Author's Note: Thanks for the support guys, it really meant a lot. It turns out that I'm not leaving the country, but updates might still be a little fuzzy for a while. I finished my exams of Friday, and tried to get this out as fast as I could for the deadline. Thank you all again. I apologise for the shortness, but I didn't want to leave you all hanging for the next month. It's short, but it's interesting. I'll try and the chapters from here on out at least over 3000 words, as I for one hate short chapters myself. :)

Disclaimer: I don't own this

WARNING: this fic is AU, it will include some screwing about with the Harry Potter timeline and character histories, as well as contain spoilers for the books. Character deaths. Swearing. Rating may change. Sporadic updates...

Published: 17 January 2010



Chapter 4: Of Birthdays


On Harry's ninth birthday, Mrs Cole gifted him with a knitted sweater, a few pennies and some new glasses- (his others still had the crack running over one eye). A rather bland set of presents compared to what he had gotten used to back at home, but it couldn't be helped, and he was still thankful. Tom had given him nothing, but that was to be expected- he hadn't exactly gone to buy Tom anything either.

To say that the next year had passed slowly was a huge understatement in and of itself. Harry supposed that the year itself hadn't been so bad, just the lack of excitement. Watching Tom Riddle in his Natural Habitat, (and yes, Harry capitalised it in his mind), was not nearly as fascinating as he would have thought it to be.

On reflection in his younger (or older, depending how you looked at it) days, Harry had sometimes wondered how Tom Riddle had become Voldemort. How the child in Dumbledore's memories had come to be. Harry had never used to believe that a child could be capable of being evil- it just didn't fit in his mind. Then he had seen the memories and he had rethought his opinion.

Voldemort was Tom Riddle- Tom Riddle was Voldemort. If anyone was destined to be evil from the very beginning, it would have to be the future Voldemort. Though that thought always sent a shiver down the back of his spine. Despite what anyone else had said to disprove any of the lingering traitorous thoughts hissing in the back of his mind, he and Volde- no, Tom- he and Tom had been quite similar from the beginning, even if it had been just from early circumstances.

Harry sometimes wondered what would have happened if the Dursley's had refused to take him in...


Harry had thought that now he was pretty much a "nobody" in the past- that he wouldn't have to worry about a fan-base. He had been dreadfully wrong.

Over the course of the year, other children at the orphanage noticed that although Harry was keeping himself to himself, he was nobody's pushover. It wasn't that he was outwardly violent- no, it was far from it. But there was an aura around him, one that reflected someone with maturity far beyond their years. Added to the fact that he was coming out night after night from sharing a room with the Tom Riddle with not even a scratch...

They had stayed away from him before, for that very reason. Someone who was close to Tom in any way shape or form was someone to be avoided.

Tom wasn't normal.

Tom was... scary.

But Harry wouldn't back down. As time had continued to pass, the children had noticed that instead of leaving the room when Tom entered, Harry would ignore him and carry on with his own tasks. When Tom was intimidating someone- just by looking at them, mind you- nothing that could be traced back to him, Harry would somehow put a stop to it. Tom would give him a look of fury, a look that would have sent the other children running for the safety of an adult lest Tom's wrath be unleashed, but Harry would just simply give him a look that they could not decipher.

But whatever that look was... Once Tom was presented with it, he wouldn't retaliate.

From being shunned- being an outcast, things had taken a drastic change for Harry. He had found himself being flocked by the younger children who were basking in the safety of his shadow, wondering bemusedly when the world had flipped upside down.

Tom would seethe in the background.


On Harry's tenth birthday, he had had woken up from a fitful sleep to feel an air of ill-concealed excitement permeating the room and a snake looming just inches over his face, fangs bared.

His eyes had widened as the snake let out a leisurely hiss and slowly descended. A quick hiss of "stop!" made it freeze, fangs poised above one of the throbbing arteries in his neck. He could feel them ghosting over his skin as the snaked hissed.

"Another sssspeaker?"

Its voice was tinged in curiosity as its head reared up and away with an almost bemused expression on its... face. Harry realised with a sick jolt of his stomach that it was wound around his neck. He didn't know much about snakes despite how much unfortunate connotations they held in his life, but he wasn't comforted by the fact that it had been preparing to bite him. That, more than anything else proved it was dangerous.

Suddenly the pressure was off as the snake curled back, unwinding from his neck and sliding over and down the top of the covers to the end of his bed where it nestled comfortably. Harry let out the breath he didn't know he was holding, slowly sitting up. Trembling fingers reaching for his glasses, he jammed them onto the bridge of his nose over sleep blurred eyes, careful to keep the snake in his line of vision.

Never let your guard down around a snake- if he'd learned anything in his life- that was it.

"What do you want?" He'd be lying if he said he wasn't a little scared. Literally speaking, he was a child. The snake could be poisoned and he was trapped in England in the 1930's with no way home. There was no Fawkes here to cry tears of salvation on him if he got himself hurt though stupidity.

"I wasss bored," the snake hissed and Harry tried hard not to burst out laughing. Of all the responses that he could have gotten, that was not what he was expecting. A snake with an attitude. "No need to look sssso terrified boy... I will not harm you." Its tongue flecked the air and an almost human expression of smugness passed its mouth. The fangs jutting out of its jaw took away from the faux innocence.

"You were about to bite me."

"I will not harm you... now that I know that you are a ssspeaker..." The snake amended. Harry raised an eyebrow as the snake continued. "Ssspeakers are rare, but they are... interesssting.... It'sss ssso hard to find good conversssation thesssse dayssss."

Harry swallowed as the snake slid back up the sheets and up his torso. It wound itself loosely around his throat. "But it looksss assss if I won't be getting any conversssation from you today."

Harry froze as the snake let out a mocking hiss and slid down around one of his arms. "Well then, I bessst be going. My job here isss done. As you're not up to convesssing, I believe it would be proper of you to essscort me out. Humansss are troublesssome when it comesss to my kind."

Harry nodded dumbly, slowly rising from his bed. The moonlight dully illuminating the room glazed over him as he crept towards the door. "What kind of snake are you, anyway?"

"An adder..." Harry frowned. "Yessss I am poisssoinousss... so don't try anything foolissssh boy..."

Harry quietly opened the door to his shared room and crept out into the darkened landing.

Five minutes later, as his heart had slowed down to its normal pace and the snake had been let out the back door, Harry re-entered his room to find Tom Riddle sitting bolt upright in his bed. Harry pretended not to notice the calculating look mixed in his dark eyes. It was enough to let him know that the snake in his bed was no coincidence, and that his actions following its discovery were not going to be kept quiet for long.

Climbing back into his own bed, Harry took of his glasses and set them down on the bedside cabinet. He turned to roll onto his side, facing the wall.

He could still feel Tom's burning gaze boring into the back of his head.


Authors Note: Guh, sorry again for the short chapter, but I did have family stuff going on this time. I promise that I'll try and make next chapter at least double this size. Next chapter: Some extended direct Tom and Harry interactions as reactions come into play.

Please R&R