Author's Note: Thanks for all the favourites and follows, guys. This is part 2 out of 3. Enjoy!

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Harry

Enter stage left: Master of Death

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The next visitor Tom had wasn't anyone he expected. To be honest, it wasn't as if he was expecting to have any visitor in this corner of limbo he was stuck in, but it didn't seem to faze the other wizard the least.

"Hello, Tom," he gave a friendly wave, his dark hair sticking up in odd angles even now. He was an adult now, compared to the last time Tom saw him (before he killed you; in fact, he's around his father's age when you went off and killed James Potter, another inner voice supplied, but he ignored it well. He was getting good at this ignoring act). The weight of Harry Potter's gaze felt older than that, though, especially in the strange way it managed to blend amusement and understanding in one. There was no pity there, at least. This was a good thing because he hated pity. It was the primary reason why he could bring himself to greet the Boy-who-lived.

"Potter." He nodded.

Harry Potter rolled his eyes. "Just Harry would be fine. You've earned the right to use that, considering the amount of brushes with death we experienced alongside each other."

He was far too relaxed for Tom's liking, even as he dropped himself on the other side of the bench.

"To be fair, it would be more accurate to say that our experiences were in facing death against each other than alongside. There were all those mutual attempted murders we had." Tom corrected dryly. To his surprise, Harry laughed, completely unoffended. Tension that Tom didn't even realise he had eased out from him.

"Yes, that would be more accurate, wouldn't it?" Harry said in good humour. "But what does it matter? It's just like what that economist Hermione liked to quote said: 'In the long run, we are all dead'."

Tom raised an eyebrow. "Are you?"

"What, dead? Of course. A hundred-and-twenty something of a life is enough for anyone. I've seen all my grandchildren grow up and some more. Seen some great-grandkids too, on that count. It was a good life," Harry said, a satisfied smile on his lips. For once Tom could see the faintest lines of age on his face, the corners of wisdom in his twinkling green eyes as he turned towards him. "I just thought that I might as well visit an old friend before going forth to my next adventure."

It was strange to hear that. A friend, really? They were anything but friends when they were alive, and Potter's childhood would definitely be better off without his own interference in it. Yet it seems that Potter didn't remember all those trials, for some reason, and Tom had already had enough on his mind right now to want to remind him of it.

"So why are you here?" Tom finally asked. Harry shrugged.

"To see you."

He scoffed. "Really."

"Of course. To talk," Potter said, with such a guileless and trusting expression in his eyes that Tom didn't know what to say. Was it possible to be friends with people you duelled to the death with? The person whose parents you killed? The killer and the killed? He had to admit that the boy-who-lived was a worthy rival, if only by virtue of always being able to unsettle him.

"There were things that I never quite understood though. It didn't make sense with what I know of Tom Riddle that was the best Hogwarts student of his year." Harry said.

That piqued his curiosity. "And what was that?"

"Horcruxes, Tom. Why do you think that making horcruxes are a good idea?"

He didn't ask that with an accusing tone, or a damning one; it was honest-to-goodness curiosity. It was as if they were exchanging theories in transfiguration class—and Tom had only belatedly realised why that was. He was wearing a Hogwarts uniform this time, and so was Harry, complete with the ties denoting their respective houses; a Gryffindor and a Slytherin passing time chatting on a bench, both too similar to each other for their own comfort. They both looked young. Too young to drink and not too young to kill and get killed, a voice inside his head pointed out, but he avoided those painful thoughts of his former life. There was no death here, the same way there was no life. This is an in-between place. Tom had to admit that he was beginning to be sick of his own voice and was happy for any sort of variety in conversation—the times when the great picture in front of him would show of the path he had not taken rather than his actual life were getting few and far between.

He'd take Potter's company even if he had to talk about horcruxes. He fiddled with his wand.

"The first reason is the easiest to get. What did I gain from horcruxes? Immortality, of course. It is the ability of not being dead immediately when someone kills you, and living again after that. Wasn't that a pretty good deal?"

"It's achieved by splitting a person's souls, yes?" Harry asked, pushing his glasses higher on his nose.

He nodded. Potter continued. "So when you made the first Horcrux—lemme see, that was the diary, wasn't it? You placed half of your soul in the diary, and kept the other half, am I right?" Tom nodded his assent as the Gryffindor continued. "Okay, so that was the first. Then you made the second one. That meant that you used the half of a soul that you were still holding on and split that into quarters of your original soul, one quarter placed inside the horcrux and the other left for you. After making the third horcrux you would've, what, holding on to only an eighth of your original soul?"

Tom nodded, but it was slower this time as a sense of unease started to spread through him along with growing understanding.

"What I was wondering, was, if we go on with the halving, how much of your soul would still be left for you at the time you've made the seventh horcrux?"The boy-hero next to him pondered.

"A hundred and twenty eighth part." Tom answered, a chill spread inside him as his mind calculated with the speed of lightning, like it always had—two to the power of seven. It was certainly less than 1% of his original soul. The other young wizard seemed oblivious to the sudden stillness of his conversation partner and seemed to still thinking, his hands moving in front of him.

"…definitely less than a hundredth and oh, did you say something? Oh, a hundredth and twenty eighth! Yes you're right, that was probably the amount left and… oh crap, did I say something wrong?"

He was staring straight ahead instead of at Harry.

"Nothing, Harry." He said, brusque.

"Don't say that. It's obvious I said something to offend you. I know you better than I ever wanted but I the point is, I still know. You look like you're in one of those moods that would send your Death Eaters avoiding you for several days and giving me headaches from the scar horcrux." His tone was casual, with an ease Tom himself could never imagine hearing from Harry while he was alive. But that was the rub, wasn't it? Neither of them was alive anymore.

"I never…" he took a deep breath, still half-lost in his thoughts. To his credit, Harry allowed him his thoughts and silence.

Was it ever a good idea to live with only a tiny fragment of your soul holding the reins? That annoying inner voice of his spoke up again, made doubly more so from the softness in the tone used. That's what you're wondering now, right?

"You know something? The British wizarding world dwindled into virtually nothing some decades after I died," Harry suddenly said, as easy as talking about the weather. "Our numbers had always suffered heavily since our dark lord wars, and the prejudice against muggleborns wasn't helping to convince them to stay and help the rebuilding process. When Diagon Alley was reopened again years after that, we managed it only because some continental and American wizards had decided to move to England. More people and fresh blood, at that."

The painting in front of him changed, and for once it wasn't showing Tom's memories, or Tom's not-memories: It was showing Harry's. He had seen Harry's Hogwarts cohort, a strong and united front forged in their trials and tribulations, but they were still too few. There were not enough of them to be able to enter the ministry and start change. For all the lessons the war had given them, not everybody had taken it. They could stand as rallying points, but any chance of change still came down to the rank-and-file wizards and witches, the body of the bureaucracy. It had not helped things to note that the bravest and boldest had usually gone off to join the war the moment the call was made.

They were the first to face the forces of the dark lord and the most to suffer losses as a result.

The wizards and witches who had survived were those who knew how and when to keep their heads down as the storm raged above them, and come out when the coast was clear. That was what Voldemort had managed—he'd purged the wizarding world of the people who'd been able to guide reforms firsthand.

Harry stared at the scenes with interest. "Oh, the painting worked for me too? Interesting. Yes, that was exactly what happened."

Tom closed his eyes, almost reeling from the revelation. He tried to ignore the feelings of disbelief and shock that reared from the news and miserably failed. The wizarding world was a home in a way Wool's Orphanage had never been. He became the dark lord convinced he could make the wizarding world stronger, better. Not… this, whatever this is.

"Why are you telling me?" Tom finally asked.

"Because you need to know. In the final years of my life I went along with Hermione's efforts to archive the works of Hogwarts students before us—in-between putting newer dark lords in their place, of course. It's all in a day's work, but I'm getting distracted. You see, I've read the series of essays you wrote from what, sixth year? It was about how you wish to change the wizarding world better. You had some good ideas for improvement."

And to think, Tom thought dryly, that it started as an effort to convince Dumbledore that I was a worthy student of Hogwarts.

"They're good. Hermione came up with some of the ideas in it decades before we read your work, independently from you, but it was still startling to see the kind of insight you could have. I… I guess still can't see how that promising student decided to suddenly fall away from public life. You could've gone on any career you wanted then."

And yet I went on to make horcruxes, and after that probably only hung to common sense by the final twigs of sanity's broomstick, if not chucking it all into the fire of uncontrolled ambition altogether, he guessed. Tom knew that was what Harry wanted to say, but didn't want to for fear of, oh, maybe offending him. It was weird seeing the person who killed him and somebody he'd tried and failed to kill several times being so considerate about his feelings. He would've laughed if he was in a better mood.

"Hermione said you could've easily been Minister of Magic material." Harry said.

There goes that stab straight to the guts again. A hit, a very palpable hit! It was made worse that he was hearing his archnemesis agree with the paths-not-taken that he had seen before.

"Had she forgotten about the places I've laid waste to? The number of people I've killed?" He hissed.

"No, but it was ancient history by then," Harry said, still inexplicably calm, his bright green eyes with too much knowledge in them and yet still no judgment. It was one that didn't fit his young face. It vexed Tom more than not. "At that time, we've come to terms with the war, with the losses—we've ended that, after all. We were looking ahead at this point, trying to figure out what went wrong. How can we prevent such things from coming to pass again in the future under similar circumstances?"

The bench was in platform 9 ¾ and a train passed in front of them, its sounds muffled and unclear. Neither wizard paid it any heed. None of the trains were for them, after all.

"So did you know what went wrong, then?" Tom asked, more because the quiet was bothering him than from any wish of hearing the answer.

"Not quite," he said, "But I'm fine with it because I figured out something else."

"What is it?"

"I'm sorry about your life, Tom." Harry said.

Tom Riddle didn't even knew he was contemplating it before his fist struck Harry Potter's face, the glasses breaking from the impact. Tom's knuckles were scraped by the shards. His left hand would've hit as well if he didn't check himself, his aggravation spread in equal amounts between the boy-who-lived and the accursed temper that he thought he'd gotten better control over. He took several deep breaths and sat down, not willing to lose to it. Harry pushed up his unbelievably intact glasses up his nose The bruise on his cheekbone stayed, for some odd reason.

"I've killed people," Tom said, calmer than he felt. "Gained power over the wizarding world through any means necessary and been an autocrat. Most people who knew that would usually assume that my life is actually very good for me, all things considered."

Harry snorted and glanced at him in disbelief, but didn't say anything. Tom didn't know why it annoyed him and tried not to think about it.

"And yet the wizarding world falls apart anyway," Harry said after some moments, the finality in his tone more constricting than the softness. "For all your ambition and wish for it to be better. Because, hey, we're alike in that sense, aren't we? The wizarding world is more of our home than the muggle one. It's more of a home than any other place."

Two half-bloods. Two orphaned magicals, stranded in a world without magic for the first half of their childhood, who finally went home when they were accepted in Hogwarts.

He didn't like the extended silence that was filled with all the things he knew the other wizard wanted to say but didn't, because Harry was too perceptive by a half. Tom disliked it because he certainly did not want to feel like he owed his archnemesis something. He closed his eyes for several seconds before opening it again. Must. Not. Punch. Potter.

"I just want you to know so you can figure out how to do it better. You know, for next time," Harry said.

He frowned. "What do you mean, next time?"

Harry opened his mouth for a moment before suddenly closing it again, a mysterious grin on his face. "Ah, I forgot that I can't really tell you at this stage. Not yet anyway. You'll figure it out soon, Tom, I mean, you do know that this is only purgatory, right?"

He controlled his annoyance better. "And how would you know about this?"

Harry waved his wand about proudly, and it was only then that Tom noticed it wasn't the brother wand to his own. When Harry stood up, he was no longer a Hogwarts student now, but a powerful wizard in his own right; his dark cloak fluttered with an unseen wind and his robes ancient and woven with power. Harry's green eyes were twinkling with secrets, and Tom remembered just why it was annoying—it was too similar to Dumbledore's. For a moment he saw an old man with green eyes, his messy white hair paired with a face that time has finely etched her tracks on, glasses perched slightly crooked on his nose. The image vanished and it was the familiar Harry again that he saw.

"I'm the Master of Death, remember? Aaanyways, it was nice catching up to you and keep up on the figuring-things-out end. You're sharp-ish—you'll manage. Somehow. 'Til we meet again, Tom."

Tom nodded, holding back a grimace from Harry's casual misuse of the English language. "Harry."

With that, he watched the Master of Death stride away. Harry was incongruously humming Dance of the Sugar Plum Fairies, out of all things and Tom shook his head in amusement at that. It was only a while later with only the hurrying crowd around him again that he realised he was back alone with his own thoughts and regrets.

He sighed. This was going to be long, long wait until the mysterious 'enough' was reached, wasn't it?

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