Harry should have been expecting it. Tom did look, after all, the closest to losing control of his meticulously micromanaged, impenetrable calm as he had in a very long time.

Still, when Trelawney had scarcely shut the door behind him, he was unprepared.

It happened between one breath and the next. In a fraction of a second, Harry's face went bloodless. And then, the pain was too great for him to muster even any sound, let alone a scream. He was under the siege of what felt like a thousand butter knives—blunt and cold—trying to saw their way into his mind with incomprehensible force, one jagged slice at a time.

Zabini had never been gentle. But even his example of brute force paled in comparison to this. This—this was a pain Harry had never before imagined, worse even than the Cruciatus. It was both the literal agony and the agonizing sense of violation…

Worse, as Harry squinted blearily up, barely maintaining consciousness—he could see that he wasn't the only one affected. Green eyes almost black—slitted—blazed down at him, jaw clenched to the point of fracturing. Tom felt it too. He had done this knowing he would; and it galled Harry to see his enemy withstand this with far more grace that he himself was.

(Some part of him snarled in seething wonderance.)

Air hissed through Harry's teeth as he realized he was fighting a losing battle. He was either going to pass out—or worse, his mental shields would break. Neither outcome was acceptable.

With the small amount of control he had left, he brought his most recent nightmare to the fore of his mind, voluntarily allowing Tom to view it. At the playback of his own memory, Tom's eyes widened briefly.

It was the moment of distraction Harry needed. He wasn't quite sure what he was doing, but with all his willpower, he thrust the entire force of his mind against the invader.

And Harry had a brief vision of—

Tom standing before a tall, stately manor, knocking on a door, a kind, matronly face revealed to greet him, a mirror image of Tom's face, later, gazing back at him, and then—

Before he was cast out.

He panted against the table behind him, enjoying the bliss of having his mind as his own again, free from attack. Then, his gaze darted up and his breath caught.

Tom was staring back at him, but he didn't see him. His face was drawn tight with inhuman fury.

And Harry—well, such moments of distractions so rarely came about. It would have been a shame to waste it.

His fist landed solidly on the Dark Lord's jaw, whose head jerked to the side like a ragdoll's. Harry could feel the resounding pain on his own face, but he breathed through it, following the punch with a knee to the stomach.

And it was good. So good. It felt like cold water sliding down a parched throat. Harry watched Tom buckle with dark satisfaction, before he was scrabbling on top of him.

"We always seem to end up back here, don't we?" he observed under his breath, grunting as Tom landed a few well-placed blows, but still managed to maintain his position.

It was like they had forgotten they had wands. Nails, he registered belatedly, were digging into his hip where the Dark Lord gripped him with ferocious strength.

"You were somewhere else," Harry noted coldly. "See me now?"

Tom's green eyes bore into him from below with laser focus. "Feeling neglected, were you?"

He ignored that. "In the manor," he began, then paused. "That man was your father."

The Dark Lord's features flexed into a practiced smile. The punishing hand on Harry's hip released its hold and slid its way up to clasp his neck, pulling him closer.

"Well-observed, Harry." The words brushed warmly against his face.

Harry tried to pull away, but the hand at his neck prevented him, pulling him even closer. Lips brushed against his face, and Harry's eyes were wide with alarm, his pulse racing like he was on the verge of falling off the Astronomy Tower.

"He was also the first person I killed." The words were dragged against the surface of Harry's cheek. It was a mockery of a kiss, a perversion—just as Tom intended.

But rather than enraging him, as it would have at almost any other time, the words returned Harry's focus.

"That's not true," he returned immediately. "Myrtle was before that. And also the priest."

The hand on Harry's throat tightened.

"I didn't plan them," Tom explained genially, drawing back. "Those were—accidents, really. In the heat of the moment."

"Accidents."

"My father. He, I planned."

Harry inhaled sharply, gaze roving over the brazen and yet somehow unreadable expression of the Dark Lord.

Closer.

"Why would you kill your family?" he pressed.

"I think a better question to ask," Tom drawled, pushing Harry by the throat off of him—surprised, Harry's hold slipped away and he was knocked backward—"is why you haven't killed yours?"

"Because—"

"Don't bother with moral platitudes."

Harry's lips tightened. "You seriously think you or I have the right to decide who lives and dies, just like that?"

"Don't we?" Tom returned equally sharply, green eyes glowing. "Why not? If not those with the power, who else?"

"What has it ever done for you, killing someone?" Harry said, trying a different tack. "Forget the priest, but—Myrtle and your father?"

The Dark Lord bared his teeth in a savage smile, and it was like looking on the face of death itself. "It's served a purpose greater than you could ever imagine."

There was something there, deeply embedded in those words, that he did not know. But this sentiment of confusion was almost immediately subsumed by Harry's anger.

"That's another lie," he observed lowly. "Forgot what happened when you tried to kill a baby?"

Tom's grin grew even more sinister.

"That seems almost an age ago, now—merely one anomaly. I'll hardly make the same mistake again," he murmured, straightening into a standing position. "Don't even recall what your mother looked like."

Harry's chest wrenched open, bleeding even though there was no wound. He breathed shakily, trying to hide his vulnerability.

Something, however, struck him as odd about Tom's words. The cavalier attitude. Could five years really change Tom from that seething, pathetic figure seeking revenge desperately on the back of another wizard's head to—this?

He couldn't remember it?

"And one might ask, Harry—how do you reconcile your morals with your desire to kill me?" Tom challenged, half his face obscured by shadow.

"I need to do that, because you haven't given me a choice," Harry corrected icily. His fists tightened at his sides. "But you—you've had a choice. Maybe the priest was self-defense, but with the others? You chose to kill them."

Before the Dark Lord could respond to that charge, they were both interrupted by a winged creature sweeping through the classroom door, silver and shimmering in its majesty.

The phoenix opened its mouth, and Dumbledore's voice emerged.

"The minister is here."

Every step toward the Great Hall felt like a step toward the guillotine. He didn't care much about the ministry officials, but—Harry's professors and the Order. There was no way Sirius would be there, was there?

"Will your death eaters be there?" Harry asked distantly.

"I don't need an army to protect me, unlike the minister."

"Really. So who's going to protect you from Dumbledore?"

His lip curled. "Dumbledore is no threat to me." They stopped in the front of the double doors.

"Right," Harry said, rolling his eyes, "As if you don't have a healthy fear of him."

The Dark Lord truly did look remarkably unconcerned. "Even if that were true, no one can fight a war on two fronts. And I rather think this war is more important to him."

Harry drew up short. "And…why?"

Tom's expression was angelic. "I'm hardly competition for his paramour."

Harry blinked.

"Dumbledore?" he gaped, jaw sliding open. "Dumbledore fancies men?"

"If I had known that this would lead you to crucify him like the muggles did Turing," The Dark Lord's gaze passed over him boredly, "I would have mentioned it much, much sooner."

"I'm not crucifying anyone," Harry said hastily. "I just didn't know."

Tom pushed the doors open, and Harry quickly schooled his expression, putting aside his shock.

The Great Hall looked just as it ever did, only its occupants were much older than usual. The center table—usually taken by the Hufflepuffs—was populated on one side by ministry officials and the other by Hogwarts professors and members of the Order.

On one end, sat Cornelius Fudge, looking rather sweaty and nervous. Beside him was Kingsley Shacklebolt, and on the other side, a stern looking woman with skin the warm, rich color of clay and unwrinkled, though her harsh gaze spoke of wisdom gathered from many hard decades.

On the opposite end, Dumbledore surveyed the minister calmly, flanked by Professor McGonagall and Snape. McGonagall looked as stiff and disapproving as ever; the potions master seemed ostensibly bored by the whole affair.

"Tom, Harry," Dumbledore greeted gravely.

"Albus," the head of Gryffindor frowned, "what on earth are Potter and Gaunt doing here?"

Dumbledore smiled sadly. "I see you haven't yet realized why Mr. Gaunt looks so familiar."

McGonagall looked confused. "A parent or grandparent, no doubt."

"Not quite, my dear—"

"What the headmaster is trying to say, Minerva, is that that body there belongs to Tom Marvolo Riddle," Snape cut in impatiently, "That is, the Dark Lord from his youth, as you may have seen him at Hogwarts. Only, these past few months, he and Potter have inexplicably switched bodies. So the boy you have thought is Potter from the beginning of the school year is in fact the Dark Lord, and Mr. Gaunt is your precious Potter in what is actually the Dark Lord's body."

How the hell has Snape carried on earlier today as he had, if he had known exactly who 'Harry Potter' was? Harry's eyebrow twitched. First, Malfoy. Now, Snape. Who was next, Millicent Bulstrode?

Professor McGonagall's hazel eyes bulged along with the professors' around her. "I beg your pardon?"

"What nonsense," Fudge coughed furiously, "The Dark Lord? Utter—hogwash—I will not be hoodwinked like this, Albus. I came here in good faith, despite the advice of the best of my counsel, and yet—"

"Quiet, Cornelius," the woman to his left said calmly, waving a silencing hand in his general direction. The minister's mouth snapped shut.

"Is it true, boy?" the woman demanded, dark eyes flashing beneath her elaborate head scarf.

Tom paid her no attention. Instead, his cold attention was focused on the potions master, and all semblance of the innocuous student persona fled. Men and women in the room tensed in visceral response, suddenly instinctively aware of the presence of a predator in their midst.

The hair on Harry's arms rose—for this was the Dark Lord, now, truly as himself.

He no longer disguised himself as he had even at Hogsmeade, and even in the Great Hall the night after to some extent. He was abruptly terrible, abruptly imperious, his magic a sudden oppressive force in the room.

"Severus."

Snape's eyes widened for an instant with something like alarm.

Harry stiffened, gaze darting from Tom to Dumbledore.

Snape reached them and waited stoically for his next command.

"Your arm."

After a moment—of hesitation?—the dark sleeve rose slowly and steadily.

With the artistry of one conducting an orchestra, Tom's—Harry's, he corrected himself angrily—wand traced its way to the exposed mark on Snape's arm.

A second later, the entire room was circled by dark, masked figures cloaked head to toe in black. Apparently, the wards had been modified for the time to allow apparation.

"Don't need an army, was it?" Harry muttered under his breath.

"Of course," Tom returned softly, coolly. "This, merely, is a performance."

In one, eerie synchronized motion, every death eater bent into a deep bow. There was something intensely unnerving about the act to Harry. In the graveyard, the death eaters had been fearful, desperate—they had known they were in the presence of a madman. Their demeanor was markedly different now.

They were—worshipful.

"No," Fudge gasped, looking like he might pass out. He shoved himself backward in his chair, making the legs screech against the stone floor.

"Compose yourself, minister," the woman beside him snapped, barely blinking. "I see why you called us now, Albus."

"Your company is always a pleasure, Aminatu, but—yes."

"How is this possible?" Professor McGonagall demanded.

"That is an issue for another time," the headmaster said gravely. He looked…tired, Harry observed with discomfort. If this—this Grindelwald figure was truly Dumbledore's former lover, then— Well, this could hardly be an easy time for him, could it?

(But how? How could someone like Dumbledore fall in love with someone like Grindelwald?)

"We are here, I assume, to discuss Grindelwald primarily," Kingsley spoke for the first time, the deep bass of his voice easily projecting though he spoke quietly.

"Y-yes," McGonagall answered, though her gaze seemed stuck on Harry and Tom. With visible effort, she turned her attention toward the Head of the Aurors. "Yes."

"By all means," Tom said nonchalantly.

He waved his hand, and the table lengthened just enough for a third perpendicular section to begin to grow from the middle, forming a T. The new section was just long enough to seat all the death eaters. At the head of this third end of the table were two seats.

The death eaters took their seats. Harry remained standing.

"Take a seat, Harry," Tom said lightly, a dangerous smile on his lips.

He wondered what would happen if he flat out ignored the request. Rolling his eyes, he stalked to the chair and slumped into it.

"Happy, Tom?"

The death eaters around him all tensed at his irreverent tone.

"Filthy half-blood," a woman seated perpendicular to the both of them seethed, the riotous curls sprouting from her head trembling with her rage. "I will twist your insides into knots so painful that your whore of a mother will turn over in her grave."

"Well that's ironic," Harry sneered, ignoring her entirely in favor of goading Tom. "Shouldn't you tell this nice lady here the truth about your m—"

"Not now, Harry," Dumbledore requested quietly, and the smile abruptly fell from Harry's face.

He straightened in his chair and looked toward the headmaster, eyes wide. "I—sorry."

The headmaster bowed his head in acknowledgement. "Thank you."

But something in Tom's demeanor had changed with this transaction, like a switch had been flicked. Without warning, Harry found his chin in the grip of a quidditch-calloused hand, and his head forced painfully to face the Dark Lord's. Cries of outrage sounded distantly in the background.

"You're not his dog," Tom said coldly, so close that only Harry could possibly hear. "If I hear something like that out of your mouth again, I will cut out your tongue."

Tom looked away, but his gaze was dark now. Harry's eyes narrowed at this unexpected behavior.

The Dark Lord looked around the table and gave a chilling smile. "Kingsley Shacklebolt—I don't remember you from the previous war. But Aminatu Sukhera; now that's a name one remembers. Head of the department of intelligence and former wartime hero, isn't that right?"

"Voldemort," the woman returned equally casually. "Haven't had the pleasure of making your acquaintance before."

"And I hear my predecessor got a house visit," Tom said with a curl to his lips.

"Never did manage to get your address," Aminatu returned calmly. "By all means, feel free to send an owl."

"No need," the Dark Lord said pleasantly. "Hogwarts is now my place of residence. Feel free to visit whenever—especially now that we will all be working for the same end for the foreseeable future."

Fudge gave a loud, miserable groan. Aminatu's eyebrow twitched, like she wanted dearly to force the man into silence but was much too collected to actually go through with it.

"Dolores," the minister muttered. "Where is Dolores, shouldn't she—"

"This is an emergency war council," Kingsley interrupted firmly.

"But Albus—"

"Has aided the ministry in past war efforts," Aminatu said brusquely. "Pointedly, with an opponent we face now once again."

"Indeed," Dumbledore said grimly. "What information have you gathered so far?"

Aminatu snapped her hand at a mousy looking man seated a bit further down the table. He jolted straight. "We have a picture of his…face."

Harry's stomach twisted in dread and anticipation.

"Well, go on, lad," McGonagall said with a bit ire.

The man slid a hand into his robes pocket and procured a massive envelope. Delicately untwisting the tie at the top, he slipped out a photograph. It had clearly been taken through a window—a lucky shot, capturing just the profile of the figure in the photo.

The moving photograph only lasted a few seconds, at the end of which, the figure made sudden eye contact with the viewer. Then the photograph looped back to the beginning.

"The photographer?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"Dead," Aminatu finished curtly. "He managed to get it to us in his last moments."

"Is it him, Albus?" Fudge asked impatiently. "All records from his youth have been destroyed; there's no way of verifying it. But you knew him. Do you recognize him?"

The headmaster looked at it for a long moment, his blue eyes curiously absent of their normal glint. "It is not a face I recognize," he said at last.

The minister slumped into his seat with relief.

"But," Dumbledore continued with an unreadable expression, "there are elements there that…are familiar."

"What does that mean?" Kingsley asked delicately.

The professor paused a long time before answering. "It was only an idea back then—a theory far from reality, of transferring one's consciousness into another's body. He theorized the most suitable candidate would be a relative—a descendant, ideally, for the agenda of prolonging one's life span."

Something about these words made Tom abruptly, eerily still. Harry watched him sharply, aware of the…similarity between what had transpired between them and the current topic of discussion.

And the fact that Dumbledore used the word 'consciousness,' somehow, like he was hiding another one.

"A quest for immortality," someone summarized beneath their breath.

"Yes," Dumbledore allowed somberly, blue eyes piercing above his half-moon spectacles. "There were…rumors that there was a child, smuggled out before the full onset of the war. It is plausible that this body belongs to a child of that child."

All around the table, witches and wizards looked horrified.

"If it truly is possible, then we must assume the worst. That this is a Grindewald in the body of a man in his prime," Fudge groaned. "And how do our numbers compare?"

Aminatu frowned. "The men and women who fought for him have spawned families by now."

"And having been in a period of peace for more than a decade now, our auror ranks are a fraction of what they were then," Kingsley finished.

Silence reigned for a brief moment.

"I suppose this is where I come in?" Tom asked lazily.

Aminatu's hawk-like gaze snapped to him, then to Dumbledore. "I'm guessing he wants something in return."

"We have reached an agreement," the headmaster responded slowly.

When he offered no further detail, she looked at him with suspicion.

"I will unite the pureblood houses under me," the Dark Lord stated, eyes glinting. "Those that do not fall in line are no doubt Dumbledore's. But even so—our numbers will not be enough."

"So what do you propose?" Professor McGonagall asked stiffly.

Tom leaned back into his chair, looking very much like an uncaring tyrant confronted by a court he perceived as inferior.

"A school is a place of…opportunity, is it not?" Tom said lightly. "And as an instructor yourself, there is no possibility you could have missed the talent thriving under your very own thumb."

The older woman's face went pale with outrage. "You can't possibly be suggesting that—"

"Children have no place in war," Dumbledore finished for her, with steel in his voice.

Tom's eyebrows climbed high on his face, but his eyes were mocking. "Don't they? Children have been victims of war since time in memoriam, headmaster. Why, you've placed some in the very line of fire yourself, haven't you?"

Dumbledore's expression did not change, but Harry saw the subtle twitch in his mouth, showing that he had been affected by these words.

"I think that's a bit generous," Harry muttered coolly, just for Tom's ears. "Because, you know, you could have easily fixed that if you'd stopped trying to kill me."

Tom smiled.

"I think we are done here today," the minister said hastily, rubbing his hands together.

"Agreed," Dumbledore said quietly. The words thundered in the otherwise silent hall.

Aminatu gave a short, humorless bark of laughter.

"Until next time," Kingsley said softly, tilting his head.

"Until next time," Tom concluded pleasantly.

"Tom," Harry announced with relish five days later, "is on a business trip."

He'd seen Tom's face darken gradually more and more each day, his attention even more intent and controlling—Harry hadn't known the exact cause, then. But then just that morning, wonder of all wonders, he had woken alone. And when Flitwick had whispered to him at breakfast that morning that he hoped "Potter recovered from the mumblemumps soon," he had known.

Mumblemumps required a minimum of three days' bed rest. For at least that long, Tom planned to be gone. He could only thank the stars that his trip had clearly been of a secretive nature—that Harry hadn't been made to come along.

Finally, Harry had some freedom again.

And, true, he had noticed a few unwelcome charms placed on his person that had taken him six hours and some covert signing to Zabini to break. And then he'd had to lose Malfoy, who had been tailing him the entire while (hence the covert signing). The platinum blonde hair, unsurprisingly, didn't aid in his effort of being an inconspicuous spy.

(Fortunately for them all, Tom hadn't seen fit to expose their body switch to the whole world and bring his death eaters into Hogwarts.)

But still, it was indeed a state of relative freedom that Harry currently operated in.

"Evidently," Zabini said boredly, but his voice was a fraction too cool. "So now that you've dragged us all here to the Room of Requirement, give us your updates, Potter."

Harry's mouth went sour.

"Trelawney made a prophecy in Divination. About Tom and me," he said stoically.

"Everyone knows that woman," followed Parkinson primly, "is a fraud."

"I'm not sure if all her prophecies come true,"—Harry wasn't dead yet, was he?—"but the ones she doesn't remember making, those are true."

"You mean you've seen what she said come true?" asked Zabini intently.

"She predicted Voldemort coming back."

They let that sit in silence for a moment.

"Given her flare for the tragic, this bodes well for us all," Parkinson muttered, flipping her dark hair behind her shoulder. "So, what did she say?"

Harry paused. Then frowned.

Zabini stared at him expressionlessly. "You have got to be kidding me."

"So I don't remember the exact wording, but I remember being very sure after hearing all of it that all of this is definitely Tom's fault."

"How many times have you been knocked around the head? If there was anything to remember exactly in your entire life, it was that—"

He was interrupted by the high-pitched noise of a door to their supposed-to-be-secret room suddenly swinging open.

Three surprised gazes pivoted to meet two, equally surprised ones looking back.

"Oh," Hermione said quietly, as though she hadn't expected them there. Ron's triumphant look behind her, though, made it very clear that at least one of them had.

"I told you. We're the ones who showed him the Room of Requirement for DADA. If we couldn't find him anywhere else, where else could he be?"

Hermione shook herself out of the apparent stupor. "Our search was hardly exhaustive," she defended, "there were hundreds of places he could have been other than this one. This was just…luck."

"Or brilliance," Ron corrected.

"What did you ask the room to become?" Zabini accused.

"I asked it to hide us from Malfoy," Harry whispered back.

"So anyone else could just ask for the room with you in it, and the Room of Requirement would readily hand you over. I'm glad I'm backing such an intellect," the boy sneered.

Harry would have rolled his eyes if he hadn't still been in a state of general shock.

"You," Hermione said irately, storming towards them where they were all seated. "I thought everything was finally out in the open. No more secrets. No more worrying. But just when Voldemort's finally gone, just when I think you'll finally reach out to us, where are you?"

"It's not that we begrudge you your new…acquaintances, mate," Ron said slowly—but the cheery affability he'd been wearing for the past few days seemed to have diminished, revealing something a little harder, a little more suspicious, that maybe he wasn't quite as accepting of Harry's new 'acquaintances' as he'd demonstrated until now—"but we thought we'd made it clear to you a long time ago."

Ron's eyes were bluer than ever and piercing, somehow. "We're with you to the end."

Harry didn't quite manage swallowing past the sudden thickness in his throat in time.

"Look, Granger, Weasley," Zabini said indifferently. "As hard as it may to believe, Potter has nobly been striving to keep Parkinson and me a secret from you for the sake of our continued status among the living. The point is moot now, sadly, so I suppose our only course of action is to teach you occlumency and hope for the best. I suppose I will have to do this."

Both Hermione and Ron's frames tensed with realization.

"Of course," Hermione raged under her breath, "why didn't I think of that? That's how he knew what we suspected."

"Is that normal?" Parkinson wondered casually, cupping her chin in one, long-nailed hand. "Being able to learn occlumency in that short of a time? It took me months."

Harry's eyebrows arched with shock. Months? "Apparently Zabini is an excellent teacher," he muttered. Or provided compelling incentives to learn quickly.

"In the meantime," Zabini said sharply, "you two can contribute by sharing what you remember of the prophecy Trelawney delivered; otherwise I'll have to dig through Potter's mind for it. I understand that you must have been there?"

"When rules are broken, payment is due. The one whose name is feared has begun his payment with his death, for neither can live while the other survives. The survivor resurrects a ghost. In the hands of the kings of men, the world burns. The war to end all wars looms," Hermione recited without pause, as though reading from a textbook.

Zabini blinked. Then, he cleared his throat. "You're certain that's entirely accurate."

"Entirely," Hermione said, unamused. "Guess now I finally have a reason to be thankful for being forced to take Divination again."

"No one forced you," Ron said wryly. "You just wanted the extra O.W.L."

Hermione coughed, looking a little flustered.

Standing up, Zabini waved his wand and the words appeared as a spidery scrawl over the wall.

"The one whose name is feared is clearly the Dark Lord," Parkinson announced, toeing off her heels and swinging her feet into the place Zabini had been sitting.

"But why does he need to pay," Ron considered, blue eyes narrowed as he took a seat on another couch, "What rule did he break?"

"Voldemort 'has begun his payment,'" Hermione clarified, highlighting the words with her wand. She stood near the wall with Zabini. "So maybe we should examine how he's been paying—maybe that will tell us why he is."

"The body-switch, ostensibly," Zabini spoke up, eyes unreadable. "The question is: to what end? How is that payment?"

They struggled with that in silence.

"Let's move on," Ron said decisively. "The survivor is definitely Harry, right? The ghost—"

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," Parkinson hissed, bolting straight.

Zabini stiffened. "The Dark Lord of the past," he muttered.

"What are you talking about?" Hermione demanded.

"Don't worry, Granger," Parkinson said distractedly, "I'm sure Zabini will catch you up between his occlumency lessons—more importantly, if Tom Marvolo Riddle from the past is the ghost, is he then 'the one' who survives?"

"In that case," Zabini muttered, "the Dark Lord who tried to kill Potter as a baby is the one who dies."

"What's the difference between them?" asked Ron, gaze darting between the two Slytherins.

Zabini looked even more displeased. "The eternal question."

Harry, who had not spoken yet, listened to all this with an increasingly troubled expression. There were so many disparate pieces, ones they did not know how to fit. But he had a sense that someone else…did.

He stood abruptly.

Zabini caught the moment immediately, eyes widening. "What is it, Potter? Is he calling you again? Is he already back?"

"No," Harry said quietly. "I just have…something I need to do. I'll be back."

Hermione and Ron gave him meaningful looks, promising that he would be questioned later. Parkinson merely waving him off.

Giving a jerky nod, he spun on his heel and exited the room.

His feet took him to his destination even as his mind worked rapidly, struggling to decide how to begin a conversation he knew needed to happen. Knowing its necessity, however, did not make the task any easier.

The contorted face of the gargoyle peered down at him ten minutes later.

"I don't know the password," Harry informed it softly. "But tell him I need to see him."

His request was met with utter silence. For the next minute, then the next two minutes, nothing happened. Then, the gargoyle twisted almost reluctantly, revealing a set of stairs.

Harry climbed them slowly. When he reached the top, he saw the blue brocade of Dumbledore's back, as he leaned against his pensieve.

"Professor."

The back straightened. After a brief pause, Dumbledore turned and blinked at Harry.

"Apologies, Harry," he said gently. "I lost track of time."

"No worries," he said awkwardly. "Sir, I was wondering—"

Dumbledore left the pensieve abruptly, his heavy robes sliding against the floor with a sibilant noise. "Are you well?" he requested urgently. The lines in his face deepened. "I owe you another apology, indeed, for this situation I have placed you in—"

"Please don't apologize for that," Harry interrupted, put off by the look on the older man's face. He tried to shake it off with a laugh. "That—I put myself there, didn't I?"

"No, Harry. Worse men than you are responsible for this."

The words drew something else from Harry's mind. Before he knew it, the words were out: coarse and inelegant. "Sir, is it true? About—about you and…?"

The words died in his throat. A second later, mortification took their place.

"Don't answer that," Harry said stiffly. "I shouldn't have asked—"

"Grindelwald," Dumbledore said softly, expression solemn and unabashed, "was once someone I held very dear to myself. I cannot say, however, that he held the same regard for me. We parted ways a very long time ago."

"I'm sorry," he managed to get out, but he knew his face revealed too much.

"How is it possible, you wonder," the headmaster chuckled wryly. "I ask myself the same more often than I would like to admit as well. Perhaps, we might allow that I was blind—blinded by what I felt for him and by his companionship."

Harry nodded, silent.

But he watched Dumbledore's expression shift, the usual lightness in his face burdened by a heavy weight. "But more stringently, Harry," he said quietly, "I feel that there were parts of myself that he merely managed to bring out—dark, unsavory parts that had been there all the while. And in his presence, I allowed them to rule me…for too long."

For a long silence, Harry debated how to respond. He settled with, haltingly, "I don't know exactly what happened. But I know you're a good person, sir."

Dumbledore smiled, but Harry could see it was merely to reassure him. "You are too kind to an old man who has made too many mistakes."

The headmaster sat behind his desk. "You give those like me some measure of peace with our existence in the world, that there are people like you to mitigate the damage we cause."

"It's not true," Harry said bluntly.

Dumbledore paused, tilting his head up from his consideration.

"I'm not perfect, professor," he said, "you shouldn't talk about me like I am."

"Harry," Dumbledore said with infinite gentleness.

"I have had thoughts," Harry explained relentlessly, "that sometimes make me sick after. And then, thoughts that should but still, somehow, don't."

"That is only to be human," the headmaster responded slowly, kindly. "We are born with power, each and every one of us—wizard and muggle. It only matters what we choose to do with that power."

"You think Grindelwald's a monster, and you think that loving him means you're a monster too," Harry summarized, undeterred. "But professor, if this all pans out the way we need it to, I'm going to have to kill Tom. And what does that make me? Even if Tom is a monster?"

And one might ask, Harry—how do you reconcile your morals with your desire to kill me?

"Harry—"

"It doesn't matter, what you say," Harry said abruptly, face pale. "I'll do it anyway. I'd do it a thousand times over to protect everyone who's been putting themselves at risk just by being near me or kind to me."

Dumbledore looked troubled. "Harry," he said with difficulty, "that you cannot see the good in yourself is testament to the very fact that you are already a better man than I was at your age; I deluded myself of the opposite."

The man stood again and approached him, grasping his shoulders. "But know this: if I could do this for you—if there were any way—I would. To ask this of you is grossly unfair; it is a debt the rest of us will never be able to repay."

Harry couldn't manage to meet the headmaster's gaze. But the words struck him peculiarly, reminding him, in fact, of his purpose in coming here in the first place.

"Professor, I don't think you owe me all that, but…I do think you owe me the truth," he said softly.

Dumbledore abruptly froze.

"You've been hiding something from me," Harry pressed, "And I need to know. You need to tell me."

He never could have imagined it—part of him believed, truly, that he hallucinated it in the moment—but then he blinked, and still, it was true. The headmaster had recoiled from him.

"Professor," Harry prompted, harder now.

"Harry," was all Dumbledore could say, his expression—somehow it was possible—even more grave.

"It's terrible, isn't it," he smiled humorlessly. "It's okay. It doesn't change the fact that I still need to know. Or that…you probably should have told me a long time ago."

The headmaster left him to sit in his chair once again, as though he needed the support.

"Grindelwald is in someone else's body now," Harry started, "and Tom and I switched bodies. You said this had all to do with consciousness, but it sounded like—"

"It has to do with souls," Dumbledore finished, sounding for all the world like he had confessed murder.

It was Harry's turn to freeze. His eyes widened. "Souls? Those—those are real?"

"It's a word that has been used in many different contexts," Dumbledore explained tiredly, "often religious or spiritual. Every context, of course—including the secular, wizarding one—argues for a different definition. But what remains constant, perhaps, is a shared common understanding that we will never have a complete understanding."

"But," Harry said, with some frustration now, "if we were to make this all a bit more concrete—what does that have to do with Tom and me?"

Now, Dumbledore seemed truly to struggle, unable to look at Harry any longer above his half-moon spectacles.

"I believe that Tom Riddle made horcruxes."

"What are horcruxes?"

Dumbledore stood again and began walking with frenetic energy. Then, he stopped, his back to Harry.

"Horcruxes are objects that house part of a human soul," the headmaster said, almost inaudible.

There was a rushing sound in Harry's ears, so loud that he could barely hear his own voice. "And Tom did this? He put parts of his soul into these…objects?"

"I believe so."

"How?" Harry whispered, shoulders trembling. "Why?"

"Only the darkest act can cause the soul to split," Dumbledore answered. "Cold-blooded, remorseless murder."

It's served a purpose greater than you could ever imagine.

"Why—why would he do that?"

"There is so much about the soul that is unknown," the older man admitted, "but I suspect that it is the final tether to what we might consider appreciable life. The body is but the vessel. The dementor removes the soul, the ability to live is therein robbed as well. To split one's soul into separate parts is to ensure that all parts cannot be destroyed at once."

"Immortality," Harry identified, voice flat.

"Indeed."

Harry paused. "The diary was a horcrux, wasn't it? But we destroyed that—does that mean he can be killed now?"

Dumbledore's head snapped up, surprise coloring his features briefly. "You are correct. The diary was one. I suspect that he made multiple, however."

Harry's stomach dropped. "Multiple? What would that—you mean—" He couldn't complete it. What had Tom been walking around with? One third of a soul? One fifth?

"Yes," Dumbledore said quietly. "However, I also suspect that point is quite moot now."

There was something unnerving about the gaze directed at him, too bright and too intent.

Harry hesitated over voicing the question, finally uncertain about whether he did, indeed, want to know the entire truth.

"Harry, shortly after returning to Hogwarts and seeing for myself what had happened between the two of you…I searched for the diary."

"Alright," Harry rasped, swallowing. "And?"

Dumbledore's hand slowly reached to the side of the desk, where he slid open a small sliver of a drawer Harry had failed entirely to notice before. Reaching in, he pulled out a terribly familiar black book.

He held it up, silently. Harry looked at, equally silent. For a long moment, he failed entirely to see what was unusual about it.

Then, he saw it.

"The hole," Harry said, "where I punctured the diary with the basilisk's tooth—it's gone. It looks like it was never damaged. Did you fix it, professor?"

"I didn't."

"Then—" he stammered. "How is that possible?"

"It's as if there never was a horcrux," the spectacled man observed almost clinically. He flipped the pages in demonstration. "Just a normal diary."

Harry watched dumbly as Dumbledore slowly slipped the diary back into its former location. He closed the drawer and directed his full attention to Harry once again.

"Horcrux users are hardly the sort to advertise themselves," the headmaster said lowly. "An ancient Greek wizard who went by the name Herpo is the first and last confirmed example recorded today. There is a tome that contains what survives of his notes (consolidated by another practitioner of Dark Magic)…as well as many theories, largely invalidated. But among them—"

Dumbledore broke off, his eyes exceedingly bright.

"Among them," he continued, softer, "is a theory that it is possible to…rejoin parts of the soul after splitting them."

Harry waited, sensing that he was not finished.

Dumbledore leaned forward. "Harry, I believe that in the past few months this is exactly what has been happening."

He took a step back in response to these words, brows furrowing. "But why? I don't think after going through all the trouble to become immortal, he would suddenly change his mind."

"I don't think Tom intended for it to happen," the headmaster clarified slowly. "I don't believe he has any idea at all. The process theorized to conduct this process requires one exceedingly simple and yet impossible to purchase ingredient: remorse. I doubt that Tom Marvolo Riddle—certainly on the other end of the number of horcruxes he has created—had anywhere near the capacity of regret required to produce that many horcruxes to initiate this. Nor, would I think—as you have keenly pointed out—would he have had any desire to do so."

"Why are you so certain that that happened, then? Aren't there other explanations for the diary?"

"This would seem the most unlikely," Dumbledore agreed. "But even you must have noticed, how different he seems now compared to what you have known in your lifetime. Splitting your soul multiple times comes with severe consequences—fractured sanity, decreased stability, physical disfigurement. And yet, he walked into my office with you that night seemingly near restored; and yourself in his body: a body no longer visibly inhuman."

The room spun slightly around Harry. He gritted his teeth to push past it. "Even if this is all true…the basilisk tooth. Didn't that destroy the diary—the horcrux? How could that horcrux have been rejoined, making the diary look like that?"

Dumbledore hesitated. "This is where we get into the truly grey area, where no theories exist. I believe that if…any other person had used the basilisk's tooth, the horcrux within would have been truly and surely destroyed—not merely weakened to the point of near-death. My own investigation of the diary following the events of your second year revealed nothing unusual in those pages. Still, I believe now that a horcrux in fact survived."

"If any other person…" Harry repeated stonily, "you mean not me. What are you trying not to say, professor?"

The headmaster's long-fingered hands left the flat surface of the desk to intertwine with each other, as though steeling himself—but there was a fervor in his eyes that spoke of certainty.

"I think the laws of nature break down, or cease to remain what we typically understand them to be, in the face of certain violations," Dumbledore said faintly, "such as: a mother standing in the path of a killing curse meant for her son. Or: a part of a soul conspiring to destroy its sibling part."

Harry's brows furrowed as he attempted to dissect this remark. It was hard, however, to concentrate with the sudden thudding of his heart—as though some, ineffable part of him already understood, though he knew not how.

"Does the meaning make the act or the act make the meaning?" the older man considered, a sort of hasty, distracted quality to his words, as though he too wanted to prevent Harry's realization. "My experience leads me to believe the first. When the killing curse is not the killing curse, when a basilisk tooth is not a basilisk tooth, all comes down to context. Though it baffles the human mind—which seeks instinctively to organize—I believe this—"

It clicked within Harry's mind. "Me," he said tonelessly, "I'm a horcrux."

Dumbledore went silent.

"Oh, Harry," he whispered finally, his blue eyes intensely mournful. "I suspected, but I truly wished to protect this from you for as long as I could—"

"No matter," Harry said numbly, the taste of blood in his mouth. "Finish it, professor. Explain the last of it to me."

After a moment, Dumbledore inclined his head in acceptance, though his gaze never lost their agonized quality.

"I don't believe he meant to make you a horcrux. To this day, I am certain that he has no idea it happened. But I imagine his soul was so unstable when he killed your mother, his panic so strong in the aftermath, that it happened through his sheer will for survival. No ritual was necessary to coax the splitting."

God, they had thought he was related to Salazar Slytherin, to Voldemort, when they'd found out he could speak parseltongue. Little did they know he was actually part Voldemort. Harry felt an uncomfortable tightness in his chest; he lifted his hand there, dug in with his nails, as though to claw the sliver of foreign soul out.

"There's a part of him," he said distantly, "in me."

"A tiny, fractional part, hardly enough to affect you substantially," Dumbledore conjectured. "But enough to save the diary. And enough to do something he never could have imagined to him."

Harry's head jerked up, like a ragged puppet commanded to straighten.

"Tom—or we might call him Voldemort, that man who existed with a fraction of a soul—did not possess the substance to call upon that sort of remorse," the headmaster said gently, "but you, you, Harry do. You housed his soul within you, when no one has ever contemplated that humans could be horcruxes. In fact, I feel the term might be entirely useless with regard to your case, given how unpredictable the result has proven. You are not an object. Your soul did something to that fraction; the force of your soul, I think, created a foothold into Tom's own soul. And everything that you are, Harry, everything you feel—in the face of this power, his split soul could not survive."

Words escaped Harry, for a long while. Some time later, however, he managed to prompt hoarsely, "And the body switching?"

Dumbledore gave a sigh. "Once again, I suspect true understanding is beyond us. If I were to make a guess, however, I would imagine that the switch was somehow prompted by your soul initiating this process for his."

"So we'll switch back when the rejoining ends," Harry completed.

"That would be my guess," he agreed, eyes glinting. "And if I were to make one more: by all appearances—soon."

Harry didn't allow a fraction of himself to shift (if it did, he feared he would stagger and fall).

"Did Grindelwald also make horcruxes?" he asked weakly.

He watched as Dumbledore sank further into his chair, face tight. "No, no—I am certain he did something with souls as well, but not that. Something else; something we will not be able to find in tomes or history."

Great, Harry thought to himself. This was all great.

And then, as determinedly as he tried to maintain eye contact with Dumbledore until the very end, he passed out.

Author's Note:

hi there

So: I wrote this in a rush and all in one stretch because I didn't want you guys to wait too long again-sorry if there are any grammatical mistakes (or other kinds of mistakes)! also, this is a whopping 7,800 word chapter (which is long for me, at least), and there's a lot of information packed in here. so clearly, I guess you guys finally deserved *some* answers :)

Please let me know how you felt while reading this chapter, your insights, and more! Honestly, I cannot stress how much joy reading your comments brings to me. Some of you have professed apologies for your comments being too long-nonsense! The longer the better ;)

Wow, I didn't actually mean to make an innuendo...but now that it's there...

In any case, thank you for sticking with this story and for sticking with me! Hope you enjoyed :D

- madstoryteller999