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Odysseus Bound	By : Lomonaaeren Category: Harry Potter > Slash - Male/Male Views: 5731 -:- Recommendations : 2 -:- Currently Reading : 1
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Chapter Three—The Dark Lord

            Harry opened his eyes into soft darkness, and frowned at the ceiling for a moment. He knew that Riddle had insisted he go to bed because he said that Harry was “overwhelmed” with all the new information, and he could apparently tell that from Harry’s face. Harry wasn’t sure how he felt about someone who could have been Voldemort deciding when he should shower and when he should sleep, but in truth, he was too tired to argue.

            He knew he’d come into a guest bedroom that seemed to project off Riddle’s quarters and fallen on the sheets, but he didn’t know how he’d got from there to here, the darkness filled with a distant buzzing and the scent of smoke…

            Smoke.

            Harry hurled himself from the bed to the floor, and crawled on hands and knees towards the door, ancient Muggle reminders about fire coming back to him. Then he remembered he was a wizard, too, and he did have a wand, even if that was the Elder Wand.

            He held the wand straight above him and hissed, “Ventus!”

            The air began to sway, then to stir, then to gust. A sharp breeze blew away the traces of the smoke that gathered above his head, and Harry stuck his head up and got a gasp of air. Then he cast a sphere of clear air around him and stood up, running to the door. For traces of a fire to have come this deep inside Hogwarts, into Riddle’s private rooms, it must be powerful.

            A hand clapped over his mouth as he came out of the room, and Harry twisted, throwing himself to the side and then forwards again, trying to get whoever it was off him. The person flowed and twisted with him, though, and then Riddle’s voice said into Harry’s ear, as harsh as the clatter of train wheels, “Do you want me to Stun you and carry you out of here? I will do that, rather than let you be a nuisance.”

            Heart pounding hard enough to make his head spin, Harry managed to hold still. No, he didn’t want Riddle to Stun him. That height of indignity was the last thing he needed.

            After one more warning pressure across his face, Riddle let him go. Harry turned to him and blinked. The Lumos charm on the end of Riddle’s yew wand was the steadiest and strongest Harry had ever seen, nearly yellow. Well, Riddle had said that he got some of his power from sunlight.

            “What happened?” Harry asked.

            “An attack,” Riddle said. He didn’t turn his head towards Harry, but he sounded utterly clear and calm and collected, as though Harry’s question fit in with whatever monologue was running in his head. “The same kind of attack that took down King’s Cross Station, as per the reports of surviving witnesses. I find it strange that he would attack here, however. He’s never dared come this close to Hogwarts’s defenses before.”

            Harry frowned. “But why not? He knows the school, doesn’t he? Since he grew up here?”

            “It’s changed quite a bit since he was last here, and even more since Dumbledore’s death.” Riddle took a long stride forwards. “It remains to be seen whether the attack is exactly the same as that which took down King’s Cross Station, of course. That one started with flame, but ended with crushing force. Apparently Potter has learned to tame earthquake spells.”

            Harry started and cast a nervous glance at the stone over his head. He had no wish to be buried down here, if it started falling.

            Riddle seemed to see or sense what he was doing, and waved an impatient hand at him. “This land is still warded,” he said. “Wards the Founders came up with, which extend deep enough into the earth to calm fault lines, and mean no one can take advantage of them. And I am still more powerful than Potter.”

            Harry clutched his wand, seeing no reason to believe that. On the other hand, start doubting that and he would have to start doubting everything Riddle had said since Harry had come here, which would leave him without a reliable guide. Right now, it made more sense to relax.

            “If he is using fire, he will be sorry,” Riddle breathed, and closed his eyes and began to chant, sending a spell spilling out in front of him, if the faint, silvery-colored thread was any indication. Harry watched it in silence, checking Riddle’s level of concentration now and then. When Riddle opened his eyes again, Harry thought he could ask.

            “Why? You said that he used it on King’s Cross Station, and he managed to destroy everyone and everything there.”

            “Not everyone,” Riddle said calmly. “There were witnesses. And he is using fire. He could use it with impunity in his last attack, because I did not hear of it in time to get there.” He turned his head and smiled at Harry, and Harry took a step back from that smile and the red glow that had once again invaded Riddle’s eyes.

            “Fire,” Riddle whispered, as if speaking another incantation, “is the servant of the Light.” He lifted his wand in an unhurried gesture that made Harry wince again. “Cor ignis!”

            The air around him turned red, and smelled of heat, which, as Harry knew, was a different kind of smell from smoke. When he looked, Riddle was crowned with flames, dancing and swaying on his head and shoulders, bending as though before a strong wind. There was also a fire blazing on the hearth, which Harry couldn’t remember seeing before.

            Riddle raised his head and took a deep breath, as though he was a dragon. From down the corridor beyond his room came a loud whistle, and Riddle gestured with a lazy hand, opening the door to his room an instant before the fire would have torn it down.

            Harry shrieked in spite of himself as a wall of flames raced into the room. He fell back, reinforcing his sphere of clean air, and so had a clear line of sight to see Riddle reach out and welcome the soaring fire like a lover.

            It swept around his shoulders, curling and coiling, until Harry expected to hear Riddle speak to it in Parseltongue. Instead, Riddle let his hand sweep about it, caressing, and called up fire from the hearth, too, until he was surrounded by a constantly moving wheel of form and color. He had his eyes closed, his hands cupped, and Harry could make out definite shapes springing up from his palms and wrapping around his head, but they all collapsed and wavered and vanished in the next few seconds, as the fire altered itself.

            “Why did he use it if he knew that you could do this?” Harry whispered.

            Riddle opened his eyes and turned his head. No smile was on his lips, but the reflection of the fire in his eyes made it look like there was. “Because fire is still powerful magic,” he said. “And most wizards don’t have the commitment to the Light that is necessary in order to control it like this.”

            He spread his hands, and the fire dripped down like oil, forming, at his feet, the braided serpents that Harry had expected to see at first. “Now,” Riddle added softly, “we shall turn it back on him.”

            He took a breath deep enough that Harry winced a little and touched his own chest to make sure he had enough air. Then Riddle swept his arm out in front of him and said, most likely in Parseltongue given the way the flame serpents leaped up, “Seek my enemy and turn him inside out.”

            The serpents sped into the air, leaping like fire from stone to stone, and out of the door that led from Riddle’s quarters and down the tunnel. Riddle laughed and followed them, his stride utterly relaxed and swinging out in front of him as though he had miles to go instead of only a few thousand feet.

            Harry followed him. “They won’t really turn him inside out, will they?” he asked, when he was close enough to Riddle to ask the question. Although, he thought, he could have whispered instead of shouted. The tunnel had gone utterly still, quiet, because Riddle had sucked in all the fire and then let it go again without letting it rage the way it had before.

            “They’ll try,” Riddle said, waving one hand as he stepped around the final corner into the Great Hall. “They won’t succeed. But they’ll give him something else to contend against, and unlike you, he has no gift of Parseltongue.” He cast Harry a sharp look.

            “I did tell you how that happened,” Harry protested, but ended up mumbling it, because the Great Hall was already full of the other members of the Light Resistance, and he didn’t know how much he wanted them to overhear.

            Then why are you trusting Tom Riddle, of all people?

            Because he knew the most, Harry had to admit. And he was the one who might be able to teach Harry the most about this world and surviving the war.

            And because he was the only one Harry thought would kill Harry if he lied. That had a big part to play in it, too.

            “Sunlord!” That was Percy, his necklace of colored stones flashing as he leaned forwards. “What’s your battle plan?”

            Riddle drew his wand and swept it up and down. Traces of light followed it, and made a map of Hogwarts—this changed Hogwarts, Harry corrected himself—in the air. The light turned green for the Forbidden Forest and black for the castle’s stone and dark for the moat in the appropriate places. The map was three-dimensional and spun to show different areas when Riddle gave slashes of his wand.

            Harry blinked. Maybe Light magic really is more powerful than Dark magic. At least, he knew no Dark spell that could have done this.

            “The Dark Lord is attacking directly, but not yet here, which means he must be beyond the wards,” Riddle declared calmly. “Draco, I want you to take the east end. Your former father is most likely to be there.”

            Draco nodded, his eyes blank but his mouth curving up in a small smile that looked involuntary. Harry found himself shivering and looking away.

            “Hermione, take the path to Hogsmeade,” Riddle said, gesturing and making the picture of Hogwarts spin around so dizzily that Harry was concerned he might throw up for a second. “You are the best at defending open spaces, and that’s the most open space left on the grounds, which means the majority of the Dark Lord’s troops will come from that direction.”

            “Yes, sir,” Hermione said, straightening up and flipping off a little salute. Harry looked at her, wondering if there was a reason that she didn’t call Riddle “Sunlord” the way that all the rest of them did, but Hermione had her face turned away as she spoke softly to Ron, and Harry couldn’t see her expression.

            Riddle placed all the others around the castle, some on the towers, some on the ground or around the moat, with calm, vicious gestures. Then he paused and looked at Harry, his smile sliding into something sharp that made Harry wince.

            “I think Mr. Potter should come with me,” Riddle said softly, ignoring the way that most of the people around him flinched at the last name. Harry shifted uneasily. It was going to take him a long time to accept that, for people in this world, his name had the same effect that “Voldemort” did in his own. “He has the gift of commanding snakes, and a powerful wand. He will be useful when it comes to stirring up the people of the Forest.”

            “I can only talk to snakes,” Harry said, firming his grip on the Elder Wand just in case Riddle tried to duel him and take it away from him. “Not unicorns or anything.”

            “You think unicorns still live so near to the center of conflict?” Riddle laughed softly. “No, they have long since fled to warmer climes. You will see how you can be useful when we get to the Forest.”

            And he turned away and ignored Harry as utterly as though he wasn’t standing there, catching the eyes of the other members of the Light Resistance. Harry saw more than one of them stand up and inflate their chests. Harry decided not to stick a finger down his throat, but he really wanted to. What had Riddle done to inspire them all?

            Then he paused, remembering what Riddle had told him last night, about being Dumbledore’s student and Champion and associate. If there had been someone close to Dumbledore who could have taken over in Harry’s world when he fell, wouldn’t Harry have respected and listened to him, too? McGonagall wasn’t really the same.

            I have to remember that this one isn’t Voldemort. He doesn’t have the same reasons to hate me.

            Then Harry caught the sideways glance from Riddle, how Riddle had his head tucked down and his smile slyly beaming, and had to keep from shaking his head.

            He’s not the same, but fuck if I’m trusting him.

*

            “How can you call yourself a Light wizard if you’re a Parselmouth?”

            Riddle sighed ahead of Harry, and turned sideways to negotiate a narrow path between two trees. He had yet to glance back at Harry or act as though Harry was anything more than a nuisance fastened at his heels, and Harry had to admit that he could feel the churning desire in him to do something to impress Riddle, wave the Elder Wand around or demonstrate his talent for flying and make Riddle respect him.

            That’s probably the reason he gets people to follow him, Harry decided, and felt wise with it.

            “I wish that you would give up your insular prejudices,” Riddle said, finally glancing at Harry over his shoulder. “Albus harbored such ideas—fifty years ago. He gave them up when he realized my power, and that he wanted to train me and convert me to his side. Parseltongue is no more a Dark gift on its own than the ability to conjure a fire on a hearth is a Light one.”

            “But Dark wizards use Parseltongue,” Harry said.

            Riddle sniffed. “Of course they do. It is potentially powerful magic. But my research into the life of Slytherin himself indicates that he understood better, at least at first. It was a gift to use, and he intended to use his basilisk to guard the school.” Riddle shook his head. “Later, he became convinced that he had to guide and direct the future, and that meant either identifying wizards as powerful as he was and ruling over them, or eliminating them. The basilisk was meant to keep an eye on pure-bloods and Muggleborns, and kill anyone who exhibited comparable power to Slytherin himself.”

            “That’s crazy,” Harry said, a little awed. Just getting kicked out of Hogwarts, the way Slytherin had in his world, started to look common.

            “That’s what Dark Arts will do to you unless you remember that you still have to do something other than torture people,” Riddle said. “The current Dark Lord does not have to do anything else, so it works for him.” He paused, looking ahead, and started to hold up his hand.

            Harry took a deep breath. “How were his parents killed?” he asked.

            Riddle didn’t turn, but Harry thought he saw his shoulders stiffen. “The current Dark Lord?” he asked.

            Harry rolled his eyes. “No, yours,” he snapped.

            “My father died of fear,” Riddle said. “My mother of sickness contracted during childbirth.”

            Harry bit the inside of his cheek so he wouldn’t scream. Riddle was all the more infuriating when he acted as though Harry’s questions were serious and he wouldn’t answer them. “Fine,” he said. “I meant it differently. I meant his.”

            “In a werewolf attack,” Riddle said. “Be quiet now. Or make sure that the words you speak are not in English.” And he hissed.

            Harry heard the hiss for only a few seconds before his mind began to translate the Parseltongue. Come forth, children of the fire.

            Harry winced a little as he thought about that. He only knew one snake who could really be called a child of fire, and if it was here…

            It was, he saw a moment later, as Ashwinders began to come out of the bushes around them, flickering their tongues at Riddle. Harry saw that each of them had a portable ball of fire behind them, which floated and flickered at the back of their heads. Harry stared at Riddle, who smiled slightly back at him and faced the Ashwinders again. He had to have been the one who created the fire, Harry thought. Without it, the Ashwinders would only have lived an hour.

            “Greetings,” Riddle said, sounding as though he didn’t particularly have any reason to come here except to call out the Ashwinders and chat with them. “Your lair is under attack. I wish you to come forth and burn the ones responsible.”

            Harry stared around the Forest. He wondered if the whole thing was a lair for Ashwinders now. Or maybe there were Runespoors and other magical snakes here, too. Riddle had probably stocked the Forest with serpents so that he could use it as a defense only he could command.

            No wonder the unicorns didn’t stay, Harry thought, and suppressed a hysterical giggle.

            He saw that Riddle had turned towards him, and swallowed his nervousness, glaring back. “What?” he demanded, not knowing if it came out in English or Parseltongue.

            Riddle gestured, and Ashwinders twined around Harry’s legs and slithered up to his shoulders. Harry started. He hadn’t realized that they had come so close. “You’ve volunteered to be in the vanguard.”



            “Oh, I have, have I?” Something of Harry’s unimpressed tone must have carried through into the Parseltongue, because all the Ashwinders laughed around him, the sound gentle and sounding like the rustling of burnt leaves.

            “Yes,” Riddle said. “You have. I want you to go north through the Forbidden Forest and attack the contingent where I think the Dark Lord himself is. I will come behind with the Runespoors and Firebrand.”

            Harry decided not to ask what Firebrand was, in case it turned out to be Riddle’s pet basilisk. “You have a really nice opinion of my strength, if you think I’ll survive going up against the Dark Lord himself,” he mumbled.

            “Ah, but you have already defeated one, have you not?” Riddle’s eyes were alight with amusement. “And I require that you have your wand burning in order to illuminate your face more effectively. I want him stunned and dismayed. I want him to recognize you.”

            “So I’m going to end up dying in another world for a war that’s really none of my business,” Harry said.

            “Your version of Albus sent you here with the promise that this world could be a home, did he not?” Riddle paused to watch Harry with a piercing gaze, ignoring the shrieks and clash of battle that Harry could hear now beyond the trees. “What kind of dweller in our world will you make, if you will not even fight for your home?”

            Harry scowled. “I hate you sometimes.”

            “Not all the time? That is already an improvement.” Riddle turned and slipped further into the Forest, between the trunks of two huge trees that Harry thought were oaks, calling in a low voice. Harry saw another flicker of flame. Maybe Firebrand was Riddle’s giant Ashwinder that he rode to battle on.

            Harry glanced at the Ashwinders clustered around him and shook his head a little. It seemed that he wasn’t going to get out of this, so he might as well go with it and hope that it would earn him some goodwill from the members of the Light Resistance. If they didn’t accept him, they might at least tell him where other people were who might, like Remus.

            “Come on,” he told the snakes, and walked away with them coiling and sliding through the leaves and shadows behind him, lit and sustained by their balls of fire.

*

            The Dark Lord was in the middle of a whole bunch of troops, most of them wearing thick green cloaks with silver masks. Harry snorted. It seemed it was universal for Dark Lords to decide that that was the kind of thing their underlings should wear. Although Voldemort had at least gone for black and white instead of the Slytherin House colors.

            Harry held his Ashwinders back for a second, partially because he wanted to watch the progress of the battle and partially because he was curious. Everyone was telling him that Dark Lord was him, but Harry hadn’t seen a trace of it so far. He wondered exactly how much this boy resembled him. There must be other differences besides the lack of a scar.

            He’d located the central figure without much difficulty, but seeing his face was harder. The night was broken by lightning from the east, the glow of Hogwarts’s wards as they held up to the bombardment from this Harry’s troops, and the blaze of various light spells, plus the fire coming from behind Harry. None of it made it that easy to see and focus on one object.

            But finally someone who loomed over the other one and might have been Walden Macnair bent down to say something to him, and the Dark Lord turned his head.

            Harry caught his breath. He didn’t wear a mask, the way Harry had been afraid he would. His face was stern and pale, and his eyes an incredibly odd color, like emeralds starting out of his head. People had told Harry his eyes were like that, but he could look into any mirror and see that that wasn’t true. This was weird, and creepy.

            He had dark hair, or at least Harry thought he could see it clustering around the edges of his cloak’s hood. The hair might have been straight or curly, as wild as Harry’s or flatter. It was hard to tell at this distance.

            The Ashwinders hissed impatiently around Harry, and as much because it might cause this Dark Lord to turn towards him and give him a better view than anything else, Harry flung up his arms and let them go. The Ashwinders slithered out and attacked the Dark wizards without hesitation, their mouths open and their flames flowing around them.

            Suddenly the wizards who were helping or advising or taking orders from or protecting their Dark Lord—Harry had no idea which—had something else to deal with. They spun to face the new distraction, and there were regular shouts and shrieks from multiple throats. Harry grinned. He supposed that no one else was a Parselmouth in this group, either.

            The Dark Lord immediately took a step forwards and aimed his face and wand at the woods as if expecting Riddle to come out. Harry charged him instead, brandishing the Elder Wand.

            For a second, he caught a better glimpse of the Dark Lord than he had so far. His eyes really did stand out a few inches beyond their sockets, and his dark hair trailed on the ground, it was so long. Or if it wasn’t hair, Harry had to control queasiness at the sight of the dark tendrils that emerged from under his robe. He supposed it could be tentacles, depending on the way that this Dark Lord had changed himself.

            Then the other Harry ducked down, and a blast of concentrated and rolling power came out of him and crashed into Harry.

            Harry bent down and gasped aloud. It had felt like a punch in the stomach, a slimy punch in the stomach. And something flailed and grasped through his head, the way that Snape’s Legilimency had. Harry wouldn’t be surprised if this Dark Lord was a Legilimens, but he hadn’t known you could read someone’s mind and punch them in the stomach at the same time.

            He rolled away instinctively from the spell that followed it, which he didn’t think had come from the Dark Lord but from one of the wizards surrounding him. His stomach still hurt, but he could breathe again.

            And Harry thought it was time to mix things up, to show them he was someone other than just a helpless victim.

            He aimed his wand straight at the two Dark wizards who were striding towards him, or rather at the bottom of their dark green robes, and shouted, “Incendio!”

            There was a rush of power that felt like an indrawn breath, and then fire as great as the balls that surrounded the Ashwinders sprang up from the cloth. Harry saw a wizard’s hair catch on fire, and he began to run around in circles, shrieking and clawing at it. Then he flung himself on the ground and rolled, but the flames didn’t go out. They followed him like living beings instead, wrapped around his ribs, sinking in sharp and literal claws.

            Harry stared, wondering if he had somehow cast Fiendfyre without meaning to. But he was sure of his incantation, and he didn’t understand what would somehow make it different.

            Then he felt the thrum inside his fist, and did understand , after all. The Elder Wand had increased the power of the spell. It couldn’t actually make Harry cast Dark magic, but it could make his simple spells as destructive as it could.

            Harry grimaced and got his feet beneath him, putting his back to a tree. Then he cast Shield Charms on either side of him, so that he would be able to keep anyone from approaching him from the sides.

            The Dark Lord took a step towards him. He shied away from his followers who were rolling around in the fire, but never seemed to pay attention to them otherwise. His gaze was locked on Harry’s face, rapt. Harry braced himself for a duel he wasn’t sure if he could win.

            Then Riddle arrived, a rush of Runespoors coiling past him and giving the Dark Lord’s followers something else to think about.

            And diving from above came Riddle’s Firebrand, who turned out to be a phoenix.

            Harry ducked despite himself when a tail full of flames whistled over his head, and then shook his head and stood up taller. The Dark Lord was staring at the phoenix as if it was his worst nightmare, and a second later he raised his wand and began to chant. Harry shivered as the temperature dropped all around him, and cold plumes of black water rose from the ground near the Dark Lord, reaching out to splash on the phoenix and quench the fires.

            A phoenix couldn’t be extinguished that easily, as anyone should have known. But then, Harry wasn’t sure that this other self was sane anymore; Riddle hadn’t talked much about that. Firebrand rose again, singing, and the song cut through the dark. Harry found he could breathe more easily. The flash and clap of light and Light magic from all over the grounds seemed to pick up speed as that song inspired the others, too.

            The guards around the Dark Lord were having trouble doing anything but fighting the Runespoors and Ashwinders right now. Riddle was burning people alive off to the side. Harry did his best to ignore that and took a step towards the Dark Lord. He wondered if there was anything he could do to make things different, if seeing someone who looked so much like him would change the boy’s mind somehow.

            Then the Dark Lord turned and stared at him.

            And Harry found himself rooted in place, shivering, as something like a black blade pierced past his eyes and into his mind. The blade flicked aside memories. Harry saw glimpses of Voldemort’s face, the Elder Wand, the symbol of the Deathly Hallows, the basilisk, and that time in second year when Draco Malfoy had cast the Serpensortia spell and Harry had revealed to everyone that he could speak Parseltongue.

            The memories towered. Harry was standing on a wooden floor and staring at the pendant Luna’s father wore with the symbol of the Deathly Hallows and facing Voldemort and feeling the pain of the basilisk fang pierce his arm all at once. He drew breath to scream, not sure what would happen when he did, not sure what was happening to him now, except that he was trapped in his memories and couldn’t find the way out.

            He remembered, from last night, a snatch of Riddle’s conversation, about how Light magic manipulated perceptions and transformations and thoughts. Then what was this? Or was this one of the ways the Dark Lord here, taught by Snape, had learned how to twist and warp Light magic into Dark?

            The memories whirled around him, going so fast that Harry fell to his knees and found himself foolishly clutching at the forest floor, the grass and earth. Cold water crashed over his body, although he didn’t know what was real and what wasn’t. But then, that was true of everything around him now. He had no idea which way was down and which was up, and while he knew that this had begun when he looked into the Dark Lord’s eyes, he didn’t know if he was still looking into them.

            A thin sound descended into his ears. The thought of sound and ears and descent oriented Harry more to the world around him than anything had in what felt like years. He tossed his head back, taking a deep breath, and his hair brushed and wriggled against his ears, sopping wet.

            He opened his eyes and looked up, and although the memories still crouched around him like beasts and the sensation of kneeling in cold water still welled along his limbs, above him was Firebrand, and the sight of a phoenix was real.

            The way it had been in the Chamber, Harry thought. The way Fawkes had been when fighting the basilisk. That had been another world, another place. It had been one of the memories that the Dark Lord had called upon to disarm him.

            But it was still his memory. And that meant it wasn’t the bastard’s to take.

            Harry heaved himself to his feet and stretched his arm up. The invitation was instinctive, and for a long second he thought Firebrand wouldn’t accept it. He was Riddle’s phoenix, after all, and there was no saying that he answered to anyone else.

            But then Firebrand settled on Harry’s arm, as heavy as a hawk, or what he imagined a hawk would feel like, shaking his bright tail back and forth and singing steadily, indignantly. Harry felt the warmth pour into him, warmth of flame and warmth of song, and turned to face the Dark Lord, lifting the phoenix.

            Firebrand flew off Harry like a hawk, too, aiming straight at the other Dark Lord as if hunting prey. The Dark Lord stood his ground, and his wand moved to the side, up, down, around, in a pattern of a cross inside a circle.

            Firebrand screamed as the air around him turned dark and strangling, to cold water. The attack this time was more personal, and Harry saw Firebrand’s flames begin to dim and go out, the way they couldn’t when he was flying above those streamers. He dropped to the ground, a small bird and not a raptor after all, writhing and shrieking and batting chicken-like claws against the dark.

            Harry didn’t want that to happen, either. This wasn’t Fawkes, but he reminded Harry of him, and this stranger with the empty eyes on the other side of the battlefield didn’t remind Harry of himself. Not at all.

            He charged, yelling, and the Dark Lord’s attention snapped to him. The dark streamers attacking Firebrand let up a little. The Dark Lord’s wand rose again, and some of the people who had spread out to fight the snakes tried to close back in around him, to protect him.

            Harry was beyond them already, fast, with the speed he’d picked up running from Dudley and his friends, and then from Death Eaters. He danced past the clutching arms of one follower, leaped another’s, and crashed into the Dark Lord, bearing him to the earth.

            The impact was enough to make the Dark Lord almost lose his wand. Harry found himself struggling against a body the same size as his own, wiry arms that rose and flailed against him, and legs of the same size that kicked.

            A hand caught him on the ear and made it ring, and Harry ducked his head to keep from staring, remembering what had happened the last time he met the Dark Lord’s eyes. Then he put the Elder Wand in the center of one wrist and shouted, “Expelliarmus!”

            The blast caught the Dark Lord’s wand and almost shot it out of his hand, so that it soared across the grass in front of them and landed somewhere in one of the shadows that the flickering lights made. The Dark Lord shrieked like the Hogwarts Express. That must have been a signal that Harry didn’t understand, because various Dark wizards who’d surrounded him scattered to look for the wand.

            Harry grabbed the punching hands of this person who was so much like him, so much his own size, and rolled, hard. Now he was on the bottom, and he was worried for a second that the Dark Lord would seize him and slam his head into the ground, but Harry’s grip on his wrists was still too tight. He kept jerking his head up and trying to stare Harry in the eyes, anyway.

            Is he too far gone to think of any other weapon that he can use? Harry wanted to sniff in contempt, but refrained. I would be better than this if I were going to turn Dark.

            Then he twisted again, and managed to accomplish what he wanted, ending up kneeling on the Dark Lord’s back with the bastard trapped beneath him, his wrists clasped together in the middle of his back and in Harry’s tight grip. Harry laid his wand against his throat and looked up. There was someone with a green robe and silver mask only a few feet from him, but he halted in between one step and another when he saw Harry looking at him.

            Harry narrowed his eyes. “If you try to attack me, then I’ll just kill him,” he said, striving for the casual, flat tone that he thought Riddle would probably use right now. “And wouldn’t that be a poor end to all his striving?”

            The Dark Lord tried to stir under Harry. Harry ducked his head down and hissed into the git’s ear, “If you’re not too far gone from sanity, then you know I mean it. Shut up and stay still. Don’t try to command them, or control my mind, or anything.”

            The Dark Lord went still, but then Harry felt a strange lassitude invade the prat’s arms where he was holding them. The skin there was prickling when he looked down, changing and becoming darker. Ripples of brown and grey and black spread out from them, and before Harry could convince himself they were probably only illusions and wouldn’t hurt him, he jerked his hands back.

            The Dark Lord gave a hollow laugh that wasn’t worse than Voldemort’s but was still something that Harry would never have wanted to hear come out of a mouth so like his own, and rolled his head back to look up at Harry. His lips had parted, and Harry could see dark, jagged teeth behind them. Some seemed to be broken and cracked, other pointed up like fangs, and he thought that he would probably cut his fingers on them if he reached in there.

            Not that he wanted to reach in there at all. He jerked his hands back from that temptation, too, especially when the Dark Lord lunged up and tried to bite him. His teeth made a clicking, rattling sound like dice when he snapped them back together.

            Riddle’s voice said casually from behind Harry, “Down.”

            Harry dropped flat, even though that meant partially dropping down on top of the Dark Lord. Flames singed the hair on his neck, and a sweet, strong music burst into his ears. The Dark Lord beneath him screamed like a wounded teakettle and started flailing around, almost kicking Harry in the ear. Harry kicked back and cast a spell with the Elder Wand. He wasn’t even sure which one it was, but it lifted him up and floated him away to a safe distance, and that was the only thing he cared about for right now.

            He glanced up, panting, to see Riddle standing at the edge of the Forbidden Forest, his hands extended and his arms held up as though they were pistons on which the world turned. Firebrand hovered halfway between him and the Dark Lord lying on the ground, his wings spread as if in imitation of Riddle’s arms, but curved more in a scythe or scimitar shape. He hadn’t stopped singing.

            Riddle said something that was liquid and sliding, and Harry thought it might be in the language of birds, rather than Parseltongue, because Harry certainly didn’t understand it. The Dark Lord shrieked.

            He got up on his feet in the next instant, and extended his own hands. His wand soared back into them, and Harry watched him spin around so it was pointing like a compass needle at Riddle’s heart.

            Riddle didn’t notice, or maybe didn’t deign to notice. His head continued to be tilted back, his breathing came calm and steady, and his hands wove around in front of him as though he was conducting an orchestra. Firebrand landed on his shoulder, fluffed his tail out in a scarlet blaze of glory that made Harry blink, and continued to sing. The Dark Lord took a menacing step towards them that neither noticed, either.

            Harry didn’t recognize the spell that the Dark Lord spoke. Maybe it was one of the warped Light spells that Riddle had talked about. But the effect was immediate.

            Grey mist descended all over the battlefield. Harry huddled down, shivering. He could feel beads of dew gathering along the back of his neck, and there were sharp prickles up and down, under his skin, that made him want to scratch it clean off. The weight on his mind that was his rage and despair that he couldn’t return home grew heavier, until it was hard to breathe and iron bands constricted his heart from beating.

            He could still hear Firebrand’s song, but it was so distant and meaningless that Harry couldn’t look up or orient on it.

            He finally glanced up, and saw something standing in front of him. At first he thought it was a Dementor, but it had a faint glow like tarnished silver that he had never seen any Dementor exude; they were pure Dark. The creature had the outline of a horse, maybe, or a stag. Now and then Harry thought he saw antlers on its head. Now and then, they were horns. Now and then, they were a single long, black, spiral horn pointed straight at his heart, as though the creature was a reverse unicorn.

            No, Harry slowly understood, as the flow of despair seeped into his heart and the creature bent its head closer and closer to him. A reverse Patronus.

            The creature moved slowly towards Harry, so slowly that he had time to hear every separate hoofbeat. It breathed at him, and Harry felt his sight dim, some of the joy and life that made him himself flowing out of his soul and into this thing. His heart beat more slowly. He lifted a hand and tried to shield his eyes, and it looked like grey glass.

            The reverse Patronus took another step. Harry was lying flat now; he couldn’t remember how that had happened. A cold muzzle snuffled at his neck, and he felt the creature breathing him down, sipping him. Harry’s soul sloshed, rippled, drained. His memories whirled around him and fled. He knew where he was, but not who he was; then he could feel even that bit of knowledge narrowing to a pinpoint, getting ready to vanish.

            Someone said, voice so distant that it was as unimportant as the phoenix’s song, “Lux aeterna.”

            There was a wild rush and glow of light, and then the reverse Patronus screamed and danced back. Harry shot to his feet. He knew who he was now, and where he was, and what the thing sniffling at him had been, and he was past both. He held out his hands and shouted, furiously and defiantly and hopefully, and more memories came back, and he knew his Ron and Hermione again—not the ones here, but they still lived somewhere—and he grabbed the Elder Wand and rushed forwards into battle.

            The reverse Patronus backed away from him, shivering violently, stamping a foot, and confined to one form now, a stag with crumbling black antlers made of ash and haunted eyes. It flung its head up when Harry stared at it, and then turned and stampeded in the other direction, tail up and body breaking into mist as it bounded between the trees. The light singing through Harry wove itself around in front of him, and he recognized it as Firebrand.

            Beside him, though, hovered another transparent, shining thing. Not a phoenix, Harry thought, but the light from the spell that Riddle had cast, come into being to save him. And anyone else on the battlefield, but he had the feeling that Riddle had cast the spell mostly for him.

            The shining light and Firebrand sped away, weaving and twining through the forest, singing together, and setting Dark wizards casually on fire. Harry looked for the Dark Lord, but couldn’t see him. He saw a triumphant, seething mass of Ashwinders instead, and Runespoors behind them, and Riddle standing with his hands out at his sides, lips moving as he chanted. Harry didn’t see his wand, but he had no doubt that magic was happening anyway. He could feel his mood lightening, and hear the victorious shouts from a short distance off, as Riddle’s Light Resistance fought its way back to their feet.

            There was a long silence as Riddle finished, and magic seemed to flow and collapse back into the earth. Riddle opened his eyes and shook his head, rubbing at his ears.

            “That sort of power makes my ears pop,” he explained, when he saw Harry looking at him. “A minor weakness that I hoped was temporary when I first began to experience the heights of Light magic. Alas.”

            “Thank you,” Harry said, finding his voice as cold and awkward as the reverse Patronus in retreat. “You saved my life.”

            Riddle raised his eyebrows as he regarded him. “Saved your life?” he asked softly. “Rather, saved you. The reverse Patronus would have taken you, body and mind and soul and magic, until nothing was left.”

            Harry swallowed. “So that’s what you meant by warping Light spells,” he whispered.

            Riddle shrugged a little. “Yes, that was what I meant.”

            Harry nodded again. “Well. Thank you for saving me, then.” He looked around. “What happened to him? I didn’t see him fleeing, but he isn’t here anymore.”

            Riddle sighed and half-shut his eyes. “Your ridiculous obsession with the obvious will cost me in time and patience,” he murmured, and pointedly ignored the way Harry blushed. “He departed when my spell began to disrupt his Patronus. He had invested too much of his time and effort in that one spell, and he neglected to guard against my influence over his soldiers with the Light magic I wield.” He looked thoughtfully in what Harry supposed was the direction that the Dark Lord had taken, although it was hard to tell, with darkness settling back over the fields and the Lumos Charms on their wands only lighting up a small area. “But one theory is confirmed. I must thank you for serving as the distraction while I tested it.”

            “Distraction?” Harry knew his voice was rising, and some of the people drifting up behind Riddle looked at him warily, but he couldn’t care, not when it seemed that Riddle had arranged the whole battle to use Harry as bait. “What do you mean?”

            “I mean,” Riddle said, imitating Harry’s inflection with a force that made Harry flush painfully, “that I wondered how strong his inclination towards Dark magic was. There are some wizards who use it but feel no discomfort in the presence of sun-based spells. Others might feel some but be able to conceal it, and still others, who twist Light spells, flinch from the real thing.”

            “What category is he in?” Harry asked, feeling a little dizzy with the way they were jumping subjects. He wondered if Riddle ever got tired, or if he lay awake at night arguing subjects with himself so that his mind would have something to do.

            “He is so far gone that he fled rather than face the Eternal Light,” Riddle said, and his voice was soft and his eyes had a glint in them that Harry didn’t understand. “And despite its name, it is not a very strong spell. It is meant mainly to defeat Dark creatures, like his Patronus, that venture too close to human habitation. That he ran…” Riddle shut his eyes and tilted his head back. “Interesting. Very interesting.”

            He turned and eyed Harry for a moment. “Minor burns, a few patches of frostbite, and some psychic shock from facing his Patronus close up,” Riddle murmured. “You’ll be fine with a short visit to Mrs. Tonks, but make sure that you get some sleep.”

            “Mrs. Tonks?” Harry echoed, a bit bewildered, although of course he had seen Andromeda among the Light Resistance last night.

            “She’s our Healer. I’ll see you tomorrow, and give you some more explanations in return for your help.” Riddle turned and began to walk towards the other members of his Light Resistance, clapping his hands and calling for their attention.

            Harry opened his mouth to demand explanations. He had risked his life in the war. Why couldn’t he have them now, when he wanted them?

            But Andromeda was right there before he could voice the questions, her wand flicking in circles and her mouth thinning as she checked the red and blue lights that her spell bore. She shook her head.

            “He’s always thinking that his ability to resist the Dark is shared by the rest of us,” she told Harry. “And that someone who hasn’t faced it before can rebound more quickly than is the case. Here.” She dug into her pocket and produced a shimmering silvery potion that she held out to Harry. “Drink this. It’s for the frostbite,” she added, maybe seeing the distrust Harry couldn’t prevent in his eyes.

            Harry wavered, then decided that he felt bloody awful and wanted to sleep for a while. He didn’t really think the potion would have any worse effect.

            Sure enough, all it did was pour blackness down his throat and into his mind, and his body relaxed in a wonderful, collapsing way. How he got off the battlefield, Harry never knew.

*

            “…And I don’t think it’s wise to trust someone from another world that much.”

            Harry awoke, still shivering a little, in the same bed where he had gone to sleep, in the guest room off Riddle’s quarters. He wrapped his arms around himself to still the shivering, shifted to the side, and then listened intently. It would be just like Riddle to have left some ward or charm that would alert him when Harry moved.

            Nothing buzzed or hissed or rang, though a faint humming sound did come from the side. Harry looked up, and stared. On a perch broader and taller than the one that Fawkes had used in Dumbledore’s office rested Firebrand, close to the door to the bathroom. His tail spread around him, his eyes were closed, and his head was tucked into his breast feathers. He appeared to be humming in his sleep.

            Harry wondered if Firebrand had been left as a guard on him, but if so, he was a singularly ineffective one. All he did when Harry got out of bed was open one bright eye, glance at him, and then tuck his head down even more efficiently, burying his beak in feathers until Harry was surprised he could breathe.

            “I don’t think it’s wise!”

            The voice turned Harry’s attention back to the conversation happening outside the room, and the necessity of either demanding to know what it was about or getting as close as he could without them overhearing him. He slipped out of bed—relieved that he was still dressed—and crept across the room, to the partially open door.

            Through it, he could see a closer group of chairs than the ones in front of the fireplace, plus some extra ones he thought had been conjured for the Resistance. Andromeda, Hermione, Ron, and Neville were in the ones that flanked the central chair, Riddle’s. Riddle leaned with his elbows resting on the back of the chair, the same way he’d sat when conversing with Harry the other night, and the same easy smile on his face.

            One chair faced his, empty. Pacing back and forth in front of Riddle was the occupant, Malfoy—Black, Harry corrected himself—his voice raised.

            I suppose it’s nice to know that wherever I go, Malfoy will distrust me, Harry thought sardonically.

            “If he is from another world,” Riddle said, his voice pleasant and almost sweet after the way Draco had brayed, “then there is all the more reason to trust him. He cannot be on the Dark Lord’s side. He came to us first, and he fought with us in this battle. I don’t know why you think that should turn him against us, or encourage him to spy for the Dark Lord.”

            “Because he and the Dark Lord are the same person.” Draco spun around on one heel as though he was making an important point. Harry studied the way his hair flopped around his face and suppressed a snort. He knew that Draco had been through a lot more in this world, but he still had a lot of the same pomposity. “Of course they would share the same goals.”

            Riddle sighed. “Then you must think that I am lying about him being from a different world. Or he is. If they are from different lives, why would they be the same?”

            Draco shook his head. “They look the same. They had the same parents. That must have influenced them in a lot of the same ways.”

            Riddle’s smile was small and vicious. “Ah, yes. I had forgotten that once parents stamp their image on someone, nothing can alter it.”

            Draco fell back a step and clapped a hand to his mouth before he became aware of what he was doing and dropped it. Riddle watched with a simmer of pleasure on his face, darting back and forth between his eyes and his mouth. Harry shivered involuntarily. He might be Light in this universe, but he still likes toying with people.

            “Nothing further to say,” Draco said, in a voice that sounded played out, and dropped into the chair that faced Riddle again.

            Riddle glanced around his Light Resistance again, as though waiting for more objections, and then held his finger up the way he would if he was conducting an orchestra. Harry thought he didn’t imagine the way everyone promptly focused and centered on Riddle. Hell, it was hard to avoid doing it himself.

            “Good,” Riddle said. “Now. The battle confirmed what I had suspected, that the Dark Lord is curious indeed about Harry.” Andromeda shifted as though she didn’t like the first-name address Riddle had given Harry, but Riddle looked at her again, and she was still. “We can use Harry to tempt him closer than I had been able to so far. At the same time, the final battle I am imagining cannot take place at Hogwarts. Tonight confirmed that too. All of the Dark Lord’s attachment for the school is gone, and he has people on his side who know our wards and defenses too well. That means we must take it away.”

            There was silence. Harry wondered what implications the members of the Light Resistance were working through, the implications that were invisible to him.

            And when Riddle might have been going to tell him about them.

            Andromeda was the first to say, “No. You cannot do it.” She sat up to face Riddle, and her face was grim and determined in a way that Harry had never seen it in his world. “You cannot—there is no reason for you to do that. You know how much damage it has caused in the past. You cannot awaken it.”

            “It caused damage to Muggle lives,” Riddle corrected her softly. “Muggle property. It will not do so this time. It will awake to my command, and the damage will be localized.” His smile made Harry want to throw up. “To one specific person, as a matter of fact.”

            “You promise this would get rid of him?” That was Hermione.

            “It would, yes,” Riddle said, and inclined his head to her as if he found her worthy of such graciousness. Harry could see the expression on Draco’s face when Riddle did that, and had to restrain a snicker. Riddle straightened back up and smiled gently around on all of them, as though he didn’t need their blessing but he’d like it. “If I am allowed to perform it the way I want to, at the site I want to, without your interference.”

            Andromeda stirred again. “You didn’t say—with our help.”

            “That is because I would not need it,” Riddle said, and Harry shivered a little at the way his voice echoed, or didn’t echo. It was becoming hard to tell anymore. “I would only need the help of one person, and I am not sure that he considers himself part of the Light Resistance right now.” He turned towards the door. “Do you, Harry?”

            Harry started. At least from the way Draco leaped to his feet and Ron drew his wand, they hadn’t known he was there, either.

            But that Riddle knew…

            Harry shook off the part of himself that felt absurdly sorry for the other Harry, the Dark one, and then stepped slowly out into the open. At least his door didn’t creak threateningly as he opened it, the absurd way he’d imagined it doing.

            “I’ll only help if you tell me everything,” he said, meeting Riddle’s eyes. “And if you tell me why you think this Dark Lord of yours is going to be attracted to me.”

            Riddle chuckled. The sound had a trill in it, but a moment later Harry figured out that was Firebrand, who flew off the perch from behind him and circled Riddle’s chair twice before he landed on the back of it. Riddle absently moved his head for the phoenix to have room to grip, and then reached up and slid his fingers back and forth through the feathers on Firebrand’s breast.

            Harry remembered that phoenixes were pure creatures, and that one of them wouldn’t choose a wizard who was as evil as Riddle sometimes sounded. But then he had to look at Firebrand, utterly content with being caressed by someone who had described himself as a power-seeker, and wonder if the phoenixes knew that.

            “Not attracted to you,” Riddle said. “But drawn. Against his will. Did you not notice that he went after you himself, when he has people for that?”

            “No,” Harry said. “I don’t know all the history of your world, and I was trying to survive having my soul eaten.”

            Riddle moved a hand, ignoring the gasps of some of the Light Resistance. “The Patronus could not have eaten your soul in the same way a Dementor could have.”

            “And that makes it all better.”

            A sudden movement caught Harry’s eye, and he turned his head to see Neville starting to his feet. But Hermione had clasped her hand over her mouth, and her eyes sparkled.

            “I see what you mean about being able to trust him,” Draco drawled. He hadn’t risen from his chair again, and he was watching Harry with his eyes narrowed with contempt. “He blurts everything out the instant it enters his head.”

            “Yeah, like the way I know what you look like when you cry over Voldemort assigning you an impossible task,” Harry sniped back.

            Riddle stirred. Harry thought that was the only reason Draco didn’t draw his wand, although he did shoot out of his chair. He sat back down a second later, but he was breathing hoarsely, and his eyes were fastened on Harry’s face as if they would never leave.

            “You have no idea what you’re talking about,” Draco whispered.

            “Yeah, I do,” Harry said. He was wishing that he hadn’t said the name “Voldemort,” with the way Riddle was looking at him, but he had, and it was no use hoping that he could go back now. “Voldemort was the Dark Lord in my world, and you were one of his Death Eaters. He wanted you to kill Dumbledore. I found you crying in one of the bathrooms, because he’d threatened your family if you didn’t do it. You tried to attack me with an Unforgivable, but I attacked you instead.”

            Draco was watching him with no expression on his face. “So,” he asked after a moment, “who won?”

            “I did,” Harry said. “Of course.” He decided not to mention the part about how he hadn’t meant to leave Malfoy bleeding on the floor, although from the faint twist around Riddle’s mouth, he suspected Harry had left something out.

            Draco turned to Riddle. “Use him in whatever way you want,” he said. “Make the plans. I’ll follow them. I didn’t come to join the Light Resistance only to balk when you wanted me to do something.”

            “But?” Riddle touched the tips of his fingers together, and Firebrand leaned down as if he wanted to put his plumes between them.

            “I don’t want to speak to him,” Draco said, and stood up and walked towards the door, not looking over his shoulder. Harry had to admit that was more control than the Malfoy from his world would have had.

            “If he’s managed to alienate Draco, then why should we have him with us?” That was Ron, his voice harsh as he glanced at Harry and then away again. Maybe he couldn’t stand to look at Harry’s face, Harry thought. That was—possible, and he had to remember that, no matter how much he hurt. “I don’t want to work with him, either.”

            “How fortunate that you will not have to,” Riddle said. “Since I will be the one to construct the plans with him. Go now.”

            Hermione took Ron’s arm and herded him out of there. Neville left in a hurry, his eyes on the floor, only darting up to Harry’s face once. Andromeda did stop to look between Harry and Riddle as if she suspected Riddle would try something damaging, then sniffed and turned to Harry.

            “You still look cold,” she said. “We don’t know as much as Lord Riddle thinks we do about the effects of exposure to reverse Patronuses. Make sure that you stay warm over the next few days.”

            “I think I can speak for making sure of that,” Riddle said, and his voice was dark with laughter.

            Andromeda met his eyes. “It’s wrong, Sunlord,” she said. “Even you may not be able to control that much magic.”

            “I think I am,” said Riddle.

            Even Harry could feel the wall those words put between Andromeda and Riddle. Sighing, Andromeda turned her back and walked out of the room. She did pause to look back, once, at the door, but Riddle might as well not have been there. She was looking at Harry, and her gaze was huge and clear and complicated.

            “I wish you luck,” she said, and then closed the door softly behind her.

            Harry turned around to stare at Riddle. Riddle was lounging back on the chair again, his expression gone bored and still and his fingers toying with Firebrand’s plumes. When he saw Harry looking at him, though, he sat up.

            “I am not pleased with you revealing the name of Voldemort to Black and the rest,” he announced.

            “Don’t say anything about it, and no one will connect you with it,” Harry pointed out. “In the meantime, I want to know exactly what you’re going to do. And why you think I can help with it. And why you’re so powerful over all the rest of them that they’ll go along with you plans, even when they don’t trust me.”

            Riddle half-smiled. “Very well. I’ll take you to the site of the place that I plan to defeat the Dark Lord.” He held out his hand. “We need to Apparate.”

            “We can, from inside the school?” Harry came cautiously closer, not really reassured when Firebrand rose off the back of the chair, crooned, and flew around him. He already had reason to question Firebrand’s taste in masters.

            “I can transform the wards temporarily to ones that allow Apparition, and then seal them again behind us,” Riddle said, as if it wasn’t that big a deal. “In the meantime, are you coming or not?” He snapped his fingers impatiently at Harry.

            Harry snarled at him and took his arm.

            The world seemed to waver around them. Harry gasped. He found it hard to be sure, but he thought he spent a longer time in Apparition than he ever had before. Of course, maybe Riddle was just doing that to fuck with him.

            The world wavered around them again as they landed. Harry fell to his knees for a second, then forced himself back to his feet without looking Riddle in the eye. No chance to give the bastard more time to smirk.

            He was on a flat black stone street, with crumbled stone buildings all around him. The street stretched on and on until it ran into a wall, which looked like the humped back of a serpent as it traveled up and down. Harry glanced up behind the wall, and saw mountains.

            He frowned. They were blue with distance, but close enough—and Riddle was looking at him expectantly enough—that Harry thought they were what Riddle had brought him to see. He even thought he should recognize one of them, which humped like the wall and seemed to have two different peaks.

            "Do you know where we are?"

            Harry straightened his spine, and said, "No." He thought of adding that Riddle couldn't really expect him to recognize some Mugglr place. But he decided the single word would serve well enough.

            Riddle nodded, and turned to pace down the street, studying the ruined buildings almost affectionately. "This is the solution to a problem I have been considering for some time," he said over his shoulder. "If it were a matter of sheer power, I could destroy our twisted Mr. Potter. I am stronger than he is, and he does not understand Light magic well enough for him to use it against me.

          "But two things prevent this. First, he is never alone, and his followers could keep me busy enough to allow him to overwhelm me.

          "Second, he may have made some preparation to ensure his survival after death." He glanced keenly at Harry. "Such as a Horcrux."

          Harry had to look doubtfully at the crumbled buildings around them. "And you think this place can help you overcome that?"

         Riddle didn't answer. Harry turned to look at him and took a step back.

         Riddle's smile was full of a dark, endless joy.

          "I have you to lure him now," Riddle said simply. "If he thinks you could provide a weapon against him, perhaps by telling us how he thinks, he would have to come."

"But I'm from a different world..."

"What matters is what he believes, not what is true."

Harry nodded uneasily.

Riddle tilted his head back to the sun, and closed his eyes. "This place is a site of power," he whispered. "One strong enough to enable me to burn his soul out forever, with the right combination of magic." He glanced curiously at Harry. "And you truly do not recognize it?"

         Harry shook his head. His breath was hard to come by as he watched Riddle.

          "The greatest of its kind left in Europe," Riddle said, and his smile widened over his face until there was nothing but that savage light. "Mount Vesuvius. For volcanoes are also servants of the Light."

*

            moodysavage: Tom is in his sixties, the way he would have been in Harry’s time. There’s enough of a gap between him and Snape to account for him being Snape’s mentor, I think.

            And you will get to see more of Snape in the next chapter.

            BAFan: He does want to defeat the Harry Potter of his world more than anything else, so in that sense you can trust him. But yeah, he’s not very trustworthy.
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Odysseus Bound