Chapter 4
They were two months into the term, and Samhain was just around the corner when the Dark Lord sat bolt upright, eyes blinking blearily as he tried to figure out just what woke him from a sound sleep. Casting the tempus charm, he glared at the glowing numbers above his head, which read 3:33 a.m. Humph, he thought as he stared at the numbers with wide emerald eyes. I remember that hour from those useless religious classes in the orphanage. It’s allegedly the time that their Christ died on the cross, which is kind of silly, considering that they didn’t have analogue timekeeping in those days. At best, they could have stated the hour, but not minutes or seconds with any sort of accuracy. It’s also considered to be the ‘devil’s hour’ and was meant to be a mockery of the ‘holy trinity’. Not that I bought into such balderdash, but things tend to stick with you when you’re beaten for misremembering them, and it’s especially true if they’re shrieked at you by priests performing exorcisms to get rid of the demons. Still not sure what woke me up, though…
In the ensuing silence, a still, small voice said, “Hello? Is there anybody there? Why’s it so dark here? Where am I? What happened to me?” Riddle jerked violently at the voice in his head, swearing for a long moment that he’d finally gone ‘round the twist. However, as his brain caught up with the strangeness of the event, he realized that the voice sounded oddly familiar. Closing his eyes and concentrating, he sank into his mind, to seek out the voice and figure out what was going on.
He came upon the thirteen year old child in a cold, dark corner, huddled in on himself and trying to keep warm. As soon as Tom came into view, the teen gasped out in relief. “Oh, thank Merlin,” the boy said as he stood up. Riddle blinked rapidly as he fought to make his brain accept what his eyes were seeing. “Who are you, where are we and why do you look like me?”
“Potter?” Voldemort asked querulously. “Is it really you?”
“Yeah, but I don’t know where I’m at,” the youth answered, running his hand through his messy hair in frustration. “The last thing I remember is hearing my mum scream before she died.”
“You...ah...you were attacked by a dementor and had your soul sucked out of you,” the Dark Lord explained hesitantly. Though the truth might seem a little harsh, Riddle was never one for lying pointlessly.
“But if that’s true, then I shouldn’t be here, should I? Wherever here is, anyway.”
“My best guess is that over ninety five percent of your soul was taken before Lupin chased the dementor off and I slipped into place in your body,” Tom told the teen matter-of-factly. “You are the last five percent, give or take, which means that though you have a consciousness, you don’t have a real connection with your body. And I'm the Dark Lord Voldemort, but you can call me Tom, or Riddle, since we seem to be sharing the same space, so to speak.”
“So you have control of me, and I’m just the leftovers?” the teen clarified, emerald eyes narrowed. At the other man’s nod, those eyes dropped to the floor, and the boy mumbled, “That’s nothing I’m not used to, considering the way I grew up and the meddling old fuck who runs the school.”
“I’ve seen most of your life experiences, and, for what it’s worth, I am sorry for sentencing you to that,” Voldemort felt the overwhelming need to apologize and soothe the other teen. “If you like, I can excise you and send you on to your parents.”
“Nah,” Harry rejected with a lopsided grin. “If you would be so kind, could you create a more comfortable living space for me? I know that I’m asking a lot for only being a sliver of the original soul that resided here, but I would appreciate something a little more homey. I’ve been the perfect Slythindor, or Grifferin if you will, these last few years, and I’d be interested to see what you intend to do to the magical world that scorned me and threw me away when I wasn’t useful at the moment. And, I can help you out with my fair-weather friends, too. Besides, I’d tolerated as much as I could of their treatment of me, and I’d like to see how much fun it would be to watch someone put them in their places.”
“How in Circe’s name did you tolerate that obnoxious know-it-all?!” Tom asked incredulously. “It’s all I can do not to curse her inside out, as abrasively pushy and bossy as she is.”
“As you’ve said, you’ve seen how I grew up,” Harry told the other man with a shrug. “I’d learned early on how to ‘go with the flow’, as it were, to keep from incurring more punishment and starvation. I spent most of my life molding myself to be extremely adaptable to any situation, but I’ll tell you, I was dancing dangerously close to losing my temper more than once since I’d started attending this thrice-damned school. I almost...almost let you have the youngest Weasel in the Chamber of Secrets, but I knew that if I didn’t perform to the headmaster’s satisfaction, he would have encouraged my relatives to punish me all summer, to make sure the lesson stuck. By the way, sorry for what I did to the diary, and did that piece of soul reconnect with you?”
“It's probably why I'm not quite as homicidal as I was there toward the end, so you really did me a service. So...you’re not going to be upset if I change things up?” Riddle queried, eyebrows flirting with his hairline in surprise.
“I wasn’t powerful enough to buck the system and do things my way,” the raven haired teen told the other man angrily. “I suspect it’s because the old man has some sort of restriction on my magic. You should get that taken care of as soon as possible. Anyway, because I didn’t have the power at my fingertips and ready to use, I had to put my head down and grit my teeth as I let everyone walk all over me. But now, with you at the helm and my magic about to be released, you’ll be more than a match for everyone, and I get to sit back and watch the show.”
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“My Lord, what brings you to my quarters at this time of night?” Severus yelped, surprised. It was Samhain night, and Tom had used Harry’s cloak to creep down to the Potions Master’s rooms for another chat. They met several times a week, once everyone was in bed and the patrols were over, so that they could go over their plans for the future of the magical world. Severus wasn’t expecting the man this night, since they’d met on the twenty-eighth, and they’d agreed to wait until the third of November before getting together again.
“We need to talk, Severus, and this was the only time I could find to meet with you. What I have to discuss couldn’t wait until our scheduled meeting night. Now, are you going to let me in?” Flushing in embarrassment, the potions professor stepped back from his door, closing it as soon as the boy had crossed the threshold. Parsel privacy wards went up almost instantly, and ebon brows winged up on Snape’s forehead at the level of caution Riddle was taking. Without an invitation, the Dark Lord took the chair right across from the one that Severus favored and waited patiently for the other man to sit.
Thank Merlin, the younger man thought with relief. He’s become so much more patient since taking Potter’s body. Maybe we can finally have a leader worthy of our support. “Would you like some tea?” the ebon eyed man asked politely.
“Pumpkin juice? With a slice of treacle tart?” came a younger than normal voice from the teen, and Severus jerked back in shock, face slack.
“I guess that’s one way of introducing the issue,” Riddle mumbled as he mentally chastised Harry for nearly giving Severus a heart attack. “It appears that Lupin’s patronus interrupted the dementor before it could finish its meal, and left behind about five percent of Potter’s soul. He’s not able to affect anything, but he can communicate, and he’s given me free rein to do as I like, as long as he gets to watch the fallout.”
“S-so you’re saying that a sliver of Potter’s soul still lives on inside you and he’s happy about that?” the dark-haired man queried incredulously.
“I am, professor,” came Potter’s voice. “Tom’s told me that you know how I grew up; that the both of you grew up the same way, so you’ll understand if I just want to be left alone. I don’t really know any of these people, and their unreasonable expectations of me was exhausting. Now that I don’t have to deal with it anymore, I’m happy to sit back and watch the carnage, hopefully with a big bowl of popcorn and a couple of sodas.”
“So what we need to do, Severus, is get me to the goblins as soon as possible so that they can release the blocks on this body’s magic,” Riddle took over control again. “Harry’s promised not to interfere in any way with what we have planned; he just wants to remain sheltered from everything that’s gone on and is going on in this world. I find myself wanting to protect him from everything that’s happened, and everything that will happen. I think he’s been abused long enough, and since I couldn’t do anything about our situations before it was too late, I can at least take care of his.”
“It’s still early enough, my Lord,” Snape remarked thoughtfully. “We could go to Gringotts now, since they never close, and there won’t be too many people to interfere with our business.”
“I can stay under Harry’s invisibility cloak until we get there, so that no one will cause a riot in their efforts to ‘save the savior’. We’ll also need to discuss options with them for my future living arrangements. I will not be returning to the muggles; Dumbledore has no say in my placement, and if I’m sent there, I’ll turn their nice, normal home into an abbatoir.”
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“Greetings, gentle goblin,” Riddle greeted Griphook, the most familiar goblin to Harry. “May your gold always flow and may your enemies tremble at your might.”
“Greetings, Lord Potter-Riddle,” the goblin replied. “May your ambitions be fruitful and your goals worthy. Come this way; Wot Wrathgiver is Lord Potter’s accounts goblin, and he’s been trying to get into contact with you for the last several years. He has issues with your accounts at the moment that need your immediate attention.”
“Of course, Griphook Dragonbane,” Tom agreed neutrally. “If you could, please bring a Healer and a ritual master to the meeting.”
“It will be done.”
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“So I have all these vaults and properties?” Harry asked meekly, voice very small. “And I could have lived in any of them that I wanted?”
“Yes, Lord Potter-Riddle,” Wot told the thirteen year old gently. Severus was in shock; the fact that there were plenty of manor homes all over the world that Harry could have gone to and in which he’d have received exemplary care from the house elves made the Potions Master’s rage toward the headmaster only grow darker. The Healer and ritual master shifted uncomfortably behind the Potter accounts goblin, hearts heavy at the pain in that voice. “Had you come in at any time over the last twelve years, we would have been able to provide you with a very safe place in which to grow.”
“I didn’t know anything about my parents, except that they’d killed themselves in a drunk driving accident as my father was driving my mother to her next trick,” the wounded child nearly wailed. Beside him, Severus tensed alarmingly at the offensive slur cast about his very best and only friend for a long time. The dual-souled boy didn’t even notice as he continued. “I didn’t hear anything about them until Hagrid took me to get my school things. And then, it was to exalt them for being ‘heroes’ and dying so that I could live, when I would have rather had them here with me, or had gone on to the other side with them.”
“We can open one of those homes for you now, if you wish,” Wot offered eagerly, only too willing to somehow make things right for the teen.
“The problem I see is that there will be no adult supervision for him if you do that,” Severus interjected, once he’d gotten his temper under control. “As it is, Albus is his magical guardian, and is unlikely to allow him to live anywhere but with his muggle relatives.”
“Albus Dumbledore is not, in point of fact, Harry James Potter-Riddle’s magical guardian,” Tianx Healthgiver snapped angrily. “The child has no assigned guardian, magical or otherwise, and since he’s a free agent, he may choose whomever he wants as his physical and magical guardian.”
“Really?” Tom asked with a sinister grin. At the nods of the goblins, he turned to the dour man next to him and said, “Then I choose Severus Tobias Snape as my magical guardian and as my true guardian.”