The Sun Sets Twice Again

Tom Riddle stood just outside the Slytherin Common Room, facing an unmoving stone wall. He had the ridiculous urge to kick it but he refrained, remembering the time during second year when he had attempted that method after being locked out and nearly fractured his foot. Glowering at the stone he sighed and shook his head; alright, so he couldn't get into the Slytherin dorms-- it certainly wasn't the end of the world. He didn't particularly wish to be in there either, he realized. He hadn't even intended to come here when he had walked out of the library. He hadn't been paying much attention to where he was going at all, actually, which was probably why he had ended up where he had; the path was so ingrained in his mind from four years of taking it that his feet automatically went that way when not directed. At least he hadn't subconsciously wandered to the room he used farther down in the dungeons, though he wouldn't have been surprised to find himself there.

He frowned for a moment then nodded to himself as he made a decision. Walking away from the stone door masquerading as a wall, he turned left. Tom knew this path would lead him deeper into the dungeons, past the older, unused classrooms and the empty storage closets. There was a stairwell behind a portrait of a pit of intertwining snakes that he had charmed years ago to open only to him, using his blood to recognize him. The charm would supposedly withstand the test of Polyjuice Potion, though he had never had cause to find out if that was true. So it was a gruesome way to do something, but highly effective in its own way. Dumbledore, of course, could more than likely override the enchantments, as Tom had only been a second year when he had originally done them and a fourth year when he reinforced them, but Tom was fairly certain that no other person in the castle was capable of breaching the particular combination. Well, not consciously at least, though wild magic had been known to override all sorts of things in desperation when backed up with enough power. Not that anyone had cause to be emotional about him really, even if they happened to be aware of this room, which they weren't. Still, he thought it quite possible that Harry, if anyone, could break the charms; he clearly had the power needed and the emotions to support them. However, if he did do so, it would undoubtedly be bad for Tom's health, because it was obvious that the only extreme emotions Harry currently harbored were rage and disgust.

He shook his head, ignoring his thoughts and their conclusions about Harry Potter for the moment, and pulled his wand from a pocket of his robes, placing the point of the wand to the tip of his index finger on his right hand before muttering 'inciso'. He moved the wand away, staring impassively at the bright red beads of blood gathering on his fingertip. Blood didn't bother him, not just because he wasn't squeamish or because he had gotten used to it-though both those things were true-but because in its own way blood was affirmation of life. As long as blood continued to come from the body, the body was still alive. Even the pain was a telltale sign of living, and so it was easy to ignore the pain as he traced a foreign, familiar symbol in the corner of the painting, watching the lithe, slithering brown and green bodies slide over, licking up his blood. The action was nearly ritualistic and he had always found beauty in ritual; elegance in a truly ugly world. As he heard the revealing click of the portrait unlocking he smiled, bringing his finger to his mouth and sucking away the drops of blood before healing it with a simple spell.

He slid the painting to the side, ignoring the disgruntled hissing from jostled snakes, and stepped down the first stair, following the spiraled stone stairs in the semi-darkness. He was plunged into true darkness, though the corridor hadn't been well-lit to begin with, as the painting closed over the gap in the wall with a muted bang. Twenty-three steps, he counted mentally, skipping over the disappearing seventeenth. He knew he could do this nearly unconscious, as he had ended up testing that particular theory after an unfortunate encounter with one too many boys at once during his third year. And people thought Gryffindors had a sense of fair play. He'd gotten the whole lot of them back twice over for that stunt in the end, however, so he could be gracious about it.

At the bottom of the stairs was a door, black and plain, which Tom opened easily and shut tightly behind him, sealing it with a spell he knew a simple alohomora couldn't break. He was perfectly aware that his actions were vaguely paranoid, but with Dumbledore watching him they probably weren't nearly enough to ensure his privacy. Still, he needed to think and was willing to take what he was allowed, for the time being.

"Lumos."

As the room was filled with a low silver light, he grinned; it was still here as he remembered it. He walked over to the wall, looking for the candles he expected to find hidden behind a loose stone. They were there and he brought them out, setting them in the candle holders attached to the walls before lighting them. Even as the silver light faded the candles were lit, never quite putting the room back into complete darkness. He frowned at the golden-red flames, light points on a compass, before muttering one more spell, casting the flames in green and silver instead.

Now that there was light to see by he began to examine the area. The room itself was average, three metres by four, with stone walls bare of adornment. The stone floor was covered by black rugs, faded to grey and worn around the edges with age. At the far corner of the room was a bed with a silver and green blanket, also discolored with age. He didn't bother to check the bed, though eventually he would see if it was still intact. To his left was a desk and he walked over to that. There were four drawers but three of them, as he expected, were empty save for a bottle of now dry ink and a dull writing quill. The fourth drawer, running across most of the length of the desk, also appeared empty, but a simple revealing charm modified for the particulars of the drawer showed it to be full. There was a set of parchments with preserving charms and two books. Both of the books were old, with eaten away edges and loose pages, having already been used when he had acquired them. As a non-qualified wizard, both books were considered illegal possessions. After quickly flipping through them he determined that they were intact and replaced the concealing charm. He was surprised the books were still there but it did bode well, meaning that it was possible that Dumbledore hadn't discovered this room. A quick check of the wardrobe, still stocked with potions and ingredients instead of clothing, showed that everything was still there as well, untouched except by age, which was easily remedied.

He sat down on the bed tentatively and was pleased to find it was still usable. Shedding the layer of robes he lay back down against the pillow, his feet an inch from the end of the bed. He'd need to transfigure the bed to a larger size if he grew any more. The quilt was rough beneath his back and he rolled his shoulders, trying to ignore the itching friction on his bare skin. The silver and green flames flickered over the bed, his trousers, his skin, and the ceiling, a warm, lulling pulse of flame. He blinked and grinned as he realized that the candles' fire was flickering in time with his heartbeat. He knew that was an occasional side-effect of using elemental magic, because it was inter-connected more with the caster than the wand focus. His wand had a phoenix feather, matching his temperament, causing it to be easier to cast fire and air-based magic, while making earth and water-based spells much more difficult.

That reminded him of the book that he had been reading before, The Reign of You-Know-Who, which he was relieved to not be reading when Harry had entered. He found reading a book about the person you were speaking to even more uncomfortable than reading one on yourself, or in this case your future-past self. Apparently, the Boy-Who-Lived-who becomes famous for merely living?-had a wand core of a feather from a phoenix named Fawkes. He was certainly surprised that no one in the books he had read had noted that they, Harry and he, had related wands, though that supported the theory that few people were aware of the connection between Tom Riddle, with that wand, and Lord Voldemort, whose wand seemed to be unknown. Tom wondered if Harry was aware of their brother wands, but as Ollivander cared to note things while one was looking for their own wand, he was fairly certain that Harry would be conscious of it in general, if not in the significance of having related wands.

He had to admit, he had been surprised. He heard the boy coming, of course, and felt prepared, but yet he hadn't been. The boy had light steps and glaring eyes, the glinting of his glasses obvious in the darkness if you were used to it. Tom hadn't said anything when the other boy had appeared, choosing instead to watch him. In the near darkness of the enclosure Harry was a silhouette against the gap in shelves, like a back lit shadow. Tom could feel the power and anger and fear radiating off of the boy, like an undercurrent of whispered energy barely contained within his flesh and blood and bone. Tom knew immediately that he would like this boy, even if he hated him, and that he would have a fascination with Harry Potter that had less to do with his fame and more to do with his ability. The boy just screamed power, and Tom had always been attracted to power, especially when it was vulnerable.

The books on him were in reference to a child, both as an infant who was unaware of what had been done to him and what he had done, and then to a boy too small for his age, looking awed by the magic that surrounded him. The pictures, for the most part, stopped at the beginning of his second year, but they were more than enough for Tom to see the similarities between them. At least the superficial ones. They looked alike in a way, both of pale skin and dark hair, though the glasses the other boy wore, the sharpness of his own features, and the difference in the colours of their eyes were enough to distance any possible thought of relation. Harry Potter had vibrant, bright green eyes that, if Tom was fond of poetry, he might describe as the colour of maple leaves in September before they began to change shades and molt. His own eyes were grey-blue tinged and lined with green. It gave them a decidedly stormy look, especially when he was angry. Tom's eyesight was perfect as well, so he had no need for glasses. The roundness that Harry's face and limbs had held at twelve due to baby fat, in spite of his gaunt, underfed look, was something Tom had grown out of at a young age, even before he came to Hogwarts the first time. Still, they looked alike, in their own ways, probably only accented by their other semblance.

No, instead it was the similarities hidden between them that interested Tom. The book shed light on a few from their past and now their present: both orphans, half-bloods, raised outside the wizardry world. Both from powerful blood on one side, and more importantly, both powerful in their own right. Still, it wasn't until the meeting that he was certain of anything; that convinced him, and he now knew why, in part at least, his future self might want to kill this boy. He could see the possibilities in Harry Potter as readily as he could use them in himself, and power was a truly dangerous thing in its extremes. It wasn't just that the boy was powerful, for more than a few wizards were, but that it was obvious he had an inherent grasp of his magic. Nothing, not even death, would be able to separate the two from each other.

It wasn't just genetic, or happenstance, or a random twist of what-could-be; it was fate. As Dumbledore had been fated to be great, as Tom himself was to be, so was Harry Potter. There was never any other possibility there; even if the magic was suppressed, like Tom's had been, it would manifest itself, growing in force and magnitude until it was freed and trained or until it destroyed everything around it except the person at its source. Magic was like that, unstoppable, but for certain wizards and witches it was as necessary to one's health as breathing and eating. Never in a Mudblood however, not once, not where the wizard or witch lived and remained sane enough to tell of it. He didn't bother wondering if it was true or just the insistence of the pureblood extremists, for fact or not it could be used to his advantage. He found he didn't care whether it was true or not, either, for the same reason. He found he didn't care whether it was true or not, either, for the same reason. It was believed by enough people that they became vulnerable in that belief. He had use to find that angering, that the purebloods believers didn't realize that their fervent faith in all that was powerful and strong and pureblooded made themselves weak.

Now, it was just another tidbit of information stored for later use and exploitation. Not that he didn't agree with them in some regards; he most seriously believed that Muggle-borns and half-bloods should be taken from the Muggle world at an early age, even if it did require integrating some full Muggles into the society, and raised like proper wizards and witches. He wasn't stupid enough to ignore that the magical world was too small to sustain itself without new blood, and resigned himself to that the fact that half-bloods like himself not only would always exist but needed to always exist. If nothing else he had proven that one could transcend the limitations of their blood. He hadn't bothered trying to convince the Slytherins of that, not the ones who put so much stock on something that could so easily be bled out of them at least, and instead had started using their own obsessions against them. He had succeeded as well. Then again, failure truly wasn't an outcome he could abide.

He had failed in regards to Harry Potter, of course, and it had apparently nearly cost him his life. He felt that maybe this should have made him angry, but being so detached from the situation, both in time and mentality, had its benefits. There was also the fact that he had, in a way, succeeded against him as well. He had survived and returned, and even now others were gathering force on his behalf. Also, the boy offered him respite. Because of Harry Potter, though inadvertently, Tom had every chance to do all the times he cared to do over again. Not that Tom felt a single bit of gratitude for this, as it had been an accident and it had caused him to do something incredibly risky and more stupid than he really cared to own up to. Christ, the ways in which the restoration spell could have gone wrong had his skills not been up to par. Of course, his skills were almost exclusively up to par, ignoring the pesky record regarding the now-Gryffindor Golden Boy. And even that he would have figured out in time, if he so decided to remain here.

He already knew, knew the second he met Harry, what his decision was, of course. The boy was powerful and so unbelievably innocent for all that he had witnessed, and was beautiful, in his way. That sort of raw power, so barely tapped, so pure, was an enticing draw, though Tom could understand why his older self would want to destroy it. He just didn't agree. Something like that needed to nurtured and cherished and taught; quietly and slowly altered to refine its rawness, to harness its power, to taint the belief without deconstructing it. So, yes, Harry needed to be taken care of-- not by disposing of him, that would too big a loss to accept, but by understanding him and giving him reason to understand the other sides, including the side Dumbledore had no doubt already poisoned him against. In a manner, he needed to become like Harry for Harry to become like him. Still, Tom was sure it would be worth it, if it worked, and he was certain it would work. He had already offered up part of himself, he was already under the boys' skin and he could practically feel it; in short, the foundation had already been laid. All he had to do was coax out the boy he had seen under all the righteous indignation, the confusion, the fury-- and soon; he would have three entire years to do it. More than enough time.