AN: Hi so sorry I've been MIA for over a year! I just graduated from Teacher's College and I'm handling paperwork to start my job soon! I've also not been in a good place mentally to update this story and could only handle oneshots for a while.
But I'm back, I've planned how many chapters I want to write for this story. It will be about 43 chapters plus 9 "extras." Thanks for waiting so patiently!
Also, content warnings for this chapter: casual murder of alternate versions of different characters... and uh... something dark happens. Don't kill me.
EDIT - NOV 15, 2019: all plot inconsistencies, grammar, and spelling issues have been edited to the best of my ability. if you notice anything off from this point on, please let me know. For those rereading, I have changed the year that Harry's parents died to when he was four, instead of one.
Teaching History (is Old News)
24 - These Worlds
"No. I refuse to believe this," Tom swats away some very persistent purple looking flies, "We're simply in another part of the world. The rainforests. Cameroon, perhaps. Or the Congo."
"Those bloodthirsty flamingoes earlier seemed pretty real to me…" Harry says, trying to fan himself with his sweater. He looks ridiculous, using such material to find relief.
"For the sake of Merlin, take that sweater off! You'll overheat!" Tom transfigures the sweater to an equally atrocious tank top. "There! Now, let's apparate back to Hogsmeade and…" Tom pauses. No matter what he does… he can't apparate. "What…?" He tries again. Damn those twins…
"Face it," Harry tries to conjure up some water for them both. "You just don't want to admit that the Weasley Twins are smarter than you."
"The Weasley Twins are not capable of creating interdimensional travel!"
"Well, okay, maybe they're not. But if they're not, then they still managed to get past Hogwarts' apparition wards by magicking us here and figured out how to set up an anti-apparition barrier around us. That's pretty damn smart to me." Harry hands Tom the newly transfigured cup of water.
Taking it gently, Tom hisses, "Then they should be focusing that intelligence in school! What have they been doing in class? Slacking?!"
"Brainstorming scary genius shit like this probably," Harry grins.
"Stop looking proud of them. You're a teacher. You're supposed to reinforce the rules."
"Eh," Harry shrugs, "I think teachers should ease students towards their strengths and help with any weaknesses. If the Weasley twins find this more productive than school, at least they're learning and know what they want to do."
"And yet you don't approve of my quote 'dark lord antics' end quote."
Harry's eyes flash. "That's totally different, and you know it. You're hurting other people. Of course, I don't approve."
"But why does that matter to you?"
"Because being human means treating others with respect unless they don't deserve it!"
Tom stills, making Harry run into him. "Then," Tom says coolly, "it's a good thing that I'm not very human, isn't it?"
"That…!" Harry splutters, swatting away some flies in the process, "You know I don't mean it like that! You're human, even if you don't care for much beyond your own ambition."
"Being human isn't the compliment you intend it to be. Caring isn't an advantage. It makes you vulnerable. It doesn't make sense." Just like Harry. Nothing about him makes sense to Tom. And yet, here Tom is.
"Sure it does," Harry grins. "Humans are social creatures. Look at the muggles and all the progress they've made with technology. They can fly, put people on the moon, communicate with someone across the world in a single text! All because information is shared, ideas are built upon. Whole entire societies only function because of relationships and caring. Look at the Weasley Twins have created by working together and bouncing off each other's ideas! It's a 'scratch my back, I'll scratch yours,' kind of thing."
Squinting back at Harry, Tom ponders that point. "So… a mutually beneficial business arrangement. That's what… 'caring' is?"
"Well… that's part of it. I just think we aren't meant to be alone."
"I've always been alone," Tom scoffs, regretting the words when Harry's eyes go distant.
"Well… that's not true, is it? For better or worse… you've always had me."
Tom's mouth feels too dry, too brittle, as he looks at Harry's steady gaze.
"That doesn't explain why you care so much about a bunch of muggles you've never met."
Harry laughs, and the sound of each laugh twists deeper in Tom's chest. "I just think there's no real advantage to you using this blood purity thing to your agenda. I know you're just using this angle because it's the easiest way to gain power. But that's boring. You know what muggles are capable of—instant communication across the globe with the touch of a button, travel to the moon, television. Oh, and anime! Sweet glorious anime. Why don't you try to use anime to rule the world instead?"
Looking away, Tom huffs.
Admittedly, he had went with the blood purity angle because he thought less people would be alive to annoy him. Lots of muggle murders meant less stupidity he would have to deal with. It seemed like the better option. Plus, muggles needed to die for how he was treated at the orphanage. And yet, Tom has never found muggles to be stupid, if they can make up for their deficiencies with such convenient inventions. He didn't like to admit that he had enjoyed watching psychological anime with Harry back in Fourth Year either, especially the one about a book of death.
"It's not feasible."
"But you're considering it!"
"No, I'm not!" Tom was. "I just don't understand how you can care for so many people!"
(It hurts.)
"…Look, it doesn't matter to me if you care about people or not Tom. I just… I just want you to respect them. I know you don't understand what it means to care for someone, and I don't blame you for it."
Hot anger blazes through him.
"You're wrong," Tom snarls, "I care about y—"
The trees shake. Multitudes of birds fly out of the tree in one direction. Even the predators dash out, brushing past Tom and Harry's legs to the other side of the jungle. Then, just as suddenly, loud cracking sounds rush closer to them like the sound of giant's footsteps…
"…Think it could be just an elephant?" Harry begins edging away from the crashing sounds.
Before Tom can answer, a great bird's foot slams down five rows of trees in front of them, and they find themselves staring up at a mountain-sized parrot with feathers as long as the nearest tree.
Tom doesn't dare move. He glances at Harry, satisfied to see him as paralyzed as Tom.
The parrot peers down at them menacingly, then it opens its beak and before Tom can prepare himself for some deafening squawk, Harry shouts, "RUN! Cast some sort of speed charm on yourself, just GET BACK TO THE CLOSET!"
Wandlessly casting a speed charm, Harry pulls Tom away from the rush of flames coming from the parrot's beak.
In that moment, Tom truly believes that this is a different dimension.
:
Harry slams the door behind them both, and Tom jumps onto the strange dials within the closest, spinning them until they change to strange obscure symbols. The closet lurches Harry and Tom around until they can no longer feel the heat of flames coming for them. Immediately, Harry slumps down in the corner, head in his hands. Tom slumps back against the door and closes his eyes.
"…Remind me why I let you convince me to leave this closet again?"
Tom brings his hand up to his forehead. "How else are we to verify which universe is ours? This closet could land us in any place in any dimension. I'm not sure if it's even limited by time."
"There has to be something!" Harry frowns at the strange symbols on the dials. "You're a genius. You could figure this out…"
"As far as I can tell, Weasley Twin logic isn't logical," Tom snaps. "The symbols on the dials are completely made-up! Besides, we have no way to classify which dimension brings us closer to ours. I'm fairly certain I heard the twins call us guinea pigs. I wouldn't be surprised if they have no idea how this works either!"
"Fred and George might not think the same as others but if they want to market this closest someday, they'll have to make it somewhat logical for their customers to use. We just have to figure out what that system is."
Tom frowns. "And if this was created just to prank us?"
"…Let's not think about that."
Tom scowls. "Is it possible that there's something in your visions that can help us?"
"I told you, my Sight doesn't work like—"
"I didn't mean it like that. Perhaps there are hints in those other versions of the twins you might have seen. Has this ever been a possibility?"
"I don't know! My visions are usually focused on you and me. And this… this machine… it's making my head ache… I don't…!" Harry winces, clutching his forehead.
Tom's eyes widen. "Don't stand so close to it then! Come here, stand in the middle. That might help." Tom has no idea, damn closet machine. "I'll handle this. You just… rest."
"No, no, I'm fine! I can help! Just give me a moment—" Harry struggles to stand, legs wobbling as he nearly falls against the wall.
"Sit down!"
"I told you, I can help, whoah!"
Tom storms over, pushing Harry down to sit on a pile of random cloaks (probably put there for the closet aesthetic, knowing the twins) and refusing to move his hands with Harry tries to stand up. "You're being ridiculous! You have a headache and you might injure yourself even more if you move around. I'm not letting you up until you feel sufficiently rested so until then, I will handle our way back home."
"But—"
"Let me take care of you!" Tom blurts out before he can stop himself. They both freeze at the words, such tender unbelievable words, and Tom almost takes them back except… he doesn't want to.
He's always owned people, his followers literally branded, and Nagini his literal pet. He's never wanted a person so much before. Never… cared (if this twisted longing can count as caring at all, he still doesn't know.) But he can't picture owning Harry, branding him in the same way as his Death Eaters. Harry wouldn't be Harry if Tom did.
So he'll take care of him.
(And isn't that another form of ownership, in a way? Harry is his, after all.)
It's strange, this realization, as if something has slipped into place within Tom's very soul, something he didn't know was missing.
"Is it… is it really okay?" Harry's whisper interrupts Tom's realization. His Harry looks so vulnerable and exhausted. So weary. This question has the weight of all of Harry's darkness, his pain, his sorrow. Is it okay to trust Tom? Is it okay to let someone take care of the burden? Is it okay to rest?
For the first time, Tom wonders if Harry has ever had any rest from these visions, for even a moment, since that terrible accident.
Tom traces the scar on Harry's forehead, wishing he could go back in time and stop himself from pushing Harry down the stairs, wishing he could have saved Harry from this.
"I'll take care of everything," Tom replies, because he sees now that Harry is his in a way that's different from everyone else and he doesn't know what that means but it's… it's something.
Harry looks at Tom for a long time, then slowly, brings up his hand to cup Tom's.
"Okay."
:
Tom holds Harry's hand until Harry's eyes droop, and he falls into a somewhat peaceful slumber. Then Tom gets to work. The handle of the lever seems to have some sort of bar on it, with a red arrow, like a gas gauge in a muggle car. Perhaps this indicates the power levels of the closet. That would be… logical, in a way. After all, the Twins do have a father who tinkers with muggle objects.
The dials themselves suddenly don't seem as random as Tom thought. One seems to indicate time on a clock, judging from how the numbers go up in increments of one until they hit twenty-four. Another dial has days of a year, including 366 for a leap year. The next dial actually looks like a star chart for the night sky all over the globe. Tom assumes this dial has to do with their position of space and time on the earth. The next dial looks too strange for Tom to understand, a screen with multiple waves hitting each other at different beats… This one might track different universes as waves…
Once Tom had calmed down and figured out the Weasley logic, this closet feels more controllable.
For the first time, Tom feels relieved that he grew up in the muggle world, if only because he can inference how the twins put together these dials. Perhaps muggle inventions have their own logic and power to them as well… if Harry knew Tom's thoughts, Harry wouldn't shut up for weeks. Probably sing a song about it. Tom smiles.
Time to test his theory.
He spins the dials to the correct day and time and tries to aim for Hogwarts. The dial with the waves of universes, Tom can only work at randomly until he figures out how it works. Hopefully it lands them in their universe.
The closet lurches again, sending Tom catapulting towards the wall. Only a wandless sticking charm manages to stop him and Harry from falling off the floor towards the ceiling. More wandless cushioning charms save Harry from hitting his head against anything as the closet seems to spiral out of control and finally… finally… it stops.
"Merlin…" Harry mumbles groggily, glasses and hair all askew. The little paper cranes napping in his hair shiver in dizziness, trying to straighten out their triangular wings again.
"Are you alright?! Did you hit your head again?" Tom grabs him immediately, inspecting Harry's eyes as if his irises will blink out an answer.
Turning red, Harry pushes him away, stuttering, "It's nothing. I can stand. We should go explore outside…"
"You're still in pain," Tom notices. "I should go out and investigate alone. Once I'm sure that this is our rightful universe, I'll come back for you."
This closet is presumably the safest place for Harry to stay in an unknown universe and recover. Tom will, of course, put protection spells and notice-me-not charms around the outside.
"It's fine," Harry winces, "I feel better when I'm with you. Besides, aren't four eyes better than two?"
"Someone has to guard the closet," Tom reminds him, only now realizing this valid point. "Your dueling skills rival mine. Stay. Please."
Harry opens his mouth, then closes it again, lips twitching. "Don't think that I don't notice you trying to manipulate me to stay by being charming!"
"And sincere," Tom insists, "Is it working?"
If Tom knew that all he had to do to baffle and fluster his Harry was to give genuine compliments, he would have done so ages ago. That shade of red on Harry's cheeks is rather enticing.
"Fine! Fine! But send me a signal, anything, so I know that you're safe. A patronus."
Tom frowns. "I can't conjure a patronus."
"Oh…." Harry looks down, disgustingly quiet again, "I could have sworn you…"
Yet again, another Tom Riddle that Harry is seeing. He digs his nails deep in Harry's shoulder. Perhaps Tom should have looked into integrated magical technology in his youth instead of blood supremacy. Then he'd harness destructive weapons… then they could use a magical phone or walkie-talkie to communicate.
"I'll see if there are any snakes in the forest, I can send to you. I'll have them nod twice if I'm fine or form a circle if there's danger."
Harry hesitates. "I… I'm not sure if I'll remember that…" Not with the state that Harry's mind is in. Tom wants to curse himself for not considering how Harry's memory will fare with the constant visions now exasperated by these migraines. No doubt being flung across dimensions is affecting Harry's mental state. Tom will strangle those twins when they return!
"Then here," Tom transfigures a nearby coat hanger into a muggle marker. Without asking, he grabs Harry's hand (which is always so warm; he forgot how pleasant touching Harry is) and writes the instructions on the back of his hand.
Harry goes completely still, his hand stiff yet never moving from the mercy of Tom's. Every letter, every bit of ink against skin, makes something in Tom purr with delight. Harry's marked by him, willingly, and an overwhelming surge of satisfaction, better than cheering charms or black tea or power, fills him.
From your Tom, he signs.
Let Harry only think of him and no other Riddle. Other Tom Riddles will never touch his Harry, never know him like Tom does. He won't let their lives taint Harry's head any longer.
"There," he whispers, but still, he doesn't let go of Harry's hand. He finds himself staring at his name, his handwriting and words, still wet and shining bright against Harry's skin. How wonderful if those words would never fade, never die… How wonderful if Harry had that reminder of Tom forever…
"Tom?" Harry tugs his hand away, ignorant to the loss crawling through Tom's chest with knives for limbs. "Are you alright?" Harry brings up his palm to Tom's forehead, too closes, too warm and…!
"I'm fine," Tom looks away, because if he stares any longer at Harry, something irreversible will happen and he's not sure what. "I should go—"
The sooner they leave, the sooner Harry's migraine wand Tom's irrationality will cease.
Harry frowns. "If you don't come back in an hour, I'm coming after you."
"No!" Tom thinks of all the accidents Harry could get into in this alien dimension without Tom's aid. "Absolutely not!"
"Two hours then."
"How about 'not at all'? I'm a Dark Lord, I'll be fine!"
"More like aspiring Dark Lord, and you don't know that! What if this is the dimension where dementors rule?! Where every planet is overrun by starving dementors that have started farming human souls for their own nourishment? What if you end up on a human farm for dementors, Tom?!"
"I'll apparate—"
"What if you don't have time?! Or they suck the will out of you and you forget again—"
"I'd never forget how to apparate! Stop! We're just going in circles. Three hours. But I guarantee you that I'll be back sooner than that. Now stay put!"
He walks out and shuts the door before Harry can follow. After adding a few wards, notice-me-not charms, and trap spells around the closet, Tom finally pays attention to his surroundings.
Old gnarled trees that stretch up so high they cover the sky surround him. The air itself feels musty from the cracked dead leaves decomposing on the ground. They crackle under his feet, the feeble cries of withering leaves still trying to live. Judging from the chill and the bare skeletal branches, autumn must be here. Tom recognizes the forest and its air of darkness.
The Forbidden Forest.
But is it his universe's? Tom scans ahead and can't tell. It occurs to him that he and Harry forgot about the anti-apparition wards that the twins have surely cast on those who travel inside the closet. He ignores the urge to remind Harry of that. He'll be fine. He's a Dark Lord. He's powerful. Time to investigate.
:
Hogwarts begins to be visible as Tom comes to the forest's end. He frowns when he feels the magic of Hogwarts. It's… tainted, somehow. Broken. Not nostalgic and welcoming like it felt when Tom first laid eyes on it in First Year, but painful like an animal stuck in barbed wire.
Immediately, Tom casts a disillusionment charm on himself, in case of danger.
He creeps towards the grounds, surprised at the amount of Dark Magic oozed into the wards… Has Grindelwald come out of hiding and attacked? Should he take Harry and apparate to Riddle Manor for safety?
Harry has never told him, but back in their school days students gossiped about Harry's orphan status. They whispered that Grindelwald had killed Harry's parents personally, they whispered that the son, no more than four years old, had seen the whole thing. And after the incident with Sirius Black, Tom realized that Grindelwald might come back for Harry to finish the job, if only to personally hurt Albus Dumbledore.
Yet another reason to hate Dumbledore.
But Grindelwald has been quiet lately, hiding, biding his time, so much that Tom forgot he was a threat. Not even the criminal sections of the Wizarding World have heard from Grindelwald, it's as if he's disappeared.
How could Tom forget this?
He really should take Harry and leave if Grindelwald has returned, convince Harry to bring the Death Eater ducks back to human form…
But Harry will insist on securing the safety of their colleagues and students. The students, Tom thinks, should be brought to a secure location at least. Such magical potential should be preserved and never wasted. But if it comes down to their safety versus his and Harry's, Tom will pick his own and Harry's in a heartbeat. Nagini is clever enough to flee on her own.
Then in the distance, some hooded figures walk along the perimeter of the forest. Tom moves closer, catching bits and pieces of their conversation…
"…always thought I'd be doing more with my life, Greg," one of the hooded figures grumbles. This voice is slow and unpleasant to the ear…
"Hm…" the other hooded figure grunts dully. Tom realizes that this is Goyle, while the other figure must be Crabbe, two of Draco Malfoy's annoying goons from his school days at Hogwarts. Last Tom heard, they were both employed as Malfoy's guards, too stupid to do anything else. The job is very superficial, as everyone in their graduating class knows that Crabbe and Goyle hardly know what to do with their own wands.
What would they be doing here at Hogwarts? Malfoy works at the Ministry now and rarely visits Hogwarts.
(Tom shoves down the part of him that whispers that Harry and Malfoy seem close enough to visit each other.)
"Thought we'd be living it up, not have to worry about anything with Draco around. Didn't even think that our Lord was really back from the dead, you know? But here we are."
Tom frowns. Their Lord? Back from the dead? Could they be Grindelwald supporters? Is this a secret code? Or literal? If it's the latter, then Grindelwald might be dabbling in matters of death that Tom could use…
"Yeah…"
"Thought Potter would defeat him but he ends up captured! And now we've got no choice but to follow him. There's no where we can run… I used to think that Potter and his friends had something up their sleeves but it's been years. Our Lord has only grown stronger. No one alive can challenge him now."
Tom feels cold, colder than when the heater in the orphanage was broken for weeks in the middle of winter because the matrons took the money for themselves. Potter?! Tom wants to snarl and rips them apart, captured? For how long? But no, he just saw his Harry mere minutes ago. Harry is fine, not captured.
This has to be a different universe, so eerily similar to his own but suffering under the consequences of a different choice.
He should return to the closet, to his Harry, and try another universe.
But Tom's feet don't move.
This is a universe that is possibly caused by different choices that he and his Harry have never made. What if Tom were to learn of how to stop Grindelwald, get another threat out of the way for his dark ambitions and Harry's safety? What if Tom learns more about immortality?
He still has less than three hours.
That's plenty of time.
:
Getting into the castle is too easy. The wards part for him too willingly, probably sensing Tom's affinity for Dark Magic (or this universe's Tom Riddle is 'serving' Grindelwald, biding his time, being foolish.) Hogwarts is adorned in silvers and greens and serpentine iconography. Apparently this universe's Grindelwald has an affinity for Slytherins. Was he raised in Britain in this universe? Is that the difference?
The halls are too quiet, devoid of ghosts and students, like a graveyard. Not even the portraits dare move. Even the torches, normally well lit in every corridor, seem colder and dim.
Tom moves quickly, towards the headmaster's office, where he assumes Grindelwald's appointed headmaster will be (or at least some records of Grindelwald's plans, and what's happened in this universe.) Grindelwald's main headquarters aren't likely to be at Hogwarts, he has no personal attachment to Hogwarts, at least not in Tom's universe.
He passes more hooded figures, more atrocious masks, and skulls painted on walls.
The hooded figures, more familiar, cackle too loudly, as if they were characters from a children's cartoon. Tom recognizes them as Bellatrix Black and the Carrows…
"Longbottom's become as gone as his parents! Soon I'll have the perfect set," this world's Bellatrix grin goes wide. "Such a shame that our Lord won't let me try Potter too. I could ruin him so perfectly for the Dark Lord…"
For the first time, Tom has to stop himself from the urge to strangle Bellatrix's neck.
This isn't his Harry.
This universe doesn't matter.
"Don't let him hear you say that!" One of the other Carrows hiss. "He doesn't like anyone touching Potter."
"I don't get why he doesn't just kill him," the other Carrow scowls. "The only reason we keep getting more Order of the Phoenix popping up is because they still think he's the Chosen One, that he can still kill our Lord for them."
"Isn't it obvious?" Bellatrix hums, like it should be a universal truth, "If Potter dies, our Lord would never see that beautiful suffering again, that delectable agony. Such beauty should be savored... forever, if possible."
The Carrows try not to shudder at Bellatrix's delighted sigh.
Tom sees nothing but red, red like the time Trelawney said Harry would die in Third Year, like the time Malfoy tried to force a kiss on Harry in Fourth Year, like the time Harry came back to Hogwarts with a black eye at the start of Second Year but insisted that he had tripped…
No One Touches Harry Potter.
He curses her, a wandless spell, watching as she bleeds out from her artery on the floor while the Carrows panic. Then silently, after relishing her dying face, moves towards the headmaster's office. His time is limited now that the Carrows are screaming about an attack. He'll take whatever documents he can find and leave—
The gargoyle that used to guard the headmaster's office is gone, replaced by a stone serpent. Strangely enough, it moves out of the way for Tom, perhaps recognizing him as a speaker… but why would Grindelwald have such a method of protection? Is he the heir in this world? Tom finds the thought repugnant, if this universe is that different from his own, then perhaps he should have stayed with Harry—
He rushes into an office that looks so similar to his own, devoid of all paintings, with his preferred armchair at the desk, and impossibly—
There is a cage with rusted bars, where a skeletal thin boy is curled up. His eyes, once so green, are as dull as dying moss on a rotting branch. His face is so pale, one touch might cause it to dissipate into dust. He's so small, so incredibly young, so incredibly familiar that Tom can't look away.
"…Harry?"
The boy doesn't look up.
But another person does, a tall figure standing in the shadows, who turns to look at Tom.
Tom bites down his gasp.
The man, whoever he is, has the face of a snake and blood red eyes, brighter than Tom's own true eyes after he killed his father. The man's face is so pale, albino scales covering his entire skin. He has a monster's face, a face born of nightmares.
And he looks nothing like Grindelwald.
"Who's there?" the man demands, his voice, his voice…!
A snake, his snake, Nagini, curls up by his feet. [I smell a human with the same scent as you, Master.]
No, Tom thinks, no, no, no, no, this can't be…
[Bring him to me.]
Tom should run, Tom should go back to Harry, but Harry's there in that cage, but he isn't, at least not his Harry, and this monster in front of him is not him, it's not—
Nagini-not-his-Nagini wraps herself around his invisible form and the imposter steps up to Tom, dispelling his disillusionment charm.
This world's Lord Voldemort stares upon Tom Riddle, and smiles.