SUMMARY: Fourteen year old Harry Potter is sick of the Wizarding World and everyone it.

Rating: M. For a reason folks.

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

Warnings: Violence. Dark Magic. Backstabbing. Mental and emotional abuse. Pureblood politics. Teenage Dark Lords.

-Pseudonymous

I can move mountains, I can work a miracle, work a miracle

Oh, keep you like an oath, may nothing but death do us part

Divide me down to the smallest I can be, put your, put your venom in me

The blood, the blood, the blood of the lamb it's worth two lions

But here I am

And I slept in last night's clothes and tomorrow's dreams

They're not quite what they seem

Draco made Harry lay beside Tom. The smaller boy tried to act like he was okay, standing straight and pretending he wasn't leaning as heavily on Draco as he was. It was ridiculous. He didn't know what those Gryffindors did to make him think he couldn't show his exhaustion. If anything it was impressive. The boy shot him a glare but did eventually give up and stay there. Whether it was because he realized he needed to rest or if it was because he was closer to Tom this way Draco wasn't sure.

"...but how are you sending him somewhere else. Did you create space inside the mirror? How can you hope to contain him? Hes bound to notice isn't he? And how is he passing through the physical exterior of the mirror, through th glass? If he..."

Draco heaved a long suffering sigh and spun to look at jabbering mudblood. "For the love of Slytherin Granger, it's spacial displacement. The glass of the mirror operates as a condition based portkey to transport an individual who fulfills the requirements to another location, in this case a removed piece of space where Dumbledore will reside, frozen, reliving his memories from birth to the moment he entered through the portal for as long as he is in there. The cycle of memories begins again immediately after it ends. Additionally even if he somehow figures it out he won't e able to leave unless he meets the conditions to leave and there may not be any. Dependent on the purpose of the space that is created he may be sustained eternally allowing him to be removed later on or he may eventually waste away from lack of food and water. Either way he's gone. His counter part, which is the original him, that began to follow us from the great hall will somehow be...persuaded to reenter the great hall rather than continue his original course. Thus he has both followed us and not followed us as long as we have memories of him following us and the knowledge that now he never did. It balances out the distortion of time, avoiding paradoxes and hopefully any unpleasant consequences. Will you shut up now?"

"But how are you creating the space? I don't understand how it's possible. We shouldn't be able to create something from nothing it goes against..."

Harry cut her off, placing a hand on Draco's wand arm, perhaps sensing Draco's growing exasperation. She wasn't his friend, he wasn't required to be patient with her. "Remember the mirror in first year Hermione? How I got the stone out of the Mirror of Erised? It's something like that."

Draco shot him a glare. Harry gave him a grin and lay back on the floor.

"Yes but Dumbledore did that and he's the cleverest wizard alive." she trailed off for a minute, eyes unfocused, then set her gaze on Draco accusingly. He wondered if he ought to remind her he'd been in the same room with her the entire time and hadn't actually taken part in Tom's plan. "So we're just damning him to reliving his life?"

She thought he'd care? Draco scoffed. Mudbloods.

The resident ginger gave Hermione a placating smile. "Tom would be offended. And actually he might die. I don't know if Riddle is preserving him or not." Said Weasley.

"This is barbaric!"

Draco rolled his eyes. Honestly.

A gloved hand spun Granger around, Tabbris smiling. "More so than leaving his students to fend for themselves in order to chase down and hinder the people trying to fix the situation? You do know he didn't come with us because he wanted to stop the castle shaking. He came with us to verify tim is who he thinks he is and figure out where he went wrong with whatever he did to them. There are students up there, some of them your friends, who could be injured right now. They're frightened and he deserted them."

"I just don't know." Granger moaned, no doubt her Gryffindor mentality cracking under the pressure of real life situations that didn't have the words 'black' or 'white' pasted in block letters for her convenience.

"Excuse me, if I may, Albus will have both followed us and not followed us?" His godfather asked in the empty space, trying to get his words in before Granger went off on another rant. "How are we avoiding a paradox?"

Tabbris released Granger's shoulder in favour of Snape. Granger winced subtly. "Because the lot of us obviously followed the original time-line we have the memories of him following us to the room Hadrianiel and Marvolo were in and them tricking him in the room of requirement. However, because we are trapping that Dumbledore and getting the original to follow a different path and have the knowledge of that happening, rather than destroy the time-line so none of that happened, it had both happened and not happened. We would have to choose one reality over the other, erasing knowledge of the other in order to cement it. Obviously we don't want to do that." She waved a hand.

His godfather nodded slowly. "Schrödinger."

Draco didn't understand the reference but apparently Tabbris did because she smiled brilliantly, baring sharp teeth. "Precisely."

"And who is Marvolo? Or Tom?"

Draco had been wondering when he would get back to that. As one the occupants of the room pointed to where Tom lay beside Draco and Harry on the chamber floor. Still unconscious. He was going to have to see about getting him up soon.

"Isn't that your cousin?" Black eyes studied Tabbris.

"Yes." She agreed. "And also not quite."

"He both is and isn't, or that is and is not right, as in, you have claimed him as your cousin and he is known as your cousin but he is also known as someone else, that someone else being the original someone he is known as and thus the more accurate of the identities?"

"The latter."

Ambriel leaned toward her sister and stage whispered. "He's too clever. It isn't any fun if everyone understands."

"I'll try to be more confused." Suggested Snape, dryly.

Tabbris laughed. Everyone shuddered.

"Ron, what is it we need to do for Tom?" Harry started to rise to go to the taller boy, Draco shot out a hand and pulled him down. He didn't know what foolishness was going on in his little Gryffindor's head but he was having none of it. Harry was too weak magically to return to Tom's mind. Not to mention he was only stabilized a little while ago and Draco couldn't be certain that they could do it again if his magic slipped out of his control while within Tom's mind.

The red head looked startled to be addressed, a pleased smiled flashing across his face. "Honestly don't know. He only told me he needed to be retrieved from his mind. The actual mechanics of it...were not explained. I assumed one of you would know."

"I did it before. I don't know how I did it, but I did. I was in his mind-scape. Or mine...or ours..."

Granger started rubbing her temples. "I think I'm getting a headache."

"You get used to it after a while." Eridanous assured her, pausing. "...Or you start drinking."

Draco studied the Gryffindor who sat near his feet, gazing at Tom with distress written over his face. He really looked like shite. His face was flushed, sweat dampening his clothing, sticking it to his skin. Hair wet and clinging in messy curls. The boy glanced up and smiled wearily, returning his gaze to the unconscious Dark Lord. Draco thought, idly, that violent storms and beautiful smiles were equally dangerous. With a silent curse the Slytherin faced the room, entirely unwilling to give himself to time to analyze why he was doing this.

"I'll do it."

He could feel the moment those green eyes snapped to him.

The room stilled. "You'll what Malfoy?" Weasley asked when it looked like no one else would.

"I'll retrieve him. From his mind. I'll bring back Riddle."

He turned back around and knelt before Tom not waiting for them to find something to say against it. There was in that moment a sense of being in the midst of something having prodigious weight and volume but no form, unable to utilize his past experiences and accumulated information to guide him though. He didn't have a clue what he was doing really. Just shoving himself into the Dark Lord's mind and hoping he could figure out how to draw him out without getting himself ripped to shreds by the other wizard's mental defenses. He wasn't Harry, Tom's barriers had no reason to pause before attacking him. No doubt they would sense they were something of rivals even if they did hold grudging respect for one another. This was stupid. So stupid. He placed his finger tips on either side of Tom's forehead and closed his eyes.

His inner Slytherin was strangling it's self.

AN: Over 100,000 views? Holy Crap! It'd been so long since I worked on this story...I had no idea anyone was still interested in it. The support is amazing, I hope the rest of the story lives up to your expectations. Thank you for reading.

Ever Yours,

-pseu