III.

When Harry Potter landed in the 1930's, he hadn't been sure what to expect.

What do you do, when you've accidentally bent (and hopefully not broken) the rules of time? When you've landed smack-dab in the middle of your enemy's childhood?

When he had discovered the Room of Requirement in his fifth year, he had made full use of all that it could offer him.

When he returned to it in his sixth year after he had ( not killed, oh god, please, I didn't kill him, I hope I didn't, oh god–– ) attacked Draco Malfoy, he had wished, simply, for a place to disappear. A place where he wouldn't have to worry about the war, or Dumbledore, or Draco Malfoy. A place where he could make a difference, but by his own choice. By his own hands.

And the Room of Requirement had granted.

It had been two years since then.

He'd coped, barely. Only after ripping through every book on time he could find. Only after tearing through his own grief and anger and desperation and settled in the remains of it.

He'd eventually fled to Hogwarts for help, looking for that safe haven of so long ago. And he'd found it, as a teaching assistant, the reservations Dumbledore once held for Riddle not present when he saw Harry's earnest face, his pleading eyes.

Now, as he looks up at the worn, faded sign that spells "Wool's Orphanage," he thinks what he's doing probably isn't quite the proper response to a situation as unique as his, but, even despite being the man that was once his enemy… Harry knows what it feels like to grow up unloved. He knows what it's like to feel a self-loathing so deep it bathes the bones.

So, he does what he always has. He puts others ahead of himself.

And he steps into the orphanage.

"Just in there," the matron says, a Mrs. Cole. Obviously drunk, obviously skeptical of his motives. After all, who would want to see the devil child ? Who would want to see Tom Riddle ?

Harry clenches his jaw. Refuses to hear how it echoes in his head, reverberating back in a way that sounds more than a little like 'freak.'

"Thank you," he forces out.

She must take that as her cue to leave, for she turns unsteadily on her heel, reprimanding the spying children on her way out.

Harry stands outside the door a moment, waiting. Settling the whirling of his thoughts, the racing of his heart… The spike of his magic.

He can feel the aura inside mirror his motions, feeling his, tentatively. Mirroring his spike in magic, but instead of in apprehension… This magic spikes in curiosity.

Apparently Mrs. Cole is not the only one who is in disbelief that someone would want to visit Tom Riddle.

If Harry's honest, he's slightly in shock himself.

But, even so…

He knocks, twice. Two gentle taps on the door.

"Come in."

Harry closes his eyes, collecting his final thoughts before this moment, and obeys.

The room is nearly identical to that of Dumbledore's memories––small, cramped, and cold, customary of anyone's stereotyped image of an orphanage. The only thing missing is the lingering fear of the Blitz, the steady ache of panic seeping through the cracks in the mortar.

Harry has picked his timing well––December of 1938… eight months before World War II.

If Harry has his way, Tom Riddle will never know the horror of a bomb shelter.

Harry's eyes scan over the boy in question.

He's seated on the bed, book in hand, clearly a bit agitated by the interruption, though his face quickly smooths over when he realizes there are no orphans in sight. Harry snorts inwardly at the thought.

Riddle's hair is dark, neat, short, his skin pale with the cold, pale like the many dead he had created, once upon a time. Even inside the building, there is no warmth to go around. He's thin, a skeleton, and short, much shorter than any other boy his age that Harry's seen––

Every other boy besides Harry.

And just like Harry had when he was young, Riddle's eyes, though dark, watch him with a haunted hollowness, an empty void that should've been filled with love. Though Harry has his reservations, he hopes he may be able to remedy that. To fill that void.

If the boy permits.

"Who're you?" Riddle asks, his eyes narrowing just the slightest bit in suspicion. "Mrs. Cole should've announced you."

Riddle, Harry is surprised (and just the tiniest bit amused) to note, has a Cockney accent. His lips lift the barest hint, and it seems that Riddle catches the motion, for he tracks it with keen eyes.

Harry carefully drapes his coat over the edge of the chair. Privately, Harry is certain Mrs. Cole is too drunk to have remembered to introduce them, much less run an orphanage. "May I sit?"

Riddle is clearly peeved at his question being avoided, too young to have completely perfected his masks, but nods, anyway. Harry sits. The chair is old and rickety, well-used, but he doesn't mind. It is better than anything Harry would've had, in his younger years.

"Your name?" Riddle asks again, just the slightest hint of impatience in his voice.

"Harry," Harry says, after a moment of watching the boy. He really is quite a sullen creature, isn't he?

"No last name?" Riddle asks quickly. He sits up straighter; his eyes seem brighter, as if to say, Do you know it? Were you told? Are you… like me ?

Harry grins, just slightly. A hint of sympathy, of commiseration. "Potter," and before the boy can droop a little in disappointment, shut himself away, nothing to bridge them, he continues, "But an orphan, just like you."

The boy's head snaps up at that. "Really?"

"Yes," Harry says. "But that's not the only thing you and I have in common."

"What else?" the boy demands, a greedy light to his eyes. "What else is there?"

And Harry suddenly remembers that no one has ever had anything in common with Tom Riddle past a lack of parents.

So, instead of Dumbledore's way, instead of his harsh, dooming methods, Harry… Harry tries something else.

He slowly, so that Riddle can see, withdraws his beloved holly from his coat pocket. "This," he whispers, a secret between the two of them, and brandishes his wand in a careful, sweeping arc.

And suddenly, the room is warmer, the colors are brighter, and small, golden lights like stars are dancing around the room. Twisting and twirling around Tom's head.

The boy's eyes light up in wonder, in awe, and in a movement that is so stunningly child-like, so astonishingly innocent, he tries to cup his hands around one. When he catches it, it sits in his hand, docile. It's a butterfly, golden and shrouded in light like a sun-bathed cloud.

Tom watches it with something akin to fascination. And then, he looks up at Harry, his eyes wide.

"Teach me," he breathes.

Harry grins, pure and honest.

In Harry's time, Tom Riddle would grow up to be a vile human being, abusing magic with no care for who he damaged, what lives he destroyed, even if that person was, unwittingly, himself.

But now, all Harry can see is a child, broken, unloved, left for so long out in the biting cold, he was swept away by the winds of hate.

Harry will do everything in his power to prevent that, if only to honor the memories of all those that did the same for him.

"I'll do better than that."

Harry is a teacher, after all. But he's also a savior. He's also an orphan.

He's always wanted a family. Perhaps now is his chance.

Funnily enough, it is not hard to imagine a life with Tom Riddle, unconventional as it seems.