Sunlight, bright and blinding, stabbed Harry's eyes. Grimacing, he shifted more out of the glaring beam that streamed through the window. He would have to fix those curtains. He wondered if the Carcerem had tucked away needle and thread somewhere. Aunt Petunia had never been much of a mender, but Harry could imagine that sock donning would have been a common occurrence in the orphanage. The lack of magic in this new world was distinctly annoying.
He sat slouched against one of the library's walls, staring with unfocused eyes at the dark expanse beneath a table. He was so light-headed on lack of sleep that, for now, his was content for his mind to be numb.
Riddle slumbered, lying on the same stretch of floor where he had collapsed hours before.
Harry had done a lot of thinking through the night and though his brain felt ransacked, he knew one thing. He would never call Riddle Voldemort ever again. His parents' murderer did not get to pretend to be a self-proclaimed god any longer.
Dragging Riddle down the hall and lifting him into a bed was out of the question. Harry doubted he had the strength even if he wanted to, so on the library floor he left him, eventually (and with much scowling) covering the man with a blanket when he noticed him shivering. He did not look well.
What happens if he dies in his sleep?
Never would Harry believe such worries would plague him, but Harry knew with a sureness in his gut that he could not let Riddle die. There was too much about this world that he did not understand. The urge to kick Riddle awake and force him to explain was far too tempting.
Harry had kept himself busy through the night. After he saw to Riddle, he returned to the kitchen to find the sausages burnt and the potatoes water-logged. He scarfed it all down anyway. Searching for a broom, he found one in a cupboard.
When he'd opened its narrow door, his breath was sucked from his lungs. He took a step back and nearly laughed out loud. A cupboard under the stairs? His cupboard? It was like stepping back in time. The old, small mattress was there along with his collection of toy dinosaurs precariously balanced on brushes and paint cans. On the pillow was his moth-eaten stuffed bear. Jesus. He'd forgotten all about that bear. He reached out and picked it up, and as he did so, his eyes landed upon one item that did not belong. Leaning next to a mop and gleaming as brightly as the day he'd unwrapped it was his Firebolt. Grinning at the return of his trusted broom and grinning at the imagine of Ron's horror-stricken face if he knew Harry was using a Firebolt to sweep up messes, he closed the cupboard door and headed back up the stairs. He cleaned up the broken glass and righted chairs. And then, as Riddle slept, his chest barely rising and falling, Harry propped the Firebolt against a lamp and pulled books off shelves.
The night waned and the piles grew. Harry felt fourteen again, frantically searching for a magical way to survive underwater, except this time it was to escape a magical prison. Just when he thought there was no point in continuing, that there wasn't a book on the Carcerem, he found it: a nondescript, black, leather tome with the same golden sun-like flower that was on the ceiling engraved on its front. Harry hastily opened it. A single inscription was on the first page: factura tua.
Of your making.
Frowning in puzzlement, Harry turned the page and was met with a list. Page after page, names were jotted down in a neat script. He scanned them. Some jumped out at him — Morgana, Edgar Stroulger, Amarillo Lestoat. What did an evil sorceress, the inventor of the sneakoscope, and a world famous vampire have in common? It felt like the opening line of a bad joke. He flipped pages, expecting something other than this strange and unnerving tally of names. He noticed that most were in pairs, but a few stood alone on their line.
He turned another page and the list ended part way down. His eyes caught his own next to another: Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The sun's beam crept back to Harry's face, jerking him out of his stupor. He shifted another inch to the left. He could go sit on the opposite wall, free of pestering sunlight, but he couldn't muster up the energy. The book of names rested beside him on the floor, where he'd dropped it hours ago. He rubbed the inside of his wrist. The burn had healed, replaced by a thin, black tattoo of a jagged half-moon. It was the same half-moon that rotated around its mirrored self down below. Though he had not looked again at Riddle's wrist, he was sure their marks were identical.
Harry let his head fall back against the wall. This wasn't supposed to have happened. He had won. He had been so close to it all being over.
Dumbledore had known. Dumbledore had shouted something to him when Riddle sent that cabinet hurtling at his head. Why had Dumbledore allowed such a horrible device to be in Hogwarts?
But it wasn't Dumbledore's office, a voice reminded him. It had been Snape's.
Had Snape planned on using it on Riddle? A last ditch resort in case Harry failed?
But that wasn't how the Carcerem worked. It required two. Unless Riddle was wrong.
Harry's eyes shifted back to the sleeping form. He was a very silent sleeper, Tom Riddle. He didn't even roll about. He was still flat on his back, exactly as Harry had left him. Harry moved onto his hands and knees and crawled to him. He felt his forehead — feverish, clammy.
Harry rocked back onto his heels. What was he going to do? Hermione would know exactly what to do, or she'd have at least half a dozen suggestions and another half a dozen book references. There would have been something packed away in her beaded hand bag. Ron would have made it his duty to lift their spirits with rounds of tea, pointing out that at least Riddle was unconscious. "Can't kill us that way."
Harry choked on a laugh that sounded more like a sob.
Riddle shifted. Harry tensed, but he did not reach for the knife that lay beside the book. Riddle could have attacked him with the poker, but he hadn't. Riddle could have jumped him the moment Harry untied him, but he hadn't. For the first time in his life, Harry didn't need to protect himself against Riddle.
Slowly, the man opened his eyes and the sight of gray instead of crimson startled Harry. He wondered how many times it would take before it didn't.
"Do tell me," Riddle croaked, "why I am on the floor."
"You were ill," Harry explained. "I wasn't up for moving you again." A pause, then: "You're heavy."
A weak snort of amusement escaped Riddle and then he winced. He rose onto his elbows, his arms shaking with the effort. Harry studied him.
"You seem to have been more affected by the transport into the Carcerem than I was."
Riddle ignored him, focused on sitting up.
"Do you think it has something to do with the fact that you're thirty now?" Harry continued. "Do you think it has something to do with the fact that your soul is mangled?"
Riddle's lips thinned. Harry couldn't decide whether it was out of anger toward his physical weakness or that Harry had mentioned the Horcruxes. Both, probably.
When Riddle still did not speak, Harry said, "Tell me about the Carcerem."
"I already have." There was bite in Riddle's voice.
"A magical artifact trapped us inside a prison, built on our memories, designed to only release us if we come to terms?"
Riddle made a grunt of acknowledgment, scooting his back against the wall. Sweat beaded on his brow.
"But that doesn't explain why you're different."
"I assure you," said Riddle icily, "I'm not."
"You're ill," Harry stated. "I doubt you could stand. That is not how you were at Hogwarts. Something's wrong and if you don't start talking—"
"Why should I?" Riddle snapped, the little patience he'd cultivated withering. "Discussing my current state does not help our situation."
"I think it has everything to do with it," Harry disagreed. He tossed the black, leather book at Riddle. "It's the only thing I've found so far that has any mention of the Carcerem. It's a list of names and we're on it, but my ink is far fresher than yours. You said you first came across the Carcerem in the fifties. I think it's remembered you, Tom. I think it's had your name jotted down for a long time."
If Riddle noticed his given name, he did not show it. He stared at the book, his long fingers trailing down the list, turning pages. Harry suspected Riddle recognized more of the names than he did. He was still disturbed to have found Godric Gryffindor's name there. Luckily, he had not been paired.
"How does the Carcerem choose its victims?" Harry asked.
"By touch," said Riddle, still studying the list.
"And you touched it anyway?" Harry was amazed that Tom Riddle, of all people, would do something so stupid.
"It was not a conscious decision," said Riddle, his glare cutting. "I did not realize I'd done it until after the fact."
"It acts as a lure?" Harry was both fascinated and sickened. "But it can't just attract everyone. It would have sucked up half the population."
"The Carcerem is attuned to a very particular person," Riddle replied. "Those with either great power or ambition. Attributes, in short, that make leaders."
"And murderers."
Riddle shot him a sideways look. Though there was a distinctly ashen cast to his skin, the corner of his mouth lifted. "What makes a man different from the rest? The willingness to do what must be done."
Harry refused to be the first to drop his gaze and Riddle, still was that light smirk, turned back to his book.
"Legend speaks of a witch who was witness to a fight between two families," he said with the air of a professor lecturing a class. "Generation after generation, the feud raged, reaching near warlike proportions, until one day the two opposing head of houses laid down their wands. To onlookers, the change of heart was swift and sudden, without any forewarning. One moment, they were dueling, the next they were not.
"The witch," Riddle continued, "is credited with the creation of the Carcerem. Whether true or false, the Carcerem has long been regarded as charm-work of the most intricate and powerful. That in of itself would have caused enough interest to study it, but it has been the tales of the survivors … the few who have returned from within the Carcerem that have kept its shrouded history alive."
"And the wizards returned because they made amends with each other?" said Harry, wanting this to be very clear. "Enemies forgiving each other. That's how it works?"
"As the story goes, yes."
"That's never going to happen."
"I quite agree," said Riddle.
"So what do we do?"
"We find another way." Riddle snapped the book shut. He reached up and grabbed hold of the table beside him and with a grimace, pulled himself to his feet.
Harry scrambled upright. "You think there's another way out?"
"There's always another way out. You merely have to be willing to find it."
"You mean cheat the Carcerem?" said Harry. "Like how you tried to cheat death with your Horcruxes? Hate to be the bearer of bad news but that didn't turn out well for you."
There was no denying Horcruxes were a sore subject. A tick formed in Riddle's jaw. His hands balled into fists, perhaps to keep them from wrapping around Harry's throat.
"That you lack what is required is blatantly clear," Riddle snarled. "Be useful and stay out of my way."
Harry forced back the urge to storm after Riddle. He let the man go, walking with a tender, careful step out of the library. He looked like he was in pain. Harry hoped it was excruciating. As much as he denied it, Harry was sure Riddle's current state had something to do with his shredded soul. But what did it matter whether Riddle agreed with him?
And just like that, the anger left, replaced with misery. Harry suddenly felt ancient. He felt that he'd been running for years — for a lifetime. He had reached the end of the road, only to find it littered with broken glass and hopelessness. To come back from death … to survive countless horrors … for what? Trapped with his worst enemy for company? Why hadn't someone destroyed the Carcerem? Why had they allowed such a terrible device to continue? He left the library and instead of returning to the common room, he turned right, heading to the bedroom at the end of the hall. Not caring that the bed was from Riddle's memory, Harry sank on top of it face first. He was asleep in seconds.
.
.
Harry rolled over and blinked his eyes at a white-washed ceiling. Groggy, he sat up. For a moment he didn't understand where he was. This wasn't Grimmauld Place.
A weight settled in his stomach.
Right.
Harry slipped off the bed, his ears attuned to any noise, but he heard only the silence of an empty house and birdsong outside his window. It was still light out; he must not have slept that long or perhaps he had slumbered through an entire day. It was impossible to know. He had not spotted a single clock in his earlier exploration of the house and this stripped bedroom was no different. Barefoot, he treaded down the hall, casting a glance into the library as he passed. Riddle was not there.
Nor was he in the kitchen or common room. To say that Harry was relieved was an understatement. He knew they would cross paths again eventually, but every hour – every minute – where they didn't was a blessing. Harry rebuilt the fire in the oven and brewed himself a cup of tea. The dishes he'd made were still there, heaped in the sink, bits of mashed potato dried onto the porcelain. On the table was a half empty jar of jam. Riddle had been here. Cradling his cup, Harry headed outside. Now that he wasn't carrying a limp body, he took in his surroundings more closely. The front porch opened onto a sweeping yard of soft grass. A dirt path meandered from the porch steps down to a thick set of trees. It was this path that led down to the beach and Harry took it. Before he reached the tree line, he turned to look back at the house. From the beach it had looked like a small castle, and in a way, he supposed it still did, but one a child might draw, a strange mixture of manor, farmhouse and castle: a higglety pigglety country home with the Hogwarts Owlery tacked on top. If he'd been in a lighter mood, he would have found it funny.
The beach was beautiful. White sand, warm under his toes, stretched left and right. He stood still for a moment, letting the waves wash over his feet and the wind brush back his fringe from his forehead, before choosing a direction and setting off. Before receiving his Hogwarts letter, the Dursleys once bemoaned not taking a trip to some southern island, blaming the extra cost of raising Harry for not allowing them to travel as they would like, but Harry knew better. The trip had been too expensive for them to stomach. The pamphlets, though, had looked like this. Deep, blue ocean water with beaches meticulously photographed to not include wandering tourists. It was peaceful, he supposed. Peaceful and lonely.
The beach curved and Harry found a boathouse next to a cove. Inside it were fishing poles and traps. A small row boat. A dock extended out into the calm, crystal clear water. He sat on the edge, his feet lazily floating, his empty tea cup still cradled in his hands.
They were gone.
Ron. Hermione. Ginny. Neville. Luna. He would never see them again.
In death, Harry had been full of serenity, a calmness that he now tried to bring back, but something had taken root in his chest, twisting his heart into a tight knot. Grief. The agony in his chest was grief. Without Riddle there, the war was over. His friends were safe, but Harry felt their loss as if they were dead.
Against his bidding, more faces emerged — Lupin, Tonks, Fred, Colin, Snape — God, he'd been so wrong about Snape. He turned his face upward and blinked away the tears, grinning at the expression Snape would have if he knew Harry was crying about him.
.
.
The bedroom past the library became Harry's and he made conscious efforts to uplift the drab interior. He set Neville's Rememberall on his bedside table. It was a nice thing to wake up to, the morning sun making the colored smoke shimmer and sparkle, throwing dancing lights upon the wall. He found a Gryffindor banner in a trunk and nailed it above the headboard. It wasn't much, but the splash of color helped.
Harry soon found himself back in the library, hunting for cookbooks. If the Carcerem was in fact his new home, he wouldn't survive on the three dishes he knew how to make. He found a small collection. Most belonged to Aunt Petunia, but Harry recognized a handful from the Weasley kitchen. As fond as he was of Mrs. Weasley's cooking, Harry didn't think instructions such as with a downward swirling motion, add one cup gravy (nv).
Even if Harry knew how to conjure gravy it wouldn't do him much good here. With a rather forlorn expression, he put Five Minute Feasts back and tromped down the stairs with Aunt Petunia's books under one arm.
On the third day, he found the well, which was quite lucky as that morning no water poured from the tap. It was a hand pump located beside a glass-roofed greenhouse. A pipe ran from the pump to a large container, and it was this container that supplied the house's water. Harry relished the exertion and made it a promise to pump the handle every day so the water barrel was always full.
He made many new promises.
The furnace and oven would be well stoked throughout the day, the coals making the morning fire quicker to start.
He made sure to walk along the beach to the boathouse twice, once after breakfast and once in the afternoon. Otherwise, he risked sitting at a window, staring at nothing, for too long. It was on these walks that he found chickens roaming free. He tracked down their nests and lifted a few eggs every morning.
Riddle came and went. Harry heard doors swing open and shut, heard his feet travel up the stairs, the bath filling with water. How very amusing that with so many useless rooms stacked one on top of the other, the Carcerem had only gifted them one bathroom to share. Miraculously, Harry and Riddle never crossed paths. Harry didn't know what the man was doing, and he didn't care. He did know that Riddle was still, in fact, alive. Signs of his presence could be found all over the house — candles burning in the workshop Harry explored on his first day, dirty plates left in the sink. He heard noises in the night. Bangs and thuds. Sharp wraps on the walls. Harry had the feeling Riddle was searching for hidden passages. Or perhaps he thought a clue to their escape was hidden under the floorboards. One late afternoon, as Harry watched the sun set from the Owlery, which housed bats instead of owls, he spotted Riddle for the first time since their talk in the library, walking with a purposeful stride into some shrubbery.
The next morning Harry diverted from his meticulously structured schedule. He rose at dawn, walking without pause or hesitation on a trail he'd found that led to a hilltop meadow. The view there was stunning — an endless, shimmering ocean. On his way to the top, birds exploded from a hedgerow, twittering past him. Harry smiled, thinking of Hermione shooting a flock of canaries at Ron. When he reached the meadow, he plucked three flowers, chose a spot and lowered to his knees.
The wind was strong up here, the crash of the waves down below as steady as a heartbeat. He kept a firm hold on the flowers, the wind threatening to snatch them away.
"I won't give up," he promised as he sun broke the horizon, bathing everything in peach and gold. "I know you'd be worried about that, so I want you to know I'm going to keep living. I'm going to make this work. Somehow. But to do that, I've got to let you go. I can't —" He swallowed, a lump obstructing his throat. The wind calmed for a moment and the flowers seemed to turn their heads toward his voice. "I can't do that while still hoping …" He broke off again, the words unbearable, his eyes stinging. The wind returned. It whipped his hair and tugged at the flowers.
"I'll never forget you. Any of you," Harry whispered. He opened his hand and for a fraction of a second, the flowers stayed in his palm, before they were gone, swept away on a swift gust.
.
.
Trumpets and saxophones filled the kitchen and Celestina Warbeck's voice soared above it all. Harry still felt raw inside, but the singing sorceress was so outrageous that it was proving difficult to keep a stupid grin from teasing his face. He'd stumbled upon the stack of records and wind-up gramophone while looking through an old-fashioned drawing room. Harry didn't remember the Weasleys owning a gramophone, only a wireless, but the possibility of it belonging to Riddle was more laughable than A Cauldron Full of Hot Strong Love.
The band reached a pitch and the banshees joined in.
Oh, come and stir her cauldron
And if you do it right
She'll boil you up some hot, strong love
To keep you warm tonight!
"What, in the name of Merlin, are you listening to?"
Harry jumped and nearly dropped his stirring spoon. He whirled around and found himself in the company of Riddle. It had been a week (or had it been more … it was getting hard to keep track) since they'd last traded words and here he was, standing in the kitchen doorway, a shovel and oil lamp in hand. Harry hastily turned off the gramophone.
"Music," said Harry.
Riddle eyed the contraption contemptuously. "Is that what that was?"
Much to Harry's consternation, Riddle put his shovel against the counter and sat down at the kitchen table. "Onion?" he inquired, straightening his sweater. He had removed his robes, donning the Muggle clothing the Carcerem had supplied.
"Hopefully. I've never been good at cooking."
"Luckily you have all the time in the world," said Riddle, his smile as falsely cheerful as his voice.
"I guess," Harry replied slowly. He didn't know how to handle a Riddle who sat at kitchen tables and made strange chitchat. He felt like the man was a ticking bomb. Harry preferred it when they pretended the other didn't exist. "Any progress on that escape plan?" he asked, turning back to his soup.
Riddle propped his elbows onto the table, interlacing his fingers and resting his chin upon them. "Yes and no. I found a crypt."
"A crypt?" said Harry, turning back around. "How is that helpful?"
"Helpful in that there were plenty more runes. Unhelpful in that they said much the same thing as the ones on the ceiling." Riddle spotted the bread on the table. "It's burnt."
"You don't have to eat it," said Harry waspishly.
Instead of jabbing back, as Harry expected, Riddle's eyes glittered with a strange mirth. "Knife? Though a hacksaw may be better suited."
Riddle wasn't serious about eating with him. Was he?
"Where did you even find that contraption?" asked Riddle, jerking his head at the gramophone balanced on the counter.
"In the drawing room," said Harry, checking Aunt Petunia's recipe.
"Drawing room?"
Something in Riddle's voice made Harry look around.
"Yeah. Practically at the other end of the house."
Riddle eyed the gramophone with a sharpness that had not been there before. He stood and left and Harry, curious, followed, but rather quickly it was Harry who was leading the way.
"Here," he said, stepping aside.
Riddle entered, looking about the room with an intensity that unnerved Harry. He halted before a long, highly polished dining table. High-backed chairs with plush cushions ringed it. Harry wondered if Riddle was breathing, he stood so still. And then he released a soft laugh.
"Do you know what this room is, Potter?"
"No," said Harry. There was a distinct chill in the air. Foreboding pooled in his gut.
"This is the room where I killed my father. He sat there." Riddle pointed to the chair on the left. "My grandfather was here. My grandmother there. They were so startled to see me. Quite the unpleasant surprise guest, I was. My father looked positively faint."
Harry remained silent, standing by the doorway. Riddle studied the room with a delight that turned his stomach. He laughed, the sound sending the hairs on Harry's arms on end. Harry took a half step back, wanting to leave but worried of attracting Riddle's attention.
"And the gramophone was there!" said Riddle, excited. He gestured toward the side table where Harry had found it earlier that day. "It was playing when I murdered them, but I didn't recognize the piece then — not until years later. Mozart."
Harry could see it unfold before him. Sixteen and burning with revenge, Riddle breaking into his grandparent's house, striding through it until he found them. His grandfather rising to his feet, demanding to know what Riddle was doing there …
"You found the recording with it?" Riddle asked.
"There wasn't anything classical," said Harry quietly.
Riddle laughed again, wild and ecstatic. It bounced off the walls.
"How perfect," he said, facing Harry, his grin terrifying. "My grandmother's carefully curated collection replaced with Celestina Warbeck."
.
A/N: Serious thanks to the readers who mentioned hopes of Harry's cupboard making an appearance – I totally forgot about it! Harry's teddy bear and toy dinos are thanks to Jim Kay and his stunning illustration of Harry's cupboard.