SUMMARY: Fourteen year old Harry Potter is sick of the Wizarding World and everyone it. Well, almost. With help of a sixteen year old Tom Riddle, Harry shows the world it's time to treat him with respect.

Rating: M. For a reason folks. You've been warned. Don't be surprised later on.

Characters: Harry Potter. Tom Riddle. Draco Malfoy. OC. Dumbledore.

Warnings: Violence. Vengeance. Dark Magic. Backstabbing. Mental and emotional abuse. Pureblood politics. Possessed diaries. Teenage Dark Lords. Manipulation.

-Pseudonymous

Sometimes I don't want to get better

Sometimes I can't be put back together,

Sometimes I find it hard to believe, there's someone else who could be,

Just as messed up as me

A lissome boy with inky hair stooped over a bubbling cauldron in an abandoned classroom. Pale yellow light reflected on his face, showing lips pulled between white teeth absently. Emerald orbs rimmed with thick dark lashes shined with curiosity and determination. His attention flickered between the heating liquid and a set of notes on the desk beside him. From the outside looking in one might see an avid potions researcher seeking a place to work without disturbance. One might see a student working diligently to better their-self at a subject in which they perform less than adequately. One might see a prankster readying a potion of their own invention to reek havoc on these hallowed halls. What one might not see, after casually glancing in, is that something life altering was progress.

No turning back now.

Harry Potter was going to change the world. Right now. In this moment. And then they would see. Dumbledore with his ever twinkling eyes and subtle manipulations. Hermione, whom he hoped choked on her self-serving ideals. Ron who teased him for his looks and his fame and his moniker (the-boy-who-live and more recently Slytherin's heir). Malfoy who noticed all of it and found it funny. Maybe, if their places were changed, he'd find it funny too. The blonde had warned him after all.

He was tired of everyone walking on eggshells around him. Speaking down to him in soft condescending tones, soothing his worries with pats on the head and promises of more information when he was ready. Of the small, humoring smiles when he requested passes to the restricted section or asked questions above his year. Apparently he was only the Savior of the Wizarding World when it suited them and at all other times he was a naive child who oughtn't know anything about the reality of the situation. Well, no more. No more being underestimated. No more being ignored. Being used.

Harry spooned a small amount of potion into a vial and grinned wickedly. If he succeeded, they'd acknowledge him then. They'd see him then. He would be famous for his own merits and no one would dare mock him. Not for his looks or his short stature or his parentage. They would see him now. The real Harry. He turned and stepped into a circle drawn on the stone floor with ashes and salt. Harry took a calming breath, brought the vial to his lips and tipped it just enough to taste. A series of thundering, rolling booms startled him. It took a great deal of self-control not to jump out of the circle as the world around him shimmered, blurred and swirled around him. Then, just as suddenly as it began, it stopped. Harry immediately toppled over. Not quite the entrance he'd imagined.

"You're here..." a low voice whispered.

Rubbing the back of his head, face flushed with embarrassment, Harry sat up. To his left, across a large, wet hall stood the key to his success. The Yin to his Yang. The tracle to his tart. Insert other ridiculous metaphors here.

His equal.

"Riddle." He greeted, saluting cheerily. Harry stood and wiped the grime off his dark tunic and slacks. A grimace flickered across his face. Yuck.

"You're here." Riddle, eyes glimmering, calculating, observing, said again.

"Apparently."

"In my diary."

"Yes."

The older boy took a single step forward and paused. "With me." Tom Riddle shoved his hands into his pockets and strolled across the chamber. Harry began backing up, a tiny measure of alarm prodding at him in the back of his mind. Tom stopped a breath away, his left hand brushing the fringe from his forehead. Long fingers skittered across his face. Blue eyes met green and Harry felt his breath hitch, a shudder of apprehension flowing through him. He believed it was warranted, sixteen or not this was still Voldemort. "Harry?"

"Yes. It's me Tom."

Riddle brushed fingers through Harry's hair and down his neck feeling his pulse point and back to his face. "You managed to retrieve me from the girl. She stole me from his office you know. Dumbledore's. I don't remember how I got there Harry. Are you the reason why? "

"Yes. You've been asleep for a while now. I'm in my fourth year."

The hand cupped his cheek, slid along his jaw and allowed a pale finger to trace his lips. "Why are you here Harry?"

Harry swallowed and ordered himself to breathe. "They..." he trailed off searching for the proper words, "they think they know me. And using the information they have supplied, they dare to choose my future for me. They dare to judge my worth, my potential. The treat me like a shiny weapon one day and a naive child the next." He paused.

Riddle waited patiently, a peculiar, possessive gleam forming in his eyes.

"But they don't know me. None of them. They don't even try." as if in answer to his raging and confusing emotions, the pools of water rippled, the lights flickered and cracks spidered along the stones. Resentment and jealousy and bitterness and a mess of other emotions he'd never allowed himself to acknowledge radiated off him in a stormy aura. Years of frustration released from their chains of denial and self-loathing. He dug his nails into the palms of his hands hard, blood trickling from them. "I am not some... some golden child with rose-coloured glasses and hopeful dreams. I've seen the world. The real world. I lived in it. This..." He gestured around them as well as he could with Riddle standing so close, "this is a fantasy. All their talk of equality and understanding and tolerance. They only tolerate people like them. And...and if you're different...if you're truly special...they mock you. They fear you. They try to manipulate you..." He closed his eyes, took a breath, opened them and raised his vial with the remaining potion in it. "Freedom." Harry handed it over.

Riddle took it with his right hand and stared. "You would release me?"

"I've seen reality. I'm doing my best to change it to suit my needs. I need a new ending, the previous one was less than satisfactory. And, in any way, I've seen enough to know what I'm doing." Harry answered in English.

"What could you have seen? You're only a child."

He smiled bitterly. "Am I?"

Sharp eyes focused on him. "Harry, I have to tell you that this is most unwise. They aren't going to forgive you for this."

Said boy tilted his head, eyes hardening. "So what? Why should we have to stand in the corner, suffering in silence while everyone else walks around with painted smiles on their faces, wearing mass-produced rose-coloured glasses like everything is right in the world? Like everything is okay? Fuck that. Misery is a selfish bitch. They should join the party."

Tom's lips twitched, pulling upward. He ran his free hand through Harry's inky locks and pulled him into a strange embrace. A hug, Harry supposed. Though he hadn't had enough in his life to really be certain. Tom whispered quietly, "I will show you the darkness they fear so and then I shall use it to free you from your cage of synthetic light..." He was pushed back gently, just enough to come face to face with Riddle. "Do you remember and accept I am? Who I will become?" Tom asked. He brought up the vial and poured the rest of the potion into his mouth.

Harry stared back, a wicked smile playing on his lips. "Yes."

His back hit the wall and cold lips crashed on to his. Green eyes widened. Fingers pulled his hair in a vice like grip and a tongue coated with the rest of the potion flicked into his mouth. The world blurred around them, it spun and reformed into a shadowed room with a cauldron in one corner and two dark-haired orphaned boys standing together, in a newly made fragile, alliance within a circle painted in salt and ashes.

Harry's blood soaking in without either of them noticing.