Everyone Knows Tom Riddle Is An Odd Child. Some May Even Say Disturbed. Mrs. Cole Warned Albus Profoundly

listen i get ppl are deeply into the whole “voldemort is far more powerful than harry”-thing because yeah, he is, but i also think harry should be allowed to bully him extensively. ‘powerplay this’, ‘powerplay that’ no! harry has no urge to be more powerful than voldemort! harry just wants to bully him!

doesn’t matter if harry ends up on his arm or through some convoluted fanfic logic in his head during the events of the series after he passes. harry’s sole goal is Ridicule The Dark Lord. he reminds voldemort daily that he got beaten by 1) a baby, 2) an 11yo boy with fire hands (apparently), 3) a 12yo boy with a sword and one (1) fang, 4) a 14yo boy who could run really quickly, and 5) a 17yo, malnourished, exhausted boy with a borrowed wand. he tells voldemort repeatedly that vee’s 15yo self bragged to harry’s 12yo self (no sword or fang yet) that he decided on his name change via anagram, like it’s cool. he reminds voldemort often that “lord flight from death” is a bit on the nose for a new name. he always says that whatever voldemort does is “no friend behaviour”. he tells voldemort things like “you know all of your followers except bella and barty would sell you to the devil for one corn chip right” and voldemort, without fail, will think “NO. THAT’S THE THING I’M SENSITIVE ABOUT”. he’s yelling “HA CRINGEE” about everything voldemort does. it’s devastating.

draw me after you by @toast-ranger-to-a-stranger, chapter 16.

"He's sipping at his tea, hair mussed, eyes tired. Perched on the back of his chair, a snowy owl sits, nipping at the messy strands curling around Harry's ear."

wolf & bunny: a love story

OMG I LOVE THESE

Harry Potter Illustration Series - Created by Dan Elijah Fajardo

These designs are available for sale as shirts, cases, and more at his TeePublic Shop.

Tom: Harry, you love me, yes?

Harry: …normally, I’d agree without hesitation, but I feel like this is about to go somewhere I won’t like.

Harry: I’m going to need a human skull, and you can’t ask why.

Tom: Only if you also don’t ask why. *pulls out four pristine human skulls from his bag*

Harry:

Tom:

Harry: This one will do.

relent

Harry gaped as he watched Ron disapparate, his heart shuddering and squeezing tight in his chest. The actual audacity. The fucking cheek of Ron.

Harry stood in the middle of the Forest of Dean, mouth agape, as Hermione quietly began to cry. Every molecule in Harry's body burned and his vision blurs; it's not until he feels the hot splash of tears against his cheeks that he realised he had begun to cry silently as well.

Hermione's fingers threaded through Harry's and he held her hand tightly. It seems like it's just going to be the two of them.

It is fine. They can do this.

They’ll have to.

"I guess it'll just be us against Vol – " Harry began sourly before Hermione's hand squeezed tightly.

"Don't say his name, Harry," Hermione whispered. "I don't know why, I can't explain it – but just, don't say his name."

Harry sealed his lips in a tight line, frowning, as they looked at the spot Ron had once stood.

— — — —

"Do you remember, Harry," Hermione began pensively, rolling her wand in her hand, "When Dean Thomas nearly ran into us in the forest?"

Harry looked up from his spot near the fire, pulling himself from his dark thoughts. His chest still ached from where Hermione had cut the locket off his flesh the night before, the searing oval scar shiny and tingling.

“I do," Harry answered at last. He tossed the sealed Golden Snitch between his hands, finger pads gliding over the engraved gold. He used to play with his wand this way, before – before it was splintered into shards. The wound of losing his wand sears hotter than the locket scar, than Nagini's venom-less bite.

"Remember when Dirk said... That he thought you'd run off?" Hermione continued slowly. “Abandoned the wizarding world?”

Harry was too tired to bristle at her carefully chosen words, too exhausted to get annoyed at her slowly leading questions.

After the last twenty-four-hour's events, Harry would very much prefer to not go into the subject of eavesdropping on Thomas and Dirk, as the immediate nasty row that occurred following said eavesdropping had resulted in Ron leaving. Abandoning them in the Forest of Dean.

That's a subject both Harry and Hermione are too raw to broach, despite all of the time that had since passed.

Ron’s cold laughter echoed in Harry’s head. 'I get it. You choose him.'

Harry sighed and nodded.

"I think... I think maybe Dirk had a point," Hermione whispered, brown eyes glazed as she stared into the inky forest.

Harry's head jerked up at that, mouth dropping open. "What are you suggesting?" Harry asked through a rushed exhale, shocked.

Hermione did not look at Harry as she laced her fingers together and gripped until her knuckles grew white. From her seated position on the log across from the fire, Harry could see the dark bags under her eyes, the sallow dip of her cheeks.

They've been in the forest too long, lost as to what their next step should be. They’re starving, scared. Barely no longer children in a world that is too dark and cold.

"It's a zero sum game, Harry,” Hermione said slowly. “The muggles are war driven. As are the wizards. Once the muggles discover the threat You-Know-Who poses, they'll deploy their armies. They'll attack. And the wizards will fight back just as hard. Muggle weapons are stronger than any single spell, but magic will disrupt their systems. It'll be a standstill and yet they'll just keep fighting," Hermione whispered, lips pale from cold and fear. "The wizards and the muggles will treat you as nothing other than a threat."

"What's that supposed to mean?" Harry asked, words heatless. He genuinely didn't understand her point.

"You're... You're a horcrux, Harry," Hermione answered so quietly he barely heard her over the sound of the crackling fire.

Harry's heart froze for a timeless moment and then it near exploded in his chest, beating with the frantic tempo of a startled rabbit.

"How do you – what are you – " He began to stammer, horrified, before Hermione quickly continued.

"It's just a theory," Hermione said sharply, voice growing louder as she began to rally her resolve. "But please, just think about it – the connection you have with him, your ability to speak Parseltongue, Dumbledore's insistence that it has to be you to fight him. I think Dumbledore knew, that he's been raising you to fight Him to the death. That you won't survive this war."

Harry felt something shift inside him, like a cog sliding into gear. The idea fit too well; within a moment, Harry could see it all through the eyes of the new perspective. The Parseltongue, the mood swings he feels and unintentionally acts upon, the dreams.

In his mind’s eye, Harry sees the strange way Dumbledore introduced the horcruxes to him, carefully and gently, leading Harry down a path to knowledge.

"I have to die," Harry whispered weakly. It feels true, like everything Harry has ever been taught, like everything Harry has ever known has suddenly accumulated in this single, morbid epiphany. "I am going to die."

The Snitch breaks open in his hand.

Harry jolts, surprised, and in his shock he drops the small thing on the ground. At his feet, a gold ring with a cracked black rock falls out of the snitch.

Harry looked up at Hermione and was startled by the look of icy anger on her face.

"He charmed it to open when you accepted your death," Hermione stated blankly, appalled. She stood abruptly and pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger.

Harry knew this look – she was attempting to console two opposing thoughts in her head, cognitive dissonance burning her logical mind to the ground. "Dumbledore knew you had to die. He knew. And he made it so that you could only inherit the ring once you accepted it."

A feeling of complete, overwhelming betrayal stabbed through Harry's heart. Was that... Was that all Harry had been to Dumbledore? A martyr to a cause? A weapon, his grand Chosen One?

For the Greater Good.

"We have no help. Ron is long gone. We led Vo-ugh, You-Know-Who to discovering the identity of the thief," Harry hissed quietly, reeling, "We're being hunted. I have no wand and no idea where to look for the next horcrux – well, we know where at least two horcruxes are," he said, waving at himself and to the tent where the locket had been stashed. Harry released a barely-human noise disguised as a brittle laugh, a sound he'd never made before. It was high pitched and weak, bursting through his throat without warning. "Hermione," Harry said, turning to his best friend. "I – I'm going to have to die."

Hermione looked as if he had physically slapped her. "No. No, that's not going to happen," she protested vehemently.

"But it is," Harry answered dully, sitting down at the fire. "There's no other way."

Just as Harry said those words, something strange shifted inside of himself. Something oddly feral and desperate, an idea borne from a creature backed into a corner.

"We'll figure something out," Hermione promised solemnly.

"Yeah," Harry agreed, mind whirling with the new idea, breathless. "Yeah we will."

— — — —

That night, after Harry finished his lookout shift and was tucked into his chilly cot, he thought of the people who had supported him over the years. He thought of the names that well wishers carved into his dead family home's miserable epitaph in Godric's Hollow. He thinks of Remus' quiet support and Sirius' wild grin. He thinks of Hermione and Luna and Ginny and Neville and Ron –

The memory of Ron sours the growing feeling of happiness in Harry's heart. Harry thinks of Ron's betrayal, his best friend's cruel words and demanding that Harry do something. As if Harry was supposed to know it all, as if he were failing them. Harry thinks on the fury Ron had expressed that Harry had no plan. Harry then thinks of Sirius' glazed eyes, when he called Harry James. He thinks of Remus disappearing from his life after Sirius' death, of Dumbledore avoiding Harry in fifth year, scared he'd see Voldemort lurking in Harry's eyes. Of Dumbledore hiding secrets from him, that Harry is a horcrux, even after he promised no more secrets. Harry thinks of the Dursleys, being left at their doorstep. Of the teachers who saw his skinny body and bruises and never said a word.

Harry got out of bed and relieved Hermione of her post. She was so dead on her feet that she nodded off immediately.

Harry lifted her wand and strengthened the spells around the camp-site, makes sure no one would ever be able to find it from the outside. He laid Hermione's wand at her side and slipped off into the night, passing through the camp wards. He turned back to where he knows is a warmly-glowing hearth, a spacious tent, his best friend – but all he sees is dark vacant forest. Harry turned his back on his closest friend and walked deep into the Forest of Dean.

Only when Harry had walked far enough to feel confident Hermione wouldn’t be caught in the cross-hairs, Harry parted his lips and whispered, “Voldemort.”

— — — —

The capture was swift and merciless. Harry was taken to Malfoy Manor in Wiltshire and Harry can only feel relief that Draco Malfoy isn't there to laugh in his face, though the cold look of darkening glee on Lucius Malfoy's face raises the hairs on Harry's neck.

They ask him questions, try to make him speak. All Harry lets himself say is, "Voldemort."

They grow tired of shooing away summoned Snatchers when the tabooed name calls them over and over, and they stop asking him questions eventually. The cruciatus hurts, yes, but it does not make Harry speak.

After, Harry sits in the dank dungeons of Malfoy Manor, fingers pressing against the thick fabric of his battered coat hems. They've searched him for weapons and only found a golden snitch. That had been taken from him, yes, but the ring on his finger wasn’t. Harry wondered why – does it have something to do with how their eyes skate over it, unseeing? Can the ring hide itself from others?

Harry didn’t know but he struggled to care.

— — — —

Harry's scar has always been a better Voldemort detector than any Sneak-O-Scope, than any seer ability or omen. Harry flinched as his scar sears and he looked up through his eyelashes from his dozing spot, seated against the wall in the dank dungeon.

"Harry Potter," Voldemort whispered from the other side of iron ore bars.

"Voldemort," Harry greeted him quietly, eyes flicking down. He has no interest in testing how long his terrible Occlumency wards would last against the greatest mind reader of the millennia.

"Have you come to surrender?" Voldemort mocked, his terrible voice burning shudders of disgust down Harry's spine.

"Never," Harry replied with defiance he does not feel, tilting his head back against stone and glancing up at Voldemort with wry amusement.

"You are pathetic," Voldemort snarled.

"That only reflects poorly on you," Harry countered, laughing.

Voldemort hissed, low and dangerous, and he raised his wand to Harry’s chest.

Harry closed his eyes, the magic burning so luminescent at the end of Voldemort's wand, so bright, that Harry can see it through his closed eyelids – soft relief echoing in his mind, it's over its done he can rest now –

The wand lowered. Harry opened his eyes in surprise. He's... Alive.

"Relief," Voldemort said abruptly, head tilting eerily in a mockery of a human behaviour. "Why do you feel... Relief?"

Harry closed his eyes once more. "Because I know without a shadow of doubt that if you try to kill me, you'll just fail again. And again. And again. Like every other time. In fact, I'm safest when you try to kill me," Harry jibed back, unsure why Voldemort has stopped. But Harry found himself unwilling to play games with the monster. The quickest way to return to course is to insult Voldemort.

For the first time in Harry's life, the monster does not let his wounded ego get in the way of thought.

"You want me to kill you," Voldemort said. There is a strange quality in his voice, contemplation perhaps. "You, Harry Potter, are many things, but you are not a coward. You would only willingly come to me for one reason: self sacrifice." Voldemort spat the words as if they burned his thin lips as he spoke them.

Harry jolted, surprised, eyes opening as the words hissed to him grew near. Harry flinched back in horror as he realised Voldemort was right there, directly in front of him not two feet away, crouched and boring his hellfire red eyes into Harry's wide, blown pupils. Voldemort had melted through the bars of Harry's cell silently, a ghost with no presence.

'What is your secret, Harry Potter?' Voldemort hissed.

'Not everything is a conspiracy,' Harry replied sharply, his running mouth barely audible over the sound of his thundering heart in his ears.

'Nagini was correct – you can speak Parseltongue,' Voldemort whispered, his vertical pupils dilating, 'But you are no Slytherin ancestor.'

Harry felt his heart freeze in his chest, terror race through his blood – did he figure out – could Voldemort know he is a –

There's a rough, jagged glass-shard scrape of Voldemort's mind brushing against Harry's own and it catches his thoughts, brutally sharp in its cruelty, diving deep into Harry’s mind with reckless need to understand.

'It cannot be,' Voldemort breathed, red eyes flaring bright, reptilian pupils lost in sea of fire.

Before Harry can respond, can attack, Voldemort strikes out, presses his fingers against Harry’s forehead, pain searing burning agony, and all Harry knows darkness.

Based on the idea that Malfoy could not get the vanishing cabinet to work effectively, and decided to mention, instead, that Hogwarts was taking the Great Hall wards down for a six-fucking-week course on Apparation. This is what wouldn't happen. But it's where my mind went, first. Warning: Graphic Violence

A loud crack signified the first successful Apparition. 

Harry’s eyes, closed in preparation for his own attempt, snapped open and his head turned. It wasn't a student standing at the other end of the Great Hall, though. Harry jolted for his wand as other students began to turn to the cloaked figure, but before he could take aim there were four more sharp cracks. 

Dark-robed, masked Death Eater’s were apparating directly into the Great Hall, the only place the castle wards were down for Hogwarts students to learn how to do the same. 

Bellatrix LeStrange was the first to appear sans mask, having no need for discretion. She took in the scene with a cackle, batting away Harry’s immediate curse effortlessly as she cooed, “Aww, look at the wittle student's trying to learn!” 

In his periphery Harry saw Neville lift his own wand, and they cast simultaneously. This time, Bellatrix twisted out of the way. “Do the wittle babies wanna play?”

“Sectumsempra,” Harry hissed with malice, fully aware of the spell's effects, now. Bellatrix’s eyes widened a bit even as she turned out of the way, quick as a dancer. The Death Eater behind her fell to their knees as their body was pulled apart by deep, horrible gashes. 

More cracks sounded; Harry began to send out indiscriminate stunners, hoping to catch the intruders before they realised they were being cast at. They all came prepared for battle to have begun, shield charms springing around them immediately. 

“Bombarda!” Ron called grimly. 

“Expulso!” shouted Neville. 

“Protego Maxima,” murmured Hermione. “Accio Susan Bones. Protego. Stupefy—students to the teacher's entrance!”

The frozen bodies of some of their yearmates seemed to jolt, realisation settling. Many students turned tail and ran. 

Susan Bones, having narrowly been pulled out of the way of a powerful cutting curse that had gouged into stone walls by Hermione, was casting stunners, petrification hexes, and disarming charms. Harry was not nearly so restrained, once he realised the stunners were ineffective. Sectumsempra broke through shields like a battering drill and Death Eaters were falling, ripped apart by his fury. Curses flew from Harry's wand as fast as he could think of them: conjunctivitis, blasting, jelly-fingers, reductors, even slug-vomiting. He conjured six venomous snakes that shot off without instruction, knowing his will. Yet again and again, Harry came back to the Half-Blood Prince’s spell, the most devastatingly effective of them all. People were dying from its effectiveness, but Harry didn’t care, because they had dared step foot in Hogwarts—  

A horrible pressure was building in Harry’s head as half the hall emptied. A wand prodded Harry’s spine, and he stilled, shaking with rage and adrenaline. “Call—call off the snakes, Potter,” a somewhat familiar voice demanded shakily.

“I’d rather they bite your father, Nott,” said Harry coldly. “Drop your wand before I have to make you regret it.” 

The wand trembled, for a moment, against his spine. “C-Cruci—”

Harry drove his elbow back, hard, and slammed down one foot on Nott's. The taller boy stumbled back in pain, and it was no great difficulty to stun him. He hit the floor, hard, and Malfoy’s grey eyes were large and frightened as he stared at Harry, still as prey. 

At once, Harry realised what he had done “You,” he said, scar pulsing horribly. “You did this. You brought war to a school filled with literal children, you stupid, useless brat. You're scared of what Voldemort will do to you? Just wait, Malfoy. His punishment would be bliss compared to what you deserve for this.”

“Such a temper, Harry Potter,” came Lord Voldemort’s cold voice. He had made no sound as he apparated, not like his followers, but Harry’s viciously prickling scar had made his imminent arrival clear. “You have done well, Draco. You will be… rewarded.”

Malfoy’s eyes darted in fright from Harry to the Dark Lord, and Voldemort was barely in time to hiss “Stop,” to the snake that had snuck up on the boy. 

“You don't obey him,” Harry hissed, “you’re mine. Do what you’re made for, dear one.”

Draco turned just in time to see the snake strike out at his neck. It vanished before its fangs could load the boy with venom, and Harry turned his hateful scowl to Voldemort, who’s gaze already rested upon him, intent, heavy and fascinated. 

“Deal with it, Hermione,” he snapped. 

“Harry—” came Hermione’s warning voice, but Harry couldn’t listen, had to dodge out of the way of Voldemort’s spell. The Dark Lord tilted his head, stare thoughtful, and then turned his yew wand… away. 

Harry watched him with a wariness not misplaced: Romilda Vane, nearly out of the Great Hall via the Professor’s entrance, fell to the cruciatus curse with a cry of pain. 

“Drop your wands, children,” the Dark Lord said, red eyes still locked on Harry as his soft, cold voice echoed through all corners of the room, carried by wandless magic. 

Harry grit his teeth at the seeming opportunity, well aware of Voldemort's objective. And yet, truly, he could not have picked a worse target to try and bring Harry under his control than the girl who had nearly raped him. He cast a wordless sonorous on himself to refute the order: “Don't give an inch. There are First Years in these walls. Do to them what you would to Umbridge. They're twice her threat. Any student who raised a wand to help Voldemort’s sect will be treated as hostile. See how I handle my enemies, Goyle, and ask yourself if that cheap shot is worth your life.”

Even as he spoke, Harry turned from Voldemort, dismissive, and focused on thinning the herd. Thirteen Death Eater’s still stood, including Bellatrix, who was engaged with Neville and Ron. Harry used every spell that came to his mind, even those from the Half-Blood Prince’s book he had not tested before. One man was effectively eviscerated, much to Harry’s disgust. He only used that spell once.  

When he saw one of his snakes change course he pulled the magic from them, an effective banishment, cold eyes finding Voldemort again. He had not heard the man speak parseltongue, and indeed he was still holding the crucio, face twisted strangely as he watched Harry. 

“My, my,” said Voldemort, immediate once he had regained Harry’s attention, two more of his people fallen, “so vicious, little snake. Does Dumbledore know you have venom?”

“I don't give a fuck what he knows,” Harry said harshly. “This is a school.” This is my home. “Focus on the bloody Ministry, and leave children out of it.”

Voldemort had the gall to laugh, high and cold. “This is not merely a school, Harry Potter,” he said. “There is a reason you children stand your ground and fight. This is where Dumbledore trains his small, young army to go to war and die, as their parents did before them.” 

Wrath bubbles in Harry, heavy and explosive, and he must look as unhinged and inhuman as the man watching him as he cages it behind his teeth. He flicks a shield charm around Bones and Abbott before a reductor hits, and a disarming charm hits the perpetrators back. He breaks the dark-wooded wand into two pieces the moment he catches it. 

“You truly think Dumbledore has taught us anything? Even my ‘private lessons’ with the man are just memories of your life, as if I care that you got away with murder when you were still sixteen.” Hermione pulls Vane’s still writhing body from the room, and Voldemort’s cruciatus ends, but he does not seem to notice or care, eyes locked on Harry. “The only reason I fight is because I do not believe in the world you are trying to create. Because you say things like ‘magic is night' and still try to subjugate witches and wizards, as if the fresh magic in their veins is poisoned by the muggles they're born to. I defy you, Lord Voldemort, because you decided your best course was killing a baby over a half-heard prophecy, and still try to kill me to this day. I am not going to stand here and let you. I don't believe ‘magic is might’. I've already killed many of your people tonight… but that—that wasn’t over ideology. That is because I will kill as many as it takes to keep your grasping, greedy fucking hands out of my school.”

The second part of the trade for @shelter-maki0 💖

Tom is returning from Hogwarts. He has grown considerably over the year and shows Harry his perfect grades ✨

I think Harry would have surrounded Tom with the same things that delighted him as a child. So even an owl would be very similar to Hedwig 😭