It was Friday the twenty-first of March, four days after Harry had dreamt about Tom Riddle at Number 12, Grimmauld Place. Harry found himself sitting in the Gryffindor Tower with Ron and Hermione, sharing the room with a few other Gryffindors who were laughing and joking with each other. The week had passed by slowly for Harry and though he was happy that he didn't have to begin his homework until at least midday tomorrow, the many thoughts that bothered him ruined what might have otherwise been a well-deserved break from stress.

Harry hadn't dreamt about Tom Riddle once since Monday and he still didn't know what to think about these 'dreams' in general. He didn't know why they were happening. He couldn't find an answer for why Tom treated him the way he did; it confused Harry when he thought about the last dream, when Tom had lifted his hand, kissing it lightly. That had felt more real than anything and it unnerved Harry. He was just glad that these dreams hadn't happened since then.

Yet then again, Harry thought, it wasn't much of a comfort that these dreams hadn't happened since Monday, considering he had spent several days now lost in his own troubled reflections about it all. It wasn't to the extent where Harry was falling behind on his work, but Hermione for one thought it was getting close to that. Despite the fact that her and Ron were friends again, thus were more willing to talk to Harry rather that at him, Harry still felt as though he was drifting from them somewhat – and Hermione doubtlessly felt this too.

"Is there anything bothering you, Harry?" she asked curiously as they sat around a slowly burning fire, seated in their usual comfortable armchairs.

Harry looked up, her voice having interrupted his thoughts. "Er, no I'm fine. Why?"

"You seem distracted," she said, staring at him.

He didn't know what to say to this.

"Gotta admit, you've been pretty quiet lately," Ron added. Ron didn't appear quite as concerned as Hermione was about this, but he was bothered enough to join the conversation, looking up from Quidditch Teams of Britain and Ireland (which he was reading for the umpteenth time now). He watched Harry closely, like Hermione. "What's bothering you?"

"It's nothing," Harry said, not meeting his eyes.

"You've barely spoken to us all week, Harry," Hermione stated. "You can't just tell us it's nothing."

Harry attempted to shrug it off, but neither Ron nor Hermione seemed convinced.

"Are you worried about Quidditch?" Ron asked, his book perhaps inspiring him.

"Why would I be worried about Quidditch now?" Harry asked.

"Good point…"

"What about school?" Hermione suggested. "If the work is too much for you, you know I'd be more than willing to help explain–"

"No, I'm fine with school," Harry said honestly. Hermione already helped him as much as he needed her to and he didn't quite fancy the idea of being forced to think about school – and only about school – when he did his homework. Allowing his mind to wander for a few minutes at a time was the only way work was marginally bearable. "Thanks for offering…"

"When, I don't know what else could be troubling you," she said, sounding annoyed and exhausted by this point. She perhaps thought her tone would prompt the truth out of Harry. "But whatever it is–"

"It's really nothing, Hermione," Harry interrupted her, trying to reassure her. He didn't want to hear her complain about this when he knew he couldn't give her a true answer. The truth would be difficult to explain even to Ron and Hermione. "I don't want to talk about it…"

Ron glanced at Hermione when he thought Harry wasn't looking. Hermione didn't drop her concerned gaze from Harry, however.

"Whatever it is, you can tell us," she said, her concern quickly overriding her annoyance upon hearing Harry's attempt at a comforting tone. "We'll always be here to listen."

Harry looked away from her, wishing she would just leave him to his thoughts. "I'll keep that in mind."

A silence fell. Harry knew that he really must have looked anxious if Ron and Hermione were making such a big fuss out of this. He supposed that they were shocked by how much time he spent worrying over his internal debates about whether the dreams meant anything or whether they were just dreams (even if they didn't know the exact root of his obvious distress). He suddenly wished his facial expression hadn't betrayed him, even if his lack of talking might have done that anyway…

"Is it Voldemort who's bothering you?" Hermione asked quietly. The other Gryffindors were too far away to be listening in to this conversation.

Harry felt his stomach clench in nerves, but he tried hard now to show it. Hermione still seemed to notice this anyway, as well as Ron.

"I knew it!" Ron said in a hushed voice. "Have you been seeing visions or something?"

Harry had to try hard not to wince. "No, you know those have stopped since Voldemort realized the connection between us last year…"

"What is it then?" Ron pressed.

"It's nothing," Harry lied.

"Don't tell us it's nothing!" Hermione exclaimed in a hushed voice. "If you're worried about Voldemort – or if you fear something relating to him – you have to tell Dumbledore, Harry."

"It's not that important," Harry said. "Dumbledore only wants me to get that Memory anyway, he doesn't want to listen to anything else."

"Is it about those dreams you've been having?" Ron suddenly asked, as if the idea just struck him. "You know, the ones about Tom Riddle or whatever?"

Harry opened his mouth a little, but he stopped himself from answering to this. He didn't know what to say. Some part of him wanted to confide in Ron and Hermione, to lift this weight off of his shoulders, but another part of him wanted to keep it a secret, to try and forget about it if he was fortunate enough to stop having these dreams…

"Oh for heaven's sake, just tell us what it is, Harry!" Hermione asked of him. "You're driving the both of us up the wall with worry!"

"It – it's not that important," Harry said lamely, still unsure about what he should and shouldn't say.

"Was it in the Chamber again?" Ron asked, trying to encourage Harry.

"No," Harry admitted. Hesitantly, he continued. "It was at the Grimmauld Place, oddly…"

"And?" Hermione urged.

"And nothing, really, it was just… it was just really real again. I could have sworn it was more than a dream, but I know it can't have been."

"Was Voldemort there?" Ron asked. "What'd he do?"

"It wasn't Voldemort," Harry said, "It was just Tom Riddle again. He didn't really do anything…"

"What's worrying you about it, then?" Hermione asked.

"That's the thing," Harry began, seeing his chance to make sense of this, "there wasn't anything to worry about. It was just the fact that it was so convincing again. It was like I was actually there."

Hermione sighed in what could only be relief, smiling for the first time. "Dreams can be very convincing sometimes, Harry."

"But this was different–"

"Yet it can't have been an actual vision or anything," Hermione reminded him. "You shouldn't worry about it so much."

Harry was about to respond, to argue again that this was something else, but he stopped himself. He looked away from the two of them, regretting his choice to tell them about this, suddenly.

Something in his face seemed to give away what he was feeling.

"Harry, you really shouldn't fret over this," Hermione began. "It can't–"

"It's fine," Harry cut across her. "I told you it was nothing, really. I'm fine."

Ron and Hermione looked at each other as another silence fell. This annoyed Harry, somehow, and before he really knew what he was doing, he stood up.

"I'm going to bed," he told the two of them.

"What, now?" Ron asked, confused. "It's only ten."

"I'm tired," Harry told them truthfully. "I just need some rest."

"Well, I hope you feel better tomorrow," Hermione said, her brow creased.

Harry turned away. "Goodnight."

"Goodnight…"

Harry didn't look back as he climbed the staircase to the boy's dormitories, planning on thinking in peace. He was tired, but lately he had been staying up for hours upon hours at night, perhaps in fear of dreaming about Tom Riddle again, as well as from the stress of school. Harry got changed out of his robes when he was in the deserted dormitory. He got into bed, taking off his glasses once he was under the covers. He put them on the bedside table besides his wand, before lying still.

The silence and the darkness were bliss. Harry lay for a moment, not thinking as he breathed evenly, trying to relax. His eyes were closed and the warm covers around him soothed his body. He wished Ron and Hermione would stop bugging him about what was bothering him, considering they didn't take him seriously when he discussed his worries. He knew they were only trying to help, but… he felt as though he needed someone else to talk to. He felt as though he was becoming distanced from them, somehow…

This thought disturbed him almost as much as thoughts of Tom Riddle often did. He opened his eyes. He didn't want to lose his two best friends, yet some part of him knew that Ron and Hermione were going to be together one day, which would leave him on his own – perhaps to fight Voldemort without help, or to die alone in the process. After that, Ron and Hermione would move on with their lives and eventually forget about him, thinking only about how he failed to defeat the greatest Dark Wizard of all time…

Harry moved uncomfortably in the bed, pulling the covers over his head as he curled up into his side. The darkness that surrounded him was complete, so it didn't matter whether his eyes were open or closed now. He wished Ron and Hermione could understand why he cared so much about these 'dreams'. He wished they weren't so distracted by each other and by schoolwork, so they could take a moment to see that Harry was experiencing some peculiar visions that even he couldn't understand. Harry took a deep intake of breath and shivered…

Suddenly it was different.

The warm bedcovers of Harry's bed were gone and he was no longer lying down. He sat on what felt like an uncomfortable armchair, full of old springs, while the cold temperature of this new room easily reaching his body though the material of his pyjamas. Realizing now that his eyes were indeed closed, Harry opened them slowly.

This didn't do much to help him see where he was. He was sitting in the middle of an empty room, but he couldn't yet see many details about it. The first thing he became aware of was the sound of the wind sighing against the large windows. As his eyes got more used to the darkness, he then noticed that he was not alone.

Tom Riddle was sitting opposite him, positioned in an identical armchair that was placed at an angle, like Harry's was, towards a large fireplace. The fireplace was bare of a fire, which resulted in this cobweb-filled room appearing greatly vacant. The large, cracked windows didn't help much either.

"Incendio," Tom murmured.

The fire started immediately. Previously cold and neglected logs were crackling happily as though they had been lit for hours, causing enough light to shed upon the room for Harry to finally recognise where they were. It was the Riddle House.

"How nice of you to join me this evening," Tom said softly when he could see Harry.

"Did I have a choice?" Harry asked carefully, feeling uneasy as he reflected that Tom had a wand while he did not.

"Why, of course," Tom responded lightly. "You can leave whenever you wish, if you indeed want to… yet I must mention it's a long way away from Hogwarts Castle."

Harry was about to ask Tom what he meant by that, but he stopped himself on second thought, knowing that he could only receive a vague, uninformative answer from Tom. "Why'd you bring me here?" he asked instead.

"You needed someone to talk to," Tom voiced.

"How did you know that?" Harry asked.

Tom gave no answer.

"Well, I only really want to talk to Ron or Hermione, really."

Tom tilted his head to the side a little, appearing vaguely surprised. "Then why did you go to bed so early?"

"I – I was… I just felt tired."

Tom watched Harry closely, as though he didn't quite believe this claim.

"It's just that I can't really explain to them what's bothering me," Harry continued, trying to defend his choice.

"And what is bothering you?" Tom inquired.

Harry was close to responding 'it's nothing' but he stopped. Knowing that this was likely only a dream and knowing that in dreams one was only surrounded by their own subconscious, Harry felt as though it wouldn't hurt to talk to Tom about this. It wasn't like it was the real Voldemort, anyway, it couldn't be.

"It's just," Harry began slowly, choosing his words carefully, "I don't understand why these dreams keep happening, so I'm a bit worried about it…"

Tom thought about this, examining Harry carefully. "Why do you feel as though you cannot tell your friends this?"

"It's not that I can't tell them this," Harry said, "it's just that they don't seem to get it when I try to. They don't think this means anything and they tell me that I shouldn't worry about something so meaningless, which only makes it worse."

"Well," Tom began quietly, "as I said in our last meeting, they have likely never felt anything similar to this."

"What do you mean by that though?" Harry asked.

Tom thought about this for a time, before coming up with an answer. "I mean only that it would be futile to try and get them to see your view upon these 'dreams' – especially if you are worried, since they will be unable to see what the problem is… if indeed you see a problem."

Harry could find no response to this. The biggest problem he had with these meetings was that he didn't want Tom to kiss him or say soft things to him when this was all so shockingly real. He refused to believe that he liked Tom and he didn't want anything to question that belief. He didn't know what he was going to do about this if it became a problem…

"In what way are your friends' reactions unsatisfactory?" Tom asked softly, his voice only just audible over the sounds the fire made. "Merely in the sense that they deny the claim that these 'dreams' are important?"

"Yeah," Harry said, "they think that just because this isn't a vision into Voldemort's present, it must be nothing but a vivid dream."

"I see…"

The two Wizards watched each other.

"How does that make you feel?" Tom asked.

Brilliant, Harry thought in annoyance, Voldemort was his subconscious therapist…

"What I mean is," Tom carried on, noticing that Harry's silence wasn't a good sign, "you must be feeling somewhat secluded, or else we wouldn't be meeting here again."

"You're the one who brought me here," Harry said, sure of his own words. "I definitely didn't come here by choice."

"But you wished for someone to talk to," Tom said.

"So you brought me here for a chat?" Harry asked in disbelief.

A smile crept upon Tom's lips. The smile seemed to turn hollow when Tom's eyes broke away from Harry's, however. He began to examine the room; there was hatred visible behind his dark eyes while he took in the details of it, perhaps having previously avoided an examination due to his intense dislike of the memories attached to the old owners of the Riddle House…

"Why would you bring me here?" Harry asked cautiously.

Tom looked for a moment as though he hadn't heard Harry, but eventually he gave an answer. "This will all make sense when you work out what these dreams are for…"

"Doesn't it annoy you to be in your dead father's house again?"

Tom's eyes snapped back to Harry's. His gaze was not sharp, yet it was obvious that he didn't appreciate such a direct mention of his father. He seemed close to giving a response relating to the subject of his family, but he stopped. Smiling mechanically, he said, "There is much else for us to discuss, Harry. Let us not get stuck on needless details."

Harry was a bit confused by this, but he decided to not press the subject. He didn't know what to say after this.

"Tell me more about yourself," Tom suggested, his tone light.

"I'd rather you told me more about you," Harry admitted. "I'll only bore you with discussing my life."

"I assure you, you wouldn't bore me." Tom smiled again.

"What are you?" Harry asked, determined to ask about Tom first.

"I'm a Wizard," Tom responded, "much like you."

"But you're not a real person," Harry said. "You can't be."

"Did we not discuss in our last meeting that I wasn't a figure of your imagination?"

Harry had forgotten about that. "Well, what else could you be?"

"A Wizard," Tom said again.

"So, you're real then?"

"Understand, Harry, that even dreams are real on some level," Tom stated, a smile curling on his lips once more, "they wouldn't exist even in our imagination otherwise… But to answer your question: yes, I am real."

Harry wondered somewhere in the back of his mind why Tom was more talkative than he had been before. The more they met, the more able to answer questions Tom seemed…

"So, if you're real," Harry said slowly, "why do you only appear in these 'dreams'?"

Tom only stared for a minute, before taking a deep intake of breath and sitting up in his chair a little. "I don't feel as though the time is right for me to tell you that…"

"Can you tell me anything, then?" Harry asked, annoyed by this point.

"Why, certainly," Tom said. "I can tell you that I choose to initiate our meetings when you're sleeping only to ensure that you are able to actually converse with me. I can tell you that I've waited a very long time to talk to you, yet I wasn't quite sure when, how, or if I should talk to you at all. I can also tell you that – despite the absurdity of the claim – I have seen much of your childhood and general life leading up to this point."

"What, you've been here in my head?" Harry asked quickly.

"Not quite…"

Tom didn't elaborate.

Harry supposed this wouldn't make sense anyway; Tom would have known how he was feeling about Ron and Hermione not listening to him if Tom somehow lived completely in his head. He wasn't sure why he thought of it, as he wondered what Tom's answer could mean.

"So, you've seen my entire life?" Harry asked, trying to suss out how it was possible that Tom knew about his childhood and so on.

"Parts of it, yes," Tom assessed.

"What do you mean by that?"

"I've visited you," Tom explained. He took a moment to think about this before carrying on. "I wandered often, but I always returned to you eventually, to make sure you still lived decently enough."

"So, you're saying you've been with me my entire life, checking up on me again only every so often?"

"Quite."

Harry didn't believe it. "How haven't I noticed you?"

"I've aged with you," Tom responded, appearing unfazed. "When you were seven years old and enduring a dull Muggle primary school, I was seven too, blending in with a crowd of school children and watching you from afar. I never made it obvious and nor did I attempt to communicate with you."

"Then why were you there?"

"I tried to leave," Tom admitted idly, "yet at such a young age, even if others had noticed me I wouldn't have had much of a chance at getting anywhere useful. I spent my time observing people – mostly Witches and Wizards, as opposed to Muggles – as well as looking after you when I got bored of that."

"What do you mean by 'looking after' me?"

"I mean the obvious," Tom said. "At a mundane Muggle school where you were often bullied by your cousin, I couldn't help but often return to you, to help you when you were in danger… Helping you onto roofs and so on, to hide from it all."

"That was just me using magic as a kid," Harry said, sure of his own words. "You can't have done everything for me."

"I didn't help you often, admittedly," Tom assessed, "though you have me to thank for levitating you on that roof." He smiled. "You would have remembered it more clearly had you done it yourself. Though I helped you only occasionally, it's still proof that I existed then."

Harry still wasn't completely convinced. He felt as though he would have known about this long ago if it were really true. He decided to keep asking questions. "So, you're saying you've been stalking me for our whole lives?"

"I've been watching you from afar since your birth," Tom said. "I, however, have not spent my whole life doing this."

"So, you're saying you're older than this?"

"In a sense."

"Then how are we the same age?"

Tom took a moment to word his response. "I am an ageless being," he informed Harry carefully. "To put it simply, I don't actually own a body, thus I have no set age."

"Are you saying you're a ghost?"

Tom cracked an empty smile. "Sometimes I feel as though I am," he said. "I am not, however. I have more power than a ghost yet less ability than a normal human, with a normal human body."

"Is that why you appear in these 'dreams', then?"

"It's why I favour dreams, yes."

"How did you help me with magic if you don't have a body?"

"Simple," Tom said, "we share magic."

This only confused Harry. "We share magic?"

"Yes. As in, when one of us uses magic, we take it from the same source. This, perhaps, explains why you are marginally more powerful than other Witches and Wizards your age; because of my contribution."

"Right…"

Harry felt as though this was thievery on Riddle's part, more than anything. He didn't understand how two Wizards could share magic and he couldn't place how it was possible that Riddle could have lived with him for his entire life. The more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that this was just a very realistic yet completely fake dream.

"Do you not believe me?" Tom inquired quietly into the silence, interrupting Harry's thoughts. He had been watching Harry in the firelight, never taking his eyes away.

Harry wished he wouldn't stare. He didn't want a repeat of his last dream in any way, but Tom's gaze was unwavering. He was glad that their chairs separated them so much. He didn't know what to say to this and he didn't see why he should believe any of Tom's words anyway.

"It's fine if you don't believe me," Tom said. "It's of no concern to me. I thought it merely courteous to explain these things to you, even if you are as of yet unable to believe –"

Harry heard footsteps and turned to see who it was. The room was dark, but suddenly the temperature was different and Harry was no longer sitting by the fire with Tom. He was no longer in the Riddle House, but was back in the Gryffindor Dormitories instead. Ron's face was appeared from the looming darkness.

"Are you alright?" Ron asked. He didn't sound particularly concerned.

"I'm fine," Harry responded, still dazed by the sudden change of scene.

"Sorry I woke you," Ron said, "I only just finished talking to Hermione."

"No, it's fine."

"Well, goodnight then."

"Goodnight…"

Harry lay awake for a while, thinking about what Tom had said to him before he awoke. When he felt asleep he didn't dream about Riddle again so vividly… even if his curious mind did ask after the other Wizard quite keenly in wonder.

Dear Readers: It's been so long since I wrote for this story! I'll update more often from now on - I promise.

Thanks for all the lovely, encouraging reviews, dear readers.

xx