Why the hell did this have to happen now? Harry did not want to break down in front of Snape of all people. Inhaling deep breaths through his nose, Harry tried to focus his thoughts away from images of the war and Snape dying and his trial and the veil coming closer and closer...

"Potter, drink this." Snape held out an opened vial to him, but when Harry didn't take it, he added, "It's a calming draught. Nothing else."

Harry took the vial with trembling hands, sniffed it once to verify Snape probably wasn't trying to poison him, and downed it in one go. At once warmth spread across his body and his mind, and both his breathing and his heart rate slowed.

"I did everything they wanted me to," Harry whispered, staring at the floor while leaning forward in his chair, elbows on his thighs and arms held tightly against his body. "Everything and more. I died for them. I killed for them. And in the end all I got in return for giving them my all was a sham of a trial and an execution."

Snape stood in front of Harry, hip pressed against his desk and arms crossed. He stared down at Harry with a blank expression, which was an improvement over the rage Harry had seen on his face just moments earlier.

Harry looked up at him with narrowed eyes. "My best friends turned against me, sat on the stand and let the Ministry murder me. No one came to my rescue even when I'd given my life to rescue the world." Harry briefly licked his lips while he gave Snape a challenging look. "So why did I give Tom a second chance? Because I wanted to. Because he's my soulmate, or the closest thing to it I'll ever have. And because I was curious to see what he would do with a second chance with his soul and sanity intact." Harry shrugged and leaned back in his chair. "And I really don't care if Tom deserves this second chance or not, or what it means to the world. The world can go fuck itself."

Snape gave a slow nod, shifting on his feet to find a better position while he kept staring down at Harry. "And I take it you have no plans to vanquish the Dark Lord anytime soon?"

Harry snorted with laughter while he looked at Snape in disbelief.

"The headmaster is going to be ever so disappointed," Snape drawled with a healthy dose of sarcasm. "He's counting on the Boy Who Lived to do away with the Dark Lord."

"The headmaster wants me dead," Harry said in a monotone voice. "He's going to have to learn to live with that disappointment."

"Hm." Snape gave another slow nod. "While I can sympathize with your less than desirable ending," Snape said entirely without sympathy, "I find it hard to stomach that you'd willingly subject the people around you, new friends you've obviously made, to the mercy of the Dark Lord."

"Tom isn't Voldemort," Harry said a little louder than he'd meant to. Snape was getting on his nerves, though, with this constant whining about Tom's past actions. "There isn't going to be another war, he told you so. He wants to change our society, sure, but he wants to do it without violence."

Snape raised a very sceptical eyebrow. "If not violence, then how does he plan to accomplish this? And what are those changes exactly? I cannot imagine you'd go along with any plans to segregate muggleborns, such as the Dark Lord always aspired to do."

"There's not going to be any muggleborn registration commission this time, Tom's promised," Harry said quickly, so hopefully Snape would understand Tom had indeed changed. Or at the very least had changed his plans. Then Harry went to answer the rest of Snape's questions but found himself unable to. He knew that Tom wanted to change the wizarding world, but they hadn't really talked about specifics all that much. Tom had ranted about bureaucracy at the Ministry a time or two, and about their practice of hiring people based on their pedigree or connections more so than for their competency and skills. And of course Tom wanted to bring back certain traditions and rituals the Ministry had banned over the decades. But that was it as far as Harry knew. It's not like Tom had ever given him a list or something of all the changes he wanted to make in detail.

"Er..." Harry said, swallowing as he looked up at Snape with wide eyes. "He wants to bring back traditions and stuff."

Snape pinched the bridge of his nose and released a sigh that seemed to come from deep within a well of patience that was about to run dry. "Every Slytherin wants to bring back our lost traditions, Potter." Snape slowly released his nose and stared down at Harry with such disappointment that it took Harry aback for a second. He'd seen plenty of emotions on Snape's face before over the years. Mostly anger, scorn and ridicule. But he'd never seen disappointment like that directed at him before. "You do not have a clue about the Dark Lord's plans, do you? You've brought him back and you're letting him run amok without having a single idea about what he wants to do to our world."

"No," Harry denied, just for the sake of denying anything Snape said. Even if he had the sinking feeling Snape might be at least a little bit right about this. "He wants to overhaul the Ministry – "

"And do away with muggleborns, and rule the world, and have everyone kneel before him and kiss the hem of his robes," Snape interrupted him, his expression morphing back into a familiar sneer. "Yes, I know what the Dark Lord wants better than you, Potter. I've met the man plenty of times."

"That's not true!" Harry's heartrate picked up again despite the calming draught in his system. Snape just drove him mad with these accusations. "You don't know him, not as he's right now. Tom is not Voldemort!" Harry inhaled a huge breath through his nose and blew it back out again through his mouth.

"You'll have to forgive me that I don't take your word for it. You're much too close to the Dark Lord for some unfathomable reason." Snape shook his head briefly and peered down at Harry through a curtain of black hair. "Also, you must get these physical manifestations of your traumas under control. You cannot depend on calming draughts every time you start hyperventilating."

"Tom sent me some Muggle books on PTSD and stuff. They've been helpful," Harry muttered, glaring at Snape while he kept repeating his breathing exercises.

Snape blinked and arched an eyebrow. "The Dark Lord sent you Muggle books?"

"Yeah. He had Barty buy them since he was still inhabiting a homunculus and couldn't go himself, but after my first panic attack in your class he got me those books. They really do help, but dealing with trauma like this takes time." Harry shrugged. He refused to be ashamed of what was going on in his head, even when dealing with Snape and his penchant to mock anything and everything Harry Potter. The way Harry saw it, he'd earned all his traumas when saving others, and dying to save the world, and he would not let anyone make him feel bad about that. Not even Snape, who had earned the title of 'person most likely to get under Harry's skin and rile him up completely just by existing' many times over.

"Hm." Snape seemed unsure what to do with that information, but Harry couldn't care less. He was exhausted. He was only just recovered from a traumatic brain injury and on top of that he'd just relived some of his traumas and his body was obviously done for the day. Snape seemed to notice this, too, and for once in his life decided to spare Harry from further suffering. "You're dismissed," Snape said as he stepped away from Harry and sat down behind his desk again.

Harry felt a hundred years old as he stood up from his chair. His body ached all over and seemed to want to do everything in slow-motion. "Good night, Sir."

Snape sneered at Harry in response. "Get out of my office."

Harry shuffled back to the Slytherin common room, thankfully not that far away from Snape's office. It was hard to believe it was only the second week of November in his first year at Hogwarts. To Harry, it felt like he'd been reliving his life for years already, not for barely four months. Of course, that probably happened because he'd spent years at Hogwarts already in his previous life. Not to mention, he had been very busy setting up his second life so far, and he'd only barely scratched the surface of things he still wanted to change. But Snape's admonishment of Harry not having a clue about Tom's plans did drive the point home that Harry was just winging his second chance, at least for the most part. He wasn't very organized and perhaps he should be. The more he changed, the less predictable the future would be and there would come a point, probably soon, when Harry could no longer depend on his foreknowledge of the future, because the future would be utterly changed.

Perhaps Harry should put a bit more time in planning things out. Not just his own plans, but Tom's as well. He trusted Tom, up to a point. Harry was well aware that Tom had a track record of making monumental mistakes. Horcruxes, anyone? And while Tom made it clear he didn't want another war, Harry wanted to be sure Tom wasn't going around killing people quietly, just because that was all Tom knew how to do when it came to changing things.

He checked his watch and realized it was not even eight. Still, he really was exhausted and he still wanted to call Tom so he decided to just go to bed right away, but he vowed that the next day he would put one of his notebooks to good use and write some plans down.

Blaise and Theo were playing cards in their dorm, as they usually did early in the evening.

"What did Snape do to you?" Theo asked with obvious worry in his voice. Blaise merely looked Harry up and down and shook his head.

"Not much," Harry said as he collected his pyjamas. "Still not fully recovered, I think. I'm going to bed."

"Probably for the best," Blaise said, turning back to his cards. "You look like you're about to keel over."

"Yeah," Theo agreed quietly. "Good night. And if you need more time to heal, I'm sure Pomfrey would let you take a day or two off classes."

"Nah." Harry waved Theo's concerns off. "I'm sure I just need a good night's sleep. Night, guys."

Harry got ready for bed as quickly as his tired body let him and made sure no one could disturb him before calling Tom on the mirror.

"Harry?" Tom answered, for once not seated in a comfortable leather chair in the reception room but behind a desk in what looked like an impressive office. "Is everything all right? You're calling early today."

Harry smiled, tired as he was. Seeing Tom always did make him feel better. "Yeah, I'm fine. Just exhausted from 'detention' with Snape."

"Ah yes," Tom said, gaze suddenly a little sharper as always when Harry mentioned Snape. Just because Tom had let him live didn't mean he'd forgiven Snape in any way, shape or form. Harry was well aware the only reason Snape was still alive was because he served a purpose for Tom. "Your interrogation with Severus. How did that go?"

"Pretty much as expected," Harry replied with a shrug. "Snape was angry I brought you back. Seemed to believe you're still the old Voldemort. Wouldn't listen to reason."

Tom chuckled for a moment. "I'm not surprised in the least Severus would rather you'd left me in pieces in limbo." Tom looked at Harry with mirth shining in his eyes. "It is beyond amusing to remember that Severus joined me out of his own free will. He begged me for the mark, since he's a half-blood and I refused him at first. And he threw all of that away over a silly girl who hadn't even talked to him in years."

"That silly girl was my mum," Harry grumbled, glaring at Tom. He understood what Tom was saying, but he wouldn't let Tom insult his mother.

"And a brilliant witch she was," Tom said smoothly, course correcting like a professional bullshitter. "The point remains that Severus giving you a hard time for interacting with me is rather deliciously hypocritical of him."

"Yeah, but I doubt Snape cares about that," Harry said as he leaned his tired body back against his pillow. "He did mentioned something I hadn't considered and you hadn't told me. That the nightmare curse might drive the twins insane."

Tom looked at Harry for a few long moments, previous humour slipping off his face. "I doubt they will end up truly insane," he finally said with a careless shrug. "They're young teens. Their worst nightmares won't be traumatizing enough to drive them mad."

Harry sighed in defeat. So there were permanent effects, while Tom had assured him there wouldn't be. "You said they'd be fine, that the curse wouldn't harm them permanently."

"And it won't," Tom assured him with a pleasant little smile. "But they will feel an effect from the exposure to their worst nightmares. How else will they learn a lesson?"

Harry frowned and worried his lip. He wasn't sure how to feel about this. He wasn't even sure if Tom had lied to him or not.

"What exactly is the problem?" Tom asked, definitely sounding a little impatient now. "Just yesterday you were complimenting this curse and its effects, and now you're suddenly pouting about it. Why? What did Severus say to you to bring this about?"

Shrugging, Harry looked up at Tom from beneath his eyelashes. "I was telling Snape you'd changed, and Snape insisted you hadn't because you'd cursed the twins with something that would drive them insane, which used to be your favourite hobby. Cursing people until they went insane."

"Well," Tom said and then stopped talking while he looked at Harry with raised eyebrows. Harry stared back at him, not sure if he should have brought this up at all, or even why he was upset about this. Up until the point Snape said something about it, Harry had been perfectly fine with that curse.

"I don't know why this bothers me," Harry said since Tom still wasn't talking. "I'm not even sure if it bothers me all that much, and maybe that is what bothers me, that the curse doesn't bother me."

Tom's rigid expression finally cracked and he grinned while he briefly looked down. "Very eloquent, my dear. Truly well said."

"Oh fuck off," Harry mumbled, suddenly feeling oddly embarrassed.

"What a poet you are," Tom continued, his smile now obviously teasing. Harry rolled his eyes and looked away as his cheeks warmed. "Anyway," Tom said and inhaled a deep breath. "I think you brought up a valid point here, my dear. I do believe you're mostly bothered by the fact you're not at all that bothered."

"Who's a poet now?" Harry said, tempted beyond belief to stick his tongue out at Tom but he wouldn't. He wasn't actually eleven.

Tom wisely ignored him. "As for what I did as Voldemort, I can give you an apology for my actions of the past, but unless we're inventing a time-turner that can go back farther than a few hours, I cannot change them. No matter how much I want to these days."

"Yeah, I know," Harry said with a solemn nod. He knew he couldn't keep rubbing Voldemort's past in Tom's face. That was entirely unproductive, not to mention unfair to him as he was right now. Still, no matter how much Harry liked Tom these days, he did want to know what Tom planned to do. "Snape also asked about your plans and how you wanted to implement them without violence."

"And what did you tell him?" Tom asked, perking up a little, eyes narrowing as he gave Harry an almost challenging look.

Did Tom know Harry was pretty clueless about his plans? Harry had a sneaking suspicion he did and was about to rub it in his face. "You know, that you wanted to bring traditions back and stuff."

"Stuff?" Tom asked innocently.

"Yes, Tom, lots and lots of stuff," Harry snapped, slightly mortified he'd spent months encouraging Tom to make changes without actually knowing what those changes were. "Like redoing the Ministry."

"Redoing the Ministry. That's what we're calling it?" Tom asked, still with the kind of smile that would charm any headmaster, save Dumbledore, to waive a detention even if he'd missed a full day of classes.

"Fine," Harry said with a dramatic groan. "I don't actually know what you plan to do outside of bringing traditions back and redoing the Ministry. Please enlighten me, oh dearest soulmate of mine."

Tom laughed, head falling back as he relaxed in his chair. "That only took you a few months, to realize you don't have a clue what I want to do with our world."

"I've been busy," Harry said through clenched jaws, cheeks feeling like they were on fire. "And traumatized. And I've had brain damage."

"I truly was wondering when you'd come knocking to ask me about my plans. If it wasn't for Severus, I don't think you'd have realized your lack of knowledge until the summer holidays." Tom clearly had been anticipating this moment, of Harry's sheer humiliation. Harry ran a tired hand across his face. There wasn't much he could do about it now, and Tom seemed to realize Harry truly was exhausted and cut his teasing short.

"When I attended Hogwarts and learned about our world, one of the things that bothered me the most was that the Ministry, and thus our society, was run on favouritism," Tom said, effortlessly slipping into a lecture mode that wouldn't be out of place on a Hogwarts professor. "When it came to working for the Ministry, climbing their ranks, it didn't matter how smart or talented you were. What mattered was your family name or who you knew."

Harry slowly nodded, not so much because he was familiar with these issues, because he wasn't, but to encourage Tom to keep going.

Tom obliged him, continuing his speech as though he knew it by heart. "I was smarter and magically more powerful than all my roommates combined, yet since I lacked an impressive family name and had no important connections to speak of, I'd have to start in the mail room at the Ministry, no matter my NEWT scores. While my roommates would end up in whatever position they desired, simply because their fathers and uncles would make it happen."

"That's so unfair," Harry said with an enormous burst of sympathy for Tom as a child. Brilliant, talented and overlooked by an outdated system. "But that was during your schooldays. Is it still that bad in this day and age?"

"Perhaps not quite as bad as it used to be, but favouritism is still the most used method for hiring at the Ministry," Tom said with a resigned little sigh. "I planned to use my charm and Slytherin lineage to bind my pureblood classmates to me by pretending to want to see nothing but purebloods in charge of our society, while in truth I wanted to overthrow the system from the inside. Become the Minister for Magic and hire people based on talent and competency, nothing else." Tom offered Harry a cheeky wink.

Harry realized his mouth had dropped open as he stared a Tom. He'd never known about these kind of plans from his soulmate. "So what happened?" Harry finally managed to ask once he'd closed his mouth again.

"Horcruxes happened," Tom said, his expression as sour as if he'd just swallowed a lemon whole. "Without even realizing it was happening, I started believing the propaganda I was spouting to bind the wealthy purebloods to me. I was becoming insane and started believing insane ideas about blood purity and more such nonsense and I completely lost sight of what I'd set out to do."

"You basically became the thing you were trying to get rid of," Harry whispered, mind reeling from all this new information about his soulmate. "Those fucking horcruxes really did destroy you in every possible way."

"That they did," Tom agreed quietly, giving Harry a small but knowing smile. Tom shook his head a time or two, took a deep breath and sat up a little. "But that is in the past. Currently my plans are threefold. First, reinstate traditions and rituals that the Ministry has unreasonably banned, and teach our society to celebrate all kinds of magic. Secondly, focus on competency, not favouritism in places like the Ministry and Hogwarts. And last but certainly not least, find better ways to shield us from Muggles and prepare for the inevitable discovery by Muggles."

"Okay, that sounds good," Harry said, happily surprised and relieved to note that he agreed with all three of those points. "I can get behind all of that."

"I'd certainly thought you'd agree with these plans," Tom said just a little smugly.

Harry ignored Tom's self-satisfied grin. "And how are you planning to accomplish all that? By becoming the Minister for Magic? How?"

"With help, of course." Tom seemed very amused by Harry's puzzled expression. "Lucius and Theodorus are my initial introductions to the wealthy and influential members of our society."

"Wait," Harry interrupted Tom when something occurred to him. "But those two are purebloods who expect you to want to follow their pureblood agenda."

Tom snickered, his nose wrinkling in a way that looked downright adorable, which what the fuck? Why was Harry thinking that now? "My dear, it's not like I'm going to tell them my true plans," Tom said, giving Harry and his naivety a fond smile. "I'm going to butter them up with grand plans of blood prejudice and take my time to convince them to see things my way eventually."

"Convince them," Harry said disbelievingly. "Is that what we're calling you cursing them into next week if they disagree with you now?"

"Nothing so drastic." Tom waved Harry's suggestion away with an airy gesture. "At least not at first."

Harry shook his head with a sigh, not finding a lot of sympathy in himself for the hypothetical cursing of a few fanatical Death Eaters.

"Besides charming my way into high society," Tom continued as if Harry hadn't interrupted him. "I require a seat on the Wizengamot."

"And you're going to get one of those how?" Harry asked, unsure how the Wizengamot even worked. Hermione had ranted about its unfair systems a time or two over the years, but Harry was young and stupid and had mostly tuned her out.

"That's where I need your help, my dear," Tom said with a positively sweet smile that almost made his cheeks dimple. Harry wouldn't be surprised if Tom batted his eyelashes next.

"I have a seat on the Wizengamot?" Harry wondered how the hell he missed that in his previous life.

"No, you don't," Tom said, quickly putting Harry's mind to rest that he'd overlooked something that momentous about his family. "But your godfather does. Or he will once Arcturus gives up the ghost."

"Huh. And you want me to do what?" Harry asked slowly, unsure where Tom was going with this.

"Do you even know how the Wizengamot works?" Tom asked with a little frown, as though he only now realized Harry probably hadn't ever thought to look into their judicial and governing system, not even when he was put on trial all the way back before his fifth year. Or at any time these last four months after Harry had actually been sentenced to death by the Wizengamot.

Harry felt a hot wave of shame wash over him, for never educating himself about something so vital to their society. "Er..."

Tom shook his head, expression both amused and resigned. "The Wizengamot is both our judicial and legislative branch. It oversees trials and it has the power to create new laws or abolish old ones. Wizengamot seats are hereditary. The first ones were given out to the most influential families during its creation in 1544. When the Ministry was established in 1707 more seats were created and dispersed amongst the wealthy and well-connected. Many families still hold the seats they were once given, passing it on within their families. However, Wizengamot seats can also be sold or gifted. My ancestors, the Gaunts, used to have a seat but sold it off sometime in the 19th century to pay off some debts they'd accrued."

"And my family?" Harry asked, curious if they, too had ever sold something so important.

"Your family never had a seat," Tom told him. "The Potters, while having an interesting pedigree, were never as influential or pureblooded as many preferred over the centuries. In fact, most of high society considers the Potters new money, thanks to your grandfather Fleamont and his potions. Before that addition of wealth the Potters were mostly middle-class for many generations."

"I never knew that. When I was eleven the first time, all I saw was a vault full of gold inside Gringotts and assumed my family must always have had money," Harry said with a small shake of his head.

"Going from middle-class to fairly wealthy, as your grandfather managed to do for a time is still a better deal than what the Gaunts did. They lost their wealth and status through insanity as a direct result of fucking their own siblings to keep their lines pure," Tom said with obvious distaste.

"Yeah." Harry chuckled at Tom's disgusted face. "When you put it like that, I've not gotten such a bad deal. So what do you want me to do with Sirius' seat?"

"Convince him to gift it to you," Tom said matter-of-factly. "Sirius Black was never one for politics, and now with a decade of dementors gnawing at his brain I doubt that has changed any. Tell him you'd like to make this world a better place or something, and I'm sure he'll give it to you."

"Right." Harry wasn't sure what to make of that. It wasn't something he'd ever considered before and to be honest, he wanted to think that over when he wasn't as exhausted.

Tom seemed to read his mind, or at least Harry's tired expression. "You need rest, my dear. None of these things need to be decided right this minute. But now at least you have an idea where I stand and what I plan to do."

"Yeah," Harry agreed, suppressing a yawn. "Thanks for explaining this all to me."

"You're very welcome." Tom offered Harry one last, warm smile. "We'll talk again tomorrow. Good night, Harry."

"Night, Tom." Harry closed his mirror and was asleep in minutes.

The next morning at breakfast Harry was crudely reminded of Tom's plans for getting his hands on a Wizengamot seat when he opened the Daily Prophet and glanced over the obituaries, like he did every day just to see if he recognized any names.

'Arcturus Black III
May 2, 1901 – November 10, 1991
Widower of Melania Black nee Macmillan'

Harry blinked as he stared at the announcement of the death of Sirius' grandfather. Either this was the world's weirdest coincidence, or Tom got a little impatient for a Wizengamot seat and decided to help things along personally.

It bothered Harry to no end that he wasn't sure which one of these options was true.