Disclaimer: If you know it, I do not own it.

Gravity Pulls on You and I

There were things living beings did Tom Riddle had forgotten about in the past nineteen years. In the last few months since he'd become a real boy, these things reinstated themselves. He had to use the toilet, his hair grew abnormally fast and required cutting every two weeks, he had to trim his fingernails and toenails regularly, and he no longer had the ability to walk through people or walls.

Tom would never admit he had gotten used to being able to walk through things, most of all Sirius Black when he was being annoying. Since becoming solid he had rammed into a wall, several tables, and the bathtub. (As well as Sirius, who laughed and accused him of trying to cop a feel.)

However, most nettlesome out of everything was Tom was always hungry.

Hunger was something intimately familiar to Tom. There was never enough to eat at the orphanage, especially with the start of the war. Yet, after nineteen years of NOT being hungry, Tom had forgotten how annoying it was to have to stop what he was doing to eat. Or to be awaken in the middle of the night to a rumbling stomach and full bladder.

Okay, maybe the whole having to use a loo several times a day was more irksome than hunger. He technically could go days without eating. He could not go days without the loo.

Tom pushed himself out of bed carefully as to not wake up his bedmate. Tom stood and stared at the sleeping boy. When Tom had been a Not Ghost, the pair often shared a bed. Tom always told himself it was because Harry was solid to Tom and it was nice to have something solid around whilst he slept. Harry was also a boy and it was more comfortable than sharing with a girl. (Tom would know, he'd shared a bed with Atlanta D. Black for years before they finally got their own flat. While it had gotten past awkward, it was still weird to Tom. For reasons.) He thought now that he was solid, the bed sharing would stop, but Harry still snuck into Park Quad in the dead of night and crawled into Tom's bed.

Not that they did a lot of sleeping since they both had nightmares. They'd lie awake together not talking about the nightmares, yet knowing exactly what had woken them both.

Tom had taken her death hard—harder than he had imagined he ever would as he'd not been all that close to her as others he'd lost. Harry buried his grief deep within himself— just as he had with Cedric. At the time, Tom had found nothing all that wrong with Harry's dealing, yet now he knew better. While Tom still was sad Atlanta was gone, the last two months he'd come to terms with her passing. He'd take her back alive in a heartbeat, but he'd accepted and mourned her. It didn't hurt as much any longer.

Harry didn't mourn. He was unable to say Atlanta's name without stumbling. He looked at Tom sometimes as if at any moment he'd vanish into nothing. Lupin, upon finding Harry in Tom's bed one morning shortly after Harry had arrived from his Muggle relatives, had offered to take him to see the tree Atlanta Lupin now was, but Harry had shook his head and ran off.

Tonight, oddly, they'd both remained peacefully asleep without nightmares. Tom studied Harry's twitching eyelids for a beat before he slunk out of the room and headed for the kitchen.

Irksome stomach.

Tom entered the kitchen and quietly puttered around, fixing himself a sandwich. He was buttering the bread when the front door opened.

Tom flipped the knife in his hand and held it up over his shoulder, staring at the dimly lit entrance hall.

"Tom?" called out a voice he'd not heard in two decades. "Tom? I think I need help."

Tom lowered the knife, but kept it in his hand as he ran into the entrance hall. He stood stupidly in the doorway and stared at the person stumbling across the tile floor towards the table that sat in the middle of the room. She was tall, but not too tall, had short, reddish brown hair that was soaking wet. She wore dark clothes that hugged her frame and she was hunched over, holding her right side, dripping water and blood onto the floor. Tom could see the faint shimmer of the glamours that hid her true face from the world.

"Addy?" Tom whispered, fearing his mind was going.

She turned towards him and it felt like someone suckered punched him.

"There you are," she wheezed, ramming into the table, feet sliding a little on the black and white tile. "I…I kinda…"

Tom rushed towards her as she crumpled to the ground, somehow not smacking her head on the table. Tom slid on his knees towards her, throwing the knife to the side, and let his hands hover over her collapsed form. For a moment, Tom panicked, having flashbacks to when Atlanta Lupin had been stabbed as the blood pooled on the floor.

"Just a scratched. A cursed one," Addy offered weakly, blood bubbling out of her mouth. She let out a hacking couch, sending more blood all over the floor. "Can you get Sirius?"

"Sirius?"

"Yeah. He's solid and can…wait…are you solid? What—happened…t-t-t-to your hair?" Addy asked dazedly before she passed out.

"LUPIN!" Tom shouted as loud as possible.

Tom unzipped the shredded track jacket and ripped her t-shirt in two, finding a long, thin, blood covered cut that went from under her ribs clear across her midsection.

Not a knife wound, but one made by a wand and only bleeding so much due to the curse. What the hell did you do for cursed wounds?

"LUPIN!"

There was a crash at the back of the flat and clatter of slippered feet before Lupin appeared. He took one look at who was on the floor with Tom before going completely pale. For a moment Tom worried Lupin was going to pass out, but instead he steeled himself and hurried forward.

"What happened?"

"No clue. She walked in the front door and collapsed. She did say it was just a scratch and it was cursed."

"Darkly," Lupin muttered, waving his wand over the bleeding wound. "Good thing you didn't touch it. We won't be able to stanch the blood flow. We'll need Severus."

"Snape?"

"And Poppy. I believe the flat is still connected to the Hospital Wing. Can you help me pick her up? Don't jostle her too much. And don't you dare touch the wound."

"I'm not an idiot," Tom snapped, going to hoist Addy up from under her arms.

"What are you two doing? Where'd all that blood come from?"

Lupin and Tom turned as they picked Addy up to find a sleep rumbled Harry Potter staring at them as if they were playing a really cruel trick on him.

"He can't see her," Lupin whispered. "The spell is active."

"Then, Harry won't be able to get home. Grimmauld Place's Floo connection will have been terminated," Tom grasped. "Anything you or Sirius did as Secret Keepers will have been undone."

"Because Addy's Secret Keeper," Lupin remembered, but shook his head in tiny movements. "We need to go. We'll worry about this later. Harry, remain here. Tom will explain when he returns."

"Uh, okay."

Together, Lupin and Tom made it to the fireplace. Harry followed behind them and threw the Floo powder. Tom watched Harry vanished in a swirl of green flames.

Several hours later, Tom stumbled out of the fireplace and collapsed on the ground, not caring about the soot he was getting all over the stupid expensive rug Addy had put in front of the fireplace.

"Tom," Harry said, collapsing next to him. "What's going on? Sirius called me on the mirror and said he can't get here to drag me home. The Floo won't work. And he said Draco can't remember the address and Sirius can't tell him."

"Addy's alive," Tom breathed, feeling exhausted and giddy. "She's…she's alive. Snape was able to get the dark curse out of her blood and Poppy replenished enough to get her through the night. Harry, she's not aged a day since I last saw her. She had this on her."

Tom opened his palm to show Harry the ring.

It wasn't anything special. It was a cheap, brass piece of junk that Addy had had one of the Hogwarts House Elves pick up in bulk for their tests on making portable portkeys shortly after they'd moved to Park Quad. It sounded like a great idea: make sellable portkeys. Portkeys were regulated by the Ministry, so the average person couldn't make one on a fly. Tom and Addy wanted to figure out how to preprogram Portkeys so people could buy them, keep them on their person, then use them when they needed them by uttering a simple word.

It'd never worked. Between the Ministry and getting them to work by use of a word instead of a set time, the rings never took off and were shelved.

Clearly, Addy had been experimenting without telling Tom.

"What is it?"

"A portkey. We were trying to make portable portkeys," Tom explained. "The night she died, she went to save Regulus. He returned with Kreacher as we know, who hid him away till he awoke a few years ago. We all believed Addy died. Voldemort claimed her death."

Harry nodded.

"He didn't. She used this," Tom thrust the ring forward again. "She must have…put some sort of time travel spell on this ring and forgot. She had several in her pocket, but this one was on her finger."

"So she just grabbed a handful of failed portkeys and hoped for the best?" Harry asked, sounding doubtful.

Tom gave him a look.

"Okay. So, that was normal for Addy, then? You need to understand, I don't know her. I didn't even see her. You and Professor Lupin were just holding…air that was dripping blood. It was really creepy."

Harry turned several shades of green.

"She put herself under a protective spell that made her invisible unless she told her location," Tom whispered. "Do you know where you are?"

Harry shook his head in the negative.

"I can't even tell you because I'm not the Secret Keeper. Addy is," Tom said. "Hell, I don't even know where we are. Lupin had to call out the address and shove me through."

Harry floundered for a moment before he asked, "Is she all right?"

"She will be. Poppy, I mean Madam Pomfrey said she should be awake after the feast. Will you come with me? I wish you to meet her," Tom said, a giddy feeling overwhelming him while he also felt sick beyond all known reason. His emotions were at war. He was worried, sad, filled with grief, happy, giddy, and thrilled his best friend had not perished all those years ago.

If only she'd shown up earlier.

Though, likely she'd not been able to due to the other Atlanta being alive. Now Atlanta was dead, it was safe for another one to live in the timeline once more.

"I'm a horrible person," Tom whispered.

"What?" Harry asked.

"The only reason Addy is here is because Atlanta is dead. I'm here because Atlanta is dead. Addy is here because Atlanta is dead."

"What? No. Don't think that. This ring…it could have dumped her somewhere before Atlanta was born. Addy died in 1979. Atlanta wasn't born until—"

"November 1980," Tom said. "She said in her note to me she didn't belong here and likely needed to clear the way for herself, as she was coming. The events were in place to make sure Atlanta Siria Black was born."

"What events?"

"Sirius thought Remus was a Death Eater and they broke up," Tom said. "It's not my story to share, but it's the reason there is an Atlanta Siria Black in both timelines."

Harry did not appear to know what to do with this information.

Tom took the ring from Harry and turned it over in his hands. He stood up and headed for his bedroom. In his haste to get Atlanta help, he'd left his wand behind. Tom entered his room and grabbed his wand off the night stand. He whirled around and waved the wand over the ring in his hand. He frowned as what spells were upon the ring were revealed.

"It's a locating time traveling spell," Tom announced, looking up to find Harry in the doorway. "It was one of the ones we tested out to bring Calliope Riddle to us. She put it on a ring. Why?"

"I don't know. What else is on the ring?"

"The portkey spell. I bet she forgot she'd put it on the ring before," Tom muttered, shaking his head. "She never checked her spell work."

"That your job?" Harry asked.

Tom nodded, setting the ring down on the desk. He stared at it. With another wave of his wand, he destroyed the spell work on the ring and in another vanished the ring from his sight.

"Uh, Tom?"

"Yes, Harry?"

"Uh, at the start of the…well, when Dumbledore picked me up to bring me to Grimmauld Place, he gave me this. I was supposed to give it to you, but I kept forgetting. But, I happen to put it in my pocket last night, as Dumbledore might ask after it and I still hadn't given it to you…" Harry babbled, holding out a crudely made ring with a great, big, ugly, cracked black stone in the center.

Tom reached out slowly and took it, looking it over and wondering why Dumbledore would think he'd want something gaudy and ugly.

"You're the, uh, the rightful owner, being the last living Gaunt. Well, the last sane one as the other one turned that into a horcrux, hence the cracked stone."

Tom gasped, dropping the ring on the floor.

"Regulus said it was free of any curses," Harry said, bending down and picking it up. He turned it over in his hand. "It had some nasty ones on it, I guess. Dumbledore exposed himself to one, as his hands is, well, dead. Like black and withered."

Tom looked at Harry sharply, but Harry missed it as he was studying the ring.

"It's got this unknown coat of arms," he said, tracing it with his finger. "Draco and I looked in the library but didn't find anything—"

"You wouldn't," Tom snapped, taking the ring from him. He stared at the stone closely. "It's the sign of the Deathly Hallows, a fairy tale. Remember? We spoke of it last year. There are people out there, such as Grindelwald, who believe the Deathly Hallows to be real. This was how they communicated their belief."

"Was?"

"Grindelwald used it like…like Voldemort uses the Dark Mark. It's fallen out of fashion to show your support of the Deathly Hallows with this mark."

Harry scrunched his eyebrows together. "Then, why would the Gaunts…oh, I guess it was before Grindelwald. I mean, didn't they die out before Voldemort was born?"

"No. My mother died before her father and brother. My grandfather died shortly after they released him from Azkaban for terrorizing a Ministry official and my uncle died within Azkaban for the murder of the Riddles."

Harry gasped.

"Voldemort murdered the Riddles, after he completely wiped Atlanta's mind, leaving her behind," Tom said flatly.

Harry turned green.

Tom turned the ring over in his hands. "Voldemort likely stole the ring from my uncle. He would have inherited the heirlooms after my grandfather's death."

"I thought you said they were poor. Wouldn't those, well, maybe not this ring, but wouldn't famous heirlooms fetch much needed money for food or stuff?"

Tom snorted. "They were too proud to sell off heirlooms. Well, until my mother. She was not too proud."

Tom was silent, remembering when he'd discovered how Voldemort had gotten the locket. Dumbledore had given the broken locket to Tom, the face cracked in half just like the stone after the horcrux had been vanished. Any magical properties the locket had had were gone, but it meant something to Tom to have something his mother had once owned. He made Lupin take him to Borgin & Burkes to see if he could find anything out about the locket. Borgin claimed it wasn't genuine, just a knock off and proceeded to tell Tom and Lupin all about the time he'd bought and then sold the actual Slytherin locket.

"She was in the family way, somehow, the hag. Not a…" he'd trailed off upon seeing the thunderous expression on Tom's face and went on to tell him about the idiot witch he'd sold it to. "It was stolen at some point as the family never found it after that bint died. So, who knows where the real locket is. Just a knock off. No magical properties."

Tom had not cursed the lowly scum of a shop keeper, only due to the fact Remus beat him to it.

Remus was silent and deadly.

Borgin wouldn't be sitting in as much gold in the near future as he was going to be overcome with the need to open a charity for orphans and no longer would cheat his customers.

"They are horrible people, but sometimes someone like your mother goes there. Those are the ones the curse will help the most," Remus had confided.

"You know that curse is illegal."

"Oh? Wasn't aware," Remus had airily admitted, sticking his hands in his pockets.

Tom found himself grinning and Harry staring at him blankly.

"Never mind," Tom grumbled, looking back at the ring.

"What relative would be important enough for the Gaunts to keep that ugly ring?" Harry asked.

"The Peverells," Tom quietly said, studying it intently. "Remember? The three brothers the fairy tale is based upon? The one who won the wand," he tranced the thing line along the crack, "the one who wanted the stone that defeated death," he traced the circle, "and the one who wished the hide from Death." Tom finally traced the triangle. "The Deathly Hallows."

Harry scooted closer to Tom, pressing their shoulders together. Or, well, as close as he could with their height differences.

"So, do you think this was a relic of one of the brothers?" Harry whispered as if he didn't want to believe it.

"Maybe," Tom allowed. "I'd have to research more and as a student, I'd not be able to get much of what I needed."

"Could DeVinette?"

"Maybe, but I'd not be here to read it," Tom said, turning the ring over again. "I'm not sure how I feel about Voldemort using family heirlooms as horcruxes."

"Do you know of any other family heirlooms?"

"No. Though, if he found more, he's turned them to horcruxes," Tom bitterly complained. "I did not know of them until Dumbledore gave me the locket after I was solid."

"He did?"

"Yes. He held onto the ones he had gotten rid of the horcrux, but since I was the Heir of Slytherin, he figured I ought to have the locket."

"Can I see it?" Harry whispered.

"Well, as the proper Heir of Slytheirn, I don't see why not."

Tom moved away from the warmth of Harry to the desk drawer where he stored the locket. He unlocked the drawer and pulled the locket out. It was rather large and clunky, definitely ancient. He turned and held it out for Harry, who took it slowly and looked it over.

"I bet at one point it was kind of pretty," Harry remarked, tracing the crack down the front. "Did it have any photos in it?"

"Yes. There was an unmoving photo of a man who looked remarkably like myself," Tom quietly admitted. "It somehow survived."

Harry glanced up at Tom before he fully opened the locket and looked at the old photograph in it.

"She pawned it at Borgin and Burkes, after my father left her in London," Tom explained. "Borgin didn't open it during his investigations. Nor did anyone else, as I doubt the last owner would have left a photo of Thomas Riddle the Muggle behind."

"Wow," Harry breathed. "At least you've got a photo."

Tom nodded, taking the locket back. "But, not one of her. There are actual several photos of the elders Riddles and their only son. They are all when he was quite young, likely before he met my mother."

"Sorry."

"Photos were still things only the rich took at the time, I believe."

Harry nodded. "Dumbledore also told me before he left me at Grimmauld Place, you're not a horcrux because the bit of soul actually belongs to you."

"It was not my soul."

"It's part of your soul," Harry corrected. "It's…your DNA."

"My what?"

"Genetic code? They talk about it in crime dramas all the time," Harry explained. "It wasn't part of my DNA so inside me, horcrux. It's almost the same as yours, so your soul made it apart of you."

Tom scowled. He hated to think about that.

"And you've waited so long to tell me because?"

Harry sighed.

"I got distracted by just…well, the horcrux, then the OWLs, then going to Diagon Alley, then, well, just being normal for a little bit. And you didn't seem worried about being a horcrux," Harry defended, ramming his hand through his hair. "Your soul doesn't dictate who you are. It might influence it, but does not dictate it. The…less savory qualities you share with Voldemort? You still will. Like, for instance, you're rudeness."

Tom glared without feeling.

"But, that bit of soul did live with me for fourteen years, give or take. No one's ever lived with another person's soul like that before. I likely influenced it."

Tom figured as much, since he hadn't been possessed to carry out sinister plots or had any dire need to torture someone.

"And, as you often stated in the past, you are a very different person due to the choices you've made and your life experiences. Whose to say that if Voldemort hadn't lived your life, he'd be more like you?"

"I believe there's really only room for one of me, don't you?"

Harry snorted.

"We best…we best go to bed."

"No, we best get a move on it if we're going to figure out how to get to London. We're supposed to go back to school in an hour."

Tom cursed darkly.