The rebirth of Tammy Riddle

by Byakugan789

One-sho. Everybody likes to write epic stories about how they've made Harry Potter different, but invariably all of them, amusing they get that far, hit upon the same stumbling block that tests our willing suspension of disbelief when they get Harry in to the exact same position of being carted off to a creepy graveyard to resurrect Voldemort. Lets change things a little, shall we?

The Rebirth of Tammy Riddle

By Byakugan

Book owned by JKRowling and company, Story and related plot changes owned by me.

Sorry if things get really compacted at the very end, but this was always intended to be a 1 shot and as you can see, it's nearly 20,000 words long!

~! #$^&*()_+

Harry stared at Cedric lying there where the acromantula had tried to gnaw off his leg and sighed. Walking over to the other boy, he started casting. "Wadiwasi," he said, jabbing his wand into the bite. A thick green liquid oozed out of it for several seconds before stopping and Harry continued casting. "Episky" he cast, cringing as he heard as snap of bones resetting and straightening and watched as the wound started to close slightly before stopping. Quickly conjuring a length of cloth, he wrapped it around the other boy's leg and cast a spell he'd seen Madam Pomfrey use once before to create a splint. His conscience settled, he sent up red sparks and headed toward the cup.

He looked at it for several minutes in silence contemplating the thing. Professor Dumbledore, Sirius and his friends had been trying to impress upon him all year that this was Lord Voldemort's attempt to get him either killed or in some other manner, out of the way. What was the chance that the cup was something as dangerous as the dragons from the first task or worse? There was really nothing for it though. Cedric was out of commission, Krum had cursed Fleur into submission, and Harry had taken care of the Bulgarian personally; there was no one else to finish the tournament…

Turning toward the castle, he held out his wand and spoke clearly. "Accio cloak!" it took nearly five minutes for the item to appear, but when it did Harry felt an immense sense of relief as the watery smooth silk flowed into his hand. Wrapping the cloth over his shoulders, Harry secured it with clasp and sticking charms, took a firm grip on his wand with one hand and grabbed the cup with the other.

The moment Harry's hands touched the ornate champions' cup his heart sank into his boots as a hook latched onto his naval and yanked him away from Hogwarts in a whirl of sound and color. As the wind howled around his Harry resigned himself to the chaos of his life and prepared to lift his hood the moment he touched down. Minutes later he slammed into the soft musty earth of a graveyard and Harry put action to thoughts, dropping the cup and whipping up his hood.

It didn't take him long to that this was Voldemort's doing. In less than a minute, Harry heard the sounds of a man dragging something heavy across the ground, something heavy and full of liquid.

"Wormtail, where's the boy!?" a high could voice snarled from the direction of the portly shadow and its large heavy cauldron. Harry sighed though his nose. He had been afraid of this, everyone had. The only real question, was what exactly lord snake-face wanted to do with him.

…well, beyond killing him of course.

Moving as quietly as he could Harry made his way over to the pair of them, standing before a large gravestone and looking around. "Stupefy." Harry whispered as soon as he was close enough. Peter Pettigrew never stood a chance. "Expeliarmus." he whispered a split second later as the portly man was falling over, a sack on his back writing slightly. "Expeliarmus." He whispered again, pointing at the bundle the fat man had fallen on, just in case it was Mr. Moldyshorts' deformed toddler form. "Accio wands," he finished, speaking normally now. Two more wands whipped toward him from the grass where they had fallen and slapped into his hand with a satisfying click.

"Potter…" snarled the bundle in parceltongue "damn you, you filthy half-blood! When I have revived my servant and regained my body I shall make you suffer until you beg for death! Nagini! Potter, your meal, hides from us, sniff him out and break his body! We only need him alive for the ritual!"

"You're a half-blood yourself, Tom." Harry goaded them an as he turned this way and that keeping a lookout for the snake he'd seen in various visions. There was a slithering his to his right and he saw the tip of a tail as thick as his neck disappearing behind a headstone. "Your own diary told me so." He turned and fired stunners from the three separate wands he was holding, only to miss the snake once more. "I actually found it sort of cute. Maybe it's just my muggle upbringing, but I thought only girls and scientists wrote in journals and we all know you're no scientist…"

There was a heavy hiss behind him and Harry spun around yelling "Protego!" as he was pushed onto his back by the weight of the snake slamming into his shields. "Stupefy, stupefy, stupefy!" he shouted pointing all three wands at the snapping hissing snake. Seven of the nine stunners slammed into it and the creature went limp. Rolling over and letting the snake fall off of his shield he put the three wands into one hand and pointed them at the creature. God, he hated snakes, why had he ever thought they were cool? Why couldn't he talk to dragons or something else cool? It would really have helped during the tournament.

Standing up, he pointed all three wands at the serpent and snarled "Incendio!"

The snake didn't wake up, but Voldemort screamed, cursing at him nonstop, belittling his parentage and proclaiming how he was going to make Harry suffer when he returned to power. Harry crouched down and shoved the unconscious Peter off of his master and looked down at the bundle of cloth in disgust. Turning the three wands on Wormtail he stunned the man again and placed him under a full body bind, incarcerous and a dozen other jinxes he'd learned in preparation for the final task, all meant to impede the rat's ability to think, move or escape. Weak knees, jelly legs, dizzying hex, impedimenta, rictumsempra, hovering charm so he couldn't even touch the ground if he got over all of that and tried to crawl away. The fat man was Harry's chance at a proper life with Sirius; he wasn't going to get away this time. Looking at his handiwork, Harry considered. Shouldn't be any chance of escape… did he need to do anything more?

Shrugging, he turned away from the traitor whose cowardice had doomed his parents to the remnant of the creature that had actually done the job. He unwrapped it and cringed in disgust. "You really had to bite the big one, didn't you?" he sighed heavily, closing his eyes and shaking his head at the pathetic creature. "Have you even seen what you've done to yourself? I mean, how can you even want to live anymore?" The creature before him looked like a scalded babe or toddler, small, poorly proportioned and red as if he had only just come out of some poor mother's womb except that, instead of pudgy and smooth of skin, the creature's body was pebbled with what could have been snake or fish skin, scoured of scales, and an emaciated look as if it had been denied food for months without dying.

He, or really it, for the little homunculus had no genitalia, shriveled or otherwise, couldn't possibly have been termed human, it was just that disfigured. "I live…" it hissed "for vengeance! Keep your pity, you filthy muggle-loving worm, I need only my hate to sustain me! Go on! Destroy this body, I can see the desire in your eyes, you cannot hide it from Lord Voldemort! I shall simply return again, stronger than ever!"

Harry shook his head, pity warring with disgust, grief and rage. "Why do you hate me so much?" he asked. "What could have driven you so far that you would attack a baby in its crib?"

"You? Don't flatter yourself Potter, you were merely inconvenient. The prophecy around you and Longbottom was giving people hope and making them resistant to my rule. Your death would merely have been symbolic if not for your whore mother! It is she who defeated me, not you, and it is she who I hate! Her and my blighted muggle sire, my suicidal squib of a mother, the High and Mighty Albus Dumbledore and all of those weaklings who prance around and claim the name of wizard. The fools. I'll see them all crushed beneath my boot! You should understand! Wormtail has told me much of your own relatives and how the rest of the fickle weaklings at that school of yours treat you! You should join me, not oppose me!"

He paused slightly, considering "I'll even throw in that mudblood you're so fond of! Restore me to my body and I'll let the useless slattern live as your slave."

Harry stared at the creature in consternation. He had Voldemort at his mercy, defenseless, wandless, unable to move and from the look of his shell, ready to give up the ghost at any moment, and the creature had just spent the last five minutes cursing and insulting him like no other had ever managed and it still believed it was in a position to bargain from? Un-be-lievable! "I suppose if I don't help you complete this ritual here you're just going to return to being a wraith in Albania for another decade before returning again to irritate me then?" he asked in a longsuffering tone.

The creature's red eyes narrowed at him in impotent fury and it nodded.

"Fine…" he grumbled "I assume you brought me here for more than gloating, what you were you going to do with that pot?"

Voldemort looked at him for several minutes as if judging something before it decided to speak. "Assuming Wormtail hasn't spilled too much of it, the pot is filled with amniotic fluid from seven women, one from each month of pregnancy. Each woman's fluid was then used to stew a mandrake root before being stirred together in order with a gallon of blood each from a female unicorn." It noticed Harry's horrified and disgusted expression and sneered. "Oh get over it, child! It's a dark ritual meant to resurrect a soul from practically nothing! Grow a pair! The ritual to recreate my body requires the bone of one of my ancestors, preferably my father, the flesh of a servant—I had settled for Wormtail but any of my old supporters would have sufficed had they been here—and the blood of an enemy tried in battle. Your time in the tournament was meant to prepare you for this night, but as you seem to have not only triumphed but become willing to help me your blood might no longer be potent enough. Regardless, there is of course an incantation that goes with it. When you deposit my form in the pot you must say these words and add the corresponding ingredients as you do so.

Bone of the ancestor, unknowingly given, you will rebuild your son
Flesh of the servant, willingly offered, you will reconstitute your master
Blood of the enemy, forcibly taken, you will resurrect your foe."

Harry took all of this in with a shiver of revulsion. He SO did not want to do this, but far better to have Voldemort under lock and key were he could find a way to permanently destroy the man than letting him run around causing him problems.

Then Harry got an idea. An awful idea. Harry got a wonderful, awful idea… Grinning broadly he grabbed the cloth that held the dark… thingy. Insult my best friend and my mother will you? He glanced down at Tom with a positively evil grin on his face "Let's see what we can get away with, shall we?" A look of horror began to cross baby Voldemort's snake-like face, but he never got to say anything as Harry swung the bundle holding the emaciated manikin and slammed him into the pot like a basketball.

Several of his teeth had come lose in the fury of Harry's battles with the creatures between him and the cup and his intense jinxing training with Ron and Hermione had given him quite a repertoire of spells to draw from for literally any situation. Placing Voldemort and Petigrew's wands in his pocket, he found one of his teeth that was wiggling too much for his liking and maneuvered his wand by it on the outside of his cheek. Casting a tooth loosening jinx Harry coughed as he nearly swallowed one of his upper right molars. Spitting it out into his hand he pocketed it and headed for the graves nearby. Voldemort had been in this particular graveyard for a reason and with the mention of Riddle senior's bones, he had a good idea why.

Walking along the graves he found Thomas Yeats Riddle, Mary Elaine Riddle and Thomas Hail Riddle Sr. Pausing shortly, Harry considered. That would make moldy voldy Thomas the third, he mused absently. He did seem to like his threes and sevens… Shrugging, he stepped back and began casting vanishing charms on the dirt over Mary Riddle's grave. It was horrible, what he was about to do, but the potential result… To completely shred Voldemort's soul, or turn him into a woman… Yes, that would be a proper vengeance. 'For you, mom,' he thought silently as he finished exhuming the poor grandmother of Thomas Marvolo Riddle's coffin. With a flick of his wand, the coffin opened and a levitation spell later, the disturbingly well preserved corpse of Mary Riddle was floating before him. He could hear a scrabbling in the pot behind him and knew he had to hurry. Saying a silent prayer to the woman for forgiveness he began casting cutting and syphoning charms from potions to remove large portions of her chest and lower abdomen. Harry was no apothecary, but he was fairly sure he had what he needed.

Lowering the woman back into her coffin and the closed the lid before reversing the banishing spell on the dirt, burying her again as if nothing had ever happened. Done he returned to the cauldron and his two adversaries and cast a cutting charm at Wormtail's arm, opening it up so that blood ran freely. He was ready to begin.

"Bone of the enemy, willingly offered, you will rebuild your foe!" Harry said removing his tooth from his pocket and tossing it into the pot which roiled and turned a sickly yellow. 'Now there's a reaction' he thought, amused. 'I wonder what color it was supposed to become…'

Shrugging, he gestured with his wand to the mass of flesh from the poor woman who'd had the misfortune to be related to, and likely killed by, Thomas Marvolo Riddle. "Flesh of the ancestor, forcibly taken, you shall reconstitute your son!" He released the gooey mass into the cauldron and stepped back quickly as it started bubbling noisily and turned brilliantly purple. Whatever was happening with his alteration to the ritual, he had little doubt Tom was enjoying it; if Snape had managed to teach him anything in four years of abuse, it was that violent reactions such as this were a result of badly mixed and ordered ingredients and were likely to explode violently and with horrible, unintended consequences.

Hitting Wormtail with a levitation charm again, he maneuvered the man so that his bleeding arm was hanging at an angle over the cauldron and spoke as blood began to dribble into the roiling stew. "Blood of the servant, unknowingly given, you shall resurrect you master!" The potion turned Avada Kedavara green and began to emit a column of light. Blobs of liquid began jumping from the caldron furiously as Harry moved Wormtail off to the side and stunned him again, hoping he hadn't caused to much damage to his godfather's meal ticked before a scream issued from the cauldron. The liquid in it had formed itself into a column of steam with a dark shadow bubbling up within the center of it. As the steam continued to issue forth from the pot, it began to take on shape and definition, but as the smoke cleared body that rose into the light of Harry's Lumos was not Tom Riddle as Harry had expected, or even the snakeish man who had appeared from the back of Quirrell's head in the forest; no, there, standing in the light was the body of a woman, naked as the night was dark with regal features locked in a rictus of pain and a figure to die for.

Harry gazed upon the beautiful raven haired girl and fought off a grin. "What… have I done?"

The girl standing in the pot was 15, maybe 16 but no older. Slight of frame she stood only as tall as him, though she looked taller, standing in the pot as she was. Through the pain that wracked her thin body Voldemort still maintained the sharp handsome bone structure of Diary Riddle along with his straight black hair and pale skin. Harry's eyes drifted over her new C-cup breasts and flared hips with a blush and felt slightly dirty as he lifted his want to stun her. Beautiful and young she might be, but it was still Voldemort under all that… wrapping, yes, new wrapping. 'Drag your mind out of the gutter Potter' he thought as he began the circle jab motion for the stunner.

"Stu" Harry never got to finish the incantation because as soon as his mouth opened the girl Voldemort's eyes snapped open; her iris's burning a fiery crimson, the sclera white-blue and bulging. Even without the light shining out of them like a torch it gave her a wild demented look. Even so, this would have only given Harry a few seconds pause save for that, the moment her eyes opened, there was a ripple in the air and the world turned upside down. Tombstones shattered, dust and dirt flew everywhere and lightning filled the air painting Harry's vision like a strobe light.

Harry landed heavily against the wall of a mausoleum some forty feet away, his arms crossed in front of him in what should have been a futile gesture against the backlash of a powerful witch under extreme duress. Harry himself had shaken the Dursley's entire house on occasion, even caused half of the electrical appliances in his neighborhood to explode from over arcing when he had blown Marge up like a circus balloon, but this… Harry wasn't sure what shocked him more, the sheer damage Tom was capable of even after everything he had done to screw with the ritual or the fact that his crossed arms seemed to be generation a shield against the storm when his wand was no longer in either hand.

Leaning forward as if against a great wind Harry pushed himself forward, each step digging into the upturned earth like as if it were sand. By the time he reached Voldemort's new body the girl was hovering over a crater four feet deep and thirty wide with a small pool of molten metal beneath her glowing cheery hot, and screaming her head off and sounding for all the world like a banshee with a toothache.

Reaching into his pocket with one hand and keeping the other arm raised, he fingered the two wands, trying to grab one with his shaking digits. After a few seconds his shaking fingers gripped the warmer of the two rods and he pulled out a thirteen inch slip of yew. Aiming it down was easy under the force of Voldemort's accidental magic so he pointed at the molten remains of the cauldron they had used to create the dark lord's new form and incanted "Congelo." The jinx was a freezing charm meaning frost in Latin which was meant to turn an opponent's cloths solid with ice but it was the only one he could think of that would cool things down. That done, he raised the wand to point at Tom, struggling with the effort of it.

Circle, jab. "Stupefy!" he spat. A jet of red light issued from the wand, its motion unnaturally slow compared to the streaks and beams of energy he was used to, but it splashed against its target nonetheless.

And with that, everything stopped. Voldemort's scream cut off, her eyes rolled up in her head, the energy that was tearing up the landscape ceased and with it the pressure holding Harry up at such a ludicrous angle. He fell forward and avoided landing on his face with a quick turn he'd learned in his time as the Gryffindor seeker. His reprieved was short lived however as no sooner had he landed than his vision was filled with 137 pounds of naked girl crashing bonelessly into his ribs.

Rolling over and shoving chick-mort off of him Harry groaned heavily. Waving the thirteen inch wand he had been using in a sweeping circle he moaned "accio wand." Seconds later his Holly wand flew from just beyond the mausoleum he had been tossed into and smacked him in the face. Moaning again he picked it up and pushed himself off the ground and into a kneeling position.

Looking around Harry James Potter took stock of the situation. He had a rat—bound five ways from Sunday and bleeding out—a chick-mort lying naked and disturbingly hot beside him, three wands and a collection of bruises to last him a week under Madam Pomfrey's tyrannical eye. …Oh, and there were the death eaters at large along with whoever helped chick-mort get him here… "This is a right bloody mess" he said to no one. Running though his problems several times in his head he decided to go for the simplest one first. The rat. As much as he didn't like Peter he couldn't let the man bleed out. It wasn't just because the man was his godfathers meal ticket, but for all he had seen up to this point, all he had done and had done to him… the thought of being responsible for someone's death still gave him this horrible queasy feeling… and letting the rat bleed out from a wound he himself had inflicted would still count as murder.

…at least, it would to him.

Walking over to where the fat man lay slumped against a tombstone some forty feet away Harry pulled up Peters arm and conjured a small ball of fire at the tip of his wand. He didn't know any healing spells, much to his displeasure as he had wracked his brain on the way over, but he'd read a few books when he was younger about muggle field doctors burning wounds to save people with gaping wounds and fire was something they'd learned in second year. Cauterizing the wound was quickly and easily done, but Harry wasn't sure he would ever appreciate bacon in quite the same manner again. Once done he levitated the man again and brought him over to chick-mort and began to brood.

Hermione was always getting on his case about thinking his troubles through and as it had just saved his life not even a hour before when his bushy haired, shoulder sitting angel of paranoia had prompted him to summon his invisibility cloak and leave Cedric behind, he was willing to give it a try here as well.

His problems, as he understood them, were thus: Voldemort, now chick-mort, was immortal. He could kill her, but she'd just come back later more pissed off than ever and he still couldn't find it in him to simply decapitate the girl, regardless of who she really was… immortal or not. That being said it meant he'd have to plan some way to deal with her. Voldemort as a 60-70 year old lunatic was determined and resourceful, but at least as a guy Harry could have some way of predicting his actions, now that he was chick-mort that was just another dimension of confusion for him.

What to do, what to do…

The two best ways to imprison somebody, two way that incidentally both been used on him in the past by people who were supposed to be looking out for him, were to literally lock a wizard up without any of their equipment or to keep them ignorant of anything that might prompt them to act. Locking someone up required some pretty high maintenance and there was always the risk that someone would just come along and free them as had been done with him by the Weasley's. Keeping a person deprived of information worked better, but how did you keep a dark lord, let-alone a girl from doing something they wanted to do?

Harry flopped back against the dirt, his head landing on chick-mort's taught stomach and thought. There was the draught of living death Snape had mentioned in his first year. It was a fairly simple concoction that required a lot of cheap moonstone, wormwood and asphodel, but he was pants at potions and the thing took a week to prepare during which he'd have to deal with caging a determined sociopath, something he was defiantly not looking forward to, so that was out. He could just keep her stunned, but again, easy to reverse and rescue and he'd have to wake her up occasionally for some sort of sustenance during which chick-mort would no doubt try to escape or kill her current warden. Harry scrunched up his eyes trying to think of a way to stop someone from thinking of… from thinking… 'wait, hold on, THAT'S IT!'

Harry sat bolt upright. End of his second year, Professor Lockhart obliviated his entire life away and had to be taken to Saint Mungos. Harry wasn't sure how well it'd work, but he was certain he remembered reading an article on the back of Hermione's prophet recently saying that he was still a drooling toddler. That would work! And he didn't even have to be any sort of skilled to do it either! …well, so long as he didn't erase any involuntary actions that is. Whatever, this was Tom he was talking about!

Using the recent memory from the Quidditch world cup Harry raised his wand and twisted around to point it at chick-mort's forehead. The wand movement for obliviation was deeply reminiscent of a comic book thought bubble with the incantation 'oblivious' which was both amusing and to the point. The question remained, how were you supposed to determine what was and wasn't to be erased? Harry considered form a moment before shrugging. Fuck it, I'll just take it all; if we ever end up needing anything from Voldemort Hermione can probably find a counter spell or six.

Placing the wand against chick-mort's head Harry drew the wand movement and spoke "oblivious." A cascade of random images swirled in front of his eyes and Harry concentrated, not entirely sure what he was supposed to do now. Everything, he thought, take it all. Anything that might let him remember who he was or why he was such an evil git. Harry felt the magic responding and many of the images running across his vision began to dim, blur or even go dark altogether. As the memories passed, so many of them dying before his uncomprehending eyes, things became clearer. Small flashes of actions, such as walking or words, popped up more and more often as the cacophony of images and memories atrophied from nearly seventy year of experience to a mere trickle.

As images of spells being learnt or cast floated before his consciousness the magic became hesitant. Did he want these to stay, or vanish before the depths of the subconscious, to be suppressed as well? Harry furrowed his brow, nothing personal was left of Tom Riddle or Lord Voldemort, and he was happy the spell hadn't left the neo-girl a complete invalid, but was it safe to leave her with any knowledge of magic? The intent with which he had imbued the spell was questioning him, so was there a chance that allowing Tom this wasn't all for the bad? It was his own mind that was holding him at bay here… sort them by intent and use he directed blacken anything that made him a git, and let the rest be vague and barely remembered. With this new determination the spell and his magic set back to work.

After what seemed like an eternity Harry returned to himself, mentally exhausted and reeling. Talk about a tumultuous night he thought absently, winning the tournament, taking down the Rat, screwing over chick-mort...now, if he only knew what to do about the free deatheaters he'd be set! Boy was he ever ready for this night to end. His inner bushy haired angel of paranoia fluttered on his shoulder again and he sent another set of stunning spells at Peter and chick-mo… He was really going to need something better to call her Harry thought absently as he got up to look for the cup that had brought him here. Chick-mort, as funny and fitting as it was, wouldn't really help with keeping the girl contained. She'd want to know why he kept calling her that and memory charms or no memory charms a person didn't go as black as Tom had without… what had Hermione called it again, deep seated psychological issues? Perhaps a new life could make chick-mort into someone he didn't have to hunt down, but there was every chance she would just be a cruel a bastard as Tom likely had been or worse.

Harry was betting on worse if at all, he'd faced down dark lords and basilisks, but angry girls still managed to be pretty scary when they wanted to be.

Finding the cup with a point me spell some hundred yards away Harry conjured a stick and picked it up. The cup had been a portkey with no activation time or phrase so it was more than likely activated by touch, ergo, touching it without his prisoners would bollocks everything. He wasn't sure exactly how he was supposed to hold onto both of the cup, but He'd work something out. Maybe holding each of their hands and then kicking the thing? Or would his trainers be enough of a barrier? Or maybe he could stick their hands together in that three-way hand shake Fred and George had shown him one time. Dropping the cup on their wrists would be plenty enough to keep them together.

Reaching Peter and chi…tom… Tammy! Yes, Tammy Riddle, that would work. Reaching Peter and Tammy Harry set down the cup and began levitating them into position. It took a bit of doing but he got the three of them lying down and, with liberal use of the clinging hex, tightly gripping each other's arms. Harry paused for a moment as he levitated the cup over their joined hands, certain he was forgetting something important, but after staring blankly at a broken tombstone for several minutes and coming up with nothing he decided it couldn't possibly be important and released the magic on the cup. The large golden trophy dropped solidly onto their conjoined hands and the world disappeared in a whirl of color and a sharp tugging on Harry's stomach.

! #$^&*()_+

Hogwarts was in a panic. The final task of the tri-wizard tournament had been tampered with and not only that, the fourth champion, none other than Harry Potter himself, had been missing for over an hour. Dumbledore and Cornelius Fudge were desperately fending off the visiting parents and politicians from Bulgaria and France who were furiously demanding to know why, who and how the Durmstrang champion had been placed under the imperious curse and made to viciously attack both the Hogwarts and Beaubaton champions as well as why the champions cup had been turned into a portkey instead of opening a path to the entrance of the maze after retrieval as had been planned.

Things were becoming desperate as both France and Bulgaria had begun shouting down Minister Fudge in a diatribe that included the words diplomatic incident, terrorists and cause for war when a great flash and scream rang out among the crowd. Dumbledore felt a twinge as the Hogwarts wards registered the signal of a returning portkey with the Hogwarts staff signature. Fearing the worst Dumbledore left the swarm of screaming diplomats and headed for the center of the crowd and the location of the disturbance.

What Dumbledore found there was far from what he had expected. There had been many possibilities as to what had happened. Tom could have placed an agent within the schools staff, likely moody as he was the only new appointment; though how Tom could have overpowered or coerced Alastor, Dumbledore had no idea; or someone could have been playing a dangerous and exceedingly public prank. Were it not for the serious of the matter the headmaster might have suspected Fred and George Weasley, it was certainly up their alley, but the shocked look on their faces combined with a touch of legillimancy showed that they'd had nothing to do with this. Given the evidence there were three outcomes to consider. One, the returning traveler was Tom, having kidnapped Harry and used him in one of a dozen rituals to resurrect himself. Two, it was harry, returning from escaping or defeating his potential captors. Or three, Harry was returning, very confused, after an hour of trying to figure out why he'd left Hogwarts and if it had been a part of the tournament.

What the wizen haired supreme Mugwhump had not expected to see was Harry holding an unconscious, buxom, raven haired beauty and sitting on a thoroughly trussed up Peter Pettigrew and arguing with Alastor Moody.

"Game called on account of naked chick."

Dumbledore turned to see a guffawing Weasley twins walking past him and into the center of the clearing where Harry was still arguing with the defense teacher over something. "Hey, if that's the way it has to go, I'm in favor of it, brother mine."

"Indubitably. Whatever the circumstances it's far better than his usual stunts. Though I must admit, the lack of ravening monster this year is a bit of a letdown." Said the other as he conjured a robe and handed it to Harry.

Dumbledore watched as the boy looked at the robe, then down and the girl in his arms and turned bright red. Ah, the innocence of youth, the old headmaster thought. Though the question of what Harry was doing with the girl was certainly an interesting one. The presence of Peter suggested that she'd had something to do with Tom and his ritual, perhaps Harry had rescued her from his former students clutches? There was one ritual that called for the violent and nonconsensual deflowering of a virgin, but for all of Tom's depravities he didn't seem the type.

Dumbledore approached the group, parting the crowd like Moses through the red sea. "Welcome back Mr. Potter. While I'm not exactly opposed to your fondness for women, I must ask where you acquired this lovely lady and moreover why you are arguing with one of my professors."

Moody made as if to speak but Harry, frustration clearly coloring his voice, spoke first and loudly "Headmaster, the cup at the end of the maze was a trap! Somebody turned it into a portkey to this graveyard where Peter Pettigrew was waiting with Voldemort" the crowd drew back, many of them gasping or hissing at the name, one even fainting. Albus bit back a sigh and smiled slightly as he saw the young boy roll his eyes at the reaction. "I managed to subdue Peter and escape, but now Professor Moody won't let me bring him to the minister! This is my chance to exonerate Sirius, professor! Please! I've been waiting all year for this and Sirius has been waiting for thirteen!"

"And the girl you're carrying?" the blue eyed old man asked, his tone serious.

Harry hesitated visibly before speaking. "This is Tammy Riddle, sir. She got caught in the blast when I disrupted Peter's ritual. I stunned her because she wouldn't stop screaming since the whole thing started." It wasn't exactly a lie, Dumbledore's legillimancy could see that Harry believed everything he said, and the memories confirmed it, but there were things the boy was holding back, certain truths that lay veiled. And that name, Tammy Riddle… could it just be a coincidence, or could this possibly be Tom's own daughter? Again, for everything Albus knew about Tom, he didn't seem the type. Bella perhaps? The woman had been unusually quiet the year before the prophesy, but then how to explain why the girl hadn't come to attend Hogwarts under the guise of a muggleborn…

Albus didn't have much time to think however as the politicians had noticed his departure and were descending on them like bats out of hell. Well, bats and one angry pigeon… "Harry, my boy! What happened? Really, you mustn't cause such a stir all the time; it's really not good for my health. And why are you standing on that man?"

Harry perked up immediately and Dumbledore groaned. Truly, the boy had no sense of propriety; he could see it in those emerald eyes now. Harry was going to blab the whole thing and he'd never be able to hold the boy at the Dursley's now, honestly, it was for his own protection; couldn't the boy see that? "Minister!" Harry cried happily, setting down the girl on an invisible table and directing his wand to float the heavily jinxed and bound Peter Pettigrew up beside him "This is Peter Pettigrew, just like I told you at the end of last year! He's been alive all of this time, hiding as a Rat animagus and is responsible for the disturbance at the world cup and the tournament tonight."

Dumbledore's eyes widened slightly at Harry's boldfaced lies but didn't have time to counter them before Cornelius rounded on him. "But then, it was true then? Black was innocent?"

"Yes, minister. As I told you at the end of last year, Mr. Black left Azkaban prison in order to protect Mr. Potter, not kill him. However, I fear we have far more pressing matters. Harry here tells me Tom Riddle was involved and he has yet to explain the presence of this lively young lady who is still in dire need of clothing." The old headmaster desperately tried to deflect.

Harry gave him an annoyed look however and redirected the minister's attention away from the girl draped in a robe rather than wearing it, back to his prisoner. Grabbing the floating, balding man's hand he held it up for the minister to see, "see here, sir, the largest part of Peter the Aurors ever found was his left index finger, you said it yourself in the three broomsticks the Hogsmead visit before Christmas. Peter cut it off himself when he blasted the muggle gas line apart so he could escape into the sewers. He's the one who killed those twelve Muggles and betrayed my parents to lord Voldemort."

The minister shuddered slightly at the name and looked back on the foreign ministers who were watching the scene with all the airs of ravening wolves before turning back to Harry. "Ah, one last question my boy, before I send for my Aurors to take this man in. Mr. ah, Black, is on record at his arrest as saying 'it's all my fault, oh Lily and James, it's all my fault'. Could you perhaps explain that so I don't feel so uncomfortable rescinding the kiss on sight order?"

"Sirius, Peter and Professor Lupin explained that at the end of last year, sir. Sirius was their secret keeper when Dumbledore cast the fidelius charm on my house, but Sirius, knowing he would be the obvious choice and thus targeted himself convinced my mum and dad to switch secret keepers to Peter so that Sirius could take the heat without the secret slipping out if he was captured. But they didn't know that Peter was Voldemort's spy inside the order. Sirius and Peter were found outside Peter's apartment because Sirius had thought that Peter had been found and either tortured or killed and wanted to give him a proper burial, but when he found his friend alive and well despite my parent's deaths, well, you know the rest. He felt responsible for having come up with the plan."

"Right." Fudge said. "Right. Uh, whetherby?" he said turning to Percy who was hovering at the edge of the crowd of politicians in his role as interim head of international magical cooperation "could you fetch Auror Shackelbolt from crowd control? It's his dismal work on the Black case that has kept this thing a stain on law enforcement for the last year, we'll need him to take Mr. Pettigrew into custody and interrogate him properly. And, uh, tell him to send a message to his department to rescind the Kiss on sight order for Mr. Black. We're still going to need to arrest him to sort this whole thing out, especially his escape, but there you have it. Off you go!"

Dumbledore watched as Harry frowned. It wasn't everything the boy had hoped but it was at least something the boy was willing to accept and it left him some room to work with. Now he just had to decide if he wanted to convince Sirius to avoid ministry arrest for a few years until things with Tom were cleared up or convince Cornelius to put the man away for a few short years for the charges of breaking out and resisting arrest.

Nodding, the old man conjured a stretcher beneath the girl Harry had brought back with him and turned to everyone. "Well, if that's everything, I think I should get Mr. Potter and Ms. Riddle to the Hospital wing for an immediate checkup. They've both been through a terrible ordeal and we must insure that there are no lasting damages from the ritual they took part in. Terrible enough that one took place, but merlin only knows what young Harry's Heroic action may have wrought upon those who were there. Alastor, would you assist me, please?"

Albus eyes narrowed at the dazed, lost look in his old friends brown, human, eye as the grizzled Auror took a firm hold of their recalcitrant student and shepherded him forcefully towards the castle. They were joined along the way by a harried looking professor McGonagall and Madam Pomfrey who immediately began waving her wand of the two children and muttering venomously about Albus ancestry and his insistence on holding such a dangerous event at the school. He cringed as she heard a particularly inventive explicative about how his mother was likely a goblin and his father a Centaur. Perhaps he should look into taking his vacation outside of England this year instead of attending that symposium on postmodern healing techniques in London? Poppy was certainly in o of her moods…

The three teachers waited patiently as the healer ushered them into the ward and lay the two children down in adjoining beds, at Harry's insistence, and began scanning them in earnest. After a dozen spells and nearly twice as many charms were shoved down the pairs throats the matron rounded on the three of them, fire in her eyes and Dumbledore got the uncanny feeling that perhaps this was what it was like for the champions during the first task as they stared down their dragons.

"What. Happened."

That was all the dour healer said, but her voice rang with such command and venom that even the stoic Professor McGonagall who Poppy Pomfrey's ire wasn't directed at took a step back.

"I'm not entirely sure," Dumbledore answered nonchalantly, feeling a thrill of danger that had long been missing run through his veins "while I don't wish to disparage he mental state of the, ah, nubile young lady there, I have the distinct feeling that only Mr. Potter can rightly tell us what occurred."

Minerva gave him a sharp look to Match Poppy's. "Albus, the need for some levity aside, this really isn't the time to put on the act of a dirty old man!"

"My dear," Dumbledore said, smiling at his replacement as transfiguration teacher "I have always been a dirty old man; I have merely finally reached the age at which it is no longer questioned." McGonagall's response was cut off as Harry began snorting in laughter from the far side of Madam Pomfrey. "Ah, Harry, I see you're still awake, would you perhaps regale us with the events of your disappearance?" Dumbledore asked as Poppy transfigured one of the bed linins into an embroidered, knee length shift.

Harry cringed at all of the attention and looked between the girl and the gathered professors. "Well, um, Voldemort was waiting at the end of the portkey with Peter Pettigrew" Harry answered nervously. "I disarmed Peter and got away with the girl since Peter was the only one with a wand." the boy explained rubbing the back of his head and exuding an air of discomfort and thinly veiled deceit.

"Was there anything else Harry?" Dumbledore prompted in his best grandfatherly voice "you were gone for over an hour and mentioned a ritual down on the quidditch field. And you haven't made any mention of the whereabouts of Tom either. Please Harry, this is very important, try to think and don't leave anything out."

Harry looked between the four of them and the girl several times before blurting out " -told-me-that-if-I-killed-him-he'd-just-come-back- to-haunt-me-later,so-I-helped-him-with-his-ritual- but-in-a-fit-of-vengance-for-insuling-Hermione-and -my-mum-I-messed-it-up,but-instead-of-dying-for-re al-he-became-a-she-so-I-brought-her-back-here!Plea se-don't-kill-me!" He poured out in a rush reminiscent of Ms. Granger under pressure. I was nice to see that the pair of them had been growing closer, but at the moment it was more important that they got the poor child properly debriefed. Knowing what Tom was up to now that he'd had a chance to abduct Harry was Paramount.

"Madam Pomfrey," Albus said, calmly "I think a calming draft is in order, as well as your own report on the children's conditions." The woman nodded and practically shoved a faintly glowing light blue potion down he poor boys throat before rounding on the headmaster.

"Mr. Potter here is suffering from severe spell-burns on his forearms, magical core exhaustion and magical backlash along with three broken ribs a small bit of internal bleeding and a concussion. I'm astounded he's even conscious at all, let alone able to perform sufficient magic to retrieve this poor girl and Mr. Pettigrew. And that's not even counting the injuries I can tell he received from that blasted tournament! Acromantula Venom, a burn along his side form one of Hagrids screwts, spell damage from his duels with other students and dozens of lacerations on his face from crawling through those bushes! Albus, this is ridiculous! And that doesn't even begin to cover what I found on the poor girl!" Poppy paused for a second, chest heaving and a look of primal protective fury shining in her glare.

"What is wrong with her?" McGonagall ventured, "aside from Harry having stunned her, that is?"

"What Mr. Potter did to her is hardly the problem, though it certainly compounded things. Being stunned and then traveling by portkey after what happened to her…" she twisted around to glower at the boy, "I've half a mind to wring your neck for that by the way." She ground out before returning her gaze from the cringing Harry to the girl and three professors. "The girl, whoever she is bears all the signs of having been part of an incredibly powerful ritual, though the signature is so muddled I can't make heads or tails of what it was supposed to have done to her. Regardless, the poor girls core is in the bare edge of shattered, though my treatments thus-far seem to be having an effect on stabilizing it. Although," and she glanced back at Harry again "Mr. Potter might also have something do to with that, but I'll get my theories on that later. The girl,"

"Ms. Riddle, Harry tells me." Dumbledore cut in calmly, earning him a glare from the healer.

"Ms. Riddle," Poppy ground out "shows fully body scaring, such that she does and will likely experience hypomelanoma for the rest of her life. Whatever's happened to her in the past there isn't a square inch of skin that isn't covered in multiple overlapping scar tissue so thick and repetitive that it looks smooth to the casual observer. Whatever color her skin was before she'd effectively albino now. On top of that her bones read as if they were very recently removed in their entirety and forcibly regrown with the use of and advanced recipe of skeli-grow. All of her internal organs appear to be suffering heavy spell-burn and it's a wonder they haven' shut down, but on top of all of that a scan of the poor child's head indicated the extensive and recent use of poorly applied blanket memory charms, likely to make her more pliable."

There was a stunned silence at that as everyone digested what had happened to the cute 16 year old laying between them. "Could any of this have been caused by the ritual Tom was trying to perform?" the headmaster asked "though he doesn't seem the type to choose a female body, I have read of a resurrection ritual once whereby the user consumes the soul of the one possessed and adds the victims core to their own. Perhaps this girl has some significance to Tom? A hidden relative perhaps?"

"It is Tom." Everybody turned around to look at Harry.

"What?" Minerva asked weakly, one hand on her breast, "what do you mean Harry? Was Albus correct about the ritual?"

"No" Harry replied in a near monotone, a placid expression on his face. "When I got pulled to the graveyard, Peter was there with a big pot and a bundle of cloth slung across his chest like you'd do with a baby. I stunned them before they could react and summoned Peter's wand, but two of them came at me." Harry explained, playing with a thirteen inch yew. "I jinxed Peter far beyond what Hermione drilled into me was safe and then went to collect him. That's when I found out the bundle he was carrying held Voldemort." Harry shuddered, remembering. It must have been a pretty powerful memory Dumbledore mused, to cause that sort of reaction even through one of Poppy's superlative calming draughts.

"We talked for a while and after insulting me for a full minute we determined that if I didn't help him complete his ritual he'd just dissipate and go back to being this annoying wraith. I'd probably have five to ten years of peace, but then he'd be back again, bothering me, making my life hell." He snorted. "As if my adoring public don't do that already. Fickle, psychotic, sheep." Dumbledore frowned. Was this really what Harry felt? The calming draught did tend to remove inhibitions along with the deep abiding sense of peace it bestowed. Even if Harry had never been willing to voice such a thing sober, it was still a situation he was going to have to pay a lot more attention to in the future.

"After our talk I decided to help him" there was a gasp from Poppy, Minerva and disturbingly Alistair that sent warning bells ringing in Dumbledore's mind, but he pushed it off to the side in favor of listening to his drugged student. "I decided it was better to have him close at hand and locked up than having to worry about what he might get up to while I was waiting for him to reform himself an bother me again. But…" Harry said yawning "I remember being incredibly angry. He had threatened Hermione and insulted my mum, so I decided to play around with his ritual as he'd explained it to me. I used one of my teeth that had come loose during the tournament, flesh from his grandmother's coffin and blood from wormtail, while editing the incantation to suit the new conditions."

The boy paused as everyone looked at him aghast. "I had thought that on the upside it would destroy Voldemort's soul for good, and on the downside it might just mess him up enough that it wouldn't be had to contain him." Harry explained. "I didn't actually expect him to become a little girl, let alone one so powerful. He, well, she, came out of the pot screaming and blew the entire graveyard apart with waves of accidental magic. I had to stun her before she make the place look like a nuke had gone off. That's why my arms have spellburn on them."

"So…" McGonagall said haltingly "this lovely little girl… Is lord Voldemort?" Harry nodded and the transfiguration teacher stumbled backwards into a chair, looking faint.

"Well, that certainly explains he final problem I had with my scans." Madam Pomfrey muttered.

"Oh," Asked a disturbingly gleeful Moody "And what would that be?"

"Mr. Potter and Ms. Riddle share a soul bond," The healer stated darkly "as does some other individual. Pettigrew I suspect, given Mr. Potters story."

Dumbledore stiffened visibly. No, this couldn't come out now! Not only was it confirmation of his own fears and knowledge he'd been collecting over the past fourteen years, this sort of information was strictly need to know! How was he could to bind or mind wipe four people at once? Especially when two of them were powerful in their own right and all four of them friends?

"And what does that mean?" Moody growled. "Soul-bonds, I thought those were just sappy, romance novel trash?"

"Oh, they're very real, though for them to form naturally is exceptionally rare" Poppy said, disapprovingly. "Soul bonds are common in heavy ritual workings and is one of the reasons why they were banned or abandoned in most civilized countries. This one connects between Mr. Potters scar and Ms. Riddle's core. Primarily at least. There are also indications of spirit tethers on Ms. Riddles bones and blood, each branching off between two separate entities. I'd have to perform significantly more detailed testing to be certain, but if I were to offer a preliminary diagnosis I'd say these bonds either make it so that neither are capable of killing each other, or either must die at the hand of the other because if anyone else tried it the magic of the others would protect them. Regardless, I'll have to put in a flu call to Madam Zabidi in Jamaica. While I'm somewhat versed on soul magic for my duties as a healer, it's by no means a specialty of mine. Rituals and spells that touch the soul are so rare in England, let alone in schools I never dreamed I might need it! Most of my experience with the diagnostic spells comes from proving to love struck teenagers that their latest bou is not in face their soul-mate." She said with a deep note of exasperation in her voice. "As if such a thing would matter to their parents when setting up arranged marriages. Honestly…"

Dumbledore stood their wide eyed and rigid from the moment Poppy had said either by the hand of the other… How? Could it… he had never… did she? Poppy didn't know the prophesy… did she? She was friends with Trelawney where most of the staff simply avoided the woman on principal, but he had been so certain his pet seer had not remembered her own prophesy either… He needed to sit down. This was all too much. Though from Moody's reactions he was fairly certain he knew who the traitor was now.

Dumbledore watched his defense teacher and listened to Professor McGonagall as she continued to question Poppy about soul bonds and what they might expect in the coming years because of them, but it all seemed as if it was coming from a long ways off. So much had changed in such a short time… His plans. All of his plans. What was he going to do now? He'd long suspected that Harry would need to be the one to kill Voldemort, what with the rumors and later conformations of Horcruxes… But now Harry didn't necessarily have to die, did he? If he had a soul tether to Tom, or well, Tammy's bones, then so long as they remained Harry might have a chance or resisting the killing curse that could destroy the soul fragment in his scar… If that would even be necessary? Tammy was under the influence of a recently applied amateur blanket memory charm, could that be enough to destroy the dark lord that he had been? It was all so confusing, too many variables. He'd never had the time to place Tom under such a charm before, could he possibly break such a hold? And what would Harry insist on doing? The damn boy was prone to doing things without anyone else's consent as often as not…

Albus was shaken out of his contemplations by a commotion in front of him. Moody's face was melting… Polyjuice, of course! But again, that left the question of who had over powered him and how…

Dumbledore lurched up from the chair and disarmed the unstable melting Moody mid-spell and caught the man's wand. Minerva, Poppy and Harry had wands on the man as well moments later. They watched in horrible fascination and flesh bubbled and stretched, flowing into as the scars disappeared and the skin was became smooth; the mangled nose became whole and started to shrink. The long mane of grizzled gray hair was withdrawing into the scalp and turning the color of straw. Suddenly, with a loud clunk, the wooden leg fell away as a normal leg regrew in its place; next moment, the magical eyeball had popped out of the man's face as a real eye replaced it; it rolled away across the floor and continued to swivel in every direction.

"Damn you Dumbledore," the man snarled. "Damn you all! Have you any idea how hard I've worked to make good the dark lords resurrection? How much I've sacrificed guiding that useless no account through the tournament without raising suspicion? And for all of it be undone in a single minute of paranoia! Just you wait, Potter, I'll break those memory charms and stand by the dark lords side, his most faithful, most favored!"

"Who are you?" Harry asked, still under the effects of the calming draught and looking at the fake moody as if he was a mildly interesting bug. With a snarl, the imposter lunged at Harry only to be met by four stunners and a rainbow colored binding spell from Dumbledore himself.

"If I'm not much mistaken," Minerva said slowly "That's Bartemius Crouch Junior. But Albus, I thought he was dead?"

"As did I" Dumbledore replied coldly, stepping forward to examine the young man. Well, he was 30, but to a man of the headmaster's age it was all fairly relative.

"Neville isn't going to like this…" Poppy muttered.

"Neville?" Harry asked. "What would Neville have to do with this? I know he and professor moody were friendly ever since their first lesson, but so were a lot of people." Everyone in the room looked at him for several seconds. "What?"

"Harry, I really shouldn't be telling you this, but it is public record. Mr. Crouch here was sentenced to death in Azkaban for the crime of helping the Lestranges enter the Longbottom manner a month after you defeated the dark lord and torturing Neville's parents into insanity at the long term care ward in saint Mungo's. Neville has monthly therapy sessions with Poppy to help deal with the damage of that event."

Harry's eyes widened in shock, despite still being under the influence of the calming draught. "Oh," he said quietly. "I didn't know. I should have understood that someone else's life could have been as bolloxed as mine because of Tom."

Dumbledore however turned to Poppy. "Madam, do you have any Veritaserum on hand?"

! #$%^&*()_+

Harry watched as Dumbledore sent Madam Pomfrey to fetch Snape. He watched as the greasy man and the house elf Winky returned and Dumbledore interrogated the man. Everything was Hay and strange under the influence of Madam Pomfreys potion, so clear, and yet… and yet he could hardly bring himself to care about any of it. Things to which he would normally jump in and take direction were merely interesting, as if they had been presented during a class by Professor Binn's as opposed to Flitwick or McGonagall.

He frowned as his magic stirred. He wanted to be angry at this man. He had placed him in the tournament, tortured Neville's parents, caused so much pain… his magic stirred again and the haze separating him from his emotions thinned slightly. He looked over at the girl Riddle lying on the bed across from him. He had done the spell properly then… Madam Pomfrey had confirmed it… good. That meant Voldemort was no more, but even without Voldemort, Riddle still existed. Riddle had made Voldemort in the first place, could make him again. He would need to watch her. It was his responsibility. He'd had the opportunity to destroy them both and not taken it, wasn't that how the saying went? When you spare a life you become responsible for what is done by it?

Should he kill her? It would be so easy, her just lying there. If the memory charms had really taken then the wraith wouldn't know it was meant to come back… but something in him rebelled against the idea. No, he wouldn't kill her, he couldn't, that wasn't what it meant to be him. He saved people, he was the hero. But he would still have to watch her… Peter's being interrogated by the ministry he thought absently, Sirius would be free soon. He could keep her there. Sirius would help him spin the story of her being Voldemort's victim. Help him watch her.

Harry nodded to himself, it was decided.

With that he went to sleep. He went to sleep, and dreamed…

~! #$%^&*()_+

Harry woke up I the middle of the night to a commotion outside of the hospital wing. There was a creeping chill in the Room and a faint screaming in the back of his head. A faint whimper came from his right and Harry looked down to see the enormous bearlike form of Sirius's grim animagus. "Shh… don't worry Sirius; they wouldn't dare bring dementors in here." Harry whispered, looking down into the dogs enormous silver eyes, so much like his Godfathers. Something stirred along the edges of his mind and he heard Sirius voice as if from a long way off.

Oh yes they would. You don't know Fudges determination… or his cowardice. As Harry was puzzling his godfather ability to communicate the doors of the wing burst open revealing Minister fudge, half a dozen Aurors, four deeply incensed teachers and… Harry's blood chilled with fury, a pair of dememtors!

"Expeco Patronum!" wands were in each of Harry's hands and firing before he even had time to really understand what the minister could possibly be thinking. The room turned white with the strength of his initial spellburst and an enormous ethereal stag surged forward to skewer the demons, pinning them against the far wall across the corridor. There was a horrible keening shreak as the warmth and hope of the spell ground against the demons dark essences.

"Cornelius, what is the meaning of this?" Dumbledore thundered; his voice like a blast of artic wind.

"You called me back to the castle to collect the former and escaped death eater, Barty Crouch Jr. Headmaster. I wanted to be sure of my own protection as well as Mr. Potters! Surely you must understand!"

"I understand that you have violated the sanctity of this private institution by not only bringing dementors onto these grounds, but to a hospital wing! If you felt unsafe interviewing an escaped convict with me a dozen Aurors should have been quite enough to suffice! I'm sure you received my report last year on Mr. Potter's unusually adverse reaction to those monsters, not to mention their willingness to attack students at random!"

Minister Fudge was red in the face as he scowled at Dumbledore. "Yes, well Mr. Potter seems to have it well in hand at the moment now doesn't he?"

"Minister! Headmaster! My familiar is growing restless and I cannot hold this Patronus forever, can we please just summon a few more Aurors and get this over with?" Everybody looked at Harry, his face sweaty and pale, two wands held aloft and sitting astride he largest black dog any of them had likely seen. The minister paled, Dumbledore rolled his eyes and he Aurors all backed up a foot and raised their wands.

Cornelius made a visible effort to put up a brave front and stood tall once more, his face still pale, demeanor shaky and spoke. "You, ah, familiar? Is that a Grim? No, I can't be spirits aren't solid… Yes, well, Dawlish, see to I that the dementors are sealed and returned to Azkaban! Hurry up, spit spot! Langley, return to the headmasters office and flu for another twenty Aurors escort. We've a dangerous prisoner on our hands. We don't want him escaping." Then he turned back to Harry and Dumbledore. "Now, what's this all about?"

Harry's mind whirled. During their third year Harry an Hermione had talked about Fudge at length; the man was a fabulous minister and business man, but a publicly acclaimed coward and quite willing to buy and sell policy within his administration. He would never want to believe that Voldemort was back and Harry could not allow a man like that to get his hands on Tammy. She'd be sold to Lucius Malfoy in an instant and this whole thing would start all over again. No, he had to take care of this situation immediately before crouch or Dumbledore had the chance to spill the beans. Tammy was his responsibility, he had punched Tom's ticket and he was going to be the one to make sure the man who had killed his parents stayed locked deep within her mind.

"But that's ridiculous, Dumbledore!" fudge hollered, red in the face "Voldemort is dead! Necromancy has never been successful in the past and it certainly isn't now. The man's a raving lunatic!"

"You're right Minister," Harry cut in, earning him a vindicated smile from Fudge and a questioning glare from the headmaster and his staff "Voldemort could not come back from the dead. But the truth of it is that he didn't die in my parents house that night." Everyone looked shocked at this but Harry forged on with his lie before anyone else could intervene. "When the spell he used mixed with the protection my mother cast on me it backfired on him and left him insane, deformed and crippled. He didn't die that night, he fled. It's taken him thirteen years to recover but he used Peter and crouch to engineer the world cup and kidnap me earlier tonight."

Dumbledore was giving Harry a very strange look and Fudge was spluttering, but neither interrupted so Harry continued. "None of that matters though, because when I arrived at the graveyard I disrupted the ritual Peter was using to heal him and saved this girl, Tammy who he was planning to use as a sacrifice. The ritual area exploded. There's nothing left of Voldemort but dust and old nightmares. Please, I need to sleep, just take Barty back to prison where he should have been for the last decade anyways."

As Harry finished his story he caught Professor Snape's eye. The look the potions teacher was giving him was… odd, it was considering and calculating as if the man were looking at him in a whole new light and it made Harry incredibly uncomfortable.

"Yes, well. We'll need to take him in for questioning, figure out how he escaped and then have him kissed. It's a big enough black eye that Black escaped, add Crouch to the list and the press would tear me to shreds! Oh, and Mr. Potter!" the minister said turning an indulgent smile on him "You'll be glad to hear that Peter Pettigrew has been fully interrogated and placed in Azkaban with enchantments on his cell to keep him from transforming. I'd very much appreciate it if none of this reached the press, and would even be willing to pardon your godfather his escape without any legal hassle. Do we have an agreement?"

Harry looked at the man incredulously. "Sirius was innocent and your predecessor locked him up without a trial! Not bothering him with legal repercussions of leaving should be the least of our recompense!"

The man gave him a shrewd look "What exactly is it that you want Mr. Potter?"

"Custody of Tammy here, a full pardon of Sirius here and an Order of Merlin first class at minimum. I wouldn't say no to some sort of reimbursement for time spent in Azkaban either." Harry shot back, taking cues from a few of aunt Petunia's courtroom soaps.

"I can't authorize that, the ministry treasury being what it is…"

"Reinstatement to the Ministries Hit Wizard Corps and clear access to all Ministries of Magic Libraries" he counter offered. He knew from Sirius stories during the Hogsmead visits in the cave that Sirius had a hit wizard during the first war and constantly third or fourth in his year academically equal to James and below Remus and his mum, whom Sirius had compared favorably to Hermione. The two of them should be able to enjoy that.

"Done. Just be sure to get the man some treatment first. He looked horrible when I saw him in there the month before his escape. I'll have all of the paperwork owled to you within the week."

With that the Aurors took the stunned body of Barty Crouch Jr. and left. As soon as the doors closed behind them Professor Dumbledore rounded on him. "Explain yourself."

His tone brokered no argument and Harry offered none. "Tammy is my responsibility, headmaster. I made her, I'll deal with her. And it's not as if I said anything that wasn't true."

"That wasn't true?" Albus asked, his voice cold, eyes glowing. "You told him that Lord Voldemort never died the night of your parent's murder and that you killed him last night."

"And what part of that wasn't true, Professor?" Harry returned in challenge. "My mother's protection interfered with his death spell and neither of us died. He was crippled and deformed, just like I said; I just didn't offer the miniser any details on how. And as far as killing him tonight goes, Hermione told me after we woke her up from the basilisk that our memories are the root of our soul, to interfere with them is to violate the very core of what we are. She was absolutely horrified at what Lockhart was doing to write his books and said that he'd as good as died down in the chamber that night. When I changed Voldemort's Ritual I tore apart his core, and when I used he oblivious curse on him to blanket wipe his entire life away I destroyed everything that he was. I killed him, and now Tammy, the result of that act, is my responsibility; my burden, my revenge and I will not have that taken from me by some corrupt politician."

"Harry, you've obviously been through a rough time tonight, why don't we talk about this again in the morning?" Dumbledore ground out, trying to sound reasonable.

"Fine, but you're not taking her."

"We'll see." The old headmaster said ominously. One hard look later and Dumbledore left the ward, sweeping past a stunned gaggle of Weasley's who had just arrived outside. As he did so, professor Snape moved up between Harry and Tammy's beds as Harry dismounted Sirius and clambered stiffly back in.

"That was very Slytherin of you, Mr. Potter." Snape remarked quietly, looking down at the unconscious form of his former master.

Harry gave him a disgusted look. "The Hat would agree with you. It gave me the choice my first year; Gryffindor or Slytherin. I chose Gryffindor because I didn't want to deal with being in the same house as Draco Malfoy. Not that it seems to have helped much…"

Snape nodded slowly, still not looking at him. "My godson does tend to be rather… rash." The man allowed.

"Was there anything else Professor? I really am exhausted from that Patronus and from the look of Molly I'm going to need everything I've got left." Snape actually gave him a smirk as he left. Not a sneer, but a smirk. It was a start.

~! #$^&*()_+

Harry woke up the next morning to the sound of gagging. He groaned and the noise, why couldn't it go away? He was so warm and comfortable… then something moved against his back. Something warm and soft. Cracking his eyes open Harry twisted around to see Tammy spooned up behind him and whimpered. What was worse, Sirius was standing in the doorway to the hospital wing with Hermione who was spluttering and red faced from Sirius's hand muffling her indignation. Sirius himself was torn between grinning like a loon at seeing Harry in such a compromising position in front of one of his longtime friends and grimacing in disgust at exactly who Harry was, ah, sleeping with.

Mortified, Harry tried to get up only for the girl to moan and tighten her grip on him. Sirius snickered and then coughed as Hermione drover her elbow into his stomach. Rushing over to him Hermione hissed "Harry James Potter, what exactly are you doing?"

"I don't know." Harry whispered desperately, "I took her with me when I escaped Voldemort's ritual last night. She was in the other bed when I went to sleep!"

Hermione looked into his eyes for several seconds before nodding and helping him pry chick-m… Tammy, loose.

As soon as Harry Had extricated himself the girl curled up and began shivering and moaning. Harry and Hermione looked at each other, bewildered. Harry knew much more about the situation than his friend did but he was still at a complete loss as to what to do.

"Nightmares?" his bushy friend asked. "You did say you rescued her from whatever V-voldemort was planning…" Harry put his hand on Tammy's arm and she calmed down. When removing he hand cause her to start crying again the two friends looked at each other.

"I guess." Harry replied, bewildered. Voldemort had enough of a soul left to have nightmares? What in the world would they be about, fluffy bunny rabbits and warm hugs? He began trying to shake her awake. "Tammy," he said "Tammy!" The girl Voldemort jerked awake and lunged at him, Harry, unsure what to do caught her and toppled over backwards, stumbling Hermione and hitting the floor hard. "Oof… oww!"

"It was dark," Tammy murmured in his ear "so dark. I tried to dream but there was nothing, and then him. But then you were there and it wasn't so dark… don't leave me in the dark!" Harry listened to the former dark lord in stunned silence. He hadn't expected this… he hadn't expected it at all. Though, perhaps he should have… Madam Pomfrey had mentioned a soul link. And old one with his scar and a newer one between him and Tammy's bones… Maybe… the old one in his scar, the scar that had always warned him of Voldemort's presence had some echo of the old Voldemort… and the blackness was… what? The spell he had done to the originals memories?

Hermione, who had been close enough to hear the girls whispered plea, pulled them both up. "Don't worry Tammy, Harry wouldn't do that. He's got this insatiable hero complex and you're obviously in distress. C'mon, let's see if Madam Pomfrey will let he two of you out for breakfast."

As Hermione led the pair of them toward the healers office at the back of the ward Sirius sidled up to him. "Well now, pup. That wasn't quite what I expected when you brought home this latest stray. Seems you really do have your old man's charm, no effort offered and all the witches are trying to get into your pants, cept the one you have your eye on." Harry glared furiously at the man, a blush creeping across his cheeks and neck, but Sirius just turned into his Padfoot form and gave him an enormous, slobbery dog kiss before bouncing back out of reach.

~! #$^&*()_+

Madam Pomfrey was willing to release Harry after a few more spells and potions, but refused to clear Tammy, stating that she needed to stay in the Hospital wing for observation. Unfortunately this meant that Harry couldn't leave either due to his wards apparent issues so the five of them took their breakfast in the hospital wing assisted by Dobby the house-elf who was absolutely ecstatic to serve them. Ron came in looking for Hermione halfway through their meal. He was holding a copy of the prophet under his arm and had a queer look on his face.

"Hey mate, who's the girl? You never said last night."

"This is Tammy." Harry replied placing a hand on the former dark lord's back. "I picked her up after dealing with Peter and Tom."

"So… you-know-who was… what, trying to sacrifice her? Possess her?"

"Something like that." Harry replied nodding. "She got hurt when the ritual exploded and doesn't seem to remember anything. Didn't even react to her own name after I pulled her out of the rubble." Harry hated lying to his friends, but everything he had said was technically true and if they didn't know that Tammy was Tom they wouldn't treat her badly. It wasn't that he thought tom didn't deserve such treatment, but that he didn't want the possibility of Tammy becoming another Tom. Whatever experiences had created Tom, it had still been Tom's basic character that had allowed what he became to exist in the first place. Until he knew what exactly that was… well, best to keep negative influences to a minimum.

"So, anything in the prophet about last night?" Harry asked as Ron stole several strips of bacon off of his plate.

"Oh! Yeah, yeah there is!" he said, tossing the prophet under his arm at his friend. "You'll like i too. Fudge has make this big production of things, blaming the previous administration for letting two high profile criminals escape Azkaban and bashing people over the head with the fact that they were apprehended under his direct supervision. It's like he's trying to compensate for Snuffles here getting out of prison on his watch."

Harry's grin turned feral as he began to read the article. All of the blatant propaganda aside, the article was straight and to the point: It gave detailed information about the veritaserum testimonies of the two former death eaters, detailing everything they had done and how they had escaped justice for their crimes. By the third page of the article, it finally got around to revisiting the issue of Sirius Black, exonerating him and reminding everybody both of Sirius's former status as a highly decorated war hero and how the previous administration had given the buggered the poor member of the house of ancient and noble lords by deciding his guilt on circumstantial evidence without even giving him a trial.

The miscarriages of justice were repeatedly stressed to be the work of the previous administration. Notice the bold and italics… Harry rolled his eyes. Whatever; at least Sirius had been offered a full pardon in the article and that was all Harry cared about.

The sixth page held a mention of Harry's triumph in the tri-wizard tournament, something Harry was happy about. By the time most people got to the sixth page, they'd stopped paying attention. Life, it seemed, was finally turning around.

~! #$%^&*()_+

Despite his public exoneration in the prophet by Minister Fudge, Sirius elected to remain in his animagus for the rest of the next week unless they were in private. Harry didn't mind, actually taking pleasure in introducing his dogfather as his familiar, 'Snuffles', and riding around the school on Sirius's shoulders.

Harry enjoyed the last few days of classes without the pressure of exams looming over him, though Hermione still forced him to study with them, if only so he didn't let his grades slip. The day after exams, the minister visited the school again and presented Harry with his winnings of 1000 Galleons and the Tri-wizard cup, one that wasn't a portkey this time. The corpulent man had been thrown off somewhat by the constant clinging presence of Tammy, but overall everything had gone well.

In the end, Harry decided to sit most of his exams despite the fact that he had already passed them by being tri-wizard contestant and champion. Care of Magical Creatures was a written exam on dragons followed by a practical on care and feeding of Hogwarts herd of unicorns. When he sat for the transfiguration exam, Professor McGonagall actually smiled at him as he transformed his badger into a footstool and took his paper. He also sat herbology, charms, astronomy and defense, which was overseen by Professor Dumbledore as the real Professor Moody was far too twitchy to be trusted in a room full of wands being pointed in the rough direction of his desk. He had actually been to the Hospital wing five times in the last few weeks for counseling and repairs after having cursed one student or other for startling him. He forwent potions, history of magic and divination though, much to Hermione's quiet ire.

All over school though, all anyone would talk about was Tammy, the strange quiet girl Harry Potter had brought back with him from where ever he had mysteriously disappeared to at the end of the last task. Harry had been absolutely aghast and Tammy flummoxed when Lavender Brown had come up to them one evening in the common room and asked if they were 'seeing each other' and reading him the riot act for taking advantage of a poor, innocent, amnesia victim.

"Look, Lavender" Harry said, putting his hand on the girl's shoulder as she tried to pull a protesting Tammy off to the girl's dormitory "Tammy has nightmares; I pulled her out of a badly messed up sacrificial ritual her father had set up and she got caught in the blast that killed him. I'm the only thing that calms her nightmares and I feel responsible for her. Just leave it alone, will you?"

Lavender however, had not left it alone. Instead of dropping it, the blond socialite had made sure that, one way or another, everyone knew about Tammy. Nobody really go the reference except the teachers who already knew and Harry's close friends, Ron, Hermione, Neville and Ginny…

The confrontation that brought had not been pleasant. They had waited until Tammy was asleep beside Harry on one of the quieter nights in the common room and Ginny put up privacy charms so that neither the rest of the common room or Tammy herself could intrude on their conversation. While Ron and Neville had simply questioned his sanity of keeping a girl he insisted was Voldemort's daughter around Ginny had been absolutely furious. Her argument had revolved around how evil Tom had been and how he'd only gotten worse as he got older and asking Harry 'how could he do this to her, knowing what she'd suffered at that madman's hands'.

"Because I didn't think of it as doing something to you!" Harry had replied forcefully. "Tom killed my parent's remember?" he hissed making the ginger haired girl flinch and turn white "I'm fairly certain I've suffered more at his hands than you." He glared at them all before continuing when no one made as if to argue. "As for keeping her around, I know nothing about how she grew up or how he might have treated her, but she was at the center of a sacrificial ritual, and I killed her father, so pity or penance I'm going to keep her and I'll thank you to keep your noses out of it. I don't want to lose any of you as friends, but Tammy is my responsibility now, alright?"

Harry took a breath before adding "Besides, if anyone has a right to complain, it's not you, it's Neville. The man impersonating Professor Moody was Barty Crouch Jr. and Dumbledore thought that Bellarix Lestrange might be Tammy's mother." Ron Hermione and Ginny looked between Harry and Neville confused, but Neville and Harry only had eyes for each other. They sat like that for half a minute that seemed like an eternity before Neville spoke.

"She remembers nothing?" he asked quietly.

"Everything before the ritual is gone. Madam Pomfrey and Dumbledore confirmed it." Harry replied levelly.

Neville stared at him for several more seconds before nodding and walking off. "What was that about?" Ron asked, nonplussed.

"It's private" Harry said dully, hoping against hope he hadn't lost a friend "and not mine to tell. He'll tell you if and when he's ready."

Ron nodded and accepted the statement. He left for the dormitory moments later and Ginny did as well, giving him a betrayed look, full of hurt and fury. Then only Hermione and the sleeping silenced Tammy were left. They looked at each other for several minutes.

"That's not the truth, is it Harry?"

"I didn't say anything that wasn't strictly correct…" Harry hedged.

"But you didn't say everything either did you? Ron may be dense as a post, and the rest don't know you very well, but you've never been able to hide anything from me. Who is she, really?"

"You've kept my secrets before Hermione, but this one is big." Harry said hesitating. "I didn't want anyone treating her badly, though that's not going to be as easy now as I thought with the pieces I accidentally laid down for the others."

"That big huh?"

"Yeah. You still want to know?" Hermione nodded. "Everything I told the rest of the school and the minister is true in a sense, I just rearranged the pieces so that people would create their own picture." Harry laughed bitterly. "Hogwarts had taught me well in that regard." He saw his friends commiserating look and smiled. "The truth of the matter is that before the ritual began, there was no Tammy Riddle."

Hermione's eyes widened, nearly bulging out of their sockets. "Y-you can't m-mean…"

Harry smiled. "Remember back when we were working on insulting names to call him to get Ron over that you-know-who spaz of his? That's where I got the name, yeah." Harry nodded.

"Oh," Hermione said, siting back in her chair and covering her mouth with her hands "oh my."

"When I arrived at the cup your efforts to make me think gave me a small flash of paranoia, but it was enough. I got there invisible and defeated Tom and Peter before they knew what was going on and was simply going to hit Tom with a blasting curse, but we got to talking and he explained how he'd simply come back later if I destroyed him now." Harry took a big breath and continued. "SO I got him to explain the ritual he was going to do. He did, but he insulted you and my mum, and it made me mad, so I decided to see what would happen if I screwed with the order of things. I'd been hoping to cause the cauldron to explode and tear Tom's soul apart so he really couldn't come back from the wreckage." Harry grimaced, caught between a smirk and a shudder at the memory of his altered ingredient list. "The ritual did get violent, dangerous even, and it really did explode when Tom came out, except he wasn't Tom anymore…"

"He was Tammy." Hermione said, understanding.

"Yeah, If I can get ahold of Dumbledore's pensive sometime I'll show you the memory, but Tammy came out of the cauldron screaming. Apparently becoming female hurts, though that probably had something to do the damage he'd already done to his magic. So I got there, stunned her, and here's he part you're really not going to like, Obliviated all of her memories away like Lockhart did to himself down in the chamber of secrets." He saw Hermione's mixed expression of warring horror and approval. "So, in essence, I did kill him. Tom, in a very literal sense, is dead and fell by my hand."

"So that's why you didn't want people to treat her badly, you're afraid that even as a girl with no memories if she's treated badly enough Tom might rise again, through her."

"Yeah," Harry told his smartest friend "and just like Voldemort we can't simply kill her either, because whatever Tom did to tie his soul to the earth is still active on Tammy. Dumblefore knows what it is, but he isn't telling." Harry paused again allowing his friend to absorb everything. "There is another reason I'm insisting on taking care of her though." Harry said hesitantly. "What do you know about soul bonds?"

Hermione's eyes bugged out again, but for an entirely different reason this time. "Harry, you can't be serious? A soul bond, with her? You've only just met, and not only that, soul bonds are superstitious tripe for lovesick ninny's like Ginny! They're not real!" At Harry's look of amusement she froze, her expression turning to one of horror. "They aren't are they?"

"According to Madam Pomfrey, they and spirit magic are very real, but it's not as bad as you think. Soul bonds between lovers are very rare. Supposedly only five have been recorded worldwide in the last two thousand years; I doubt I'd ever be the focus of one or that I'd ever even see one in my lifetime. What I've got is different. Apparently I've been soulbound to Voldemort ever since he gave me this scar when I was a baby and Madam Pomfrey thinks that might be a part of the reason he escaped death, but that was one way. I got a few of his powers like parceltongue and warning pains when he was near and stuff, and he couldn't pass on so long as I lived. Now that Tammy's bones come from me and her blood comes from Peter, we've both got soul links to her as well, so as Madam Pomfrey said, either must die at the hand of the other, for neither can die while the other survives."

"Ooh!" Hermione said, jerking ramrod straight I her chair and looking through him "Ohh! That explains Tammy's nightmares!"

"Huh?" Harry asked blankly "Run that by me, slowly, so I can understand this time."

"Peter!" Hermione said breathlessly, grabbing his shoulders. "Tammy's nightmares are about a terrifying darkness, and if she really has a soul link to Peter as you said she could be feeling the dementors through Peter!"

"Oh…" Harry said "bullocks."

"Yeah…" Hermione breathed, wilting with Harry as she realized just what she had said. "Hey, look at it this way, as bad as this is, it means your influence will be even more important to her. I mean, she'll be dependent on you to keep Peter's dementor clad nightmares at bay so every time you defend, teach or be nice to her will have an even bigger impact than if you were simply her hero like you've been pretending! This is fascinating, I could write an entire paper on you two for the psychology journals, would you mind if I kept a journal about this?"

Harry looked at his friend's excited, hopeful face with a twinge of horror, but crumbled as her lower lip started to quiver. "Ah, sure…" he said "Just make sure to charm it so you're the only person who ever sees it. I can't have this getting back to Tammy, Not only would that be a horrible betrayal to read about, I'm not sure how strong my memory charm is."

Hermione gave him a hug and skipped off to the girl's dormitory.

~! #$%^&*()_+

It was a blessing when the closing feast came, everybody was still staring but it was almost over. Only one more day and he'd be going home with Sirius, the official exoneration papers, order of merlin and form letter offering Sirius his old job back had come two days before and Sirius had spent all of yesterday quietly gaining guardianship as was his right in Harry's parents will. He was seated comfortably between Hermione and Tammy and across from Ron. Neville sat at the end of the Table across from Tammy and was holding a quiet, polite conversation with her. Harry was pleased about that. Neville, far from hating him and being horrible to Tammy was polite and… perhaps not friendly, but at least pleasant with the feminized Riddle and a much closer friend to Harry himself since their private conversation in the common room.

The feast itself went well, everybody eating their fill, talking and laughing. There was a bit of amusement as Tammy was still learning what he did and didn't like, but the girl was mostly quiet throughout, speaking mostly when spoken to and keeping rapt attention to the conversations of the students she could make out through the din. Still, quiet was better than the silent shadow she had been, talking only to harry and then Rarely.

When dessert was over Dumbledore stood up and announced Professor Moody's departure, thanked the foreign schools for their attendance and participation in the tournament and bid them all a good summer and safe return home.

But he didn't sit down.

After a few seconds of murmuring everybody quieted down again and Dumbledore began speaking. "It has come to my attention that you have all been quite curious as to the events surrounding Mr. Potter's disappearance during the final stage of the tournament." Dumbledore said, his eyes twinkling as Harry stared at him in fury and horror.

No! He thought no, you heartless buggering squib! Don't you dare! But whatever miraculous power Dumbledore always seemed to have to know exactly what his students were thinking it either wasn't active or he was ignoring Harry because he continued to talk, the rest of the hall held in rapt attention. But as Dumbledore continued speaking he gave, not the truth in a bid to take control of Tammy as Harry had feared, but a modified version of the cover story Harry had created, filling in numerous details Harry, for all his creativity under pressure, had forgotten and welcomed Tammy to Hogwarts.

Remember Harry, Tammy remains at my tolerance Dumbledore's voice echoed in Harry's head as his gaze connected with those twinkling blue eyes once more do not make me reconsider, for I WILL be watching. Harry nodded and Dumbledore dismissed everyone to their beds.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The trip o platform nine and three quarters was relatively quiet, but interesting none the less. Sirius, who had still been hiding in his animagus form until they had caught themselves a private compartment, regaled them with stories of Fire-Lilly and the Marauders while Ron cooed over his autograph from Krum, Hermione showed off her reporter in a bottle and Neville asked for stories of his parents; stories Sirius was happy to provide.

Draco Malfoy and his cronies tried to make their customary appearance, but cut and run when Sirius raised a wand on the three of them and pretended to hold class on the proper chain of pranking hexes and charms to get the most embarrassing effects. He didn't get very far before they were out the door and on the other end of the train. The next two visitors were far more welcome.

"Well now Harry-kins," George began

"Here we were all prepared to rush to your defense" continued Fred

"Only for us to find you don't even need our intervention!"

"It's quite heart breaking, you know"

"seeing the birds leaving the nest!"

"They grow up so fast, don't they brother?"

"Undoubtedly." George agreed "almost makes you feel like a parent, seeing the ickle kiddies fly their first broom"

"or pull off their first successful prank!"

"How do they do that?" Everybody in the compartment froze and turned to look at the source of the high soft voice. Tammy had spoken for the first time that entire day. "I can't even imagine that level of coordination, is there some sort of trick, or is the myth about twins sharing bodies really true?"

Everybody laughed and the twins entered the compartment fully, closing the door behind them. "Well, little riddle," Fred said smiling and sitting I the seat across from her "My brother and I are more than just twins, we're also best friends and have been for as long as we can remember."

"We know everything about each other and while we don't have the same talents or thoughts"

"we know each other well enough that guessing what the other will say or do is child's play!"

"It helps that we're genius's!" Added Fred. "Crisp?"

Tammy accepted and ate it, waiting quietly for something strange to happen. "Nothing?" she asked, sounding disappointed.

George leaned forward and pulled out a lock of her shoulder length raven hair which had miraculously lengthened and turned stop-sign red, showing it to her. "It'll go back to normal in about an hour, but we charmed the entire bag with our own variation of several hair styling spells so you'll change to a different length, color and look with every crisp you eat. It's funny because the color and style don't always suit the person eating the crisps and changing your look that often is just absurd even in the wizarding world."

"SO!" Fred said loudly, "Who'd the old man?"

Harry grinned. "Fred, George. He solemnly swears he is up to no good."

The two of them stat there looking at him blankly for a moment before their eyes bugged. They looked at each other and said in unison "No way!"

Sirius looked between the three boys, his head cocked slightly to the side. "Harry, what's this about? Did you give them Wormtail's old map or something?"

The two of them lurched forward on to their knees in the middle of the compartment and began kowtowing "We're not worthy, we're not worthy!" they intoned several times and Sirius laughed. "Fred and George, his is Padfoot, my godfather, though you might know him better as Snuffles my familiar or Sirius Black, wrongly imprisoned ex-hit-wizard."

The rest of the trip passed quickly with Sirius and the twins trading prank stories and soon enough everyone was pitching in with ideas. As the express began pulling into the station Sirius quieted everyone down and made the twins an offer. Receive twelve NEWTS between them and Sirius would put up the money for their joke shop "because you can't be expected to pull off a good prank without half a brain." Sirius explained, grinning. Fred and George looked at each other.

"We, uh, sort of blew off our Owls, Mr. Padfoot, sir."

"Blew off?" Sirius asked frowning.

"We only really showed up to the charms and transfiguration exams." George said. "Fred decided to take an O in defense while I took one for potions, but we didn't even bother attending our CoMC, Runes, Arithmancy, herbology, astronomy or history of magic exams."

Sirius sat there as the train pulled to a stop, everybody looking at him. "I think I can work with this." He said after a few minutes thought. "You two could have passed your other OWLs if you'd attended them, at least?"

"Oh yeah, no problem!" the Twins chorused.

"Good." Sirius said nodding "then spend some time brushing up on the courses you want to work on and I'll take you to the ministry this summer. The examiners are perfectly willing to accept bribes so long as you can measure up so taking them out of school is no problem. They do equivalency exams for immigrating witches and wizards during most of the year anyways. Don't worry, building pranks and breaking them down by methods used is an excellent way to study, that's how the Marauders got so many O's in our NEWTS."

Sirius and the twins shook on the deal and everybody left the compartment.

Saying goodbye to Neville, the Grangers and the Weasleys Harry spoted the Dursley's standing on the edge of the platform and directed Sirius and Tammy over to them. The Dursleys sneered as Harry and company approached, giving Sirius and Tammy mere glances as Vernon spoke up. "C'mon boy, we don't have all day."

"Uncle Vernon," Harry said, very sweetly "I would like to introduce you to my Godfather, Lord Sirius Orion Black."

Dudley whimpered, Petunia nearly fainted and Vernon's jowly red face became a pasty, blotchy white. "Harry," Tammy asked, her voice quiet, but clear and carrying "Why are they afraid? Your Godfather has always been very nice to me."

"…" Harry froze. Voldemort had grown up to hate muggles, likely because the people a the orphanage where he lived had been like the Dursleys. Explaining that they were muggles who hated magic and had neglected and abused him would be the absolutely worst sort of triggers. He'd have to play this one carefully. "Sirius has a bit of a bad reputation because of his wrongful imprisonment." Harry explained "and I never really go around to telling them that he was innocent, so they think he's here to punish them."

"Why would they thing that?"

Oh shit, Harry thought, me and my damn mouth. "Well, the Dursleys deeply value their idea of normalcy and hate anything that doesn't fit into it. When I was a baby an evil man named Voldemort killed my parents and left me with them to take care of. An orphan who was very different from either of them or their own son was not something they wanted, or saw as normal, so they were… excessively unkind. But don't worry Uncle, I haven't brought Sirius here to hurt or sue you for child abuse, neglect or endangerment, we're actually here to tell you that this is the last time either of us will ever see each other."

And with that Harry watched as the Dursleys rushed and tumbled toward their car and drove off, wheels screeching. "Sirius, let's go home."

~! #$%^&*()_+

The rest of the summer was a blast; they stayed in a house Sirius owned in London for a few days until Sirius bought a penthouse apartment for the three of them. Sirius paid a for a muggleborn witch to check and clear the apartment for any sort of surveillance and Harry took the opportunity to catch up on and introduce Tammy and Sirius to the wonders of muggle technology, especially the starwars trilogy which was signifigantly improved by not having to watch if from under the couch to avoid uncle Vernon and Dudley.

Sirius didn't end up taking his job at the ministry back, but rather spent the summer teaching the pair of them magic, marveling like a fanboy over Muggle entertainment systems, games and movies, and taking them on trips, both to check up on Harry's friends and to various places he'd loved across England and Europe prior to his incarceration. The old dog also watched fascinated, and not a little worried, as the connection between the former dark lord and his Godson deepened with each passing day.

He refrained from interfering however because the vast majority of the changes seemed to be centering around Tammy rather than Harry. The newly euthanized, feminized and amnesic dark lord was opening up, taking on Harry's interests and mannerisms and completing his sentences with increasing regularity. Tammy wasn't the only one who was changing though; having someone to be responsible for was maturing the young boy and having someone who he was beginning to view as a sibling was causing him to be more carefree, more sociable… more like his parents.

Sirius smiled at the thought. It had always been painful seeing how small, thin and withdrawn his Godson seemed to be in his third year, and even the times he managed to spend around the castle grounds this year as well. It was wrong on so many levels and seeing Harry grow to behave as if he not only had a new friend and sibling, but almost a twin was heartening.

Tammy was also pushing Harry's willingness to perform academically. One of the things Sirius hadn't minded noticing Tammy had kept from her existence as Tom was the man's absolute lust for knowledge. Harry was a bright boy, as academically gifted as either of his parents, if more geared towards the practical side of things, but the Dursleys absolute lack of care towards his graces coupled with his association with Ron Weasley as his first, best and until recently only male friend ad social lead, Harry had willingly settled into a pattern of slacking off where his parents would have excelled and had fun doing so. Tammy's insatiable need to know things had driven Harry first to explaining things in as much detail as he could and then to actively trying to teach her things, an act Sirius was amused to see Harry actually enjoying.

It didn't last though, Tammy, like Tom before her, was a sponge, literally sucking up knowledge as fast as Harry could dispense it and soon enough Harry began running out of things to teach her. So he began introducing her to things, mostly muggle and getting into lively competitions to see who could learn the use and nature of any given subject first; a game of which Hermione, whom they visited with often, readily got into.

~! #$%^&*()_+

The next school year began and Sirius gave Harry a surprise he'd been teasing the boy about all summer. Meet Professor Black, this year's DADA teacher and instructor for the new dueling elective open to all seven years. It was a class Sirius's still not entirely faded reputation as a mass murderer and ex-hit-wizard ensured was filled with applicants.

Sirius also reclaimed his seat on the Wizengamont, electing the real Alastor Moody to handle his seat while he oversaw classes at Hogwarts. The year was an unusually quiet one for Harry and most evenings were spent with Tammy, the Weasley twins, Ron and Hermione doing he Marauders active version of studying, a wholly more enjoyable and productive experience than falling asleep over musty tomes of badly written and poorly edited lore. One of the more interesting effects of the Marauders study plan during fifth year was the fast growing relationship between Hermione and George Weasley. Much to Ron's disgust and fury they started dating and Hermione assisted the twins with many of their inventions while simultaneously curbing some of their more… questionable business practices.

At Tammy's insistence she and Harry studied runes with Hermione and when Exams rolled around they snuck into the Runes OWL while Fred and George snuck into the NEWT exams for Runes, Arithmancy, Potions, Defense, and taking their charms and transfiguration exams without any need for deception.

That year had seen a massive increase in the twins 'wizarding wheezes' and after talking with the examiners Sirius and Harry Happily fronted the pair a thousand galleons startup cash. WWW opened in diagon alley the moment they got off the train.

That summer Lee Jordan, the Weasleys business partner, married Katie Bell and Fred started actively dating Angelina Johnson while the wheezes took off with a bang.

The next few years passed similarly slowly with only a few rough patchs being the mysterious wasting death of Albus Dumbledore, advancement of McGonagal to headmistress, Snape to Defense teacher, Sirius to full time dueling instructor and the reinstatement of Slughorn as Potions master. Professor Snape nearly died at the end of Harry's sixth year when he finally managed to goad a Ravenclaw seventh year to murder with his crass and acerbic attitude. He resigned shortly thereafter to happily take up a post as Potions researcher at an Indian research firm and, without Dumbledore around to emotionally blackmail him, left the country immediately after. By the time of his death 13 year later he was credited with critical importance in the development over a hundred vastly improved potions recipes, nearly a dozen antidotes to supposedly irreversible cursing potions and poisons and a line of knowledge transfer elixers.

After graduating Hogwarts Hermione joined the Weasley twins in research and production, quickly matching the pranksters with a more serious and muggle oriented line of magical inventions that were as revolutionary to the wizarding world as the twins own. She married George shortly after and the pair of them now have four kids, elder and younger boys and a pair of twin girls.

Tammy never regained her memories and settled for pushing Harry and herself to excellence in knowledge, both magical and muggle. They married and joined the Ministry working for the department of mysteries for it's untold libraries of ancient, experimental and modern magic and had three kids. Alongside Hermione Weasley ne Granger they are credited with the solving of numerous magical mysteries and the creation of the Scholaria Arcana, an enchanted book that consumed all written knowledge placed near it before assimilating, condensing, organizing and expanding upon all knowledge gained. Each scholaria is enchanted for retention and comprehension for their readers and is viewed as the ultimate font of knowledge in wizarding Europe to this day.