Chapter 5
Harry was no stranger to running. Half of his childhood with the Dursleys was spent running away from Dudley and his gang.
He tried his best to convince himself that this wasn’t so different. That if he stopped running he would only be beaten up, and not eaten alive.
But the illusion was hard to keep up when he was all too aware that chasing him was not his stupid, slow cousin, but instead a ferocious beast.
Harry had no chance outrunning a lion, and the only reason he wasn’t dead yet was because of his hefty head start. That and the fact that, he suspected, the lion wasn't quite going as fast as it could. While Harry was sprinting for his life, the lion was merely playing.
He scanned the room for options. For something, anything that might help him out. To his dismay, there was not much to work with. Tom stood somewhere behind him, cruelly laughing at the show. The brick wall on his right did nothing but give him less room to run. The only other thing around was the bed.
Harry's eyes locked on the bed, a frantic idea coming to mind. Approaching it as fast as he could, he dropped to his knees and scrambled under it, the lion inches behind him.
It was a tight squeeze. Far too tight for a lion, which was why he went for it, but also nearly too tight for Harry. His head and torso made it, but his legs were still sticking out.
He tried pulling himself further under the bed with his arms, but he just couldn’t hide his legs in time.
The lion pounced, and Harry’s leg exploded with pain.
A scream tore from his throat. He tried to wrench away, clawing at the carpet with his non-handcuffed hand, but the lion’s teeth were firmly embedded in his right calf.
“Give up, Harry.” Somehow, through the mind-numbing haze of pain and panic, Harry could still make out Tom’s voice. “Say the words and I’ll make it all go away. I’ll even heal your leg for you.”
Harry kicked out wildly with his uninjured leg, in a desperate attempt to get the beast off of him. He made contact, but it didn't deter the lion.
“Do you have any idea how foolish you look right now, Harry? Hiding under the bed like a child?” Tom taunted. “Come now, Harry. Be reasonable. You will not win.”
Harry clenched his teeth together to muffle another scream. Tears stung his eyes, as he continued to kick and flail as much as he could.
“Surrender,” Tom cooed, gentle and mocking. “You know the words. Simply say that you promise to stay in the ring forever. It's not a very difficult sentence to manage, is it?”
Harry made a noise, a deep growl of frustration. His entire body shook and trembled, not only from the pain, but from the overwhelming burn of anger. How dare Tom stand there, taunting him? He'd like to see the lion attack him. Then he wouldn't be so smug.
Harry couldn't bring himself to do as Tom asked. He wouldn't. He'd rather get eaten than trapped here forever, letting Lord Voldemort back into the world.
“Now you're just being ridiculous, Harry,” Tom's soothing, placating tone had gone, annoyance creeping up in its place with every second Harry remained silent. “Living here with your parents forever is not a worse fate than being eaten by a lion. You're being dramatic.”
The lion released him. Harry could have cried for relief. He made to move, but before he could manage to drag his mangled leg even an inch further under the bed, it attacked a second time, on his knee.
Harry let out another scream, raw and hoarse.
“Dramatic,” Tom repeated. “Don't you want to be with your parents? Isn't that your dream, seeing as you're nothing but a lonely, little orphan?"
Lonely little orphan.
And wasn't he? Harry pressed his face into the carpet, squeezing his eyes shut tight, as if it would somehow make everything hurt less. Tom was right. Here he was, about to die, and he still couldn't escape the fact that he was alone and parentless.
Tom continued. "Even if you don't think you'll enjoy a life trapped here forever, don't you want to be alive to find out?"
Don't you want to find out?
The question struck something in Harry's memory, despite the pain’s way of making it hard to think.
This was the same question Tom had asked during Harry's first ever visit inside the ring. Tom had been trying to convince Harry to ask for his parents, and Harry was worried he wouldn't know what to say when he saw them. "No you don't know," Tom had said that day. "But don't you want to find out?"
It had been such a similar situation back then, Harry realized. Less intense, but effectively the same. Rather than convincing Harry to promise to stay, Tom had been convincing Harry to ask for his parents, so that he would use his magic to bring them back.
But, as they had recently discovered, it hadn't been Tom's magic that brought them back at all. It was all the Resurrection Stone. Harry only had to speak the words out loud, and the Stone had activated.
The beginnings of an idea crept up. Half-formed and delirious due to the sharp shard of fear and desperation in his chest, but an idea nonetheless.
The brick wall separated Tom and Harry from his parents, leaving Harry isolated and at Tom's mercy. But if his parents were there…
They would want you to die too. A voice in his head reminded him. They aren't really your parents.
Maybe his parents wouldn't help him. But they would surely distract Tom.
Speaking as clearly as he could while being chewed on by a lion, Harry said, “I want to see my parents.”
“What are you-?” Tom's bewildered question was cut short, and Harry knew his plan had succeeded.
“Tom? Harry?” Lily Potter's voice rang through the room. “Tom what's going on? Is that a lion?”
The lion vanished. Harry nearly laughed, a crazed, hysterical thing.
Painfully, he crawled out from under the bed, pushing himself up to a sitting position and observing the scene before him.
Lily and James were there, standing near the brick wall. Tom faced them, looking rather put out. Gone was his cruel confidence, the straight line of his back. In its place, Tom bowed his head like a child caught doing wrong.
Lily, for once, ignored Tom and focused on Harry. “Harry, are you alright?”
“Lily, his leg,” James noticed it first, though Harry wasn’t sure how anyone could miss the mangled, bloody remains of his leg. Harry, for his part, was doing his best not to look at it. As if seeing the lion’s mark would make it hurt more.
“Tom, did you do this?” Lily put her hands on her hips. She did seem angry on Harry’s behalf, which, to Harry’s pleasure, made it seem like at least part of her personality did come from his real mother. All the time he spent with them hadn’t been completely for naught. But her reaction was subdued. It did not match the crime. She looked as angry as she would be if Tom had simply called Harry a mean name, and not set a lion on him.
Harry didn’t know what to expect from Tom’s response. Part of him thought he may just smirk and reveal his evil plan a second time, he did seem to enjoy doing that.
But he did nothing of the sort. Instead, he drew his eyebrows together and pulled a concerned expression.
“It was an accident,” Tom said, managing to sound so convincing that Harry nearly believed him too. He waved his hand in Harry’s direction, and the warm tingle of magic spread along his injury, healing it. Harry stood, stretching his leg out, marveling at how quickly the pain had gone. It was as if the lion had never been there in the first place.
Harry couldn’t believe that, even now, Tom was still trying to charm his parents. What possible motive did he have to do anything other than get Harry to promise to stay?
There was no reasonable explanation. None besides for the simplest and most obvious. That Tom, despite everything, truly did like Harry’s parents.
Why else would he be making the fatal mistake he was now by staring at them and leaving his back turned to Harry?
Harry’s eyes dropped to Tom's robes. Though he couldn't quite see it, Harry knew that his wand was surely residing in Tom's pocket. He remembered Tom putting it there after stealing it.
Seizing the opportunity, Harry stood and rushed forward, taking hold of Tom's robes, swiping the wand, and jumping out of arm’s reach, just as Tom spun around and tried to take it back.
Harry pointed the wand, ignoring his parent’s confused questions.
“Take this off,” Harry said, raising his left hand to draw attention to the metal handcuff, all while never lowering the wand in his right.
“Harry, what is the meaning of this?” Tom held up his hands, placatingly, glancing at Lily and James out of the corner of his eye.
Harry grit his teeth in frustration. Was Tom truly going to act innocent, just because his parents were watching?
Well, Harry wasn’t going to let that slide.
“Harry, don’t point your wand at-” James began. Harry cut him off.
“He’s Voldemort,” Harry said, bluntly. “He’s the memory of Voldemort from when he was sixteen and he wants to trap me in the ring and then free himself.”
Lily and James reacted slowly, as if they didn't quite hear.
Or didn't quite care.
“Harry, how could you accuse-”
“Because he told me!” Harry shouted in frustration. He shook his head. There was no getting through to them. The best he could do was focus on Tom. “How can you do this? How can you stand to look at them when you’re the reason they’re dead!”
“No I’m not,” Tom denied. “I never killed them.”
“But you kind of did,” Harry countered. “Maybe it wasn’t you, you. But it was still your soul. How can you just play nice, happy family with them, when you know what your future self did?”
Tom opened his mouth, but Harry continued.
“And don’t even bother pretending it’s a manipulation. We both know the truth. Maybe I am a - a 'lonely little orphan,' - but then so are you!”
Tom's face contorted with fury. His mouth twisting into a sneer, eyes glinting dangerously. But beneath it, Harry thought, perhaps there was a bit of fear there too.
“Don't you dare! I will-”
“What? You won't do anything in front of them,” Harry dared, nodding towards his parents.
Tom's expression settled into something grim and uncaring. “Won't I?”
He waved his hand and the room began to shake.
Harry stumbled, putting his arms out to keep his balance. With a loud, resounding bang, the wall in front of him split open. A wide, stretching crack appeared, growing as it traveled from the wall to the ceiling above.
Harry watched its progression, in horror, as it expanded and expanded until it all came crashing down.
XXX
He was alive.
He knew that much, because surely if he were dead he wouldn’t be in so much pain.
He couldn’t see. The ceiling had collapsed, and he was now buried under the rubble. To make matters even worse, in all the chaos, he had dropped his wand.
He shifted, tried to sit up, but something heavy was pressing against his torso, making it impossible. He brought his hands up to move some of the rubble off of his face.
He cleared enough for the sky to become visible again. Only, upon seeing it, he wasn’t sure if sky was the right word. Gone was the bright blue sky that Harry had seen from the window - now it was all startlingly white. It wasn’t as if it had gotten cloudy either. No, it appeared like all the color had been drained, leaving nothing but a void in its place. The Ring World was utterly destroyed.
He tilted his chin forward, staining his neck in an uncomfortable fashion. In that position he could see the heavy chunk of ceiling covering most of his upper body. His head fell back down, too weak to hold it up any longer. The ceiling piece crushing him made even the simple act of breathing a difficult, laborious task. He could do nothing but suck in short, shallow gasps of air, and even that sent a shooting pain through his ribs.
"Say the words, Harry."
Harry flinched, jerking his head to the side to see Tom peering down at him, standing and uninjured.
“Promise you'll stay here, and I'll heal you right up," Tom continued. "It would be such a waste if you die without promising. Then you'd be who knows where. Not to mention, I'd still be stuck here..."
Slowly, the corners of his vision growing dark, Harry shook his head, defiant.
“Very well,” Tom said, clicking his tongue. “I can always make things more painful until you agree. Oh, what to do first...”
But Harry was no longer listening. His parents had just come closer. Both of them were unharmed by the collapsing of the ceiling, which made sense considering they were already dead.
Lily and James knelt on either side of Harry, each reaching out to caress his hair.
“It’s okay, sweetheart,” Lily whispered. Despite everything, Harry couldn’t help but lean into the comfort. His eyelids drooped.
“You have nothing to fear,” James added. “You’ll be with us soon…”
Maybe they were right. Maybe death wouldn’t be so bad. Maybe all his fighting had been pointless after all.
But, even as his body yearned for relief, he knew he couldn't give in. Not when he knew the monsters pretending to be his parents were still lying.
“No,” Harry managed to say, his voice hoarse. “I won’t be.”
“What do you mean?” Lily asked, sweetly, petting his hair.
Harry turned his head, evading her touch as best as he could. He spotted something out of the corner of his eye. A brown stick poking out from under the rubble on his right. His wand.
“I won’t be with you. I’ll be with my real parents.”
“We are your real parents.”
Harry shook his head. With a sudden determination he met the eyes of Lily Potter. Those bright green eyes that were the same he saw in the mirror every morning. “You aren’t. My mother died to save me. She would want me to live.”
Mustering up all his remaining strength, he reached out his right arm as far as he could, and grasped his wand. Pointing it at the piece of ceiling trapping him, he uttered, "Wingardium leviosa," and watched, relieved, as the spell worked, freeing him. A literal weight off his chest .
Harry hastily made his way to his feet, doing the best he could to ignore the terrible ache in his ribs.
"Did you hear him, James? He wants to live."
Harry flinched at the mocking sound of his mother's voice. It wasn't the soft, sweet tone he had grown used to over the past few weeks. Something harsh and cruel had taken its place. Harry's eyes flicked towards Lily and James, and he couldn't help but gasp at the sight of them.
Grey and lifeless with dull black eyes and pale, thin, frowning faces, the pair couldn't look less like his parents. It was as if the illusion had shattered and Harry could see them clearly for the first time.
"Well then, Harry, if you're so sure. I suppose there's nothing more for us to say to each other." With nothing but a cold purse of the lips, Lily and James - or whatever was left of them - vanished.
Harry let out a shaky breath. They were really gone. He had resisted their temptation, and they had actually gone.
A confusing mix of relief and grief washed over him. However, before he could even begin to decipher these emotions, the sound of a slow clap made him turn around.
Tom was watching him, head tilted to the side and a mocking smirk plastered on his face. "Very good, Harry. The little orphan thwarts his fake, manipulative parents, very inspiring! It's only a shame you'll have no one to keep you company once you're trapped here forever-"
In a flash, Harry raised his wand, pointing it directly at Tom.
Tom wasn’t impressed. “Oh please. This again? What are you going to do? What second year spell could you possibly know to defeat me?”
Harry faltered when he realized Tom was right. He didn’t know any offensive spells.
Laughing, Tom waved his hand, and instantly Harry's wand flew out of his hand and into Tom's. Again. Harry gaped at the unfairness.
"Oh, Harry. You should have surrendered a caved-in-ceiling and a lion ago. Now I have no choice but to force you through much more unpleasant methods. Tell me, have you learned about the Cruciatus Curse yet?"
At Harry's blank stare, Tom smiled. "No? You didn't get to that lesson yet at Hogwarts? No matter, I can teach you. Crucio!"
Harry threw himself sideways, just barely dodging the red jet of light. Harry might not know what the Cruciatus Curse did, but, judging by the smile on Tom's face, he knew it couldn't be anything good. Heart pounding in his ears, Harry ducked behind a rather large chunk of ceiling.
"Oh, come on, Harry! Cowering like a child? It's a pity you don't still have your mum and dad to hide behind...but they're dead, for good now."
Harry froze. Every ounce of fear ebbed away, and an enraged fire lit inside him. Maybe it was stupid. Maybe it was reckless. But with the hot course of anger flooding through his bones, Harry couldn't bring himself to care.
He stood, abandoning his makeshift hiding spot, and pinning Tom with a look of utmost fury.
"Ah, Harry, I see you've come to your-"
"You're still doing it!" Harry interrupted.
"I'm still doing what?"
"You're still making fun of me for not having parents! We've gone through this, Tom! You can't use that against me, when you're just the same!"
"How arrogant of you to compare yourself to me-"
"You know it's true!" Harry paused, before pushing on, vicious. "You know, we spend so much time talking about my parents, but we never talk about yours."
Tom sneered, but Harry could tell he was visibly uncomfortable. Tense. "Why would we?"
"Oh, it's just, you must miss them, don't you?"
"How could I? I never knew them-"
"But you must want to. I bet you want to see your parents."
Tom scoffed, but Harry saw right through it. "Why would I want to see my parents?" he shook his head, and steadied his wand. "Now, will you just do what I'm telling you, already? This is really getting old. Cru-"
Harry didn't have to dodge this time, because Tom didn't finish his spell. Instead, the oddest thing happened. Tom's eyes went wide with shock, staring somewhere behind Harry. His jaw dropped open, struggling to form words.
Harry glanced over his shoulder. Just a few feet away, standing on top of the rubble, was a man and a woman. The man had neat, dark hair and pale skin, and was almost a splitting image of Tom besides for the fact he looked quite a bit older. The woman was short and thin - plain-looking at best and rather ugly at worst with eyes that faced opposite directions - and yet something about her was inviting anyways.
Harry glanced back at Tom to see him blinking rapidly. "Wh- I - how?"
A grin spread across Harry's face as he realized just what had happened. "You said, 'I want to see my parents.'"
"No I-" Tom stopped abruptly as he remembered that he did in fact say those words.
"Oh, Tom," the woman said, drawing nearer, a watery smile on her face. Tom's father followed. "Oh, my Tom."
Defensive, bewildered, and way out of his depth, Tom took a step back. He tried pointing the wand at them, but his hand was shaking so badly he couldn't keep it in once place.
His eyes were wild, switching rapidly between conflicting emotions, unsure just how to react. Finally he landed on anger. "You!" he hissed, ignoring his mother in favor of glaring hatefully at his father. "I hate you! I killed you!"
Despite everything, Tom's father was not deterred by his wrath. He simply smiled - a small thing, a remarkable thing. "I know," he said, calmly. "I forgive you, son."
Tom's mouth opened, probably with the intention to yell more, but no sound came out. Harry never thought he would see the day, but Tom Riddle was rendered completely speechless.
"It's okay," his mother said. "We're here now. We love you."
Without another word, without giving him a chance to escape it, the pair pulled Tom into a warm embrace. Tom froze, as still and expressionless as a statue for several, stretching seconds, before he simply broke. His knees buckled, unable to stand under the overwhelming weight of pure love. His parents held him tighter, and he leaned in close, burying his face against his mother's shoulder.
The wand in Tom's shaking hand dropped to the ground with a clatter.
Harry watched on in awe, at the sight of Tom Riddle, future Dark Lord, defeated not by force, but by the very same thing he tried to trick Harry with at the start - loving parents.
Shaking himself, Harry tore his gaze away and seized the opportunity. He rushed forward to grab the wand on the ground while Tom was still too distracted to notice.
Wand in hand, Harry stood, contemplating what to do. While Tom was right that he didn't know many spells as a second year, he did know one spell.
He pointed his wand at the handcuff on his left hand. Speaking loud and clear he said, “Alohomora.”
Just as expected, the handcuff sprung open, revealing his hand and the gold ring on his finger.
Tom's head snapped up, pulling slightly away from his parents. “No! Stop!”
But Harry just smiled. "It's not so bad, Tom. Afterall, you'll be with your parents!"
In one swift motion, he pulled the ring off his finger, leaving Tom and his parents behind.
And this time it really was for forever.