Thank you so much for being so supportive and patient with me! Content warnings in this chapter: Voldemort is a content warning, alternate versions of beloved characters die, violence, suicidal implications
Teaching History (is Old News)
25 - The Nightmare He Sees
"My horcrux, returned to me at last! I knew you couldn't have destroyed nearly all of them, dear Harry," the Monster, Lord Voldemort, purrs, his gaze greedily taking in Tom's face, and the cage by the desk.
Tom freezes in his struggles. 'All of them'? As in… multiple horcruxes? How many did this imposter make?
"Well?!" the Monstrous Voldemort snaps, while wandlessly paralyzing Tom with an overwhelmingly powerful petrificus totalus.
[Master, perhaps the other you is sleeping?] Not-his-Nagini hisses, coiling tighter around Tom's feet. [I wish you would let me eat him instead… he smells so good… so familiar…]
Tom mentally recoils, wanting to kick away from this fake Nagini. She would never eat a human, much less her Green Eyes. This thing is nothing like his Nagini.
"Wake up!" the Monstrous Voldemort lashes out at the cage, shooting a stupefy to rattle the bars.
The Other Harry's eyes, open but dulled the whole time, finally shift slowly towards Tom and the Monster. Something flickers in those dead eyes for a moment before the Other Harry wraps his tattered robes tighter around himself.
"Answer your Lord when he addresses you," the Monster bellows a crucio without warning, without logic or reason, making the Other Harry writhe on the ground in wordless screams. Tom stares and he doesn't understand, doesn't comprehend, forced to watch and unable to interfere.
Harry should never be tortured like this, only those that deserve it. Amy deserved it. Billy deserved it. His father deserved it. But never Harry.
Tom will strangle this Monster's neck.
The Monster stops, red eyes deepening in colour, as he laughs. The Other Harry slumps on the floor, coughing out air. He recomposes himself, eyes still so dull, all too quickly.
"…I destroyed all your horcruxes but two," this Harry's voice rasps, as if the Monster has taken Harry's beautiful voice and shaved it off against sandpaper, "and they're all in this room, trapped and alive. If you made anymore, an eighth one then, you probably forgot."
Ringing fills Tom's ears. For a moment, he can't see, can't hear, can't think. Only the number 'eight' repeats in his head over and over. Eight, probably seven horcruxes, seeing as Tom isn't one. Seven horcruxes that this Monster has made.
How much of a soul, if it can ever be called a soul, could be left?
(And how many did he make before he began to unravel?)
"Don't be foolish," the Monster hisses, pacing around the cage like an agitated beast, eyes always drawn to the Other Harry. "How could I ever forget making a horcrux? The pain and murder would be impossible to forget. No, admit it, dear Harry—" this Monster doesn't deserve to say his name, "—you missed a horcrux. I have three now, instead of two."
Pure hate flashes through the Other Harry's eyes, a fire that could match hell by how it twists the Other Harry's face into something dark and alien. His Harry has never looked at him like that, but surely, his Harry has seen other Monstrous Toms like this, even worse than this one? Surely, his Harry is haunted by the nightmares of what could be… How can his Harry stand to look at him without the same loathing…?
And then, like a dying flame, the hate vanishes, hidden under dull and blank green once more.
"Yes, you're right," the Other Harry whispers, as if remarking on the weather, as if nothing he says matters. "I wouldn't know what horcrux that is, it's been so long that I can hardly remember."
"You wouldn't," the Monster sneers, "You're nothing but a weak child. How would I expect you to remember something so important when your one job is to stay breathing? No… I shall interrogate the new horcrux myself. There must be something wrong with it to have attacked Bella… but no matter, it looks young. Perhaps it didn't recognize her…" the Monster turns suddenly and hisses, "Legilimens!"
Tom slams down his occlumency shields, picturing a concrete block crushing the Monster's probing mind, a guillotine to snap the prying mental fingers apart. He will NOT let the Monster know about the closet, about his Harry. What would the Monster do with the closet? Find more horcruxes? Enslave more worlds? No, he knows how power hungry he can be (it's not him though, it's not, it's not—), even with this Monstrous side of him. He will not let the Monster touch one thought of Harry.
The Monster hisses, thrown back against the wall, books toppling on his head. Tom would smirk if he could, then kill the Monster, but the petrificus totalus is still in effect, so all Tom can do is stare at what-is-not-him-never-and—
Not-his-Nagini tightens her hold around him, as if to snap off his legs, and the Other Harry wheezes, before shutting up as the Monster rises.
"You," the Monster's eyes narrow, "are to obey me! I am your original! Why do you resist?!"
Tom tries to muster as much disdain as he can in his stare.
"SPEAK!" the Monster bellows, undoing the paralysis.
That is his mistake.
Tom wandlessly blasts Not-Nagini from him, uncaring of her dying hisses (it's not her, not her, not her), and summons his wand. The wand flies into Tom's hand just as he slashes apart the Other Harry's cage in a cutting hex.
"Run!" Tom hisses, watching the bars fall from the Other Harry, just as the Monster rises up and begins sending an onslaught of spells to lock Tom in place. Tom dodges, of course, making all the spells hit bookshelves instead, splinters and pages stabbing the ground.
The Monster lunges towards Tom, tackling Tom's occlumency shields once more while trying to distract him with a physical attack.
Tom twists back, accios the armchair in front of him as a physical barrier and brings the chandelier down on top of the Monster's head for good measure.
The Monster barely has time to use a shield charm, not expecting this way of dueling, before Tom follows up with his own legilimens attack before the Monster can think—
Tom dives into the tattered remains of the Monster's mind to tear it apart but all he sees is jagged memories like glass pressing on all sides of him, ripping into him, bleeding into him, and he sees, he sees—Myrtle Warren (but wasn't she called Myrtle Mason?) staring into a basilisk's eyes, a diary, BLoOdiEd children in a cave, his father limBleSs and sCREamInG GRasPing at his robes, a ring, the dead sleeping under water so hungry ALwAyS hUnGry, the prostitute he never killed, the locket he never stole, the diadem he never found, the dark arts he never learned, the bodies he never burned, the curse on the DADA position that he never left, the rage RAGE rAgE that he never felt until only screams sate this overwhelming urge to riP TeAr KiLL dEvoUr all on his path, a baby, he knows those eyes, NO what are you doing, why would you kill him, DoN'T kILL hArRY—!
NEVER!
Tom wrenches his mind away from the Monster's, trying to scrape away the ooze of madness and senselessness from his consciousness. "You…" Tom gasps, digging his nails against his head, "How could you make so many? How could you try and kill him…?"
But Harry's right there. The Other Harry. Alive. And His Harry is Alive too. He wouldn't, he didn't, he couldn't, he—
"You're me," the Monster snarls, blasting away the broken chandelier from his shield charm. "You know why. He was in the way. It was prophesized!"
"Prophecies are self-fulfilling!" Tom roars. "You destroyed yourself!"
"I made myself strong, I rule everything now."
Rule over what? Why can't the Monster see his own reflection in the mirror? Can't he feel that his mind is less, that his hold on the world has cracks and fractures about to fall apart at the seams?
Broken laughter echoes through the damaged office like a strangled violin about to play its last song.
The Monster and Tom turn towards the forgotten Other Harry, jaws dropping as they see the Other Harry clutching one of Not-Nagini's fangs in his bloodied palm. Not-Nagini's corpse lies forgotten in the corner, and the Other Harry smiles so terribly as he moves to stab himself with the fang—
"No!" the Monster and Tom shout, summoning their magic to stop the fang from cutting the Other Harry's throat.
That's when a Ford Angela crashes through the windows and slams the Monster into wall, like a fly swatter hitting a bug.
The Other Harry and Tom gape, the Other Harry still holding Not-Nagini's fang in the middle of the air, Tom with his wand still stretched out, as his Harry (so beautiful and so very much alive) stumbles out of the front seat of the car, hair and glasses askew with dead leaves and twigs stuck to his still atrocious tank top.
"Oh my god, I think I broke his bones. Did we break his bones, Bessie?! Will he be able to walk? Which Tom was this, did I just kill my Tom?!"
There's a groan, as the Monster's body slumps down over the front of the Ford Angela, and his Harry sees the bald head and snakeskin.
"Nope," his Harry blanches, backing away faster than when he was running from the closet moths. "Not my Tom. Definitely not my Tom, unless he went through a makeover in the last hour."
The car, apparently named Bessie, like in their original universe, revs up its engine and slams into the Monster again at the sound of the next groan.
"Wait, don't kill him! Maybe he only looks evil, but he's not actually evil! I still don't know what kind of Tom this is…"
Bessie the Ford Angela lets out a loud honk! The Monster's head hits the headlight again.
"Sorry, I told you I don't speak car. Can we go back to the Morse code, I thought we were good on the Morse code…"
"You…!" the Monster somehow manages to gasp, hand clawing towards his Harry with the intensity of a dying dementor faced with one last soul. "How—"
"NOPE!" Harry ducks away, "I don't see you, I don't see you—"
Bessie the Ford Angela takes this as permission to slam its wheels into the Monster's chest before the Monster can use another wandless spell.
Nothing but a whimper emerges after that.
In that moment, the Monster is nothing but a man who couldn't even predict that he'd get hit by a sentient car. Forgettable and almost mortal. The sight suddenly seems too pathetic, so mundane to Tom, that in another universe, this is the fate that would have befallen him had Harry not intervened. His whole existence, his unique presence in his own universe, is only possible because of Harry.
A strangled laugh escapes Tom's lips.
His Harry whirls around to face him, and stops, as if he isn't sure what he's seeing, before his face lights up, as if Tom is special, something more, and Tom—
"BACK AWAY!"
—is now being held by the neck by the Other Harry, who is now holding Not-Nagini's fang against his throat.
The first thing that Tom spits out is: "I freed you!"
"And you're still a Voldemort, even without the snake-face. What the hell is going on. Who are you? Why do you look like me?"
His Harry, the only person worth saving in this universe, raises his hands as if to calm a feral lion. "Listen," he steps closer, "we can talk—"
The Feral Potter yanks Tom closer, jamming the fang just breaths away from the skin of his throat. "Don't come any closer unless you want your Tom to die. Just tell me the truth!"
Silence hits them strongly, with his Harry glancing frequently at Tom and the fang. His eyes are so frantic, so lost, and Tom has never wanted not to be seen before, if only to stop his Harry from looking so small and lost. Nothing should make him look like that.
(Not even himself.)
Then his Harry sighs and drops his hands. "Why? You know he's not a horcrux. If I'm right, then there's just one left, and it's not him… It's you."
Tom actually flinches away from the Feral Potter, as the Feral Potter's grip dies.
"No," someone whispers, and it must be him, because the Feral Potter has collapsed to his knees and is hiding his face in his tattered robes. "No, that's not possible. How could he…?"
His Harry smiles sadly. "It's why we shouldn't kill him yet," he jerks his head to where Bessie is still keeping the Monster crushed against the wall. "We don't know what will happen to the other me."
"…I have to die," the Feral Potter whispers. "That's what Dumbledore kept me alive for. I have to choose this."
"Absolutely not!" Tom hisses, because this Feral Potter may not be his but his death is unacceptable. "Why should you have to die for us to get rid of that Monster?! You don't deserve that!"
The Feral Potter starts to chuckle hollowly, any speck of rage or desperation gone once more. "Now I know this must be a dream. Another me and a young Tom Riddle? Telling me to live? Taking Voldemort out with Ron's Dad's car? What a riot…"
"It's not a dream," Tom snaps, finding this Feral Potter infinitely more irritating that his Harry has ever been. "You just tried to kill me."
Feral Potter doesn't respond, curling up tighter into a ball.
His Harry frowns, and despite Tom shaking his head 'no', walks over and puts an arm around Feral Potter.
Tom feels his throat go dry.
"…It's not a dream," his Harry says, awkwardly patting Feral Potter on the head. "We're from another universe. We just accidentally crashed here and we're trying to go home. This is real. You're free."
A choked sob escapes Feral Potter as he shakes his head against his knees.
"No, really, look," his Harry gently pulls Feral Potter's hand towards his chest. "Breathe with me," his smile is soft and gentle as he takes in a deep breath. "And breathe again." He pauses. "Do you feel that?"
Feral Potter seems frozen, staring at their intertwined hands in wonder. "…Your heartbeat."
His Harry nods.
"This is… real."
"Yeah… it's real."
There's something so… familiar… about the scene, but before Tom can dig for the memory, Feral Potter pulls away.
"I still have to die though. That doesn't change."
…And now Tom wants to throw something out a window. Are all Harry Potters so stubborn?!
"No, you don't," Tom snaps. "You only need to die a natural death, live your life. And then that Monster will eventually die too. Permanently transfigure him into a cockroach, seal him in a jar for all of eternity. Spell the jar so that time slows and he won't be able to die before you do. When you die of old age, have someone squish him with their foot. He can't hurt you as a cockroach."
His Harry and Feral Potter stare at him for so long that Tom hisses out a "what," before his Harry bursts into delighted laughter. Feral Potter only lies back on the ground and mumbles something about 'crazy bastard ideas.'
"It's a good idea and you know it," Tom hisses.
"Oh I do, I do," his Harry wipes tears from his eyes, "I just… I just remembered how much I love that part of you."
Tom does not splutter, he does not.
"Urgh," Feral Potter covers his eyes and cracked glasses. "Please tell me that you're not flirting with alternate Voldemort, just please."
His Harry turns an interesting shade of red. "Look do you want your Voldemort to be turned into a cockroach or not? Tom and I need to get going and the longer we stay in the universe, the bigger my headache gets, so let's get transfiguring before I forget who you are—"
Tom yanks his Harry towards him immediately. "Why didn't you say something sooner?! How is your head feeling now? Should I accio a headache relief potion? There has to be something around here somewhere, if Hogwarts is being used as his base of operations then the infirmary is well-stocked—"
"Tom," his Harry mumbles between his hands, "Transfiguration. Remember?"
Rolling his eyes, Tom shoots the most permanent and powerful human transfiguration he's ever performed towards the Monster and doesn't even watch the Monster shrink into a cockroach. He follows up with a jar and some powerful wards so the glass doesn't shatter from a fall.
"There," he throws the cockroach jar at Feral Potter's feet. "One Dark Lord, permanently gone."
Feral Potter gapes up at him. Tom does not smirk or preen.
"Are you sure he's not evil?" Feral Potter narrows his eyes, looking ready to stab if needed. He looks like he's wondering if Tom's Harry is imperiused or under a love potion, all very offensive accusations. As if Tom would ever need a disgusting love potion or want to waste energy on controlling his Harry's actions.
"Yes! I mean, well, sort of 'yes.' I think." Harry looks down at the ink on his hands and nods. "We're working on it."
Feral Potter frowns, while Bessie revs the engine again, both seemingly ready to tackle Tom if his Harry gives the say so. Tom moves his hold from Harry's face to his waist, unwilling to back down.
"But we should really be heading home. You should take Bessie. She can fly you back to your family and hopefully the Order will deal with the rest of the Death Eaters."
Feral Potter shakes his head. "He… he said he killed them… I don't have—"
"He lied," says Harry kindly. "He wanted you to break. But your Ron and Hermione, your Weasleys, are so very much alive and fighting. They've never given up on you. Trust me."
Feral Potter freezes. "How… how do you know this? Have you…? Is your universe like mine? Did you go through… all this?"
Tom tightens his hold around Harry's waist. "That will never happen to him."
Harry sighs, leaning back against Tom silently. "No. But I've… felt it. From one Harry to another… it gets better. You really don't have to die. I'd rather you live bravely, isn't that what lions do?"
They hear footsteps, shouting, from the door, before Feral Potter can answer, and immediately Bessie opens her doors.
Tom and Harry levitate Feral Potter quickly into Bessie's passenger seat, then they both scramble on top of her roof.
The doors slam open, dozens of Death Eaters pouring into the room with raised wands.
Bessie flies out of the whole in the ceiling just as Tom and Harry send their worst spells at the Death Eaters.
They fly off into the forest.
:
"Is that a broom closet?!"
"Long story, can't tell it now. Oh, and you might want to keep this, since I assume Voldy snapped your wand," Harry throws the Monster's wand at Feral Potter through the window.
Feral Potter catches it in bewilderment, still cradling the cockroach jar against his arms.
"I'll miss you Bessie! You're a star!" Harry blows a kiss to the Ford Angela.
Tom stares at 'Bessie' in trepidation. The Ford Angela seems to stare back into his soul.
"Hey…" Feral Potter mumbles, "thanks. For freeing me."
Blinking slowly, Tom goes completely still. "Your thanks is unnecessary. After all… it was… the other me who did this to you."
And Tom knows how heartless he can be.
"Still," Feral Potter says, "you didn't have to. I still don't know what game you're playing with him," he gestures to his Harry, still showering Bessie with affection, "but don't… just don't become Voldemort. You… you're not bad like this. You're… you're okay."
Tom… doesn't know what to do with that. He feels… lost and so angry at how trusting and good even this Feral Potter can be.
"You've been tortured, starved, traumatized beyond measure by the other me and you're saying that I'm 'okay'?!" he hisses.
Feral Potter snorts. "Don't be stupid. I don't trust you. But you're not my problem. You're his. And he trusts you. I know I won't see you two again, so I'll try to pay him back by telling you not to screw up."
Tom's jaw drops. He'd curse Feral Potter if he could, if Feral Potter weren't so right. Tom isn't the Monster from this universe… but he could have been. He could still easily become him. All it would have taken is another murder, another time he lets his Death Eaters torture muggles, another step down the slippery slope and he'd become what he so despises.
"I won't," Tom vows. "I swear it."
"Done saying goodbye?" his Harry asks.
Feral Potter's cold gaze softens. "Is it strange that I don't want you to go? I mean, you're another me. It's… weird."
The Other Potter has imprinted on his Harry, like a baby chick. Tom finds himself grasping Harry's hand and holding it tight, holding onto his signature on Harry's hand.
Tom won't become Voldemort, no, but he might become something terrible regardless, if Harry doesn't come home with him.
"No," his Harry whispers, making Tom want to shove him into the closet, "it's like having family again, isn't it?"
Feral Potter chokes up. "…Yeah."
"But I have to go home. I have family waiting for me too. Regulus. And my own Sirius."
Feral Potter's eyes widen before he nods. "Then… goodbye. And thank you."
With a final honk, the Ford Angela and Feral Potter fly off into the night.
As soon as they leave, his Harry latches onto Tom's neck. "Did he hurt you?! Are you okay?! Any scars?! Let me see!"
His hands are everywhere, checking Tom's neck, his face, unbuttoning his robes—
"Stop! I'm fine! I told you I can take care of myself," Tom pushes him back with his hands firmly on Harry's shoulders. "What were you thinking?! I thought I said three hours. That was not three hours! You could have been killed by any of the Death Eaters thinking their Harry Potter had escaped that Monster!"
"I found out how we can get home! I had to tell you right away! And Bessie was going to try and smash down our closet! I couldn't let her do that! And then I felt like something terrible had happened, and I knew if I didn't find you right away, you might not live. So you're welcome for me saving your life—"
"By crashing a car through the ceiling?! You're lucky you're not concussed again!"
"I was running out of ideas!"
"What if the Monster had killed you?!"
"I was too busy thinking he was going to kill you!"
"I wasn't going to die, not against him. I would have had him—"
"Well excuse me if I didn't want you to have to kill an alternate version of yourself, even if he was a bastard!"
"He deserves to die if he's who you 'see' in your visions all the time!"
Harry looks like he forgot how to breathe as he stares up at Tom.
"…What?"
"It's him, isn't it? That's who you see what you talk to me. Other versions of Voldemort, just as disgusting or worse than him. That's who haunts you and scars you. That's what makes you forget so often."
Forget me.
Harry doesn't answer. His silence is answer enough.
"I can't forgive them for hurting you like that, with their mere existence."
I can't forgive me.
"So of course, I had to be the one to kill him. And if I could have killed him without possibly causing the horcrux in the Other Potter from acting up, I would have."
Harry closes his eyes. "I know."
He doesn't talk about the timeline that could have been. He doesn't mention the timeline where Tom kills the Monster, and the Monster's horcrux takes over Feral Potter. He doesn't mention the timeline where Tom is forced to kill a version of Harry that he tried to save.
They are what-ifs that Tom can see now. All the what-ifs plaguing his Harry's head.
"I'm sorry."
Harry's eyes open, wide and lost. "W-what…?"
Tom traces the scar, so jagged and crude, on Harry's forehead.
"I'm sorry," he says again. "I'm sorry… I…"
He closes his eyes, leans in, and—
"They went that way!"
Tom and Harry jump apart, seeing figures in the distance. Death Eaters.
They both rush into the closet and shut the door.
"How do we get home?!" Tom hisses, hoping that his Harry found an actual way and not just some distraction.
"Think like a Weasley," Harry points up, and sure enough, there is a tiny button on the ceiling of the closet, a button with a picture of a house on it. A 'home' button.
"Detention for life," Tom hisses, throwing a coat hanger up to slam the button.
The Death Eaters reach an empty clearing. The closet is gone.
:
"FRED AND GEORGE WEASLEY, YOU TELL US WHERE YOU SENT THOSE POOR PROFESSORS RIGHT NOW OR SO HELP ME, I WILL MAKE SURE YOU NEVER LEAVE HOME AGAIN!" Tom hears Molly Weasley threaten just as he and Harry stumble out into their universe.
Every one of the staff, the Weasley twins, and the Weasley parents, gape at the broom closet that has suddenly appeared in the staffroom. They stare at Harry and Tom's rumpled robes and tank tops.
The twins smirk like Cheshire cats. "Well—"
"Look—"
"—Who—"
"—Came out—"
"—Of the closet!" they say at once.
The room goes quiet. Tom stares. The twins stare. Tom glares. The twins begin to cower.
"Did you. Just send me. And my Harry. To Merlin knows where. So you. Could make. That joke. The whole. Damn. Time?!"
"Um…."
"Run."
The day marks the first and only day that Professor Tom Riddle chased down his students with a serial killer grin. Thankfully, Professor Potter stopped any attempted homicides.
And the twins were granted detention for life.
:
"I'm keeping the closet," Tom hisses at the twins.
Their faces fall. "But—"
"We—"
"Or I could give it to the Ministry. I'm sure the Department of Mysteries would be very interested to know about a pair of so called geniuses who managed to figure out how to travel through different dimensions and then forcibly make said geniuses work for them forever instead of working on their joke shop dreams, and chain them to the workforce through vows of silence and everlasting loyalty—"
"YoucanhavetheclosetProfessorweweresowrongsorry."
"And you're going to apologize to Professor Potter for trying to scare him with his worst fear."
"Well," Fred or George frowns, "it was just moths, nothing that bad—"
"Apologize."
"Yessir. Rightawaysir."
:
With an unspoken agreement not to let anyone know the true nature of the closet, Harry and Tom levitate the closet to their office, within Tom's upstairs bedroom. They settle it into a corner and then stare at it for a long time.
They should have a conversation about the closet's fate, about the potential it has, or its termination. They should have a conversation about the Monster and the other universe, about all the universes Harry sees. Tom wants to know it all, so he can destroy them, so he can shield Harry from his mistakes, from the monsters he can become. He has to do better, become the most superior Tom, so Harry will only look at him and never ever willingly look away—
"…Tom?"
He jerks up, sees Harry touching his shoulder.
"Your… your hands are shaking."
Oh. He looks down. They are.
He rolls them into fists.
Carefully, Harry unfolds them, the same reverent way he folds his little cranes, and intertwines their fingers together. He's there. So real. And yet, every moment with him feels fleeting and fragile.
"Stay," Tom says without thinking. "Don't leave again. You're always walking away."
He watches as Harry's Adam's apple bobs up and down.
"I… okay," he whispers. "I'll move back in."
They don't speak about it, only curl closer together. Tom doesn't want to let go of this hand. He doesn't know what dreams he'll have if he lets go of this hand, and wakes to see Harry not there.
Harry seems to understand, because he tugs Tom towards the bed, and lies down. Tom hesitates, he's never shared a bed with anyone, not even in the orphanage. But going to the floor or downstairs would mean letting go, and he can't.
He slowly lies next to Harry, rigid and still.
They don't sleep. They don't do anything but listen to each other breathe.
Listen to the closet, making sure it stays closed.
AN: did i wait over a year for that closet joke? yes. yes i did.
did i wait over a year to give tom crippling identity issues for life? yes. yes i did.
EDITED CHAPTER - Nov 19, 2019