Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, and not all views expressed in this work are supported by the author. Illegal activities are usually illegal for a reason.

Pairing: undecided but Lord Voldemort/Tom Riddle is pretty likely

Warnings (over all): slash; justified wholesale murder; unconventional relationships; general sadism;

Summary: A trapped soul sought to be more than just a memory, only to find himself a piece on the chessboard trapped between two sides. Fortunately, the rules in this game are what you make them.

Author's Notes: Yeah, I should be working on Till I've Kept You, but I've since realized that TIKY doesn't make any real sense at all and it's utter crap, and that I skipped over a bunch of important stuff, so TIKY is on hold for now. This fic has been eating my brain for the past five weeks anyway, so I figured I'd just write it in hopes that it would go away… Heh, yeah right. This was supposed to be a one-shot, but since the first chapter is nearly 5,000 words I don't think I can condense it without it being trash. Regardless, please enjoy.

Any feedback or constructive criticisms would be very appreciated.

Mercury Dreams

Chapter One

With detached interest, Tom Marvolo Riddle watched as Harry Potter stumbled away from the carcass of the once great serpent. One of the Basilisk's fangs was lodged into the boy's arm, and Tom could see the venom seeping into his body, highlighting the second year's veins in a smoky gray. Finally, Potter staggered into a wall and slid down it. His eyes were slowly becoming more and more glazed, while his pupils were blown wide, leaving tiny slivers of bottle green ringed around them.

Tom smiled darkly at the dying boy. It wouldn't be long now; Potter would die and his magic would join Ginny's, leeched away so that he could live again. Perhaps he would make sure that history remembered them as the ones who inadvertently aided the return of the Dark Lord Voldemort.

"What does it feel like? To know that you're dying…" he asked, still smiling. Tom continued in a chatty tone, "Basilisk venom, for all its potency, is rather slow acting so you will suffer for a great deal longer, I'd imagine." Potter somehow found the strength to glare at him.

"I won't let you win." The words, no doubt spoken in blind Gryffindor optimism, were meant to make Tom worry but instead made his smile widen.

"Oh?"

Desperation filled the boy's face, and he wrenched the fang from his arm. Tom laughed softly as he wondered what the dying boy hoped to achieve by doing that. There was already more than enough venom in his system to kill a dozen adults, removing its source wouldn't help him any. Potter's head lolled heavily as he looked around him with gazed eyes eventually spotting the diary. It lay innocently between the dying boy and Ginny, splayed open with its unraveling place-marker tucked close to the inner spine of the book.

The boy pulled it closer. Shaking from the effort, the boy lifted his arm and prepared to strike. Tom felt his eyes widen in horrible realization.

"No!" he cried.

Tom tried to throw himself forward to stop Potter; tired to reach out with the frustratingly limited amount of magic at his disposal and crush the basilisk fang or the hand holding it or Potter's throat! but it was too little too late. The magic he'd stolen from foolish little Ginny faltered, and the fang pierced through the pages of his diary, flooding it with lethal acidic venom.

The effect was instantaneous.

His body convulsed in violent spasms, his throat closed around his screams; a low whine of pain pushed its self free. Potter looked down at the ruined book, blinking with slow lethargic movements. Tom forced himself to keep moving with strength born of deep rooted fear.

"Don't…" He chocked around the word and swayed on his feet. Tom stumbled over his next step, crumbling to the ground. Dimly, he watched Potter lift the fang, slam the diary shut and stab it again.

Pain raked his body, clawing through his veins in agonizing waves. Hot acidic pain had replaced his blood and with each passing minute, he felt himself grow closer to death. White noise roared in his ears and tiny pin-pricks of blinding light overwhelmed his vision, robbing him of the only senses his limited form had. He clawed desperately at the stone floor in an attempt to pull his body closer to Potter. "Stop it! Just stop!" Another fit of tremors ripped through him; Tom's back arched high off the ground.

Somewhere in the back of his mind, there was an echo of vague confusion and answering pain. It was oddly familiar but at the same time, very foreign; he felt as though he should know what – or who – that strange echo was. But that the moment he didn't care. Blindly, he reached across his mind for it.

Tom didn't want to die, not like this. He didn't want to go alone. He latched onto the strange distant echo, wrapping it in his magic and clinging to it. Thin threads of the presence slid through his hold and reached deep into his core, sinking inwards. A sharp wave of agony tore through his body. More threads sank into him. As the threads merged with his fractured soul, the strangeness of the echo lessened. A much larger part of the echo thrashed in Tom's grip, bucking wildly in a bid for freedom. Tom snarled and clung tighter. The joint pain reached an unbearable peak, causing him to lose sense of everything else.

For one brief wonderful moment, Tom felt nothing. There was no agony or fear or rage. It was perfect – peaceful even. Slowly, however, feeling returned to him. Numerous aches warred for his attention, though one by one they were lessening. He blinked. A blurry creature of vibrant reds and vivid copper and gold was bent over one of his arms doing…what, exactly? He blinked again, trying to sort through his thoughts but he couldn't quite manage that. Everything hurt and he was so tired.

He slipped into a dreamless sleep, which didn't last very long at all.

Someone was shaking him. He wanted to lash out at them, but his arms were heavy like lead and his magic barely twitched in response. Frustration curled in his gut, amplifying his annoyance until he could hardly breathe through the anger. He was exhausted; why couldn't they just let him sleep? A thin high voice begging him to wake up barely managed to pierce the thick fog in his head.

"Oh please wake up; please," the voice begged. Agitated magic cackled around them in weak impulsive arcs. It was so young and out of control…nothing at all like the magic he was used to being around. Not even the first year Slytherins had such unrestrained magic. While actively using magic before a wizard's core had stabilized was dangerous, not learning at least some measure of control was just as bad. All Pureblood families knew this, though the Blood Traitors seemed willing to ignore it. "Harry, wake up. You have to wake up!"

What? His name wasn't Harry; why would anyone…?

He forced his eyes open and immediately shut them against the sea of blurred reds. His head hurt – each intake of air triggering another harsh throb; he felt dizzy even lying down. Another harsh shake made a low whine slip from his throat. Tom tried to speak but his mouth felt like sandpaper, and his tongue wouldn't work properly.

"E-en –" Tom managed to say, eventually. His eyes opened in slits to glare. There was something else wrong but he couldn't quite remember what it was.

"Harry!" Girlish arms threw themselves around his neck; he grimaced, pushing the girl away with shaking arms. She chocked on a laughing sob and pulled back. "I was so scared. When I woke up, a phoenix was leaning over you crying. I had thought that –" she broke off with another round of tears. "But you hadn't and – and I'm so sorry… This is all my fault!"

He blinked blandly. Slowly, he forced himself to sit up ignoring the stabbing jolts of pain in his right arm and the lingering breathless ache in his chest. The boy gasped and coughed, wheezing. Sluggishly, the ache lessened; the dizziness faded. He breathed in deeply and let the annoying girl – Ginny – pull him to his feet.

"Where – where's the phoenix?"

"It left to get one of the teachers, I think."

He nodded, weary. The rows of serpent statues seemed taller somehow, and now that his thoughts had cleared somewhat, Ginny's behavior didn't make the least bit of sense. He had attempted to kill her; she shouldn't be willing to be anywhere near him. And she kept calling him Harry… He looked down at his hands and froze.

Tom had never been able to tan; he either burned to a humiliating bright red, or nothing happened at all. The hands he saw now were rather tanned, and lined with tiny silvery scars and wide calluses. They were also much smaller than they should have been. The fingers were shorter and not quite as tapered; the nails didn't extend passed their beds and showed signs of being chewed. Dried blood caked them, cracking and flaking off with every movement.

Threads of panic coiled around his thoughts. Violently, he jerked himself away from Ginny, stumbling over his feet and collapsing back to the floor. He looked down at his robes. Stagnate water, flecks of blood, and grime covered the length of his school uniform. The right arm was completely saturated with blood, and the lower portion of the sleeve was badly torn. Tom lifted it. Beneath the fabric, he saw that his forearm had a large circular scar similar to an acid burn.

His blood pounded through his veins; his vision blurred further.

"Harry…?"

Tom looked up at her, eyes wide and uncomprehending. This couldn't be happening. It just couldn't. That stupid little boy had stabbed his diary with a basilisk fang; there wasn't any way he could survive that! But he had. Somehow he had, and now he was in Potter's body… Tom was alive!

He blinked, chocked back a relieved sob, and collapsed into a dead faint.

Thick dark leaves rustled overhead. Small patches of light danced on the gnarled, moss-covered roots he had hidden himself in. He kept himself perfectly still as he waited for some poor, unsuspecting creature to wonder too close to the dying tree so that he could claim its life force for himself. It was maddening to be reduced to this limited state. It was utterly infuriating. A small gust of wind blew through the area, stirring up dust and dead foliage. He did not blink; one needed eyes to do that and he had none.

He had no body, and was still too weak to possess another wizard despite a year having passed since his last attempt. He had been so close to reaching his goal. So very, very close and yet! – that troublesome child had once again foiled his plans.

The spirit quivered with rage, and a few nearby leaves withered into dust. He was trapped in this pathetic form, cut off from the full might of his magic. Trapped with nothing but his quickly diminishing patience and his cunning to sustain him. He would persevere; he would return, stronger than before, and he Wizarding World would be his. His followers would be punished for their infidelity.

But for now, he could only wait…

Soft whispering slipped through the hazy veil of sleep, gently nudging him away from his fleeting dream and towards the waking world. In the dream, he had been in an unfamiliar forest, waiting for something. But what? What had he been waiting for? He had known in the dream but now, as he awoke further, that understanding unraveled and slipped from his grasp. A resigned sort of frustration settled in him.

He sighed quietly, and then turned his attention to his surroundings. The air smelled faintly of cleaning solutions and medicines. Thick, starched fabric rubbed uncomfortably against his bare arms and feet. Bright light turned the darkness behind his eyelids a dark orange, and the call of songbirds was muted by powerful sound-deafening charms. He was in Hogwarts' Hospital Wing. The voices were still whispering near him and he turned his attention to them, trying to piece together any information he could gain from them.

"He needs to go to St. Mungo's," said one of the voices. It was a woman, and her tone was steeped in barely surpassed anger. "The amount of venom that entered his system was enormous! I don't have the equipment to deal with it properly here."

"Now, now. There's no need for that. Fawkes has provided all the attention he needs." The man sounded old and genial, but there was an undertone of agitation, of annoyance. There was something about the man's voice…he had hear it somewhere before. He should know who this man was.

"All the atten – He was bitten by a basilisk! A basilisk, Albus!"

Albus? Did he know an Albus? He strained his mind and slowly, as though they were rising from a lake of molasses, memories came to him: a ginger-haired man in a velvet suit, the constant weight of a suspicious stare, a grandfatherly man telling him that he was too young to know yet. He frowned mentally. That last memory, he shouldn't have it. So why did he?

Dimly, he was aware of the woman continuing her tirade as he tried to piece together the source of his new memories. "Despite their extraordinary healing prowess, phoenix tears cannot possibly be enough. No one knows what the effect of basilisk venom has on an adult's magic, let alone a child's…" The woman sighed heavily, and he heard the rustling of a robe.

"Well, yes but–"

"But nothing!"

"Madam," Albus finally said after a long pause, "I understand your concern but Harry will not be going to St. Mungo's. It is simply too dangerous for him." An unspoken threat echoed under his words.

Harry, another name – another person – he should know. Harry who encountered a basilisk and lived, healed by Fawkes who was…who was a phoenix. Fawkes, who was Albus Dumbledore's phoenix, healed Harry Potter's body, which now belonged to Tom Marvolo Riddle. He was Tom Riddle; he was Lord Voldemort.

"I, I understand," she said. An awkward silence settled upon the room, heavy and oppressive. Eventually, Tom heard the gentle rustle of robes and tape of heels as the two parted. Dumbledore left the Hospital Wing. The Madame bustled around the room for a bit, undoubtedly checking other patients, before she retreated to her office.

Tom lay there, breathing as evenly as he could, for a long while as he picked apart the foreign memories in his head. When he had nearly fallen back asleep, the sharp click of boot heels of stone snapped him back into a tense state. The person drew closer until they were at his bedside, looming over him. He forced himself not to show any of his tension.

"Harry dear," said the woman, "I know you're awake." She touched his shoulder.

Reluctantly, he slid his eyes open. He let an almost guiltily expression cross his face as he looked up at her. The woman was old with soft wrinkles at the corner of her eyes and laugh lines around her mouth. She smiled sadly and began flicking her wand, murmuring various diagnostic spells. She arrived at the end of his check-up and frowned.

"Madam…?" She jerked out of her musing and gave him a strained smile. Tom swallowed around the dead taste in his mouth and asked, "What's wrong with me?"

"There is nothing wrong with you," said the matron in a firm tone. "The venom from the basilisk and Fawkes' tears have just altered your immune system a bit, is all." Tom blinked, letting his eyes go wide with shock and worry. "It's nothing to worry about, dear." She gave him a reassuring pat on the shoulder but wasn't able to met his eyes when she said this.

The woman was lying.

Oh, the venom and the tears had probably done something to his body – they were too magical not to have – but that wasn't what she had reacted to. He had recognized the last spell she had used; the Stability spell and its spell-tree all dealt with an individual's magical core. Each wizard's core was different from the next, but there were a number of common traits that could be used to gauge the health and power of a wizard. Tom knew that the chances of his core being anything like Potter's were extremely slim. If she was willing to blame the venom and tears for the change, he certainly wasn't going to stop her so long as she said nothing to Dumbledore about it.

Tom spent a few minutes staring at his hands, pretending to be in a state of shock while he dug furiously through Potter's memories in search of the matron's name. If he wanted to masquerade as the Gryffindor he needed to know how the boy acted around people but he hadn't had enough time to really go through them yet. He'd spent most of the brief respite he had had running through Potter's memories of the Chamber and the events leading up to it, since Dumbledore would never let him get away without having one of his talks.

Finally, he raised his gaze and gave the woman, Madame Pomfrey, a glum look. Sighing softly, she sat down in the chair beside his bed and summoned a large pot of tea, two teacups, sugar and milk. He watched in silence as she poured them both a cup, handing him one.

"Thank you," Tom said. He added two teaspoons of sugar and a bit of milk to his tea without thinking. Pomfrey gave him a puzzled look. Ah, Potter must've taken his tea differently. While he could dig through the boy's memories and solve the problem that way, Tom was notoriously picky about food – he rather thought that was the result of not having any choice at the orphanage – and he wasn't willing to conform to the tastes of some stupid brat who was too weak to keep a soul splinter from possessing him.

And why did the woman even know how Potter took his tea anyway?

Pomfrey set her cup down, pulled herself up and gave him a stern look. "Harry," she began, "I know you don't want to talk about it, but you need to tell me what happened down in the Chamber of Secrets." By the time she finished speaking, her expression had softened considerably. He hesitated, and flicked his eyes to meet hers before turning his gaze to his tea cup. Tom stared at the liquid in it, watching the light play across the surface.

"I-it was Ginny, only…not," he said. "She had been possessed by the diary…" Tom let himself trail off, and snuck a look at the matron; she gazed sadly at him. Eyes wide, he snapped his head up, careful to mask the smugness he felt. "It wasn't her fault! He'd been lying to her!" And dear Ginny had been fool enough to believe every word of it. Wicked amusement filled him; he bit the inside of his lip to keep back a wide smile. "He made – he made her –" Tom cut himself off and shuddered. The matron took his free hand into hers and gave it a reassuring squeeze.

He was about to start again when the Hospital Wing doors opened. Albus Dumbledore entered, followed by a greasy hook-nosed man and a woman who looked suspiciously like that annoying Gryffindor bitch who had been two years ahead of him. A quick jaunt through Potter's memories confirmed that it was Minerva McGonagall, and provided a name for the man. While Tom knew exactly why Dumbledore and McGonagall were here, he couldn't think of a reason for the Head of Slytherin to be present as well. Tom knew that none of the students involved in Ginny's rescue were in Slytherin nor were any of the victims.

"Headmaster," Pomfrey greeted in a chilly voice. She nodded at his two tagalongs; they nodded back, though the man's was more of a pronounced twitch than a nod.

"Good morning, Madam! We just stopped by to see how young Harry was doing," he said. His blue eyes twinkled brightly, and Tom felt the familiar urge to forcibly remove them, turn them into marbles and make the senile old man choke on them. Dumbledore did own him a set, after all, plus interest too. Instead he took another sip of tea.

"So far there have been no complications, but he still needs bed rest." Professor Snape snorted. "Do you have a problem with my methods, Severus?" she asked.

"I sincerely doubt bed rest will be able to sufficiently cure Mr. Potter of his chronic inflictions," said the professor with a sneer. "The inability to follow simple rules is a problem he will likely have for the rest of his life."

"Severus!" the matron exclaimed while McGonagall gave the man a thin, disapproving look.

"I merely state the truth."

Dumbledore cut in before Snape's tetchy nature could irritate the women further. "Be as it may, young Harry seems well enough to answer a few questions." He clapped his hands together and smiled in a genial manner.

Pomfrey stood, frowning. "The boy just woke up, Albus, he hasn't had any time to – to really process what happened down in the chamber."

What an odd emphasis, and what an odd thing to be worried about. From what he could tell from Potter's memories, the brat had got himself involved in more than his fair share of life-or-death situations. Did they think that Tom had done something especially horrid? What could he have done anyway, with such a limited form? He pulled himself out of his thought just in time to catch the dark grimaces on the professors' faces and the unusually serious look on Dumbledore's. So they did…but what was it that they thought Tom had done to the Boy Wonder?

"I find," said Dumbledore, "that the first opportunity after such events is often the best time to talk about them." Scowling fiercely, the matron backed down.

Tom didn't bother to hide his confusion as he looked between the three, hoping to catch some sort of clue about what was going on. His knuckles went white as he clutched the teacup, watching with a growing sense of unease as McGonagall and Pomfrey left with great reluctance. In their wake, Dumbledore and Snape settled into chairs around him. Strangely, they left a lot of space between the two of them and Tom. Even if the Headmaster leaned across the divide with his arm fully extended, the tips of the man's fingers would barely be able to brush against Tom's arm. Snape kept his expression rather blank, which seemed to be the norm, and so did Dumbledore, which was most definitely not.

"What happened?" he finally asked. "How did we get out of the Chamber? Is Ginny okay?" Tom sincerely hoped she wasn't but he wouldn't let them know that. The two older men stayed silent. He flicked his eyes between them, wondering. Their behavior was strange and didn't mesh with how Potter remembered them acting. Tom shifted nervously. They – they didn't know that he wasn't Potter, did they? He was sure that he hadn't done anything too out of character but… "What's going on? Why are you acting like this?"

The distressed emoting did its job well. Dumbledore's expression softened into his familiar façade of a concerned grandfather.

"Harry, we need you to tell us what happened."

"Alright," he agreed. Tom told them all that he could remember – from Potter's point of view. He thought about withholding the details of his identity as Lord Voldemort, but in the end revealed that when he couldn't think of any reason why he wouldn't have rubbed it in the boy's face. Dumbledore's lack of reaction over that was rather annoying. Tom left out his little breakdown after Ginny had woke him up, unsure how to phrase it as Potter would. "And – and that's it…" he said, once he'd finished.

The Headmaster gave him a grave look before turning to Professor Snape. They spent a few minute in silent communication, before Professor Snape scowled fiercely, turned to Tom, and said, "Now is not the time to be lying or withholding information, Mr. Potter." Tom straightened up in indignation and scowled right back.

"I'm not lying!"

"So you admit to not telling us everything?" Snape narrowed his eyes into a dark expression that would have cowed Tom if he was who they thought he was.

"I answered your questions, didn't I? I told you what happened, didn't I?" sneered Tom.

"Then perhaps," said Dumbledore, "you could tell us why Miss Weasley is under the impression that you had a rather strong reaction in the Chamber, after she had woken you?"

Tom looked at him, felt an angry and embarrassed blush color his face, and dropped his gaze to his now empty teacup. "Oh," he said dully, "that." He wasn't sure how to pass that off. Gryffindors usually didn't have much of a self-preservation instinct and his…episode had been born entirely of that instinct. But then, Potter was twelve, wasn't he? And what twelve-year-old could face dying without feeling fear? "I – I – when the basilisk's fang had – I thought that I was going to die…"

He chanced a look at the professors. Snape, to his surprise, looked almost concerned though he hid it behind a rather angry scowl; Tom wondered why. On the other hand, Dumbledore appeared utterly sympathetic but to the Slytherin's trained eye, that was merely a cover for the frustration below it. Now that was interesting. Why would the old man need Potter to be comfortable with the idea of dying? It was definitely something to look into once he had more time.

For now, he just wanted them to leave. The stress of yesterday's events on his magic and Potter's body was quickly catching up with him, and he couldn't afford to make any mistakes around Dumbledore. Tom opened his mouth, intending to ask them to let him rest, when the doors to the infirmary burst open to allow a short, red-haired woman into the room. The woman rushed up to him, ignoring the two men completely, and threw her arms around him. Startled, he sat there frozen.

"You saved her! You saved her!" the woman cried, with her face half buried in his hair and heaving great breaths, as though she was trying not to sob. "You saved my daughter!" Ah, so this was poor, little Ginny's mother.

"Mrs. Weasley," Tom started to say but was quickly cut off by Dumbledore.

"Molly, please, we still need to finish getting Harry's version of the events," he said. Reluctantly, Mrs. Weasley pulled back and attempted to sort Tom's hair into some form of order. It didn't work. "Now, Harry, we need you to tell us everything that happened –"

"I already told you," he said.

Dumbledore heaved a great sigh and gave him another disappointed look. He'd already told them everything that Potter remembered; what was it that they wanted to hear? Biting his tongue to hold back a sneer, Tom stared right back being careful to mask his thoughts behind a chaotic mass of confusion and the occasional snippet of memory from the Chamber. It was a good thing that he did too, for not even a second after he met the Headmaster's pale eyes, he felt the telltale pressure of someone attempting to look into his mind. It took a great deal of control – control Tom was surprised he had – not to violently attack Dumbledore's presence, but he managed. He couldn't afford for the old wizard to suspect that there was anything wrong with the Boy-Who-Lived anymore than he already did.

As soon as Dumbledore left his mind, Tom raised his hand to rub his forehead. Snape's eyes briefly followed the movement before flicking away, with a gleam of barely perceivable rage in his eyes. He wondered what caused that, but quickly forgot all about it the moment his fingers brushed against the scar on his forehead. Painful jolts ran down his fingers and through his head. Before he could stop himself, he winced.

"Harry, dear," said Mrs. Weasley, "what's wrong?"

"It's nothing; just a headache."

But it soon became very apparent that there was something wrong. Several minutes after he had pulled his hand away the pain continued, ebbing slightly before crashing back at full force like waves on the beach. It was nauseating. He blinked rapidly, trying to focus on the concerned voices around him, but they sounded so far away, muddled and distant.

Long boney fingers grabbed his chin and forced him to look up into black eyes. Tom blinked, and wondered why things were suddenly so out of focus. The fingers tightened their grip; Snape narrowed his eyes. He pulled back, lifted his wand, and began muttering spells. Madam Pomfrey – when did she get here? he wondered – quickly hurried to do the same. They continued this for a while, occasionally pausing to mumble to each other.

Tom felt his body begin to grow limp. He blinked a few more times and his head swayed a bit. He felt the teacup slip out of his hand; dimly, he heard the shatter of porcelain. Each blink was now longer and slower, and it took more and more effort to open his eyes again.

"Harry." Tom forced himself to look up at Mrs. Weasley's concerned face.

"I – I think I'm going to take a nap," he said, with a slow nod. He wasted no time in doing just that.