Chapter 2: Remains of a life

"I give you this to take with you:
Nothing remains as it was. If you know this, you can
begin again, with pure joy in the uprooting."

-Judith Minty

~Harry~

As Harry looked around the room she told herself that tonight she would run off and never come back to this place. That she would never come back to Wool's Orphanage, come back to look at Tom Riddle, or this room again. But somehow Harry knew that it was a lie…she could no more leave this room than she could escape this curse. The thought of sharing a bed with Tom Riddle was more than a little odd but Harry accepted it easily enough.

This boy was a child, he had yet to do the damage he was destined for to her and really he was all she had that remained of her life before this happened. Tom was staring at her again as she went around the room pretending to look at things…Harry ignored the weight of his eyes. She put her clothes at the bottom of his wardrobe over a box that Harry was sure contained Tom's stash of stolen things. Harry had long since moved past Dumbledore's notion of 'good' and 'bad.

It amused her to think of Dumbledore's high and mighty convictions now…after everything she had been through. The truth was that no matter how much Dumbledore wanted to believe there was inherit goodness in people…the fact of the matter was that was just not true. Too many times she had been a child drowned by a deranged parent, too many times she had been that girl they burned at the stake…and she had seen too much to believe in the good in people.

People were cruel, people were monsters in disguise, and there was no saving them from themselves. You can only save someone who wants to be saved after all. That's why Harry knew any overtures to changing Tom Riddle's path in life were futile and foolhardy. People never changed, and any attempts to push change on someone were bound to end badly. So Harry looked around the room, hand on her pocket where he knife laid and just reveled in being near Tom.

It was like being near her first life, being near the remains of a life she had once had, once lived, once loved, and it was more than she had in a very long time. Harry sat on the bed, it was stiff, but it was better than the ground outside. Tom watched her as she pushed off her shoes and crawled over to the side of the bed nearest to the wall. Then she patted the empty spot beside her in a wordless invitation. Harry was only a little surprised when the boy took her up on it and laid down beside her.

The bed was far from big, a small twin mattress, but they were both small enough that they could lay down on it without feeling overcrowded. Harry had wondered if there would be enough room for the both of them on the bed and now her question was answered. They stared up at the ceiling together in quiet company together. It was nicer than Harry wanted to admit to herself.

"What are we," Tom asked distractedly as their magic began to clash against each other again.

For a while Harry didn't say a word, wondering what she could tell him, and finally settled on, "Well we're magic," she said.

Tom tensed beside her for a minute before a large smile bloomed across his face, his magic sang with his excitement, "Magic," he said as if testing the word on his tongue, "I knew we were special."

Harry wondered if she had made a mistake coming here, because she could see that no matter how indifferent she was to changing Tom. No matter how much she didn't care to change the future…Harry knew her being here would change something. They were laying there for a while before Harry felt the faintest brush of fingers against her hand. She didn't pull away or flinch at the contact, so Tom emboldened by her passive acceptance slowly took her hand into his own.

Their fingers threaded together, and even though Harry knew she was doing it…she couldn't hold back her disbelief. Harry was holding hands with Tom Riddle the future Dark Lord…it was…surprisingly nice. "How old are you?" Tom asked eye still firmly on the ceiling.

"I don't know," Harry said honestly.

"When were you born?" he asked.

"Don't remember, what about you?" she said hoping to steer the conversation away from her non-existent memories of her body's life before death.

"I'll be nine in ten days," Tom said simply. "What do you remember," Tom asked curiously.

"Nothing, I woke up in a burnt down house on the other side of London," she said sighing, "I don't even know my name…I just picked Harry cause I liked it." She said.

Harry felt Tom turn and stare at her in disbelief, "You chose the name Harry?" he said aghast, "Is it at least short for something?" he asked as if he wasn't sure he wanted to know the answer.

"Nope, just Harry, but I suppose if it bothers you so much you can make it short for something," Harry said smile on her lips amused that something as simple as a name disturbed the future Dark Lord so much. Though she supposed Tom Riddle did have a thing about names…he would name himself Lord Voldemort.

Tom leaned back onto the bed in silent contemplation, "Have you picked a last name yet?" he asked.

"Nope," Harry said simply because she honestly thought claiming to be a Potter would not go over well in the future.

"Well then I'll just have to give you one," Tom said, "Vedette," he murmured.

"What?" Harry said.

"Vedette, that's your new last name," Tom said seriously, "It means Star." He added as if an afterthought.

"And my first name?" Harry asked.

"If you want Harry, then that's your problem," Tom said. Harry wondered why he hadn't gifted her with a first name too but then she figured he couldn't figure out how to make Harry short for something more unique. That was fine, it was odd enough being given a name but her once sworn enemy.

~Tom~

He couldn't take his eyes away from her face, tracing the high cheekbones, the lines of her pouty mouth, the curve of her ear, the shape of her eyes, and Tom didn't really care. Her eyes were a shade of green he had never seen before, dark but at the same time they almost glowed with bright intensity. Tom's eyes caught the gleam of her hair and resisted the urge to run his fingers through it to feel its softness.

Tom hated touching, being touched or touching other people was both uncomfortable and strange for him. Unlike a lot of children here, abandoned by their parents through death or cheapness Tom had always been at the orphanage. Where the other children looked at the road leading up to the gates of the orphanage with longing eyes…waiting for their parents or a relative to come for them…Tom knew better.

The parents that left their children here because they couldn't afford to feed them, or couldn't handle taking care of them…never came back. Some foolish ones always held out hope that the ones that abandoned them would come back, repeating their parents' empty promises to do so in their empty heads. Tom had watched them all come and go, some ran away, some were adopted…some killed themselves. Yet here he remained, forgotten and scorned.

Not that he cared anymore. He had long since gotten past crying, tears never did anything and would only bring a hard smack it he made too much nose. Tom had never been hugged, never been coddled like the other children who came here later in their lives. He was lucky; he didn't have memories of soft caresses and gentle care haunting him like the other children. Tom didn't want to be touched now anyway, never having been touched without the gravest of reasons because the adults here were frightened of him.

His eyes followed the lines of his hand as it entwined with Harry's and realized he didn't mind touching her. Tom had taken her hand because the closer he was to her the more he felt the warmth of her magic brushing against his own. Touching Harry was enjoyable, not that Tom would ever let Harry find out that. They laid there in silence and Tom watched as her eyes grew heavy while her breathing slowed.

Soon Tom realized he was watching her sleep and realized they had missed dinner. Tom was used to missing meals though, he was always hungry anyways and from the hollows of Harry's cheeks Tom knew Harry was used to going hungry too. Curious Tom ran a gentle hand over her cheekbone, and finally feeling her hair as soft as he had thought it would be. The dark red of her hair stood in sharp contrast against his pale skin and reminded Tom of the blood from Billy Stubb's rabbit in the low light of the moon through their window.

Tom decided Harry reminded him of fire and roses…both were things he had been drawn to before but never as intensely as he had been drawn to her. Gently he reached into her pocket and pulled out the thing Harry had been touching constantly today…it was a pocket knife. Tom opened it and tested the sharpness of the blade against his fingertip. Blood blossomed up easily and Tom smiled wiping the blade off on the sheet before slipping it back into Harry's pocket.

He didn't want to be tempted by the blade now, not with Harry laying there so vulnerable and tempting. Tom forced the knife's existence from his mind as he stared at Harry's face. She was his now, forever, he would never let her leave him…he wouldn't allow it. Harry had let her name her and so by all rights she belonged to him now. He petted her hair and delighted when she moved towards his hand in her sleep. Yes, Harry was his now and no one else was ever allowed to touch her.

The hand holding her hand tightened as the possessive thoughts ran through his mind and Tom scowled. Tom knew better than to ever allow Harry to escape him now that he had her. People never stayed, not unless you made them, parents left their children, couples parted, but Tom wouldn't ever allow Harry to leave him. She was his now, forever, and Tom didn't care if he had to tie her up and lock her in a room…she wasn't allowed to leave him alone again. Not ever again.

Now that he felt this warmth, now that he felt what it was to have her, well…there was no going back to that bleak colorless cold loneliness. He wouldn't allow Harry to take it away now that he has had a taste of it. The thought of the dead parents that had left their children behind without a thought dying and leaving them alone chilled Tom. Death had never been a pleasant thought for him, if what the preacher said was anything to go by…death was even more unpleasant than life.

Harry could be taken by death, or he could…because in spite of their power everything died. Then Tom remembered what Harry had said, magic, they were magic. Magic didn't follow normal rules, magic allowed impossible things happen all the time and maybe that was the answer. If magic could make animals obey, if magic could hurt people without a trace, perhaps magic could grant immortality too. Tom turned hungry eyes onto Harry's face, hand reaching out to force her to face him and he smiled.

There had to be a way, there must be some spell, some secret hidden away out there that would give Tom what he wanted the most. He would discover a way to escape death, and then he would take death away from Harry too. Then she would never be able to escape him, because he would take death away from her so she couldn't use it to run away from him like his mother had. He ran a gentle finger over her bottom lip, and he would find a way for them to stay young too.

His lip curled in disgust as he thought about the stooped wrinkled figures of old people and he refused to ever be brought low by that. They would be young and live forever…together. Tom allowed his eyes to close, hand cupping Harry's face as he curled over her possessively and knew…one day he would be free from this place. One day, he would walk away from Wool's orphanage with Harry at his side and he would never look back.

~Harry~

Harry fiddled with the very ragged looking violin in her hands, it was tattered, the wood was splitting, there were no strings on it and there was no bow in sight. It would have to do. She ignored the looks Tom was giving her for have gone 'dumpster diving' for it after she had seen the music shop owner toss it. Luckily this happened after they had already attended morning service at St. Mary's otherwise she would be looking at a caning for her appearance.

It had been two weeks since she had been captured by the bobby and taken to Wool's. Tom's birthday was tomorrow but Harry didn't think that the boy expected her to get him anything. She couldn't even had she wanted to since Harry was experiencing a familiar lack of funds at the moment. Hence the beat up looking thing that was in her hands as they trailed behind the other orphans on their way back to Wool's.

In one of her early lives she had 'woken up' in the body of a master violinist who had just committed suicide…apparently when you had that much talent you tended to get overwhelmed. Luckily no one had witnessed the man's death since he had been the estranged child of a wealthy couple and tended to go off to his cabin for weeks on end with no contact. It had left her with a bit of a problem, waking up in the body of someone with that much talent that was relatively well known for said talent.

It made taking over his abandoned life very difficult because at the time she had no experience with any sort of musical instruments. That had left her with two options, kill herself or educate herself. Since Harry was never too keen on killing herself even after all this time she had chosen to educate herself. There had been a whole legion of challenges taking on that task and the first had been of course being trapped in a muggle body unable to use magic to help her along.

The only thing that had saved her had been the body's pervious occupant's tendency to go off into seclusion for months or years at a time to 'practice'. Harry had ended up taking five years to get herself to a level where she could play to the previous person's level and could come out of hiding. Of course she had been assassinated by a fanatical fan two years after her reemergence into the public while she had been on tour with an orchestra.

It was in her next life, waking up as a bum who had drank himself to death, that Harry had discovered the most amazing thing. All those years she had dedicated to nothing but learning the violin had not been lost after she had entered a new body. See the thing about playing the violin is that it takes years perhaps decades to master not only because it was a sensitive instrument…but it took that long for your body to learn how to play it.

There were stances, there were special ways you had to hold the bow, and not to mention learning how to make more than frightful screeches took time. Harry had discovered some pretty interesting things about the mind over her many lives and one of which was that the term 'muscle memory' wasn't entirely accurate. See Harry had years and years dedicated to studying the violin, she knew the violin now as an intimate friend. That knowledge had never been lost since she had obtained it.

It didn't matter if her new body had never even touched a violin before the moment it was in her hands Harry knew she could play it like a master. There were some things that were a pain to do over and over again…like obtaining calluses on her fingertips so she could play for longer than an hour. However, Harry was proud to say that she now had gotten to the level where she was comfortable enough to say she played the violin beautifully.

In more than one life when she had gotten desperate enough to get near people she had always managed to make a pretty good living off playing a violin…whether on a street corner or in a concert hall. The main difficulty was getting a violin so she could play and the lives she woke in a body without magic certainly made that almost impossible. This life she had magic though, so while this pathetic excuse for a violin would have been unusable…now it was salvageable.

Tom ever present at her side nudged her impatiently and captured her hand as soon as she relinquished her hold on the violin long enough for him to act. Harry let him do as he pleased, she could hold the violin with one hand anyway and it was sort of funny that Tom was always so eager to hold her hand. Harry turned to stare at him letting Tom lead her so she didn't have to pay attention to anything else. Tom Riddle was a mystery and every day Harry told herself she was being very stupid by staying with him.

His dark hair curled away from his face elegantly, his eyes a deep dark blue stared ahead but every so often darted over to glance at her face. Tom was so pale that sometimes Harry wondered if a vampire would mistake him for one of their own. Tom was handsome in a very high brow sort of way. His features were not ones you often say in Tom's lowly circumstances…usually such boys were the sons of wealthy aristocracy and would not fall so far.

Harry supposed Tom was technically the son of an aristocrat but Tom didn't know that yet. Since their first meeting Tom had not let her out of his sight, he had even tried to follow her into the toilet a few times before Harry had put her foot down and he had settled for waiting outside the door. Tom didn't even let her take baths on her own, though Harry supposed it didn't matter since Tom knew she was a girl pretending to be a boy anyway.

Though Harry did suppose it was weird that she was so okay with him seeing her naked but Harry was old enough that modesty sort of didn't matter much to her anymore. Harry just couldn't quite figure out why Tom wouldn't leave her alone. It had been picked up by the other kids pretty quickly and they had taken to calling them poofs and the like. Tom didn't seem very concerned about being mistaken for a homosexual all things considered.

Harry was actually more concerned about that then Tom's obsessive behavior since she had been the 'gay man' enough to know it could end bloody. People, especially in this time period didn't tolerate homosexuality and very often the 'poof' was killed by a gang of unruly men. Harry decided that she would reveal her true gender if it looked like they were going to be killed but it would be a last resort. She very much liked the freedom being a boy offered her and the protection it gave her as well.

Tom didn't seem to care what the others at the orphanage thought about them and Harry had to admit he handled them well enough to warrant indifference. Harry was beginning to see things Dumbledore had never cared to learn or show her about Tom Riddle. The first being that Tom never struck first…he was too coldly calculating for that. Tom did the things he did usually in retaliation as opposed to doing it on a whim.

Oh, Harry was sure he enjoyed tripping a loud mouth bully down the stairs breaking both the boy's legs...but he didn't do it just because he could. Tom tripped him for stealing food from the two of them while the adults in charge watched and did nothing. So Tom tripped him when there would be no witnesses and reveled in the boy's pain. It certainly wasn't healthy that he enjoyed inflicting such damage on another person…but Harry couldn't bring herself to care.

Tom was what he was, a high functioning sociopath with homicidal tendencies, and Harry wasn't inclined to judge him. Tom was her first comfort that she had in a very very very long time and she didn't care what he did as long as he remained pleasant enough towards her. Harry certainly didn't help Tom hurt people/animals but she didn't stop him either. Harry didn't even comment on it at all and Tom seemed to have taken that as approval. Harry didn't care enough about the issue to correct him.

Everyone died, it was a fact, the how soon and how horribly they got there was the only thing that varied. Harry was the only one who she had ever heard of with the plain inability to move on after death. Being alive for so long, having suffered some pretty horrible death, Harry felt very indifferent towards life in general. As far as she was concerned everyone in this entire world was already dead…they just didn't know it yet. So what did it matter to her if Tom decided to kill a few people…they meant nothing to her anyway.

Now if she happened to be attached to any of them…like if she lived to see Hermione or Ron in this life…then maybe she would stop Tom from killing them. Other than that, Harry didn't care one way or the other just accepting that Tom was Tom. Her attitude about it seemed to be a puzzle to Tom and he often asked her leading questions about it. Though he never asked her outright…too much like admitting he didn't already understand.

~Tom~

Tom watched her as she worked on the thing he vaguely recognized as a violin and thought about how strange his life had become. Tom wasn't an idiot, he knew he didn't feel things the same way other people did and in fact Tom had a very hard time understanding why people reacted the way they did. It was part of the reason why Tom had trained himself to be able to see into the minds of others because he needed to know how he was supposed to behave so he could blend in better.

He knew how to be charming, every other adult outside of the orphanage was puddy in his hands because they were so easy to manipulate. The ones inside here though knew better than to trust his charm, and looked at him with suspicious eyes every time one of the other children were hurt. Tom hated that. He was always careful and nothing could ever be traced back to him…yet still they looked at him. Tom knew it was because they had seen him when his was younger.

They remembered that he had never smiled, that he didn't laugh, that he never reacted right to anything and their eyes were always cold to him. He was much better now of course, but that didn't change the fact that they suspected him. Tom knew he would never be able to fool them and didn't bother to try. Their fear of him had its benefits because it stopped most of the physical abuse at their hands. Ever since he had set that last priest on fire they no longer tired to 'exorcize the demons from him'.

That incident had its drawbacks of course, the nuns at the church now wanted to understand and save him. As if their puny minds could ever hope to understand his intellect. Tom knew though from the various reactions over the years that his inclination to harm others as was his due wasn't exactly approved of by the normal people. He was used to one of two reactions, scorn or fear.

Tom was well versed on turning either reaction to his favor but Harry had yet to react in either way. Harry didn't look at him with the suspicious scornful eyes or the fearful eyes. Harry just looked at him like how Tom had seen a few people look at a particularly nice painting…like he was a fascinating work of art. Tom wasn't sure how to react to that, what does one do when not faced with fear or scorn? This was an entirely new situation for him and Tom didn't like that at all.

"Do you know how to play the piano?" Harry asked not looking up from her work on the violin.

Tom stifled the anger at being ignored in favor of a piece of wood and answered her, "No, unfortunately musical aptitude has never been a part of my education." Tom replied.

"Pity," Harry answered, "we'll have to start from scratch then."

Tom raised an eyebrow at her, "Was that an offer to teach me?" he asked curiously.

"Yes, I do not know the piano as well as the violin but we will have to manage," Harry said.

Tom settled down beside her on the floor, "I thought you said you don't remember anything from before." He said trying to hold back his anger at her lying to him.

"Some things you do not forget, I know how to play…I just have no idea where I learned it from," Harry answered breezily.

"Why the piano?" Tom asked wanting to keep her talking.

"Simple, I prefer the violin and when playing the piano is the best to accompany it," Harry said as Tom felt her gather up her magic in her hands.

Tom watched with greedy eyes as Harry ran her hands over the Violin and wherever she touched it became something more than a useless piece of wood. Soon, Harry was holding a beautifully crafted stringless violin that shone in the light. Tom looked at Harry hungrily; it seemed there was much they could learn from each other in regards to magic. "What's the point," Tom asked gesturing vaguely at the violin.

Harry smiled at him finally turning her beautiful green eyes onto him, "Well I certainly don't want to stay here forever, nor do I wish to remain this hungry all the time, and the solution to both problems is simple. We need money. I am disinclined to work in a factory or some such thing so I will utilize a skill I can easily profit from. Playing the violin, and it's much easier to get hired for high class parties when you have a piano player to accompany you." She said.

Tom smirked at her, this was why Harry was good enough to be his companion, because she was as intelligent as he was and at using that intelligence well. Money equaled power, power meant everything because without power defined the world. Those with power used the ones without it and Tom refused to be used. "How do you propose I learn how to play a piano…it is not as if there will be another incompetent music shop owner throwing one out." Tom asked one eyebrow rose in question. He knew his expression was one that others called 'roguish' it usually went a long way in allowing him to manipulate women.

Harry smiled at him easily enough, "You let me worry about that, I do have a few more tricks up my sleeve you know," she said winking. Tom resolved to learn how to make his face do that exact expression, it was friendly and open. If he could master that then it would be sure to come in handy later. Tom smiled at her as she went back to looking over her new violin. His life was getting better and better.

A.N.: there we are! Lol A little shorter than my last chapter but this was a good place to end. Next chapter we will have a little bit of a time skip! Soon Dumbledore will make his appearance and I cannot wait to write it! XD *cackles evilly* lol please read and review! Let me know how I am doing! ^_^ thanks to all my wonderful reviewers to my first chapter! You guys really motivated me to update sooner! On a side note I am in the middle of working on a children's book of my own! Illustrated and wrote it all by myself! Super excited to get it done and work on getting it published! Wish me luck! ^_^