A/N: This bit of possibly slightly humorous fluff is actually a fanfic of Lydia-kitten's Wand Cores, although it should make sense regardless of whether or not you've read that. Nothing explicit or even violent, a little bit of language, Tom/Harry, out-of-character because it's a parody.

Tom Marvolo Riddle, eighteen years of age and full of terrible beauty, terrible power, and terrible sausages from the Hogwarts graduation banquet, faced his nemesis of nearly five years and another lifetime, an archrival who kicked his ass and his Horcruxes' asses only to hop outside the timestream in an attempt to add insult to injury by making the young Voldemort his friend.

This arrogance would not go unpunished by the (former, since about two hours ago) Head Boy of Hogwarts, who enforced curfew with an iron hex and a venomous serpent named Nagini. The man - boy - awkwardly not-quite-man-not-quite-boy person - who'd won more student awards than Dumbledore; who'd discovered a new way of cutting up mandrakes so their pimples didn't pop; who somehow had his name down as captain of the winning team on the Quidditch cup this year, even though no one had ever seen him on a broom and the winning team was Hufflepuff; who knew the secrets of Slytherin and could correctly use more words than Merriam-Webster's bothered putting in your measly dictionary - this recent graduate would not fall before the green-eyed, entirely unscholarly warrior in front of him, not now that he defined the terms of their duel.

Indeed, he smirked openly as he set down the trivia box, a brand new edition whose revisions, unbeknownst to Harry, the young Slytherin had been in charge of as part of a senior year internship.

"You first," he told his opponent with a haughty tone and a meant-to-be-gracious sweep of his hand.

It pleased him to no end that Potter sweated to keep up with him. Well, he wasn't sweating at all, actually leaning back in his seat and sending the younger man cool amused looks in between conversation attempts that Riddle rebuffed in his intent focus on the game, but Tom knew that was an act. If it wasn't, the older wizard wouldn't have missed that one question about recent runes, and that meant Tom would win.

But suddenly he stiffened. Nagini hissed at him, "What'sss wrong my friend?"

"Three cardsss left," he replied, and Potter laughed out loud, which sounded a little strange from his honest face, seeing as it was a creepy Parseltongue laugh: kukuku.

"There were supposed to be an even number of cards in this box," Tom said. "It must be a manufacturer's error. Shall we remove the offending extra?"

"Oh, no," Potter said, eyes twinkling with an infection he must have caught from that old Bumble-bore. "You said we'd play to the very last card, and so we will."

After two more cards (Tom still leading with his perfect score, Harry still close to coming to a draw), Tom bit his lip while letting his hand hover on the final card, his muscles so tense he was really hoping he didn't end up getting a cramp and losing his dignity hopping about trying to get rid of it.

Finally, he flipped it over, then laughed in relief. What wizard worth his salt would know the answer to that?

"So?" Harry asked after the first wave of the boy's cackling crested and broke.

"It's, well, muahaha, it's, do you know, bahahahaHA, at what rate does a female house-elf metabolize alcohol? Ah-haHa - you're tilting your head and moving lips. I can read lips. You're saying numbers and units. You are not calculating this. You are not!"

"Yes, I'm done. I'd guess about .03 percent BAC per hour."

Tom opened his mouth to triumphantly crow that his opponent was mistake, but then he saw the margin of error on the printed answer. So instead he groaned. And then let his forehead fall forward onto the table. Why didn't I just rig the game with some wrong answers? Oh, yes, because I couldn't stand a desecration of knowledge...

"How... did... you... knooooow?" he half-muttered, half-howled. (He could also half-leer, half-glare, but he was saving that for later in the night, and possibly the Mature section of this site.)

"Well, back in Hogwarts I had a half-elf friend named Winky who became depressed after it turned out her master was an enemy who just wanted to steal my blood..." the man launched into another one of his ridiculous explanations about how his obscure companions imparted a body of knowledge to him that Tom Marvolo Riddle had spent years of prodigious study to match.

...

"Do you feel better, my friend?" Nagini asked later (the later after the one where the leer-glaring proved useful), slithering up against him now that Potter had fallen asleep holding him.

"Yesss," he replied, "and it'sss for the besst, I know, sssincsse if he'd losst to me I might have thought him not worth the role I havve planned in my plot."

Nagini nodded, which is something snakes do. "It isss a good plot. I do not want to lossse you, yet you cannot become the Voldemort of hisss timeline."

"Yessss," he replied, "Potter will object to the kidnapping and the manipulation and the imprisssonment, but he oncssse told me hisss own parentsss engraved on their tombssstonesss that they would defeat death. And he hasss done it enough that he should not begrudge me thisss ssscheme for eternal life. He hasss alwaysss encouraged my dessssire to learn about magic; sssurely he cannot expect me to do it in one mortal lifessspan."

And so a Dark Lord (albeit a bit of a centrist one at that) slipped into sleep the last night before he launched his evil (although only moderately so, and possibly humanistic in the long run) scheme, a plot that had first come to him a winter over four years ago, after his first Christmas with Potter, when they first played trivia together and Riddle began to suspect the secret of his enemy's awesome power.

...

Potter woke up, and the first thing he noticed (well, after about thirty minutes of hiding under the covers from the daylight, groaning about his headache, and mentally inventing spells that might summon the personification of mornings and trap the bastard in a chamberpot) was the coolness of the air around him.

He did a bad-ass action hero 720 degree flip in the air to get from the bed to his feet, glancing around in alarm for any signs of his lost lover and accidentally shooting a wandless Stunning Hex at a bowl of petunias.

He brushed the remains of the plant aside and shook dirt off the parchment left on the table he normally reserved for the offensive species of flora he kept around for target practice.

Dear Potter,

Nicholas Flamel and his dear old wife are expecting you to meet them today for the tour of the world you've arranged to take with them. The journey will take you to the farthest reaches of the Earth as well as below and beyond it. I have captured and imprisoned dark wizards and witches at key points, where you will either rescue them or murder them, I never did quite figure out this "shades of gray" business of yours. In any case, have a nice chat with them first - they should all know something about immortality.

The attached is a list of locations of less perfidious witches and wizards, who I refrained from imprisoning out of respect for these "ideals" you have strained yourself to inculcate in me. You should speak to them as well, about immortality and about the clue to my whereabouts they preside over.

At the end of your travails, you will discover me, and we will play a game of trivia with just one card. I will even give you the question now, so you may prepare: "What is the safest route to immortality, free of the insanity of the Horcrux and the world-weariness of the Philosopher's Stone?"

I trust you'll figure it out over tea with a Brazilian witch in the next month or other such dreck. In the meantime, Grindelwald's taking me to conquer Atlantis. I needed a little while to explore my power as an adult wizard on my own before accepting your offer to move in with you, I hope you can understand that.

Looking forward to our next meeting,

Your most sincere TMR.

P.S. Does Voldemort really sound that bad? I know it's got bad associations for you, but I mean, really, you want me to go by Tom all my life? The brilliant genius, vanquisher of death, Tom? It's almost as bad as the timelord Harry.

Harry beamed after reading the letter, then walked around whistling as he went to bathe off last night's scent before meeting the old couple. Sure the boy had made a few slip-ups here and there, but he'd made more progress than the time-traveler had ever dreamed: At just eighteen, he was considerate enough to arrange a surprise vacation for his lover and a lonely old couple. Harry didn't think even Hermione would have done that.