Harry stood at the bottom of the ocean listening to the eels shriek all round him. He had always thought that it was supposed to be dark at the bottom of the ocean, but whatever. He hadn't noticed but at some point a very large snake had coiled around him and was looking at him with snakey love and adoration.

"Hey, dad," mumbled Harry.

"Dad?" said the snake.

"You're my dad, aren't you?"

"Heck no! I could never be tied down with a kid. I'm a wild and free bachelor, baby."

Then the snake flicked its tongue out a few times and swallowed him whole. Somehow, this didn't concern Harry a whole awful lot, it was suspiciously warm inside this snake. It made him a bit sleepy. Harry dozed off, and when he awoke he was face down in some dirt.

Harry spat the dirt out of his mouth, and stood up in the forbidden forest. Tom Riddle was there, and boy was he noticeable. Tom had lacy underwear and thigh high red leather boots on, topped of with a bra made of mesh,

"Hello, Harry," Tom drawled.

Thump.

"It's a little hot in these woods, don't you think?" he continued.

Thump.

Tom slipped a finger under his bra strap and began to pull ever so slowly sideway until he-

THUMP.

"GODDAMMIT!" Harry roared, throwing the nearest clock at Ron as he sat up in his bed. Ron screamed like a child and hid under his covers, all the while whimpering something about how he didn't do anything. Harry looked around with a dangerous glint in his eyes, searching for the nearest thing to punch.

Thump.

At this most recent thump, Harry felt his bed shake, and realized the root of his problem. He almost thought he should feel bad for throwing a large and clunky timepiece at Ron, but he decided against it. Ron would get over it. Speaking of timepieces, it was still dark outside, it must be early. He yelled at Ron to tell him the time and Ron searched for the clock that was chucked at him and squeaked out something that sounded like the number three. He still seemed to be somewhat asleep and traumatized, but sometimes these things happen.

Harry peeked under his bed at the man who had taken up residence there.

"What's your issue?" he inquired.

"I'm bored." came the reply.

"It's three in the morning."

"So?"

"Most people tend to sleep at this hour, including me."

"You've kept me under your bed like a pet, and like a pet, I demand enrichment, so enrich me before I start humping random pillows and bits of furniture."

Harry was a bit flustered at this sarcastic insistence, and so he complied. But how was he going to enrich Tom Riddle? He couldn't just traipse him around the castle in the middle of the night for two reasons. First, students are not supposed to be out of bed. Second, he was literally a part of the soul of Voldemort made whole by the soul of another student. So most of the castle was out of bounds. He suggested they play Go Fish, but Riddle was not as entranced by the idea of children's card games as Harry was. That left the invisibility cloak. Harry was not very much opposed to the idea of being very close to Riddle, for safety reasons only, of course. A trek to the Chamber of Secrets might do them both some good. Nothing like dank, musty air to rejuvenate the soul, stolen or not.

Harry broached this idea to Riddle and, after a few sarcastic quips, Riddle agreed to take a trip to the Chamber, even though it would be "boring". So they draped the cloak over them, Riddle having to bend his knees to account for Harry's height, and set off without much incident or kerfuffle.

"Why are we doing this, again?" asked Riddle.

"You insisted on dragging me out of bed and apparently Go Fish is 'juvenile'"

"But I don't want to see your freaky snake dad. How does that even work? Did your mother lay an egg?"

"I don't like to think about it too much. The details frighten me."

"Well, I still don't want to look at your parental reptile too much, I've already seen too much of him"

"I guess we could try to explore the rest of the chamber," Harry sighed. He had kind of wanted to see his rather long father, but he could wait for another time.

"That sounds slightly better than the alternative."

"Well let's just get down there and we'll figure it out as we go."

sSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSs

Harry and Tom landed at the bottom of the slide with a bit of clatter as the bones scattered away from them. They had landed somewhat on top of one another because Tom thought it would be funny to push Harry in. And it was until Harry pulled him down with him on his fall. As they attempted to extricate themselves from one another Harry was blushing furiously in the dim light and Tom was feeling extremely ruffled and out of sorts. When they had finally figured out where their limbs were, they dusted the bones and dust off of their pajamas and Tom turned to Harry.

"Which way are we going?" he demanded.

"Well, I dunno. This is your 'enrichment'" quipped Harry.

"Ugh, fine. We're going this way," Tom muttered under his breath, turning to go into a tunnel which smelled faintly of rotisserie spices.

sSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSs

They had been walking quite a while down a rather long tunnel in complete, somewhat awkward silence, when Harry thought he heard a swish of pants. He turned around and cast his lit wand further down the tunnel. What he saw was a flash of ginger hair and two soulless black eyes. Ginny had decided to follow them. Harry thought it was slightly creepy that she had managed silence for so long. As Harry continued to look at her, he noticed that her lips were moving rapidly in a wordless chant.

"What's she doing here?" inquired Riddle in his smarmiest tone.

"Being creepy, I guess. She's seemed to be mostly harmless so far. It's like having a soulless, joyless dog."

"Make her go away."

"Go away," said Harry

Ginny groaned.

"Well, I guess we're stuck with her. Shall we continue?" Harry asked. Riddle humphed and started walking again. They continued along, much as they had been before, only this time with Ginny occasionally saying something in latin. Harry thought that maybe he should try to make conversation with Riddle, maybe get him to warm up a little.

"So, how do you feel about men?" Harry asked, and immediately wanted to bury himself thirty feet under the ground where nobody could ever find him again.

"Men?"

"Mint! I meant mint!" Harry immediately responded. Smooth recovery.

"Mint."

"Yeah, mint! The flavor! I'm wild about it myself, really invigorates the senses!" At this sentence, Harry screamed inwardly and hoped it did not come out on his face. It did. Somewhere, Ginny gurgled something about the infraclass of the acorn barnacle.

"You're daft."

"Hah, you're very funny Tom!"

"No really. I'm not in any way joking. You're extremely strange and I think you should try breathing sometime."

Harry had, in fact, gone a little ruddy during this conversation, and so he took this moment to gasp like a beached whale. Tom watched this scene and grimaced, even he had the smallest amount of pity for Harry, who seemed to be having an aneurysm.

"Maybe we should go back, I would rather you not die down here. Nobody else will bring me food," said Tom.

"Have you been sufficiently enriched?" croaked Harry.

"Yes, yes. Now let's leave before you start speaking latin like ginger over there."

sSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSsSßSs

Surprisingly, Harry made it back to his bed with some of his mind still intact. Riddle had maintained stony silence through the trek back home, even as he was pressed against Harry by the extra presence of Ginny under the invisibility cloak. She had disappeared around when they got to the common room. Having survived his horrible attempt at conversation, he shuffled under his covers as Tom shuffled under his bed.

"I do like it," muttered Tom.

"What?"

"Mint. I like it. It's a nice flavor."

"Oh."

"Goodnight."

"Goodnight, Tom." said Harry.