Secret Keepers

Was it cowardice, that I dared not kill him?
Was it perversity, that I longed to talk to him?
Was it humility, to feel so honoured?
I felt so honoured.
And yet those voices:
If you were not afraid, you would kill him!
(D.H. Lawrence, Snake)

Bloody Snapping Woodcress!

Bloody Forbidden Forest!

Bloody, bloody Snape!

Here he was, hot and muddy, spending a perfectly fine Sunday afternoon hunting for smelly weeds in the swampier areas of the Forbidden Forest. Just because Snape's hatred had reached new heights ever since Harry's encounter with the man's Pensieve last year. Knowing that he had cost Gryffindor an additional fifty points for losing his head and calling the greasy git 'bastard' in class was even worse.

As he alternately stumbled over gnarled tree roots and sunk ankle-deep into swamp holes, eyes trailing the ground for the telltale orange growths, Harry wondered if Snape had sent him into the forest hoping some unspecific monster would end his existence. The man seemed to restrain himself only by a hair's breadth from doing so himself whenever they were in the same room.

Sweat ran down Harry's back and temples from the humid heat, and he itched from several Whirring Zingsting bites. He'd never been into the direction of the marsh south of the castle, where the last shallow patches of the lake met the Forbidden Forest to create an eerie swamp landscape of serene waters ringed by trees. At least it was not centaur territory. Harry cut a wide berth around several Whomping Willows, and a small group of Singing Willows were humming softly as he passed under them. A fine haze of mist curled around the knotted wood where their stems branched out into roots.

At last he noted an orange glow, interspersed with moss and fern, near the gnarled trunk of a Swamp Willow. The ground sloshed wetly as Harry made his way over, glad that his search was finally over. Of course he had been so seething with rage when he'd run out of Hogwarts that he'd forgotten his protective dragonhide gloves, and the Woodcress mauled his hands viciously before he managed to cut off a considerable patch with his root knife and stuff it into his pouch.

When he had finished pulling the strings close and knotting them, fighting down wiry tendrils all the way, the mist was almost upon him. The thought that it might be a natural phenomenon here in the Forbidden Forest brushed his mind, and died. It wasn't like any fog he'd ever seen or heard of. It didn't creep towards him from the deeper ends of the swamp, it drew in from all sides, white banks of mist like huge, woolly Dementors that left no room for escape.

Harry's throat went dry and his neck prickled with foreboding as he drew his wand.

"Impedimenta!"

Nothing, except for the fog creeping steadily towards him.

"Reducto!"

If fog could chuckle, it probably would do so now.

Oh, why did he just run out after his fight with Snape, why didn't he go to Dumbledore? It was a trap! It was Voldemort! If those tendrils touched him he'd die, or worse...

If only he knew how to Apparate! Being forced to stand here like this, helpless, waiting... if he dove at the bank, perhaps the momentum would carry him through...?

But he couldn't bring himself to rush the moment when the whiteness must touch him. Fear almost choked him, but he just couldn't.

"Protego," he whispered, eyes tightly shut, his whole being drawing inwards as if to hide inside his skin, knowing it would be futile.

When the touch finally came, it was like being covered by a discorporate blanket, not suffocating or burning or anything Harry had expected. Just... fog. It passed over him, over his bedraggled hair, screwed-shut eyes, clammy skin. It finally sank into his lungs, a cool moisture when he could no longer hold his breath, and was gone.

***

Harry felt insistent wetness seep through his robe and trouser legs and realised he had slumped to his knees in a puddle. He opened a wary, short-sighted eye. He could still see the gnarled treestump next to him, bereft of the Woodcress patch which was now squirming in his pouch.

It was still warm and humid, only that the air was permeated at the same time by an eerie chill. It was impossible, and yet he could feel it, a frosty dance over his nerves. The mist had retreated a few feet, but formed an irregular yet impenetrable circle around the small swamp clearing. Harry noted a metallic glint in a patch of grass beside his drenched knees, and picked up his dripping glasses with his free hand. He pulled a face, and a low chuckle responded.

"Why don't you get up, little one, and show me what I caught?"

Caught? Bugger! Harry's eyes flew wide open, and he swung his still tightly-clenched wand at the shape in front of him.

"Stupef-"

"Expelliarmus!"

The force of the spell ripped the wand out of Harry's hand and knocked him backwards until he landed with his backside in the puddle.

"Now, now, there's no need for hostilities," the infuriating voice added. "I'm not going to hurt you - much."

Harry peered at the figure, saw watery streaks, and tried again after wiping his glasses with the sleeve of his robes.

No chalk-white skin or red eyes, but he would have recognised Voldemort's high-pitched, unnatural voice immediately. No Death Eater regalia either, which was a relief, but could be misleading.

The man - Harry estimated his age around the mid-twenties - did not outwardly appear too threatening. Heavy brown travelling robes in an old-fashioned style Harry recognised from archaic Hogwarts portraits of questing wizards, shoulder-length black hair held back by a leather cord, quite tall. Hermione would probably have described him as attractive; Lavender and Parvati would have dissolved into bouts of giggles and called him 'cute'. There was a strange air of familiarity about the face... a colouring like Harry's own, and a demeanour a touch - only a touch - like Sirius'. Something about him raised Harry's hackles, however. The wand that was still aimed at his chest did a lot to increase his nervousness.

Harry got to his feet heavily.

"So, will you give us a name, little one?"

Harry paused, only for a second, before answering, "James."

No way in hell was he going to tell a stranger who just seemed to have abducted him that he had got his hands on the infamous Boy Who Lived. Perhaps he really didn't know who Harry was, but Voldemort had too many supporters altogether, and there were those who'd turn him over to the Dark Lord in a heartbeat to gain his favour. He flattened down his sweat-drenched fringe over the scar on his forehead just to be safe.

"James Evans," he added after another second. 'Longbottom' had been on the tip of his tongue, but after having heard the prophecy, calling attention to Neville was the last thing he intended.

The wizard thrummed his fingers against his wand and looked down at him coldly.

"I know when I'm being lied to. I don't like it."

There was a palpable ring of threat to that statement, and Harry shuddered. Of course he was dripping wet and cold. And more than that, he was suddenly also extremely angry.

"Well, I don't like being abducted, you see, so why would I tell you the truth?" he snapped, eyes fixed on the man's face. "Who are you? What the hell do you want from me?"

The corner of the wizard's mouth quirked upwards.

"It seems I've got myself a fighter, how delightful. Well, James, you may call me... Thomas. And to answer your question: I need your blood for a ritual."

Icy fingers curled around Harry's spine and his eyes widened in shock. The image of the Riddle graveyard flashed through his mind: the cauldron with its horrible contents, the knife piercing his vein to bring the monster back to life.

"No!" Harry heard the cry without realising that it was him who'd uttered it, and stumbled back in terror, still in the grip of the memory. It washed through him like a sickening flood, leaving him cold and shaken. He was going to die!

A warm hand closed around his icy wrist and stopped him from bolting.

"Snap out of it!" Fingers took hold of his other wrist as well, sending a trickle of warmth into his paralysed body. Harry trembled, but couldn't move. Maybe he's a vampire, his shock-frozen brain offered - it felt like magic, whatever was keeping him from lashing out and running. Perhaps he's going to hypnotise me and...

The hands released his wrists and moved up to his shoulders, shaking him harshly.

"I am not going to harm you, do you hear me?" Thomas looked at him with a considerable degree of exasperation. "By Salazar, calm down before I curse you! You're my blood. I won't kill you."

Harry felt a faint brush at the back of his mind and realised that the sudden jumble of memories had been the other's doing. It did not feel at all like Snape, who had dug at his thoughts as if he was carving them out of his head with a root knife. This one dipped a finger into them as if to stir the mud at the bottom of a pond, and then threw a careful eye at the dirty swirls. But Legilimency it was, all the same.

"Get the fuck out of my mind!" Harry swore and shook off the other's hands.

"Hmn... why don't you make me?"

There was a wealth of condescension in that tone, but Harry fought down the surge of rage it sparked. Anger had never got him anywhere in this game. He turned his mind into a blank, black slate, trying to bury his rage beneath it, and felt mental feelers scratching over the makeshift shield with painful intensity. And just when Harry was certain it would break, the pressure lifted, and grey eyes smiled down at him from under a lifted eyebrow.

"Impressive strength for one so young, even though your skill is still lacking." A long finger tapped against the Hogwarts crest embroidered on Harry's robes. "Did they teach Occlumency at Hogwarts in your time?"

Harry shook his head automatically.

"No, but I..." The implications of the question suddenly hit him. "What do you mean, 'in my time'? And that I'm of your blood?"

"Well, that was the spell I've been casting. Time-Displaced Corporeal Summoning." A flicker of arrogance ghosted over the even features. "Quite complex magic, if I may say so, and not to mention illegal, of course." He grinned at Harry's furrowed brows. "It picks someone who shares blood with me out of the time stream."

The finger trailed upwards to tilt up Harry's chin. Confused green eyes met resolute grey ones as the stranger studied his face intently.

"Yes, you even look like me, Evans, except for the pretty eyes." To Harry's embarrassment, he felt his ears warm over. His discomfort sent another flicker of amusement across the other's lips. "A Hogwarts student, then... Fifth year?"

"Sixth!" Harry protested reflexively.

"Not quite that young, then..." The low tone made Harry's ears sting even worse. It almost felt as if the wizard was flirting with him, and that was impossible, even worse if he was indeed a Potter as he'd insinuated, and it unnerved him far more than stolen glimpses of - or touches from - Cho Chang ever had.

"Slytherin, of course," Thomas continued to probe.

Harry made a disgusted face.

"Gryffindor," he stated empathically.

The expressive eyebrow rose again. "Indeed? Well, I assumed, since you are my blood... but there also have to be Gryffindors, I suppose. I hope you weren't too disappointed."

"The Sorting Hat offered me Slytherin, and I refused," Harry stated primly. It wasn't the kind of information he usually pressed on strangers, but he disliked the smugness of this arrogant ex-Slytherin.

"Why?" the man asked, plainly taken by surprise.

"Because Slytherin is full of Dark Wizards," Harry pointed out, ignoring the other's contemptuous snort.

"Dark Wizard is the label they slap onto everyone who dares seek beyond the scraps of knowledge and power the Ministry allows," Thomas insisted with an air of crusading passion. To Harry, it sounded as if he had delivered this particular oration before. "The Wizengamot is the essence of mediocrity - just look at Dippet or Bagnold. They prefer to pander to the fears of what the press likes to call 'the wizard on the street', and everyone whose power or imagination goes beyond that sparks terror in their little hearts." He took Harry's chin between thumb and index finger and lifted it up. "There is considerable power in you, little Evans. You'd better hope that when you finally come into that power, you don't find out for yourself what it means to be called Dark Wizard."

Harry couldn't help but remember the way Hogwarts had turned on him when he was revealed as a Parselmouth in second year, but was determined not to concede that much to this overbearing stranger. He cocked his head in thought before giving his other reason:

"I had also just met a Malfoy before the Sorting."

His words drew a laugh out of the other.

"I can understand that," Thomas allowed. "I fought my share of battles with Sebastian Malfoy myself."

Who the heck is Sebastian Malfoy? Harry wondered. At last, curiosity won out over indignity. Input about fighting Malfoys was always welcome.

"What did you do?"

It was distinctly weird, standing in a water puddle inside a ring of magical fog and discussing Hogwarts houses with a wizard who had just kidnapped him and was after his blood, but there was something about Thomas that made Harry feel at ease. Something that went beyond charisma and right into the realm of Cheering Charms, Legilimency or Imperius derivatives. But even though Harry realised it wasn't natural, it worked.

"Malfoy..." Thomas drawled, grinning in recollection. "Well, I duelled him until he had no choice but to call me the better wizard or die, and then seduced him afterwards. Both were fun."

"Eew!" Harry exclaimed and shuddered at the thought of touching Draco Malfoy with anything but a long stick and slime-resistant potion gloves.

"Don't give me that Mugglish attitude." Thomas paused at Harry's venomous glare. "You can't possibly be a Mudblood, can you?"

"My mother was Muggleborn, and she was a powerful witch," Harry snarled. "And I know purebloods who are too thick to charm their shoelaces tied, not to mention too gormless to tie them by hand."

"That may be, though in my time the majority of those prime specimens graced Gryffindor house. And yet, you underestimate the great power that lies in wizarding bloodlines, Evans."

"Is that why you're after my blood?" Harry inquired suspiciously. "Because it's powerful?"

"It's merely a symbolic ingredient in a ritual that will strengthen my magical powers," Thomas pointed out.

"How?"

"Hm... the details are a bit beyond the comprehension of a sixth year school wizard, I think."

"Try me," Harry snapped. If the bigoted git planned to go vampiric on him, he could at least explain why.

"The ritual centres the power of a wizard's bloodline inside his body. It distils and refines the magic that would be passed on to an heir, or heirs, and opens it up for him to use. Your blood is merely a symbolic ingredient, if an essential one. I have no living relations, that's why I was forced to resort to the Extra Temporem ritual."

Harry's eyes went wide.

"You mean you're doing magic that'll prevent you from... having children? Or from having...?"

The question - or rather, its unspoken part - provoked another amused laugh.

"Yes to 'no children', no to the other," Thomas grinned. "I'm definitely not ready to give that up yet, and probably not for a long time." An eyebrow climbed upwards, sardonic and suggestive in equal measure. "But I'm flattered by your concern, little one."

Harry flushed his deepest shade of red yet, both because of the insinuation that he might be bothered by whatever rendered the older wizard incapable of lovemaking, and by the fact that the thought had indeed rushed through his mind. He crossed his arms over his chest, glared, and quickly steered the conversation into safer waters.

"And what will it do to me?"

"It will do nothing to you, Evans," Thomas pointed out patiently. "It can't, don't you see? You're my ancestor, and taking any risks with your life might result in altering my own past. Time is fragile, and I'm very attached to my existence."

A confused frown crinkled Harry's brow. The man had mentioned Dippet, which had been the name of Dumbledore's predecessor at Hogwarts, and from what he remembered of his History of Magic lessons, Millicent Bagnold had been Minister of Magic before Fudge. Together with the old-fashioned cut of the man's robes, nothing about him pointed to the future.

"To answer your question," Thomas added, obviously misreading his expression as fear, "you may feel a tad tired from the blood loss, and won't be at your fullest magical strength for a day or so." He smirked. "But unless you plan to cast something on the scale of Fidelius or Avada Kedavra, or intend to Transfigure an Erumpent into a tank tonight, you shouldn't notice." He paused. "And you won't remember. When this spell fades, I will have my blood, you will feel a bit under the weather, and none of us will remember anything about this encounter. We are out of time - this will never have happened."

Thomas reached into his robes and pulled out what looked like a glass figurine of a coiled snake. He held it up and ordered it to uncurl with a low, sibilant hiss. The glass serpent obeyed, curving its back in delight like a real animal basking on a stone, enjoying the vibrations of the sound as if they were the warm rays of the sun. Not an ornament, after all - a phial.

It was beauty incarnate, and the sight froze Harry's mind with sheer dread, wiping away the artificial calm that had pervaded his being. Back in his second year, he had read very carefully through the entry on Parselmouths in A Comprehensive and Cautionary Chronicle of the Chthonic Powers. The last Parselmouth before the 20th century had been Egmont the Eerie, 1716-1758. There was only one who'd been born after that, and before Harry himself, who might know what a tank was.

"Oh God! You're him!"

Harry practically felt the blood drain out of his face, lips turning to ice. He squirmed in the spotlight of painful clarity. Thomas. The looks, older and less clear-cut a decade after his appearance in the diary, but familiar enough. How could he have been so blind?

"And who might he be?"

"Him. Tom Marvolo Riddle. Lord Voldemort."

A hand shot out and fisted cruelly in the front of his robes. Harry felt himself pulled up and gasped at the sudden constriction at his throat.

"How did you come by that name, James Evans?" Thomas - Tom, Tom Riddle! Harry's mind wailed - hissed. "There are not ten people in the world who know that name, and I would certainly remember if I had ever shared it with a pretty lying lookalike of mine."

"Was it fun playing with me?" Harry snarled viciously. "Did you get a kick out of it, you vile bastard?"

"What in bloody Merlin's name are you talking about?" Riddle grabbed Harry by the shoulders and shook him roughly until his glasses slipped awkwardly down his nose. "I have never seen you before in my life."

Harry shook his head, laughing almost hysterically. Now that he thought about it, he didn't really believe that Voldemort - the Voldemort of his time - would plan such an elaborate charade just to shock him speechless.

"You didn't reach into the past," Harry realised. "You dragged me out of the future. I'm not your ancestor, you bloody bastard, and I'm not of your bloodline! Dumbledore all but guaranteed me that years ago, thank God."

A disgusted sneer flitted over Riddle's face at the sound of Dumbledore's name.

"Magic doesn't make mistakes in such things."

Harry's mind went back to his memory of the graveyard that Riddle had disturbed before, and laughed again.

"Oh, sure. But you got it wrong anyway. I'm not sharing your blood. You will share mine. I guess time can be pretty insidious that way."

"I wouldn't gloat yet, Evans," Riddle sneered. "If the connection was strong enough to bring you here, it's still going to work. And you just look too much like me for it to be coincidence."

"Like hell!" Harry hissed, insides churning with rage. "Perhaps you shouldn't have murdered your father and his parents quite so prematurely. It'd have saved you all this trouble."

He struggled furiously and tried to claw at Riddle's face as the hand grabbed him by the front of his robes again, but then the Slytherin's wand came up and dug into the sensitive skin under Harry's left eye. He stilled, heart beating frantically.

"Don't speak of things you don't know anything about," Riddle hissed, intensifying the pressure until Harry winced. "Between them, those... Muggles... killed my mother, the last remaining pureblood descendant of Salazar Slytherin, and condemned me to a decade of bigoted hatred and petty torture at the hands of their fellow animals. So don't try to tell me about who deserves to die."

Harry glared at him through the pain.

"I have been raised by Muggles who hate me for being a wizard, and I still didn't turn into a murderer, or plan to exterminate all Muggles as a career choice."

Riddle pulled back his wand and released Harry with an equally disgusted expression.

"I don't want to exterminate Muggles, I merely want wizardkind to stop cowering in the shadows. Muggles slaughter each other by the millions for no bloody reason at all; they're creating weapons to annihilate life as it exists, the magical world included, and they hate anything that does not fit in with their narrow little worldview. I've lived among them, and so have you, if you've told me the truth this time. Eventually, they're a disease that'll destroy us all."

"They haven't yet!" Harry protested.

"Not for lack of trying."

Harry shook his head wildly.

"I don't care! You can shift the blame on whatever nameless Muggles you like, but it's you who's the monster, you who's the killer, you who's turned the wizarding world into a nightmare when you were in power." He stared at the other with hate-filled, frost-glittering eyes. "You're the source of everything bad that has ever happened to me!"

"If you're telling the truth, none of this has happened yet, if it will at all. I've never claimed to be a good man, Evans, but I plan to change the wizarding world into something better, not to destroy it. That hardly makes me the kind of bogeyman you're trying to turn me into."

"Perhaps not yet." Harry resisted the urge to gnaw on his knuckles in frustration. "But you're going to do more and more of those rituals, just for bloody power, and you'll throw away your humanity until you won't even remember what it was." He paused, eyes wide and staring into his past which was to be this man's future. "I know. I've seen it."

Riddle peered into Harry's face intently enough to spark a flicker of hope that he might believe him. A flicker that was extinguished in an instant. Harry could practically see the blinds go down, Riddle's expression turning cool and distant. His mind shut off as well, not that Harry's rudimentary Legilimency skills would have done more than scratch at his shields like a locked-out kitten. He raised his wand again.

"Tene Vocem!" A tickling sensation brushed over Harry's vocal cords, and his hand flew up to his throat.

"What-?" he croaked.

"I know I told you that we won't remember what is spoken here, but you're... persuasive, Evans." Riddle shrugged. "The spell will stop you from revealing any more details pertaining to my... future, or whatever you think that will be. Time is incredibly fragile; I won't take any risks with it."

Riddle transferred his wand to the hand that already held the snake phial, and stepped up to grab Harry's wrist. Harry shook in the grip of helpless rage, desperation insisting that he find a way out of this, but failing to see one. Riddle pulled up his sleeve over the elbow, and Harry jumped when the cool fingers trailed over the faint scar that Wormtail had left there.

Another knife, another ritual, for the benefit of the same culprit.

"You won't even notice this later, you'll see," Riddle crooned, raising the serpent's head to Harry's arm, and Harry, pulled out his paralysis, thrashed wildly to dislodge the hold. It earned him an angry slap across the face that all but split his lip.

"Don't turn yourself into a nuisance, Evans! Now that we know you don't belong to my past, there's nothing to stop me from leaving you floating face-down in this swamp hole when I leave."

Harry tensed. Perhaps there was nothing to stop Riddle from doing exactly that, but it wasn't really Harry's chief worry at the moment. If he, Harry, found a way to dissuade Riddle here and now, what would become of him? Would he ever be born? And even if, would he be Harry? Would he just vanish, or be trapped in this watery clearing in the mist for all eternity?

But it did not matter - could not matter! If he could spare the wizarding world a decade of terror, he would do it. Hadn't that always been the unspoken assumption, that he save the magical community from Voldemort again, despite Dumbledore's attempts to protect him? But what was there to do, helpless as he was? No wand. No weapon. No voice!

Mind wheeling in despair, Harry reached out and seized the other by his robe, intending perhaps nothing more than to grab his attention for one last attempt at conviction. He had to do something, no matter what. How his lips ended up on Riddle's, he couldn't for the life of him figure out. But there they were, in a harsher, more insistent touch than during his one try with Cho.

Nonverbal communication a remote part of his mind mocked, although this was utterly different from the fluid hand signs Hermione had demonstrated under that name from Mermish Made Manageable. But it was his last option, so he put all of his despair and conviction into that kiss, hoping that somehow, this would spark an understanding where both words and Legilimency had failed. And it was what Thomas had wanted, wasn't it?

It was Riddle who pulled back after just a few seconds, looking at Harry with an inscrutable expression and a faint knit of brow.

Harry was jolted right back to the reality of what he'd been doing, and he felt his face burn bright scarlet.

"Don't do the ritual," he whispered, cringing with mortification. "Please!"

Something changed in Riddle's expression, from inquisitive to provocative with just a hint of smugness. He reached up to cup Harry's face with both hands and gave him back the kiss. Or rather, Harry's mind sputtered shakily, returned it with a hundred percent interest rate. Riddle nibbled on his bottom lip and coaxed a response out of Harry so carefully that he only noticed his mouth had opened under the skilful prodding when their tongues touched.

He kisses like a snake, Harry thought. There was something intensely sneaky about the way Riddle took control of the situation

The intimate contact sent pinpricks of excitement down Harry's spine, and they seemed to pool in certain lower parts of his anatomy. He was suddenly extremely glad that only their lips were touching. Throwing potential embarrassment to the winds, Harry let his eyes fall shut and abandoned himself to the sinuous dance of mouth on mouth. Perhaps he could feed the man comprehension.

But then that was an illusionary hope, wasn't it? This was Tom Riddle, who had killed at least four people while still at school, and who seduced his mortal enemies for kicks. He would not be swayed from his course by a few kisses from his nemesis-to-be.

Riddle ended the kiss when he saw anguish crawling back into Harry's eyes, and long fingers stroked his cheek and smoothed back the wild tangles around his face. When the fingers brushed Harry's forehead, both of them stilled in shock.

"Merlin, little one, you've certainly stood in the way of some powerful magic," Riddle murmured. "If you've lived though an attack like this, I understand why the idea of contributing to a spell frightens you so."

He was brushing off Harry's earlier words as he would the delusions of a frightened child. Harry opened his mouth to strike out with the truth of just who had been responsible, but the spell choked off his protest in his throat with a thoroughly unsubtle warning. He balled his fists and yelled in sheer fury.

"You don't bloody understand! "

Riddle pressed his hand over Harry's mouth to silence his half-hysterical outburst. Feeling the touch of those fingers just where he had felt the man's lips made him shiver.

"Let it go, Evans," Riddle commanded with a cool, determined expression. "I've spent two years in preparation for this ritual - you will not change my mind."

Harry tore himself away, burying his face in his hands and feeling closer to tears than he had since Sirius' death. Just why did that bloody spell have to pick me? he railed inwardly. Had it latched onto the prophecy that connected – no, would connect – him with Voldemort, or was this encounter the key that would trigger the prophecy? The thought made Harry's head hurt.

He was too worn out to resist when Riddle took his arm and lifted the phial to the inside of his elbow once more.

The glass snake sank minuscule crystal fangs into the small patch of scarred flesh on Harry's arm. It stung only a little, but it was the pain of defeat that forced tears to his eyes. The thing's delicate glass tongue flicked over the bite and prodded the blood to flow. Gradually, the undulating body turned pink, then red, and finally a deep crimson as the snake's glassy belly filled with stolen blood. Riddle's grip held Harry immobile, helpless to do anything but watch the snake feed on him.

When its body was filled to the rim with liquid, the fangs pulled back delicately, and the tiny crystal tongue flicked soothingly over the small incision. Riddle stoppered his prize, and it slithered down his arm and into a pocket of his robe. Harry's heart felt as heavy as if his hopes were slithering away with it. He was too tired to keep desperation off his face. He'd had one chance. He had failed.

The Woodcress chose this moment to squirm again inside his belt pouch, and the thought struck him with the force of lightning. His root knife! The mere idea was repulsive - he didn't want to kill this man, Riddle or not, not like this. He had not done anything to him, not even attacked him in the Chamber of Secrets. Not yet. But he would. And Harry couldn't allow it.

As carefully as he was able, Harry sneaked his hand into the folds of his robe. The root-cutting knife was almost small enough to conceal in his palm. He realised that he couldn't go for throat, or heart - it would involve too much movement, would give him away. So he grabbed the leather-wound hilt tightly, and stabbed it abruptly forward at Riddle's middle.

Whether the wizard noticed the movement or the glint of metal at the last possible moment Harry never found out, but he twisted to the side as the weapon came up, so that it didn't embed itself in the man's stomach, but in his side. Riddle hissed in pain, eyes flaring with a reddish glow for a moment, before his fingers closed around Harry's wrist like steel manacles, wrenching his arm back and the blade out of his flesh with it. It wasn't a dangerous wound, the knife was too small and too far away from any vital organ for that, but it bled nastily and the sight made Harry's stomach lurch.

And then Riddle's grip intensified, and twisted.

Harry heard the dry crack as the bones in his wrist snapped a split second before a dull, fiery roar shot through his entire arm. The knife slid from his limp fingers, and he threw his head from one side to the other, trying to shake off the horrible agony of it. He'd broken bones before, at Quidditch and quite a few times as a child, dodging the pursuit of Dudley and his goons. But nobody had ever done it on purpose, nor with such calculated brutality.

Riddle's free hand was awkwardly clutching his wand and pressing it to the stab wound in his side, where it emitted a warm yellow glow that pulled the edges of the wound together and narrowed them from a gaping mouth to an ugly red welt.

When the worst was healed, Riddle looked up with a steely glint in his eye. Calmly, he clenched his grip on Harry's wrist until Harry could feel the snapped bones shift under his skin. The pain was unfathomable and so overwhelming that he couldn't even scream. A dying cat noise clawed its way out of his throat as a spasm went through his whole body, like a pulse beat magnified beyond all proportions. It hurt, hurt, hurt, too much to think, or breathe, or-

It took him a number of painful seconds to notice that Riddle had released his wrist. Reflexively, he cradled it against his chest and stumbled back a step, wrestling with the urge to fall to his knees and throw up, or just to pass out.

"Too bad that I learned all about brawling in that Muggle orphanage," Riddle commented, lip curling in contempt. "And you really should have listened to the Hat, Evans - you certainly stop at nothing. Kissing someone to disarm them so you can stick a knife in their gut is a strategy that would have done any of your 'Dark Slytherins' proud."

It took a moment for the words to penetrate the pain-filled haze, but then Harry's eyes widened. It hadn't even occurred to him that Riddle might interpret it like this.

"You left me no choice," he said in a small voice roughened by hurt that wasn't entirely physical. He fought down the compulsion to add 'I'm sorry' - he was, but in equal measure he was sorry that he had failed to kill the man. He was going to die - he saw proof of that in the white-knuckled grip that aimed Riddle's wand at his chest - but he wouldn't offer him absolution.

"Give me your hand," Riddle ordered, and then, when Harry recoiled and placed his undamaged one over it protectively, "Do it before I show you that there are a thousand worse things I can do to you with my wand."

I'm not going to show you any more weakness, you bastard, Harry thought furiously. He uncurled his hand gingerly from his chest, and held it out.

The wand touched his swollen wrist and a familiar dull agony shot through his nerves as the fractured bones moved of their own volition. It felt like a welding-together of puzzle pieces that did not fit, until they finally moulded against each other and turned into a coherent whole. It certainly hurt just as much as the effects of Skele-Gro, but at least it was over far more quickly.

Harry gave the wand, then the wielder, a wary look. Riddle returned it sharply.

"I've killed wizards for aggravating me a lot less than you have, Evans, and none of them got this close to doing me damage," he mused, twirling his wand. Harry just stared at him coldly. The future Voldemort, and no doubt about it - he never shuts up. "But then I don't think I've ever had someone stand up to me this brazenly - or this young."

If you think this is young, just wait a couple of years! Harry let the sarcasm he couldn't voice aloud come out on his face.

The other shook his head, almost bemused. "No, I won't kill you. It would be a pity to waste such a combination of nerve and Slytherin cunning, not to mention that meddling with the intricacies of the time stream is never prudent. If things were different, I'd like to have someone like you at my side."

"Is that why-" Harry's hand flew up to clutch at his throat as the spell cut off the rest of his words - why you killed my father?

The question had haunted him ever since Dumbledore had told him of the prophecy. It was Harry Voldemort had worried about, and yet he had made a point of killing his pureblood father while being willing to let his Muggleborn mother walk away. It made no sense, unless the Dark Lord had held his own personal grudge. The thought that Voldemort might be subconsciously inspired by their meeting to try and recruit his father was sickening.

Riddle watched him gag and shook his head. "Gryffindor fool." The wand tapped against his throat again. "Finite!"

"I still want you dead," Harry said coldly after regaining his breath.

"You're a vicious little devil, Evans." The words held a hint of admiration, but Harry was deaf to it.

"And you will become the worst monster the wizarding world has ever seen."

Another long pause, until Riddle broke the silence in a tone that implied he still didn't take Harry's warnings all that seriously.

"I will try not to."

"You won't remember!" Harry spat, and then, "Give me the blood!"

Riddle looked at him for another long moment, and shook his head.

"You're asking too much." He swung the wand in Harry's direction again. "I won't permit anything to stand between me and power. It's time I sent you back."

Without flinching, Harry watched Riddle - Voldemort, he tried to tell himself with limited success - step up to him. Below the misery of being unable to stop the Dark Wizard there simmered a different pain, almost as cutting - that he was not able to save him from becoming the inhuman creature that had haunted him ever since his birth. Not a good man, Riddle had said, and though it was true enough, Harry was suddenly intensely glad he would not be around to watch Riddle's metamorphosis into the Dark Lord. It must have hurt Dumbledore terribly to do so. All of a sudden, forgetting did not sound so bad at all...

Riddle raised his hand and performed an incantation in an archaic language that Hermione might have been able to identify, but left Harry clueless. A clear fluid appeared on Riddle's fingertips, and he stepped close to trace an alien design on Harry's forehead, right above the scar. It felt, and smelled, like water, like condensed, cool fog. It made Harry aware for the first time that his head was pounding, and felt pleasantly soothing. Before Riddle could lift his wand for the last component of the spell, Harry looked up at him.

"My name is Harry Potter."

Riddle cocked his head in faint surprise. "I won't remember."

"I know," Harry replied. "But you will."

"Well, it has been an... interesting experience meeting you, Harry Potter," Riddle quipped, before adding, "I liked the alias better. It sounds less ordinary, and whatever you are - or will be - I think ordinary isn't it."

Harry couldn't stop the corner of his mouth from quirking up, try as he might.

"Not a chance."

Thanks to you.

Harry's brows knitted as Riddle reached out to trace the corner of his mouth with those fingers. They left a hint of the not-taste of water, but somehow Harry did not think it was a part of the spell he was weaving. He had tried to kill this man - this Dark Wizard! - so why would he touch him like that? It was not fair!

Why can't you let me hate you in peace?

Harry swallowed around the aching lump in his throat and gave in to the overwhelming fatigue that weighed him down. He rested his cheek against the other's cloak-covered shoulder, head averted, and after a moment a cool hand came to rest on the nape of his neck. Closing his eyes, he expelled a breath that was almost a sigh, and with it some of the tension that had been coiled inside him.

At last the hand drew back, though Harry stubbornly kept his eyes shut. It wasn't his battle any longer. In all honesty, it wasn't a battle any longer. A wandtip touched the centre of the colourless sign on his forehead, and receded, and finally the faint brush of moist air came, blanketed him, and went.

***

Harry came to in a patch of wet grass, with a late afternoon sunbeam burning into his neck. Bugger! Must have fallen and hit my head, he cursed. There were wet and muddy patches all over his robe and trousers, and he felt miserable. His head hurt, his left arm ached from elbow to wrist - must have fallen on it - and an angry reddened puncture mark in the crook of his elbow looked like yet another Whirring Zingsting bite. Bloody insects!

Most of all, however, he felt wrapped in a dark cloud of misery like nothing he'd felt since Sirius' death.

He got up gingerly, and found his wand and root knife in the grass a step away. The knife sported a few reddish stains, and Harry wiped them off on his robes. Woodcress sap was a mild corrosive, and Snape would salivate at the thought of hauling him off into yet another detention for 'wilfully damaging school equipment'.

Woodcress was not depression-inducing, though, Harry knew that even without being a Neville Longbottom in Herbology. So why did he feel as if he'd just suffered an irreversible loss? He had started to get over Sirius' death, so why now, suddenly, was he feeling like he had in the first nights following his godfather's fall through the Veil? He'd never before let Snape's acid-drenched hatred get to him like that...

He looked out over the quiet forest, observing how the first tendrils of night sneaked around the stems of the trees in the distance. Fog was slowly beginning to swirl over the pools of water all around, spilling out over the banks of the lake and onto the gently curving slopes that led up the hill. On its top, Hogwarts beckoned like a guiding light.

Harry shivered and pulled the damp fabric of his robe closer around his shoulders.

He'd better get back to the castle. It wouldn't do to get caught up in the mist.

~ finis ~