Jonquils And Lightning

Harry's Life

Tom found himself hovering in the middle of a darkened room, with a cot in front of him. There was a young baby in the cot, holding onto the bars and staring with wide green eyes towards a woman who stood in front of him with her arms spread.

"Stand aside, you silly girl, stand aside now," said an impatient, high voice that made Tom want to shudder in every limb.

The woman begged and pleased for the baby's life, and died by a Killing Curse. Then a pale-skinned being with red eyes and a yew wand moved slowly forwards and aimed his wand at the baby, and Tom stared and went on staring as he watched the Killing Curse reflect and the infant begin to scream.

There had been a flare of dark power around the impact of the Killing Curse on the murderer's body that he had read about but never seen.

Is that—

He had no time to be certain as he was picked up and whirled through a blur of memories that were more like paintings laid on top of each other than one coherent image. A boy chasing a younger Harry, distinctive even then for his brilliant green eyes and the shagginess of his hair. A woman opening a cupboard door and yelling at the boy curled inside it. Cooking and cleaning and gardening and laundry, all Muggle chores that Harry did with his teeth gritted and no sign of magic. A thin Harry being shoved into his cupboard with nothing while all the others sat down with full plates. The woman swinging a heavy pan at Harry's head, and his dodge away. Constant repetitions of "Freak, freak, nasty, wicked," until Harry dreamed of them the way he dreamed of the green light and his mother's death.

Tom was shaking as he watched Harry avert his eyes from food and tell a succession of lies to adults about him being fine, his relatives were just bad about time, or they were poor, or they loved him but he liked to stay out late. No wonder the Angelfire charm had chosen to present them this way. There were so many bad memories, so many dark ones, that it would have taken forever for Tom to view them in real time.

The way Harry had experienced them. Years and years of them.

Knowing there must be some impression of Harry here, watching them, as there had been an impression of himself watching his own memories, Tom tried to reach towards him. To comfort him. But nothing happened.

The memories whirled and began to slow down to show Harry in Hogwarts. Tom watched Harry walk through a doorway that promptly filled with flames behind him to face down a turbaned man in front of a mirror. He paid little attention to their argument, instead staring at Harry. He was shivering and small and skinny, but there was an expression of such determination on his pale face that rocks would have cracked on it.

I can't force him to come back to my world with me. Nothing is ever going to do that.

Tom's attention sharpened when the adult unwound his turban and exposed a terrible slit-eyed face on the back of his head. That was the same as the face of the killer who had confronted Harry when he was an infant, the same as the face of Lord Voldemort.

What did I become in this world?

Voldemort forced Harry to fetch the Philosopher's Stone for him from the mirror—even in the midst of his doubt and wonder Tom tried to memorize those details, so he could backtrack from them later to figure out the enchantment that had kept the stone there—and then there was a fight where Harry lunged forwards and clapped his hands to the man's body. The man shrieked, and white flames sprang out from Harry's hands, crisping and withering the skin. Harry was screaming with agony as well, but he hung on, until Dumbledore and a man Tom didn't recognize came charging through the doorway, and his assailant was ash.