Harry's pet snake makes a new friend called Nagini and five-year-old Harry Potter meets a Tom Riddle who is a little lost after his escape from a journal. Meanwhile Albus Dumbledore seriously considers retirement. TMR/HARRY GREY!HARRY (whatever that means)
Compos Mentis
Prologue
| holy water cannot help you now |
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Tom Riddle is not a miracle worker.
With that statement in mind, one would have to consider then that this man, who doesn't look more than twenty years old, has spent most of the century trapped in a journal, linked to a Secret Chamber under a school that teaches witchcraft to children between eleven and seventeen.
So, not a miracle worker and also not very sane.
And then, if all of that wasn't already reason enough to lock him up in a mental institution, one would also have to pause and think back on the fact that Tom Riddle also happens to be the fragment of the soul of some mass murderer with wild ideas about blood purity and who went a lost his nose.
Tom likes his nose where it should be, in the middle of his face, firmly attached to his skin – so he completely disregards the fact that older him went and got it removed or the fact that older him was actually defeated by an infant who wasn't even able to form a coherent sentence.
But the point in all of that is, that Tom Riddle is not a miracle worker.
Which means that, when life hands him a five-year-old to take care of – well, not hand him, but he does burn down the house his relatives live in and you know, that sort of makes him his guardian by proxy – he does it the best way he can.
Harry Potter does not grow up to be a bubbly, cheerful child full of imagination and big ideas (like Tom would ever let that happen anyways), but he does grow up in a nice apartment, somewhere in the middle of busy London, with someone who seems to care enough about him not to make him sleep in a broom cupboard.
Because Tom, when he manages to make it out of the dreaded journal and unleashes hell on earth at Hogwarts by reopening the Chamber of Secrets, decides that he's had enough with the magical world.
He keeps his snake though and sure, you'll find him casting spells once in a while, you can take the Wizard out of Hogwarts, but not Hogwarts out of the Wizard and why do the dishes when you can just mumble a few words under your breath and somehow the plates bounce into life and clean themselves…
The point is, Tom is not a miracle worker, but he's brilliant and calm and can adapt to anything, so he takes care of the five-year-old who has a penchant for snakes and the greenest eyes he's ever seen the best way he can.
Since said five-year-old, now eleven, never complains, Tom Riddle actually believes he did a pretty good at organizing the shit pile that is his life.
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"Harry?" If someone had told him he'd be a banker in his early years, Tom probably would have hexed them. As it is, the London Bank offers a very nice paying job, enough that he doesn't have to worry about bills – he'd still hex them though.
"Yes?" Harry Potter does not grow up to be the bubbly, cheerful type of child. No, instead he spends an enormous amount of time with his head in books, stopping sometimes to pet the snakes that live in their apartment –
"Why are you reading a book in Japanese?" It doesn't shock Tom, not really anyways. The boy is so much Ravenclaw that at some point Tom considers changing the house colours to blue and black. But he's quite attached to the silver.
"I thought Geishas were pretty." Tom accepts the answer, throws his coat on the couch and stares curiously at the book in the boy's hands. Its cover is a vibrant red and then a chalky white, the woman's eyes darkened with coal and blue and gold flowers in her dark hair.
"What do you want to eat for supper?" Harry blinks, pushing a page marker in the book and turns to give Tom that smile, the one that is too calm and too calculated for an eleven-year-old boy. Tom narrows his eyes. "Not Chinese again."
And the boy pouts, a full on one.
"Oh, come on." He whines out, like this is the worst thing in the entire world. "Mr. Wu said they'd have a new special this week, a chow Mein sandwich Tom – a chow Mein sandwich, how can we not want that?"
"That sounds disgusting." Is Tom's reply, thinking about noodles and shrimps stuffed in a soggy bun.
"I know. That's why we have to try it." Tom's pretty sure that at some point in his life, he took a wrong turn somewhere and ended up here, in his London flat, with an eleven-year-old who's far too smart and weird at times.
He probably screwed up his fate at some point because he distinctly remembers his younger years and how he wished to rule the world and kill some old wizard who deliberately pissed him off – he remembers black robes and masks and people being scared of him and power, he remembers the power.
"Fine, but you are not ordering a chow Mein sandwich, you hear?" Harry smirks, not discouraged at all and jumps to his feet – probably to get the menu from the fridge.
Tom falls on the couch with a sigh and thinks that he's definitely too old for whatever this is, even if he doesn't look a day older than twenty-five.
He hears Harry order the dreaded chow Mein sandwich on the phone – yep, definitely a wrong turn somewhere.
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Albus Dumbledore is not an idiot.
Some people would call him crazy, others say he's off his rocker, but he is not an idiot – just eccentric. So, of course, when the first student is petrified, Nicole Simmons, a fourth year, Dumbledore already knows that the Chamber of Secrets has been reopened and that Voldemort has something to do with it.
He also knows that it's too early, that whatever happens in this Chamber is rushed, not meant to happen for at least another seven years.
You know, it really ticks him off. What ticks him off even more is the fact that no one bothered to close back the entrance in the Prefects bathroom and that he has to be the one to kill the Basilisk – it truly is an ugly creature, that keeps on hissing with its hideous and oversized tongue at him.
He lets Hagrid keep the monster's body, that will keep him occupied for at least a month.
After a very long, very draining day as the Headmaster of Hogwarts, the bearded man makes his way back to his office with the intent to relax and have a few of those Lemon Drops –
"Headmaster, No.4 Privet Drive went up in flames – they say there are no survivors."
Well, shit.
a/n: So, this is just a short prologue, for a story that will not make sense what so ever. After pairing Harry with Light Yagami and Kol with Caroline and Jasper and Bella, I just thought - hey what else could I screw with, SLASH! Anyways, don't worry. Harry does go to Hogwarts and he does end up with Tom. It's a slow process! Thanks for reading and I hope you enjoyed, let me know if you'd be interested in more!