XXX

Albus Dumbledore sighed with a frown as he gazed at the unconscious seven year old Harry Potter. The soul piece residing inside of him was obvious. He could feel the dark magic from three kilometres away. He needed to get rid of the soul piece. But there was no way for him to kill it, without killing Harry. Unless, Harry left this body.

He had been hard at work finding an appropriate ritual, and he'd succeeded. It would transfer Harry's soul to another body. The only problem, he wouldn't know who. But he'd deal with that in the future. Harry couldn't destroy Voldemort without killing the soul piece that had clung to his own.

There was a thirty percent chance of failure, and a fifteen percent chance that Harry would go to another's body, but bring the soul piece with him.

Albus finished designing the ritual circle and began to chant. Of course, he didn't want to do this, yet it was the safest options. At least this ritual wouldn't result in the boy's possible death.

Nothing physical happened. With a frown, Albus procured his wand. He revived the boy, and the seven year old looked around in confusion, before his eyes settled on Dumbledore.

XXX

Tom Riddle couldn't do anything when trapped inside of Harry Potter's body, as he was only a mere fragment of the bigger soul. However, he could still observe. And observe he did. But, why exactly he was allowed to move the boy's head around at will confused him. Glancing down, he noticed that he was still the malnourished boy known as Harry Potter, but a pentagon was under him. He creased his eyebrows before he looked around.

Albus Dumbledore. The man stared at him with a kind, yet somewhat annoyed gaze. He got the feeling that the man thought he was Harry Potter, too. Scrambling backwards, he put on a fearful expression. "W-who are you?!"

Dumbledore sighed and raised his wand. "If only it'd work. Obliviate."

Darkness consumed his mind.

XXX

There wasn't really a handbook to point out the signs when someone else was in your body. However, Hermione knew. Of course, she could distinguish his voice from hers. Maybe that was it.

But for about a week, there had been someone else in her head. He'd introduced himself as Harry. Neither of them knew how he got there, just that he was. And there were also the physical changes. Hermione's eyes, for example, had once been a dark, honey brown. Now, one of them was a bright, emerald green, while the other retained it's original colour. Her hair became much more manageable, yet still very wild.

She and Harry were very confused, to say the least.

When she asked her parents about it, they only claimed she had an imaginary friend. Harry was not imaginary. And, anyways, he could also control her body.

And things only proceeded from there. For about two years, she would try and convince them of Harry's existence, Harry himself would attempt this seemingly impossible feat, until they broke.

Jean Granger glared down at her. "Shut up you little freak!" And turned, frantically whispering to her husband. Hermione had gotten the gist of it, learning that if she apparently continued like this for another year, she was going off to the mental hospital. Hermione didn't think her mum was serious, but she did look up certain hospitals for the insane just in case. She didn't like the results.

Harry was much more physical than herself, though. He played football and was in charge when P.E. was taking place. While she preferred to spend her time indoors and reading, he jumped at the opportunity to play a game of cricket.

That's how she found herself observing through one eye as Harry sprinted around their back garden. He liked rising at ungodly hours of the morning to do this.

Hermione wasn't sure what to make of her time with Harry. Without him, she'd be much different, undoubtedly. They didn't really have any friends. That was attributed to their random bouts of freakishness, as Harry had informed her, his aunt Petunia had claimed it was called that. She didn't like that term, though. Her parents said he was just an imaginary friend, yet where worried that she was actually crazy because 'children stop with that nonsense when they're five, Michael!'. Hermione found herself scowling internally at this.

'What's wrong?' Hermione shook her head.

'Nothing, Harry. Let's go inside.'

'I'm hungry,' he complained. Hermione snorted. 'You're always hungry, Harry.'

'Hey!' She ignored him with a smile and began to grab the ingredients for toast and marmalade. She looked up as her mother entered the kitchen, dressed for business (even though she had none to attend to), as always. "Hey, mum."

Hermione didn't consider how carefully Jean was watching her. Harry did, however. He knew that Hermione was naive to the fact that her parents were rather... disagreeable. With Aunt Petunia as a relative, he knew what a faker looked like. The Dursleys had been particularly good at that. "What are you doing?"

"Just making breakfast," Hermione said, biting into the toast. "Harry's exaggerating, though. He says he's starving! We had a huge bowl of cereal last night, though!" Harry took over immediately. He saw the look that took over Jean. Disgust and anger.

"Get out." Hermione's eyes widened. Jean's fists were clenched and she glared at the floor. "Get out! You're not my daughter!" Tears streamed down Hermione's face, while Harry just sprinted upstairs and locked the door, emptying out Hermione's large school bag and simply depositing a couple changes of clothes and some other things Hermione cared for inside. He ripped off the locket Hermione had recently received for her birthday, knowing it would only hurt her and pushed the window up.

It was still relatively early, so nobody noticed the small girl that skated a long a roof, jumped onto the wall and then ran as fast as her little legs could carry her.

XXX

Hermione was in shock, Harry realised. She didn't respond to his conversational attempts and whenever he entered her side of the brain, she was stood in a corner and blankly staring passed him.

He did expect this, though. His relatives had been so cruel, and family, he found, was only ever a disappointment. Now, it was just him and Hermione. They were running. And they were fine.

XXX

Alastor 'Mad-Eye' Moody felt the breach in his wards immediately. Someone had managed to get inside. Or, near, to be more accurate. Nobody could get in here without being accompanied by himself. Like Tonks, who was in the middle of review work for the Auror Academy. He was the girl's mentor.

"Get your wand," he commanded, standing up and stalking to the door, ignoring as his wooden prosthetic leg creaked under him suddenly springing up.

"What is it?" Inquired the girl, her hair turning from hot pink to a dark blue as she tilted her head curiously. The girl was used to his paranoia. But, fortunately, she did as told and followed him outside.

"Somebody's gotten passed the Muggle and Magical repellant Wards and is currently standing outside of the more dangerous ones," came his gruff reply. Tonks' eyes widened.

"Could it be a-?"

"Death Eater?" he interrupted, opening a wooden gate. "Probably. They hate me. I did get more than a few hits on the bastards." Despite the person being more than a few miles away -he owned many acres of land- he spotted a little girl -probably nine or ten- with wild, brown hair and one brown eye while the other was green. Probably Polyjuice, he thought. He warned Tonks as they advanced.

The girl was obviously weak from hunger, yet she persevered forwards. But when she spotted himself and Tonks, she tripped, landing face first on the ground. Alastor didn't buy it for a second.

He grabbed Tonks' arm to stop her from helping the girl up. "Who are you!" He barked, pointing his wand at her.

The girl looked up, and opened her mouth to say something. "Harr-" she bit her lip, and something in her eyes changed as they gained a much more intelligent gleam. "Hermione Gra-..." she trailed off, flinching. "Just Hermione."

Alastor glared at the girl. She obviously had secrets. "Well, 'just Hermione', how did you get here? This place is unplottable and well protected." Her eyes changed again, as suddenly there was a fire not there a second ago.

"Well, you evidently need to get a better understanding of those words, as w- I just walked here from London." Alastor advanced towards the girl. "Shut up, Harry!" he heard Hermione whisper to herself. Harry? Alastor trained his wand on the girl. But his eyes suddenly narrowed as he felt the magical core resonating from within her. She was almost as strong as Dumbledore! He'd expect this kind of core from two grown, powerful wizards, but mot from a little girl.

However, as he made to cast the Legilimency spell on her, Tonks stood in front of her. "Alastor! She's only a child! And she's starving! Don't touch her!"

"I'm not going to hurt her." He conceded. He knew how determined the witch could be. "Now move." Tonks opened her mouth to argue, but his magical eye swivelled to her and she backed down. It could truly unsettle anybody.

His magical eye began to take in every feature about the girl. From the dirt on her face to the scratches made from tree branches on her arms. And them he noticed something else. His magical eye could see a person's aura. And he could see this girl's, too. A bright gold. But, behind it, was a silverish grey one. As if... as if there were two people here. This caught him by surprise and he quickly cast the mind reading spell on her. Yet, he was blocked.

"Who are you?" he repeated. Hermione and Tonks sent him confused looks.

"Hermione."

Well, he might as well wing it. If he's wrong, he'll claim insanity. "And the other person... with-" he reconsidered. "-inside of you?" The girl gasped and tensed. Hot the nail right on the head. The girl seemed to be having an internal war. Finally, her eye changed once more to the fire he'd seen moments ago.

"We're not sure what, exactly, happened, but one day, when I was seven, I woke up and I was in Hermione's body. My name is Harry. Just Harry."

Tonks fidgeted uncomfortably. "We should probably hold this conversation inside. She- he... they! need to eat."

Harry smiled up at her. "She is fine, don't worry. Less confusing."

"Though-" this was Hermione's interjection. "I'd call us gender fluid as there are two different genders in my body." Tonks smiled and nodded, her confusion evident. She directed Alastor to bring them inside and he reluctantly conceded. They needed to find out more about this 'just Hermione' and 'just Harry'. A child or not, any unknown factor was still a danger.

With a frown, he led them inside where they received a recount of their pasts. That did not include a full name, however, Alastor found that he could understand that. Abusive Aunt and Uncle on Harry's part and abandoned by her parents on Hermione's. Of course, he still didn't trust them, despite having learned their entire life stories. This was to be expected, though. He barely trusted anyone. Alastor sat down to think about these revelations as Tonks brought them a meal, and then, to bed. He wouldn't be getting any sleep tonight, he knew. Constant Vigilance was key.

XXX

Days passed quickly for Harry. When they were found by Mad-Eye and Tonks, both he and Hermione were quite wary. But, Alastor had made the decision to keep them. He'd even pulled some strings in the Ministry to get him custody of himself and Hermione. Of course, that was after he'd decided they were powerful enough that if they were taken by the dark side, they'd hail destruction upon the Wizarding World.

Ah, the Wizarding World. This was something both he and Hermione were careful of. It was not something they'd deign to trust immediately. Especially after hearing so much about war and dark wizards from Mad-Eye.

Now, both he and Hermione were torn when they were informed of the fall of Voldemort, and who apparently brought it about. Harry Potter. That was his original body. Harry wouldn't be lying if he said he honestly didn't care much about going to his old body. He and Hermione had been with each other too much for them to be split apart. It just felt wrong. But that didn't stop his curiosity.

Moody claimed that apparently Harry Potter had been living with his Muggle relatives (true) but then they'd died in some fire. He was now the Ward of the Longbottoms. Dumbledore, his guardian, had not had the time to care for a child, apparently, so he had entrusted him in the care of Augusta Longbottom. This was supposedly classified information, though.

Harry sighed as he remembered where they were. Moody had claimed it a necessity for them to learn to defend themselves. So he had hired some private wandmaker so they could acquire the perfect one for themselves. The wandmaker had procured a wand with poplar wood, a dragon heartstring and phoenix feather core, twelve and a half inches and hard flexibility. Neither Hermione or himself had been interested in the wand at first, but when they'd picked it up... something had changed. It'd just felt right in their hands. For some reason, the wand cores hadn't reacted weirdly when paired together. Moody speculated that this was due to the two souls in their body.

It was quickly deduced that he was better than Hermione at Defense, so he was currently fighting off the old man.

'Some nine year olds we are,' he heard Hermione mutter.

'I prefer the term 'special',' Harry replied, barely dodging Moody's spell. He tripped on a loose floor board -deliberately placed, knowing the man- and fell down. Truly, it was unfair that he was bombarding them when he knew literally nothing about magic.

"Up, Harry! Or would you like tp be killed by a snail! As slow as you are, it's likely!" Harry sighed and pushed himself up, only to be forced back down by some spell. He huffed in annoyance as Hermione giggled.

'I'd like to see you fight him.'

'I'm good,' she replied, grinning. 'Watching you lose is good enough for me.'

'Of course it is!'

XXX

Tom Riddle had found killing the Muggles ridiculously simple, and even easier to get away with it. Really, he knew the old barmy coot believed he was Harry Potter, but even he had to admit that it was slightly suspicious that he'd managed to get out when his 'relatives' were burning alive. Then again, Dumbledore had attributed it to his accidental magic acting defensively.

He'd been placed with the Longbottoms, and, to them, seemed every bit the perfect prince.

Two years passed, and so did his plots. Tom realised something; away from the larger soul piece, he could see things from a slightly different perspective. A political perspective. And he realised that now, as he was Harry Potter, he could do so much more from that angle. Of course, he needed to rejoin with the other soul pieces; for as powerful as he was, he was weak without his full soul. That was something he'd learned after appearing in Harry Potter's head as a horcrux. He'd deal with immortality later.

His first year had been quite boring. He already knew all of the material. The only interesting thing was when he found his original soul on the back of the Defense teacher's head. They'd rejoined quickly, and they'd moved the body to the very place where Voldemort was going to that night. He told Dumbledore that Voldemort had been on his head (the truth) and he'd managed to somehow defeat Voldemort. He claimed to not recall much, but Voldemort had fled the scene. Dumbledore had readily believed him.

Second year was quite the annoyance. His subordinate, Lucius Malfoy, had deigned it necessary to entrust the care of his first horcrux to Ginevra Weasley! A child, and a blood traitor, at that. Well, Tom had played the hero and while the girl's soul was being sucked out of her corpse, he reunited with another piece of his soul and destroyed the diary with the Basilisk fang (he'd ordered it to enter a state of hibernation and to give him one of it's fangs). He'd brought the -unfortunately- alive girl to the headmaster's office where he played the bashful Gryffindor after saving the day, once more. Before the school term ended, he'd travelled to the Room of Requirement and taken Ravenclaw's diadem. It was easy to get his soul back from it.

He found himself scoffing at third year. He'd always known Pettigrew was Weasley's rat, the signs were obvious, but the amount of people that'd hyperventilated over Sirius Black his supposed right hand man -not- breaking out of Azkaban. Of course, he'd played along and ended up in the Shrieking Shack as their teacher, a werewolf, found them and Sirius Black and immediately everything had become a nuisance to him. Especially when the cowering rat had been revealed. He was, honestly, proud to watch as Sirius killed him. He was too annoying to stand near. The Ministry had been summoned, and he'd somehow been portrayed as the hero in this situation. Unfortunately, Sirius was exonerated, but he was staying in St. Mungo's for mind healing, so he didn't have to move away from the Longbottom's just yet. At least he had managed to make multiple allies in Hogwarts.

But as Tom imagined how his fourth year would be, he found himself both curious and dreading. So many dunderheads surrounded him, it surprised him that he hadn't murdered every single wizard in a day.

He wondered what'd became of the real Harry Potter. He doubted the boy was dead. But where he was fell on deaf ears. He'd deal with that later, though. He currently had some pawns to deal with.

(A/N I'm aware that this is pretty fast paced, and that is due to this basically being a summary chapter. Tell me what you think in the review section!)