Author's Note: This chapter was originally going to be posted yesterday, however there was a problem with the site as people could not sign in, so I couldn't post it. I'm very sorry about that, and it was especially painful for me when I wrote out a chapter and I actually couldn't post it. Anyway, this chapter is shorter than the last one by a bit, but not too short overall. It was originally going to be longer and end differently, but I changed it for several reasons. It's not too bad a chapter, and I hope you like it. Enjoy!

The Experiments of Tom Marvolo Riddle – Chapter 15

Written By YT12J

Remus blasted the door open, after making sure that he had properly put up charms that would cut off the noise so that no one would hear him. The house belonged to a powerful Ministry official, although he wasn't too sure what the man's name was. He only knew that the man was in the way of Lord Voldemort's plans, and because of this he felt strangely obliged to kill him. It may have also had something to do with the recurring voice in his head that kept encouraging him to do it.

Striding forward, he waved his wand and cast a non-verbal spell to check the inhabitants of the house. After a few seconds he was satisfied that the only people who were in the house were him and the man whom he was aiming to kill. The man was in bed as far as he could tell, and he went down the corridor, heading towards the bedroom at the end of it. Instead of blasting this door off, he silently unlocked it, noting that the man must have been very paranoid to keep his bedroom door locked, and opened it, silently treading across the floor.

The man was snoring in bed, making his job a lot easier to carry out. He raised his wand, intending to cast the Killing Curse and finish the man off, but before he could do that he heard a voice in his head. It wasn't the voice that crept up in his mind for the past few months and changed the way he thought, it was the voice that he heard before that, the voice of reason, and that voice said to him 'Why?'.

This one word was enough to make Remus Lupin's mind explode in extreme pain. He still felt that same voice, urgently speaking to him and telling him exactly what he was doing and trying to make him understand why he was wrong, however the other voice, the one that made him do it in the first place was also there, battling with the other one for dominance. The pain got to the point where he collapsed onto the floor and started screaming madly, feeling like his head was about to be ripped apart.

The screams instantly woke up the man whom he was going to kill two minutes ago, and the man jumped out of bed, grabbing his wand off his bedside table and cautiously walking forward. He didn't bother trying to be careful as he wasn't afraid of the madman that was screaming in his bedroom. After several seconds of watching him, he decided that he should stop him so shot a stunner at Remus, stopping the screams and leaving him motionless on the floor.

He slowly walked towards Remus, and when he was close enough he realised who he was. He didn't know Remus Lupin too well, but knew that this couldn't be normal behaviour for him, especially because it was not even full moon. He cast a charm on Remus, attempting to identify the cause behind his insanity, and came to the conclusion that he was under some sort of curse. He sighed and levitated Remus onto the bed, and then waved his wand, sending out his patronus with a message. The Aurors would soon be there, and they would take Remus to St. Mungo's hospital where they would hopefully free him of the curse.

Many miles away, Lord Voldemort frowned. He had been directing Remus to the house of somebody that he needed eliminated, and just before he actually killed the man, Voldemort lost control of the curse that he had cast on Remus. He must have broken free, something which displeased Lord Voldemort greatly. He assumed that Remus would be taken in by the Aurors when he was discovered by the man, so he summoned one of his Death Eaters who spied for him in the Ministry. He would need to find out exactly where Remus Lupin was, free him, and recast the curse. He of course had his other spy in the Order, but he felt more secure knowing that he had a spy that was actually under his control, as opposed to one whom he had to trust to not lie to him.

He told the Death Eater exactly what he wanted, and the Death Eater nodded, promising to his master that he would have the information that he needed as soon as possible, and then walked off. Lord Voldemort smiled. Lupin may have broken free of the curse, but there were other ways in which he could put Lupin completely in his control. He did not necessarily have to use the same curse; there was another method he knew of which was much more reliable, and the only reason which he did not use it the first time was the fact that it would require a certain sacrifice, and this sacrifice was very significant.

Break

"Hey Tom, I need to speak to you for a moment about something."

Harry spoke to Tom casually, mainly because the previous week they had officially become each other's friend. They both found it an extremely weird relationship to have, mainly considering who they were and what they were to each other, but so far it was all right, and Harry could certainly say that it felt quite right to call Tom his friend.

Tom looked up and smiled tiredly. Harry was pretty sure that he hadn't slept too much the previous night; he had heard Tom tossing and turning a lot, and he was pretty sure he even heard him talking to himself in bed. "You know that curse you put me under when we first… met?"

Tom smacked himself in the face. "Sorry, I forgot to take it off you! Come here, let me show you how to remove it from yourself, I can't actually do it for you. It's a –"

"You're not listening!" Harry interrupted. Tom nodded, and beckoned for him to continue. "I looked up the curse in the library, and found the counter-curse a few months ago. I obviously did it immediately, and it worked. Thank Merlin I'd changed my mind about revealing your presence at this point though, otherwise you wouldn't be here right now."

Tom looked slightly surprised when he heard this, and he silently thought about how lucky he was that Harry actually didn't hate him enough at that point to want to reveal him, which was surprising considering the weren't exactly close then. And then something else occurred to him. "What about your friends, Weasley and Granger? You told me that they were denying my existence and I couldn't show myself around them, not that I ever believed it though. Anyway, that was a lie right?"

Harry nodded. "What really happened was that I told them the counter-curse, and they both did it in the common room, but I knew that they would go straight to Dumbledore as soon as they got free of the curse so I Obliviated both of them and removed every single one of the memories that they had of you."

Tom looked at him in shock, not having expected to hear that at all. He didn't think that Harry would use a memory charm on his own friends, however he knew that Harry definitely wasn't lying. "Did you do it well enough to get away with it then?"

Harry hesitated. "I definitely did it well enough, but the thing is Dumbledore was actually there, invisible, and saw me do everything. I didn't know that, and went on believing that I got away with it for a couple of months, but then he recently showed me his memory of it and asked for an explanation. I came up with the excuse that it was an imposter for sure, but he didn't seem to believe me. Surprisingly he didn't say anything though, so for the time being he doesn't suspect me completely, but I have a feeling that he is getting more and more suspicious. He was also really suspicious when my scar started to go away, so I think he'll be investigating more."

Tom was listening intently as he spoke, and when Harry finished speaking he nodded slightly, and then asked brought up something completely off topic. "I just remembered something that I should probably tell you about, now that you've decided to tell me this. Do you remember the time that Professor Muff invited you to his office, I wiped his memory and told you I stole something?"

"Yeah," Harry responded, not sure where he was going with it. Tom continued.

"Do you remember that vial I had that I got slightly obsessed with?" Harry nodded.

"All too well; it was creepy the way you were so obsessed with it."

"Anyway, that vial contained his memories, a specific set of memories. They were about you and your father, and the vial was labelled as such. It was also slightly about Severus Snape, but that's not really as important."

"What were the memories about, if they involved me?" Tom shook his head when he asked this, and elaborated.

"I think that the best idea is for you to find out about that yourself. It's not exactly my story to tell, and I think you should somehow get Professor Muff to tell you. He wants to tell you I am guessing, but is reluctant to do so, considering the nature of the memories."

Harry was confused; what were these memories about and how exactly did they concern him? It made no sense, and Harry was extremely curious about it. He considered asking Dumbledore, but he knew that he had no way of explaining exactly how he knew that there was something that Professor Muff was keeping secret. He would just have to hope that Professor Muff would eventually tell him.

Break

Harry was eating breakfast with Ron and Hermione when a small first year came up to him and muttered "I've got a note for you, from the Headmaster." He handed the note to Harry, and ran off, as if afraid of being in his presence. Harry sighed; a lot of people seemed to be afraid of him because of what happened last June, and the fact that he claimed Voldemort was back.

"Wha' does it say?" Ron asked through a mouthful of toast. Hermione hit him on the head, disgusted, and Ron glared at her, trying to swallow the food as quickly as he could. Harry grimaced at this, and opened the folded note. It was certainly from Dumbledore, as it had his handwriting. The note read:

Dear Harry,

Due to your scar, and the connection that you share with Voldemort, fading away gradually I ask that you pay a visit to the Hospital Wing as soon as you finish breakfast. I shall be waiting there for you, and I will conduct some tests to check on it. I wish to do this there because of what happened last time, in case something happens to you again.

I will see you there.

Professor Albus Dumbledore

Harry finished reading the note out loud and looked up at his friends. "I hope that nothing does happen this time." Hermione said. "It could be quite dangerous, but I guess it helps that Professor Dumbledore is doing it; he knows what he is doing."

Harry nodded, and Ron carried on eating. When he finished, he got up and headed to the Hospital Wing. On the way there he hoped that Dumbledore wouldn't somehow be able to tell that he actually was in constant close proximity with Tom Riddle, otherwise he would most definitely have enough reason to question him under Veritaserum, something which Harry hoped it wouldn't come to because he wanted to keep Tom safe.

When he walked into the Hospital Wing, he saw Dumbledore calmly standing next to a bed, and Madame Pomfrey was surprisingly not in sight. He walked over to Dumbledore, and waited patiently until he spoke.

Dumbledore watched Harry come over. He was curious as to what the results of the test would be, and he was joyful that Harry would hopefully soon be free of the connection that he shared with Voldemort. When Harry came to a halt, he waited a few seconds before speaking. "Harry, please lie down on this bed. It'll make the tests a lot easier and a lot more comfortable. They should not take longer than several minutes, and after that you are free to go."

Harry nodded, choosing not to speak, and lay down on the bed, waiting for Dumbledore to begin. Dumbledore did so, and started moving his wand slowly over Harry's body. He couldn't sense anything out of the ordinary, and the connection with Voldemort seemed to be subsiding almost exactly as he had predicted. When he finished doing that, he pointed his wand at Harry's scar and silently cast a very complex charm that would hopefully give him details of exactly how the piece of Voldemort was going away.

He wasn't sure exactly how it happened, but he suddenly broke through into Harry's mind, possibly through the scar letting him in. Harry didn't seem to notice, and not wanting to invade Harry's privacy he immediately retreated, but before he did he suddenly got a glimpse of something, an image. He almost didn't see it, but he just managed to process it, and when he did it shocked him to the core. The image was from Harry's memory, and seemed to be linked to his scar, and it was an image of a teenage Tom Riddle standing in the Gryffindor Boy's Dormitory, the same one that Harry slept in.

Harry looked at Dumbledore, slightly confused. He felt something odd happen in his scar, and would have dismissed it as nothing if it weren't for the fact that he saw an emotion break through on Dumbledore's face for a moment. The emotion was shock, and Harry suddenly feared that Dumbledore, while he was examining his scar, had seen something that he was hoping he wouldn't. He could only pray that he was wrong.

Break

"You actually saw a memory of the teenage Dark Lord?" Snape asked doubtfully.

Dumbledore shook his head. "Not a memory, just an image, and it was even more disturbing because this image of Tom was actually in the Boy's Dormitory, the same one that Harry sleeps in."

"What do you think this means?" Snape asked, confused. He couldn't see how this was possibly; it was one thing for the Dark Lord to be in Hogwarts, it was another thing for a teenage version of him to be there.

"I have a theory, and as usual I am not sure if it is correct. I have already told you about how in his second year Harry destroyed Tom's diary, and that there was a teenage version of him that resided in it. I believe that somehow, when he destroyed it, the part of Voldemort that was in it escaped to Harry, and it has been living inside him ever since. Perhaps only now has it decided to escape, and maybe into some object that is in his dormitory. I think that it now appears when Harry is there, and controls Harry, telling him to do things, such as Obliviate his friends, perhaps if they saw him."

"What are you going to do about it?" Snape asked, suddenly a lot more interested.

"I am going to leave it for now Severus. If we confront Harry he will only deny it. We need to investigate further, and learn more of the facts. I want you to keep your eyes open Severus, and tell me if you see anything at all. Is that understood?"

"Yes." Snape nodded. "I'll find out exactly what is going on, even if it means searching Potter's dormitory in the end."

Author's Note: Dumbledore managed to come to a different conclusion, and now he has told Snape, that'll end badly. The thing with Remus I originally wasn't going to do, but then I changed my mind. The next chapter will involve Professor Muff, although I'm not promising he'll reveal anything, and at the same time I'm not saying he won't! Please try to review and vote on my poll if you can. Until the next time, bye!