'An Idle Mind Is The Devil's Playground'

By: Night Flame Miko

Contributed to by: Chocolate coated Blue

An: Woohoo! 100 reviews (103 actually :P) This is great! I never thought I'd see the day when I got 100 reviews for one chapter…

Now lets try for 150 *huge grin*

Nahh, I'm joking, you can put the guns and other sharp, pointy objects down *sweatdrop* Hehe.

So as a special thanks to you all for helping me reach my goal, here's a longer chapter with the stuff that you've all been waiting for :D

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Voldemort smirked as he stared down at the beginning of the Brats and Mini-Malfoy's...Ah...Potter's and Malfoy's (…shit, Potter's weird fascination with nicknames seems to have transferred to him) correspondence.

Remembering the reason he had started re-reading the letters changed the smirk into a frown as he let out a sigh and dragged his hand down his face.

It had been a week! A whole fucking week, and still there was no progress on the bond. He would have assumed that it was something only Potter could do if it weren't for the fact that said boy hadn't been able to repeat the experience.

Of course Potter only thought it relevant to point out (they had started sending letters to each other again once they realised that they weren't getting anywhere with the 'ghost-apparition-thingy') that he only appeared after thinking about Voldemort's letter.

So here the Dark Lord was, having spent the last 4 hours (4 whole fucking hours!) thinking about the letters and he had finally given up and started re-reading them. And still nothing!

Glaring at the sunlight filtering through his window he decided that it was 4 hours past time to go to sleep. He would try again later, when he had more free time to waste thinking about bloody letters.

Moving into his room he glared at the clothes he was wearing before deciding that it would be too much effort to change and simply slumped (gracefully) across his bed. Closing his eyes he willed himself into unconsciousness, accepting the darkness easily.

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Harry bit his lip; absolutely focused on the task at hand.

Said task being to make a potion for Snape in his class. And whilst this wasn't especially unusual, what was, was the fact that so far he hadn't screwed up! Like, at all! It was absolutely fan-fucking-tastic, and so, now that he was at the last stage of the potion, and one of the most delicate, his focus was so complete that he didn't even notice the inevitable explosion somewhere else in the classroom. It was such a delicate potion that technically only Hermione, Malfoy and a few other Slytherins stood a chance. Except for whatever God decided he deserved to stump Snape for once. And he wasn't wasting said chance for the world!

He had two clockwise turns of the ladle to go, having to add 4 spider eyes (like flipping ew! Who the crap harvested this stuff anyway? Why waste your life picking out spider eyes?) evey 1/4 way round the cauldron.

Biting harder on his lip he was just about to add the spider eyes (not allowed to stop the movement of the ladle, it all had to be done in one smooth movement) when a familiar voice suddenly spoke Right. Next. To. His. Ear.

"I remember this potion. Incredibly dangerous to-"

Of course the Dark Lord was interrupted by Harry's completely justified reaction of:

"Holy Mother of-!!"

Spinning round Harry looked at Voldemort floating smugly behind him, arms folded and a smirk settled firmly on his face. Harry was half-way through his 'Glare of Death (phase 2)' when the cauldron behind him, which as he had stated before, could have nothing go wrong with it, promptly exploded; sending out gelatinous gloop everywhere.

Luckily because of Harry's automatic 'Oh, Shit! Loud noise! Duck!' reaction, he managed to not get glooped at all. But this was not the same for the majority of the rest of the class…including Snape.

Now Harry's self-preservation instincts came into play and putting on his most innocent expression, he ignored the Dark Lord right behind him and looked Snape in the eye, "It wasn't me?"

Unfortunately it came out more as a question. So before Snape could decide to try out Harry's luck of surviving un-survivable things, said boy was out of there. His stuff miraculously packed in 3.8 seconds flat (like magic!) and the boy in question out the door and down the hall before Snape could say 'Detention', which was rather lucky considering it was exactly what was about to come out of said teachers mouth.

Harry only slowed down once he was safely 4 stories above the ground floor (7 levels above the dungeons that contained Snape's classroom) understandably he still didn't feel far enough away.

Knowing that his next class would start soon anyway he turned around and headed back in the direction of his Defence Against the Dark Arts classroom. Of course as he turned around he noticed the (evil, psychopathic, megalomaniac, serial killer) Dark Lord floating amiably behind him, looking with what seemed to be curiosity and recognition at his surroundings. Realising that Volds was probably too distracted to begin the conversation himself Harry started it for him.

"Soo…How'd you do it?"

Voldemorts gaze snapped to him and instantly all expression was gone before the question registered and an annoyed frown crossed his face. Moving in front of Harry, said boy was forced to stop as Voldemort loomed over him, the floating adding unnecessary height to the already tall (and imposing) Dark Lord.

"Ohhh, Haaarrry." Voldemort began in a slightly sing song tone of voice, "Did you forget to mention something you did before you appeared in my study."

Harry frowned in thought, trying to remember. Pulling up nothing he began to shake his head, "Noo…All I did was homework, think about the letter and then…I…went…to..sleep…" Hesitantly looking up from where he had lowered his gaze whilst he thought he let out what sounded suspiciously like an 'Eep!' at the look on the Dark Lords face. Backing up till his back hit the wall, Harry found it ironically amusing that he was more worried about Voldemort now, when said man could do nothing to him in his present ghostly form, then on some other occasions, such as when they met at Knockturn Alley for the lunch-get-together.

"Four hours. Four hours I attempted to get here by thinking about the letter. Why? Because you said it was the last thing you did before you found yourself in my study. How could you forget the fact you Went. To. Fucking! Sleep!"

The rage was clear on Voldemorts face now and Harry could feel how angry he was through the bond. Not really sure what to do he settled for sheepishly rubbing the back of his head and letting out a weak chuckle.

"Uhh…Sorry?"

Voldemort glared at him a little more before stepping back (in mid air, weird, I know) and letting out a frustrated sigh. Sending one last glare at Harry he finished with a,

"I am going to kill you."

Before he could stop himself Harry nodded,

"Yeah, I know."

This time he held back the 'eep' that threatened to escape at the glare. He resolved to teach himself to let out a more manly sound when scared/startled when he had the time.

A bell tolled through the castle and the sound of chatting and footsteps began to echo down the hallways.

Glancing round Harry turned to Voldemort wondering what to do about him. Said man sneered at him, as if he knew Harry's thoughts (which he probably did, knowing Harry's luck with keeping his thoughts in his mind). Sighing Harry simply turned and made his way to Defence Against the Dark Arts, Dark Lord in tow.

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Defence Against the Dark Arts did not go well. The whole way through the lesson Voldemort contented himself with making snide comments on the spells mentioned, or telling short-stories on how useless some of the spells were and how he knew from personal experience.

Experience as in deflecting them with some other Dark Curse, and then explaining to Harry what kind of state that left the poor victim responsible in (though Harry rather thought that if they were stupid enough to even attempt to fight a powerful Dark Lord and not run ASAP, then they rather deserved what they got).

This was not the way he wanted to spend his favourite subject, and it was not helped by the fact he couldn't tell said Dark Lord to shut up and fuck off, because otherwise everyone would think he was hearing voices in the walls again…not a good thing.

So he was quite justifiably ready to go on a mass-murdering rampage by the end of the lesson, and he decided to get right to it if something didn't distract him soon.

Unfortunately said distraction didn't occur in the lesson, but directly after it when Harry went to the Gryffindor common room, which was usually empty during lunch. He had been talking to the Dark Lord, after having released his anger at Voldemort for the lesson debacle, and they had started to continue their debate again where Harry was half-way through an emphatic point when a quiet voice diverted his attention to the entrance of the common room.

"Harry?"

It was Hermione and Ron and they were watching him with barely concealed curiosity/worry.

"Harry…who are you talking to?"

His eyes widened and he glared at the smirking Dark Lord before turning his attention back to his friends who had moved further into the room.

About to panic his mind raced and suddenly that epiphany which happened with the Malfoy/letter incident occurred again and a wide smile spread over his face as he waved his friends forward to sit on a seat.

"You'll never guess what happened." He started, looking down and sheepishly ruffling his hair with one hand, "But today, you know in potions how my cauldron blew up?" At her nod he continued, "Well that wasn't cause I screwed up and was waiting for it to blow. That was because a voice I didn't recognise had suddenly spoken in my ear!"

"But Harry," Hermione stated with a puzzled frown, "There was no one near you at the time."

But Harry just nodded emphatically, looking with wide eyes at the both of them he leaned forward conspirationally, "My luck is back." He stated as they leaned closer to hear his whisper, "I'm being haunted, but only I can see or hear him! It's freaky!"

He folded his arms and feeling quite satisfied leaned back, but of course Hermione wouldn't leave it at that. Her face settled in a frown as she looked at him with something akin to suspicion, "But Harry I've never read of a…personal haunting? Where only the one being haunted can see the ghost…"

Harry just shrugged before pointing at Voldemort who was watching everything with a raised eyebrow, "Well, there he is. Can you see him?" Her frown deepened as she gazed un-seeingly at where he pointed, her eyes slowly turning to Ron who seemed to, as usual, have taken everything at face value. Ron simply shrugged before looking at Harry and asked with a lopsided grin,

"Well then what's your ghosts name, mate?"

It was a, for once, innocent question. But Harry panicked inside, quickly putting something together he hoped that Hermione wouldn't see through the name, but he couldn't think of much else on such short notice,

"His name's Elldir Samoht."

He heard a choking sound and turned to see Riddle apparently chocking after attempting to stop the laughter at the chosen name. Blinking at the sight he almost missed Hermione's question,

"His name's Elder Samot? Do you think he was the Elder of an ancient tribe somewhere?" Her know-all-knowledge curiosity finally showed itself and Harry simply smirked as he met eyes with Voldemort,

"Well, he is certainly ancient."

Ignoring Voldemort's snarl his smirk widened as he waved his arms around emphatically.

"He could be in his seventies or something!"

As usual Hermione started to babble about all the different tribes he could have belonged to, where they could have migrated to and from and everything else she could think of, though that was abruptly cut off at Harry's mused question (which prompted another round of choking from Riddle),

"I think I'll call him Voldemort."

Hermione and Ron started spluttering before Ron turned pale,

"Are you saying he's…"

But Harry simply looked at him before allowing comprehension to dawn on his face,

"Oh God no! I just thought it would be funny if people saw me calling an invisible person only I could see and hear, Voldemort." He shrugged and let out a grin, "They would completely freak!" His friends didn't share his enthusiasm, in fact it looked like they had gone into shock. Finally Ron seemed to snap out of it and he leaned forward to pat Harry soothingly on the knee,

"You're insane, mate. Absolutely, undeniably, completely fucking insane."

A grin just spread over Harry's face as he nodded happily.

Turning his attention to the stoic Dark Lord watching from the corner, Harry stuck out his tongue before he turned his attention back to his friends, having the first enjoyable conversation he had had with them in a long while.

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Voldemort watched as Potter and his friends talked.

Shaking his head he pushed his consciousness back to his sleeping body. He hadn't realised just how smart Harry was, or just how quickly the Brat thought when under pressure until he witnessed it happen.

Only he had felt the panic Harry had experienced, and the others would never have been able to tell from Harry's expression just how worried he had been.

But it was that last line that the boy said that had him truly realise just how smart Potter was. He had mentioned how he would maybe give 'Elder Samot' the name 'Voldemort', and whilst his friends thought he would do it just to get a rise out of people, only he knew that Harry had averted a potential disaster. If anyone ever heard Potter accidentally call Voldemort by his name out loud, they would simply overlook it now, where as if Harry had said nothing...

It wouldn't have ended well. For Harry anyway.

Shaking his head once more, he looked through his own eyes at the ceiling above him before allowing himself to fall back into sleep, wondering just how much about Potter he really knew.

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An: There we go people.

Hope all of you are happy.

Sorry, I know this one isn't that funny. I was simply trying to get the plot to move along without trying to force some of the humour, though I think the beginning wasn't too bad :P

Reviews make me happy. So review please :D

(Me? Emotional blackmail? Never! :P)