A/N: Fair warning, the last chapter was uploaded back in December of 2012. You may want to skim that if you don't remember what happened.

Recap: Harry has traveled back in time in the guise of a 'specter' in an attempt to change Tom Riddle's life, but is failing miserably because of various factors, including emotional triggers, survivor's guilt, and his own idiocy. He has been pulled back to the present by Ginny and Luna, and Ginny for reasons unknown has put her foot down and refused to help him get back. Ergo, he is now stuck in the present while Ron and Hermione are stuck somewhere in the past being total BAMFs. Also, Tom is a psycho, has severe anger and entitlement issues, and is caught in the middle of a lover's quarrel between Avery and Lestrange, who are also unnaturally violent and unsettling for children. Plus, Dumbledore starts some shit.

Tldr; Harry is mourning, Tom is crazy, and everything is falling apart.

Warnings: non-graphic torture of a child committed by a child, minor sexual imagery

The spell was—

—cast, no, it was—

—a beam of light, the ugly color of mud, no—

—a whisper of magic against his skin, slamming hard into the space above his clavicle—

—no, it was—

—the warmth of the sun against his face, burrowing deep, unfurling like a blossom, a small pinprick of dark light, starting at his chest and slowly meandering outwards, flooding each cell and nerve and blood vessel with intent—

—no, it was feeling—

—no, it was sensation—

—no, it was—

—fire and fire and fire.

Flames, boiling under his skin. Agony, heating his blood. Tearing, breaking, rending—

His body convulsed. An initial shock wave of anger and fury was battered down abruptly, a twisting thought of 'he-wouldn't-dare' torn apart beneath the sharp and sudden twist of make-it-stop, make-it-stop, make-it-stop—

(He would not beg, he would not beg, he would not beg—)

(But he would scream, and he did. His voice was a bizarre echo in his ears, bouncing off of a flimsy membrane and rattling his ear drums with loud shrieks of pain.)

(I will not die, this will not kill me, I WILL NOT—)

The silencing bubble around his face burst just as swiftly as his anger, his throat a raw expanse of flesh, aching as if he had swallowed down shards of glass. His fingers scrabbled against cool flagstone, the slight sting of nails breaking and separating from his nail beds a distant, forgettable sensation. And Tom—

Tom thought he knew pain. Assumed he understood how simply pain broke people, the most effective way to wield it as a weapon against someone, how to harness another's pain to gain power and control of a situation.

Tom was wrong.

In retrospect, he should have known. There is always so much more. To learn, to do, to know.

(But how could he have known if there was no one there to teach him?)

Tom never should have trusted Lestrange.

"It's emotions that fuel dark magic," came Lestrange's trembling voice. The spell cut off only a scant second later. Tom sucked huge, heaving breaths into his burning lungs, blinked damp lashes and stared into empty space. "Hate. You can't cast anythin' if you don't mean it."

Lestrange laughed, ugly and fragile. Tom was almost numb enough to trace the bitter edge to the sound, the mild hysteria that was shock-terror-denial, but the fire in his blood left a thin sheen of sweat slicking his white skin damp, kept his body twitching with fine tremors. The air was cold, so utterly cold. Distantly, Tom was aware his brain was nothing more than a haze of fog and his eyes burned with the salt of his tears.

(Tears, Tom remembered, that he had promised to never shed, not again, not after all that wasted time hoping for a mother and a father and a family, not after threats of an asylum and too-white walls.)

And—and—

Tom couldn't think.

But he could feel, and Lestrange had sent hot fire licking through his veins, heating his blood, until all Tom could do was fall and scream and cry and—he would not beg. He wouldn't.

"You thought you were askin' a friend," Lestrange continued, consonants dropping off his words and his vowels coming out shaky. If he had been of sound mind, Tom might have noticed, might have tried to use it, but—

His world remained a wash of pain. Tom was unable to break the surface.

"You thought you was askin' a friend, but you don' have friends." Lestrange's expression twisted, his dark eyes alight with a hysterical intensity. He took one trembling step forward, hands shaking, and whispered, "All you have are enemies."

Tom rasped, his eyelashes fluttering wetly. He couldn't move. His body may have been a burning flame, but it felt weighted down, a heavy boulder caught at the bottom of a lake. Tom wished there was no pain, for his body to quit trembling and his eyes to stop watering, but he found he couldn't even summon the cold fury inside of him, the pain was so overwhelming. Tom couldn't have possibly known Lestrange would—Tom just wanted to know more—he would not beg—

"How does it feel?" Lestrange whispered tremulously, his voice odd and thick in the heavy silence. He sniffled once, and then twice into the quiet darkness, throat convulsing with a wet sound Tom couldn't parse. Everything was too hazy. "After what you did with Avery? To know you made an—an enemy of me?"

Tom wasn't given time to answer. Lestrange aimed his wand, whispered the name of a spell that caused Tom's blood to burn like fire in his veins, and the pain started anew.

(Enemies, Tom thought what seemed to be hours later. Lestrange had left in a panicked state, the both of them a wreck of painful adrenaline, vomit spilled down the front of both of their robes. Tom's limbs were shaky, jelly-like and brittle, throbbing constantly, but Lestrange had vomited first, Tom noted with vindictive pleasure. If all I have are enemies, I suppose I should learn to make some friends.)

Tom never should have trusted Lestrange.

But as Lestrange cut off the spell to administer his own slew of terrified fury, Tom undoubtedly knew: Avery was very much a part of the problem too.

The Burrow was a hub of warmth and love, family and friendship. Stepping back into the arms of Molly Weasley was a lot like coming in out of the cold; her body was a soft mass against Harry's, her arms secure in their hold, and the scent of baking bread clinging to her skin was relaxing.

Harry sunk into her embrace, overwhelmed by the sense of mum and safety and home. This was his home, not the past, not that person trying to tear down his own biases in the face of a child who would one day hurt the Wizarding World beyond measure.

Harry knew it was necessary. Intellectually, he fully believed in everything he, Ron, and Hermione had set out to do. But emotionally… Harry had come against an obstacle he wasn't certain he could overcome. The bitter irony was that it had been himself—not Tom, not his circumstances, but Harry who was the source of the problems.

Just rushing straight ahead without a plan had only served to sour the relationship between Tom and Harry to the point of violent enmity and without Hermione around to be the voice of reason, confronting the Riddle problem with any sort of levelheadedness was just… impossible.

Harry had endeavored to forgive Tom for crimes the boy had yet to commit (and they were different, Tom and Lord Voldemort, Harry knew, he just couldn't—) but every time he attempted to bridge that chasm, Harry found himself falling into his own way, destroying what little confidence Tom ever possessed for him.

Tom's childish attitude and violent anger at any and everything didn't exactly make it easy, either. Harry thought that if Tom was just a little more agreeable, a little less prone to violence and hurting his friends—

—but could Harry blame him? Harry knew he was refusing to meet the boy half-way, but every time he saw the way Tom interacted with that sandy-haired boy, any time he remembered Tom's coldly delighted fury at hurting Lestrange, every time Harry heard that quiet statement of 'I'll kill you' Harry couldn't help but believe that Tom was at fault for the way things were going too.

Orphanage or not, Tom wasn't kind or empathetic toward anyone. Harry still felt his anger erupt inside of him any time to boy attempted to disregard the people around him, or just use them as a way to hurt someone else, and Harry knew his temper was getting away from him.

Harry smiled at the bitter irony. Both of their explosive tempers had gotten in the way of any sort of communication, each of them having expectations of the other that Harry felt neither of them would meet, not at this rate.

But Harry had never given up on anything before, so he determined not to do so now. The hat put me in Gryffindor for a reason, Harry mused, a strange melancholy stealing over him and softening his smile.

Though without Ginny and Luna's help to send him back to the past and Hermione and Ron effectively missing in action… Merlin, but he missed his friends.

With a mental sigh, Harry shoved everything to the back of his mind to deal with later. It would keep.

Sniffling loudly, Molly pulled away from Harry and cupped his face in her weather-worn hands. "Harry, dear, it's so wonderful to see you again."

"Same, Mrs. Weasley," Harry answered with a rueful grin. From over her shoulder, Harry spied Ginny's tight expression and worked hard to suppress the sudden surge of irritation at the sight.

(He loved her and the sound of her voice, the fire in her eyes, the smooth slide of her freckled skin beneath his fingertips, the clean scent of her hair; he loved her, he loved her, he loved her, but—

But.)

Harry yearned to understand her ire, the way she challenged him head on; she hadn't done so before, back when he was sixteen and running off to save the world, hadn't even asked for an explanation. Now, it seemed that was all she desired—an explanation, not to be stuck on the sidelines, to… to mean something to him, but—no. No. That wasn't Ginny. She never needed anyone to make her feel worthwhile and she definitely was not going to start now. She was much too strong for that.

Harry found himself chewing over the thought more than he ever had before. Prior to this, his actions had been all about avoidance, forgetting that deep ache in his chest whenever he imagined Ginny by his side, hastily skirting the pitfalls that sprung up from nowhere whenever Ron so much as mentioned her in conversation.

Being at the Burrow meant he couldn't ignore her anymore. And, for the first time in a long time, Harry felt pure, unadulterated panic.

(He knew that wasn't quite true, not when his friends were trapped in the past attempting to rewrite history, not when a twelve-year-old boy looked at him with cold-dead eyes and hated. Not when Tom whispered a promise that burned like basilisk venom in Harry's veins and promised that he would kill him. Harry knew panic. It was never caused by Ginny.)

Mrs. Weasley held Harry's face for a minute more, eyes memorizing his features, before releasing him with a watery smile and stepping back.

"I'm afraid it's only me and Ginny at the moment; George is at the shop and Arthur is at the Ministry—things have been so hectic, you understand—and Ron, well, he and Hermione supposedly just up and went on holiday…"

Harry squirmed guiltily, and caught the sharp look Ginny sent his way. Ignoring it, he followed Mrs. Weasley through the house and into the kitchen. She sat him at the table and with a flick of her wand, had the kettle going and an assembly line of ingredients chopping and cutting, spreading and folding themselves into a platter of sandwiches that made Harry's stomach grumble in hunger.

"I've missed your cooking," Harry said. Mrs. Weasley beamed.

"It's not much, but thank you, dear." She paused, eying Harry and Ginny speculatively. "You know, it's lovely to see the two of you together again—"

"We're not," Ginny said curtly, immediately gentling her tone at the brusque look her mother sent her. "I mean, we just have a few things to discuss is all. We've finished with each other, Mum, really."

Her words were like a kick to the teeth, a sharp blow to the back of the head; Harry understood the truth of the matter, knew it the way he knew magic was real and unicorns bled silver, but to hear it stated so bluntly was a shock of cold to his system. Because, he told himself, even if he had still known, had been the one to end it himself, he had still wondered, still hoped…

And wasn't that just stupid? Harry growled internally, plucking up a sandwich from the plate Mrs. Weasley dropped in front of him. The tea kettle whistled shrilly, and another flare of magic had the tea leaves steeping in the hot water. Harry recalled, quite clearly, the see-saw of emotions that urged him to push ever-closer to Ginny but also to just run away. Hoping for anything more was a fool's errand. And truthfully, he didn't—oh, he always remembered desiring more with Ginny (always, always) but there were more important things driving him forward, a world imploding in on itself that he felt directly responsible for, a promise to his friends he swore to keep.

Everyone has, and always will, come second to them, Ginny had surmised, and she gauged the measure of Harry's character better than he ever could.

"Well," Mrs. Weasley said at length, tone politely neutral, "it's good that you can remain friends, in any case."

The rest of lunch passed making small talk, Mrs. Weasley curious about what he had been up to in the months since Ginny's birthday (months, something cold and dark and angry screamed inside of him, I've missed months of their lives.)

(Except that had been the agreement, hadn't it? Losing time, dissolving bonds, it was all worth it if it meant that less people would die, that Harry would have a family and Ron would have his brother and the world would have Lupin and Tonks and Colin and Lavender and—so many children and families would get it all back—)

(It was worth it. It had to be.)

Harry hedged his way through an explanation, doing his best to keep the conversation focused on the Weasleys. Thankfully Ginny seemed to pick up on everything he didn't want to talk about, cleverly throwing in random facts about how Arthur's work at the Ministry had been or the new inventions George was in the process of experimenting with—and, oh, did you know he and Angelina are an item now?—and it was… it was nice. Soft and lazy. Easy.

A moment Harry fought to savor, if only for a little bit.

When Avery found Lestrange that evening, the dark-haired boy was curled up in his bed, hands pressed over his ears, shaking. Avery didn't understand—couldn't even begin to fathom—the deep rooted terror on the other boy's face, the way his eyes stared in a horrified fascination at Tom's bed, only to squeeze tightly shut a moment later, tears leaking from the corners of his eyes.

"Oi," Avery said, prodding his friend in the shoulder, only to cringe at the acrid scent of bile that wafted through the air. "Lestrange—"

"I did it," Lestrange whispered, "I did it, I did it, I did it."

There was a beat where Avery didn't process the words, remained utterly confused as to what the other boy meant, but then he truly looked—saw the shaking and the tears and smelled the bile and Avery's heart dropped like stone.

"Did what?" he questioned, terrified of an answer he already knew. His throat was tight, his heart thrumming rapidly against his rib cage. Don't say it, Avery wished fervently, don't tell me, I don't want to know. But beyond the fear, beyond that sickening knowledge that something had struck Lestrange down to his very core, Avery had to know, felt that curiosity crashing against him like a persistent bludger. Avery bit his lip, his breath catching in his throat.

"I taught him the Blood Boiling Curse," Lestrange said tremulously. The words were a cold chill in the air, clear and absolute, reminding Avery of the violent rush of ice in his veins every time the Bloody Baron shot through his body in fit of pique. "I used it on him—"

"Salazar's ghost, what were you thinking?" Avery hissed, stumbling over his feet in his haste to get away. The Blood Boiling Curse. Merlin, Avery didn't even want to think it. He'd heard of it, known what it could do, but to use it—his stomach plummeted, the acidic taste of bile teasing the back of his tongue with an unpleasant flavor. Avery's palms were two degrees too cold, and sweat began to bead at his temples. "Why…why would you—"

"You told me to teach him Dark Arts!" Lestrange shouted, snapping upwards, and Avery found himself cowering defensively beneath the manic stare of his dorm mate. "You told me what to do, so I did it—I only wanted to hurt him a little, like he hurt me, and I did and I left him and he's still… a-a-alive, he's still, but I hurt him—"

"Oh no." Avery's heart felt like glass seconds away from shattering. His terror was a ghostly touch against his skin, every hair standing up on end. He could imagine Tom's body writhing on the cold stone of the castle floor, the way his skin would flush red-red-red, grow damp with sweat and his eyes would brim over with tears. He could imagine his screams and his pain and his agony and—how had Lestrange gotten away with it? How had he kept anyone from listening in, from discovering them? How had Tom let it happen?

It's my fault, came the horrified whisper of his mind. All Avery wanted to do was run and hide. It's my fault Tom's like that. I told him to go to Lestrange. Stupid, stupid.

And Tom knows, too. He won't forget that, Avery reminded himself, a cold sense of horror unfurling like a lethifold in the darkness of his mind, creeping steadily forward until he was trapped beneath a swath of dark fabric twining ever tighter around any sense of rationality Avery had. Tom knows, he won't forget, he never forgets. Tom knows, he knows, he knows—

"You shouldn't have done that," Avery whispered, voice non-existent.

Lestrange's eyes flashed, a sharp point of light as noticeable as a star. "I did what you told me—"

Avery jumped on the bed, slapped a hand right over Lestrange's mouth, knees slipping against the comforter as they slid in the slime of Lestrange's sick.

"We take it to our grave," he spat urgently. "You don't tell anyone—you keep acting like normal—we take this to our grave. You know what'll happen if anyone finds out you used a Dark Curse in school, if the wards didn't already pick it up—" Avery swallowed hard past the lump in his throat. "I'll find out how to do a Wizard's Oath, make an Unbreakable Vow, something to keep us safe so we can't be asked about it. I mean it, Lestrange, if we don't say anythin', Tom won't either. He's too proud." He looked Lestrange dead in his eyes, voice cold as stone. "We take this to our grave. Death Day and beyond. All right?"

Avery held Lestrange's furious gaze with a strength he didn't know he had. Seconds passed in silence, and Avery continued to kneel there, his robes and trousers soaking through with the cold wet of Lestrange's vomit.

Finally, Lestrange nodded. Avery dropped his hand.

"I promise," Lestrange answered, his lashes thick with tears. "I'll keep quiet." He pinned Avery with a stare the sandy-haired boy couldn't read. It was as if they were back to that day all those weeks ago, where Lestrange was trying to convince Avery just how off Tom Riddle was. The chasm which had opened between them was wide and foreboding and Avery found himself hesitant to cross it. Yet, here he was, making promises of wizard oath's, trying to protect a boy—no, a friend—he'd been refusing to talk to in lieu of his new friendship with the Heir of Slytherin…

Avery straightened his shoulders, squared his chin, and met Lestrange's eyes dead on. "Death day and beyond," Avery insisted, and Lestrange grasped Avery's wrist tightly.

"Death day and beyond," Lestrange parroted back dutifully.

Ginny may have said she had brought Harry to the Burrow because they had 'things to discuss' but saying that and doing it were two completely separate things. Once Mrs. Weasley had retired to the sitting room to listen to one of her vinyl's, Ginny had disappeared out the kitchen door with a dark look that Harry read all too well.

Harry was prepared to pretend that she had just as much reluctance to broach the topic of their… admittedly anti-climactic split, but her words rang loud and clear in his mind—we've finished with each other, mum, really—and Harry was certain that she felt no compunctions to be meek and tiptoe around a subject when blunt honesty would serve to be much more effective.

So. She just… didn't want to speak to him then. Which was—well, that was all right by Harry. He could handle it. Ginny wasn't his only friend—and for all the bitterness that existed between them, they were friends and would drop everything in a split second if the other was in danger—and he could entertain himself well enough without her.

It was merely a matter of determining which friend he wanted to see. Yet the longer Harry pondered the issue, the more he realized he simply wasn't up to interacting with anyone yet. Despite the warmth and general easy atmosphere of the Burrow, venturing out and re-establishing bonds with those he had willingly opted to leave behind would only make his resolve to change things weaker.

Instead, Harry disappeared into Ron's bedroom, examined the bright yellow walls spattered with Chudley Canons posters, watched the wizards zipping wildly through the air on their brooms and smiled.

I wonder where they've gone off to now, Harry thought, collapsing onto Ron's bed. He folded his arms behind his head, gaze going distant as he followed the cracks in the ceiling, lips pulled down into a frown.

He hadn't truly had a chance to learn more about Ron and Hermione's location after Ginny's stubborn declaration. That confrontation would have most definitely devolved into a fight if it hadn't been for Luna; Luna with her stringy yellow hair, big eyes, and bizarre way of looking at the world. She was a balm, an unexpected ally Harry was unaware he had. Of course, Luna was always there when he needed her; the mural on her walls flashed through Harry's mind unexpectedly, the beautiful swirl of the word 'friends' a never-ending brand on his skin.

Luna had told Ginny to trust Harry. And, if that was impossible, to trust Hermione instead.

"Trust Hermione," Harry muttered, drawing a hand over his face and rubbing at his temples. He already did—her intellect, her forward thinking, her strategy. Trust wasn't even a question.

She's the cleverest witch of our age for a reason, Harry thought. The ache of her absence was quickly subsumed under the warmth of her memory, her friendship. Yet clever or not, why had Hermione chosen Ginny and Luna of all people—

But perhaps that wasn't the right question. After all, Hermione wouldn't have chosen them to help if there was any chance of her plan being impeded by either Ginny or Luna. Hermione was intimately acquainted with the uncertain state of Harry and Ginny's relationship—watched it blossom and break and turn back into a bud, like a flower bursting through a winter's frost to kiss the summer sun. She knew how it lived and how it died. Hermione's choice wasn't random; Ginny had been selected for a reason. Luna, as well.

Just what was he missing?

"Trust Hermione," Harry told himself, words loud in the buzzing silence. Absently, Harry dug his hand into the pocket of his trousers and retrieved the folded parchment. The parchment was thick and slid uncomfortably against his dry skin, a peculiar feeling that he only noticed because all of his senses had been decidedly muted, a strange mix of there-not-there as he suffered the trauma of time travel.

(He had never been so happy to see color, to remember was it meant to be cognizant and free of pain, to not feel the pressing need of the anchor deep rooted in his chest dragging him closer and closer to the child he just couldn't seem to change.)

(That's not true, a dark thought whispered in his a mind, a creeping tendril he was aware of but refused to acknowledge, the only person you can't change is yourself.)

Unfolding the parchment, he read Hermione's meticulous instructions, noted the memory she wanted to send him back to, felt bemused and a little ashamed at Hermione's jibe—'you're an adult according to Wizarding Law, Harry, it'll serve you better to start acting like one'—(Harry recognized that something was starting to change, that ripples were radiating outwards and disrupting the smooth surface of the pond; memories, it had to be the memories)—saw the post-script written in that neat little cipher Hermione had created and felt his brows nearly fly off his face in surprise.

Harry blinked, re-read the letter just to be sure. There was no doubt about it.

But what in Merlin's name were Ron and Hermione doing back in 1926?

Tom remembered the strength of a smile, how to make his eyes go big and wide and wet; he recalled that his skin was too pale and his features too dark to fake true innocence, but he knew how to make his words appealing, to make people want to listen to him. Tom remembered—

(Tell me the truth, but it wasn't that, not quite.)

A girl in Gryffindor had looked at him one day, back at the beginning of year, and instinctively he had allowed his neutral mask of disinterest to break and granted her a friendly smile, head tilted slightly to the right in mock-curiosity, his teeth a handsome white line, and she had flushed as red as the hair on her head and ducked away, extremely embarrassed.

Lestrange had been right. Tom didn't have friends. But years at the orphanage, of watching other children interacting, seeing fights break out and friendships mend had taught him—

—everything. It had taught him everything.

(He was observant and watchful and took everything to heart, even when it wasn't a lesson. Lestrange's revenge had been a lesson, a cruel one, and Tom promised he would never forget.)

He had been going about it all wrong. Tom had desired to be the best, to have control, to have favor, to be special. Tom had been acting like himself.

That had been his first mistake.

The orphanage had provided Tom with his first glimpse of the truth, Hogwarts with his second, and the specter—Harry, he thought with a swell of anger—had been the third. Tom had been foolish to forget it.

Nobody liked who Tom really was. No one desired the company of the strange child who wanted too much and did too little to achieve it. Who was too brilliant by far, but also too distant, too blank. A muggle-born or a half-blood with the legacy of Salazar Slytherin in his veins. No one respected a boy who knew how to be alone.

But Tom understood how children worked, no matter how different he was from them. He knew that if he had been in Lestrange's shoes, if he had an enemy pinned beneath the power of his wand (yew and phoenix feather, thirteen and half inches, he remembered, the shock of magic pulsing in him like a narcotic in his veins), if he had hurt them with that—that spell, that Dark Magic, Tom wouldn't have panicked or vomited or cried. His enemies would have deserved that pain, that agony, that fire in their body making their blood too hothothot.

Punishments were so very easy.

(Lestrange was too soft, too weak. He had meant the spell, surely, but to have such a reaction… Tom's lip curled, his teeth bared in a poor facsimile of a smile.)

Yet Heir of Slytherin or not, no one respected someone they couldn't connect with. Raw power was essential and amazing—a necessity and a privilege—but…

Tom did not have friends.

"Hello," he said, crouching before the little Ravenclaw girl. She was hidden in the shadows of an alcove behind a tapestry of green and gold. She had fat tears on her cheeks and snot dribbling from her nose. She peered at him with big eyes behind equally big glasses and sniffed messily. Tom remembered how to smile, let his teeth shine in the dim lighting of the corridor and offered her his pocket square. "You're a first year, aren't you? Are you quite all right?"

The girl accepted the handkerchief, blew her nose in it. "Who-who-who are you?"

"I'm Tom," he said softly, "Tom Riddle. I'm in Slytherin." He tapped the crest on his robes pointedly. "Come now, enough tears. Let me walk you to your common room."

"You smell horrible," the girl said, and Tom allowed his expression to turn sheepish. It felt stiff and awkward, but he held it long enough to be believable.

"I was headed to the Infirmary because I wasn't feeling well," Tom said. He smoothed his hands over the front his robes. The fabric of his collared shirt was stiff from dried vomit, but hidden all the same. Tom did his best to squash the sudden pulse of anger that made him want to hurt Lestrange. He couldn't bother with it now. There were things he still had yet to do. "But then I saw you crying, so I stopped. It's the decent thing to do."

The girl hesitated. "Thank you," she whispered, nodding shakily. She clambered to her feet, dusting off her skirt as she sniffled. "My common room is this way," she said, and Tom smiled pleasantly once more.

No. Tom did not have friends.

But, Tom vowed, by the end of the term, he wouldn't have any enemies either.