Harry and Voldemort cackled gleefully as they dodged a swipe from a six foot tall animated statue of a fairy (sometimes Myrtle's taste was a bit questionable) before leaping onto its arm and kneeing it in the face. The whole head shattered in a shower of plaster and Harry leapt through the debris and charged the Headmaster at approximately half his maximum speed. Even so, the Headmaster was unable to hit them with any spells. Harry somersaulted over a blasting hex, skipped around a bludgeoning charm and batted away a depilator with his hand. Reaching the older wizard who was desperately backing away, Harry tugged on the man's long beard and turned it into a dolphin.
"Come on, you old coot! You're starting to reuse spells. Be more creative." Harry or Voldemort taunted. They both were feeling much calmer after eviscerating countless summons and animated statuary.
Dumbledore looked at the two of them with something akin to disbelief. He was panting and trying to turn his beard back into facial hair but it kept smacking him with its flippers and clicking at him.
"Or do you want us to put you out of your misery?" Voldemort (probably) commented. "A thousand year sleep? Turned into a frog? I'm sure there are plenty of fun fairytale ways we could get you out of our hair for a while." Harry chuckled.
"You're only further proving my point." Dumbledore gasped out desperately as he finally turned his beard back, though it was still porpoise grey, not white.
"That even when someone really pisses me off I won't kill them if they are merely misguided rather than criminally insane and trying to kill someone?" Harry mused, sweeping his arm to the gathered aurors, some of whom were asleep even though the battle was so interesting. That would happen if you had to watch someone battling for hours. And hours. Really, almost all day. At least they got fresh muffins and tea. "Well fine, ignore my monologuing." Harry pouted with a mental smirk at Voldemort. "Maybe I should really start going in on one to change up the pace of the evening."
"You're evil!" Dumbledore cried.
"Am not!" Harry protested. "You can't label everything you can't control as evil. Heck, I'm just a kid, who potentially is just a reincarnation or magical fluke of insanity." Harry and Voldemort hoped that Dumbledore was both old enough and enough of a pureblood not to have seen Muggle horror films like the Shining and thus still have the concept of kids as cute rather than creepy.
"You're trying to destroy us! You're plotting something, I know it." Dumbledore rasped out, low enough that Harry and Voldemort suspected he hadn't really meant to say it.
"You are totally paranoid, you know that? And I think you have some serious issues with Slytherins." Dumbledore gave Harry/Voldemort an angry look. "Coming from the Headmaster of the premier school in the United Kingdom, I feel you should be more impartial." He glanced over and saw a new batch of muffins was being carried out. "Well, I'm feeling pretty satisfied, let's call it a draw." Harry muttered, licking his lips and making his way over to his adopted mother.
"Get back, here, we're not done." The Headmaster growled. Harry merely raised the eyebrow over his green eye and turned back to get a muffin. Harry instinctively dodged to the side, startled, but Voldemort reached out and snatched the sickly purple light out of the air.
"That wasn't very nice, old man." Voldemort hissed, almost slipping into Parseltongue. Harry brushed up against Voldemort lightly and learned the barely-shy-of-dark nature of the spell, which would have sent him into an eternal sleep. "What happened to concern for the spectators?" Voldemort taunted. The counterspell was well known, but it did sometimes cause severe problems with young children. "Let's take this inside, shall we?" Voldemort cooed, causing Harry to be severely discomforted.
There was a feeling of rushing and squeezing, sort of like Aparating, but strangely different. When the world settled, Harry was at Hogwarts. It was raining so hard he felt like he was going to fall over, wind pushing at his small frame. He was instantly soaking wet.
"Harry, the extent of your ineptitude never ceases to amaze me." A familiar voice broke through the elements. Harry looked up in shock as a hand was waved and a spell extended, shielding him from the rain to cover Harry as well.
Harry blinked at the semifamiliar face. The man was lean, with an open face that seemed very much a mask, especially considering the bright red eyes. "Tom?" Harry asked, confused.
The other's face broke into a wide grin. "Close, Harry." Voldemort replied.
"Why aren't you a basilisk?" Harry asked stupidly.
"He takes a different form when separated from your mind." Harry spun around, looking at a much younger Dumbledore with auburn hair. "You are seeing him as he sees himself." The younger Headmaster gave Voldemort a dirty look, though Voldemort coolly ignored him.
Harry looked down at his tiny body and frowned. Did that mean he now saw himself as a child? How depressing. He looked back at Voldemort warily, but the two were ignoring him in order to stare at each other.
"Get out." Dumbledore growled finally. The grounds of Hogwarts suddenly seemed even less welcoming, something Harry had not considered possible, especially considering the love he held for the school.
"No." Voldemort said, smirking and unaffected. "I said we were taking this inside. We are going to settle this."
"I have nothing to say to you." Dumbledore snarled. Harry could feel something swirling in the air though, and reached out to touch it. "You invaded my home." Harry blinked. The words were filled with such meaning- expanded it was more like 'you/him/evil/change invaded/destroyed/derailed/defiled my/greater good's/fate's home/plan/life/statis quo.' It was both more understandable for being in words and less intimate than when he connected with Voldemort's thoughts. But undeniably confusing.
"That's fine. I seem to have a penchant for monologuing, so you can just listen." Tom said, his face deadpan, though Harry could sense the mental wink at the joke shared between them and a sense of approval. For what? Harry wondered. "You see, at this point I would be content if you would simply stop trying your damndest to make our life miserable and gave us some breathing room. I'm not really feeling like I want to go through the bother of trying to take over the world again, seeing how well it worked out last time."
"You're insane." Dumbledore said, sounding a bit shocked. The subtext read 'if you think I'm going to believe that, though I think I may, which means you really are out of your mind.'
Harry chuckled. "Yes, he is most definitely insane." Although, Harry had the sudden thought, if they were living in the same skull, that meant they both were, didn't it?
"Ah, you are both wrong. I was insane." Voldemort corrected dryly.
"I'm pretty sure we had the correct tense the first time." Harry said. Dumbledore shot him a look that, since they were in a mindscape, actually did say 'you're not helping'.
"Well, perhaps." Voldemort allowed magnanimously. "But the main reason I was so unbalanced has been corrected, hasn't it Harry?" Harry just looked at him dubiously. Voldemort sighed.
Dumbledore's eyes narrowed. "You are a broken soul, there is no way that you can be sane." Harry could feel the background to the thought, however. That Dumbledore could not think of them as anything but broken and evil, or else the unease he was suppressing would not let him continue to torment a small boy like Harry, especially after learning that Harry actually saw himself as a small child. If Dumbledore were to give up control of this one thing, this penance of fighting for good and suppressing evil... the world would be too grey, and his own actions as a young man selfish and full of dreams would have to be addressed by the old man he had become. This Dumbledore had killed his best friend, but had not had a second adversary to burn though his beliefs and purify them, solidify and smelt them down into a hard but well intentioned morality. No, here, it was left to run in the background behind even the jealousy of seeing others changing the world for the better in ways that had never been dreamed of before, an emotion that was itself quite buried.
Harry just stared at the red haired headmaster. Voldemort glanced at his equal before turning back to Dumbledore. "Your tenses are still off, though perhaps the time travel can be blamed for that." Voldemort smiled charismatically. "In fact, my soul was put back together by young Harry here, a service I much appreciate. Splitting one's soul necessitates insanity. I lost some very important things to that diary. Which I didn't notice, of course, until I had them back. It really is a wonder that I was functional enough for people to consider following my commands, though the magics I worked on them perhaps made it difficult to rebel." He smiled somewhat sadly. "It is especially painful seeing what I could have become. Your Tom has so much power, followers that are not sycophantic idiots, a most excellent wardrobe and as many young minds to corrupt as he sees fit."
"You're sick." Dumbledore snarled, though his hate was much lessened and the subtext only seemed tired.
"Yes, well, it takes a while to heal, I suppose. And what is normal, anyway?" Voldemort mused.
"Probably not having discussions with someone inside their heads with the other soul you are linked to as backup." Harry supplied helpfully.
"Hm." Voldemort considered.
"What do you want?" Dumbledore said, aging in front of their eyes as the grounds became covered in a cold and damp mist. 'I can do nothing to stop them.' Dumbledore's thoughts said, though the depressed landscape made that pretty obvious.
"I want to have a muffin." Harry huffed, annoyed that the conversation (and really, the whole battle) had been usurped by Voldemort, especially because he wasn't feeling as terrified at the thought as he felt he should.
"I want to make scathing comments, mercilessly antagonize my soul-reconstructing enemy for defeating me, and eventually convince him to help me take over the world. Once it seems like a good idea. Like, say, in another couple hundred years or so." Voldemort said, looking at Harry even though he was theoretically answering Dumbledore's question.
"You mean when we look thirteen?" Harry rolled his eyes. As much as Voldemort was a sadistic megalomaniac, his stubborn persistence was getting past scary, straight through annoying, and now was ending up somewhat funny.
"What do you want?" Voldemort asked Dumbledore, turning the question back at the now ancient looking wizard.
Who looked somewhat stunned to be asked, and then angry. Harry didn't need a psychic connection to realize the Headmaster thought they were trying to bribe him.
"No, really." Harry protested. "We're both at a loss as to what to do to appease you. He's never bothered to get on your good side and I'm used to..."
"Being your alternate self's pawn." Voldemort interrupted. Harry glared at him.
Dumbledore regarded the two of them warily, a thought unfurling in his mind.
"We're not going to kill you!" Harry protested hotly.
"Well..." Voldemort looked contemplative.
"Are you kidding? That would cause all sorts of problems. We might as well commit suicide or sleep in a cave for a few centuries if we did that. There's no way to reverse that kind of publicity." Harry had a lot of experience with the fickle nature of public opinion, but some things were unforgivable.
Voldemort just gave Harry a darkly amused look. Harry wondered what, exactly, Voldemort thought he had just won. But Dumbledore was looking at him strangely as well...
Feeling the older wizard's thoughts Harry jumped, then cursed. "And of course, it's wrong." He added with a bemused smile.
Voldemort's smile had entirely too many teeth, and his eyes were starting to glow.
Harry sighed. "Well, as I see it, this can go two ways. We can be the enemy you seem to need through some mental illness, or you're going to go off the deep end and people will turn against you." Harry said with a shrug. "And seeing as we look like a little boy and one of your good friends is already against you, the chances of the second happening are pretty high."
"Unless you push us out of sanity." Voldemort added coolly. "Which, admittedly might happen. And is what you were trying to have happen."
"Which would basically be forcing us to be evil when we really don't want to be." Harry continued. "Which you have done to us already." Harry narrowed his eyes suspiciously as he thought over what he had just said. "Rather, you almost did it to me, and you had a big hand in helping Voldie."
Albus looked torn, and the emotions rolling off of him were too chaotic for words to form. "All the assurances and jokes you could make now mean nothing to me. You have murdered in cold blood."
There wasn't really anything to be said to that. The three starred at each other.
"So that's it? No forgiveness? We die and end up in another world, screwed over by fate to be with each other for eternity until we figure something out, and you, who even when we feared you we respected your morals- you will not give us an inch of slack?" Harry was so frustrated he almost couldn't finish his sentence. "What, only you get a second chance? What makes you so special!?" A small part of Harry knew he was being unreasonable, but most of him was seeing red. "Argh! We can't win! Of course not, that wouldn't be amusing enough." He snarled, stomping his foot childishly. To the shock of all the current occupants of Dumbledore's mind, a crack started snaking away from where the small foot had slammed down. "Oh crap."
The faux Hogwarts was crumbling an breaking up like a bad Muggle action film. Harry and Voldemort grabbed onto each others arms as they fell through the world.
OooOOoo
Harry opened his eyes and saw the sky. He blinked and sat up. He was back in the garden, Myrtle was fluttering behind the Mediwizard who had been, presumedly, running diagnostic scans on Harry as his wand was out.
"Harry, what happened?" Tom asked.
A stabbing pain shot through Harry, like his scar used to. His eyes widened and he looked inside. The basilisk was gone! He started to hyperventilate- had Voldemort been left in Dumbledore?
/:Relax.:/ Voldemort's mental voice was utterly blank, but even so, it set up a storm of emotions in Harry- disappointment, relief, fear... /:You really are such a thorn in my side.:/ Voldemort sighed in their mind. /:But I'm going to return the favor. You can't get rid of me that easily.:/
Harry took deep gulping breaths and tried to relax. The reason the basilisk was gone was that Voldemort now looked like he had in Dumbledore's mind. "I have a headache." Harry chose to state the obvious rather than get into any of the reasons that might be.
"What did he do to you?" Tom asked, his eyes flashing in anger.
"Nothing. He didn't do anything." Harry muttered, putting his head between his knees and breathing to try to get the shooting pains to die down. Harry squinted from between his knees and saw that Dumbledore was on the ground and not moving. Harry would have been concerned, if he could think at all through the pain.
/:If we want to prevent a bloodbath, I think we need to discuss some things with our minions.:/ Voldemort hissed from a corner of Harry's mind, words clipped like he was in pain as well.
"What are you talking about you fool?" Harry grumbled to himself. Voldemort moved their head up and pointed with one of their arms at the bushes at the edge of the garden. Glowing yellow eyes shone from the bushes, at the height of a man, and at the height of a wolf. Harry's headache kept him from realizing what that meant until the people who were watching his arm move looked to the foliage as well.
"Werewolves!" Someone screamed. The aurors (woke up and) spun to face the new threat.
"Can't I ever catch a break!" Harry whined, feeling very petulant.
OoOoOooOOOo
"Where am I?" Dumbledore asked himself, turning and surveying his surroundings. "King's Cross Station?" He identified with some shock.
"It has worked well in the... past..." There was a lengthy pause, in which Dumbledore was able to round on the speaker. Who looked an awful lot like himself. The other Dumbledore had the constipated look to his face of a man caught trying to describe a temporal paradox.
"What kind of trick is this?" The first Dumbledore asked of the newcomer. "Show your real form!"
The second Dumbledore looked amused. "My dear boy, this is my 'real form'." His eyes started to twinkle merrily.
"Don't call me 'boy'." The first Dumbledore was confused, and on top of his unfulfilling encounter for Harry an Voldemort just previously, he was really pissed off.
"Ah. But I have a few decades of experience on you my boy." The second Dumbledore twinkled.
The first Dumbledore gasped as pain lanced through his head. He grasped it with his hands and fell to his knees.
"Oh my, it does seem that the experience has been quite traumatic for you."
"Or if you really are me, we could be having a reaction like Tom has to Harry." Dumbledore grunted out, looking at his other through a eye barely cracked open.
"A possibility." The other mused. "But in this case, we are in the after-world, so soul conflicts shouldn't have much of an affect."
"What!?! They killed me?" Dumbledore tried to jump to his feet, but was so disoriented that he stumbled forward and would have fallen on his face if the other hadn't caught him and lowered him to the ground.
"Well, not dead, exactly." The other Dumbledore replied. "Mostly, perhaps."
"Mostly?"
"You can go back, and it would actually be harder for you to fully die than to return to your body. But at the moment you are... displaced. It is apparently is what happens when you drive a volatile young man to unreasoning anger inside your mind after already making a former Dark Lord connected to said young man through Horacruxes annoyed enough to want to kill you." The second Dumbledore replied. "Lemondrop?" He offered a tin to his younger self.
"Yes, thank you." the first Dumbledore said gratefully. He popped it in his mouth and let the wonderful magic of candy (something even the Muggles could get right) work on his headache. Soon the pain had dissipated enough that he could sit upright and think properly. He noted that the other Dumbledore had conjured a set of tea and a table. He sat down and accepted a cup- prepared just as he liked it. "Thank you again." He sipped the tea and sighed happily. The tea was heavenly. Perhaps appropriately so.
"So there is a reason that we're here talking."
"Of course." The younger Dumbledore was convinced that his older self was not lying to him. There was a sense of enlightenment in the air that was opening his mind in ways that he was sure would not continue once he had woken up into his body. Something to look forward to in the afterlife, he supposed.
"Harry was sent to your world though an accident, but he is not without... cosmic protections." The older Dumbledore said, taking a sip of his beverage. "The powers that be decided not to make their wishes known through a prophecy, as both of those two have had... issues with prophecies in the past. They would be likely to do something rash."
"I can't imagine why you would think that." The younger Dumbledore murmured around his cup of tea.
The older Dumbledore chuckled. "Quite right." He sobered. "Now, forcing them to face you like that has made the relationship between them extremely volatile. They were progressing orderly to a symbiosis, or possibly even combining entirely, which would have rendered them an extremely powerful and long-lived, but no longer immortal individual. Now, however, you broke them out of that while at the same time allowing them to learn to cooperate as individuals. And there is once again a danger that Voldemort will become a dominant personality, not just a subset of Harry's."
The younger Dumbledore could see that this was true, needing no further explanation in the crossroad world were the air flowed with information. He started cursing.
"Now, now, my boy. True you have possibly created the thing you thought you were fighting to begin with, but that's a tendency we both have." The older Dumbledore said cheerfully. "I have the utmost faith in young Harry. He will figure something out. And with some prompting, Voldemort can probably make the most of the second chance that he doesn't necessarily deserve."
The younger Dumbledore sipped his tea and eyed the other skeptically.