Harry felt as if things were moving too fast again like they had when he was only eight years old with a notebook that was his only friend. He'd felt as if the world was rushing past him and even though he'd seen it fly by it had been too fast for him to chase.
Hogwarts was a bit like that, it seemed, rushing past him with all the force of a hurricane.
Tom was acting oddly, that was half of it.
After Tom had transformed into Thomas Evans, had taken them to a small apartment in London, and collapsed on the bed in shivering exhaustion leaving Harry to stand there and just stare at him Harry had realized that he barely knew Tom at all. Before then Tom had been a concept, an idea, but not a person with a history and a past and connections to the real world. For Harry, even though he knew Tom had once been a person, Tom belonged in that dream world of the notebook as if he had lived there forever. Tom wasn't human, and it was easier to accept that fact than it was to accept that Tom had once been human.
In that first week, where Tom could barely function and stay awake, when they'd closed all the blinds and Tom had just sat there gripping himself and trying to focus on his thoughts rather than the room, Tom had told Harry a little bit about himself. Small facts, the things Harry would have known if they'd ever done real small talk. Tom went to Hogwarts in 1938, he'd been introduced to the wizarding world by a powerful wizard named Albus Dumbledore who had lit his wardrobe on fire to prove a point, he was a half-blood but had thought for a long time that this made a world of difference, and he hated the family he had only had the pleasure of meeting for a few hours. Harry had sat across from him on the floor in the dark, just listening to all of this, and wondering what to make of this shaking man in front of him.
In the end Harry decided that he knew Tom, the notebook Tom, better than anyone else. It was the human façade of Thomas Evans and to a lesser extent the past Tom Riddle that he questioned. Thomas Evans was a person in his own right, not just a vehicle for Tom as Harry had originally assumed he was. They were similar enough that it was difficult to tell at times but Thomas Evans had his own human habits, hobbies, and practical thoughts that the metaphysical Tom had lacked.
Thomas Evans was perfectly content to live on cheap take-out Thai, Vietnamese, Greek, Chinese, Indian, and basically anything that wasn't British food. Thomas Evans wore his poverty not quite like a badge of honor but certainly nothing worthy of shame. He had a critical eye for films but was willing to watch the ones he deemed as atrocious without too much complaint.
All these things, these actions, had seemed far too human to belong to Tom himself. Tom was the overarching spirit, spread evenly between Harry's consciousness and Thomas Evans, he belonged to them both in the end.
So Harry wouldn't claim to know all facets of Tom or Thomas Evans but he could say that Tom was acting odd. It was almost as if he was restless, pulled back into Hogwarts again it was as if he had woken from dozing and felt the need to do some unknown task, Harry could almost hear him pacing inside his head.
He didn't trust Snape, that was for sure. Every day in Potions he took over and it became a match of wills between him and the Potions professor. Harry had thought, at first, it was to find some information on the dark lord or to see if Snape still wanted to hurt Harry because he had worked for the dark lord but Tom wasn't looking for anything like that. No, he wasn't looking for any details at all, instead he just pushed and prodded and waited for something to happen.
Just mapping out the mine field, Harry.
It was like they were all on edge just waiting for something to explode.
Harry just wished it wasn't getting him so many detentions.
As for Quirrel, Tom didn't know what was going on there, or at least nothing he would concretely tell Harry. Sometimes Harry got the feeling that Tom had ideas about things, as if he had a good guess as to what something was, but he'd be unwilling to commit until he saw more proof. Quirrel was one of those things, the dark lord had been another, and Harry wasn't sure how he felt about that either.
Whatever was wrong with Quirrel they both felt it, that echoing feeling of dread in both of their skulls, pounding away and that ever increasing temptation to run as far and as fast as he could in the other direction. And underneath that, in Tom's mind, there had been a terrible flash of almost-recognition a half thought Oh God, no… and then nothing more.
For now, Tom had said, we'll keep an eye on him and stay our distance.
So already their attention was divided between two people, Snape, and Quirrel.
Then things began to change again, the restlessness started, and he could feel Tom's twitching fingers that searched for something unknown. As Thomas Evans he began research, first in the realm of ordinary muggle physics, but then a bit further flashes here and there caught in Harry's mind when he peered into Tom's thoughts. He didn't know specifically what Tom was doing with these things, only that it was to distract him from things he didn't want to think about, whatever those things might be.
Then the oddest thing of all had happened, Hermione Granger.
To be honest after the train and meeting Ron Hermione had faded for him. He'd thought about talking to her that first week or so but then she'd looked mad at him, or like she was snubbing him, and he hadn't thought about approaching her since. He did sometimes catch her watching him, with a speculative look in her eye, but with Snape and Tom's battles raging and Quirrel he hadn't thought Hermione needed watching.
Hermione was very smart though. Tom had said that Harry was magically gifted, and Harry guessed that was true after all the classes, but Hermione knew everything. Almost like Tom, and it always seemed like she was learning more, always in the library with her head in a book that only Tom would think of reading.
Sometimes Harry felt like everyone knew about Tom, he was so obvious at times, so very not Harry but it turned out everyone was only Hermione Granger.
When she first approached him, no them, in the library he'd felt a sharp stab of focus from Tom and for a moment he'd wondered if Hermione would become a more defenseless version of Snape; something that needed to be taken care of.
But Tom hadn't done anything like that, instead he'd sent her off without answers, and when she'd walked briskly from Charms on the brink of tears he'd done something even more bizarre. He stared after her after they left Charms, and said to Harry, It's a rather sad day, Harry, when I prove to have more of a moral compass than you.
And for a moment Harry had felt ashamed but above all that he was thoroughly confused as Tom hijacked his body and calmly walked them to the girl's restroom. He had watched them talked, standing outside of himself once again, and looking at the pair of them he found that he couldn't see Harry or Tom in that stranger speaking to Hermione Granger.
Only when the troll had appeared and Harry had rushed back and sent it elsewhere, into the void of non-existence, did he manage to shake that feeling of being lost in the dark without a single sign to guide him.
After the troll Harry and Hermione were friends, but not, because in the end it was Tom and Hermione who were friends with Harry as the medium communicating between them. Suddenly she was everywhere, included like she belonged, and Ron was fuming because Hermione the know it all book worm was with them all the time and there was nothing Harry felt he could do about it.
He felt like he was clinging to Ron and losing him all in the same moment because Ron was something of his and not Tom's not whatever this thing was with Hermione that he didn't understand. He found he liked Hermione, she was like a brighter softer version of Tom, but even so he couldn't be friends with something he didn't understand.
It was not dark yet, as it had been in those early days when Tom was only a notebook that dreamed, but he knew that with the swift winds the storm clouds always followed. It was all spiraling out of control and he felt like there was nothing he could do about it and still much more to come.
He remembered teaching Harry some of the more theoretical basis for magic. They'd been in the park during high summer beneath the blue sky and the green trees after those first shaky months. Sitting on the grass and feeling the wind in his hair and his eyes closed if only for a moment Tom had remembered wondering how he had ever taken the act of living for granted.
Still wandless but somehow unhindered Harry had moved forward with a determination that had not faded with the death of his cousin. Magic was still sacred to him, still burning from his fingertips and the world around them, to them magic was almost more necessary than life itself.
Harry seemed to be adapting, he smiled more than he had in those first few months, and when he looked at Tom there was no longer that jagged fear in his eyes. Slowly but surely he was coming back to himself just as Tom was growing used to the sensation of being Thomas Evans and the sky above them seemed so very blue.
"Transfiguration," Tom remembered saying, "Is the art of taking something and turning it into anything else. It is hindered only by the imagination of the caster, the refusal to associate certain objects with others, because in the end most matter is similar enough to temporarily be persuaded into some other form."
Harry had nodded silently, he'd done transfiguration before, and Tom had been shocked to find how easily it came to Harry but then realized that Harry was in some ways more familiar with the idea of transition than most humans would ever be. His only friend was a human who had turned himself into a notebook who had then proceeded to turn himself into the idea of a man; Harry was witness to constant transmutation.
In Harry's eyes the needle was already a matchstick and the matchstick already a needle, it had only to remember that it wore another form when no one was looking.
"I think I know that." Harry said, not the snapping of a frustrated child but rather a quiet musing, pondering ideas that drifted through their mutual consciousness. In Harry's mind Tom saw a vision of all matter, caught in one form only for an instant, a single snapshot of time before drifting into an infinite number of forms. Nothing was in its final state, Harry was thinking, everything is in transition always.
Tom remembered wondering when Harry had become so profound.
"Yes, I think you know it too." Tom said more to himself than to Harry but the words were spoken aloud at any rate so they might take wing in the air.
"So do most wizards get stuck on things like that?" Harry asked, picking up a blade of grass and watching as it twisted and writhed in his hand to take all manner of forms.
"Most wizards lack creativity and the ability to think so abstractly." Tom said with a wry smile thinking back on his own youth and their instruction in Transfiguration.
Harry pondered that for a few moments silently, "You said they have to use wands and words to say spells, right?"
"It's the medium for most magical societies, yes." Tom had responded. He had not known that when he was human, he'd taken the wand as a given; a necessary tool to complete the more difficult and subtle skills that could not be accomplished with thought alone. It had not been until he'd returned with magic seeming so inherent to himself that he wondered if there weren't other ways to go about it. Some of their trips to Diagon Alley hadn't been for Harry but rather for Tom himself and books on foreign cultures that had been left almost forgotten.
"I just wonder why, I've never thought I needed anything, and you don't seem to need anything either. Magic just is, it's everywhere, so I don't understand why you need anything at all."
Now, three years later, when the universe seemed stretched before him but with no set path to take he looked back on those words and wondered why he had dismissed them with only a little thought. What was magic, the wand the words, what was so integral about them that it allowed it to work?
With his increase of knowledge in muggle academia, in grading physics problem sets over cheap coffee, this question would grow in his mind until it seemed as if there was little else. Why did the universe demand that a stick be waved and a few words be said? Why did it demand pictures drawn in chalk and chanted summons? The universe was neither benign nor malignant, it was wordless matter and energy and things that were neither, it was indifferent to language and yet somehow like invisible levers or switches these words and movements pulled and pushed so that some as of yet to be named force responded.
At some point late at night, his mind drifting with Harry's as he flipped through late night television channels, it came to him. It's software, he thought, it's a programming language. And there it was, the answer he had never realized, so simple and absurdly muggle all in the same instant.
He didn't know who or when but someone thousands of years before had created a list of commands, swishes, flicks, words, all strung together that could be used to form spells. They had provided the framework to make a spell, to use basic fundamental spells already written, and leave it in such a way that a magic user didn't have to understand magic at all only to use the basis they already had.
So that by 1938 in Hogwarts, when an eager young Tom Riddle took his classes, they mistook language for the idea in and of itself.
Why not redesign it? Why not replace that old, tired, and frankly overused Latin base with plain and simple English? Why not remove the breakable wand and replace it with a myriad of simple hand gestures?
It was as if there had been light, pouring out of his mind in that single instant, and suddenly Thomas Evans was more than just a disguise to hide the fact that he was no longer Tom Riddle. There was purpose again, more so than simply living through Harry Potter at Hogwarts, and he nearly laughed with relief. He had not realized how desperate he had been.
Of course Harry still needed him, and he found it strange that he did not resent but rather welcomed that fact. Harry and he still belonged even with Hogwarts between them. There was something lurking in Hogwarts though, something malignant showing itself so blatantly it was as if it was holding a sign, "Here There Be Monsters" and Tom could not find himself happy that Harry was trapped in that lion's den.
Severus Snape was proving to be more in control than he appeared, his temper simmered and in spite of the hatred in his eyes when he stared at Harry he had yet to make any real move, but his eyes were always burning.
Every time he entered that class in Harry's thoughts he became more and more convinced that not only was the man dangerous he also did not mean Harry well. He had Tom Riddle's look in his eyes, that flat contempt that stared back and spoke of years of fraying patience, and eventually Tom Riddle had set loose the basilisk.
He suspected the man was working for someone, the dark lord's memory, or else Dumbledore someone who was actively telling him to stay his hand and not strike no matter how provoked. His stillness spoke of vision, of planning, of being a pawn in someone else's game that would one day come to fruition. Tom found that he did not like the idea of Severus Snape being bound in puppet strings, it did not make things any less dangerous, merely more complicated.
And in Quirrel, in stuttering Quirinus Quirrel he suspected he found what had become of Tom Riddle and subsequently Lord Voldemort.
The first time he had joined Harry in Defense, had looked across to the man in front of the room, he had known exactly what Harry had been describing. There had been nothing in him, only the twisted and warped recreation of a man eating at the back of own his head like a cancer, and staring at him Tom felt as if he was staring back into that dread heart of the notebook. Tom knew a soul fragment when he saw one, horcruxes had allowed him that much. There had been a hideous moment of recognition, of seeing himself staring at Quirrel in the form of Harry Potter, and there had been no time for rationalization only horror as he thought, so this is what became of me.
He tried, later, to find of ways that it wasn't Voldemort that it was some other nameless thing, some Cthulhu mythos creeping around in Quirrel's head and there were many but he just kept coming back to that nauseous feeling of recognition seeping through his very soul.
Every time he went to that cursed class the feeling only grew until he could no longer deny that he was staring at himself. A version of him without body, with mind fraying, and he remembered that a certain dark lord's body had been lost with the attempted murder of one Harry Potter.
In the end he hadn't needed proof because it seemed as if he had known it all along.
So he distracted himself with this new project so that he could tell himself that Voldemort and he had parted ways long ago and that these things no longer mattered, so that he could tell himself that he didn't have to warn Harry until it was necessary, that he didn't have to tell him that the thing in Quirrel's head that had murdered his parents and attempted to murder him was and was not Tom.
It was easier to pretend such things as horcruxes didn't exist, the world seemed less complicated without the inclusion of doppelgangers, but even so there was a shadow steadily growing over Hogwarts and all his tinkering and revolutionizing magic could not hide that fact.
Here there be monsters, and their names are Hogwarts faculty.
But the game of chess involved taking turns and Tom could not play all their moves for them, sometimes you had to wait, to push and prod and watch where the chips fell before you moved in for the kill. The notebook had taught him patience on that level at the very least.
Besides, tormenting Snape did hold a certain appeal.
Things seemed so much easier now that she was friends with Harry, or one of the Harrys, after a while she became convinced that there were two of him at the end of the day.
In Potions he'd begun partnering with her, telling Neville to work with Ron for a while without much explanation, and she'd been thrilled. She usually had to concentrate quite hard in potions, it was an exact art and there was little room for error, but Harry could always hold a conversation more than that he was very funny. He had an observation for everything and it seemed to Hermione that he had thought about everything, sometimes it made her feel slow and stupid, but he didn't patronize or hold it against her. That was only one of the Harrys though.
The other Harry wasn't as kind even though she suspected that he was a kinder person in general. She had a feeling that the other Harry, the normal Harry, wasn't quite sure what to make of her and her relationship to him. He held nothing against her but sometimes when he looked at her or talked to her there was an awkwardness that shouldn't have been there and a wariness in the corner of his eyes.
She felt that the longer she was around him though the more he came to accept her presence and she felt that one day she might be friends with him as well.
She knew that she would never be friends with Ron Weasley. Maybe if they'd met under different circumstances, if he had gone with Harry to fight the troll, but he hadn't and now it was too late. To him it must have seemed odd, leave class one day and come back and suddenly Hermione Granger is everywhere, but even so he could have at least tried. His temper was becoming shorter and shorter until he would turn and walk out of a room at her mere presence.
This always upset Harry, the normal Harry, she had a feeling that her Harry didn't like Ron all that much.
The first time this happened Harry had stared after Ron with such a feeling of abandonment and terror that Hermione had found herself saying words she couldn't have meant, "You can chase after him, you know, I don't mind."
He had said nothing for a while, just staring after Ron, and then he turned back to her and shook his head, "It's not that easy."
When she asked the other Harry's opinion on the matter he'd been rather blunt about it, they'd been sitting in the library and she'd been listening to him as he explained what he considered some of the more complex but fundamental properties of Transfiguration. He always talked with his hands when he spoke of magic, they lifted like little pale birds, and then began to dance in circles fluttering here and there with his points.
"You see, Hermione, think of matter as not having one solid constant form but rather being in constant flux. All objects are subject to change, even in normal reality you can see this with the influence of time, but take a step back from that frigid frame and remember that matter is really just atoms whose location is only probable, that are waves and particles in the same instant, and you realize that Transfiguration is not the art of changing one thing to another but rather the choosing of an infinite amount of abstract forms."
None of what he ever said was in her books, especially when he used words like matter, particles, waves, light, and atoms but all the same she felt she could trust what he said as if he really knew what he was talking about. When he was the other Harry, the Harry who was her friend, he never faltered or looked as if he lacked confidence so she couldn't help but believe him.
She'd hated to interrupt him, she always did when he was like that, but it had been bothering her for some time, "Are you worried about Ron?"
The smile had dripped off his face and at once he looked both tired and frustrated, "Oh, Weasley, not particularly. Don't tell me you're concerned." His eyes surveyed her sharply, looking somewhat alarmed by the idea, as if he was dreading having to convince her of his opinions.
"Has he talked to you yet? I know he's mad because… Well because we're friends but…"
He sighed, "Children, really, remember what I said about friendship the other day? Maybe not there was a troll in the bathroom at the time. Friendship is not the end all be all of my existence, if Ron Weasley can't learn to share nicely then he can go off by himself and sulk if that makes him feel better. I will not waste my time pandering to the masses to help boost their self-esteems."
It was more complicated than that though, even Hermione could recognize that. Things had been more than a little strained between the three (four) of them. She and Harry would be in the library but then Ron would appear and Harry would disappear somewhere with him or she would arrive behind Ron and Harry and suddenly Harry would switch to his other self and leave Ron standing there in the hallway. It was like they were splitting Harry between them and one of those days he was going to teeter towards one or the other; and maybe it was just wishful thinking but Hermione thought she might be winning their game of tug of war.
Something did have to give though; even Hermione knew that.
The beginning of the end came a little before Christmas when Harry's latest detention had been allocated to Mr. Filch rather than professor Snape. That had been happening recently, Harry receiving detention from professor Snape but serving it elsewhere in the castle, Hermione wasn't quite sure what to make of it but she had this feeling that professor Snape wasn't entirely comfortable around Harry. She'd mentioned this to Harry at one point, the Harry that was her friend, and he had just grinned that scary smile he'd had in class and said he had no idea what she was talking about. So sometimes even when professor Snape gave Harry detention Harry would serve it with someone else.
Hermione had met up with him the next day and she was surprised to find that it was the regular Harry that was speaking to her and not the Harry from Potions class. He told her, almost hesitantly, about his adventures the night before how he had been cleaning the statues on the second floor but somehow got lost and found himself on the third. Hermione very clearly remembered the Headmaster stating that a certain corridor on the third floor boded certain death for all who entered.
"There was this three-headed dog, Hermione, on top of a trap door. I think Dumbledore's hiding something here, something dangerous."
She wanted to say that it was none of their business, that they had been told not to go so they should respect the professors' authority but at the same time she already felt that it had been a long year and in the back of her head she knew that Harry was asking her and not Ron to investigate with him and that this might prove the winning blow. This was somehow important, more important than it should have been, and Hermione knew that she couldn't afford to be friendless like the other Harry apparently could.
So she agreed to go with him to meet the giant Hagrid who was known for keeping unusual magical creatures as pets and who had apparently known Harry as a baby. The whole time though, she wondered why he had come to her, and what it might mean if they found anything out at all.
If she had learned anything from mystery novels it was that poking in other people's business usually did have consequences. Something was going to come out of this and Hermione wasn't entirely sure she liked that idea.
Author's Note: So there you have it, even Harry has no idea what the hell Tom is doing and the mysteries deepen with Hagrid's dog appearance, and also Hermione continues to friend angst because always friend angst. It was pointed out to me by a reviewer that I might have less consistency issues if I wrote the chapters closer together and thus updated faster, upon review this is a problem that occurs sometimes (especially when Tom info dumps politics he found out via court transcripts and newspapers) so... Yay faster update?
Thank you to readers and reviewers you guys are the best. Reviews are much appreciated.
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter