Chapter Text
Harry felt strange, but it was a relatively recent thing. For the past week he had felt…odd, out-of-sorts, and his head pounded in a rather unpleasant way whenever he thought too much. But what was more, he had to avoid Tom Riddle, his roommate at Wool’s and his least favorite person at Hogwarts.
Oh, sure, they had grown up together. But that was about it. Harry could not recall a single, pleasant exchange between them during their childhood. He remembered living in fear of Riddle, of having to play nice with the other boy because if he didn’t…well, he would end up like he did in the cave. And that was a bad memory.
Besides that, Harry had very nearly died when he tried to stop Riddle from murdering his family just this summer. As far as he remembered, Riddle had nearly killed his entire muggle family—and that was something Harry couldn’t forgive. The only reason he had stopped was because of the maid. Harry had pointed out that if Riddle didn’t want any witnesses, if he killed the maid too, it would have left too many traces that pointed back to him.
Harry had almost died that night due to Riddle’s insanity. So, as of now, and after talking to Dumbledore about it, Harry felt certain he should just stop associating with Riddle altogether. It was for the best.
If only Riddle didn’t have it in his mind that he wanted to talk to Harry. It took everything Harry had just to avoid the other boy and his persistent followers.
Lestrange even went as far as pairing up with Harry for potions one class, and the other boy hated his guts. Orion sent him an apologetic look before Slughorn took over the lesson.
“Look, Peters. If you think avoiding Tom will last forever, let me tell you…”
But Harry had already mentally shut him out. He would avoid Riddle forever, if he could help it.
One week went by, and Riddle started to change tactics. Harry only noticed because the other boy stopped trying to pester him. Indeed, while Harry ignoring Riddle was somewhat obvious to anyone watching, Riddle soon took the same attitude as well. During class, the other boy did not so much as glance in Harry’s direction, and at lunch, Riddle took no more notice of him than anyone else at the Slytherin table. If anything, Riddle took even less notice of him than anyone else, his eyes drifting by Harry as though he were a fly on the wall. Which was fine. It was just what Harry wanted. He wanted Riddle to leave him alone; it was for the best.
Then why—
His head hurt.
Orion Black knew something was wrong with Harry. But what, why, how, were all things he couldn’t answer. He seemed fine enough with Orion, but whenever Tom Riddle was involved, Harry would complain about a headache.
If it was just that, he might not have suspected anything. But when Riddle asked him for a favor (or, more accurately, used the vow to be certain Orion would obey), he knew it was something more… serious.
First of all, Riddle wanted him to trick Harry into meeting him at a certain spot. Riddle said he would take care of it from there. But it was Orion’s job to make sure Harry went alone.
It was an easy enough task. Orion had already asked, and he knew Harry would meet him anywhere, even past curfew. But still. It was something Orion didn’t want to do. What would Riddle do to Harry? Would Harry feel betrayed, given that the other boy would be expecting him, and not Riddle, to be there waiting?
Well. It certainly felt like betrayal. And that was something Orion had a hard time dealing with.
Ever since the dance was announced, Orion was feeling down about everything. He wanted to tell Harry about his possible family with the Potter’s, but he also didn’t want Harry involved with the current Dark Lord of Europe, who was targeting the Potter family. Add to that, Grindelwald was demanding on his father, trying to gain access to Hogwarts and, for some reason, Dumbledore. Orion had briefly met the insane man, once, over the summer holidays this year. It was excruciatingly painful, for when Orion met the man’s eyes, Grindelwald had torn open his mind in an attempt to see if he knew anything useful.
When he was cleared and finally deemed insignificant, his father had ordered him to stay away from his study while the man was visiting. Orion had never been happier to obey his father.
As for the yuletide dance, Orion knew he would be expected to ask some pure-blooded girl in Slytherin—quite possibly Walburga, his screeching, banshee cousin in third year, the one who his father and mother had arranged for him to marry. The thought made him shudder. He would have had to ask her… if the dance wasn’t restricted to fifth year and up. Thank Merlin.
No, if Orion had any say, he wanted to ask—
No.
I can’t.
He wouldn’t even say yes.
For years, Orion had been harboring a secret crush on his best friend. He had been of hopeful, at the beginning term, when the dance was first announced— hopeful and naïve enough to think that maybe, just maybe, Harry would agree to go with him. But then he had caught the dark looks from Riddle, the small smiles from Harry in return—and he knew, without a doubt, that Harry would want to go with Riddle. It was as obvious as daylight that they had something between them, and it depressed Orion even more when he thought about it.
But now, Harry was suddenly averse to Riddle in every way. It was strange, true, but Orion couldn’t help it. He was getting all hopeful again. That maybe he still had a chance….
Stupid. Don’t even think about it.
Because Riddle was oddly possessive over Harry, his childhood friend. Any attempts to distance the two would be met with Riddle’s fury.
Besides…he knew the truth. If Orion did ask—if he even thought to ask—
Riddle would rip his head off.
When Orion asked Harry to meet him in the middle of the night, Harry had not thought much about it. When he said they needed to talk, Harry didn’t doubt that his friend knew something was bothering Harry—just as, even since last year, Harry had known something was bothering Orion too.
To put it mildly, something was affecting their friendship. Harry felt he couldn’t…confide in Orion, not nearly as much as he used to. Harry was silently worried that the other boy wanted to end their friendship, even after years of being friends—Orion had been oddly distant since the start of term, and not even Elieen could tell him why. And while Harry had been attempting to distance himself from Riddle, Orion had bore the most of Harry’s frustration and anger. It was…unfair…to ask Orion to keep helping him avoid Riddle. In all likelihood, Orion was tired of Harry. He was, after all, heir to the House of Black. It wasn’t like he needed Harry’s friendship….
Shaking his head of his thoughts, Harry waited in a small, abandoned classroom on the third floor. Whatever he wanted to talk about, Orion was late. Harry had not been sleeping in the dormitory since last week, so Harry did not know when Orion had left. But surely, he must be coming soon.
Perhaps it was instinctual, but Harry knew something was off the moment the door creaked open—Riddle walked inside, with Orion hovering just beyond the boundary. His friend looked so apologetic and worried, Harry did not immediately grasp what was going on until Riddle spoke.
“Thank you, Black. You may leave now.”
“Harry, I’m sorry I—”
“Leave.” And in a wave of wandless magic, Riddle slammed the door shut in Orion’s face. Harry did not have time to analyze his feelings of betrayal before his attention turned to Riddle, who, for some reason, was being cautious.
They stared at each other, and Harry felt his headache increase with every passing second.
“What do you want Riddle?” Harry said vehemently, tired of the games Riddle wanted to play.
But when Harry spoke, Riddle visibly flinched as though he had been slapped. Harry didn’t say anything surprising, but still… he wondered what had caused such a reaction.
“Harry. Did you really think you could evade me forever? We need to talk. Tell me what happened with Dumbledore last week... it’s the source of all this… confusion.”
As Riddle waited for an answer, Harry’s headache grew. He clenched his eyes shut to withstand the pain.
“I don’t—Dumbledore warned me about you…but I already knew. I decided I’d had enough of playing nice. You nearly killed your family, Riddle! You would have killed me too if not for—!”
Without warning, Harry’s voice was cut off with a silencing spell. He glared at the other boy for the interruption, but apparently, Riddle was looking at him with narrowed eyes.
“You—”
Harry’s wand was in his hand, banishing the spell and allowing him to speak once more.
“Leave me alone, Riddle. You have some weird obsession with me, just because we live together in the orphanage…but I barely know you at all. So, leave me alone. I’ll only ask once.”
Riddle seemed speechless at Harry’s tone. For nearly a minute, he didn’t say anything. He merely stared at Harry eerily from across the room, his dark eyes assessing and nearly black in the night.
Harry winced at a particularly sharp throb in his mind. He sank to his knees, clutching his aching head against the cool floor. Merlin, why did his headache have to be so active around Riddle, of all people?
“Don’t!” Harry shouted when Riddle moved closer, waving his wand aimlessly in the other boy’s direction.
“Harry—what?”
“Just leave me alone! Merlin, why are you so persistent? I don’t need—”
Harry’s headache was only building, and his vision was blurring, but he needed to stand up and leave. Only doing so was proving too much of a challenge. Riddle was watching him struggle to his feet—damn him—before Harry finally collapsed to the floor, shivering from an unexpected chill.
Harry didn’t think he imagined the concerned look on Riddle’s face as he finally succumbed to the darkness—it was impossible, but then again, Harry was too tired to care.
As Tom followed Black that night to the designated spot, he did not know what he was expecting…but in truth, he did not anticipate the conversation to go the way it had. Harry had called him Riddle, for instance, not Tom. That had…unexpectedly hurt.
But something was wrong. That much was obvious. Whatever Dumbledore had done to the boy, it was clear now that it was causing Harry to be physically unwell. When Harry sank to his knees, and it took every ounce of self control not to go immediately to the boy’s side. He finally lost this control when Harry collapsed to the ground, his face going deathly pale and clutching his head.
Was it his scar? No, that wasn’t—
“Black! Get in here.”
He knew the foolish boy had been waiting at the door, wanting to apologize to Harry for his apparent betrayal. Tom did not care. He needed an explanation.
When Orion hastily opened the door, he stopped at the sight of Harry on the floor.
“What—? What’s going on? Why is—”
“Was there anything you forgot to mention, Black, when we last spoke?”
“I don’t under—”
Tom sighed, then left Harry on the floor as he rounded on Black.
“I do not have time for this. I should have done this earlier. Legilimens!”
Tom hastily entered the Black heir’s mind, searching for a cause to Harry’s sudden collapse. He searched for the most recent memories, held back his anger when he realized Orion’s intentions for the dance, and then found what he was looking for.
Black collapsed himself from the sudden intrusion when Tom finally exited his mind.
“A headache. It seems you forgot to mention this?”
“I’m s-sorry… my Lord, I didn’t think—" Orion whispered, but by then, Tom had already had enough of the other boy’s presence.
“Get out. I’ll deal with you later.”
“Yes…” When Black finally left the room, Tom turned back to Harry.
If this truly was Dumbledore’s doing, then there was nothing the medical ward at Hogwarts could do. The school was, essentially, in Dumbledore’s pocket. If the man wanted to keep Harry from Tom, then the staff would only readily comply.
No, this was something Tom had to deal with alone.
He had thought—had been terrified really—that being alone with Harry would trigger the Imperius curse on himself. It was the reason he had allowed Black to come along, after all. However, it seemed that either Tom’s occlumency barriers were stronger than he thought…
Or this was not the correct situation. His older self was waiting for something else to happen. What, Tom couldn’t possibly know.
Harry had said some very disturbing things, especially his accusation about Tom murdering his muggle family. Tom had silenced him from speaking about it openly—Black was at the door, after all. But the one thing that stood out the most was his claim that Harry barely knew Tom at all, and the assumption that they only associated because they lived together in the orphanage. Along with the boy’s headache… it was, quite possibly, the one thing Harry had said that made the least amount of sense. If Tom did not summon Harry himself, he might have believed the boy. If Tom did not spend every minute of his childhood with the other boy, the boy he had gifted to himself…Tom might have bought into those painful words.
But it was a mistake. Combined with the presence of a headache, a common symptom, it was the one thing that made it clear to Tom what exactly he was dealing with.
A memory charm. Possibly targeting the memories of Tom himself.
He felt it, then. A murderous rage at Dumbledore. How dare he touch his Harry? It was the only thing that made sense, and the only thing that seemed so ludicrous too… Tom was almost willing to believe it was Gellert Grindelwald himself who did this, not Dumbledore, leader of all things good and light.
As Tom knelt down next to Harry’s unconscious form, he felt simultaneously hopeless and lost. He could obliviate people. He could sweep into their minds and plant false memories, like he did at the Riddle house. But he was not an expert in fixing false memories…and wasn’t that the irony of the entire situation?
He gritted his teeth. He had to do something. Dumbledore could not win.
For now, however, Tom decided to levitate the boy back to the dormitory. He would need to research how to fix this properly. Tom would scour the entire Hogwarts library if that’s what it took. He still had to find a way around the Imperius curse, but that could wait, now that it seemed the curse was waiting for something more specific to happen. Besides, Tom knew the longer one waited to fix the memories, the harder it would be on the person once they were undone. Tom did not want Harry to suffer for anything he said or did under the influence of Dumbledore.
When Tom placed Harry safely back in his bed, taking off the boy’s shoes and pulling up the covers, he knew what he had to do…and it angered him beyond belief.
If his headache was any sign, Tom’s presence was clearly causing the boy mental anguish. So… until Tom could fix this…he would have to stay away.
If the thought was much harder to process for the rest of the night, Tom found solace in only one thought.
That, once everything was right again, he would murder Dumbledore.