Disclaimer: Don't own Harry Potter. At all. Whatsoever.

A/N: Okay, deep breath, it's - chapter four! I usually don't get past chapter three in my stories, I'm ashamed to admit, and this newest chapter has come into existence mainly through all your support - so thanks!

I know the wait for this one was long, and I'm sorry - school's in again, exams coming up and everything, so I haven't had as much time to work on this, let alone reply to reviews. I assure you I appreciate every one (every fav and follow, too!) and thanks for being patient!

EDIT: This is dedicated to Shadowdude 333, who was kind enough to give me a very important line in the chapter. Sorry it slipped my mind before, and thanks!

Hope you enjoy!

Chapter 4

"'Come back!' the Caterpillar called after her. 'I've something important to say.'
This sounded promising, certainly. Alice turned and came back again.

'Keep your temper,' said the Caterpillar."

- Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland

In Wonderland °°

"I'm not your father."

The words slip from his lips without warning, like some dirty confession, and Harry's entire body stiffens at the realization of his mistake. He stares at Riddle with round eyes. The boy is looking back, but there is no shock, or rage, yet; only confusion. He blinks for a few moments, brows furrowed.

"...What?"

Harry swallows. His eyes dart to the wand at his feet. He could snatch it up and Obliviate Riddle, thereby salvaging the situation, but some invisible force keeps him still. It opens his mouth and drags out the same words,

"I'm not your father."

Riddle is still looking at him with a puzzled expression, as though he's just spoken some strange foreign language.

"...Yes you are," he says eventually, after another pregnant pause. And then: "What's wrong? Why are you looking at me like that?"

He walks closer, peering up at Harry with his mouth turned downwards. There is a dab of chocolate ice cream at the crease of his lips.

"I'm not your father, Tom," Harry whispers again, and he's not sure what's happening, why the lies are crumbling away, now, truth falling from his lips. Maybe it's the memory of Dumbledore's words; each one is a sharp stab at his brain, unravelling in it a whole slew of possibilities that leave Harry both breathless and terrified.

Could I...?

He looks down at Tom, and thinks of Merope Gaunt. That sad, miserable girl had died to birth her beloved son - and for naught. The boy before him will grow up and know nothing of love, or kindness, or true happiness. He will cause pain, and suffering. He will be hated, and feared. He will become a monstrous figure, one whose death will be rejoiced, rather than mourned...

The Dark Lord...

Just the memory of his nemesis is enough to make Harry shudder with hatred. But, looking down, he finds he feels...pity...for the boy behind the monster. He is sad for the young girl who only wanted to be loved; who, in that love, brought into the world the most terrible wizard to ever befall humanity. Merope Gaunt, after a life of misery, had not received her happy ending. And neither will her son.

Not truly, Harry thinks. For the child she loved so much is doomed to wither and die, murdered by hate and bitterness and an overwhelming desire to be better - to be more. That son, Gaunt's only legacy, is staring up at him, now. His eyes are an arresting shade of gray, and growing darker as he searches Harry's.

No one will ever love you, Harry realizes with a pang. Not Tom Riddle, the half-blood.

The knowledge heightens the pity he feels to the point of near-pain, his heart wrenching in his chest as he remembers those desolate years in the cupboard, when he had curled up on the lumpy bed and thought the same thing of himself. No one would ever love, him, Harry - the orphan, the freak...

But he had escaped the Dursleys, hadn't he? For most of the year, he got to go to Hogwarts, where adventure and most importantly friends awaited. Riddle...does he even know the meaning of the word? No; Lord Voldemort has subordinates, servants, followers - he does not have people he can joke with, or talk with long into the night, or any in which he can confide his deepest secrets. Tom Riddle had grown up a genius, but could not comprehend the most precious of all human concepts: love. He would never feel the warmth of a lover, or the easiness of camaraderie...

The Dark Lord, in his desire to live forever, would never really live at all.

But it doesn't have to be that way.

Harry trembles at the thought. Suddenly a whole world of possibilities is being played out in his mind; raising Riddle, caring for him, shaping him...

It presents a slew of benefits that simply killing the boy doesn't - but the weight of such a task...

I can't do it, Harry thinks. I can't.

Because he knows himself. He knows that he isn't strong enough to forget what Tom Riddle has done. Will do. He had allowed himself to forget this evening so that interacting with the boy would be easier - but to live with him? To raise the ruby-eyed beast who has so thoroughly destroyed his life?

Not yet, someone says faintly, in the back of his mind. It sounds like Dumbledore.

"...Of course you are," Tom is saying, breaking the course of his thoughts. His eyes move rapidly over Harry's face. In a very small voice, he says, "Why would you lie about something like that?"

Tom takes his hand, but the other can see the uncertainty written in the soft lines of his face. Warmth pulses between their joined palms as Harry tells him, in a voice reserved for one delivering particularly terrible news,

"...My name is Harry Potter. I'm eighteen years old. I'm not your father, Tom."

Silence descends. Tom is looking into Harry's eyes, and he must see the truth, there, for realization crashes over the boy's countenance like some monstrous wave. His eyes widen and his face drains of color. A ragged breath escapes his lips.

"So then...you...all of this..."

Riddles's voice is very soft, and it wavers noticeably. Harry looks down at him, wordless, and feels like the shittiest person in the world. The boy is standing there, still clutching his hand, looking as Harry imagines he himself, did when he witnessed Ron fall lifelessly to the mad laughter of Bellatrix Lestrange. Stunned, frozen, face twisted with disbelief and a terrible pain...

"You lied to me," Riddle whispers, and Harry watches, transfixed, as something crumbles in the ten-year-old's face. A wall he hadn't realized was there has fallen down, and the older male nearly recoils as the ugliness he's caught brief snatches of before is exposed in all its horror.

All the myriad emotions are swept away from Riddle's expression as easily as dust; his eyes become twin bits of steel, cold and hard and darkening with a terrible fury. His little jaw clenches, and his fingers are digging into Harry's hand with frightening strength.

"You lied," Riddle says again, his voice hoarse. And that pain, that pain is still there, but it is drowned by that awful - empty - darkness. Harry's breath catches at the sight of it, as sharp nails draw blood from his skin, sliding warm and red down his colorless flesh in contrast to the rapidly dropping temperature.

"Tom," he tries, as an unnatural wind tears through the area, assaulting Harry's form with a ferocity that almost knocks him off his feet. His mouth falls open, but he can say nothing in the face of that horribly familiar rage. It does not blaze; it chills, traveling from Riddle's hand to his captive palm and freezing the blood in his veins. The bond forces him to feel firsthand the extent of Tom's anger, tinged with an overwhelming sense of betrayal and something bordering on despair. Harry's throat closes with a terror he knows too well, for he is reminded vividly who it is he's dealing with. Forcibly shoving it back, he is surprised to find guilt tightening his chest, too. He should've Obliviated Tom - why had he thought it a good idea to tell him the truth?

No one is born evil.

"Tom," Harry says again, struggling to be heard over the roaring wind that whips at his face and clothes. "Tom, listen -"

"Liar!" Tom screams at him, as the grass dies beneath their feet and the water erupts in the fountain behind him, coins flying everywhere. Harry's mouth falls open. His heart is pounding thunderously in his chest, his hands sweating profusely - but his mind clears.

My wand, he thinks, his eyes darting down to where it lays just by his foot. Every instinct he's acquired over the past year or so is screaming at him to bend and snatch it up and end this, every muscle in his body tensed for fight or flight. Adrenaline erupts in his bloodstream at the familiar brush of malevolent magic, and for a moment Harry is back on the grounds of Hogwarts, staring into red eyes with blood roaring in his ears and the belief that this is it - one of them is going to die -

But he stops himself from reaching for it, choosing instead to hold Tom Riddle's icy gaze.

Tom Riddle, he reminds himself. Not Voldemort.

Because there has to be a difference. As magic licks at his skin with the intent to hurt, Harry forces himself to look into the gray hues, at the void that lives in them. There was something else there...

"Liar," Tom whispers again, his magic lashing Harry's flesh, seeking an opening, a way to cause him damage. It hurts, badly, but Harry ignores the burning sensation in favor of grasping at the bond. And now he feels it, there, the difference -

Pain festers through the connection like a raw wound, along with betrayal and humiliation and rage. The depth of it is terrible, and while Harry feels guilty he is also relieved, because the Dark Lord knows nothing of the pain Riddle is feeling, that deep-rooted suffering of the heart - he had cast it forever away from himself with the tearing of his soul.

"I lied," Harry agrees. He looks into the boy's face and comes to a decision. "I'm not your father, Tom."

Kneeling, he rips his hand away and pulls the boy into a crushing hug, thinking of all those he's lost, all those he can save, now. Closing his eyes, Harry remembers twinkling blue eyes and fire-kissed hair and whispers,

"But I can be."

Riddle stills. Magic is still crackling violently in the air, but it seems to have lost some of its bite with the boy's shock.

"L...Let go of me," Tom croaks, hands coming up to push Harry away. Harry, guided by some strange instinct, does not. Instead, he holds him tighter, resting his face in the crook of a thin shoulder and burying his fingers in soft black waves.

"Shh," he soothes, though the boy has gone utterly silent. "It's alright, Tom."

"Let go," Tom growls, though his voice wavers. He's squirming, wriggling, trying his best to escape Harry's grip, but the teen's arms have become steel. Making a frustrated sound, the boy's struggles grow wilder and wilder, until he is clawing and scratching at Harry's arms and shoulders, pulling at his hair, punching his back.

"Let go! Let go!"

"Tom..."

"Filthy liar - release me - I'll kill you - !"

Harry grits his teeth as Tom's magic renews its assault, trying to make good on his threat. It seeps through his robes, scorching the skin of his back, and attacks with such ferocity that it takes all he has not to cry out; instead Harry hugs the boy tighter. He's never been terribly eloquent with words, and so this is the only way he can communicate to Tom that he understands - that he was once ten, and miserable, and lonely. He was once just as angry at the world.

But Harry Potter was rescued; Tom Riddle was not. Or perhaps he didn't allow himself to be...

I'll do it, Harry thinks, as his flesh burns. I'll save you.

"I'm here," he says aloud, tightening his arms around the boy. The pain is quickly crossing into agony. In his arms, Tom freezes, his breath hitching.

"I'm here, Tom," Harry repeats,

"Stop," Tom says hoarsely.

"I lied to you," the wizard continues, as though the younger male hasn't spoken. "I'm not Tom Riddle Sr. And I'm so very sorry. For hurting you. You've been hurt a lot, haven't you, Tom?"

"S-stop. You don't know anything about me!"

"Oh," Harry sighs. "I know lots of things. I know you wanted to be rescued from that awful place you grew up in. I know you wanted to be special. I know that, more than anything, you want to be loved."

"Shut-up!" Riddle says shrilly, and Harry knows he's struck a chord. The knowledge softens him, though his arms tighten to almost crushing levels. Quietly, he resumes,

"You've never had that, have you, Tom? You've always been alone."

"I said-!"

"It's terrible, isn't it? The others...they sense you're different. Special. So they fear you, and after a while that fear turns into hate."

"Stop it."

"So they shun you, pretend like you aren't there - like you're some terrible beast that will go away, if only they ignore you long enough."

Harry's mouth is moving, but his mind is flooded now with memories of the Dursleys.

"And it hurts," he says softly. "It hurts so much. But you pretend it doesn't, because it's easier that way. And soon you hate them as much as they hate you..."

"Shut-up," Tom whispers, and then louder, "Shut-up! You don't know anything about me! You don't know anything!"

"On the contrary, Tom," Harry says sadly. "I understand you better than anyone else ever could. And that's why...that's why I'm going to stay with you. You won't be alone, anymore."

"Liar!" Tom gasps, and it is as though he has lost all control of himself; the cool, quiet boy of before is gone, replaced with a little beast who thrashes in Harry's hold like one gone mad, nails tearing his robes and gouging lines into his back, hollering curses and obscenities and over it all "liar, liar, liar."

Harry takes the abuse, his eyes squeezed shut. He's not sure what to do.

"You won't be alone, anymore," he says again, finally. "I swear that on all the people I love. I can't be your father, but I-I can be your brother, and I promise, if you'll come with me, we'll do everything together. I'll - I'll take you to see a movie, and - and we'll practice spells, and I'll teach you how to fly on a broom. I'll buy you anything you want, and when you f-finally go to - ouch - Hogwarts, I'll come visit you and we'll go down to Hogsmeade together, and you can try all of Bertie Botts' Every Flavor Beans. I'll read to you, each night before you go to bed, and we'll go see Quidditch games, and maybe fishing - I've always wanted to go fishing-"

He's rambling, now, but Tom is not struggling quite so fiercely, and, encouraged, Harry continues,

"We can do all of those things, Tom. And more. You'll never have to see Wool Orphanage - or the people in it - again."

The ten-year-old is trembling violently now, having fallen utterly silent. Harry senses that Riddle is at the edge of a precipice. Just one more nudge...

"Come with me," he says quietly. "Be...my little brother...and I promise I'll never leave you. I'll show you what happiness is. Wouldn't you like to be happy, Tom?"

The boy says nothing. He seems to have stopped breathing. But Harry feels, through the bond, a curious thing. Carding his fingers through the other's hair, he resists the urge to sigh.

"It's alright," he soothes, in the silence. "It's alright to be sad. You're hurting, right now, because I lied to you, and you don't understand why you're hurting. So you're trying to hurt me. But that's okay, because I'm not going anywhere-"

"Don't-"

"I'm here, Tom. You don't have to hide from me. You're in pain, and its okay to let that out. I won't leave you-"

"I don't care if you do!" Tom growls, though his voice wavers. He has stopped attacking Harry, And is shaking violently. "I don't even know you. You're an imposter, a fake-!"

"I won't leave you," Harry says again, patient. The chirping of the crickets has quieted with the first rays of the morning, and he opens his eyes to see the sky lightening, streaked with bursts of purple and flame. It's beautiful, enchanting, and as he buries his fingers in thick waves of ebony, he wonders at himself, at his initial intent to deprive both himself and another human being of such a sight.

"You're mad!" Tom cries, again pinterrupting his thoughts. His tone is high and bordering on hysteria. "Release me, or - or I'll-!"

"I won't leave you, Tom," Harry sighs, and the chains wrapped around his core tighten and grow heavy.

"Liar," the boy whispers, his voice oddly thick. "Go - go away. I don't want you, I want..."

A pause. Tom's next words are nearly inaudible, but just as shocking as though he has shouted them:

"I want him..."

"I'm sorry," Harry says softly, and he really is. Tom does not respond; the confession seems to have weakened him, for he sags in the wizard's forced embrace. The bony arms so intent on escaping him seconds before are wrapping around him now, nails biting into his ravaged back as though holding on for dear life. Harry falls silent, his eyes still fixed on the stretching sky. The little body he holds is wracked with silent sobs.

They sit there, in the middle of the park, for what seems an eternity. Harry is on his knees now, Tom halfway in his lap. The boy cries and cries and cries, and the shoulder of his robe is soaked clean through, but Harry can't bring himself to care; he is still struck frozen by the surrealism of the situation - and he knows, from his own many, many crying sessions over the years, that the most comforting response he can possibly give right now is silence. Tom doesn't seem to appreciate empty apologies assurances, even less so than Harry, himself.

He suspects the boy is crying about more than just his father.

Finally, though, Tom stills. His fingers are curled in the ruined fabric of Harry's robes, clinging, and at the soft, almost inaudible sound of sniffling, the wizard is reminded once again that, future Dark Lord or not, he is currently dealing with a child - a child that he's already hurt.

I must be careful.

"...Tom," Harry says quietly. The boy tenses, and to calm him down again Harry starts to rub his back in soothing circles, as he does (did) to Ginny when she was feeling particularly distressed. It works. As Tom relaxes, his magic calming, Harry licks his lips and says, with a carefully even tone,

"Tom, it's...it's nearly daylight...Do you want me to take you back to the orphanage?"

There is a long moment of silence in which Riddle says nothing, and Harry waits for his response, hardly daring to breathe. He intends to take the ten-year-old regardless of his answer, but he would very much prefer that Tom say 'no.' Obliviate is a spell he's never felt comfortable using, and he doubts his efficiency in casting it - leaving force as the only other option, should Riddle choose to do things the hard way.

"No," Tom whispers, nails digging into Harry's ravaged back, again.

Harry is so relieved (and surprised) at the answer that he hardly feels the pain. There is a bit of disappointment within him, as well - mainly in that part of him that remains frightened at the task he has taken upon himself. Slowly, he says,

"...Would you like to come with me?"

Another pause. "No."

Harry is about to release a sigh, when Tom adds quietly, "But I suppose I must."

"...Okay," Harry responds, after a moment. Reaching for his wand, he waits for Riddle to unwind his arms, but the boy remains unmoving.

"...Tom?"

Tom says nothing. He has yet to look up, his face buried in the crook of Harry's neck, which is wet with tears and what he suspects but dearly hopes is not snot.

He's hiding, the teen realizes, and finds he is not all that surprised. Riddle, from what Harry's seen of him, does not like to display his emotions for just anybody to see. Harry reaches through the bond and discovers the humiliation he expected, along with a sharp edge of resentment directed at him. Again resisting the urge to sigh, Harry tells him,

"I'm going to take you to my room at the Leaky Cauldron, then. We'll stay there for the day, and come nightfall..."

Silence is the boy's answer, and Harry rolls his eyes heavenward.

This is going to be very, very difficult.

Some might call the task absurd. But he is Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived, and he is famous for his defiance of the impossible. Saving Tom Riddle is just another of those things.

I'm going to be good to you, Harry thinks, standing. Tom is still clinging to him, adamantly refusing to lift his head, and he wonders suddenly what the kid looks like - the unflappable Lord Voldemort at the tender age of ten, his round face streaked with tears...

It's impossible for Harry to imagine, and in his mind the horrifying image of the Dark Lord and his diary counterpart move a little further away from his perception of the Tom. It makes it easier to sweep his arm under Tom's legs, one hand still resting on the boy's back.

I'll do everything I said and more, Harry promises the other silently. He's not sure if he can ever harbor any sort of affection for the boy (the wounds his friends have left behind are far too deep for that), but damn if he can't fake it. A world hangs in the balance.

And Harry's always been good at lying when it counts.

Closing his eyes, he Disapparates. There is a harsh tug in his gut, and the sweet scent of clean morning air is replaced with the potent smell of polished wood and alcohol. The quiet of before has vanished, and is already a fading memory as the low buzz of many voices fills Harry's ears.

The Leaky Cauldron is more subdued than usual, but it is five in the morning, and Harry opens his eyes, taking in the familiar surroundings with a relish that has yet to dim. He was pleasantly surprised to find it still here, its keeper (named Tom, ironically) significantly younger, and the atmosphere is just as he remembers it; if he shuts his eyes again, Harry can almost pretend he is back in the year 1996, in his sixth year at Hogwarts, before Dumbledore died and Voldemort took over and everything crashed and burned and went to shit.

Tom escapes his hold, wiping hastily at his face, though Harry pretends not to see. Cautiously taking the younger male's arm, he ignores the stares shot their way and leads Tom to the room he rented a few hours ago, nodding politely to the bartender as he heads towards the stairs. The boy does not resist, his limb weak and boneless in Harry's grasp, and the silence is thick between them as Harry guides his new charge towards the end of the long hallway, unlocking his temporary housing with a murmured spell. Tom makes no move to enter the room, and so Harry must pull him in. Quickly releasing Riddle's arm, he shuts the door of the room, closing out the noise from downstairs.

"Would you like something to eat? Or drink?" Harry asks. Anything to break the silence. But Tom does not even look at him. He is staring firmly at the floor, unmoving in his place by the entrance.

"Where is the washroom?" he asks quietly.

Suppressing a frown, Harry gestures at the door on the other side of the room

"It's over there. Are you going to wash up? Here - I'll get some pajamas for you..."

Waving his wand, he transfigures a pen and a notepad on the nightstand into a T-shirt and checkered pajama pants. Harry hands them to Tom, who stares at the clothes with a glimmer of interest, and no small amount of confusion.

Oh, that's right, Harry remembers, as Tom shuffles to the bathroom without comment. He wouldn't wear something like that to bed, not in 1939...

Sighing softly, Harry moves to rub his eye, only to hiss as the pain in his back makes itself known again. Looking around for a moment, he transfigures the small table near the back of the room into a large mirror, and begins to strip off his robes.

I should really repair those, he thinks, turning so that his reflection's rear is in clear view. Harry takes in the damage, both horrified and impressed. There are deep gauges in his back, the flesh torn from Tom's wild attempts to escape, and dried flakes of brown trail down the skin like tears. While that's annoying, it's the burns that really unsettle him. Criss-crossing his back, they glare at him, red and angry. He looks like he's been lashed with a flaming whip.

Harry remembers the sensation of his flesh on fire under the assault of Tom's magic and swallows. As he raises his wand, wincing, he wonders if the burns were intentional. If Tom knew what he was doing. Harry recalls how he'd thrashed, and raged, and screamed, and decides that he didn't. He hopes he didn't. The alternative would certainly complicate things.

Suppressing a hiss, Harry touches the tip of his wand to the gouge marks and murmurs a spell. He's had plenty of experience with healing wounds - had much worse than this - and they close easily enough. But when he does the same to one of the burns, nothing happens. It continues to mar his skin, stark and mocking.

Ignoring the thread of fear that winds around his heart, Harry repeats the spell, loudly and clearly. The wound remains unchanged. So he tries another healing incantation, and another, and another, and when the burn resists even the strongest spell he knows, Harry drops his wand, staring wide-eyed and white-faced at his back.

It's not permanent, he tells himself. I'm no healer. If Hermione was here...

She had become the medic in their group, and her repertoire of spells had extended to a truly amazing length. Harry's seen her heal third degree burns in minutes, undo curses from the likes of Bellatrix Lestrange and some from the Dark Lord himself. Hermione could vanish these wounds without a problem...

But she's dead, Harry reminds himself, and the wave of loss that crashes over him at the thought is staggering. He'd thought the deaths of his best friends would be easier to handle, a little less painful - but the sorrow wells within him just as strongly as before, and it is the only the knowledge of the boy the bathroom that stops Harry from giving into his grief for second time.

His mind strays to brilliant red locks, and Harry halts it right there. Reminders of her is something he really can't handle, right now. There'll be time later, to mourn. Until then, he won't even think her name.

Releasing a shuddering breath, the teen focuses again on the burns. Since spells won't work, or at least any he knows, he'll have to go about things the Muggle way. Surely they have burn ointment in this time? The pain isn't terrible, but it's rather annoying, and after the day he's had, sleep sounds like a refuge that the sting of the burns intends to refuse him.

I wonder if there are any shops open...

Tom is staring blankly at himself in the mirror above the tiny sink when he hears a knock on the door.

"Tom?" the liar calls softly through the wood. "Are you okay in there?"

He says nothing, fully intent on ignoring the imposter until the end of time. His chest...hurts. Like it did when that blasted woman, with her Coca-Cola and ridiculous accent, came bustling, bright and idiotic, into the drab gray of the orphanage.

She left as quickly, too.

Fists clenching, he takes a deep, steadying breath. It won't do to lose his composure. Not again. He is angry enough with himself as it is. Oh, he hates the imposter for lying to him, for making him believe...

But I should've realized sooner, he thinks, scowling. No one has ever fooled him before. And even worse, the liar had seen - seen the ugly thing in all its glory as it ripped and seared his flesh, seen his mask crumble to pieces, felt him tremble - heard his tears.

That, in particular, is unforgivable.

But why? The boy wonders, flinging aside the 'pajamas' the imposter gave him. Why had he cried? He has not done so in a very long time, and certainly never sobbed - yet he had clung to that liar and wept like an infant. The man hadn't even hurt him...

No, Tom thinks. No he did. He had speared Tom's chest with his lies - with his sad smile and his careful hands and his soft, old green eyes. He had stabbed that faint, fragile thing blooming in his chest, trampled it into the dirt, as that woman had.

Well, I've learned, he thinks, bitterly. I've learned. Trust no one but yourself. Love only yourself. That way, no one can hurt you...

I'm going out," the liar says, seemingly unperturbed by the answering silence. "I'll be back in a bit, I promise. Don't leave the room, okay?"

Then there is the sound of receding footsteps, and the quiet click of the door opening and closing. Tom clutches the edge of the sink, silent. He was a fool. A desperate, hopeful fool, and that desperation has caused this pain in his chest. But it hurts even more, this time, because he'd actually...he'd actually thought...

Father.

His chin quivers, and Tom is disgusted with himself. Weak, he thinks, staring hard into the mirror. He sees a pale boy with aristocratic features and steely eyes. Wet eyes, swollen and red. Dried tear tracks are clear on his cheeks, and with a snarl he turns on the faucet and scrubs the skin until the evidence is gone - until his cheeks are red and raw - until they bleed with the force of his nails, red rivulets running down his face like the tears he's trying desperately to stop.

They come anyway, mingling with the blood and falling into the sink. Clouding the cold, clear water.

He had believed...he had believed...

Tom hunches over the sink, his breathing labored and loud in his ears. The bathroom feels - small, suffocating. But he can't find the strength to leave it. Watching as his blood mingles with the water, he imagines what the liar thought of him, so stupid and eager and trusting - "Father, Father" -

Humiliation squeezes his eyes shut, tightens his mouth. The cords of his bony arms are made visible by the accompanying rage. It swells within him, burning his insides like hellfire. He wants suddenly to rip and tear and kill - to destroy the worm that would dare make him feel such an emotion. The beast within him - the ugly thing - is calling for blood, and as the mirror cracks, distorting his reflection, Tom imagines snapping the liar's neck as he did Billy Stubbs's rabbit, imagines the green eyes round and glassy.

But no. No, that wouldn't be enough. Too quick. Tom wants the imposter to feel the same pain he feels, now - the same hopelessness and betrayal and suffering.

Wiping the bloody tears from his cheeks, he breathes.

Composure is key.

Forcing the scowl from his face, Tom leaves the bathroom and goes to the entrance to the room, noting disinterestedly the appearance of large mirror he's sure wasn't there, before. When he turns the knob, utterly disregarding the liar's words, he finds it won't budge. It stings his hand instead, and the boy stumbles back, his face twisting.

"I'll kill him," he whispers aloud, staring at the door. I'll kill him. As soon as he walks in the room.

And for a long time, Tom stands there, waiting.

When Harry opens the door to his home for the night, a jar of ointment in his free hand, it is to find himself under attack. Tom is standing little more than a meter away, gaze locked on his face, and it is only Harry's recognition of the look in the boy's eyes that saves him.

"Protego!" he yells, his soldier's instincts shielding him as Tom's magic lunges for his throat, crackling in the air like electricity as it fights to get past the magical barrier he's erected around himself. Harry drops the jar, and Tom is snarling, hissing, but despite his frightening control of his abilities, he's no match for the soldier the Boy Who Lived has become (not yet), and Harry easily flings him back.

"You little-!"

Tom is sent reeling with the force of the spell, knocking over a small table in his fall. He glares nastily at Harry, trying to regain his feet, but the older male doesn't give him the chance.

"Petrificus Totalus!"

He watches with vindictive satisfaction as Tom's arms and legs snap together, and the boy cries out before his jaw snaps shut, too. Only his eyes remain free, cartoonishly wide and moving rapidly about as Harry stalks toward him.

"You ungrateful little prat!" he seethes, green eyes burning. "You just - you really just tried to kill me - a full-grown wizard! And after all I've...I thought you were supposed to be smart."

Tom can say nothing, but the hatred in his gaze speaks well enough for him.

Harry looks back, and blanches at the boy's ravaged face - at the deep, angry gouges in his cheeks. Blood is dried brown to the wounds. The anger bleeds out of Harry at the sight, the color draining from his own face as he kneels to better examine the damage.

"Did you...?" he swallows thickly, his mouth parting as he looks at Tom with horror. "Did you do that to yourself?"

Of course Tom can't answer, but the look in his eyes is confirmation enough. Harry stares at him, deeply unsettled, and wonders if he shouldn't take the boy to see a mind healer before beginning their new life. It's clear that Lord Voldemort had problems even as a young child.

Already they're off to a terrible start, and he again considers Obliviating the boy as he raises his wand and heals the wounds.

But I could damage his mind further if I botch the spell, he muses, frowning.

"Perhaps I should return you to the orphanage," he says aloud, once Tom's face is restored to pale perfection. "Since you clearly don't like me..."

The boy's eyes go comically wide at his words.

Don't, they tell him, a silent plea that Tom's lips will never utter. Please, don't.

Harry tilts his head, studying his future nemesis. He won't actually do it, but Tom's reaction is interesting. Clearly, he didn't consider the ramifications of Harry's death.

So, you're just like your future self in that regard, he thinks. Ruled by your anger. Your hate.

"I won't do that, Tom," he says softly, reaching out on impulse to thread his fingers through the boy's dark hair. The other squeezes his eyes shut at the touch. Hiding, Harry realizes. "I made you a promise, to stay with you...And however much you hate me, I...I intend to keep it."

It's all I have left.

Reaching out through the bond, Harry feels fear and hate and confusion from Tom, mingled with humiliation and that terrible fury. Pulling his hand away, he sighs.

"You're not going to hurt yourself - or me - again," he tells the child. "If you do, there will be dire consequences. I'm a wizard, Tom. Cross me, and you'll see more of what I can do. This body-binding spell? Child's play."

Hoping he's scared the boy enough, Harry stands and creates a bed for him, on the wall opposite the one he means to sleep in.

"As punishment for your behavior," he continues, levitating Tom towards his creation. "You will spend the night like this. I'll lift the spell in the morning. Hopefully you'll have learned your lesson, by then..."

He sets Tom down, noting with displeasure that the boy didn't bother to change into the pajamas he provided. Feeling more than a little spiteful, Harry magicks them onto him anyway, ignoring the fury that radiates from Tom's corpse-still form as he turns and retrieves the ointment.

Stripping out of his newly-repaired robes (after making sure he's out of Tom's line of sight), Harry begins to apply the ointment, which takes him nearly an hour, as he has to pause every minute or so before the sting of the burns becomes too much.

Little prat, he thinks grumpily, when he's done. Donning a newly-created set of his own pajamas, he casts a numbing spell at his back and heads, at last, for the warmth of his bed and the promise of sleep, hardly sparing Tom a glance.

He'll get over it, Harry tells himself, unaware of the gears turning rapidly in the boy's mind. I'll start looking for a house tomorrow...

Sliding into the sheets, Harry is careful to lay on his stomach. The pillows are very soft, the bed warm. He finds it...strange - wrong - to be falling asleep, safe and comfortable, when just hours ago he was running for his life, sure that everything was over. When fear and guilt and the weight of his name have kept him awake most nights for the past year.

Feels unreal.

His thoughts turn to the strange time-turner, tucked deep in his robe pocket, and a moment later it appears in his hand. Turning it this way and that, Harry is disturbed at his lack of surprise. He is even more unsettled at the fact that it doesn't really look like a time-turner, now that he examines it closely. It has the two outer rings, but they lack the little protruding parts with which one turns back time, and the disc is there at the center - but there is a circle where the hourglass should be. It looks like...

Tucking the device under his pillow, he frowns at nothing. Surely the thing is a time-turner.

What else could it be?

That line of thought frightens him, though, and Harry closes his eyes, resolving to save that mystery for another day. It is only now that he realizes how exhausted he is - how guilty. His friends will never enjoy the luxury of a simple bed, again, and -

The tears are hot and fast as they travel down his cheeks, startling him, and Harry quickly erects a silencing charm around his bed. His body trembles, and he buries his face in his pillow as their faces are shoved to the forefront of his mind, where he can no longer ignore them. The dead and the lost, strangers and loved ones.

He remembers Hermione's smile and Ron's laugh and Ginny's warmth, the warmth he so desperately craves, now, here beside him. He remembers every bad thing he ever said to her, every fight he ever had with Ron, all the times he disregarded Hermione's words. Harry sighs and weeps and misses them.

He misses his fellow Gryffindors, and gentle Hagrid, and stern but well-meaning Professor Mcgonagall. He misses twinkling blue eyes, and soft guidance, and flying on his broom. He misses Hogwarts, his first real home, the last beacon of his childhood, and as he lays there, weeping quietly, Harry knows he'd give anything to go back to the days when he walked its halls, his biggest worry being the clearing of his name as whispers floated to him from the walls.

He even misses Snape.

But all that is beyond him now, as ruined as his innocence, and the realization makes Harry cry harder.

For a life forever lost. For a future that could have been.

Will be, if I have anything say about it...

With this thought in mind, Harry falls into sleep - and dreams.

He is walking through a strange, foggy place with many doors.

The fog carresses his skin like faint fingers, leaving Harry uncomfortable and almost dazed. It is everywhere, blurring everything into strange, distorted shapes; except the doors. They are the only distinguishable sight in this realm of nothingness, each door identical to the one before it, all of them arranged in neat little rows that stretch as far as the eye can see.

Harry looks at them and knows that he is not supposed to be here. The knowledge comes from deep within his bones, roils in the core from which his magic comes. He is not supposed to be here, no one is, and as he looks around, anxious to leave but unwilling to try one of the doors, he spots another figure. It's dressed in dark flowing robes, with a hood drawn over its head, reminding Harry uncomfortably of Voldemort. It's standing in front of one of the doors, and this one differs from the others in that it is scorched and blackened.

The sight of the door ruined like that disturbs Harry deeply, though he's not sure why. It is only his anxious desire to leave this place that makes him step towards the figure.

"Um, excuse me," he calls, feeling foolish.

The figure's head snaps up. It looks at him, and although Harry can't see its face, the weight of its gaze is crushing. His breath catching, he steps back, just as the figure steps toward him.

"You," it murmurs, advancing slowly. "How did you get here?"

It's voice, though barely above a whisper, is strikingly familiar, and Harry stutters, "I - well, I, um...I don't rightly know. Isn't this...isn't this a dream?"

"...A dream?" the figure echoes, with a soft, strange sound. "I've asked myself that, many times. But dreams... don't last eternities, Harry Potter. So, no. I think not."

"...How...how do you know my name?" Harry asks, struggling to hide the effect the figure's answer has on him. It radiates power - age - and he feels in its presence the way he imagines an ant must feel when a human looms above it, blocking out the world.

"I know many things," the figure says quietly, watching his retreat. "...I know everything about you, Boy Who Lived. Now tell me - how did you come by this place?"

"Does it matter?" he asks, clenching his fists. There is something in one of them.

"It is of the utmost importance," the figure tells him. And then it falls silent as Harry opens his right hand. The time-turner is glowing brightly in the center of his palm. As he stares at it, dumbfounded, the figure goes very still.

"You have it," it breathes. "You have it."

Sensing a shift in the atmosphere, Harry closes his hand, pressing his fist protectively against his chest.

"Give it to me," the figure demands, and the urgency in its tone is frightening. "Now."

Harry shakes his head. "I...No."

"Fool," the figure whispers, advancing again. "You don't understand..."

And Harry is frozen at its approach, at the otherworldly aura that permeates in warm waves from its shadowed form. He finds he can do nothing as it reaches for his fist, and the time-turner clenched within it. But the figure's gloved hand is repelled by some invisible force that brushes Harry's flesh, and it sighs heavily, stepping back.

"Of course," it murmurs, seemingly to itself. "Of course. It could never be that easy..."

"What - what are you talking about?" Harry demands. He still cannot see the figure's face, though it stands less than a yard from him, and something like repulsion wells in his gut at its proximity.

Not human, he realizes, and, as though hearing his thoughts, it tells him, "No, Harry Potter, I am not. Not anymore. There are so many things you don't understand, yet - but I can't explain them, now. Doing so would take many years, and we don't have much time."

The figure looks around, gaze focusing on something deep within the fog that Harry himself cannot see.

"He's coming," it says, so softly that the teen almost doesn't catch it. Yet the words send a chill down his spine, and a deep sense of foreboding fills his body.

"Who?" Harry asks, in a hushed tone. The time-turner burns hot in his palm.

"Tell me," the figure's head snaps back to him, ignoring his question. "Where are you?"

"I-"

"It is of the utmost importance, Harry," the figure whispers, as a second form emerges, stark black, in the fog to his left. It is advancing towards them, dark and terrible, and every instinct in Harry's body screams at him to flee. But the figure is clutching his arms, hands like cold steel, and at its touch something shifts within him - suddenly he is looking into his own frightened face, his green eyes round with confusion and terror. He speaks, and watches with a sense of surrealism as his lips move to form his thoughts.

"What are you t-"

"Tell me where you are!" the figure hisses, while the black form stalks towards them. Its approach is preceded by a frigid cold that stabs his skin like knives, licks his insides like a cold tongue. Harry senses that this newcomer is as ancient and unfathomable as the one before him - he feels like an insect, caught between the stretching shadows of two gods.

"Harry," the dark form murmurs, its words clear though it is still a fair distance away, and cold fingers crawl down Harry's back. "At last..."

The voice burrows deep into his mind, warm honey and rusted nails - as foreign as it is familiar. He shrinks back, wanting nothing more than to turn and sprint until his legs give out. The time-turner scorches his skin now, it's burning so brightly, and the steel hands fall away.

"I must go, now," the figure whispers, as the foggy realm melts into nothing under the light of the blazing device. "But we will meet again, Harry Potter. Rest assured..."

The light blinds him, and the ground vanishes from beneath his feet, sending Harry plummeting into the darkness of true sleep. Before he is pulled under, he hears the figure's voice. It is soft, certain, and most certainly not assuring:

"I will find you."

A/N: Dun dun dun!

What's that? The beginnings of...a plot?! Yeah, I devised a storyline, and I'm kind of excited about it. Hope you guys are, too!

Thanks for reading, and constructive criticism is always welcome!