It couldn't really last.

He should have been more careful with his test scores. The thing was that the more he spoke with Tom the more he felt Tom was a part of him, the things Tom said in passing or explained in detail became part of his own knowledge. After a month of talking to Tom every day multiple times per day suddenly multiplication and division just wasn't that challenging anymore. More than that though he had been proud, perhaps for the first time in his life, because he had someone to show those achievements to.

He thought his teacher would be impressed. He thought the Dursleys might even be proud of him, if only for a moment.

He didn't think he'd be accused of cheating.

They didn't believe him, he knew it the moment they called him over to talk with them. When they looked at him they saw the delinquent and freak that the Dursleys always told him that he was. He didn't even say anything, their eyes reflected the oversized frayed clothing and his own green eyes, and they saw the thief standing there in Harry's place.

The Dursleys thought worse though, they knew he hadn't cheated, but they said he did anyway. He knew that they knew he hadn't, that Dudley just wasn't that bright or motivated, but they lied and punished him anyway.

He'd never been sent to the cupboard for that long before. He stared at the ceiling, the diary open, and his hand on a pen willing the words to come to tell Tom about everything. He'd always been able to talk about the easy things, like learning things in school, visits to the park, crazy Mrs. Figg across the street but somehow the painful things just wouldn't come. There weren't any words for the Dursleys, nothing he could think of that would explain why this trip to the cupboard was so different from the others. He had nothing to say, instead he looked to his shelf and saw the toys that had been tossed aside by Dudley only to be remembered by Harry when no one was looking, and looking at them he felt again that wordless pang of emotion that he just couldn't describe.

Eventually he fell asleep and dreamed about Tom.

They were sitting on a grassy hill by a lake; beyond them wild flowers bloomed under the midday sun and in the distance white peaks brushed that clear blue sky. Harry was wearing the oversized clothing he had been in when he fell asleep and though he wasn't wearing his glasses somehow he could still see. Across from him sat a thin young man with dark hair and pale blue eyes. The man wasn't looking at Harry, but rather out into the distance beyond the mountains and the flowers, he sat casually leaning back on pale thin hands in dark clothing that was neither new nor old. Somehow, though he'd never seen him before, Harry knew it was Tom.

"Hello Harry," Tom said turning his head and smiling slightly at the young boy.

"Tom?" Harry asked in surprise rubbing his eyes and then blinking as Tom remained, "Where are we? What are you doing here?"

"We are dreaming." Tom said and plucked a wild flower bringing it up to his eyes to inspect it, "We are between thought and reason, where all reality bends itself to the whims of its maker. This is your kingdom Harry."

A breeze caught the flower and blew it from Tom's loose grip, the flower flew out toward the horizon and eventually out of sight. They both watched it, Harry solemnly, and Tom with that odd timeless expression that Harry couldn't quite name.

Kingdom, he'd said. Tom always talked like that about the notebook, about it being his kingdom, he'd never said he was god of it but it seemed pretty clear that he'd always thought that way.

Harry didn't really care about this dream-world though, his mind kept straying again to his state in the cupboard and at school; everyone staring with those sharp eyes and accusing with just a single glance for judgment. Except for Tom, but maybe Tom was just better at hiding it.

"Are we friends, Tom?" Harry asked, it was the first time he had. Every other time he'd just assumed or felt that it was true. Harry had never really had a friend before, he'd read about it in books and seen Dudley with his friends though, and so when he met Tom he'd just assumed that they were friends. He didn't look up for fear of Tom's expression.

"Of course." Tom answered without hesitation.

He said it so easily, without a shred of doubt, as if it were unthinkable that Harry wouldn't be a friend. And yet, why was it that everyone else did the opposite? It had always been that way, not just the cheating thing, but they had always looked at him as if they had known he was a freak. Even without hearing a word from the Dursleys they had looked at him and just known.

"It's because they're human."

Harry looked up to find Tom looking at him, those cold pale blue eyes burning into his, tearing through his soul to read the doubts flying through his mind.

"What?" Harry managed to say while looking away from those too observant eyes.

"It's in their nature to react with suspicion and fear to things they are ignorant of." Tom continued, "They see you and are forced to confront the ineffable nature of the universe they live in, and they hate it."

Harry paused and with horror asked the question he had not dared to ask, not ever, not even to himself in his darkest moments, "What does that make me? Not human?"

There was a pause and the world seemed to stop, if only for a moment, before Tom's voice broke through.

"No, it just makes you self-aware." Tom looked out to the lake for a moment and then said softly, "I told you that I was human once."

Tom never talked about when he was human, whenever Harry asked he flat out refused to answer, or avoided the question. As far as Tom was concerned, Tom had once said, he had always been a notebook.

"I grew up in an orphanage, and much like you I hated it and it hated me. They looked at me the way they look at you for all of my life. So no Harry, you did nothing to deserve this, but that does not mean it will ever stop."

How had he known? How had he known what Harry had been thinking? He'd never said anything to Tom, never really talked about it, yet here they were with Tom reading every stray thought that passed through his head. Or perhaps it was simply obvious, it seemed obvious to everyone else.

"Why?"

Tom smiled, it seemed an odd expression for him, strangely tender even while his eyes were cold, "Because you are special, Harry, and somewhere beneath the ignorance and incompetence they know it."

Special, was that what he called it? The Dursleys called it freakish, the school different, the students weird; everyone had their own name for it. Tom's was the only one that was even remotely positive, but that didn't make it true.

"I'm not special." Harry said shaking his head.

Tom waved the comment away with a single hand before lazily replying, "And I'm not a notebook. Harry, reality is that which when you stop believing it doesn't go away. You have a gift that they will never possess."

"What gift?" Harry spat out looking at Tom daring him to say anything, to lie directly to his face just like everyone else did.

And here Tom seemed to pause, as if to consider Harry, the soft smile trickled from his lips until only a quiet intensity remained. As the silence drew on and Harry watched he felt himself growing angry, the reflection of his own difference resounding in his head, and all the while no one answering the question of why things were the way they were; he wanted to scream at Tom, at someone, anyone and just make them listen long enough so that they could explain.

"You're a wizard, Harry." Tom said finally.

The anger faded slowly, dripping from his fingertips, as he wondered if a word was enough to explain all the troubles in the world.

"A wizard?" Harry asked softly, "Is that what it's called now?"

Tom's lips twitched as if he wanted to smile but was schooling his expression for the sake atmosphere, "For thousands of years, yes. I suppose if you have trouble with the name you'll have to take it up with the wizards themselves."

And the world shifted itself onto a more pleasant axis where fairness seemed more possible than it had been before.

"There are others?"

Tom nodded.

And so Harry sat and listened as the notebook who called himself Tom Riddle revealed the history of his people and his true place in the world.

"Focus, Harry."

Within the cupboard beneath the stairs an empty glass wobbled as if by an invisible wind.

"Concentrate."

The glass began to shake more violently threatening to tip over the edge and roll onto the floor. Beyond the glass the boy with dark hair was beginning to sweat but even so his gaze did not falter from the tipping glass. Outside of the glass the world had ceased to matter, the cupboard fading into the background, until only the voice in his head and the glass remained.

And although Tom could not see him, trapped as he was inside the diary, he could feel the sheer amount of will coursing through Harry and out toward the glass. Through Harry he could see the glass, only the glass, and could feel Harry imposing his own laws of reality upon it.

And though he knew that Harry was not looking at the notebook, that the notebook had disappeared along with the rest of the cupboard, he knew that Harry heard every word he said. Yet even as he listened the words fell away as only the tilting cup remained.

Tom had called Harry a wizard but even as he had said it he knew that it was not strictly true. Harry would be called a wizard when he turned eleven, they'd teach him to become a wizard, but he would never be a wizard. No wizard possessed the raw power that coursed through Harry Potter's veins.

The young Tom Riddle had been extremely powerful, more than power though he had been very intelligent, aware, and driven. Tom Riddle had wanted to prove himself, to defy the odds and will himself into greatness. His power, when compared to Harry Potter's, was a speck of dirt on the side of the road. Distantly, Tom wondered what his counterpart was making of all of this or if he even knew such a source of magic existed in a human being.

It was a small wonder Harry was getting stares at school. He practically bled magic, even inside the realm of the notebook Tom could feel his aura crushing in overhead. The orphans had feared and despised Tom Riddle for the equivalent of parlor tricks, how could he have expected anything less in regards to Harry Potter.

Still, there was something in seeing those eyes again, children's eyes that brought back too many memories of the human Tom Riddle. To his surprise Tom found that those eyes burned him as well as the boy.

He was not Harry Potter, only vaguely connected to him through strings of thought and emotion, and yet he felt as if they were staring through the boy and straight to him. The years melted away until he was in the orphanage once again, long before he knew of Hogwarts existence.

Within the notebook his surroundings transformed until he was beside his cot in that bleak gray place. His bare feet rested against the cold and creaking wooden floor boards, his hands resting in his lap, and once again he was a child no older than nine when the world was all that it seemed to be. Although he was alone in the room he knew the others waited just outside, waiting to strike him and beat him down, and if he concentrated hard enough he could even hear their whispers. On the table before him a glass wobbled as if by an invisible wind and his eyes narrowed, willing it to tip over, because like dominoes with the cup the rest of the world would fall.

The glass reflected not only his thin face but the injustices of the world around him, the world he must face if only for his own survival. It was a pale and dreary thing but it was his and he would fight for his place in it even if it damned him to hell, as he always knew it would.

Within and without of the notebook the two glasses fell to the side simultaneously and two dark haired children smiled slightly in victory as they began to realize their destiny.

"Very good, Harry."

And the boy in the orphanage was gone until only the notebook remained.

Harry was beginning to hate school. Before he'd met Tom it hadn't seemed so bad, it'd been an escape from the Dursley's at any rate. Life seemed to be divided like that, before Tom and after Tom, and though Tom claimed that it was a bit of a dramatic sentiment it seemed true.

He'd never noticed the staring before he'd met Tom. Oh sure, he knew that they didn't necessarily like him and that he really didn't have any friends but he didn't notice their eyes. He'd been too preoccupied avoiding Dudley and just trying to fit in, now he knew that he never would.

He wasn't sure if he was happy, relieved, or sad about that. In some ways he did feel lighter, more free to look around and really see the world, but somehow that world seemed darker than it ever had before. At least there were others, Tom swore that there were others and Tom was always right.

One day they'd come and find him, Tom said they'd come for him when he was eleven, and they would take him to the world where people like them existed. Wizards and witches, everything he had ever dreamed and more. He was eight now, that was just a few more years, and then surely they'd be there and take him from the Dursley's to visit fantastic worlds like the ones he saw in his dreams with Tom.

So Harry went to school even though he knew he would never really need it again, he did his chores for the Dursleys, and whenever their backs were turned he practiced magic, so that he'd be ready when they came for him.

Even so, school was becoming difficult. The teacher never called on him anymore, never even looked at him. Before that wouldn't have bothered him, he wouldn't have even noticed before, but now he couldn't help but see it. Harry had been a mediocre student before he'd met Tom, he'd never really tried knowing perhaps subconsciously that it would serve him no good to get too far ahead of Dudley. He couldn't help it now though, it felt like sometimes he was Tom and that Tom's knowledge just slipped out. Everything was so easy for Tom, it was like breathing, he just did it and so Harry did too. She didn't talk about cheating anymore but he could tell she thought he was anyway.

They were doing book reports today, watching the presentations he knew he had picked the wrong book. He'd picked a book that was too hard but it was too late to change now, and it wasn't like it really mattered anyway, they only had three years.

He took notes but listened with half an ear, in his mind he began to converse with Tom. He'd found that the more he talked with Tom the easier it was to converse, as if their invisible connection grew with use. A week or so after being told he was a wizard Tom began to be able to talk to him without having to use the notebook.

It was an odd feeling, it was almost like holding a conversation except not. Tom didn't feel like a person, sure sometimes he saw expressions or positions in his mind but Tom wasn't there. He lacked physical presence. It wasn't even like a voice in his head, it was just a feeling, like the feeling of magic, whispering to him without using his ears to hear.

What do you think Dudley's going to do? Harry asked Tom. He got the feeling that the question exasperated Tom, Tom really didn't like Dudley too much and preferred not to talk about him, but Harry knew he was bored enough to answer anyway.

Fail. Tom replied shortly.

Well, yeah, but I mean what do you think he's going to present on?

Harry liked to offer Dudley the benefit of the doubt every once in a while, he didn't always fail assignments, but Harry had learned pretty early on that Tom was always more or less right about these kinds of things. He also didn't like to be told he was wrong; he tended to verbally snap, or at the very least only respond in short sentences. He'd never outright say, I told you so, after he'd been proven right but he'd say something that really implied it.

Why should I care what your fat cousin presents for his book report? Tom replied in the same almost irritated tone.

Harry didn't really have an answer to that, because he didn't really know why he himself cared either. He felt like he had some obligation to care, because Dudley was his cousin, but didn't know where it really came from. He frowned, watching the girl presenting stumble over words as she described the book she'd read. Uncle Vernon and aunt Petunia had never really treated him like family, not the way other families treated their children, so he wasn't sure when he decided to pretend that they did.

Thankfully Tom didn't choose to respond to that. Tom stayed rather quiet about the Dursleys, whether to spare Harry's feelings or because he disliked them too much to talk about them Harry didn't really know but he was grateful at any rate.

How will they find me? Harry asked instead, thinking of the wizards who would come on his eleventh birthday.

They sent me a letter, but that was a long time ago, things may have changed.

Though he didn't say anything more Harry felt that line of questioning abruptly end and knew that Tom wouldn't answer another question like that even if Harry asked. Tom dealt out details from his past as he saw fit and rarely dispensed any more with any questions. Harry tended not to ask either; they felt like Tom's Dursley questions, something too dark and full of feeling to be touched. Even so there was a hint of Past in those words, of grief and resentment, and Harry couldn't help but shudder. No, he wouldn't make it a habit of questioning Tom about where he came from.

What he really wanted to ask was why he had to wait. He'd asked already though and Tom had given one of his not-answers that he sometimes did to complicated or painful questions. Why couldn't they find him now? Why would they leave him with his aunt, uncle, and cousin who hated him? If there were others surely they understood, surely they could see it too, hadn't they suffered through their own English classes?

Why would they make him wait in cupboards, practicing magic until his head pounded, instead of teaching him themselves?

He wanted to scream at them, at Tom, to make someone or anyone answer his question. He didn't though, instead he let it sit inside and simmer. Three years. He had three years. He would live, he'd get better, and then they'd come for him and he'd never have to be locked in a cupboard ever again.

And there was Dudley now, at the front of the class with his note cards ready to present his book. Harry shifted in his seat, unconsciously alerting himself to pay more attention to his cousin. Dudley caught the look and sneered slightly before looking at the teacher waiting to begin.

Somewhere in the back of his mind Tom waved Dudley off as being a nuisance and unworthy of his time.

Even so Harry watched as Dudley gave a presentation on a book aunt Petunia had read to him. Harry should have known aunt Petunia or uncle Vernon would help with Dudley's project, apparently that was a family thing to do. So, Dudley wouldn't fail then.

I didn't necessarily mean this idiotic book report, although given his rather impressive track record it was a fair assumption to make. Tom spoke up then, surprising Harry but before Harry had a chance to get a thought in edgewise Tom continued, Dudley will fail in life, he will always be an overweight little monster, no matter his age. He may pass this class, he may even pass this assignment, but his future is as good as set in stone.

Was it terrible that those words made Harry feel relieved, almost happy? He tried not to think about it, and watched the presentation instead. But Tom wouldn't give him a moment's rest, it felt as if Tom was looking through him, as if he were glass, to stare at Dudley's image and dissect it slowly with his thoughts.

Tom's calm and authoritative voice overshadowed Dudley's presentation until all Harry could hear were the words echoing in his head, It's his parents fault really, spoiled him rotten. From the moment he was born Dudley Dursley was doomed to a life of entitlement and mediocrity; incompetence and ignorance appear to be a vicious cycle in this case. Feeling mediocre and entitled themselves, his parents have passed on this disease to their son where it has grown like a cancer.

Harry stopped writing; his pen halting for fear that Tom's words might slip through his fingers and onto the page.

The truly pathetic thing is that none of them are aware enough to realize they're trapped. They go on about their lives, poisoning themselves with their greed and bitterness, until they've stripped their souls bare. They are caricatures.

And in his eye Dudley grew rounder, his face more jeering, until he stood like a child's play thing before the class; the fool giving a jest to the empty faces of the high court, nothing more than an abysmal joke. There was that feeling again, that lashing out within his own soul, telling him that he shouldn't think such things that such things weren't meant to be said and yet the anger was getting harder to suppress.

The magic had opened his eyes and now he found he could no longer contemplate his own contented blindness any longer. He couldn't go back to what he was, to that small frightened boy he had been, who believed in honor and blood relatives and authority. More importantly, as each day passed, as the magic flowed through him and outside of him, he found that he did not want to.

And yet he felt that he should want to.

Tom said the realm of the notebook was made of an abyss, that it was in essence a great chasm of thought and feeling, and Harry felt that he teetered over that very abyss now. The people surrounding him slowly shifted into their cartooned and leering forms, the room became jagged and the shadows grander and less complex than before, only Harry retained his essence.

Three years, only three more years, and the others would come for him and he would be free.

It was a mantra, a prayer that he said each night to himself before he allowed exhausted sleep to claim him. Tom had told him that they would come for him when he was eleven and Tom was always right.

He breathed out and the feeling slowly faded and Dudley returned to his normal size and shape, the other students regained their faces, and the shadows drifted until they became less jagged and dark. He brought up his pen and began writing notes on the presentation once again.

You shouldn't say things like that. Harry finally replied back to Tom, he is my cousin you know.

He got the feeling Tom dismissed the comment, just as easily as he dismissed Dudley's existence. Unsettled Harry pressed on.

I mean it, Tom, Harry thought while pushing away his own prior feeling of apathy, him, aunt Petunia, and Uncle Vernon are the only real family I have. That has to mean something.

Tom didn't respond, but somehow Harry knew that it wasn't because Tom didn't know what to say, but rather because he felt that Harry wasn't quite willing to listen to it yet. Like Harry had yet to learn some fundamental truth in the universe that couldn't simply be explained but rather had to be seen.

The silence unnerved Harry more than any argument could, Well, it does mean something. Harry snapped, but the presence in his mind did not change, gave almost no sign of hearing those words at all. Merely sat and let Harry think over his own words.

Dudley's presentation ended and the next student came up to the front of the class.

Author's Note: And there you have it, the revelation that Harry is indeed a wizard and the beginnings of the baggage that comes with that. Thanks for the reviews and for reading, you guys are awesome, reviews are appreciated.

Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter