Friend or Foe

"The heart may be weak. And sometimes it may even give in to the darkness. But I believe that deep down, there's a light that never goes out!"

--- Kingdom Heart

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Prologue

A flash of green light... darkness... a small cupboard... the Dursley's... rejection... Freak... school... Dudley... lonely... Hagrid... Hogwarts letter... Diagon Alley... Hogwarts Express... the Weasley... Ron... Sorting... Gryffindor... Hermione... Fluffy... the Sorcerer's stone... Quirrell... Ginny... the Chamber of Secrets... the Basilisk... Aunt Marge... Sirius... Professor Lupin... Wormtail... Triwizard Tournament... the killing curse... Cedric's dead body... pain... blood... Voldemort's return...the Order of Phoenix... Grimmauld Place...

Harry clenched his head with his hands and shut his eyes tightly as the memory rushed back. The pain was so severe that he felt as if he head was going to burst open. Yet... what hurt him most was not his headache...

Tom Riddle...

Voldemort...

Harry drew his knees up to his chest and rested his head on them. He didn't know what to do. He didn't know what to think...

Harry looked down at the necklace Tom gave him and held the crystal tightly in his hand. He could feel the power emerging from it. Yet the strong and protective power, rather than gave him comfort, only hurt him even more.

"Why... Tom..." he muttered softly.

Why?

Chapter 1: Being Harry Again

"Harry!" someone shouted. He heard the door was slammed open and footsteps approaching him. "Oh, here you are, Harry."

Harry slowly opened his eyes. He looked around and found himself in sitting beside the wall of the drawing room. Looking up he finally saw the source of the sound; Ronald Weasley was standing before him waving his hand in front of his face.

"Are you alright, mate?" asked Ron. "Mum was really worried when she couldn't find you in our room."

Harry would have been really annoyed for the overprotective behavior if he didn't have so many things in his mind.

"I won't be stupid enough to leave this house, Ron," he answered weakly.

"What are you doing here anyway?" asked Ron.

Harry shrugged. "I can't sleep," he answered simply.

He was not ready to tell Ron... tell anyone about his little "trip" at the moment, not even Sirius. Then again, who would believe him? Traveled back in time for a year when no time had actually passed? He didn't even age! Well, maybe the scar on his arm would convince them, but Ron and Sirius would surely have a fit when they found out he was sorted into Slytherin. He didn't want Sirius to be disappointed in him. Besides, he didn't think it would be wise to say his best friend was Tom Riddle in the middle of the Order of the Phoenix's headquarter. He stomach sink as he thought of Tom. It was so wrong that the boy he once knew had become the merciless Dark Lord, who he hated for the past five years, who killed his parents, who made him an orphan and gave him a horrible childhood. But after the year he spent with Tom... he did not know what to think of him anymore.

"Is it your... scar?" Ron's tentative question brought him back to reality.

"No, I'm fine," Harry answered coolly. He stood up and shoved off the dust on his clothes. "Let's go downstairs before your Mum become too worried," he said and hurried out of the room.

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Harry had a hard time to catch up on what happened lately. After all, for him, what happened "recently" meant what happened a year before. He did not tell anyone what happened though some of them did notice he was acting differently than before. His friends were worried about him and he must admit that they had good reasons to. He was much quieter and was not at all keen on hearing any information concerning Voldemort's activities, which was really unusual for his "normal" self.

After the experience of living as a normal teenager for a year, Harry found it hard to accept who his really was. He was The Boy Who Lived, the so- called savior of the world, the subject of humiliation in the Daily Prophet, and the target of both the Ministry and... Voldemort. He didn't want to have his old life back. Sometimes he really hope he had forced to stay in the past and remained to be Alex, a boy without any memory of his past, and without the heavy burden of the world.

"Harry?" Hermione stopped him one night before he went to bed.

Harry groaned inwardly. He had been under great pressure lately and anyone who dared to ask him "Are you alright, Harry?" or "What happened to you, Harry?" again would trigger him to explode. Actually it was a miracle that he hadn't pissed off at them already; but if he had learned anything from living among the Slytherins for a year, that was the importance of controlling ones emotions; it was foolish to lost control of oneself easily.

"What's it, Hermione?" said Harry lazily.

"What happened to you, Harry? You've been acting strange," said Hermione in her usual lecture manner. "We are worrying about you and you kept ignoring us. We just want to help..."

"Then leave me alone," Harry interrupted in his calm but dangerous voice and retreated to his room before Hermione could respond.

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Harry had tried his best to avoid anything that concerned Voldemort and had been busying himself in cleaning or studying so as to stop himself from thinking about Tom. He couldn't face it; the more he thought about it, the deeper it hurt him. He had been avoiding that topic since he came back but finally cracked on the day when he received his Hogwarts letter.

Harry was not bothered by the fact that Ron and Hermione were made prefect this year but not him. He wondered why he didn't feel anything after hearing the news, but then, he had been blocking his own emotions and barely felt anything recently. Compared with what really bothered him, losing the prefect badge to his friend was nothing at all.

They didn't need to go to Diagon Alley to purchase their books this year; the order members would do all the work for them. Harry recognized several books on his list, which he had already studied. He was going to attend the fifth year classes again this year, since he still hadn't told anyone that he had already had his fifth year education fifty years ago.

While Ron and Hermione were celebrating, Moody pulled Harry aside and showed him an old photo of the order members last time. Harry's stomach clenched as he saw those familiar faces beaming at him. He felt sick when Moody started to introduce the people in the photo and told him what happened to them during the war. Neville's parents... his own parents... Sirius... all other order members... they were so happy, so proud of being able to fight for what they always believed. Harry couldn't stand looking at all those happy faces. He couldn't help but think about how the war destroyed them... how Tom Riddle ruined their lives.

Harry excused himself and went back to his room. He needed to be alone, to think and to organize his thoughts. But before he reached his room, he heard someone sobbing in the drawing room. He reached for his wand and opened the door of the room cautiously.

Harry gasped at what he saw in the room. Mrs. Weasley was sobbing, with a dead body lying before her... Ron's body! But it couldn't be, Ron was downstairs...

"Riddikulus," Mrs. Weasley sobbed.

Ron's body was replaced by Bill's, then the Twins', Percy's, Harry's...

Harry was stunned by the sight. He vaguely heard Lupin entered the room and cleared the Boggart.

For a long time Harry just stood there, watching Lupin comforted Mrs. Weasley. He could imagine how horrible it must be for Mrs. Weasley; all those she cared for died before her eyes. Harry thought back of the photo he saw just now and wondered how many time a similar scene had happened in the past, and how many would happen in the future.

All Voldemort's doing...

Harry shut his eyes. He could no longer hide from it. Voldemort was the one who created this havoc... and he was the one who created Voldemort. If he had spent more time talking with Tom; if he had took the boy's tendency towards the darkness more seriously, Voldemort would not exist.

It was his fault...

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Harry needed someone to talk to. He did not know what he should do; he only knew he couldn't just stay there and do nothing to stop Voldemort. Normally he would ask Dumbledore for help, but Harry didn't want to tell him what happened, at least, not yet. Other then the fact that Dumbledore had been ignoring him, he didn't trust the man to give him a fair advice regarding Tom Riddle. He needed someone he could trust, someone who already knew what happened. Harry smiled weakly; the answer was obvious...

Dear Nicolas,

I am back. I need to talk to you.

Harry wrote a short note which he was sure no one would understand even if it was intercepted. He hesitated before signing his name:

Alex

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Harry had been doing quite a lot of thinking since the day he found Mrs. Weasley sobbing in the drawing room. He was confused, expecially when he thought of what he regarded Tom Riddle as. Did he still consider Voldemort as his enemy? Or did he consider him as a dear friend?

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Day drew by quickly and it was time for Harry to go back to Hogwarts. The last few weeks in Grimmauld Place were stressful; the only good news was that he no longer had those nightmares, which Harry assumed was because of his mastering Occlumency.

Harry sat in the same compartment with Ginny, Neville and a Ravenclaw called Luna Lovegood during the ride to Hogwarts. The whole journey was uneventful, at first, until Draco Malfoy and his two body guards broke in soon after Ron and Hermione joined them.

"Sod off, Malfoy!" said Ron, standing up.

"Manners, Weasley," said Malfoy. He stared at Ron's prefect badge. "I wonder what my father will say; a Weasley and a Mudblood being prefects."

Ron's face glowed red and looked as if he was going to lunge at Malfoy anytime soon.

"No, Ron!" Hermione held Ron's arm tightly, holding him back.

Malfoy turned to face Harry, but Harry cut him off before he could say anything.

"If you are going to throw me any insults, do so and leave," said Harry calmly. He was in no mood to argue with the blonde.

Malfoy looked surprised. He stared at Harry with narrowed eyes and studied him closely.

Harry didn't averted Malfoy's eyes. He stared back at him coolly and dangerously, as he always did when Lestrange and the other Slytherins insulted him or Tom.

Malfoy held his gaze for a while before turning away. He looked puzzled at Harry's reaction but said nothing of it. The blonde nodded at Crabbe and Goyle and left the compartment without any other word.

Ron and Hermione stared at him with strange expressions, but Harry ignored them. He stared at the retreating back of Malfoy. Strangely, he didn't hate him as much as he had been before. The blonde before him reminded him of Coilean Lestrange and many other Slytherins which came from pureblood family that he once knew. It was true that they were annoying and arrogant, but the longer Harry stayed with them, the more he realized the lives of those heirs of pureblooded family were not easy at all. They were proud to be a pureblood, as they were taught to be, yet they were also bounded by it. They could not be the person they wanted to be, they couldn't even have their own thoughts. For their whole life they must do their best to live up with their family names.

Draco Malfoy... the blonde had changed over the years. When Harry first met him, he was an arrogant pureblood who enjoyed teasing and mocking others, but starting from his fourth year, he seemed to be... darker. Harry was sure by the influence of Lucius Malfoy, the younger Malfoy would follow his father's footstep and went onto the road of Darkness. In fact, the young Malfoy was already standing at the entrance of that road, if not already in it. Harry would have left him be, normally, after all the young Malfoy becaming a Death Eater was not unexpected; that only gave Harry one more reason to hate him. But now, Harry felt uneasy. He did not want to watch the history repeated itself, he did not want to witness another person fell into the hand of darkness again, not if he could help it. Harry knew what he should do. He would try and stop the young Malfoy from taking that road.

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Harry didn't talk much during the feast. It felt strange to be among the Gryffindors again. He felt... out of place. He listened to the conversations around him absentmindedly and frowned as Ron talked about what happened in the train and how evil the Slytherins were. Yes, the Slytherins were cunning, but that did not make them evil. Most Slytherins were prejudiced against those who were not pureblood, as they were taught to be, but they were not heartless. They cared about their housemates, maybe even more so then the other houses, because no one else would care for them and no outsiders could understand them. Though Harry did not get along too well with the Slytherins when he was part of it and he was not at all agreed with their view of 'blood', he had learned to respect and appreciate their loyalty to their house, and their families.

He sighed; the Gryffindors would never understand this, they were just too... Gryffindor.

'Oh stop it, Harry, you are a Gryffindor, a Gryffindor who is too Gryffindor for his own good,' his inner voice said.

Harry ignored the voice and turned his gaze to the head table. His eyes rested on Umbridge. That toad woman was clearly sent here by the Ministry and he was the one she wanted to control beside Dumbledore.

'Great. Another Defense Against the Dark Arts Professor who hates me,' Harry thought sarcastically.

Next to Umbridge was Dumbledore. The old man was still ignoring him; he didn't even look straight at Harry, as if looking into his eyes hurt...

Hurt? Something stirred in Harry's mind. Nicolas said something about his eyes before; he said he saw another pair of eyes in them after Harry dreamt of Tom. Then it clicked, Dumbledore did not look into Harry's eyes because Harry and Voldemort were connected. He was afraid Voldemort could use Harry to harm him. A sudden anger rose within Harry. Dumbledore should have told him! The old man simply avoided him and hid the truth from him. What if Harry didn't already know? Voldemort could have possessed him!

Suppressing his anger, Harry turned away from the headmaster; there wasn't anything he could do against him anyway.

Harry found himself staring straight into the narrowed eyes of Snape. The potions master was observing him with a calculating look and the look turned into a glare as he saw Harry looking back at him. Harry held his gaze for a while before averting Snape's eyes. Harry smirked inwardly. The man would be surprised at how well Harry was at Potions now. After all, how could he not be after spending a year with Nicolas Flamel and Tom Riddle? He wondered how Snape would react if he knew Harry had been sorted into Slytherin; but there was no way Harry would tell Snape what happened anyway.

If only he knew how wrong he was...