A/N: Welcome to year four! Yay! *Throws confetti*

Wow, time flies. I didn't think it'd take me over a month to get back to this series, but such is life.

So, the usual, this is book four of the series, Rewritten in Time. Be advised, it'd be best to begin at the start (Regrets Collect Like Old Friends) and go from there. Oh, and Over The Rainbow might be something to read as well, as it might be needed more as we get into more of that stuff now that several key characters in that story are BACK! But, as always, it is up to you what you read and don't read.

Here ends author's note.

Disclaimer: If you know it, it is likely from Goblet of Fire and I fail to own that.

Edited and reloaded 31 Oct 2013

Bleeding Nightmare Scar

He awoke to a scream. His first thought was it belonged to him, yet as he became more aware, Draco Malfoy knew it was not him who had screamed. Sitting up swiftly, he peered through the darkness towards the open door of the room he occupied at Grimmauld Place. He slowly got out of bed, crept out of the room, and started up the stairs towards where Harry Potter was staying. Draco pushed the door open and found Harry sitting up on the bed in the center of the room, panting.

"Harry?" Draco softly asked, watching his best friend attempt to get his breathing under control. "What happened?"

"Bad. Dream," Harry panted, hand rubbing his forehead.

Draco felt a jolt of fear surge through him at the sight of Harry rubbing the lighting bolt scar. It was a familiar sight— first year when Voldemort had been living in Professor Quirrell's head Harry could often be seen rubbing his scar. Logically, Draco knew Voldemort could not be anywhere near Grimmauld Place. Narcissa Malfoy had made sure all the enchantments were up to date on the house and active before she had moved him and herself into the house weeks ago.

They worked.

Harry hadn't been able to see the house and had no idea it was even there, hidden between eleven and thirteen till he was actually inside the place.

"Lanta knew what she was doing," Sirius had commented, staring at the spell Narcissa had used on top of all the other spells on the joint. (Orion Black was a very paranoid man and put a ton of charms on the place to hide it from everyone. Narcissa had added a few others.)

Harry had been unable to see the house till he signed some sort of enchanted document that had been spelled with one of the many spells Atlanta D. Black (they usually called her Addy as not confuse her with the current Atlanta Black) had invented— likely along help with TR DeVinette (also known as Tom Riddle the Not Ghost Who Was NOT Voldemort in Any Way).

Draco's head was still trying to wrap around that one. It was still strange each time he saw Tom (who he saw more often then he liked thanks to Harry having taken a liking to the not ghost, but not alive…thing).

"Harry? What's wrong?" Draco said, walking across the room towards the bed Harry was seated upon.

"Dream. Vivid," Harry muttered, still rubbing his forehead. "But, he's not here. He's…I don't know. He was with some blond guy."

Draco clutched the side of the bed.

His father was blond. His father was still somewhere in France. Draco hadn't honestly kept track since the man had gone after his mother had told Lucius Malfoy to get out of her sight.

Maybe he ought to inquire where the man had gotten off to?

"I'd never seen him before," Harry went on, burying his face in his hands.

Something within Draco unclenched and he let out a breath he hadn't realized he was holding. Draco sat down on the bed and watched Harry rub his face.

"What's wrong? What happened?"

Harry kept his face hidden as he spoke. "I was in a rotting room in a place that used to be posh. Voldemort was in a chair facing a dying fire and talking to the blond guy. I couldn't really understand them, but they were talking about the World Cup, Wormtail, someone named Bertha and Hilderbatch."

"Hilderbatch?" Draco asked, his voice hitching. "Atlanta's mother?"

"I don't know. They never said if the person was male or female," Harry admitted. "I didn't get the full conversation. I got snipits. Someone is going to the World Cup, the blond guy wanted to kill Wormtail, Bertha had told someone something and I don't know what they said about Hilderbatch, as I just kept hearing the name. It was like I was walking through concrete soup."

"Excuse me?" Draco asked.

Harry scrubbed his face with both hands.

"I couldn't move easily, but if I really wanted to I could wade," Harry said. "Anyways, words filtered through whatever I was seeing things through."

"Why'd you scream?"

"Voldemort killed someone. I don't know who. Couldn't see a face," Harry admitted.

He lifted his face, rubbing his scar. From the glimpses Draco caught as Harry rubbed, it looked raw, red and irritated. Draco grabbed Harry's hand and said, "Stop. You're…irritating it."

"What do you mean?"

"It looks angry."

"It feels…vindictive," Harry admitted. "I don't think I've felt vindictive before. Why do I feel vindictive?"

"I— I don't know," Draco admitted, dropping Harry's hand.

The two boys sat in silence, the only noises coming from creaks and groans the house made.

"Do you want to talk to Sirius or my mother?" Draco asked.

"What can they do? Sirius has been staring at my forehead in a peculiar manner since I got here," Harry muttered. "Sometimes he looks at it like it's leaking."

Draco frowned. "Leaking?"

"Yeah. His eyes trail around it like it's following a pattern or something. Sometimes Atlanta looked at me in a similar manner," Harry admitted. "But, it wasn't as creepy— as this was when she was still strange and singing all the time."

"Oh."

Draco had a good idea what was leaking out of Harry's head.

"Remember Atlanta mentioned the scar had magic attached to it?"

Harry nodded.

"May I? I can feel magic, just not see it like I guess they can."

"Oh," Harry breathed, realization dawning upon him. "Go a head. It doesn't hurt. It just…throbs oddly."

Draco reached a hand up slowly to Harry's forehead. He didn't need to get close before he felt something dark, sinister and very un-Harry-like. He could feel the un-Harry like magic curling and oozing out of Harry's forehead.

Draco shivered.

"It is leaking something…bad."

"Bloody hell."

Harry leapt out of bed, hurried out of the room, and down towards Draco's room. By the time Draco caught up with him, Harry had a pot of Flu Powder in his hand and was taking a pinch.

"What are you doing?" the portrait above the fireplace demanded. "It is not time for children to go calling."

"Shut up," Harry snapped.

He got into the fireplace (which magically grew to fit him) and threw a fist full of Floo powder at his feet.

"Flat three, Seventeen Park Quad," Harry shouted, twisting and twirling out of sight in emerald flames.

"Well, your mother won't like that one bit," the painting sniped.

"Oh, shut up," Draco snarled.

Grabbing his dressing gown, Draco headed downstairs. Even though it was darker than night in the house, as Draco headed down the stairs towards the ground floor, he saw dawn was nearing. The sky was growing lighter outside the long windows next to the door. Draco paused for a moment, peering out into the empty square across the street from the house. The neighborhood was quite run down and rather shabby. Draco was surprised his mother willingly was living within Muggle London in what wasn't the best area.

"Draco?"

Draco turned to find Sirius standing behind him.

Sirius looked better these days. He'd had a hair cut, his face was starting to fill out, and he was dressed in proper clothing as opposed to the rags he'd been in the first time Draco had met the man at the start of summer. The haunted look in his eyes, though, remained. Draco knew it would. It remained with all of those who were exposed to dementors for long periods of time. Where most people went insane after being exposed for as long and as often as Sirius had been, the man had a solid grip on his sanity— even without all the aid of the Mind Healers he'd had since he'd found freedom.

"What are you doing up?" Sirius inquired, holding what appeared to be a cup of tea.

"Harry had a nightmare, freaked out, and went to see Tom. I knew you'd be awake, so I figured I ought to let you know," Draco said in a rush.

The older man didn't often sleep more than a few hours each night and was often up prowling around at odd hours.

Sirius dropped the tea cup. It shattered on the floor, causing all the various painting in the entry to wake up.

"What was it about? Why did he go see Tom?"

"He said it was about Voldemort, a blond guy and he was in concrete soup," Draco reported as he heard his mother's bedroom door open over the din of the paintings jabbering.

"Huh?" Sirius asked, knitting his eyebrows together under his wavy hair that was going in all directions.

Narcissa Malfoy appeared at the very top of the stairs, looking over the railing.

"What are you two doing up at this hour? Sirius, what are you doing? You're bleeding."

"I am?" Sirius asked, looking down.

The cup had cut up his bare feet.

"I am," he stated, honestly looking surprised.

"Draco, what is going on?" Narcissa asked, coming down the stairs gracefully.

"Harry had a nightmare," Draco said. "He went to see…Remus."

Narcissa didn't know about Tom. Harry and Draco figured it was best not to tell her about the not ghost like thing that was quickly becoming Harry's new best friend.

Draco's jaw tightened at this thought, but he quickly pushed it away.

"Why would he go see Remus?" Narcissa asked, reaching the ground floor. "Sirius, sit down."

Sirius stared around the entry till he spotted a bench near the hat rack sitting near the door. He sat down on the bench after picking his way over the remains of the tea cup.

"I don't know. Because he was the only competent Defense professor we've had?" Draco offered, shifting uneasily.

Sirius also looked rather uneasy. "I'm sure he'll explain when he comes home."

"You could simply tell me the address," Narcissa huffed. "I don't know why you are so secretive. I do not plan to harm Remus in any manner. Harry's spent quite a bit of time over there. Has Remus even spoken to you yet?"

Sirius cast his eyes to the ground. "My feet hurt."

Narcissa pressed her lips together, but waved her wand. Sirius' feet mended and the pieces of the tea cup rearranged themselves back into a proper cup. Narcissa grabbed the cup and vanished the spilled tea.

"Did Harry mention what the nightmare was about?"

Narcissa's lips were pressed into a thin line.

"Voldemort," Draco replied. "He was pretty freaked out. He though, er, Remus might know something, since, uh, he's supposed to be a Dark Art's expert. Something with, er, his scar."

Sirius looked like he was dying to ask questions, but quickly went back to studying the floor as if it were the most fascinating thing on the planet. Narcissa frowned, holding the teacup on her finger by the handle.

"Understandable," she whispered. She looked between the two males and sighed. "Well, might as well get up and start the day. Dobby!"

Dobby cracked into existence.

"Yes, Mistress Narcissa?"

"We'll be having breakfast rather early. Only three of us at the moment," she said.

"Yes, ma'am."

Dobby cracked off.

"I'm going to send Remus an owl," she said, turning and going back up the stairs. "Breakfast will be in twenty. Be dressed. I don't need you two lounging around in your night things."

Sirius and Draco didn't move till Narcissa had vanished upstairs. Draco turned back to his cousin.

"Shouldn't we tell her?" Sirius asked. "I feel weird lying to her. And Tom can read that book she wants read."

Draco looked at the man in question.

"Never mind. You're right. Best not tell her. She'll just freak out."

Sirius stood up and ran off before Draco could demand he tell him what book Tom could read that no one else could. Without anything else to do, Draco went upstairs to get dressed.

Tom was fast asleep.

Till he no longer was.

"Don't scream."

There was a hand over his mouth.

This was strange for a wide array of reasons, one being no one other than Addy Black was able to touch him. Not even Atlanta Black could touch Tom, as her magic was too different from his to be a match as Addy's had been.

Thus, there should not be a hand over his mouth, nor a hand on his shoulder pressing him down to the bed beneath him. (The bed had been imbued with Addy's magic for all time, thus making it solid to Tom, who wasn't a ghost, but wasn't actually alive. He was something between.)

"Tom, will you calm down?"

Tom stopped struggling and put the facts together.

Someone had woken him up before dawn. (Tom was not a morning person.)

Someone was holding him down. (Abnormal.)

The someone was also male.

Conclusion: it must be Harry Potter, the Green Eyed Menace, as his friend Draco often referred to him if he wasn't insisting Harry was the Insane One. Or the Boy-With-A-Death-Wish.

The hand was removed from Tom's mouth and he blinked the sleep away from his eyes. Sure enough, the light from the Muggle street outside that bled into Tom's room revealed Harry Potter, disheveled and sleep mussed standing next to the bed. However, besides the fact he'd clearly arrived at the flat straight from sleeping, the thing that jolted Tom the most was the appearance of the scar etched on Harry's forehead from where Voldemort's Killing Curse had failed to do its intended purpose.

Tom had been fixated upon the scar from the first moment he'd seen Harry through Atlanta's eyes when she brought him to school after winter break the year before. It was rather weird and uncomfortable traveling with Atlanta— her magic was similar, but not really enough to make travel through that means comfortable. He still did it as it was better than being stuck in the flat he'd been all but trapped within for the last thirteen years.

He had also gotten to see Harry Potter in the flesh. The pair had been writing for almost a year by the time Tom had managed to finally see the Boy-Who-Lived in person after the boy had used his translation spell to translate something from Parseltounge to English.

That alone had gotten Tom's attention. The fact it was Harry Potter only increased Tom's curiosity. Writing to him had started out as a distraction from his somewhat dull life, but had turned into something more.

Harry Potter lived up to everything Tom had heard about the child and everything he'd come to expect from their exchanges through the post.

Harry was mischievous, had a hero complex, and was humble yet still rather secretly clever. He looked exactly like his father, yet had his mother's eyes and more of her character. (Thank god.)

The horrific thing about the child, though, was the scar on his forehead. It swam with foreign magic. It polluted the child's magic, tainted everything about him. When Tom had finally met Harry in person at the start of the summer, he had touched the scar.

Actually touched another person for the first time in almost fifteen years.

Tom Riddle could touch Harry Potter.

Voldemort couldn't touch Harry Potter, but Tom Riddle the Not Ghost Thing could.

"What happened to your scar?" Tom breathed, reaching his hand up slowly. His pale, long finger traced the tendrils of magic seeping out of the angry, red, raised scar on the other boy's forehead.

"I have no idea. Draco said it looked irritated," Harry whispered. "Then, he felt around it. Like you are now."

"Draco can feel magic?" Tom asked, peering keenly into Harry's green eyes.

"Uh, yeah."

"Interesting," Tom muttered. "I can…this is so…what happened before you woke up? Did you have a nightmare?"

Harry nodded. "Yeah. I've had nightmares on an off for as long as I can remember. They were horrible last year— after the dementors."

Harry shuddered. Tom dropped his hand from the magic leaking out of Harry's scar— black, dark green and an ugly shade of red. He patted the bed, moving over so Harry could sit next to him. Harry scrambled onto the bed, wrapping his arms around himself once he was seated.

"Is it cold in here?" Tom inquired. "I can't tell. I don't feel heat and cold like a normal being."

"No. It's actually warm in here. You left the window open," Harry said. "When I had nightmares before, the scar never hurt. It's only hurt first year when he was inside Quirrell's head."

Tom frowned, drawing his long legs up and wrapping his arms around his knees. He rested his chin in the spot between his knees and stared into space.

"This wasn't a normal nightmare is what you're trying to say," Tom concluded.

He heard Harry gulp. "No. Usually…I don't remember them, other than the green light. That is a feature in all nightmares I've ever had. No, this time I remembered muddy details. And green light."

"What do you mean muddy?" Tom asked, knowing exactly what the green light meant. Harry needn't say it.

Harry explained how he was unable to make sense of the details he'd been offered in the nightmare. It sounded vague and rather dreamlike to Tom, only not as it'd clearly been something more with the magic leaking from Harry's forehead.

"It was like wading through concrete soup," Harry finished. "It was solid, hard, yet murky. Like…wet concrete. I could hear some things, make sense sometimes, but other things…"

"Like Hilderbatch," Tom said, turning his head to look at Harry. He blew his hair out of his eyes (oh, how Tom hated the fact Walburga Black had liked him with his hair too long…he was doomed with hair that fell into his eyes for entirety thanks to her drawing skills, Addy Black's lack of grace and Cassiopeia's need to save her experiments).

"Yeah," Harry whispered into the fading darkness. He turned towards the large window in Tom's room and stared out. A warm summer breeze blew through, ruffling Harry's hair. "I'm mostly freaked out because Draco said it felt like it was leaking and I felt vindictive and…"

Tom dropped his arms, letting his legs go. He turned himself to face Harry.

"And what, Harry," Tom murmured.

"Smug. That everything was going as planned. Then…between that and the leaking…and what you mentioned about my scar…"

"I understand," Tom quietly assured Harry.

Not sure what to do, Tom remained stationary while watching Harry hug himself while blankly staring into his lap.

"It's not leaking as much as it was when you arrived," Tom offered, wishing to make Harry feel better.

Harry was special, and not simply because he was Harry Potter the Boy-Who-Lived. Tom didn't want to analyze his feelings, as it was stupid, but he knew dimly Harry was different from anyone else Tom had met before.

Tom felt different about Harry than he'd felt about anyone.

It scared him, but Tom refused to be scared of a mere boy. While Tom might appear to be no older than Harry, he was in fact much older.

Harry rubbed his forehead with his fingers. "The…alien feelings are fading. I mean, I no longer feel…"

"Like Voldemort?"

"Yeah. Am I going crazy?" Harry asked, looking over at Tom with pleading eyes.

"No."

Tom reached out and traced the scar, relishing in the fact Harry was solid. He did not understand why Harry was solid, as Harry's magic, while tainted by Voldemort, was nothing like the magic Tom was made out of. Logically, Harry should not be solid at all to Tom— yet he was.

It simply added to the mystery of Harry Potter.

"I wish I knew more about this curse scar," Harry muttered, letting his head drop forward and into Tom's hand. Harry was quite warm— warmer than Addy had ever felt. Tom let his hand sit flat on Harry's forehead. The boy took comfort in the simply touch, letting out a small sigh. "It's a connection to Voldemort, hence why it makes sense it leaks his magic, but what I don't understand is how I have…some of the things Voldemort valued."

Tom swallowed thickly, eyes turning away from his friend. (Another foreign concept, but Tom had been around long enough to accept the fact he had a friend again.) He dropped his hand from the boy's forehead and felt Harry's eyes upon him as he stared resolutely out the wall behind Harry.

"Why would he transfer some of his…traits to me when he tried to kill me? That makes no sense, right?"

"Correct."

"So, what is the scar?" Harry asked.

Tom felt a hand on his shoulder and looked at the boy on the bed next to him. Harry was looking at him with fright in his oh-so-green eyes and concern on his face.

"You don't think he can get into my head and make me do things?"

"No!" Tom shouted, starling Harry. "No. You had no control over the nightmare and when it was too horrid you awoke. No, Harry. He cannot possess you. He cannot touch you. I can touch you, but I can't even travel in your arm like I do with Atlanta. Remember?"

Tom forced himself not to cringe at that memory. Harry was solid to Tom and vice versa, but Tom could not travel with Harry as Atlanta was able to travel with Tom. Tom could hang out in the scar and that was miserable. He couldn't see, only feel— and it was horrible to feel what was within that cursed scar. Tom had no stomach to even tell Harry what was contained within that scar— it was all vile.

"Yeah. I just…I don't like feeling emotions I shouldn't be feeling," Harry explained, dropping his hand from Tom's shoulder. "And this dream…what if it was, uh, like a vision?"

"Do you have Seer blood?" Tom asked dryly, cocking his head to the side and giving Harry a look.

"Not that I know of," Harry admitted, grimacing. "But…Draco said this coming school year was when he comes back, right? And I heard Trelawney give that prophecy about…Voldemort's return."

Tom nodded, biting the inside of his lip.

"So, wouldn't it make sense he's plotting in his evil lair with his henchmen?"

"Yes, but why would he allow you to witness it?" Tom asked.

Harry let out a sight, flopping backwards. "You're right."

Tom crossed his legs, resting his elbows on his bent knees. He placed his chin in his right hand and studied Harry. The scar was doing what it usually did and was no longer weeping dark green or the ugly red colored magic it had been when Harry had arrived. It was the basic black magic that signaled Voldemort.

"Shouldn't you be getting back to Black's house?" Tom inquired seeing Harry looked to be on the brink of falling asleep.

"Hmmm, yeah," Harry mumbled.

Harry fell asleep. Tom sighed, getting out of the bed and padding across the room to the window. He sat down on the sill and stared out into the alley. His window faced east, so he always got the full force of dawn. He placed one leg on the sill and leaned back, watching as the city before him slowly began to wake up. The sun had fully risen by the time Remus rose and the paper and another owl arrived. Tom was about to wake Harry to send him on his way when something shattered in the kitchen.