In My Head

Disclaimer:

I neither own the rights to the Harry Potter franchise, nor do I make any money by writing this; it is a work of fanfiction.

Summary:

When Voldemort went to make his final Horcrux, he hadn't counted on the lengths to which Lily Potter would go to save her son. Consequently, the failed Horcrux that attaches itself to Harry contains all of the 'good' aspects of Tom Riddle that Voldemort had suppressed over the years. Join me in experiencing a revisiting of the Harry Potter series in which Tom Riddle and Voldemort are no longer one and the same, and Harry has at least one adult he can rely on…

…~IMH~…

...~IMH~...

Chapter One

When Rituals Go Wrong

Voldemort looked towards the window of the Potter house. Inside he could see the young couple playing with their infant child in a most revolting display of familial affection. Oh how such things made his insides roil.

He'd never really been one for all that love nonsense. That decrepit old fossil Dumbledore could keep his delusion of power through the affections of others. Voldemort knew that true power could only be found from within. His very existence was all the proof the world needed to show that one's greatness is defined by themselves, not who one counts among their friends. That so many chose to ignore this in favour of the base fallacy known as love was no failing of his.

Moving silently across the magical barrier of the Fidelius charm afforded Voldemort a brief moment of smug pleasure; How foolish are they to think themselves beyond Lord Voldemort's grasp!

As he approached the door he looked once more through the window; the young man – James was the name, if he remembered correctly – had placed his wand on the table beside him, discarding his only defence at the time it would be most needed. The irony made Voldemort chuckle slightly to himself.

Reaching the door, he hastily cast a large area of effect ward that would prevent the three main forms of magical transportation (Apparition, Portkey, and Floo) from working within a fifty meter radius.

He knew that the second he cast the spell, the Potters would be aware of an intrusion as their wards would detect hostile magic in the area. It was too bad that by that point it would be too late for them.

A casual flick of his wand blasted their magically reinforced front door from its hinges as if it had been a sheet of parchment caught in a hurricane. Stepping across the threshold, Voldemort allowed himself a moment to glance contemptuously about the small and abhorrently cosy entry hall he was in.

"Lily, take Harry and go! It's him! I'll try to hold him off – Just go!" James shouted as he ran from the sitting room to confront the Dark Lord.

Voldemort simply let out a cackle of wicked laughter; the idea that a whelp like James Potter could hold off the greatest Dark Lord of all time was so silly as to be laughable. He may even tell Bella after he had finished up here.

"Come now, Potter," Voldemort mocked as he easily stepped out of the path of the blasting curse James fired at him from the sitting room doorway, "You don't honestly think you can win?"

"We'll never give in to you!" James shouted as he fired off a spell chain. Voldemort easily dodged the stunner, blocked the cutting curse, banished the transfigured wolf, and reversed the blasting hex back towards its caster.

"Such a cliché thing to say, Potter," Voldemort continued to mock him as he launched his counter attack; a series of low level blasters and cutters that forced Potter to fall back to the bottom of the stairs or risk a potentially crippling injury.

"Will you next extol how love will eventually triumph over all?" the Dark Lord cackled, finding his goading of the foolish Gryffindor to be of the utmost hilarity.

James' answer came by way of a powerful banishing charm that would send a lesser wizard straight through the wall behind him. Voldemort was not a lesser wizard. He simply raised his hand, wandlessly swatting the spell to his left while his wand arm struck forward with an evisceration curse that tore the innards from the bear James had just transfigured from a bookshelf.

Growing tired of playing with the young man (and realising that despite his excellent track record against Death Eaters, James Potter's ability to duel was mediocre at best), Voldemort launched a series of high precision piercing curses at his foe.

James shrieked in pain as the first two blasted through his thighs, shattering both his femurs and sending tumbling gracelessly to the ground. The third curse struck his wand arm on the wrist, removing any ability to defend or counter attack. The final curse struck him straight through his stomach, meaning that his own stomach acid would kill him within the next ten minutes or so.

Voldemort looked down pitilessly at the man before him as he writhed on the ground. Taking slow, measured steps forward allowed James to focus on him though the pain. The best moment of any of these encounters was hearing a person's final words, right before snuffing them from existence.

He crouched down by James, locking his merciless crimson eyes with the tearful brown ones of the man he was about to kill, "For all your efforts, Potter, nothing has changed. The boy will die and the prophecy will be fulfilled. How does it feel to know that in the end your death means nothing?"

"By now, Lily will be long gone. Harry with her," James managed to get out between gasps of pain.

"Ah," Voldemort shook his head slowly, with a mocking smile on his face, "but you see, she's still upstairs, barricading herself in the boy's bedroom."

"You can't know that," James spat, a slight tone of pleading in his voice. "she must have escaped."

"Snakes can detect heat signatures using their smell," Voldemort calmly informed the dying man, "why do you think I changed my nose?" he let out another cackle of laughter.

"You may think you've won," James said solemnly. Ah so these will be his final words then. "But in the end a heartless monsters like you always fail."

"Always this talk of hearts," Voldemort said with only slight frustration, "must you people all be so unoriginal that everything must come back to love?"

He stood up and looked down at the man on the ground before him, "Now, although I'm sure it would bring me a great deal of amusement to leave you dying there while I kill your son, I'm afraid I don't like leaving business unfinished." He levelled his wand at James' chest and looked him right in the eye, "Avada Kedavra!"

Watching the life leave James' Potter's eyes as the green light of the killing curse stuck him was an immensely satisfying moment. Watching as life was snuffed out from another person was probably the only thing that truly made him happy in life. Sure having his way with Bella (or whatever prisoner he felt was not utterly beneath him) was pleasurable enough, but having the power to remove a soul from existence… perfection.

Moving up the stairs, Voldemort used his augmented sense of smell to lead him straight to his quarry. Standing outside the bedroom door, he decided to go for a more dramatic than brutal approach. Raising his wand, he incinerated the door and all the objects that Lily potter had piled up in vain in her attempt to barricade herself in.

She was staring fearfully up at him from in front of the child's crib, her body moving into a position to come between the child and Voldemort's wand.

"Stand aside girl," he commanded her as he stepped through the door, "you need not die tonight."

"Please! Not Harry, don't hurt Harry! I'll do anything!" she shrieked at him. Urgh! He did so despise when they tried to plead with him, it was utterly undignified.

"Silence!" he snapped, the ferocity in his voice causing the mother's mouth to clamp shut as her eyes widened in fear.

Unfortunately her maternal instincts kicked back in and she once again started babbling about her child. 'not Harry' this and 'me instead' that. Voldemort realised now that the woman would make it impossible for him to get to the child like this. He'd have to kill her. Unless…

"Crucio," he lazily intoned, the red light hit the woman square in the chest and instantly fell to the ground, howling in pain. He followed up with a silencer and a banishing spell to shove her to the side, all the while keeping her under the Cruciatus curse. That was Snape's boon taken care of; though why Severus wanted the Mudblood was beyond his understanding entirely.

Looking into the crib, he saw the crying child looking up at him through its startlingly green eyes. Clearly it didn't like seeing its mother in pain and was starting to work itself into full blown hysterics.

Voldemort decided to get the ritual over with so he wouldn't have to listen to the child bawling for any longer than strictly necessary; he found the crying of infants to be one of the most loathsome and irritating noises in all creation.

Cancelling the torture curse he had been maintaining on Lily, he swiftly fired off a powerful stunner at her twitching form so that he would have his full concentration on making the Horcrux.

Flicking his wand once more, he summoned three items from his robes, the first two were phials of clear liquid that would be used for the ritual. The final item was a masterfully crafted dagger that had once been worn by Gryffindor alongside his sword.

Voldemort placed the dagger on the ground between him and Harry's cot and used his wand to draw a complex runic configuration around it. This would act as to syphon the life force from the child into Voldemort which would in turn be used to tear his own soul which would then be bound to the dagger.

Unstopping the first phial, Voldemort immediately raised it to his lips and drank the entire potion in a single gulp. A shiver passed through his entire body as the soul loosening potion began to take effect, preparing his body and soul for the trauma of a soul tearing.

The next phial contained an interesting potion that directed the travel of soul energy. First, he moved to the child and doused his eyes in the potion (the eyes are the windows to the soul, after all), eliciting a howl of pure pain from the already hysterical baby. The Dark Lord then repeated the process on himself – making only a tiny hiss of pain at the horrific burning sensation that was assaulting his eyes – before pouring the rest of the potion over the dagger.

Looking back at the child, Voldemort levelled his wand at where the infant's head should be (although the potion made everything somewhat blurry) and breathed out a long, deep breath, taking in the historic moment where he would remove the only person who could ever threaten him from existence.

"Avada Kedavra!"

The spell hit the child on the forehead, causing the child to fall back as the spell impacted. He closed his eyes and waited for the pain of soul tearing to rack his body. Only it didn't come.

Opening his eyes he looked at the boy only to see that rather than dead, the child was merely unconscious. Upon his head, a strangely shaped cut was leaking blood all down his face and onto the bedding.

A horrific moment of clarity, Voldemort realised that Lily Potter had not been simply barricading herself in here. She had been setting a trap for him.

Looking over towards where he had cast her body he noticed immediately what was wrong. Lily Potter was surrounded by blood.

With a scream of fury he fired a cutting curse that tore open her clothing and showed him what had caused the blood loss. All across her bare back, fresh runes were carved into her skin, blood runes that were designed to negate the effects of dark magic within ten meters of her body.

And Voldemort had left her in the room. Her death from blood loss had offered the necessary sacrifice to power the runes while the Dark Lord had been focused on his own ritual. A ritual that had been tampered with by Lily's own magic.

With a scream of primal rage he turned back to the boy, the Fiendfyre curse upon his lips, only to be stopped in his tracks by what he saw. The boy's eyes were glowing.

Abandoning any plan he had of finishing the boy, Voldemort instead turned and ran to the door, only to be struck down as a blast of pure light burst forth from the boy's eyes, sending the Dark Lord flying into the wall.

The Dark Lord tried to rise from his position on the ground, his mind analysing the situation even as he registered that the blast had shattered his hip. The potion he had doused the boy's eyes with was acting as a conduit for the power of his own killing curse.

No sooner had he registered this then another beam of light issued from the boys eyes and connected with the dagger on the floor. Said dagger started to shake and glow with a violent green light before exploding with enough raw power to level half the house.

The last thing that Lord Voldemort felt was the unimaginable pain as his body and soul were torn apart in the blast.

…~IMH~…

...~IMH~...

Harry Potter groaned in frustration as he looked over the essay he had been writing. He was sitting cross-legged on his cot in the cupboard under the stairs with a sheet of lined paper pressed against the wall. From the combination of the odd angle he was sitting at to write using the wall and the fact that the size of the cupboard made him slouch over, Harry was very uncomfortable.

"Why do I even got to write this stupid essay?" he asked aloud, "no other kids have to write essays."

"Why must I write this essay, Harry. If you are going to complain, then at least do so properly," said a voice in his head.

"But, Tom," Harry whined, "none of the other kids have to write essays, why do I?"

"The other children in your class won't be going to Hogwarts when they are older," the voice said sagely, "Besides, it's never too early to practice essay writing. You will most certainly thank me when you get to your OWLs, Harry."

"When did you say I'd do my OWLs again?" Harry asked, trying to remember what Tom had told him about Hogwarts examinations.

"It will be towards the end of your fifth year, Harry," Tom replied, "Therefore, you will be fifteen when you sit them."

"But I'm only seven now!" Harry shouted indignantly before clapping his hands over his mouth in shock. The Dursleys would not appreciate him being noisy, especially when it involved talking to someone that wasn't actually there.

"Do be sure to keep quiet, Harry," Tom reminded him, "It was awfully horrid what Vernon did last time you were caught talking to me."

Harry scowled in remembrance; three days locked in his cupboard only to be allowed out to go to the toilet and sneak a mouthful of water from the bathroom sink. It had not been pleasant.

He suddenly felt a wave of sadness pass over him; it was a familiar feeling, something born of always being the odd one out, of always being discriminated against at home, of no one ever taking his side, of not knowing if his only friend was real or just a figment of his imagination.

"Less of that wallowing," Tom told him firmly, easily able to interpret Harry's thoughts, "if I wasn't real then you wouldn't have had the vocabulary available to question your teacher on her flagrant disregard for common sense and moral decency when comparing you with Dudley."

Harry snorted, "For all the good it did. I still got sent to the headmaster's office!"

"And I helped you deal with the situation from there," Tom's voice rang with a tone of finality.

Harry shivered slightly. He liked Tom, most of the time at least. He was polite and kind and told him about magic. But he could be scary too. Sometimes, when someone made Harry really angry or scared, Tom could control Harry's actions.

Usually he chose to do nothing, or to say something charming and clever to get himself out of trouble. If it involved Dudley he would always find a way to move just out of his cousin's reach. If it was Vernon, he would act properly humble and contrite, that usually resulted in just one evening in the cupboard. The few times he had scared Harry though, were when he was alone with someone that was not a family member.

Harry could clearly remember how scared he was at being sent into the Headmaster's office; he was one of uncle Vernon's old friends from Smeltings, and believed uncle Vernon's tales of Harry being a menace as if it were Gospel truth. When Tom had realised things weren't going to go their way he had just raised his hand and the man had started writhing on the floor, screaming but without any sound. After about a minute Tom had waved Harry's hand again and the Headmaster got a glazed look in his eyes, he had then sat up as if nothing had happened and told Harry he could go back to class.

"Never fear me, Harry," Tom had told him, "I remember many things from my old life. Most of my memories are so foul that I dare not speak of them. But if I must, I will use my knowledge to keep you safe."

"Why would you keep me safe?" Harry had asked him.

"Because I am tied to you through magic and blood," was his only answer.

Harry snapped out of his memories, and settled back to the task at hand. Putting his pencil to paper once more he continued to write out the various uses of Aconite in potions and the different effects that can be derived from its usage.

"You know," Harry mused as he started a new paragraph, "I don't see why I need to do this anyway. If you're always going to be stuck in my head then surely you could just tell me the answers when I have to my OWLs."

"That would be cheating, Harry," Tom said sternly. Tom was very much into how a person makes their own power. The amount of times he had lectured Harry about it were beyond counting. That Harry chose to ignore him was not really his fault, what seven year old orphan would rather think about how pronunciation of consonants within incantations can affect spell effectiveness when they could be imagining what it would be like to have a real family, not just the stupid Dursleys and a voice no one else can hear?

"Then maybe you should get your own head to think in," Harry told him smugly. Despite Tom's failings he was still fun to tease sometimes.

"Harry, you know perfectly well that I'm bound to you in an incorporeal state," Tom retorted sharply. He always got in a little snit when he was on the receiving end of a joke, so Harry did it sparingly.

"Not that you'll tell me what that actually means," Harry reminded him, determined to have the last say.

"The implications are far too much for a seven year old to handle," Tom said, sounding like a petulant grown up (a very odd thought to come from a seven year old, but to be fair, Harry's only friend is a grown up).

"Then you'll just have to put up with me asking until I find out," Harry told him happily, he then laughed happily to himself, pleased as always to outwit Tom.

"Yes, yes, let us all laugh at Tom," the voice said sarcastically.

"Okay!" Harry said before bursting out laughing again. Seven year olds really are easy to amuse sometimes.

"Oh do quiet yourself!" Tom said huffily, "You had better finish that essay now, Harry. Vernon will be taking Dudley to watch the football soon and we'll have to book you an appointment at the opticians while Petunia is cleaning the bath."

"Yeah, okay," Harry agreed, quietening himself enough to continue on his essay. "The words have been getting fuzzier lately."

"Which is the only reason I haven't criticized how you have been penning your f's recently. Honestly, they are absolutely atrocious!"

…~IMH~…

...~IMH~...

A few years later saw Harry sitting in the living room along with the Dursleys. He was just out of range of Dudley's Smeltings stick and was trying to figure out why any school would consider them a good idea when the sound of letters hitting the floor alerted the Dursleys (and Harry) that the post had arrived.

"Get the post, Dudley," Uncle Vernon said, not looking up from his newspaper.

"Make Harry get it!" Dudley whined

"Get the post, Harry," Uncle Vernon amended, still not looking up from his newspaper.

"Make Dudley get it," Harry tried, just for the hell of it.

"Hit him with your Smeltings stick, Dudley," Uncle Vernon instructed his son, clearly fed up of all this talk interrupting his morning read.

Harry sprang up and headed to get to the post while Dudley was still working out whether or not it was worth the physical effort of getting up from his chair to hit Harry.

Lying on the mat were all the usual stuff, bills for Uncle Vernon and letters to Aunt Petunia from her insipid friends on Magnolia Crescent (she couldn't have proper friends on Privet Drive as she was convinced they would at some point see Harry. That and they would possibly look down their nose at her front garden). Most curious of all though, was the letter addressed to Harry, a letter that had a crest on it that he remembered Tom telling it about before…

"Pocket it," Tom suggested while Harry was still staring at the first piece of mail he had ever received.

Why? He thought back. He had realised that talking to Tom without actually speaking was the best way of not freaking people out by talking to seemingly no one (the time last year when people had thought he was schizophrenic had been a real eye opener).

"Because if I know your relatives – and seeing as I've been in your head for about a decade I can safely say I do – then I can say with the utmost certainty that they will in no way approve of you receiving this letter. Hide it and read it later. I'll try and figure out something to do about the situation."

Fine by me, Harry acknowledged as he stuffed his letter into one of the pockets in his baggy trousers and headed back into the living room.

The day progressed normally from there; Harry was sent to clean the toilet, weed the garden, mow the lawn, and polish the kitchen floor. Aunt petunia dusted the entire house and ensured all the crockery was in perfect condition. Uncle Vernon drove by the office to check up on how work was doing. Dudley stayed in his room, playing games on his computer.

In what felt like no time at all, Harry was sitting in his cupboard reading over his Hogwarts letter, only half listening as Tom reminisced about Hogwarts.

"Of course, I had expected that Dumbledore would remain Headmaster," Tom said, his tone somewhat pompous (he really did like it when he was proven right about something). "That McGonagall is the deputy is not surprising in the least. Though I can't quite remember if that happened before or after I got stuck in your head…"

How did you get stuck in my head? Harry asked him for the umpteenth time. He didn't really expect an answer, he just asked out of habit now.

"I'll tell you when you're older," Tom replied absent-mindedly before carrying on his discourse on the texts Harry would be studying. "Of course, the history tome is essentially the same as they had back when I was last in Hogwarts – I applied for a teaching post, don't you know – it's the same author to boot. Back when I was a lad we never used Bathida Bagshot, although Binns still taught the exact same Goblin revolt nonsense."

"Sure thing, Tom," Harry muttered as he looked over the list of necessities again, trying and failing to work out a way he could pay for all of his school equipment.

Say, Tom, he thought, what happens if a student doesn't have the money to afford their school things?

"Ah yes," Tom broke off his bookish sermon just at the point where he started talking about the potions texts (Harry didn't see much point in getting one of those as Tom had made him memorize just about every common potions ingredient and their usages known to man). "When I was a lad I was able to draw from the muggleborn funds. But, unfortunately, as they didn't have a teacher deliver the letter to you they think you already know about Hogwarts and will be expecting that the Dursleys can pay your expenses."

But the Dursleys would never pay for my stuff! Harry insisted, starting to worry that he wouldn't be able to go to Hogwarts after all. Then he really would have to go to Stonewall High. Surely I can get in contact with Hogwarts somehow.

"Not unless you have an owl or a wand I'm afraid." Tom said, after a brief pause his tone turned much more speculative, Harry took this to be a good sign. "Although, if we can get to Diagon Alley-"

Diagonally? seriously? Harry interrupted. Is that meant to be some sort of Wizard joke?

"You know, I've never found out. Although the adjacent alley way utilises a pun of the word 'nocturnal'"

"Please don't tell me it's Nocturn Alley," Harry muttered aloud.

"I'm afraid it is, Harry, although it's spelt with a K, as in to knock a door," Tom confirmed for Harry. "Anyway, enough distractions, I was about to reveal my ingenious plan."

Fire away.

"Yes, well, first off we need to get you to London," Tom informed him, as if that was as easy as walking to the park, "From there you need to get to Diagon Alley and subsequently Gringotts – that's the bank wizards use – where we may be able to inquire after the Potter holdings…" Tom petered out at that point, Harry was about to tell him he liked this plan when he suddenly dashed all of his hopes. "No wait, you don't have the key. Blast! It was a good plan as well; nice and self-sufficient."

Harry sorely felt like using some of Dudley's favourite swear words at that moment. What do we do now then?

"We'll have to show your relatives the letter," Tom said, he even sounded rather glum about it.

Tom made Harry place the letter back in the envelope and talked him through using his magic to melt the broken wax seal (just enough so that it melded back together and appeared unopened), the effort left Harry physically drained and he had to lie down on his cot for about half an hour before he was able to walk into the living room and declare excitedly:

"I have a letter!" Harry's overemphasised shout and smile caught the attention of his family as they all looked confusedly up at him. Surely the boy can't be happy about something!

Vernon was about to wave it of as inconsequential when a shriek of ear splitting magnitude issued from the thin lips of Aunt Petunia, "Oh Vernon!," she sobbed melodramatically, "it's from them!"

Uncle Vernon moved faster than Harry had ever seen in his life, practically leaping across the room to snatch the letter from Harry's grasp. Harry in turn only put up a token attempt at protest, "Hey, that's mine!" before settling in to watch as his Aunt and Uncle decided what to do.

What neither Tom nor Harry had expected was the completely illogical reaction of Petunia and Vernon Dursley. From their initial refusal to acknowledge that the letter was for Harry at all (which was easily countered by pointing out the inclusion of his cupboard on the front of the letter), to moving Harry into Dudley's second bedroom (Tom had at that point said not to intervene to see how amusing things could get), to even blocking off any way for letters to get into the house via nailing plywood to just about any wall/window/door that could possibly lead to the world outside (not that that stopped the letters).

So it was that on the night before Harry's birthday was spent sitting in a miserably cold shack, situated in the middle of nowhere (literally), and having an argument with Tom about whether or not they had let things get too far.

I know it was funny, but now that I'm freezing my arse off-

"Bottom, Harry, must you always be so vulgar?" Tom interrupted him with what Harry knew was a rhetorical question.

Anyway, I think Uncle Vernon has actually gone mad. I mean, who honestly thinks this is a good idea.

"And that package he's got is clearly some sort of firearm," Tom agreed

You're supposed to be persuading me this is was a good idea! Harry bemoaned, not liking that Tom was agreeing with him at the one time Harry wanted to be wrong.

"Sorry," Tom said, sounding sincere, "look on the bright side; it will be your birthday in just under a minute."

A real smile slipped across Harry's face. Sure, his birthdays weren't full of cake or presents like Dudley's were, but every year since Harry had turned seven Tom would teach him a new bit of magic (that was excluding the heat spell he had used to melt the wax on the letter).

So far Harry could open simple locks, repair his glasses, summon small objects from a few meters away, create a small silencing charm that would stop his feet making noise, and of course now he could heat things up if he focused his magic on them.

What can I learn this year? Harry asked excitedly, all thoughts about the cold shack completely forgotten.

"Can't say just yet, Harry," Tom told him, though Harry could hear the smile in his voice (an odd thought seeing as Tom lacked the physical form necessary to smile).

Guess we'll just have to do the countdown then, Harry thought back as he checked his watch.

"Ten."

Nine

"Eight."

Seven.

"Six."

Five.

"Four."

Three.

"Two."

One.

It was at just that moment that a sudden loud banging sound issued from the door. The tremendous noise of which was enough to wake Dudley up, his frightened jump making him fall clean off the sofa he had been sleeping on.

Moments later Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia were coming down the stairs, Vernon armed with a double barrelled hunting rifle which he was aiming shakily at the door.

"I'm warning you," he shouted, his voice breaking towards the end, "I'm armed!"

In response the banging stopped for a moment. Harry actually wondered whether his Uncle had scared the person off when suddenly the door was knocked clean off its hinges. The howling wind screamed through the house and made Aunt Petunia scream and hold down her nightdress for fear of it floating up.

Harry, though, didn't notice any of that; instead he was staring in complete shock at the person who was now standing in the doorway to the miserable little shack…

...~IMH~...

...~IMH~...

A.N. Hi everyone, I'd like to say a huge thank you for checking out this fic and reading to the end of the chapter. This story is still in its infancy so your feedback on what you make of it will be very much appreciated.

Also, please let me know what sort of things you would like to see in the story (be that a pairing preference, or even just scenes you'd like to see) as it will help make getting ideas easier for me, and the experience more fulfilling for you.

Thanks again for taking the time to read this.

Blddmn.