Over 100 reviews! Yay, I'm so happy. wipes tear I know this chapter is sort of short, but the next bit wasn't breaking well and I figured better to get a shorter chapter out now rather than nothing at all for however long it takes me to get the next bit right.

: speech : is Parseltongue

/ speech / is mental speak

:speech/ is mental Parseltongue

OoooOoOooOOo

Harry is startled to feel such a rush of emotion from the other soul that is so positive. He is used to the intense rage and hate shoving through the bond, but the happiness…

Harry's arm raises somewhat laconically, his wand pointed at the skeptical looking Tom.

… the happiness feels like warmth, fuzziness, like… happy bunnies and rainbows or something similarly ridiculous.

"Serpenlingua." Harry says. A flash of light envelops Tom.

:What did you just do to me?: Tom hisses.

"What the?" Harry says, the warm bubble popping and leaving him cold. /What did you just do to him?/ Harry echoes at the basilisk, who has an expression like McGonagall with a glass of warm milk.

:Nothing./ Voldemort demurs.

/You… you used your own pleasure as a bastardized Imperio, didn't you?/ Harry is torn between being incredulous, mildly impressed and really freaking angry.

If snakes could grin, Voldemort would have. :It was rather brilliant./ He allows, unable to reign his pride in enough to deny it.

/You are such a… a…/

:Dark Lord?/ Voldemort supplies wryly. :It's the bare minimum of what he deserves./

/What. Did. You. Do./

"Tom, what's wrong?" Myrtle asks, confused at his continued hissing.

:Nothing, I feel fine.: Tom looks around him at the incomprehension.

"He's not saying anything." Snape says, looking worried.

:What, I'm talking. Aren't I?:

/You made him unable to speak in English?/ Harry asks.

:Yes./

Now Harry is just confused. He doesn't see what is really all that bad about being stuck in Parseltongue. /Why?/

Instead of replying with words Voldemort touches his nose to Harry's spirit. A rush of frustration crosses between them as Voldemort rolls back from his ignoble capture by the other form of his soul due to his inability to cast spells, to the insults that he was able to throw but no one understood, to his desperate desire to escape the two hormonal teenagers and how his spells kept making them wetter, and less clothed, until Lily and Severus were…

"ARGH!" Harry screams, falling out of his chair and clawing at his eyes.

"Harry!" Myrtle exclaims, wavering only slightly before abandoning her husband for the child that cursed him.

Harry glares at Severus, who backs up a step, unnerved at the intensity of the green in the younger boy's gaze.

:Testiculincendio is a marvelous spell./ Voldemort suggests. Harry fingers his wand. Snape backs up another step and licks his lips nervously. :Causes the genitals to ignite into flames./ Voldemort says temptingly.

"Hmm."

:Cyanophalus is another classic choice- causes blood to rush into the penis at high speeds, causing pain worse than being kicked in the balls./ Voldemort offers when he sees Harry wavering.

Harry shakes his head. "No! What am I thinking?" Everyone gives him an odd look, though Severus looks relived, even though he's not sure about what. /I won't let you corrupt my thoughts you evil bastard./

:I'm hurt./

"Harry, dear, since you seem to have regained your voice, do you want to tell us about what happened to you?" Myrtle asks kindly, cradling the boy in her lap.

"Tell you?" He looks over to Tom and Dumbledore. Had they both gotten a case of need-to-know-itis and were keeping it from everyone else.

Myrtle follows his gaze and continues with a decided chill in her voice. "My husband claims that he cannot tell me."

"Can't or wont?" Harry asks as he looks at the two squirming wizards.

:Can't!: Tom hisses exasperatedly. When no one but Harry understands him, he turns to Dumbledore emploringly.

"Can not." Dumbledore supplies.

"Mmhmm." Myrtle says, her eyebrow cocked and lips pursed in disapproval.

:Oh by Merlin! You're the one that put the C…: Tom's voice strangles off, an odd sound when one is hissing to begin with. Harry's bright green eyes tilt to the side as he cocks his head in confusion.

"I put a what on you?" He asks, puzzled.

"A Command, my dear boy." Albus replies, looking relieved.

"Is that so." Harry says, his eyes narrowing. He grabs the tail of the basilisk before Voldemort burrows too deep in his subconscious and squeezes the information out of the other soul's mind, barely noting that he is having much fewer issues doing so since his experience. "Huh." He says finally, after assimilating the information. He notices that Tom and Albus are looking particularly tense. "Well that wasn't on purpose." He sighs. "You can talk about it if you want. I was trying to request you not blab it about to the entire world. I've already been both a 'celebrity' and 'notorious' before, and I would rather not experience either again.

"So Tom wasn't lying, he really couldn't talk about it?" Severus asks, looking a bit nervous again as Harry turns his eyes back onto the taller boy. Snape is happy to note that they are fading back to hazel, however. He cannot relax, though. The thought that the small boy in front of him could take away his free will like that- not even on purpose! He shudders internally, remembering his father with dull eyes.

"I suppose not." Harry muses.

:See, dearest, I would never lie to you.: Tom says, reaching out his hands to his wife. She sniffs and ignores him.

"So, what's the deal then, Harry?" Jeff asks, eyes bright. Albus opens his mouth, his face set in what Harry immediately interprets as the 'we should keep the children ignorant' look. He glares at the Headmaster with brilliant green and red in equal degrees.

"I'm from another dimension." Harry says.

Tom and Albus look stunned that he said it so easily.

"A what?" Jeff asks, frowning so that the freckles on his nose bunch up.

"A place very like this one, but where Tom Riddle was raised in a Muggle orphanage, came to hate them, and led a reign of terror and murder that sent the Wizarding world into chaos." Harry elaborated.

The three not in the know look at him with varying levels of shock. As it wears off Snape looks almost sick, he backs up to the wall, knowing what his life would have been like without Tom taking him from his father. Myrtle looks extremely sad, whereas Jeff's eyes begin to light up.

"So you crossed through time like in Hitchhiker's Guide on the BBC?" Jeff asked excitedly.

"Erm, sort of."

"That's brilliant!" Jeff says.

Harry just eyes him, not quite sure what to make of the reaction. Nothing about it seemed particularly amazing to him.

"You get to see how things would turn out if only one little thing were different, yeah? You don't think that's cool?" Jeff asks, losing steam. "Ooh! What time was it when you came from?"

"Er… 2008."

"How old were you, dear?" Myrtle asks softly.

"28." Harry replies, bracing for her to dump him on the ground.

"Oh you poor thing. People weren't cursing you that whole time, were they?"

"No. I had a pretty good childhood, I guess. My aunt and uncle took care of me. They weren't mean or anything, but a bit distant. Compared to what it could have been they were downright decent." Harry thinks back to the whole broom cupboard scenario with trepidation. It could still happen.

"Oh, Harry. Every child deserves love. Don't sell yourself short." With that Myrtle hugs him again.

"Ooph!"

:When are you going to reverse this spell, Harry?: Tom asks, looking annoyed and afraid.

:Never!/ Voldemort hisses in the back of Harry's mind before darting back into his subconscious.

Harry looks over at his adoptive father and notes that Dumbledore is looking frustrated and worried. "Erm… finitum incantatum?" He says, waving his wand awkwardly around the arms binding him into a hug.

"Can you understand me?" Tom asks, sounding plaintive.

"Yes." Albus says, eying Harry. Harry eyes him back, not happy with the look he's getting from the man who could have been his friend, but always ends up meddling in ways that Harry can't agree with. "What are we going to do with you?"

:Can we go back to school?/ Voldemort asks, feelings of wistfulness surprising Harry.

As he can't find a reason not too, Harry repeats Voldemort's request. "Can w-I go back to class?" Due to almost sounding schizoid, Harry almost doesn't feel the pulse of surprise from the other soul. But when he probes all he gets in response is icy aloofness.

"I don't see why not." Tom says, looking pleased. Dumbledore, however, seems to have a few (or many) misgivings.

"I can take a Wizarding Oath not to harm the students, if you like." Harry offers.

"That certainly won't be necessary!" Myrtle exclaims.

"Perhaps it will be." Dumbledore mutters.

"He's only a child, Albus." Tom says, though he looks like he is considering it as well.

"He is 28 years old, he said it himself. He is fully old enough to not only be out of school but to make an Oath such as this." Dumbledore's voice is steely.

"I think not, Headmaster." Myrtle says, standing up, still cradling Harry. Harry can't find it in himself to protest, as he is tired from the metaphysical journey and rather enjoying the maternal feelings directed at him for the first time he can remember. "There is a precedent for this- when seers remember past lives, they are not considered to be the age of their combined experiences, but their physical age. At the very most, young Harry has only been 'alive' in this world for three years."

"That only applies to people who were born." Albus rebuts, looking almost as intense as Harry has ever seen him. He wonders what he did to deserve it briefly, before remembering all the reasons why. Not only did he subvert the old wizard's will in a version of the Imperious that is only technically not Unforgivable, but he admitted to having a mass murderer as a semi-dominant passenger.

"And you can prove that our Harry was not born here, can you Albus?" Myrtle asks coolly.

"And you can prove he was?" Albus almost sneers back.

"Burden of proof, my dear." Myrtle throws back the Headmaster's favorite patronizing phrase at him with eyes cold and sharp as shards of ice.

Harry's eyes flicker to Tom's to see the reaction of the only other person aware that he is a megalomaniac and is surprised and a bit disgusted to find the man looking at his wife with obvious lust.

"Severus." Snape jumps in his corner, looking panicked. "Why don't you take the two boys back to their dorm, while your father and I leave for our own… discussions." Myrtle says, having noticed her husband's look as well.

"Yes." Snape replies, looking like he has agreed to his own death sentence. Myrtle puts Harry on the ground gently and shoos all three boys out in front of her, with Tom strolling behind. Harry looks over his shoulder worriedly to get his last glimpse of the Headmaster's unreadable expression.

OoooOoOooOOo

Harry is so exhausted he doesn't quite make it back to the dorm. Severus picks him up and carries him. Though Snape twitches until depositing Harry in his bed, the younger boy does not wake up.

"What's wrong, Sev?" Jeff asks. "Aren't you happy Harry can talk now?"

"I… yes." He replies, looking at the smiling face of the younger boy before Jeff's mouth cracks open with a yawn. "You should be in bed as well."

"Ok. Tuck me in?" Jeff asks. Severus complies, using his hands rather than his wand to give himself something domestic to do to take his mind off of the boy in the other bed. "Why are you afraid of Harry?" Jeff asks, his voice muffled by the layers of sheets.

"He can control people, Jeff. No one should have that power." Severus says finally.

"Aw, you know Harry. He wouldn't do something like that."

"Do we?" Severus asks quietly, thinking back to the hard green eyes with a shudder, knowing them to be the look of someone who had gone though a hell much worse than he had, and not necessarily coming out of it intact. "Good night, Jeff." He says finally, patting the covers and making his way out of the dorm.

"'Night, Sev." Jeff murmurs before falling asleep himself.