AN: Holy Arctic Seal Babies. I love you guys. Thank you for the wonderful responses! (And to all the silent people who have added this to their alerts/favorites, I still love you too.) Your warm reviews overwhelmed me, seriously. I thought this was a dumb little fic that no one would like. It's cool to see that I was wrong. :)

Coldblue: I'm working on new chapters of Haunted Memories and Misconceptions simultaneously. They're both almost complete. Give me some breathing room. I'm still in school and studying for finals, so I'm running on coffee and more than a bit frazzled at the moment.

Beware: This is unbeta-ed!

I HIGHLY SUGGEST LISTENING TO "ONLY A MEMORY" BY ICON FOR HIRE! It fits this story. :-)

Chapter 1

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Harry

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Harry is numb.

The smoky feel of soft, half-incorporeal pages lightly touching his flanks has long since assumed the feeling of blank nothingness. He has become unaware of their presence. They only serve to remind him of his prison, enfolding around him lovingly, like a warm embrace, one that he can never escape from.

The void that he floats in, weightless, is a dull shade of white-ish gray, with mottled blobs and ribbons of slick ink curling artfully through the fog, like hair under water. There is no up, no down, no left or right. There is no air to breathe or ground to walk upon. He is simply there.

There is no physical manifestation of his body.

(That was probably the most excruciating thing about the whole ordeal at first.)

It is the most terrifying feeling to wiggle your arms and legs only to discover that they simply do not exist.

It is so silent. He used to attempt to hum, to sing, but there is no sound (no lips to shape the hum, no vocal cords to vibrate, no lungs to inhale and release) and the only noises are in his head.

(But a thick, mind-dulling blanket has fallen over his cloudy mind, muting it, softening it, and over the decades he has found that he does not quite remember the pitch of the croon that Hedwig used to emit when stroked, or the exact shade of Ron's fiery hair, the sound of Hermione's nags, the feel of magic flowing through his body.)

He does not sleep, which, in a way, is simultaneously a blessing and a curse. He cannot have nightmares, but he cannot avoid the dull agony of waiting for nothing to happen either.

Time has no concept. Sometimes, he sort of falls into a daze, in which everything is like liquid, flowing and smooth and quiet and he simply waits, but other times, the blanket is lighter, not as suffocating, and he thinks furiously and plots and schemes.

Decades after Tom (simply remembering the name makes him hurt) discarded him, the nothingness presses in on him too tightly, as it sometimes does, too constricting, and he panics, mentally flailing, screaming a scream that does not exist.

The lifeless stray ink blots, winding sluggishly around his ankles like liquid chains, suddenly tighten, and though he does not feel them, does not feel it, he knows they are tugging him away, and the dreary white void around him darkens to smoky gray as if he is falling into a yawning dark chasm, and then—

"—very good Tom, fifteen points to Slytherin—"

"—want an essay on the rise and fall of the dark arts by Monday—"

"—I am the King Of Slytherin, Abraxas, he'll fold to me—"

"—Kill the Mudblood—"

"—Freak—"

"—Yes Masssssster—"

"—hung his rabbit from the rafters—"

He is not watching snippets of scenes, not hearing any sounds, but somehow, the memories burn themselves into his mind, like they're his own experiences, before Tom, before the diary, and he just knows they happened.

He realizes that he's found Tom's imprints, after all these long years, and feels a savage joy, because knowing an enemy is knowing his weaknesses. But all too quickly the atmosphere lightens once more, and the undulating blobs of ink are docile and languid again.

Calling up Tom's fading memories from the bowels of the diary's pages is hard, mentally taxing, even, so Harry cannot do it as often as he would like to.

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Harry remembers with vivid clarity the first time someone opened the diary after Tom cast him out.

Because the first time in Merlin knows how long, he feels.

He feels the touch of youthful, slender fingers gripping his cover, feels them turning him over, opening him wide, and the sensations are like bombs exploding all over his body, awakening his blocked nerves, and he wishes he could scream from the simple exhilaration of human contact.

He wishes desperately that he could cry.

The fingers flip his pages, buffeting him like a boat on choppy seas, and somehow, the void shifts backwards, so that, if he assumes correctly, he is looking at what might be considered up.

The floating dribbles of ink surge above him, to the imagined sky of the white-ish void, and suddenly they split, bleeding into small little groups, taking shape, etching themselves in sharp movements as they solidify, scrawling across the sky—

1953, March 3

Dear Diary, I found you in a dusty old used bookstore. Can you believe that? Who would give away such an authentic-looking diary? I can't wait to show Margaret, she collects these sort of things, you know, and oh, she'll be so jealous!

He stares, and knows that if he had a voice, he would be speechless. It has been so long, so long, since anyone has written in him—in fact, no one has written in him since Tom—that he finds himself at a sudden loss of what to do.

The person—his savior—does not contribute anything else, so he freaks, and a fleeting phantom of instinct overtakes him, and he is mentally reaching up, grasping the words, plucking them right out of the sky. He has no hands to feel, but he senses each letter's solidness, its thickness and weight. The delicate arches and loops lose their rigidity, melting to ink, and, still following the memory, he dips his mind's eye into the pooling ink—

–and writes, picturing a finger dipped in the substance, (like black, rotten blood), trailing across the void's roof—

Hello. My name is Harry Potter. What is yours?

… He is too late. The cover has already slammed, he feels himself being shoved to the side, and the thrill of sensations fade and the letters he has painted in ink-bloodied invisible hands dissolve, falling slowly, gracefully, joining the other blots of ink—

He falls into a shocked, disappointed numbness once again.

No one writes in him for a while after that.

The aftershock of disappointment is so great, so drowning, (So close I was so close Why is this happening to me why why why) that he lets himself sink down, deep into the abyss, where he remembers Tom. The blanket returns, heavier than ever, yet this time, he does not fight it. Awareness is too painful, too harmful. He barely bothers to make contact, and only when the new owner's entries are extremely interesting. But they usually get rid of him the moment after.

It stays that way for decades.

Calcutta, India, 2013

Bruce

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The worst thing about Calcutta, Bruce thinks irritably, is the humidity. He removes his glasses carefully, rubbing away the grease that slicks the bridge of his nose with a grimace. It's been a few days since his last shower, and he feels utterly grimy. His skin shines with perspiration, mixing with the smudges of dirt. He thinks he looks like a cat that's been dragged through a mud puddle and left out to dry.

He sighs, adjusts his glasses, and lies back on his mat, staring wearily at the thatched clay roof over his head. He's been occupying this cramped little single-cell house for the last few days, and his paranoia is stirring once again, tapping its anxious fingers against his common sense, which firmly insists that he's fine. There's no possible way that he could have been followed, not in this sprawling mess of a city, right?

'Wrong,' he thinks bitterly, thinking of last month's fiasco, and turns over, punching his balled up jacket to form it into a more suitable pillow.

He is tired.

Bags, puce and haunting, cling to his lower lids, screaming his lack of sleep. He's been having nightmares again; the kind that makes him jackknife to a sitting position in the middle of the night, yelling his lungs hoarse.

(Flashes of green, rippling muscles, veins grotesquely bulging underneath the emerald skin, stupid glaring eyes, flexing fingers popping a larynx box with the ease of snapping a twig.)

He flinches, and his hand wanders to the little bottle of sleep medication that he'd (guiltily) stolen a few days ago, cradled securely in a small pocket sewn onto his bag. He shouldn't take sleep meds, they make him slow and drowsy, and that is the one thing he does not need to be in the middle of an emergency. And really, he hadn't wanted to take it, but the dreams were so awful, so realistic, that he'd swiped them and dropped them in his satchel before he'd even taken the time to think through his actions. This is what sleeplessness does to him; it makes him reckless, careless, and he cannot have that, because all it takes is one mistake to end up in a submersion tank again—

He hurriedly unscrews the cap with shaking fingers and pops a pill, swallowing it dry.

Even with the artificial drowsiness brought on by the medicine, he lies awake for hours, listening to the buzz of insects and city nightlife, the pounding of feet on dirt-packed roads, the raucous laughter of family and relatives.

In the room next to him, through the thin walls, he hears carefree conversation, as two travelers swap stories—good memories, great food, the people they've met on the road…

His heart pulses in his chest, diffusing a slow poison through his body, an achy sting that settles in his ribcage. He catches the stray, horrible thought (I am alone) and tightly clamps it down, tossing lock after lock over the traitorous, sad little muse.

Because honestly, the last thing he needs is more depression.

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Three days later

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He really needs to shave.

He fingers the rough, dark spread of stubble that stains his chin and cheeks and frowns, fishing in his satchel for the bottle of cheap shaving cream and his old razor. The blade is in desperate need of a new head, and often does more harm than good to his skin, as evidenced by the healing cuts that pockmark his face, but he does not feel like wasting the precious money to buy a new one.

He gathers his things and pays his daily rent to the withered hag who owns his apartment on his way out, in search of a bottle of water, which he can use to whip up the lather. Maybe he'll find a public bathroom somewhere in the city, wash his face in the sink—

A small, gaudy shop catches his eye. For some reason he can't explain, he finds himself slowing down, peering closer through his dirtied lenses. The shop is small, precariously constructed of stiff boards with various brightly colored cloths thrown over it, and sandwiched between two high rise, filthy buildings. It flashy colors—are those towels?—are like a splash of vibrant life among the tans and browns of the muddied complexes that crowd the narrow street.

He hasn't been down this way of the street, yet, he reflects, and then acidly thinks, 'Why not make some good memories for a change?'

He enters the little shack on a whim, brushing aside the thick bead curtain that acts as a door and stooping to fit through the small door.

Clutter. Lots of old junk almost positively bursting off the shabby shelves that cram the store. Faded colors, ragged blankets, half-filled water bottles, small dolls missing eyes or fingers, or, in the case of a pale hairless doll, a nose, which creeps Bruce out immensely, so he looks away.

Still though, the knickknacks are interesting, so he maneuvers his way carefully through the thick shelves, occasionally picking up a random object and turning it over his dirt-lined palms. From the corner of his peripheral vision, he sees a subtle shift of movement and goes on alert, discreetly eyeing the shop owner. The woman sitting on the tiny stool is old, weathered, with deep lines carved into her tan skin, nearly hiding her dark eyes in the folds. Her nose is strong and hooked, and her dark brows contrast oddly with the pepper-streaked frizzy black hair tightly bound back. She stares at him solemnly. Bruce notes how she seems like another broken doll in the shop. If he couldn't see the slight rise and fall of her chest, he would have assumed her to be a life-sized toy.

He turns back to the shelves, absently trailing his hands along the sad toys. He wonders idly who they must have belonged to before, their stories, their memories, and his hand settles wistfully on a small pile. He sighs, wondering if their story is as sad and pathetic as his is, and then flinches as the tiny movement dislodges the bottom object, sending the whole jumble clattering to the earthen floor.

He kneels immediately, apologizing to the shopkeeper—still watching him—and scoops them up in his arms, intending to reorganize them in their proper place.

Soft pages brush his skin. He pauses and looks at the heap. There is a small black leather book, poking out from underneath a doll's plastic outstretched arm.

Maybe it is the prospect of a story to fill his thoughts, distract him from his daily life, but he shifts the delicate thing to his right hand and restores everything else back to their place, his curious gaze never leaving the black object.

It is obviously quite old, scuffed and dirty and the pages hold a little ripple in them that signifies an encounter with water before. He trails a finger over the black cover. It's leather. It must be. Either that or it's a very convincing fake, but either way, despite its battered state, it's rather elegant.

He flips it open using his thumb, and frowns at the distinct lack of words. The sheets are yellowed and heavy. He rubs one between his fingers. Parchment. Strange. He didn't know they still used parchment like this in bookmaking.

'Not a book,' he corrects himself. 'A journal.'

He fans through the rest of the mysteriously blank pages, finding not a single blemish. He flips it over—

And finds the embossed initials T.M.R.

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AN: DO NOT WHINE! I can hear you! I'll try to update quickly, goshdangit, you hungry little stalkers!

Also, my butt hurts really bad from sitting in my uncomfortable wooden desk chair for HOURS just to write this for you guys. This chapter represents the sum of my day's effort. Read it carefully.

(By the way, did anyone catch the little Voldemort reference I threw in? It doesn't matter to the actual story, I just did it for kicks. It's in Bruce's POV.)

Review!