Chapter: Awakening in Darkness
Cold. A soul-chilling cold.
Tom Marvolo Riddle had never known such a feeling. It was as though the void itself had descended upon him, clawing at the remnants of his existence. He blinked—or at least, he thought he did. Awareness came in fractured pieces, his mind a swirling tempest of foreign thoughts and half-formed memories. A shadow loomed above him, vast and cloaked, radiating an aura of despair so potent it nearly crushed him.
His breath hitched. He was breathing. But I shouldn't be breathing.
It wasn't right. His last coherent memory was… what? The Diary? Nagini? Splitting his soul again and again? It didn't matter. All that mattered was the presence of the thing above him, its empty hood drawing closer, and the suffocating inevitability of death.
Death. His greatest fear.
Tom's body—no, not my body, this is not my body—shook with the primal instinct to flee, but he couldn't move. He was trapped, pinned by the weight of the Dementor's proximity. The creature reached for him, its skeletal hand outstretched, and a bone-deep terror gripped him.
He screamed, but the voice that came out wasn't his own.
The Dementor's fingers brushed his face, and in that moment, something inside him snapped. Raw, unfiltered power surged forth, driven by fear and fury.
"No," he growled—or rather, Harry Potter growled, but it was his will driving the word. A tremor ran through his arm, and suddenly, a wand flew into his grasp, summoned by instinct. He didn't understand how, but the warmth of it against his palm ignited something deep within.
The Dementor recoiled slightly, its faceless head tilting, as if sensing the change.
"EXPECTO PATRONUM!"
The words erupted from him without thought, the spell etched into the borrowed memories of this body. But what followed was not the familiar silver light of a stag.
A great, blinding flash of light exploded from the tip of the wand, momentarily turning the dark alley into day. Out of the radiance came the form of a bird—no, a beast. Massive wings spanned the width of the alley, their tips crackling with electricity. The creature's feathers shimmered, iridescent and golden, and with each beat of its wings, the air vibrated with power.
A Thunderbird.
The Dementor hesitated, its skeletal hand retreating as the great bird reared its head and let out a deafening cry that seemed to split the night itself. In a blur of light and sound, the Dementor fled, its dark form dissolving into the shadows.
Tom stood frozen, staring at the bird as it circled above him, its piercing eyes meeting his. The intensity of its gaze sent a shiver down his spine—it was a reflection of his own fury, his own indomitable will, and yet… it was more. Something foreign, something Harry.
The Thunderbird faded into motes of golden light, leaving him alone in the silence of the alley.
Tom staggered back, his chest heaving. His fingers tightened around the wand as he stared down at it. It wasn't his wand, but it obeyed him. This body, these instincts, this magic—they weren't his either, and yet they were.
His mind raced, memories tumbling over one another like jagged shards of glass. The cupboard under the stairs. Flying on a broomstick. The laughter of friends. The weight of grief.
"Potter," he whispered, his voice low and venomous. The name tasted bitter on his tongue, and yet it felt like it belonged to him.
No, this is my body now.
But it wasn't that simple. Harry's memories weren't just fragments—they were vivid, overpowering, clawing at the edges of his identity. Tom clenched his teeth, his mind throbbing with the convergence of two souls. He was Tom Riddle, the greatest wizard to ever live. Yet Harry Potter's love, his hope, his humanity was seeping into him, threatening to dilute what he was.
"Get out of my head," he hissed, his voice trembling. But there was no one to answer him.
He gazed at the wand in his hand, then at the faint traces of light left by the Thunderbird. The Patronus. A spell he never truly mastered, conjured so effortlessly. Its form wasn't the stag Harry Potter was known for, nor anything Voldemort had ever envisioned. It was something new. Something powerful. Something that didn't belong to either of them entirely.
"What am I?" he murmured.
The answer didn't come. All that remained was the oppressive silence of the night and the distant echo of the Thunderbird's cry, still reverberating in his mind.