A/N: JerryJean; you made my birthday (the 25th) a very happy day. Thank you. 3 Also, thank you Alex Day for the portrait idea. It was just what I needed.

Chapter 15

"Alden, we need to talk." Harry prompted the boy the next morning.

Alden had barely gotten any sleep at all the night before, instead choosing to stay up all night worrying of what he had to have been doing wrong. "W-what about?" Alden asked, pulling out a chair to take a seat.

"About you." Severus told him from the stove. He was cooking breakfast for all of them. "Over the next… well… we don't know precisely how long it will be, but it shouldn't take more than two months, Harry, Teddy, and I aren't going to be around much."

"We're going to be staying here most of the time. You still need to go to school though, we can't let you miss out on your education, plus you'll be safer there." Harry told him.

Alden frowned. His worst fears were coming true way faster than he'd anticipated… they were leaving him at Hogwarts. "Safer without you two?"

Harry nodded. "We'll still see you when we teach, but of the evenings and weekends, we will be here."

Alden looked slightly horrified and Harry went on to explain that he hadn't done anything wrong, he simply needed to be in a place that was safe from someone who might become a possible enemy. While Minerva could not stop the Minister from coming onto Hogwarts grounds to conduct official business, she could keep him from making personal calls to the people there. More importantly, Harry wasn't too sure that Shacklebolt would think to kidnap Alden and see about Teddy's werewolf issue… considering that the man had no earthly idea that Teddy even possessed such abilities.

After hearing all of this, Alden wasn't sure whether or not to go with his gut instinct – which was to run away because his parents seemed like they were abandoning him – or to go with his logical mind – which was to do as he was told because they made a very compelling argument. He simply nodded and was whisked off back to Hogwarts.

Severus looked to his husband and sighed. "I'll cover for you; we'll tell the rest of the staff that you've come down with something highly contagious and can't come in today, that I will have to make a potion for it. I'll conveniently catch it whilst healing you, and having only made enough for you, that will give me at least two days here where you will cover for me. Think we can get everything we need done in that time?"

Harry thought for a moment then nodded his agreement. "It should be simple enough. I'll call Molly and tell her babysitting is off for the next 3 days."

Severus left their safe house to go and teach. Harry spent most of the morning carrying Teddy around on his hip and teaching him the alphabet. In the short time that they spent working on it, Teddy had graduated from 'A, B, C, D, Q, P, L', to, 'A, B, C, D, E, P, W'.

Once it was time for Teddy's nap, harry put the toddler in his incredibly tiny bed and turned out the light. Teddy's eyes seemed to shimmer in the darkness, Harry noted as he left the room. The young man slid on to the couch and sighed. So much to do, yet he had no ideas on where to start.

He could make a list of the things that needed to be done to find out what the Minister was planning. He could make a list of ways to get a truth serum into the Minister. He could try to sneak in a suspicion at his upcoming meeting that Teddy is exhibiting some werewolf symptoms and he wonders if the boy might simply be a late bloomer; though that idea would put unwanted stress on Harry and Severus trying to keep the boy safe. He could even talk to Bill and see what he knew.

Now there was an idea. Bill might know why Preece thought the Minister had sent him to find the man. Harry still wasn't decided on what to believe; on the one hand, Bill swore up and down that he wasn't the one at fault and it had all been a misunderstanding. On the other hand, one of Preece's pages had Bill sighted several times around the man, and that couldn't simply be coincidence.

Harry floo-called the Weasleys for the second time that day. He was surprised to find that Bill wasn't staying there anymore; he had gone back to France stopped receiving floo-calls from his family. Apparently they had gotten into a fight and that was why Molly had sounded so upset earlier.

When Harry tried calling the man himself, he found that his floo was also on the – for lack of a better term – blocked list. He sighed and found his way back to the couch. Suddenly his floo flared to life. "Harry? Harry! Harry come here please." Alden's voice called.

"What is it?" Harry asked moving towards the flaring green flame.

Alden rustled something and pushed a rectangle up to the heatless fire. "This!" He said worriedly.

"Alden, I can't see what that is in a floo call. You have to send it to me." Harry told him.

"There is no way I am allowing him to send that through." Severus said from the background.

Harry sighed. "Alright, let me get Teddy and-"

"No!" Alden and Severus both replied. Severus came forward and put his own head into the flames. "I'll come there to watch him then you come here. Move."

A quick switch was performed, Harry being most confused throughout it. He found himself in the Headmistress' office with a worried looking Alden and McGonagall with her head in her hands. What could have happened?

Harry's eyes were drawn down to what Alden was holding, and they widened substantially. Alden looked up at Harry. "This is the man I've been dreaming about." He said lowly. "I didn't know he was real."

Harry swallowed thickly and looked to Alden's face. "How long have you been dreaming about him?"

"Since… since I moved in with you and Severus… the second night I spent the night in your rooms." He admitted.

"Who found this?" Harry asked, fearing the answer.

"I did." Alden said.

Harry looked once more at the portrait and sighed. A young Tom riddle waved back at him and smirked. "Have I become the supreme ruler yet?" The portrait asked. "These two wouldn't answer my question."

Harry glared. "No, you're dead and all of your horcruxes have disappeared."

The portrait smiled slyly. "Not all of them, I can guarantee it."

"The diary, the ring, the locket, the cup, the diadem, the one inside of me, and the snake. Yes, all destroyed." Harry told him.

Tom's eyebrows furrowed and he crossed his arms. "I was sure nobody would expect the diadem. And when did I put one in you?"

"Long story, I don't want to share it. Minnie, can I take this out back and burn it?" He asked.

"I've tried." She told him. "It won't burn. The paint doesn't run when submerged in water. Every spell I've thrown at the blasted thing doesn't work. The only good that comes out of this is that he can't roam to another portrait, nor can any other come in this one."

Harry rand his hand through his hair and sighed. "We'll find a way to destroy it."

"Wait." Alden interrupted. "Maybe you can use it." When the Headmistress and his father gave him the most curious of looks, he continued. "Your red eye thing."

Harry's eyes lit up. "That's a good idea."

Severus' head appeared back in the fire. "I need to get to class." He reminded everyone. "I have to teach in 10 minutes."

They switched themselves back around, and Harry snuck the portrait with him in the confusion. It was just a portrait, it wasn't like it could harm Teddy, plus he needed to see if he could learn anything from it.

Harry set the portrait up in a chair and sat on the sofa. He interlaced his fingers and stared at it from under his eyebrows. "What do you know about yourself?"

The portrait looked back at him. "Oh are we talking to me now? I thought you wanted to destroy me."

"I do, and I will. First, I want to know a few things. What do you know about yourself?" He repeated.

"Oh all sorts of things." The portrait replied. He glanced at his nails as if checking their cleanliness. "But if I'm to tell you anything, I want to know some things. Like why I would ever make something like you my horcrux."

"It was an accident." Harry told him. "You meant to kill me, but it backfired and you killed yourself. A portion of your soul wound up inside of me and I became a horcrux." Harry told him. "Your turn. What do you know about yourself?"

"Lots of things. I would visit myself often up until about 18 or 19 years ago then I just stopped." The man in the portrait gave a minute look of disgust then went back to normal. "How many people did I kill?"

"Hundreds, mostly muggles being tortured. What was that look about?"

"I don't know what look you're talking about." Tom replied, crossing his arms.

"The one you gave when you were talking about- oh just tell me what it was about. It's not like you can do anything."

Tom seemed to consider this and eventually sighed. "You're right, I can't. How, though, do I know that you're not lying to me and I'm not really ruling the world at the moment?"

Harry was about to respond that he could look into a pensive, however he quickly realized that there was no possible way that could happen. He didn't know of any spells to show a memory within a room, nor did he know of anyone who could make something that complicated, not even his Severus.

Voldemort's body had been burned when he died, and nobody had put up any sort of memorial for him. He supposed he might shrink the portrait a bit and wrap it in his invisibility clo- no, that wouldn't work in the least. The cloak was far too large.

Harry sighed once more. "I've no idea how to prove it to you. You will just have to trust me."

The portrait shrugged and looked around as if looking for other people. "I gave that look because I watched myself go insane." He replied honestly. "I was a bit relieved when I stopped visiting myself."

Harry frowned. "Will that… will I go insane?" He asked.

"Why would you?"

Harry then set in to explain to the portrait about the siphoning and his blood lust. He explained about the thrill of the chase and absolute fun he had when his victim was scared witless. He even got a bit carried away and went into one of his fantasies.

When he was done, Tom simply shook his head and rubbed at his temple. It was silent for a bit, then he laughed. He tilted his head back and laughed uproariously at the entire situation. Finally he wiped at his eyes to stop the tears of hilarity from running down and nodded. "Yes, yes you will go insane… in fact… you've already begun." He laughed once more.

Harry didn't like this answer and he didn't like how the portrait responded to it. He pointed his wand at the portrait and cast a spell he wasn't even aware he knew. "Noralid!" The portrait stopped moving and emitting a sound in mid-laugh. The color seemed to drain from it until it became no more than barely visible. The figure of Tom Riddle seemed to be painted of as if with… normal muggle paint.

The young man threw the portrait into the fire and smirked as it burnt to a crisp. He should call Hogwarts and tell McGonagall that he'd managed to destroy the thing.

When he was done with that, he could feel the effects he normally felt before he wound himself up into a red state. He wasn't sure if the fact that his memory was coming back easier from what he did during this state was a good thing or a bad thing. He mused that perhaps this was good as he was finally getting to the point that he needn't ask what had happened when he went over the edge, but at the same time… remembering everything… He shivered and put this from his mind.

It was simply a matter of control as Macoval has stated before. Control and release in the appropriate settings. As long as he could control himself around those brain-dead peons who fancied they were learning anything whilst they mucked about when they were supposed to be- wait… What am I thinking? He demanded of himself. These are students, they aren't like that.

The young man wondered if perhaps the portrait was right and he was going crazy... He shook his head and decided that simply couldn't be the case, if he was going insane, Severus would have said something by now.

Teddy's cries from the other room startled him, and he went to see what was wrong whilst forming a plan to see precisely what Kingsley was up to.

(¯`·. Hp/Ss .·´¯)