I'm not gonna bore you explaining why this chapter took so long to come out. Life happened, enough said. We can only hope the next one won't take as long. Chapter un-betaed. Still waiting for someone to manifest about it! (edit: fixed some mistakes!)

Ch. 04 – Interaction and Observation.

It had been a few hours since Hadrian had told his life's story (even if he did omit most of it). It was twilight already and for some reason Madam Pomphrey wouldn't let him go, even if he did assure her that he was fine, he wasn't hurting and he wasn't confused. He was sharing a mind with Harry after all and his counterpart wasn't sleeping nor silenced. Still she didn't let him go.

He learned how the Weasleys were still in friendly terms with the Snapes, and how Mrs. Weasley considered him like her 7th son, why he still had a friendship going on with Ron, despite the jealous fit last year (that, in his own reality, made Hadrian distance himself from the Weasleys in general). And why Hermione still thought like a book.

It had started the moment Hadrian had looked at Albus and said 'No, I'm sorry headmaster but I will be meeting Tom, we need to talk after all.'. The old man looked a little put out to be talked to like that, and, showing his true colours, had promptly put a spell on Hadrian to tell him where he was at all times, his only explanation was that it was necessary 'For the greater good.'

Hadrian snorted, 'Greater Good' indeed.

And then, while the rest of the spectators left, he was tortured by Hermione as the girl explained, in excruciating detail, why one should not contradict the headmaster. Within' fifteen minutes of her speech, Hadrian snapped, reminding the girl that he was not, in fact, her gullible friend and that he would remove her tongue if she didn't stop talking like a mindless book.

Of course, she had run out of the hospital wing with tears overflowing her eyes. Not that it bothered him, mind.

Now he was locked in the infirmary, with no one to talk to besides Harry and waiting for the tingling in his skin, which was a signal for his love's magic, one he never realized he missed until it was gone. He sighed, might as well talk to little Harry.

He closed his eyes, picturing his Father's study. Laying down on the hospital's bed, it looked like he was mere asleep, not talking to this other version of himself and waiting for a visit.

He sat by the fire, looking at where Harry was looking through the books, his memories. He gave the kid a smile, before startling him out of his thoughts.

"So, Harry, what are you up to in there?"

The other boy startled, dropping the book and accidentally opening in a page containing a picture of Hadrian and Tom making love, they both blushed as picture-Hadrian took picture-Tom in his mouth, even without sound they could easily imagine the picture's gasp, hands grasping the other boy's head lower as he continued to thrust in and out of picture-Hadrian's mouth. The movements erratic as the older one reached climax.

Harry blushed even harder as he looked away from the book and directly into Hadrian's eyes, the kind green eyes that were currently laughing at him.

"S-sorry, I just wanted to know."

"Know... what?"

"Why you like, you know, him." he stated timidly, picking up the book and putting it back in its place.

"We're soulbonded Harry, it means we belong to each other." The elder teen shrugged, looking at the semi-transparent red line tied on his pinky finger, no one could touch the line besides Hadrian and Tom.

"Soulbonded?"

"Soulbonded, means our souls match, like puzzle pieces, making a bigger picture." Hadrian picked another book, and, pulling Harry with him towards the couch, begun to look over at the pictures, both bonded wizards seemed much younger, Harry guessed they were, at most, eleven.

"It doesn't even have to be sexual like my relationship with Tom, as far as I can tell allies, friends, even formal acquaintances would be just as good. It just means that in whatever you two do, you will succeed because you compliment each other in body, mind, soul, magic and lifeforce."

"Lifeforce?"

"Means your lives are connected, as in, you live, he lives, you die, he dies. And vice-versa."

Hadrian shrugged, skipping through the pictures at a fast pace, not letting Harry see one in specific, least he saw another intimate picture between his love and him. He stopped near the middle of the album, staring at a particular picture. His first meeting with Tom.

The picture showed both Hadrian and Tom glaring at each other.

"This was when we first met. Plainly said, it was dislike at first sight. When dad brought Tom home, he thought my parents were adopting him, imagine his surprise when it was not adoption since the couple already had a son, it was just father doing what his instincts told him to do."

Harry interrupted before he could continue with the story. "I thought soulbonded people couldn't hate each other."

Hadrian stared at him curiously before shaking his head. "No, we can hate, loath and even hurt our soulbonded." He sighed, giving a tug at the tiny string before looking at Harry. "Being soulbonded to someone means that you share power, magic, mind and lifeforce Harry, making you more powerful and with a wider core than normal wizards, but really, you don't have to actually like the person you're soulbonded with. Of course, it helps, and it helps a lot mind but you don't really have to be anything other than distant allies if you'd like."

The elder wizard grimaced looking at the glare picture Tom was sending his counterpart. It had been a long time since he had seen that. He cleared his throat, starting the tale again.

"So, we did not like each other. I thought my parents were sending me away and putting me in an orphanage, thought they would change me for the handsome boy on my doorstep." he snorted turning the pages. "Tom thought it should be him in my place, that mum and dad should have adopted him, and not have me as their son."

"Anyway, as you can see from the winter clothes, it was the beginning of December when dad bought Tom home, it would be another seven months before we got to Hogwarts. Worst seven months of my life. Tom and I fought, literally, all the time. It was the time that both of us got our first spanking too, for being naughty."

Hadrian stopped for a second, looking at the red string in his finger and tugging at it. Again. He was ready to go and meet his love.

"Well, the animosity lasted the seven months until Hogwarts, and continued until late October. It was Samhain, and I was deeply upset over something Tom had said to me. About mum liking him better or some nonsense like that. So, I was away hidden in an alcove behind one of the tapestries in the castle when our DA teacher came running yelling about a horde of Sollefixies(1) invading the castle. Apparently, someone had taken off the physical wards against the creatures. Anyway, while they were doing the headcount someone noticed I wasn't at the table. Dad said he panicked when he noticed I wasn't there."

The boy smiled fondly at the memory, his dad hugging him tight in front of everyone. It rarely happened and he relished the moments that were so far and few in between.

"Well, it was then that people noticed that Tom and I had a connection of sorts. I can't remember much of that night though. From what I gathered by talking with dad and Tom, the horde of Sollefixies found me since I was practising magic and as you know, they follow the scent of magic. Anyway, I guess I launched spells at them and they got mad, since, when the professors got there the leader of the horde was preparing to eat away at my core."

The elder boy shivered at the thought, to have his magic eaten away, it was worse than the Dementor's kiss. In his mind at least.

"Tom said that he could feel a terror that wasn't his own and when dad went out to find me, he followed behind. I don't know how they got there in time, but they did, dad and the headmaster had to physically shield me from them as Tom tried to get my core back to work." He sighed, looking around, searching for his love or a sign that he was near by.

"Anyway, after that night things got better between us. We stopped fighting, mostly anyway, while we rarely got together to hang out, we studied, and we argued the whole way how to make something better, it started with spells and how to write an essay, in the end, we were arguing how to make our world a better place to live."

"And... how did you two get together? As a couple?" he young boy asked, unconsciously snuggling up to Hadrian.

"At the end of third year, after the finals... well, I'll let you see it okay?" he smiled, turning to a particular picture of the boys at the edge of the forbidden forest, tapping it with his fingers he let Harry revive the memory on his own. He had lived through it, there was no need to see it again.

Specially since it made butterflies fly in his stomach and one just could not meet a dark lord with butterflies flying around!

Harry looked around, he recognized the forbidden forest a few meters away, the sky a bit cloudy with promise of rain to come. He turned left, seeing the two boys within hearing distance and listening to their new argument.

"For Merlin's sake Harry, the second question could not have been that! A rune spirit is different from a ghost and-"

"I didn't say they weren't different Thomas! I'm saying that there's different ways a rune spirit could be bound to earth!" The exasperated voice came from the green-eyed child as he gazed into the royal blue eyes of his future love. "Anyway, what was question number five? I'm not sure I got everything right for that one."

The clearly elder boy sighed, the book lay open on his lap as he tried to take his eyes off the other boy. Harry could read a bit of confusion and annoyance directed at the other teen.

"Five was... 'Write the main differences between werewolves, animal shapeshifters and a wizard/witch under the anima potion and how to recognize them'"

And so it went, Harry watched with rapid attention as the boys argued back and forth over the answers of the DADA test feeling a bit of envy at the easiness between them, maybe that was why he noticed the small touches, the entwined legs and the almost easy going smile Riddle showed the Snape heir, a smile he had a feeling was just for him.

Too caught up in the subtleties of the relationship Harry missed the beginning of the serious argument only registering the random phrase along the lines of a brain being too addled with potion fumes before Riddle was kissing Hadrian, maybe to shut him up?

He watched as the lips locked for a solid minute, neither boy knowing how to properly kiss and both clearly too shocked to move along, not at all like the other kisses Harry saw in Hadrian's mind library. Tom Riddle with his eyes closed in concentration, Hadrian with wide open eyes.

It was with even more shock that they both moved back at the same time, staring at the other's eyes. It was Riddle who spoke first.

"I... I'm... uh, I, I kissed you"

The other, even more shocked boy nodded, blinking rapidly. "You did."

"I'm... sorry?"

Hadrian nodded once, before hiding behind a book and mumbling something

"Uh... what?" Harry was definitely amused as the eloquent boy was simply lost for words in the face of life-changing events.

With the tips of his ear going a very familiar shade of red Hadrian cleared his throat, his mumble a bit more clear than before.

"Don't be, I... that is to say I uh... liked it" by the end of the very small phrase Harry could see even a part of the boy's neck going that very same shade of red. Riddle wasn't much better. And in a move of what Severus would call Gryffindorish foolishness he got closer to the other teen, whispering something and nodding in accordance to something before kissing the younger boy again. Just a quick peck, but enough for the teens.

Harry still had that image burned behind his eyelids when he found himself in Hadrian's library again.

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Tom stared at the castle ahead. In the twilight it looked both beautiful and scary.

"A moving force all on its own." he whispered to the still air around him.

This Hogwarts was different from the castle of his own Reality, still full of power and hidden doors certainly, but no longer Home. This magic, instead of welcoming him as it should, repelled him as it never did on that other land. It called him Murderer, Traitor and Power Hungry Fool.

But no matter, no matter where he was, in which Reality he was in, he was still Heir and his will Hogwarts would obey.

With a hissed 'Open' the heavy iron gate swung open without protest and Tom touched the outer wards surrounding the huge propriety with a tenderness known to none except his Hadrian.

"Worry not my dear. We'll lift this taint from you. That wayward headmaster has held your wards for far too long" he sighed as he felt Voldemort stir in the back of his mind and snorted. "No wonder my counterpart is highly volatile and quite insane!"

"What do you mean?" Came the interested hiss inside his mind.

"Nothing to worry about as of now... I'll tell you and your Harry after I've seen my cariad.(2)"

"Cariad? How interesting!" Tom could picture the smug smile on Voldemort's face.

"Well, he is..." he shrugged, before disillusioning himself and addressing the castle again. "You will not tell your headmaster that I am here."

In response, he just received a shift in the wards.

He would just have to take that reaction as a 'yes'. "I wonder what you did to her to get a reaction like that" he muttered to himself, feeling Voldemort grow unusually quiet. Specially since the man had an opinion about everything and everyone.

He briefly wondered if his Harry found him half as insufferable as he found Voldemort.

Tom looked at the snow covered grounds, thinking that, for a school full of students it surely was deserted at this time of the day. "But then" he thought "The cold could have driven them all away."

"Or" Voldemort interrupted, "your cariad might have warned everybody you would be coming" Tom idly noted the venom with which Voldemort said 'cariad', but let it go, for the moment.

"Oh I'm sure he did! It's the sort of thing that he would find funny" he smiled to himself. The action alone feeling quite awkward in this foreign face.. He could tell Voldemort didn't smile much.

In fact, the man didn't do much of anything when it came to facial expressions besides snarl, hiss and be generally angry with anything within sight.

"Ever heard of economy of movement and manipulation through facial expressions little Half-blood?" He could just picture the sneer on Voldemort's face as he spoke, Tom shock his head. So much wasted potential.

"There's a difference between manipulation and the inability to do some simple facial expressions Voldemort" Tom easily silenced the reply as they got close to the main door of the ancient castle. Didn't the man know anything? He found himself disappointed with this version of him. How could he have fallen so far in this reality? How could he have lost his most important feature?

"Do quiet down, we're going in"

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By the hospital wing, Hadrian gave a sigh of relief when he felt that familiar caress of magic getting in touch with his own. His Tom was, finally, home!

He felt the slight shift in the wards as his love entered castle grounds and, knowing instinctively where he would go, and without caring about Little Harry being trapped inside his memories, he got out of his trance-like state. Swiftly getting out of bed he grabbed the wand from the nightstand, trigging Pomphrey's (or rather, Dumbledore's) alarms.

"Shit!"

With the faint buzzing in the air, signalling the triggered alarms, he knew there was only one chance and one way to get out there.

He just hopped the Headmaster had forgotten to put up wards against his kind of magic. He had no doubt that those wards were put there specially for him.

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"-nd she had the gall to dare imply that I was no teacher! Well, not with those words, no! She-"

It was dinner time in the Great Hall, as with any other day the students filled up the great hall with chatter, laughter and an increasing amount of noise. Dumbledore was just glad that the teacher's table had a special silencing ward around it. He loved those children, he really did. But sometimes, an old man needed his silence.

This was one of those times.

And dear Minerva, dear that she was, would not shut up!

Oh Albus knew all about the quest for revenge on that Umbridge woman, the pink menace! He knew she was on a warpath against Harry and him. Knew she was just a lapdog of the Ministry trying to get a hold over his school...

But that was no reason for Minerva to go on and on and on about the woman!

"And poor Harry! If I'm not mistaken she's going to talk to him next, it doesn't matter if he's in the hospital or not! And about that! What happened to Harry, Albus? Is he sick? Poppy refused to tell me."

'More like you didn't give her a chance to speak!' he thought, feeling only a bit guilty for thinking ill of one of his colleagues.

He was just about to answer when he felt a disturbance on the alarm he placed around Harry's bed in the infirmary. So the boy had woken up, and was probably going to meet Voldemort. Albus refused to believe for even one second that Hadrian Snape's Tom was in any way different from Harry Potter's Voldemort. A soul can't change that much. It wasn't the natural flow of things.

Placing the silverware on his nearly empty plate, he wiped his mouth before excusing himself from the table. "Do excuse me for a moment my dear, the wards have just notified me of a slight disturbance."

"Is it... Is it You-Know-Who?"

"Oh not, not at all, probably one of the children getting near the Forbidden Forest, nothing worrisome." He smiled kindly at her before exiting the great hall, rushing to the Hospital Wing and mentally counting the exits he had covered.

The one-armed witch, the whoop willow, that passage that lead to Honeyducks, the fake wall near the Ravenclaw door that went into an underground passage and into the Hog's Head. He soldier that worked as a timed portkey to Diagon Alley, The entrance to the Chamber of Secrets.

Yes, all covered!

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Pulling the door open and walking through the full corridors was an experience in and of itself. Usually the students and ghosts alike parted ways when he walked by them, often accompanied by Harry of course. Now it was like a sea of human flesh, sweat and magic.

He hated it.

He supposed part of it was because of Voldemort's tainted presence on his mind, its influence making him want to slaughter those people in cold blood.

Tom stopped before the doors of the great hall, standing out of the way he waited for the Headmaster to pass by, oh, he knew Harry wasn't near by, probably by the fourth floor or on the fifth, the hospital wing. As the door closed after the old man and he went out of sight, Tom dropped the invisibility charm staring at the oak doors, his focus on the golden handle baring the Hogwarts shield.

Still unsure if the ritual would work – however mild of a ritual it was – he produced a small bronze knife from the folders of his robes, slashing across his palm and touching the wards protecting the great hall.

"I, Thomas Marvolo Riddle, blood heir of Salazar Demetrius Slytherin, inherited heir of Helga Amanda Hufflepuff and Godric Lucius Gryffindor, demand entrance into the Original Chambers of Hogwarts, as is my right by blood and by magic. Made true by Lady Destiny herself."

He breathed a sigh of relief when the door handle turned from the bright golden to an old bronze colour, the Hogwarts shield still there, almost faded, due to the passage of time. Grasping the handle he pushed the door open, taking a few seconds to look around the round room, the furniture covered in white sheets for protection against dirt and dust, the still air smelling like long-dead carcasses, the farthest wall covered in old books and protected by ancient glass. In the middle, a large round table with twelve chairs, and three thrones. Tom knew those were thrones, he had uncovered them himself in his own reality. One for the King and the other two for his advisers.

"What is this place?" came the awe-filled voice inside his head.

"This, my dear counterpart, is The Original Chambers of Hogwarts. I take it you've never been here before?" There was no need to answer, Tom knew he hadn't. If he had, Voldemort wouldn't be inside like this.

"No, I've always been sure that the Chamber of Secrets was the only thing left behind from their time. I've never thought-"

"Never thought the other founders had it in them to build something as impressive as Salazar? They were the best of their time Tom" he stressed the name, his patience thinning by the second "You didn't really think that the only thing they did was build a castle and fill it with children, did you? Anyone can do that!"

Annoyed, he once again silenced Voldemort, quickly casting a cleaning charm to banish the layers of dust before allowing himself to feel the relief of his cariad's presence nearby.

All of that time near the Malfoy Patriarch had left him itching to touch, hold, kiss and fuck his Hadrian to oblivion. He wanted to cleanse that sickly, twisted presence from his soul. To take away the feeling of oiliness Lucius left behind. It just confirmed his theory, no matter the universe, a Malfoy was bad to anyone's health, specially Tom's.

How Tom could stand to be near that sort of presence for so long was beyond him.

Sighing he stared at his right hand for half a second before tugging viciously on the little red string attached to his pinky finger.

Harry, his Harry, was taking far too long for his tastes.

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Hadrian had just closed the last window when he heard footsteps approaching the door. It was either the Headmaster or Madam Pomphrey.

Either one could soil his plans, the first doing more damage than the later.

Waving his wand over himself he managed to whisper the incantation just before the Headmaster broke into the room.

"Factus Umbra" (3)

Moving into the first layer of shadows glided, as quickly as possible, to the great hall, faintly listening to the headmaster shouting after him.

The trip took no more than a few minutes and with barely a thought he dismissed the family spell. Hadrian smiled as he felt Tom's magical signature on the Great Hall's wards. Touching them he felt the warmth of his beloved, and closing his eyes, with his heart beating twice as fast, he repeated the words Thomas taught him a year ago.

"I, Hadrian Antares Snape, request entrance into the Original Chambers of Hogwarts. With permission from the Elder Heir I stand before thee, awaiting judgement of worthiness."

Hadrian felt the wards shift as it allowed his passage and he entered.

TBC...

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So! A few things happened here, but I promisse the next chapter the Plot will thicken even more. And I promise the appearance of Hadrian's father, Severus Tobias Snape.

(1)Animal the author invented. It eats away magic and in extreme cases a person's magical core, eats any spell directed at it and has a steel-like hide but beneath it is quite vulnerable, created and inbreed by muggle Christian priests during the witch hunts. Looks like a mummified version of a human inbreed with a cat. With deceivingly look-like paper-like skin. Sharp retractable fangs and black eyes (as in, all black, no white part). The size of an adult Rottweiler. Singular: Sollefix, Plural: Sollefixies.

(2) Cariad – Welsh world (pronounced kárree ad), meaning Darling, dear one, beloved. Cariad is the strongest word for "love". If it is full-blown head-over-heels it is "cariad".

(3)Literally, To Become Shadow