Awakening
Pain. Hurt. Fear. Fury. Pain.
These things awoke him from his slumber. He did not know how long he had slept, or if he had even been awake - alive - before now. Mind and memory were jumbled and confused, his sight was blurred by tears, and his body ached, his back ached, his arm ached as though it was broken, and his forehead burned and burned and burned...
He wanted to scream, but no sound came from his mouth, no air from his lungs. Instead, he only heard a quiet, pathetic sobbing noise, in a voice too light, too thin to be his own... and it was then that he realized he was not controlling his body.
It wasn't even his body, he then realized, even if he didn't know how he knew that. It was too small, too fragile, too... too young. And he wasn't alone in it, either, he soon realized, because something blocked him from moving the limbs, some other conscience in control was in control of mind and body, and for some reason, he could not bypass that other conscience and take control of the body.
In the same moment he realized that, he immediately wondered just why that was his first thought upon the realization.
'What is going on?', he asked himself, still groggy, still not fully knowing what was the matter - something he knew he loathed, though he did not know why he did so or even how he knew that.
However he had ended up.... wherever he was, his host body seemed to realize that he was there, because the other one let out a gasp, and he realized that his host had heard him, heard his thoughts... but how?
"Who's there?", the other one asked, and it was only then that he realized that that one was a boy, a young boy barely older than seven years, and that he was apparently in some dark, enclosed space, windowless, with stale air, and... was that a spider?
He did not know why, but the place eerily reminded him the inside of a wardrobe.
"Wh-who's there?", the boy asked again, and he realized that he could not act as though he wasn't there with him, as though the boy was all alone.
'Calm, lad', he whispered in his mind. 'I ain' 'ere to 'urt you.'
Had he still eyes he could control, he'd have blinked at the sound of his voice. It sounded... wrong to his (mental) ears, with an accent he could only call ridiculous. The boy seemed to agree with that assessment (leading him to believe that maybe those weren't even his thoughts, but rather the boy's imprinting upon him), because he giggled and said: "You sound funny."
Well. At least the crying had stopped.
Still, he tried to pull himself together and drop that stupid accent when he answered: 'Better now?'
"A bit", the lad replied. "Who're you?"
He was about to reply when he heard a banging sound above them, as though someone was jumping on the not-wardrobe, and a loud, angry voice yelling: "Shut your mouth there, freak, or it's the belt again!"
Yikes. That man - he was fairly certain it was a man, considering the cadence of the voice - sounded like a real charm.
In the same instance he thought that, he saw... flashes. A woman yelling at a boy with dark hair. An old man looking disapprovingly. A snake on the grass. Green light, a woman crying, yelling "Not Harry, please no, take me, kill me instead —", a man with cold and high voice laughing, and laughing, and laughing... and crying, a boy crying, and it took him a while to realize that it was his host crying again, the man's yelling having shaken him up anew.
It was annoying. It was painful to hear. It... it was familiar. It was... wrong.
And he decided to act.
'Calm yourself, lad', he whispered again in his mind. 'Don't focus on him, focus on me, focus on my voice.'
And the boy did, he felt him calming himself, his attention going away from the pain, back towards his voice, his mind. 'Good', he thought. 'Good.'
He felt the boy open his mouth and acted quickly, not wanting the angry man from before to start yelling again. 'Don't speak', he instructed. 'Try thinking what you mean to say instead. I should be able to hear it just as well.'
'Okay...', the boy answered in his thought. 'Is it... working?'
'It is', he answered. 'Guess it's a two-way road.'
'Am... Am I going mad?'
The question halted his thoughts. He wanted to tell the boy that he wasn't going mad, but something told him that it likely didn't mean a thing, considering the circumstances.
Still. 'I wouldn't say so', he answered. 'I'm not sure what is going on, but I don't think either of us are mad.'
Well, maybe he was, considering that he didn't have an inkling as to who he even was, let alone why he was even here, in this boy's mind. But something told him mentioning that would be detrimental.
The boy seemed pacified with this response, which was well enough in his mind. 'Who... who are you?', then came the question, and his thoughts ground to a halt once again.
Indeed, who was he?
'My name is Harry', the boy added, likely mistaking his silence for shyness or something like that. 'What's your name?'
His name... he'd had multiple names, that he knew. One he had been given, and one he had given himself, though he did not know either of them.
No, not quite. There was... something. The flashes returned, and with them the angry woman yelling at the dark-haired boy, and the old man looking at something with disappointment written all over the aged face, and this time, he heard their voices.
"Tom Marvolo Riddle, you made a mess again!"
"...Tom. I should be sorry to believe half of them."
"I know you killed Stubby, Tom! I hate you!"
"Tom, such knowledge is forbidden for a reason. I urge you to reconsider."
They were talking to him, he realized. He did not know when or why, but it was clear that at one point or another, he had interacted with all of these people, and had done something to upset them all, and he wanted - needed - to know how.
Still, this could wait. For now, he had the answer to the question of his name, and it would be enough.
For now, he decided to answer the boy - Harry.
'It's a pleasure to meet you, Harry', he finally replied. 'I'm Tom.'