AN: this story will be slow burn but by golly, sometimes I just can't help myself. Don't worry, I will do my best to drag it out for as looooong as I possibly can.

The Realm Asunder
Chapter Two: Lord and Heir
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The Long Summer, 163 AC – Raventree Hall, the Riverlands, Planetos

Ever so gradually, the smell of old timber and parchment and patchouli invaded his senses, all of it strange but somehow so familiar. He felt comfortable, uncharacteristically snug.

He was… wound up inside the sheets, in-in a bed?

His eyes opened at once and he arose, ready to brandish his wand, looking for his wand.

The Elder Wand. It had been destroyed. He –

Yet he looked down at his hands.

His hands.

His fingers, they were-they were young.

Young. Long and pale pink and full of life. He wasn't…

Heart lurching through his throat, unable to breathe or swallow, Tom leapt from the bed.

Very ungracefully. He practically tumbled onto the floor and crawled around, his knees smarting until he found himself before a large, tilted mirror.

He pressed his fingers against the glass, pushing it down until he could see himself.

He was not the creature he had become accustomed to. No longer did he look like a… a monster.

Messy and thick ebony locks now sprouted from his head as they had before ages ago. He ran his new fingers through them, staring with wonder at his eyes that were not red now but almost as black as his hair. He looked exactly as he'd used to when he was a young man. He couldn't have been more than seventeen, maybe eighteen.

Tom, he… did not know how to digest what he was seeing. He must have been in a dream, a dream that felt more real than anything, more real than even –

A sudden, painful bolt split him down the middle, holding his face in agony from the unforeseen ache. Despite this, Tom pushed on, carrying himself meekly to the large window at the center of one of the walls in the spacious but cozily cluttered bedroom he was in.

He pulled himself over the windowsill, gazing bewilderedly out at the sprawling castle grounds surrounded by tall trees on all sides. The bleak, grey fogs of the early dawn in the distance, the clothing he was wearing – he was in a completely different place.

This looked like England, but he could tell it was not. Somehow he knew this place, but how could he? He had never before been here, he was sure of it.

Was he even in the same era, the same planet?

Had he been jinxed? Cursed?

No, he-he remembered dying. He remembered everything.

For the first time in maybe his entire life, he felt tears prickle the corners of his eyes, and Tom lost consciousness, collapsing to the cold stone floor.

When he awoke again, he was back in his bed. There was an old white-haired man hovering over him with an air of inspection, the room reeking of medicine. He pressed a hand over Tom's head, poking and prodding his skin, checking his vitals, Tom supposed. The man was wearing long black robes with a large, looped chain around his neck, dangling to his stomach.

"My lord," the man seemed pleasantly surprised Tom had come to. "You look much better than you did this morning."

"What happened?" Tom asked, though he was certain he was really asking the man how he had fallen into this strange place in this brand-new body.

"You were found unresponsive. We pulled you into bed and I brought you something for the cold sweat you were in. You were touch and go, for a while. You opened your eyes a few times and looked at us, but you seemed to have been in a state a nervous shock, petrified almost."

"How long was I… like that for?"

"It's almost dusk, my lord. I advise you stay abed for now. Someone will bring supper for you, and I'm sure your mother will be absolutely pleased to hear of your improvement."

Mother? Tom's throat constricted again, another bout of shock consuming him.

He needed answers.

Quickly and meagerly, he used Legilimens on the old man before he could waddle away, scouring his mind for clues, but…

Nothing.

There was nothing?

He felt nothing, no magic within him, no magic coursing his veins, edging his spirit. Just nothing.

Attempt after attempt to Accio something to him, a simple Tergeo to the dust upon the table next to him but he-he couldn't do it.

Like a terrified, stung boy, the tears found him again and he shook against the sobs, overwhelmed, weak.

He was a weak human – a fucking muggle.

A nothing.

He was nothing.

Everything he had worked for – he'd killed Harry Potter, he had done it, and it had been for nothing.

A century in his mind went by before a middle-aged woman entered his rooms.

Tom was rendered completely stunned once again, at the sight before him, at what this meant for him.

The woman had long, thick black waves and slightly bushy brows, and she wore a long scarlet gown. As she walked toward him and stood by his bed, her demeanor was calm and sophisticated. Her dark eyes whose pupils were slightly off-center, held such kindness and reverie for him, it had taken Tom aback.

He had no idea what he did to deserve this, to deserve such, such…

"You look much more like your regular self now," she said with her soft smile. "We were all so worried about you, you know."

"…we?" He asked vacantly, finding it hard to look at her when she looked so vaguely like the squib mother he never knew.

"Oh yes, love." She cooed and Tom felt his cheeks aflame. No one had ever gazed at him, nor spoken to him quite like this, not this directly, not like, like a motherly figure would. "Your brothers and your cousins all, and I haven't been able to do a thing of note all day. We hardly ate, we couldn't think… but look at you now."

'Yes, look at me now,' he thought. 'But how did I get here?' Would he ever understand? Was this a dream? Was this… was this Hell? That would be utterly impossible, wouldn't it? Potter had even cursed him to Hell. Maybe he was really there.

Perhaps he had been reborn in another place, another dimension or parallel realm, his consciousness only catching up now to this other him.

But how?

Or better yet, why?

Why?

"You seem so angry even still," he heard the woman beside him whisper. "Can't you let it go?"

"Let what go?"

"The guilt I know you still feel over that horrible mess between you and your father the week before."

Tom's eyes shot to hers, sparkling with irrefutable interest. "What?"

"I'm certain he's much over it by now. He should be returning in a few short days, maybe five or six, by my estimations. He's well on his way back from Highgarden. I saw you opened your most recent letters, the one from your father and the other with the… the Piper seal on it. 'Can't imagine the content within."

He felt the tears prickling him again, escaping from the corners in hot wet rivers.

His father.

Underneath the sheets, his fingers scrunched into tightly wound fists. What did she mean, his father? He had killed his father, years and years ago… or was that in the future?

Did that reality, with Potter and all the others ever even exist? He did not understand, he couldn't comprehend what was real.

He felt himself overtaken with panic again, aggrieved. He didn't know what was happening to him, how he got here or why. He didn't know who he was anymore, he didn't know where he was, or what to do.

He had genuinely, genuinely never felt more alone, and that was saying something.

Tom wouldn't know it, but he was shaking back and forth in a fit of rage and confusion. The woman who was apparently his mother began grasping at his shoulders, trying to coax him back to reality but he was lost, so lost and he did not want to come back.

He should have died back there. He should be dead, he was dead, but he was here.

He felt himself drifting further and further, until he finally fell away from the room, away from the woman and back into the throes of comforting blackness.

When he finally opened his eyes, it was the new dawn. He felt better now, physically, but he needed answers.

He lit all the candles he could, fetching an oil lamp and went searching around his bedroom for clues, reading the three or so letters, skimming through books and stacking them on the table to peruse at his leisure. He suddenly found that he wanted to just sit there and read for as long as he could, take in everything possible about where he was and who he was.

He could investigate the rest of this castle later, the people and his supposed family. These texts would tell him plenty for now, he reckoned.

And so Tom had started with the letters upon his desk.

The first one, a note he seemingly had yet to send. It gave him his name and more of an idea of the world he currently resided.

To Ser Abyl Darry,

I appreciate your success in retrieving the denier, Ser Petyr Paege and his sniveling accomplice, Ser Russell Bracken. My cousins will be more than glad to see the both of them answer for their crimes. Bring them along back as soon as inherently possible so that they can meet the edge of my sword. Its thirsty for their blood.

Ser Tommen Blackwood – Lord and Heir to Raventree Hall

Tommen? Tommen?

This, for lack of a better term, gobshite, only got weirder by the moment.

What did these alleged idiots do to his cousins, and why did he care so much?

He still had so much to dig through, so much to find out. It would take him hours, days, and even longer to get accustomed to his new self and this unfamiliar territory. The spelling and the language these people used…

And he could not allow himself, not even for one second, to think about his lack of magic, or he would jump straight from this tower without a second glance.

If he made a misstep here and its inhabitants realized his secret, that he was not really this Tommen fellow, well… he did not want to dwell on that either, only take action when he could to prevent such things.

Another letter:

Ser Tommen,

I must admit, I am devastated to hear of your engagement. I was under the impression you were going to convince your father to allow us to marry, though I am aware you never made any promises. I should have known when you traveled to the Reach with Daeron Rivers three months ago that you would allow yourself bewitched by some rosy-faced harlot.

You are too good for a lowly Tyrell. I care not she's descended from Redwyne's or Hightower's. The Piper and Lannister blood running through my veins is far more superior and I should think most would agree. If you still feel affection for me at all, please call off this betrothal and come see me again in Pinkmaiden. It will be just like old times. I desire you more than anyone, and if and when my father finds out about your impulsive mistake, he will marry me to my cousin Kevan, and I'll be sent off to Casterly Rock. I beg of you, Tommen, don't do this. I love you.

Lady Alyna

Tom could hardly keep up with his discoveries.

He allowed himself to be bewitched? He was – gulp – engaged?

Fuck. He… couldn't do that.

Was this some cruel joke? Would he turn around soon and see the jig was up? Would he find Neville Longbottom standing there, Harry Potter? Would they be explaining this was all some sick elaborate curse from magics beyond even Tom's knowledge?

He almost crumpled the offensive letter in his hands but thought against it, setting it down with a grimace and picking up the next, devouring every word.

Tommen,

I know we did not part on good terms. I hope you have thought about what I said and can forgive me for the screaming. I never meant to disregard your wants and fears. You deserve to have what you want in life. I only implore you to heed caution, though I know it is nothing you haven't heard before.

Daeron and I have safely retrieved your chosen bride and will protect her with our life on the road back home. Give us less than a fortnight.

You are the sole reason for my pride.

Your father

Your father.

The words mercilessly echoed inside Tom's head, ricocheting right through him over and over. Your father. Your father. Your father.

His father.

He had a fucking mother and a father.

Tom did not know what to do with this information, he only felt his face get hot, as if his eyes threatened to cry again.

Yet he would not let them. No more crying for him. The tears he had managed to shed already were quite enough, thank you.

The letter he had written to this Ser Abyl though, seemed blaringly important, so Tom rolled it up for sending. The stamp on his table sported a sigil of a raven amidst a gnarled tree, a tree with a face. Tom's brows furrowed at it, confused by its face, but at least the term 'Raventree Hall' made more sense now.

He wasn't a dolt. It was obvious his father was the Lord of this Raventree Hall, and Tommen here, was the heir. He wondered… was his supposed father named Tommen as well?

It'd be fitting, of course.

Tom utilized hot wax from a nearby candle to drip upon the scroll to glue it together, fashioning his seal upon it in a drippy goop.

Next were the texts, an alarming number of them historical references and accounts. Tom drove his nose into the pages and hardly looked up from them until there was a rapping at his door about twenty minutes later.

He cleared his throat, still not used to the younger version of his voice, the younger version of anything about him. "Yes?"

"It's just Sara, my lord,"

A younger brunette dressed in homely, stained clothing and smudge already on her face, waltzed within and Tom attempted not to appear so surprised. She must have only been twelve or thirteen years old.

"Oh… right, yes. Sara. Is there something you needed?"

"What do you mean, my lord?" Sara queried absentmindedly, habitually beginning to straighten up the nicknacks and haphazard books along the shelves before heading for his tousled bed.

"Uh, yes, of course. As you were, then." He felt flabbergasted, unsure how to act, not confident yet with how he should be speaking to these people.

Sara's expression displayed only a slight amount of confusion, picking up on the awkward tension rippling from Tom in waves of petulant anxiety.

Tom wanted to smack himself. He had to get it together.

"I assume you might fancy a bath, my lord?"

Yes. Yes, he did.

"You assume correctly."

"Of course," Sara was smiling, sweeping the sheets and all of his discarded garments on the floor in one big bundle for laundering. "As soon as I get back from the washhouse, I'll draw one for you. How does that sound, my lord?"

Tom only nodded and Sara exited the room. He let out a breath he hadn't realized he'd been holding and turned his attention back to the texts before him.

If he were going to learn everything he could, everything helpful, he couldn't stop now. Any free second he had, he needed to be reading up on things, keeping himself well-informed so he could be alert for any questions that were thrown his way, any decisions he'd be forced to make.

He would have to take each problem as they came, each new challenge. Step by step, minute by minute he would receive each punch as it came.

There was a piece of him, a much larger piece than he wanted to admit, that was dangerously excited.

He had hoped for this. He had.

Did this mean, simply, that his fleeting yearnings in a sudden instance of regret, had come true after all?

It had seemed he was, by the grace of some unknown entity, given a second chance.

But Tom did not wish to lose himself.

He wasn't ready at all, ready to let go of who he was, of Voldemort, the Battle of Hogwarts. Yet it killed him that it all already felt like blurred, long ago memories, fading too quickly now in the distance.

It wasn't that it wasn't still a bit fresh, it just… didn't feel real any longer.

Though perhaps it was because that much larger piece of him that felt excited now did not want to remember.

Their faces remained burned into his head, their voices lingering, wails of agony and despair.

'What have you done?'

'All of this – it-it matters. It means something.'

'It's not over.'

'So, so much blood on your hands, Tom.'

'I'll see you in Hell.'

Tom growled outwardly, slamming the book shut before him.

What was he even supposed to do here? Was he supposed to do anything? Were there any apparent goals, a destiny to look forward to? Did he have any clear direction or was he to merely live out this tangent, muggle life until he grew too old and frail to lift his own head?

Would he know it when the time came, and what could it be, the reason?

He was liable to go mad before he got any satisfactory answers.

And by Merlin, was he right.

- : o : -

AN: ugh, Tom, I will always come back to you, you grumpy, grumpy goose. Stay tuned for more surprises xx