Yeah... I understand this has gotten bizarre, but some sense of normality returns for the next chapter. Bear with me.

Harry stared at the people, and tried to think. These were not real.

Suddenly, the room wasn't as comforting. In fact, he felt trapped.

Faces blank but staring, were locked onto his own. Harry's eyes flickered between their sets of gazes.

"What do you want, Riddle?"

"Why, to see what the great Harry Potter fears above all else."

"You've got the wrong memories."

Harry said this with confidence, trying to fight down the way his muscles wanted to shake. It was true. He didn't fear them. He had lost them, was all. And loss was painful... not scary.

The room darkened, and all but Harry, Riddle and Harry's parents retained their colour.

"I told you I could give you them back, Harry," whispered Riddle, but he wasn't Riddle anymore. Now he was Voldemort, stood, fingers steepled. His white, white face was thin and reptilian. His lipless mouth was crooked upwards ever-so-slightly in his cruelly knowing smile. His red eyes stared unblinking. He was shrouded in a simple black robe.

'Shrouded' was the right word; the... man? Demon? Creature? seemed to emanate death, famine, plague and war. This... thing... was all four Horsemen of the Apocalypse rolled into one. And he had their powers.

Harry was backing into the wall, no longer sat but standing. James and Lily looked at Harry with green and hazel eyes.

A man, tall, in simple muggle clothing and a scarf. Harry looked into his father's face and saw his reflection... apart from a few quirks of difference. Then he looked at his mother, saw fiery auburn hair and almond-shaped acid eyes, and saw that those eyes were crying.

"I told you I could give you them back, five years ago, but you wouldn't listen. I am willing to make the offer again."

Harry was horribly, horribly, tempted. But it was not like Voldemort to make an offer that did not have a price.

"What would you gain from it?"

Voldemort's only answer was a cryptic smile.

Harry's back was still firmly pressed into the wall, but the wall was now a cool shale grey. They were in an empty, grey room.

"Let me talk to them," whispered Harry. He was about to cry, he could feel it. "Alone."

Voldemort shrugged, a gesture unusual in so determined a... creature, and faded away.

"Are you real?" said Harry in a low voice.

Suddenly, Lily's eyes spilled tears, and the pair of them ran forward, embracing Harry.

"My son... my son," someone was whispering in his ear.

Harry was crying now, silent rivulets of tears running down his cheeks, but he pushed them away, and backed into the wall again.

"Are you real?" he repeated. If they weren't, he wasn't sure if he would like to live.

"We saw you once before," said Lily. Her emerald eyes were spilling a steady stream of tears. James was looking at Harry with the most pained expression. "We saw you, when you were fighting the Dark Lord... you ran, you took the boy back with you..."

"I came first," said James. His voice was low and dark. "I told you your mother wanted to see you... we are the memories in the Dark Lord's wand. We are the echoes you have seen."

Harry began to shake, he couldn't control it. James wrapped an arm around Lily's waist, and Lily reached out a hand for him to take -

Harry was just raising his arm when they faded into mist.

Harry waited for Voldemort to reappear, which he did, seconds later. But this had given Harry time to think.

It really had not occurred to him before.

Voldemort had taken his parents.

And instead of feeling like he could cry again, Harry felt a ball of white-hot, righteous rage unfold within him, and he suddenly had the strength to fight...

Voldemort reappeared, and found a miserable-looking Harry staring back dully.

"This is what you get when you pine," he told the boy in his cruelly soft, mocking voice.

"Why did you kill them?" Harry's voice was shaking.

"You learn to dispose of annoying persons after a while," said Voldemort in a bored tone. "They're all the same."

"They're all the same."

Harry repeated this dully. Voldemort's lipless mouth lifted in a sinister smile. It looked like he'd successfully broken the Potter-child's spirit.

"You are learning, my child."

He certainly got a shock when Harry stood up straight, met Voldmort's bloody gaze with eyes of pure emerald fire and lifted his chin.

"You did it all wrong," hissed Harry. "You wanted to make me weak. You made me strong. You took my parents, you BASTARD!"

Harry ran, raised a hand, but instead of a punch he let fly a ball of power. Instead of the sickly yellow colour of those before, this was a pure, liquid white that sparkled... like a spinning diamond.

It hit Voldemort's image and he shattered, and Harry knew that the creature was gone, had left his head.

There was no feeling of self-satisfaction, there was no feelings that he had done the right thing. His sadness was not alleviated, nor was his anger. What he felt, as the room melted into grey-black chaos, was a grim sense of determination. Voldemort had taken his parents. Bellatrix had taken his godfather. Wormtail had taken his friend. The Lestranges had taken Neville's parents. They would pay. THEY WOULD PAY. THEY WOULD PAY!

Harry's consciousness melted into freezing black chaos, but he had a meaning now. He had the determination to take on Voldemort and by the Gods he would win. And if not, then he would at least make sure he took the bastard down with him...

He had not grieved for those he had lost, and his depression was still there. There was nothing he could do about that. He still cried.

All he had now was the WILL.

Harry knew he was awake. There was the sensation of warm sheets, of eyes gummed shut by sleep, of aching muscles. The fact he was feeling pain snapped him back to existence, and he cracked his eyes open very slightly.

There was no-one near him. It was early morning, perhaps five am. There were several medi-witches and -wizards dozing in chairs on the other side of the room.

Harry put his hands to his face. His glasses were not there, but that was all right. His vision was fogging over. He put his hand out, found his glasses on a bedside table and pushed them onto his face. There, that was better.

Harry pushed the covers away from him and sat up, putting his feet on the cold stone floor. Ayah! Every muscle screamed in pain. Harry stood stiffly, trying to ignore the absolute agony that rocketed through his body.

He walked jerkily to the window and noticed he had been changed into pyjamas.

He leaned on the windowsill and noted that the sun was out and the sun was strong.

It looked like it had snowed again over the night, though. There were no traces of the battle that had taken place.

Harry winced. It was not something he wanted to remember. It was not something he could remember, not clearly. There had been clear vision, clearer than he'd ever seen. Everything had been stark, there had been black and white - right and wrong. Nothing was ever that clear. What had made him think so?

Snape... the poor, poor bastard. Why had he tried? Why had he tried to protect Harry? Why had he suffered for it?

How was Harry going to say he was sorry?

He'd really hurt Snape, really. He remembered vague details, as if from a dream... a shoulder, a stomach, and some burns... Harry hoped they weren't too bad.

He struggled back to bed and got under the covers. He felt horribly weak, as if he had been drained. As if someone had sucked all the energy out of him.

He remembered Voldemort. He remembered their conversation. He remembered his unconsciousness. He remembered the fight. And he remembered breaking...

He had lost sense of self, he had lost his sanity. He felt no better for it, but at least he did not feel worse. Only guilty remorse about what he had done to Snape.

God Lord... first time he'd ever really felt sorry for the man. He must be getting soft.

He slept again.

Kip: Nice to see you're reading me again. I do so miss your reviews sometimes.

I liiiike strange. Fun isn't it? ; )

I'm glad I'm not Yossarianing the guy... although some of the inspiration for this fic (I have over a hundred sources of inspiration... strange) was the attitude to insanity in Catch 22. You want to get out of your turn of flights, you have to declare mental instability... but if you say you're insane then you're evidently sane. Fun fun.

p.s. Yes, I went to Greece over the summer holidays.

Midgette -Nyaww, cuteness.

Anyway, um, yeah. Thankyou!

starinthedark11: Banter IS so fun, isn't it?

HPbabe143: Harry isn't literally dearest Voldie's child... it's a whatchamacallit, a metaphor. Some people could view Harry as the next Dark Lord... which sounds like Voldemort's child, if you phrase it differently.

crazNM: Yay! Quantum mechanics. Fun fun.

What would YOU miss? My first reaction when I wrote this was 'The Nightmare Before Christmas movie' but that wasn't quite appropriate... still, that was my thoughts, not Harry's.

Tania25: Flattery will get you everywhere.

YAY! Englishness!

I don't think I live too near you... I live in the village of the Ye Olde Bronte Birthplace just outside Bradford... doesn't particularly sound too near Cornwall. Opposite ends of the country, actually. : I

Still. Whatever. Glad you like my story!

Heart and Mind: 'Heart and Mind'? Yes, put those lungs down, too. The organ bank is not a playground.

Sorry, couldn't resist. ; )

I've never heard this story termed 'odd' before, but it made me smile. Smileyness. : )

Ceris Malfoy: Flattery will get you everywhere. ; )

Read300300: Thanks for the Physics lesson... my knowledge of useful physics has grown rusty lately... I just haven't had time to read up on it, I guess.

Toki Mirage: In a few chapters' time, there will be muchos Snape/Harryness. I wanted to work in some Soppy Snape but it wouldn't click, so I deleted it and tried something else instead. I think it worked out quite well. It's about as soppy as Snape will ever get...

TeahLeafs: Yay for humouryness.

Cheesy? Up until this point my ego had been flying along on the other reviews, but this has humbled me. What WOULD I do without you: )

LiLy MaLfOy13: Good good.

websurffer: Speedy reading always has its upsides... the downside is that good books don't take as much time to read.

forty-two dreams: I considered, er... 'jello' (Here in Britain we call it jelly) but jam (you call it jelly... dear Lord, cross-continental differences make this interesting, don't you think?) was just more fun, I guess.

And as for the subtle hint you left me... I'm not in a discreet mood today. Are you talking about the Harry Potter film and if so, which one? Sorry... I had a particularly nasty English lesson today in which my teacher made a show of dancing around various subtle hints, metaphors and double meanings to the point where I'm sick of them today. Humour me. ; )

Breanna Senese: Voldemort's smart enough to realise that schneaking into people's minds (destroying them from the inside out, as you can see) is probably the fastest route to total rule.

dalamis: It's the bad guys that make a good story. ; )

Kawaii - Syaoran: Homework... blearggh.

Strega: 'Have you ever seen Farscape'? I used to practically live off of that program. Harvey, Harvey, Harvey... how I miss his cutting sarcasm. I particularly liked the one when it was a WW2 scene, and they're both in fatigues and helmets. : ) Fun fun.

I thought it would be a fun irony if the calmest and kindest things came from the one person who wanted him dead. It was a way of softening him up.

And as for the language... coming from a rich and prominent family, I'd suspect Voldemort would have standards (although how he can rule out murder and torture fascinates me.) : )

'Bwah ha ha ha ha'... yes, it does have a certain stress-relieving feel about it, doesn't it?

Sapphire Starlet: Fun fun. Glad you're still reading. : )

XxgemxX: )

espergirl04: About as snapped as you can get.

BlownAway: Pratchett, Pratchett... what would we do without him?

It gets more interesting for this chapter, as you can see. It just gets more complicated...

Err, social life, GCSEs (dear God, I have some RE coursework to finish... I'll be okay, I'm getting A's : )) and fanfic... okay, I put in loads of effort at school, spend some time reading/writing fanfic (I read less now... there seems to be less good stuff around), kill some homework, practise my drum kit for half an hour... divide your time up, I guess.

KrazeyForever: Crazy! Fun fun.

Shadowed Rains: I'm blushing, that you find me so readable.

I'm glad I'm so unpredictable, makes it1À fun to read reviews.

Shada Bay: What's this? Do we have ourselves a little obsession with Tom Riddle? ; )

I can't get myself a blog until I get a computer that will support such a website. As soon as I get one, I shall inform thee. : )

Pleione: Twas fun to write, as well.

fhippogriff: Smart, smart... thinking about this, I can see. I wanted to get beyond the stereotypical evil-killing-machine-that-is-Voldemort, and I think it worked OK.

E.A.V.: Yeeees, I wondered about 'slown'... but I stuck with it. 'Slowed' sounded too clunky, and I thought I may as well pull a Gerard Manley Hopkins and make a word up. Fun fun.

Asiea : Impatience is a virtue... grins

C'mon: Confused about what?