Mira a mira
“How old are you, boy?”
Harry stared at the matron for a couple seconds before leaning to the side and throwing up all over the floor.
Bless Fred and George and their puking pastilles. Before visiting Hogwarts Harry had stopped by Weasleys Wizard Wheezes to catch up with George and see if he needed any funding to develop more prank magic. It wasn’t like Harry needed the money that had been left to him. He had so much bloody money and even his furious rate of buying whatever looked remotely interesting from Diagon—like the orphan gone wild that he was—did not make a dent on his gargantuan fortune. So he had started a habit of investing in WWW.
Luckily for him that day George had insisted he needed no further funding (“The place is a real success, mate, we’re raking it in by the millions”) and had instead stuffed Harry’s pockets full of puking pastilles. That had apparently made the jump back 60 years with him.
Harry vaguely wondered what else had made the jump with him but now was not the time to check. The matron had heaved a loud sigh that reminded him of Hermione when she received news that the Ministry of Magic’s Public Information Services had done something stupid, like the time when they had accidentally revealed decades-long research into ‘Unidentified Foreign Objects’.
Merlin, he missed Hermione.
“Morgana save me,” the matron muttered and waved her wand over Harry, performing some unidentifiable spell. Seconds later a report of some sort appeared in shimmery writing.
Roonil (Harry) James Wazlib
Date of Birth: July 31, 1927
No Living Relatives
No Known Maladies
Shit. He’d gotten off easy.
The report didn’t say shit about the horcrux pulsating in Harry’s head. He could bloody feel it again, he knew that feeling all too well, curse the ancient asshole that made all of this possible. He didn't want to be a bloody horcrux again. Well, you get some, you lose some.
Harry sent the forces above a secret prayer of thanks anyway.
Thank you, Fate.
She’d done him well.
Mostly.
And now he could put his plan into motion.
After a delicious cup of warm melted chocolate and being forced to rest for 48 consecutive hours in the hospital wing, Harry was cleared to go.
Not that he really minded just sitting there and watching the world go by. It was a good look into the cultural norms of the time. Who even knew that the polyjuice potion had been banned in the 40s? What had changed between then and now? Harry had watched as a girl in her 3rd year transformed into a hulk of a 7th year boy. It was horrible and brought up memories he didn’t want to relive. The process looked almost more painful now—in the past—than it had been when Harry and Ron and Hermione had done it. Man, he needed a diary, A.S.A.P. Harry didn’t care much for the specifics of such things but he knew Hermione would find it interesting.
Luckily for him he knew just who had a diary lying around. The Great Big Asshole himself had made his way to Harry’s bedside and was making himself comfortable. At what point the Slytherin had done that, Harry had no idea, he himself had been too involved with peeping through the curtain at the polyjuiced 7th year that was now moaning in distress.
“Good evening, Wazlib.”
“Why the fuck are you even here?”
Riddle made a small offended noise. “That’s no way to speak to a Prefect, is it?” He readjusted himself in his seat but not before checking that there were no other eyes on him, the perfectionist baby dark lord that he was. “It’s courtesy to check up on a peer’s health. I brought you a scone.”
Bullshit. “Come off it. I know who you are,” Harry said, staring very seriously into Riddle’s eyes. “And stop talking like that.” Harry didn’t even like scones. He had hot chocolate sustaining him, thank you very much.
Riddle frowned.
Harry inwardly smiled. He liked having that effect on the biggest git in history.
“You deserve an award,” Harry said suddenly, breaking eye contact. The hot chocolate in front of him—which had magically renewed itself to full capacity, marshmallows and all—was looking mighty interesting at this time of night. Harry was about to ask Riddle if he was going to get in trouble for breaking curfew, it was like 7pm, ish, right? It wasn’t a good thing for the guy to be walking around Hogwarts alone, the place was dangerous as could be.
“For…?”
Harry sighed and leaned back further into the nest of blankets he had created for himself. He gestured to his forehead in a circular motion. “All of this.”
“For making you crazy? I had no part in that, you loon.”
Harry giggled. Riddle was funny. He was even funnier when he spoke in Parseltongue and thought he was being slick. Not that Tim Piddle knew about Harry’s secret ability to talk to snakes.
“Careful what you say around others,” Harry told Riddle and closed his eyes, trying to catch some sleep. The matron may have cleared him to leave but he wasn’t about to go through with the next step of his plan with a certain dark trail following him. “Now get out of here. I’m sleeping.”
Riddle probably thought he was delirious but that was ok. He could think that.
But instead of getting up and leaving when asked, like a normal human being, Riddle reached a hand out to Harry’s forehead.
Harry opened an eye to watch him.
“So warm,” Riddle muttered, as if he was the only one in the room.
Weird motherfucker.
“You’re not the only one in here, you know. I can feel you touching me,” Harry said snidely, but he didn’t move to take Riddle’s hand off his head. It felt really nice. It wasn’t just that Riddle was a cute piece of boy standing there touching him. Harry was pretty sure the horcrux was…reacting… positively… as well. He could feel that nice warmth emanating from his head to his toes.
There wasn’t anyone else not previously mentioned in the hospital wing at the moment so Harry let out a little moan.
Riddle quickly withdrew his hand.
He started to mourn the loss of contact but then realized it would all come later, if everything went according to plan. A plan that he would be able to set in motion the second Mr. 7 Horcruxes 'the perfect number in the world' (not) left him alone.
“Freak,” Riddle muttered to himself in the snake language and got up. “Get well soon,” he said to Harry in proper English and then left.
Harry felt kind of sorry for Riddle—the brat had probably been called a freak when he was at the orphanage and had just never gotten rid of the habit, the abused abuse, and all—but that was no way to speak to others. Riddle needed to be taught something about respect. Everyone had outside thoughts and inside thoughts and Riddle was just lucky that he didn't need to hide his inside thoughts, he could just express them freely without anyone knowing what he was saying. But one day that would change and he'd be in a big shock. Riddle wasn't the only parselmouth in the world after all.
The boy needed to be taken on a trip to India. Harry promised himself he'd do it as soon as he scraped up a couple galleons here and there. Wouldn't that be cute? Baby Voldemort and the Boy Who Lived, on a grand tour of India. Poor boy had never been out of the country before his whole stint in Albania, Harry was pretty sure, and there was more to see in the world than old hags and coppice forest. And they could stop by Egypt on the way home. Once Riddle found out about the magic in the pyramids he'd never leave, he just knew it.
Lord Voldemort may have tried to present to the world as an evil villain, but Harry knew, deep down in his heart, that Riddle was an academic. After the war he and Hermione had taken the time to look through the loon's journals and, what did you know, there was actually some interesting shit in there.
Really it was a shame that Tom Riddle was a crazy psycho and not well in the head. Insanity aside he was the type of guy they needed in the Ministry. Someone with actual brains.
"Thanks," Harry told the matron who was checking up on him now. "I think I can go now. I'm feeling better."
She leveled him with a steely glare. "To the Headmaster, and nowhere else, boy."
"Understood," Harry replied.
He got up, placed the probably poisoned scone Riddle had gave him on the bedside table near the polyjuiced 7th year, and left.
His legs took him down meandering halls and moving staircases to Dumbledore's old Headmaster's office—oops, that hadn't happened yet—so he solicited help from some Hufflepuff who led him to the right place.
Harry then stood there awkwardly by the gargoyles for what felt like six years until the Headmaster walked straight past him, did a double take, and let him in as well. Dippet was his name, right? Harry would have to start remembering these things.
He and Dippet went back up the winding staircase up to the man's office. Dippet wouldn't look him in the eye, maybe because Harry kept trying to wandlessly conjure a chicken on his head, who knew, but they made it to the sorting hat without any problems.
"Ahhhh, Mr. Potter. Welcome back," the magical artifact whispered as soon as it was placed upon Harry's head.
Welcome back?
The fuck did that mean? Didn't he go back 60 years? Wasn't this technically the first time he had met the sorting hat?
"That's not how it works," the hat informed him.
Gee, thanks. So do you know anything else? Is this the same timeline or a different dimension or...?
Those weren't hard questions to answer, Harry could figure out what was going on himself, but it was easier as a Ministry employee, they kept all the information about time and dimension travelers in a certain file cabinet at the Department Of Mysteries, and Harry wasn't really in the mood to do all that searching by himself. Without a Ministry ID. Merlin this was going to be difficult. The more he thought about his break in with Ron and Hermione back in the day the less he believed it had actually happened.
"I'm not in a place to answer," the hat told him in an annoying tone of voice.
Yeah, sure. Fate was interfering again, Harry could just taste it. Well, whatever. You win some you lose some.
Put me where you know I gotta be.
"Hufflepuff....?"
Dude. Shut the hell up.
"Ravenclaw...?"
Come on now.
"Just pulling your leg. SLYTHERIN!"
Thank God.
Here went nothing.