Christmas morning was a very, very unhappy time for Draco, Ron, Harry and Hermione. The unhappiness started with Harry, and because Harry was upset, it made Draco and Ron uneasy. Hermione could then sense the unease and it just made for a bad Christmas morning.

"Presents, Harry." Hermione said, poking Harry with the back of her fork. "If you finish breakfast we can start to open presents. We're just waiting on you now, Harry."

Harry shoved his scrambled eggs around a little more and stuck the empty fork into his mouth.

"Come on, just two more bites?"

Harry repeated the motion before pushing his plate away and setting his fork down.

He had eaten maybe a coin-size worth of food.

"I don't want everyone else to wait because of me," Harry said. "I'll get something to eat later." The maybe was left unsaid.

The four of them and the other six Weasleys gathered around the christmas tree where Ginny passed out presents.

Harry opened his slowly and sadly, wishing with every rip that Tom was there with him.

XxXxX

At Hogwarts, Tom was confused.

Why was he so upset on this happy day?

Perhaps it had something to do with these five presents sitting in front of him from people that he was certain that Dumbledore had said hated him.

Three presents from Harry, Two from Draco, One from Ron.

He opened Ron's first and recieved a Weasley Sweater that was a nice, soft weave of red and silver.

From Draco he recieved a set of robes that were said to have been worn by Salazar Slytherin himself and a new, fancier diary with which he could "stuff his overly massive ego in instead of half of his soul".

And then from Harry.

For some reason, it made Tom queasy to even look at Harry's presents.

Three of them.

Vaguely, he remembered there being more of them last year.

Violently, he remembered that he hadn't gotten any of them anything.

Harry - oh, merlin, Harry!

Quickly, Tom stood up and stumbled across the room, attempting and failing to not hurl. He was oddly satisfied when he ended up throwing up all over Dumbledore's shoes.

Dumbledore tutted at him. "Tom, I thought we've been over what happens when you try to fight the Loyalty potion."

Tom coughed from his position on the floor. "Go to hell, old man."

His wand was not in reach, otherwise the old man would recieve a refreshing face full of Crucios.

Dumbledore shook his head sadly. "Come, Tom. Time for another round of purging."

Later, all of their presents would be burned.

XxXxX

"Harry, you have to eat something!" Hermione said.

She's right, Harry. I allowed this little rebellion for a day. Eat. Now.

"I can't." He said, more for Voldemort than for Hermione. "I can't. If I do, I'm going to throw up. I don't feel good at all."

Harry I can sense your physical wellbeing and I know for a fact that you're not sick. Eat.

"I can't." He said again.

Oh hell no. Voldemort responded. I heard that emphasis. I am not controlling you just to force you to eat something.

And why not?

Well, for one, that's horribly unhealthy and I don't want to. In fact, I can't.

Harry's stomache growled.

"Harry, please? Just... try something soft. Like bread. Please?" Hermione said again, pulling a piece of bread to him. "For me?"

Harry reluctantly tore a piece of the bread off and bit an even smaller piece from it.

He forced himself to swallow it and the rising bile down. He then set down the remaining piece.

"I can not force myself to eat, Hermione. Not for you at least." She sighed.

If you cannot eat for yourself by tomorrow morning, Harry, I will force you into your mind and make you sort this out while I control you. I can do that.

No you can't.

Test me, I dare you.

Harry groaned and ignored Death's worrying hands that grazed across his back.

XxXxX

He had still refused to eat, and thus, Voldemort learned that he was not bluffing. He really could force Harry into his mind landscape and control Harry for a week.

Unfortunately, that had the side effect of making Harry's eyes Voldemort-Red for a week. Plus he couldn't let Harry out of his mind any sooner than the end of a week. Whoops, no regrets.

It was probably for the best, however, that they timed it so that Harry regained control by the forth, when they returned to school. It was unintentional, but helpful nonetheless.

Molly had learned at breakfast day one that questions made her even more confused, and therefore, she did not ask questions.

Voldemort's 'sit in your mind and think about what you've done' plan had apparently backfired, too, for when Harry regained control, he was even angrier at Dumbledore and Voldemort than he was before.

And just that much more unwilling to eat.

Voldemort mentally sighed. He had a lot of work ahead of him. If only he could talk to Death. Between he and the phantom (that he, too, could see), they might just be able to keep the idiotic boy alive long enough to get Tom back under their control.

Oh, how he loathed talking about himself as if he were a lowly chess piece.

XxXxX

It took Harry and Voldemort's combined effort to not allow Harry to fly into a Gryffindorish rage every time he saw Tom.

Death, of course, was very neutral about the whole thing. She only wished that she had chosen someone other than Tom Riddle to mess with, for being away from her master's best friend was taking its toll on him.

They could keep Harry eating, that wasn't a problem so much as keeping the boy asleep was.

He had begun to have the Visions of Death that are so common within her masters, unfortunately. She could take them away from him, and she had offered to, but she said that the price for it was just as bogus as the price to get the Riddle boy back.

That is to say, there was no price.

Death had been messing with him the whole time, seeing what the boy meant to her master. He didn't need to kill anyone to save his brother from his fate, he simply had to figure out how to use his authority over her.

Sometimes Death wondered why she was so cruel. Then she remembers how fun it is to be cruel and all is right.

XxXxX

Late at night, some time on April thirteenth, Harry wandered to bed later than usual. Of course, it may or may not have been intentional, wearing himself out so much to attempt a full, dreamless night of rest.

Unfortunately, he learned the hard way that wearing him out as such simply gave him dreams of death centering around him and his friends.

"Tom, you haven't been the same since that loyalty potion..." Harry said. He and Tom were walking along a road late at night, and they looked to be perhaps seventeen.

"What do you want me to say?" His vision flashed purple. "That everything will be alright? Harry, we've been over this. No one comes away from that entirely whole." A flash of red.

"Tom..."

"Don't 'Tom' me, Harry. You've seen the memories..."

A flash ahead, and there was snow on the ground on the same road.

"That's not what I meant, Tom."

"Oh!? And what did you mean?"

"I simply meant that - "

"That I've been deteriorating? That I'm not the same person that I was?"

"I meant that these arguments between us are getting out of hand! Your nickname is Pride, but you've been taking it much too seriously lately! I'm starting to think that submersing yourself in his memories is starting to affect you."

"You know what? You know what? I bet this is just to weaken me! You're not Harry - you can't be Harry! Harry wouldn't accuse me of such things -"

"To-"

"CRU-"

"AVADA KE-"

Harry awoke in cold sweat.

What was that?

As if foreshadowing something horrible, Harry had awoken at precisely 4:13 in the morning.

Quickly, trying to not wake others up, he took a shower and made his way down to the Great Hall. There was no food out yet, as expected, but the House Elves were nice enough to give him a hot cup of black coffee.

He didn't even know that Wizards knew what coffee was.

He doesn't even drink coffee.

It was bitter and foul like his feelings.

For some reason, he kept drinking it.

They were nice enough to keep refilling it, too, even once six thirty rolled around and food started being served.

People slowly trickled in, one by one, and then in packs.

Tom was not amungst them.

At seven thirty, the hall was nearly full. All except for Dumbledore was accounted for in his memory.

And then, the hall doors opened and in he walked, slowly, as if to a funeral march.

Harry took a long sip of his thirteenth cup of coffee. While he was thinking about it, where was Death?

Everyone had stopped talking by now to stop and stare at the headmaster, who was almost to his chair.

His cup was now empty. Where was his refill?

Dumbledore stood at the podium now, and had not sat down in his chair.

"It..." Dumbledore sighed, and glanced over at Harry. Harry met his eyes and glared. No legilimency attack? Was that a look of triumph in his eyes?

"It is my sad, sad duty to announce to you all that..." He sighed dramatically again. The sadness in his tone did not meet his eyes. "Last night, Tom Riddle was found..."

Dumbledore looked over at Harry again. "He was found dead on our grounds."

The cup in Harry's hand smashed. The sound resonated through the hall in its silence.

Quietly, yet strangely loud, Harry whispered, "What?"