Author's note: I did some editing on the story to make it clearer after getting several hours sleep and several reviews along the lines of WTF?. The idea came to me at 4am and had to be written right then. Hopefully, it's clearer now.

&!&!&

He had been about to go for the Philosopher's stone when the package arrived, addressed not to Professor Quirrel, but to Tom Riddle. Inside were two items, a round black disc with a hole in the center and a piece of parchment upon which the words Don't bother, the stone's a fake. Flamel never trusted anyone with it, not even his wife. 45rpms Astronomy Tower, Midnight. had been written in Harry Potter's handwriting.

After an order from his master, Quirrel managed to summon an old fashioned Phonograph which he altered according to precise instructions to enable it to play the 45 that came with the note. Voldemort could tell from the intro that the song was a muggle "rock" tune from long after he'd left that world behind.

All our times have come

Here, but now there, gone

Seasons don't fear the Reaper

Nor do the sun, the wind, or the rain...

Voldemort left Quirrel's classroom a while later. He had found Potter's choice of song odd, but fitting for this night. Before the night was over, one of them would be dead. The confrontation was earlier than he had hoped it would be, but he knew that it had been coming since the break-in at the Malfoy Manor - in which "Nothing had been taken" - and the second break-in at Gringotts - in which an item had been removed from the Lestrange vault - had been announced.

On the way to the Astronomy Tower, he couldn't help but hum the muggle tune that had been on the record. It had been kinda catchy.

Once he reached the Tower, he found the Potter child standing over something familiar looking, something he hadn't seen since his own first year. As he looked into the Potter boy's eyes he remembered a promise that someone had made to him when he was delirious with fever and thought he would die. The Matron and the nurse were gone, they had left him. He had been left to die alone, and he was afraid. As he lay there burning up, a man who looked both young and incredibly ancient at the same time came to him and had whispered into his ear that when the time came, he wouldn't be alone.

He didn't fear the outcome of the confrontation. He didn't fear the Potter boy. He didn't fear the Reaper.

It was as if the final piece of a puzzle snapped into place and the picture was whole. Soon afterward, he was flying.

&!&!&

Albus Dumbledore returned to the castle to find several of his instruments shrieking bloody murder. He called for the other professors and they raced down to check the protections on the stone. They were all intact.

He set the teachers to searching the entire castle.

It was Professor Snape who had found them.

Atop the Astronomy Tower was a broken wand, a fractured stone, and the shredded remains of a very familiar invisibility cloak next to a small pile that consisted of a cup, a diadem, a ring whose stone had been torn from its setting, a locket, a diary, and a dead snake.

At the tower's base there were two - and moments later, after he had failed to stop him... three - broken boys.