Chapter One: Father?

As the dust settled around them, Harry uncovered his face with arm and looked around to assess what had just happened. Lockhart had just tried to fire a spell out of Ron's broken wand, but the spell had backfired and caused a wall of rocks to rain down between Harry and his friend.

"Ron!" he called, trying to move some of the rocks to see if he was okay. The rocks were too large and didn't budge when Harry pushed and pulled on them. "Ron!"

"Yo! I'm good. You?" the ginger's voice called out from somewhere on the opposite side of the rock wall.

Harry let out a sigh of relief. "Yeah."

"Lockhart's spell hit him instead and he doesn't know what's going on. So, I'll just stay here and watch him. You go on and storm the castle!"

"Okay. Be back soon!" Harry pocketed his wand and continued walking along the stone pathway into the unknown ahead. When he reached the end of the hallway, he spotted a crumpled figure of Ginny on the ground and ran the rest of the distance, dropping to his knees by her. "Ginny," he said, grabbing her shoulder and shaking it gently. Seeing that she gave no response, he shook her violently. This time, Harry heard a voice, but it was a man's voice, and coming from somewhere else in the room.

Upon standing, he saw that it was a man a few feet away. And boy was he a beautiful man.

"She poured her soul into this diary," explained the strange man, holding out a book. "And I was in the diary. So, I took her soul and combined it with mine, and now I am here! And I took her whole soul, so I am a full person!" The guy seemed very happy about this. But Harry was skeptical. Gingers have souls? Like, they had an actual soul? He had always thought that gingers did not, but he supposed he couldn't be right about everything.

"Okay, but, like, who are you?" Harry asked, entranced by this mysterious figure in front of him.

"Oh, I'm Tom Riddle," explained Tom Riddle. "Roberts, where are you?" He suddenly called off into the distance. "You are supposed to protect the chamber, you slacker!"

A great rumble shook the dimly lit room and a shadow crossed the wall. Harry looked around, trying to find the source, until a humongous snake slithered out from behind a crevice in the wall, and loomed over Tom from behind. The snake was a pale color, and his eyes seemed to have a milky color to them.

"Well, attack him!" ordered Tom impatiently. The snake flicked his tongue out.

"Who?"

"Harry! He's right in front of you!"

"Tom. Listen. I am shedding. That means I can't see very well. I can't see the boy. But I can smell him, maybe?"

"Then smell him! Do something." Tom seemed frustrated.

The Basilisk's tongue flicked in and out a few more times, then he leaned down, towards Harry. His movements didn't seem aggressive, but the boy was still terrified and found he couldn't move.

"You smell familiar," said the snake thoughtfully, his head tilting in a curious manner as he spoke. "You smell like Lily."

"Lily? That's my mom," answered Harry, unsure why this creature could possibly know what his mother smelled like.

Tom was more frustrated by this. "Why aren't you attacking him? Now is not the time for idle chit-chat! Bite him, sit on him, do something, Roberts!"

Roberts? Was that the snake's name? Harry assumed so. "Why do you know what my mother smells like?"

"Well, it's a long story," replied Roberts. He pulled back, away from Harry and chose to coil up where he was instead. It appeared that he was not going to attack. Instead, he seemed a little sad, even. "But I can sum it up for you. Harry, I am your father."

"That's stupid." Tom piped up before Harry could even respond. "You're just saying that because you are too lazy to attack him."

"Nah. He's my son."

"Well, it explains a lot." Harry finally spoke up. "I like warm things and I have a lot of dry skin, so I 'shed' a lot and I like to swallow chicken nuggets whole, like a snake would."

"Yup. That's my boy."

Tom seemed at a loss. Now what did he do? He reunited his enemy with his evil partner snake pet thing and no one was dead. Well, maybe that ginger girl. She could totally be dead, but he wasn't very sure. Nor did he care, to be brutally honest.

"Does that mean you are related to me, too?" questioned Harry, turning his attention to the Tom guy.

"No. I am Lord Voldemort. But younger. I wanted to kill you because older me couldn't kill you."

"That's not going to happen," stated Roberts bluntly. "I'm not gonna let you hurt my son." He tried to look at Tom, but he couldn't see very well and ended up looking off to the side of him a little bit.

Tom threw his hands in the air in frustration. "What was the point of this, then? What am I going to do with him? And I am fully alive now, with no purpose in life. I am a full, human person. Alive. In this world."

Roberts would have shrugged, if he had shoulders. "I don't care. But if you hurt Harry, I will hurt you. Slowly. Painfully. Angrily."

Tom plopped onto the ground, sitting with his legs crossed and a defeated look on his face. "Fine. I won't hurt Harry. But now what do I do?"

Harry took this as a prime moment to think. "You can live in my room. I'll hide you in there. You can sleep under my bed and I'll give you food and everything will be fine. Like a super long sleepover." He smiled brightly at the idea of hiding this man under his bed.

Tom let out a lengthy sigh. "Fine. Whatever. But I don't just want scraps! I expect full meals to be delivered to me at least twice a day and a want more than one pillow in my sleeping space."

"Deal," agreed Harry. He approached the giant snake and gave him a big hug. "Bye Dad. I'm going to go do some cool kid things. I'll visit again soon!"

"Bye son." Roberts patted his son's head with the end of his tail. Tom stood up and followed Harry as they walked the way back towards the exit and where his friend was waiting.

And the rock wall. He had forgotten that the rock was there. "Oh yeah. We have a small problem getting out of here."

Tom huffed, then held out his hand. "Wand me." Harry handed over the wand, which Tom took. He pointed it at the rocks and said a spell that Harry didn't know existed, which caused the rocks to fly everywhere. Harry ducked and held his arms over his head, and a high-pitched squeal was heard from the opposite side, as the flying rocks had startled Ron quite a bit.

"Did you find my sister? Who is this guy? He's not my sister. Right?" Ron seemed quite afraid.

"Oh yeah. Ginny. No, I forgot about her. We gotta go get her." He turned right around and walked back the way they had come, but this time, Ron followed along and Tom, too. No one cared to take Lockhart, as he was still all confused on what was happening. Having his memory erased, he was fearful of this place and remained on the floor where he was sitting, legs pulled to his chest and rocking back and forth slightly.

When they returned to the room where they had just come from, Roberts was still sitting there, but he was getting ready to nap, it seemed. "Harry! You're back!" He said happily. "And you brought a friend! Or dinner?"

"Friend," responded Harry casually and walked over to where Ginny remained crumpled on the floor. Gently, he nudged her with his foot.

This time, she stirred and sat up. Her eyes were black pits and when she spoke, she was saying something in a language that no one understood.

"Oh yeah. I forgot that I took her soul." Tom seemed unconcerned, so Harry wasn't. Ron was, though.

"My sister! You took her soul?"

"She's going to probably be okay." Tom shrugged. He shrugged a lot, it seemed. Harry shrugged as well.

"Yeah, she's going to be fine. Look at her. She's speaking and standing on her own. Don't worry about it, Ron. Let's just go back for now."

Ron was bewildered. "This guy took my sister's soul, you're talking to a giant basilisk who didn't turn you to stone but can, and who even is that guy?" He pointed to Tom.

Harry groaned. "Why do you need to know so much? But fine. Whatever. That snake is my dad, which is why he isn't turning me to stone. This guy is Tom. He took her soul to turn himself back from a memory to a real person. And your sister will be fine. Just look at her."

Ginny was standing stone still, yet she was still muttering some incoherent chant of some sort. "Let's just go back." Ron was defeated by the lack of answers he was receiving and accepted his confusion as permanent. He put his hand on his sister's shoulder and started to lead her back towards the exit.

Tom and Harry walked side by side as they followed behind the two gingers. "It should be easy to sneak you into my room. I sneak around all the time and no one ever catches me."

And easy it was. The small group walked right through the hallways and into the Gryffindor house commons room. Once there, Ron led his sister to the stairs to the girl's side and Tom and Harry made their way up the stairs on the boy's side, and into his room. Harry took the pillows off his bed and handed them, along with a blanket, to Tom, who immediately slunk under the bed. Harry laid down on his bed and waited for Ron to return. When he did, he went over to his own bed and sat on it.

"We can't tell anyone about Tom," informed Harry, turning to his friend.

"Okay. Do you think people will notice the change in Ginny?"

"Probably not. She seemed pretty normal to me."

"I hope so. Well, good night."

"Good night Ron. Good night Tom."

"Good night Harry. Good night Ron," piped up Tom from his spot under the bed. "Don't forget to feed me tomorrow."