Tom sat in a chair before the fire. His glass of brandy sat untouched in his hand. He rubbed his face and watched the flames flickering along the logs.

Soft scraping sounds echoed through the room as Nagini made her way towards him. She cooked loosely beside the chair he was sitting in and the fire.

"I'm going to try to reach the boy through the link we have."

"How much have you been drinking?"

"I haven't."

"You musssssst have had more than you sssssseeeem to think."

"Think about it. The boy is fragile. He'sssss about to have an even bigger ssssssuprisssse. Do you think it would be ssssso horrible to attempt to explain anything?"

"I don't think the boy will lisssten to you Tom, he issss your enemy, but you have made up your mind. You do nothing without planning and planning sssso I ssssshall trust your judgement. You are the human after all, and who better to undersssstand a human but another human?"

Scarlet eyes looked away from the serpent who was busy turning her coils to put her face away from him. He gazed into the fire and downed the rest of his brandy. She was right. In his young days he had been in such a rage he acted without thinking. He lashed out and made mistakes that he could only now see. The many horcruxes he had made were one such mistake. Now Dumbledore likely had found out of them. His split soul had become unstable and had lead him off from his original path, his anger at Dumbledore was his main fuel and stoked the fire far too hot. Now here he was 14 years later trying to clean up the mess he had made.

It would be quite a long process to gain the boys trust. If the boy could learn to see him as something beyond a monster he intended to take the boy to his side. He had spent far too much time under Dumbledore and his manipulations. He knew it would be a risk to reach out to the boy. If the boy was at all like he had seemed to be when he had last met with him it would quite possibly go disastrously wrong. He hoped that his calculations were right and he settled back into his chair to follow on his idea.

Closing his eyes he made his way into his mind space. He walked though the meticulously organized shelves of memories to the back of what he called his library. In the far back of his mind scale he kept all of the doors to his horcruxes and the door that connected his mind to Potter. The door was different than the others suddenly. Which would mean something was going on to affect potter's thinking or his own. Keeping that thought in mind, he cautiously approached the door. Instead of being made of dark metal and stone like the others, the door to Potters mind was made of a brilliant cherry wood. There was a torch lit beside the door and he bit back a snort as he realized that it was an indicator that the brat was inside his mind and not occupied with other things. He reached for the handle and did laugh out loud upon the realization that the handle was a snake.

The cobra angrily hissed at him as it rose up to look at him. It did not look happy that he was attempting to grab it. The snake watched him warily as he pulled his hand back and leaned down towards it.

"I would like to enter here.." He politely spoke to the guardian of the door.

"Speak the password and you may enter." The silver serpent replied with its fangs glinting in the light.

"Harry Potter"

The tiny snake hissed at him once more before returning to its previously inanimate state. He stood back to his full height and grasped the doorknob. It turned easily in his hand and he opened the door. He stepped into the room and took a look around the boys mindscape. It was as though he was in a replica of the Gryffindor common room. He stepped away from the door and continued to investigate the room.

The door closed behind him and he noticed that a few minor details were different. The windows were much larger and the walls were not the same stone that made Hogwarts. Plush carpet was replaced with beautiful cherry hardwood. The portraits were all of different scenery instead of stuffy old men and war heroes. For miles, as far as the eye could see, forest stretched from beyond the window.

There before the fire sat two chairs. They were the sort of large plushy armchairs that you would expect to have found in the tower except one of the chairs, he noticed was green. Furthermore there was a rather healthy amount of silver lining in the room instead of the gold accent of Gryffindor.

"The colors are nauseating sometimes. I felt in here I could change it. The best combination of myself in the house colors." A tired sounding voice called from the chairs.

"Are you gonna sit down?" The voice continued, "Or are you wanting to ask if I had any head trauma too?"

Tom made his way around to sit in the chair. He found himself face to face with a thoroughly damaged Harry Potter.

"You look awful Potter."

"We can't all have your good looks. I've noticed you've gotten them back since the Graveyard."

Tom rolled his eyes at the comment but allowed the boy to continue with his thought before responding.

"Yes well that is something I had rather not discuss. Why did you let me in?"

"Not like it matters I'm fairly sure I'm going to die anyway."

"I'm not out to kill you at the moment, why would you think you're going to die? Not that your meager defenses could have kept me out. Not very well when there's a whole doorway in your mind."

"I was attacked before I managed to come back here. I'm not sure what's going on outside. I don't want to really answer the questions they'll ask when I wake up."

"So you're hiding in a room with your worst enemy because you'd rather be here than there?"

"Yeah, I guess so."

"That's pretty messed up Harry Potter."

"You can call me Harry. Only in here."

"Then you may call me Tom. Or my Lord. Or Lord Slytherin."

"I think I'll stick with Voldemort thanks."

"Touchy touchy. Why then Harry do you prefer my company to that of the outside world?"

"You know how muggles act."

"And that has any importance because?"

Rage swirled in green orbs as they burned with an intense fire. Potter's hands shook as he took a breath to control his anger.

After several minutes of breathing Tom watched the boy who was so much like he had been. Whatever had happened to him had been enough that he could feel it through their connection. The fact that his mind self was projected as bruised up indicated that what had happened had been fairly brutal.

"Your relatives I take it?"

"They're not my family."

"Why does the old coot send you there again then?"

"The blood wards."

"Potter. Those wards stopped working when I used your blood in my ritual to return myself to a body."

The boy stared at him incredulously. His fish imitation was perfect.

"Close your mouth Potter, you'll catch flies."

The boy snapped his mouth shut with a glare. He turned to look back at the fire. Tom watched the boy quietly. Looking for any indication as to what had happened. Finally he gave up and reach towards the boy. The boy recoiled violently and almost knocked his chair over.

"Ah. I see."

"What do you know? How could you possibly understand?"

"I grew up in a muggle orphanage in the middle of a world war Potter. During that time religious nuts tried to have exorcisms on muggleborns who weren't found soon enough by wizards or in good families. They thought they might get some magical powers from me."

"And?"

"And I killed them before they could. But they did try."

The boy in the red chair looked at him sadly. He was angered at himself for showing emotion in front of his enemy. Tom could read his emotions easily while in his mind.

"I'm not saying you have to talk about it Potter. But if nobody else will listen, or if you don't want to speak to anyone else, it will stay here."

"What happened to you wanting to kill me?"

"I don't wish to any more."

"Why now? What's different now?"

"You'll come to learn that our ancestors were not so different. There is always somebody who calls another a monster with no real grounds beyond fear. Dumbledore will eventually show his hand and you'll see what he really is."

"What does that mean?"

"I'm not your enemy Potter. Goodnight."

With that the elder man turned and walked back to his own mind. Harry turned to look at the fire and felt his tears start to fall again. A gentle pressure in the back of his mind vibrates softly through him as he allowed himself to drift off to unconsciousness.