Tom had been to the seat of the Most Noble House of Black's family more than a handful of times in the last few years and it certainly was not what he'd been expecting when Albus had mentioned a Headquarters. Or that it would be in complete and utter shambles. It looked derelict and like it had been abandoned, which was a stark contrast to how Tom remembered it from just a few weeks prior.

Albus didn't answer his question. Instead he opened the door and nudged Tom inside, where Tom was amazed that somehow the dirt and grime was worse on the interior. He looked around in confusion at the state of the usually luxurious townhouse. The moment the door closed, a horrid, blood-curdling scream began echoing through the front hall and Tom clamped his hands over his ears, trying to block out the caterwauling.

"-DISHONOUR, FILTHY HALF-BREEDS, BLOOD TRAITORS AND CHILDREN OF DIRT AND FILTH!" The voice shrieked and it was only as two men rushed out and began violently tugging on a curtain, dragging it closed over a large portrait that was hanging slightly further into the foyer, that the shrieking ceased.

"Shut up you miserable hag!" One of the men screeched back as they finished dragging the curtain closed and it was only as his ears stopped ringing that Tom recognized the voice of Walburga Black and he grimaced. The woman's portrait was nearly as intolerable as she had been in person- which was saying something.

"My apologies," Albus said, as the two wizards turned to them, "I should have made sure to close the door more gently. Perhaps we should try a sticking charm of some kind on the curtains?" The Headmaster suggested and Tom glared at the closed curtains before turning and looking at the two men. He knew both of them, fairly well, all things considered, but like when he had seen Albus he knew immediately that this was… different. Wrong in the way that it was not his, or what he knew. The last he'd seen of Sirius Black and Remus Lupin, they had both looked like the thirty-something year old men they were. Remus always tended to look a little under the weather because he was a werewolf and as such had to deal with the maladies that came with it, a few scars gracing his otherwise fair features, but Sirius was generally clean and pressed and in something that was an odd mash-up of Muggle and Wizard, which tended to be a sort of look that he'd always gone for.

These men looked aged in the same way Albus did- hair greyer than before, Remus almost entirely so, more lines in their faces. Remus also had several more distinct scars and both were wearing shabby and threadbare clothes that looked like they had been patched several times.

"Is there a particular reason you don't just remove the portrait?" Tom asked warily, casting a glance to the closed curtains once more.

"Stuck herself up there before she croaked it with some kind of permanent charm, we'd need to take the whole wall down to get her out," Sirius explained, sounding just as irritated as he looked about the entire thing, which was unsurprising as if this Sirius was anything like the one Tom knew, he'd disagreed with his mother so much so that he'd left home during his later years at Hogwarts and essentially moved in with one of his friends, forfeiting his right to the Black lordship entirely.

Tom frowned and tilted his head in thought before looking to the bookshelves that framed either side of the portrait and gestured in their general direction. "Why don't you just put a bookcase or something in front of the curtain then?" He asked curiously.

There was a beat of silence where Remus and Sirius exchanged glances before Remus broke out in a grin and Sirius lifted a hand, running it through his wild hair, grinning, "Cor- that's actually a brilliant idea," the man said with a shaky laugh. "We'll have to get on it in the morning and hope that puts an end to it."

"Are Minerva and Severus here yet?" Albus asked, his hands clasped together lackadaisically in front of his robes, looking for all the world like they were there on a social call.

"McGonagall's fine, but I don't care for Snivellus poking his nose in-" Sirius started the growl and Remus raised a hand, pressing it to Sirius's chest and stepped in front of him slightly, "Yes- they just got here. Molly is almost done with dinner. Shacklebolt and Moody stopped by to collect some of the reports I had so they have stuck around as well."

Albus hummed an acknowledgement and turned to Tom, "Minerva, Severus and Alastor will undoubtedly know who you are, or at least your connection to… our shared problem-" "The Nazi Wizard," Tom shot back in a deadpan tone, earning a snort from Remus, but Albus continued as if he hadn't spoken, "But Miss Ginevra Weasley and Mister Harry Potter will also recognize you as well, so I would not be surprised if there is a…bit of a reaction to your appearance here."

"Why, who is he?" Sirius asked, looking between them, "What does he have to do with Harry?"

"That is what we're here to discuss," Albus said, heading towards the stairs that lead down to the basement and into the kitchen, forcing the three men to follow lest they stand about awkwardly.

While the volume in the kitchen was comparable to Walburga's screams, it was at least more welcoming in that it was spread through the room, a dozen or so people spread through the large kitchen space and the connecting breakfast nook, the general chatter and mayhem that was the majority of the Weasley brood from the looks of it, making it much more pleasant to the ear.

The person he spotted first as she was physically the closest to him, bustling around the stove and the table in the kitchen, was Molly Weasley. He couldn't say he knew when the last time he'd interacted with the woman was, given her brood were all sorted into Gryffindor, but he heard about them often enough and had given the twins at least two dozen detentions the year prior for an assortment of things, nevermind he'd taught both her and Arthur as well when they'd attended the school, back closer to when he'd first started teaching. Her children were spread through the kitchen with the others, he could see the two other members of the staff that had been summoned at the kitchen nook in conversation Shacklebolt and Moody. The teenagers all seemed to look about the same, and because of that, his gaze didn't linger, but the four adults bore the same issue that Sirius, Remus and Albus had- they looked aged from stress, more grey in their hair, more lines on their faces. A seriousness to them that was more than just professionalism, hanging around them like a depressing cloak.

The most jarring of those present, besides the obvious two he was avoiding looking at, was Alastor Moody. Filius occasionally invited him to speak at duelling clubs and to any students wishing to enter the Auror Program after graduation, but this Moody looked like he'd been shoved into a woodchipper. He was covered in scars and was sporting a peg leg and some sort of oversized magical eye that whizzed around in in its socket, looking too large and out of place.

"Bloody hell-" a voice snapped from his right. He almost acted instinctively as a wand came into his line of sight, wanting to duck and then disarm whoever it was, but his presence of mind stopped him, as well as Albus's hand on his arm, and instead he tightened his grip on the strap of the bag that slung across his chest. His lungs tightened at the vitriol in Ginny Weasley's eyes.

"Ginevra Weasley!" Molly shrieked from the other side of the table and Tom was very grateful Albus was beside him because the headmaster raised his other hand and gently pressed his fingers to the top of the youngest Weasley's wand, lowering it a few inches.

"Wonderful reflexes," Tom said, voice a little strained. Ginny's eyes narrowed- she'd allowed Albus to lower her wand by a few inches but did not withdraw it.

"What is he doing here?" She demanded. Any remaining conversation around the kitchen space had completely died down and the silence was damn near oppressive.

"That is what I called this meeting to discuss," Albus said gently, "Given the circumstances."

"Circumstances!?" Ginny practically snarled, her eyes not even looking towards Albus, like she wasn't willing to let Tom out of her sight.

"Who managed to rile up little Gin-Gin?" One of the Weasley twins asked, leaning back in his chair and looking Tom up and down.

"Enough to threaten him in front of Professor Dumbledore?" The other twin asked, leaning forward to peer around his brother.

"I would assume it's because that's Tom Riddle," a voice from the back said and it took Tom a moment to place it, hidden among the sea of redheads crowding the kitchen, but when he finally did spot the shaggy black hair and bright green eyes, he was struck by how very similar and different Harry Potter looked.

"Tom Riddle?" He knew that voice, even behind the Weasleys, Miss Granger was always fairly vocal in his classes after all. "You mean-"

"Bloody hell-" Another voice moaned.

Several retorts came to mind almost immediately, but Tom decided none of them were likely to end well given that the youngest Weasley was arguably one of the best duellers of her brothers and she still had her wand pointed at him even though it was no longer in his face.

But she slowly lowered her wand, her eyes narrowed and then inclined her head, glaring up at him. "I suppose if anyone gets to kill him, it's Harry."

"I'd rather no one kill me," Tom said solemnly, flickering a glance to Albus, who began to move forward into the room, but one of the men behind him snorted loudly at the comment, if he had to place a bet Tom would have put it on Sirius.

"That's what he looked like-" Tom realized it was Harry again. He had stood and walked forward past the sea of gingers and this Harry was shorter than he remembered, more scraggly, his clothes were too large for him. "The one from the graveyard had red eyes and looked like a snake," the teen continued, sparing a glance at Ginny before looking back to him, appraising him.

"I'm sorry- looked like a snake?" Tom demanded incredulously and then looked to Albus again, unable to handle whatever exchange was happening with Ginny and Harry, "You neglected to tell me he's some demonic snake-man."

"To be fair, I have not laid eyes on him myself since his resurrection," Albus said, sounding lost in thought at the idea, but Tom felt his brain stuttering at his words.

"Resurrection?" He demanded again. He paused and took a deep breath, raising his hands from the strap of his bag, feeling the indents in his palms from grasping it so tightly, "Okay, if you recall at Gringotts I said I needed tea and food and then sleep but I would like to add an addendum for fire whiskey in there with the tea because at no point did you mention any of-" He paused as he tried to find more succinct words as he gestured in the general direction of Ginny and Harry, "that."

"Yeah," Harry said pretty bluntly, looking him up and down, "That's definitely not Voldemort."

"Voldemort?" Tom demanded and Harry nodded his head as if it was the most normal thing in the world and Tom looked around the room before landing back on Albus, who was waving his wand and making up a tea tray, "The Nazi Wizard named himself "flight of death"? How does anyone take him seriously?"

He gave up just a bit at that and pulled his satchel over his shoulder, setting it on the kitchen table and took one of the free seats next to whichever twin was closest to him. Normally he'd be more cautious about lingering next to either of the Weasley twins for any length of time, but just like before he could feel his energy crashing again. Unsurprisingly, given everything that had happened- was happening.

"So, if you're not Voldemort, why do you look like him, but, you know, not?" Harry asked, green eyes looking him up and down, seemingly taking this whole thing better than Tom, sizing him up as Ginny and the twins had. He found it curious that he'd moved the closest when everyone else hung back, suspended like they didn't know what to do or say. It wasn't like Tom knew either, but until everything was out on the table, they likely weren't going to get anywhere.

Tom reached up with one hand and twisted his neck, letting out a series of loud cracks before he straightened, glad to see the kettle Molly had put on the stove was beginning to steam. "Because I am Tom Riddle, but not the one from this universe, which became a Dark Lord."

The rest of the individuals who had been scattered around the room closed in on the large kitchen table as he was talking and he saw most of them exchanging glances at his statement, but it was Moody who broke the ice.

"Besides the fact that that is incredibly farfetched, how do we know you're not lying?" The auror demanded. Tom blinked, several thoughts going through his mind all at once before recalling the rolled up parchment from Gringotts in his bag.

He reached in and paused when basically every around the table flinched, Moody, Severus, Minerva all reaching for their wands and he made eye contact with Moody as he slowly retrieved the slightly crumpled parchment that was there at the top and slid it across the counter to the other man. Those around him- Shackelbolt, Minerva, and Arthur- peered over his shoulder as he unfolded the parchment. Tom was distracted from watching their reaction as Albus levitated a tea cup and saucer over to him.

The warmth of the porcelain calmed a part of him that would always take the soothing balm of tea and he simply held it in front of his mouth, inhaling the warm scent. He normally wanted a small spoonful of sugar, but in that moment the bitterness of the leaves felt right.

"But- how?" It was Shaklebolt who looked up from the parchment first, staring at Tom in confusion.

Tom made a noncommittal noise and raised his eyebrows for half a second. "That's what I'd like to know- or rather the why- I suppose. Very long story short, I was helping the Albus on my end with a project doing some contracted work with the Department of Mysteries. There is an ancient archway, it activated, now I am here. I actually was attempting to find your office and let you know I'd been attacked by two Unspeakables who didn't recognize me but it wasn't where I remembered it being literally hours before so I flooed back to Hogwarts."

"How did you just floo to Hogwarts?" Minerva demanded, her hawk-like eyes narrowing, which wasn't unnerving at all, "Hogwarts is warded against just anyone flooing in."

Tom shrugged, blowing on his tea, his gaze sliding off of her and back around the table in general, "I don't know- maybe perhaps because I am keyed into the wards in my universe? Wards work both ways, to some degree after all. A ward is a lock and adding exceptions in someone's magic to the wards makes someone's or a group of someone's magic a key for the wards. While I never put too much thought into the idea of multiple universes or realities, it wouldn't be terribly odd that wards may account for some bleed-through between them." He paused, "Similarly to how I was able to access the Slytherin Vault at Gringotts despite not being the Lord Slytherin specifically keyed into them here as well." He also had a moment to wonder if perhaps being part of the Slytherin line had something to do with it- it was something he'd need to test with his friend, Tammy, given she was the only other proper descendant of the Founders, to his knowledge.

He paused and took a sip of the tea and lamented the fact that Albus had ignored his demand for firewhiskey. Sirius had to have some around here- he knew for a fact that there was a liquor cabinet in the library that was the size of a small pantry.

"I think perhaps we should start at the beginning," Albus said, summoning a fresh sheet of parchment and a quill.

"I thought we were already doing that," he mused quietly.

"I meant from the very beginning-" Albus said with the slightest smile, the quill poised over the parchment and Tom had a moment to wonder if it was a quick-notes quill or if it was just Albus being ridiculous with his magical prowess again and directing the quill nonverbally, but then Albus continued, "And find where your path and Voldemort's paths diverged."

Tom's eyebrows raised comically and he blinked slowly, trying not to glare at Albus, "That seems highly unnecessary."

"Your goal is to get home and even if and when you succeed, ours will still be to deal with the problem that Voldemort presents," Albus explained, settling into a chair himself. "Finding out what aligns and doesn't, as well as getting any insight into Voldemort as he was before he became a Dark Lord may assist us.

Tom took a deep breath and sighed, reaching up and pulling his hair tie out of his hair, feeling the headache coming back. He ran a hand through his hair in thought and took another sip of tea. "Fine. Mother;" he gestured towards the parchment still on the counter in front of Moody, though Severus had summoned it over slightly so he could peer at it, his lips pressed to a thin line, "Merope Gaunt, witch, possibly a squib as far as I know. Father, Thomas Riddle, a muggle. Dad didn't know I existed, Mum went to an orphanage in London and died giving birth to me. Told the matron she wanted to name me, well, my name, for my father and her father."

He paused and looked to Albus who nodded in thought, as though telling him to continue, the quill scratching away.

"Albus showed up the summer before my first year at Hogwarts and explained I was a wizard." He paused, his eyes widening in thought, trying to figure out what exactly would be important to convey, "Sorting hat sorted me into Slytherin, it told me I came from the Gaunts." He paused and took another sip as he parsed through the crazy bits that made up his Hogwarts experience, arguably his first and second year had been the most calm, but that made sense, given everything.

"The war picked up right before my third year, lots of students from Beauxbatons… Marius Black convinced one of his addled-brained parents to get him an adder for his birthday and it tried to attack a student, so I stopped it and then everyone realized I was a parselmouth and it became a whole," he paused again and lifted one hand away from the cup of tea and wiggled it uncertain of how to explain it, "volatile power structure because none of the Slytherins really knew how to act around me."

"Did you open the Chamber of Secrets in your fifth year still?' Harry asked from Tom's left, and he stared at the teen.

"How do you know about the Chamber?" Tom asked, setting the tea cup down to give the fifth year his full attention.

Harry had the nerve to duck his head and look bashful but it was Ginny who explained, "My first year I was possessed by a teen version of you and we found out you'd killed a student in your fifth year with a basilisk and then you tried to do it again." Her explanation was somewhere between a hiss and like she was daring him to argue with her, and it took a moment for her words to sink in.

He stared at her with growing horror, though which part horrified him more he wasn't quite certain. "I- Sorry, what?" He stammered, looking from Ginny to Harry, to Albus and then back again, "I found the Chamber in my fourth year but certainly didn't kill anyone with her-"

"Her?" Someone said with a strangled voice.

"Let alone- why possess children?" He asked, finally deliberately shooting a look at Minerva and Severus, assuming one of them might explain it, but neither of them were offering any suggestions, both still looking at him with suspicion.

"Well then why else would you open it?" Harry asked, his nose wrinkled in confusion.

Tom stared at the teen, feeling his mouth hang open for a moment before recovering. "Because- it is part of the family rites for the Heirs of Slytherin to gain the Lordship." He paused and then felt his stomach flip, "Why on earth did the basilisk kill students?"

"It's a basilisk," Ginny deadpanned, folding her arms, ignoring her mother hissing at her to be polite. "They kind of kill things just by looking at them."

"Basilisks have translucent eyelids that can close so they can see and their gaze won't kill or petrify," Tom said slowly, looking between them, "If she was killing anything, she was either being directed to or controlled. She's fairly docile otherwise."

"Docile?" Harry said, sounding equally strained. "I have a scar to prove she was not docile."

"A scar?" Tom replied, feeling another sort of horror creeping up the back of his throat, "Are you telling me she bit you? How-?"

"Phoenix tears," Harry quickly replied, someone made yet another strangled noise, almost as if they were also having an internal crisis about how the hell this teenager was alive but Tom ignored whoever or whatever it was given he was having his own mental breakdown to parse through as Harry continued, "If by bit you mean her fang got me when I stabbed the sword of Gryffindor through its mouth, but yeah."

Tom felt himself lean forward, staring the boy down, resisting the urge to grab his upper arms and shake him roughly, "You mean to tell me you acquired a Founder's Artifact and then killed another Founder's familiar with it?" He said quietly, feeling his eyes slip to Albus, who was looking at the parchment and quill, not meeting his eyes but nodding his head in confirmation.

Tom clenched his fists and took a sharp breath in, resisting the urge to scream and instead let it out as a slow hiss. "You singlehandedly made the only remaining line of European basilisks go extinct." He took a deep breath out and ran a hand over his face. "Sirius Black- I know you're back behind me somewhere- if you do not fetch me something with an alcohol content over fifty proof I am going to go rummaging through this shitehole until I find it myself," Tom snapped, looking over his shoulder long enough to see the man disappear from the kitchen, leaving an awkward silence in the air as Tom continued resisting the urge to either throw the tea cup, which it truthfully didn't deserve, or scream.

"You have children, then?" Shacklebolt asked, the first to break the silence, and Tom took another deep breath and reached into his bag, searching for a book that Morgan had loaned him a few weeks prior.

"Yes," he said with a heavy sigh, powering through the emotional and physical exhaustion he could feel seeping out of his chest and into his limbs. He pulled the book out and opened it, looking at the photo he'd been using to mark his place.

It was from Sophie's third birthday a couple of months prior. Morgan had Sophie in her lap and was holding up three fingers and waving animatedly at him while Sophie giggled and gave the teddy bear in her arms a tight hug and a kiss before also smiling at him. At the bottom Morgan's swoopy handwriting said, "Sophie's 3!" Everyone had always said Morgan had taken after him more than her mother, but he'd always seen a healthy mixture of the Riddle and Ollivander traits in her- she'd just gotten most of her coloring from Tom. Sophie had somehow bypassed both parents and their black hair and had her grandmother's fawn brown hair, but had the same grey-blue eyes Morgan had had when she was that age. His eyes stung and he swallowed down the lump that was in the back of his throat before handing it over to whichever of the twins was directly to his right, who hesitantly took it before passing it around.

"That is my eldest, Morgan, and her daughter, Sophia," he explained as he reached for another one of his books- he often shoved photographs or drawings Sophie gave him in to mark his place, so he was certain he had at least a few more.

"Bit odd to think you got married," Harry said, watching the photo go around the table in front of him. Tom was struck again by how strange it was that of all of his students present at the table it was him hovering next to him, watching him closely while everyone else seemed content to give him a wide berth.

"I think most students think that of their professors, yes?" Tom said absentmindedly, finding a photograph of Regulus bouncing Sophie on his knee, a hand on her back to steady her as she giggled maniacally. It was the same day as the other picture- he'd recently cut his hair short and was still fidgeting with it in the picture as he gave a small smirk, watching Sophie and not the camera. Severus was sprawled beside him on the couch, one leg tucked underneath himself, his long hair tied back in a braid, pushing Morgan away from them both as she stood behind the couch, trying to put her fingers up behind both of the men's heads.

He couldn't help the genuine grin as Morgan dodged away from the Potion Master's hand, sticking her tongue out in defiance and at how Severus tried to keep a stern face even as his lips were quirking with a smile.

"Here," Sirius said, back with a large bottle of something written in either Spanish or Italian. He stopped between Tom and Harry and set the bottle on the counter before freezing. "Is that-?"

"Regulus, yes," Tom said, letting Sirius take the photo. He began unshrinking some of the texts he'd been using and flipping through them, looking for any remaining photographs he knew were around.

"This- this is a polaroid!" Hermione said from across the table, looking at the photo in Minerva's hands. "I didn't think any of the modern cameras worked very well around magic?"

Tom looked from Sirius who was still looking closely at the picture of Regulus, almost like he was trying to memorize it, giving Tom another knot in his stomach and nodded. "Morgan's been mad over figuring out ways to get muggle technology to work and react better for magic users- how she describes it, she strips the electronics down to its bare components and resmelts and molds it with spells and the like built in to make it more resistant. The camera was her first real success with it, but she's been doing it with other things. The landlines she put in are still hit and miss- sometimes it's still just static, but it works more often than a standard muggle one."

He found the other photo he knew he'd had shoved into one of the runes sourcebooks. This one was bright, having been taken outside earlier that year during Spring Break and one of the first warm snaps they'd had. TJ was front and center smiling at the camera, squinting due to the brightness of the sun, but just behind him he could see Minnie, hands on her hips and raising her eyebrows indignantly at her photo being taken. Both were in t-shirts, covered in paint. Minnie's brown hair had been twisted up into a messy bun and she had switched out her typical glasses for sunglasses, while TJ's were sitting up and resting on the top of his head, forgotten. He felt another tight grip on his chest, looking at the picture and handed it to the twins so he could take the liquor Sirius had set in front of him and poured a hearty amount into his tea. "That one there, is my son." Underneath it in Morgan's scribble said "Happy Birthday TJ!"

At this point, it was just tea-flavored liquor. He would have been more worried about the fact that he'd hardly eaten anything that day, except he could smell whatever it was Molly was cooking over by the stove and oven and instead took a long drink, surprised by the lack of burn in the back of his throat.

"Ironic to think that the not-Dark Lord had children and then they promptly married into the Black family," Severus sniped from his end of the table, looking at the picture that had made its way over to him.

"Wait what-" Sirius exclaimed animatedly from beside Tom, still squeezed in between him and Harry, looking to the older man, "I married your daughter?" He demanded, looking aghast.

"Regulus," Severus snapped, turning the picture around that was in his hands, "You imbecile."

"Reggie got married?" Sirius said excitedly, surprisingly ignoring Snape's insult.

Tom grunted and waved his hand slightly, wandlessly summoning the parchment and handing it to the other man, who he hadn't realized had yet to see it before taking another drink from the tea cup, the liquor helping lessen the boulder in his stomach.

"I have a niece!" Sirius whooped excitedly.

"At least someone is excited," Harry commented, patting his godfather on the back, smiling good-naturedly. Tom continued to flounder at how the hell he could just be so calm about this.

"Who did you marry, if you don't mind me asking," Remus asked, having moved away from the ridiculousness that was Sirius Black to stand behind the only slightly less chaotic ridiculousness that was the Weasley twins, watching the pictures exchange hands.

"Which one?" Tom grumbled not having intended to say it out loud but then shook his head and straightened, setting the almost empty tea cup down. "Morgan's mother and I are divorced, but that was Reina Ollivander- Mr. Ollivander in Diagon Alley is her uncle."

"Then who is-" Remus nodded "your son's mother?"

Tom paused, pressing his mouth into a thin line and took a deep breath in and out his nose, still not wanting to discuss it, but the alcohol had at least helped him stay calm enough as he gestured to the picture Remus and the twins were looking at.

It was Remus who figured it out first, his head snapping up and looking across the table at the woman in question. "What?" His voice sounded strangled and the Weasley twins picked up on it as well, either just because they understood Tom's vague gesture or because they realized Remus was staring at Minerva, their Minerva, in horror, he wasn't certain.

"You married McGonagall!?" The twins yelled and Tom ignored them, instead opting to grab the liquor bottle again and pour it straight into the empty cup. They were lucky he didn't just start drinking straight from the bottle, but he was glad to have any reason not to look towards the other side of the table where his not-wife was sitting. He's subconsciously begun thinking of this woman solely as Minerva, given that was how Albus referred to her. It made sense, he realized, as he was the one who had given her the nickname Minnie when she began teaching at Hogwarts, much to her indignation. But it had stuck. The only ones who still called her Minerva were her mother and brothers.

The volume had increased in the room again and Tom ignored it, instead neatly stacking the books and texts he'd pulled from his bag as he searched around for anything else of note. The rest of his homemade placemarkers were drawings and scribbles with Sophie's name and the date she'd done them, but he found one in his notebook he'd been using for over a year that TJ had given him. This wasn't scrap- no. The Christmas before last TJ had made all of them bookmarks, having drawn and painted on strips of canvas and fixed it to a piece of leather.

Tom's featured a basilisk that was winding itself in an infinity symbol around the quote, "Mid pleasures and palaces though we may roam, Be it ever so humble, there's no place like home."

"So… You're a professor?" Harry asked, and maybe it was because the boy was still standing right there, not bothered in the least, or maybe it was because he'd asked it calmly despite Sirius still yelling about something dramatically behind him with everyone else, but Tom did hear it amidst the din. "At Hogwarts?"

"Aye," Tom said shortly. His head hurt. His eyes hurt. His stomach was knotted up and he could feel his magic underneath his skin itching to lash out. To unfurl his anger and hurt just to get it outside of himself. He knew he didn't have it in him for any further niceties, but he knew they all needed answers, so he couldn't just go screaming out into the greenhouse, exploding everything in his path.

"What do you teach?" Harry asked and Tom very suddenly realized Harry was trying to keep him grounded. Tom was once again seized with the urge to grab Harry by the arms and shake him. The Harry Potter he knew wasn't necessarily too different than this- sans being slightly taller and wearing different glasses. While he looked like a little clone of his father, save for the green eyes of his mother, he carried more of Lily's personality than James', from what Tom could tell. He was stubborn to a fault, but tended to keep to himself and his friends, but he was a good student overall, respectful in class. Perhaps his Harry Potter was just as empathetic and he'd never had a chance to notice it, given he was a Gryffindor and rarely in trouble. Minnie certainly spoke fondly enough of him.

"Defense Against the Dark Arts," Tom said slowly and tilted his head. Someone, either Albus or Molly had stolen his tea cup of liquor and Molly was pouring more water and tea to steep. "How, in Merlin's name, are you so blasé about this?"

Again, the boy had the gall to look self-conscious, subverting his eyes down to the counter where Molly had put a plate of something in front of them that neither of them were touching. "I mean, it kind of comes with the territory? I guess?" He said with a shrug and at Tom's further confusion and irritation he continued, "Voldemort's tried to kill me like, what- four times?" He paused and Tom opened his mouth but Harry shook his head suddenly, "Well, no, five, if you count this summer with the dementors."

"I beg your finest pardon?" Tom finally managed to get out. The rest of the kitchen had finally quieted down, for which his headache was grateful, but otherwise chose to ignore. The longer he could put off talking to Minerva or Severus, the better, in his opinion.

Harry nodded, eyes rolling up in thought and raised a hand and a thumb, ticking it off like a shopping list, "Yeah, once when I was a baby and he killed my parents-" Tom felt his stomach clench in confusion and horror but Harry continued on as though nothing was amiss, "Then when he was possessing Quirrel in my first year, then when he possessed Ginny the next year, then when he tried to kill me in the graveyard after he killed- and then when he sent the dementors after me and my cousin this summer." He paused and then nodded. "Five."

Tom noticed the little hiccup, and some of the puzzles pieces started slotting them together- the thing the one Unspeakable had said about Cedric Diggory, he likely had been about to mention that, but he was both heartbroken and impressed at how a fifteen year old boy just casually mentioned not only the death of both of his parents and the death of a classmate all in the span of a few sentences without so much as a single hysterical outburst.

"Yeah, we're going to have a really long talk about what you got up to your first and second year because I'm realizing me showing up at the school wasn't the most insane thing you had to deal with and yet everyone treated it like it was," Sirius said and Tom was had least glad he also looked mildly horrified at what Harry was saying, though that confused Tom just a bit as well.

It was then that Albus thought it was a good time to continue his little game of twenty questions, clearing his throat and also ignoring the plate Molly had placed in front of him, levitating the new cup of tea (and hopefully liquor) over to Tom again. "When did you begin teaching at Hogwarts?"

"Nineteen-fifty," Tom answered with a sigh and before Albus could ask, he continued on, "I took over from Horace as the head of Slytherin House in the late sixties- I'd had Morgan and been divorced by then…" He paused and looked over to Albus in annoyance, "I can't imagine how this specifically is going to help you with your Nazi Wizard problem, especially when it's clear we diverged at the very least in our Hogwarts years if he killed someone with the basilisk."

"Again," Ginny cut in, looking annoyed, "It's a basilisk, what else was it for?"

"It is there as one of the last lines of defense in case anyone breaches the castle," Tom snapped, "Salazar was paranoid that the muggles would eventually try and take control of the school."

"That doesn't make any sense though," Harry said slowly and when Tom looked at him he had the horrible realization when the room spun slightly that he was on his way to getting sloshed in front of a room of people he knew but did not know him, least of all (versions of) his students. Instead he grabbed the fork and shoved some of the potatoes from the plate in front of him into his mouth as Harry continued, "Only a parselmouth can open the chamber."

"Headmistress Burke," Tom said once he swallowed the potatoes, but Harry only made a confused face, and he finally sighed and leaned forward to look around the twins to the only other person he knew in this room who was a Slytherin. "The portrait of Headmistress Burke, is that still the one who guards the entrance to the Slytherin Common Room?" He asked.

Severus wrinkled his nose and sneered in what Tom was sure would have been very intimidating was he not thirty-something years the man's senior and had been his head-of-house once upon a time. "Yes. Thank you for informing a room full of Gryffindors what portrait guards the Slytherin Common Room."

Tom ignored him, finding it hardly necessary given the portrait required a password to get past and looked at the rest of the table in general as he continued his explanation, "Headmistress Burke held the Slytherin lordship and title and was the one who kept the chamber from being discovered when the castle was remodelled in the sixteen hundreds to include plumbing. As such she had her portrait enchanted so it also can speak Parseltongue like herself and has a corresponding frame in Salazar's study in the chamber. She would be able to awaken Nirah should there be a need for it, because if you have people trying to take over a castle a giant basilisk who can petrify and or kill if necessary is a great way to keep that from happening."

Across from him, on the other side of Hermione was Ron Weasley, who raised a hand as if he were in class, but instead of waiting to be acknowledged started right in, "Wait- Why did Slytherin think muggles were going to attack the school?"

"Because, Mr Weasley, Salazar and the other founders established Hogwarts in about nine-hundred and ninety AD, which was well before the Statute of Secrecy existed and it was also following the rampant and brutal spread of Christianity which had all of the muggles looking to set anything they deemed not of the Abrahamic Religions on fire," Tom explained, taking a deep breath and pinching the bridge of his nose again. "The majority of all muggle pagans and anyone still practicing the ancient traditions of our ancestors were met with forced conversion or brtual horrible death and the wizards didn't fair much better," Tom continued and wondered who their History professor was and lamenting the fact that he'd had to learn just about all of this on his own since Professor Binns was about as useless of a professor as you could physically find.

"You said the study, I didn't see a study in the Chamber," Harry said. Tom turned back to look at him with his lips pressed firmly into a line and Harry quickly continued, "When Ron and I went there our second year to save Ginny from…" He trailed up, raising his eyebrows for a moment before coughing. "It was just a large Chamber."

"Did you go into the tunnel at the base of the statue of Salazar?" Tom asked.

Harry shifted on his feet uncomfortably as Tom stared him down and shook his head, "Considering that was where the giant snake came out of- I was rather avoiding it."

"If you had walked in, you would have found Nirah's chambers to the right and Salazar's hidden study to the left," Tom explained before trying to eat some more. It wasn't that it wasn't delicious, but his stomach was too torn to truly enjoy anything at the moment and the only reason he found it in him to eat at all was the worry he might get shitfaced by accident in front of a small horde of minors.

"It is possible," Albus said thoughtfully, a far-off look in his eyes, tapping the tips of his fingers to his chin, "That Voldemort did indeed open the chamber in his fourth year and we were simply unaware- since the only reason we know about it now is several students were petrified and then one killed in his fifth year."

"So the point of divergence between the pair would be the decision to unleash the basilisk upon the school?" Severus asked, looking at Albus with his eyes narrowed thoughtfully.

"It's certainly the earliest example we're seeing," Albus said, his eyes skimming over the parchment where his quill had been scribbling notes.

"Grand," Tom said dryly, "Now how does that help me get back to my universe before my wife and daughter set the Ministry on fire when they realize I'm missing?"

Someone from the other side of the table snorted, Tom suspected it was Ron, who was looking a bit sheepish, but the rest seemed to be contemplating his question in earnest, which he appreciated.

"I thought we had people in the Ministry?" Harry asked, looking to Albus, but the Headmaster did not respond, his brows still furrowed in thought, having taken the floating parchments and striking notes and scribbled onto what the floating quill had notated. Across the table from where he stood with Shacklebolt and Alastor, it was Arthur who offered up an answer.

"Yes, but those of us who are working there who have known close associations with the Order are already under scrutiny, never mind that any of You-Know-Who's supporters from the first war who work in the Ministry will likely recognize this version of him immediately."

"You-Know-Who?" Tom asked, wrinkling his nose in confusion.

"Before his apparent death Voldemort had put a taboo on his chosen name, as his followers all called him "The Dark Lord" or some variation of that," Severus explained, leaning forward onto the end of the table ever so slightly, reaching a hand up to push his hair out of his face.

"The Nazi Wizard is also a ponce, apparently," Tom grumbled and Ron let out another strangled noise like he didn't know if he wanted to laugh or choke. "What is the point of picking a whole new name if you don't let people say it?"

"Fear of a name increases fear of the thing itself," Hermione said knowingly, sounding like she was quoting something.

"Fair enough," Tom agreed.

"Does it really matter if they recognize him if he's already gone to the thing he needs to get to to go back?" Remus asked suddenly, looking between Albus and Shacklebolt and Alastor.

"Yes," All three responded nearly in unison, and Shaklebolt stood straighter, "I'm not an Unspeakable, but I believe I know about the archway he's referring to, only to my knowledge it is called the Veil."

As soon as he said it, the memory of the gossamer fabric hitting him in the face came to mind, the whispers in the distance and around him, echoing around the chamber, and a shiver ran up Tom's spine.

"It's largely thought to be a physical manifestation of the barrier between life and death, the Ministry used to use it for executions centuries back." Shaklebolt explained, "To my knowledge it's never been compared as such to a portal or even a doorway to anything but.. Well, death."

"Odd, as it seemed only to be a deactivated archway on my end," Tom said, resting his chin in his hand in thought, the second cup of tea (which was decidedly not alcoholic) forgotten and his plate of food ignored once more. "When I emerged through on this end, it appeared to be closed again, but I was also busy dealing with two Unspeakables, so I simply might have missed it."

"So we'd need to figure out how to even get it attuned to a point to link you back to in the first place before we try and smuggle you into the Ministry," Sirius said, taking his hand and giving Tom two quick shoulder pats that could either have been sympathetic or consolatory.

"Considering I was working on this for the better part of two months and had gotten nowhere, that is not a very encouraging thought," Tom groaned, leaning back and slouching in the kitchen chair.

"Then we shall collaborate," Albus said, looking up from his notes- there was ink stains on his fingertips from his frenzied notetaking and crossing out and making amendments in the margins and while he'd witnessed this level of editing from the man previously when working on academic papers, given it was about Tom's life, he was at least a little worried. "Our Defense Against the Dark Arts position is available again and I have yet to find someone qualified to fill it-" Tom opened his mouth to ask why and how but Albus was continuing on, either deliberately ignoring him or not noticing the confused face, "And if I do not find someone suitable in the next six days, then Fudge will likely try to shoehorn someone of his choosing into the position to keep an eye on.. Well, me."

Tom closed his mouth and blinked, staring at Albus, "I don't know which I should be more concerned about, this Fudge bloke or that you somehow have run through every qualified witch or wizard to teach Defense."

"There is a long-standing assumption that the Defense Against the Dark Arts position is cursed," Remus said, drawing Tom's attention away from Albus, "No one makes it more than a year. I was there the year before last."

"I still say a werewolf who almost accidentally bit us is a huge improvement on a spineless idiot and a kidnapping and hostage holding Death Eater," Harry supplied in a tone that implied he thought he was being helpful but Tom simply felt his eyelid twitch in terror.

"A what?" He asked.

"Voldemort's followers call themselves Death Eaters," Sirius said, his smile looking just as unhinged as Tom felt. "Because they, like their leader, are also ponces."

"He could have been asking about the werewolf part," Remus said with a slight smirk, looking across the table at Sirius.

"Since Tom has been the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor in his universe for over forty years he is over-qualified to fill the position immediately," Albus cut in, rolling up his ink smeared parchment. He had that manic look in his eye, like he'd had a great many thoughts and wished to act on them all at once lest he not act at all, trapped in thought. Tom knew that looked because his Albus usually dragged him into whatever nonsense it was, even if it didn't directly involve him by sheer fact that he was the Deputy Headmaster. "Given what a…strenuous day it has been, I would put a vote to capping this off here as you look like you are about to fall asleep upright," at this Albus did smile and Tom's eyes narrowed in annoyance as if Albus was't the only holding him hostage to play twenty questions.

"We can resume and review a plan of attack starting tomorrow," The headmaster said instead, pushing himself to his feet, his plate in front of him still wholly untouched, much to Molly's disapproving glower. "Sirius, would you have a-"

"Room? Obviously. Somewhere to sleep? More a question of how much dust he can handle," Sirius said, shoving his hands in his pockets. "But we can scrounge something up."

"Joy," Tom grumbled, resting his elbows on the edge of the table, pressing the heels of his palms to his eyes as he took a deep breath. This would have been preferred in general, but Tom was unsure if his exhaustion was going to win out, or the general anxiety and dread that had been coursing through him from the moment he realized something was off in the Slytherin Common Room.

"Here," a familiar voice said. Tom pulled his hands away from his eyes and looked where Harry had been moments before to spot a familiar pair of chartreuse eyes. Minerva had placed the polaroids on top of one of the books in front of him and he didn't know exactly what to say, because in that moment he was too drained to have whatever awkward conversation was about to happen.

Her eyes moved away from him, looking past him at the door behind him. "I would prefer we have this discussion at a later date." She said instead, as if reading his mind.

Tom felt the air in his chest whoosh out with a sigh of relief. "I would be happy to oblige."

There was a pause and then Minerva nodded her head stiffly, still looking at the door, her eyes tight, but then she was gone. Not so much as hurrying to the door in an escape but striding purposefully like she had better places to be and they were taking up her precious time.


A/N: Tom, shaking Harry violently: HOW ARE YOU SO CALM ABOUT ALL THIS?

Harry: My life is a fucking shitshow dude, this is like, the best thing that's happened so far honestly. At least you're chill.

Tom, never having been called chill a day in his life: EVERYONE HERE IS MAD.

Harry: That about sums it up, yeah.

Have a super long fucking chapter to make up for the fact that the next one is about as long as the first chapter, oops. That being said the next chapter is so far my favorite in the entire series I have written to date so there's that. Just a heads up, I have actually been able to stick to a writing schedule at night after my sons go to bed so I currently still have a backlog of about 4-5 chapters so weekly posting will continue as long as I can keep that up. And now, the weather;

1. Remus in Tom's world is still attacked by Fenrir, unfortunately. Tom sees the general scars and such and largely just assumes this Remus is also a werewolf.

2. The random "strangled noises" from an unknown source are from either or both Sirius and Ron at any given point, take your pick, however Tom can not differentiate them with everything else going on. If you'd like to pretend they are coming from both of them, that is totally fine as well.

3. Obviously I am not using the Corvinus Gaunt explanation that was given on Pottermore for the chamber with the plumbing. Why? Because I came up with Burke doing this back when I originally wrote this 10 years ago and I think it makes a lot more fucking sense that it was someone in a position of authority at the school and that it was one of the female heirs who his it in the girls bathroom as the biggest fuck you to her patriarchal and misogynistic family. Also, I can't imagine someone didn't decide to put portraits around to keep an eye on shit and it makes sense that a headmaster with the headmaster portraits would think to do this as well.

4. It is subtle here since this is 3rd person from Tom's perspective, but you will notice that Albus is not meeting Harry's eyes, looking in his general direction, or even directly responding to him, similarly to the issues Harry had in the fifth book because of what we know he already suspects. While Harry on his end is very much noticing this but putting it off as the Headmaster having a lot on his mind, Tom isn't seeing it at all as Harry in his world isn't specifically very close to Albus so nothing seems off.

5. Anyone coming over from Empathetic will recognize one of the largest retcons to Tom is that he is married to McGonagall and has a son with her (versus this not being the case in Empathetic). I will explain/elaborate more on this in the next chapter as it is more relevant there, so look forward to that next week.