Published: Tenth of October 2018 (10-10-2018)

A/N: I've wanted to write this for a long time. I started in May 2018, but the concept has been years underway. I found a great beta named SemiRetiredWriter who helped maintain my motivation, which has resulted in 10 premade chapters ready for publishing.

Please let me know what you think! I'm completely open for constructive criticism, and I'd love to be made aware of any glaring plot-holes if some are found.

The story will be T rated for now, but I won't exclude that it will rise to an M rating in the far future.

Lastly, I tend to want to sketch the characters that I make, so I've made a DeviantArt dedicated to the story, where I'll post little drawings if you're curious. DA name is the same as my FFN name.

General info: This will not be a romance-centric story. Links will be made to WW2. Opinions, phrases and expressions inherent to the time will be used and discussed. Not everything will be 100% accurate, but I've attempted to portray the situation as best as I can, the oftentimes apathetic POV taken into consideration.

Disclaimer: This universe belongs solely to J.K Rowling, based on the Harry Potter franchise.

EDIT: This chapter has been updated. Nothing factual has changed, but writing has been improved. Hopefully. Date: October 2019

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'thoughts'

"Speech"

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"AVADA KEDAVRA!"

"EXPELLIARMUS!"

…

The buzzing stopped.

The constant grating noise was gone; the sheer absence of the dissonance was a shocking feeling. His head felt… quiet. Clean. Bigger, yet fuller than he can remember it ever being.

He could think.

He was feeling.

He fell to the ground.

Confusion. Utter panic. The kind of instant shock you felt when something unexplainable and undeniably horrifying happened out of nowhere. He was gritting his teeth in frustration, his heart hammering, pumping fresh, healthy and natural blood throughout his body. He could feel the difference. A mere twitch of an eyebrow, the flick of a wrist and the bending of an ankle. Everything was natural responses from a real breathing body. His own body.

He remembered his stint as a wraith. A bodiless spirit, wandering the forests of Albania. Even the simplest of tasks rendered unattainable. No feeling, physically or mentally.

'What is happening to me?' he thought in a breathless panic, clutching at his head.

This was different in every way that mattered. Even the homunculus that he resurrected his new body from 3 years earlier had nothing like this level of sensation. He had been lucky to feel his magic at all, the dissonant buzzing masking the magnitude of his predicament.

He had thought that he had succeeded in regaining everything he had lost. Despite his many failings, the sheer achievement of having a body should have been everything he needed to attain his goals.

'What happened?!'

It was now clear to him that he'd had no goals.

His head swam with thoughts. Things that had been buried under the increasing sound of the buzzing were suddenly attacking his every conviction. All of his misconceptions were unearthed, all of his flaws revealed, all of the protests he should have made were now clear.

He was fast realizing that he was rediscovering his mind.

It felt like he hadn't had a single coherent thought since the 1950s. Differentiating between his mind during the buzzing before and now was like comparing static noise to smooth classical music. There was no comparison.

He slowly struggled into a sitting position, his limbs shaking. He fought for control.

Taking a deep shuddering breath, he clenched his fists and admitted to himself that he had made a grave mistake. Simply admitting it was astounding. It was a large and sudden change that made him shudder in revulsion, his uneven breathing mirroring the turmoil he felt inside as he was forced to reflect on his beliefs. He could now admit these flaws that existed within him - and the outcome of his mistakes. The mistakes that led him down the path of losing his greatest asset.

His sanity.

He pressed his face into his hands. It must have looked quite pathetic to passerby. Him, sitting on the doorstep of a rundown orphanage on a shoddy street, looking for all the world like a street rat wallowing in his own misery. He couldn't even summon any sympathy for himself. He was the instrument of his own downfall, his own stupidity paving the road to hell of where he had found himself.

He admittedly fit the bill of a street rat drowning in misery perfectly, as the image he presented showed nothing less than exactly what he was.

How could he have let this happen?

By losing his mind, it was no wonder he had lost so spectacularly. Defeated by a boy no less. Reflecting on the sheer amount of foolishness he had committed, he wasn't exactly surprised by the outcome of Harry's and his final duel. He had known about their connection, but the buzzing had concealed all common sense.

He could summon nought but disappointment. Disappointment and disgust.

He was disgusted by his own former inability to see. To feel. To register his mistakes and correct them. He had thought himself unbeatable, infallible… when he had been anything but. Where did his genius start and his arrogance end? He was not the sort of person who should have fallen into this trap. He used to be… stronger. Stronger and smarter, more ambitious and cunning than foolhardy and senseless.

He slowly removed his hands, his breath slowly returning to him after the traumatic experience he bore victim to previously. The moment he could feel his new body's reactions he had locked up completely, but only now after a horrible fifteen minutes of choked silence, did he look up from his hands.

And he was left speechless.

It was like watching a memory through a pensieve, but with the added experience of feeling the wind in his hair and the stone under his feet. Everything was authentic, down to the smallest details, to the most insignificant sounds and smells.

From where he was sitting, the main street was visible some hundred meters in front of him, old vintage cars rolling to and fro among pedestrians in clothes that he hadn't seen on muggles for fifty years.

It was surreal and confusing, and Tom Riddle hated feeling confused.

He rose carefully from his position, his heart beating more steadily now that the shock had abated. He noticed that his wand was fastened to his forearm beneath his sleeve like he used to hide it when he was younger. Much younger.

When he had regained consciousness after his arrival in his body, he had collapsed onto the front steps of the orphanage's dusty porch. His mind has retaken control of the body, and even though he felt that his skin was looser, his head bigger and his limbs too flexible, it was undeniably an improvement. This body was nimble - and clearly very young.

Transfixed, he spent a couple of minutes simply looking at the house that he grew up in, studying it's exterior and the moving shapes he could spy through the dark windows. It was clearly Wool's Orphanage, no matter how fervently he disagreed with what his eyes were telling him. He destroyed this building himself years ago. Frustrated, he wondered why in the name of Merlin did he have to be here of all places? How could it be?

'The surrounding buildings are intact as well…' he mused thoughtfully, inspecting the obviously whole, albeit rundown structures surrounding the distasteful architectural aberration he'd hated with such passion that it'd consumed him.

He soon had enough of looking at the unappealing building and once again turned towards the busy street. His eyes were still adjusting, but he could clearly make out the devastation around him.

To the left of a line of residential buildings, new and old simultaneously, a pile of ruins was being steadily ignored by the people walking by. It would have been puzzling if Tom didn't already know why they were there.

He closed his eyes briefly to think.

He remembered this place. He remembered when he was a young boy, sequestered in a bunker beneath the orphanage, feeling the bombs hitting the nearby buildings and miraculously missing theirs. Even still, they could hear the sirens, the screams, the crying and smell the smoke and stench of death and misery that permeated the air that night. 100.000 bombs and 410 people either dead or injured. The stench from that single night had lingered for weeks.

It had admittedly been a poor idea to return to the orphanage that Yule in 1940.

He had underestimated the muggles.

A couple of days later, on his birthday, he had picked up a newspaper and read about the places that had been bombed during the worst night of the London Blitz.

When that Yule break had ended, he was relieved to leave the war of the muggles to return to Hogwarts. Tom despised feeling helpless. It just made it infinitely worse that it was the muggles' faults. It was decidedly degrading even. He remembered how mortified he had been when he had returned to Hogwarts to finish his third year, expecting his classmates to make comments on how he had sat, useless and magicless, while the German muggles were dropping explosives onto their heads.

They had not, however. It could have been because they were more concerned about Grindelwald's movements, or because they were scared to ask him about it. Nevertheless, he was left be and simmered in the humiliation by his lonesome.

'I haven't thought about that in decades. It's like I had completely forgotten,' he contemplated silently, twisting the ring he could feel on his finger. The Gaunt family-ring he hadn't worn in what felt like an age.

It was not a Horcrux.

Tom narrowed his eyes in speculation, studying the ring intently while running his thumb over the smooth surface of the stone. He could feel the magic, but the Horcrux was not finished. Not yet.

And his magic.

Stilling completely to focus on himself, he immediately succeeded in feeling out the currents trailing from his magic core to his limbs. His magic was flexible, like a muscle ready for exercise, yet achingly familiar in a way he had forgotten magic could feel.

How could he call himself the greatest wizard of his time if he could not feel his own magic properly?

'This is pathetic,' he affirmed to himself, once more to take in the sights around him.

Based on the appearance of his location, the presence of his Horcrux-free ring and the feel of his body, Tom concluded he must be in 1943, however absurd this sounded. In addition to the absurdity of general time travel, not only was he in London in 1943, but his body was also that of his 16-year-old self.

"Why have I returned to this time?" After all, he had already lived this 'adventure' once.

The first time was not particularly successful, however. With his head noise-free and his magic more responsive than ever, he could admit to himself that he'd started committing grave mistakes quite swiftly after entering the wizarding world. If he had known that he would lose these incredible feelings and sensations, he would have chosen differently. Picked other rituals, used different spells… made fewer Horcruxes.

His own soul vessels had driven him insane.

Admittedly, he was incomparably unique from most wizards from the start, magically or otherwise, but not insane.

Furthermore, if insanity was not quite enough, his mind was supplying him with a delayed sense of mortification over the distortion of his future body. All feeling lost, all thoughts muddled, face unrecognizable and grotesque, mouth black and body emaciated.

It seemed Dumbledore had finally received the face of the monster he had always claimed was there.

The Dark Arts were incredible - but also incredibly damaging.

In all honesty, now that he was capable of advanced self-reflection once again, he was embarrassed and weary.

And cautious. If this was truly the summer of 1943, then his relatives were already killed, and the Chamber of Secrets already opened - and closed. Which meant that he had 2 Horcruxes already in progress.

'This is troubling,' he thought while moving towards the busy streets of London, abandoning the orphanage. He was wearing a generic combination of dark trousers and a shirt of questionable quality. Adding to that, his hair was in disarray and his clothing was covered in a light coating of dust from falling in the street.

The culmination resulted in the British muggles avoiding him completely, shooting him either pitying or disgruntled expressions while pretending they weren't looking at the poor orphaned boy. Though feeling distinctly exasperated, he was determined to ignore the muggles. He really didn't need this right now. The opinions of muggles were inconsequential, especially since figuring out his situation took precedence over everything else.

'Time travel. Young body. Magic. My wand. My ring. My Horcruxes.'

The thoughts flew through his head in a whirlwind – his mind sifting through possibilities, observations and conclusions at a rapid pace while he hurried along towards familiar, and preferable, ground. Wizarding London. Diagon Alley.

The birthplace of his many, many mistakes.

'I need to reconsider the validity of my Horcruxes.'

The conclusion grated on him.

A muggle deftly dodged the young man slaloming between the sea of people, commenting rudely in Tom's direction about manners and his elders. Tom strode on carelessly, completely ignoring the offended muggle tossing expletives at his back.

He remembered asking Professor Slughorn of the consequences of acquiring several Horcruxes, but he had thought himself superior. Too superior to fall victim to the average dark wizard's failings. He frowned thoughtfully, but his face contorted into a fierce scowl as his trail of thought continued. Perhaps the reason no one had ever attempted it before, was because they discovered that it wasn't feasible with minimal negative outcome. Moronic, really. He shook his head slightly in utter disappointment. The folly of youth, they called it. Apparently, Lord Voldemort was not exempt from this.

It was morbidly laughable - everything considered. He remembered that he had laid out everything perfectly. The arithmancy had supported it – the number of Horcruxes, the time of their execution, the magically saturated vessels and the method of sacrifice. He apparently had not accounted for the flighty nature of soul magic. How could he? He had been 15 years old. Hardly old enough to make decisions that could ruin the consequential fifty years of his life.

How utterly embarrassing. He dodged another muggle.

'Perhaps the complete cock-up that was my plan for immortality and the outcome of the 'battle' resulted in this... situation,' he theorized sullenly. He was not sure how, but he would not exclude the possibility. Magic worked in mysterious ways.

He eventually reached the Leaky Cauldron, which looked untouched by the muggle war going on around it. He needed to figure out where he stood. He didn't remember the current situation in wizarding Britain in relation to the great war. He needed information. He needed time to think.

And most importantly – he needed somewhere to be that was not a goddamn muggle orphanage. The newly-teenaged Dark Lord absolutely refused to stay there. The sheer notion of him staying there was ludicrous. He did not care if Albus Percival Wulfric Brian Dumbledore himself, who must sadly still be alive at this time, came personally to insist he returned to the establishment. He would not.

The Leaky Cauldron itself was unchanged as well. Nothing had really been moved or redecorated after fifty years, so returning to the dingy bar provided a sense of belonging. As if magic had not randomly positioned him in a place he did not belong.

He looked around the sparsely populated room. The Second World War affected the wizarding population as well. Even though the majority of casualties were centred in mainland Europe, the muggles' bombs were disturbing the peace and so ordinary wizarding folk stayed at home during the conflict. Which was true, but Grindelwald and his supporters were also an important factor in relation to the desertion. He supposed Dumbledore would see to that within the next couple of years.

Nonetheless, there really weren't wards strong enough, which could hold for more than a couple of bombs, that could protect any place as long as was needed, so the paranoia was stifling the livelihood of the London magical community. Of course, Tom Riddle had never discussed this with any of his companions at that time, as they were completely unconcerned by the perceived 'power' of the muggles.

Tom knew they were dangerous but announcing that opinion in the Slytherin common room was asking for trouble. He had been trying to forget it as well, which had become easier as time went on. His dwindling sanity had not allowed for more than a couple of key focus areas at a time.

'Shameful.'

'Senseless.'

'Short-sighted.'

He moved past the bar, not pausing to greet the bar-keeper, and entered through the brick wall passage. He still looked like someone had stolen all his belongings, but luckily, he knew where to find them.

He'd had no outstanding wealth to speak of at that point in time, however. He had likely abandoned what little muggle possessions he had at the orphanage, but his Gringotts vault should possess his school things, book collection, research material and whatever funds he had been able to win, swindle, 'find' or earn. Obviously, he had not trusted the orphanage with obvious signs of 'heresy'.

It had to be enough.

His diary was not yet a Horcrux, so the commentary of the past couple of years should be available to him. He needed to acquaint himself with… himself. It was clear to him that he would be there for the unforeseeable future, so making himself look incompetent by forgetting recent events was not an option.

He stopped briefly in front of a shop's window to fix his appearance. Using a slight application of wandless magic, he ran his hand through his dark hair to settle it, vanished the dust on his body and brushed off his clothes to get rid of the excess smudges and creases.

Looking in the mirror-like surface of the window, he contemplated his appearance more closely.

'So young...' If he wasn't completely certain the boy in the window was himself, he would not have believed it. His face was unblemished. His eyes a deep brown and narrow. His hair silky, dark and perfectly trimmed, brushed lightly to the left over his tall forehead. His cheekbones were clearly defined, signifying that he was approaching adulthood. He was approximately 180 cm tall, tall for his age, and not significantly outstanding in terms of physique. All in all, averagely built and lithe, but undeniably handsome.

'And I remember my vanity was well-deserved.' He smirked lightly, turning his jaw slightly to the side to inspect his profile. "This is a fairly acceptable outcome, considering I was just recently killed."

He stilled at the thought.

If he was killed… then his Horcruxes were gone when Harry Potter succeeded in killing him. He would not have left that plane of existence otherwise. It would've been impossible. They must have succeeded in destroying them all. "This is unbelievable…" He breathed out in frustration and contempt. "Bloody Potter and Dumbledore," he cursed once again, maintaining angry eye-contact with his reflection.

The humiliation just kept getting worse. At least he could keep it to himself.

Abandoning the flattering visage in the window, he resumed a brisk walk towards the bank, silently fuming.

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The goblins seemed unconcerned by the emptiness of their establishment. Tom idly wondered whether the goblins had some kind of advanced protection of their building that negated the explosive power of a muggle bomb. He would not put it past the nasty little creatures to horde the knowledge of such a ward existing to themselves.

He stood alone before the tall pedestal of the only open teller in the chamber, waiting rather impatiently for the tired-looking goblin to acknowledge his existence.

He was not used to this kind of anonymity. It was rather vexing if he had to be honest with himself.

The goblin eventually deigned to squint down at the human over his piece of parchment. "Business?" he grunted uncourteously.

Filthy goblin.

"I require brief access to my vault. The name is Tom Marvolo Riddle," the Dark Lord replied politely, staring at the goblin with a hidden desire to instil the appropriate amount of respect for wizards upon the tiny monstrosity.

"Key?" the goblin sneered, unconcerned.

"I do not presently have it on me," Tom admitted, twisting his face into an expression of slight regret. He honestly had no idea where it was. He could not remember. He hadn't had the time.

The goblin handed him a piece of parchment. On the top said: 'Summoning of Account Holder's Key by Way of Blood.' The title was fairly self-explanatory – as was the wide circle in the middle of the parchment, with an arrow indicating that the blood should go there, specifically.

The fine print – which he meticulously read – stated that a customer would only receive keys to vaults that are specifically keyed to said customer. If no keys arrive, the customer will be fined for wasting the bank's time and its enchanted ritual parchment.

He did as instructed and poked his thumb with the supplied needle, and promptly caught the key to his vault. He thanked the goblin in a mannerly fashion, which to his consternation was completely ignored, and went to his vault.

There he found exactly what he expected. His trunk, school equipment and books, his old Slytherin uniform and of course, his diary. His as of yet completely ordinary diary. He could feel that he had started the ritual to anchor his soul to the small book but had not yet finished it. Ideally, this would take place during a specific time around Samhain, but Tom Riddle was not quite sure this was entirely ideal anymore.

His soul was essentially already split. Into a half, and into a quarter, but not yet separated completely. The intention of the final ritual was to tear the soul apart, which was admittedly extremely unpleasant, if he remembered correctly, which he was certain he did. His Occlumency felt more reliable than ever, though no thanks to his Horcruxes. While small and insignificant memories might be unattainable using passive Occlumency, especially during all this stress, pain such as that was hardly forgettable.

He absentmindedly stroked the cover of the small leather-bound book, trying to remember where all the small nicks and dents originated from.

'To what extent can I split my soul before it becomes a problem?' Asking Dumbledore, the answer would undoubtedly be; at the very notion. Tom Riddle was not so easily swayed, however.

His forehead creased in thought, staring at the innocuous book in his hands, and shifting his eyes to the ring on his finger.

'Half my soul is in essentially already 'booked' for the diary, while the remaining half of my soul is reserved for the ring. This leaves me with a quarter of a soul.'

He had never really considered the ramification that his dwindling amount of 'soul' had on his sanity, as well as his humanity. It was probably high-time he did. If he wanted to entertain the possibility of success in any measure of the word, sanity was strictly required.

He had always had a very close connection to the Dark Arts, so resorting to the very darkest of the Dark Arts, from whence his Horcruxes originated, had felt like the obvious choice. Too obvious perhaps.

'The ritual is already in effect, but the magic tying my soul shards to the respective anchors are separate equations. If I annul the connection to one anchor, the other should not be affected, and the amount of soul that would be torn would also be unchanged. If the amount of soul that is torn off affects my sanity, would a single Horcrux with a smaller shard not be more optimal?' Tom reasoned to himself. Obviously not making a Horcrux at all was not an option. He had time to search for other alternatives but risking his death in the mean-time felt like a precarious decision.

'If I sever the connection to the diary, my ring should conceivably only contain a quarter of my soul after finishing the ritual, leaving me with seventy-five per cent of a total soul. Which is fifty times better than the approximately 1.5 per cent soul that I had left before I was sent here.' How he had allowed himself to mutilate his own soul to this extent was beyond him, but he gathered the incessant buzzing of insanity was a part of it.

With plans made and a mounting sense of chagrin nesting inside of him, he left the bank with his diary, a bag of acceptable wizarding clothes and twenty galleons and eighty-six sickles.

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A/N: Reviews are encouraged!