In Time

By: Lanku Black

Summary: Tom Riddle has always had a thirst for knowledge. It's that thirst- among other things- that leads him to Harry. And once that thirst is quenched, what will he do with knowledge gained? (TRHP)

Sometimes Too Tough to Swallow (Chapter Two)

Aliquando et insanire iucundum est - It is sometimes pleasant even to act like a madman.
-Seneca

Voldemort was pacing in the study. Though he'd looked up to see Aldric enter, he merely glared at the vampire for a moment before turning his attention back to his thoughts.

Aldric took the moment to sit in the chair behind the aging desk- Voldemort's chair- and observe him. He'd only been reborn recently and so his appearance still closely resembled that of a snake and he lacked a nose. Soon, though, it would change into a more human visage, more like the Tom he'd just been to visit.

He was only wearing drab, black robes that seemed at least two sizes too big on him and while he paced, his hands twiddled with his wand, though one hand would occasional reach up to rub his hairless head then travel down to the nape of his neck. Aldric already knew the pale man was morbidly skinny, but when he made gestures like that, it made that point even more obvious. Alaric occupied himself with staring at the almost elegantly protruding spine of the man he called master, watching how the bones under his skin slithered as he moved. "Well? ''The man asked impatiently, and he was suddenly struck by how much more strained and squalling Voldemort's voice was than Tom's smooth and even tones.

"I have no news. I simply came to visit, my dear Lord." He gave Voldemort a smile even as the other snarled angrily.

"Do not waste my time! If you've come to simply be a nuisance, get out of my sight now." The man tended his wand at Aldric, who who did not seem intimidated in the least.

"Well, if you want to know the truth, many believe you unfit to become the Dark Lord, who is looked upon with respect by all others. They fear-"

"I AM THE DARK LORD!" Aldric merely blinked at the words, as if he were surprised by this revelation. "Any that question me will find themselves at the end of my wand! If they defy me I will kill them!''

"The Night court-"

"Do not bother me with fairy tales! Get out!"

"I apologize for upsetting you, Dear Lord, I did not seek to offend you." With a bow, but not another word, Alric made his way toward the door. The thought, unbidden came that while Voldemort's eyes froze through when he was angry- reminding one of the death that came with his anger-, Tom's smoldered. And though he was more familiar with the look on Voldemort's face it was Tom's that was imprinted best in his mind. Tom's that he was sure would invoke a better performance of his Death Eaters.

"And Meade," Voldemort called out, prompting the other to turn slightly to catch sight of the others wand pointed at him."Crucio."

Aldric's last coherent thought before the pain drowned everything else out was that Tom and Voldemort were nothing alike. And that thought, more than any threat or amount of pain, scared Aldric.

Tom sat, mystified, as the little boy rattled off things they could do. It was an odd list, comprised for the most part of playing with random items in the cupboard- Harry was quite the enthusiastic spider watcher, apparently- and assuring Tom that the boy definitely lived in the space and not undergoing some strange form of punishment.

Tom cut him off when the boy's fumbling words began repeat themselves. "Why don't we just talk?" he suggested. The answering smile was almost blinding in its brilliance. Tom struggled for a moment to find something to say and finally grasped at a question. "Where are your parents?"

"They... th-" Tom could already see what the answer was, and was glad to see that the loss of words was not because of any terrible sorrow, but because the boy simply couldn't form the word he was grasping at. "Dead," the boy finally answered, giving up on saying what he'd been trying to.

"Is that so?" Tom hummed curiously, unable to apologize for this. It wasn't as if he'd killed the boys parents, after all. "Mine are as well. We're both orphans. Then who are you living with right now?"

"Aunt Petunia an' my uncle an' my cousin Dudley. They awen't... he... home now though."

"Oh?" Tom asked, a glance outside the room telling him that it was very early in the morning. "And when will they be back?"

"Monday," Harry answered, and at the expression he received- Tom had cast a silent 'Tempus' to see that it was Saturday- was quick to add, "Aun' Petunia didn't mean ta' keep me locked up. They was in a wush and twaffic's cwazy on Fie- Fwi-!"

"I believe you." Tom cut in, unsure which was worse- the events or the boy trying to say them. Hadn't he been taught proper English? The lack of articulation clawed at his nerves. "Harry, how old are you?"

"I'm fouw! Dudley's always callin' me a baby though, even though I'm not!"

Tom raised an eyebrow to that. He was sure he'd been able to speak correctly far earlier than that. Of course, that could have just been another on the long list of 'unnatural' things about him. Of course, that didn't stop Tom from saying, "Perhaps if you spoke correctly, he'd have less to tease you about."

Harry scrunched up his face and for a moment, Tom thought he'd made the boy cry, but the boy snapped them open and looked at him questioningly. "How? I dunno how to say it but no one tells me how. Auntie neva' speaks to me and Dudley only laughs when I twy to speak..."

"I'll tell you what," Tom sighed, standing back up and leaving the cupboard, heading to the kitchen. "Why don't I make us breakfast and then I can help you with it."

"But-..." Tom was sure that the boy was going to say something about not being allowed to eat or some other such nonsense, but he stopped himself, bouncing into the kitchen after Tom.

Tom let Harry help him cook as they continued their conversation. For someone who spent most of his life in a cupboard, he had much to talk about, but he made sure to ask Tom questions too. They finished the food- eggs, bacon and pancakes- and set the table. Harry beamed when Tom thanked him for his help before they sat down to eat.

And so Tom began helping his speech along. When Harry said anything incorrectly, Tom would repeat the whole thing, integrating his corrections into their conversation. When Harry wasn't feeling rushed or nervous, he was able to speak quite lucidly, Tom was glad to see.

"Why did you ask me if I was the God of Death when you first saw me Harry?" Tom asked. He'd almost forgotten about it, but something Harry said tugged the thought back. They had finished eating a while ago, now just sitting and speaking idly.

"Oh. I saw it in a movie Dudley let me watch. Thewre... there was a man with red eyes too, and he took people away when they was... we'e sad. Dudley said he would come and take me to my parents, so I was waitin'. I guess he couldn't come though."

"He took them away when they were sad?" Tom's face, carefully devoid of expression, did not convey how much this disturbed him. "Harry, do you know what dead means?"

"Uh huh!" Harry said proudly. "My mum and dad awe- are- faw away and don't know how to get back. So I wanted the God of Death to take me to them. That way, I can show them how ta' get home again."

Tom swallowed uncomfortably, shifting in his seat and clearing his throat. He thought he might have started sweating, but surely he wasn't going to have to explain to a child that his parents were somewhere that he couldn't get to? That no one could get to.

Instead of saying anything to Harry, however, Tom got up and washed the dishes by hand, taking up time and hoping that Aldric would spirit him away soon. He'd washed the dishes three times and finally put them away before he decided that Aldric wasn't going to get him away from this. He turned back to Harry to see the boy watching him with a shrewd expression on his face.

"You know where my mummy and daddy awe, don't you?"

Tom sighed, tossing aside the dish towel he'd been fiddling with before walking out of the kitchen, beckoning Harry to follow. Death talks were not something he could fake his way through. "I'm not a doctor, Harry, so don't expect me to be able to tell you this gently," he said as he walked, sitting on a couch. Harry settled in next to him, much too close for Tom's comfort. Merlin's third testicle!, his mind screamed, What if he cries?

"When your parents died... they went somewhere, yes, but it wasn't anywhere here- on Earth, I mean. It's not somewhere you can go, or that they can come back from. The God of Death doesn't just take away the sad people, he only takes you when he has no choice, when your body doesn't work anymore. It's not something that you decide, but you're parents aren't coming-"

Tom's words were cut off by Harry launching himself into his lap and burrowing his face into Tom's voluminous robes. If Tom felt awkward before, it was nothing compared to how he felt then. He couldn't tell if the boy was crying, but his shoulder's were shaking so Tom assumed he was. He tentatively placed a hand on the other's back as he'd seen his classmates do when news of more war victims came out, and moved it softly in calming circles.

They stayed like that for a long while.

The sound of the door opening woke Tom up from sleep. The sound was not obtrusively loud, but Tom had always been a light sleeper. He sat up in the small bed that he hadn't, for once, had to share and looked toward the door.

It was the new caretaker, the one Ms. Cole had had to hire on short notice because Ms. McDuly had and unfortunate encounter with a pair of hedging trimmers and needed medical attention. Tom hoped the mean woman stayed away for a long time. She was always convincing Ms. Cole he was a terror and stopping the woman's attempts to be nice to him.

This new one, though, Tom thought was rather creepy. Of course, he was the only man to ever work at the orphanage since Tom had lived in it, so Tom thought he might have been rather biased. Either way, Tom made an effort to stay as far away from Mr. Muculent Kerr.

The man smiled at Tom, putting a finger to his lips as if Tom had made a noise. Tom thought this was rather stupid of the man, as it was him himself being so noisy. He walked over to the bed and sat at the edge close to Tom's hip.

"'Ello there, Tom. I've heard a lot about you from Ms. McDuly. A bit of a trouble-maker, are you? S'alright, I was like that too when I was a lad. You're just a bit lonely, are you? Don't worry, I'll keep you company t'night..."

Tom pushed himself into wakefulness forcefully, sitting up so quickly that he almost pushed Harry onto the ground. Harry let out a squeaking noise as he jumped up after Tom, though much less alert than the other boy. "Wha-?" he mumbled through a yawn, opening his eyes to see Tom blinking down at him.

He smiled, and Tom saw that he had indeed been crying before they... fell asleep? Tom took out his wand, giving Harry a minute smile, and whispered, 'Tempus.' It was well into the evening, or so claimed the gold lettering in the air.

"Hungry, Harry?" Tom asked, scratching at his head in a rare show of annoyance. Harry, however, looked rather preoccupied with staring in the air here the time charm had just faded away. "Never seen magic before, have you?" The thought had only just occurred to him. He was in a muggle environment, after all.

"Magic? It's weal? Uncle and Auntie say it isn't. They say only bad people think magic is weal."

"Yes, well, I'm not a bad person, am I?" Harry shook his head. "And I know that magic is real. So your aunt and uncle are wrong."

Harry seemed to have trouble believing that, so Tom pointed his wand in the direction of the kitchen, and magicked a couple of sandwiches to make themselves and levitate into the room to them.

Harry was absolutely amazed by this, it seemed. He clapped his hands and giggled at the show, and for the rest of the night, he kept asking Tom to do the most bizarre feats of magic ("Oh, make the telly dance!, Give everyone in the picture wed hair!, make the bath water into soda pop!").

When Tom finally got the little boy to bed- they squeezed themselves back into the cupboard and Tom locked the door- he was more tired than Harry was. "Do something amazing!" Harry begged, and Tom couldn't help but smile because he was reminded of his first encounter with a real wizard- he remembered asking Dumbledore to do the same thing, though it was more because he was suspicious and less out of his awe of magic. That had come later.

It was then that Tom felt the pull of the time-turner; he was returning to his time.

"Tell you what," Tom replied, "You make sure you're speaking correctly by your next birthday, and I'll get you something magic. Deal?"

Harry thought on this for a moment, and finally nodded seriously. "Okay. But don't forget." Tom nodded just as seriously.

"I won't," Tom promised.

It was staring at a worn out looking Aldric that Tom realized he had no idea when the boy's birthday was. He decided he'd ask the man in front of him, but the first thing out of his mouth was, "What happened to you?"

"Sorry, I was a little late. I was busy with something else."

"Like being under the Cruciatus Curse?" Tom asked with no inflection in his voice. "Was it me?"

"No," Aldric said with a sigh. "It wasn't you, it was Voldemort."

"You keep making that distinction, but I can't have changed that much if you're still being put under it."

"I want to give you something," Aldric said with a smile, ignoring the words. He pulled a book out of his robes and from the cover, Tom could tell it was for younger children.

He took it in his hands and read the title. "Fairy tales for Wizarding Folk, Arthurian Age?"

"Most particularly, the story about Morgana and Merlin. It's important that you understand that one."

Tom nodded, finally sitting down. "Since you seem so keen on changing the subject, I'd like to ask what this trip was about. And also, I'm supposed to go back there on Harry's birthday."

The smile widened. "His birthday, is it? Did he tell you that his birthday was July thirty-first?"

"The last day of the seventh month?" Tom paled. He'd spared the thought, but to hear that he was the one that forced Harry into that little hovel was disturbing. Suddenly he felt the need to bathe, as if he was caked with grime, and bugs were crawling all over him.

He couldn't fathom what had gone wrong in the years between them. What, he wondered, had happened to leading a revolution to bettering the Wizarding community? To equal rights an humane treatment of others? What happened to making regulations to preventing poor treatment of wizards at the hands of muggles and making sure that orphaned wizards were brought into the wizarding world and taken care of? Most of all, though, Tom wondered how he'd gone from wanting to prevent people from having to go through what he did to causing it.

"Even if I want to change it," Tom said, ignoring the growing smile on Aldric's face, "It's already happened. I can't change that."

And he ran out of the room, away from all of it.

Tom ran all the way to the library, cursing himself for running away when he would eventually, inevitably go back to Aldric. He toyed with the book in his hand, but didn't open it- his thoughts were too jumbled and uneasy to concentrate.

He was frustrated at himself. How could he, who was capable of understanding even the most complex of magics, not understand himself? The thought crossed his mind that maybe it was a spell that had altered his mind so much that he could no longer comprehend what he was doing or the consequences. But no, why would Voldemort put his mind in such danger? His mid was, second only to his magic, the most important thing about himself. He wouldn't trade it away.

Maybe it was his madness? But that was only whispers and hallucinations, nothing that could change him so monumentally. The madness didn't tell him to kill or hurt, and it wasn't tangible enough to sink into. He could overcome it easily. His reason had always won out.

Maybe... "Riddle!"

Tom blinked up at Minerva McGonagall, surprised to see her again. She was blushing and looking uncomfortable, with eyes downcast and to the side.

"Yes," he asked, wondering what time it was if she was out of class. He was under the impression that she was one of the rare students that didn't have even one free period. Even Tom himself had one, though that was because he preferred to teach himself.

"You missed Transfiguration. Professor Dumbledore wants you to report to his room tonight for your detention. You should go to dinner now if you want anything to eat before you have to go."

It was dinnertime, then. Tom nodded absently, wondering how many classes Dumbledore had to tell before the message reached back to him. It as a couple of minutes before Tom got up, almost crashing into the Gryffindor as he did.

"Oh you're still here?" He asked, walking around her and out the door. She followed after him and he raised a brow. "Did Dumbledore ask you to make sure I actually went to detention or something?"

"N- no, nothing like that. I was... I was just wondering what Professor Dumbledore so dislikes about you. I mean, you're a Slytherin, sure, but he seems to be particularly suspicious of you. It's odd. You're a good student and you're certainly going to be Head boy next year and you're great at Quidditch, and... well, I mean, you're much more studious than anyone I know. Dumbledore is always so much harsher on you than anyone else, though."

Tom wondered if the girl realized that she'd just insulted his house, but said nothing else until they reached the doors to the Great Hall. "Maybe," he told he, "Dumbledore sees in me a great potential for evil. If that is the case, however, it seems that Dumbledore is doing a rather good job in trying to lead me down that path with all his suspicious behavior to begin with. After all, if he can't see past that potential to me and all those other qualities you see, what reason do I have to look away from that potential?"

With that little speech, he did something he as becoming increasingly good at; he walked away, leaving a wide-eyed Gryffindor behind.

"Where have you been, then?" Abraxas asked as he slid into his seat next to him.

"Is that Minerva McGonagall that just walked in? You weren't with her were you?" Tom raised an eyebrow at Melinda Bulstrode, wondering what it had to do with her.

"Stay to your own conversations, Lin, or I'll have to find a new place to store my books. Your nose seems rather large enough," came from Eileen Prince, who was rather pointedly staring at the other's nose.

Melinda gave her a viscous look before turning away, mumbling something unsavory under her breath.

Tom nodded his thanks to her, sighing as his thoughts muddled together again. Could it have really been Dumbledore? He was sure that that was probably part of it, certainly. Maybe there were just too many factors weighing down on him to think of and his mind simply couldn't take it anymore?

The other Slytherins saw that he was in a sulky mood, and kindly kept him out of conversation. It stayed like that all through dinner when he saw Dumbledore motion to him to go serve his detention. Tom sighed, giving word to his fellows- though Black was conspicuously absent from the table, he noticed- before following the older man to his office.

"Is there some reason that you missed out on my lesson?" The other asked him, after Tom warded off offers of tea and lemon drops.

"I'm afraid I fell asleep, Professor," Tom replied evenly. It was the truth, after all. He had fallen asleep while he was missing the lesson. Of course, it wasn't just that, but he certainly wasn't going to mention to Dumbledore anything more incriminating.

"I see," Dumbledore replied, eyes twinkling even as his lips pursed. "I want you to write 'I will not miss any class without permission first' one hundred times, and then you may go."

Tom nodded respectfully, though he barely had an ounce of it for the wizard in front of him. Yes, he thought, I can definitely see where Dumbledore could have helped me down such a road.

"Remember, Aldric, I am your Lord. You belong to me. I can do anything I want to you."

"Yes, my Lord," the other whispered, voice lacking the strength it usually held.

"You are mine."

"Yes, Lord."

"I am the Dark Lord!"

"Of course, my Lord."

"Good." And then there was that look again. A look that no one should be able to give a vampire. A look that dominated, crushed, and conquered. A look that Aldric knew he would never, ever see in Tom's face. "Come; I'll keep you company tonight."

"Yes, Lord. Thank you Lord."

The lust for power is not rooted in strength, but in weakness. -Erich Fromm
A/N: Thanks for the reviews! I'm sorry I couldn't get this out the day after my last one, lol, but I had to type it up first! I'm not a slow typer, but I'm easily distracted unfortunately. I hope this chapter doesn't seem flat? Some of it was a bit of filler to make the chapter longer, but I think some of it turned out to be pretty important anyway. And I never claimed originality, though I hope it is if even just a little bit. On another note, it seems I'm terrible at giving hints! I thought it was obvious that Harry's speech was definitely too young for his actual age and that he didn't understand what he was talking about, though I purposely didn't give it until I could explain it properly. Apparently someone thought I was too misguided to realize what I'd done however, so let me explain.

Harry has undergone severe neglect in his years with the Dursleys. People learn to talk by watching and listening to other people speak, and also by interacting with others. Harry, however, has only really had the chance to listen to whatever little tidbits he can hear from his cupboard, which he won't be released from often because he's still a little too young to be useful around the house so why would Petunia let him out? So his speech has developed along the same lines as someone with a hearing disorder.

I chose to give Harry the speech problem in these early chapters so you couldn't ignore his abuse just because he smiled a lot. I wanted people to see Harry and say 'What the heck did they do to this boy so that he never even learned to speak correctly?' but it seems I didn't get that across. I have a speech disorder, personally, so I know the babying effect it has, but normally you can't even tell I have one- unless there are a lot of S's involved. Harry's curse is the R.

And also, Harry didn't understand what he was talking about. The whole reason I used such a mouthful as 'God of Death' was to show he was just harping something off that he'd picked up. I also thought that the awe in Harry's face was also a tip off, but I guess not. If Harry knew what he was talking about, I think Harry would be rather not happy with the person that took his parents away from him. I hope this clears it up?

Eek, it's a long A/N isn't it? Sorry, I'm not usually of the monster A/Ns, I don't think. XD