.

It angered him, that Tom's words had gotten to him so.

“I've met with your teachers, and it seems you aren't performing as well here as you did before. I've
spoken with Miss Granger and she also informs me that you've kept your distance from her. She's
worried about you, as am I. Friends are one of our most invaluable-”

“I've got friends. I'm not failing,” Harry interrupted, his short nails digging into the soft wood that
made up the arm of the chair. A small voice, buried within the back of his skull asked why he had
lashed out, why he had met the concern with anger and fire. But the irritation that filled him,
spurned by Tom's words which still lingered in his mind, seemed to make his nerve endings
vibrant.

Dumbledore reeled back, his eyes widening in surprise at the sudden outburst. “Harry, my
apologies, I did not-”

The words fell on deaf ears, as another voice boomed within his head. The sibilant purr of none
other Tom Riddle, the thought so clear and crisp that it seemed as if they were not the memory of
his warning but as if they were instead being spoken to him; within him. 'Sirius Black. He'll warn
you about him, but he won't tell you who he really is...'

Tom had said that Dumbledore would lie to him, that he had his own plan and his own agenda that
did not require Harry to know the truth.

What was the truth?

“Who's Sirius Black?”

Dumbledore quieted immediately, whatever he had been in the midst of saying forgotten as he
glanced at Harry with a quizzical expression. Blue eyes narrowed behind half moon spectacles, a
hand pulling from his waist and entwining thoughtfully in his beard. “Sirius Black? Has that been
what's bothering you? I know the other night's attack on the Weasleys has no doubt left you-”

“No,” Harry cut off through gritted teeth, his brow furrowing. “Who is he? And don't tell me that
he worked for Lord Voldemort. I know that already.”

For a moment, Harry held his breath, his chest burning with the desire to exhale. He thought, for
sure, that Dumbledore would continue to talk around his question, or perhaps not answer it all,
instead offering unsatisfying platitudes in its place. To his immense surprise however, the older
man sighed, reaching upward and rubbing his temple. All at once, he looked very tired and old.

“Sirius Black was a former student of mine. Came to Hogwarts over twenty years ago. He was an
average student, a troublemaker. Popular. But why, Harry, are you so interested in who he was
before Voldemort's servant? No good can come from digging into past,” he said, and there was
something peculiar about the way he spoke. A harshness to them that Harry had not quite heard
from the older man. A harshness that suggested it was best to move on from the discussion.

But again, as if he stood right beside him, lips pressed against his ear, he heard Tom's voice.
'There's more to him than that.'

Before he could stop himself, question whether or not he even cared to know, or if he even trusted
Tom enough to try to find out, the words left Harry's lips: “And?”

Blue eyes met stubborn green, unwavering and cold and Harry might've shivered but a resolve was
hardening him.

“Mister Potter, I'm afraid you are being very rude-” Madame Maxime started, only for Harry to
interrupt her just as he had Dumbledore, bile rising in his chest.

“And?”

Tom was wrong. Dumbledore wasn't hiding anything from him, he wouldn't. He was the one
person he could trust wholly, the one who understood Harry in a way that no other did. There was
simply no way that Tom was correct.

“Sirius Black was a Gryffindor,” Dumbledore said suddenly, startling Harry from his thoughts and
from the unsettling quake in his stomach that threatened to make him sick.

The statement struck him as odd. A Gryffindor? He had thought all of Voldemort's followers had
been Slytherin. A bias on his part perhaps, but no doubt incorrect. After all, Voldemort himself
was the Heir of Slytherin, the prodigal son in his own belief. What use would he have Gryffindors?

Why would a Gryffindor kiss the robes of a Slytherin?

Dumbledore's face softened suddenly, returning to the friendly visage he had become familiar
with, the one that filled him with hope and relief. “He was best friends with your father, and
mother, close enough that he was named your Godfather, only to betray them. It was his betrayal
that led to their death that night.”

A beat of silence passed between them.

“He was...their friend?” he asked, lips pinching. An image appeared before him, pristine and
technicolor as if it were happening right then in that second. His father, a mirror image of himself
but with hazel eyes instead of green and a blemish free forehead, careless and young, laughing with
a boy whose face was obscured in shadows, with tangled black curls and a menacing aura
reverberating from him. His father and mother, locked in an embrace with the same boy, unaware
of the maliciousness, the awaiting betrayal. His father and mother, dead, the same boy standing
above their prone bodies, lips curling into a crooked grin.

“Harry,” Dumbledore implored, a hand reaching out and settling on the young boy's shoulder only
for it to be shirked away.

“You knew. This whole time you and probably everyone else knew and no one told me?” he asked,
voice hitching in the tremble of his emotions, clamorous and riotous. A knot lodged in his throat,
his eyes burned from the tears that tried to break through. He fought against the desire to cry,
steering what tenuous control he still had of his emotions into a different territory: anger.

He rose from his seat, the ball of tightly wound nerves and energy fraying, snapping like twine.
“Why didn't you tell me?”

Dumbledore stood as well, towering over him, reaching out in what was meant to be an endearing
gesture but Harry stepped away from it, running a hand through his already messy hair. “Harry,
sometimes the past is best left in the past. There is good and there are lessons to be learned but
there is also pain that needs to be buried. It's tragic what happened-”

“Tragic? Tragic?! My parents are dead. Because of him. And now he's gone and escaped and
attacked my best friend and no one thinks to tell me why? No one thinks I deserve to know that he's
the reason they're dead. That they trusted him and now they're dead?” He was vibrating with the
rage, the air crackled and fizzed around him as his magic sparked, static making his hair stand on
end.

“Mister Potter, why don't you see Healer Prowse, get a calming draught from him? I'll speak to
your teachers for the remainder of the day and tell them to expect your absence while you rest-”
Madame Maxime said, her voice soothing, tilted in a French accent. She had risen from her high-
backed leather chair, stepped around her desk and rested a large hand on Harry's shoulder. Turning
her attention from the student, she said to Dumbledore, “Albus, I think you've worn you're
welcome for this visit. We'll have tea another time.”

It was protective, a mother bear coming to the defense of her cubs. The shift of power was once
more evident, Dumbledore the unwelcome outsider. There was a part of Harry that laughed at it,
high-pitched and cruel and Harry shoved it away for later examination, grabbing his rucksack from
where it sat on the floor and pulling it onto his shoulder.

He left the office without so much as a wave, the dam cracking and breaking until his cheek was
wet and sticky with the tears he fought against. Anger turned to bitter tears, the salt coating his lips
so that it was all he could taste.

He was always the last to know, no matter how much or how little it affected him. Perhaps he
thought Harry too young to know the truth, a misguided desire to protect him from the cruelties of
the world. But the defense did little to make Harry feel better; there was no more innocence to be
preserved, after all. He had already survived eminent death, had killed with his own hands. It was
clear that Voldemort- as either Tom or the older shadow of the man- wanted Harry desperately,
wanted to finish the work he had set out to do twelve years ago.

What sense did it make to keep anything from him? Surely, it was only a hindrance.

But that was the running theme, wasn't it? He was a wizard, capable of things both wonderful and
terrible, and he did not learn of it until Hagrid broke through the door on his eleventh birthday. His
parents were murdered, not killed in the car crash he wrongfully believed he had survived all those
years. He was famous, a household name, for something he had no memory of- strangers around
the world knew of his legacy before he even knew he mattered. That anyone might miss him
besides the spiders he shared the cupboard with.

Everything was kept from him, why should he have been surprised by this?

His parents were dead because their best friend, someone they trusted enough to make the
godfather of their child, betrayed them.

More startling than that revelation was that Tom had been right. That there was so much more to
Sirius Black than anyone was letting on, that Harry had to twist Dumbledore's arm to even learn of
it.

It stung, knowing that the boy he so vehemently despised had been the only one telling him the
truth. The only one who seemed to care. Cared that he did have a remaining sliver of family in the
magical world, and that that family wanted him dead.

Not as if this one instance of truth made up for the multitude of lies- Riddle was deceit, just as
everyone else.

His head ached and his stomach flipped tumultuously as he made his way to the infirmary, Healer
Prowse waiting for him with a calming draught ready. He accepted it gratefully before returning to
his dormitories, where he took a fitful rest.

He dreamt of his mother and father, eternally young and bathed in light, singing soft lullabies to a
small baby. But the dreams soured when Sirius Black appeared, his darkness less shadows and
more of a black hole, consuming all the light and joy away from the scene until it was saturated
and heavy grays and inky blacks.

And Lily and James withered, skin sinking inward, turning to ash that fluttered away to reveal
white bones, leaving only their baby boy behind him, who fell into the waiting and clawed hands of
Sirius Black.

-xXx-

The Weasley domicile was what one might call quaint. Cute. Homey and charming. These were not
the words that came to Tom Riddle's minds as he sat upon the one sturdy fence post, a cloak
wrapped tightly around him.

Sad.

Pathetic.

Decrepit.
That was what Tom thought of when he looked upon the crooked cottage, piled too high and kept
standing through nothing but magic and sheer force of will alone. The final light within the home,
visible through one of the windows of the carefully perched upper level, was shut off.

Tom turned his eyes upward to the dark knight sky, the dotted stars creating a mural above the
earth. It did not take long for him to seek them out, all the visible constellations.

Leo, the lion, was positioned just above him, and it made him think of his own little lion. Harry's
mind was an absolute mess, reaching across the distance and through the unknown bound between
him and Tom. He was in distress, filled with a terrible anger that he did not know how to diffuse
and which turned into a piercing migraine.

There was, no doubt, only one explanation of course. Dumbledore had indeed made his visit, and
Harry, twisted in too many ways to know what was up and what was down, had inquired about
Sirius Black. Only to learn the heartbreaking truth.

Or at least, half of it.

It was a victory, and something warm bloomed within Tom's chest, the sensation even stronger
given the chill and cold that bit through his warming charms. It was pride, delight at having won a
small portion of the battle. Chipped away, if even a little, at Harry's unquestioned trust and hope in
the former headmaster.

Though it was still a distraction, the torrent of emotions that were not his own that washed over
him in quick succession. He had thought himself an accomplished occlumens, but clearly he had
not been prepared for such an...intimate connection.

He would have to work on that, limiting the influence Harry had over him.

Tom pulled his pocket watch out from the inner pocket of his cloak, the gold glinting in what small
fragment of light was offered by the moon and stars. Thirty minutes had passed since the last light
had been turned off.

It was time.

In all the research he had done of his future self (and there wasn't much, the wizarding world
seeming to take the approach of not looking a gift horse in the mouth with his death) the most
useful had been that the Dark Lord had created a way to communicate with his followers. A dark
mark that linked to his mind and powers and allowed him to summon them at will, to seek them out
no matter where they hid.

Lord Voldemort might be barely recognizable from the man he once was, but there were some
things one couldn't abolish; and Tom Riddle had the same mind and magical signature that was
connected to those hundreds of dark marks. And while the newly enacted wards around the burrow
in the wake of Black's attempt might have prevented Riddle from entering, they did not prevent a
certain rat from leaving.

He watched as tall grass shifted, a zigzag line running through closer and closer to Riddle until-

“My lord!” a squeaking voice said as the air crackled with the force of his transfiguration. Where
was a rat now stood a man, short and squat, appearing even smaller as he remained on his hands
and knees, bending low to kiss at the hem of Tom's cloaks.

In any situation, it might have delighted Tom to see someone worship him so, groveling at his feet
in a way that he had only dreamed of. But the man- Pettigrew- was filthy and grubby, like he hadn't
bathed since he had assumed the role of pet rat.

He took a step back, causing Pettigrew to look upward, his face twisting.

“You're not-”

Tom reached out, too fast for the slow and unsuspecting Pettigrew- and his hand clasp around the
thick neck, shoving him with such force he fell to the ground. He writhed and squirmed, tried to
wriggle out of the strong grasp, only to have a breath knocked out of him as Tom leaned forward,
his knee pressed below the rat's ribs.

“I assure you, I am. How else would I have been able to call to you? Tell you to meet me here?” he
reasoned.

Pettigrew seemed to consider this, blue eyes flicking to the side in thought before asking, “But you
look...different?” He added an inflection at the end, as if he wasn't certain of whether or not it was
an appropriate thing to say. When Tom failed to respond in time, he sputtered, “But no less
powerful and intimidating, m-my Lord!”

It was disgusting, how desperate he was to please, so absent of any power of his own that he was
forced to grovel for what he could, meager scraps tossed his way. Nevertheless, it still stoked
something within Tom, the fire that sat where his heart would sit if he were a more poetic man.
The weakness of another only amplified his own strength and power.

“Yes, my most recent attempt to return has found me in the image of my teenage self,” Tom said,
frowning as Pettigrew's eyes widened into discs. No doubt the man was surprised by just how
human- dare he say, handsome?- his lord looked in his youth.

Yet, he was wise enough to not say anything, and Tom added, “I've been keeping my return a secret
for the time being. Getting some things in order before the grand reveal. I must say I'm impressed
with how well you managed to twist everything onto Black. Even I thought you were dead until
paying a visit to Black himself.”

Pettigrew blinked, his lower lip trembled several times before steadying- a spark of regret?
Twisting his lips into a cruel smile, he said, “Don't worry. He won't be a problem for you anymore.
I've taken care of him-” he paused for a moment before adding, “Wormtail.”

The man shuddered again, and Tom fought against the desire to chuckle at his discomfort. Such a
weak fool to have betrayed his friends and then shudder at mention of his betrayal. He imagined
the man would never be able to hear the name Wormtail again without conjuring up images of the
fallen friends who trusted him with their lives.

It only made the name more appealing.

“Of course, my exit was a bit hasty that night, and there are a few things I still need, perhaps you
have the answers I'm looking for?” Before he could respond, Tom rose the tip of his wand and
pressed it between the two beady eyes.

“Legilimens!”

There was no resistance, nothing to even hinder him as he thrust himself into Pettigrew's mind and
memories. While Black's own memories had told the story of a rebellious youth, of the black sheep
of a family defying their ideals and wishes to forge his own path; a story of forsaking his blood
family for a family he created of his own, ties of loyalty that would never waver- Pettigrew's were
more humble. Modest.
Quiet and reserved, Peter trailed on the coattails of other more successful, more powerful or more
popular witches and wizards. It was by sheer luck that he managed to get into the good graces of
James Potter and Sirius Black, the pride of Gryffindor House. Even in his mind, he was a mere
observer, a casual background character among a sea of protagonists and antagonists.

There was a spark of pride when he was chosen to be the Secret Keeper for the Potter's. An honor.

The image shifted, turned gray and pallid and dreary. It was as if it was a recollection of a
nightmare as opposed to a true to life memory. Peter stood in the center of a room- his flat, Tom
assumed, bare with some sparse, worn furnishings- a towering figure standing before him.

The man was only a bit taller than Tom himself, twirling a long wand the color of bone between
tapered fingers. He was bald, and the slope of his face was too smooth to be natural, his nose blunt
and only half an inch shy of being flat. His lips were thin and colorless, but his eyes...his eyes were
narrowed, tilting in an odd manner that was reminiscent of a creature, not man.

They were red. Blood red. Where there should have been white was instead red, the iris a deeper
maroon.

This was Lord Voldemort, the first real look he had gotten of his future self, more than the quick,
spare glimpse offered to him in Black's mind. Tom's lips curled in disgust, for a moment repulsed
by the hideousness but shirking the notion away. What did he need of good looks when he had all
the power he could dream of? What role did vanity play once he had already won a following? He
did not need to be loved and adored when he was feared.

“Now, don't play coy with me. I know the Potter's made you their keeper,” a high-pitched voice
hissed, startling Tom and causing a shiver to run down his spine, his lips pinching in irritation that
he had been so affected.

Pettigrew swallowed, lips trembling, but his eyes gleamed defiantly. “I-I'll never b-betray them to
you!” His words hitched, stammering over each other in his nerves.

Voldemort's head fell back as he let out a high, icy cackle, the noise pulsating throughout the room,
breathing into it. He exhaled sharply before fixing his crimson eyes once more on Peter. “You
Gryffindors and your illusions of loyalty. Courage. You're so jaded and naive that you don't even
know when you've been had. I had hoped that they had merely underestimated you and that you
would prove yourself more worthy but alas, you seem to be everything they thought.”

Something dissolved within Pettigrew and he frowned, furrowing his brow as he said, “I haven't
been had.”

Voldemort sighed, looking almost sympathetic. Tugging at his robes, he bent forward so that he
was eye level with Pettigrew, the latter cowering away from him. “Peter, they don't care for you or
trust you. They've only chosen you to protect them because it was the less obvious choice. They
thought that they were being clever, that by making Black a red herring I would never get to you.
But they underestimated me, and I suppose you were just a sacrifice they were willing to make?”

Pettigrew whimpered, struggling against the invisible binds that held him place. “No, they
wouldn't...they're my friends.”

“Friends! I know all about them, Peter, and they hardly even tolerated you. They felt sorry for you,
pitied you. That and that alone is the only reason they allowed you to trail behind them,”
Voldemort implored, his tone surprisingly soft, as if he truly believed he were doing Pettigrew a
favor.
The rat faltered, but shook his head, the side to side motion slowed. “You're lying-”

Voldemort swooped forward, his robes billowing dramatically as he was suddenly mere inches
from the younger wizard, white fingers curling over shaking shoulders. “Do not claim my truth to
be lies simply because you do not favor them! I'm offering you an opportunity that better witches
and wizards would- have- killed for! An opportunity to shirk away the chains of those who see you
as a mere prop in their war and become something more.”

Pettigrew licked his lips. “A-and if I d-don't want it?”

Impossibly thin lips twisted, pulled into a wry, crooked grin. “I don't think we have to worry about
that, do we Peter?”

The image shifted, colors blending and fading, creating entirely new colors. Peter cried out as the
dark mark appeared on his skin, ink bleeding up as if the tattoo had been cut into his skin and was
made of blood and blood alone. Peter offering the Potters as leverage, small eyes gleaming at the
prospect of power, authority. No longer would he follow, forgotten, several paces behind the
others...

He would lead.

He would not beg for kindness, for he would be the one that others would fall on knee and plead to.

Memories came, went, nebulous and flimsy. Finally the one that Tom had been searching- hoping
for- came, and he slowed his perusal. It was the nursery where Lily Potter lay, dead, sprawled on
the floor, Voldemort beside her. But unlike Black's memory, this was from a moment earlier in the
evening, when the deaths were fresh, Lily's cheeks still pink, her eyes not quite devoid of light. A
baby wailed, tirelessly and strained from a crib, chubby cheeks ruddy with tears and green eyes
pinched. There was blood, shiny and brilliant, staining his brow, smeared over thick fingers that
had unknowingly touched the wound that would one day become his most striking feature. His
scar.

Pettigrew was knelt by Voldemort's body, hastily searching through the mess that had become of
the room. With a muttered exclamation, he pulled his hand out from underneath a pile of splintered
wood. Clasped within his hand was his wand. Voldemort's wand.

Tom's wand.

Shoving the wand into his pocket in a manner that made Tom wince, he stood, brushing dirt and
plaster from his pants. He made to step out of the room before pausing, turning his attention to the
crying toddler who had now pressed his face against the bars of his crib, red staining white, and
reached a hand out, fingers clutching at air. Desperate for someone, anyone. Comfort.

Pettigrew swallowed thickly, glancing from Harry to Lily's prone and lifeless body to Harry again.
But his resolve steadied, and with a sigh, a sad glance offered to his once friend and her child, he
vanished, taking Tom along with him.

Several memories passed before Tom retreated from his mind, one side of his lips tipping upward
in a lopsided grin. His hand was still wrapped around the thick throat, and Tom traced his fingertips
lightly over the skin, a perversion of a loving touch. “You are useful, Wormtail. In more ways than
you know.”

With a shove, Tom stood up, leveling his wand at the wizard once more-

'Obliviate!'
Green light flashed, momentarily blinding him. Pettigrew blinked, blearily, confusedly, before his
gaze sharpened on Tom. “W-who-” he stuttered before gasping, looking to his hands- human, one
missing a finger. He gasped, the air crackling as he shrunk right at Tom's feet, his nose extending,
ears lifting and rounding upward until he was just a plump rat.

And then he was gone, skittering away and back up to the crooked little house on the hill.

Tom did not follow.

After all, the wand he had borrowed from some poor, unfortunate wizard simply wasn't cutting it
anymore. Not when he would be reunited with his own wand, separated for decades. He apparated,
offering Wormtail a silent thanks as he did so, for hiding his wand so well for his return. It almost
made him pity the creature.

Voldemort was not going to be pleased when he learned the rat had lost his most precious
belonging.

-xXx-

Peter ran to the house, scuttling along the perimeter of the little cottage until he was in the gardens,
cutting through and beyond until he was off the property line, his breaths frantic and cloying and
ragged. His lungs felt too big for his chest cavity, perhaps the result of returning to his human form
after so long, only to once again compress and morph.

Why had he been in his human form?

And in front of a strange man no less.

There was a pressing sensation beneath his skull, a tingle as if something alive was crawling along
his brain, antennae brushing against him. He might have thought it was merely a headache, the
lingering throb from a particularly painful head injury. But the blank space in his memory, the gap
where things ought to have been but weren't, told him that it was the result of a charm. That the
man had searched his mind, only to toss him aside when done.

What had he been searching for?

What had he found?

The thought alone was enough for him to panic, his bones to shiver beneath his skin. Peter
Pettigrew had many secrets.

It had been a fear of his since the very beginning. He was never good with secrets, or much at all
really. He was hardly a prize and he often wondered what the Dark Lord had seen in him. But he
had seen something when others hadn't and now Peter might have gone and ruined it all.

The man had seen him outside of his animagus form, knew full and well that Peter was alive and
living with the Weasleys and that must mean that Sirius Black was innocent. And they would
search for him. And they would find him. And when they did what other secrets would they find?

He cursed himself. He should have known better than to let the Dark Lord entrust him with his
secrets. He should have known he wouldn't get away with it.

He considered running away, away from it all. Abandoning what few tenuous connections to his
old life remained. But the thought was quickly dismissed. Even he knew not to try to evade him.
His forearm, miniature and bestial as it was, burned as if in warning. You can not run from me.
You can not forsake me.

He couldn't run, but he couldn't return to the Weasleys either. It was too risky. Sirius Black knew
he was there, had already attempted to right what was wrong. And now that other strange man-

No. He couldn't risk it.

With nowhere else to go, he headed off to the one place that came to mind, hoping that once the
Dark Lord returned he would overlook this little indiscretion.

Peter wasn't very good with secrets, but he was certainly adept at hiding and going unnoticed.

-xXx-

Weeks went by, turning into months which came in a flurry of autumnal leaves and crisp air,
giving way to naked and dead looking trees, air that chilled and nipped at your skin. The gardens
however were impervious to the dying touch of winter, just as green and colorful and brilliant as
ever. The ground was soft below it, kept alive by magic.

So it was that Harry and Luna continued to meet each out around noon in the garden, an oasis of
spring in the dead of winter. A palette of colors on the gray and drab canvas. Argos would be
waiting, curled underneath the brush of some flowering plant that Luna had told Harry the name of
several times but he could never commit to memory for some reason.

“They do that,” Luna had said, unconcerned with his ignorance even after she informed him of its
name for the seventh time. “They don't like to be memorized.”

He had not heard back from Tom, which had surprised him. He had thought for certain that the
older boy would delight in his victory, would take no time in finding Harry and goading him. He
could hardly imagine Tom saying something as petulant as 'I told you so' but no doubt would there
be something to the same effect. A bit more eloquent, yet just as biting.

And yet, even the letters ceased, and for a moment he had believed that he was free of the wizard, a
curious feeling unfurling in his chest. He certainly wouldn't miss him, not in the way that a person
typically misses another at least, not in a longing, adoring way. But he did miss him, in the way
that someone might miss a constant in their life, one which was not pleasant but always reliable.

It had taken two weeks before it dawned on him, that he was now fully alone. He had Luna and
Argos, companions turning to wonderful friends. But Tom had been the only one who had known
him, knew his darkest secrets no matter how hackneyed the idea seemed. Whether Harry wanted to
confess it or not, a bond had been forged, the sort of bond that can only come about when two
share a hideous crime between them.

And now Tom had gone, leaving him to dwell on the truths he could not share, with the knowledge
and hurt of betrayal of all the truths that no one had bothered to share with him. He felt terribly and
utterly alone, isolated.

He hated Tom for it, making him miss the cancer of his existence. The parasitic nature of their
relationship, Tom feeding off of Harry's discomfort, and Harry finding solace in it.

Still, time moved onward, even if it remained in a stasis in the garden, a bubble where time could
not touch. Classes had ended for the winter holidays, and his days had grown calmer, as if even his
worries had taken a break in observance.

“Merry Christmas, Harry,” a cheerful voice said, and he turned to see Luna approaching him, arms
wrapped around a bundle hidden by her cloak.

He grinned at the sight of her, in a green and red stripped cloak, with matching stockings. Her long
blonde hair had been braided at the nape of her neck and tossed over her shoulder, mistletoe and
holly berries intricately woven in. She chimed as she walked, the gentle ringing coming from too
good-sized bells that hung from her ears.

“How festive,” he said, adding that he liked it when she blushed, perhaps embarrassed.

“Yes, well, I love Christmas. Everyone always seems so much happier,” she said, sitting beside
Harry and petting Argos in greeting. “And I've brought presents.”

They exchanged presents. She was grateful for her gift, a lovely leather bound sketchbook, an
amethyst stone nestled in the center of the cover. The pages were thick and blank, a waiting canvas
for artwork. He had also gotten her a set of colored pencils, magical ones which could charm the
drawing to come to life, animate upon the page.

Harry opened his gift, saving the wrapping paper as it had been hand painted, sweet and colorful
doodles that he wanted to keep. He folded the paper, keeping it neat, before turning to his present.
It was a sweater, hand knitted in red and gold yarn. If there was a pattern, he could not discern it,
and it was not the most well made, though it was certainly lovingly made.

“I know you were sad when you grew out of the sweater Mrs. Weasley made for you, and I know
you don't always hear from Ron, so I just wanted to make sure you got a Christmas sweater this
year,” she said.

He pulled her into a tight hug, unable to express his gratitude. There simply weren't enough words
in the English language, no finite way to tell her just how much he loved the sweater. A bit ugly. A
bit imperfect. And he loved it.

So he held her instead, inhaling the scent of balsam and cranberries and pine needles. She smelt
like Christmas, all balled into one. Gift wrapped in bells and striped wrapping. When he finally
pulled away, it was with a large smile in place. “Thank you, Luna. It's perfect.”

He put it on, over the jumper he was already wearing. The neck hole was a bit too large and hung
in a limp circle around his neck, the sleeves a tad uneven. She seemed pleased with herself,
exhaling a breath of air.

“It was my first time making a jumper. I've done scarves and blankets before, but never a jumper.”

Luna had also made a sweater for Argos, for practice, and he seemed grateful for the extra warmth.
It was cold the last few weeks, growing colder still. When the rain fell- and it was often- it was wet
and sloppy and made slush out of whatever snow remained from the various storms.

“I wish we could have pet dogs in school. It isn't fair that he should be so cold. No one should be
alone for Christmas,” Luna said, running her hands through the black fur. His coat had grown in
thicker in preparation for the holidays, but it hardly seemed enough.

For a moment, Harry's thoughts flashed to Tom, a child in an orphanage with no family or friends.
He certainly wouldn't have any family remaining now. How was he spending the holidays? Was he
alone? Or had he surrounded himself with more of his precious followers?

It unsettled him, thinking of the wizard in such a context. Or that he thought of him at all. He
pushed the thought from his mind, turning to Luna with a curious look in his green eyes. “What if
we bring him in anyway?” he asked.
“We might get caught.”

“Not if they don't see him.”

-xXx-

Harry had known that Argos was certainly a well behaved dog, but he wasn't quite prepared for just
how well behaved he was.

Luna and Harry entered the Grand Entrance of the castle, a small space between them. The
invisibility cloak had been too big, the hem trailing on the ground around the large dog. He had
been worried that Argos- curious by the school and what few students or teachers wandered
throughout- would run off from them, taking the cloak with him or losing it in his trot.

But he remained at their sides, steady and quiet, as if he knew the importance of not being
discovered. Even when they departed, Harry taking him to his dormitories in the south wing, Argos
never made a sound, never ran from his side.

“You've been very good, Argos,” Harry praised, scratching underneath the dog's chin. His fellow
third year roommates were all, thankfully, visiting family for the holidays and would not be back
until the start of term. A week and a half from then.

A week and a half to figure out how to keep the dog hidden.

Argos whined, rubbing his head against Harry's hand, the only part of him visible from the cloak
which had been tossed aside. He wondered if perhaps he had picked up a sickness living as a stray-
he would at periods get listless and fatigued, sighing heavily and whining in a pained, sorrowful
way.

'Could dogs get colds?' Harry wondered. He wasn't certain- he had never done much research on it,
after all. Perhaps a trip to the library was in order.

“Stay here, boy. I'll be back soon, with some food,” he said, feeling all at once silly for speaking to
an animal as if might understand him yet also assured. It was nice to speak to someone who
wouldn't judge or criticize you, even if you were only met back with large brown eyes.

With a pat on the head, he left the dog behind, taking the steps down from his dormitory to the
common area.

The south wing was decorated in warm colors, dark hues of red and orange, golds and bronzes. The
walls were brick, every shade of red possible inlaid in the walls. A massive fireplace stood in the
very center of the common area, double sided so that it could be viewed from either side. On one
side was a large sectional couch, copper colored and overstuffed with knitted blankets tossed
about. A square mahogany coffee table sat between it and the fireplace, stained with rings from
where drinks had been sat and forgotten about. Several armchairs and smaller sofa's littered the
space, plaid and patterned and mismatching.

One the opposite side of the fireplace was the study area, tables with chairs pushed underneath.
The wall was lined with bookshelves, torches in between them. Flames flicked in them, mirroring
the fire that constantly roared and crackled in the center, a beacon of the room.

Christmas trees- some small, some large- were sporadically placed throughout, decorated by the
students earlier in the month. Garland hung from every available spot, over sized scarlet ribbons
decorating them.
It wasn't Gryffindor, but it was still homey.

Harry had grown used to the quiet of the past several days, being one of only a handful of students
who remained. So it was with much surprise that he came to a halt, blinking at the sight of Tom
sprawled out in the corner of the sectional, a book raised.

He looked up as Harry entered, closing the book and setting it aside. “Hello, Harry. Having a
merry Christmas?” he asked before squinting his eyes, frowning. “Nice....sweater.”

Harry blinked, suddenly aware he was staring. “What are you doing here? I thought you had
decided to leave me alone,” he said, though he walked forward until he was standing behind the
sofa, hands gripping onto it.

“Why would you think that?”

He shrugged. “Haven't heard from you. No more letters.”

Tom rose a brow. “You weren't even reading them. Why should I waste my energy for it to be
tossed in a rubbish bin?”

“Why now, then? Why have you chosen to come now after all this time?” Harry asked, once again
feeling the familiar sting of anger as it burned within him, any part of him that might have
mistakenly missed Tom forgotten.

If Tom did notice the quell of rage within Harry, he did not show it, pulling from the inside of his
cloak a wrapped parcel. “It's Christmas,” was all he offered in defense.

Harry blanched.

“I don't want a present from you. You can keep it,” he spat.

“You haven't even opened it.”

“I don't trust it,” he said simply. Then, “You open it.”

Tom looked affronted, settling the gift in his lap. He waved a hand, flourishing it above the satin
ribbon atop it. Each end of the bow pulled outward by unseen hands, undoing the ribbon as the
paper wrapping unfurled, revealing a box of gourmet chocolates. With another wave, the box
flipped open, and Tom considered them for a moment before selecting a dark chocolate nugget and
popping it in his mouth. “See? Fine,” he said, chewing slowly, thoughtfully.

Harry sighed, running a hand through his untidy hair. “You've already got what you wanted.
Dumbledore told me the truth about Sirius Black weeks ago. You're right, he lied to me. Now if
you don't mind, I've got to be somewhere,” Harry spat, snarling as he made his way around the sofa
and towards the door. He wanted him gone. The isolation was better than this, the torment of
having a young Dark Lord lounging before him.

“But I haven't even given you your other gift,” Tom said, rising from the sofa to trail behind Harry.
“Better than a box of chocolates.”

“I already told you I don't want-”

“Spend the summer with me,” Tom interrupted, lips twitching into a small smile.

Harry froze, his mouth slung open. “What?”

Whatever he had been expecting, it was not that. He furrowed his brow, examining Tom's face for
anything that might betray the cleverly crafted illusion. A harshness to his gaze. A stern line to his
lips. Anything that might look unnatural. Anything that might reveal the monster hidden beneath,
playing a cruel joke on him.

But there was nothing. His eyes were soft, wide, the yellow flicker of flames reflected in them.

“I'm offering my home to you. I've a spare bedroom, a large yard-”

“What would ever make you think I'd want to live with you?”

Tom frowned, look down at his robes as he picked at something on his lapel. “I've got a bedroom,
much roomier than a cupboard. A yard that's private so you can fly your broom and that owl of
yours can finally stretch her wings. I don't require you to clean or cook for me, and even if I did I
wouldn't employ corporal punishment.”

Harry flushed, cheeks flaming as they reddened. He knew his situation with the Dursleys wasn't
normal. He certainly hated it, had always dreamed of finding his family- maybe his mother and
father hadn't died at all and came back for him- or maybe he had a secret aunt or uncle who didn't
know of him until recently but desperately wanted to adopt him. He dreamt of a full yard that he
didn't have to tend to, eating with a family for dinner instead of in the kitchen, eating whatever was
left behind. Birthdays with a proper cake and candles and celebration.

Kisses instead of kicks, hugs instead of shouting.

He had dreamed of being offered a home, but not once did those dreams ever involve a certain dark
wizard.

Surely even the Dursleys, through all their cruelty and faults, were better than him?

“No,” Harry said, wanting to sound hard and certain but his voice wavered, softened.

“It's not much,” Tom talked over him. “But it's quaint. Cozy.”

“Why? Why do you even want me to?” Harry asked, his disbelief lacing the words and making
them lofty. This had to have been a dream. A perversion of the one he often had, a taunting one.

Tom sighed, eyes flicking upward as he said in a voice too soft for such a cruel boy, “I know you
have difficulty seeing me as anyone other than him. But I'm not. I'm an orphan. I know what it's
like to want a home, a real one. I know how much it hurts to feel like you don't have a home, like
Hogwarts was the closest you have ever come to having one. And now Hogwarts is gone, and
you're here, only to know that in a few short months you'll have to leave here too. You'll have to go
back.”

Harry blushed once more, averting his gaze. He reminded himself that Tom Riddle could not
empathize with anyone. It was a mantra, twirling and twisting within his mind as he closed his
eyes, inhaling deeply. Tom did not understand or empathize with him. Tom only knew that because
of what Harry had told him when he was still imprisoned in the diary. Harry had entrusted him
with such secrets, and Tom was simply using them against him.

He tried to push away the thought, the promise of a home with a bed all for him. A yard for him to
lay in and watch as Hedwig soared above him.

But a home was not a home if he was on alert, if he felt hunted and preyed upon at all times. His
cupboard wasn't much, but it was his own. There were no Dark Lords that lurked within it. No
Dark Lords sleeping just beyond it.

“No,” Harry said again. “I can survive a few months with the Dursleys.”

“Are you certain? The Ministry only charmed your Aunt's memories, not the others. They still
remember that night,” he countered, concern warming his voice-

'No,' Harry harshly corrected. He was not concerned, not really. Because Tom Riddle didn't care
about him. It was simply an act. Compelling as it was, it was all an act.

He cleared his throat. “I've got to go somewhere, so if you're done,” he said, meeting Tom's gaze.

Tom sighed, pinching his lips together. “Very well. Enjoy the rest of your holiday,” he said, a
quick smile flitting across his face as he brushed passed. He paused at the door, turning back to
Harry with a kind face. “Just because you are denying it now doesn't mean I'm rescinding the
offer. The invitation will always be open for you, all you need do is ask.”

Before Harry could say another word, he left, the door clicking close behind him.

Harry let out a breath he hadn't known he was holding, pressing the heel of his palm against his
forehead. It suddenly ached, his eyes wincing in pain. He felt torn, as if the two separate sides of
himself were pulling, tearing away at him. He knew it was the right choice. It would be dangerous
to place himself in such a vulnerable position. Figuratively falling right into Tom's lap.

Dangerous, and an insult. Ginny Weasley was dead. Cold in the frozen ground. The Weasleys
would never be whole again, huddling together as if by remaining in close quarters no one would
ever harm them again. The foundation of their family was in ruins because of Tom and he expected
Harry to just set it aside? Place his own desires for a home above his respect for the Weasleys?

He might have kept his distance from them, but he never stopped loving them. It was because he
loved them and Hermione that he kept them at arms length.

No, he would not spit upon Ginny's grave, even if it meant bruises littering his torso, nights where
his stomach growled and went unsatisfied. He could survive a few months.

-xXx-

A wind whistled through the trees, snow crunched as creatures ran about scurrying away from the
man and his unusual bundle, the warm glow of the lantern he held before him. Peter Pettigrew
looked thoughtful, his gaze flicking from the various trees, searching for something that only he
could see. Finding it, he smiled, settling the bundle and lantern down before moving towards a
towering pine tree.

He fell to his knees, digging through the snow at the base of tree, uncovering the frost covered
roots. The bark was silver, smooth in the winter chill. Producing a wand from his sleeve, he
gripped his fingers around it, muttering something in Latin.

He had wandered for months, truly living as a rat, unsure of where to go after being discovered by
the strange man. He had just about given up hope, been ready to accept such a meager and pathetic
life, when it came to him. The whispering in his skull. The words that were not his own.

'Wormtail,' they would soothe, 'Come to me. Find me.'

And he had. Dutiful as always, ready to serve and please knowing that one day he would be the one
served. That he would be honored as one of his most faithful, one of his most prized servants and
 rewarded handsomely as such.

And even when Wormtail came to him, pleading for forgiveness about having been discovered by
Black and the strange man, he had not cared. He had forgiven him, had ensured that no one would
be a problem for him again.

He had been welcomed with open arms, and once again, he had somewhere to go. Someone to fall
to.

The ground gurgled, rumbling as Wormtail finished his incantation, pulling his hand back as a
seam ripped up through the base of the tree. It split, the bark cracking and making splintering
sounds as a hole formed within the trunk. He reached in, clumsily pawing around, unused to his
human form. Limbs too long, his middle too round and everything about him just too big to
properly maneuver.

His fingertips brushed over the curved opening, finding nothing within.

He froze.

He swallowed thickly.

Beady eyes bulged as he searched once more.

Nothing.

He pulled his hand back, held his wand up and muttered 'Lumos.' The hole was bathed in light, and
it was empty empty empty-

“Wormtail,” a cold, high-pitched voice called from behind him, from the bundle of a tightly wound
blanket. It made his skin prickle in gooseflesh, his hair raise on end. “Have you found my wand?”

He said nothing, a second passed in perfect silence. The wand was gone.

Chapter End Notes

Author's Note: Happy Holidays! A sort of Christmas themed chapter for this holiday
season?

I love Dumbledore (I love all HP characters, really) but I just imagine this man is up in
Heaven wiping sweat from his brow and muttering “I cannot believe that worked.”
Like really, two out of the three boys he dealt with with troubling home lives turned to
the Dark Arts and he just got real lucky with Harry. That is not a good statistic to base
the entire wizarding war on. If the horcrux had just been a tad more active things
could have gone very differently.

Thank you all so much for you support! Follow me on Tumblr (reneehartblog) for
sneak peeks and for any questions you may have (I'm just far more consistent with that
I'm afraid). I hope you enjoyed!

NEXT UP: Harry returns home for the summer, Dumbledore enlists the help of the
Order to reach Harry before it's too late, and Voldemort plots his return...
 The Dream, the Chat, and the Empty House
Chapter Notes

Happy Valentine's Day!

So I have skewed with the timeline of canonical events and regret nothing. Bertha
Jorkins took a much earlier holiday.

Thank you to everyone who has supported this story by commenting and leaving
kudos! You are my muses!
Enjoy!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter Five: The Dream, The Chat, and the Empty House

“You haven't been yourself, Harry. Are you feeling well?” Luna asked, startling Harry from his
thoughts. Her eyes widened suddenly, and she leaned forward, lowering her voice to a whisper as
she asked, “Have the wizzsnorps gotten to you? Father says that vanilla beans are the most
effective way to keep them from sneaking into your head. I can make some earrings for you, if
you'd like. Or perhaps wrap them around your classes if you'd prefer.”

His lips twitched. “No, Luna, it's nothing like that.”

They sat together on the floor of the kitchens, legs cross as Argos sat between them, tearing into a
slab of roast beef between his massive paws. He growled as he tore into the meat, an insatiable sort
of hunger that made Harry suspect the dog was not used to eating regularly still.

Luna frowned, sighing. “Oh. Wizzsnorps would be easier to deal with than if you were just sad,”
she said, a wistful look about her as if she preferred the imaginary ailments. A game of play
pretend. “Why are you sad then?”

He shrugged, feeling all at once uncomfortable. He knew Luna cared about him, and that she was
only worried about him. But the question placed him in an odd position. The same position he had
been in when Dumbledore sat before him and he couldn't tell him the truth and confess to his sins.
What was he to say? He couldn't very well tell her that a young Lord Voldemort has been harassing
him and just recently extended an invitation for Harry to live with him?

It was bizarre from all facets, and even Luna might consider it as such.

“Just...miss Hogwarts and Ron is all,” he lied, averting his gaze and settling it on Argos, the
creature looking at him with such scrutiny that he felt as if he too knew he was lying. He reached
out, running a hand over the soft head.

“You're always so sad though. I never say anything because I thought you might like your privacy,
but well, I like to consider you a friend after all this time. I may not have much experience with it,
but it's my understanding that friends share what they're going through with each other.”

He looked up at her, opening and closing his mouth as if unsure of what to say, the words not quite
right. She had turned to look away from him, focusing instead on her fingers as she twirled them
around the ends of her braided hair, creating perfect curls. There was a pinkness to her pale skin, a
blush. Oh.

She was so unusual, with a distinct air of aloofness between her explanation of the mating pattern
of nargles that it was easy enough to forget she had been a Ravenclaw. She was intuitive, more so
than most, and while her thought process might have differed from the norm she would still always
come to the same conclusion. If not faster.

“We are friends. And you're right,” Harry said, hissing out a breath of air lowly, relief. He could
feel the ball of tightly wound wire within his chest loosen, slack easing on its strangulation. “It's
hard to talk about it, is all.”

Luna said nothing, though she had looked at him once more, her gray eyes as indiscernible as ever.

“Someone offered me to live with them this summer instead of with the Dursleys,” he explained,
settling a hand on Argos's back as he began to whine. “I'd get a whole room to myself, and the
freedom of not living with my aunt and uncle.” He left the part out about the bruises, nights spent
where he was deprived of food and forced to lay within the closet, knees knocking his chest as he
curled up. Too tall to fit within the cupboard that had been his home for twelve years.

“The problem is, the person who offered it isn't very good. He's hurt people before,” he said
simply, the ache behind his eye flaring before waning, turning into a present and irritating prod.

She frowned deeply, the expression looking strange and out of place on her face. He regretted his
words immediately, regretted that he had been the cause of such a stern, sorrow filled expression.

She leaned forward. “Have they hurt you, Harry?”

“Not physically,” he answered after some thought. The Dursleys were the only one who harmed
him in such a manner, but he pushed the notion aside. Tom may not have harmed him, but he had
harmed others. How many before he had been trapped in the diary? How many since he had been
freed? Ginny was all he knew for certain, and that was enough.

Luna leaned back onto her bottom, relieved to learn that Harry had not been hurt. “Well, they can't
be all bad. If they're offering their home to you, then you must mean a great deal to them. They
care about you.”

Harry snorted derisively, running a hand through his untidy locks. “He doesn't care about me, not
really. He pretends he does but...” he trailed off, propping his elbow on his knee and curling his
fingers around his chin. After a moment, he added, “And he is all bad.”

“Father says that good and bad is a matter of perspective,” Luna said simply, a measured quality to
her voice that made it seem as if she were talking about something as banal as the weather as
opposed to theorizing on the psychology of man. “Even our enemies, when they rally against our
beliefs, are only doing so because they are defending their beliefs.”

Now it was Harry's turn to frown, the severe expression seemingly decidedly more natural and at
home on him. “You're not...making excuses for bad people, are you?”

If she was bothered by the suspicious question, she did not show it, instead saying, “It's just easier
to believe that even people who do bad things maybe don't see themselves as so bad. I'd hate to
think that someone does bad, knowing it's bad in every context, and still following through.” When
Harry said nothing, merely fixed her with narrowed, confused eyes, she added, “Everyone has some
good. And you might be his good, is all.”
Harry thought back to the moment he awoke in the bathroom, blood staining his hands and the
soles of his feet. “Well, even so, he's not my good.”

-xXx-

The room was cast in shadows, save for the spot directly before the fireplace, flames roaring
hungrily from within. A rug with an ornate pattern that looked like it had once been very expensive
but had now seen better days was placed on the floor before it, a leather armchair positioned on top
of it so that the chair was made almost uncomfortably warm from the heat of the fire. But whoever
sat within it did not seem to mind; perhaps they enjoyed the heat or simply couldn't feel it, nerve
endings deadened or nonexistent.

Whoever it was, Harry could not see well from his vantage point on the floor. His body was long,
stretched out to impossible lengths and curled around him. Where was he? How had he gotten
here?

“I'm s-so sorry, Master,” a man said, sitting on his knees and nervously worrying his hands
together, tugging at his jumper. He was plump, with thinning hair that was almost colorless and
beady eyes that glistened, dampened.

“Enough,” a voice spoke, firm yet cold and pitched. “There are more pressing matters to deal with
in the time being.”

Harry shook his head at the sound, as if all heat and warmth had been siphoned from the room,
turning the entire world around him to ice and hollowness. Whatever sat within the chair wasn't
human. It was some creature, a monster.

“Make yourself useful, Wormtail, and dispose of her, she has given us all we need,” the voice-
man, creature, demon?- hissed. “Tomorrow we will free him from his imprisonment. There is
much work to do in preparation.”

The squat man- Wormtail- rose his head, his lower lip trembling. “Preparation, my Lord?”

The man laughed, a hollow and frozen laugh that made Harry wish to curl his body around himself
even tighter. “For my return. All will be revealed in good time, and you will be given the very
honorable position of assisting me with it.”

Wormtail blinked sheepishly, lips twisting as he said, “Yes, Master, is it an honor I-”

“Silence! You have much to make up to me, Wormtail, and you owe me a great deal. Do not see it
as me honoring you so much as you needing to prove yourself worthy. Now, I'm weary and wish to
retire for the evening. You are to milk Nagini for me. But first, Nagini- dinner.”

And Harry was moving- against his want and desire, his impossibly long body slunk forward.
Wormtail stepped aside as Harry approached, looking massive from the floor, and then he was
rising, curving unto himself as he stood over a woman-

A body.

Her skin was pale and sallow, a sickly sheen of sweat clinging to her. Black hair was strewn across
her face, dampened, though he could still see her eyes, wide and glassy. The pupil seemed small
and shrunken as if she had last stared into a brilliant light or the sun itself. Her mouth was wretched
open, tongue lolling out to the side. It was still wet, and Harry wished to recoil, to move as far
away from her as he could. Far away from Wormtail and the monster within the chair.
But he was only moving closer, lurching until he sunk his fangs into flesh, until bone crunched and
splintered-

There was screaming, anguished cries, and for a horrific, terrifying moment, he thought that he was
wrong. That the woman was alive after all and was crying out as he consumed her, tearing flesh
from muscle from sinew-

“Harry!”

He opened his eyes and sat up, panting heavily. He was in his bed in the south wing, the
comforting and pressing weight on him as Argos sat on his legs, whining in concern. A light had
been turned on, though it appeared dim through his thick maroon curtains, muffled voices filling
the room.

“Wus all the screamin' bout?”

“Potter? You okay?”

He couldn't breathe, the room was suffocating, the air too thin, his lungs not expanding no matter
how heavily he breathed in. He was shivering despite the heat that surrounded him, the sweat that
made his pajama shirt cling to him, his hair press to his forehead. But most distracting was his scar,
which burned and seared so painfully that he squinted his eyes, pressed a hand to it uselessly. It felt
as if someone had heated a metal rod before thrusting it forward, stabbing and piercing into his
skull.

A hand still pressed to his head, he reached out and shoved the curtain away, trying to step away
from his bed only to tumble to the floor, his feet entangled in the blankets that he had pulled with
him.

Several voices called to him, footsteps thudded across the floor, making the pain in his skull
greater, more magnified.

“The screaming-” Harry mumbled, hands tugging and pulling at him. “Where is she?”

“She?” a voice said, a Beauxbatons student named Henri. “Harry, you were the one screaming.”

Harry steadied himself, lowering his hand and forcing himself to open his eyes. To see that he was
laying on the floor of his dormitories, not from the floor of the unknown room where a monster
with a cold voice spoke to a man named Wormtail. Several faces loomed over him, and he
swallowed, suddenly embarrassed by the scene he created. The silence that filled the room as there
was no woman screaming to be saved. No serpent consuming her.

He sat up, pushing his hair away from his ears, his hand wet from the saturated locks. “Sorry,
nightmare,” he mumbled apologetically, hiding his reddening cheeks. It had felt so real...

His roommates exchanged glances among themselves, but he ignored them, pulling himself up and
onto his bed, even though he desperately wanted to shower. But Argos was still waiting for him,
brown eyes wide as he sat hidden in the shadow of his curtained bed.

He pulled the curtain closed, sat in silence for several minutes as the light was turned out, his
roommates grumbling as they returned to bed. The dog shifted up from the foot of his bed, resting
a paw on Harry's knee as he whined lowly, eyes wide.

Harry pet him. “You would not believe the dream I had,” he muttered, knowing it was foolish to
talk to a dog, but feeling better all the same.
-xXx-

The next day, Harry sat alone in the dormitories, thankful for the quiet and the weekend which
drew the students out to the courtyard or the library or wherever else they chose to while away in.
His head ached, lingering from his nightmare which hadn't faded from his memory, burned in like
an afterimage so that even when he closed his eyes he could still see the silhouettes. The dead and
glossy eyes.

He shook his head, turning over in bed. It felt empty without Argos, the dog being handed over to
Luna for the time being. It had been only through a stroke of luck that he hadn't been discovered,
and he couldn't risk it again. He missed him, and it stung to hand over his invisibility cloak, the
only thing he had of his father, but he trusted Luna.

The witch had become, overnight it seemed, a valued friend. For some time they seemed to exist
together, sitting side by side in blissful understanding. They never sought each other out in the way
friends would, they did not deign to share their innermost thoughts or beliefs, dreams and desires.
They were simply alone, together, and it had been pleasant.

But somewhere at some point, the line had been toed, hopped over. It happened suddenly, and
without warning. He wanted to hate himself for it, to believe that he was somehow placing her in
danger. But he couldn't bring himself to, his thoughts too jumbled to make head or toe of, Luna's
words echoing in his head. 'Everyone has some good. And you might be his good, is all.'

He doubted she would have the same sentiment if she knew the entire truth.

Or, for all he knew, she still might. He had learned not to impose expectations on her.

But her words remained, curling around his mind. The words that said that Tom had cared for him.
That despite his bad, he had cared enough for Harry to make sure he was safe and happy for the
summer. Every part of him wanted to deny it, to spit upon the very idea. But it was getting harder
and harder to categorize it all so neatly; good and bad. The line was being blurred, and he knew
that in many ways Tom was objectively a bad person- he had killed Ginny, and would grow up to
be Lord Voldemort.

Those were certain facts, black and white.

But he claimed that he had been separated from the creature that would truly embody Voldemort,
and that, objectively, had to be true as well. How else would they be able to exist simultaneously?

He claimed that Dumbledore was building an army for a war that was not even on the horizon yet,
that Harry was simply a pawn to him. There was a devotion to the older man that would not waver,
not entirely. But Dumbledore had still lied to Harry, had tried to keep him in the dark, and that had
made his devotion tremble. What else had he hidden from him?

What else did he know about him and his family, only to decide it was not important enough to tell
him?

But Tom knew, and he cared enough to get Harry to demand the truth. And he cared enough to
give Harry a home when others had only given him a closet.

He remembered the day that seemed so long ago, like an entire lifetime had passed in between. He
held the letter in his hands, the envelope that had been addressed to him. Harry Potter. The
cupboard under the stairs.

They had known enough of his life at Hogwarts to know he slept beneath the stairs, and yet, they
did nothing except send more letters.

Why hadn't anything been done then? Why was Tom the first and only one to find a problem with
that?

If good and bad was a matter of perspective, than Tom certainly did look more favorable in the
moment, Harry begrudgingly admitted, only for his thoughts to run in circles once more.

'But he killed Ginny.'

'No,' a voice in the back of his head chimed in, cruel and taunting. 'You did.'

He pulled his pillow, rolling it over his head as if it would somehow muffle the discord within him.
If Tom had been correct that he and Voldemort deviated from some fixed point in time, than there
was no definitive way to know that he had hurt someone other than Ginny.

And it was a sin that Harry shared equal part of.

If Tom was bad, than Harry was no better.

He groaned audibly, wishing to force the thought from his mind. He hated the buoying, the
constant back and forth. It had been so much easier when he had known for certain that Tom was
bad, when he could firmly believe without doubt that Tom did not care for anyone or anything,
least of all Harry. But he cared enough to give Harry a home and the selfish part of Harry had been
piqued by the idea. The selfish part wanted to toss all his morals and his respect for the Weasleys
out the bloody window in favor of a proper bed and a summer spent lackadaisically lounging in the
sun.

He wanted to push the thoughts from his mind, to think of anything else, but his thoughts would
then turn to that of his dream. It had seemed so real that he could remember with perfect clarity the
sound his fangs made as they sunk into flesh and bone. So real that he could feel the heat of the
fire, sinking into him. And the voice. The familiar yet forgotten voice..

He had considered telling Luna about it but decided against it in the end. He had already worried
her enough, there was no need for him to start rambling about chilling voices and men named
Wormtail. She didn't need to shoulder the weight of his grief.

But, try as he might, he couldn't shake a feeling of impending danger. There was the thrum of
adrenaline, lighting his nerves on fire, making him anxious and unable to settle in his own skin.

He flopped over onto his other side.

He needed to tell someone, he knew, if only to ease the feel of lead as it plummeted in his gut. But
who would even care?

Tom cared, he knew. No matter how perverse or twisted his motives, Tom did care. And he would
no doubt like to hear from Harry, even if it was for a dream that wouldn't fade. He was constantly
vying for his attention after all.

But how was Harry to even contact him? He knew nothing about where he lived or what he did,
preferring to err on the side of ignorance.

Before he could talk himself out of it, he was sliding off the bed and turning to his trunk, digging
within it's contents until he found one of the many letters that he had saved. There was no return
address, though he wasn't surprised. Tom was no fool, much as Harry hated to admit.
He tore it open, only to furrow his brows and frown. The parchment within the envelope was
blank- not so much as a splotch of ink staining it.

If it had been anyone else, in any other situation, he might have tossed it, summing it up to a
mistake. He would have simply forgotten about it. But this was Tom Riddle, and Harry knew
better.

With a sigh, he grabbed a spare bottle of ink and a quill, settling into his bed with the parchment on
his lap.

'This is a bad idea,' he said to himself, even as he uncapped the well of ink, dipping the brass nib of
his quill into it. 'I should walk away while I'm ahead. There is no good to Riddle, and I'm deluding
myself.'

And yet, for reasons he could not understand, he wrote on the page a tentative 'hello?'

The ink saturated the page, seeping in and fading just as Harry knew it would. It did not take long
for a new line of text to bubble upward, ink forming the familiar elegant script-

Harry swallowed, trying to stopper the voice within him telling him that this was a terrible,
dreadful, awful idea.

'You've finally opened one of my letters.'

He could imagine Tom sitting before a desk, smirking as if he won some sort of victory, and he
nearly tossed the letter back into the trunk if only to wipe the smug look of satisfaction off his face.
But he took a steadying breath, writing, 'I've had an unusual dream that I can't shake.'

'Oh? What about?'

And so he told him. Of the voice that made his blood run cold and the man named Wormtail. Of
the woman with sunken, glassy eyes. And he was surprised by how easily it all shifted, how natural
it felt in that moment to be talking to Tom. It was for a moment as if the events last year had never
happened, as if Ginny had never been killed and there had been nothing to craft a divide between
him and Tom.

He was surprised by how much he had missed it.

When he finished describing his dream, he set his quill down, flexing the muscles in his hand. The
beginning of his text had already disappeared, the center dim and fading faster. He twisted his shirt
in his hand nervously, a worrying ache settling in his head. It should have felt better to talk about
the dream, but instead it only felt worse, his stomach flipping and twisting anxiously.
Remembering it had only made the the memory of it more vibrant and vivid, and the word master
hung in the air like the harbinger of something evil and wicked.

'What if...' his thoughts trailed off as Tom wrote back, his words slanted in the way they did when
he was in a rush, Harry hating that he knew something so intimate of the young Lord Voldemort.

'You're certain the man was called Wormtail?'

Of course he was. It was such a strange name, how on earth could Harry have remembered it
incorrectly? He said as much, sitting back on his heels when he was done. He folded his hands in
front of him, chewing his lip in thought. Seconds were drawn out, feeling longer than Harry ever
recalled them feeling. An eternity had passed before Tom finally wrote back, the words
plummeting in Harry's chest and dragging him down.
'I don't think it was a dream, Harry.'

He had not thought it possible for written words to be laced with such foreboding. There had been a
part of him that had been weary of the clarity of it all, of the strangeness yet familiarity. But the
confirmation from Tom- a man too smart for his own good- all at once made Harry certain that he
was correct. It was not a dream.

But then what was it? A vision?

Of the past, present or future?

How had he been granted access; why had he been?

The questions circled in his mind, but before he could bring his quill to the parchment to ask Tom
of his thoughts, the man had already written back.

'I'll be perfectly honest with you, I believe the other man in your dream to be Voldemort. And that
what you saw was a window into his life at this very moment.'

Harry stared at the words, his gaze hard and unyielding even as the sheen of the wet ink shimmered
before dulling, sinking into the page, fading, fading, fading...

He read them over and over again, four times in total before they were gone; not even the
impression remained. The last time he had seen Voldemort, he had been a parasite, buried beneath
the turban worn by Professor Quirrell. He had no form of his own, just a mass of energy and magic
and whatever was necessary to keep someone bound to this earth when the earth had done all it
could to expel them from it. But his voice...

That same cold and pitched voice, the one from his dream, he now knew, was certain of it.

But why had he been given the glimpse into his life? Why now had he been thrust forward and
become an unwilling spectator to the cruel deeds done at his hand?

He was stirred from his thoughts by the prompting of Tom, large and bold words curling on the
page before him. 'Harry?' It was written hasty and messy, and Harry wondered how many times
Tom had tried to capture his attention before he had finally noticed.

'Sorry,' he wrote, his quill scraping noisily over the parchment. 'Do you know why that could
happen?' Any sort of apprehension or fear or anger he might have felt had been abandoned in that
moment, and he settled into the friendship he and Tom had once shared, like a thick comforter in a
bleak and unforgiving winter.

He was smart, and whether or not he was telling the truth about Voldemort being the creature that
remained of him or just a more advanced version of himself, he was still a fraction of the man. And
who better to understand the Dark Lord than, well, the Dark Lord?

'I'm not sure just yet. I've been doing some research that isn't wholly complete on its own, but
obviously this will have to take priority. With no understanding of how or why this works just yet,
we must be cautious. If you have access to him, there's the possibility he'll have access to you,' he
wrote, making Harry's insides twist uncomfortably. It was a possibility he had not considered, too
much to process in a single moment. His throat tightened, his mouth suddenly dry and aching.
Could Voldemort see him talking to Luna? See him talking to Tom and plotting against him?

He shifted, the unsettling realization that he was being watched washing over him, making his
flesh prickle. He tightened the curtains around his bed, as if doing so might somehow prevent
Voldemort from seeing him through whatever connection they were bound by.

Turning his attention to the parchment, he wrote, 'What do we do then? Until you can complete
your research?” It did not occur to him that had said 'we', taking comfort where there was once rage
that Tom would not abandon him. That he would be, annoyingly and thankfully, steadfast. It did
not occur to him that he was implicitly trusting Tom.

'Keep this parchment on you. I'll write to you if anything turns up. Until then, wherever he is, he's
too weak to do anything, so you're not in any immediate danger, but there's no doubt he's got
something in the works. Be weary of everyone and their loyalties, and if you have any more
dreams or if anything is out of the ordinary, tell me at once.'

Perhaps it was the authority with which he spoke, but Harry agreed, a sense of relief filling him
that Tom was not only taking Harry's concerns with his dreams seriously, but was genuinely
concerned with helping him. And he tried to shove it all down within him, how much he hated that
Tom had been the source of such relief.

The man was like a parasite, but instead of living on the back of his head and poisoning him from
the inside out, he lived within his brain, slowly festering away, unnoticed.

-xXx-

Tom set the quill down and ran a hand through his hair, tidying it uncharacteristically. Harry had
just bid him good bye, followed with a tentative and strained thanks. And now it was just him and
his thoughts and the pressing weight in his brain that Voldemort was far more reckless than he
could have accounted for.

It was indignant, a disgrace, that this man had taken his name and identity only to run rampant with
it, tear it asunder with his foolhardiness. It was hardly the legacy Tom had hoped to forge- a legacy
consisting of being brought down by a mudblood and her infant son; his followers either locked
away for what remained of their wretched lives or turned against him at the first sign of his defeat.
It was a far cry from the loyal masses who would lay their lives down for him, fall to his feet. It
was a far cry from the kingdom of bones and altars of worship that he had envisioned. An immortal
being, he was more than lowly muggles, more even than the finest witches and wizards. He was a
god.

'And how the gods have fallen,' he thought bitterly, rising from where he sat to fetch himself some
more tea. Somewhere along the lines, sometime after having entrapped himself in the diary, he had
faltered. Perhaps it was his sordid dealings in dark magic, or the constant chipping away of his soul
only to lock the fragments away, but at some point Voldemort had morphed and shifted into
something other than what he had always intended. Tom was pragmatic to a fault, and more than
willing to sacrifice what was necessary to achieve his goals. The lives of others, his former identity,
and his looks (though he would be remiss to say that they weren't advantageous).

But his sanity had never been on the table. His calculation and ability to think ten steps ahead were
not up for trade.

And yet, all of it had been forfeited. Lord Voldemort had been as divorced from Tom as he could
be, yet intrinsically tied together by virtue of who he had once been. It was a disgrace, and his rage
was barely tethered at how distorted his future had become.

And even when he was without a wand, when he was nothing more than withered shell, he was
still preparing for something- no doubt a final and desperate attempt to return to a proper body. If
the details from Harry's dream had been correct, and if Tom's assumption was right, than he had
even made another horcrux, whittling away at the sliver of soul once more.

It had been the most logical conclusion of course, as Harry had not seen through Voldemort's eyes
but from the eyes of a creature below him, a familiar. And the shared soul between them could act
as a catalyst, the vehicle through which one could observe the other. It was the most sensible
solution, but he couldn't very well tell Harry that. Not yet, at least. He may have reached out to
Tom, a fact which made him smirk with barely contained glee, but he was still a Gryffindor.
Dumbledore's pet.

If he knew that he harbored a piece of Voldemort's soul inside him, he would do something foolish,
like through himself off a tower to ensure the dark wizard's defeat. That would certainly do Tom no
good. A waste of a perfectly good horcrux.

No, it was a precarious situation. Give too much information to Harry, and he could do something
righteous in the name of the greater good. Give too little information, and Harry could twist his
own rhetoric onto him, compare him to Dumbledore and distrust him once more for withholding
something so vital.

He sighed, raising the kettle and pouring it into his cup, steam billowing up and around him. The
tea leaves unfurled, plump with water. He was in for a long night, abandoning his research of his
future- Voldemort's past- in favor of researching horcruxes. Living horcruxes were unprecedented
as far as he knew, making it all the more taxing. It should have been exhilarating to wander into
unknown territory, be the first to study something so unique and intriguing. Instead, it was
exhausting, knowing that Harry's safety- his own horcrux- was on the line should he fail.

If this was what it was like to care about others, he couldn't see the charm of it.

With a fresh cup of tea, he returned to his chair, scraping it along the floor as he ungracefully
settled in, several tomes opened before him. Settling the cup into its saucer, he reached for the slim
journal, the leather cover the color of a deep wine and wrinkled from its constant use, the edges of
the pages gilded in silver. The unlined pages were cluttered in his writing, neat and small and
filling the entirety of the paper, from the top to the bottom. With a sigh, he began to reread the
quick notes he had made of all the details of Harry's dream, taking a part each aspect, each spoken
word remembered, and analyzing it. Searching for any clues to what the former Dark Lord and his
pathetic servant were plotting.

Voldemort may have had fifty years of knowledge and power, as well as a once grand army, but
Tom was hardly concerned by it. Perhaps it was his arrogance, but he had his own mounting
advantages against the man. A wand, and a clear and untarnished mind. Voldemort was too
reckless to even see Harry for what he was, and would no doubt relish the idea of unknowingly
destroying his own soul.

But even more than that, Voldemort did not know of Tom's existence. That his own self- an
arguably better, more full and charming and persuasive version- was wandering the earth at this
very moment. And that Harry was slowly leaning more and more into him, something that even the
more devout of Voldemort's followers would soon do as well, in time.

With careful planning, and in due time, Tom would have everything. The wand, the horcruxes,
Harry, the army.

No, he wasn't very concerned about Voldemort at all. In the end, he would be nothing.

-xXx-
The rest of the year passed without another dream, much to Harry's relief. He had carried the
enchanted parchment on him, just as Tom had instructed. But he never removed it from where it sat
at the bottom of his rucksack, soft and curling from being pressed beneath his textbooks. He had
not spoken to Tom since that afternoon, and Tom had not reached out to him. It was, he decided,
better that way, regardless of whatever kinship had been forged between them in their shared sin.

But the desire to reach out to him had been great, Harry's will weakening only to resolve moments
before he could write to him, the nib of his quill saturated in ink. It was confusing, the duality of it
all. He longed for the relationship they had once had, the ease that had been there before the world
had been turned upside down. But he knew that they could never slip into such a role so easily, not
when the distrust had created a chasm between them.

A part of him, the same small sliver that seemed to turn on him at every opportunity, whispered to
him that he was alone in this world without Tom, that without him he had nobody. He was nobody.

It simply wasn't true though, he knew. He had Luna and Argos, the two meaning more to him in
the few months they had shared than he thought plausible. It had pained him to leave the dog
behind, even with the knowledge that the house elves would feed him over the summer, leave food
out for him in the garden. He hadn't wanted to part for even the summer knowing full well that
once he did, the voice would win.

He would be truly alone then, the spiders in his cupboard not the best of company or
companionship.

No, the desire to speak to Tom had never been so great as it was in that moment, with Harry sitting
upon a bench outside King's Cross station, shivering as the day faded to the veil of night. The
artificial glow of light poles replacing the warm and pink light of the sun- vanished from sight- the
sky now a thick blanket of darkness.

The train, having brought him back to London for the beginning of summer, had dropped him off
at noon time, as it did the two years prior. And yet, the Dursleys had been nowhere in sight, the
young wizard settling on a bench with no other option but to wait and hope that they were simply
tardy, delaying the moments until they would welcome home their burden of a nephew. That had
been hours ago, and his stomach growled with hunger, his breakfast that morning all but forgotten,
and his tongue felt dry and weightless in his mouth. He had no money- no muggle money, at least-
and he had long since given up hope that the Dursleys would arrive.

He sighed, running a hand through his hair as he stood, knees cracking. Hedwig hooted, flapping
her wings as if to demand freedom from her cage and he frowned, unlocking the mechanism.

“Fly ahead without me. I'll meet you there,” he said, pulling the door of her cage open.

She blinked, her golden eyes wide, as she poked her head out. She seemed hesitant to leave him,
but he ran his fingers along her head and down her back to coax her. “Go on, I'll be fine. I'll call the
Knight bus again.”

Reassured, she hopped out, stretched her wings impressively before taking off, the breeze causing
Harry to shiver more fiercely. He watched her as she flew through the sky, becoming smaller and
smaller with every second, relishing in the freedom. When she had become so small he could raise
his hand and cover her with his thumb, he grabbed hold of his trunk and the empty cage, trudging
along to a more discrete alley that he may summon the Knight Bus without incident. He had no
muggle money, but more than enough for a ride on the magical transport.

Though this time, he would do without the cocoa.

-xXx-

Privet drive was quiet when Harry arrived, his stomach moving freely about his abdomen as he
stepped onto solid ground with trembling legs. The world felt as if it were shifting around him, he
the axis to which the earth spun, and the bus had driven off even as he wavered unsteadily,
blinking frantically in the hopes it might settle his vision.

“Next time I'll walk,” he muttered below his breath, placing a steadying hand on his trunk for
support. When the dizziness faded and his eyesight no longer swam before him, he could see the
Dursley home, all the windows dark despite the relatively early hour of the evening. It was a
Friday, which normally meant the small and stern family had no matters to attend to the following
day- no school or work or even church. As such, they often took their time retiring, with Dudley
even staying up into the wee hours of the morning.

Strange, Harry thought, pulling his trunk alongside him and walking down the darkened street,
television sets shining through the windows of neighboring homes. A child shouting excitedly
broke the silence, curfew momentarily forgotten as summer came to stay. He watched as a car
drove by, slowing to look at the funny sight of a skinny boy pulling a trunk that was practically the
same size as him, an empty birdcage clanging noisily against it as he rolled over the grooves in the
sidewalk.

He came to a stop outside of number four, blinking curiously at the sight of an empty driveway. A
sinking feeling settled into him, weighing and dragging him down as the realization that he had
been left behind clicked into place.

He wasn't quite forgotten, he knew, as he was sure the Dursleys had been well aware of his return
when they left. He considered for a moment that maybe they had at last gone out to fetch him from
King's Cross just as he was arriving. But he dismissed it, cynical and certain without knowing how
that they had strategically abandoned him.

'You're alone, Harry,' the voice whispered to him as he pulled his trunk to the steps that led to the
door, locked, and sat on the stoop. 'You've got no one now, not Luna or the Dursleys or even
arachnids. They've left you. Perhaps they're spending the weekend out of town, visiting an old
friend or family. Perhaps they've left on holiday and won't be home until next week or even later.'

He tried to ignore the cruel words, but it was of no use. Cruel though they were, they were also
true. He had been abandoned. He was alone. And there was no telling when they could return, how
long Harry would be forced to wait for them. He couldn't use magic to unlock the door- it would
hardly be of any use to get himself expelled and spend more than just the summers with them.

He considered breaking in, the old-fashioned muggle way with a rock and his hand wound within
his jumper. But that would be even worse, if possible, the alarm company alerting the local police
to the break in. He imagined what it might be like to be arrested, sitting within the police car as the
siren whooped and the lights flashed. He would be stuck in a detention center until whenever the
Dursleys fancied their vacation over with, and even then would be forced to pay to replace the
window.

Hedwig came to sit beside him, dipping her head to tug playfully at the loose threads of his jumper.
He settled a hand over her back, the feathers soft and thick over the fragile feel of her bones. He
did not know how much time had passed, but he counted it in the lights as they flicked off in the
windows of neighboring homes. He counted it in the night sky as the stars shifted and moved over
top him. The pain in his stomach had vanished now, a hollow numbness that was easier to ignore.

Of course the Durselys wouldn't want him there. Just as Tom had told him, they were still irate
about what had happened with Marge, perhaps fearful of him even. Though they had never wanted
him there to begin with, merely tolerating his presence despite their utter hatred of him. It wasn't
fair.

He hated the thought of it- it seemed so childish and ridiculous to even say- but it wasn't fair. Why
did they keep him there if only to bully and abuse and torment him? Why did they not turn him
over to the proper services the moment he arrived on their doorstep if all they intended to do was to
lock him within the closet?

There were plenty of childless couples who might have fostered him, would have been kinder to
him. And yet, he was punished for no discernible reason to be stuck with a family that reviled him.
They didn't want him, and the feeling was quite mutual.

But someone did want him, he thought, the idea coming to him unbidden. Tom had offered him a
place in his home for the summer, a place where he wouldn't be locked out until the night turned
cold and dark and the moon hung high in the sky. A place where he would be wanted.

'No,' he thought, shaking his head as if doing so might dispel the very notion from his mind. But he
was unable to, the idea unfurling before him, tempting him.

The little voice had returned now, whispering to him that he was better off, that he deserved to
have what everyone else had. Why was he denied the right to a home? Why was he allowed to
suffer on a doorstep at midnight?

'But he killed Ginny,' he countered against the voice, the knowledge heavy and weighted in his
mind.

'So did you. There's no sense being a martyr. He cares for you, offered his protection. You told
him of your dream and he listened,' the voice retaliated, growing stronger, louder among the sound
of crickets and wind rustling through manicured trees. 'It would only be two months. Besides, what
if his claims about Voldemort being separate from him are true? He could be a great ally, if you let
him.'

Another voice came to him at that moment, the kind and sweet voice of Luna. 'Well, they can't be
all bad. You could be his good.'

When all was said and done, Harry might have said it was because he was too tired and cold to
properly argue. That he had grown dizzy and lethargic and was simply desperate for some comfort;
food and a bed and warmth. And even as he cursed himself, whispered an unheard apology to
Ginny and her family, he couldn't stop himself as he opened his trunk, digging through it until he
found his rucksack.

With any hope, Tom would still be awake.

-xXx-

Arabella Figg tutted to herself as she opened the door to her home, her teeth digging so fiercely into
her lip she worried she might chew right through. She should have inquired about him sooner, the
moment she suspected something was off.

She had just come back from visiting the Dursleys, after nearly a month of not seeing a single sight
of Harry Potter. She knew the family had gone on vacation- visiting some family in the country,
they claimed- beginning the day Harry returned from school. They returned a week later, and in the
weeks that followed she had seen no other child other than the horrid one, Dudley, milling about
the home. Petunia tended to her own gardens, and they had seemingly hired a company to trim the
bushes and clip the lawn. A van had been parked out front when they had had the exterior painting
touched up, the shutters a cleaner and blander shade of beige than they had been before. Vernon
brought out the trash nightly, cleaned his own car on Saturday afternoons.

All chores that Harry had otherwise done, the boy seemingly raised with shears and a hose in his
hand.

She had asked about him in passing, received vague platitudes to his well being. “He's not feeling
well,” Vernon had said one morning on his way to work, chuckling nervously. “Went to a new
school this year and came back with a host of illnesses.”

“Oh, he's fine. He just can't be bothered to leave the house,” he had said on another occasion.

She began to grow doubtful of their claims, but had decided not to jump to conclusions. They were
by no means the friendly sort, but she didn't quite think they would resort to something truly
wretched like selling or abandoning the boy. Still, there was a feeling she couldn't quite shake, and
one evening she finally headed over, a freshly made tart as an offering.

“I didn't want to waste the fruit, but I certainly don't need a whole tart for myself,” she had
explained when Petunia blinked at the dessert, her mouth opening and closing sheepishly. But Figg
ignored the obvious discomfort, smiling sincerely at the thin and sharp woman.

She invited her in after a second of hesitation, had made her some tea and invited her out onto the
patio where Vernon and Dudley joined them. A bit of exploitation on her part- the Durselys were
ever concerned about their reputation and it would be quite rude to turn her away- but it had
worked like a charm and halfway through the inane drivel of Vernon's work stories punctuated by
Dudley's rude groans of boredom, she set her tea cup down and asked.

“Is Harry about? I'm sure he would love some dessert.”

It was as if she had something outrageously vulgar, or as if she had suddenly sprouted a second
head and the family was too afraid to say something about it, eyes turning wide. Petunia pinched
her lips, looking as if she had just sucked on a lemon and Vernon chuckled, his face turning
blotchy as he dabbed at it with a napkin.

“He's actually gone to stay with a friend this summer. Left this morning.”

She stared at him for a second, pursing her lips in thought. “Well. Good for him, then. Haven't seen
much of him this summer and I'm glad he's enjoying it.”

The conversation that followed was stilted, Petunia quiet and all anxious energy while Vernon had
suddenly grown very impatient, looking to his watch at intervals before standing brusquely and
saying that he and the family were to be meeting a friend out for dinner in half an hour and it was
lovely to see you, and thank you so for the tart it was delicious. Until next time, then.

One need not be a legilimens to know that they were lying, though about what she did not know.
Surely they would not be so cruel as to allow harm to befall their nephew? She admonished herself,
berating her decision to wait so long. Dumbledore would have told her if he knew of any plans for
Harry to accompany someone else during the summer. How long had he been gone for? Had he
really been there all along until recently, simply flying below the radar? Had he been there at all?

Where was he?

Her stomach was heavy, and she feared the worse- she couldn't help it! Black was still nowhere to
 be found, evading capture with the expert ease of a criminal. And after the death of the young girl
at Hogwarts- still unknown, whoever or whatever her attacker had been- it was hard to deny that
there was something sinister brewing, like a storm that hung low on the horizon.

She swallowed her worries- it would do no good- and grabbed a fistful of floo powder.

Wherever Harry was, Dumbledore would find him, she was sure.

Chapter End Notes

I know the teaser in the last chapter mentioned Dumbledore meeting with an Auror
member but I cut it last minute. Just wasn't feeling it.

But don't worry! The order will be right on the case of the missing Harry Potter in the
next chapter! Also coming up in the next chapter: Voldemort plots and Harry returns to
Beauxbatons where a friendly competition is brewing...
 The Search, the Painting and the Memory
Chapter Summary

While Harry spends a surprisingly pleasant summer with Tom, the Order begins
searching for the lost Boy Who Lived.

Chapter Notes

I do not remember the name of the user to give proper credit (if you do, let me know
so I can!) but a Tumblr post floated around awhile ago that the reason the Dursleys
were so exceptionally cruel was because they were living exposed to a Horcrux-
Harry- for all those years. While it's a pretty easy theory to poke holes into, I always
thought it was a neat concept (and honestly would have loved for his horcrux to be
more active in the books, which is pretty much what this fic is premised on.)- Not that
it excuses or justifies the Dursley's treatment of him, of course, it was just an extra
dimension I thought worth exploring. It's the drama it creates that I love, if I'm being
honest. I'm a messy bitch. I sort of went with that theory here, as you'll soon see.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

(Beginning of Summer, in which Tom brings Harry to his home)

“Well?” Tom asked expectantly, settling the trunk down on the linoleum floor of the cluttered and
dated kitchen. When Harry said nothing, unsure of what to say now that he willingly stood inside
the home of the young Dark Lord, he added, “It isn't much, but it's home. Quiet. You haven't eaten
yet, right? I can make up a sandwich if you'd like. I've also got some dried pasta if you don't mind
waiting for it to cook.”

Harry finally turned to watch him as he flitted about, opening the doors to a pantry which creaked
and groaned in protest and he opened his mouth only to close it, stammering over the words. It was
startlingly normal and domestic, and he was still waiting for the decision to go with Tom to turn
against him, for a large snake to slither out from hiding and for the disembodied voice of
Voldemort to cackle from another room. He had half-expected it to be a trap, a year long ruse of
manipulation and torture and the promise of solace only for it to be torn from under him.

But there was no high-pitched laughter, and when Harry did not answer Tom poked his head out
from the pantry to look at him, a brow raised. “Harry?”

He shook his head of the thought. “Sorry...a sandwich is fine.”

Tom pulled a half eaten loaf of bread out, closing the pantry behind him as he made his way to the
squat and ancient fridge. “I've got some ham in here, if you'd like. A bit on the dry side I'm afraid
but more than edible. I might have some cheese as well-”

The sound of his voice was dimmed by the glass jars clattering together as he rummaged through,
Harry turning away from him to examine the home. It was an old farmhouse, sitting on a large plot
of overgrown and ill-kept land. Ivy crawled up the shingled facade, creeping underneath the
wooden siding and growing within the very structure of the house, the gray paint chipping away to
reveal the old wood below. The kitchen was uneven, it was the first thing Harry noticed, the floor
dipping down in the center where the table and three mismatched chairs sat below a bare bulb. The
cabinets were original and slanted on their brass hinges, the tiled counter dingy and cracked.

It made Harry crinkle his nose- this was hardly the place he had imagined for Tom. Everything
about the older boy was thoughtful and perfect, not a stray curl deviating from his coif. He was
ever aware of his appearance- almost comically vain- and his lips always skewed into a scowl
when he saw Harry's untidy hair and his over-sized, baggy clothes.

Tom was sleek and cosmopolitan and the house was rustic and dilapidated.

“Where did you find this place?” Harry asked, eyeing the old and worn cookbooks on the counter,
the lovingly displayed china that sat separate in a corner cabinet, the sort of china that Aunt Petunia
had that he wasn't even allowed to clean, so precious it was. This house had belonged to someone,
once upon a time. This was someone's home and these were their things and his stomach twisted
with the revulsion of what Tom might have done.

If Tom knew what turbulent thoughts were running through Harry's head, he did not acknowledge
it, shrugging as he layered uneven cuts of cheddar over top the ham. “An estate sale. The owner
died several years ago and the house never went because of its distance to towns and cities, not to
mention a crumbling foundation and mold problems. It was a steal.”

Harry turned to stare at the back of his head, trying to determine whether or not it was true or just
another crafted lie.

Tom turned, carrying two plates- each topped with two sandwiches- with him to the table and
settling them down on opposite sides. “I can fetch you the legal documents if you're so inclined.
I'm sure there's even a copy of the obituary we can dig up.”

He settled a jug of milk in the center of the table, conjuring two glasses that twirled on the soft
tablecloth before coming to rest by the food. Harry's stomach growled noisily, and it took all he had
to not leap across the kitchen and stuff as much food in his mouth as physically possible. Straining
to use his manners and not startle Tom, he sat down and brought the sandwich to his lips, tearing a
too large bite off.

The ham was dry, the meat thick and chewy and the bread a tad on the stale side. But it was food
and he savored the flavor as it sat on his tongue, enjoyed it even as he struggled to swallow the
lump that sat like a heavy weight in his stomach. It was uncomfortable, in the most pleasant of
ways.

When he finished his first sandwich, he paused, taking several sips of milk as he carefully avoided
the look of concern Tom was giving him, dark blue eyes unusually soft.

“So your family just...wasn't there? They simply went on holiday?” he asked. He hadn't even
touched his own food, and Harry blushed, suddenly realizing that Tom had watched as he devoured
his with the ferocity of a feral creature.

He shook his head, cleared his throat- the ham really was too dry. “Honestly I'm surprised they
made it this long before officially abandoning me. They've come close before, I guess. When I was
eleven and was first going to Hogwarts they dropped me off only to drive away while laughing.
They thought the idea of a platform nine and three-quarters was funny.” He wasn't sure why he had
shared so much, a simple yes would have been more than adequate. He grabbed the other sandwich
and took a bite before he could reveal anything else, this one smaller and more manageable.
Tom took a bite of his sandwich, chewing thoughtfully and slowly, and they sat in silence for some
time, the only sound the occasional clink of a glass as it was settled back on the table. When Harry
had finished he settled his hands on his lap as the strangeness of the situation settled in- now what?

In answer to the unspoken question, Tom said, “I'll give you a quick tour in a moment and bring
you to your room, but before that, there is something I'd like to discuss.” He took a bite, considered
his next words as he ate. Harry tried to steady his nerves, trying to not twist the simple words into
anything more than they were. But this was Tom, and he immediately bounded to worst case
scenarios, imagining that the sandwiches were poisoned or that Voldemort was hidden in the next
room over.

“I think I'd like to teach you occlumency over the summer.”

Harry frowned, narrowing his eyes. “Occlu...what?”

“Occlumency. It's the art of blocking your mind from intrusion...legilimency, as it's known as.”

“Why?” Harry asked, only to scowl when he remembered that Tom had once told him he could
read his mind. Though it did only make the question of why all the more confusing- why would
Tom want Harry to guard his mind? It seemed the sort of thing that Tom would want access to,
invading him like a disease.

“I've spent the last several months researching and theorizing about Voldemort and how we're all
tied together and I think it might be the safest route.” Harry shivered at that, not liking the idea of
being linked to such men- a parasite which thrived in chaos and destruction; a pretty monster who
spoke in only lies and manipulations. Tom blinked at Harry before continuing. “I don’t think he
knows yet about the connection, but he won’t be in the dark forever. And when he does discover it,
I can’t take the risk of him trying to use it against you. And I’m certain you wouldn’t want him
poking in your head, seeing what you see?”

He shook his head, glasses sliding down his nose with the erratic motion. He didn’t dare think
about what havoc would be wreaked if Voldemort were privy to his thoughts, to what was
happening to and around him. But there was a problem with Tom’s plan, and Harry frowned as he
said, “I can’t use magic outside of school though.”

“You won’t need to. It’s essentially meditating. It’s a very difficult skill to master, but we can at
least begin, that way you can continue to practice once school commences,” he answered. He
pushed his plate away from him, one half of his sandwich remaining, and leaned back in his chair.
“So, you think you want to give it a go?”

“If it means keeping Voldemort out, than yeah, sure,” he said. He might enjoy it, after all- getting
to learn another facet of magic, immersing himself in the world he loved so much, yet was kept
from for two months of the year. He had always loved learning, and Tom was, he begrudgingly
admitted, a wonderful teacher. He recalled all those days where he had gone into the library to
study, only to find his questions better answered by the blank diary than any text on the shelves.

His thoughts were interrupted by a loud thud, and Harry startled, looking up to where the single
bulb shook in its place. The ceiling- sagging in the center- seemed to tremble with the reverberation
of whatever had made the noise. He raised his head, watching as the chain hanging from the
ceiling continued to shiver. He swallowed thickly. “What was that?”

Tom paused, looking at Harry thoughtfully, ends of his lips twitching. “A surprise for you. Getting
rather rambunctious, if I had to take a guess.” The words were not malicious, nor was there
anything that ran between them that might have said otherwise; there was no harshness between the
syllables, no cruelty worked between the playful inflection. And yet, it caused Harry to still, a
small voice in his head condemning him, admonishing him for ever having thought he could trust
Tom Riddle again when it had only ever resulted in blood that settled in the lines of his palms, a
map of his sins.

What sort of surprise had Tom wrangled for him? What could possibly be locked away upstairs,
impatiently waiting for Harry to stumble upon it? His thoughts went first to Voldemort, the
insubstantial parasite that remained of the wizard. The one that had sunk its very being into
Quirrel’s head, digging unseen talons into gray matter, teeth into synapses, until nothing remained
of the man except a vessel, one which would be easily disposed. How might he exist now?

It was impossible to imagine, a soul existing without a body. Not quite a ghost- a bit too real, a bit
too corporeal. There was still a strength that lingered, the ability to possess someone, to feed off
them. Still some magic that sparked and ignited within the nebulous veins, that ran through the
nothingness, like the thunder that hissed and spliced through heavy storm clouds.

He was pulled away from his thoughts by the sound of a chair- his own chair- scraping across the
floor, one leg tipping over the uneven tilt of it. He stood, wand slipping out from his sleeve to rest
in his palm, a comfort, a security, and made his way to the threshold where the kitchen spilled out
to a dark hall. He placed one hand out to clutch at the molding of the archway, the other coming
out before him as he wielded his wand, peering into the darkness.

At the end of the hall was a large door, surrounded by two thin windows that ran the same length
of it- the front door, no doubt. There was a chandelier that dangled just above, the chain running all
the way from the ceiling, through the second floor and down to the first. It was coated in a thick
layer of dust, cobwebs forming between the spaces of each separate arm. There were no decorative
prisms or suspended crystals that meant to refract and bounce light, each cup enclosed by a shade
made of stained glass. It might have been pretty if it were cleaned up, the ambers and crimson and
navies of the glass muting and dimming the light, but it looked as if it had not been used in some
time, and as if Tom intended to keep it that way.

There were two doorways midway through the corridor, standing at opposite ends of the wall- a
parlor, a study, a dining room. Nothing, Harry was sure, of note, so he turned his attention instead
to the large staircase, divided in half as it was split into a corner angle, obscuring from view the
second floor that was shrouded in darkness.

“You’re far too suspicious- are you certain you were not a Slytherin?” a playful voice came from
behind him, the words warm as they curled around the shell of his ear. He gasped at the sudden
closeness, his muscles tensing and flinching and he jumped, his back pressing against something
soft yet sturdy.

Tom was standing directly behind him, had reached out a hand to place against Harry’s shoulder
and steady him. When had he moved so close? He had not heard the sound of a chair, the creak and
groan of the ancient floor beneath his weight.

“I’m only suspicious because you’ve never given me a reason to trust you,” he hissed.

He didn’t need to look over his shoulder to know that Tom was smirking, one brow raised and dark
eyes glittering as he said, “You don’t trust me, and yet you’ve taken my invitation to stay with me
all summer? You’re either very foolish, or very brave then.” He paused before adding, “Or both.”

Harry certainly felt very foolish. He had willingly allowed himself to be dragged here, all because
his stomach was taut with hunger and his skin prickled with gooseflesh in the cold. What had he
been thinking?
He hadn’t been thinking, he chided himself. He had given in to something weak, something selfish
and pathetic and now here he stood, crouched within a doorway as he gazed into shadows. The
sound came again, a soft thud, followed by a crash, as if something fragile had been knocked to the
ground, shattering into pieces. The chandelier trembled slightly, dust motes, just barely visible in
the light from the kitchen, fluttering in the air.

He moved forward, away from Tom and the oppressive feel of his chest against his back, his wand
raised. The staircase creaked under his weight, the whole house an orchestra of rotting wood and
sinking foundation. Tom followed behind him, muttering something below his breath that Harry
did not hear but knew to be a taunt.

Tom was, at times, remarkably childish, Harry thought, though he shoved the notion away. To see
the boy as childish was to underestimate him, and he would not fall into that mistake again.

He came to the top of the stairs, instinctively reaching his left arm out, trying to find a light switch
only to meet air. Tom sighed behind him, flicking his wand. There was a three second delay before
the light flickered once, twice, than finally settled, casting the hallway in a dim, orange light. The
upstairs landing was large, wrapping around the staircase that sat in the center, a chain running
down the empty space and to the chandelier below. Large windows took up one wall, though they
were covered in heavy and ancient drapery, the plaid pattern nearly indistinguishable beneath the
dust. The three other walls that wrapped around him were covered in peeling wallpaper, a chipped
and dingy wainscoting that came halfway up the walls. There were doors dotted randomly about,
the one before him with a strip of light below it.

“Go on then,” Tom whispered behind him, his voice tilted in amusement. “Go and conquer the
beast, Brave Gryffindor.”

Harry skewed his lips, narrowed his eyes as he turned to look at Tom over his shoulder, wanting
nothing more than to push the boy in the chest and send him reeling down the stairs. Each crash
evoking a musical note from the noisy stairs, a descent marked in creaks and groans. But he didn’t;
instead he turned to face the door once more, bridging the distance between him and it and twisting
the door knob, pushing it forward and revealing the lit room.

He didn’t even have the chance to examine the room, eyes landing on the massive form of the
black dog. Wide, brown eyes grew bright with recognition, and before Harry could even properly
realize what was happening, Argos flung himself forward, massive paws coming to Harry’s
shoulders as he fell over. A wet nose prodded about his face, fluttering in sharp inhalations as if
checking him over, making certain the boy was alright. Harry wheezed out a breath, the weight of
the dog- so thin and frail looking, it seemed impossible he weighed so much- bearing down on his
chest, making each breath a struggle.

“Argos,” he hissed, nudging the dog away so he could sit up. Argos whined, stepped backwards so
that he was settled between Harry’s knees. He was anxious, head bobbing as he looked over Harry,
brown eyes wide. Harry reached out, scratching the dog’s ear, the fur matted and scraggly. “What
are you doing here?”

Tom stepped forward to answer, standing uncomfortably close to Harry so that he was forced to
lean forward, away from the oppressive weight of his shadow. “I thought you might like to care for
him yourself. Besides, I won’t always be available and I thought you’d like some more consistent
company,” Tom said, his tone souring as Argos barked harshly, hackles raising and baring his
yellowing fangs. “Though of course, the best way to handle an aggressive mutt is to put it down.”
There was a sharpness there, the warning- or, more accurately, threat- and even Argos understood
the intent, his bark turning into a low growl.
Satisfied, Tom grinned, turning his gaze back to Harry. “It’s late. I’ll let you get comfortable- we
can continue our talk and plans for the summer over breakfast.” He rose a hand, gesturing to the
room where Argos had been concealed, was impatiently throwing himself against the door before
Harry opened it. “This is where you’ll be staying. My room-” he gestured now to a room opposite
Harry’s, across the hall and the winding staircase. “Is right over there. If you need anything, I’ll
either be there or my potions laboratory, down in the basement.” He turned around, walking away
from Harry even as he continued to speak. “Feel free to help yourself to the kitchen or the library
over there. And don’t worry, this house is heavily warded against intruders, you’ll be perfectly safe
here.”

When he stood in front of his bedroom door, Tom finally turned to face Harry, lips curling into a
smile, shadows falling across the sharp contours of his face. “Sleep well, Harry. I’ll see you in the
morning.” With that, he disappeared, leaving Harry alone with Argos and the strange thoughts left
behind in the curious boy’s wake.

-xXx-

“Two weeks have passed, and still not a single report you’ve gone missing,” Tom muttered, tossing
aside the Daily Prophet and turning his attention back to his scrambled eggs.

Harry settled his fork down, reaching across the table to pick it up, pulling it into his lap as he
scanned over the front page. There was nothing of great note, the headline news being yet another
post about the much anticipated Quidditch World Cup- which teams still stood a chance to play in
the game, and which teams were most expected to. Smaller blurbs sat around it- one dedicated to
the upcoming school year and a project that a Bartemius Crouch, Head of the Department of
International Magical Cooperation, was quoted to be ‘very much looking forward to’ and ‘unlike
anything they’ve seen before.’ Another blurb was offered to pay mind to the still closed school of
Hogwarts, and the mystery that lurked within- one which resulted in the death of a young student.
Still no leads in an investigation that had run cold, the tragedy passing it’s anniversary date just a
few months prior.

His stomach churned as he returned the paper to where Tom had left it, his appetite gone. “If I
didn’t know any better, I’d say you wanted the Ministry to be tracking you for kidnapping me,” he
said, trying to keep his tone light even as his smile twitched and faded, the words lingering in his
mind, twisting and turning over and over again. The anniversary of the tragedy. Over a year had
passed since Ginny’s death, and here he sat, chatting with Tom over eggs and sausage.

“I could have killed you by now,” was all Tom said, dark blue eyes turning up to meet Harry’s
own, lips pinched. “I could have killed you and Dumbledore wouldn’t even know. You would
think that there would be better systems in place.” He stood now, chair scrapping noisily over the
floor as he tossed his dishes into the sink. “Voldemort is out there roaming about, and Dumbledore
couldn’t even be bothered enough to make sure you get home safe? Would it have been so much to
send someone out? He could have even gone out himself, not as if he’s so busy being unemployed
and all.”

“Why do you care?” Harry interrupted, trying to keep his voice level. Tom had been surprisingly
pleasant for the few weeks he’d been there, but he knew what potentially lurked beneath the
surface. That Tom’s moods could be mercurial, that there was very little to separate him from the
boy he was now to the man he might grow to be.

“I care because Dumbledore clearly doesn’t,” Tom hissed in response, turning to lean against the
counter, his eyes narrowed and jaw clenched. “Not only did he leave you to be abused and
mistreated by the Dursleys, but he doesn’t even check in on you? Harry Potter, the Boy Who
Lived, going missing should be front page news but instead your absence hasn’t even be noticed.”
He sighed, raising a hand and scratching thoughtfully along his jaw. His voice had risen, words
being spat out as if they left a horrid taste in his mouth, but when he spoke again, his tone was soft,
calm. “Why don’t you care?”

“I-I..” Harry stammered, unsure of what to say or even what he would say if the words could come
to him. Why didn’t he care?

Was it because he was used to being invisible, the broad strokes of the Dursley’s negligence
leaving him comfortable in the feeling of being forgotten? He preferred it even- it meant they were
not actively seeking to harm him, to torment or belittle him. Being unseen, the day slipping by with
no one speaking to him or even acknowledging him as he passed- those were the good days. That
was the standard that he had set himself when he was back in Privet Drive, that was where his
spectrum lay, between the margins of abuse and negligence.

Or did he not care because he ceased expecting others to? How many knew of the way he lived and
did nothing to stop it? The damning address marked on the letters Hogwarts first sent to him, the
fact that the Weasleys had seen him in the room and pulled the bars from his windows and still did
not mention it beyond using it as an excuse for breaking the rules. Of course they had to leave past
curfew and steal the car, Harry was locked in a room, hardly getting fed. And then it was never
brought up again.

He didn’t care, because no one else seemed to. Not really, at least.

Except Tom. Again, when all others turned a blind eye, reacted with apathy or sympathy with
inaction, Tom was the only one who cared. Enough to change it. Enough to help him.

Harry shrugged, wanting the conversation to end. He hated when Tom made him feel this way,
twisting his thoughts until they became traitorous. He hated that he was beginning to agree. “The
Dursleys are probably lying and hiding it. I doubt they want to get in trouble for losing me,” was
all he said, knowing that it was a weak and pitiful excuse. What chance did muggles stand, lying to
wizards?

But Argos was whining, the pitch high and irritating and Harry was thankful for the distraction,
tossing his uneaten sausage on the ground for the dog to eat. “Go on, better than to waste it,” Harry
urged when the dog did not immediately turn to eat it.

“What are your plans for today? Can’t fly, not with this storm,” Tom asked, turning his attention to
the windows and the rain which pelted against it, turning the world outside into a nothingness of
gray and the low rumble of distant thunder.

Thankful that Tom had let him change the topic- surely, if Harry didn’t buy his own excuse,
neither did Tom- Harry sighed. “I don’t know.”

He had gone flying everyday since arriving, going so high that he could reach the domed ceiling of
the ward Tom had placed over the farmhouse, fingers pressing against the otherwise invisible
shield that shined iridescently as Harry prodded against it. It had felt wonderful to spend his
summer this way, soaring high alongside Hedwig, releasing and catching the snitch over and over.
He hadn’t played Quidditch since his second year, had barely even flown on a broom since
entering Beauxbatons and he had nearly forgotten how wonderful it felt, how freeing. He did
somersaults and loops, had counted how long he could fly upside down for before his head felt too
heavy and his vision blurred. And when he became too tired to fly, he would lay in the overgrown
grass, the heat of the sun settling over him like a blanket, reading the books Tom had given him for
occlumency, Argos curled against him. Writing letters to Luna that Tom promised to send to her
after charming them for security.

“Can we practice occlumency?” he asked. “Like real practice, not just me reading about it and you
telling me techniques?” He had yet to actually try keeping Tom from his mind, had merely spent
the few weeks studying and attempting to meditate. Something he was abysmal at as Tom enjoyed
reminding him- “You’re not clearing your head,” Tom would say, adding “And thinking about how
bored you are is only going to make it more daunting.”

He hated being reminded that Tom was privy to his most intimate thoughts. But how could anyone
possibly not think anything at all?

Tom hummed. “I have some potion orders to fulfill, but afterwards we can try. You should help
with the potions, it doesn’t require magic and it will go by faster that way.” Before Harry could
argue against spending an entire day with Tom, the wizard had grabbed hold of him and hoisted
him up, leading him down to the basement.

-xXx-

(August 12, the Evening After Arabella Figg writes Dumbledore)

Petunia Dursley prided herself in keeping a good home. The garden was always bright and well
manicured, the exterior of her home clean and neat- she had on more than one occasion instructed
her nephew to sweep the path leading from the driveway to her home, even as he argued that such a
task was ridiculous. She valued order and control, she thrived in routine, so it came as no surprise
that she was practically electric with her nervous energy, twisting her fingers in her lap.

It was nearly nine in the evening now, and the roast she had made for dinner would be cold and
untouched, having sat on the table for two hours. They were just preparing to sit down and enjoy
supper when a loud pop rang through their home, bringing with it swift chaos and disorder.

And now she sat on her sofa, Vernon beside her, his face red and mottled. Dudley had been sent
upstairs, with much protesting on his part, as her living room became stuffed to the brim with
people she did not know, though many whom she recognized in the stories and memories that Lily
brought with her all those years ago. She had only met two of them before, the older wizard with
the long white beard tucked into his belt- Dumbledore.

The other she had known from childhood, long before she had learned of the bright and loud and
magical world that she could never be part of. He sat quiet in the corner, looking just as pale and
dour as he had as a child, though his clothes were tailored for him and not a much older, larger
person. His hair was still lank and greasy, his nose somehow looking even more crooked than she
recalled. Had he broken it since she last saw him?

She was drawn abruptly from her reverie by a harsh, callous voice, spoken by a man with an erratic
glass eye and chunks missing from his scarred face. “You don't even care, do you? That he's
missing. That he could be in danger. Hell, he could be dead and in an unmarked grave while you
went about your summer like-”

“Alastor,” Dumbledore interrupted, his voice as soft and measured as Alastor's was grating. The
man stopped his tirade, though he mumbled something cruel below his breath that made her flinch.

She swallowed thickly, lowering her head to avoid the judging gazes and stared at her lap, at her
too bony fingers as they wound in the skirt of her dress. Her mind was a fog, it was hard to think. It
all seemed so clear and easy when Harry was there- he was a burden, a presence in their life they
had not wanted that brought nothing but grief and misery and anger.
But when he was gone- when he was away at school and the shadow that seemed to move with
him dissipated- it was less clear. What had he actually done that was so bad besides existing in a
strange and frightening world? He was still a child, her sister's child, nonetheless. She had loved
her once, she knew, but somewhere love had been replaced with jealousy and resentment and
bitterness. How? When? Why?

She would vow to be kinder to the child, in honor of her sister whom she had loved and lost. But
then he would return for the summer, and with it came the shadow and the cloud and she called
recall with perfectly clarity just how rotten he was.

A pattern of cruelty even she couldn't quite understand.

“Where did you think he would go when you left him alone? He's fourteen years old, you think
that's old enough to figure it all out?” She looked up- it wasn't the rough voice of Alastor, though
not quite as soft or measured as Dumbledore's, fire and judgment lacing his words. The man who
spoke might have been handsome, if not for some deep scars that cut into his face.

She fumbled for words, her tongue too dry, when Vernon cleared his throat. “He's got magic, hasn't
he? I'd think he'd be fine while we went to visit my sister- who is petrified of him and won't dare
come over even when he's away!”

The same man frowned, narrowing his eyes. “Why is she petrified of him?”

“She was here when that man- Black?- came after him. Did a number on her,” Petunia answered,
though the memory of that night was a bit of a strain to recall, like a dream she had dreamt a long
time ago. Strange- perhaps it was the trauma of the evening.

“Her memory was erased,” Alastor spoke, his voice a sneer.

She blanched, her temper swelling at his doubtful tone. She shook her head, hissing “I know that!
But she's still afraid of him. It's like something from that night...lingered.”

He always seemed to linger.

“So you just left him to fend for himself...leaving Black the perfect opportunity to snatch him?”
The voice belonged to a young woman, her face pinched and stormy, her hair a ghastly shade of
blue.

The indignation rose in her, growling within her chest. “And what would have changed if we had
been here, then? Would Black have slaughtered my family? Am I just expected to put my safety-
my son's safety!- on the line for him?” she yelled, her voice filling the all too crowded space,
wavering despite her bravado. A deal had been a deal, sure, but she would only do so much for that
boy. For her sister. The safety of her family was not on the table.

“May we see his room?” Dumbledore asked, and she exhaled sharply.

“Why?”

“I'd like to see if he settled in at all. Determine when within the week you were gone that he
disappeared,” he asked, his soft tone darkening, words unsaid staining the ones spoken.

She swallowed, sighing. “His room is used for storage. He's only hear for the summer, after all, so
until he returns that's how it stays,” she lied, knowing that there was no sympathy that would be
gained if they knew where he really slept. That the spare bedroom they had given him had only
been his for a few months between his first and second year.
Dumbledore did not falter, inclining his head towards her. “I'd still like to see it. To make certain
whether or not he did manage to get settled.”

She did not answer, biting her lip and turning her gaze to meet Vernon's. She could bring them to
the spare room, though there wasn't even a bed in there, just some of Dudley's old toys and
forgotten school books. Before she could think of the matter any further, a creak cut through the
silence, gooseflesh prickling her skin. She turned in the direction of the sound, her breath hitching
as the door to the cupboard under the stairs swung open, just barely visible from where she sat.

“Tonks, would you mind taking a peek in that curious closet?” Dumbledore asked, though there
was no hint of amusement or kindness in his voice. His eyes did not move from Petunia, even as
the girl with wild hair- Tonks- crossed the room and into the hall, falling to her knees and looking
within the cupboard. She reached forward, pulling the string that attached to the bare bulb, light
spilling outward. She stared at what Petunia knew was a thin, worn mattress, a matching blanket
and pillow. There were some personal trinkets kept upon the shelves directly under stairs, tattered
books Harry had outgrown but kept regardless.

Tonks sighed, the sound more like a growl, as she rose to her feet, slamming the door closed with
such force that it bounced in the frame, opening as she walked back. “How long has he been
sleeping there? Can't imagine a crib fit too well under there, eh?” Her words were vicious, taunting,
as she rounded on Petunia, her wand gripped threateningly in her hand.

“Nymphadora,” the man with cuts marring his voice said imploringly, and she growled, turning to
him.

“Remus! They made him sleep in a closet half his size! Don't act like you wouldn't love to hex
away his bollocks and her ugly mu-”

“I understand Black is the more obvious culprit, but all else failing, I believe we may want to
consider the possibility that Potter ran away,” Severus interrupted, speaking for the first time since
the party had disturbed the Dursley’s supper. There was a silence, a look of contemplation flitting
over their faces.

Alastor scowled. “And go where? He sure as hell ain't at the Weasley's unless Arthur here is
enjoying the wild goose chase.”

A man with a round belly and fiery red hair frowned, shook his head. “No, obviously not. What
about Hermione? Though I don't think she'd let him do something as irresponsible as just leave
without owling it to someone...”

Dumbledore shook his head. “I'm afraid that Harry and Miss Granger have gone their separate
ways. He avoided her all year and when I visited she expressed her concern over his sudden change
of behavior.” He looked pensive for a moment, raising a hand and tapping a finger against his lips
idly. After a moment, he added, “I believe Severus may be right, in a way. I believe someone-
Black, though I wouldn’t discount others- may have spent the previous year, if not longer,
manipulating Harry.”

“Black broke out at the end of the summer last year...do you think that's enough time?” Remus
asked, his voice low and heady, something to his words that Petunia couldn't quite distinguish, his
eyes focusing on a fixed spot on the floor. There was anger and bitterness, yes, she was quite
acquainted with those feelings. But there was something else, a sort of sadness to them maybe.

“Harry was inquisitive about Black. It's possible he somehow got in contact with Harry and
managed to...twist things to him. He was friends with James and Lily before betraying them to
Voldemort, he could have used that to endear Harry to him.”

Petunia's head shot up at the statement, the sadness and betrayal, yes it was betrayal in Remus's
voice. Because this man, Black, had been friends with them all and had betrayed Lily- her sister- to
the man who killed her. He was responsible for her death and now he had her nephew?

There was a tightness in her chest, and heat prickled behind her eyes. The air was thinning around
her, and she could hardly breathe, it was too sparse, there was not enough of it. There had been a
veil of disassociation, a convenient forgetfulness. They had told Harry that Lily and James had died
in a car crash, and even long after he discovered the truth, it was as if she had been living in that
reality. The reality where her estranged sister had died quickly in a traffic accident.

She had somehow managed to separate herself entirely from the fact that her sister was murdered.
That there had been a war- though Petunia did not know the details, had detached herself from Lily
and ignored her incessant chatting about the world that would forever elude her. Her sister had
fought in a war, had been hunted down by some...beast. And betrayed by someone she had loved
and trusted, someone who had wormed his way into her life. Harry's life.

She was stung by the betrayal, not of Black's, but her own. She had allowed- through her neglect-
her nephew to fall to the same fate as his mother and father.

She had loved Lily once, she recalled.

“But why wouldn't Harry tell anyone? If Black did turn him I doubt it was in one afternoon. He had
to have worked on him for months. Why wouldn't he tell someone?” Tonks asked, the voice
startling Petunia from her thoughts.

It was Alastor who answered. “A tongue-tying curse, I imagine. Most iterations are childish in
nature and easy to break, but the darker ones...” he paused, stroking his chin thoughtfully before
adding, “Some are practically Unbreakable Vows, though they don't require the consent of the
second party. Generally they hinge on a sacrifice, though not of your life. I once worked with a
mute who lost his voice after being placed under such a curse and trying to break it. Terrible
curses. Terribly dark.”

“So Black curses him to silence, spends a year trying to earn Potter’s trust, then takes him for the
summer when he’s most vulnerable,” Severus drawled, turning an unreadable gaze to Petunia, the
inky black eyes looking down on her. “Sounds like an awful lot of work, and for what? Do you
think he could be working in conjunction with the Dark Lord? That Potter was needed alive?”

Dumbledore looked thoughtful, eyes worn and weary as if he had not slept in some time, the
exhaustion making him appear even older, making each wrinkle deeper. Fingers ran down the
length of his silver beard, blue eyes looking about him as if he might find Harry hiding underneath
the furniture. “It’s possible. Alastor, why don’t you and Tonks go ahead and alert the Minister,
rally the Aurors and tell them what we believed to have happened. They’ll want to perform their
own investigation no doubt, so Arthur and Severus while stay here to ensure that nothing is altered
while we await their arrival.”

Petunia opened her mouth to protest, that her home was not open for these strange people to just
traipse about it. That this was not a crime scene no matter how much they wanted to make it one.
That she was under no legal obligation to allow them in- she was not a witch, and these were not
her law officers.

But Dumbledore rose a hand to silence her before she could even speak, turning then to Remus and
a stern looking witch, graying brown hair pulled back in a tight bun. “Harry may have lost touch
with Hermione and Ron, but he did make friends with another witch. Luna Lovegood, a former
Ravenclaw, I’m sure Minerva remembers her. Why don’t you two pay her a visit and see what she
can tell us about Harry. How he behaved, anything he said that might not have been stopped by a
tongue-tying curse.”

They nodded, dutifully, each readying to fulfill their task, a sudden flurry of energy taking hold of
them. A purpose, a drive reigniting them. A loud crack, followed by a pitched pop made her jump
and press against Vernon as Tonks and Alastor disappeared in a plume of smoke, followed by
Remus and the stern-faced woman, Minerva. Arthur began to rummage about the home, peering
into Harry’s closet himself and tutting angrily before heading upstairs.

“My son!” Petunia called out sharply, not wanting Dudley to get pulled into this...this mess. This
weird and chaotic world that was quickly enveloping her, threatening to strangle her. She made it to
the landing before she was stopped, fingers curling around her wrist and pulling her down roughly.
She stumbled, inclining her chin to meet Dumbledore’s eyes.

“Your son will have to be interviewed, but I assure you, he will not be harmed,” he said, voice cold
in a way that even Petunia knew to be uncharacteristic. “Let’s you and I have a chat. Is there
somewhere private we can speak?”

-xXx-

Luna Lovegood’s room was just as colorful and whimsical as she was, standing against a space that
was organized in a manner only the one who organized it could discern. The walls were murals,
each hand painted, lovingly and delicately. This wall was a canvas of the night sky, a deep navy
saturated with swirls of magenta and violets, bright hot stars forming constellations. The wall
opposite it was a garden of fauna and flora that Remus wasn’t even entirely sure truly existed, but
the certainty of each line, the vibrancy of the colors of the unfurling petals made him believe they
were. The other two were unfinished, hazy lines and solid blocks of color that would be deepened
and fleshed out when she had the moment. Twine ran across the length of the room, paintings
clipped to it that he tried to examine but there were so many to get lost within he forced himself to
stop and look to the girl before him.

Her long hair, the color of wheat, was tied into several braids, sprigs of lavender poking out from
random knots, and she was smiling at him and Minerva sweetly, as if she were receiving a visit
from long-ago friends.

“Here they are,” she said, handing the letters to Remus that had been opened and then carefully
placed back within their envelopes, bound in twine. “See? Harry can’t be missing. He’s been
writing me all summer.”

Remus returned her smile. “So he has. Do you mind if I take them? I’m sure this will help
everyone feel better about his disappearance?”

Her smile slipped, and she hesitated. “I’ve never gotten letters before,” was all she said.

“We can make copies, then? And you’ll keep the originals?” he offered, knowing how painful it
could be to lose that physical link to your friendship. That it wasn’t the letters she wanted, but what
they meant to her.

She nodded slowly. “That would be alright, I guess.”

“I’ll do that,” Minerva offered, taking the letters from Remus’s grasp and settling down at Luna’s
desk to copy them, pushing aside tins of watercolor- the dried dollops mixed with all the colors she
had not cared to wipe from her brush.

“You and Harry became good friends this year?” Remus asked, slipping his hands into his pockets.

Luna perked up at that, eyes glistening fondly. “Yes. He can be a bit distant sometimes, but that’s
alright. He’s always nice to me and listens to me even when he thinks I’m being silly. I’m smarter
than people think, you know? But it’s fine that he doesn’t always believe me, because he’s still
kind and pretends to believe,” she prattled on, her adoration for the boy evident in the lilt of her
voice, the wistful look on her young face, still round in her youth.

Remus felt himself smile despite his concern for Harry and the fear that Black might have him. He
had never gotten a chance to meet the boy, but he knew he looked like his father, like James Potter
but with a terrifying scar and Lily’s eyes. His personality was all Lily, however, and he imagined
that she would have been proud to hear the reverent way Luna spoke of her son.

“Has he ever told you about anything going on in his life outside of school? Maybe another friend
who didn’t go to school with you?”

Her eyes looked upward in thought, humming slightly. “He did mention something about being
offered a place to live for the summer. Not with the Dursleys.”

Remus felt his heart skip, his pulse heighten. The sound of papers shuffling ceased, a chair squeak
as Minerva twisted to listen in. “Did he say with who?”

Luna frowned, shaking her head. “No. Just that he had hurt some people, but wouldn’t hurt Harry.
That he was nice to him, at the least.” She averted her gaze then, cheeks coloring. “I told him to do
it. Is it my fault he’s gone?” Her voice had lost its airy quality, dread and regret weighing it down
and making it heavy, too heavy for the young girl. Her lip trembled, and her eyes had turned
watery, tears clinging to her lashes as she tried to hold them back.

Remus bent down at his hip, gripping her shoulders tight and reassuringly. “Of course not. Like
you said, he’s still been sending you letters, so he must be fine. I know you were just trying to give
him the best advice you could. You were being a good friend, Luna,” he told her, and she sniffled
trying to believe what he said. Pretending to believe, just as Harry had done for her.

Minerva said something then, about how the letters had been charmed to be untraceable- magic far
too advance for Harry even if he could perform magic- but Remus did not hear them, the sound of
his pulse becoming overbearingly loud. He did not see it before, too lost in the clutter of everything
else, but from this angle, bent to Luna’s height, he could see the painting just above her bed. The
one that sat above her pillows- the one she would see first thing in the morning if she slept facing
the wall.

Remus stood, stepping aside the young girl and towards it, reaching out and plucking it from the
where had been taped up.

“I was thinking of giving that one to Harry. Do you think he’ll like it?” Luna asked, voice warbling
over her unshed tears.

It took him a moment to answer, unable to look away from the painting. “He’ll love it, Luna. But
what is this a painting of?” he asked.

“The day I met him. Under the willow tree in Beauxbatons. There’s me,” she said, pointing to
herself, a crown of ugly flowers over her head. “Harry. And that’s Argos.”

“Argos,” Remus repeated, the words metallic on his tongue, like poison. “Argos is your dog?”
She shook her head. “Our dog. He must have been a stray, we started taking care of him last year.”

The words barely registered, the sound of his heartbeat like the crashing waves of an ocean against
the shore. Last year. Sirius Black had escaped just before the beginning of the school year. Sirius
Black, an unregistered animagus whose likeness was captured quite well by Luna’s talented hand.
He tried to speak, but had to stop as each word stopped short, become a monosyllabic utterance.
Hastily formed expressions as he felt something overcome him. Rage? Fear? Betrayal? Perhaps it
was guilt, guilt that hadn’t revealed the hidden abilities of his childhood friends. Guilt that he could
have saved Harry from this if he had only told someone to be on the lookout for black dogs.

It was his fault, wasn’t it?

“Wh-where is...Who has Argos now, Luna?” he asked.

“The house elves at school agreed to feed him for us. Until we could come back,” she answered.

He glanced to Minerva, who was looking at him with concern and questions she wanted
desperately to ask but held back for Luna’s sake. “Remus?” she asked, sounding very much like the
teacher she had once been, the one who often admonished him and his friends when their lives
were much simpler. She knew, he realized, the moment he had begun to sweat and shake at the
picture of a dog…

She knew.

She knew, and because of him, Sirius Black had Harry.

-xXx-

“You told Mr. Potter and Miss Lovegood you would feed their pet dog for them while they were
out for the summer,” Dumbledore said to the house elf, long and knobby fingers pulling nervously
at her eyes which flapped with each bob of her head. “That was very kind of you. Have you been
doing so?”

She made a noise, a cross between a growl and a keening sound, not unlike the panicked bleat of a
sheep. “No, no, no. Bosky was going to, even though its against the rules, Bosky is sorry for
breaking the rules!”

Madame Maxime smiled reassuringly, gently patting the elf’s bulbous head. “It’s alright, Bosky.
Why didn’t you feed him?”

The elf shrugged her thin and narrow shoulders, twining her fingers. “Bosky was going to but when
she went to feed him, he was gone. Doggy must have run away when the kids left.”

-xXx-

“Legilimens!” Tom shouted, wand raised at Harry who stood before him, the wind rustling and
pressing against them, as if trying to uproot them from where they stood. It was as if he was pulled
into a tunnel, his mind lurching forward, across the distance between them. There was a wall of
resistance, one that Tom nudged against with greater force. Harry was getting better, stronger.
Where there had once been nothing to stop him, an open book ready and waiting for the entirety of
the world to slip through its pages, there was now a base, something for Harry to build upon. It was
not flawless by any means, but it was a difficult skill to hone, one that many witches and wizards
would never manage.

This was the Harry Tom most enjoyed. There were many facets to the young boy, much like Tom
himself. Though while Tom’s were all pretenses, carefully manufactured and tailored for whatever
task was needed, Harry’s were all genuine. It was as if there was too much of him to be contained
in one simple vessel, as if he were more complex than anyone else in the world and donned a
different mask for each one of his complexities.

The honor-bound martyr Harry was decidedly the one Tom liked the least, and thankfully the one
he was wearing away. Like a sculptor chipping at marble, unveiling his masterpiece, so too was
Tom chipping off the pieces of Harry he didn’t care for, the ones he found too tedious. Too
exhausting. Leaving nothing but perfection and beauty in its place.

But this Harry, the one standing before him and groaning with pain as Tom tossed himself against
his mental wards- Tom liked him most all. He was smart- he really was, when he wasn’t
encumbered with self-doubt or worrying about being the savior the world wanted him to be. He
wasn’t as intuitive as Tom, though hardly anyone was, and it was no matter, Tom didn’t mind
explaining things more concisely to Harry, cutting information up into bite sized pieces for him to
consume.

He wanted to learn- he wanted to be able to guard himself against Voldemort, and he clearly had
great respect for the magical world, the one that belonged to them. There was a desire within him
to learn all it had to offer, to be part of something that had been denied to him for most of his
young life. A desire to finally belong.

Perhaps Tom was being sentimental, seeing himself in this Harry, this ravenous version of Harry
that wanted more. There was a potential for power, the ability to do great and wonderful things. He
could see it lurking, when Harry stopped caring about that insipid Weasley girl or stopped
worrying that Tom was going to kill him at any moment.

When Harry stopped trying to be what the world wanted him to be, when he was stripped of the
layers Dumbledore imposed on him, he was strikingly similar to Tom.

It was with that thought that Tom finally managed to break through, the walls crumbling around
him and leading the way to a deluge of memories. Of Harry, small and young and reaching out
with desperate, searching fingers, a single word falling off his lips as tears streamed down ruddy
cheeks. Mommy, mommy, mommy. He was reaching out for a mother that wouldn’t come, an aunt
that slapped his hands with a wooden spoon and yelled at him for calling her that name. An older
Harry, looking ridiculous in an over sized sweater and slacks that were too wide for his legs,
cinched at his middle with a belt and the cuffs rolled up to keep himself from tripping. He was
running down the halls of a school as a larger boy chased him, threatening to shove his head down
the toilet. But Harry was fast, and he dashes out to the school courtyard, turned down an alley
and...finds himself suddenly on top of the roof, rain pouring down him and make the sweater sag in
the weight, clinging to him.

Tom felt Harry push against him, trying with all his might to get him out of his head and rebuild his
walls. But why should Tom go easy on him? What good would it do for Harry? It wasn’t as if
Voldemort would give him the same courtesy, and Tom can’t afford for Voldemort to see what
Harry sees. Not when it would reveal the existence of his younger self to him.

So he remained, unwavering and unrelenting, letting memories flash before him, snippets that he
could grasp onto but didn’t find interesting enough to do so. Until he found a later one, of Harry- in
that same sweater, though now it fit better- standing in front of a mirror, gazing at his own
reflection. But the mirror was charmed, and the reflection reached inside its pockets and produced
a stone- maroon and sharp, the flat surface refracting the light of the torches that fill the room. It
seems to be filled with a fire of its own, flames trapped within the polished gem the color of blood.
The reflection dropped it back inside its pockets, and Harry’s fingers twitched at the sudden
weight.

‘What a curious mirror,’ Tom thought as he stepped closer into the memory, so that he stood just
behind Harry and the man beside him. But before the scene could unfold any further, something
tugged at him, pulling him by the collar as something else shoved against his chest. With a gasp of
breath, Tom was thrust from Harry’s mind, falling to the ground.

But he doesn’t stop- it was as if the ground disappeared and he fell into an abyss, the gaping maw
of a beast. Fingers are curled around him, clutching the collar of his oxford and when he finally
stopped falling, it was not to the ground of his farmhouse, into the unkempt grass. But on the hard
floor of a building he did not immediately recognize.

Not at first- the recognition came to him slowly, in mounting horror. The walls of tattered
wallpaper, the floral design fading and grimy from years of wear. The floorboards old and dingy
and they creaked with any weight against them- but not Tom’s, he was weightless in this moment.
He remembered it all, knew exactly where he was even as his mind argued against it, and yet he
was still shocked to see himself- his younger self, the child he had once been in a time that seemed
centuries forgotten.

And yet, despite how small this Tom looked, even to himself, he was being flanked by two men,
dressed in the same uniform: white slacks and a matching jacket. He was struggling against their
hold, shouting out with a young and prepubescent voice, “No! Stop! I’m not mad! I’m not!”

“We’re just going to do some tests to make sure you’re healthy, son,” one of the men said, trying to
coax him down to the automobile waiting just outside the orphanage. An ambulance. “You’ll only
have to stay at the hospital if you’re sick.”

“He was talking to snakes! I saw him myself, out in the garden. He was talking to them like they
were people.” came the shrill, frightened voice of Ms. Cole, the matron appearing from just outside
the corridor, face pinched as if she had eaten something rather foul. “Of course he’s sick! And he’s
dangerous, he’s already hurt too many of my children and I’ll not stand idly by while he does it
again!”

One of the men nodded sympathetically. “We understand ma’am, we’ll have him seen by the
doctor as early as possible.”

And they began hauling him out, even as Tom began crying- fake tears that looked frighteningly
realistic, a desperate act by a child who knew exactly what to do. “I was just playing! It was
pretend is all!” the words sounded pathetic, made only more so by the childish pitch, the way they
stumbled over his cries. But it would work. Tom would return to the orphanage only a few days
later with no diagnosis other than being a lonely child with quite the imagination. Ms. Cole had
been less than convinced.

Tom turned, meeting the green eyes that had settled on him. Harry, wide eyed and confused,
unsure of how he managed to get here. How he managed to drag himself into Tom’s memories in
his attempt to guard his own.

When Tom shoved Harry out, it was with more force than was necessary, anger filling him that
Harry had seen something so private, so intimate. Harry yelled out in pain as he fell to the ground,
his hand cupped and cradling his head that no doubt felt like it was being split in two.

‘Good,’ Tom thought, seething with untethered rage, trying with what little, tenuous control he had
over himself to not reach out and curse him. Curse Harry until he was twitching and panting and
coated in sweat. Until he begged him to stop.

Harry rolled onto his back, looking up at Tom through squinting eyes. His glasses sat askew,
knocked over from when Tom had shoved him back too hard. “S-sorry. I...I didn’t mean to.”

He was afraid, and something within Tom delighted in that. Fear meant you held power over
someone. Fear was almost as wonderful as worship, the cowering at his feet like a bow, the pleas
to stop like prayers and kisses to the hem of his robes.

But he held himself back, stopping just sort of standing over Harry, his jaw clenched and
trembling, the crowns of his teeth grinding down so hard he thought they might turn to dust. He
didn’t want Harry to be afraid of him. He needed- wanted- Harry to trust him, to yearn for him
above anyone else.

“It’s...alright,” he forced himself to say, hoping the words sounded more natural than they did to
him. “I didn’t expect you to do that.” Then he reached out, offering his hand as Harry stared at it
dubiously, wondering if it was a trick. “I’m sorry if I hurt you,” he added, and after a moments
hesitation, Harry finally accepted, allowing Tom to pull him up.

He wanted to twist his hand, twist it until the bones in his wrist snapped and he cried out in agony.
But he didn’t, letting go of his grasp when Harry was standing.

“Do you-” Harry started, but Tom ignored him, turning on his heel to disappear into the basement.

He had enough occlumency lessons for a day, and Harry seemed to agree. He didn’t follow him.

-xXx-

The next morning, Harry wandered towards the kitchen tentatively, lingering in the door frame as
if deciding against going in. Tom was sat at the table, bent over the morning’s Daily Prophet, a
bowl of porridge long forgotten before him.

He had been avoiding the boy ever since he had somehow entered Tom’s mind during his lesson,
the memory that was not his own playing over and over in his head on an infinite loop. And even
when he fell asleep, hoping for a moment of reprieve, he instead dreamed of it all over again. Of
the cries and shouting of a child as he was dragged away. He looked no more than six years old,
and the image clashed against the one of Tom he had grown so used to. The image of a young Dark
Lord capable of evil, reduced to tears and desperate, juvenile pleas.

“Are you going to come in or do you just intend to stare?” Tom snapped, startling Harry from his
thoughts.

He felt his cheeks burn at having been caught, and mumbled no as he walked in, pulling a bowl
from the cupboard. Each sound seemed amplified, the creak of the door as it swung, the clunk of
the bowl against the counter. The cereal shifting in the box as he poured it in, Argos’s large paws
as he padded to Harry’s side, growling low in his throat; a grating symphony of the tension
between them.

He sat the box down, stared at the cereal for a moment, wondering if he should just eat it in his
room and avoid Tom for one more day. He dismissed the idea, though. He was a Gryffindor after
all- once upon a time.

He was speaking before he even realized he was. “My aunt and uncle brought me to an orphanage,
you know. I found the paper work one day when I was cleaning the garage. It was the day after my
parents died, when they saw me on their doorstep.” He didn’t turn around to look at Tom, worried
that doing so might shatter the small bit of peace between them. Like a tightrope pulled taut
between a great distance. “I was only there for two days- I don’t know what made them come back.
They certainly didn’t want me, so I just don’t understand. A part of me wishes they had left me
there.”

When Tom said nothing, and the silence felt too much like mocking, Harry finally turned, holding
the bowl of cereal in both hands. If he was startled to find Tom looking at him intensely, he did not
show it, trying to steady himself against the dark blue eyes, the ones that seemed to see through
him. Taking him apart and breaking him down to nothing.

“I always thought the Dursleys were worse, but maybe that’s not true,” he said, unable to stop
himself from speaking now that he had started. A stream of consciousness that he had no control
of, each word making the next one worse. He felt, all at once, stupid. He had never even told
anyone this, and hadn’t thought of it much outside of that afternoon when he was eight years and
covered in dust and cobwebs, sorting through filing boxes and crates of holiday decorations.
Sometimes he thought he had even imagined it.

But Tom did not try to stop him, even as he followed Harry’s movement through the kitchen, his
eyes unblinking as Harry sat down and settled the bowl on the table. There was that silence again,
feeling too much like laughter and judgment. “I thought you lied about it. The orphanage. I thought
you made it up to get closer to me.”

“No.”

Harry jumped at the word, not expecting a response. Tom was still staring at him, but his gaze had
softened a bit, narrowed in curiosity. “I’m sorry,” Harry said, shifting uncomfortably in his seat. “I
know what its like growing up without a family. I can’t imagine anything other than that would
have been good.” Argos whined, butting his head against Harry’s shins but he shooed him away,
his own curiosity blossoming within him.

What had happened to Tom’s family? It seemed like a foreign concept- Lord Voldemort having a
mother and a father. How old was he when they died? Did he remember them at all? Did anyone?

At least Harry had something, nebulous as it was. The fond recollection of his parents from those
who had known them, the assurance that he looked exactly like his father but with his mother’s
eyes. He had some photos, thanks to Hagrid, and he knew their names. Did Tom even know his
parents’ names? Or were they lost forever? No one to remember them, no legacy for even their son
to hold onto?

It was terribly sad, and Harry found himself actually feeling bad for Tom. Growing up without a
family was tragic enough, but what if Tom hadn’t come back to the orphanage? What if he had
been trapped within the asylum forever, just because he existed in a world that did not understand
him? The same thing could easily have happened to him, Harry knew. That if they thought they
could get away with it, the Dursleys would surely lock him away forever. And who would believe
him? Magic and potions, three-headed dogs and trolls so tall they knocked into chandeliers. He’d
be considered a loon, and would never see the light of day again.

Never see Luna again. Or Hermione. Or Ron. Or Argos.

He would never see Hogwarts or Beauxbatons.

He would simply exist between two worlds, the one that thought him mad, and the one that had
forgotten him. The thought was terrifying, and he felt his pulse quicken at just the idea of
something so cruel.
 “Here,” Tom said, interrupting his spiraling thoughts, tossing the Prophet across the table at him.
Harry blinked, shaking the images from his head as Tom added, “And with only two and a half
weeks to spare.”

“Huh?” he muttered turning to the newspaper to find his face staring up at him, underneath a bold
headline.

‘Boy-Who-Lived Lost: Harry Potter Not Seen Since Arriving Home for the Summer’

Chapter End Notes

I’ve always headcanoned (it’s a verb now) that the Dursleys would have tried to get rid
of Harry, only for Dumbledore to intervene. I just can’t imagine them abiding by a
strongly worded letter. Again, I cannot stress enough that I am in anyway justifying
Harry’s abuse- I understand that Petunia’s POV bit could be misinterpreted that way,
but that is certainly not the intent. In that same vein, and though I think this goes
without saying, it is important to note that in this story, Tom and Harry will never have
a healthy relationship. Even if Tom adopts an entirely new personality, the foundation
of it can never change. This is just personal for me; I don’t think any relationship with
Tom would ever be healthy without his character being massively OOC. If you were
looking for something healthy, this is not the story for you.

Also, as I’m sure you all have guessed by now, next school year will feature the Tri-
Wizard Tournament. My plan for this fic has always been to use the existing years as
templates, twisting things as needed for this AU. The main reason for this is because I
want to spend the time focusing on Harry and Tom’s relationship as it shifts and
changes, as well as his relationship with Dumbledore’s and the Order, and of course,
on Voldemort learning of his other half. Using the canon years as a template allows
me to do that without getting lost in trying to create and tie together plot points, as well
as turning an already substantially long fic (each chapter is roughly 10,000 words, and
there will be several for each school year) into a tedious epic where we, essentially end
up in the same sort of places and situations as the canon material anyway.

That being said, and clearly unable to use Hogwarts for the tournament, I will be using
another school in its place.

Thank you all for reading! I hope you enjoyed!

 The Article, the Train Station and the Cries for Help
Chapter Summary

After reading the article on his disappearance, Harry is upset and finally contends that
Tom was right. He returns to school and is met with questions he can't answer, and
Tom returns to plotting how he'll usurp Voldemort.

Chapter Notes

Fair warning, Harry’s abuse is explored a little more in this chapter. I know it’s been
shown in all the chapters, but there is a point where there’s a steady stream of it in
quick succession. It’s not graphic, and is just a quick mention, but I still felt the need to
warn for it. Also, Harry’s horcrux is beginning to get more active now.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter Seven: The Article, the Train Station and the Cries for Help

Harry said nothing as Tom approached, twigs snapping beneath his steps, rocks kicked in his path.
He heard him, then felt him standing over him, like an obelisk that would always shadow him. He
had ran off from breakfast table, newspaper crumpled in his fist as he burst through the door, the
screen slamming harshly in its frame. But that had been some time ago- twenty minutes, an
hour...two. Harry did not know how much time had passed with him sitting in what had once been
a garden, reading the article over and over again. Reading it so many times that he had memorized
it all.

‘Harry Potter- otherwise known as the Boy Who Lived- has been reported missing. Sources have
determined that after arriving at King’s Cross following the end of his third year, Potter never
made it home. Living with his muggle aunt and uncle, his disappearance was not reported until
over a month had passed, the official Ministry report coming back at 3:26 this morning after a
formal search of his home revealed no further leads.

‘Finding Mister Potter is our highest priority,’ Minister Fudge stated during a press conference, the
news of the missing teen quickly making waves through the community. ‘All efforts are being
made to ensure his safe return.’

When asked about what led to Potter being gone for over a month without any report or welfare
checks, Fudge quickly dismissed the question. This comes as a particular concern, given the escape
of convicted Death Eater last summer, Sirius Black, whose whereabouts still remain unknown-’

“I can bring you back. If you want,” Tom offered after a moment, his voice soft as he cut through
Harry’s internal monologue, the constant and unending rereading.

Harry shook his head, not looking up from his own image, the lines from where the paper had been
crumpled, folds cutting across his head, his eyes and lips. “No, I don’t. I don’t want to spend the
next few weeks answering their questions and being treated like a delinquent.”
“They’re worried,” Tom said.

Harry snorted. “Yeah, so worried they didn’t realize I was gone until almost the whole summer had
passed.” It was too easy to ignore the reality, the summer with Tom existing on a separate plane of
existence, in a different universe adjacent to his own. He could pretend that nothing existed outside
this little world, and that he would return to it seamlessly when the time came.

But the article had distorted all of that. It had dragged him painfully back to reality- a reality where
it took weeks for someone to even realize he wasn’t there.

He felt Tom sit beside him instead of saw it, heard him shuffle into a seated position. He tucked his
feet under his knees, crossed his ankles, curled his hands over his knees. It should have looked
awkward- he was so tall and lanky, how could it look anything but? Yet he seemed entirely
content, natural. Ever at ease in himself where Harry struggled to look comfortable in what little
space he occupied.

“You said it yourself, the Dursleys probably hid it,” Tom said. He was playing the Devil’s
advocate, Harry knew. Though whether he was doing it to provoke Harry, or simply to help him
think from a different perspective he didn’t know. He wished for just once, Tom would stop
speaking in riddles and half-truths.

He sighed, burying his head in the crook of his elbow. “You win, Tom.”

A moment passed, stretching between them like an eternity. “Pardon?” Tom finally prompted.

“You win. You’re right, okay? Yeah, my home life is awful and I’m sure my aunt and uncle were
more bothered to have their home searched through than the fact that I’ve been gone. And
Dumbledore doesn’t care, and yeah you or Voldemort or Black all could have killed me by now
and no one would have even known,” he spat, surprising himself with the malice in his words, the
bitterness with which he spoke that sounded so unfamiliar. But there was a comfort in this
unfamiliarity, as if finally acknowledging the truth he denied for so long had absolved him of the
burden of justifying it. He didn’t have to make excuses for others, because he had accepted that
none of them were good enough. None of them were good enough for letting a child go missing for
so long. Even the writer of the article struggled to hide her condemnation, the Minister offering no
comment. There was no excuse for it.

“Still, if you wanted to go back, I can bring you back. You’ll have to face them eventually.”

“I know. But not right now,” he said, the words going unspoken. They got along just fine without
him for five weeks, a few more wouldn’t hurt. It was incredibly vindictive, he knew, but he wasn’t
feeling very charitable at the moment. “Besides, they’ll just be mad that I ran away on my own and
wasted all their time.”

Tom shrugged. “They think Black took you against your will. No need to let them think
otherwise.”

“It’s not that simple, Tom,” Harry muttered, knowing that the lie would only be stretched so far
before the cracks begun to show. They would catch him in it, and what would they do then? What
would Harry tell them about his summer? How differently might they look at him if he knew the
truth?

‘Oh, don’t worry, I just spent it with an errant piece of Voldemort he seems to have misplaced. We
didn’t kill anyone this summer though, so all set here then, yeah?’ he imagined himself saying,
standing in the center of a court room. Dumbledore the judge, the Weasleys the jury.
Who then would play the role of executioner?

Tom sighed, running a hand through his hair as if irritated by Harry’s sullen mood. “Stop thinking,
won’t you? It’s harder to keep you and your guilt out when you’re in such a foul state,” he
mumbled.

Harry bristled, cheeks flaming in indignation that his conflict was putting Tom at such an
inconvenience. As if Tom had ever been anything but that for him. There was so much he wanted
to say to him, all of it curling within him, lodging in his throat and suffocating him. He wondered if
he could die from all the things left unsaid, if the unfamiliar burn of hatred and anger that warped
within him- turned his blood to mercury, his bones to iron cages- could make him rot from the
inside out. He was well acquainted with being impulsive, brash decisions acted out on the whim of
a flitting emotion. Of anger and the humiliation of having been slighted.

But this bubbling within him was entirely foreign and he all at once wanted to hurt the boy beside
him. It was frightening, the way his fingers flexed on their own volition, as if readying to wrap
around Tom’s neck. The way his veins thumped noisily below his skin, suddenly too loud. He
clenched his jaw, as if doing so might stop him from slinging out the words that tried to crawl out.
They were insects, crawling up his throat, prying through his lips. Shiny, luminescent shells of
beetles crunching under his teeth as he fought against freeing them.

He wanted to curse Tom- literally and figuratively. He wanted to blame him for all of this- but
what was all of this? Was he mad at Tom for setting off this chain events, from throwing Harry of
course all because of a silly little book? Or was he mad that Tom had been correct? That he had
been mistreated and forgotten about? Angry that he had been perfectly content with what little he
had in life until Tom made him want more?

A thirst that would never be quenched now that it was realized.

He was startled when he felt an arm settle over his shoulders, pulling him into Tom’s side. He
stiffened at the touch, unsure of what to make of it. He hadn’t been this close- physically- to Tom
since before he escaped the diary and their relationship had been much simpler. The gesture
seemed almost perverse now, but even as he told himself to shirk away from his touch, he melted
into it, the tension that had knotted his muscles and made his bones tremble evaporating.

Just as quickly and easily as it had come, the anger and hatred and need to hurt had left at Tom’s
touch. As though there was a part of Tom that Harry needed, a part that he yearned and sought for
and didn’t even know he was looking for until he suddenly had it.

He hated that he could loathe Tom so much, but still fall into his touch like nothing had passed
between them.

“Did you at least enjoy your summer with me?”

Harry scoffed. “You’re a prat, Tom.”

All the other things he wanted to say forgotten, the bugs swallowed as he settled into Tom’s side.

-xXx-

He was filled with rage, a twisting rage that ignited him, burned him, turned into something
hideous and foreign. He could hardly see, his vision quaking in his wrath, the world before him
fuzzy and nebulous- the remembrance of a dream, the silhouettes of two people before him all he
could see in the haze. And his scar was inflamed.
Could someone die from too much pain? How much agony could someone be subjected too before
it all became too much? Before your senses shut down, your brain turning to a mush of collapsed
synapses and gray matter?

He wanted to reach out and cup his head, cradle it as if that might somehow abate the pain. But he
couldn’t move- he wasn’t bound, and he didn’t feel the taut pull of restraints as he tried to break
free. He was simply trapped within a nothingness, an insubstantial being. An observer. An
observer to what?

He wanted to scream- and he thought he might have, a nonexistent mouth stretching wide and a
nonexistent exhale accompanied with a sharp shout. But he did not hear it- all he could hear was
the rush of blood in his head, a tidal wave that threatened to crash against him, toss his body
against the jagged rocks of a cliff. An avalanche as a mountain trembled and shook and snow raced
down its side.

And when the rushing sound softened, when his rage had reached a crescendo so great he was
almost deafened, he heard a faint hissing sound. A high-pitched voice that chilled the boil of his
blood, made him shake despite the heat and fire that was in him, around him. “Find him!”

“My lord,” someone whimpered, put their plea was cut short.

“Find him! Bring him to me!”

“We can use another in his place-”

“Crucio!”

The word- which sounded less like a word, more like the hiss of a serpent that curled inward, ready
to pounce- brought with it screaming. Tortured, anguished cries that filled Harry, mingled with his
own. His head felt like it would split in two from the pain and cacophony of noise. A noise that
dragged on, hours, years, trapped within it. An entire lifetime ensnared within the screams.

When it finally ended, his ears rang and it felt as if cloth had been swathed over his head.
Everything sounded distant. Muffled. There was murmuring that he could not distinguish, a hissing
voice- different from the one that commanded the others. A warning, an intruder.

“The muggle caretaker is outside the door-”

Heavy, dragging footfalls, the sound of a body being tossed to the floor. His silhouette was visible,
growing steadier as Harry’s vision finally settled to the scene, anger sharpening in focus. He was
an older man, curved and hunched over, graying hair.

“Avada Kedavra!”

Green light exploded before him, engulfing the room and filling Harry’s gaze. Blinding him. When
it receded, the old man was lying prone before him, mouth wretched in a silent scream, eyes wide
and glassy. Was it that quick? The light leaving them just like that? All the warmth and light taken
in an instant, whisked away by those words and carried off in a wave of emerald?

“Nagini.”

Something was curling around him, sliding pass and down from where he sat, sliding along the
floor. A snake, impossibly large, scales glistening gold and brown in the light. And then it lurched,
jaw unhinging to wrap around the man’s head, fangs sinking into skin, tearing into flesh, muscle.
Bones crunched, snapped like twigs as the serpent continued to slink forward, the man
disappearing-

His stomach churned at the sight, and he tried to avert his gaze but he couldn’t. Again, he was that
nothingness, unable to escape, unable to look away. His head throbbed, his body trembled and their
was a distant screaming, an echo that hadn’t ceased.

“Find him. I will not start over.”

“How?”

“Crucio!”

Cries racketed in his head. His vision shook once more as anger consumed him. Blood coated the
floor. Limbs twitched frantically, searching for help that would not come. Fangs severed deeper
into flesh.

“HARRY!”

He awoke with a shout, eyes opening wide and flicking about him- still trapped in that between
world, between waking and sleeping. Nightmares and daydreams. The screaming had ended,
though the sound remained, buried deep into his subconscious. And the rage had left him, replaced
with fear and panic as his chest rose and fell rapidly, hands trying to reach out for his wand.

He was here. Voldemort. It had been Voldemort and he was trying to find him.

But his hands were bound, sheets entwined around him, and he flailed, trying to free himself.
“Harry, stop!” a voice called, and there were hands on him, a firm pressure on his shoulder, pining
him down.

“No! I need- Voldemort. He’s angry. Wand. I need it. He wants to find me,” he spoke, the words
choppy and hoarse, his throat sore from his screaming. He couldn’t think, the ache in his head still
present, the ghost of the dream still vibrant in his mind. The crunch of bone, the tortured pleas.

“Voldemort’s not here, just me. Just Tom,” the voice came again, and he felt someone tugging the
sheets loose from under him, tossing them aside and he could finally move.

“Tom?” he asked, his gaze settling on the boy crouched beside him. His face was distorted, his
vision still shrouded in a haze, tears and sweat obscuring the world from him. But he could see the
curl of his hair- messier than usual, had he been sleeping before Harry woke him to his screams?
His blue eyes were trained on him, a sharpness to them that seemed surreal when everything else
melted together.

But it was Tom, he recognized him just enough, and without thinking- perhaps it was the relief that
sagged into him, or the need for something solid and real to remind him that he was no longer
trapped in Voldemort’s head- he leaped forward, wrapping thin arms around Tom. Fingers twisted
into his cotton shirt, head burying into his shoulder.

He sobbed openly, body shaking with each shuddering cry, and he couldn’t be bothered to care or
be embarrassed. He cared only about the relief that it was over, that he was no longer forced to
watch the men twitch in agony, watch the snake take on the daunting task of eating a man whole. It
was different from the dream he had months ago, when he was the snake and could see nothing
beside jerky movements, quick flashes of color. But watching the snake launch and bite down and
sink itself down until less and less of the man became visible- it was a sort of torture he never
wished to experience again. To be so helpless as others suffered, killed before him while he could
do nothing but watch and hear every terrible sound-
A hand settled on his back, tightening the embrace. Another curled over the back of his head,
fingers smoothing down strands of erratic hair. It was undeniably calming, a warmth blossoming
from where his body connected to Tom’s. Just as Tom’s touch had quieted the rage he felt earlier
that day, so too did it help abate the despair and fear he felt in that moment.

He knew he should have questioned why, certain that even touch deprivation couldn’t result in a
response so immediate. But he didn’t care to, for once content with letting a little mystery slip by.
All that mattered was that his heartbeat was beginning to slow, that his veins and capillaries no
longer felt as if they would burst. That the sharp, stabbing pain in his scar had turned to a dull ache.

His breathing became less ragged, and if he could close his eyes and focus on it, he could hear
Tom’s own heart beat against him, a steady, calming staccato.

Funny- it seemed to beat exactly in time with Harry’s own heart.

-xXx-

“Can we go to the muggle village later today?” Harry asked, fingers burying in the dirt as he dug
out the entirety of the plant- root and all- and began shaking away the excess dirt.

Tom reached a hand to steady his wrist, saying in a stern voice, “Stop that, you’ll damage it and
ruin my potions. And why? We don’t need anything.” It was dangerous too, but he didn’t say that.
Two weeks had passed since the Prophet ran the first of many articles chronicling Harry’s
disappearance. Two weeks since Tom had awoken to the sound of screams and thrashing, to Argos
practically breaking down his door in his attempt to get Harry help. Though he was more than
confident in his wards- the fidelius charm only one of many layers guarding them from intrusion-
he wouldn’t dare wander outside of them for anything other than an emergency.

It was bad enough that Harry insisted on returning to school instead of staying with Tom. Though,
he did have a point- no matter how wonderful a teacher Tom might be, Harry still wouldn’t be able
to use his magic. And what point would that be if Harry couldn’t truly learn to defend himself?

Harry shrugged, gingerly cleaning off the roots now. “I just want to stop in. Maybe get a new book
to read. Besides, I’d like to say bye to Miss Woolton.”

Tom narrowed his eyes at him. “You just hope she’ll give you some more free biscuits and
scones.”

“You ate just as much as I did!” Harry countered, his tone accusatory, lips pinched in a pout.

Tom rolled his eyes, turning his own attention back to the plant as he carefully dug it from the
ground. “No. I’ll send you some scones at school if they mean that much to you. It’s not safe to
leave the wards.”

“It’s a muggle town, though. Not like it’s crawling with too many witches or wizards who will
report me.”

“No,” Tom said again, his tone curt. Truthfully, the aurors weren’t the ones he was concerned
with. They meant no real harm to Harry, even if he would spend the remaining days before school
answering all sorts of questions, straining even Tom’s occlumency as he tried to keep the boy’s
wards up between them. He would be safe at least, and Tom was confident he could disappear
before they would even take notice of him- it’s not as if many even knew who Tom was, the
memory of the Hogwarts student long gone.

No, the aurors and Dumbledore were the least of his concern. Not when Voldemort had become
enraged at the news of Harry’s disappearance. When he had sent the two men he had out to search
for him.

When he purchased the farmhouse, he had hoped that it would be far enough from where
Voldemort might roam that their paths wouldn’t cross until he was ready. But how did one think
differently from themselves? How did one make unpredictable moves across a chess board when
the one they played against was themselves?

At least when Harry returned to school, he could relax a bit. His horcrux would be safe there-
certainly not even Voldemort would be desperate enough to try something so risky while he was
still so weak.

“What potion are you making anyway?” Harry asked, clearly trying his best to not sound
disappointed.

“Draught of peace. I’ve got an order for it, so we’ll have to focus on it to make sure it’s perfect.
Can’t make any foolish mistakes, and it’s very difficult to do,” he answered. It was a difficult
potion, one that Harry wouldn’t even be expected to make unless he wished to get his NEWTs in
potions. But despite his young age, he was bright, and so long as Tom kept an eye on him, he
wasn’t too terribly worried about what sort of damage he would do.

He could hear Harry mumbling to himself, though it wasn’t anything against Tom. He was talking
about the plant, the fluxweed, and the magical properties it had and which potions it was most
suitable for. Committing to memory all the things Tom had taught him about potion making in the
few short weeks.

“What a good little student you-” the taunt died on his lips, smirk slipping from his face as Tom
caught sight of something just off in the distance. Just outside his wards.

“Tom?” Harry asked, brows furrowed. He turned in the direction that Tom was looking, craning
his neck. He gasped, jumping from where he knelt in the garden, his wand at his side. “That’s the
man from my dreams! Wormtail.”

Everything happened too quickly after that, a succession of events where not one thing led to the
other, as they all began at once. Argos rose from where he had been lounging at Harry’s side,
snarling viciously and taking off at a run, dust picking up from where his paws kicked at the
ground. And Harry was running too, skidding as he went down the slope of the hill, arms spread
out on either side to keep him steady and making it look as if he might take off into flight at any
moment. He was running after Argos, right towards Wormtail, the sound of barking booming
through the air, dispersing in the open plot of land.

“Harry, stop!” Tom yelled as he went after them, his own wand raised. They were safe so long as
they stayed within his wards, a task that Harry seemed to ignore, continuing his descent down to
the plateau of land where Wormtail wandered, his wand raised. How had they even found this
town? Tom had tried so hard to find something small and obscure, off the beaten path and as far
from wizarding society as he could.

Had that been his mistake? Had it been too obvious a place to hide? Had he circled so much into
trying to avoid Voldemort’s path that he sat right in it?

Argos was nearing the edge of the wards, the curved edge glistening if Tom looked at it from just
the right angle, though Wormtail would see nothing. So long as the damned dog would. Stay. Put!

“Incarcerous!” He shouted, flicking his wrist in the direction of the mutt. A rope, appearing in mid-
air, wound itself around all four legs, tightening until they were bound and Argos could run no
longer, rolling to his side and squirming against the bindings. His barking had become snarls, deep,
growling snarls not umlike the ones a rabid, wounded animal would make. And still, even as he
was ensnared in the ropes, legs pinched in the center and his back forced into an awkward arch, he
kept trying to move closer to Wormtail, trying to propel himself through the dirt with a thumping
tail and quick, jerking movements.

“Argos!” Harry called, changing his direction as he took a sharp turn to the right, crouching at the
dog’s side. He was tugging at the ropes, trying to undo them even as they became tighter at his
prodding. “Tom! Undo it! Now!”

“No,” Tom said when he was close enough, his wand lowered, pointed at the dog.

Harry threw himself over top it, turning his body into a shield, his own wand raised and aimed at
Tom. “No! You can’t hurt him! He’s my friend!”

Tom came to an abrupt stop, eyes flicking over to the figure approaching the wards, the squat and
ugly man raising his nose as if he thought he might sniff Harry out. He settled his gaze back to
Harry, slowly raising his hands to show he did not intend to harm either of them. Yet- Black would
certainly pay for stupidly trying to endanger Harry that way. Despite his appearance, he wasn’t a
dog, and he should have known better than to try to leave the wards of a fidelius charm.

“Harry,” Tom implored, trying to sound calm even as panic flooded him. Just a few feet, that’s all
that stood between them and the wards. Just a few seconds late and Black would have exposed the
lot of them. And for what? Revenge? He would have exposed Harry to a Death Eater all because of
a past that had been buried and forgotten. Anger followed the panic, but he tried to bottle that up,
knowing Harry wouldn’t respond well to that. “Harry, he can’t see or hear us. I promise you we are
as safe as we can be so long as no one steps. Outside. That. Ward.”

He spoke to Harry, but his gaze flicked to Argos, the dog’s hackles raised to bare his teeth. “If so
much as that mutt gets out, he’ll reveal us all.” Brown eyes widened in understanding, but he still
continued to snarl, canine fangs poking out menacingly.

Harry turned to look behind him, at Wormtail. He was close enough now that Tom could see the
thinning strands of blond hair a top his head, the beady eyes which never seemed to settle as he
prowled around the land. He was wearing tattered and filthy clothing, corduroy pants that were
torn at the hem, a grimy vest over a sweat and dirt stained oxford. Close enough that Tom could
count the buttons.

“But he’s...” Harry started, wand shaking in his grasp. “He’s right there.”

He looked torn, like he didn’t quite believe that they were safe. Like it was impossible to be only
feet from someone and still invisible. As if he hadn’t seen enough magic to understand this.

“Harry,” Tom started again. “I know you don’t trust me, but please, if I ever needed you to trust
me, it would be in this moment. I promise you, nothing is going to get through. I won’t let anyone
hurt you. But I need you to trust me.”

Harry chewed his lips, looked back once more to Wormtail, who had thankfully started to turn in
the opposite direction, walking towards the muggle village miles away. He lowered his wand,
turning to Tom. “He works for him. How am I supposed to just let him go?” he asked, but it was
not out of rebellion, not the tone of someone looking for a reason to obey what was told to them. It
was the tone of someone who felt guilty, as if he was committing some sin by inaction. As if his
self-preservation meant someone else would die.
‘Bloody Gryffindor,’ Tom thought.

“Go back to the house, Harry. Unless you’re prepared to kill him yourself, he’s just going to go
back to Voldemort and bring him here.” That did it. If the boy was horrified at the prospect of
letting a murderer wander away, it was nothing compared to the prospect of having to kill someone
for their silence.

Slowly, he rose to his feet, though he didn’t turn his back on Wormtail, walking backwards to Tom
and in the direction of the house. When he was at Tom’s side, Tom settled a steadying hand on his
shoulder. “Levicorpus,” he said as he pointed his wand at Argos’s still struggling form, lifting the
dog up into the air. He carried him that way as the walked up the hill, watching in silence as
Wormtail wandered further away from them, neither one of them wanting to lose sight of him.

They did not leave the house for the rest of the day. Or the next. And Harry didn’t question it when
Tom conjured up a second bed to fit into his own room, telling Harry that they would share a room
until he left for school.

Tom trusted his wards to keep them safe, but it didn’t help the anxiety he had felt at seeing Harry
just steps away from Voldemort’s grasp. He would be thankful when Harry was finally back at
school, and if Black tried to get himself killed afterwards Tom wouldn’t stand in his way. But he
would be damned if he put Harry in danger again.

He needed to protect his horcrux, he told himself.

-xXx-

(September 1, the beginning of the school year)

Dumbledore stood against the pillar, looking out at the crowd around him. The crowd that moved
like a sea around him, people barely paying him notice as they dragged suitcases behind them,
chatted and laughed with their traveling companions. All the sounds echoed, ricocheting off the
high ceilings of King’s Cross station, creating a bubble of noise. The screeching, metallic sound of
someone speaking over an intercom cut through, but most ignored it, unable to discern the words
from the tinny squeal. He could see the others in their assigned spots, an Auror by the ticket booth,
Kingsley by the pillar marking the exit for another platform. All dressed as muggles, trying their
best to hide in the crowd.

“What makes you so certain Potter will even come here? I doubt a kidnapper would be so
considerate to return him for school,” Snape drawled beside him, arms crossed over his chest.

Dumbledore did not answer. He wasn’t certain, not entirely. But there was a chance, however slim
it was, Harry could arrive, and they weren’t going to miss the opportunity. They had exhausted all
possible leads- Black seemed to have just disappeared after the summer ended, leaving not a single
trace to where he might have gone off to. They had withheld the information of him being an
animagus from the public, fearing that if he saw it printed in an article he would do something
disastrous. Desperate.

Best to keep their cards close to their chest.

“We’ve warded the whole area- even outside of the station. The moment Harry walks through, it
will recognize his magical signature. Be prepared in case he isn’t alone,” was all he said, clasping
his hands in front of him and returning to his careful scrutiny of the crowds around him.

-xXx-
Harry dragged his trunk off the bus, apologizing as Hedwig was tossed in her cage when he failed
to see a ridge in the sidewalk. Receiving a none too pleasant glance from the driver before he
closed the doors and drove off- he had initially refused to let Harry on with the owl, but after a
great deal of pleading and even trying to muster up a sad story for exactly why he needed to keep
the owl, the driver had relented.

He paused as he stepped back, allowing others to pass him, searching through the crowd. Tom had
promised to make sure Harry got to the train safely, but would do so from a distance. He supposed
it made sense- Harry had been missing for the whole summer now, and anyone arriving with him
in tow would surely be subjected to hours of questioning. And if they learned who exactly Tom
Riddle was-

Well, it would all just get too complicated. Too messy. For both of them. He understood it, but he
didn’t like it, the image of Wormtail standing before him still so concise. Like he had stepped right
out of Harry’s nightmares to haunt him, to inhabit this world. He had always known that Voldemort
was out there, somewhere, in some strange form; not quite dead, not alive. But passively knowing
it was different from this feeling. This feeling of being hunted.

He felt better knowing that Tom was somewhere, in a peculiar disguise that for some reason Harry
couldn’t seem to commit to memory. When he was looking at Tom, he had no issue knowing it was
him in disguise, but the moment he looked away all distinguishing features escaped his grasp. Had
he been a blond? No, no- brunet. Or perhaps he was bald? It was a curious charm- a glamour, he
had called it- but Harry wished there had been a way for Tom to conceal himself without changing
his appearance. There was little comfort to be found in the face of a stranger.

That was a notion he preferred to keep tucked away for now. Forever, if he could manage. When,
exactly, had he begun looking to Tom for comfort? When had he become the person to put him at
ease, instead of the one who unsettled him? When did he begin looking for his face in the crowd-
not out of fear or paranoia, but because it made him feel safer? Less alone?

It would be a lie to say that the summer had been unpleasant. In fact, he couldn’t much think of a
summer that had been better than this one. He had whiled it away in the skies, on his broom and
racing Hedwig. He would on occasion visit the muggle town, Miss Woolton always offering him
some of her fresh baked biscuits- ‘a couple extra for your brother, too,’ she would say with a wink.
He had celebrated his birthday even- nothing outrageous or even spectacular. But there had been a
cake and Tom had even (grudgingly) agreed to fly with him for a bit, each racing to catch the
snitch first. Harry always caught it- something he was better at than Tom.

Even the parts he thought he would dread had actually been alright. Practicing occlumency,
making potions- he was actually good at it when he didn’t have a teacher who would give him
detention for breathing. And Tom didn’t just instruct him, he taught him about the potion and why
it worked, how each ingredient contributed to the elixir. Which herbs played well together and
why, which combinations to avoid. He doubted even Hermione knew the sort of stuff Tom taught
him.

But when had he crossed that line? The line from forced politeness, regarding Tom with the same
level of care he would a blast-ended skrewt, to actually enjoying the time he spent with him? The
easy companionship they had had before he left the diary. Had it been when he awoke, crying and
screaming in agony and Tom had held him, letting him cling to him for an embarrassingly long
time? Or was it when Tom had stopped him from attacking Wormtail, making good on his
promises to keep him safe from Voldemort?

It was...confusing. It was the only word he could think to describe it. The constant shift in his
relationship with Tom. But he couldn’t let himself settle in that comfort, no matter how easy Tom
made it. He was certain that the moment he did, the boy would strike, like the monster he
pretended not to be.

Was it pretending though? He had seen inside his head, if only for a few moments, some stolen
glances in a past that he sure Tom did everything he could to bury. The orphanage hadn’t been a
lie, like he thought, and Tom certainly didn’t seem monstrous then- just a young boy being
dragged to a hospital, tears streaming down his face, all because he was different. Because he was
like Harry.

“Harry Potter,” a voice called, startling him from his thoughts and he came to an abrupt stop just as
a heavy hand clapped down on his shoulder. Hedwig hooted loudly at having been jostled, her
cage swinging in an arc at Harry’s aborted step, but he ignored her, turning to look at the man
standing uncomfortably close to him, holding him in place.

The man met his gaze, one eye- a glass eye- spinning rapidly in its socket, a band holding it in
place that wrapped around his head. His face was carved with deep scars, white, messy seams that
held the skin in place, a chunk missing from the tip of his nose.

Harry dropped hold of his trunk, hands digging through his pockets for his wand- but the man had
grabbed hold of his wrist- not painfully, but firm- and shook his head. “No need for that, come on,
keep walking,” he said, grabbing hold of Harry’s abandoned trunk and dragging him towards the
station, an ambling unsteadiness to his gait. “Alastor Moody, an auror for the Ministry,” he added
as Harry tried to free himself from his grasp, gazing through the busy streets for Tom in his
mysterious disguise.

“How did you get here?” the man- Moody- asked, his hold on Harry’s wrist only tightening as he
continued to try to pry himself free.

“The bus,” Harry spat back, not bothering to hide the surliness. Tom had said the station would be
crawling with Aurors, it was the entire reason he wouldn’t escort Harry himself to the platform.
But he had barely made it ten steps away from the bus stop before being manhandled. He wasn’t
prepared for this just yet.

“Did you come alone?” Moody asked, choosing to ignore Harry’s tone.

He hissed, the familiar twinge in his eye flaring back to life. He bowed his head, gritting his teeth
in pain, his eye crumpling into a squint.

Moody grumbled, shoulders stiffening as if becoming more alert. “That’s a no, then.”

“Harry!” another voice called, and he twisted in the direction of it, watching as Arthur Weasley
came from the opposite side of the street, looking odd in some muggles which didn’t match in the
slightest: green plaid trousers paired with a fluorescent purple oxford that might have been
intended for a female, the buttons swapped for the wrong side.

“Mr. Weasley,” he called out in turn, grateful for the familiar face, even if it did remind him too
much of Ginny. Even if it did remind him of all the reasons he hated Tom in the first place.

“Harry, are you alright?” Mr. Weasley asked when he approached, but Harry didn’t have a chance,
pulled into a tight hug. It was not comforting, not the way Tom’s had been. It just made it worse,
his stomach twisting into knots, the words sitting on his tongue. ‘I’m the reason your daughter is
dead. I don’t deserve your concern.’
He felt filthy, like he might cry from the weight of the guilt and the blood on his hands. He almost
confessed, the words slipping from his lips before he could stop it. But he didn’t get too far before
his eye erupted in pain, and he pushed away from the embrace, a hand curling over his eye.

“Harry-” Mr. Weasley said, but Moody interrupted, his tone brusque.

“Black’s here, let’s get him inside to Dumbledore.” They were pulling him then, each flanking
either side of him, Mr. Weasley carrying Hedwig’s cage as Harry continued to clamp his palm over
his eye, fearing that it might pop out from all the pressure.

He didn’t want to see Dumbledore, though. He had hoped against all logic and reasoning that the
whole matter of his disappearance would be blown over. He had hoped that they would see he was
alright and send him off with a pat to board the train.

Would he even get to board the train? Or would they withhold him from school until he told them
everything? Until he found a way to tell them about Tom and Ginny? And even then, what? Would
they send him to Azkaban?

Another auror flocked to their side, one with short, spiky hair the color of bubblegum. She
followed just behind Harry, close enough that if she tripped she would stab him with the wand she
held at her side, hidden behind the folds of her coat.

He was beginning to feel more and more like a prisoner, the closer they came to the station.

They entered through the large doors, spilling out in the center of the station, ticket booths on
either side of them, an information desk in the middle of it all, the crowd parting around it. He
could see them now- all the aurors. They were the only ones not moving, running to departing
trains or purchasing their tickets. They stood pressed against the columns, arms folded over their
chests as they looked over the sea of the people, a stern look on their face. Most didn’t move from
their position, like statues keeping guard, but some did step down, threading through the crowd to
approach the small group that was forming around Harry.

It felt like an ambush.

“Did Black drop him off?” a man with sandy hair that brushed over hazel eyes, thin scars marring
his face asked. He looked at Harry as he said this, the attention making the young boy shift in
discomfort.

“Tongue-tying curse, keeps touching his eye in pain, but I think so,” Moody answered. Harry didn’t
feel the need to correct him.

‘Let them think what they want,’ he thought, recalling Tom’s opinions on the matter.

The man shook his head. “It just doesn’t make sense though. Why let him go back to school? Why
take him at all?”

Harry felt himself bristle, irritated by the way they spoke of him, as if he wasn’t even in the same
room. Or was a child that couldn’t understand what they were saying, didn’t know that they were
speaking so openly in front of him. ‘I’m right here,’ he thought with bitterness.

Arthur gave him a curious look. “Of course, Harry. Sorry, we don’t mean to talk about you like
this,” he said, smiling sadly, a bit bashfully.

Did he say that out loud?

“Er...it’s alright,” he mumbled, cheeks warming that he had snapped and hadn’t even realized he
had spoken it. But it was forgotten, the group coming to a stop as Dumbledore and Snape came to
gather around him, a circle with him at the center.

Was this the court he had imagined? The judge before him, the jury surrounding him?

“Thank heavens, Harry,” Dumbledore began, placing both hands on Harry’s shoulders and
squeezing them. He didn’t have to lean forward, tilted at the hip like he once did, so much had
Harry grown. There was only a few inches between them now, and he never thought the man had
looked smaller, never looked so tired, eyes framed with large, purple bags.

Had Harry done that?

“I’m so glad to see you’re alright. You are alright aren’t you?” he asked, voice warm with concern.

“Fine,” he mumbled in response, feeling the same anger from before, the one that had only been
quieted when Tom slung his arm around him. ‘I could have killed you by now,’ Tom’s voice came
back to him, unbidden.

Dumbledore gave him a dubious look from over his half-moon spectacles, lips pinched before
saying, “Harry, we have some questions for you, but here isn’t really the place for it. We’re going
to go somewhere-”

“I have to get to school,” Harry interrupted, genuine panic filling him. He recalled, with startling
clarity, the way Tom had been dragged away, little feet kicking the air, scuffing the floor in a
tantrum.

Dumbledore’s eyes softened, a curious glint to them. When he spoke next, it was slowly, each word
chosen carefully. “We’ll bring you to school, a little late is all. We just have some questions.”

He felt his skin begin to itch, crawl over his bones and he started to bounce on the balls of his feet,
a manic energy rocketing through him. “You can ask them here. I don’t want to go anywhere else.”

“You’re not in any trouble, Harry. You understand that, don’t you? This isn’t about you, we just
need you to tell us about what happened over the summer,” Arthur said, his voice caring. Fatherly.

Harry gasped in pain, pinching his eyes closed as he dug his nails so sharply into his palm he
formed crescent shaped imprints. He gritted his teeth, shaking his head as he said, “I can’t tell you
about it.” He was all at once- in a perverse, twisted way- thankful that Tom had cursed him the
way he had (tongue tying curse, Moody had called it). It absolved him of the responsibility of
telling the truth, an easy way out for him. No matter what, he couldn’t be implicated in any of it,
because he was cursed to keep quiet.

“Can you undo it? The curse?” someone asked.

It was Moody who responded. “Only the caster can.”

“Would veritaserum override it?”

“No. Legilimency however-”

Harry looked up, squinting through the pain in his eye, the lights that suddenly seemed too bright.
No. They couldn’t use legilimency. He was nowhere near strong enough at occlumency, and he
couldn’t let them see the truth.
Couldn’t bare to let them know the truth.

Dumbledore frowned, eyes finally lifting from Harry’s face to meet Moody’s. “I can’t.” The words
were soft, so soft Harry wasn’t sure he had heard them. But he did, and he tried to not show his
relief. He didn’t understand it- surely, Dumbledore was more than capable of breaking the meager
barriers Harry could manage- but was thankful for it all the same.

But that meant-

“You’ve been trying to read my thoughts?”

He didn’t realized he said it until all eyes turned to him, brows raised at the venom that was so
unfamiliar in Harry’s words.

Dumbledore considered him for a moment. “Harry-”

“How many times have you tried to read them, then? Have you never been able to get in or only
recently?” he asked, the anger shifting, morphing into something else. Humiliation at what
Dumbledore might have seen. All the private and intimate thoughts he had not once given him
permission to view. Betrayal that Dumbledore had done so anyway. “What have you seen?” The
words made him feel small, made him seem small.

“I’ve only ever done it once or twice, when I thought you were in trouble-”

“What have you seen?” he asked, more forceful, the despair that had saturated his tone almost
gone again, his emotions flipping faster than he could control them.

Dumbledore hesitated in his response. “Just some moments from school Some childhood
memories. Nothing for you to be embarrassed of-”

With that, a seal had been broken. The insects crawling up from his belly, millions of legs
skittering up his throat as they finally fell free. Little venomous spiders, ugly beetles, an
unstoppable stampede of unspoken words. He hardly recognized himself as he spoke.

“Oh, that’s all then? Just some childhood memories, yeah? Which ones? Anything good? Did you
see the time I had to walk home from primary, and the Dursleys locked me outside? It was winter
then, if that jogs your memory. Or what about all the times I didn’t get to eat, sometimes for
almost a week at the time? All the times I was locked in the cupboard? They used to lock it every
night when I was younger, because I had nightmares and tried to crawl in bed with them. It was
easier for them to lock me in than comfort me. Did you see any of those?”

He was shaking, jaw clenched so tightly he thought the bone might shatter into a million little
fragments. Dumbledore looked as if he was going to speak, but Harry continued, the bugs and
insects falling from his lips, unhindered. “I’ve had a couple of broken bones- did you see the real
reason I had them, or the reason I was told to give the doctors and my teachers? Speaking of
doctors, they always told me I was underweight. That I needed to eat more. Not as if the Dursleys
cared enough to follow doctor’s orders. So which did you see? Which one of these childhood
memories shouldn’t I be embarrassed of?”

There was an indiscernible expression on Dumbledore’s face, one that might have made Harry
smile smugly if not for the mounting anger.

“I’ve spoken to your aunt and uncle, and I don’t have the words to express just how truly sorry I
am for the life they gave you-”
“That wasn’t my question. What did you see? Did you see any of that? Even just one?” His gaze
was challenging, green eyes hardened, narrowed as he inclined his chin. The silence that followed
was as damning as a confession.

Harry swallowed thickly, feeling his bravado waver. Once more, Tom’s words came back to him.
‘I care because Dumbledore clearly doesn’t.’ Harry grabbed his trunk which had been deposited by
Moody, ripped Hedwig’s cage from Mr. Weasley’s hands as he stepped aside. No one made to stop
him, astonished and pitying eyes following his movements. He didn’t want their pity, though. He
never wanted pity.

“I was offered a home for the summer, away from all of that. And I took it,” he answered, taking a
few more steps back, in the direction to where he knew Platform 9 ¾ would be. “And now, I want
to go back to school.”

“Harry,” Dumbledore called, just as he had turned his back to him. He hesitated a moment,
considering just walking away. But something in his voice wore down at his resolve, a chisel that
hit against the walls he tried to build. He turned, raising a brow. “I never saw any of those
memories. I knew your aunt and uncle weren’t the kindest, but I didn’t think...” He broke off,
searching for the words to say. As if any of them could erase the moment that had transpired.
Could make the bugs crawl back into his mouth. “I’m sorry,” he finally said, looking worn. Rueful.
“I am truly sorry that I didn’t think to look more closely. But Sirius Black is not the solace he’s
made himself to be. He can’t be trusted.”

“Sirius Black did more for me than anyone else,” Harry sneered, knowing it was a lie but not
bothering to talk around the truth anymore. He just wanted to board the train, to leave all of this
moment behind and return to what little normalcy he had.

He turned back and left for the platform. And this time, no one stopped him.

-xXx-

“Should someone...follow him?” Arthur asked, the first one to speak. Harry was quickly
disappearing, lost in the rush of others as the crowd enveloped him. “Just to make sure he gets to
the train safe, at least?”

“No,” Moody answered, his voice like gravel, rough and worn. “There are aurors all the way down
to the platform, and on it itself. They’ll make sure he gets there alright. They’ll send word to me
when he does. We’ll give him some time to cool down, get settled in school before we try speaking
to him again. Whatever happened, it’s gotten him all sorts of twisted. The Headmistress knows to
keep an eye out for a dog. He’ll be fine.”

“Then we should try to find Black. You said he’s here, right?” Tonks said, a frantic quality to her
as she looked around. As if Black might appear behind them, leap from the swarms of people that
meandered through the station.

Dumbledore sighed, raising a hand to rub at the space between his eyes. “Black wasn’t the one
who took Harry.”

“What?” they said in unison, Moody shaking his head in agreement with the older wizard.

“What do you mean? He said it himself?” Lupin hissed, making a gesture to the direction Harry
had run off in.

“Exactly,” Moody said, turning to look at Lupin as his glass eye spun rapidly around, as if it might
discover the person who truly was responsible. “He said it himself. Something that the tongue-
tying curse specifically prevents. Black didn’t take him.”

Tonks was shaking her head, crossing her arms over her chest only to let them slip back at her side,
then grasp her hips. “No. No. It has to be Black. Who...who else would do it? Most of the former
Death Eaters are locked up. And even then, I can’t see Harry just making friends with You-Know-
Who’s followers. Black at least made sense. He was friends with his parents, escaped at the time
this all started.”

“Did he?” Moody prompted, rubbing his chin in thought. “We think it started around then. But
maybe it started earlier. Or later, even. It’s not exactly as if it would have taken a lot of sway to get
Harry to trust him. If you were him, where would you rather spend the summer?”

A moment of quiet between them, disrupted only by the shuffle of a new crowd arriving, the brass
voice booming over the intercom. Lupin was the first to speak, a measured quality to his voice that
suggested he was struggling to remain leveled. “Did you mean it? When you told Harry you didn’t
know? Or were you just lying to get Harry to trust you again?” He squared his body so that he was
more appropriately facing Dumbledore, jaw clenched and fists tighten at his side. If there was
something hard in his tone, no one mentioned it.

Dumbledore inhaled slowly, shaking his head. “I wasn’t lying, Remus. I knew Petunia had been
estranged from Lily, but I didn’t think she would subject Harry to such cruelty. Arabella never saw
any of that, though she did express that there was some contempt for him. But we never thought it
went beyond that. If I had expected there was abuse, I assure you I would have stepped in.” He
paused, swallowing a lump that sat at the bottom of his throat, suffocating him. He had stepped in,
once. Years ago, shortly after the deaths of Lily and James Potter. Harry had been surrendered to an
orphanage, despite the letter that he had left for Petunia. Despite telling her that she was the only
safe place for her nephew, the blood she shared with Lily keeping Harry safe. He had made them
take him back.

Because he wanted Harry to be safe.

If he had known what would happen, if he had thought to watch a little more closely, he never
would have left Harry there. He thought he would be safe.

He thought Petunia had loved her sister, once. That she might learn to love Harry too.

“I’ve failed him, Remus. Nothing I say or do can make up for that. I’m sorry. I tried to find the
safest place for Harry, and in doing so, I’ve placed him in far greater danger,” he admitted.

Lupin sighed, his shoulders slipping as he ran a hand down his face. He looked tired. Worn- older
than his true age. “He’s safe now, at least. That’s what matters,” he muttered. There were no
platitudes, nothing to abate Dumbledore of his guilt. No one mentioned that either.

“So we’re certain it’s not Black,” Snape said, a tinge of poison to his words. “That leaves us with
no leads, no clues and a teenager who is physically unable to tell us a thing? Excellent.”

The sarcasm and bitterness was evident, but Dumbledore paid it no mind. His focus fell on Moody,
who had turned away from the group, eyes following someone as they left for the exit at a brisk
pace. Even his glass eye had stilled.

He looked to the man Moody studied so closely, but there was nothing of note. Long blond hair
that curled around his jaw, a slightly crooked and long nose, stubble covering his chin. “Something
the matter, Alastor?” he asked, startling Moody from whatever had transfixed him.
He hesitated, then shook his head, “No, I...there was someone I thought...” he looked back to the
crowd, trying to find the man once more. But he was gone. “In the right light, I thought I saw the
shimmer of a glamour.”

“A glamour? What did he look like?” Arthur asked, voice high on alert as he twisted frantically,
fingers gripping the wand that he hid in his sleeve. He rose a hand, signaling to one of the aurors
against the pillars. Black might not have taken Harry, but someone did. Someone who had just
wandered pass them.

“I...don’t remember?” The uncertainty sounded foreign to the auror, and Dumbledore opened his
mouth the describe the appearance, having been the only other one to see the man.

But it was gone, the memory slipping from his mind like it had never been. Was it cropped auburn
hair? No, no...a mass of curls? Dark skin? Pale skin?

He struggled for the memory, searched for the features he knew he had seen but had somehow
forgotten. It was gone, just like the man.

Like a ghost.

-xXx-

When Tom arrived home, it was to a farmhouse that had seemed too quiet. He could hear Argos-
Sirius- barking from where he was locked away in what had been Harry’s room, throwing his body
up against the door. He would grow tired soon, and when the fight finally left him, Tom would
reward his cooperation with a chat. A proper chat- wizard to wizard instead of wizard to canine.

He wouldn’t release him, just temporarily undo the curse that trapped him in that form. Just so they
could talk. He wasn’t even sure what he would do with him, in the end of it all, having given his
fate little thought. Harry was painfully attached to the mutt, and had even threatened Tom to keep
him safe while he went to school. Killing him would only undo the progress, the trust that Harry
had begun to place back into him.

He smiled as he thought back to the summer, Harry walking around him the first few weeks. Only
arriving in the kitchen for food when he was certain Tom had left, roaming the perimeters and
corners of the home as if doing so somehow kept him safer. As if the shadows might obscure him
from sight.

It was a true delight, watching it all unfurl. How Harry shifted from only sitting with him for an
hour a day to study his occlumency, jumping at the slightest provocation, to sitting beside Tom as
they made potions together, doing all of his prep work and listening earnestly as Tom added them
in the correct order. Stirred it clockwise. To Harry practically always at his side, eating meals with
him. Gardening. He even tried- with only one success- to get Tom on a broom and play some
Quidditch with him.

In just a few weeks he had become pliant, trusting Tom slowly. So slowly, he doubted he was even
aware of it. It was sad, really. Not in a pathetic way, but in a genuine manner that Tom knew to be
sympathy even if he had never experienced it before. He had heard the word before, knew what it
meant and how to emulate it. But it had always been a ruse, one that never went beyond kind eyes
and soft words.

So what about Harry had stoked the ashes of a flame he thought long extinguished? Perhaps it was
the connection, the link between them that bound their souls together that made him saddened by
how easy it was to earn his trust. How sad it was that Tom fulfilled this role Harry needed so
desperately that he fell into it seamlessly.

Yes, the connection had to have been it. It was the reason why Harry had sought his embrace the
night he awoke, his tumultuous thoughts quieted as they came together. Two slivers of something
that felt whole in the other’s presence. A part of Harry’s soul belonged to him- the part of him that
trapped onto Harry, feeding from him like a parasite- and it was calming to have something that
was his so close to him once more.

The calm was gone now, Harry’s absence in the home like a storm that loomed overhead, black
clouds rolling above him. His nerves were frayed, an anxious energy within him that he hadn’t felt
in a long time. Not since he was trapped in the diary. But it was better this way- Harry was safer at
the school, where Voldemort couldn’t touch him. Where his magic could grow and he could learn.
Black was still the target he needed him to be and no one would press Harry too hard about his
summer, knowing the limits of a tongue-tying curse.

Telling himself this did nothing to ease his nerves, however. It had been so nice to have a part of a
soul back with him, he almost regretted splitting it in the first place.

Almost.

The thought spurned him then, and with renewed purpose he wandered into his office- the one
hidden in a charmed closet in the potion laboratory. It wasn’t anything grand, just a small desk and
chair, some oil lamps and a cramped bookcase with all the tomes he knew Harry would be
horrified with if he stumbled on them. It was just a small carving he had made for himself. A place
to keep the two halves of his duality separate.

He had put off most of his research with Harry around. He had other priorities, and couldn’t afford
for the young boy to get suspicious. But he was gone now, and he could finally return to it.

But where to begin? The notes he had scribbled in his journal? The books he had marked?

His eyes fell on the untitled one fitted on the top shelf. Slim and black. He reached out before he
even knew he was, holding the diary that had started this all for the first time since stashing it
away. It was damaged, the pages caking together with dried blood which colored them maroon.
The cover was crisp and made a crinkling sound as he pulled it back. His name, imprinted on the
bottom in gold lettering. TM Riddle.

He hadn’t even so much as looked at it, handling it as little as he could after making off with it
from the Chamber, leaving behind the corpse of the girl and Harry to find his way back to the
school, still in a daze from the possession.

He supposed he’d have to study it at some point, begrudgingly admitting it was necessary for his
research. Even if touching it filled him with dread, reminded him of the claustrophobia that clawed
at him. Of the sepia toned world that was just as dead and inactive as he was, a faded, unrefined
version of the things he could not have. Reminded him that he wasn’t alive, not really. Just trapped
between two horrifying states of being.

He had never been meant to be sealed within, it was never his intention. And holding the diary
only reminded him of the decades spent in its pages. Trapped, before Harry had helped him escape.

He was grateful for that. Another emotion that was new and unfamiliar to him.

He sat down in his chair, opening the diary on the desk before him. He had to hold it p[en with his
palm, flattening it as it fought to remain shut. And then he simply stared. Stared until the words
 appeared.

‘Is anyone there?’ came the frantic, sloppy writing. Desperate was the word that came to mind. He
could imagine a hand shaking too much, unable to steady. Pressing so hard into the parchment that
it left a reminder of the words. ‘Please, help me. I just want to go home.’

He slammed the diary shut, quieting Ginny Weasley once more.

Another day, he told himself, sliding the diary back onto the shelf.

Chapter End Notes

Dat Cliffhanger tho.

Harry’s got it rough. Puberty and all those hormones and harboring a piece of soul
from a dangerous, monstrous dark wizard? Being a teenage is hard enough, jeez.

I hope you enjoyed! A huge thanks to everyone who has taken the time to write a
comment! Next up: Harry finds comfort in familiar faces, the schools and the
tournament are introduced and Harry finally has a little bit of a heart to heart with
someone who’s not a murderous psychopath. Aww.
 A Reunion and A Tournament
Chapter Summary

Harry's controversial return to the Wizarding World is overshadowed by an

announcement, and Tom tries to make the best of a situation involving a disgruntled,
kidnapped Sirius.

Chapter Notes

Throws confetti I live bitch! But probably not for long since I’m being worked to
death the past few months. Oh well, with my dying breaths I churn out this dumpster
fire.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Hermione huffed in irritation as she traipsed through the crowded platform, rolling her luggage cart
into a small, carved out nook before finally glancing up. The platform was always a flurry of
activity- families crowding around to say goodbye to their children, students excitedly meeting with
friends and shouting about their summer over the other. But the typical activity had been dulled for
a new sort, faces curious and voices lowered, quiet as they talked in whispers- gossiped- at the
sight of aurors, identified easily by their navy blue robes. Their hands clasped neatly behind their
backs, and their expressions blank as they looked about them, the crowd parting from their path.
Even the reporters- who had flocked to the train station hoping to be the first to photograph Harry
Potter returning from a summer spent in mystery settled themselves into the fringes of the
platform, trying their best to avoid the aurors on patrol.

They reminded her of panthers out on the hunt.

“Do you think he’s here?” Ron whispered beside her, as if afraid to speak too loudly. As if too
much noise, too much excitement, might destroy the tenuous calm on the station. She thought,
dimly, of the documentaries she had watched as a child, war-torn countries moving somberly
through their daily lives as soldiers stood like statues on their streets.

Even in the stillness, the absence of energy, there was something else that struck her, a charge of
something foreign and dangerous. The beginning of something she couldn’t quite name but filled
her with dread all the same.

She reminded herself that the aurors were good. That they were here for protection.

It did little to ease her.

She licked her lips. “I hope so. I don’t know why Black would bring him here, but Dumbledore
seemed certain enough,” was her only answer, turning to look at her friend.
He had grown considerably in their year apart, and his bright orange hair now brushed over his
brow, curled over the tips of his ears that she knew turned red in embarrassment. He looked out of
place, wearing jeans and a too short jumper while all the other wizards and witches his age were
already dressed in their school uniforms- a sea of soft, powdered blue cloaks.

But he had no uniform, the Weasleys opting out of attending schools once more on Molly’s
insistence- it had taken a great deal of convincing for her to let Ron see Hermione off for the
school year. He had begged that if Harry were to return to school, he wanted to see him and make
certain he was well, a plea that had not swayed Molly. Not until the promise was made that nearly
the entire Auror Department and Order would also be in attendance.

The Order had been another terrifying development even if it should have made Hermione feel
safer. Ginny’s death, Harry’s disappearance and the sudden reunion of the Order of the Phoenix-
leftover resistance from the war with You-Know-Who- hung above their heads. It was a storm
cloud that grumbled with the threat of thunder, a harbinger of something that no one spoke of but
everyone felt. The wind shifting a bit, the smell of magic a bit stronger, a bit more sour.

Small, tragic acts on their own that when linked formed a timeline she knew would be tracked by
historians in the decades to come.

She was living history, and powerless to stop the nameless entity on the horizon.

She could hardly blame Molly for growing fearful, protecting what she had left with the fierceness
only a mother could possess.

A sudden change in the energy drew her from her thoughts, like the storm cloud had opened
enough to allow a bolt of lightning to strike them all. The aurors moved with more purpose, hands
falling from behind their backs to their sides, clasping once hidden wands in their grips. And the
reporters swarmed, like vultures dropping from their sky when their circling was complete. Ron
nudged her as she turned to look at the entrance, her eyes settling on the familiar figure of Harry
just as he was concealed from her sights, the lights of cameras flashing brilliantly.

“Animals, I tell you,” Ron muttered as he was suddenly pushing beside her, striding towards Harry.
He was pulling his wand from his sleeve before Hermione could admonish him, pointing it none
too discreetly at a tall reporter with blonde curls piled high atop her head. ‘Anteoculatia,’ he
mumbled, pulling himself back from the damning spark of light and stepping to the side just as he
finished his hex.

It didn’t take long for the desired effect to take place, curls twitching and pulling upward by unseen
hands, clumping together and branching outward from her head. The reporter reached up at the odd
sensation, a hand settling on her hair as the clumps pulled in two opposite directions, hardening
into antlers.

She shouted, stumbled on her heels as she took a step back and away from Harry, the other
reporters turning to look at the source of the commotion. The antlers were growing larger and
larger, the weight foreign and too much as she finally fell to the ground, an enchanted quill and
parchment falling beside her.

Hermione bit down a laugh as she watched Ron reach into the circle, pulling a bewildered Harry
away from the distracted mob and down to the nook she stood in, using his long and lanky body to
shield the smaller boy from any nosy onlookers.

“Ronald,” she said, trying her best to sound sharp and harsh before she turned her eyes to Harry,
her gaze softening.

There was something awkward about the way he carried himself, like he was no longer
comfortable in his own body. He reminded her of a spider, limbs moving in sharp, jerking arches,
his eyes flicking around him as if there was too much to process. His mind not moving fast enough
to keep up with all the thoughts she could see warring on his face. He had always been an open
book, one whose emotions danced across his pages, but there was a new tension there.

Too many emotions to settle on. A jaw clenched in anger, lips pursed in thought, eyes wide in
relief.

If she had been angry and hurt by his evasion of her the previous year, it was all forgotten, and she
stepped forward to wrap her arms around him, pulling him into a tight embrace. “Harry! We were
all so worried about you!”

“Gave us a scare there, mate. Where the bloody hell did you run off to?” Ron asked, his voice soft
despite the crude words he spoke.

She pulled away just as Harry winced, a hand knocking his glasses askew as he rubbed his right
eye tenderly. He hissed through his teeth, shaking his head as he stuttered,
“’S fine. Just...sorry to worry you.”

She pinched her lips, passing Ron a knowing look. The Order had mentioned the possibility of a
tongue-tying curse. She wondered if it were possible to break it without the caster.

She wondered a lot of things.

When had the curse been placed? Why had it been placed? What sort of secrets was Harry forced
to become the unwanted carrier of? How much settled on his shoulders, a burden he could not
relieve?

She thought back through the years, the way he had distanced himself, seeming to shrink into
nothing, collapse under the weight of something he couldn’t share. She could guess when it began,
but there was no certainty. With Black’s escape, before then. She recalled in their second year how
erratic his behavior had become- before Black had even been a name in print for him to read. The
hours he would disappear for, shrugging off questions with an easy grin. The times he fell asleep
during class- something Ron did often, but never Harry. The way he hunched over his lap,
furiously writing in a book he snapped close when she approached.

It was hard not to feel the burden of blame, knowing all that she knew- the minor changes in his
character that led the way for greater changes. The small fissures in his composure that became
caverns. She should have said something sooner, perhaps even confronted Harry himself.

But what could she have done?

If it truly was Black- a theory that seemed ironclad if not for the shifts in him that had happened
before the mad wizard’s escape- what chance would she have had against him? How ensnared had
Harry become before anyone noticed?

‘Why hadn’t they noticed sooner?’ she thought with a flinch, recalling the shame that glistened in
everyone’s eyes at the realization he had been missing for over a month before anyone had even
known.

“Did...did you do that?” Harry asked, looking over his shoulder at the reporter with a ridiculous set
of antlers, trying and failing to stand as the hefty weight pulled her back down.

Ron beamed, a smile splitting his face practically in two. “Like that, huh? Fred taught me it. And
the perk to being home-schooled is that they have to let me use magic,” he said, his grin faltering
when Hermione leveled him with a glare.
“That may be, but they’re still tracking your use of magic,” she hissed, gesturing to the thick,
metallic band he wore around his wrist. “They’ll know you did it.”

He scoffed. “Only because those bloody vultures couldn’t give Harry a minute to breathe. Really,
they should give me an Order of Merlin for that, right, mate?”

Harry grinned, down-casting his eyes the way he often did when Ron and Hermione placed him in
the middle of their spats. It made her smile fondly, despite Ron’s brashness.
“You’re going to school this year?” Harry asked, his voice tilted in something indiscernible.
Something between hopeful and hesitant.

He shook his head, skewed his lips in a grimace. “Nah. Mum said she would think about it for next
year but I doubt it. The only reason she even let me come here with Hermione was because Dad
and all the others came too. Did you see him? I think he was supposed to stand post outside.”

“Um, yeah, I did,” Harry said, the words slow and sluggish, dragged out as if there was something
he was holding back. He winced with the memory of something before adding, “How is your
mum?”

Ron pursed his lips, shirked his shoulders as he glanced about the platform. “Fine. You’d think
she’d be ecstatic at the chance to get rid of Fred and George for a bit, given all the hell they’ve
been raising. But it makes her happy to have us all together.”

If Harry realized it was a lie, he didn’t question it; instead he wondered aloud what sort of trouble
the twins were getting themselves into. Mrs. Weasley had not been fine at all, barely pulling herself
up from her grief when news of Harry’s disappearance broke, catapulting her down once more into
the suffering only a mother who has lost a child can know.

She had thought for sure she had lost two then, and any offered consolation fell on death ears.
Even the tasks she found therapeutic and would do when her nerves became too frayed lost all their
comfort, nothing acting as the solace she so desperately needed. The last few weeks Mrs. Weasley
kept to herself, while the Weasley kids had taken over the chores she once enjoyed.

Better not to tell Harry any of that though. He didn’t need to blame himself for the mourning she
had spared him, not when she would wipe her tears and delight in knowing he was back, safe and
sound for the time being. At least she didn’t lose him, too.

Hermione reached out, a hand coming to cup Harry’s cheek and better scrutinize him, the words he
had been saying dying on his tongue as he looked to her. He looked fine- more than fine, actually.
His face had filled out in a way it never did when he spent the summer with the Dursley’s, and the
soft lines of his face had hardened, a sharp jawline carving itself out of his once childish face. His
skin had a bright, healthy hue to it, and there were no bruises or cuts that might have spoken the
words he couldn’t.
Wherever he was- be it with Black or some other force she couldn’t fathom- he was being well
cared for.

The thought made something heavy plummet in her stomach, though she didn’t know why.

“Hermione?” he asked, startling her so that she pulled back.

“Just making sure you’re okay,” she mumbled. She cleared her throat, settled a hand on top of her
trolley. “We should probably board the train soon. If we want to get a good compartment.”

Ron frowned, unable to hide the disappointment of leaving his friends behind. “She’s right.
Always is,” he said wryly, his laughter short-lived as he clapped Harry on the back, pulling him in
for a one sided hug. “Don’t be a prat this year and actually write me, yeah? I’m practically losing
my mind trapped inside with my brothers all day- they’ve started testing their new inventions on
me. Never thought I’d say this, but I really underestimated the usefulness first years had to them.”

Harry grinned, the notion somehow both at home and odd for him. “Sorry, I’ll write more. Tell
everyone I’m sorry to have worried them, I’m fine, really,” he said.

She narrowed her eyes, knowing it to be a lie. How could it not have been? Hadn’t he been
kidnapped? So why then did he seem so at ease when he said it? Why did he seem so genuinely
distraught that he worried others, as if there wasn’t reason for them to fret?

She pushed her thoughts aside, ignored them for examination later as she bent up to give Ron a
tight embrace- he really was getting too tall- and told him to give his family her best. And then she
boarded the train, Harry in tow.

The words Hogwarts Express were gone, a fact that had saddened her deeply the year before when
she first saw the words Beauxbatons Express painted in glittering gold. The pain those words
caused was still just as sharp and surprising, as if, against all reason, it might have changed and
brought them back home to Hogwarts instead.

It wouldn’t though, she knew, but at least Harry made no move to separate from her this time,
settling into the same compartment as her. Even if he was a little different, a bit more secretive, it
felt better to sit opposite him again.

Even if he shifted under her intense scrutiny.

It was as if she was committing him to memory, every quirk and mannerism, so that when he
deviated, she would be more prepared this time. She would know something was happening before
it did, and she lost him again.

She hoped she wouldn’t lose him again, to Black or otherwise.

Xxx

Hermione wouldn’t stop staring, a fact that unsettled Harry even as he did his best to ignore it. He
knew she was looking for something- a clue to where he had been, who he had been with. But there
was nothing he could give- his words would not come, even if he wanted them to. How could he
tell her- of all people- who he spent the summer with?

Would she still worry then? Or would worry turn to betrayal?

It was overwhelming, too much all at once. If he had thought the confrontation and his subsequent
outburst in the train station's entrance had been a confusing haze of thoughts and emotions, it was
nothing compared to the torture of this. It felt like he might finally crumble under the weight of his
half-truths and lies, his separate realities and identities coming together like two atoms that would
implode at their meeting. How long could he carry on as the innocent they thought he was? The
innocent he needed to be before the guilt became too great?

The tongue-tying curse couldn’t hide his sins in their entirety, even if he wanted it to. At some
point, he would be forced to admit to his complacency.

What then?

He wondered if Mr. Weasley would tell Ron what Harry had said to Dumbledore, the thought
sending a chill down his spine. He hoped not. He felt embarrassed by his words, by the things he
had revealed that were private but at the time had seemed good and weighty to throw at the older
wizard. It made him feel better, a cruel part of him delighting in the surprised widening of
Dumbledore’s eyes, but he regretted it now.

He hadn’t known why he had grown so irate with them, skin crawling and trembling over his
bones, the bugs crawling and breaking from his mouth as if they would not be contained any
longer. It had seemed so unreasonable, his anger, now that he was removed from the moment.

They were only trying to help.

They were frightened for Harry.

Mr. Weasley, Dumbledore. Even Snape had been there. The man with the glass eye. The one with
the sandy hair and kind eyes that lit with recognition at the sight of Harry. They were there because
they thought someone had hurt Harry, and he had returned their kindness and concern with malice.
It wasn’t their fault the Dursleys were cruel to him.

He had too many thoughts in his head, each clamoring for attention, each commanding he take a
different action. What was happening to him? He felt like a rubber band, pulled taut until it would
eventually snap.

How ironic, that the most at peace he had felt was with Tom.

The door to the compartment slid open, making both him and Hermione jump and turn in its
direction.

“Harry!” Luna beamed, the apples of her cheeks round and pink. “I heard people saying you were
here, I’m glad they weren’t just rumors. Mind if I join?”

Hermione blinked once before realizing the question was meant for her. “Oh, not at all. I’m
Hermione.”

“I know,” Luna said as she shuffled to sit beside Harry, her hand slipping into her rucksack as she
searched for something. “Harry told me a lot of stories about you and Ron. I’m Luna. How was
your summer, Harry?”

She spoke all in one breath, and not once did she pause from her rummaging to look up at either of
them. He chewed his lips. Surely, she must have known about his disappearance- she seemed
surprised to have seen him, after all.

“Good, thanks. Yours?”

“It was nice. Father and I went on a few trips through South America- I’ve got you something, by
the way. I found a lovely shop that sold these beautiful protection charms,” she paused in her
search, producing from her bag assorted trinkets she settled on the space between her and Harry. A
satchel of dried herbs, bottle caps strung together to make a necklace, a single tarot card- folded
and creased, with lines threading over the image, scars of the wear it had seen- a muggle book of
poetry. “It’s in here somewhere- anyway, thank you for the letters! They were wonderful! Did you
get my birthday car- Oh! Here it is!” She extended her hand out, fingers pinching the chain to a
necklace, a single pendant dangling from the end.

It was small- the size of a sickle- and the metal was thin and dented as if it had been ran over by
the wheels of a car several times. Carved into the surface was a symbol that Harry had never seen
before, a circle just short of closing with a crude arrow running through it.
“It’s a protection sigil,” she said, looking pleased with herself. “From malicious spirits.”

“Thank you,” Harry said, ducking his head to loop the necklace on. It was long enough he didn’t
need a clasp, and it fell just above his sternum. “I didn’t get you anything, though.”

She brushed him off with a wave. “That’s not why you get people gifts, Harry. I’m just glad you’re
all right. I worried that something bad had happened when Professor McGonagall and Mister Lupin
came to see me over the summer. I told them you’d been writing me though, so they didn’t worry
too much.” She smiled wistfully then, a finger curling a loose strand of hair. “How was your
birthday? Did you do anything fun?”

He didn’t need to look at Hermione to know she had leaned forward, and he felt himself smile, the
constant shouting in his head coming to a halt. This was what he had always loved about Luna- she
wasn’t stupid or dotty by any means, despite what others cruelly said of her. She never plied him
with too many questions. Questions that would only fuel the turmoil within him, questions he
couldn’t answer regardless. Why did you leave? Why didn’t you tell anyone? Who did you stay
with? How did you trust them?

“It was fine. I had cake. Went flying. And I got your card- thank you.”

She exchanged stories of her own, her trips through the rain forest and the towns and cities she had
visited. The creatures she had seen and studied with the tour group her father formed with an old
friend- Lucas Scamander, Newt Scamander’s son Harry learned when Hermione finally broke
through her attentiveness to ask about the relation. He didn’t know who either of them were, but
Hermione seemed intrigued and asked questions of her own.

It was...pleasant. The focus was no longer placed firmly on him, and he could finally breathe-
laughing quietly at Hermione’s dubious expression when she made the mistake
of asking Luna what exactly a gnargle was.

Before they had even realized it, the train had groaned in its tracks, coming to a slow halt. The sky
outside was a palette of colors, a canvas painted in magentas and violets, deep blues and
glimmering yellows. The sun hung low in the horizon, framing the bright white castle from the
makeshift train station that was added in the wake of Hogwarts closing its doors.

“That was fast,” Luna muttered as she put the sketchbook she had pulled out to show Hermione the
physical differences between a gnargle and wizzsnorp

“Not fast enough,” Hermione said beneath her breath, her expression exasperated. The tone was
just playful enough that Harry bit back a laugh instead of offering her a narrowed glare.

“You’ll ugh….get familiar with them soon enough,” Harry whispered as he bent to grab his
rucksack from where it sat at his feet, mindful of what sat within it. The parting gift Tom had given
him before they left for London shoved to the bottom as if it might make the evidence disappear.
As if he might appear less guilty if it was haphazardly placed beneath his textbooks.

They gathered their things and left the train, wandering up the well-worn path together. It was a
facsimile of peace- easier even than the one Harry had known with Tom, where even the best of
moments were tainted with the knowledge of what the other boy was. There was no guilt to come
from laughing with Hermione and Luna, and even if Hermione’s glances lasted too long for his
liking- her gaze too intense- Harry found he didn’t mind all that much.

His anger from before- in the vestibule with Dumbledore and the others- had all but vanished,
leaving nothing but the memory of that unfamiliar and wretched hatred.
Xxx

The courtyard was bustling with energy, the normal calm of the Welcoming Feast replaced by
what could best be described as chaos. The area- nestled within the center of the school and
boosting a large, terrarium style ceiling that allowed the outside world to peer in without
enchantment- was divided into four gardens for each of the houses. There were several round
tables in each garden, instead of the one long table that Hogwarts designated for their respective
houses.

At the center of the four gardens sat a gorgeous water fountain, marble stone smoothed out to form
the basin the water sat in and the benches that sat around the base. The center rose, a mountain of
brilliant white marble fragmented by the threads of gold and charcoal strands, and intricate
carvings that told a multitude of stories. There were beautiful witches riding astride carved
Pegasuses as if storming into battle. Dragons with real diamonds set for their eyes, gold flakes
embedded in the stone to create the shimmering scales as they curled around the chiseled trees, the
stone castles. Mermaids visible just below the pool of water, emerald tails splashing playfully. It all
moved, like a painting but somehow more dramatic, the movements slow as if being made of pure
stone dragged them down.

It was a tribute to magic, each detail etched within every available nook and cranny a love letter to
a different creature, a different facet of magic. And it seemed like no matter how often Harry stared
at it, there was always something new to discover. A marble kelpie that darted into a marble cave, a
marble pixie that poked out from behind the leaves of a marble sunflower. He wasn’t certain if they
were just details he had missed before, or if they had carved their own existence out of the rest of
the fountain.

“Simone told me that this is the fountain of youth,” Luna said, running her hand through the water
as she sat on the bench.. “She also said fairies hide in the little houses. She said she saw them
once- I hope not, though. Fairies are quite the tricksters.”

Harry skewed his lips as he looked at one of the stone houses. “I don’t think so. Fairies don’t like
people much, and there’s always too many here,” he answered. The students were milling around,
eyes boring into him, only to snap away when he leveled his own gaze at them.

He wanted nothing more than to shrink away from the students who stared openly. Who whispered
behind cupped hands all the rumors that had circulated. It reminded him of the first time he had
made his journey through this world, when the idea of Harry Potter was new and novel. A hero
stepping out from the pages of a beloved childhood book. He was a celebrity, the Boy Who Lived.

These whispers were not so kind, nor adoring. They were frantic, the beginnings of tall tales that
were a shade of the truth. ‘I just read another article about his disappearance this morning.’ ‘They
said Black got him-’ ‘Black got him and didn’t kill him? Lucky bloke.’ ‘Maybe he went willingly
with him. I bet they’re working together.’

His skin itched uncomfortably as if crawling over his bones.

A hand settled on his knee. “Don’t worry about them, Harry. Half of those articles are just inane
dribble from reporters barely above a primary school writing level,” Hermione said, lips curling
into a sad smile.

He pulled his knee back, letting her hand fall in the space provided. “Well, they should find better
gossip, then. I’m not their bloody entertainment,” he snapped, though not at her. He had raised his
voice, letting it carry over as he scowled at the students who moved too close to him.
Flustered, they finally turned away.

His summer was nobody’s business but his own.

It was hard enough justifying his actions to himself, impossible to justify to Dumbledore. He didn’t
need the burden of trying to justify them to society.
The garden door opened with a startling clang, drawing everyone away from their conversations as
they turned to look at Madam Maxime and the teachers that stood behind her. “Students, everyone
please settle in! We have some very exciting news to announce!” she said, clapping her hands
together and smiling widely.

“See you later,” Harry said to Luna and Hermione as he stepped from the fountain and into the
proper garden, sitting down at the table that his roommates procured. They looked to him for just a
moment too long for it to be casual, but in the end, said nothing but a grumbled hello before turning
their attention to the headmistress.

When all the students settled down and trained their eyes eagerly on the Headmistress, she waved a
hand through the air and cleared her throat. The ground hummed, the sensation creating barely
noticeable tremors up Harry’s legs as the fountain sank underground, disappearing beneath the
earth as marble tiles appeared over the hole created in its absence. It formed a dais- the bench
acting as stairs leading up to it- and Madam Maxime strode across the flagstone path and to the
center of her newly created stage.

“Welcome back to another year of learning! As always, we will begin by sorting our newest
students into their houses so if you would all offer your warmest welcome-”
The first years came through, following the same path the Headmistress had taken only to come to
a stop just before the platform. She called them up, one by one to stand beside her- the students
looking diminutive next to her intimidating and giant form. She was so tall she had to kneel to
complete the sorting, extending her own wand out and gently settling the tip of her wand to the
forehead of each student.

A wide-eyed girl with thick black hair tied into tiny braids all over her scalp was the first to be
sorted, and she jumped when the flames appeared around her. Harry could see the panic flicker in
her eyes before she realized that the flames would not harm her- they were part of her- and she
smiled wide, laughing as she reached out to touch them. She sat at the table behind him, her face
bright and gleaming with pride as the next student stepped forward, vines snapping out and coiling
around the young boy’s legs.
When the sorting came to an end, and each house seemed fuller, they snapped their attention back
to Maxime as she smiled knowingly. “Now, many of you may have heard the rumors, and I am
pleased to announce that our beautiful school will host this years Tri-Wizard Tournament!”

The staff- all lined up on either side of the stone path- took the chance to applaud the
announcement, smiling encouragingly at students to do the same. But many exchanged quizzical
glances, whispers catching on the air as they repeated the words to themselves.

“What’s that?” Harry found himself asking, brows furrowed as Henri, seated beside him,
shrugged.

When the applause- polite and restrained as it was- settled, Maxime began again. “This will be the
first tournament in nearly three centuries, and we couldn’t be more excited to host the return of this
grand event! Now, traditionally, the tournament comprises three difficult tasks designed to test the
skill and expertise of a champion from each of the competing schools- our very own prestigious
academy, Durmstrang Institute, and our friends from Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and
Wizardry.”
She paused then, offering what Harry thought was meant to be a sad, indulgent smile as she
scanned through the sea of students. “Unfortunately, Hogwarts is still closed, and many of their
students joined our family. But instead of seeing this as a tragedy and loss of a great school, we
have chosen to see this as an opportunity. An opportunity, not only to strengthen our bonds as we
grow closer from two schools into one, but as a community.

“The Tournament has only been offered between these three schools, but this year we have
extended an invitation to a new school- allowing our society to grow and hopefully form lasting
connections with our new friends from India. This October, Indrajala Akaadamee will send their
finest eligible contenders, along with Durmstrang’s, to compete for the chance to win one thousand
galleons, the famed Tri-Wizard cup, and of course, eternal glory!” She raised her voice as she made
the declaration, filled with excitement as she made a broad, swooping gesture out to the crowd of
students that surrounded her.

Once more, the staff applauded uproariously, causing the young witches and wizards to join in.
This time, it was not so hesitant, and the whispers were more fervent, more intrigued.

Harry followed the motion, brows furrowed as he tried to catch Hermione’s eye from where she sat
in the garden opposite him, mouth pinched in a thin line. He had never heard of such a tournament-
though that was hardly a surprise. His knowledge of the magical world was shamefully limited,
even in matters that directly involved him. He hadn’t even known other schools might exist until he
was forced to transfer, a fact that made him feel absurd given the fact that there just had to be other
schools out there.
Still, it was odd, wasn’t it? He had attended Hogwarts for two years hearing nothing about such a
tournament. He had become well acquainted with the trophy room- more
detentions than he could count spent polishing the brass and silver plating on the various awards.

Not once had there been anything decrying Hogwarts a victor in a Tri-Wizard Tournament.

Had Hermione heard of it? Had it been in any of the books she read?

Did Tom know?

The applause settled, and Maxime cleared her throat before beginning again. “The Tournament is a
rigorous test of years worth of magical education, and so, for that reason, only those of age will be
allowed to enter-” groans punctured the air, but she ignored them, continuing on. “Once your name
has been entered, the most eligible champion will be selected from each school.

“But we have time to prepare for our visitors. For now, let’s celebrate another year of knowledge,
growth and community. Let the feast begin!” She punctuated the air with a flourish of her right
hand, letting her wrist snap sharply. It was the same trick from Hogwarts, platters and goblets
appearing out of thin air and cluttering the table with food.

Just as last year, the food was predominantly French- rich, decadent creams and broths and nutty
cheeses. But there were a few dishes that were more familiar to Harry- more comforting and
tasting like what he imagined home might taste like if he had one to return to.

He thought then of the meals he ate with Tom, sitting opposite the other in the mismatched chairs
in a dining room that sagged in the center. The dry meat and bland potatoes because Tom was
hardly much of cook and Harry was too satisfied with the feeling of a full belly to care about
flavor.

The memories seemed too much like nourishment, somehow more appealing than the plentiful
banquet before him.
The thought made his stomach twist, and he sat still- the only one not reaching out to ladle food
onto their plates. He let the sounds wash over him, the chatter that boomed and swelled in the large
space of the courtyard. Students were rising from their tables, hopping over plants and ledges made
of rocks to talk with their friends in another house, unable to wait a moment longer.

As confusing as the announcement of a tournament may have been, he was thankful for the
attention it dragged from him. His thoughts were conflicting enough without others prying into his
business, gossiping over his withering glances.

“Glad to see you’ve joined us again this year, Mr. Potter.”

He turned at the voice, craning his head up to look at his Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher,
Professor Payette. The man was kind enough, stricter than some teachers Harry had had in his time,
with an intensity that could sometimes be unsettling. His face was narrow and pointed, and his skin
warm. The olive tone made even deeper by the bright tint of his eyes, a pale gray.

Some students insisted he was blind, but there was such a certainty to his movements that clouded
those claims. He was a fierce dueler, something Harry had known from his demonstrations in class
and from the tales of those old enough to attend his dueling club. Terrifying, in the most brilliant of
ways.

Harry shifted in his seat, nodding. Was this the first time he had spoken to the Professor? Outside
of being called to answer a question in class?

“Er, thank you, Professor,” he answered.

“We received word from head of the Auror department you were to be expected, and it’s such a
relief to see it was not a false promise. Though I heard they didn’t have the chance to speak to you
before you had to board the train. Someone should be here tomorrow to collect your official
statement,” he said, slipping a hand into his pocket.
Harry hesitated only for a moment. There was something...off about the way he spoke. Like his
accent was too thick, wide and sloping instead of narrow and pitched.

Or perhaps he was growing paranoid, the weight of those brilliant eyes sitting too heavily on his
skin, like it were a tangible thing.

“Okay. Thanks for the ugh...warning?” He winced at his own wording.

That didn’t make him seem like a co-conspirator in his own abduction at all.

Payette nodded, lips carving into a smile, framed by the neatly manicured beard and mustache. “I
look forward to seeing you in class, Mr. Potter. You should get something to eat before your
roommates scarf it all down,” he said, then clapped Harry’s shoulder once before pulling his hand
back suddenly, as if the action burned him. But he said nothing, nodding once more in a quick,
affirmative motion, and headed to where a staff table had appeared atop the dais.

Harry sighed, wondering who they might send to speak with him. Would it be a witch or wizard
who had been at the train station, swarming on him as if in a hunt? Or an auror who had stood
guard, remaining sturdy and prepared in case Harry might arrive with an army on his heels? He
was already dreading it, his stomach twisting at what they might ask of him. What thoughts would
bleed into his brain as the cancer that was Tom throbbed beneath his scalp.

It made the prospect of eating even less appealing, but he reached out nonetheless, filling his plate
with the things that would be easiest on his stomach. People would watch him more intently,
looking for something that had not been visible. A crack beneath his surface, a sign he was not as
okay as he said he was.

Was he?

He exhaled sharply, pinching his eyes. And just like that, life became too complicated again.

He wanted to talk to Tom.

He hated that he fell into that want with ease.

Xxx

Sirius slumped in the chair, closing his eyes for a moment- not in defeat! No, never in defeat- as he
gave a hefty, exhausted sighed. The sound of a quill scratching noisily into paper followed the
noise, accompanied by the soft slurp of lips on a teacup. The sound of indifference.

He was no longer trapped within his animagus form- a relief that lent itself to new, greater torture
as he was bound to a chair. Restrained in the proper sense now, with ropes digging and cutting into
his skin, his wrists raw and bloody from his frantic and unyielding attempts to free himself. It was
a greater torment than simply being bound to the constraints of his animal form, with no ability to
speak and no fingers to grip onto anything. A door handle, a wand.

A knife.

The thought- violent and monstrous and impulsive- had crossed his mind too many times to count.
The moments when the wizard (his name was Tom, that little bit he knew) moved too close to
Harry. The moments when Tom offered him a glance that he kept carefully away from Harry’s
view, the look that twisted his handsome features into something wicked and foul. The moments
when he condemned Dumbledore, and the moments that followed where Harry reluctantly agreed.

But Harry was gone. There were no more pretenses to offer, no sense in pretending to be whatever
it was he was trying to be for Harry. A guardian? A savior?

A master?

Try as he might, Sirius couldn’t understand what game Tom was playing. Or why he was playing
it. Or who he was- other than Tom, an admittedly remarkable wizard with an unremarkable name.
Or how he fit into any of this.

He was kind to Harry, at least. An odd dichotomy between his thoughtful manipulations. If the
Durselys had been cruel to Harry- and there was no question of their cruelty- Tom had been a saint.
Worse enough, Sirius found himself grateful for the kindness offered by the unkind boy.

He was smart enough to know better. That even if Harry wasn’t being physically abused, it didn’t
mean he wasn’t being mistreated in another, more insidious way.
But Harry seemed happy and almost comfortable and how could Sirius hate someone so
passionately and still be so grateful to them?

Even knowing there was surely an ulterior motive, a cruelness to his intentions he hid so well.

“Are you finally ready to talk?” Tom asked, cutting his inner monologue short.

He finally opened his eyes, meeting Tom’s gaze. “Go to hell.”

Tom shrugged, settling his chin on his hand as he leaned forward, arching over an open notebook.
“Suit yourself, then. Harry’s better company anyway.”

He stiffened, quirking a brow and hating himself immediately for responding to what he knew was
bait. “Harry?”

Tom nodded, sliding the notebook across the table. Just close enough that Sirius could see
something fade along the white pages though not read the words as they sunk into paper.

“Harry’s got the other notebook- a parting gift. Easier to talk this way. He’s telling me all about his
first night at school. Curious things are happening.” His voice was calm, as if he and Sirius were
sitting down over tea instead of one being tied to a chair, bounded by magic and physical restraints.

He refused to admit the book was clever.

Refused to think about how similar it was to the mirrors he and James had used so many years ago.

“Apparently,” Tom started, pausing as he pulled the notebook back to lie before him, closing it as
he leaned in his chair and crossed his arms. “They’ve seen fit to recommence the Tri-Wizard
Tournament.”

He tried not to let the shock show on his face.

He failed.

He hadn’t expected this to be what Tom spoke about- threats to his safety, a comical unveiling of
his true evil plot, sure, but casual discussion of Harry’s school year?
What did Tom think they were? Harry’s doting parents?

But that confusion soon faded, replaced by another. “How? Hogwarts is closed.”

Tom smirked, one side of his face tipping upward as he quirked a brow. “Indeed. According to
Harry, they’ve invited a school from India. Indrajala Akaadamee. Have you heard of it?”

Sirius considered him for a moment.

A part of him wanted to taunt the younger wizard with this, force him to reveal his cards for the
information he lacked. But the other part- a more careful, matured part- was curious to see what
course Tom was trying to direct him to. What value did he see in this information? Why had he
taken an interest in a centuries old tournament that would have no baring on Harry in any way,
since the boy was too young to compete?

More importantly: why didn’t Tom know any of this himself?

It was curious, how someone could know so much, but so little. It was obvious Tom was
intelligent and well studied, but there were moments where there seemed to be an odd break in that
knowledge. Sirius thought he had heard him mumbling to himself over the Daily Prophet the name
of the Minister and several department heads as if he struggled to retain something so common.

His more rational side won out.

“Indrajala is the youngest magical school. I think it was first created in the fifties, maybe late
forties. After Grindelwald was defeated. There was still a lot of prejudice around, and the school
was formed out of necessity.” Sirius chewed lip, tipped his chin back as he added, “It’s smart,
actually. From a political aspect. I take it Crouch is still the one heading up this disaster of a
project?”
Instead of answering, Tom scoffed, shaking his head. “How is it smart to form connections with a
school that is younger than seventy percent of our population? It’s not even old enough to be your
mother.”

The sarcasm seemed clunky on his tongue- too casual for his normal formalities, not acidic enough
for his rare cruelties.

“It’s smart because Crouch was demoted after the war. His son was revealed to be a Death Eater- it
was the biggest scandal at the time.” Second biggest, he thought. The betrayal of Sirius Black to
Lily and James Potter had claimed that title, though it made for a less snappy headline. It was hard
to sell grief and misery and torment. Easy to sell lies and dysfunctional families. “He vehemently
denied the accusations, but it's hard to not seem at least sympathetic to the cause when your son
was one of Voldemort’s most faithful servants. And Indrajala is unique in that it's the only all
muggle-born school.”

Tom cocked his head at that, brow furrowed. “Entirely muggle-born?”

Sirius nodded. “Grindelwald didn’t disappear entirely. They never really do, his sort,” he said,
letting his words turn venomous, his mouth snarl. “And that hate doesn’t go away. It was there
before Grindelwald, and thereafter. Just like with Voldemort- they capitalize on that. Use it for
their own. Indrajala was a safe space for students who might not be welcomed as easily as others.
Sort of messed up, actually, putting them against Durmstrang. Last I heard Karkaroff’s the
headmaster.”

It was impossible to not hear it, the cells of Azkaban so cramped together. Gossip and cries for
freedom, desire for revenge was the currency that enlivened them, the food they subsisted on when
the barely edible slop didn’t provide the comfort they wanted.

“And that’s substantial because?” Tom prompted, and Sirius had to stop himself from looking
exasperated.

How did he know so little?

“He was a Death Eater too. Turned a lot of them in for his clemency. He was the one who named
Crouch’s son.”

Tom blinked at him and then, much to Sirius’s horror, threw his head back and laughed, full and
hearty. The sound seemed borrowed, like it was not his to make. Not that the sound was terrible in
anyway or the other- it was just as pleasant as any other laugh may be. It was warm and smooth
and Tom was cold and sharp.

It rattled Sirius more than he cared to confess.

“That sounds like the sort of thing a muggle tabloid would invent just to report on the ensuing
drama,” Tom said when his laugh finally came to a slow end, his smile wide-
had Sirius seen him smile before? “Political or not, it’s incredibly short sighted. Might have been
better off setting a fiendfyre to each of the schools.”

He had seen that smile before, he realized. Once, when they were celebrating Harry’s birthday.

It was the only smile that hadn’t looked like a knife.

“Do you work for Voldemort?” Sirius asked before he could think better of it, the question he had
pondered and considered for the better part of a year since his path had crossed with the strange
boy.
Tom sobered instantly, eyes narrowing in thought as if he hadn’t heard the outburst correctly. As if
he didn’t understand it and needed to think the words over.

But then he smirked, the smile from seconds ago as gone as a forgotten dream.

“Most people refuse to say his name. They’re too scared.”

Sirius frowned. “Nothing to be scared of now, is there? I don’t make a habit of fearing the dead and
their ghosts.”

“Shame, really. A perfectly good name gone to waste,” he muttered, and the comment struck Sirius
as odd. It was a horrid name, one that inspired death and malice and all things evil and monstrous.
But before he could question him further, Tom said, “No, I don’t work for Voldemort. I have no
intentions of wavering in that decision either.”
His words were hard, and there was something genuine to them. A hatred there, though more subtle
that the hatred others might hold for the dark wizard. A hatred laced with reverence.

“You’re not on our side.”

He was surprised when Tom nodded. He hadn’t expected such honesty.

Maybe Tom still planned on killing him, after all.

He licked his lips. “Whose side then?”

“My side. Harry’s side. Your side, should you choose it,” was the only answer he gave, his chair
scratching noisily across the linoleum as he stood. He plucked up the journal, held it to his side as
he said, “I’ve warded this place well; you won’t be able to leave, and you won’t be able to harm
me, so there’s no point in shoving one of those knives into your robes. If you try, I’ll be forced to
turn you back to Argos; a shame, really. I haven’t hated our conversation tonight.”

Tom raised his hand, wand firmly held by long, pale fingers, and flicked it through the air. The
ropes made a sizzling sound as they vanished, and Sirius hissed, the air painful against the cuts
marring his wrists. He pulled his hands pack, pressing them against his chest in relief.

“You should shower. Help yourself to whatever you’d like; you can stay in Harry’s room. Have a
good night.”

Sirius watched him leave, continued to stare at the space he had occupied even as he heard the
staircase creak beneath his weight.

He had learned nothing from Tom. If anything, he become more clouded than before, blurring the
lines between what Sirius had thought to be true of him and what he had known to be true.

True: he seemed to truly care for Harry. Maybe in a twisted way. Maybe in an obsessive way.
Certainly not healthy. But at least he didn’t hurt Harry.

Also true: he wasn’t a believer of Voldemort. He despised and distrusted Dumbledore, but that
didn’t mean he aligned himself with the other.

But how much of either side did he support? If neither side appealed to him, than what causes did
he hold? Why would Harry’s own cause be an outlier to either side as well?
And what could he possibly offer Sirius?

He snorted as he rose from his chair, needing a moment to remember how it felt to walk on two
legs instead of four. He may have claimed his wards were too strong for Sirius to bother attempting
an escape, but he wouldn’t be a proper Marauder if he didn’t at least try.

Xxx

Tom chuckled when he heard the first tell-tale sign of Sirius trying to escape from the farmhouse.
The steps below that sounded too purposeful to be anything other than an attempt at a silent tiptoe,
the ancient foundation and floorboards betraying him. The creak of the door as it was pulled in its
hinges, like a screech into the night.

He knew it wouldn’t take long for Sirius to test the boundaries of Tom’s wards, but he hadn’t
expected him to begin so soon- Tom had barely reached the upper landing before the house began
its discordant orchestra of the escape. ‘Gryffindor,’ Tom surmised simply, the single word
encompassing everything he needed to know about the man prowling beneath him. The man not
much older than himself, even if his haggard and severe appearance made decades of a once
smooth and handsome face.

He was fond of Sirius, in a twisted, crooked way he couldn’t put into words. A mutual respect, an
understanding if even Sirius disagreed with the sentiment, trying as hard as he might to separate
himself from the enigmatic man he had already spent an entire summer with.

Tom knew what it was like to be a prisoner. A prison of his own making sure, but even if Sirius
hadn’t built the cell that would contain him, sliver himself into two so that one would be trapped
for decades, it didn’t negate his own responsibility in the matter. Incarceration was the price of
loyalty, whether the bars and shackles metaphorical or very,
very real.

At least Tom entered his prison of his own volition, and not in the servitude of another.

Still, a part of him- a small part of him that he often forgot existed until something caused it to stir
from time to time- knew what it was to be trapped. Knew that, dignity aside, he would do anything
necessary to avoid being trapped once more.

He was certain Sirius shared that thought, had seen the very same desperation in his mind.

He would grow used to the farmhouse, in time. He would welcome the perimeter that extended
well across the overgrown yard, that brushed along the cluster of trees that hid the home from the
barely-traveled road. It was an entire universe compared to the cell in Azkaban- a universe
pleasantly absent of moaning Death Eaters and wraiths that fed on joy and the warm thoughts that
kept the cold from reaching too close to your heart.

He would stay with Tom, because Tom was the only tenuous connection he had to Harry.

Harry was another thing they had in common, he supposed.

The door slamming in it’s frame startled him from his thoughts, and he grinned to himself in the
darkness of his room- Sirius must have given up when the wards prevented him from moving
beyond the invisible line. How long might he test them for? Did he truly think that he- a convict
with no wand and no practical use of magic after his incarceration at twenty one years- could break
through the powerful combination of charms and blood magic that Tom had evoked?

The very same wards designed to protect Harry from Voldemort?

He would give up, eventually.

 And, with no other choice, he would turn to Tom.

He was glad he hadn’t given in to his impulses that day and had let Sirius live, thankful for the
opportunity it now presented to him. Sirius would be loyal and faithful in due time, and he had the
potential to become a powerful ally. And if the truth from that night- the night that had forever
scarred Harry, turned him into an orphan- ever revealed itself, having Sirius on his side would be a
bargaining chip he couldn’t turn away.

He could think of the rest later- there was hardly a problem a memory charm couldn’t solve, after
all. And while altering memories properly and well required more finesse and care than Tom
typically preferred (tearing and ripping through minds with reckless abandon was more his speed)
it would be worth the effort.

Sirius was sure to remain loyal to Harry and whoever he aligned himself with, and Harry, desperate
for that familial connection, would cling to his newly revealed godfather with all the hope and love
of an abused and abandoned boy who had long since forgotten the feel of a father’s embrace.

And Tom? Tom would be the one who brought them together, protecting them both from the
aurors and Death Eaters that longed to clasp their jaws onto each Gryffindor’s neck.

Not quite the army that Voldemort or Dumbledore had amassed, but everyone had their modest
beginnings.

Chapter End Notes

This chapter was a bit of a slog to get through, so much set up and whatnot. But
hopefully having it out of the way will make writing the next few a bit smoother. Plus,
the Golden Trio reunites!
Few notes: The tournament! I’m very excited for the few oc’s I’ve prepared for this.
The decision to use an Asian based school was purely because I thought it might be
more interesting to see magic from a non-eurocentric culture. That being said, I myself
am not Indian (or Asian at all) and my greatest fear is misrepresenting anyone through
my own lack of experience. So please! Tell me if you think I can improve on anything
involving this particular piece of world building.
Or! If you have any ideas for how to incorporate the realities and traditions of this
culture with the magical world and don’t mind me using them (with appropriate credit,
of course) holla at ya boi! I welcome any ideas.
Also! I’ve been considering changing the rating from Teen to Mature. The reason is
because I’ve thought through the story a little more (ha, I work on the fly, don’t judge)
and I think I really want to take Voldemort over the top when he eventually returns. I
just like the idea of him being truly twisted and monstrous when compared to the
tame-in-comparison Tom. I might also take advantage of the rating change and add a
little bit more detailed smut between Tom and Harry when the time arises. It’s what
we deserve.
Next up: Harry unknowingly gives the Order a clue to their ever growing mystery, and
the tournament officially begins; meanwhile Tom and Sirius form an unlikely, possibly
stockholm induced, alliance.
 A Chat, a Visit and a Diary
Chapter Summary

Harry provides a key hint to the Order, setting off a chain of events that just may
provide the answers they're looking for. Meanwhile, the tournament begins with the
arrival of the two new schools.

Chapter Notes

Every once in awhile, I get a review on this story that hasn't been updated in so long,
and I'm overwhelmed by the kind words, and the fact that people find some joy out of
this. I think, more than ever, we could all really use some joy. Even if I've struggled to
write something that I feel is adequate, I just miss the distraction writing provides. I
miss spending all day thinking about my stories and what I'm going to write when I get
home. It's much more preferable to the constant anxiety I've had (New Yorker here).

Although I don't have as much spare time (I'm an eSsieNTiAl EmpLOyEE) to write,
I'd like to fill that time with something that, even if it isn't my best, at least provides
some nice escapism. There's only so much bread I can make, and I already finished
Tiger King.

Hope you all enjoy, and a not nearly enough thank you to everyone who still continues
to review and provide the inspiration and fire under my ass.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Harry shuffled slowly forward, stepping carefully on each crooked and oddly shaped stone that
marked the path between the school and the gardens and the river that ran beneath it. It was quiet,
this early in the morning when most of the students were still eating breakfast and preparing for
their first day of classes, the excitement of the tournament replaced with the tedium of daily life.
Quiet enough that he could hear the water as it rushed over the riverbed, leaves rustling from the
nearby trees. The footsteps beside him and the cane a short distance back as it clanged noisily on
the path.

Just as Payette had promised, Madam Maxime had whisked him away from the courtyard to bring
him to her office where he was met by two familiar men. Moody, the surly Auror with a fake eye,
and the same sandy-haired man from King’s Cross whose face was marred by thin slivers. Lupin,
he had introduced himself, a kind smile gracing his lips as he extended his hand for Harry to shake
and suggested a walk. “Nothing more suffocating than being in an office with Mad-Eye,” he had
joked, nodding his head in the direction of Moody.

And now they were walking and it was admittedly less dreadful and daunting than the idea of
sitting before three imposing figures, shifting in his seat as they interrogated him. The air was crisp
and fresh and the grass still wet with the dew that clung to each blade, dampening the soles of his
shoes and Moody’s long cloak as it dragged behind him.

“It’s a beautiful school,” Lupin said wistfully, sighing as he looked at the scenery around them.
“Are you enjoying it?”

“It’s fine. Not Hogwarts,” he mumbled in response, shrugging his shoulders. He knew what Lupin
was doing, and he didn’t care for it much. Talking to him politely, congenially even, to lay a
foundation of trust and kindness before the real demanding began. Before the real questions that
would make his eye burn with white-hot pain and his anger flare. Maybe Moody would take over
then, instead of walking behind him, performing the second half of their good cop- bad cop routine.

The waiting for this performance made his stomach flutter with nerves. He wanted it over with,
done and buried so he could move forward.

“No, it certainly isn’t. Nothing could come close to Hogwarts, though, it’s really an unfair
standard,” Lupin agreed. “But I heard about the Tournament. That should be exciting. Though I
would be on the lookout if I were you, Molly told me that the twins were devastated to learn they
could not participate and may attempt to sneak in.”

Harry nodded, only half-listening to the words. He had talked to Tom about the tournament after
retiring to his bed, the newly gifted journal propped open on his lap. Like an addict returning to the
drug that would ruin them, he had been shaking with anticipation to ask Tom if he knew anything
about the mysterious competition. They had spent hours into the night, Harry hungrily eating up
everything Tom could divulge to him. Learning everything he could about the tournament.

Learning that it came to an end after too many fatalities.

Learning that muggleborns were being used as a political prop.

It dulled the excitement.

Still. “I guess it will be kind of cool, seeing other schools and the tasks they get. Hopefully, no one
gets hurt though.” Tom had explained that each tournament was comprised of three tasks, each
designed to test a different facet of magic and technique. He wondered how different magic might
be coming from a different part of the world, or if it was inherently universal.
Would Indian witches and wizards have their own spells, entirely separate from the ones he knew
and studied? It would make sense- after all, why would a culture from a different continent, with
hundreds of different dialects, come to the same language for the same spells? But how different
could magic be? Magic was a language all on its own.

“It can be dangerous, but that’s what the Goblet is for. It will pick the best, most equipped
champion. Plus they’ve changed the rules a bit to make it safer,” Lupin contended. “If nothing else,
it will be something fun to focus on outside of schoolwork, yeah? How has school been going? I
know Madame Maxime has expressed concern that your grades haven’t carried over well from
Hogwarts. Have you been struggling at all?”

Harry shrugged, purposefully staring down at his feet as he toed across the stones before him.
“Just having a hard time focusing,” he answered, knowing it was the only answer that wouldn’t
make his eye flare in pain. Just close enough to the truth to not sting.

“When would you say the problems with focusing began?”

Harry came to an abrupt halt then, Lupin pausing mid-step and turning to look at the boy- closer to
being a man, now- with an arched brow. He sighed, rough and exasperated, as he said, “I really
don’t want to spend the next hour waiting for you to build up to it, so can we just get it over with?
You know I can’t tell you anything even if I wanted to so I’m not really sure what’s expected of
me.”

Lupin seemed nonplussed by the sudden, irritable outburst. “Do you want to?”

He blinked. “Want to what?”

“Want to tell me? Or tell anyone, not me in particular.”

He hesitated for an answer, feeling all at once vulnerable at having the security ripped from him.
The ability to hide behind the curse and be nothing but a poor, blameless victim absolved before
him, leaving his nerves exposed and sensitive to the world.

But, more than that, he didn’t know.

He wanted to tell someone- wanted so desperately to tell someone he nearly drove himself blind the
summer after his second year. But that want had faded, dulled the past year. He had grown
accustomed to the burden of not having to share the secret that he had buried himself deeper into
sin, so much deeper that the guilt was now his own and he wanted to hold it tight.

Sensing the turmoil within Harry, Lupin stepped forward, closing the gap between them so that he
could lower his voice so only Harry would hear him. “Nobody is looking to put you on trial here,
Harry. And I’m sure that you would rather have us all forget this and move on. But we can’t-
because we need to know you’re safe. You know more than anyone the dangers that exist out
there- the reality of the matter is that there are countless witches and wizards who would like to see
you dead.”

The bluntness startled Harry, only for a moment. It was the truth though, nonetheless. Harry knew
this- had known it since his first year when he watched Quirrell’s turban fall to the ground at his
feet. But no one had bothered to say the words to him as if speaking them would make it real- not
realizing that their existence did not depend on words alone.

“People want you dead, Harry, for no reason other than the belief that you stand in the way of
something they want. And when you disappear after all this...this chaos in the news- unexplained
deaths and convicts escaping prison- you understand we can’t just brush it off. I know you can’t
answer direct questions, but can you at least tell me that you felt safe? If you left willingly, if you
trusted you were safe, no one will hold that against you. You should never apologize for how you
feel. The only question I need you to answer for me is whether or not you ever felt like you were in
danger. We’ll figure out how to move forward from there, we just want to know you were safe.
Not make you feel bad or guilty for enjoying your summer- I met your aunt and uncle and I don’t
think anyone with sense could hold that against you.” His words were kind, though not soft. They
were firm in a manner that suggested he would not let Harry dismiss him, that no amount of
tantrums or loss of control would let Harry storm out of the moment.

But his words were placating enough, quelling all the fears and anxieties that had filled Harry’s
head. And so, he nodded, licking his lips as he said, “Yeah, I...I went willingly.” His eye twinged, a
mild discomfort.

“Did you feel safe?”

The discomfort turned to a dull, slight pain- slight enough that he could ignore it. “Not at first. I
thought I made a mistake but I started to feel safer. I felt safe, yeah.”

“Was there any point at all that you felt you were in a dangerous situation?” the voice that spoke
was gruff, startling Harry as he turned to find that Moody had moved closer to the two of them
when they stopped along the path, his glass eye starring at Harry with disconcerting clarity.
He opened his mouth but stuttered it closed as a memory came to him. “Well...yeah, but not...it
wasn’t because of-”

“What happened?” Moody demanded, making Harry bristle.

“I..sometimes I have these...dreams,” he started, his skin getting hot with remembered fear. The
terrifying sight of watching a snake sink teeth into flesh and muscle. “It’s like I...can see things
from his point of view. V-Voldemort’s. They happen randomly and he’s not normally alone.
There’s someone there with him.”

Moody scoffed. “You didn’t think that was worth mentioning? Wh-”

Lupin interrupted the callous Auror, tilting his head curiously as he asked, “Do you know who’s
with him?”

“He calls him Wormtail,” Harry answered with a solemn shake of his head, sorry he couldn’t offer
up more.

Lupin blinked owlishly, leaning back suddenly as he turned his gaze to Moody, the anger from
seconds earlier forgotten as Moody inclined his chin.

“Wormtail?”

Harry nodded, recalling how Tom, too, had responded to that name with surprise. “Is he...should I
know who he is?”

But his question was ignored as Moody said, “You told us you felt you were in a dangerous
situation at one point. Was that in reference to your dreams?”

“No. There was...one dream where Voldemort was mad. Mad because of me- because I was lost.
And then not too long after it I was...outside and I...I saw him. Wormtail. Wandering around.
Looking for me.” His sentence turned to a hiss as the pain in his eye gradually grew greater and
greater despite his careful attempts to keep Tom from the narrative. He reached a hand out, cupping
it beneath his glasses so that they were knocked askew from his face. Still, he choked out, “Wards,
though. Couldn’t see me.”
“You’re certain it was the same...Wormtail from your dreams?”

Harry nodded. He had been so close to him, close enough to smell the musk of dirty clothes- close
enough to see the thread pulling from the worn-out seams of his robes. The sharp stubble along his
rounded jaw. Close enough to see-

“He held his wand funny,” he added through the searing pain in his eyes, needing to be believed.
Now that he was offering the information- what little he could give before the pain became
debilitating- he needed desperately for it to be believable. Every little detail mattered. The beady
eyes, the shoes that pulled away from the soles. The stump of his finger that made him hold the
weight of his wand with his thumb and middle finger instead of properly, with the index resting
along it.

“He was missing this-” Harry said, raising a hand and wiggling the finger in question. The pain
from his eye was beginning to infect his head now, a domino effect as the pressure became too
much and his head pulsed. As if his brain was swelling against the walls of his skull, trying to
break free. His vision was blurred, colors and lights blending together until everything was a
kaleidoscope of movement with no defined shape. “Can I go now? I need to go to the infirmary.”

A large hand clapped over his shoulder, lowering him down. His knees buckled easily, and he
allowed the hand to guide him into a seated position, slacks dampening from the grass. “The healer
can’t do anything for you. You’re gonna just have to ride it out.” It was Moody who spoke; Moody
who awkwardly rubbed along his shoulders in what was meant to be a soothing a gesture.

The pain ebbed away, slowly- not entirely. But enough that he could open his eyes without the
world assaulting him. That he could breathe deeply without the motion jostling his head too much.
When he finally looked up, he saw that Moody had settled down beside him, but his gaze was
focused on Harry’s other side, where Lupin remained standing. His scarred face was pinched in an
emotion he could not decipher but understood well, lips a thin line.

“Just one more question, Potter,” Moody said, pulling his hand from his back and settling it on his
shoulder in a firm grip. “Your friend Luna told us you had a dog you took care of. Did he spend the
summer with you as well?”

He nodded, rubbing at his eye. “Argos. Yeah, but I promise he’s not here now. I know dogs aren’t
approved pets. Can I go to the infirmary? Just to lie down.”

“Yeah, come on,” Moody answered, hoisting him up and turning him so that he was headed in the
direction of the castle. He walked slow, one hand splayed over his eye in a protective gesture. He
took several steps before glancing over his shoulder, watching as Lupin remained in the spot he had
been, the same expression in place. Confusion and hurt all mingled into one, too distracted by his
thoughts to follow after the two wizards.

“Who’s Wormtail?” he asked before he could think better of it, his curiosity outweighing his desire
to leave the conversation behind.

Moody glanced at him from the corner of his eye before focusing once more on the path ahead.
“Not so certain of that anymore, if I’m being honest,” he muttered. “But it’s never good when the
dead walk about.”

The kitchen in the Burrow was cramped by bodies, cluttered by shouting. People talking over each
other, riled and uncertain and manic with the information that Moody and Lupin had given them
upon their return nearly half an hour earlier. The sound bubbled and pressed against the confines of
their silencing charm, threatening to break through and the send the words and confusion upstairs
where the Weasley children had been locked away against their want.

“So what I’m gathering from all of this, is nearly this entire situation could have been prevented if
you lot hadn’t broken the law and had properly registered your animagus status,” Snape hissed, his
voice low and acerbic as he leaned forward, pointing an accusatory finger at Lupin.

The typically calm and restrained man scowled in response, a feral glint to his eyes. “Are you
certain you’re the one who should be condemning illegal actions? How’s your arm, by the way?
Holding it a little close to you-” the scathing words were cut short as Snape rose from his seat, his
wand extended.

Lupin followed suit, his chair clattering noisily to the ground as reached to pull his own wand from
within his breast pocket, but was stopped by a sharp, loud command.

“ENOUGH!” McGonagall shouted, slamming an open palm down against the table so that the
cutlery trembled with the vibrations. “You are both grown men but I promise you I will punish
each of you within an inch of your life and then I will make you both write a three-foot long essay
on how to dislodge your head from your arse! Now sit down and put those away!”

Lupin grumbled an apology, a baleful look pulling on his features, as Snape sneered though
otherwise acquiesced, folding his arms across his chest as he sat back down, lips pinched so tightly
they turned white.

Satisfied, McGonagall huffed, muttering below her breath something about over-sized children
before raising a hand to pinch the bridge of her nose and inhaling sharply. The rest of the room had
settled down now, eyes flitting nervously between the two men and witch.

“Arthur, are you certain Molly won’t wish to sit in?”

Arthur nodded glumly, picking at a loose thread on his sleeve. “I’ll tell her everything later. It will
be a lot to take in- are you certain he...that Scabbers was…?”

“It fits almost too perfectly for it not to be. Percy got him shortly after Peter’s death. He went
missing not too long after Black came here. Hell, that was probably the reason Black came here,”
Moody answered, his voice weary and worn as if he was growing tired from the search and the
unanswered questions. Tired of the puzzle that they could not see in its entirety, only a few pieces
they had that didn’t quite fit together.

“So, let me get this straight,” Tonks said, leaning forward and cradling her head in her hands,
fingertips pressed into her temples. “Peter...faked his death to blame Black. He has been living as a
rat until Black tried to get him. And now we think that Black isn’t responsible for taking Harry but
has been living as Harry’s pet dog, unknown to him? And we still don’t know who Harry spent the
summer with?” She glanced up at the many faces around the table, huffing when each mirrored her
frustration. “I need a drink. Got anything good, Arthur?”

She strode around the table, not waiting for a response before she began digging through cabinets,
jars clanging together.

“What other Death Eaters do we know who aren’t in prison? Should we look at them as suspects?”

“It’s not a Death Eater,” Dumbledore spoke, his first words beyond his initial greetings. He was
leaning back in his chair, arms folded across his chest as he stared hard at a spot on the table before
him. He had been unusually quiet and introspective since meeting with Harry at King’s Cross, an
unshakable aura around him that seemed to warn against intrusion. He wore the look of someone
becoming desperate and mad with a riddle they could not solve, eyes dark with an unfamiliar fervor
to them. “If Peter was searching for Harry, then it wouldn’t make sense that another Death Eater
would hide him from Voldemort. This person has to be someone else entirely.”
“Then where do we go from here? If it’s not a Death Eater...who could it be? How do we even start
to narrow it down?” Lupin asked, exasperation filling his voice. If Dumbledore was calm and
reserved in his desperation, Lupin was the opposite, his nerves fraying. It had all been so much in
such a short refrain- the relief of Harry’s return, the guilt of having not been there for him when he
was younger. Then with the knowledge that Harry had seen Peter- had called him Wormtail for
Merlin’s sake- came the avalanche of emotions.

How quickly he had turned on Sirius- but hatred and anger were easier than the grief that would
have otherwise taken hold. His friend had sat in Azkaban, rotting away and labeled a murderer. A
traitor. A monster.

And he had done nothing to intervene.

Dumbledore sighed, rising from his chair. “We don’t narrow it down. Not yet at least. We observe
Harry throughout the year- whoever took him thought it important he return for an education, so he
will be safe while it’s in session. He can’t tell us who, but he doesn’t have to speak to give us clues.
It will be harder to understand what he can’t say, but not impossible. We’ll simply have to change
our perception. He may have already given us enough clues- we just don’t know it yet. Nothing is
too insignificant.

“Moody and Tonks can volunteer to supervise the tasks for the Tournament, which will get them
within close proximity of Harry, at least for part of the year. Better to keep an eye on him.
Hopefully, Miss Granger will keep an eye out as well.”

He pulled his outer cloak off of where it was draped over his chair, shrugging it on as he strode
around the table. There was a hardness to his gaze, lips pulled into a tight grimace.

“That’s all? Surely there must be something-” Arthur sputtered, standing from his chair and
offering an imploring glance at the older wizard until his words were cut short by Dumbledore,
voice rising and stern.

“Severus, if you would please accompany me. I’ve some business at Hogwarts that I need your
assistance with,” he said. Snape narrowed his eyes but rose to join him all the same. They left
abruptly, ignoring the words that filled the air behind them, absorbed by the silencing charm and
turning to vapors as the door closed behind them.

They walked down the path in silence, gravel crunching beneath their feet, the air crisp and chill
with the beginning of Autumn. Snape was the first to break the silence, voice low and deep.
“You know, don’t you? Who did it?”

Dumbledore sighed, looking frail. Tired in a way that sleep could not fix.

“No, not for certain. It would be unwise to assume with so little information, especially given the
circumstances that would be required for it to be true,” he answered, letting long and knobby
fingers run thoughtfully through his beard. “But there are some instances where instinct will not be
silenced by logic.”

Snape rose a brow, words drawling as he said, “And you don’t think it worth mentioning to the
others?”

“No. Best not to needlessly alert them. It could be nothing, mind you. I’ve no proof other than a
gut that will not settle down.” His words were low, thoughtful and grim as though he struggled to
infuse them with his usual joy and whimsy.

To another man, it might have struck them as odd, as a harbinger of something dangerous,
something unprecedented. But Snape had long since known of the Dumbledore that existed
beneath the carefully maintained facade; the calculating warlord who thrummed his fingertips
purposefully against a chessboard, decorated and strewn by those who followed him- those who
looked to him to lead them. He was familiar with this Dumbledore, brusque and secretive, and
there was comfort in the familiarity, even if he frowned at the riddles he spoke in.

“And if you’re, against reason, correct?” Snape asked, words terse with the irritation that hadn’t
ceased all the summer. He felt on edge, a nerve frayed and raw and entirely too exposed.

Dumbledore paused, expression somber as he shook his head at the thought. His steps slowed, and
he twisted to glance at the Burrow that sat behind them, crooked and shadowed by the sun that
hung in the middle of the sky. It was small now as they stood at the end of the property, away from
the Order that they had so abruptly left behind, questions unanswered and doubts looming. “Then
we would need the Order more than ever.”

Snape swallowed thickly, raising his chin as he allowed Dumbledore a moment of contemplation.
They had known, of course, that it wasn’t over. The war, the turmoil that had fueled it. He had
known longer than the others, known the moment that he fell to his knees and pleaded and
repented that it was not over- Dumbledore had told him so himself, had made it the condition and
the promise of his safety.
They had all known, really. In the way that animals know when a storm is approaching, when the
plates that move beneath them are about to collide, grind together in an earth-shattering quake. But
knowing and ready are two very different things, and the tension was high among the Order, the air
thick with frustration, hackles raised at an enemy they knew existed but could not see, could not
protect against.

It was exhausting, living in preparation of that moment. The moment right before the first crack of
thunder, the first rattle. The moment before the war, before the air smelled like blood and heat and
the singe of magic.

“Tell me, Severus, in your previous employment, did you notice a possession or relic that
Voldemort cherished? Perhaps seemed oddly protective of?” Dumbledore asked, startling Snape
from his thoughts.

“Nothing that I can recall.” Voldemort was possessive of everything and nothing, believing he was
entitled to the world and everything within it while never wanting it enough to respect it, treat it
with care or sentimentality. He gloated over witches and wizards that fell to his feet only to dispose
of them for fun, murdering them simply as a warning. Simply because he could, knowing that the
corpses would be pushed aside so other servants could shuffle forward, take their place in
supplication.

Dumbledore hummed once, pinched the end of his beard between his thumb and forefinger. “Yes,
well, I’m afraid I must call on you once more. I need you to visit some old friends and find out if
they know of any object, or if Voldemort left something behind with instructions. It would be
entrusted to someone close to him, Malfoy is the most obvious. Even before the incident at the
Potter’s he would have known Malfoy would be rich enough to avoid Azkaban. Though Pettigrew
was clearly involved in some contingency plan as well, which isn’t a surprise. Even at his most
arrogant he would have been to wise to place his eggs in more than one basket, as the expression
goes,” Dumbledore rambled, to himself more than to his companion, his hand now running through
his beard and sending it into disarray, creating an erratic appearance.

“Forgive me, but how exactly will this lead to Potter’s newest guardian?” he drawled, his tone
pointed and curling as though he were addressing a petulant Gryffindor and not the respected
wizard before him.

Dumbledore frowned, eyes crinkling in a manner that Snape already knew to be disingenuous. “I
must ask that you forgive me, Severus, as I cannot explain. Not yet, at least. In due time, should my
suspicions prove to be correct. Until then...” he paused, letting his words die, evaporating into a
fine mist. Unspoken and unsatisfying.
Snape huffed indignantly, though Dumbledore ignored it, turning away from the younger man and
continuing once more to the gate. “Malfoy first, he’s the most likely candidate. The most to lose,
the one most likely to evade legal repercussions. Tell him that I believe Voldemort to be
responsible for Harry’s disappearance, and the Order is growing suspicious. Tell him that you’re
eager to serve your Lord and do your duties. Bait him if you must, hint at the dream Harry
mentioned to Alastor. That will no doubt frighten Malfoy, he’ll be desperate to prove he has not
forsaken him.”

He was talking quickly now, renewed and plotting and Snape was forced to trot awkwardly behind
him, trying to hear each hushed whisper.

“Don’t let him know anything else though. As far as anyone else is concerned, Black is still
suspect one, but don’t sell it too much that it can’t be undone. When Voldemort returns, he’ll be
wary, and we mustn’t give him any reason to suspect you.”

Snape raised an eyebrow at the certainty of those words. When Voldemort returns. A promise, a
threat. A predator lurking along the perimeter, waiting for the moment to attack.

There was little time to consider the words, however, as Dumbledore added, “When you’re done,
you’ll find me at Hogwarts. I believe that much of our answers can be found there. As I said, Harry
has given us all the clues we need, even if we don’t realize it yet. Even if he hasn’t realized it yet.
Since his second year, we’ve had the pieces we need to solve this, they’ve just been misshapen, out
of order. It’s all there, right before us, we just need the thread to tie it all together.”

“And you believe Malfoy has that thread?” Snape asked, his voice dubious.

Dumbledore smiled a tilted smile. “I’ll see you soon, Severus.” And then he vanished, with
nothing but the boom and crack of his apparition, and the smell of magic burning the air.

Snape followed Lucius Malfoy as he entered the study, dutifully looking ahead and not at the
sprawling staircase that dominated the foyer they passed through. Or the ornate, golden arches that
were carved into the wall, turning something so simple as an entrance into a decadent piece of art.
He had been to the Manor before, of course- had even lived in it for some time after he was
recruited by Voldemort. But it had seemed so different then, even if nothing had changed- the
same paintings decorated the same wall, the same over-the-top statues and delicately arched
furniture sat in the same corners.
And yet, the Manor seemed lighter than it had been over a decade ago. Brighter, filled with air and
life and a word that didn’t quite come to mind. Hope, relief, freedom- there was none of the
oppression, none of the hate or the fear that came with serving someone so powerful. Someone so
cruel.

Snape frowned, trying not to think of such implications. It never did well to humanize others,
especially the opposition.

“I must admit my surprise at your unannounced visit, Severus. It’s been too long since we last met.
Outside of Draco’s performance in class, of course,” Lucius said, sitting down in a gray wingback
chair and waving his hand at a matching one. Snape followed the gesture, settling into the entirely
uncomfortable seat, the heat from the nearby fire warming his skin. His collar itched, but he
resisted the desire to scratch along it, focusing instead on the color that was thrown against
Lucius’s pale skin. Orange and yellow bursting along his cheek, the fire casting half his face in
long, drawn-out shadows the shifted, crawled over the curve of his brow, of his nose.

“How is Draco doing? Liking Durmstrang?” Snape asked conversationally.

Lucius smiled, chuckling tightly, as if the sound was squeezed through his throat. “Flourishing
now that he’s under proper tutelage. Nothing against you, of course. But Dumbledore’s presence
permeated the very halls of that school, infecting it with that...” he paused, searching for the word
and, unable to find it, substituted it with a flick of his hand. “Far too forgiving. Focused on all the
wrong things- the wrong people.”

He sighed, rubbing his chin thoughtfully. “To be honest, I was relieved when I heard the school
was closing. Long overdue, really. It’s gone downhill since Dippet retired, and only got worse and
more dangerous. Can’t help but notice that it coincided with the loosening of their admission
requirements. They were so eager to not make waves after Grindelwald that they let practically
anyone in- hell, if it had been open for a year longer they probably would have started allowing
muggles themselves in,” he said, laughing as though he had made a very funny joke. Snape
mirrored the wry grin, a second too slow, as he remembered he was supposed to be winning
Lucius’s favor.

Lucius hardly seemed to notice, turning away from Snape as he shouted out, “DOBBY!” The name
was followed with a loud crack, feet shuffling along tile as the house-elf nearly bent in half before
his master, the dirty hem of his makeshift pillowcase outfit brushing over the floor. “Bring out
some brandy for me and my guest. And let’s not dawdle like last time, shall we?” he snarled,
snapped his cane loudly against the marble beneath his feet for punctuation. Threatening. Dobby
whimpered, jumping as the cane whipped through the air and nodded, ears flopping.
Lucius turned back to Snape before Dobby had even disappeared, his tone civil and congenial once
more as he added, “Ah, though your unemployment is certainly nothing to celebrate. You were the
only good teacher of the whole lot, and it’s a shame to see that go to waste. I’m on good terms with
Karkaroff, and his staff has been slightly overwhelmed with all the students they’ve received since
Hogwarts closed and of course the upcoming Tournament. Perhaps I could suggest you joining the
staff, taking over a few classes. Dark Arts, especially, could use some assistance.”

It was astounding, how quick the switch was. The ease with which Lucius could switch between
friend- or some facsimile of it- and master ordering around a creature much less powerful than him.
There was hardly a crack in the facade, a blur between snarling and polite conversation.

Had it always been so animalistic? So stark? Snape struggled to recall, remembering only how
covetous he had once been of Lucious and his command of the more subservient. It had seemed
like power back then, when he was nineteen and angry and full of hate and blame that wanted so
badly to burn the world down. It had been something he envied, being waited on, having others
tremble and cower at every moment.

Now it seemed baseless- something one would expect of the very creatures they derided as being
less than human, less deserving of rights.

He was growing soft.

“That would be most appreciated. Certainly, Dumbledore would consider it an advantage,” Snape
answered, ignoring the crack as Dobby returned with a bronze tray and a large bottle of brandy, the
amber liquid sloshing against the sides of the decanter as he settled the tray on the table between
them. Lucius turned to the creature, lips curling as if to make good on his threat, but was
interrupted as Snape added, “Dumbledore believes the Dark Lord will be making his return soon.
He would appreciate the perspective I could gain.”

Lucius looked away from Dobby, lips parted and eyes narrowed as he considered what Snape said
before laughing, mouth twitching unattractively. The laugh was sparse, nervous at best as he shook
his head. He cleared his throat before saying, “The old fool’s finally lost it, has he?”

When Snape didn’t return the laugh, instead purposefully fixing himself a glass of spirits, Lucius
stilled, the only movement the light and shadows thrown across his face from the fire. Even his
chest had fallen, unable to rise with a breath that stuck in his throat. He didn’t even move as a crack
once more snapped through the room, the poor house elf taking advantage of the inattention to
make himself scarce.
Snape settled back into his chair, slowly sipping on his drink. He enjoyed it, the moment that
stretched painfully around them as Lucius anxiously awaited for Snape to explain, for Snape to
finally laugh along with him.

Instead, Snape lowered his glass, throat burning as he finally said, “Actually, I tend to agree with
him. Potter’s disappearance is most odd, and he’s told an Auror information that simply could not
be fabricated. The boy is rather dense, you know, and not even he seems to understand the
significance of it. But Dumbledore did, and he even felt the need to call upon the Order. They’ve
all taken to the claims rather seriously.”

“Well, that doesn’t say much. Half of them are unemployed and bored. What else have they got to
do but sit around and tell stories?” Lucius snorted derisively.

Snape raised a brow, feigning shock. He let his voice drop to a near whisper as he said, “You think
our Dark Lord isn’t capable of such a feat? That not even he could defeat certain death? That’s
rather...bold of you.”

The bait worked, and Snape struggled to contain his smile as Lucius rose suddenly, standing before
him as the fire framed him in light, a halo illuminating his silhouette. “No, of course I don’t mean
to imply...I simply...” he struggled for words, his chest rising and falling rapidly now. His pupils
were blown wide, swallowing his iris in fear at the mere implication of it all. “Do you truly believe
he’ll return?”

Snape considered him for a moment.

“I believe he already has. That he colluded with Black and they’re operating together. That he’s
waiting now, growing stronger and preparing. Testing us, waiting to see what we do for him.
Anyone can bow to him when he’s before us, but only the truly loyal will worship him even in
absence.”

Lucius raised his chin, muttering something to himself before saying, “I’ve done what he asked.
I’ve proof of it. He’ll see that, surely?”

Snape rose now too, placing his glass on the table as he met Lucius’s gaze. “He gave you a task?
Did you facilitate his return?” He said it with awe, as though he were impressed with the amount of
power possibly bestowed on the man before him.

Lucius quirked a brow, preening under the praise. “Well, I don’t know about that. But it certainly
did something, whatever the intent was.” When Snape said nothing, he continued, “Years ago, the
night Narcissa and I married, he gifted me an old book of sorts. Told me the greatest gift I could
receive was his trust and good graces, and that the book and its instructions were representative of
that. It was a blank book, and I was instructed to not write in it- that doing so would awaken the
spell within it. A dangerous spell. Only to use it should the worse happen.”

Snape blinked, not needing to feign his interest as he asked, “What did you do with it?”

Lucious hesitated, unsure of whether or not Snape was deserving of the same trust bestowed upon
him. He turned, walked around the study and came to a stop in front of the large, mahogany
bookcase. He splayed his hand out, settling his palm over the spines of ancient tomes. Finally, he
said, “Nothing, at first. He had given instructions but then...I had no reason to suspect- I mean-”

“He died,” Snape supplied.

Lucius nodded. “I had, forgive me, forgotten about it. Let it sit on these very shelves. Then one
evening, I retired to my study to see Draco there,” he raised a finger, pointing at the spot in front of
the fireplace. “He was writing, and at first I thought he was working on his summer studies until I
got close enough to see it was the journal. The Dark Lord said it was dangerous, the spell, and that
writing in it would awaken it. So dangerous that I was instructed to give it to someone disposable.
Pure of blood but unworthy, someone who could be easily seduced.”

He choked, swallowed harshly as if struggling around a sob. He pinched his lips, color draining
from them as he shook with the words, “My son was not disposable. I couldn’t...I couldn’t let...Not
even for him-”

“Surely, the Dark Lord would not have intended for your son to be sacrificial. Honorable pure-
blooded wizards are so rare, he would have preferred you took it from him,” Snape supplied, a
form of comfort. An assurance that the secret was safe. “What did you do, after?”

He inhaled, nostrils flaring. “I wasn’t sure what sort of spell, how active it was or if it would need
time to...to feed. So I got rid of it as soon as I could. We went to Diagon Alley the next day. It was
fate, almost. The moment I saw them, I knew...they were the ones. They were disposable, they
were pure of blood but unworthy just like our Lord had instructed.”

“Who? Who did you give it to?” Snape prompted.

“The Weasley girl,” he answered simply, exhaling in relief, the secret unburdened from him. “She
was dead not even nine months later.”

“Hurry, hurry! Down here!” a voice shouted, rising above the frenzied excitement as students ran
down the sloping hills, careful not to slip or trample any plants as they cut through the gardens,
rounding down to the where the ground plateaued, leveling off at the small river that cut
underneath the castle.

Hermione was ahead of Harry, Luna gripping onto his shoulder and trying not to be lost among the
students that swarmed around them, a flutter of powder blue robes and flailing limbs. Hermione
came to an abrupt stop, raising on her toes and excitedly turning back to them as she shouted, “I
can see it! There, in the river!” She gestured, turning away once more as she craned to get a better
look, the younger students trying to push through, their small stature limiting their gaze.

Harry grabbed Luna’s wrist, tugging her to the side where the crowd was thin, skirting around the
edge just in time to see bubbles foaming rapidly across the surface of the water, the tension
breaking as the pole- now nearly four feet tall- continued to burst through.

“Is that...a ship?” she asked.

Harry licked his lips, watching as more of the vessel was unveiled, a mast appearing as it continued
to rise, water seeping from the deck as the ship bobbed from side to side, tossed about by the
gushing water of the river. It seemed massive, dwarfing the substantial river and Harry’s jaw
slacked open at the sheer size of it, at the charms and spells that had allowed for it to travel through
the river, beneath the water. Oars jutted out from the sides, moving in a rhythmic, almost
mechanical motion as it continued to move, traveling pass the students like a parade.

“Durmstrang,” Hermione said as she approached, winded from jogging to meet them, cheeks
pinched pink from the cold of a September evening, curls tussled. “Fascinating, isn’t it? I wonder
what spells they use. I read about them after Hogwarts closed down, but the focus was on...the
theology of the school more than anything.”

Harry nodded- of course, Tom had told him about the school and its sordid history. That the
Headmaster himself was accused of serving Voldemort. It left a sour taste in his mouth, and he
grimaced, watching as the ship sailed to the stables that housed the pegasuses Beauxbatons used
for their own travel. A dock had been crafted, one that had not been there the night before and
figures were waiting in the distance, ready to assist Durmstrang with settling in.
Luna gasped beside him, one hand gripping his shoulder as she pressed against him, extending her
arm out before him to point in the opposite direction, just beyond the castle, where something was
crawling above the horizon. “What’s that?” she asked, close enough now that her breath warmed
his cheek, curled around his ear.

They were barely visible from a distance, the brilliant blue and silver vanishing in the fading light
of day, wrapped within the colors of the sky. There were two in total, long serpentine bodies with a
delicate crown of feathers rising from their heads. They had the face of a bird, with a long silver
and gold beak that hooked at the end, wide eyes set on either side of their head. Wings rose from
their sides, flapping slowly, creating magnificent gusts of wind that they rode upon, violet feathers
spreading as if they were fingers, reaching outward. Their bodies were bright, a brilliant turquoise
that made the scales coating their body shine, seeming to bend the sky around them.

They pulled and twisted, carrying with them a carriage, gilded in gold and silvers. The ceiling was
a deep red, domed with pitched gables setting just above the windows. The light of the sun, even as
it sunk deeper and deeper into the valley, glistened against jewels fitted across the body of the
carriage. Emeralds, rubies, and sapphires. They were placed strategically, the emeralds like
crawling vines, the sapphires and rubies blossoming flowers that sprouted from them.

The creatures became larger and larger as they approached, their slim bodies like the winding river
below. It flew above them, a deep groan filling the air and booming around them as heads craned to
watch as it passed, following the path the ship had made. The carriage slowed, mounting
downwards until it landed, coming to a stop, wheels rolling in the grass until they were alongside
the ship that had docked.

“Are those-?” Hermione began, only to be interrupted by Luna.

“Occamies! I’ve never seen them in person- aren’t they so beautiful?” She was bouncing in her
excitement, pushing her long blonde hair behind her ears as it fluttered around her face, cast about
by the wind. “Do you think we could get a closer look?”

She didn’t wait for an answer, grabbing Harry’s hand and pulling him towards the stable and the
dock and the carriage.

“Luna, wait! They’re very aggressive!” Hermione shouted, following behind them.

Luna shook her head. “It isn’t laying season for them. That’s when they’re most aggressive- father
has a piece of a shell from one of their eggs, Harry. They’re so beautiful. Oh, I do hope they let us
see them during Magical Creatures class. What a wonderful opportunity!”

She came to a sudden stop, heels digging into the ground as she tried and failed to keep her footing,
falling with an oomph and solid-sounding thud. Harry fell with her, pulled by the tug of her hand,
and groaned with the contact, his glasses knocked askew.

He sat up and rubbed at his face, fixing his glasses so that the world steadied, became clear shapes
and colors cut from the blur.

Payette was standing before them, grinning a wide-mouthed, toothy grin. “I’m afraid that’s the end
of the show for now, Miss Lovegood. Mr. Potter. The Opening Ceremony will be beginning soon-
you wouldn’t want to miss it, would you?”

“Of course not, Professor,” Luna agreed, taking the hand that Payette offered to her as he pulled her
to her feet. Her skirt was stained green, blades of grass clinging to the soft blue fabric. She brushed
herself off, stepping aside to glance over Payette’s shoulder, where the carriage had settled, the
serpentine-like creatures no longer in sight. She huffed.

Harry pulled himself up, ignoring the stains and dirt mottling his own slacks. Hermione tutted
behind him, a chiding sound she often made when he and Ron had gotten themselves in trouble for
something she had explicitly warned them against doing. It made his chest clench, a spasm that
ached and pulsed within him. Would that ache ever go away- the guilt?

“Come along then. We could always use extra hands to help set up- Madame Maxime is a firm
believer in unifying work,” Payette said, making a swooping motion that beckoned them to follow
him to the castle.

They turned their backs on the arriving schools, walking up the hill they had moments earlier ran
down, Hermione leaning over to tell Luna that perhaps she could use her good graces with the
Professors to get a better look at the occamies. Luna glowed at that, blue eyes widening almost
cartoonishly as she smiled, thanking Hermione several times over.

“How did your chat go the other morning?” Payette asked, his voice a low whisper as he walked
beside Harry, a few feet behind Luna and Hermione.

He shrugged, hold the strap of his rucksack tighter, nervously wringing his hand around it. He was
 suddenly hyper-aware of the journal that sat within the bag, neatly hidden away on a pocket sewn
within the lining. It felt scandalous, carrying it with him. A token of a crime that burdened him.
“Fine. Unless someone forgot to tell me, I wasn’t murdered or anything, so they were satisfied,” he
answered, surly with the anxiety and the questions he couldn’t answer. It was getting tiresome.

Payette nodded, smiling oddly. “No, you haven’t been murdered. No good to anyone dead.”

Harry bit down on the words, wanting to say that he was, in fact, good to many people dead. A fact
that seemed to define his life, frame it neatly as the single most extraordinary fact about him. How
disheartening it was, to have the most interesting thing about you be your inconvenient persistence
to exist.

He winced, eyes twinging as his scar flared, the pain radiating down the white slivers that
segmented his forehead, the bridge of his nose. His eye twitched, and with a hiss he whipped
around, feeling the undeniable sensation of eyes on his back.

‘You’re getting paranoid,’ he thought to himself, eyes flitting among the crowd that still gathered
around the river, the distant forms of bodies leaving the ship, the carriage. The hair on the back of
his neck stood on end, goosebumps prickling his skin. He thought of the new students from a
school that celebrated the Dark Arts- of their Headmaster, a former Death Eater. He thought of the
nightmares, the disembodied soul of the man many had once worshipped, had killed for. He
thought of the man named Wormtail, who was supposed to be dead. Just like Voldemort, two dead
men wandering the world.

He missed the safety and the security of the farmhouse, suddenly feeling exposed, vulnerable.

After all, too many people wanted him dead.

At least Tom wasn’t one of them.

Chapter End Notes

Chapter End Notes

Stay safe everyone! Thanks again for all the support and hopefully we'll get through
this together.
 The Goblet, the Trapped Soul, and the Fourth Champion
Chapter Summary

The Tournament begins as students enter the competition, hoping to become the
school champion, as Harry settles into his new routine.

Chapter Notes

I’m back! And in the same year!

I’m really proud of this chapter! Things are heating up and getting fun to write. Also I
haven’t read Goblet of Fire in forever and am a Grade A idiot so please be considerate
of that thank you.

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter Ten: The Goblet, the Trapped Soul and the Fourth Champion

Harry settled into his seat at the dining table, trying his best to disappear among the bustling
students, anxious and aflutter. He let his gaze roam over the courtyard- larger than he had ever seen
it. It had been expanded with magic, additional tables and chairs added to accommodate the new
schools that would be spending the year with them, competing against them. The linens were
replaced, cleaner and made with soft blue silk, overlaid by white lace. The silverware and dishes
were polished, so shiny he could see his image reflected in the curve of the spoon, elongated and
widened from the distorted surface.

He wondered how much of the competition was for the strengthening of community ties, and how
much of it was for the opportunity to show off. The opportunity to be better than the other- better
students, better school, better practical use of magic. Did it ever get tiring? The pretense, the
displays. All to make someone else feel inferior?

It seemed exhausting, and Harry could never understand the allure of this sort of power. He
preferred to spend the days in the air, twirling on his broom, or in the garden with Luna, half-
listening to her talk of her dreams the night before.

He glanced up, making sure no one was paying attention to him. None were, their focus entirely on
the Opening Ceremony set to begin, gossiping about the other schools and who they suspected
would be Beauxbatons champion. He was right, at least, in his hopes that the tournament might
overshadow him.

He pulled the journal from his bag, folding the front cover over and balancing it on his lap,
obscured from view by the tablecloth that draped around him. Pulling a muggle pen out next, he
uncapped it and wrote on the blank page.

‘They’re about to introduce the schools.’

He settled the pen down, letting it nestle between the seam of the two pages. He watched his words
twitch, fade, absorb into the paper until there was nothing left. He didn’t realize he was holding his
breath until he exhaled slowly, Tom’s response appearing before him.

‘Thrilling. Have you gone back to being yesterday’s news, then?’

His lips twitched into a grin, finding a comfort in the playful banter. ‘Unfortunately. They’ll have to
wait until the next time I almost die for some good talk about me.’

‘That will buy you almost a whole week, Harry.’

He let out a small laugh, biting his cheek to catch the sound before someone heard him. It was no
longer strange- the intimacy with which he knew the young Lord Voldemort. It had settled, the
idea of these two separate beings coexisting had nestled in his brain, turned into a statement that
did not shock or confuse him. So accustomed to Tom and long since over the surprise that Lord
Voldemort was once the very boy he talked to.

That Lord Voldemort had once been an orphaned child, tears streaming down his face. That Lord
Voldemort had once been funny, possessing a dry wit. That Lord Voldemort had once been
startlingly handsome- the sort of handsome that would make people swoon, make them giggle
facetiously and stammer their words.

Harry had seen cartoons and shows where a character was struck mute by the sheer beauty of
another, typically played for laughs. He had thought it exaggerated, the sort of thing that could
only exist with a laugh track or within colored, animated lines. But he could certainly imagine it
with Tom, imagine someone forgetting their name in his presence.

The thought alone was enough to make him snort- being so struck by Lord Voldemort’s beauty.
Did it help at all? Would as many witches and wizards flock to his feet if he looked like the
monster he truly was?

‘How’s Argos? You haven’t killed him yet have you?’ Harry wrote back, quickly dismissing the
thoughts which were warming his cheeks uncomfortably.

There was a slow drag between the responses, long enough that Harry almost rewrote his words,
worried that Tom hadn’t seen them. But then the words appeared, elongated and sloping in the
familiar style. ‘He’s been out of the way, mostly. Missing you and hating me. The usual.’

Harry quirked a smile, thankful that Argos was at least wise enough to lay low. Tom really didn’t
care for the dog, making the gesture of watching over him all the kinder. He hated the dog, but he
knew how much Harry liked him, and that was all the reason Tom needed to keep him over the
summer and now. It was the first time someone had adjusted their life for Harry, had taken on a
burden solely because of how much it mattered to him.

He raised the pen to write more, but startled, dropping it as the double doors flew open,
announcing the entrance of Madame Maxime as she strode through the gardens, wearing an
extravagant robe that trailed behind her, flared collar framing her face. The fabric was delicate and
silken black, with woven embellishments in a glimmering, silvery thread. The collar was decorated
in tiny, silvery gems which bounced and trembled with the light of the courtyard, illuminating her
face.

She strode through the walkway as the ground hummed, the fountain once more giving way to the
dais, stone grinding against stone. It seemed louder than it had ever been, a deafening grumble that
boomed and exploded in the garden, an ominous, groaning sound.

Or perhaps it had just never been so quiet, the school silent as they traced the Headmistress’s
movements with wide, excited eyes.

Harry frowned, slipping the journal back inside his rucksack, taking advantage of the rapt attention
his housemates paid Maxime. Tom would understand why his writing came to an abrupt end, until
Harry could speak to him once more, hidden behind his curtained bed.

Her heels echoed, tapping over the flagstone as she approached the steps, the stage, and then
swiveled on her heels, turning slowly as she spoke to address each house that wrapped around the
dais.
“Good evening, darlings. And what a good and wonderful evening it is! For tonight, we open our
arms and our school to our old friends, and to some new friends,” she began, painted lips wide in a
grin. With a pleasant, dreamy sigh, she rose her hands, the feathered sleeves of her robes fluttering
with the motion, and flourished them in the air. “Let us extend a warm welcome, to Durmstrang
Institute!”

If the fountain sinking into the ground had been a thundering sound, what came next was
discordant, calamitous. Heavy footsteps, falling in unison, pounded across the flagstones as
Durmstrang students entered the courtyard. They walked in synchronized fashion, looking more
like a march of soldiers than the entrance to fellow students, faces schooled into stern, guarded
expressions as they glanced only at Maxime standing before them, not a single eye breaking form
to look at the students surrounding them.

They wore fur hats and cloaks, so thick they hardly swung with their stiff movements, the blood
red uniform underneath only visible in the half second between steps. They looked so solemn and
grim, a startling contrast as they came to a stop at the stage, surrounded by large and blossoming
flowers and students dressed in periwinkle robes.

Harry had to stifle a laugh, finding the sight more humorous than he should have.

Like Voldemort cuddling a puppy, the stern-faced students standing beside sunflowers that were
nearly as tall as them was simply too odd to not laugh at.

Though his focus shifted from the students to an older man, the one who lead the march and had
now taken the steps to meet Maxime, extending a stiff, gloved hand forward and greeting each
other before standing at her side. He settled a cane, sleek and black, before him and rested his
hands against it, shoulders straight and chin raised.

He was tall, thin, with gray hair and a matching goatee that curled over his chin. His blue eyes
were cold and unmoving, not straying across the courtyard even for a moment, looking toward the
double doors as if simply waiting for the other school to make their entrance.

This was Igor Karkaroff, the former Death Eater that Tom had warned him off, now standing in a
room filled with students too young to remember the scandal or the war that he fought in. Students
too young to know of his crimes and misdeeds.

It seemed irresponsible at best, cruel at worst.

How could one be so sure of his switched loyalties to allow him this presence, this power over the
children who came to his school to learn? How could anyone be certain that his rehabilitation
wasn’t merely a front, the charade preferable to imprisonment?

It made something within his chest twinge, and Harry hissed as his scar ached dully. A reminder of
the evil that Karkaroff had done, a warning of what he might still be capable of.

“And introducing for the first time, Indrajala Akaadamee,” Maxime said, flourishing her arms once
more as though a stagehand providing the signal to move forward.

And they did, the school following the same path as the Durmstrang students, though their
movements were far looser, more fluid than the tightly controlled steps of their predecessors. That
wasn’t the only difference, though, the colorful robes that flared and fluttered around them were a
stark opposite to the dark and heavy furs. Crafted from soft, shimmering silk, the robes were light
and loose, pulling away with each step forward to reveal the layers of the uniform. The uniform
consisted of a sheath made from deep purple fabric; some wearing shirts, others slacks, the hem of
either embellished with golden thread that trailed and faded as it crawled across calves. The bodice
was white, a simple shape with a scoop neck collared embellished in the same golden thread, as
though the sun itself was sewn along the neckline. Fabric was draped over it, though Harry noticed
that the draping was not uniform. Some students allowed the outer robe to fall across the entirety of
their frame, clipped on their shoulders. Others had it bound to only one shoulder, tucked
underneath a lilac colored waistband.

Others, still, wore scarfs over their heads, wound underneath their chin and tossed over their
shoulder. Some were golden, some white, though most were a shade of purple. There seemed to be
no discernible uniform, and some were patterned while others wore solid colors.

Just as Durmstrang had done, they too came to a stop before the dais, two rows, with their
Headmistress stepping forward and shaking hands with both Maxime and Karkaroff. She stepped
aside then, standing on the other side of Maxime so they were both flanking the tall witch, tossing
her hair- tied into a long, thick braid- over her shoulder as she did so.

“To the students joining us today,” Maxime began, glancing forward and down, her eyes shifting
softly between both schools, “We are honored to have you here. We look forward to spending the
year together, to learning and growing together. And to our respective Heads- Igor Karkaroff-” She
paused, gesturing her right hand out in reference to the somber man who offered a smile that did
not quite reach his eyes. “And Neysa Padmesh,” She gestured now to the witch beside her, whose
warm brown eyes crinkled with acknowledgment as she offered a nod. “I and my staff are pleased
to spend the year among such talented and respected educators, standing side by side in our
competition. Which of course leads us to our true guests of honor, yet to be revealed. The Tri-
Wizard Champions.

“One champion will be selected from each school to represent them in the three tasks, each task a
test of all your years of knowledge and skill. But of course, such a role is not to be chosen lightly,
and there is only one true way to determine the best champion.”

Maxime fell silent then, nodding at her two companions. The stepped aside then, moving across
the edge of the platform so that they formed a triangle. When they were separated, allowing for a
full and spacious berth, Maxime pulled her wand from her sleeve and flicked it through the air in
an upward tilt.

Once more, the ground rumbled, vibrating beneath Harry as the dais split in the center, pulling
away as something rose from underneath it. It was not the fountain, but a marble pedestal, holding
an odd goblet. The goblet was large, oversized and made of wood. But the oddest thing about it
was its contents: blue and white flames, crackling in the air as the fire around plumes of smoke.

Maxime was grinning wide now, the flames mirrored in her eyes, casting them in a bright light
even as her face was painted with dancing shadows. “The Goblet of Fire!”

~x~

Tom stared at the blank page for some time before he sighed, shutting the diary close. The
ceremony must have begun and Harry was forced to fall silent. Unfortunate, really, as their
communication was already slipping, the younger boy only able to truly write to Tom the few
moments before sleep, hidden in the privacy of his bed. There were moments in the day- a dull
spot in class when other students were too involved with their studies to noticed him scribbling
away, a free period between classes before Harry had left to study with his friends.

His friends were another...problem. The Luna girl hadn’t been an issue the previous year, tentative
and odd in her friendship with Harry. Spacey in a way that was no dumb or ignorant, but merely
strange. But Hermione was a nosy little Gryffindor, no doubt returning to their friendship with a
renewed awareness and shrewdness that might compromise his influence over the boy.

He had considered trying to urge him from her, using the slim and hesitant trust that had been
carefully rebuilt to push her away. It was all too fragile still, though, and he worried the
ministrations would be too obvious, too damaging should Harry realize what he was doing.
He was more intelligent than Tom had first thought, now that he knew the truth of Tom’s identity.

The limited communication would pose a challenge, and he would have to work extra hard to
endear the boy to him. It would be such a shame for his work to be halted, regressed even, simply
because they could not chat as often as they had become accustomed too.

That was no doubt the reason why Tom felt a slight twinge of frustration, a pang of disappointment
when Harry ceased to respond.

But there was always the opportunity for something, and with Harry away from the farmhouse and
the dark secrets that were hidden within it, he had found himself with a workload of long overdue
research.

Tossing the diary into it’s rightful drawer, he pulled his studies to the center of his desk, the
cramped but neat notes he had collected. He had been studying horcruxes, a frustrating subject with
barely any books to be found on the matter. He had his own experience, of course, but his mere
sixteen years was nothing compared to the seventy or so that Voldemort harbored.

What had he learned in those years?

What had he done?

He knew, of course, of the things he planned to do. The diary was merely a test, a throwaway
horcrux before committing to his more dedicated ones. The ones with purpose. (No, he did not like
to think about being the remains of such a throwaway, unimportant experiment, but that was a
matter of pride. He had not expected to be conscious, existing in a form between nothingness and
life, alive for so long within a prison.)

But at least it offered a different perspective.

Were the other horcruxes, for there surely had to be others- both the ones he planned and the ones
he did not, such as Harry himself- alive as well?

Separate versions of him locked away in each item, like a time capsule?
Were they carbon copies, or lesser beings? His soul slivered into equal pieces, or a half of each
half, growing smaller with each curse. Less defined, less certain. A copy growing shakier with each
rendition.

If that were the case than surely he, the first of all the horcruxes, would be the most pronounced,
the most true to form (It soothed his pride where the throwaway bit had stung it).

He wondered then, if there was a way to take Voldemort’s place. If Voldemort was the remaining
sliver of himself, the part that moved forward while others were locked, could be killed and
replaced by himself.

He dubbed him the primary soul, the one anchored to the world while the others were anchored to
their objects.

Could Voldemort be killed- fully, properly? Was Tom’s presence enough for that anchor to shift,
for him to supersede Voldemort and kill him as easily as he could destroy a horcrux? Or would he
have to weaken him by destroying the other horcruxes?

Would doing so weaken him as well?

It was an...uncomfortable area of study. The idea of souls was nebulous as it was, carrying with it a
weight of implications he preferred not to linger on. But it was necessary, things he needed to
consider and understand before Voldemort became a more pressing problem.

He had an advantage, for now. Voldemort did not know of his existence, did not know of the threat
he posed.

What he did with that advantage was what mattered.

He knew, vaguely, of where he would hide the horcruxes. Perhaps he should pay a visit to his past.
Though doing so could be more dangerous- they were no doubt hidden within many traps, some of
which might even alert Voldemort to his trespassing.

Though again, they did have the same soul and magic signature, so perhaps not?
He growled, frustrated, as he leaned forward and slapped a hand to his face. He didn’t like not
knowing, this limited knowledge on a magic so arcane, so dark, it was all but forgotten.

He was probably the first person to make a horcrux in a century or more. The first to make more
than one in all of eternity.

He was an anomaly.

He skewed his lips in thought, eyes sliding to the diary that had been his prison for so long, tucked
between his other tomes.

That was another soul to consider.

Ginny Weasley had died.

But only her body.

He had drained her, consumed her soul until he was strong enough to break free. He had thought
when he was done, she would be dead and gone. Rot and dirt and festering maggots. He hadn’t
expected the exchange of souls, freeing himself only to imprison her.

Though the diary was, at its core, a cursed object. And there were always ramifications to dealing
with cursed objects.

This was Ginny’s ramifications.

Her persistent existence, though tenuous, angered him. Not that he had any particular ire for her. It
was simply that it threw a wrench into his studies, an implication that angered him.

If Ginny had simply replaced him, was he still anchored to the diary?

Though he was now flesh and blood and very much alive, was he still less alive than he could be?
Less alive than Voldemort?
He hated the competition.

He had thought of destroying the diary, hoping that doing so would firmly and definitively kill
Ginny once more. But it was too risky. Too uncertain.

If he was still anchored to it and he destroyed it…

He shuddered to think, stomach plummeting and mouth turning dry with the thought.

He hadn’t written to her. Partially out of a desire to be as far removed from the diary as possible,
partially out of a concern that the diary might try to consume him just as he had Ginny.

Before he could think against it, he pulled the diary out and flattened it before him. Dry, stiff with
old blood and warped. He grabbed a quill, dipped it in ink and, with only a second pause, wrote in
the diary.

Hello Ginny.

Her response was slow, so slow he almost abandoned the experiment. But it did come, eventually,
shaky and weak.

Who are you?

He chewed his lip, deciding that no harm could come from the truth. She had no one to tell, after
all.

She was as good as dead.

My name’s Tom Riddle.

The words appeared before his own had even begun to fade, spiky and panicked and messy as
though she had forgotten how summon them, forgotten how to command syntax and function.
Maybe she had. Time barely existed in the half-world, seconds and hours and days and years
collapsing into each other.

A weaker person might have been crushed by it.

He was, admittedly, impressed by the young girl.

I want to go home. I miss my mom and dad and even my brothers. Can you get me out?

Could he? He wasn’t sure. He doubted it. Didn’t really care, if he were being honest. It wasn’t
even up for consideration, not until he was certain he wouldn’t be compromised.

Though bringing her back would certainly ease that annoying guilt that flared so harshly and
steadily within Harry. The same guilt that Tom felt, reaching across their vast distance through
their odd connection. He was growing tired of this sharing of emotions, Harry’s unending shift
between guilt and anger and sadness and regret. How could one person feel so much? How did
people not go mad with the instability, with the constant and unceasing tilt of thoughts and feeling?

Was everyone or like this, or was Harry too an anomaly? A singular being capable of feeling so
much for so many people.

How did he handle the dichotomy? How did he live feeling so many different things about one
person?

He knew vaguely of the way Harry regarded him, pivoting between distrust and wariness and
kindness and comfort. So many different expressions for one person. Perhaps the boy already was
mad.

The thought of Harry’s, well, thoughts, was always exhaustive, and he refocused his attention back
on the diary. Back onto Ginny and how he might bring her back, if only to silence one facet of
Harry’s thoughts. He was growing tired of hearing the boy self-flagellate himself for her death (he
would make sure to remind Harry to practice his occlumency).

‘I can’t,’ he wrote, leaning back in his chair as her words appeared. That would suffice for now.
There was no point in offering her hope when it might not come. She was already dead, bringing
her back wasn’t the most pressing of matters.

‘Why not? There must be something...some spell...’

‘Because, Ginny. You’re dead.’

~x~

Ginny was in Hogwarts.

But not the Hogwarts she knew, the one she learned to love nearly as much as her home. The one
she had fantasized of her entire childhood, delighted by the stories her parents and brothers weaved
for her. This one was...different. Cold. A cruel and misshapen facsimile of the place she loved so
dearly in such a short amount of time.

The colors were muted. Dull. It was silent in the true sense of the word, a complete absence of
sound. One never realizes the sounds that envelope them until they’re gone, the subtle symphonies
of the day. The choruses of the night.

There was no wind whipping through trees, no giant squid bubbling beneath the lake. There were
no students running pass or portraits gossiping as they slunk across the walls.

There were no students or portraits at all, actually.

She had wandered at first. Crying out and calling for someone, anyone. Her brothers. Hermione.
McGonagall. Dumbledore. She had even wailed for Snape, banging on the door that led to the
potions classroom she did not dare enter.

No one answered.

Intrigue turned to panic, which turned to fear.

And soon, fear turned to desperation.

Time did not pass, the sun never setting (though there was no sun looming in the sky, simply a
light that fell over the gray world as though it were shrouded in clouds that never shifted). And yet,
she knew time was marching on without her.

She had been here for far longer than she even wanted to think of.

She tried, she really did, to establish a routine. Sleep for some time, spend the rest of it flying or
exploring or even studying- knowing Hermione would pleased that even in such a confusing time
she did not let her studies falter.

But there was no Gryffindor Tower.

Because there was no portrait to swing aside.

She clawed at the empty frame, kicked so hard she screamed and cried and her toes turned purple
and swelled painfully within her shoe.

But it did not open.

There were no books, the library filled with empty tomes. Decorative props that she had yelled at,
tossed across the room. Tore pages from the binding as if the very sight of their emptiness was so
offensive she could not let it exist. She had left it that way, a mess of rumpled texts and bits of
parchment that covered the floor like snow.

Yet when she returned next, it was as if her tantrum had never been.

Each book in their rightful spot. Pages still bound. Still empty.

She cried.

She lived in a haze after that. The deprivation slipping beneath her skin, turning her rage and
desperation into something more subdued. A numbness. A nothingness.
She tried not to think of her life before...whatever this was. Tried not to think of her mother and
father and her brothers that she loved even if she told them the opposite quite often. She regretted
that now.

But she couldn’t outrun them, the memories. As though her mind wouldn’t allow her to sink into
the emptiness.

The memories were like waves. Pulling back, leaving her with nothing to sustain on only to crawl
forward crash and drown her under their weight. Christmases, birthdays, dinners. Moments that she
had not appreciated, moments she took for granted that she now savored, cherished the way one
might cherish an heirloom.

She wished to live in those memories, if only for a second.

Truly live in it. The vibrancy and the colors and the emotions of it all, both pleasant and not so
pleasant.

It was a curse, plagued by the memories that she could only view, as though watching a stage
production of her life. The only member of the audience. Forced to watch even as she tried to forget
them, tried to forget the happiness and calm that she had once had before it was all taken away.
Madness was preferable to this. She’d rather live in her delusions and the fragments of a distorted
reality than to remember it all in such lustrous sanity.

She had never been so alone.

At least, until she wasn’t.

When she first heard the voice, she almost doubted it. Thinking instead that it was finally a
madness seeping out from her, infecting her reality like a disease. She was imagining things, filling
in the blanks of a world that only half-existed.

But the words were not a voice she knew. It was the purr of someone unfamiliar, someone who
knew her name.

‘Hello Ginny.’
She startled, sitting upright from where she laid on the grass, strewn beside the silent lake. She
blinked, eyes narrowed. She glance around, around the grounds, the trees. Even twisted and looked
into the lake, examined the unbroken surface as though something might appear beneath it, gazing
up at her.

When nothing did, she asked out, to no one in particular, “Who are you?” Her voice was hoarse and
scratchy from disuse, throat aching and clenching terribly around the words as though she might
choke on them.

A beat. Then, ‘My name’s Tom Riddle.’

The name meant nothing to her. She knew no one with the name, even in a passing, absent way.
The unfamiliarity sparked something in her chest. Warmth. Hope.

It couldn’t be a creation of her mind if her mind had no basis for it, surely?

She was standing, face tipped back to gaze at the gray sky, shouting at it as though pleading with
the gods themselves.

“I want to go home. I miss my mom and dad and even my brothers. Can you get me out?” There it
was again. The desperation, curling within her. Numbness fading and cracking to reveal the
bubbling and frantic emotions that plagued her, once. Could this be it? A chance to leave this hell,
the mockery of something she used to love? To see her family again?

The voice was slower this time, the response curt when it came.

‘I can’t.’

Her face crumpled. Just as quick as it came, the hope slipped from her, an ache replacing it,
burying within her chest. Tears slipped down the curve of her cheek, warm and wet.

“Why not? There must be something...some spell...” she rambled, begged.

How could it be no? How was there nothing that could be done?

Why was this happening to her?

What was happening to her?

‘Because, Ginny. You’re dead.’

The words were a physical thing.

A sharp stab to her abdomen, expelling her air with it.

No, no. That couldn’t be.

She was alive, she was here.

As though needing proof, she held her hands up, glanced at them. Small, pale and dotted in
freckles. Her nails were still polished in the red paint she and Hermione had used one night that
now felt like a lifetime ago, a dream forgotten. It was chipped on some fingers, left in a permanent
state of flaking. They were the only color in the dreary world.

She swallowed thickly, shook her head as if it might shake the very thought from her mind.

She was not dead. She was alive. She was here-

Where was here?

This blank world, a placeholder for something else. This...hell.

Her breathing hitched, sharp and unsteady as the air became thin, unsatisfying. She gulped, trying
to consume air like water but it wasn’t enough. Never enough. Her hands flailed, resting on her
chest.

If she were alive, surely there would be a heartbeat. The steady, defining and comforting staccato
of life.

She flattened her palm even as it shook, tried to calm herself enough that she might feel it beneath
her skin.

It never came.

Sobs fell from her lips, and she screamed into the nothingness.

This time, no one responded.

~x~

It became a spectator sport, watching the students submit their names into the Goblet of Fire.
Between classes the students would often gather in the courtyard, watching with wide eyes and
excited giggles as students would stride through the garden and deposit their slip of parchment,
marked with their name, into the flames. Each time, there was always a moment where they waited
with bated breath, as though the goblet would reject them, spit the name back at them.

It never did.

“Who do you think might be our champion?” Luna asked, fingers curled over her chin as she rested
her elbow on the table. She, Harry and Hermione sat together at one of the circular tables, the
bubbling of the nearby small pond rushing over them. Hermione’s head was bowed, curls falling
and creating a curtain to shield her face from view as she scribbled on her parchment. An essay she
had only just been assigned the day prior.

Harry thought for a moment. “Not sure. I heard a rumor that a former Hufflepuff put his name in
early this morning. Some other guy in my house was bragging about how he was going to do it, but
I don’t know that he ever did,” he said.
The scratching of Hermione’s quill came to a stop. “Ron thinks that Krum is a shoo in. For
Durmstrang.”

Harry turned to her, brow furrowed. “How does he-?”

She waved a dismissive hand through the air. “A quidditch player. Professionally, I mean. The
moment he found out about the tournament he sent me a letter begging me to get an autograph.
I’ve heard from others that he’s a favorite as well,” she answered, looking up from her essay to
consider the cup with narrowed, suspicious eyes.

“Oh,” was all Harry said. Ron had written him since his return to school, a welcome fall back into
normalcy even if his heart clenched at the mention of the grieving Mr and Mrs Weasley. But Ron’s
letter were...odd. Sparse. He remained on simple, uncontroversial topics. Discussing his school
work, the twin’s continued harassment and fawned over how jealous he was that Harry was at
school. The only mention of the tournament was in a passing ‘It will be so exciting! Can’t believe I
have to miss it.’

It was as though the letters were meant to be as standard as possible, avoiding any and all topics
that might be deemed too much for Harry.

It felt very...sanitized.

“Oh! Someone’s coming,” Luna said, patting her hand against Harry’s arm. She raised herself, the
backs of her thighs against the seat as she inclined her chin to see. Harry tipped his head back,
craning to watch as someone, a student from Durmstrang, came through the double doors and
began the march.

His posture was sloping, not nearly as refined as his schoolmates, and it was then that Harry
recognized him. The wide, prominent brow and slim, upturned nose. Dark hair that curled over his
forehead and lips set in a permanent scowl.

He had seen him before, traipsing the halls of Hogwarts, sneering from him on his broom during a
quidditch match. It was Cassius Warrington, a former Slytherin.

As if realizing it at the same time, Hermione said, “Wasn’t he...in Slytherin?”

Harry nodded.

Warrington’s eyes did not stray from the cup, even as some of the other students from Hogwarts,
who had known the boy before the school closed, began to boo. Loudly.

Perhaps it was because he was now, more firmly, the enemy. Not a possible champion that would
stand for them, someone they should cheer and support in good spirit. Now he was simply the
opposition. Someone they could root against and denounce.

And denounce it they did, some of the native Beauxbatons students even partaking in the cries, as
though rallied by the others. There was comraderie in it, the sort of mentality that overtakes large
groups where senses fail and collective depravity set in.

Mob mentality, he thought it was called.

“That’s not very fair,” Luna said, slumping back in her seat.

“He was a Slytherin and now a Durmstrang student. They sort of bring it on themselves don’t you
think?” Harry said, but even as he said it the words felt wrong, defensive in a way that didn’t quite
make sense. Still, there was a certain legacy associated with Durmstrang, one that poisoned and
infected everyone else within it. Guilt by association. “Besides, it’s a competition. They’re just
rooting against them because they want our champion to win.”

“They didn’t boo against anyone else,” was all Luna said.

“He probably won’t even be picked. What are the qualifications, exactly?,” Harry sighed, turning
to Hermione who seemed loss in a trance, eyes watching as Warrington turned on his toe, leaving
before the Goblet had settle. He was the only one who didn’t seem to doubt that it would be spat
back upon him.

“What’s wrong?”

She jumped at his words, blinking at him for a second before she realized what he said and her
eyes turned stony once more. The way they did when she was deep in thought and suspicious of
something foul. “Nothing,” she answered, trying to return to her essay.
Harry frowned. “Hermione-”

“He may be picked,” she answered, a deflection. “The standards are for someone strong and
talented enough to survive the tasks. As well as someone strong in heart and mind. Not everyone
has the making of a champion, and the person has to be persevering and brave.”

It didn’t exactly sound like any Slytherin Harry had known. He wanted to say as much, but decided
against it. Luna would only frown at it and Hermione…

Hermione was holding something back.

“That’s not what I meant,” he said, turning to face her more fully now, body squaring to her.
“You’re thinking something. Something bad. And don’t tell me you’re not because I know when
you’re lying. You look to the side and sniff.”

She gaped at him, jaw slacking some as she shook her head. Eyes glanced sidelong as she said, “I
do not! There’s nothing-”

She paused, pinched her lips. Her nostrils flared as though resisting the impulse to sniff.

Harry quirked a brow.

She scowled, let out a haughty, frustrated sigh. “Okay, fine. If you must know, I...I just find it all
rather suspicious. The tournament was canceled centuries ago, and for good reason. People were
maimed, they were killed. I can’t fathom it being brought back for any reason. The timing of it,
right after-” Her words had flowed from her, willing and rambling, only to come to an abrupt halt.
As though she hadn’t meant to say something, hazel eyes widening.

Harry’s mouth twitched. “Right after what?” The coldness of his voice was startling even to him,
and he nearly winced at the harshness of it.

He didn’t intend to sound so icy, but something within him stirred at the words almost said. An
annoyance.
She glanced to the side as though considering whether or not she could lie about it. “I just...right
after you disappeared.”

His jaw clenched, teeth grinding along teeth. “I thought we were done with that,” he said, voice
caught between a growl and a plea. It had been weeks since he spoke to Moody and Lupin, the
matter seemingly settled if not satisfyingly.

“Done with that? Harry, you just...vanished. And no one knows where you went! You can’t even
tell anyone because you were cursed!” her words were a sharp whisper as she leaned forward,
trying not to be heard by the other students. “Nobody but you is done with that.”

“What, so you think this is related to it all then? Because it isn’t,” he growled back, slamming his
palms flat on the table.

A hand rested on his shoulder, trying to calm him, pull him down from his indignation. “Harry,”
Luna began, but he ignored her, pressing on.

“I...this has nothing to do with that! Th-they would never do-” his voice faltered, turned into a hiss
as his eye twinged, convulsed with his words. He reached out a hand, cupping his eye so that he
knocked glasses askew.

He was defending Tom, and a part of him hated that. But another part of him hated the
implications even more. That Tom had orchestrated this entire event in an attempt to...what
exactly? Entertain him with the revitalization of a long forgotten competition?

How menacing.

It seemed like a reach, and he was annoyed that Hermione couldn’t just let the matter go. He was
alive, wasn’t he? Healthy and fine. He was even doing better in class, falling into the routine with
welcoming arms.

Hermione shook her head, curls swaying with the motion. “Harry, you’re hurting now! Because of
a curse! How could you protect someone hurting you?” It was a plea, a beg for him to understand.
Soft and pitying and worried.

His anger left him in increments, short exhales. He did understand. He truly did and it didn’t
entirely make sense to him either. He wanted to say that Dumbledore really was no better, but no
one ever questioned him defending the older wizard. He wanted to say that Tom was kinder to
Harry than his family was, than Dumbledore had been.

But he couldn’t.

She was the one who didn’t understand.

He rose from his seat, pulling his rucksack with him. “I...I should get going to class,” he mumbled,
wanting to leave the moment and the accusation behind. She was suspicious because she didn’t
know the whole story, because she didn’t know Tom. She was drawing connections between things
that did not exist- Tom’s intent and a tournament that would have no bearing on him whatsoever.
He didn’t play quidditch anymore, so the cancellation this year was a non-starter. It was simply a
coincidence, and she was trying to make it more than that. Trying to find an explanation for his
vanishing act.

“Harry, I didn’t mean to-” she began, trying to rise with him but nearly tripping in her haste.

He walked backwards, still facing her and Luna as he stepped over where he knew a patch of
lavender grew. “I know, and it’s fine. Really. I’m not mad or anything. I just want to get to class
early.” He tried to sound warm, kind. Tried to offer a reaffirming smile that felt strained before
turning and leaving the garden behind.

She called his name several times, but he didn’t turn back.

~x~

The days passed then, in an unassuming, unexciting manner. Hermione didn’t mention her
suspicions again, something that Harry was thankful for, the incident left as nothing more than a
blur between them. He would catch her staring at him, lingering glances that she fell into when she
thought he wasn’t paying attention.

He never mentioned it to her, wanting to keep the shaky semblance of peace.

And his life was returning to normal- or, he supposed, as normal as his life could ever be. He
awoke in the morning and ate breakfast with Luna and Hermione, the House seating restrictions
loose outside of dinner. Most of the students eager in signing up for the tournament had already
done so, but every once in awhile someone new would saunter up.

Only once did a student younger than seventeen try to toss their name into the ring, only for the
situation to become disastrous when the student was tossed aside and the parchment spat back out
at them.

He attended his classes, spent his free time practicing the meditation techniques that Tom had
taught him. But his mind always strayed, unable to become entirely blank. It was only when Tom
had suggested, during their nightly conversations, that he instead focus on one specific thing as
opposed to nothing at all.

‘Maybe you’ll do better if you think of something. Like flying. Try to imagine your flying, and focus
on nothing but the sensation of flying.’

It worked. He could sit and think of flying his broom, recall the feel of air as it whipped across his
face, through his hair. The chill when he sped, the comfortable heat if he flew casually, letting the
sun beat on his back and face. The smell of air, crisp and fresh and filling his lungs with a renewed
energy. Even the feel of the broom beneath his weight, his hands as he grasped onto it. Firm and
sturdy and reassuring.

He timed his meditation, the inches crawling upward until one night he could excitedly tell Tom of
his new record- ‘Twelve minutes! I made it twelve minutes before I got bored and started to think
about stuff.’

Tom encouraged him, and Harry found himself basking in the praise.

He liked it when Tom acknowledged his hard work. It held more weight for some reason. As
though his opinion mattered more. It made sense, though. Tom had seen him struggle, had known
how hard it was for him to not think the entirely too many thoughts that ran through his head.

The praise was made even more special by how little they talked. Harry timed that too. He didn’t
want to talk to Tom for too long- not in any responsible sense of wanting to ensure he slept enough
for his next day of classes. It was simply because it gave him a sense of control. That even if he
enjoyed speaking with Tom, looked forward to when he could settle in bed with the journal and
muggle pen at hand, he enjoyed knowing it was on his terms. That he initiated it and ended it.
It made him feel as though he had some power in a relationship he knew was deeply skewed.

It was better than nothing.

He never stuck to a set time. Sometimes it was longer, an hour or more. Other times it was shorter,
once even as short as five minutes. He didn’t want Tom to know what he was doing, for surely the
older boy would be smart enough to figure it out if he followed the same time each night.

Maybe he already did, and simply said nothing.

But it was, if nothing else, a peaceful time. Normal. Simple. Consisting of his studies and his
friends and the small time he carved out for Tom. By the time October came, the ashes of his
tumultuous life had settled, and he was surprised to find his apathy at the tournament turning into
excitement. When the evening came for the champions to be announced, he and the other students
bounced in their seats, a bundle of nervous energy.

“My money’s on Avery Devereaux, for sure,” a girl, Aimee, said as she leaned across the space
between her table and Harry’s.

Henri shook his head. “Fleur’s going to get it. I bet a galleon on it.”

Aimee glanced at him shrewdly. “You’re just saying that because you think she’s pretty.”

He grinned. “Well, she is, isn’t she?”

Harry leaned forward to say something, tease Henri about the crush that had only grown since
learning of Fleur’s nomination, but his mouth closed around the words, eyes sliding to the double
doors as he saw several people enter.

Moody, ambling forward on his cane, followed by the girl from the train station- the slightly
mousy looking one, her hair shaved short on one side but left long on the other, the locks a bright
blue. He recognized the President of Wizarding France, President Leroux- a tall woman with
smooth, dark skin and short curls wound around her scalp, as well as Minister Charron, a short,
paunchy man with a soft and rotund belly. There was another man he had not seen in person but
read about in the Prophet- Barty Crouch, a layover from the British Ministry who had insisted on
supporting the production of the tournament alongside the French Ambassador of International
Games and Competition, a thin, haggard-looking man named Martin Romilly.

But his eyes did not stay on them for long, sliding until they fell on the form of Albus Dumbledore,
who returned the stare.

He swallowed thickly, suddenly unsure, anxious. The last time he had seen Dumbledore, he had
berated the man. Yelled at him. Admitted to all sort of embarrassing things that pained him to think
about. And he oscillated between guilt and smug satisfaction about the moment, torn between the
man he trusted once and the man he was now hesitant to trust again.

Yet, he did not back own or let his gaze falter, even as Dumbledore approached, came to stand
beside him and tipped his head in greeting.

“Good evening, Harry. How are you?”

“Fine,” he answered, curt and simply. Neither friendly nor hostile. For some reason, that made him
feel proud. Then, “What brings you here, Professor?”

Dumbledore smiled. “Well, as you know, there is a fair chance that one, if not two of my former
students, might be selected to represent their new schools. I may not participate actively in it, but
I’m honored simply to show my support and act as a spectator. Might even be more fun that way-
no responsibilities.” The words were soft, playful. It reminded Harry of when he first met
Dumbledore, the wizard whimsical and delightful and kind.

He was surprised to find how much he missed that.

Dumbledore leaned forward so that he was more eye level with the seated teenage, and he asked, “I
hope you’ve found your footing here. Remus- Lupin- informed me that wherever you spent the
summer, you felt safe. I’m glad to hear that.” He smiled, as though doing so might make the
subject less delicate. Less raw.

Harry blanched, pursed his lips.

“I was also hoping that you might have some time to visit with me after dinner. I just had a few
questions-”
“I can’t answer them,” Harry said, dismissively. He glanced at the students that were looking to
him, trying and failing to not appear to be eavesdropping on the conversation. “And I’d like to not
talk anymore about it.”

He was again proud that his tone was neither friendly nor hostile.

Harry expected the older man to frown, to try to convince him otherwise. Insist on it, offering some
placating proverbs as though it might somehow undo the tongue-tying curse. Instead, Dumbledore
nodded, straightened his spine as he came to his full height. “Very well, then. Enjoy the ceremony,
Harry.”

And then he was gone, Harry watching as Dumbledore meandered through the garden, saying
hello to his former students, shaking hands with the others. He continued to watch him, even as he
fell in line against the back wall of the courtyard, beside the other staff and Moody and the blue-
haired auror. Even as various speeches were performed by the officials attending the ceremony, the
blustery words falling in the background.

Several times, their eyes met, staring at each other. It felt like a challenge, an inquisition.

And Harry won each time, only tearing his eyes away when the selection had begun. The goblet
igniting, blue flames crackling and hissing. Maxime rose to stand beside the podium, tall enough
that she could reach comfortably for the names.

“And now, the moment we’ve all be waiting for! The selection of our champions!” She was
grinning, wild with anticipation, and the school fell silent as everyone leaned forward, mirroring
her excitement.

The fire roared, rising within it’s wooden cup, and with a puff, like an exhalation, a piece of
parchment rose from the billowing smoke, singed around the edges as though it had survived a fire.
Harry supposed it had.

It fluttered, twirling through the air as the flames diminished, quieting down for the moment.
Maxime reached out, clutched the paper and held it before her as she read the name.

“Fleur Delacour, from our very own Beauxbatons!”

The school erupted in applause, some students cheering and whistling jovially as Fleur stood from
her House garden, looking confident and pleased even as a blush crept up her collar. She was very
pretty, Harry had to contend, with soft features and sharp, dark blue eyes. Silvery white hair
cascaded down her back, pulled into a loose plait with a ribbon, and her full, plump lips were
painted with a pink gloss.

She rose, strode through the tables and up to the dais where she shook hands with Karkaroff, then
Padmesh, and when she approached Maxime, the giant woman bent down, pulling the witch into
an awkward hug where Fleur rose to her toes and straightened her spine.

“You may enter through the door into the staff quarters. We will summon you shortly,” Maxime
said, loud enough for the entire courtyard to hear as she pulled away and gestured to the door on
the end of the garden, the one flanked by the staff and aurors and Dumbledore himself.

Fleur made her way to the quarters, pausing in brief acknowledgment of the congratulations given
to her before disappearing through the door.

“And now! The second Champion!” Maxime called, clapping her hands together as the goblet of
fire once more roared to life. It crackled, hissed, and then spat up the next name. The parchment,
singed around the edges just as Fleur’s had been, fell into Maxime’s waiting palm.

“Our second Champion, from Durmstrang Institute,” she began, pausing for dramatic effect,
smiling when students leaned forward in earnest. “Cassius Warrington!”

The claps were slower this time, less full and whooping than they had been for Fleur. They were
dull, restrained, even from the other Durmstrang students whose faces pulled into something
indiscernible. Surprise, annoyance, doubt. None of it seemed to perturb the champion, however, as
he followed the same path Fleur had taken, his face flat and stony as he shook hands with each of
the school heads.

“Karkaroff looks pissed that his champion is a former Hogwart’s student,” a fellow fourth year
boy, Claude, said with a snicker, obscuring his crooked grin with his clapping hands. Harry rose
his gaze to Karkaroff, the older man’s expression sour, as though he had sucked a lemon. The same
thin smile he had worn the first night- the one that didn’t quite meet his eyes- looked even more
puckered than he had ever seen it, pale eyes narrowed.

“I can’t believe a Slytherin will be their champion,” Lavender Brown said with a sneer, nose
crinkled as she leaned forward to nudge against Harry, the closest former Gryffindor sitting beside
her.

Harry only shrugged, uncertain of what to say. Did it matter, ultimately? From what he understood,
all the Durmstrang students were the same. Unsavory, believing themselves to be better than others
because of their blood.

Once Cassius had disappeared and the applause diminished into nothing, Maxime summoned their
attention once more, raising her arms in exaltation. “And of course, our last but certainly not least
champion, from our new friends of Indrajala-”

The fire crackled. Hissed. Blossomed outward like a wild flower.

And then came the parchment, a petal falling into Maxime’s palm.

“Our final Champion, Aradhya Khanna!”

Aradhya jumped from her seat with a bounce, grinning wide and beaming. A lilac scarf was wound
around her head, tucked under her chin, and the skirt of her uniform had slits on either side that
separated to reveal slacks. Her skin was a deep bronze color, and her eyes were wide, a soft brown
that glowed under the chandelier lighting. She had a hooked nose, chin tapering to a softened point,
and high, rounded cheeks which looked even fuller with her unabashed grin

Applause sounded as she made the same path as the others. Karkaroff, shake. Maxime, shake.
Padmesh, shake- one hand folding over the other, in a warm, supportive gesture. And then she was
gone, the applause dying just as the door swung close and the line of spectators had finished
offering their congratulations.

“And now, the tournament can truly begin,” Maxime declared, coming to stand before the podium
and the obscuring the goblet from view. “Our champions will compete in three tasks, each
designed to test their bravery, their talent, and their knowledge. And we will be with them every
step of the way, supporting and cheering them on and-”

Her words were interrupted by a sudden boom, a crackle as the courtyard was bathed in blue,
flickering light. Smoke danced up behind her, billowed to the glass ceiling and curled around the
vines. Her jaw fell open, brow furrowed as she twisted on her heel and stepped aside to reveal the
Goblet of Fire, filled once more with the dancing blue and white flames.
Harry half stood from his seat, the other students following the motion in interest, watching the
Goblet and what it might do.

Was it intentional? A startling show in honor of the champions?

One quick glance to Maxime and the other heads, however, proved otherwise, faces skewed in
confusion, unasked questions settled on parted lips. The aurors- Moody and the witch- had moved
forward, half stepping up to the platform, wands raised. Dumbledore stood behind them, tilted at
the waist as he leaned forward, glancing quizzically behind his half-moon spectacles.

“What’s happening?” Henri asked.

As if in answer to the question, the Goblet sputtered, a parchment revealing itself from within the
fading cloud of smoke. It was pushed upwards as though in a gust of air, before flapping down.

No one reached out to grab it, only watching as it fluttered, twisted and landed on the marble floor
of the stage.

Dumbledore was the one who stepped forward, reaching down with one hand, the other holding
his wand protectively. He grabbed the parchment from the ground and held it up to read.

A beat.

The second lulled, stretched out within that moment. It felt as if an eternity had passed before
Dumbledore lowered the parchment, swallowing thickly before muttering something that could not
be heard, a name he did not dare to speak too loudly.

But the other heads heard him, and Harry watched as several pairs of eyes met his own. He gulped,
feeling himself slide back down in his seat even as Moody began to walk towards him, his gait
lumbering, awkward.

No, no, no, no.

“Harry Potter,” Maxime called, her voice booming and filling the room just as it had when she
announced the others. But there was no excitement. No manic energy. The tone was flat, somber.
Uncertainty making the consonants sharp, anger making the vowels bubble, as though he had
tricked her.

Moody was at him now, holding a hand out and curling his fingers in a ‘come here’ type motion.
“Come on, boy,” he mumbled.

Harry shook his head.

It wasn’t him.

Surely, there was a mistake.

He hadn’t entered the competition.

He couldn’t even do so if he wanted to- he was only fourteen! He had seen with his own eyes the
result of trying to trick the age line, had grimaced as the student was thrown harshly to the
flagstones with a grunt and thunk.

It was a mistake, it was a mistake, it was a mistake.

Moody grabbed his arm, tugged at him until Harry reluctantly rose from his seat. “Go to the back
room with the others,” Moody ordered, his voice brusque and none too kind.

“But I-” Harry tried to explain, but he was ushered forward, his words falling on deaf ears.

‘I’ll go to the back room, and we’ll sort it out there. It was all a mistake, and they’ll realize it,’ he
thought to himself as he followed the path to the back. The same path the others had taken before
him.

Except, there was no applause- stilted or otherwise. There was only silence, save for the
hammering of his heart as it rattled against his chest, his blood thrumming noisily in his head.
 There were no handshakes, no congratulatory praise or smiles. There were only stares, pointed and
considering.

Heat flared in his face, skin turning feverish with the attention. The walk seemed long, far longer
than it had been when he was just a spectator, and he had to concentrate on not running. But he
made it there, eventually.

Pushed through the door and entered the room where three other confused faces turned to meet
him.

It was all a mistake.

Chapter End Notes

My poor son can't catch a break.

I hope you all enjoyed and are staying safe, healthy and happy!
 The Vow, The Riddle and the Reporter
Chapter Notes

It’s been some time since I read Goblet, but I don’t think they ever gave a reason for
why Harry had to compete? Just a vague...you gotta, champ. So I’ve tried to pull my
own explanation out of a hat here. Also, to offer a fair warning: there is an implication
of sexual assault. It is not based on any credible source and is not depicted or described
(as it didn’t happen) but wanted to give a warning just in case.

Anyway, this chapter was a bit of a struggle- it’s the closest to canon events and I want
to make sure I managed to turn it into my own so it’s not boring. Hope I was
successful!

See the end of the chapter for more notes

Chapter Eleven: The Vow, the Riddle and the Reporter

It did not take long for the chaos to follow Harry, the door bursting open as the Heads of each
school rushed forth, followed by Leroux, Romilly, Charron, Crouch and the two aurors. The sound
was riotous, each talking above the other- shouting, at no one in particular, but their pointed
glances were turned to Harry- and he instinctively took two steps backward until his knees hit the
seat of a sofa and buckled, depositing him down.

“This can’t have happened! There’s no way-” Crouch yelled before the words became too muffled,
falling into the sea of words and questions and demands for something to be done.

“Beauxbatons has two champions? That’s hardly fair to-”

“-He’s always been a troublemaker, he must have-”

“How dare you insinuate that my age line enchantment was anything less than perfect! I have been
practicing magic for-”

Harry scoffed, his face turning red with the indignation. Why did so many people in his life insist
on talking about him right in front of him, as if he wasn’t there? As if he wasn’t worthy of the
respect or the consideration?

His eyes flicked about, from the bodies that waved before him- a tangle of angry gestures and open
scowls- to the other students. The other champions. Three sets of eyes followed the same motions,
glancing from Harry to the bickering set of adults and back again, uncertain and confused.

So much for the moment of glory that Maxime had promised them.

Fleur was the first to break it, stepping forward so that she caught the eyes of the others and they
fell silent long enough for her to ask, “I’m sorry, but what is this about? I thought there was
supposed to be a ceremony with all of us.”

As though realizing for the first time that they were not alone, they pulled apart, staring at each of
the champions in turn. Then, finally, falling on Harry.
“How did you do it?” Crouch asked, his voice reedy and thin. “How’d you get your name in?”

Harry blinked owlishly. “I didn’t,” was all he answered, the two words igniting the cacophony of
sound once more.

“He’s lying! Surely he had to have-”

“What does that mean? He didn’t- well who the bloody hell did?”

“Maybe he found an aging spell or potion that could-”

“-my age line was flawless! Maybe he got someone else to put it in-”

“I’m sorry!” Cassius all but screamed, the fierceness of his voice startling Harry, who, until that
very moment, was unsure he had ever heard the former Slytherin speak at all. “But are you saying
he’s been selected as well?”

Aradhya was the next to talk, arms folded over her chest as she said in a soft, syrupy voice that
made Harry think of honey, “That’s impossible. There can’t be four champions. There are only
three schools.”

Fleur sniff, nose tilted up in the air. “Not to mention he’s only a third-year or something.”

“I’m a fourth year,” he corrected sharply, though he immediately regretted it when it was met by a
snort, a soft chuckle. It probably didn’t help his case, whatever his case was. He wasn’t so sure.
But he pulled himself up from the sofa, taking advantage of the lull in arguments to say, “And I
swear, I didn’t put my name in. I didn’t ask someone else to put it in. I don’t know how it
happened- I don’t want this. I’d much rather get through the year with my head down and-”

Cassius snorted, a sputtering sound that drew Harry’s attention, made him quirk a brow. “I’m
sorry, have you got something to say?” He was hostile, more aggressive than he knew he should
have been. But he was in a foul mood, and wasn’t this supposed to be a perk to transferring to
Beauxbatons? That nearly all of the Slytherins that plagued him had been moved to Durmstrang,
far and away from him?

Cassius rolled his eyes in a broad motion, one intended to be seen. “Oh, come off it, Potter. You’ve
never been one to go through the year with your head down. Like you aren’t loving this attention,”
he taunted, taking several strides towards Harry to bridge the distance, glance casting downward as
he towered over the younger boy. His lips twisted crookedly as he added, “In fact, you're probably
the reason we’re standing here in these robes right now instead of our Hogwarts ones. Nearly got
the school shut down in your first year, wouldn’t be surprised if you did it again. What happened,
did that Weasley girl get in the way of a curse meant for you? Not the first time some poor witch
died trying to-”

He was silenced, quite promptly, when Harry rose on his toes and pulled a fist back, only to hook it
across his face.

“Potter!” Came a unison of shouts, all merging to form one surprised call of his name.

But he ignored them, followed the fall of Cassius’s body as the wizard reached up to cover his
nose- bent and bloodied. Harry was on top of him, one knee digging painfully into his sternum as
he pressed his full weight into it. He was shouting, tangled and incoherent obscenities mingling
with Cassius’s threats as fist flew, finding soft and pliant surfaces in the few seconds before Harry
was pulled off, held back in the tight arms of Moody as the other auror pressed a boot to Cassius’s
chest just as he tried to rise to follow him.
“Get a hold of yourself, boy!” Moody grumbled into his ear as Harry fought and resisted against
the hold. His cheek stung from where Cassius had managed to hit

“This is deplorable behavior! Control your students,” Crouch hissed.

Maxime gave him a sparing glance before glowering at Harry and Cassius. “He’s right, this is
unbecoming of two champions. You are to treat each with the same respect as those before you- it
is an honor not to be taken lightly. Two weeks of detention for resorting to such boorish defenses!”
Her eyes then slid to Karkaroff, who seemed to be watching the scene unfold before him with a
mixture of both amusement and boredom before adding, “Both of you! It is my school we are in
and I will not tolerate instigation or retaliation from our guests.”

Harry sneered. “If it’s such an honor, I’d hate to besmirch it. I don’t want to compete anyway, so
just take it away.”

He was met with silence, averted gazes that made him falter, the adrenaline and tension vanishing
from his muscles and making him limp. “What?”

“You really don’t know anything, do you?” Cassius said, words gargled as he spat out blood which
smeared on his chin.

Harry felt smugly satisfied, even as he scrunched his face in question. “What are you-”

“It’s a form of an Unbreakable Vow,” Aradhya answered, her accent thick and rounded. “When
you enter, you’re signing your magic over to the contract. If you don’t fulfill the contract- or
compete- the ramifications can be at best...forfeiting your magic.”

Harry balked, jaw slinging open as something that tasted like panic crept into him. Forfeit his
magic? He couldn’t even imagine such a thing, moving through the world without his magic-
something that had grown to be as much a part of him as his green eyes or his untidy hair. It was a
comfort, a balm that soothed him. Even when he wasn’t using it, he could feel it, shifting within
him. Feel its core warm him over like a fire, ever constant.

And what would his life even be like without magic? He would be expelled, as he would be no
better than a muggle, and what then? Sent back to live with the Dursleys? Would Voldemort
continue to hunt him then, and he would be forced to rely on the magic of others to stay protected,
unable to defend himself against such a behemoth? Or would Voldemort cease to care about him,
no longer considering him a threat?

Would Tom stop caring about him too?

The thought ached more than he wanted to admit. Whether it was the idea of Tom casting him
aside or the idea that he had only ever mattered to Tom because of his magic, he did not know. But
it ached all the same, and he felt a pang in his chest that shifted like a tremor to each of his
slackened limbs. He didn’t want to be alone- alone without magic, alone without this school and
his friends, alone without Tom. Alone in that horrible cupboard, surrounded by the taunts and the
abuse that would only grow now that there was no threat of his magic.

“I can’t...I can’t lose my magic,” he mumbled, not realizing he had said it aloud until Moody’s hold
loosened and he felt rather than heard the soft sigh rumbling against his back. She had said that
was the best-case scenario, even. What could possibly be worse?

He asked as much, receiving his answer in Cassius’s cold laugh as the boy held his straightened
hand under his own chin and made a slicing motion.
Oh.

“That’s enough out of you,” the other auror said with a grunt, flicking her wand in Cassius’s
direction. His lips snapped together, and his eyes widened, muffled sound coming from his mouth
that could not open.

Crouch was muttering, rubbing a hand down his weary, drawn-out face. “This is unbelievable- you
mean to tell me these are our champions?” It was a question posed to no one in particular, and he
was shaking his head as he continued to speak, rage simmering beneath his stoic veneer, making
his words poised and acidic. “This is- perhaps the spells have soured on the Goblet. I knew we
should have made up a new one instead of using that ancient relic. Can’t go back now, though, can
we?”

He pointed then, gestured a skinny, knobby finger at Maxime as he said, spittle flying from his
lips, “Get them under control. Imperio them if you have to. This is supposed to be a unifying and
internationally respected competition, not a wrestling arena for two boys!” The jowls of his cheek
shook with emphasis at his words, punctuating and sharpening them. He glanced around at the rest
of the room, chewing his lip.

“And the Revealing Ceremony is canceled! Serve the students out there their dinner without further
interruption-” he extended an arm, pointing at where the courtyard was behind them, filled with
students no doubt wondering what was happening behind closed doors. “And keep them in here,
get them cleaned up and presentable.” He glanced distastefully at the blood smearing Cassius’s
chin and his bent, purple nose; Harry’s swollen and broken lip, the bruise quickly forming on his
cheek. “No one is to see them until they look and act like champions.”

Without another word, he turned on his heel and strode from the room, lips twisted into a scowl.

~x~

“Pretty mean hook you got there,” the blue-haired auror- she introduced herself as Tonks- said,
offering Harry a sly smile as she brushed some bruise salve on his cheek. She seemed appreciative,
and she glanced around the room before giving him a wink.

He bowed his head to hide his smile.

The room held some semblance of order now, even if it was a tense, vulnerable one. The others
had left shortly after Crouch, with Romilly and Charron making a perfunctory final statement to the
students that weren’t they so lucky? They were to watch not three, but four champions compete! It
was blustery, all showmanship as they tried to smooth over the fact that none of the four
champions would be making another appearance that night- that one of those champions wasn’t
even supposed to be competing in the first place.

And now each champion had been relegated to a corner of the room, eating their dinner in a bitter
silence as they leveled glares at Harry for tarnishing their night. Cassius was as far from him as
could be managed, the school mediwizard fixing his nose- which made a sickening crack as her
magic pulled it back to the center of his face- as Karkaroff whispered something to the young
wizard that made the taunting smile slip from his face.

Harry himself had already been properly admonished for his behavior, with the threat that he would
be expelled- yet still forced to compete in the tournament, so as to not break the contract- hanging
in the air should his conduct not improve. He had mumbled a stilted apology and promised not to
do it again.
Or, at the very least, not to do it in front of a room filled with ministry officials and aurors, he
supposed.

The door opened, closing with a soft click and Harry looked behind Tonks to see Dumbledore
standing beside Cassius, speaking with him in hushed words he could not hear. Tonks turned to
follow his gaze, looking back at him with a grin. “Ah, yeah. I suppose it’s only right to show
support to him too. Slytherins were his old students, too, I guess.”

“What House were you in?” Harry asked. She must have been to Hogwarts if the playful disdain
was anything to go by.

“Hufflepuff,” she answered, closing the jar of the bruise salve and wiping her hands off on her
cloak. “I was devastated when I heard about Hogwarts. Hopefully, it can be reopened soon
though.”

Harry nodded dully, glancing up just as Dumbledore came to stand before him, an indiscernible
expression on his face. “You know, Harry, when I suggested the possibility of having two of my
former students compete, this wasn’t what I intended,” he mused, his concern hidden behind the
playful note of his words, mirrored in the wideness of his eyes as he considered the young boy for
a moment. “Crouch seems to be certain that you got someone to put your name in for you.”

“I didn’t-” Harry began, his irritation at having to explain something he could not coming to a halt
when Dumbledore raised his hand.

“I know you didn’t, Harry. I believe you.”

Even if it was placating lie, it made him feel better, and he slouched back into the chair that had
been tucked away in his corner. “So then how did I get entered?”

Dumbledore sighed, resting a palm flat against his chest as he pulled a stool closer to Harry’s chair
and sat upon it, folding his legs. “We’re not entirely sure, to be honest. Our leading theory is that
someone, without your knowledge or consent, entered your name in. But that doesn’t answer the
most pressing question. The why,” he explained, and Harry nodded glumly.

Why would someone do such a thing? What could anyone hope to gain? The only thing that he
could gather was that they wanted to humiliate him, or perhaps see him become one of the few
champions to die while participating in the tasks.

“I’ve become no stranger to puzzles in the last few months, though I admit, this is a few more
pieces than I had planned for,” Dumbledore hummed, and Harry scowled at the metaphor. He was
insinuating, just as Hermione had, that Tom had something to do with this.

But that was impossible- what could Tom hope to gain? He already had Harry doubting and
distrusting those he once trusted infallibly. Had already had Harry ensnared by his charms, even if
he tried to keep such mechanisms under control by setting a time limit on their communication.

But Tom was a planner, thinking further along and more intensely than Harry had ever known
anyone else to do. He considered all variances, weighed each option before setting the foundation
that he would build upon. Would Harry even realize he was caught in the middle of something
Tom had set in motion before such a fact was revealed?

He shook the thoughts from his head.

“They’re two separate puzzles,” he ground out.

Dumbledore blinked, knowing the intent in his words. “I trust you if you say so.”

“Oh,” Harry said. He hadn’t expected Dumbledore to be so understanding. Though, maybe that
was a matter of perception. His thoughts were tumultuous and cloudy, and he struggled to
sometimes pull the truth- unbiased, certain reality- away from his emotions which shifted too
easily, as Tom often reminded him. His emotions which might infect his perceptions, fester within
them like maggots in rotting flesh.

Perhaps Dumbledore was always being understanding, and Harry was too twisted and contorted
with rage to tell.

His head pulsed painfully, and he wanted, all at once, to go to bed.

“It’s unfortunate, though,” Dumbledore said, picking mindlessly at the ends of his beard. “One
puzzle is much neater and easier to solve then two. Too many pieces to collect before the image
can be revealed.”

Harry struggled to not roll his eyes at the metaphor. Tom was right- he did have an exhausting,
meandering way of talking.

“Can you...stop with all the...puzzle talk?” Harry asked, words strained. His head was throbbing
now, nudging behind his eyes and making him wince.

Dumbledore considered him for a moment, eyes softening as he nodded solemnly. “Very well. My
apologies, Harry, you seem to be under great stress and I’m only making it worse. Just know that
should you ever need anything, I’m always available. And rest assured that you will be safe here,
I’ve seen to it that the best aurors are to help maintain the school’s security during the
tournament.” He clapped a hand on Harry’s knee, giving it a firm squeeze before rising from the
stool. “And though your presence in the tournament is a surprise, I’m sure you will do well.
You’ve always been a talented wizard, Harry, and I look forward to seeing you perform in it.”

Harry smiled at the praise, through the haze creeping into his brain. But Dumbledore was still
standing before him, even as Harry’s vision fell out of focus, blurring and obscuring his form.

“Just know that myself and several other highly respectable witches and wizards will be working
tirelessly to figure out what happened. Whoever has put you in this position will be discovered, you
have my word. We’ll solve the pu- oh, of course. My apologies, Harry, I know you didn’t like that
metaphor. Perhaps then we will call it a riddle?” Dumbledore hummed, his voice soft and
humorous as though he didn’t realize the way Harry widened his eyes, the way his breath caught,
lodged in his throat.

But he exhaled that same breath when Dumbledore did not push the subject and simply bid him
goodnight. He turned to leave the room, leaving him with one parting phrase, spoken more to
himself than to Harry.

‘Let’s hope you’re wrong about the two incidences being connected. After all, the only thing worse
than one riddle is two.’

~x~

The kitchen was empty when Sirius slunk into it, and he breathed a sigh of relief as he began
searching through cabinets and the old, squat fridge. He was often hungry- trying to stretch the
moments between meals so as to avoid Tom more easily, keeping to the corners and paths of the
farmhouse that Tom didn’t frequent. It was easy enough. Tom was a creature of habit, rising early
and spending most of his days in the basement that was so heavily warded that Sirius’s palm had
blistered and bubbled when he tried to sneak in one night. The only real chance they had of
encountering each other was the kitchen, which Tom used almost as frequently as the warded
basement.

He would spend an hour in the morning, eating toast and drinking tea while he read the prophet.
Another hour during lunch. Two hours between his preparation and his tidying up of dinner. And
of course, the random intervals at which he entered during an unscheduled break, drinking some
more tea and flicking through a book.

Sirius was certain he did it intentionally, trying to occupy the space as much as possible. As though
he was hoping to force Sirius into the room, force him into whatever sort of relationship could exist
between them.

Unfortunately for Tom, Sirius was used to the pangs of hunger. He didn’t mind the long pauses
between food, letting himself fill the thought and pain in his belly with the exploration of the old
home. The old muggle books in the rarely used sitting room, soft and worn in their age. The old
telly that didn’t work, only fizzing and blaring until he shut it off (he had been to Lily’s house,
once, before she and James married, and had marveled at the muggle invention, forcing the rest of
his friends to cancel their dinner plans so he could watch some ludicrous movie set in space. He
was more disappointed than he wanted to admit that this telly was broken.)

He wandered the attic, filled with boxes of long-forgotten clothes that smelled of mothballs and
dust. Holiday decorations that had fallen once and had never been picked up, spilling ornaments
across the dust-covered floor. There were boxes of jewelry that his own mother might have owned-
the nice, heirloom sort- and boxes of documents that he had read through one afternoon. Birth
certificates, newspaper clippings from an old, muggle war, death certificates, various invoices. It
was an entire tableau, the life, and death of someone who had lived here once. Who had a son
named Robert Muller who was a decent enough student who died at age twenty in something
called the Battle of Bulge. Who had a daughter named Evelyn who married a man named Richard.

It had been a solemn way to spend the hours, and the next few days that followed he found himself
cleaning the attic, salvaging what items he could and bringing them down to the farmhouse. As
though he could honor the people who lived and died thereby keeping their belongings alive and in
use.

If nothing else, it gave him something to do, washing and drying the clothes. Resetting the bare
walls with framed photos. And his efforts had been rewarded when he found a record player and a
box of old records, the cardboard cases soft and fraying on the corners. Lily had one of these as
well, but he was more familiar with this than the telly. Sometimes, muggle technology and magical
technology collided, and though the record player his father had was charmed and operated with
magic, it wasn’t too different from a muggle one.

He set it up in the sitting room, and was delighted to find it worked, rasping and screeching before
the songs of his selected vinyl played through the air, clear and bouncing across the peeling
wallpaper. He didn’t know who any of the musicians were, but it didn’t matter. He simply enjoyed
the sound, the music. A pleasant break from the quiet of the house- the creak of old floorboards
and the groan as it settled.

It was so pleasant, that it lulled him off to sleep, and he awoke hours later in the dark and cool
room, the music gone. He rubbed his eyes and stifled a yawn, rising until he wandered into the
thankfully empty kitchen he now sat in, pulling a box of dry pasta from the cabinet and looking for
a pot. He had just found one and finished filling it with water when a voice came from the
threshold.

“You’ve been redecorating.”

Sirius turned at the sound, frowning at the sight of Tom leaning against the frame of the entrance,
lips tilted in an uneven smile. He wasn’t scared of Tom- not in a physical, imminent sort of sense.
But he was afraid of the uncertainty of him, the mismatched loyalties that aligned with Harry but
against Dumbledore. He was afraid of the charm he employed readily at the younger boy- who
opened to it in increments, warming up to him with each day that passed over the summer.

He was afraid of the way he smiled- like a knife, like he had too many teeth for his mouth.

Sirius sniffed, raising his chin defiantly. “Sorry, did I upset your tasteful cobwebs? What sort of
aesthetic were you going for- abandoned, certainly haunted house?”

Tom considered him for a moment. “I was shooting more for lived in by a suspicious widow who
believes her husband’s death was something supernatural and holes herself away in fear it might
seek her. I suppose I’ll have to fire my interior decorator.”

His lips twitched, but he restrained them. Refused to so much as smile at the boy.

As though to prove his point, he skewed his lips in a deep frown and then set about making himself
some pasta. A chair scraped across the floor as Tom sat down and stared at him, his gaze a
physical thing. It was oppressive, and Sirius might have shifted his weight unsteadily if he were a
less confident man. Instead, he said, “Should I make some for you as well?”

“Please. I’m practically ravenous. Spent all day long in my laboratory and I’m afraid I lost track of
time,” he said, conversationally. It was a bait, though to what end, Sirius did not know.

He wished he had a wand.

“Normally I know to end the day because Harry will start talking to me, but he seems to have run a
little later than usual.”

Ah. Harry was the end, it seemed.

And yet, even though he knew it was a bait, Sirius perked, twisting around to look at Tom with
narrowed eyes. “You’ve talked to Harry?”

To his credit, Tom managed not to smile smugly, his face remaining passive as he said, “Every
night. He must’ve gotten detention and that’s why it’s taking so long,” he muttered, more to
himself than to Sirius who pulled away from the stove now that his food was cooking.

He swallowed. “How is he?”

“Well. He’s enjoying his classes and he’s even improved his occlumency. He’s finally gotten the
hang of clearing his mind for longer than a minute. It won’t be enough to keep Voldemort out. But
it’s a promising start,” Tom said, and Sirius nodded along.

Tom did not like Dumbledore, that much Sirius knew.

Tom did not like Voldemort, either. He knew that as well.

He had never paused to consider that there could be more than two sides to a war- had there ever
been a war with more than two sides, he wondered? It seemed as though it was always split cleanly
down the middle. The right side and the wrong side. How could there be a third, separate side, one
that existed outside the parameters of the other two?

What then were his beliefs?

He knew Tom would not answer, so instead he asked another question, one that had plagued him
for so long it had nearly etched itself into his brain. “You want to protect Harry from Voldemort,
but you don’t think Dumbledore is capable of that?”

“I know he isn’t capable of it,” Tom said, his voice stern and pointed. “Don’t play dumb with me,
Sirius. I know you’re smarter than that. Could you truly believe he would have had a better
summer with the Dursleys than with us?”

Sirius balked at that word. Us. As though they were a unit, as though he were something more than
a hostage, a ploy for Tom to endear himself to Harry. Harry, who had already grown too attached to
the dog for Tom to get rid of him. He remembered then, with frightening clarity, the moment Tom
hovered over him in the alley, handsome features pulled into an unrecognizable veil of cruelty,
making him crooked and hideous. Had Harry ever seen the boy at his most cruel, his most
threatening? When he had been so near to killing Sirius?

“You kidnapped him. They thought he died, surely there could have been a middle ground-”

Tom leaned back in his chair and tilted his head to the side, fixing Sirius with a curious expression.
“You didn’t see it, what they did to him. And he doesn’t like to speak about it because it makes
him feel like a burden. But surely you’re wise enough to see the signs? How he carries himself, like
he’s trying to go unnoticed? How much he distrusts the adults around him to help or care about
him, as though they’ve failed him before? Or even how quickly he is to place his trust in someone,
as though finding someone to comfort and validate him is more important than finding the right
person to do so? The mood swings, the self-deprecation...surely you’re smart enough to recognize
the signs of abuse when you see it.” His tone was measured, but there was something lacing the
words. Something acerbic.

Sirius gripped onto the chair opposite Tom, leaning forward as he said, “Of course I saw it! The
moment I first saw him I knew something wasn’t quite right.”

“And you think that Dumbledore wouldn’t? Dumbledore, who seems to know everything before it
happens? Dumbledore, who can and does read people’s minds so freely? You don’t think he would
see it too?” He did not pause long enough for Sirius to respond, rising from his own chair and
splaying his palm flat on the table between them, leaning forward. “Because I’ve seen them, the
memories he couldn’t hide when we practiced his occlumency. When most kids are younger, their
first instances of accidental magic are childish, whimsical things. Summoning a toy, making
flowers blossom. His first incidences were in escaping the abuse; appearing on roofs when he was
chased and making his cupboard unlock at night so he could sneak out for food.”

Sirius opened his mouth, a rebuttal that formed and died on his tongue, his jaw slipped open as he
gaped for a moment before promptly shutting his mouth. Where James had been broad and fit, and
Lily all soft curves, Harry was skinny. Lanky and awkward limbs that disappeared in his over-
sized clothes, the sharp point of his jutting collar bone. He had gained weight during the summer,
his face filling out the hollow of his cheeks, making him appear less gaunt as his face structured,
seemingly overnight, into the face of a man and not a boy. His clothes didn’t drape from him quite
as poorly as they did before, and after the first few weeks he seemed to ease into the routine.

Sirius had thought that it was Tom, worming his way into Harry’s brain, infecting his thoughts
until he was all-consuming. It hadn’t occurred to him that Harry might have been genuinely
happier. That his smiling and comfort was not the result of Tom’s mechanisms, but the symptoms
of something else. That he was happier because of the simple accommodations he didn’t have with
the Dursleys. Access to food, as often as he liked. The ability to fly beside his owl, to toss his
clothes and dishes aside knowing that Tom would clean them with his magic instead of forcing the
young boy to do it.

He skewed his lips before muttering, a bit childishly he knew, “Harry needed a home. Where was
he to go?”

He regretted saying it almost immediately, knowing there was no justification. He was grasping at
straws, trying to defend something indefensible purely because he didn’t like the person saying it.

Stubborn.

Tom pushed himself away from the table, standing to his full height as he considered Sirius for a
moment. “You could have given him a home. Instead, Dumbledore let your rot in jail. He didn’t
even speak to you, try to get you the trial you deserved. Nobody cared, they all just assumed you
betrayed Lily and James.”

“I would never-” he began, but the words came out strangled, hoarse. His throat felt swollen, so
constricted that it hurt to swallow and he grimaced painfully. “Crouch didn’t give anyone a trial. I
wasn’t-”

“You were a member of his Order, you served by his side. You weren’t just anyone,” Tom
reasoned. He looked as though he was ready to say something else, but paused, brow furrowing as
his gaze fell to his robes. He reached inside a pocket, produced a journal from within- a journal
Sirius thought he saw him scribbling in from time to time. Whatever he had been ready to say was
forgotten as he flipped to a random page in the journal and glanced down at it.

Sirius was thankful for the distraction, the sudden ache in his chest and tightening of his throat all
but pulling his focus. He didn’t like to linger on those thoughts for long, the betrayal he felt was
given to him in equal measure. How abandoned he felt, sullen and alone with nothing but his
spiraling thoughts to keep him company. The dementors that loomed through the corridors,
allowing for only his most vicious memories to surface. The ones with teeth and fangs.

He shuddered, closing his eyes as he tried to pull himself out of that place- Azkaban. The unending
chill and dampness that pervaded him, the smell of salt so thick in the air he could taste it on his
tongue. The shouting, deranged screaming that shook through the prison like a wind, the grating of
metal on metal as the other prisoners dragged their cuffs across the bar. The cackling and the
taunts and the anguished cries and-

“Sirius!”

He startled, blinking as he glanced to his side where Tom was now standing, closer than he thought
they’d ever been. He was fixing him with steady, narrowed eyes, and it was only then that Sirius
realized how harshly he was breathing, his ragged breaths that came in pants. Shallow, unfulfilling.

He blanched, embarrassed at his loss of composure.

He wasn’t at Azkaban anymore. He was free.

Well, more free, at least.

Tom allowed him only a moment to catch his breath, watching unflinchingly as Sirius tried to
collect himself, his shoulders sagging with each exhalation.
“Harry finally wrote me,” Tom answered, words terse and pinched. The word restrained came to
mind, and it was only then, the veil of the past slipping from him, that Sirius realized how
clenched his jaw was, his flared nostrils. Tom was furious.

He recoiled, pressing himself flat against the wall. It was foolish to let himself slip up around the
dangerous and unknown boy. He kept him alive and relatively safe for now, but how long was that
to last?

“Something’s happened,” Tom said, licking his lips. “Someone’s entered Harry into the
tournament.”

Sirius frowned. “The tournament? But that’s...he’s only fourteen…?” There wasn’t anyway.
Unless...surely Harry wouldn’t be so stupid to get an older student to put his name in, would he? It
wasn’t like a game of quidditch, people died in this tournament. He thought of James, his bolstered
arrogance and appetite for challenges, for daring feats for him to test something within himself.

Harry was nothing like James.

James might have pulled that sort of stunt- hell, Sirius himself as a young student might have done
so. But Harry wouldn’t.

“They can’t make him compete, can they?” Sirius asked, though he already knew the answer,
burning like acid on his tongue.

Tom pursed his lips. “They are.”

“He could die,” Sirius said before he could think better of it.

“NO!” Tom roared suddenly, taking a step forward and slamming his hand down on the table. His
eyes were wide, glinting with something that made Sirius’s throat clench once more. Something
manic, something terrifying. He looked murderous.

His jaw clenched, skewed from side to side and Sirius knew that the young boy was grounding his
teeth together, hollows created in his cheeks by the motion. He inhaled steadily, as though to calm
himself. “He won’t die,” Tom ground out, the words needing to be coaxed from him. The words
too hard to say. “He won’t die. We’ll make sure of it.”

It wasn’t a question or a proposal, and once more Sirius found himself wondering when they had
become a we. A unit in Harry’s aid. As though they were in on this together, Sirius a co-conspirator
in Harry’s abduction and every bit the criminal the world believed him to be.

But they were in something together, weren’t they? Bound together by Harry and the deadly
tournament he had somehow found himself a part of.

Even if Sirius refused to offer his help purely to spite Tom, Harry would be the one suffering for it.
He was, in more ways than just physical, trapped.

“How can I do anything? I’ve no wand, and I’m sure by now they know to be on the lookout for a
dog,” he muttered, trying to ignore the ache that blossomed and wilted like a dying flower in his
chest. Remus would have told them by now- he had read the Prophet, the articles that decried him
as suspect number one in Harry’s disappearance. The source of an international manhunt as several
neighboring countries sought to bring the former Death Eater to justice.

Memories with teeth.

Tom chewed his lip in thought. After only a moment, he said, “That’s a problem for another time.
For now, all I need is this-” He rose a hand, tapping his finger twice against Sirius’s temple.
“Everything you can tell me about Voldemort and his followers. This has to be connected to him
somehow I just...don’t know what he might gain from it. Other than putting him in danger.”

The words were followed immediately by a hissing, the pot of water on the stove overflowing as
water slid down onto the old, heated coils, steam billowing from the red metal.

~x~

“You know we’ll help you. Anything we can do, we’ll do it,” Hermione assured Harry as she and
Luna followed behind him, nearly sprinting to keep up with his long strides as he made his way
through the corridor, head bowed low.

Luna nodded, her steps more of a skip. “Hermione might be the smartest witch, but I was in
Ravenclaw before transferring. I know my way around riddles and books and- oof!” Her words
came to an abrupt halt when she ran into Harry’s back, the wizard suddenly standing still as he
fixed her with a quizzical glance.

“What do you mean? Riddles?” he asked, his heart thundering wildly against his ribs. It had never
quite ceased from the night before, Dumbledore’s parting words still echoing around the caverns of
his brain like a taunt.

Had it been a coincidence? Was Harry placing meaning into something that had just been a silly
metaphor for the predicaments he found himself in? Or had Dumbledore chosen those words with
purpose, letting Harry know that he knew? He knew who Harry spent his summer with, who cursed
Harry into silence?

Luna rubbed at the bridge of her nose where she collided with Harry’s head. “I’ve heard that the
tournament often employs riddles as part of the challenges. It’s meant to test your problem-solving
abilities and intelligence. That’s how we had to get inside the Common Rooms, we had to solve a
different riddle.”

“Oh,” he said simply, feeling foolish for the overwhelming surge of paranoia that pervaded him
since Dumbledore’s visit. Hating that he could be reduced to such. He let his gaze wander from
Luna to Hermione, her eyes scrunched in the thoughtful way of hers when she was thinking hard. It
only made him shift with discomfort at her scrutiny. “I’ve got to...I was running late so...I’ll see
you at lunch, alright?”

He turned from them with a final nod and wave, shaking his head at his own thoughts. He was
getting jumpy, overthinking everything. This was the true danger of secrets- not the secret itself or
the burden of it but the senses that were intensified by the need to protect it. The way he startled at
the chance that someone might have uncovered it. He recalled, with a biting laugh devoid of all
humor, how much he had once wished for the secret to be revealed and the words he could not say
made known.

How times had changed. How he had changed- though he did not wish to examine that.

He had spent the night awake, struggling to sleep, his dreams littered with his insecurities and
dread. The impending tasks- the often fatal tasks, as he was reminded all too frequently- and the
unanswered question of who had entered him in the task to begin with (Tom seemed to favor
Karkaroff as a suspect, though he didn’t yet know to what end.) And then his dreams had turned,
reflecting the chat with Dumbledore, distorting it and fracturing it. The words riddle hung between
them like a harbinger, a threat. A growl of some unknown beast.
In his dreams, Dumbledore had not been so understanding or flighty- he did not speak with the
light-toned whimsy he oft possessed and did not leave Harry with the odd and confusing choice of
words. In his dreams, it had been an interrogation, each utterance of the word riddle causing his
eye to twitch in a phantom pain. In his dream, Tom stood behind him, whispering in his ear all
sorts of cruel and tainted things.

‘He knows Harry. He knows you’re protecting me, he’s repulsed by you. He’ll take me away from
you, and you don’t want that, do you?’

He had woken up in tangled sheets, struggling to breathe and sweat slicking his pajamas so they
clung disgustingly to his fevered skin. It was the early hours of the morning, but he didn’t go back
to bed, thoughts swimming and blurring with all the things that couldn’t exist at once.

What did he want?

He wanted Dumbledore to know, he thought, on some level.

But on another-

What would happen if they did discover the truth? If they found Tom and discovered who he was?
Would they give him a trial?

Would they give Harry one?

Would they kill him?

He hated that thought more than all the others. Tom might have been a shadow of Voldemort, but
he didn’t commit the crimes of his successor. Not really, at least. Would it be fair to charge them as
though they were the same?

Were they the same?

His thoughts were spiraling in the way he knew Tom hated- Tom would probably chide him for it
later, tell him that the tournament is no excuse to let his occlumency slip. Tom said he thought too
much, and Harry scowled at the idea. He thought exactly the right amount- it wasn’t exactly his
fault Tom made his brain itch so much with all the contradictions.

Still, he tried to settle and bury the thoughts, knowing he couldn’t be distracted as he walked into
the open classroom he had been told to meet at.

“Mr. Potter!” Crouch barked when he saw him enter, lips twisting into something between a smile
and a pained expression. “You’re late.”

He shrugged an apology, eyes scanning the room. The other three champions were already there,
the Heads of each school, Romilly, aurors,and Payette turning to look at him as he entered. The
motion was mirrored by another witch, a tall witch with blonde curls piled on top of her head and
ostentatious jeweled glasses perched delicately on the edge of her nose. Her lips pulled into a tight,
painted grin at the sight of him, and she bounded towards him, a quill and parchment floating
beside her head and the stiff, unmoving curls.

“Harry Potter, as I live and breathe!” she said, her voice a high, stringy sigh as she came to stand
before him, a hand pressed against her chest. “I suppose I should thank you, you’ve given me
enough content to keep me employed for the next few months.”

She said it with a giggle, as though it were a joke he simply didn’t know the punchline too, and
when he failed to laugh she extended a hand outward, her nails long and painted the same crimson
color of her lips. “Rita Skeeter, a writer and reporter for the Daily Prophet, as well as some other
reputable-”

“I know you,” Harry interrupted, eyes narrowing with familiarity.

She giggled once more. “Oh, so perhaps you’ve already read some of my work then? I’m
flattered.”

It clicked then, and he was unable to stop the grin that spread on his face. “You were at the
platform! When I was coming to school- you don’t have the uh-” he paused, using his hands to
make a pulling gesture out from the crown of his head- “Antlers, anymore?”

His eyes were bright with the memory of Ron pulling him out from the crowd of reporters, casting
the effective charm that made Skeeter wobble with the weight of the sudden appendages.

She pursed her lips into a flattened line. “Just some pranksters trying to get in the way of the
story,” she said, trying to sound dismissive even if her tone betrayed her, sharp with indignation.

Harry swallowed his smile.

She cleared her throat and straightened her spine. “Anyway, I’ve already interviewed the others, so
now it’s your turn!” She grabbed him then, pulled him by his wrists into a supply closet within the
classroom, her quill and parchment following her.

The door clicked shut before Harry could even protest, and he grimaced. He felt rather trapped in
the small room, Skeeter unconcerned by his discomfort as she used her wand to transfigure a
bucket into a stool. Sitting atop it, she looked at him expectantly, smiling in a way that seemed
false. Not quite mocking, not quite the mimicry of one that Tom did when he didn’t know what
else to do with his face. It was just...disingenuous.

“Now, Harry, what a year you’ve had so far and it’s only just begun. Quite the stir you’ve been
making, getting kidnapped by Black only to appear just in time for school and the Tri-Wizard
Tournament. What was the summer like? Were you terrified?” she asked, the question more like an
attack as he gaped openly at her, eye twinging with the mild ache he had long grown accustomed
to.

“I-I thought you were supposed to interview me about the tournament?” he ground out bitterly,
eyes flicking to the quill and it’s fluttering plume as it wrote on the parchment. ‘Visible pain shone
on his face as he recalled his summer spent in fear, hidden away by a deranged convict who made
him the focus of his obsession-’

“I’m in pain because I can’t talk-”

She was nodding along, false sympathy lacing her voice like too sweet honey as she said, “I know
it’s hard to talk about. My heart aches wondering what you might have gone through this summer.
Is it true he took you to replace his best friend and former lover, your father James Potter, who was
stolen from him by Lily-”

“What?” he spat, unable to hide his confusion and disgust at her implications. Was that what
people were saying? Weaving some sick and perverse story out of the tragic betrayal of his parents,
trying to find something more beneath the surface? A why, as if cruelty and evil needed a reason?
As if unrequited love and scorn and obsession were enough of a reason?

“Oh, dear, I was in school with them, I remember how close they were. Best of friends until your
mother, Merlin rest her soul, finally returned James’s advances and it was as if something within
Black snapped!” She rose a hand, snapping her middle finger against her thumb as though striking
a match. “He was obsessed with your father, and when he lost him, he must have decided that no
one should have-”

“Stop,” Harry snarled, heat burning his cheeks at the implications. That wasn’t true.

Was it?

“You look so much like him, of course he would want you, hoping to bring back the boy he once
loved. How frightened you must have been all summer.”

His eyes darted to the scribbling quill, cheeks flaming with something between humiliation and
rage as he read the words scratched into the parchment.

‘...The months passed, Potter wondering when his nightmare would end, turned into the memory of
a love gone sour by a man desperate to have something long forgotten. Nights spent hoping
someone would rescue him from the abuse-”

“Don’t write that, it isn’t true!” he yelled, voice filling the small closet and bearing down on him,
mixing with his brewing anger and embarrassment at her words. “None of...none of that happened
so don’t say it. The tournament-”

He tried once more to redirect her, but she leaned forward, renewed interest sparking in her eyes.
“Did you run away with him then? Was he the one who put your name in the Goblet, at your
request-”

“NO! That wasn’t...you’re wrong! None of it...the summer was-”

His eye seared with pain, a burning, sharpened pain that began in the center of his eye and radiated
outward, enveloping his brain and nudge from behind his brow. He reached a hand out and cupped
it uselessly, hissing from the pain. “Please, it hurts-”

“What hurts? Remembering what he did to you, or knowing no one would ever understand your
love-?”

“That’s not what happened,” he hissed through gritted teeth, the dim overhead light all at once too
bright, too blinding.

“Then what did happen? We can tell your story, of the summer. The world is dying to know, and
now is the time to share,” she said, leaning uncomfortably close. So close he could smell nothing
but the floral and musky scent of her perfume, the harsh smell of whatever potion she had used to
keep her ringlets in such perfect form. The room was small, too small and too bright and the smell
was too strong and his eye hurt and blurred his vision-

The door to the closet was ripped open, and a hand wrapped around his arm, pulling him out of the
closet. “You were supposed to interview him about the tournament like we agreed! I told you not
to talk about the summer!”

Harry looked up, blinking at the sight of Tonks, her features pinched into something fiery.

“It was just a few questions about the rumors I’ve heard! I’m sure after everything he’s been
through he needs someone safe to talk to about all the things Black had him do-”

“I will ram my wand so far up your arse you’ll be coughing sparks for a month if you don’t drop
it,” Tonks said, her voice a low, rumbling warning as Skeeter gasped in shock.

“Auror threatening reporter for trying to solve the disappearance of Harry Potter will certainly
make a good headline,” she sneered.

Tonks was nonplussed by her threat, raising an eyebrow as she countered, “Let’s move it to the
obituaries where it will be really good. And give me that.” She reached forward, pushing pass
Skeeter and plucking the parchment from where it was suspended in the air. She crumpled it up in
her hand, looking smugly satisfied at the aghast and affronted expression marring Skeeter’s face.
“Mad-Eye has a prepared statement for you to use since you couldn’t be trusted. And that better be
the only one to see publication.”

She narrowed her gray eyes at Skeeter, her glare unyielding as the reporter looked ready to say
something before thinking better of it. With a huff, Skeeter pulled her quill to her side and stowed it
within her crocodile skin handbag before sauntering away from them.

“You looked better with the antlers,” Tonks called before turning back to Harry. “Sorry ‘bout that
one. She’s a gossip columnist who somehow clawed her way to being a reporter. Don’t give what
she said much thought.”

He rubbed at his eye, the pain receding some. “Is it true? I mean...is that what people are saying?
That Black took me because he-”

He couldn’t find the words, cheeks flaming once more with the implication of it.

She pinched her lips, tilting them so they sat crooked on her face. “Some people will say
anything,” she said after a moment.

“But it’s not-”

“I know,” she said, though Harry wasn’t sure if she actually did know or if she was just saying it to
ease his nerves, abate the blush creeping up his collar. How could she know, after all? He couldn’t
say anything to clear the air himself. Would the truth be preferable?

She chewed her lips, glancing to the side before saying, in a hushed whisper, “Look, I knew Black
and it wasn’t anything like that. He and your dad were just friends. And he loved your mother.”

Harry shrugged his arm away from her grasp. “Not enough to not betray her to Voldemort.”

She opened her mouth, ready to say something until Moody called to her, his voice a bark that
didn’t startle her in the slightest, so used to his gruff mannerisms. She smiled at Harry. “Let’s get
back to the others, shall we?”

He wondered, only for a second, what she had been about to say when Moody called to her.

~x~

“Potter! Wait up!”

Harry twisted around, watching as Professor Payette approached him. The other champions move
passed him, parting around him like a wave as they made their way to lunch. Payette glanced at
them, waiting until they were gone from the corridor to lower his head. “I can’t formally offer my
assistance, as it would be an unfair advantage, but I think an even more unfair advantage is the
three years of training the others have had,” he began, speaking in a conspiratorial whisper.
 “Won’t I get in trouble?” Harry asked, uncertain to the rules of the tournament he had been dragged
into. All he knew for certain was that he had to compete, and he had already been punished for
poor behavior. He recalled the moment from the night prior, flexing his still sore knuckles. He
couldn’t afford to break any more rules.

Payette grinned, pulling away and walking backwards down the hall as he said, “About those two
weeks detention- I need help preparing for the year. You know the Defense Against the Dark Arts
teacher has to help with the tasks, so I’ve got extra on my plate and could use some help. I’ve
already arranged it with Maxime. I’ll see you at seven, Potter.”

With that, he turned on his heel and strode in the opposite direction.

Chapter End Notes

Next chapter: Harry's first task, as he receives support from some old friends.

End Notes

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