Chapter One.

Tom was determined when he entered the Room of Requirement. He had only a couple of hours to practice, and it had been too long. The start of the sixth year in Hogwarts showed that even he, the best student the school has had in a very long time, could find himself quite occupied by schoolwork.

Riddle waved his wand, and his puppets came to life, slowly taking their positions. He barely looked at them. They were not that interesting. He needed them only for their mechanics, the accurate movement of their fingers, lungs and lips.

Tom walked up to the piano, taking his school robe off and tossing it away, freeing his arms of anything that might interfere with the movement. He sat on the stool and opened the lid of the instrument.

He's probably going to make it today. After all, it has been a very uplifting week. Riddle finally got what he had wanted for so long: additional information on horcruxes, spilled by Professor Slughorn at last. Yes, Riddle was very content.

He conjured the sheet music from thin air. It was his favourite musical piece and the hardest ever to conquer - The Rhapsody on a Theme of Paganini. Tom put his wand to the side, stretched out his long pale fingers that so many had said were made for piano, and swiftly warmed them up, preparing for a difficult repetition.

- Let us begin, - he said curtly and was pleased to hear the violins picking up the melody.

There wasn't much piano in the beginning, but he had to be ready for his entrance. Just a couple of minutes, and yes, here it was, his time. His fingers started running lightly over the keys, working very fast and very delicate, not just keeping up with his half-improvised puppet orchestra, but forming the heart of the rhapsody. One distracting thought, one second, one finger moving not fast enough - and the momentum could be lost.

Yes, the music obeyed him, slowly becoming the source of his passion. So little things in life brought him pleasure, and he wasn't just about to give up his musical practices, when he could, if he really wanted, find time for this in Hogwarts.

It was a pastime he brought with him from the orphanage, from the dark time in the place he hated so much. Before he discovered he truly was special. Before he got to know he was a wizard.

It started as Mrs Cole's fascinating idea of a way to stop Tom from wandering around the building, wordlessly studying the inhabitants of the orphanage, cataloguing their shortcomings. As if taking the boy to a decent library was so hard. What was he supposed to do? He was bored; he wanted to experiment on these enticingly available examples of plain human beings. Some of the kids couldn't handle it quite well, some disobeyed - consequences had to be had.

The stupid woman couldn't see him for what he really was. A genius. A superior. She had to have him occupied.

Some of her earlier ideas included making him study religious writings on a deeper level in the hope of sending him off to a monastery for some proper fixing. Mrs Cole was determined to force church into him like bitter medicine. Only there was nothing to cure, and after some very "unlucky" incidents with the priest, she was asked to leave her aspirations.

Then she tried the asylum, but Tom wasn't proven insane. That was a close miss.

And then they fixed that old piano. Finally a decent idea, quite fascinating indeed. From that moment it started to be his favourite pastime. Besides torturing kids, of course.

The music was taking Riddle further and further, a glorious uprising of sound. Tom had to beat it, it was time. The complicated fast parts never caused too much trouble, he was good at it. The music needed sadness - he could provide it, control - he had plenty of it, it needed power - he gave it his all, anger - take it, even some insanity was easy to depict, but they were slowly reaching THAT PART.

X Variation eighteen. Alright, just take it slowly. No rush, only complete concentration. Just follow the sheet music, as if you didn't know it by heart already. Don't think too much, don't be so stiff...

No, that wasn't it. That wasn't good enough. That wasn't what he needed it to be. He couldn't. That damn part just wouldn't budge.

Tom felt a sudden wave of anger overtake him. He slammed his fists on the keys, and slammed them again, making the instrument produce ugly loud noises. As if he were a spoiled child, an annoying brat. Who cares. No one sees him here.

That damn part. It had something in it, something he just couldn't understand. Some softness that was so distant to him, and something else, so powerful. That one time he listened to the Rhapsody played in a house half destroyed by the stupid, useless and very disturbing muggle bombings. That one time it stole his heart, that exact part of the Rhapsody, its very soul sound.

He tried so hard to reproduce that feeling. What was it? Hope amid the bombings? The essence of life?

The puppets stared at him with their unseeing eyes. So useless once motionless.

Perhaps, he could practice more some other time.

Tom stood up and put his school robe back on. He shut the lid of the piano and made his way out of the Room of Requirement, which served as his temporary concert hall. Riddle stepped out of the room, shut the door behind him and watched it disappear on the wall.

There was a loud bang behind him. Tom turned, quick as a startled cat, taking his wand out fast, as it long was instinct to him.

A boy was sprawled before him, flat on his stomach, slowly trying to regain control of his body. He was not wearing a school uniform, just some weird oversized sweater and pants too skinny to fit comfortably. His black hair was getting in his eyes.

- Who are you and where did you come from? - demanded Tom.

The boy looked up, and the expression of pain on his face changed to horror and hate, as if Riddle was some monster.

The black-haired boy jumped to his feet swiftly, putting his broken glasses back on his face with one hand and pointing the wand at Tom's face with the other.

- Expelliarmus! - he screamed, but Tom was quick to block the disarming spell.

- Petrificus Totalus, - he said quietly in turn, but the boy managed to escape it. He was fast.

Only Tom was faster. He had to be faster - he was the best, after all. They only have started on non-verbal spells, but Riddle was good at them long before the sixth year. With a quick movement of his wrist ropes flew out of the tip of his wand, binding the stranger's wrists and ankles. The boy collapsed, once again spreading before Tom, his wand rolling away on the floor.

Riddle made a step forward and picked up the wand.

- You monster! Go on, kill me!

Monster? Kill him? How dare he.

- Are you mad? Who the hell are you? - demanded Tom once again.

The boy only frowned at him silently, as if considering his next move. Riddle's eyes slid to the strange looking scar on his face.

- I'm taking you to Professor Dumbledore.

- Yes, please do! - the boy spat out. What a weirdo.

He levitated him with his wand and started his way to Dumbledore's office, making sure the boy bumped his head on a couple of angles, ignoring his defeated opponent's silent curses. They were at his least favourite professor's door at last. Tom knocked at it.

- Why are we here? - the boy finally spoke.

- I told you. To see Professor Dumbledore.

- That's not his...

The boy was interrupted by the door opening. Dumbledore stepped out looking very confused.

- What happened, Tom?

- I'm very sorry to bother you so late, Professor, but I do not know the Headmaster's current password. I was patrolling the corridors when this boy... apparated from behind me and started attacking me.

- Apparated? - Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. Tom wondered if the man suspected him of something again.

- Yes. I thought it was very odd too.

- Professor Dumbledore?

The boy spoke. He was looking at Dumbledore, his face very surprised. Dumbledore had the same look on his face.

- Tom, please free the boy.

Riddle did as he was told, gently placing the boy on the floor and making the ropes disappear.

- Please, come into my office, both of you.

The man gestured inside, and they followed him. Tom watched with frustration as the boy shrunk back from him, trying to keep us much space between them as possible. He was short and clumsy, drowning in his oversized burgundy sweatshirt, and his black tight pants had ripped knees. Riddle moved gracefully, emphasizing the difference between them.

- Please, take a seat, - Dumbledore offered with so much kindness in his voice. So much false kindness. But who was Tom to judge? He was no stranger to this tactic himself.

Riddle was the first to accept the offer, sitting down on a chair with his back straight. The boy slumped into the empty chair beside him, shifting it as far as possible from Tom. Dumbledore carefully watched him.

- Lemon drop? - he offered to the boys.

- No thank you, sir, - Riddle politely refused. He turned to see why the other boy was keeping silent and met his eyes that he seemed to try to burn a hole in Tom with.

- As you have said correctly, my name is Albus Dumbledore, and I am a professor of Transfiguration here, at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.

- Transfiguration? - asked the boy, frowning.

- Yes. May I ask your name?

- It's Harry. Harry... Granger, - he gulped.

- Harry Granger?

The boy nodded. Riddle never heard of a last name like that. The boy probably was a mudblood.

- And sitting on your left is Tom Riddle, a prefect of this school.

Tom gave the Harry a sour smile.

- May I ask if it's true what Tom said earlier? That you attacked him?

- I... thought he was someone else.

- Who did you think he was?

- An enemy.

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows once again.

- Is this how you always settle your disputes with enemies?

- Only if they're trying to kill me.

This mudblood was definitely mad.

- I can assure you that Tom was not trying to kill you, - Dumbledore said calmly, but then Tom caught his eyes, and they were studying his face, looking for flaws as always. Damn this bastard, - And how did you appear in Hogwarts?

- I... I don't know, sir.

Well, that was interesting.


Harry walked out of the Headmasters' office completely drained. What on earth was going on? One minute he was with Ron and Hermine, opening that weird box that arrived by mail, and the other - sprawled on the floor with freaking young Voldemort towering above him. First, he was sure it was some crazy artefact with a joke inside sent to Harry by someone like the Weasley twins, and he actually wanted to have a laugh, to get distracted from the sorrow eating him out after Sirius's death against all of Hermione's objections. He thought the joke turned out to be a portal and it threw him to the seventh-floor corridor. Then he saw Tom and immediately thought of Voldemort, changing his appearance somehow back to his younger looks. Then he was defeated by him and thought he would die or be tortured, but then Voldemort said he was taking him to Dumbledore... and it just stopped making any sense.

Dumbledore was much younger. Voldemort was not Voldemort yet. And he... he was now Harry fucking Granger.

How did he end up like this? How did he get back in time? And if that wasn't enough...

Dumbledore, strangely enough, didn't shower him with questions. He just sort of let it pass. He let Riddle go, asked what year Harry was on and, after waking up Dippet and consulting privately with him, Potter ended up being sorted into Slytherin.

SLY-THE-RIN. Because, quoting: "The sixth-year Slytherins have an empty bed in their dormitory". A fucking empty bed landed him in the centre of the snake pit, sharing a room with none other than the future Voldemort himself.

Fucking brilliant. How was he ever going to sleep now?

Harry entered the Dungeons, slowly making his way to the Slytherin common room, unfolding the note containing the password from Dippet in his hand.

He needed to get back. To take revenge for Sirius. For Cedric. For his parents. He had a war to wage.

- Per aspera ad astra, - Harry said the password and walked through the passageway into the Slytherin common room. What a haughty idea for a snake pit password. Whose idea was it? Probably Slughorn's.

He walked through the common room, so familiar to him from his second-year adventures, to the boy's sixth-year dormitory, following the signs, and, after taking a deep breath, opened the door.

Tom Riddle was standing by his bed, half-naked, tying up the straps of his pyjama pants, his back, quite muscular and accentuated by the dim light, turned on Harry. He stopped when he noticed that Harry walked in and sighed.

- So, you're a Slytherin now.

Harry was irritated by his reaction.

- Believe me, no one's happier than me, - he answered through his teeth.

- I wonder what the Sorting Hat found in you.

- It was Dippet's decision.

Tom turned to face Potter. Harry's sight slipped to his abs. What was it with Riddle? He worked out or something? A vision of Voldemort doing lunges appeared in the boy's head.

- He's "Professor" to you. So, Professor Dippet is the Sorting Hat now? - a wicked smile spread on Tom's handsome features.

- Apparently.

And then Harry sniggered.

He actually sniggered. To Voldemort's joke. Oh well, he was probably tired or going mad. Nothing seemed real by this moment.

- Well, this is the free bed.

Tom pointed at a bed next to his. Harry slowly walked up to it, coming to terms with the fact that his bed, of course, is next to his nemesis.

- And Granger?

Harry flinched, remembering that this was now his last name.

- Yes?

Riddle's face got serious again. Potter felt the hair on his head electrifying.

- I will kill you. If you snore.

The bastard smirked.


Author's Note.

Hello everyone, who might come across this. This is my first fanfiction I'm determined to publish. Currently, I'm struggling in between being scared someone will see this and the possible reality no one actually sees this, so if you do come across - please let me know :)

This is yet another time travel Tommary fic, but I love them all and was eager to share my part sprinkled with a bit of love of classical music and Rachmaninoff in particular.

Please know that English is not my native language, so if anything doesn't feel right - don't hesitate to let me know. Although, I have tried to keep this as good as possible.

And special thanks to my friend, who not only supports this "fanfiction author coming out" (because this is nerve wrecking and exciting for me, and is a secret from most of the people who know me), but finds time to read my drafts, show me my mistakes, explain them to me and help with better variants. You know who you are and you're awesome.

Finally, I would allow a small portion of self-love and say that I do find what I did quite good, and if you enjoyed reading this as much I enjoyed writing it (although, keep in mind I was high on Rachmaninoff's music while writing Tom's part), I would be happy to get to know that.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter.