Disclaimer- Not mine, wish it was but everything belongs to J.K.

Chapter One

Where Are We?

Harry woke up, feeling very groggy. He wondered if anyone else woke up from unconsciousness as often as he managed to. Harry blinked a few times to try and clear his vision and realised that he had fallen asleep with his glasses on. The consequence being that one of the arms was completely bent out of shape. He sat up slowly, groaning at the pain in his head and took a good look around him.

This definitely wasn't the Hogwarts hospital wing. Harry frowned, that was normally where he woke up after blacking out. He was sitting on warm wooden floorboards; warm because of a large fire burning in a grate next to him. He was thankful that he hadn't stretched out in his sleep or he would have a shoe-full of hot embers. Well actually he wouldn't have done. Harry stared at his feet for a second, wondering where his scruffy trainers had disappeared to.

There was a sudden noise behind him and Harry spun around on the floor. He saw Riddle sitting calmly at a kitchen table, leaning back in his chair with his arms sprawled across the backs of the seats next to him. Riddle had his head tilted to one side, considering Harry carefully.

"Where are we, Tom?" Harry asked. Memories of the chamber were rushing back to him. "Is Ginny OK? Why aren't we at Hogwarts? Where's my wand? And my shoes? What are..." Riddle seemed to realise that Harry wasn't going to stop talking any time soon and had picked up a wand from the table -Harry's wand- and used it to cast a wordless silencing charm. Harry's hand flew to his throat in surprise.

"Calm down, Harry Potter." he said, "We are in one of my follower's homes. We are here because I want you to be here. As you can see, I have your wand and I will hold onto it- you shall not be needing it for the foreseeable future. As to your friend Miss Weasley, her condition is still too unstable to judge. She is not however dead yet."

Harry glared up at Riddle from his place on the floor. He started to retort back but stopped when he remembered he was still being held under the silencing charm. Riddle stood up suddenly, and strode towards Harry. Suddenly feeling vulnerable Harry threw himself backwards and tried to back up, his back started sweating from the heat of the fire.

Harry wasn't going anywhere fast though so Riddle reached down easily and pulled him up by his arms. Harry tried to free himself but Riddle was much bigger and simply spun the twelve year old around before dumping him in a wooden chair and securing him with a sticking charm. Harry tried to push himself up using his feet but only succeeded in tipping the chair forwards. The instant before Harry's forehead connected with the solid table, a slim arm shot out and pulled him back to safety.

Riddle walked back around the table, "If you are quite done with trying to kill yourself..." Harry's eyes narrowed at the elder boy. He had only tried to stand up.

Riddle sat back down in his old seat, directly across from Harry. "Are you hungry?" He asked, summoning a pot of tea and two mugs from a counter. Harry nodded warily, he didn't trust Tom to not put some potion in his food.

"Good," said Riddle, "Listen to what I have to tell you and I might feed you today instead of tomorrow."

Harry's heart sank, he hadn't eaten since breakfast of the day he went down to the Chamber and he had a feeling that that was more than a day ago now. He went longer with less food at Privet Drive, of course but that didn't mean he enjoyed it. Tom poured out two cups of tea from the pot and set one just within Harry's reach.

"So, as I hope you have managed to figure out, I have kidnapped you. Don't gape at me, Harry Potter." Riddle said, raising a perfectly formed eyebrow. "I can call it what it is. You will be living here with me, for as long as I want you here. Do not imagine you can escape. Do not think you will be rescued, by the old man or anyone else. You will follow my rules, there will be consequences if you do not, and you will learn to respect those."

Harry stopped listening, taking in the rest of the room. He could see one door which looked like it would lead to the rest of the house. There weren't any windows that he could see, though... Ouch! Harry flinched, it felt like he had just been stung on the arm by a particularly vicious wasp. He focused back on Riddle who was frowning.

"Pay attention to me Harry Potter. I do not take kindly to being ignored by children." Harry had the sudden urge to stick out his tongue at Tom. "Do anything so childish as you are thinking and I will jinx your mouth shut for two days." Harry rolled his eyes. Riddle gave him a challenging look and Harry flinched away, expecting some dark curse to come his way. He was unsurprised by the stinging hex which hit his left ear a moment later.

"As I was trying to say before we lost track, I expect you to do everything I tell you to. You may eat when I say, speak when I say and sleep when I let you. If you impress me enough then I might even allow you your wand back someday."

Harry felt anger bubble up inside him as it never had before. He could feel the bonds sticking him to his seat and began to saw away at them in his mind. Imagining every join being worn away fibre by fibre.

"I don't know how long you might be useful to me, Harry Potter but you should know that you might never leave this house again."

This was too much for Harry who suddenly broke through both the sticking charm and the silencing charms which Riddle had cast on him. Harry jumped forwards and grabbed hold of his mug of tea, launching it towards Tom. Without waiting to see if it made contact, he leapt away from the table and towards the only door. He made it as far as halfway down the hall, towards the staircase when he felt arms around his midsection, lifting him up off the floor.

"You bastard. Let me go!" Harry shouted as he tried to jam his elbows back into Tom's head.

Riddle hauled Harry back to the kitchen and picked up the wand from the table. He pushed Harry down to his knees, facing the blank wall and cast a spell with a complicated gesture. "Adolehret" Harry's arms felt like they had been thrust into a fire and the burning didn't stop until Riddle reached down and pulled up his arms so that his hands rested on the back of his head.

"Let's try a little time out, Harry Potter. Do try to not move until I come back to remove this spell. I don't want to deal with any psychological burns.

Harry closed his eyes trying to stay perfectly still to avoid the pain which accompanied every movement. He could heard Tom moving behind him, opening drawers and clinking the crockery off the table. At one point he heard Tom walk past him on his way to a cupboard. He resisted the urge to turn and look at the boy but sustained his posture and watched as Tom passed him through the door to the hall.

After half an hour, all Harry could think about was the pain in his shoulders and lower back. Harry tried to shift a little but felt the burning start up again if he moved at all.

Sometime later Harry could feel tears pooling in his eyes and was doing all he could to prevent them from dropping. Footsteps started sounding on the stairs. Riddle came into sight and stood over Harry, watching him.

"Are you ready to behave yet?" Riddle asked.

Harry's muscles were shaking and he was developing cramp in his left foot. "Yes," he said, quietly, trying to only move his lips.

Tom nodded and released the spell with a short "Finite Incantatem"

Harry instantly slumped forward against the wall, arching his back. Riddle reached down impatiently and pulled him up to his feet. Harry stumbled because both of his legs had gone to sleep some time ago.

Tom pulled him out through the hall and up some carpeted stairs. These came out in a corridor with five doors. They headed through the door on the left.

The room was quite plain really, it looked like an ordinary muggle bedroom. It reminded Harry a lot of Dudley's second bedroom at Privet Drive except without all of the broken junk. There was a bed and a dresser but that was about it. Though Harry could see doorway to a bathroom which was covered by a curtain rather than a door. Riddle lead Harry to the bed and deposited him there.

Harry sat down expecting a long lecture but all he got was a brief "Stay here" before Tom turned around and left the room. Harry waited for all of 2 minutes before standing and trying the door handle. It was locked and Harry felt a buzz in his fingers like a small static shock and was surprised to see his whole hand had turned blue. Not blue like it was cold, but a bright luminous Smurf blue. Harry walked back to the wooden dressed and unscrewed one of the wooden handles curiously. He took it over to the door and pressed it against the wooden panels. Nothing happened. He pressed it against the door handle instead, it turned blue as well. He did it again. The handle turned Slytherin green. Once more and there was Hufflepuff yellow. Harry grinned, knowing what was left and was disappointed when it turned pink… and then purple...and then silver.

About an hour later Harry was leaning back against the wall from his bed, flinging all of the moveable items he could find towards the door. He had a pretty high success rate so now his pillow was orange, the pillowcase a neon green. The cupboard handles were all different colours. He had taken off and washed his socks which had been covered in slime from the chamber. They had turned from the horrible plain grey of Uncle Vernon's old socks into a vibrant maroon which reminded him of Ron but was much too dark to be a Gryffindor colour. There had been no reds or golds appearing a Harry knew it had to be deliberate. He wondered if the blanket on his bed would change colour as a whole or if each quilted section would change individually. However he was quite fond of the thing and didn't want to change it irreversibly, so he settled for having an emerald sheet instead.

There were footsteps on the stairs. Harry stood up off the bed because he didn't want to look vulnerable if Tom came in. The footsteps stopped just outside the door and there was the sound of wood tapping against the door. Riddle wasn't the type to knock before entering and Harry didn't particularly want him there anyway so Harry didn't bother to tell him to come in. There was a sudden loud swear from outside the door.

"Three hundred and seventy attempts to open the door handle? If you've gotten yourself killed from overdosing on shock hexes then you don't deserve to be revived!" The door burst open and Riddle was standing, glowering from the doorway.

He was speechless. Harry looked around the room. He supposed that some of the colours did clash quite badly but nothing seemed to be damaged. Harry himself only had a self-inflicted blue right forearm and a purple hand.

Tom visibly shook himself out of his surprise and came towards Harry, who shrank back a little so that he was standing against the bed. Tom raised an eyebrow at the defensive move but Harry could see the bruises that had come up on his arms from where Tom had grabbed him earlier.

"So," Tom said, "You decided to redecorate in here? I wish you had mentioned it, I could have helped sooner." Riddle lifted his wand and muttered a few words in Latin that Harry didn't quite catch. Harry himself returned to his normal colouring, then quite suddenly all of the charmed objects in the room vanished completely. A few more words and the walls changed from the yellowy shade they had been to an emerald wallpaper with silver snake designs which moved by themselves.

"Something more befitting of our heritage, I think." Harry sighed heavily, he liked snakes but after the basilisk was perfectly happy to keep his distance, and the Slytherin influence was way over the top.

"I am going out." Riddle announced, Harry looked back at him. "I have changed the charm on the door. If you touch any part of it then you will be stunned for a few hours, so my advice would be to stay away." He turned to leave.

"I'm bored" Harry blurted.

Riddle stopped for a second, thinking. He flicked Harry's wand and a second later parchment and a quill and ink came flying through the still open door and planted themselves on the floor next to the bed. "Here, keep yourself entertained. Try doing some studying or something. Merlin knows you do badly enough in most of your classes anyway. Maybe if you become a little more educated you could learn to actually participate in interesting conversation"

"I don't do badly at school!" Harry said defensively. "I do as well as Ron anyway, and better than Neville."

"Congratulations," Riddle sneered, "You are performing better than an idiot and on a par with the laziest person in your year. Do try to do something productive that doesn't involve chasing after trouble or annoying me. Sweet dreams, Harry Potter. I will be back tomorrow."

Riddle closed the door firmly behind him and Harry dropped back onto the bed, exhausted. That meant no food for today then. . At least he had a bathroom here, he could get water whenever he wanted and even if Tom starved him ten he could fill up on water and last twice as long. He lay back and felt for his pillow before swearing. Tom had just vanished most of the few things Harry had to begin with. At least he hadn't dragged the bed across like he had originally planned, that would have made this worse than the Dursley's.

Harry frowned at that. He had just been kidnapped by Voldemort – well some version of him anyway - and he had been hurt by him, with the curses before and the hex on the door. Still, somehow, Harry thought he might prefer here to being back at the Dursley's and locked under the stairs.

He was hardly feeling comfortable though, under no illusions that Tom could take all of this away with a few words. He could leave him for hours with that restricting curse on and Harry would be powerless.

Harry decided to have a shower first and went back into the bathroom. It was only small, with barely enough room for the toilet, a sink and a shower base. It was strange having a curtain instead of a door and the water from the shower seemed to be held in by magical wards since there was no walls around it. Harry mourned the loss of his grey towel, again regretting changing so much of his stuff. He thought it would be best to wash himself and his clothes now, while he could expect Riddle to be away for a few hours.

Harry turned the water on and adjusted it by speaking to it – like all the showers he had seen in the wizarding world. He washed his clothes first, wringing out the slime, blood and mud from the Chamber of Secrets. He hung up his robes over the frame of the bed, moving the blanket and mattress onto the floor. Finally he stepped into the shower and called for the heat to turn up. He stood like that for ages, just letting the heat wash over him and soak into his bones.

Stepping out, he wrapped himself in the blanket and curled up on the mattress. Harry fell asleep very quickly, exhausted from his long day- days? How long had it really been?

He slept for quite some time before sinking into a dream. It started with him watching Ginny Weasley. She was in a bed in the Hogwarts' Hospital Wing, surrounded by her family. She was breathing slowly and shallowly and not responding to anyone, even when Percy reached down and squeezed her hand. This dream fell away slowly and was replaced by another.

A familiar looking figure walked into a wrecked house. The man pushed through the gate and the front door. Opening them with his wand instead of touching them. Once inside he climbed the stairs, past a burn on the wall and a section of broken bannister, up into what looked like a child's nursery. Harry could see a mobile over the bed with magical creatures, and the odd combination of a stag, wolf, dog and rat. The man seemed to know exactly where to go and knelt down beside the crib. He reached one long-fingered hand underneath it and pulled out a long, thin yew wand.

The man caressed the wand gently, like he had missed it and the wand responded by producing a set of bright green sparks. The wand in the man's other hand oddly let out a stream of red sparks which mixed with the green to produce a small patterned snake which circled around the man before vanishing into a silver shower that crackled.

"How curious" The man said. He stood back up to his feet and disappeared with a CRACK.

Harry opened his eyes to the bright room. The lights were still on in the room and he had no way of dimming them without his wand. Groggily he stood up and dressed back in his robes before reassembling his bed. Harry wondered what time it was, but since he had no idea when he had gone to sleep it wouldn't have been much help if he had known.

Harry dropped into a chair in front of the desk, feeling bored. He picked up the quill and wondered what he should write about. His first thought was to write a plea for help. So far though, he hadn't seen any windows or doors and Riddle probably knew how to stop owls from appearing so there wasn't much hope that Hedwig was going to turn up either.

There was a fireplace downstairs so it was possible that the house was connected to the Floo Network like the Weasley's house. They must have arrived there somehow, Harry thought. Although he knew that adult witches and wizards had a way to travel long distances very fast. The 6th and 7th years were complaining about applying for licences, Oliver Wood and Percy had spent entire lunchtimes discussing 'The Three D's'. Harry was sure there was a charm that let groups of people travel together as well.

Harry remembered the letter that the Ministry of Magic sent him the year before. They obviously had some way of finding out when underage wizards performed magic outside of school. Or rather when spells were cast near them. Harry wasn't sure how that worked in wizarding households though - Ron's parents cast spells around their children all of the time. Still, if he ever had the opportunity then it might help the ministry to find where he was.

The thought that Tom might ask to see what he had done with the parchment stopped him from writing that note. He knew if Hermione was here then she would have a handful of helpful spells. She would be able to turn the words invisible or something. Or she would know how to write it in some intelligent code. Harry absently started drawing patterns around the outside of the sheet. He sighed, the only thing that came to mind was the Transfiguration final exam question. Rabbits into slippers; that was it. If whatever he wrote was either bad or good then it was more likely that Riddle would give him more parchment in future. If he kept doodling or spent his first sheet writing a letter then Tom probably wouldn't bother wasting any on him.

Harry managed to write down all of the theory he could remember on the background- not very much when he looked at it like this. He would be surprised if he did get a good result for the exam. It was the hardest question though, so he would probably scrape through.

This was all assuming that there was going to be a school left to return to. The basilisk was dead but he didn't know what was happening there, or even whether Ron and Lockhart had made it out or not, Ginny might not recover. Hagrid was still in Azkaban, Dumbledore was suspended from headmastership and Hogwarts was about to experience an influx of larger spiders. Hermione and the other petrified students hadn't been revived yet and Harry wouldn't put it past Tom to sabotage the mandrake draught.

Footsteps on the stairs again. Tom was back.