Disclaimer: I own nothing in the Harry Potter universe.

"dialogue"
"mental dialogue"
"parsel"
"mental parsel"

AN: I'm back and mostly recovered from my trip. Thanks to all who reviewed, followed and favorited! I hope you continue to enjoy.

Tuesday rolled around and with it came Potter. Tom looked up from his desk as Potter came in behind Nimsey. Thankfully he did not appear to be toting sandwiches along. Neither of them needed the headache an upset house elf could trigger. Potter looked the same as before and Tom had to wonder about how he had been living up to this point to appear as if on the brink of starvation, but still be clean. He supposed magic could account for that. In truth, he was not entirely certain that he wanted to know. Regardless, "Potter. I see you chose to head my advice."

For a moment Potter just looked confused before a dawning realization and slight grin touched his face, "I'm well aware that house elves aren't to be underestimated. I have a friend who nearly killed me in their effort to save my life. If you say your elf will have my head over sandwiches then I believe it."

Only Potter would somehow get mixed up with a well-intentioned murderous house elf. Tom really did not want to know. He truly didn't, "Potter, what did you do that the house elf concluded the only way to save you was through your death?" Damn.

Potter got a slightly fond reminiscent look, "Oh you know how it is. It's like when young school children want to be friends. One kid punches another kid and the other kid gives him a sock and then they are besties forever."

Clearly Tom had overestimated Potter's mental state. He was obviously off his rocker. This was the person he had let piece his soul together. How had they ever pulled it off?

Potter took one look at Tom's face and promptly burst out in quiet laughter, "All right I might have abridged things just slightly. It was actually partially your fault you know. Dobby worked for the Malfoy's but hated them for obvious reasons. When he got word of Lucius' plans for your diary Dobby attempted to protect me by preventing me from going to Hogwarts my second year. He was just a bit overzealous in his attempts and caused some unfortunate accidents. It all culminated when I tricked Malfoy into freeing Dobby with a sock. I then made Dobby promise to not try and save my life again."

Though still not convinced of Potter's mental acumen at least he could picture something of the sort happening. Lucius was just lucky that he had already been punished for the events regarding his diary during Potter's second year. It was not a mistake the blonde was likely to ever repeat. He also suspected that the loss of his house elf was probably a sore spot for the proud Malfoy. Tom made a mental note to bring it up in their meeting later that week just to see his reaction.

It was then that Tom heard what sounded like discontent grumblings. Something about flailing around and disrupting sleep. Just as he placed the familiar voice a small head popped out from under Potter's cloak. How a snake of all things managed to look disgruntled and sleepy he would never understand. For a creature that didn't have facial expressions Nagini always seemed able to convey them well enough. Although he supposed that answered his question on her whereabouts and of course the culprit as ever was the golden boy himself.

Nagini finally seemed to wake herself up enough to take a look at their surroundings. She noticed Tom and froze. Slowly, she slithered off of Potter and across his desk, drawing herself up to face him. "Tom! You've gone back to being pink and fleshy. Where are the pretty scales and why are your eyes round and unattractive again? You were majestic like a snake before and now you look soft." As an afterthought she added, "and squishy." Then Nagini drooped in apparent disappointment.

A muffled choking sound drew his attention from his exasperating familiar back to Potter who looked to be desperately trying not to laugh. He was failing miserably. Tom aimed his most menacing glare at Potter, but if anything it just set the boy off again. Deliberately ignoring the brat he turned his attention back to Nagini. "Nagini, you know this is how I am supposed to look. I am a human, not a snake."

Nagini huffed, "I don't understand why you would want to be." Nagini slithered her way up to Tom's shoulders where she made a show of settling in. "At least you are warm again. If you can't be pretty you'll have to be useful instead."

Tom pinched his nose and looked over at the brat. Potter wasn't even making a token effort at this point. Tom realized that the only reason he hadn't heard Potter was because the boy was laughing so hard he was silent for lack of breath. As Potter convulsed in his chair Tom found himself appreciating that parseltongue was such a rare skill. If more people could have understood Nagini his fearsome reputation would have been in shambles. While his minions might believe Nagini's hissing to sound menacing, he knew better. Unfortunately, now so did Potter.

"Potter, pull yourself together before I crucio you."

Potter made an effort to start breathing again and finally managed some semblance of composure. That is if the random bouts of chuckling were ignored. "I'm not even sorry. She's been nagging me all week. I'm glad to see that even you are subject to her almighty scrutiny. She was rather worried about you and wouldn't leave me alone about it until I contacted you to make sure you were all right."

"Why did you take my familiar with you in the first place?"

Potters looked slightly embarrassed, but answered, "Ah well after the ritual you were out cold and your house elf looked a bit overwhelmed with everything. I wasn't sure how long you would be out and didn't know how Nagini was normally taken care of. So I just kind of picked her up and took her with me. When I had her before she was in a magical sleep since I didn't want you to notice her missing or worse who had her. Having her awake and talking this week has been an...experience."

That's right, Potter had captured Nagini before this whole ordeal. It galled him to admit that he hadn't noticed her absence. To be honest he had largely been ignoring her the past few months and had left her primarily to Wormtail to take care of. Which brought up the point of why the rat had failed to mention her disappearance. It looked like he had a rat to interrogate very soon.

"Potter how did you manage to capture Nagini the first time?"

If anything Potter looked even more embarrassed at this question. "If I said a carefully thought out and very clever plan that was perfectly executed would you believe me?"

Tom leveled his most disbelieving look at the boy wonder, "I've met you Potter. No."

Potter rubbed the back of his head sheepishly, "Well let's just pretend that's what happened and leave it there. Trust me you're probably better off not knowing."

Tom eyed him, mentally debating with himself if the knowledge was worth the headache it would undoubtedly bring. If Potter was willing to explain the house elf debacle, but this gave him pause then maybe he should just wait until later and ask Nagini what she knew.

"Fine. I will allow this topic to drop for now, but do not believe I will forget that you stole my familiar and my horcrux Potter. However, in the interest of time it is likely prudent that we move on with our intended business."

Just as the last time the proposal was brought up Potter instantly sobered. Reaching into that same pouch from the ritual Potter pulled out what appeared to be a muggle manila folder. It looked practically empty. From his vantage point Tom couldn't tell if there was anything in it at all. Once again he wondered about why Potter would go to such extremes just to have him read this. Potter carefully put the folder on the desk and just looked at it for a moment. Then with a small sigh he slowly slid it across the desk to sit in front of Tom.

"If you have any questions or want any of the references listed just ask. I have everything with me. I have the originals and that," he nodded towards the folder in front of Tom, "is the only copy. I'll let you get to it then." With that Potter pulled out a book from somewhere, settled into his chair and started to read.

Tom looked down at the folder. There was nothing on the front. Nothing that marked it as anywhere near as important as Potter's actions made it out to be. He picked up the folder and opened it. One page. There was only a single page. His theory about Potter returning his sanity only to drive him mad again was starting to seem more and more plausible. Then he started to read. Oh. Now that was clever. The folder was enchanted. This page was merely an instruction set on how to use it. Tom closed the folder and thought about a table of contents. He opened the folder to a new list. Very clever indeed. This was likely the work of that muggleborn friend of Potter's. Tom had to reluctantly admit that muggleborn or not he was impressed. Thinking on all the reports and paperwork he usually had to deal with, perhaps he would convince Potter to give him a few of these.

Tom looked at the first item on the contents list and decided that an overview was probably the best place to start. He settled back in his chair, closed and opened the folder again, then began to read.

Almost despite himself, Harry had found out that he rather enjoyed muggle fantasy novels. He understood that reading about people casting magic with all manner of wild styles or systems when you could actually cast magic yourself might be a bit odd. He found it rather fun. One day he had picked up a book he once saw Hermione read as part of her "recreational" reading – and really no matter what she claimed every book to her was recreational – and he had been hooked. Much to Ron's chagrin, fantasy novels had quickly become an outlet for him while the trio had been on the run.

For whatever reason the wizarding world seemed nearly incapable of writing decent fiction. He didn't know if it was how commonplace strange happenings were or if something about growing up with magic killed off not only their common sense, but their whimsy. The only good fiction he'd come across that originated from the magical world were the children's stories. Though as he was all too aware, most of those stories were just rehashings of much older myths.

"All of it."

Harry paused in his reading caught off guard. He looked up at the other sitting across from him. It had been a couple hours since he had given Tom the folder and he had forgotten the man was there. "Excuse me?"

Tom clasped his hands in front of him and leveled a look at Harry, "You said you had the referenced material with you. I want to see all of it."

Harry just stared back for a moment slightly dumbfounded. His brain eventually kicked back into action and he realized what the Dark Lord was asking. "All of it. There is quite a lot. Are you sure you really want see it?"

Harry hadn't known that Tom's unimpressed look could reach that level. Huh. Guess he really wanted all of it. With some trepidation Harry reached back into his mokeskin pouch and pulled out Hermione's old beaded bag. He had once asked her how he could store an expanded space in another expanded space and 30 minutes into her mind-bending lecture he decided to just smile, nod and accept that it worked. Somehow. He then reached into the bag and pulled out one book. Then he pulled out two more. He kept pulling out books and papers and slowly started to fill the empty space on Tom's desk. After a few minutes Tom's desk looked more like an expensive, overladen shelf and less like a place to get work done. Between Hermione and Remus the two had compiled a significant amount of research. All of it was an awful lot.

He watched as Tom stared impassively at the small mountain of research and notes. Harry really wished he knew what was running through the man's mind. Tom must have repaired his occlumency shields because Harry hadn't felt the slightest peep from the man for a few days now. Finally the Dark Lord looked up from the pile, "Is this what you have been doing all this time Potter? Compiling all of this information?"

Harry tried not to shift nervously, "Mostly. When we first started we were just looking for your horcruxes. Being on the run like we were left us with a lot of down time though. We couldn't just pop outside our wards on a whim to see a movie or anything whenever we didn't know where to look next. So we were basically stuck wherever we had set up that night. Being only the three of us, we eventually started to talk about pretty much everything. Over time we started discussing how things had come to this point which led to more discussion on what could have been done differently. It was mostly idle musings at the time. Then we discovered some plans of Dumbledore's we weren't meant to know about and our priorities shifted a touch. We kept looking for your horcruxes, but we started a side project. By the end of the first year we had gathered all of the horcruxes barring the cup and Nagini."

"The next year was almost entirely dedicated to our project. By that point the ministry and the Order had joined you in looking for us so research wasn't exactly easy. We did managed to contact a few select people who weren't likely to drag me back and toss me at you in some misguided hope that I would fulfill that stupid prophecy. Apparently that is what both Moody and the minister have been planning to do should they find me. Anyway we used those contacts to help gather what we couldn't. The three of us spent the bulk of our time working on the proposal. It's essentially everything we want Wizarding Britain to be. I told you it is our reformation plan. We have everything detailed from what things should change, why those changes are a good idea and a timeline to help ease the populace in one piece at a time."

Harry wasn't really sure what to say from there. He wasn't sure if he even wanted to say more than that. The months following the completion of their proposal were something he tried very hard not to think on. Thinking back over the last couple of years in general tended to leave him feeling drained and weary. They had put too much into this proposal to not at least try, but he just didn't have it in him to attempt to head the effort. He couldn't bring himself to truly care about the wizarding world or their fate anymore. They had pushed so much over the years. Heaving unreasonable expectations on a child and after the most recent incident he had finally just had enough.

When he stumbled across the method to heal the soul or more accurately had it shoved into his hands, he had come up with one last reckless plan and decided that regardless of the outcome he was finished afterwards. Tom Riddle as he used to be, before the insanity that was Voldemort, was the only living person Harry could think of that might have a chance at actually changing things. He honestly hadn't expected to get this far. He knew that some, probably most, of the suggestions went against the Dark Lord's regime, but he kept thinking back to the brilliant mind that was Tom Riddle and hoped he could persuade the man with sound, logical arguments. Or just through shear stubbornness. Whichever worked.

Tom idly sifted through some of the papers and books on the desk while he tried to collect his thoughts. He had only read the overview, but it had been enlightening. At the very least he now understood what had occupied Potter during his unprecedented absence. Looking over the mountain of resources Potter had dumped onto his desk he felt his hopes dwindle. He had held a vague hope that many of the points brought up were nothing more than fanciful conjecture. Among a slew of controversial topics, it was the information detailing the origins of muggleborns and familial magics that would probably be the hardest for the pure bloods of their society to accept. The implications of just how wrong the notions of blood purity were would not sit well with many of the ancient and noble houses.

"Potter, you cannot truly believe that you will be able to just waltz into the Wizengamot and announce that bloodline traits are manifestations of creature blood, squibs are the result of inbreeding, and muggleborns are those squibs' future offspring generations down the line and expect it to go well."

"Of course not." Potter then appeared to think on it, "Although that would be funny. I wonder how many of those old goats I could get to faint in horror before they kicked me out."

"They'd more likely have you committed."

Potter waved it off, "Regardless. I had no intention of waltzing into the Wizengamot. You get to do it."

Magically enforced cease fire. He must refrain from torturing the whelp within an inch of his life. Tom took a deliberate breath and released it. "Explain."

Here the boy started to look a bit nervous. That could not be a good sign. "Well I have a plan of sorts, but I don't think you are going to like it much. Or at all really. Actually it's probably best that you remember you can't try and kill me right now..." He trailed off obviously reluctant to continue. Definitely not a good sign.

Tom narrowed his eyes and fixed a glare towards the brat, "Spit it out Potter."

Potter avoided eye contact, but continued, "Right. Well essentially my plan is to kill off Voldemort." He paused and eyed Tom like he was expecting him to explode. On his part Tom was exercising his considerable will to keep his magic from lashing out with his anger. He managed to shoot Potter a look promising a painful demise if the brat did not hurry up.

Apparently getting the hint Potter rushed on, "We stage the public demise of Voldemort by my hand. In the aftermath I use the all the fame and glory and whatnot to lay the groundwork. You come up with an alias and I go on and on to the press about all the help you have provided me over the past couple of years and how instrumental you were to my taking down Voldemort. I could never have done it without you and your guidance and so on. I think if we stage it correctly and you pull in the help of some of your more politically active death eaters we could set you up to be the next minister. Of course, your death eaters would have to become a bit less overt in their actions. We might even need to setup the capture of some of your more disruptive members, but really that could only help your image."

"Then we combine both your allies and mine and sort of ride the waves of goodwill to lay inroads into new policies in the Wizengamot. We also work with the board of governors and McGonagall to begin restructuring the curriculum at Hogwarts. By the time people start questioning what's been going on hopefully the foundations of our plan will be established enough that they either won't care or can't do anything to stop it."

Potter gave a sort of hapless shrug, "That's the gist of it anyway."

Harry was starting to worry. Tom hadn't so much as twitched for the last 20 minutes. He just sat there like a statue. As far as Harry knew Tom could be catatonic. Welp, he had officially broken a dark lord. That had to be some kind of special achievement. Perhaps he could get away with drawing one of those twirly villainy mustaches on his face. He'd have to make sure he was long gone before the other noticed. Otherwise oath or not Tom would likely try to kill him. Probably worth it though. Maybe he could animate it to swirl whenever Tom's hand came close to his face. Pranking Lord Voldemort. Sirius would have been so proud.

Tom stirred just as harry was pondering if he could conjure a sharpie. Masking his disappointment at a prank cut short, Harry watched as the other man collected himself.

Tom was looking at him as if he wanted nothing more than to AK himself and end the misery, "Potter is this how all your misadventures go? You come up with a completely ludicrous idea, do little to no planning, then just run in and cause chaos until everything somehow works out in your favor?"

Harry thought back on some of the more memorable Hogwarts years and inwardly thought that Tom might be onto something with that statement. "More or less. Actually I thought this plan was pretty decent."

Tom gave him another dirty look, "Your plan is to kill me, become more famous, make me minister and then we fix magical Britain."

Harry thought it over, "Yeah. Sounds about right."

Tom pinched the bridge of his nose, "How you have managed to survive all these years is a miracle."

Harry couldn't contain his flinch at that. Luckily Tom seemed too preoccupied with what looked like some form of self pity. He was staring up at the ceiling as if he was praying to all the gods to make it stop. "Are you upset that I kept getting one up on you all those times or are you upset because you think my plan could work?"

There was that scathing look again. Tom really was good at that one. Probably something to do with having red eyes. Adds to the menace somehow. "If you could call that a plan. If I am being generous it could maybe be considered a rough outline. Also you did not, as you say, get one up on me. You have the luck of the devil and I was far from my best during our meetings."

Harry snorted at the other's choice of words. Meetings. Like they had come together over a cup of tea and biscuits and discussed the weather instead of possessions, death threats, and running. Lots of running. At least on Harry's part there was lots of running. Tom, the arrogant sod, always seemed to stand there monologuing as Harry was busy fleeing for his life. Although apparently he now lived in a world gone mad. Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort were indeed sitting in a room drinking tea and holding civil conversation. Some days he woke up in the morning and wondered how his life had come to this. Devil's luck indeed.

"Now you are just nitpicking. Do you think the plan is feasible? Would your big bad dark lord ego be able to handle the death of your moniker?" Maybe he'll label that face as unimpressed number three. Apparently Tom had quite the range for condescending looks.

Tom maintained his glare for a moment longer, perhaps to drive the point in, then he relaxed just a bit, but he suddenly looked rather worn. "I do not know Potter. This," he gestured at the large pile on his desk, "is a lot to take in at once. I will require time to go through your proposal and research in detail. I will probably have to do my own research. If I am going to confront the pure bloods with something like this I must be sure there is no room for doubt. They will not take this lightly and I am yet convinced myself. As for your little scheme, it might have some merit, but it too needs the proper consideration. If we are to do this we are not charging in blindly like you seem so prone to do."

Harry conceded his point. It really was a lot. They had had multiple people spending over a year working on that and there were points that Harry himself still had difficulty coming to terms with. One afternoon was nowhere near enough time. "You might not have gotten that far, but there are a lot of points in there that will appeal to the pure bloods. There is a section regarding the traditions of the Olde Ways, many of which were banned for political reasons. There are plans to repeal the bans and reintegrate them back into society. We even wrote some of it into our curriculum overhaul for Hogwarts. You'll also find plans to separate ourselves even more from the muggle world instead of risky attempts at integration. Both things I doubt you'll have any trouble convincing them to support."

Tom nodded thoughtfully, "True, but like I said I need time. Leave all this with me for now so that I may go over it thoroughly. You can run off and do whatever it is you do when you aren't here pestering me."

Harry would have responded, but the other man was already engrossed in reading. Amused, he decided he would just show himself out. He wandered out and back the way he was led in. When he reached the entry hall he turned on his heel and disappeared.

He arrived back in Grimmauld place. Harry looked around at the familiar house, even more decrepit now than when the order had first claimed it. As much as he hated the house, he couldn't deny it had been useful. After they had started their research in earnest it took all of two minutes before they realized what an asset having the Black library would be for them. Hermione had taken it upon herself to find a way to reclaim the building from the Order without giving away their position to the death eaters that had still occasionally lurked nearby. Though the latter had mostly stopped after a year or so the order never tried to reestablish the house as a proper headquarters.

The solution had been a sort of temporary ward to maintain the house's invisibility. It was too draining to be held for long, but it was sufficient for them to drop the Fidelus and reapply it with Harry as the secret keeper. It had to be done quickly before the Order had a chance to notice the falling of the first charm and react to it. They only managed it because they had spent so much time practicing the Fidelus charm on another property the year previous. Harry grimaced, thinking back on all their initial failed attempts at the spell. They definitely would never have made it work on the first try otherwise.

Harry continued through the house and headed upstairs. He paused for a moment at the door to the room Ron and Hermione had claimed for themselves. They had finally gotten together after Harry, thoroughly frustrated with all the tension and bickering between them, had essentially blurted out that they liked each other and to please shut up and go snog or something. It might not have been exactly tactful, but to be fair, they had still been hopping around forests and setting up camp at the time. Harry had never done well without extended moments of privacy, a holdover from all the time spent with the Dursleys. He believed he had held up rather well all things considered.

He looked at the door for a moment longer. Then he turned away and continued on to his room. Perhaps he could finish that book he had been reading. He had reached a pretty good part before Tom had interrupted him.