preface
A lot has happened to get Tom here as a Horcrux, without access to his careful power he cultivated over decades of dedicated and painstaking work. The child’s mind he is stuck in is only one year old, and though the boy was prophesied to defeat him, the power Tom senses is no more than that of an average baby.
Days prior to this staggering defeat Tom had received a message from his loyal potions master, telling of a prophecy he overheard in a shady tavern between the leader of the light, his direct adversary, and one Sybil Trelawny, a seer who is a descendant of the last great seer Trelawny. Looking back on his choices, Tom realized he had acted foolish, for instead of confirming the prophecy, he set out to kill the supposed downfall of his possible rule. While there were multiple points of consternation for Tom, like the unreliable nature of all prophecies, and him only having half of one at that, or the suspiciousness of Albus Dumbledore holding an interview for the Divination post in the back room of the Hog’s Head, He decided to strike at his possible downfall.
Tom struck in the dead of night, killing the man with barely a thought, and the woman after attempts to get her to stand aside. The death of the woman seemed to trigger a ritual that had been prepared to entrap Tom, which instead of killing him, knocked his soul from his body and destroyed it. Tom was then thrust into…an unconsciousness of sorts despite his lack of body to fall unconscious.
When Tom came back to awareness, he was in the body of his supposed nemesis, watching through his eyes as if through a window. He was able to collect himself only briefly before he was joined by another, his faithful servant Severus. The distraught man clutched at his old friend as he mourned for her loss.
Tom felt a twinge of sympathy for his follower, he broke his promise to let the woman live though she was an enemy. The promised boon for Severus in payment for the information of the prophecy had been immediately cashed in for the protection of his best friend. As far as Tom had known, they hadn’t been speaking for some time, which was true. Severus had always held out hope, however, that he could patch up their fight. He had nobody now, his master was dead, his parents, though that may be a blessing, and now his childhood friend. Tom hadn’t been that alone since his childhood, and the sympathy in his chest surged for the loss of the man he saw in terms of a son, who was now suffering because of his foolish actions.
Soon Severus left, and in his place Sirius Black appeared. His face was marred with tear tracks, no doubt shed for his brother in arms down below. The shaggy haired animagus walked past the body of his friend and picked up his godson. He was talking to Harry, but Tom wasn’t listening as he thought on the events that had transpired.
“They’re gone.” Sirius answered a question he had been asked by the giant in the yard. He sounded hollow, and his rumbling voice caught in his throat.
“Dumbledore sent me to get Harry, I gotta take him to safety. The order is meeting to make sense of this mess. Moody and Frank are supposed to meet tomorrow to gather the aurrors for rounding up the death eaters.”
“Alright, take the bike and get Harry to safety. I’ll go to Peter's place…I gotta get to the bottom of this.”
The cold cut into the bundled up toddler for a second as he was passed from the Sirius to the giant. The clap of apparition marked the departure of Sirius Black, and Hagrid started the motorbike. The night was rather long and uneventful, but that gave Tom time to think. Now that he was saddled with his enemy, he knew that his previous plans had to change. The death of the child now would only lead to the death of himself too. The idea that Harry Potter was his enemy needed to be rethought, for even though he was prophesied to have the power to destroy Tom, didn’t mean they were enemies, merely that the child was powerful, and only a part of the prophecy had been received by Tom.
While the once great dark lord schemed, night was quickly passing, and soon Harry was woken up by the screeching of a Horse-faced woman. She had been startled by the sight of a bundle with a baby inside while she was putting out the milk bottles. The odious woman took her nephew into the house and set Harry on the counter in his blanket while she read the letter that had been left in the blanket. Her expression only darkened, and finally she threw the letter away with a scoff of disgust and took the new child into the living room with her ‘Darling Diddy Duddy Dums’.
Over the next week Tom tried to reach his magic, and was met with varying levels of success. At one point Tom summoned a toy to Harry, but that could have been a fluke since Harry had already been reaching for it. Petunia ended up seeing that trick, and she shrieked and put Harry in the closet. Well, this was going to be a long, long, long ten years.