Mirror Image

Chapter 1: Tom and Harry

HARRY'S POV

It was a morning like every other morning for Harry Potter. Dudley was threatening him, as usual. He had him pinned up against the wall in the middle of the crowded hallway, and it seemed nobody was paying attention, like usual.

"Gimmie your homework, freak. Or else I'll tell Mum and Dad that you stole mine, and then you'll get it..." Dudley trailed off, glaring threateningly at the boy who had approached them. "What are you staring at, new kid, this is none of your business. I'll cut you a break this time, but next time you won't get so lucky. This kid is a freak and he's just getting what he deserves. Everyone at school will agree with me. Those are the rules around here."

The boy was leaning against the wall, and he looked eerily similar to Harry. The only differences were that his eyes blue, not green, he was taller and better fed, his face was colder somehow, and his hair was perfect, not a single hair out of place. Besides that, he could have been Harry's twin.

Before Dudley's threat, the boy was just leaning against the wall looking mildly interested in the two of them, as if though they were a show for his entertainment. As Dudley finished speaking, his eyes flashed dangerously, making him look much older than ten years old.

For a split second he looked as if though he would like nothing better than to kill Dudley, and wouldn't mind taking Harry with him. Harry was suddenly very afraid. However angry Dudley got, he still looked and acted like a spoiled 10-year-old with a view of the world that centered on him. This boy's eyes were cold and empty, devoid of life.

Looking into the boy's flat eyes, Harry felt a fear that wasn't his own. It wasn't a fear of what was going to happen to him. It was the boy's fear, the fear of what he could do.

A moment later all of that was gone; he smiling apologetically, the image of a slightly nervous new kid, with just a hint of a sneer on his face, Harry feeling the anger coming from the boy, at all three of them, as well as confusion.

Without saying anything more, the boy walked off. Harry lost his connection with the boy's mind.

Dudley stood there looking confused. He seemed to have understood some of the danger he had been in a moment earlier. He turned and ran in the opposite direction down the hallway.

Harry sat on the ground for a while, trying to figure out where the knowledge of this boy's emotions came from, trying to remember how he had known that those emotions weren't his.

He opened his eyes and blinked. Everyone was going to classes, he couldn't just sit here.

...

Recess was always Harry's least favorite time of day. Dudley had seemingly recovered from this morning's events and decided to get back at Harry for failing to provide his homework. His gang and he were attempting to corner Harry.

Harry couldn't outrun them for much longer. His breathing was ragged. Getting on top of the dumpsters was probably his only chance. No one in Dudley's group was capable of climbing them. But they were too tall... he would never make it.

He closed his eyes and jumped.

He felt sick, like he had just been through a washing machine. He opened his eyes and terror flowed through him. He was on top of the roof.

Why? Why did all these things have to happen to him? His aunt and uncle were going to kill him. It was only October and they probably would lock him in his cupboard until Christmas. It wouldn't even matter if he could convince them he wasn't climbing the school building; if they believed that he had somehow managed to jump there while trying to get on top of the dumpster, he would get punished even longer for doing something "freaky and unnatural".

He was thinking furiously trying to figure out how to get down before any one saw. Dudley had yet to think of looking up to the top of the two story building, but someone would notice soon.

Someone had noticed. The strange boy from earlier was staring up at him. Harry could barely see him, but as they made eye contact, Harry was suddenly overwhelmed by a surge of emotions. Confusion, anger, excitement. And joy.

He was hit with the idea that him being on the school roof was the most wonderful thing that had ever happened. He couldn't remember why he would be upset. This was terrific.

NO! Why was he feeling emotions that weren't his own? Harry shook his head, breaking eye contact. He paused for a second, and then prioritized. Getting off the roof came first, understanding random emotions popping into head around this boy second.

He felt a pull, and then a jerk and he went flying off the roof. He was falling, the ground coming closer and closer, faster and faster. Then stopped.

He was suspended a foot off the ground.

The boy held out his hand. Harry stared at it uncertainly for a moment, then held out his own. He was pulled down to the ground.

"Hi, my name is Tom, pleased to meet you."

Tom looked so pleased with himself, his smirk not fading as he staggered, then collapsed on the ground.

"Are you okay?" Harry asked nervously. Tom had gotten himself off the ground and was pulling on Harry to move.

"I'm fine, I'm fine. Come on before those idiots" - the last word spoken in a snarl with so much loathing behind it Harry was frightened - "figure out where you've gone. Not that it's going to happen any time soon but..."

The bell cut off Tom in mid-sentence, causing another burst of anger from the boy.

Honestly, the kid gets mad over the littlest things. It's like he's a time bomb, waiting to explode.

Any other day Harry would be happy to hear that bell, and would consider it a good day since he hadn't been caught. But not today.

Tom staggered as Harry released him.

"Go on... Don't worry about me, I'll be fine. Meet me there" -he gestured at a tree- "after school."

"But, my aunt and uncle... I can't..."

"I said meet me there after school. Now go to class." Harry blinked. He had to meet Tom after school. Of course, how could he think otherwise?

...

Harry shook his head, already at his desk with no memory of how he got there. What had just happened?

...

Tom was waiting at the tree already when Harry got there. He shot him a glare full of icy rage.

"Sorry. Just wanted to see if I could, you know, not come. What did you do earlier?"

Harry didn't think this would improve Tom's mood at all, just give Harry more information to work with. Either Tom would think he was crazy, and mock him like everyone else for being a freak, or he would get mad because Harry had tried to resist whatever strange powers Tom had.

Unexpectedly, Tom seemed to cheer up. At least he didn't seem to be on the verge of killing Harry any more.

Harry stood there awkwardly for a minute, trying to understand what Tom wanted from him. Nobody spoke to him unless it was to humiliate him. He knew why, his aunt and uncle told him often enough.

He was a freak. Then weird things happened it was his fault. He thought he was the only one that was like that, but Tom seemed different from everyone else as well.

But he couldn't hope like that. Hope was dangerous. He was all alone. Tom was going to leave or realize that there was something wrong with Harry, and then he would be all alone again, and locked in the cupboard for good measure.

"Come on. My house is just a few minutes' walk away from here. I'll explain everything there. We can't talk here." Tom glared at the children surrounding them, as if though their existence was an insult to him.

As they walked in silence, Harry wondered some more about Tom. Why was he so angry all the time?

Tom had treated him better than anyone else he had ever met, but there was something very off about him. Harry thought Tom might be stranger than he himself was.

They walked briskly in silence, until Tom turned and faced one of the houses and said quietly, "This is my home."

The house was nicer by a small margin than the Dursleys'. Aunt Petunia would have had a fit if she had seen the garden, though. It was fairly well taken care of, but gave off the impression of growing wild and free, unlike the properly trimmed grass that grew on the front lawn of Number 4, Privet Drive.

"We need to avoid my mum." He said the word with a strange combination of uncertainty and contempt. "She'd be thrilled that I brought home a friend, but I'd rather she didn't make a fuss over you. I don't want to explain to her why you're here, since I'm not sure myself."

...

When they got to his room Harry asked uncertainly, "Why am I here?"

"Why do you think?"

Harry knew why, or thought he knew why. But he couldn't bring himself to say it.

What had brought them together was something that they had in common, something that Harry was forbidden to even mention. They were both magic.

Harry almost flinched just thinking the forbidden word. He would have to say it though. Tom was sitting on his bed waiting expectantly.

What if he was wrong? What if it was all a fluke and the freaky stuff that it looked like Tom did was really his fault as well?

He came to a decision.

"Magic, we're magic." Harry managed not to choke on the words.

Tom flashed him a smile.

"Yea, we are. Now I want you to meet my snake. We can talk about what we can do later."

Tom spoke to the room in general with in a harsh, hissing tone of voice, "Come here Nagini, I want you to meet my friend."

A long black snake came out from under the bed. Harry thought it looked like a cobra, but he couldn't be sure.

"Massster, are you sure this is wissse? The boy will probably be frightened by me. Do you not remember your guardians' resssponse?"

The snake's voice sounded weird, similar to Tom's, but to Harry it was still fairly clear English.

"The boy will not be afraid. Do you not trussst my judgment?"

From watching Tom earlier Harry would have thought this last sentence would be accompanied by some sort of a semi-lethal glare and some of Tom's icy fury, but surprisingly Tom didn't seem to care about the snake questioning Harry.

Harry was a little put out by the fact that they were speaking as if though he wasn't there, or that he couldn't hear them. Clearing his throat, he addressed the snake, "Er, Tom is right, I'm not ssscared-"

Harry was going to say more but the snake cut him off, addressing Tom in an incredulous sort of tone, "The boy is a ssspeaker? And you sssaid nothing?"

"Ssso it would ssseem-"

This time it was Tom that was cut off in mid sentence, this time by Harry.

"Why are you talking about me asss if though I'm not here? And what do you mean, ssspeaker? Of course I ssspeak English...and why are you looking at me asss if though I've grown an extra head?"

The last sentence was added as both Tom and Nagini looked at Harry with matching expressions of shock and disbelief. In Nagini's case, that was just a rough estimate. Harry didn't have much experience judging the facial expressions of snakes.

After a moment's pause, Tom managed to pull himself together. He put an unpleasant sneer on his face, and opened his mouth to speak. But Harry could see the amusement in his eyes.

Harry never found out what words of scorn Tom was going to say since Tom's self control broke at that moment, and he just fell on the floor laughing.

"Are you serious? Are you bloody serious? Can't you tell the difference between this and thisss."

Harry didn't appreciate being laughed at, especially when he didn't understand what was so funny. He was used to others laughing at him, but he had started viewing Tom as a... potential friend. His only response was a scowl.

"The second one's got more of an s... but, what is so funny?"

Tom laughed a bit more, but then his face clouded over. He frowned as he got up and took a deep breath. With a visible effort he spoke again, his voice sympathetic, but his eyes showing anger.

"I'm sorry for laughing. That wasn't very nice of me. Don't listen to the words; listen to the difference in sound."

"Now I'm speaking snake."

Harry almost started laughing at himself as he heard the hissing that didn't resemble human speech in the slightest. It was pretty stupid of him not to realize the difference, he thought. He wasn't mad at Tom anymore...until he realized that Tom had apologized with that anger in his eyes.

The apology was fake; Harry would have suspected that, even if he hadn't seen the anger and insincerity in Tom's eyes. His expression, his voice, his body language all screamed sincerity, but it was so out of his character that even after knowing him for only a day, it seemed impossible for him to make a true, sincere apology.

Tom was trying to manipulate him. He could have understood the fake apology, if Tom was afraid he would be angry, but the anger implied that Tom had to apologize, that the apology was forced.

Harry suddenly felt cold. This was too wonderful to be real; this had to be a trick. A mean cruel trick; that's why Tom was angry. The Dursleys had put Tom up to this, and he was apologizing to a person whom he didn't know, didn't like, a person who was a freak.

The second Harry reached that conclusion, he didn't think twice. It made so much more sense than magic, than him being special. He was worse than everybody else, not better.

Now Dudley could mock him, spread stories around the school that Harry believed in magic; in witches, wizards, dragons, and flying motorcycles.

He glared at Tom with all the hatred he could summon. He didn't wait to read his response, just stormed out of the house.

TOM'S POV

Tom was beyond furious. He couldn't remember being this angry in his life. The entire day had been a series of events that he had absolutely no control over. He hated feeling that way: vulnerable and weak. He hated not knowing what to do, how to react.

Tom woke up in a panic. Today was his first day in a new school.

He wasn't sure how he was going to cope, how to deal with so many children who didn't know him. At the orphanage, he gone to school with the same children he had known since he was just a baby. The children that had been at the orphanage avoided him like the plague, and the new kids were easily frightened of him with a mire glance, and then by the time they got over the initial nervousness, they knew better than to bother him with idle chatter.

But in this school, they would talk to him, try to introduce themselves and start conversations.

He would do fine, he was sure of it, he was resourceful and could adapt quickly. It shouldn't take too long for the children to learn that he was not to be bothered. And that people who irritated him would suffer the consequences.

He would spend the first few days blending in. He would settle for not being bothered in the beginning, he could live without any authority for a few weeks. Still, it was human nature to be nervous in a new environment, like the first day in a new school.

...

Some fat boy pushed around this other boy that reminded him of a scrawny, unkempt version of him. He observed with interest, to better understand the dynamics and social structure of the new school. Besides, watching others fight was interesting.

The fat boy noticed him watching, and insulted him, told him to mind his own business.

Tom could barley think past his raging fury.

No one had dared to insult Tom in years, even before he had gotten a good enough grasp on his abilities, of his magic, to be able to hurt others.

It never occurred to him that someone could talk back to him that way, without fear or respect. He was furious, not able to rein his rage in quickly enough. For a second he was afraid of what he was going to do. Last time he had lost his temper and lashed out with his magic, he had nearly killed another boy, and that had been almost a year ago. He had grown stronger since then. The dimwitted blob would be punished, he would make sure of that, but he didn't want to kill anyone, especially not with so many witnesses.

...

Tom had realized that he was magic when he was eight. His dream-self, Riddle, still didn't believe in magic, but watching a reflection of yourself in dreams fifty years in the past and learning things while you slept that you couldn't have possibly made up was pretty convincing.

...

The scrawny boy looked at him with those startlingly green eyes, and Tom felt the boy's emotions. He sensed the fear that the boy felt by looking at him, and for some inexplicable reason, he felt sure that the boy could see his emotions as well.

In the split second that he had been looking into the boys eyes, he managed to take a hold of his anger and put up an appropriate façade, the one that he had been planning to wear, and left the scene.

It was too late to convince these boys he was harmless, but there was no reason to alert the other children. Besides, the fat one looked dim enough to forget how quickly he changed moods, and the scrawny one didn't seem important enough to matter, though the emotion thing was strange.

He spent the rest of the morning puzzling over what had happened, but put it in the back of his mind until lunch time.

...

Tom was sitting on the playground watching the other kids interact, figuring out which people were powerful and arrogant enough to be a bother to him, and devising plans to cut them down to size.

Halfway through, he noticed the fat boy was picking on the scrawny boy again, chasing him across the playground with a few of his friends. The scrawny boy was doing a fairly good job of staying away, but he was slowly being forced into a corner by the group of boys. Tom thought it would be interesting to see what they did to the boy; since he was rather curious about the scrawny boy and felt generous today, if things got too violent he would go over there and deal with the fat blob and his friends. He wanted revenge for this morning anyway; it wouldn't hurt if he helped someone else out while getting it. Besides, he wanted to know what would happen if he looked into the boy's eyes again.

When the boy vanished in mid-air while trying to get on top of the dumpsters, and then appeared on the roof, Tom felt so many conflicting emotions he didn't know what to do. He was shocked and confused by the boy's disappearance and reappearance. Fury that he wasn't special anymore; he wasn't the only one that had special powers, that had magic. Joy at the same time, that someone like him was out there, that there were more interesting people than the empty minded, ordinary people around him. Then fury again, how dare the boys pick on someone with his powers and abilities, even if the scrawny boy wasn't as powerful, yet. Then joy again, the boy would be grateful to Tom for protecting him. The boy was obviously weaker than him, but still special. Tom could teach the boy, and get himself a follower, almost a friend.

Tom didn't want a true friend since he didn't believe in becoming attached to people, but the thought of being able to share his thoughts and theories on magic and playing games levitating objects sounded wonderful. As long as he didn't actually begin to care about the boy, he could have fun like that.

Tom wasn't used to feeling anything. When he did feel an emotion, it was usually anger, and he never felt more than one emotion at a time.

With the shock, surprise, happiness, and anger clouding his thinking, he didn't know what to do, how to react; it was all too new to him.

Then the boy noticed him, and he felt the boy's panic, and felt the boy's need to get off the roof fast, before someone else noticed him. In the back of his mind he also registered that the boy was sensing his emotions, again.

Tom had not been afraid for a long time. He wasn't prepared to the sudden surge of panic that the boy felt, and his magic reacted without his prompting for the first time in years.

His magic yanked the boy off the roof. Tom panicked, watching the boy fall towards the hard concrete, and his magic reacted again. The boy was hovering just above the ground, safe.

He tried to train his features into an expressionless mask, not wanting the boy to know that he was surprised, but was unable to keep the pleased smirk off his face, even when he collapsed due to the amount of magic he had used, right after introducing himself.

He managed to pick himself up quickly though, and started pulling the boy, Harry, who had returned the introduction, along to someplace where they wouldn't be noticed, putting in a cutting comment about the boys that had been bullying him earlier.

He would deal with them later, very harshly, but now he just didn't have the time.

As if though hearing his thought about the lack of time, the bell rang. He wanted to smash it, to break it into a hundred thousand pieces, for interrupting him. Now he would have to wait until after school, and his head was buzzing with questions he needed answered now.

Harry started something about not being able to come and meet him after school. Tom didn't have the patience for it. He simply reached out to his magic and concentrated on the command. "Meet me after school. Now, go to class."

And Harry went, his eyes glazed over.

The hours until school let out seemed like forever for Tom. When Harry didn't show up after school, Tom was furious. He couldn't handle not knowing. Nothing like this had ever happened to him before. He had never felt that everything was out of his control. He could have handled this if he was still at the orphanage, but not here, not now. Not when absolutely nothing was familiar.

His first thought was fury when he saw Harry arrive so late, but when he realized that this confirmed the fact that Harry was special, and he cheered up again.

Harry seemed very confused, which further cheered Tom up. At least Tom wasn't the only one who didn't know what was going on. The one thing that he absolutely hated was not knowing what someone else was talking about.

Tom felt that the most prudent course of action to get Harry's support was to be friendly, so he invited Harry to his house.

The word house sounded strange in his head. It was not one that he expected to think for another 8 years, until he was old enough to live on his own. He now had parents, a mum and dad. The words sounded even stranger in his head. He didn't think he would ever be able to say them out loud. But he would have too, unless he wanted to tell Harry that the Mason's weren't actually his parents. And the last thing he wanted was sympathy. It would make him lose his temper at Harry, and that would make him do something he would later regret.

That was more likely than ever to happen today. Normally he wasn't so volatile, so prone to changing his mood in a split second, but he was already unstable due to the sudden removal of everything he knew. He had gotten adopted two days ago and had only started adjusting to living with parents and leaving the orphanage, when someone else that had magic showed up out of the blue. He was good at adapting and improvising, but when so much was going on, he didn't quite know how to deal with it.

The walk home was silent as Tom tried to sort out all his feelings, determined not to lose control again today.

The word mum did sound strange to him as he explained why they were going in through the back door.

When Harry asked him to explain why he was here, he expected that Harry would either believe in magic or not. What he wasn't expecting was a feeling of panic so intense that Tom wanted nothing more than to hide under the nearest bed.

The boy was clearly terrified of what he was saying, even though he choked out magic as the answer. They would need to work on that. Tom was a bit confused as to why he would be so afraid, but had too much to think about already, and didn't dwell on it.

Tom called to Nagini, a name he had gotten from his dream-self. His instincts told him that Harry would not be afraid, and he always trusted his instincts. To his surprise, Harry spoke snake as well; maybe it was a magic thing.

The fact that Harry was speaking snake while utterly convinced it was English struck him as funny; he wasn't sure why, it just did.

Tom couldn't help but laugh, something he rarely did, since he rarely found anything funny. He passed it off as being slightly hysterical after all the events of the day. He really needed to get some sleep, and hopefully just have an ordinary day at the orphanage. At least if something happened at the orphanage he could ignore it, it wouldn't really matter anyway since he couldn't affect it.

He felt Harry's displeasure at being laughed at though, and remembered that people take being laughed at pretty harshly. He would know - he reacted worse than most.

He changed his features to show sympathy and regret, trying not to be angry at the fact that the only time he had laughed in months had to be cut short to avoid irritating this boy.

He had forgotten, for only a moment, of the fact that as he had noted twice that day. Harry could read his emotions.

But nonetheless, Harry saw the anger, and misunderstood it. At least Tom thought he misunderstood it, because he couldn't think of anything that would have created the spike of hatred and self loathing that he felt from Harry, followed by his immediate departure.

...