Disclaimer: I don't own any of this.
AN: A note on the use of unforgivables in duelling - in order to avoid boring, one sided duels, I'm working with the assumptions (which is at least somewhat supported by canon...I think...maybe...) that unforgivables are much more draining than other spells, and take slightly longer to cast (since they require a lot of emotional fuel).
Chapter 36: Tom Marvolo Riddle
Seeing Malfoy's prone form discarded in a puddle, lying limp in the middle of the Chamber of Secrets, Harry ran forward, sliding to his knees and immediately placing his fingers on the boy's carotid artery, checking for a pulse. It was there, but only barely. Absently, Harry placed his wand on the ground beside him and began to check his housemate over for injuries. His skin was pale - nearly a deathly white - and cold, but he seemed to be in one piece. That was something, at least.
"He won't wake," a soft voice spoke up from behind him.
Harry snatched up his wand and leapt to his feet, spinning around and stepping back a few paces.
It was a teenage Tom Riddle, leaning against the nearest pillar, watching him with no small amount of curiosity, his dark eyes glittering hungrily. He wasn't yet alive, Harry could tell – the image of him was muted and blurred around the edges, and he flickered slightly in the dim light that crawled between the Chamber's vast stone pillars – but he was almost there. Just a few more minutes was all he would need.
He was too late. Tom's horcrux had almost created a body of his own. Now all he could do was convince him to give it up, if only out of spite.
"He's not dead," Harry said quietly, mind nervously flitting through all the ways he could fix this in a manner that was remotely plausible. So far he had nothing.
"No, he's alive, but only just."
Harry nodded slowly.
"Aren't you going to ask who I am?" Tom Riddle said with a slight edge in his voice, obviously displeased with being apparently overlooked.
"I imagine I would have gotten around to it eventually," Harry replied nervously.
Tom Riddle sneered at him. "Eventually. While you waste time with eventualities your housemate lay dying."
Harry, still deep in thought, nodded absently, frowning as his eyes flickered between Malfoy and Tom. "I noticed you haven't asked who I am either," he pointed out.
Tom quirked an eyebrow at him. "Harry Potter," he enunciated slowly, sauntering toward Harry, causing him to back away further. "A pleasant surprise, to say the least."
"Oh, so you already know."
"Oh yes, I know all about you. The Boy Who Lived. The Potter that ended up in Slytherin. Kind, brave, Harry Potter. The little boy who made the Dark Lord go away, tragically orphaned on the day he became a hero. Ginny Weasley had so much to say, but not as much as Hermione Granger. Sweet, brave Harry Potter – misled but meaning well; abused, but so strong, so brave. Brilliant, inquisitive, and powerful. A polite boy with something dangerous sleeping underneath. But neither of them had as much to say as young Draco Malfoy, here." He prodded Malfoy's cold body with his shoe, much like he'd done to Amy Benson, many years before. "Famous Harry Potter. Special Harry Potter. Thinks he's so clever. Thinks he knows everything. Thinks he can do whatever he wants. If only everyone knew what he really was. If only everyone knew that their favourite Lion in Snake's clothing was, in fact, a Snake through and through. If only everyone knew that brave, kind, Harry Potter had a darkness inside him, a darkness he couldn't quite keep silent. A darkness that made him strong, untouchable – everything dear Draco wished he was. Power - he envied your power, but he couldn't figure out how to take it for his own. He couldn't quite figure you out, and he hated you for it. And I admit, I do understand the sentiment."
Harry glanced between Malfoy and Tom, still wracking his brain for an idea, any way to end this before it was too late. What could he do now? How could he possibly convince Tom to return to the diary? Still, he had nothing.
Tom was smiling broadly now, lips curling into a pleased smirk. "And that's why it's him, lying here, and no one else. For it was he who truly offered up his soul – his fears, insecurities...and believe me, there were many -" Tom paused, noticing the distracted look on Harry's face with a scowl. "Do you not care?"
Harry blinked, stirred from his flustered musings. "About Malfoy? I really don't want him to die, if that's what you mean."
"He will die, and there's nothing you can do to stop it – he has forfeit his soul, to me..."
Harry just stared, still unsure of what to say. Tom seemed to be gloating, and Harry wasn't quite sure how he was supposed to react to that.
Tom's scowl deepened. "You don't look surprised at all, why's that? Aren't you curious? About who I am? About how I'm here? About who the Heir of Slytherin is?"
"I think I can work it out on my own, actually," Harry said honestly, glancing down at Malfoy's deathly white face and suddenly finding himself not willing to waste anymore time. He needed to stop Tom Riddle; and what's more, he needed to save Malfoy – because even after everything the other boy had done, Harry knew that he didn't deserve to die. Especially not because of Harry's carelessness. No, Draco Malfoy deserved the same thing as any other child – the chance to grow up, to better himself and become a stronger person. Draco Malfoy wasn't a good person...but he wasn't a bad one either – he was still innocent, naive, and he deserved a chance to know and understand the world before he left it, right? And even if not...he wasn't about to let Tom Riddle claim another victim. He wasn't about to let someone die for his and Tom's mistake.
Meanwhile, Tom Riddle sneered at him. "Is that so? Then tell me, great, wise Harry Potter – who am I? What are we doing here, in Slytherin's hidden Chamber?"
"Well, you're the Heir of Slytherin – one of them – what's left of you, anyway."
Tom narrowed his eyes. "What's left of me?" he hissed, clearly taking offense at Harry's phrasing.
So he tried to correct himself. "You're like a ghost, a memory of someone who opened the Chamber a long time ago...fifty years ago, to be precise." His eyes narrowed, and he could not keep the smallest traces of venom from leaking into his voice. "And you've been possessing my classmates, having them open the Chamber for you so you can set your pet basilisk on unsuspecting muggleborns...and cats."
Tom glowered at him menacingly. "How," he spat, "Could you possibly know that?"
Reigning in his own ire, Harry shook his head, raising his arms in a placating motion. "Tom -"
Oops.
"How do you know my name?" Tom cried, alarmed, before opening his hand and snapping, "Accio wand."
Harry was caught off guard, and his wand was wrenched from his grip, shooting into Tom's hand.
"I don't know what you think you're playing at, Harry Potter, but you clearly know too much. Too much to be kept alive." And with that, he spun on his heel to face the statue behind him. :Speak to me S-:
Eyes widening in panic, Harry plunged his hand into his pocket, pulling out the back-up wand which he'd taken along with him – Tom's thirteen inch yew and phoenix feather - and pointing it at Tom Riddle.
"Expelliarmus!"
Tom instantly spun back around to face him, erecting a wordless shielding charm. His eyes widened in horror as he took in the sight of the wand in Harry's hand.
"Where," he said, his voice low and quivering in fury, "Did you get that?"
"Godric's Hollow," Harry said, forcing himself to stay calm as his heart beat frantically in his chest, "Where you killed my parents."
There was a wild look in Tom's eyes, and he barked out a laugh. "Then you know! You know exactly who I am!"
"I do."
The boy in front of him laughed gleefully, eyes alight with some sort of crazed amusement. "And who am I, Harry Potter?"
"Lord Voldemort."
Glee twisted into frenzied anger. "How!? How can you know? How could you possibly know?"
Well, might as well just get this over with.
"I know your diary is a horcrux -"
Tom's face became even more furious, if that was possible.
"- just like me."
Tom faltered, his face paling as he stepped back in shock. "...what?"
"A fragment of a soul, preserved in some object, or in my case, a person. Tom Riddle trapped you in a diary fifty years ago, back in your sixth year, just like a piece of his soul came to live inside me ten years ago."
Harry's wand, gripped tightly between Tom's fingers, was quivering. "That's not possible."
"Yeah, that puzzled the piece of you that's inside me too. He's still not quite sure what happened, I think. He thinks my mother did something – apparently she was quite adept at soul magic as well."
Tom scowled as Harry compared him to a muggle-born witch. "That mudblood -"
"Was brilliant," Harry interjected. "She engineered your defeat, after all."
Tom was breathing heavily, eyes alight with something between fear and hope. "Prove it."
Harry shook his head. "I don't have to. How else could I know all this, if you hadn't told me yourself? I can tell you more, if you really want me to. You were born December 31st, 1926. Your mother was Merope Gaunt and your father was a muggle, Tom Riddle. You grew up in Wool's Orphanage, raised by an annoying, nasty old woman named Mrs. Cole. Your first and only friend was named Cici, and she abandoned you only months after you first met her; you killed Billy Stubbs's rabbit and hung it from the rafters when you were nine; a year later you scared Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop so badly that they never spoke again after they left that cave; Professor Dumbledore gave you your Hogwarts letter when you were eleven years old, and you thought he was a doctor from the asylum -"
"Enough," Tom hissed, "Enough. I believe you." He breathed deep, hoarse breaths, clearly trying very hard to calm himself down. "I believe you. So you're not here to stop me, then?" He took another deep breath, nodding to himself. "No. You're here to help, not to stop me."
Harry shook his head, doing his very best to look apologetic, when he really wasn't at all. "I'm afraid I have to."
Tom's eyes flashed. "What?"
"I have to stop you," Harry repeated cautiously.
Tom narrowed his eyes. "And why would you have to do that?"
Why did he have to do that? He couldn't tell Tom Riddle that his Tom had no intention of giving him a body, that his older self thought he would cause more trouble than he was worth, and he certainly couldn't say that he just didn't like him and was feeling a bit vindictive after Hermione's petrification. And Tom Riddle obviously didn't care about Malfoy's life. Which meant...well, he'd have to make something up on the spot, he supposed.
"I...we can't have you running off and messing things up. The other horcruxes are hidden well, but Professor Dumbledore already knows that your master soul is still alive, and if you escape the diary now and Malfoy dies, you risk people realizing that there's more than one Tom Riddle, and then finding out about the horcruxes – you'll be putting us all in danger. You already have – you've been endangering us, all of us, all year. You have to return to the diary. For now, at least."
Harry stifled a smile, quite satisfied by his mostly-true evaluation of their situation.
"No."
"What do you mean, no?" Harry asked, puzzled.
"I mean no, I'm not going back," Tom said lowly.
"What?" Harry asked, a little taken aback. He hadn't expected Tom to be pleased about it, but he figured that if he explained that his life was in danger, he'd at least be open to the idea of letting this whole rebuilding a body thing go for a while. He thought his reasoning, while certainly a bit shaky and contrived (what with all the bits he left out), would be sound enough to make Tom at least consider it.
"I'm not going back."
"But Tom, you need to -"
"No! I'm not going back!" Tom bellowed suddenly, his voice echoing sharply off the damp stone pillars surrounding them.
Harry frowned, trying to control the anxiety he felt steadily building up inside of him. "It really is for the best -"
"No, it's not!"
"Tom, think about this carefully. You -"
"No! I'm not going back! I'm not going back to that darkness, to being trapped between parchment pages, cursed to live in silence, unable to see, hear, taste, touch, act – I won't go back! Not now, not when I can see with my own eyes, feel with my own hands – taste the air! I won't go back!"
Unbidden, pity swelled in Harry's chest. It was exactly like he thought – the other horcruxes were like his Tom...able to think and feel, but trapped in cold, lifeless objects. Tom may have murdered a fellow student to create this horcrux, he may have voluntarily trapped himself inside, but did he really deserve fifty years of sensory deprivation and loneliness? He might have petrified Hermione...but did that justify years of torment with no end in sight? Suddenly, Harry felt very unsure of himself. He was sentencing a piece of his best friend's soul to years, possibly decades, centuries, or millenia, of torture. He knew it was for the best, he knew that ultimately, it was the right call to make. But still, it felt so wrong.
Harry.
Tom's thoughts cut through his mind, and suddenly he remembered. Draco Malfoy was lying at his feet, at the brink of death, and one of his best friends was lying in the hospital wing, petrified; his own life and the life of his oldest and dearest friend were at risk. He couldn't afford to empathize with Tom; he had a job to do. He had to be convincing; and to do that, he had to be convinced by his own words. "Tom, I understand that it's difficult," Harry began slowly, his voice sympathetic.
"Crucio!" Tom suddenly shrieked out, and half a moment later, a wretched scream tore through Harry's throat as he fell to his knees.
Shock penetrated his entire being as white-hot knives sliced through his skin, tearing through his muscles over and over again, while electricity burned through him right to the bone. Every jolt of pain was all-consuming, and every moment he was sure that it he couldn't endure anymore - it had to end. But it didn't. As moments turned into seconds, stretching into long minutes and taking on the appearance of hours, he could feel himself slowly losing control of his body as he convulsed on the floor; through the pain, he realized that the longer this went on, the weaker he'd become. So steeling himself, he gripped Tom's wand tightly, calling out, "B-bombarda!"
Tom stumbled backward at the weak explosion, and Harry used the distraction to scramble behind one of the pillars across from the one Tom had been leaning against earlier.
"Harry Potter!" he heard Tom growl out, "You're not making me go back! Either help me regain my body or die here, with Draco Malfoy, in the Chamber of Secrets!"
Harry's eyes widened. "Tom, if you kill me, you're killing part of yourself!"
"I don't care!"
Harry could feel panic seizing him. He hadn't expected this to be easy, but he hadn't expected it to be...impossible. Tom was clearly beyond reason. But then again, being trapped in a diary for fifty years could do that to you, he supposed.
"Come out, Harry~" the other boy sang, his voice sweet, contrasting violently with the furious bellowing that had preceded it. Tom chuckled softly to himself, "I want to see it again, the pain in your eyes, the agony written all over your face."
Harry cringed, stomach lurching, but taking a deep breath he spun around, leaping out from behind the pillar.
"Stupefy!"
"The stunning charm?" Tom barked out a laugh, his voice harsh again, "Really?" He took a deep breath. "Crucio!"
Harry managed to dodge this time. "Expulso!"
"Interfodio!"
Harry's widened at the unfamiliar curse. "Protego! Reducto!" he cast in quick succession.
"Lacero!" Tom exclaimed after erecting a wordless shielding charm.
"Protego! Diffindo!"
Tom sneered at him. "Cute. Spina Discutio!"
Harry dodged. "Aguamenti! Oppugno!" Water droplets formed in the air, and flew into Tom's face, sharp enough to cut. "Confringo!"
Tom cackled as he erected another wordless shielding charm, dispelling the water into a mist and deflecting the curse back at Harry, who narrowly dodged it. "Very good, Harry Potter!"
Harry could not contain a small satisfied smirk. He was quite proud of himself for thinking up that one on the fly.
"Perhaps I'm underestimating you. Aguamenti! Glacius! Oppugno! Expulso!"
Of course, Tom had to one-up him.
Shards of ice darted toward him, the expulso following in their wake.
"Protego!"
He successfully blocked Tom's curses, but found himself thrown backward by the force of the expulso hammering against his shield.
"Confringo!" Tom shouted before Harry managed to call out another curse.
Harry dodged this time, crying out simultaneously."Expulso!"
"Eviscero!"
Harry gasped and stumbled out of the way, narrowly dodging the disembowelling curse.
"Crucio!"
The time it took for Tom to cast the unforgivable gave Harry the chance to prepare to unleash two particularly nasty curses in quick succession while he dodged, "Evoco Pavor! Excorio!"
Tom grinned amusedly as Harry took a deep breath. "Fervefacio! Excorio!"
"Protego!"
"Eviscero!"
"Protego! Reducto!"
The curse flew right past Tom, hitting the pillar behind him, causing the sides to crumble to dust.
"Externo! Evoco Pavor!"
Harry threw himself out of the way again, stumbling as he pointed at the dust at Tom's feet, casting "Oppugno!"
A cloud of dust swirled to life between him and Tom, giving him the chance to, as Tom dispelled the dust, cast, "Sectumsempra!"
The cutting curse narrowly missed Tom, who deflected it only at the last moment, after taking a moment to stare at it admiringly, before glaring at Harry, clearly unhappy about almost being hit by a curse he didn't know. He paused, and Harry followed suit, breathing heavily. Tom's wordless shielding charms were impeccable, and he didn't really have to dodge, unlike Harry, who was starting to feel very worn down.
"Sectumsempra!" Tom cast without warning, and Harry couldn't dodge fast enough – the curse caught him on his arm, and he let out a yelp of pain, casting a panicked glance at Tom, who was still glaring at him, but gave no indication of further movement.
A few seconds passed, and Tom's stare turned critical, as though he was solemnly considering something – a moment later, he cried out, "Avada Kedavra!"
Harry's eyes widened, and, in a fit of panic, he threw himself out of the way with such force that he collapsed on the stone floor, bruising his side.
"You tried to kill me!" he blurted out as he stumbled to his feet.
"That?" Tom grinned viciously. "That was just saying hello! Avada Kedavra!" He took a deep breath. "Avada Kedavra!"
Terrified, Harry scrambled back behind the pillar, breathing heavily. A fellow horcrux was trying to kill him. Tom was trying to kill him. Again.
"Come out, Harry Potter! I want to look at you when I kill you! I want to see the light leave your eyes - a beautiful light, filled with terror. Come out! You're only delaying what is to come." Tom chuckled cruelly. "You can't hide forever. You're going to die, Harry Potter - I'm going to kill you and I'm going to enjoy every moment of it."
Harry could feel tears running down his cheeks, thin and barely there, but burning his skin. His breaths were hoarse, sharp and biting in his chest, and a cold sweat was dripping down his face; his skin was throbbing, electrified by adrenaline and still burning with the fire of the cruciatus curse. Tom was right. He was losing energy and his movements were getting sloppy – never before had he been so exhilarated, so nervous, or so terrified. A part of him felt better than he had ever felt before; a part of him was vibrating with excitement - but this part of him was being quickly eclipsed by the shadow of despair creeping over his mind. He couldn't do this. He knew when he was beat. He had lost. He was going to die, alone, in the Chamber of Secrets. He was going to die.
Except he wasn't.
He wasn't alone. Not really. Suddenly, he remembered Tom's words, five long years ago:
"Know this, Harry – you are never alone."
He couldn't beat Tom Riddle...but Lord Voldemort could.
:Tom, help me,: he hissed miserably.
A moment later, his wish was granted.
The sensation of being drawn into himself seized him, and suddenly, his fingers went stiff and it wasn't him holding the wand in his hand anymore; he blinked his eyes and he could feel them burning as they flickered to crimson, and he realized it wasn't him blinking, breathing anymore. Unbidden, his muscles flexed and he rolled his head from shoulder to shoulder, cracking his neck.
He wasn't Harry Potter anymore. And now, he was going to win.
"Crucio," his Tom whispered as he stepped out from behind the pillar, causing Diary-Tom to jump out of the way.
"Unforgivables, Harry? I'm impressed," Diary-Tom snarled.
Harry felt his face stretch into a grin. "Unfortunately, young Harry here does not yet have the capacity to cast the cruciatus curse. All in due time, though."
Diary-Tom's eyes widened, and Harry watched him pale with some smugness.
"You're..."
"Lord Voldemort."
Diary-Tom scowled. "I'm Lord Voldemort!"
Harry felt his grin turn wry. "Yes, of course," his Tom said patronizingly.
"Crucio!"
Gracefully stepping to the side, Tom wordlessly cast the cruciatus curse right back at his counterpart, watching with no small amount of amusement as he narrowly dodged it.
"Expulso! Confringo! Eviscero!"
His Tom effortlessly blocked every curse his younger self cast at him, punctuating his shielding charms with strange bursts of light that Harry did not recognize, each one tasting deliciously dark in the air around him.
"Interfodio! Lacero!"
Again his Tom blocked effortlessly, carelessly casting spell after spell in turn, dark amusement growing as Diary-Tom's movements became shaky and frenzied. It was not long before one of his wordless cruciatus curses hit Diary-Tom, and the boy fell to his knees, eyes widening in shock. This was probably the only time Tom Riddle would ever feel that curse, he guessed.
Diary-Tom refused to collapse or cry out, but remained on his knees, frozen as the torture curse burned through him him. Harry, through the dark magic induced elation he felt while Tom continued to torment his younger self, found himself slightly disappointed by Diary-Tom's silence.
Meanwhile, he could feel his legs moving, and his body was slowly walking toward Tom's younger counterpart. As he drew closer, he felt Tom release the curse, and the ecstacy faded into a hollow buzz.
"Give up. You cannot defeat me."
Diary-Tom bristled. "Don't...count on it – you're in the b-body of a child...your magic is limited. I...I only...have to outlast you," he said shakily, trying to rise to his feet.
His Tom chuckled ominously, and feeling surge of cruel amusement electrifying his brain, Harry was suddenly thankful that this Tom was on his side.
"Ah, to be young and ignorant. You foolish boy – have you not felt this one's magic? I have access to as much magic as I could possibly need," his Tom bluffed. Harry knew that Tom could only use so much of his magic before it began to hurt him.
Diary-Tom didn't care, though. "Avada Kedav-!"
"Crucio."
Diary-Tom fell to his knees once again, and Harry could see he was biting his lip so hard that blood was dribbling down his chin. Eventually, he collapsed entirely, and began writhing on the floor.
Holding the curse, his Tom continued his advance on the Slytherin prefect, only releasing it when he knelt down in front of him, gently placing a hand on his cheek.
"Why are you doing this?" Diary-Tom growled hoarsely.
"You are a loose end, a weakness," his Tom said simply, "A weakness I do not wish to account for. And such weaknesses are best kept locked away where they cannot become liabilities."
Harry could see Diary-Tom's muscles straining, as though against an invisible force, and Harry noticed that his Tom's wand was still pointed at him, no doubt pushing an immense weight on the younger Dark Lord, forcing him to stay down.
"It's too late," Diary-Tom hissed, something smug and yet desperate shining in his eyes, "The boy is about to die. In a few moments he will be dead, and I will have a body of my own."
No! Harry cried out in his mind. He couldn't let Malfoy die – he couldn't let Tom Riddle win. Please, Tom, no!
But his Tom smiled. "There is so much that you don't know. What has been done can been undone." Suddenly, Tom gripped his younger self's head tightly, causing the boy to cry out, startled.
"What are you -"
"Wisdom allows us to recognize our weaknesses - but power, true power, is what grants us the ability to turn our weaknesses into strengths."
"Wha -"
"The soul is a curious thing," his Tom continued, "We can tear it apart as many times as we wish, but the pieces will always yearn to be together again."
Harry felt his eyes close and his lungs fill, and for a moment, he felt extraordinarily light-headed, blissful even – but only for a moment; that's when the pain started.
His head felt as though it was splitting in two, and while Tom remained silent in his suffering, Diary-Tom was screaming wretchedly, just as Harry was, buried deep in his mind. Harry could feel something burning his skin, and when his Tom opened Harry's eyes again he saw black blood escaping Diary-Tom's mouth, nose, eyes, and crawling up Harry's arm, sneaking under his fingernails and absorbing itself into his skin. Soon his veins went black, as they crawled and rippled under his skin like tiny worms eating at his flesh. It was a horrible feeling, disgusting and agonizing all at once.
He could feel his breaths grow shallow and hollow, and the pain only intensified as he watched, before him, Diary-Tom's skin blister and burn, and crumble away, black blood seeping from the cracks – and that horrifying image was the last thing he saw before it all went dark, before the pain grew far away, the screams grew distant, and everything faded to a painless, pensive black.
What did you think? Dramatic enough? Do let me know!