Chapter 3
Harry has no idea how it happened. It was barely his first year after picking up an Auror job. The ministry trusted him with almost all their most violent affairs, being Harry Potter and all. It was no biggie. After all, who defeats the darkest wizard of all time with only Expelliarmus?
He just got shot with an incoherent spell to immediately wake up in a hospital. He thought he was being treated for the situation that happened, only for him to be told he was 'incapable of fighting in the war effort' due to a completely busted right leg. His leg was broken, and the nurse beside him was in talks with cutting his leg off. Harry was about to mention drinking a skele-gro when he finally caught on that this was a muggle hospital. With muggle patients.
After much convincing and much pain, Harry wheeled himself out in a wheelchair to find the closest magical hospital he could get to. He also found out it was 1939. The second world war has just started. And Harry was apparently a soldier.
He had no idea how to explain what was going on. Everyone—his friends, Ginny—they were all back in the future. He only felt pulled back.
On his way to apparate in a more secluded area, he came across Wool's Orphanage.
The name didn't ring a bell at first. But after much thinking, he remembered that it was the orphanage Voldemort, or in this case, Tom Riddle, grew up in. When he and his friends went to find one of Voldemort's horcruxes, they found that the orphanage was replaced with an office building.
London in 1939 felt so vast and empty compared to when he went during his time.
After Harry got his leg fixed, and using the little money he had left to pay for it, he tried to apply to be an auror once again back at the ministry, but with no identity or past records, there was no way he could get hired. His potions grade wasn't even good either; it was only after the war that he got such an opportunity. Also because of his reputation, as much as he hated to admit. Harry Potter was nobody here. As much as that felt like some sort of relief, he also needed to live. After holding the odd job here and there, Harry found a simple muggle job working at a candy store. He traded in some galleons, which were simply put, gold, in the non-magical world. Harry soon found himself well off and bought himself a nice home (they were extremely cheap in 1939! Harry was surprised) (Harry is also stupid and bad at finance and probably doesn't understand inflation).
Wool's Orphanage was at the back of Harry's mind even after all these chaotic months of settling in. By the time it was his birthday, Harry knew that Tom Riddle had just finished his first year at Hogwarts.
He was also stuck up on the fact that he just lost his entire life being sent back. Was this a punishment?
He and Ginny only recently started dating properly, and Ginny decided to finish her last year of school while Harry decided to become an auror. They were on perfectly good terms, their communication just lacking due to them both living completely separate lives, with the occasional date every now and then. He missed her dearly, especially because they weren't able to spend a lot of time together. He promised her a date night a few days before that incident. He also thought about Ron and Hermione and how Ron sheepishly told Harry over drinks one night how he wants to propose to her when they get their lives settled. Ron literally planned on having Harry help him propose. What was Harry supposed to do? Not help?
Maybe... maybe if Harry could change the trajectory of Voldemort Tom Riddle's life, Harry could be sent back. This… alright.
Harry contacted Mrs. Cole, the runner of Wool's Orphanage and sent as many donations as he could without sacrificing his own expenses. He asked if Tom Riddle was around, to which she said yes. She didn't seem to question why Harry seemed to know about only Tom, probably due to his food and clothing donations. Eventually, he came up personally to discuss Tom's adoption, which he found out Tom wasn't made aware of until the very day Harry first approached him.
(Also, he lied about his age three times in a row now. He didn't know you had to be twenty one to adopt a child. He is currently thirty-tree, twenty-one, thirty-nine and nineteen. Tom is probably the only one to know his current age. He opened up a gringotts bank account by claiming he was twenty-one.)
Throughout his entire life, Harry held resentment towards Voldemort. It was mostly because of him that Harry's school life was just as difficult as his home life every year. It was like an uncatchable shadow—following him everywhere, attached to him with no means of separation. Even after Voldemort's defeat, it was like a part of him was always apart of Harry. Voldemort's death was what brought Harry's later security in life; it was all that was mentioned, and sometimes, although very rarely, he appeared in Harry's dreams.
Usually it was a pale, cloaked man who looked so skinny and monstrous, coming after Harry. Other times, it was a teenage Tom Riddle holding Harry by the wrist, declaring he would never let go as long as he existed.
The most memorable ones were a tiny, small Tom Riddle. Barely six or seven. Which was funny, because Harry has never seen Tom Riddle that young before, crying. He grabbed the hem of Harry's shirt and asked if he'd seen his mom anywhere. Sometimes he sobbed about having no friends and how they wouldn't play with him. Those were the only dreams Harry ever woke up to with tears in his eyes. He was never scared, just sad.
They both grew up without parents in a dreadful muggle community, completely unaware of their magical heritage, Hogwarts being the only place they could call home. Harry saw himself a lot in Tom Riddle. Even the ones where Tom would cry and ask for his mom. Dudley always kicked Harry to the side if Harry was even allowed by the off chance to 'play' with his cousin. He was mostly locked up in the cupboard, bored and annoyed. Quite lonely, too. He didn't have anyone.
Harry just liked to think they chose different paths in life that eventually led them to where they were.
Harry James Potter despised Lord Voldemort.
Harry James Potter felt empathy for Tom Riddle.
So he decided to go with his plan.
Tom was standoffish and quiet at first. He could tell that he had a lot on his mind. But Harry kept his distance, trying to stay friendly. Tom was only eleven after all. Being called "Mr. Harry Potter" really set his age set in stone. Here, he wasn't the 'evil Tom Riddle in the diary,' nor was it Lord Voldemort who killed his parents. He was just a young boy, waiting for summertime to just be over. Something Harry was all too familiar with. Harry only chuckled.
Yeah, he could do this. Perhaps this would let him go back to his timeline as well.
"We're both here for dumb purposes."
Harry was walking up the stairs when he could hear the echo of Tom's voice down the hall.
"You're here to send and receive letters for me, and I'm a charity case."
A charity case?
Well, Harry does admit he kind of talked to Tom like he adopted him only for his magical purposes.
To Harry's defence, he was under the assumption that Tom knew he was going to get adopted already.
"I got adopted because he felt bad I was the only one who was different. No one really wants either of us."
No one really wants either of us.
Harry took a deep breath in and opened the door to Tom's room.