Summary: A thoroughly impossible freak accident transports our favorite attractive psychopath forward in time from 1942 to 1996. Harry Potter/Tom Riddle slash. Just who is this You-Know-Who character, anyway?
Disclaimer: I don't own Harry Potter, Tom Riddle, or any other people, places or objects that may appear in this humble work of fiction.
Warnings: Possible spoilers up to the fifth book. M/M, obviously. Rating is down as T for now but may, possibly, increase to M as things progress.
Author's Note: My God, it is so hot today. I think I might die before I get the next chapter out. I've been in the pool for hours instead of writing this because it was too hot in my room, sorry. This chapter is a little slow because it's got a hefty bit of monologue, and it's a bit short, but the next chapter will move much faster – I have big plans for it. Please review, I love reading your comments!

Chapter Eleven: You-Know-Who Who?

As Tom sat in bed working on the Ancient Runes homework Dumbledore had passed on to him for the class he'd missed the previous day, he heard the voices and yawns of his new Gryffindor roommates waking. He closed the book softly, set it down, and pulled open the curtains.

'Good morning,' he said brightly, kneeling on his bed. Ugh, I don't know how much longer I can be this cheerful. I'll have to tone it down gradually.

'Hey Tom,' said a boy Tom could only vaguely recall from the common room the night before. The other boy, Seamus, he remembered more clearly. 'I'm Dean Thomas, nice to meet you.' He walked over and shook Tom's hand. 'Do you have class this morning?'

'Yes, Arithmancy,' Tom replied.

'Ouch,' Seamus cringed. 'What a way to start your first day at Hogwarts.'

'It's one of my favorite classes, actually.' Those of us with half a brain don't mind using it at any hour.

'Sounds like you and Hermione will get along well,' Dean grinned.

'I hope I can get along with everyone,' Tom grinned back. 'I'm not here to make enemies.' Dumbledore claims I have plenty.

'You'll be fine,' Seamus assured him. He turned to a boy getting out of the bed to the right of Tom's. 'Morning, Harry.'

'Morning, Seamus,' Harry yawned. He then looked at Tom and his eyes went wide. He suddenly looked very awake. 'Tom,' he nodded.

'Good morning, Harry,' Tom replied. The other two boys seemed to notice that there was some tension; Tom saw them looking at each other quizzically.

'I'm going to go down to breakfast now,' he told Harry pointedly.

'Okay, just let me shake Ron and we'll all go together,' he replied, his voice slow and monotone, as if he were trying to calm an animal that was about to bolt away.

'Of course,' Tom smiled back falsely; he was inwardly seething at the other boy's tone. You won't be able to tag along with me for much longer, Potter.

Hermione and the other girls in their year met the boys in the common room – except for Neville, whoever that was, who having a lie-in, since he'd been up late studying Herbology and didn't have class for a couple hours – and they all went down to breakfast together. Gryffindor Pack Interaction, sneered Tom inwardly. I could write an academic paper on their adorable grouping mechanism.

Tom rarely went down to breakfast, or anywhere else, with the other Slytherins; some people in his house had hangers-on that they liked to drag with them everywhere, but Tom had always been one of the more solitary Slytherins by nature. He liked to be left alone with his books whenever it wasn't necessary to engage in a bit of mixing to keep on top of the business in the snake pit. Gryffindors were rarely alone, though, except for a few of the weaker ones that seemed to go unnoticed by the others.

He tried to look on the bright side; there was always that old saying about keeping your friends close and your enemies closer, after all. He'd always observed the Gryffindors closely, and it had often paid off by allowing him to subvert their pranks and trickery. They'd given up on him years ago, though, because he always managed to turn the tables on them. But he still watched; he watched everyone, but especially the Gryffindors and Slytherins, waiting for an opening or an attack. Tom figured this kept him on his toes and was healthy mental exercise.

The moment they had all sat down, Tom sitting between Harry and Hermione – with Ron Weasley on Hermione's other side, Tom noted wryly – the owls came in, delivering letters, packages and papers to the students, just as they had in Tom's time. I guess most things won't have changed at all, Tom considered, except that girls are allowed to wear pants now, and people use these pack things to carry their books on their backs. Tom had bought one of those the previous day with Professor Dumbledore, too.

Hermione Granger let out a gasp beside him, looking horrified at the front page of the paper. 'Harry, look at this!'

She passed the paper across him to Harry, who didn't seem nearly so surprised at what the front page said. 'Oh, I forgot about that,' he said darkly. 'Dumbledore told me yesterday about the breakout.'

'He told you yesterday, and you didn't tell us! Oh, Harry, how could you let something so important slip your mind?' Hermione scolded him.

'I got distracted,' he muttered, glancing at Tom.

'What's this about a breakout? You mean from Azkaban? No one breaks out of there,' Tom said.

'Sirius Black did,' said Dean seriously. 'And so did all those Death Eaters last year, but they had outside help.' He was looking at his own copy of the Daily Prophet and biting his lip. 'Looks like You-Know-Who was responsible this time, too, only the Ministry's not trying to hide it. All the ones who escaped were the Death Eaters caught in the Ministry building a few months ago.'

'What are Death Eaters? Who's You-Know-Who?' Tom asked curiously.

Everyone around Tom looked at him as though he had leeks growing out of his ears – except for Harry, who Tom saw covering his head with his hands and shaking it in hopelessness. He realized he must have said something very stupid.

'Are you kidding?' squeaked Seamus. 'You don't know? Blimey,' he shook his head in disbelief, his eyes not leaving Tom, 'when you said you were isolated, you weren't kidding!'

Tom looked to his other side and saw that Hermione was giving him a pensive, disbelieving sort of look, and he knew that he'd made her suspicious about something. 'I guess,' he replied slowly, 'I might have heard of it, but forgotten?'

'How could you forget that?' Ron asked incredulously.

'If you must know,' Harry said suddenly, looking up and switching his gaze back and forth between Tom and Hermione, 'he was hit with a pretty nasty Memory Charm lately, so he's still a bit foggy about some things.'

'Why were you hit with a Memory Charm?' asked Hermione, sounding as though she didn't believe a word of it.

'It was an accident,' Tom sighed, cottoning on. 'I was practicing them with my dad and… well, he got a little overzealous when he was demonstrating. That's part of why I'm at Hogwarts this year, too, I guess. He feels really bad about it.'

'Ouch,' winced Hermione sympathetically. 'That's awful. I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to bring up bad… er, memories.'

'I don't remember it at all,' he grinned. 'So that's not really possible.' That was close. At least Potter is quick.

'You-Know-Who is a Dark wizard,' whispered Dean, as if even describing this You-Know-Who character would cause something horrible to happen, 'and we don't say his name, ever. He came back last year. The Death Eaters are his servants; they're a nasty lot of murderers.'

'I see,' said Tom, nodding. He didn't see, but asking more questions would look more suspicious. He supposed he'd ask Harry alone later – they sounded like Tom's sort of crowd, and he couldn't help thinking that he was somehow involved. 'I'll try not to run into them, then. I'm sure the Ministry will catch them eventually, and put this You-Know-Who person into Azkaban.'

If anything, this response only got him more odd looks. 'Put him into Azkaban? Are you mental?' goggled Ron. 'They'll off him is what they'll do. Well, Dumbledore will, anyway.' Ron turned away and stuck a fork into his sausage while Harry looked down and squirmed in his chair.

'Are you all right?' Tom asked Harry.

Harry blinked in surprise. 'Uh, yeah, thanks.' He took a swig of juice. 'I'm-I'm fine, thanks.'

Tom shrugged and looked around the table. 'Anyone have a cigarette?'

This is never going to work, thought Harry nervously as he followed Tom and Hermione to Arithmancy. This is mental. He had listened to Hermione lecture Tom all the way through breakfast on the evils of smoking, aghast that Tom didn't know about the side-effects. She was telling him all about throat cancer, which Tom hadn't ever heard of, as they walked to class.

Hermione won't take long to figure out something, Harry worried. This is insane, completely insane. How could Dumbledore possibly have thought that this would work? They weren't even through twenty-four hours of having Tom in this time and they'd already suffered through several near-misses. Harry consoled himself that at least Tom had remembered to forget his way around the castle and to look excited and surprised about everything he saw like a saucer-eyed first-year.

Tom entered the classroom, still talking to Hermione and completely ignoring Harry's presence. Fine, let him ignore me, Harry thought viciously, because I don't want to talk to him either. When he gets caught, it won't have anything to do with me. Yet Harry had already found himself making excuses for Tom, and knew, deep down, that he'd continue doing so. As much as he disliked Tom, he knew it wasn't right to let him die, especially of ignorance.

He sighed and trudged up to the common room to do the homework he should have done yesterday afternoon, looking back anxiously at the door to the Arithmancy classroom. He's going to cause me a lot of trouble…