A/N:

This story is cross-posted from AO3, written by Amanda (duplicity) and Hannah (waitingondaisies). Enjoy our spiral to insanity as Tom Riddle learns some sanity.

Find this story on AO3 at: (slash) works (slash) 20631227

Alternatively, this chapter would be called "How Harry Potter Learned to Stop Worrying and Let His Saving-People-Thing Take the Wheel".

Some parts of this chapter were taken verbatim from Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows by JK Rowling.

PROLOGUE

King's Cross Revised, A Foreword by Harry Potter

Happiness seemed to radiate from Dumbledore like light, like fire: Harry had never seen the man so utterly, so palpably content.

"Explain," said Harry.

"But you already know," said Dumbledore. He twiddled his thumbs together.

"I let him kill me," said Harry. "Didn't I?"

"You did," said Dumbledore, nodding. "Go on!"

"So the part of his soul that was in me..."

Dumbledore nodded still more enthusiastically, urging Harry onward, a broad smile of encouragement on his face.

"...has it gone?"

"Oh yes!" said Dumbledore. "Yes, he destroyed it. Your soul is whole, and completely your own, Harry."

"But then…"

Harry glanced over his shoulder to where the small, maimed creature trembled under the chair.

"What is that, Professor?"

"Something that is beyond either of our help," said Dumbledore.

There was silence for a moment as Harry turned this over in his head. The creature, too, went quiet, as thought it could sense this was a pivotal moment.

"I thought we were done with the lying and the games and the manipulation, Professor."

Dumbledore looked surprised at this, but waited for Harry to continue. Harry, with his body still half-turned towards the Horcrux that lay under the seat, spoke slowly.

"I'm not dead. Not yet, anyways. And that, there, is the piece of Tom's soul that was bonded to me. So, if I'm not yet dead, then he isn't either."

Harry took calm, purposed strides back to the bench where the Horcrux lay beneath. The sense of extreme aversion between them increased, as though Harry and the child couldn't possibly be allowed to exist in the same space anymore. It was, with some difficulty, that Harry crouched down low enough to see the Horcrux clearly with his own eyes.

The small thing shivered under Harry's gaze. It was quieter, now, and maybe even a little less ugly than before. The flayed skin now appeared to be not as severe as he peered at the Horcrux more closely.

"My fifth year at Hogwarts," Harry began, then paused, trying to reconstruct his thoughts. "I thought long and hard about how Voldemort and I were so different. How someone like him was really someone like me: a half-blood, an orphan. And I felt bad for him, when I realized he'd never known love, or friendship. And when his mind touched mine, I could feel how scared he was of that love. Not because he didn't want it, but because he was just afraid of what he didn't know."

Harry could feel Dumbledore's gaze behind him; he knew that the Headmaster had followed him for but a few paces before stopping. Time felt very different here. When Harry stopped to think, it was as though everything around him paused much in the same way. Like Dumbledore and the Horcrux were waiting for him to speak.

"You know, when you showed me Tom's history in the Pensieve, I kept expecting to find one moment, just one memory that explained why he chose to become Voldemort. But I didn't, I found myself understanding him, understanding why he ended up the way he did."

Tom Riddle had no parents. No home to go back to during the summers between school years. But he also had no Ron, no Hermione, no Sirius, no Weasleys and no Gryffindor. Harry could imagine being a lonely half-blood orphan who was Sorted into Slytherin, the coldest of the four houses, because it had almost happened to him.

For the first time since Harry had left Privet Drive, Harry thought of the cupboard under the stairs. Inexplicably, he thought of Tom's room at the orphanage, of the cupboard that existed there. The one full of things Tom had stolen from the other orphans. Harry had watched Dumbledore's memory of setting Tom's cupboard on fire with no small feeling of trepidation.

Hadn't Harry himself hoarded Dudley's discards, stolen them and hidden them away in his own cupboard? Harry knew what jealousy felt like, what it meant to covet. He and Tom both... the boys who didn't belong and the things that didn't belong to them.

Harry said, "You failed us both so badly, so many times. You sent me back to the Dursleys. You sent him back to the orphanage. Forcing us to return to places where we would have never felt or understood love. We grew up in ignorance of the Wizarding world because you wanted us to."

Finally, Harry looked up and back at where Dumbledore stood. The old wizard looked… angry wasn't quite the right word for it. Frustrated, perhaps. Like he was just now realizing that Harry had wrenched control of the conversation entirely and was now steering them into uncharted waters.

"Remember what he did, in his ignorance, in his greed and his cruelty," Dumbledore insisted, trying to take back control of the conversation. "Voldemort chose the darkness, not just once, but many, many times. He does not comprehend love, or friendship. He cannot understand it. Of house-elves and children's tales, of love, loyalty, and innocence, Voldemort knows and understands nothing. Nothing. You cannot help him, Harry. There is no help possible for one like him."

But Harry turned his gaze away again, looking back to the Horcrux. A blanket had appeared, neatly folded on top of the chair. It was also white, much like their grand surroundings. Harry grabbed the blanket and reached out to where Tom lay under the seat. The child was smoother, less damaged than it had been before. Harry felt, with increased certainty, that he was doing the right thing as he bundled up the small child into his arms.

"Did he ever get a chance?" Harry asked, almost rhetorically. "Did anyone ever give Tom Riddle any love or friendship, Professor?"

Dumbledore met Harry's accusing gaze sadly. "And what would you have me say, Harry? For you to go back, it must go on."

"You once told me that we must choose between doing what is right and what is easy." Harry felt the conviction rising in his chest, the sureness of it. "I've already done the hardest thing I'll ever have to do. When I stepped into that clearing in the Forbidden Forest, I had already accepted what was going to happen. I had no intentions of going back. I became the Master of Death, something which neither you nor Tom Riddle ever got right. So, with all due respect, Professor, I'm going to do the right thing."

"And your friends, Harry? What of them? You would give up the chance to live the fullest extent of your life with those you love? Would you abandon them to the mercies of Lord Voldemort?"

"It's different," Harry said. "Don't you see? I've done what my mother did. They're protected. He can't torture them. He can't touch them."

In his head, without conscious thought or effort, Harry could clearly hear Hermione chiding him and telling him that he had a bit of a 'saving-people thing'. Which was a fair point, and she and Ron were probably going to be pretty mad when they found out, but Harry couldn't help but smile at the thought of them being exasperated over him.

"They would understand," Harry decided, "because they know me, and they know I've got this saving-people thing. And they'd be angry at me, and maybe even hate me for a while, but they'd come around because they'd understand why I'd done it."

Dumbledore stared at him.

"You even knew there was a risk I would die doing this," Harry accused. "And now I'm doing it for my own reasons. If I send him back… if I give him a chance…" The child in his grasp squirmed, its eyes screwed shut. Tom's face was nearly healed now, restored to its former glory, handsome even for a toddler. New, soft skin stretched over chubby limbs that struggled outwards from the curves of the thick, woolen blanket. "I'm not afraid to go on, Professor."

"But if you choose to return, there is a chance that he may be finished for good. By returning, you may ensure that fewer souls are maimed, fewer families are torn apart. I implore you to choose carefully, Harry. It is not only one soul which hangs in the balance of this decision."

"If I go," Harry said, with a note of finality, "I can come back. I will come back here, and I can still go on. But if I leave him here, if I leave Tom..." Somehow, Harry knew that if he left this platform empty handed, the child in his arms would not be so lucky as to be able to simply board a train. Tom Riddle had mutilated his soul beyond recognition, and Harry did not see any other way to give the boy in his arms a second chance to live.

The area around them seemed brighter, now. The blank cleanliness of the train station was beginning to glow. Harry pulled back the hood of the blanket to reveal Tom's face. Even for a baby, he had quite a bit of hair, a thick, curly mop of it that tickled against the white wool.

Reaching out a forefinger, Harry brushed the hair aside to reveal the clean space of the boy's unblemished forehead. The white mist around them continued to pulse, surging forwards to fill up the air around them. Harry couldn't even make out the form of Dumbledore standing just behind him anymore.

When Tom Riddle opened his eyes, they were a startling emerald green, like a bright flash of the forest was reflected in them before whiteness consumed Harry's entire field of vision.

A/N:

The tea is that Harry saved the creepy baby because he's not wearing his glasses when he arrives in King's Cross and therefore can't actually see how ugly it is.

This fic is part of a series involving Tom's (very long) road to becoming a semi-ok human. Find the series outline on our profile!

This story in particular will involve Tom adjusting to living Harry's life and all the accompanying introspective dramatics. It is, in fact, Harry's dying wish that Tom WILL learn about love and friendship or he will catch these hands.

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