Weird Circumstances

Summary; Harry Potter and Voldemort, a.k.a. Tom Riddle, a.k.a. Supreme Ruler of the Universe-to-be, meet in a highly unconventional way.

A/N; Well, I have to warn you, this story is a little random, and it was only written recently as I took a break from the other stories I have uploaded on this site. Don't worry, I'm not giving up on any of them, just need to take a break as I figure out where to go with all three, particularly A Slight Mishap. So enjoy this one!

Dedicated to; Okay, so I don't normally do a dedication. But this story is dedicated to my best friend, whom I wrote it for in order to cheer her up, so she was the first one to see it. And I'm happy to say it did its job!

It wasn't often that one saw a rock suddenly roll itself over.

In fact, seeing a rock do that was as about likely as seeing the most feared owner of the universe-to-be playing on the swing set at a muggle park.

Yet the rock did, indeed, suddenly roll itself over and Harry Potter could only stand there and stare at it wondering if one, he had finally cracked and gone insane or two, the universe had finally cracked and gone insane. Both seemed to be perfectly viable solutions.

After about five minutes of just staring at the rock – which caused the neighbours to stare at him and mutter, no doubt about how he appeared to lack a mind – he shook his head and decided he had just been hallucinating.

It was not the last of the strange happenings of the day, though.

It appeared that a lot of previously inanimate objects had decided they had become bored with just sitting around doing nothing all day and would spring to life, perform some little thing and then stay still again.

By the end of the day, the Dursleys were in denial and had holed themselves up in their rooms, locking the doors and burrowing deep under their covers. By the end of the day, Harry had also decided that his previous hallucination had not, in fact, been a hallucination at all.

He had also decided that something smelled fishy, and it was not the out of date tuna-in-a-can in the fridge.

Unfortunately, there was no one he could go to for help. Hedwig had flown off to go hunting, suspiciously around the time the rock had rolled over, so he couldn't contact anyone. Privately Harry thought that if his owl had flown away because she had noticed weird things happening, then she was very, very intelligent. That didn't stop him from being just that little annoyed, however, that she had not thought to attempt to get him to leave the house too.

Well, he was annoyed until he saw an ink owl foot on a piece of parchment on his desk. Then he realised that his owl was actually scarily intelligent.

That, however, is another story, and is not as interesting as rocks turning over and why they would do such a thing.

When night had fallen, Harry paced through the rooms, threatening any implement that so much as even twitched with his wand. He knew he couldn't use magic, but though they may have been animated, they were still mindless materials, therefore they did not know he could not blast them to pieces.

Thus peace reigned.

It reigned for so many long minutes, though, that Harry began to get bored, and thought that perhaps he should begin investigating the source of whatever was animating the previously inanimate household appliances. Harry felt almost sorry for them now; he had a feeling they'd all be hitting the bin by tomorrow afternoon at the latest.

Nothing in the house revealed themselves as having been what had affected the appliances, so Harry made his way outside, his way lit only by the artificial light of the streetlights.

Until they all turned off.

Any sane person would have turned back then and locked themselves in their room until all the strange things had passed.

However, if there was any one word that would describe Harry James Potter, sane would not even be on the list.

So he continued down the street, only sighing as he thought about how inconvenient it was that he now had to walk down the street and solve the mystery in the dark. No, it was not just inconvenient. It was extremely inconvenient.

It wasn't long at all before he neared the park, the only place that was still lit by the lights. Glad to be able to see his way again, Harry ducked behind some bushes, wondering at the strange creak he could hear.

If he didn't know any better, he would say that someone was swinging on the swings.

And, since he didn't actually know any better, he decided that that must be what it was.

Surprisingly, this deduction turned out to be right.

He peered around the bushes, and then turned away and looked around for any rocks that may have been turning over at that moment, but he couldn't see any. So he looked up at the sky to see if maybe a herd of pigs was flying overhead.

He didn't see any of them either.

So he decided he must be dreaming.

After all, it isn't often one sees the most feared dark wizard of the century playing on the muggle swing set with a look of glee on his that would have been frightening if it had been seen in any other circumstance.

Since it was only a dream, Harry reasoned that nothing much bad could happen to him, so he stood up.

And cracked his head on a tree branch.

That wasn't supposed to hurt, Harry thought dazedly, sitting up, wondering when he had lain down on the ground.

Blinking away the little broomsticks flying around his head – I thought they were supposed to be stars? – Harry stood up a little more carefully this time and made his was over to where Voldemort had stopped swinging and was looking at him incredulously.

"Voldemort, fancy seeing you here," Harry said cheerfully.

Voldemort just blinked his red eyes at him. Taking this as an invitation to join him, Harry sat down on the other swing, which promptly broke under his weight and sent him tumbling to the ground. Shrugging, Harry sat up and looked up at the evil lord, who still didn't seem to know what was happening.

"Potter, what are you doing here?" he asked.

"Well, I walked down the street," said Harry comfortably. "I was investigating a mystery, but I've solved it now."

"I see," said Voldemort slowly.

"Oh, yes," Harry said with a nod. "See, this day hasn't actually happened at all. I'm just dreaming, and I'm not actually sitting here holding a conversation with you."

"Potter, I think you hit your head a bit hard," Voldemort said, still too surprised at Harry's behaviour to even think about drawing his wand.

"Well, it might be that too," Harry said dismissively. "But I'm also pretty sure I'm dreaming as well."

"Oh," said Voldemort, obviously at loss as to what to say.

After all, what are you supposed to say to your mortal enemy, who had just stumbled upon you swinging on a child's swing set – and a muggle one, to boot – and was casually holding a conversation with you while appearing quite convinced he is dreaming the whole thing?

"I suppose I should have guessed, really," said Harry musingly. "I mean, rocks don't just roll over by themselves, do they? I thought I was hallucinating at the time. Now I do believe I know better."

"So you must," said Voldemort, beginning to feel a little amused.

"So, what have you been up to Voldemort?" Harry asked.

Voldemort blinked again.

"Planning to take over the universe," he said arrogantly.

Harry nodded solemnly.

"An admirable pastime," he said gravely in a fair imitation of Dumbledore. "Yet, don't you think you should go for smaller things first?"

"Why wait?" asked Voldemort, beginning to wonder if he was dreaming too. "I know with the right forces I could take the universe whenever I wanted to. The Death Eaters have been a little restless as of late, however."

"Are you still trying to kill me, then?" Harry asked.

"Of course," said Voldemort, surprised that he would even ask. "You're all that stands between me and a total take-over."

"That's a bit strange," Harry said, looking at him oddly. "I'm barely fifteen; how in the world am I stopping you from taking over?"

Voldemort opened his mouth to answer, and then realised that he did know what to say to that question, so he shut his mouth again and pretended Harry had never asked the question in the first place.

Harry shrugged, not really caring either way. Finally he stood.

"Well, it was nice talking to you," he said, swiping a hand across his left cheek with his dirty hand. "But I need to go home now. Goodnight."

Voldemort couldn't help but blink again as the boy retreated. And wondered if perhaps he was actually going insane.

Harry woke the next morning to hear the familiar sounds of the Dursleys having breakfast. He sat up and thought about the strange dream from last night.

How strange, he thought, remembering his conversation with Voldemort and internally laughing. I have to tell Ron and Hermione!

He leapt out of bed and rushed over to his desk, where Hedwig was sitting, hooting softly at him. He grinned at her and started writing on a blank piece of parchment.

Dear Ron,

You'll never believe me when I tell you about the strange dream I had last night!

Pausing, Harry tapped the end of his quill against his chin, wondering how to put his dream into words. Casually he looked into the mirror and froze.

There was a trail of dirt across his left cheek, exactly where he had swiped his hand in the dream, when he had gotten up to leave the park. Looking around he noticed pieces of gravel on the floor, gravel from the fill in the swing set area.

And, now that he noticed it, a particular area of his head was throbbing. Exactly where he had cracked it on the tree.

Harry's knees collapsed underneath him and he sat heavily in his desk chair, blinking as he tried to come to terms with the fact that he hadn't been dreaming after all. Slowly he turned back to the letter and slowly crossed out the first line of it and began writing anew.

Dear Ron,

You're not going to believe what I'm about to tell you… but believe me when I say every word is true…

A/N; Alright, so I might have been just that little bit hyped on sugar when I wrote this. Actually, I'm not sure if that was the night I ate a full packet of fruit mentos or not... do you know how much sugar those things have?! Then again, it might just be me that they can make bounce off the walls. Anyway, it was all for a good cause! Hopefully you all enjoyed this as much as my friend enjoyed reading it and I enjoyed writing it!