Transcendence

Author's Notes: Sorry this has taken much longer than usual. I'm in the middle of exams; in fact, I had a four-hour tax exam today. It was as horrible as it sounds. (I've alleviated the pain somewhat by including a tax joke in this chapter, but it probably isn't recognizable or funny to anyone but me.) The exam period extends until the end of next week, but after that I should be back on a normal schedule.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

When Tom became aware of his surroundings, he was in a graveyard standing in front of a larger than life statue of the Angel of Death. The full moon illuminated its skeletal face and enormous scythe, and Tom only had to lean forward slightly to make out the names etched into the elaborate display.

Thomas Riddle. Mary Riddle.

He blinked once, but the names didn't change.

"What the hell?"

"It's terribly dreary, isn't it?" came the response from directly behind him. "Only imagine not being able to meaningfully experience anything other than this for years untold."

For a split second, Tom was convinced that he was imagining things, but then he realized exactly what was happening. He turned slowly, his movements deliberate and in no way giving away his surprise or anxiety. His own face stared back at him from a couple of a feet away, an intensity in his expression that made Tom understand from an outside perspective why people were so terrified of him.

"But of course you know how it is, even though you've managed to escape somehow," the Horcrux continued, his eyes roaming over Tom's face. "Although I imagine that being stuck at Hogwarts is immeasurably better than being stuck in this bloody Muggle graveyard."

Tom had already opened his mouth to say that actually he'd been quite able to imagine himself to any number of other locales, before he realized that this Horcrux obviously had not had that experience. That had to be important somehow, but it probably would not be a good idea to point out the difference to someone who had been stuck looking at his filthy Muggle family's graves with no real way to measure time.

Instead he filed away that information for later thought and said, "It's been fifty years, assuming that you were created soon after I was. Not quite years untold, but I know exactly what you mean."

The Horcrux's nostrils flared, and he took a step closer so that they were mere inches apart, almost touching.

"Fifty years," he hissed. "It seems longer... and shorter."

Tom felt the corner of his mouth quirk up involuntarily. "I know."

His other self brought his hand up as if to touch Tom, then stopped just short of actual contact. Their eyes met, and Tom was sure that he saw hope and desperation and madness in that gaze. He could understand that; he still felt it all himself.

He reached out with his own hand so that they met in the middle. As soon as their palms touched, the Horcrux gasped and closed his fingers hard around Tom's, as if he was afraid that Tom would pull away. Of course he had no intention of that, and likewise he didn't resist when the Horcrux closed the distance between them and all but pressed their bodies together.

"My God..." the Horcrux moaned somewhere in the vicinity of Tom's ear. "My God..."

Tom had consciously exchanged his Muggle expressions for wizard ones as soon as he had entered the magical world at age eleven. He hadn't referenced any god in years, so he knew that the Horcrux must be absolutely overwrought to have forgotten himself so thoroughly that he reverted to that terminology.

He--and Tom really must think of something to call him other than "the Horcrux," he thought--held fast to Tom's hand, but he ran his free hand over Tom's form in the same way Tom had seen concerned parents check small children over for injuries. The touch felt solid, but he was ice cold to the touch and his chest did not rise and fall with breath. Tom imagined that it must be like embracing a corpse, and it took all he had not to shiver. Only the knowledge that he had been exactly the same until he'd regained a body, and that he would have done anything or killed anyone to feel someone's touch, stopped him from pulling away.

"You're real," the Horcrux told him. "I'm real.... I had begun to doubt...."

"I know," repeated Tom. He brought his free hand up to clasp the Horcrux's bicep.

The Horcrux shuddered against him.

"I can feel what you do... I can feel it!" A laugh erupted from his throat, crazed and uncontrolled. "Will you let me see?"

Tom could well understand his desire to actually experience things, even secondhand. Of course he knew himself, and therefore he knew that he couldn't trust this version of himself. He wasn't entirely sure that the Horcrux would actually be able to mount any sort of assault on his mind, given that he was a Horcrux himself and not an actual human being, but Tom had no doubt that he would try. All of the various variables flashed through his mind in seconds, and in the end he decided that the need to gain the Horcrux's cooperation and keep his own doubts hidden as much as possible outweighed any risks, especially since he was sure the Horcrux would want to gather information and wouldn't simply attack him the first time he was allowed into Tom's mind. He would first want to know how Tom had escaped, at the very least.

"Any preferences?"

He could feel the Horcrux's glee in his own consciousness.

"Anything."

Then they were spinning through darkness interspersed with flashes of memories, some shared between them and some new ones Tom had made for himself. The Horcrux had moved to stand beside him, but their hands remained clasped. He squeezed Tom's fingers when the memory of torturing Abraxas and Lucius in the library flashed by, and Tom focused on the scene.

It was like viewing himself in a Pensieve, and the Horcrux went to stand beside Memory Tom as the apparition threaded his hand violently through Lucius's hair. It was actually quite interesting to view the events from a third-person perspective. In the moment he hadn't been able to focus on the results of his actions, but now he stood beside the Horcrux looking down at the expression of agony that twisted Abraxas's face under the effects of Tom's childhood torture curse. His eyes were screwed shut and his jaw was clenched so as not to scream, while his hands were tensed into claws and his arms and legs were curling towards his body. Tom knew that it was the perfect result of the muscle contractions built into his curse, and the Horcrux seemed to appreciate it as much as he did.

When the torture ended, Tom guided them out of his mind and back into the graveyard. They landed on top of their father's grave, which was somehow fitting, and the Horcrux smiled.

Then Tom was blinking up at the dark green canopy of his bed in Malfoy Manor. It took him a few seconds to realize that he must have been asleep--or at least unconscious and, instead, inside the Horcrux's consciousness.

The movement that had woken him up drew his attention again. Something was in the bed with him. Tom shot up into a sitting position and immediately regretted it. He felt lightheaded and weighted down all at once, and he was only glad that he wasn't an actual human being or else he felt like he might have been sick all down his front.

Tom had never been one for drinking--his earliest experiences with alcohol had been with gin, which was prescribed by the matron of the orphanage to cure all sorts of ills. It made him associate the distinctive burn of alcohol with medicine, which rather ruined the whole effect for him. At Hogwarts he had the opportunity to indulge through the widespread black market in the Slytherin dorms, but at first he had thought that he had much better ways to spend the few Sickles and Knuts he managed to save from his scholarship allotment each year, and later, after watching his dorm mates imbibe, he had determined that being drunk would make him weak and vulnerable.

But what he was experiencing now felt like everything he had ever heard about hangovers, multiplied several times.

The Horcrux was flooding his consciousness with its fury and fear at being left alone again, which made things worse.

When he felt more in control of his body again, he turned his head and took in the form of the rather large young man who was bound face-down with his arms stretching out before him and attached to the headboard with heavy magical chains. Images of the night before flashed in his mind, brief snatches of motion and speech that flitted away before he could firmly grasp any of them. He could well fill in the blanks, however, by observing the dried blood and semen and other conspicuous materials covering the Muggle's body, particularly his lower half.

The Muggle had stopped struggling against his bonds (the movement that Tom assumed had woken him up), but he was glaring at Tom as best he could in his position. The effect was lessened by his puffy, red-rimmed eyes and the fact that he'd been magically gagged... not that his glare would have had any effect on Tom under any circumstances, of course.

Tom cast a quick glance over the magical bonds to satisfy himself that he'd managed to actually secure them in whatever state he'd been in last night, then he rolled out of bed and squished the thick carpet between his toes on his way to the palatial bathroom. He winced a bit at his tender groin when he stepped up into the shower, but the steaming water pouring across his body quickly soothed any ills, and he thought that he might even be up for another go soon.

He thought that the next time he visited the Horcrux, perhaps he would like to experience the basic luxuries of a hot shower and a warm body underneath him.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The end of the week found Tom in the library chewing on the end of his quill. He had worked through every book in the Malfoys' library that could possibly be relevant to his situation, and he hadn't really found any answers. It was to be expected, he supposed, given that no one had created multiple Horcruxes before, and no Horcrux that he was aware of had ever obtained its own body.

How could anyone be expected to write anything helpful about something no one except him had ever imagined in their darkest dreams?

He had thoroughly investigated Draco's memory of the curse breaking. It was probably the oddest thing he'd ever seen to witness himself thrashing around and screaming in practically orgasmic bliss and then acting like a drunken fool afterwards. But at least he had been able to conclude that his other self's magic affected him like some sort of intoxicating aphrodisiac.

It was most tempting to seek out more of it.

At the same time, Tom felt like he should do everything in his power to avoid it.

If that were the only thing he had to worry about, he might have been okay. However, the question of his own abilities and limitations as a Horcrux was extremely pressing now that he was in contact with another one, and on top of that he had about a dozen more questions after learning that the Horcrux in the ring hadn't been able to escape the graveyard.

The Malfoys' reactions to the entire episode were also quite troublesome. Tom would have had to be a fool to trust the men who had swindled the Ministry into believing that they'd never willingly associated with Lord Voldemort, and he was no fool. Now he was doubly suspicious.

As the littlest Malfoy wandered into the library, Tom decided that he would deal with that problem quite neatly. His plans for Draco and his plans for the Granger girl were both entirely within his own control, and acting on things within his own control soothed him in a way that nothing else could. His pet Muggle could testify to that.

"Ah, Draco," he said in a suitably pleased tone, "your timing is impeccable. I want to speak with you, if you have time to spare."

Ever since the incident, Draco seemed to vacillate more than ever between being comfortable around him and being terrified of him. Today he was apparently feeling the former, because at Tom's words his entire face brightened and he came to sit on the floor at Tom's feet without waiting for further invitation.

"My Lord, I always have time for you," Draco informed him in a voice full of so much earnest feeling that it made Tom's teeth ache.

Of course he knew that, both because no one around him would ever dare deny him and also because he had been diligently making strides in his Legilimency. He had only phrased the order as if it were a request to put his prey at ease by portraying himself in a kind light.

When he patted the boy's head as if he were one of Lucius's wolfhounds, Draco preened under the attention.

"Tell me, how far have you read in the books I recommended to you?"

Draco was an eager pupil, but he was not the most brilliant student Tom had ever met (even excluding himself, since it was unfair to compare anyone's intelligence to his own). Draco was naturally very good in Potions and Defense, but he was only average or perhaps a bit above in Charms and Transfiguration and had to work quite hard to master those kinds of spells. This made teaching him the Dark Arts something of a challenge, but Tom had persisted in order to gain his loyalty over that towards his father, who had refused to teach him much more than the basics that every child from a Dark family learned.

Tom suspected that Lucius had hoped his son wouldn't follow in his footsteps, and refusing to teach him Dark magic had been some sort of vain effort towards that goal. But now he appeared to view Tom as the lesser of two evils and to hope that he would be able to offer Draco some protection when Lord Voldemort returned.

"I finished them yesterday morning, My Lord," answered Draco. Then, knowing that Tom would want to hear his interpretation of what he'd learned, he added, "It's important to learn how to do magic wordlessly and, as much as possible, wandlessly, because safely performing the Dark Arts requires a lot more control over one's magic than most wizards have."

He was clearly expecting some sort of praise, but Tom was unimpressed. He raised one suspicious eyebrow. "And how much of it have you been able to apply?"

"Oh, well..." Draco blushed and looked down at his hands. "I can do some basic spells wordlessly, but I haven't been able to manage any offensive or defensive spells yet."

Over their weeks working together, Tom had managed to get Draco to move past his habit of grossly exaggerating to make himself look better. Nothing had been more effective than Tom purposefully taking Draco at his word and hexing the stuffing out of him with the expectation that he'd be able to shield himself as he'd bragged he could. Draco obviously still hated to be embarrassed by admitting that he hadn't been able to do something, but that was infinitely preferable to being hexed to bits by Tom.

Tom let out a breath of frustrated acceptance. He really wasn't suited at all to being a teacher, as he barely had even as much patience as an angry mother dragon, and he especially didn't have much patience to try to figure out ways to explain things he'd simply known intuitively since before even going to Hogwarts. He reminded himself quite firmly that it was in his own best interest--and that it was his own plan!--to claim Draco Malfoy as one of his own, not only because he would need his own followers separate from his other self's but also because if he controlled the child then he controlled the parents, no matter who they'd actually sworn loyalty to.

He turned a steely gaze back to his student and tried to decide how to articulate the feeling of being one with his magic in a way that Draco would understand.

~~~~~~~~~~~

Draco would have probably been absolutely horrified, Tom reflected the next day, to know that Tom was actually looking rather more forward to dealing with the Mudblood than to spending more time with him. Being charming had always been a particularly exhausting form of hell for him, no matter how good at it he'd been (and he'd been the best). On the other hand, playing mind games was his bread and butter. He had been anticipating the Grangers girl's reaction to his offer for days, gleefully planning how he'd handle every minute variation.

He was nearly grinning when he entered the little cottage, but he managed to school his face into his usual impassively handsome mask before he opened the closet. The Grangers peered out at him from the darkness, and Tom leaned casually against the doorjamb and crossed his arms over his chest.

"I have been told that you are intelligent, Mudblood," he told her, enjoying the way she jerked at his words. "Although I have not seen much evidence of it firsthand, it has occurred to me that I could put you to some use."

His Legilimency allowed him to read her defiant emotions before she even declared, "I won't help you."

Mrs. Granger flinched as if she knew exactly how stupid that was of her daughter, and Tom turned his eyes onto the older woman just for the satisfaction of seeing her cower backwards into her corner.

Tom twisted his mouth into a patronizing smile. "You already have, Mudblood. Do you not remember the information you gave me in exchange for your own well-being? If you have changed your mind, I can always--" But she had frozen at the sight of his wand, which he'd produced seemingly from thin air. His smile widened. "Ah, I see that we still understand one another."

She clambered to her feet without another word and with a decided droop to her shoulders.

Tom smirked to himself as he led her through the bedroom; her reactions were just what he had predicted.

"Now, I suspect you might even enjoy this task," he said as he entered the kitchen ahead of her, "and then you'll have quite a bit of egg on your face for that abysmal behavior earlier."

He stepped aside to reveal that the kitchen table was covered with stacks of books and unused parchment. Her eyes, which were already a bit less defiant and a bit more defeated, lit up with interest that she tried and failed to hide. He'd been more than correct that the way to Hermione Granger's heart was through books.

He waved his arm to indicate that she could approach the treasure trove. "They range from the ancient to the beginning of this century, and none of them have such luxuries as tables of contents or indexes. You're to synthesize the information in each book."

Tom really did want them indexed and catalogued for his own use, and he really didn't have the time or patience to do it himself. But having Hermione Granger do it was little more than an exercise in manipulation and fact finding. The task would make her happy and was the perfect opportunity to slowly introduce her to the world of magic beyond the levitation charms and button-to-beetle transfigurations she'd learned at Hogwarts... to introduce her to real magic. Of course he'd actually already read all of the books he'd given her for this first go around, but he wouldn't tell her that. He wanted to judge the true extent of her intelligence, and to do that he had to know the subject matter at hand so he could evaluate her work.

She eyed the tomes hungrily. He knew then that he already had her, but he still had to make sure that the entire state of affairs was laid out on the table. He stepped between her and the books and fixed her with a serious gaze.

"I will allow you to remain outside of the closet even when you are not working, as long as you meet my standards."

It was unnecessary to mention that if she failed then her situation would be worse than it had ever been before. Indeed, mentioning it would have been counter to what Tom was trying to accomplish with her.

Granger bit her lip and tore her gaze from the books to bravely meet his eyes. With a defiant little tilt to her chin, she asked, "What about my parents?"

"What about them?" Tom shrugged in the truly careless manner of one who honestly had no feelings on the subject.

"I can't sit out here reading while my parents are stuck in that closet!" she exclaimed.

Tom outwardly frowned, but inwardly he was congratulating himself on having predicted her reactions so well.

"If you exceed my expectations then I might consider allowing them to join you in the bedroom, although Salazar only knows how you'll manage the sleeping arrangements with one bed." Undoubtedly they would not only manage sharing one bed but would actually welcome it, given their current living conditions. However, his apparent obliviousness to their situation made Granger visibly bite her tongue to keep from speaking, which is exactly the amusing reaction Tom had been hoping for. "However, if it turns out that your intelligence is not up to my standards, there will be no need for you to worry about them anymore."

Her eyes lit up with not a little anger and a determination to prove how wrong he was to doubt her, but she smartly kept her comments to herself. It seemed she had learned by now that her words would mean nothing to him, but he would keep his word if her actions pleased him.

Tom watched her with an impassive mask fixed firmly on his face as she watched him weave his wand in a complex pattern by the door. Now that she was free from the closet, he had doubled the wards, just in case. Not that he thought she truly had a chance of escaping, since even if she managed to get out of the building she would still be out in the middle of nowhere without a wand. He just would prefer that she not die trying before his plans had come to fruition.

Finally, when he was done, he stepped through the door and, without bothering to look back at her, said, "Until later, Mudblood."

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

The Horcrux was lounging across their grandfather's sarcophagus when Tom appeared in the graveyard the second time. He looked up unhurriedly, as if he couldn't be bothered with Tom's appearance, and Tom decided not to call him out on the blatant untruth of it. If acting disinterested made the Horcrux feel more in control of the situation, then that could only work in Tom's favor.

"I wasn't sure you'd come back," declared the Horcrux.

Tom kept his face neutral. "I don't know why you're complaining. It's only been a day."

The Horcrux leaned back on his elbows and let his long legs sprawl out across the stone, one of his feet dangling over the edge and kicking at their grandfather's name. He scowled. "Well, I guess a day is nothing to you, since you have a body."

Tom only controlled his expression through sheer force of will. It was the best reply he could have hoped for--the information contained in it, that is, not the reply itself. Clearly the Horcrux did not have access to his mind or to any real sense of Tom's physical surroundings, or else he would have known that it had been a week since Tom's last visit. Tom had assumed that the Horcrux's sense of time was just as nonexistent as his had been while inside the diary, or probably even worse since he hadn't been able to directly communicate with the outside world like Tom had, but it was fantastic to have it confirmed.

His mind was his own, and that was the most important thing.

Finally allowing a slight smile to pass over his features, Tom said, "I have a present for you, but I want something from you."

"It isn't much of a gift then, is it?" asked the Horcrux. "It hardly stems from detached and disinterested generosity."

"Name one time we have done something out of generosity of any kind."

The Horcrux laughed, and Tom was struck anew with two completely relevant realizations: First, it was incredibly strange to watch someone who was as close to identical to you as it was possible to be. Even identical twins had enough differences that most people who knew them for more than a couple of days could tell them apart! Smaller eyes, facial symmetry that was slightly off, freckles in different patterns... the Horcrux and he had none of those minor differences. Second, he was truly an intimidating individual. Even his laughter was off-putting because of the hints of instability and coldness behind it.

"Fair point," replied the Horcrux as he slipped gracefully off the sarcophagus. "What's the present, and what do you want?"

Tom raised his eyebrows just the barest amount. "I want to know everything you know about the other Horcruxes. And I promise you'll love it; trust me."

His other self took in an unneeded breath and let it out harshly, his nostrils flaring. "I don't know much more than you do. I was created less than a year later."

"I don't mean the mechanics or properties of it," answered Tom. "I mean what they are and where they're hidden. Did you still plan to use objects from the Founders? Were you able to find any objects that fit the bill?"

"I had determined that Ravenclaw's diadem was a real object, just before I was made. I was close to tracking it down, I think. Did you know that the Gray Lady is Rowena Ravenclaw's daughter? Sorry, of course you didn't...." he answered his own question a second later. After an awkward pause, he added, "In any event, I think she's the key to finding the diadem."

"You hadn't pinned down any other possibilities?"

The Horcrux narrowed his eyes as if he were trying to decide whether that was an accusation. "Not anything more concrete than what you already know."

"I see.... And had you given any more thought to where they would be hidden?"

~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Author's Notes: I've been trying to strike a balance between showing conversations and avoiding giving massive info dumps about things we already know that would probably be boring to read about in any detail (e.g. what the Horcruxes are). Please let me know what you think about that or about anything else in the story, if you have a few seconds.