Disclaimer: I'm black haired, black eyed and still living with my parents. Do you still think I'm J K Rowling?

A/N: I tried and tried but the chapter just refused to come out right and so i've decided to just upload it as it is.

Thank you history, The Dark One Rising,lilyoftheval5, Miss Nailia, Danny-Shells, . , Lemrinth, Johanni93 for reviewing. i'll probably come and make some changes later, but right now i don't have the energy to do so. sorry for any mistakes.

Chapter 10

It could be said that Harry was having an identity crisis. That, or he was feeling extremely guilty at what he had done.

He looked on in sorrow at the little baby locked behind spell proofed glass doors in his mindscape. He had thought, when he could be bothered to think upon it, that since he and Cepheus were both the same soul, when he had come into awareness, it meant that he had simply unlocked his earlier memories. Maybe it had even started out as that, but what he saw in front of him made it quite obvious that it wasn't what it had ended as. Now that he knew Occlumency, the memories of being taught by a competent teacher had come along from his astral mindscape.

He remembered his teacher, a man whose name hadn't made the journey to his physical body's mind, tell him things that he had taken as fancies as he had seen no proof of them. He had been a hot-headed youth then, just like he always was at that age. The man had told him that sometimes, when people went through traumatic circumstances, they locked pieces of their memories behind doors that wouldn't be accidentally opened. It was a survival mechanism. But sometimes, they went through something that the psyche simply couldn't take and the mind fractured, different pieces of personality going to hide in different places while the personality, the defined character that would help the most in the situation, came to the forefront and took charge. Often, it happened that the person themselves didn't know about it, the piece was so small and the inclination to not think upon it so strong.

He didn't think that it was trauma that had caused the fracturing of their mind to take place. Because it was theirs, there was no doubt in his mind that he was looking at the softly breathing body of Cepheus Black. The baby was lying in a cream coloured wooden crib that had chimes tied all over it. It was wrapped in a green and silver blanket and looked snug as anything if a little restless.

He had been such a fool. There were records of people going mad when they remembered their past lives. He had simply assumed that it happened because their mind couldn't handle the additional memories. He had never bothered to think that it could be because the records were of adults who already had a definite personality, characteristics that defined them, circumstances that had shaped them into the people they were…that weren't necessary the same as the people they used to be. The personality of Cepheus Black had been barely formed, just a little child with the character traits he had inherited from his parents to define them. And then Harry had come along. The filter that prevented the soul from remembering its previous lives had suddenly become permeable and it had been a logical decision to keep the memories of being Harry.

But with those memories had sneaked along emotions, thoughts and feelings that Harry had felt and Cepheus had not. The piece of soul that lived in the body couldn't remember having gone through anything like this.

He had made a mistake while choosing to bring all his memories and personality along… the part of his soul that had gone through that life and the part that was in Cepheus were different!

And that had been it, Harry thought in anger, putting his head in his hands. It was something he simply hadn't known, not even thought of finding out but what was now crystal clear, no doubt due to the intervention of the main soul. Every piece of the main soul had memories. Some had more, some had less, the filter made sure that the memories didn't mix. Because with memories came actions, feelings, thoughts that might not be proper for the life that the body had to lead.

It wasn't just the memories that had come along with him this time, the pieces of soul had too. It was why his magic always kept trying to slip away. It was the soul that gave the ability to do magic, even if the body might have the characteristics already. More the soul, more the magic. He had such an excess of magic that his body simply couldn't handle it and it would take a long time to do so. It might even end up never happening. When there had been excess of soul inside him before, his mother's sacrificial magic had kept Tom Riddle's soul from overcoming his, yet close enough that his magic didn't overwhelm his body's capacity. This time there had been nothing like that. The only reason the pieces of soul hadn't interacted consciously was because Harry had stopped it. He'd locked Cepheus away and though it went against every fibre of his being, he knew he had to undo it.

He didn't know what would happen when the parts of the main soul that were him mixed with the pieces of soul that were Cepheus. Maybe they'd mix seamlessly and there would suddenly be two consciousness. It wasn't something that he could allow, not with Voldemort around. That left only the other two choices. Either Harry himself would become the dominant personality with occasional inputs by Cepheus if he even managed to grow up…or he'd have to let Cepheus be the one to emerge. Harry knew he had faults, knew there were things that he would rather never acknowledge. The choice came down to whether he would live another life, filled with people that had hurt people he had cared about, or forgive if not forget everything that had happened and move on. Of course, the moving on would be completely metaphorical as he would simply become the person he was meant to with just some changes.

He looked at the little baby sleeping peacefully and made his choice. Though he hated to disturb that little part of him that was still so innocent and peaceful, he felt that it was something that he really had to. As soon as he made the conscious decision, the glass wall separating them disappeared and Harry slowly and cautiously made to touch Cepheus. He knew it was not healthy to name different parts of him but considering it wasn't going to continue for much longer anyway, he saw no reason to stop it.

The face that stared out at him was the one he had been seeing in mirrors whenever someone bothered to show him how he looked. Somehow, it made him feel better, knowing that he would simply be assimilated into what was already him in a strange and extremely weird manner. His hand shook a little as it came to rest upon the baby's cheek but when nothing happened, he let out a sigh of relief. It didn't last for long as he realised that he had no idea as to how to merge with Cepheus.

He started thinking about all the ways it could be made to happen before he thought of the last time he had tried to do something in his mindscape. Looking at the pale face in front of him…he simply wished.

The baby did nothing except twitch a little as the man kneeling over him disappeared, seemingly sinking into him.


When Cepheus opened his eyes, it was to the sight of violet orbs staring down at him. He had had the strangest dream ever. He blinked in confusion as something moved inside him, as if settling down for a long stay. It seemed as if it wasn't actually a dream.

He looked at the face that looked down at him and uttered a happy, "Gah!"

He was naturally a happy boy and being let out of that place made him even happier. It had been pretty but he hadn't liked staying there so long. To fully show his happiness, he let out another happy sound, "Bah!"

The face above him seemed to screw itself up in delightful shapes and he waved his hands happily at that, giggling at the sight.

The thing inside him didn't seem to be too happy at that though, so he stopped waving his arms and put his fist inside his mouth and sucked, frowning a little, and concentrated on what it was feeling. It was a he and he seemed to be in some pain as he sent him feelings. He didn't want Cepheus to make sounds to show he was happy? But if he didn't do that, how would anyone know that he liked it and wanted them to do it again? The thing inside him had an answer and made sounds that slowly made sense.

Oh! He was supposed to do what the thing inside did and made sounds! But he did that already, he passed on to the thing. The thing winced at that and told him, 'Harry. Not thing!'

Cepheus blinked at that before cooing at it. It always made mummy happy when he did that.

Harry seemed frustrated at that and said slowly, 'No cooing. Say what you want to say. The sounds you make aren't words and can't be understood.'

Cepheus said nothing for a while before Harry seemed to give up and suddenly there was a rushing sound and suddenly he simply knew what Harry meant. 'Okay!' he said happily. But Harry just sighed before he went to sleep. Cepheus thought about it for a moment before deciding it felt like a good idea and closed his eyes, falling asleep instantly.


Voldemort looked at the brat with a burning sense of injustice. It had cooed at him! No one cooed at him! Especially not when he was feeling displeased enough to scowl at them. He turned to look at where Walburga was lying on the carpet and then at the Healer who was cowering at a corner of the disgustingly bright room. He stated in in such a cold voice that it could have made a penguin shiver, as one of his newest recruits had said just before being Crucioed for the impertinence, "It seems the dear child of yours that you have made so many sacrifices for doesn't even care that his mother's lying broken and bleeding on the floor."

Walburga might have been tortured so bad that she couldn't even get up from her prone position on the carpet but she was still a Black and had a natural immunity to most Dark Curses, something that often happened after a long acquaintance to them. There were few curses that still made her hurt. Unfortunately, the Crucio was one and she knew that she absolutely had to take his attention off her little baby, loath as she was to do it, before he felt fit to take his frustration at being called for nothing more than to make sure that Cepheus' magic didn't vanish before he could get better, on the little boy itself.

"Thing is," she said in between gasps. "I'm not… exactly broken …and my clothes are… disarmingly clean."

To her horror, he tilted his head to the side curiously and asked with a small smile that she knew would bode no good for her, "We'll have to work on that, won't we?"

Just as she was sure that her eyes would pop out in horror, Kern asked shakily, "Wouldn't it be… more mentally stimulating to figure out," here she stopped, seeming unable to continue further as Riddle turned to face her asked in a deceptively courtly and gentlemanly manner, "Yes?"

She stuttered out a barely audible, "I-intricacies of the m-magical system o-of the infantile age g-group."

He asked quite politely, "Now what would I want to do that for?"

She seemed unable to wrack her brains fast enough to say anything before he turned away from her to look at gaze at Walburga again. He sounded pensive as he said in a mock impressed tone, "You do know how to pick them, don't you?"

Seeing a chance to get away from this encounter relatively unharmed, she said in a voice full of false bravado, "My mother in law, the Lady Black, chose her."

"We'll simply have to make sure this doesn't go further than this room then, won't we? So as not to unnecessarily distress her?" he sounded so unconcerned about it that in the silence that followed, Walburga could have sworn she heard Kern gulp.

"Grimmauld Place itself would rebel." She finally said in a shaky voice.

"It doesn't seem to have till now." He said with a small smirk.

"That is only because you haven't yet done me any grievous harm. The moment you do, the house would unleash all your defences against you!" she attempted to shout at him but her voice cracked in the middle of it and died down completely at the end as she lay coughing weakly.

"Thing is," he answered in an apologetic tone after it became obvious that she wasn't going to say anything further. "We are both keyed in by Orion. If I hadn't been keyed in by him, or if you had been born Lord Black's daughter, it would have been different. But since you weren't as long as I don't attempt to harm an of the children, whose father will one day be Lord Black, the house will do absolutely nothing against me."

Walburga would have cursed if she had had the breath to do it. Her throat felt swollen and raw from all the coughing she had done and though she told herself that she was preparing herself for one last attempt to curse the filthy half-blood, she was aware that it would be as pitiful as all her previous attempts had been. She cursed Orion for keying in the monster masquerading as a man and then she cursed herself for bringing the man to her home.

When he had flooed over, she had seen his polite and interested face and well aware that it was simply a façade to hide all the real emotions he was feeling, apologised for calling him all those names but she had been at her wit's end as to how to motivate him to pay them a visit.

He had smiled in a chill manner at her and inquired as to how he could be of help.

She had frankly told her that Cepheus had had a bad reaction to the magic suppressing spell and that as they were about to remove it for his health, his presence was necessary to make sure Cepheus didn't end up as a squib.

He had lifted up an incredulous eyebrow and asked if that was all the reason.

She had foolishly said yes and the next thing she knew, she was bent over at the waist, trying to scratch out her own eyes as they felt as if someone had set them on fire. The effects didn't last long but she was distracted for long enough Riddle to summon her wand from her holster, despite all the anti-summoning charms on it.

Even though most of the spells that he cast at her didn't last long, he had a wide enough repertoire that instead of being displeased at her resistance, he had seemed pleased.

It was, as he had explained to her one of the few times when he had stopped casting the previous curse and had yet to cast the next one, quite difficult to try out all the small curses he knew at the same person since they usually died by the fifth one. She was indeed providing him with a wonderful learning experience. His only regret was that she didn't seem to like his efforts at research very much but she simply couldn't have everything now, could she.

It was as she lay on the floor that she realised that though she was the same Walburga Black she had been, he wasn't the same Riddle he had been. He wasn't just a half blood with delusions of grandeur who wanted to be in a position of power. He was a Dark Lord who already had power and wasn't afraid to use it because he might get in trouble.

She had underestimated him, had thought he was merely an overambitious Slytherin who had just gone further than she had expected… without pausing to wonder why Melania treated him politely even though she was a greater snob that Walburga herself, why her own brother followed him when even their father had been hard pressed to make him do anything.

She had made a mistake and now she knew that she was going to pay for it. Surely not with her life, no, just with a few hours of her life that she would use all her Occlumency prowess to bury so deep that they wouldn't ever be found again. She wouldn't take any revenge, she wouldn't draw his attention to herself… she'd simply do what she had to and hope he forgot her just like she was willing to entirely forget him.

Just as the look on Riddle's face became cruel, an expression that distorted his handsome features and made him appear inhuman somehow, she heard a sound she had dearly hoped not to.

"Mama?"

Riddle blinked once before he hid his emotions and them a gentle smile appeared on his face as he turned to face Cepheus.

Cepheus looked at the face that appeared above him before he asked hesitantly, "Mama?" remembering what Harry had told him about using sounds that people knew. Considering that he himself had a woefully inadequate supply of such sounds, he was drawing heavily on Harry's memories.

The face that had such bright red eyes shook his head and said with a smile, "No, I am afraid that your mother is indisposed right now. How about me though? I am sure I will be perfectly adequate for whatever it is that you desire."

Cepheus blinked at him in befuddlement. What?

The man, because it was a man who was speaking to him, looked at him for a moment before an impatient expression appeared on his face and after a while after that, one of shock. Cepheus only knew what those expressions meant because he was leaning so heavily on the sleeping Harry. Even then, it took him a while to understand that impatient was like when he was hungry and they were late in feeding him and shock was like when they poured water all over his head even though he had been perfectly happy being dry.

The man above him seemed to control his expression before he reached down towards him and slowly picked him up. It wasn't comfortable the way the man had picked him up and Cepheus had to struggle a bit before he was settled to his liking.

The man smiled at him, showing all his brilliant white teeth. Cepheus looked at him in wonder at seeing so many teeth. Hadn't it hurt? It had hurt very badly when Harry had made him grow teeth and he only had teeth that were absolutely necessary to talk. The man had enough teeth that they might have covered his entire mouth.

The man's smile seemed to become a bit stiff but that might have been because Cepheus had reached up with his fingers to touch the bright teeth. A big hand grabbed his after a moment and he pouted as it pulled his hand away from that mouth.

"I am Lord Voldemort and I have tortured your mother to the brink of madness." The man said pompously.

Cepheus blinked at him, trying to figure out what those words and way of speaking meant but he didn't get the chance to find out from Harry's sleeping consciousness before Lord Voldemort turned him around and he saw his mother lying on the pretty green carpet. Her face was twisted up strangely and it took Cepheus a while to realise that she was in pain. He searched for the appropriate words and then simply asked, "Mama hut?"

She smiled at him as she shook her head before stating to cough again. Cepheus looked at her doubtfully. It didn't seem like she was all right.

Lord Voldemort turned him around to face him and when he saw that Cepheus' eyes were on him, he said, "I can make her stop hurting."

Cepheus tilted his head at that and then commanded him imperiously, "Do!"

Lord Voldemort smiled at him as he said, "But you'll have to give me something before that."

Cepheus screwed up his face at that before asking, "What?"

Lord Voldemort's smile started looking threatening somehow as he asked, "If you can't think of something, you don't mind if I do, do you?"

Cepheus really didn't like that look and he pulled at Harry's memories, trying to find out what Harry knew about Lord Voldemort. The last memory associated with that name was something strange, so he asked hesitantly, "You die?"

Lord Voldemort looked amused as he asked, "Is that a question or a suggestion?"

"Geen light hit you," Cepheus explained.

Lord Voldemort blinked at him before asking slowly, "And you know that how?"

"Saw," he answered.

"Why don't you tell me what else you saw?" the man coaxed him.

"Vy?" he asked mulishly.

"Because I'll make your mother all better then." Lord Voldemort answered with a winning smile.

Cepheus tried to keep looking at him suspiciously but failed as he got distracted by those brilliant teeth again. Eyes round as saucers, he reached out with his right hand to touch those teeth but was stopped this time as well, less gently than before.

"No," Lord Voldemort barked at him before smoothing out his face and adding in a softer tone, "Why don't you tell me first?"

Cepheus ran his eyes over his mother, twisting in the arms that held him to do so. He was swiftly turned back as he almost overbalanced but not before he saw that his mother looked horrible. There was another woman there in the room and he wondered angrily why she didn't do anything. As he looked at the red eyes looking at him, he saw that there wasn't anything soft about them at all. In fact, they looked angry and irritated, burning with some unnamed emotion. They were scary and Cepheus felt almost compelled to tell all he knew.

"You die!"

"Yes, how?"

"Geen light!"

"A spell or simply light?"

"…Sell!"

"Who shot it?"

That was a harder question but moving further back into the memory gave him the answer. "You!"

The man reared back at that. "Me? I shot the spell that killed me?"

Cepheus nodded happily at managing to answer Lord Voldemort's question.

"Why would I do that?"

Cepheus tilted his head to the side at that, thinking about it. Finally, he asked hesitantly, "Want to?"

"No, I certainly wouldn't want to!" the man almost shouted at him.

Cepheus screwed up his face as he worked hard to unravel the memory that belonged to Harry and finally hit upon it. "Hit Hawwy!"

The man scowled down at him ferociously as he asked, "Now who the hell is Hawwy?"

"Haw-wy,"Cepheus enunciated.

The man looked at him suspiciously before saying, "you've been eating your 'r's. Do you mean Harry?"

Cepheus nodded happily as that scowl disappeared. He didn't like it when Lord Voldemort scowled at him.

"And why was I trying to kill this Harry person?" Lord Voldemort prodded.

Cepheus rummaged a bit more through Harry's memories, trying not to wake the poor dear up, he seemed so tired. After a successful rummage, he answered slowly, "Coz you fail befo."

Lord Voldemort stared at him silently for a few moments, as if trying to decode what he had said before asking, "And why did I try to kill him before? And when?"

Cepheus nibbled his lower lip as he looked for that answer, finally saying triumphantly, "Coz you fail when he one! You fail when he elen! When he tel! When he forteen! When he fiteen! An' when he senteeen!"By the end, what he was saying was barely comprehensible.

Lord Voldemort however seemed to have managed to understand him perfectly fine as he asked incredulously, "Do you mean to tell me I tried to kill a boy when he was one, eleven, twelve, fourteen, fifteen and failed every single time till when he was seventeen and managed to kill me with my own spell!"

Cepheus nodded with wide eyes.

"How do I know you're not lying?"

Cepheus stared at him uncomprehendingly. What was lying?

Lord Voldemort sighed as he saw that Cepheus hadn't understood what had been said and asked, "You are Cepheus Black. Your mother is Walburga Black. Your father is Orion Black. Who is Harry? Harry Weasley, Harry Prewitt, Harry Bones, Harry Crouch, Harry Moody, who?"

He knew the answer to that! Cepheus thought with a beam. "Pottuh!"

Lord Voldemort looked at him incredulously before exclaiming, "But there isn't a Harry Potter!"

Cepheus looked at the man scornfully. Of course there wasn't one now. He was inside him, Cepheus, after all.

"Whose son is he? Who are his parents?" Lord Voldemort asked.

"Jam and Lily!"

"Jam and Lily?" Voldemort sounded quite disbelieving about it. "Are you sure it is Jam?"

Cepheus nodded heartily before pausing to think on it a bit more after which he shook his head a bit doubtfully.

Walburga sighed inside her own head. This was going to be a long day, hopefully one where none of them would be tortured any more.


A/N: I'm at 93 reviews right now. here's to hoping this chapter will make a 100. so please review!