Tom Riddle awakens like a man on an electric chair, bolting upright with a shudder and a gasp. The blood drains from his face when he notices Harry's wand aimed squarely at his chest.
"Don't move," Harry warns, wand at the ready in case Riddle tries to run for it again.
Somehow, this seems to reassure Riddle if anything. The colour returns to his face. "You're not going to tie me up?" he asks, the taunt clear in his voice, "You're not very experienced at this, are you?"
"What do you think this is?" Harry asks.
"This is an inquisition, isn't it?" Riddle says and pulls the cloak Hermione conjured over his shoulders. He looks around him. "Say, you don't happen to have any spare robes do you?"
The questioning isn't going the way Harry intended. He grits his teeth, but Riddle goes on blithely, taking in his surroundings like he's a newly arrived exchange student from Durmstrang instead of a prisoner of war. "Well since we are in the Gryffindor common room, I don't suppose anyone would mind if we went upstairs to the dormitories and borrowed something to wear. Do you, Harry Potter?" The light, almost conversational tone belies a gaze made of ice.
"You can have something to wear later," Harry says brusquely, tightening his grip on his wand. "Don't talk." And quickly adds, when he catches Riddle's lips curling, "Unless I tell you to."
Somehow the silence, too, is a taunt.
Where to begin?
"Tell me- tell me what you remember."
Riddle's eyes gleam. Very slowly, as though recalling with difficulty, he says, "I remember waking up in this common room with you.
"Before that I remember running through the Great Hall, through a throng of people, and being Stunned, presumably by you.
"Before that I remember waking up in the middle of the Great Hall, beneath the enchanted sky.
"Before that everything was a dream."
Harry stares. "What do you mean everything?"
"Everything," Riddle says simply. "From my birth to my death, to my rebirth, to my second death."
"But that wasn't a dream. Everything you say you dreamt really happened."
Riddle chuckles. "Well from a philosophical standpoint it's hard to say that anything is really happening. When a man dreams he is a butterfly and wakes up, is he a man or a butterfly dreaming he is a man?"
"But you said my name. You remember my name. If you remember me you must know your dream is real."
Riddle nods in acknowledgement. "Yes my dream seems consistent with the world I have woken up in. But what I meant by 'dream' is not something that is necessarily imaginary, I mean simply that I do not remember it the same way as I would a memory. I remembered it very vividly when I first woke up, but now many of the details elude me."
Harry can't tell if he's lying. Part of him thinks Tom Riddle is playing him for a fool - no one could be so calm after waking up and finding that everything they'd known to be true was a dream but that everything they'd dreamt was true. The thought alone sends Harry's head spinning in mad circles. But another part of him knows that Tom Riddle isn't like anyone he's ever known. Well, other than one person…
But even then, not really. There is disconnect between the physical realities of Voldemort and Tom Riddle, between the hateful eyes and mutilated face - so much like the waxen face of a burn victim - and the unblemished, even beautiful face that looks up at him.
They regard each other. Riddle seems to read Harry's mind and the question that lingers on it, because he says without prompting, "I don't know what happened between Voldemort falling and my waking up, Harry Potter. I don't know if it was death, or if it was transformation."
Then the common room door swings open, and so many people rush in that Harry is for a moment terrified that Riddle will seize the chance to slip into the crowd, or grab an unattended wand, or be trampled to death in a stampede. But Arthur Weasley, who is leading the charge into the Gryffindor common room, immediately conjures ropes that bind Riddle's wrists, ankles and torso. Riddle hisses and doubles over, as though in pain.
"HARRY!" Harry is distracted by a projectile launching itself into his arms - it's Hermione, followed immediately by a black-eyed but grinning Ron.
"We won, mate!"
Mrs Weasley is next in line, and Harry marvels at the strength of her arms as he finds himself squeezed almost to death.
"Thank Merlin you're alright, dear," she says, fussing over him and checking for signs of injury or pain. "Ron and Hermione never should have left you alone with You-Know-Who." Tom Riddle, who is watching them with seeming indifference from across the room, does not respond to his title. Arthur Weasley and Kingsley Shacklebolt stand on either side of him, their wands out, faces grim, but they smile tiredly at Harry when they catch him looking. "We've got him, Harry," Arthur says.
"Harry did you find out how he managed…?" Hermione begins anxiously, and Harry feels a sudden rush of fondness for her. The war has left half of them dead and the rest of them shaken to the core, but Hermione is still Hermione, hungry to know things. "He doesn't know either," Harry says. "He said everything that happened before that weird storm feels like a dream to him."
"What does he mean everything?"
"He could be lying," Arthur cuts in sharply.
Tom Riddle says nothing to his defence, but continues to watch them with the half-interested air of someone watching a school play.
"If he's lying we'll find out when we question him later with the other Death Eaters," Kingsley says on the other side of him.
"Don't worry Harry," Molly says soothingly, "They won't let him get away this time."
"Where will you take him?" Harry asks Kingsley.
"To the Order's headquarters for now. We'll keep the lot of them there at least until the Ministry is re-established and they can be tried and put away."
"Or Kissed by a Dementor," adds Ron, and Tom Riddle meets his glare with a stare so cold that Ron is forced to look away.
"Come Harry," Molly says, taking Harry's arm gently, "It's time to go home and rest."
The words must be magic, because no sooner are they said than Harry feels the full force of his exhaustion hit, like a river slamming against his chest. He would like very much to rest, to give in to sleep and let it float him away.
"Okay," Harry agrees tiredly. "Let's go home." He lets Molly shepherd him across the common room, thinking how nice it is to let someone else do the steering for a change. He swings a leg over the portrait hole. Remembers the thought that strayed into his head only moments ago, when they were talking of prison and Dementor's Kisses. Turns back. Says, to the room at large, "I don't think he's Voldemort. I think he's human." Everyone stares back, including Riddle. Then he passes through the portrait hole and his friends lead him home.