The Peverell house was just as Tom remembered it. The Old Magic permeated the air and Tom loved the feel of it.
"I think the library might be the best place to talk," Harry said.
If the house and the bedroom had felt like Old Magic, the library was drenched in it. He could have cried from the titles he saw lining the walls alone. Rare editions that hadn't been seen in centuries. Books so dark that even the few Dark Pureblood libraries he had the privilege of catching a glimpse in hadn't contained some of these.
An antique tea service sat between two large wingback armchairs. Harry took one and Tom sat in the other. A roaring fire warmed the room and it was easy enough to picture himself there during long winter evenings perusing the contents and studying the rare magics and secrets within the walls. It was the first time he could picture himself having someone else in his imagined future. He could see Harry curled up in the chair reading, staying up until the early hours together and he shot it down instantly. Good things didn't happen to people like him. Tom had learned long ago that it was better not to hope for them to happen at all.
"We're related then." The Purebloods had no issues with such things. Perhaps it was his Muggle upbringing coming through that made him pause.
"Distantly." Harry shrugged. "Most English Wixen are related in some way or another." Harry poured him a cup of tea. "Milk? Sugar?"
"Two sugars and a splash of milk."
He watched Harry fix his tea before he passed it over. It was a good strong blend and it did nothing to loosen the knot fixed in his stomach.
I don't care. Whatever he's going to say, I don't care.
It was a lie and he knew it.
Harry took a breath and the knot twisted tighter.
"I'm from the future."
Tom blinked. "Pardon?"
"I was born in 1980."
Either Harry was the world's best liar or he was telling the truth. Or he's completely mad and he thinks he's telling the truth, in which case it's probably a good idea not to drink the tea.
"It sounds insane, I know. But I can prove it."
"Why tell me this?"
A nobody shop assistant with a dubious claim to an ancient bloodline and barely a knut or penny to his name. It wasn't exactly like he was anyone's first choice.
But then Harry pulled out his wand and wrote in flaming letters in the air "Tom Marvolo Riddle". With a flick of his wand, the letters rearranged into "I am Lord Voldemort" and Tom's blood ran cold. No one, not even his followers, not even Nagini and Alexander, knew that name.
"How do you know that name?" Tom demanded, setting the teacup down.
It had been written in his diary, which was safely locked away behind the century-old wards at the Nott Manor. The ink which the words had been written had long since faded away. There was no feasible way for Harry to know that name.
Unless…
… unless he really was telling the truth.
But that was impossible. Everyone knew that time travel was experimental at best. From what Tom had heard, there had been research into going about an hour into the past. More than that, and, well, no one had figured out how to stop the test subjects from tearing themselves apart. If what Harry was saying was true, he had to have traveled thirty—no, more than thirty— years into the past. And that should be impossible.
"People aren't supposed to meddle with time," Harry continued as if he wasn't aware that Tom was in the midst of a crisis.
"Then why are you?"
Harry smiled, but it wasn't a very happy smile. It was full of bitterness and anger at the world, anger at himself. Tom recognized it from the mirror when he was alone and felt comfortable enough to let his mask drop.
"I was betrayed." He shook his head. "In my time, you were the Dark Lord that everyone feared. And there was a prophecy that basically came out that we'd have to destroy each other." Harry laughed, a sharp sound more like a dog's bark. "It was bogus, of course. Dumbledore made it up. Well, he made a seer make it up, put her under the Imperious to try to trap you. That didn't come out until later though."
Tom frowned. "And did it work?"
Harry shrugged. "In a way. You came to my parents' house and killed them when I was a baby. Tried to kill me. It didn't work."
How casually Harry could talk about his would-have-been death. Then his other words sunk in, and Tom's blood ran cold. He had made another child an orphan, doomed someone else to grow up miserable and alone.
"How did you live?" Tom whispered. His mouth felt dry, but he didn't think he could stomach the tea. Not now.
"My mom practiced blood magic and all sorts of other things that would have had the Ministry's knickers in a twist"— and there was a lovely image that didn't quite make up for the fact that he had apparently tried to murder an infant —"and the spell backfired. Everyone thought you were dead for a decade."
What the bloody hell?
Tom swallowed. "So what happened?"
He didn't like this future at all.
"You came back during my fourth year." And he was sure Harry had heavily edited that, because it felt like it was edging on a lie, but not. "Mad as a hatter, bald, and no nose."
Tom blinked and it took everything in him not to reach up and feel his face.
"And Dumbledore discovered about all your horocruxes and sent my friends and I on a wild chase for them. But he neglected to mention the one here."
Harry tapped his forehead, to the silvery scar shaped like a lightning bolt. A human horocrux?
"You killed me and the horocrux and then I came back" —what? — "because I was so tied up in being the bloody golden boy hero that I just did as I was told" — who even…? —"and then five years passed and the Ministry decided I was going to be evil and the next dark lord so they decided it was time to kill me for good."
Tom blinked again. "Why would they think that?"
Harry shrugged. "Probably because I tried to resurrect Nagini to learn about blood curses."
He wasn't sure he wanted to ask. He wasn't even sure he wanted to know. There were too many questions to ask. He wouldn't even know where to start. Alexander's whisper of "necromancer" echoed in his head. So it was true then.
Harry drained his tea. "It wasn't like I was trying to be selfish or anything. A friend's betrothed suffered under a blood curse that's plagued her family for generations. I just wanted to talk to her, get some proper blood samples. But apparently, that's 'Dark Magic'."
It was at this point that Harry lifted his hands and made some bizarre motion in the air with his index and middle fingers.
"Blood samples?"
Harry nodded. "It turns out when I'm not running from dark lords and fighting wars and pretending I'm an idiot to assuage my cousin's ego and everyone else's expectations that I'm a good, stupid little Gryffindor puppet, that I'm pretty smart." His grin was sharp again, all fangs and edges. "I was making good progress on a cure for blood maledictions."
Which seemed too good to be true. The cure that Nagini had been so desperately looking for… Tom watched him and he folded in on himself a little.
"The possible cure involved a slight bit of, well, necromancy. I theorized that if I could get a spirit out of the cursed body then return it, the curse technically would have run its course. Nagini was the only one I knew of that had a full curse that had run its course and still was freshly dead enough to properly preserve the body until I could remove the curse fully. The Ministry took issue with that." He grimaced. "My two supposed best friends were both the epitome of Light Wixen and they found out what I was doing and reported me to the Ministry. Not that the needed much of an excuse. They were already annoyed I was hanging around Draco, Daphne, Neville, Luna, and Theo instead of them."
The names meant little to Tom. Draco was a constellation and was probably a Black. Luna as well, perhaps? Alexander's grandfather had been Theophilus, so there was perhaps a connection there. He imagined they were likely Dark Purebloods, which would have gone against acceptable company by the standards of most of the Light-aligned Wixen Tom had ever met. He couldn't imagine things had improved in the future.
"They complained a lot. I dressed like them. I talked like them. I wanted to do more than just be the kid who threw an Expelliarmus at Voldemort."
Tom shuddered.
"So, anyway, apparently necromancy carries a death sentence. Which was inconvenient to say the least." He shrugged. "I don't really die easily. Three Aurors attempted to AK me… didn't work. Poison meant I woke up an hour later feeling like crap. So they shoved me through the Veil in the Department of Mysteries. I woke up here."
He shrugged again, as this was normal. As if death hadn't been such a fear for Tom that he had ripped his soul into pieces to try to prevent himself from being killed by something as Muggle as a bomb.
"Was it necromancy that allowed you to live?"
Harry straightened and rubbed the back of his neck. "Ah. No. Not really. It was… well, Death likes me. In most languages, it translates to 'Master of Death', but it's really not exactly that."
'Master of Death'? Was that not what Grindelwald had been trying to do? To master death? He had heard his classmates whisper about the Elder Wand that Grindelwald wielded. It was just supposed to be some fable… The Tale of Three Brothers wasn't supposed to be real, though Alexander and apparently Grindelwald certainly believed it. And now, Harry talked about Death as if it wasn't just some nebulous concept that happened when you died, but a person. A person who favored Harry, apparently.
"This has been a lot, hasn't it?" Harry asked, looking more than a little guilty.
Tom watched him. "Maybe." He tried to arrange himself in the chair so he looked more casual and less like he was on the verge of needing to hide in a room by himself where he could blast things into oblivion. "At the risk of sounding conceited, I'd like to hear more about this future version of me."
Harry's brow furrowed. "Why?"
Tom stared. Surely Harry could understand why one might like to know their own future?
"I'd like to know how to avoid ending up"— how had Harry put it? —"'Mad as a hatter, bald, and no nose.'"
A flush spread across Harry's cheeks and the sheepishness that followed suited him well. On most people, it would have annoyed him, but there was something incredibly endearing about it on him.
If he was also picturing Harry flushed and spread out beneath him, that was neither here nor there.
He would have thought the idea of the man across from him being his murderer would have quelled any desire he felt for Harry, but somehow, it only made it worse. How powerful he had to be… a necromancer, a Parselmouth, and the Master of Death… Harry was truly someone who could stand with him, who wouldn't fear his ego or his wrath. Was someone who could stand with him through time in their immortality. Someone who could bring him to new heights of power and save him from himself.
Harry shifted in his chair, before he seemed to decide that Tom was genuine in his request. He poured more tea, and began.