Forced Empathy

Summary: Only a soul that exists in the past may travel to it. Harry travels back in time, at the cost of his own soul, to kill Tom Riddle before he can make a horcrux. But he didn't quite factor in his own soul fragment.

Some studies on psychopaths have recently shown they can turn on and off their empathy at will.

(Since I got comments of disbelief from people who didn't bother to google that my psychopathy depiction is supported by studies -

psychology today dot com

slash us slash blog slash the-empathic-brain slash 201307 slash inside-the-mind-psychopath-empathic-not-always

remove the slashes and dots and replace with actual slashes / dots. Or alternatively, just freaking google, there's more than one result on this.

If you have an actual issue with the studies, please say so instead of just scoffing, such as providing a counter-study. How am I supposed to improve my work if you don't provide sources for your CLEARLY well thought out and not at all jerking-in-disbelief reaction? Otherwise you make yourself look like a poorly educated idiot.

Empathy is NOT exactly the same as sympathy, it's possible that's where the source of confusion is. Empathy is about mirroring someone's internal state, not necessarily agreeing totally with it.)

They use their empathy to get close to their victims, then, when it is convenient for them, turn it off. That pretty much means all those stories about teaching Riddle to have feelings about people, empathize with them, where he struggles to go back to total darkness because he cares about their pain? Yeah, that's not realistic.

There would be no struggle. He would just turn his empathy off, and thus stop caring about their pain. Bye bye inconvenience!

It's been concluded the only way to cure psychopathy is to find some way of permanently putting the empathy 'On', and deactivating the switch. What better way then, but to outright force them to? Even then, they'd probably be pretty messed up.

This is just a plot bunny and likely will be very short, maybe even a two-shot. It's motivated by all those really, really unrealistic fics of people cuddling up to an abuser who in all likely-hood /would/ act that charming and like he cares that much about them, that they're that special... until they are firmly in his grip, at which point he'd treat them like crap just like the rest of his followers, and, if they genuinely are as powerful as him, murder them the moment their guard is down because Riddle doesn't /want/ an equal, and sociopaths are perfectly willing to sabotage things even for themselves as long as they still remain better off than the object of their spite.

You are free to steal the idea for your own fic, and if it results in things being better written and a better understanding of psychopathy from people then I will be glad for it.

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One. - Death of a Soul

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They had broken into the Unspeakable's research last month, looking for the edge that could tip them over in the battle against Voldemort. When Harry learned he could travel far into the past, he'd been giddy, and wanted all of them to come, but Hermione looked grim. Ron wasn't there with them... he had sacrificed his life to save them, a week before, gallivanting off on his own to buy them more time by drawing the Death Eaters away from their location. The loss was still fresh on all their minds. Ron had been an idiot and a prat at times, but he'd been their idiot, and had willingly died for them.

They were hiding now in an Unplottable location, on an island populated by Medusa where few wizards would want to roam, but one couldn't hide forever if you wanted to make progress. The gorgons had been surprisingly friendly to the young Parselmouth and his friend, but didn't want any part in the war. They weren't the only ones, and with nearly all their allies dead, they were alone. That was why he couldn't believe Hermione looked even the slightest bit hesitant about time travel when she'd been the first one of them to ever use a time-turner, and that was just for classes!

"Harry, the consequences of going into the past will be enormous. There's no guarantee, going back that far, that any of us will even be born if you do this," she warned. "There will be no easy trek back into the future, or into the past for that matter; this is no time-turner. The Butterfly effect means your parents, if they even live, could end up having a baby girl instead of a boy, and that's just one of many changes that could occur."

"I don't care, as long as you're with me. We've lost so many. With Voldemort dead, even if different people are born, at least they won't suffer," Harry said hotly, unable to believe this is even a debate.

Hermione closed her eyes. "Harry, I can't come with you. Why do you think this technique hasn't been used before? Not only is it dark magic, with chances of completely messing up the time line and leaving a world worse than the one you left behind-" Harry snorted, unable to believe that. "-but it's the darkest of magic. It requires the sacrifice of a soul."

Harry gaped. "What? You're not planning on sacrificing yours, are you Hermione?"

The bushy haired girl shook her head. "Yours. But I will take mine too, if it will help. If everything goes right, we'll be reborn none the wiser that any of this ever happened, anyway."

Harry couldn't believe his ears. "That's insane. How is time travel supposed to help if we're both soulless? We'll be drooling vegetables. We might as well let ourselves be kissed by Dementors."

Hermione looked at him grimly. "You wouldn't be soulless. You seem to have forgotten you have two of them, even if one originally was never supposed to have been yours. The spell requires that any soul going into the past must have a counterpart there. Only you, Harry, as a horcrux, can make the journey that far into the past. I have another spell to alter the shard to make the soul fragment more like yours, and carry your memories. But you'll never be whole again. You will suffer, possibly even into the afterlife."

"That would make me just like Voldemort." It spoke of his total desperation that he was even considering this instead of throwing it out of hand.

He hadn't actually said no.

Tears whelmed in her eyes. "Oh, Harry... You could never be him. It's our choices that make us who we are. Not what our bodies are made of."

"Or souls?" His lips quirked. "I can't believe we're doing this. The Darkest of Magic. Even Voldemort didn't destroy the souls of his own allies."

"But he did use Dementors against his enemies, Harry," she pointed out.

He closed his eyes, and considered for a long while. They really had no choice, did they? Things had gone so wrong after the elder wand had decided to accept Voldemort as lord, due to the snake-faced monster (no offense to the resident gorgons, of course) disarming Harry in a duel simply to belittle him, but also because the man was not entirely stupid and was quite capable of noticing when a wand wasn't obeying him. Harry cursed every day the fact he hadn't learned Occulumency properly, and Voldemort had read his mind. On the run, it had been one of the first things he'd rectified, with quite a bit of trial and error.

He just wished others hadn't died for his mistakes. With Voldemort having created even more horcruxes that they had no hope of finding, they had no hope of defeating him conventionally any longer. If they did not do something drastic, those sacrifices would be in vain.

"Alright, let's do this."

"Psyche exorcis," came the spell, a star-flecked, dark shadow patronus leaping from her wand, only a cloak-like creature instead of her normal otter. Where a normal patronus gave happiness and wonder, this one fed off of the worst memories the caster could give it. A newborn Dementor in the making, it slammed into his mouth and burrowed under his skin and through every organ. His eyes turned pitch black.

It was the most excruciating pain he had ever experienced, even more than a Crucio. That, at least, had been purely physical. This, however, was mental anguish layered atop every nerve in his body screaming at him in agony, his very soul screaming at him in betrayal.

He didn't blame it, really.

In moments, Harry blanked out from the pain and shock.

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When he came to again, he felt like something was profoundly missing from him. A cold ache in his body that could never be filled. Something horribly wrong. A quick review of his memories showed, however, that Hermione had been successful at least in keeping those intact. He remembered all too well the horrors of the war. He felt like he would never be happy again.

What have I done?

A look around confirmed she'd been successful in another way, too.

He wasn't on the island anymore. He was sitting in a pile of rubble, next to the broken shell of a Muggle bomb from World War 2.

A different person probably would have felt the desire to try and save young Tom Riddle. Felt that it was the moral thing to do, to try and sway someone to the light before they fell completely. Harry had no such compunction. Maybe it was the loss of his soul talking, but he found the concept disgusting. Value one life, which was known to be messed up from the beginning due to being conceived by love potion, and likely to turn to the dark no matter what, over hundreds of innocent children the man had killed? Over his friends and family? And the Muggles were started to catch on. The moment they did, the Wizarding World would be over, and the only one left standing the immortal Voldemort.

Perhaps that had been the sick man's plan all along, to be the only special person left in the entire world. To genocide the entire Wizarding Race once they started to bore him. They were, after all, the only true threat to his power.

You had to be fucking nuts if you thought he was going to play Saint Potter over that monster! No matter what others may have accused him of, he really was no saint. Harry had almost been sorted into Slytherin, and while, sure, Slytherins could be as nice as anyone else... they had an association with ruthlessness, of not letting anything get in their way of their ambition. And his ambition was to stop that man at all costs. Murder him as a baby, if he had to.

Although, it looked as if he had not traveled quite far enough to murder him as a baby, if the war with Grindelwald was raging on then the young man had to be at school already. That could be problematic, but Harry was turning 18 shortly and had learned through trial and fire with death at his heels, more than a match for any schoolboy even if it was Riddle. Hopefully. Riddle had been unusually powerful as a boy, more powerful than many grown wizards, but, Harry had successfully dealt with his adult counterpart several times, and his Dairy self. He could deal with a kiddy version.

But first thing was first. To get to the orphanage. Hopefully the new year at Hogwarts hadn't started yet. Thankfully, he was already familiar with the location, and knew exactly where to go.

Harry apparated.

The scene he saw was not one he was expecting. One of the houses nearby was rubble. It occurred to him, abruptly, that when Tom Riddle had begged to stay at Hogwarts, it hadn't just been a desire to stay at home. It had been a very real fear for his own life. Magicless London was not safe for a young boy, not at all, during this time period. Dumbledore had acted with a prejudice against the young man from day one, not that Harry could blame him when he knew the boy was a thief and an animal butcher. It was just what the monster deserved, really.

Briefly, he wondered if that was his lack of soul talking, and if he should be more concerned.

He opened the door of the orphanage, not caring who saw him, and scanned for the dark haired youth. The matron spotted him and came briskly over. "Did you just lose your family, young man? Well, we can't afford any more mouths to feed. We're already on rations."

"Where's Tom Riddle?"

"Riddle?" she seemed taken back. "The freak?" That word hurt, reflexively, even if he knew it wasn't directed at him. "He's in his room upstairs. Preparing."

"For school?"

"To leave," her tone was brisk, but slightly confused. "He's old enough for a job now, or at least looks it, and we really can't afford to keep him. He doesn't want to be here, either. So we're turning him out."

For a moment, sympathy actually did fill him. He'd forgotten there had been a time when orphanages weren't obligated to keep children until age 18, and when child labor laws weren't what they were in his day. He wouldn't want to be in this position, especially not when the country was war-torn.

But he's your worst enemy. You should wish it on him. Some dark part of him whispered. Well, it didn't matter. He'd be putting the bastard out of his misery soon enough.

Wand at ready, its warmth a small comfort to his aching cold in the depths of his heart (but never enough) he stepped upstairs, cast a muffling charm so no muggle would notice the ensuing racket, and flung open the door, wand at the ready. Tom looked up, looking almost exactly, if perhaps the smallest bit younger, a mirror image of Diary Riddle. Younger was good. That meant he hadn't made a horcrux yet, and wasn't immortal.

"Avada kedavra!" Harry shouted, uncaring of the consequences. There was a war going on. One more casualty would hardly be noticed, and he'd be happy to go to Azkaban for this.

Green light flew out, and while Riddle admirably made a move for his wand, there was just no time. It struck him and he fell, stiff as the dead. Deep pain wove through Harry like it had struck him himself, but he grinned and bared it, glad his ordeal was finally over, and so easily too, for once. He kicked at the corpse.

There's just one thing. The spell isn't infallible.

For one, it requires intent. Deep down, Harry truly didn't want to be dead. It's hard to kill yourself with the Killing Curse, although it's been done; Voldemort had done it himself by accident, just by being so hateful, although that was more a case of spell backfire.

And, Riddle had the exact same soul. In fact, he had a whole one, while Harry did not. Harry's shard should have been subordinate, being only a little fragment that had long lost its original personality. Horcruxes were meant to preserve and help their maker, tether them to the earth, not destroy or hurt them. As vain as Voldemort was, he would never have stood for a second version of himself unless he had some way of making himself superior to it.

Harry had thought Riddle had no horcruxes. But nobody actually knew what would happen if you brought a shard of a soul in contact with the whole version from the past.

For a brief moment, Riddle's soul detached from his body, flying right out of the room... and then, was drawn straight back, pulled by Harry, his own would-be killer. Harry ducked the wraith form of the body, which continued back straight to its otherwise undamaged body.

Riddle's finger twitched. A jagged lightning bolt scar traced his neck, mirror to Harry's own.

Harry stared in horror. No. It couldn't be.

Tom moaned, and Harry moved to grab the boy's wand, which was only inches away from the young man. If he had to, he'd slit both of their throats himself! Coming to his senses, if a bit confused as to what had happened, Tom glared and kicked at his arm before grabbing his own wand, hissing, "You tried to kill me! You'll pay!" Figuring there already was dark magic used in the vicinity, and turn about is fair play, Tom gave no mercy: "Crucio!"

Harry struck the floor, writhing in pain. But as he did, Tom cried out too, and gripped his scar. Unable to concentrate, the spell ended. Viciously, Harry grabbed at Tom's hair and pulled him in for a punch to the face, ready to brawl on the floor like a muggle.

Only to yelp as the pain traveled through him, too. Tom hit him back, then winced the same way, and gave him a curious, calculating look. Both stood up and backed away from each other.

What in the world? He knew he could sometimes feel things around Tom before, even see through his own eyes, but this was taking things to a whole new level! Both of them stared at each other, neither of them quite eager to suffer pain again so soon, and both quite aware the other seemed to have no idea why this situation had occurred. Somehow, their curious stares and lack of immediate action - admittedly more from being completely puzzled at how to injure the other rather than due to lacking hostile intent - allowed the two of them to communicate in complete silence a temporary cease-fire.

"Who are you?" Tom asked, wand still pointed at him. "Why are you trying to kill me?" There was a compulsion to it, which Harry didn't appreciate.

Harry licked his lips. "It's a war." Let him think he was one of Grindelwald's, it was easier than the truth.

"You didn't answer my first question." Uneasy. It meant Harry had resisted his compulsion. Few people could throw off even his silent Imperios. The knowledge made Harry want to smirk.

"Harry," he answered, a touch unsure about this. Introducing himself to Riddle had never been part of the plan. "I'm just another orphan, like you." He looked ragged enough to be an urchin, really. He could see Tom's lips curling, drawing conclusions: an urchin who hadn't even gotten an invitation to Hogwarts couldn't be that magically powerful. No last name meant he could be a mudblood, and he certainly wasn't a legitimate pureblood. Unless he'd come from another country, but Harry's accent was far too British to be from anywhere else.

Yet Tom surprised him by concluding otherwise. "You were born in another country and managed to end up here in your youth?"

Harry's eyebrows knitted together. "How did you make that conclusion?"

"You should have gotten a Hogwarts' Letter. You're too magically powerful not to," Tom answered, smug. Ah, of course.

"Maybe I was," it was best to feed Tom's ego here so he wouldn't pry too deeply. "I don't exactly remember my own birth."

It was then he noticed something strange. Being in this room, the emptiness in him had settled a little. Being close to the rest of the soul made him feel more whole, although he was still not happy. He wondered how Voldemort had ever stood it; he supposed the man had to be quite desperately afraid of death, or maybe he'd numbed himself enough to not care.

"So, you were born in another country, and your true loyalties lie there... so you turned readily to Grindelwald's side when he came, and decided killing Dumbledore's students would earn you honor on a platter, is that it?" Tom sounded like his question was rhetorical, like he already knew the answer. Too clever for his own good, that one - he'd quick-witted himself all the way to the wrong answer! But he did admit it fit all too well.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, fidgeting. "Have you been practicing dark magic?" He wanted to know if it was something Tom had done to survive - he was really hoping it wasn't his soul fragment, although with a sinking feeling he was sure it was.

"I've dabbled. You wondering if I read your mind?" Tom smirked. "No, it was merely an educated deduction. Trivial to make for one such as myself. I could, if I wanted to. It's sad your Avada Kedavra failed - it must have been badly done, it's supposed to work every time. Although it looked full fledged." For a moment, Tom looked terrified, as he remembered his brush with death. For a few moments, Tom really had been dead. His worst fear in the whole world. "You really are off; I'm not one of Dumbledore's favorite students. He wouldn't care if I died, he'd probably celebrate. You've been a complete fool, making an enemy of me. Even if I can't hurt you yet," Tom's eyes narrowed.

Harry rolled his eyes. This one truly was full of himself. But Tom had unwittingly answered his question anyway. "I take it you have no idea why that is."

Tom looked stung at not knowing something and having to admit it. "No. But I know you can't hurt me either." Then a note of glee came into his voice. "That wasn't a half baked killing curse, was it? It was a full one. You just can't kill me."

Harry raised an eyebrow. "You can't kill me either. Guess we're even." Actually, Harry had a new plan. It would be painful, but he could kill the both of them. Remove the tether. Tom was on his guard now, but the boy had to sleep sometime, and he'd probably drop his guard completely if he thought Harry couldn't hurt him. Or perhaps he should just get it over with now; his guard already seemed lower, the boy preoccupied with his greatest weakness: gloating.

Before he could carry out his second murder plan and a suicide, though, the door banged. "Tom! You've dallied enough! Take your friend and leave!"

Tom sighed. "I'm going!" He picked up his bags, and leveled an uneasy stare at Harry. "I don't know what to do with you. This condition perplexes me. I've never met you before in my life, there is no reason for the two of us to have a magical bond. The only easy conclusion is that you really did bungle the curse somehow." He seemed to decide something. "I can't stand to have any sort of weakness, if whatever pains you pains me as well. You'll have to come with me."

Harry blinked with surprise. "Oh, er," that sure made things easier than having to stalk him, didn't it? "if you want. I don't actually have a place to stay." He did have some emergency cash and rations, so he could rent a place temporarily.

"Doesn't matter, neither do I," Riddle said briskly, making up his mind. "Come on."

And then, with sheerest brazen arrogance, he turned his back on his own enemy and walked right out the door. And Harry thought he was the Gryffindor here! Shaking his head, Harry found himself following, trying to ignore the horrible numbness that still coursed through his body, and the lingering pain from the ripping away of his old soul.

A loud noise and vibration wracked the foundations before they even made it outside.

Outside, straight into war torn London with no shelter as bombs rained on their head.

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Whelp, I could end it right there, I suppose. You could day dream what happens from there, after all, and it makes a nice one-shot. As you can guess, a sociopath Riddle doesn't give a fuck about anyone's pain... unless he's forced to feel it himself, the exact moment he does it, and not just as a punishment either. I figure that's probably one of the only ways to actually make him learn. Even then, he'll be constantly looking for a way to get around it, which isn't true empathy at all. It'll be a slow process at best.

History: It's true that there was a time when there were no child labor laws and children could be thrown out of orphanages once they were deemed old enough to work in the factories. I seem to recall FDR put an end to it eventually, but I don't remember when. In any case, I play fast and loose with the timeline for the sake of a more interesting story. Don't expect perfect canon from me, when J.K.R contradicted herself all the time anyway.

On Shipping: I've tried to keep both Harry and Tom in character, with Harry being a bit negatively influenced from soul suckage / a touch darker from the war, and as such, don't expect them to start kissing one chapter in, just because Harry 'intrigues' Tom or some cliche bullshit like that, if I continue at all. Seriously. I hate poorly done romance plots anyway, and, no offense, but nearly every single 'Tom lurves Harry because he finds him so specialz' is junkfic. They can meander for chapters with no plot whatsoever beyond way too over the top sexual tension and bickering, where the character makes all the Slytherins go googoo eyes over them, except for one or two designated bad Slytherins who Tom inevitably tortures at which the protagonist shrugs off because love torture and ethics, am I right. I'm not against slash, I don't even like het either when it's bad enough. Also, when you make it romance off the bat you give away that they're going to reconcile at the end, instead of keeping up the suspense that Harry/other Time Traveler might have to murder Riddle anyway.

Someone may complain about Harry using unforgivables, but that's actually in character for him in the books; when stressed enough, he'll act really viciously to his enemies without much remorse. There was serious 'it is ok if the good guys do it' syndrome in book 7. Although it's been like a decade since I've read it (it is my least favorite in the series), so don't expect, again, perfect canon. This is something a good fic should probably confront, the moral failings of the protagonist. Tom's empathy sucks in this... but so does Harry's right now.

I don't really remember all of Tom's year-mates; if someone could write a review with a few of their names that'd be really helpful. I've read so many fanfics I don't know which names are official and which are fanon at this point.

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