Corollary

It's cold in the middle of no where.

Ron, Hermione, and Harry are sitting around a small, charmed fire [thank God for Hermione, who remembers these sorts of spells], all three of them wearing thick sweaters [thank God for Ron, who remembers things like proper clothing]. They're bundled together in one thick blanket, Hermione's hair tickling both boy's noses.

They're sitting in a shack, somewhere in a place that civilisation seems to have forgotten [Harry is sure he saw a sundial in the weed-ravaged garden], crashing for the night before they pick up the hunt again.

Hermione is reading [surprise, surprise, but Harry wouldn't have it any other way] and Ron is playing on a miniature chess board Hermione bought him for Christmas, and couldn't resist giving to him early. Even during the most dangerous point of their short [but fairly active] lives, Hermione has the foresight to go holiday shopping. Harry toys with a little Snitch she bought him, letting the metal ball roll between his fingers and catch the heat of the bluebell flames.

Harry lets his eyes fade into the fire, lets his thoughts drift peacefully on this cold Christmas eve, his mind forgetting the small stock of gifts that Ron secretly had gone and fetched from the Order, something seemingly insignificant to most, but a gesture that earned Ron the thickest socks the three of them owned and a long, heartfelt embrace from Hermione.

They are hunting for the next Horcrux, and a bitter journey it's been. If it weren't for Hermione, Harry would be a mass of broken bones, and if it weren't for Ron, Harry would have probably hurled himself off a cliff and saved Voldemort the trouble. The selfish part of him rejoiced that they had come along for the journey.

"Come hell or high water, Harry," was the only thing Hermione had said when Harry offered her a chance out. Ron had said nothing, but broke his last chocolate frog in half and gave one of the pieces to Harry.

So now they were, as Ron so eloquently put, in the middle of bum-fuck no where [earning Ron a cuff on the head and a muffled giggle from Hermione], eating corn-beef sandwiches that made Ron's face contort amusingly and simply resting before turning in for the night.

Where would he be without them?

Harry's thoughts are interrupted when Hermione stands up. "It's about that time," she says, and moves to a bench near the long, broken window, bundling her jumper around her middle. Hermione always takes the first watch.

Ron and Harry wander over to the large bed in the corner of the room. They've been doing this for too long to be embarrassed over two blokes sharing a bed. All they want to do is get some rest.

Ron's asleep within a minute, his snores muted by the blanket draped over his face. Harry stares at the ceiling, and thinks.

He thinks, of late, about Tom Riddle.

He doesn't see much of a difference between the two of them, really. Two boys, orphaned. Two boys without parents, two boys raised without love.

He always wonders- what makes me so different?

Harry dismisses the idea that Riddle was born evil, and he was born good, because he finds that to be a load of steaming horse-shit. He knows there's something else, something he was given that Tom wasn't.

But still, he considers the two of them, and the very different paths they've taken.

Because Harry doesn't have to be good. Harry could kill Voldemort and take his place, be all-powerful, change things to the way he thinks fit. And really, Harry's ideas aren't too bad. Hermione's ideas would go into place, Ron's family would never want again.

But then, Hermione and Ron would never be able to look Harry in the eye ever again. Their opinions- their love for them- means too much for Harry to even consider it. It's never an option. He simply has to do this the old-fashioned way- if he wants something changed, he has to work for it, and work for it honestly.

Harry snuggles deeper into his blanket [worn and torn and patched together by Hermione] and clutches his pillow [that Ron gave him, saying that he didn't really need one, any ways]. So he knows they grew up the same, came to Hogwarts under the same conditions.

Where did their paths diverge?

Harry thinks about their school-life. Harry, with the exception of Divination, actually did fairly well in school- so long as he had an unbiased teacher. Both have rewards for services to the school.

Both were always known to be immensely powerful.

Both had great legacies left behind by their family, and both have fulfilled and gone beyond the expectations left behind by their forefathers.

Both were respected by the Great Wizard of their Age, Dumbledore.

And both boys had mothers that died for them, for in his heart of hearts, Harry is sure that Merope Gaunt-Riddle loved her son until her dying breath.

Both boys resemble their fathers. Both were considered for Slytherin, and Harry reckons that Tom's got a good deal of Gryffindor in him, as well.

So when and where did the tables turn for one and the other?

Harry wonders what Riddle did on the train, exactly, what he thought of. Who he sat with. He smiles, and remembers Ron with a spot of dirt on his nose, and Neville's lost toad, and a bossy, shrill girl who barged in on them. Who would have thought that the girl would later be his best friend? One of them, anyways. He looks at Hermione's profile in the waning moonlight, see the tiredness settling in her skin, and he knows she'd skin him alive if he suggested she leave. So would Ron.

There's no where else they'd rather be than be by Harry's side.

Harry thinks about what would happen if he stole a time-turner, went back in time, met Riddle when he was a man and not a monster.

He asked Ron and Hermione, once, what they would give Voldemort if they could go back. "A good ass-kicking," was Ron's response. Hermione would have taken him out of the orphanage and put him in a good home.

Harry's thought about this alot, and he's decided that he doesn't think Riddle would need that.

Ron gets up, and Harry pretends to be asleep. Ron ambles out of bed, yawning, and silently pads to the other side of the room, where Hermione is sitting. He sits next to her, putting an arm around her shoulders, and Harry peeks out of one eye, watching Hermione put her head on Ron's shoulder and sighing.

Just like things are meant to be.

Harry smiles.

Through the trials and tribulations, through the fights, battles, wars, scars, and blood, Harry has always beaten Voldemort because of those two. When Umbridge sent the Dementors after him, it was their memory that saved him. They have plodded along with Harry, sometimes following him, sometimes dragging him, kicking and screaming, into his duty.

This is where the fork of the road lies.

Harry gets up; sleep will not be easy tonight. But it will be Christmas morning soon, and perhaps... perhaps they can take the day off, just this once. He'll let Hermione sleep in, and Ron can set the floor like a real table, and Harry will make breakfast. They'll open their presents, make fun of one another, and laugh, and talk, and maybe even cry a little.

Harry crosses the room and sits on the other side of Hermione, draping his arm across her other shoulder, letting his hand rest on Ron's shoulder. They sit like this for a while, and Harry feels like he's the luckiest bastard alive.

He wishes now, more than anything, that he could go back to Voldemort's time. He wishes he could meet Tom and give him the ultimate Christmas present, the one thing that Tom Riddle, a simple boy in Slytherin, really needed.

Not a mother, or more books, or a lecture in right and wrong.

Harry has finally realised what makes him different- better- than Voldemort. As the wind rises and sends the three friends the faint but clear ring of bells chiming for Christmas morning, Harry knows what he would give Voldemort, to change things.

Harry Potter would have given Tom Riddle the only thing Harry has that Riddle doesn't.

Harry would have given Tom Riddle a friend.