When Evan woke, he woke laughing. Laughing and laughing. He cackled and wheezed and had to clutch his chest to keep his composure. He knew that his etiquette teacher would have shot a curse at him for behaving in such a manor, but he was far from primary school and far from caring.

The laughter attracted Harry and Tom, who had been up watching the television to monitor the late night excursions of the golden trio, whilst Evan had turned in for the night about three hours prior.

"Did you have a good dream, Rosier?" Tom asked evenly, glancing away from the television that was apparently showing some sort of life-sized chess game.

"Oh I wouldn't say all that," Evan answered, immediately trying to diffuse his mirth which only captured more of Tom's attention.

Harry looked back and forth between them as they shared a brief moment of eye contact, and then glanced worriedly at the grimace that was forming on Tom's usually emotionless face.

"You find that future to be amusing." The red-eyed man stated, not questioning Evan, although to Harry it did seem that he was offering him a moment to claim that despite his near-uncontrollable laughter, his dream was completely uninteresting.

"I-"

"Crucio," Tom said it casually, the way a person might say 'hello' or 'could you pass the television remote?'. Harry thought to be disturbed by the ease in which his friend uttered the torture curse, but he was too busy focusing his disturbance at the shriek that Evan let loose, falling clean off of the couch and clutching at his face as if trying to tear the skin away.

Harry had heard before that overuse of the cruciatus curse can cause insanity for the victims, so he feared for his friend's mental state when after roughly five minutes of the curse being held he stopped screaming and began giggling fanatically.

"It d-doesn't mat-ter what you d-d-do…" Evan choked out, a trail of blood streaming out from his mouth where he'd bitten his lip or tongue.

"CRUCIO!" Tom shouted, standing up. It occurred to Harry then that he didn't even notice when Tom had taken out his wand in the first place.

Evan screamed again, rolling on his back, but then his eyes opened in clear defiance. "You still die!" He exclaimed with enough joy that Tom, shocked, ended the curse and simply glared at him. Harry figured that if one could turn the look in Tom's eyes into a curse, it'd be the cruciatus' superior twenty times over.

"You die and I live and the Dark Lord – my Lord – reigns supreme as he should!" Evan taunted, and Harry's eyes widened.

Tom brandished his wand again, and stepped forward, intimately close to the other man, sticking the thin rod of Yew right between his eyes. Harry could tell by the infuriated look on his face that whatever he'd just tried to do to Evan hadn't worked.

"You can't just obliviated me like we do to Harry," Evan chastised, rolling his eyes.

"Hey! You guys obliviated me?" Harry asked, outraged.

"Obliviate," Evan replied, pointing his wand at the child. Harry shook his head and then pouted back up at them feeling very much as if he'd just missed something important.

"My mind isn't even really here, Tom. It won't work. You can't erase a memory embedded in someone's soul and you know it." Evan said, smirking happily, "I will always know how you die, and I will always know that the you I'm looking at now is nothing compared to The Dark Lord."

Tom was seething at this point, and Harry was getting sick of feeling out of the loop.

"What did you dream?" He asked, and Evan opened his mouth to answer but was cut off as some sort of purple spell shot into his chest from Tom's wand. He clearly recognized it, since he immediately covered his mouth with his hands to try and stop what happened next from happening. Tom's response to this action was to slash his wand again, and now it was Harry's turn to scream as both of Evan's arms sliced right off of his body and fell limp on the ground, blood splattering everywhere. His mouth was forced open and he convulsed as each of his teeth were one by one yanked out of his gums by some invisible force.

Harry watched, awe-stricken, for maybe a full minute before he'd had enough.

"STOP IT!" He yelled, jumping in between them and holding out his hands. Suddenly, they were no longer in the Dursley's living room, instead transported to some kind of empty stone corridor. Both Tom and Evan were trapped behind bars that were apparently repellant to any harmful magic, as Tom was still firing curses and they fizzled away before they made it out of his cell. Evan's body was put back together and he sat there, trapped, staring at Harry.

Tom, after the brief moments in which he controlled his temper and noticed what happened, was equally appalled. He shot a harmless cooling charm at Rosier and whistled lowly when the man shivered.

"This is very impressive, Harry." He praised, "Willing Parselmagic to do as you wish without simply converting mundane spells isn't something I mastered until I was twice your age."

"Yes and prison bars that sense the intent of a spell are quite impressive for even an adult wizard," Evan added, "Not to mention, you getting my body healed in a matter of seconds. Well done."

"I'm not letting either of you out until you stop fighting! The others are still looking for the Philosopher's Stone, in case you'd forgotten. This could very well be the night of the Dark Lord's revival and you two – his biggest supporters from what you've said – are choosing to miss it so that you can bicker about dreams that aren't even consistent anyway!"

"Oi!" Evan said indignantly, "Who says my prophecies aren't consistent?"

Harry sighed, and sat down, not noticing that he'd conjured a chair for himself as his legs began to bend. Tom and Evan made eye contact for a second when they noticed another spat of effortless magic from the child but didn't mention it this time.

"Honestly, I thought you two were smarter than this. How'd I notice before you, Evan? Your favorite cousin."

Evan frowned, not understanding, and then he gasped. Tom seemed to get it too and he grinned, glad to see the error in Evan's futuristic visions.

"Bellatrix," Tom noted, "You said she died in the final battle at Hogwarts, but then you said she was at the meeting Harry calls with Nagini," He noted, "Then, you said she was beside you when you eavesdropped on Harry's conversation with Voldemort in the muggle mansion – and let's not forget the dream where Harry kills her when he walks in on her fellating the Dark Lord, because that's a favorite of mine. Although it'd be difficult for Harry to have killed her then, since just last week you dreamt that Voldemort assigns her as Harry's personal guard instead of you, and kills her when Harry gets hurt. Here you are gloating over your certainty of my death and yet you haven't even noticed that in these visions of yours life and death are inconsistent and completely in flux. Is Bella dead or isn't she?"

Evan opened his mouth and shut it again, then tried to think back on his dreams. It was true. He'd never noticed it before, since his beloved cousin was never the main focus of his visions, but there was definitely a strong abnormality with her presence. He thought on it for a while, and then had another of his epiphanies.

"It's Harry." Evan said decisively. "Harry's choices, Harry's progress, and Harry's mind are affecting my dreams. It's not my future that I'm seeing, it's his, and his is in constant flux because there's still no telling which Harry he'll become in the end, or whether or not this Harry will end up loyal to you or Voldemort, which could also change everything."

Harry scrunched up his nose. "Since when is Tom in any way opposing Voldemort?"

"Obliviate." Evan said, but it fizzled away between the bars of his cell.

"YOU JUST TRIED TO MEMORY CHARM ME! THAT'S IT! BOTH OF YOU ARE STAYING IN THESE CELLS UNTIL I SORT THIS OUT!"

Tom sighed. "Harry, I want you to remember what I'm about to say, because after I say it, I am going to memory charm you," he announced, Harry looked completely abashed but nodded, "When you create barrier that senses malicious intent there are some basic wards that you need to put up first, or else the barrier becomes useless. Spells that are not malicious will work just fine, you see."

"So? Memory charming someone against their will is still malicious intent and you can't do it to me while you're in there!"

"I know," Tom replied, smiling softly, "Alohomora," He stepped forward, looking quite proud of the way Harry gaped at him in horror when the door to the cell opened without trouble. "That spell didn't have malicious intent, though, which is why a basic locking ward is also necessary. Remember that. Obliviate."

While Harry was recovering from his second memory charm of the day, Evan opened and escaped from his cell and Tom waved a hand bringing them back to the living room of Harry's mental Privet Drive.

Evan didn't know how much of what just happened had been liberated from Harry's head, but he knew better than to ask in front of the child, as they'd then have to memory charm him a third time in less than an hour and destroying the boy's mind was dangerous to all three of them.

He settled for staring evilly at Tom, who was completely unconcerned with the malice in his already terrifying gray eyes, and stared back with equal distaste.

"It's him…" Harry whispered, glued once again to the television.

Tom and Evan both watched as Quirrell unwrapped his turban and faced away from Harry. Evan swooned. Tom scowled.

"Despicable," He murmured, "Living on the back of someone's head like a powerless leach."

Evan snarled, "Better than living in someone's head as a powerless asshole."

"Cru-"

"Don't you two start again or I'll remember the locking ward this time."

They both stayed quite silent after that, though Harry was getting more and more agitated by the second, regardless of either horcrux.

"Oh god, just give it to him," He muttered, scooting closer to the tele and biting his lip, "It's in your bloody pocket just hand it the fuck over!"

He closed his eyes and instantly he was there, in the Other Harry's mind. Evan watched the meditation and frowned. Certainly, if this was Harry's attempt at possessing himself, it was not working. The coffee table began to shake first, and then the rest of the house, as Harry's mental state went into distress.

"He can't handle putting this much energy into something so soon after we memory charmed him," Tom whispered so that only Evan could here.

"I don't care." Evan said resolutely. "If it takes his mind crumbling for Voldemort to get that stone then I'll tear it down myself brick by brick."

As if sensing his determination, several bricks shattered away from the fireplace, which was coming apart as the house continued to shake violently.

"Do you not trust the Dark Lord to revive himself without the assistance of a mere child?" Tom asked, playing on Evan's devotion and trying to use it against him.

"It is not a matter of trust," Evan sneered, "He wants the stone and if Harry can get it to him then he shall have it – at whatever cost."

Blood began to drip from Harry's nose and Tom looked down at him with true concern.

"The barrier Lucius erected is too strong. He will kill himself before he makes it through," Tom warned, getting frantic as the coffee table splintered into several pieces of wood and still the Harry on the television defiantly refused to hand over the stone to Voldemort.

Their Harry's chest was heaving and he grunted loudly, his eyes moving rapidly beneath closed lids. There was blood coming out of his ears now, and Tom stood up with the intention of shaking him out of it before it went too far, but then was stopped by the vision of what the Other Harry was now doing.

He had touched Quirrell. Or, rather, Quirrell had touched him – only it was paining the man. Blisters erupted all over his skin and he hollered in outrage, but this was not what Tom was most interested in. It was their Harry. He keened, hands flying outwards and fingers fisting at the carpet. The Other Harry had grabbed on to Quirrell, and everything was collapsing even faster now, entire walls deteriorating with impossible speed. It was all Tom could do to erect a shield around the three of them when the roof collapsed atop their heads, although he did momentarily consider only protecting himself and Harry.

The boy's writhing and screeching was becoming almost unbearable, but just when Tom was about to intervene it stopped. The TV went blank, which could only mean that the Other Harry had passed out somehow, and their Harry was blinking dazedly up at the ruin that surrounded them.

"I couldn't do it," He whispered huskily, his throat still raw from screaming, "I couldn't get through when the Dark Lord needed me. I openly defied him, and injured him again. Now he's going to want to kill me even more." He squeaked out, tears building in his bloodshot eyes, "I'm a failure. Learning all of the wonderful things you're teaching me is useless if I'm trapped in here when it's most important."

Evan gazed at the boy, clearly not in disagreement of his words. When Harry saw this, he only went further into distress and Tom sighed, rubbing at the bridge of his nose stressfully.

"It is not your fault that he, for whatever reason, can't touch your skin. I'll have to research more on the why of that, and don't have any books at my disposal right now that I haven't read, so we'll have to put a pin in the subject and focus on it later unless some sort of explanation appears that suits me more than whatever rot I'm sure Dumbledore will come up with."

Evan was still staring at Harry almost fifteen minutes later, and it wasn't until that point that Tom or Harry thought to consider that perhaps the haunting gaze wasn't entirely disappointment. They both looked back at Evan and noticed that he wasn't even looking at Harry's face, but was staring at the upper thigh of his right leg.

"What?" Harry asked, too agitated to try and figure out what had his friend so preoccupied.

Evan whispered so lowly that for a moment they almost didn't hear what he said:

"There's something in your pocket,"

A/N: That's all for this chapter folks! It's three in the morning and I have to be up for work in four hours! I really need to stop doing this to myself, *sigh*

A big thank you to all of you who have reviewed thus far and a huge thanks to any who will go on and review this chapter! I love hearing from you guys!

My hugs, kisses, and devotion go out to all of you for reading,

-Beloved