There is so much about this new world, and new Tom, that Harry just doesn't understand. Tom is like the Voldemort Harry knows, but he is also an enigma. He acts with reasons entirely personal, entirely unique, and not at all like the crazed, bloodthristy manic that Harry has come to know.

Harry should be dead. He should be crucio'd again. You do not punch the Dark Lord in the face and live to tell the tale.

Yet Harry lies in the cot of his cell, tossing the faded prophecy up and down in his hands. Alive. Sirius Black lives, too. These facts alone are miracles; a testimony to Tom's persona.

Harry bites his lip so hard it bleeds, shoving the sob building in his throat. Voldemort had been an enemy well known; had been something predictable, something able to be planned around. He had really thought that he and his friends could tackle him, could save Sirius, all on their own.

Here, he does not have his friends. Here, Tom Riddle is President and nothing is better for it. How do you plan against an enemy you know nothing about?

Sirius says, from his cell, "You shouldn't have done that. To protect me."

"I wanted to."

"And he wants you ," says Sirius, shuffling. "But you can use that. You have to, okay? You have to use him before he uses you."

"I will," says Harry. "I promise."

He understands that Sirius thinks something is off here. That the only way out of their predicament, to figure out anything deeper here, is through Tom. Harry wants to say what Sirius is looking for is impossible. Lemme just defy the laws of magic, don't mind me, no big deal? Lemme just become a timeline god. Cause that's a thing. Obviously.

It is possible Tom's lying. It is a possibility considered, though, only on distrust and on no amount of evidence.

Sirius sighs deeply, frustrated with himself, his helplessness. Harry hears, every once and a while, him banging his bracelet against the floor. Harry supposes they used something very similar in Azkaban. "I'll get us a way out of here."

Part of Harry doubts it.

But all of Harry loves Sirius. He will let him have this. Harry curls the prophecy close to his chest and says, "Alright, Sirius. I trust you."

...

He is a boy, old enough already to be a man, who has come to the slow realization that these people around him... they look like his friends, sound like his friends. But are not. But are strangers.

His game of pretend is short lived. People know him too well and he seems to not know himself at all. He is, in reality, the type of boy to slap Riddle at the end of his name, if only to remind himself, for a few fleeting moments, that he is alive. His monstrous acts have not made him any less human. His heart beats, steadfast, in his chest.

Here, in this world that is not his own, in this world he now resides, he needs no reminder. His very nature is proof enough.

At the very least, he supposes, he has Sirius.

... Harry wakes to these thoughts, each one alien, every morning. It seems that, lately, his dreams have started to feel as if they are not his own. But... they are close. The forgiveness of his predicament. The failure, the disappointment.

Some of these thoughts he shares, but before he can really delve into the differences, the dreams fade from his mind, leaving only a pounding headache and a distant feeling that something is off.

They are not the nightmares he'd expected, nor the nightmares he'd gotten used to. He'd have thought Hermione and Ron, and the very real but very unprovable possibility that they are not alright would haunt his dreamland. Or Sirius Black, falling through the Veil. I killed Sirius Black, I killed Sirius Black on repeat.

Instead... he gets this. And what this, he doesn't know.

...

Around eight in the morning, Tom Riddle walks in -- another set of designer robes -- with a plate of breakfast. A real plate of breakfast, with real, non-model portions. And Harry swears, though he'd deny it to anyone, that he'd give Tom as many kisses as long as he gets to eat like that every day.

Fortunately, Tom asks of no such thing.

"Is that for us?" yells Harry, hands gripping the bars tightly. "Have you decided to finally let our famine end?"

Tom rolls his eyes, mutters something about gluttons, but says, "It is. I have two other plates set in the other room."

Sirius narrows his eyes, getting the twist before Harry can get over even the initial relief. "There's two of us," Sirius all but spits. "You miscounted."

Tom raises an eyebrow. "Did I?" he mutters. "That's news to me."

And then Harry gets it. " No ," he moans. "I am not eating breakfast with Tom fucking Riddle. I refuse."

"Then starve," says Tom. He snaps his fingers and, in Harry and Sirius' calls, appears two standard-issue breakfasts. Harry frowns deeply at the serving size. "Enjoy your meal! ...Unless, of course," he tilts his head, leaning the plate in his hand toward him; a taunt and an offering, "You want to join me?"

"Fuck you," snaps Harry at the same time Sirius says, "I'll do it."

"Sirius!"

"What? I'm hungry." And I don't handle hunger well.

Harry lets his head fall against the bars and groans. Fingers start running through his hair and Hair snaps his head up, backing up quickly.

Tom looks at him expectantly. "You looked distressed," says Tom, like that explains anything.

"No shit," deadpans Harry.

"It's a meal, Harry," says Sirius. "It's just a meal."

And although Harry thinks there is no just in that -- that the idea that anything with someone like Tom Riddle could ever be that simple is preposterous -- ... he is a bodybuilder. He likes his food. He is hungry and knows that a hungry soldier is a weak one. Harry grits out, harshly, "Fine. "

Tom vanishes the plate with a swish of his wrist -- presumably to the table -- and sets his hand out. "I must warn you," he says after a pause, "no violence is permitted during mealtime."

"What?" shouts Harry. He backtracks, "I mean, you said I didn't have to be civil toward you."

"In order to exist here, alive, and with your godfather in the same condition," says Tom. "This is a privilege. Not a right."

Harry takes a deep breath, composing himself. "Alright," he says. "I get you."

"Good!" He waves his hand, opening their cages with impeccable wandless and nonverbal magic. He turns, leaving through the door he came in through. "Follow me," he calls.

Harry is slow to do so. He gets his first good look of Sirius in a while, his first good opportunity to touch him. Harry restrains himself from jumping out and hugging him, instead grasping Sirius's fingers tightly between his own.

'Are you alright?' Harry mouths.

'Just hungry.'

Harry huffs a little and they follow Tom's path, hand in hand, passing an office of what seems to be Aurors on duty. They look at him weirdly.

Harry wonders if they're equally as mystified as to why Harry is alive, or if their President's normal behavior is this obsessive and weird.

The room they end up in is small, filled with only a table with three chairs, Tom already seated, and a woman in blue standing at attention.

"Sit, my love," says Tom, gesturing to the seat beside him.

"I'll sit where I want, thanks," grounds out Harry, sitting at the seat furthest from him. Sirius sits beside him, letting go of his hand.

Tom looks livid. But he, to his credit, says nothing. He snaps his fingers and plates appear in front of them. "Enjoy," he says, somewhat bitter tone still infecting him.

There's avocado toast, two slices, a fried egg, two sausages, and half an apple, sliced. Harry practically melts. "Oh my god!" he moans. "You've got protein, healthy fats, carbs."

Tom looks both smug and disgusted at Harry's enthusiasm. "It is quite a lot of food," states Tom. "But I knew you would enjoy it."

Harry chews a slice of sausage, swallowing it quickly. He can feel his energy returning already. He wipes his mouth with the back of his hand. He's grateful, but... "You don't have to be a dick about it, you know. Just a tip."

"Dicks and tips? Harry, I had no idea you were so forward."

Harry chokes and Tom adds, same tone, "Choking on sausage ? If you want to bed me, I'm pretty sure asking is the way to go."

"Shut up," snaps Harry, coughing. He points a finger at him, Harry had left on his cheek. "Or I'll do what I did last night--"

"Kiss me? And give me this, of course." Tom touches the mark on his cheek lightly. Yelled and purple, it stands out like neon orange in the forest. "I chose not to have it healed. I am no masochist, but you do do something to me, Harry."

"Why you little--!"

Sirius interrupts, without even looking at him, eyes still fixed on his plate, "Harry, stop flirting with the Dark Lord."

Harry stares, jaw dropped.

"President, actually," corrects Tom.

"Harry, stop flirting with the Dark President."

Tom makes a face like he's going to say something, before nodding his head and shrugging.

"I..." Harry feels like he's going mad. He probably is. It's much more likely than that actually having come out of Sirius' mouth. "I cannot believe you just said that."

Sirius shrugs, nonchalant. "Oh, what am I but a slave to the flesh?"

"The fuck does that mean?"

"Means I'm hungry, Harry!" says Sirius. "And listening to your obnoxious flirting is not good for my appetite."

"You literally said last night he wanted to use me."

"Of course," says Sirius. "Which is why I don't want you flirting with him." Harry guesses it is more complicated than that. Sirius thinks that Tom knows more than he lets on -- though it is not like Harry can blame him for the assumption; Tom wants him here and Tom tells him there is no way to leave. Whether or not they are correlated is, honestly, up for debate -- and thinks that Harry can get it through this 'flirting,' through calling it flirting.

But Harry hates it either way. He feels his blood boil and sips on his juice, gripping the glass tightly between his fist to stop himself from doing something stupid.

And then Tom says, "That's right, Harry, listen to your dad," and Harry spits out his juice.

Part of Harry warms in validation. He is my father. He is as close as anyone can be. He is, now, all I have. But Harry just sputters, red in the face, "Um, no -- I mean -- he's not--"

Tom laughs at him. "You are so silly, Harry. So sensitive."

The lady in blue waves her hand and the spilled juice disappears. Harry eats his apple, fuming, and Sirius chuckles at him.

"What is it with that, anyway?" Harry snaps, setting down the core of his apple. "This child stuff. I'm fifteen. You look like a teen yourself, dude."

"I am eighteen."

The age limit for Ministers is twenty-one in his world. "Why am I not surprised they let an eighteen-year-old be President."

Tom ignores the comment. "Your counterpart was nineteen."

"Doesn't make me a child."

"It kinda does," says Sirius.

"Don't side with him!"

Sirius puts his hands up. "Sorry, kiddo."

Tom daps at the corners of his mouth with his napkin. He clears his throat and the lady in blue vanishes his plate. He'd eaten only half. Harry doesn't get the point of being rich if you're not going pig out on all of the best foods, but whatever. "Tell me about your world," he says. "I'm interested in--"

"No," Harry says instantly.

"Why? I am sure it'd give me valuable insight into the source of our... ah, differences--"

"Wait, wait, Harry," says Sirius. "I got this." He clears his throat and says, matter of factly, "Suck my momma's toes."

Tom frowns slightly and Harry burst out laughing. "You fucking got 'em," he says, laughing. He fist pumps Sirius. "Can't believe it."

"I retract my earlier statement," says Tom.

"Which one?"

"It's not your age that makes you childish," says Tom. "Clearly, I was mistaken. You are both children."

Harry snorts. He leans back in his chair. "I've been thinking," he says.

"Impressive."

Harry grits his teeth. "If there's a Harry Potter in this universe, and me in mine... then, my friends... there should be a 'them' here, too, right?"

Sirius seems intent on getting back over to their world. It is a fair hope. It is not one Harry is so certain of. He wants his friends... and if there is even a version of them here...

"Yes. Though I would not be so quick to get your hopes up," notes Tom, standing up, brushing off his robes.

"What? Why not?"

Sirius winces. "Voldemort's right, Harry--"

"It's Tom," says Tom.

"Right. Whatever." Sirius looks like he is trying very hard not to roll his eyes. He knows he's been pissing Tom off already, and is not interested in pushing him too far. "Things are different here. The people are different. Whoever you are looking for, Harry," says Sirius, "...might not be who you find."

Harry hopes his voice does not betray his sorrow. "You don't know that," he snaps. Sirius can't. Harry has Sirius, and Sirius is great, he loves him... and the possibility that Ron and Hermione are people he will never see again is painful, but one he thinks that, in time, he will make peace with.

But if Ron and Hermione exist... and are not who Harry knows...

Then he doesn't know what he's going to do. He doesn't know what he can.

Harry clears his throat. He tugs on the bracelet around his wrist. "Anyway," he says. "When will you have these removed? Wandless magic seems rather cool, and I'd oh so appreciate it if you'd let me start trying it out."

"No," says Tom simply.

"Rude."

"You are enough as a threat as it is without your magic," says Tom. "I have no intention of letting you get out of control."

"How flattering."

"We have a very packed schedule today," says Tom, ignoring his sarcasm. Harry turns toward him. "So if you have any last grievances, it is best you voice them now."

" We ?" Harry scoffs. "You sure you don't mean you ?"

"I am."

"Oh," says Harry.

"What are we doing?" asks Sirius, ever suspicious.

"A medical exam. And clothes shopping." He eyes Harry's clothes, still dirty from the fight at the Ministry and stained from his fall out of the Veil. "For one of you, at the very least."

Harry tightens his jaw. He said no violence during mealtimes. He didn't say after, did he?

Tom raises an eyebrow. "Do watch yourself, please."

Harry ignores Sirius' warning noise. "Or what ?"

"Clothes shopping, and the medical exam, are, again, privileges."

"I'm used to wearing old clothes." Harry's fist flexes at his side.

"Really?" He glances over Harry's school robes. "With your fashion sense, it'd be hard to guess."

Hermione's voice echoes in his head -- Don't let him provoke you! -- but Hermione is not here right now. Harry lunges, fist pulled back, toward Tom.

Sirius grabs him by the waist, pulling him back. "Don't," he whispers.

" What ?" snaps Harry, writhing in his hold. "You want to beat his ass too, don't you! Let me at him! Let me at him!"

"Of course I want to beat his ass. Of course I understand."

"Then why?"

"You're injured. You're not at full strength." It's true. One good meal has done nothing to heal his many injuries: the broken skin on his knuckles from punching Tom; his palms, hurt by the fall and by his wand exploding; the full body ache that hangs over him, lingering from the crucio. And the handful of wounds he endeared from the Ministry battle.

Harry knows that a wounded soldier is not a soldier; they are a body in a medical tent.

Harry knows this. He also has run dry of shits to give. "Who cares ?"

"I do," says Sirius. Harry freezes. "I care. So... let's go with him. Get you healed. You cannot beat him like you are now, you know? This is no way to get home."

Harry goes lax in his grip. He says, dully, "Okay, Sirius." ( Okay, dad.)

Tom tuts att he sight. "Your mind, Harry Potter, works in ways I do not understand. Yet," he adds, ominous. He holds out his hand to them. "Hold on tight. Teleportation is not a pleasant experience."

Harry, after taking his hand, Sirius beside him, a warm comfort, has just enough time to say, "Wait, did you just call it teleportation-- " before they are whisked away, nausea beating him over the head, to what Harry will discover is called St. Margos.

...

In Harry Potter's third year, he tells Minister Fudge that he doesn't care if Sirius Black is a mass murderer, he still thinks he can take him. "If that bitch showed up to my house, trying to kill me, underage magic is the least of the crimes I'd be committing."

Dumbledore, sitting with them at the Leaky Cauldron, looks affronted. "I am sure, my boy, you do not mean that..."

"I was the one who attacked Marge."

Fudge goes white. "What..? But, Black...?"

Harry shrugs. "Didn't show up."

"Why, my boy?" asks Dumbledore. He looks all of a sudden so tired.

"Shoulda heard the shit come out of my her mouth. Guess my magic got the best of me, huh?" Harry laughs.

"Why... why would you run? We'd assumed it was Black who attacked her, and you'd ran because you were afraid..."

"I was afraid." Vernon does not take kindly to Petunia's side of the family. You should see him with a belt. You'd run, too. "Let's just say an important part to winning every fight is to know which ones to avoid completely." Though, Harry's not one to back down from a challenge. This is advice he uses sparingly... and only, reluctantly thought, when family is involved.

"So, it wasn't Black?"

"I hardly knew who he was before you told me."

Fudge stands, pacing back and forth, white as a ghost. He's muttering to himself. He leaves after a moment, telling Harry and Dumbledore there are some phone calls he has to make.

Harry looks at Dumbledore. "Are they going to get me for underage magic?"

"....I," says Dumbledore slowly, "would suppose not, my boy. There are bigger things at stake than a schoolboy's outburst."

"Why would he attack me?" asks Harry, tilting his head. "Why would that be your first thought; that Black would escape from prison and want me dead?" It's weird, how this whole thing is connected and convoluted. About him, but not enough that harry needs to know about it.

Dumbledore doesn't tell him then. He gives a vague nonanswer, probably thinking it is for his own good. He knows this mass murder. Knows that Harry doesn't, knows that Harry thinks he could take him, and would probably try... and, in all likelihood, fail.

It is for his own good, for his own protection, and with no malice, that Harry Potter is once again held in the dark.

Dumbledore does not tell him. Nor does Hermione or Ron, or Arthur or Molly.

It is only, later on in the year, when Malfoy teases him does he get even a hint of the truth. Malfoy gives no shits about protecting Harry -- and for the first time in his life, Harry is grateful for the utter disregard of his safety.

Sitting under the table, covered in his Invisibility Cloak, at Hogsmeade, listening to the inside joke that every one but him knows be explained by his elders, Harry fumes. He swears to himself and Ron and Hermione that if Sirius Black wants him dead, he has another thing coming. He is the very reason his parents are dead and, hell, even if he doesn't try to kill Harry, his offenses are too grave for him to be left alive by any means.

Hermione tells him he's being ridiculous. "The Aurors will take care of him. You'll get your justice. There is no need to get involved."

" The Aurors let him escape the first time!" snapped Harry.

"You'll get yourself killed, mate," begged Ron.

"Not if I have you guys on my side." What good is the James Formation with only one person? There are essential parts and sectors in it. He is useless as a one party team; useless without his friends.

"We can't," says Hermione. "We shouldn't. It's... none of our business, Harry."

"But it is mine."

Time passes. Sirius Black is cornered in the Shrieking Shack. Harry has his wand out, jabbing it toward his face. Harry's breath comes in short, angry pants. Sirius is saying something about a rat, the truth, some lies, and Harry isn't having it.

Harry knows who killed his parents and he knows who helped him. What he has done is unforgivable.

Perhaps that's why Avada Kevadra slips out of Harry's mouth like oil, so quick and natural that he doesn't want to think twice about it. Hermione pushes his arm out of the way, last second, making the spell his Sirius' face by inches.

"What the hell Hermione?!" Two inches away from revenge it is not an enemy but a friend who tried to stop him. She knows, she must know, what Harry would do for his family. She knows what this man has down and works to stop Harry from righteous retribution.

She doesn't budge. She holds onto his arm, tight to her chest. "Something feels off here!" she begs. "Please, you have to believe me. Something... a trap, a disguise, something is wrong here. "

And the truth is that every time Harry has failed (though he refuses, every time, to use that word) in a mission, it is because Hermione has warned him, and Harry hadn't listened. Hermione is his trump card, the Brain, and it's on Harry for not being smart enough to listen, every time.

When Hermione says a fight cannot be won, she is right. When she says there is a trap, she is right. When Hermione says please listen to me... it is in your best interests to take that to heart.

So Harry puts his wand down. Remus arrives; the truth is unveiled; Harry Potter is grateful that Hermione stopped him from murdering his godfather.

Harry almost murders Peter, too, when the offer is made. He is so quick to it, the rage, the revenge, but he is also hesitant. He'd almost killed an innocent man moments before. When the lines between good and bad, enemy and ally, are not clearly drawn... he has no right to make decisions.

Hermione looks grateful. So does, to Harry's eternal disgust, Peter Pettigrew.

He talks with Sirius, those few moments before everything goes completely to shit. Sirius wants to take him away for the summer, take him home. He wants to tell Harry stories about his father, his mother.

It is a dream come true. And then that dream is pissed on, shattered, and crushed into a million pieces. Harry knows heartbreak, but he has never felt it like this. (How can one deal with losing their father twice ? Normality is offered to him then torn away from him with no care for how he'd feel when he landed. This is not the first time this has happened. Harry believes there will never be a last. )

One day, Sirius tells him, right before he escapes. He'll come back for Harry. Somehow, they will reunite, and they will be a family. For real this time. He will give Harry a house if Harry will give him a home.

(He will do what he should have done all those years ago. The guilt of that ten, maybe twenty-second moment all that time ago will never stop haunting him. He let his anger overwhelm his love and has been paying the price ever since.)

It's not enough. It is also not Sirius' fault. Harry says he will keep in touch.

...

Tom's hand grips Harry's bicep with surprising, and creepy, force. They wait for the mediwitch to finish up healing Sirius, sitting down together. "There's multiple beds to sit on," says Harry, trying to keep his tone neutral.

"I know," says Tom. "I like this one, though."

Harry lets out a low groan. "Can you at least let go of my arm?"

"No," answers Tom. He likes that one, too.

"It's weird."

"It is?"

"And creepy."

Tom goes silent. He says, after a moment, "I have never felt... something like this before."

Harry doesn't think that makes him any less of a creep. He rolls his eyes. "You mean a muscular arm ? I promise, they're not that rare."

"They are. Here, at least," says Tom. A blush, faint, forms on his cheeks, so light Harry convinces himself it isn't there at all. (Dark lords do not blush.) He adds, "It's nice."

Harry frowns. He glances over to the closed curtains around the bed where Sirius sits. "Are normal prisoner's conditions like this?"

"No," says Tom.

"Really?" Harry guesses that fact never changes... Azkaban is not a prison; it is a torture chamber. Harry thinks it is true that some people deserve that fate, that some people, damn them deserve worse... but not everyone, not for the most minor of crimes. It hardly seems fair. (And that's because it isn't.)

"You are a special case. I pulled some strings, wanted some things to happen, and, because I'm the President, they did."

"Sounds like an abuse of power."

"It is a normal utilization of power, Harry."

"That's politician talk for 'abuse of power'."

"This abuse of power is getting you a position at Hogwarts and your godfather into Auror training. Must you complain?"

"So Sirius needs training, but I'm allowed to jump headfirst into teaching; is that right?"

Tom sticks his nose up at him, all pompous, all condescending, all holier than thou. "I cannot believe --"

Harry points a finger at him. "If you call me a child one more time, I swear to gob I'll pickle your eyeballs and force you to eat them."

Tom holds his free hand up; the universal sign of surrender. "I only jest, Harry."

"Yeah, well, I have little patience for jesting from bullies." He tugs his arm out of his grasp. "And 'bully's a little lax of a term for you."

"I am not so bad if you get to know me," argues Tom. He looks like he wants to grab Harry's arm back in his hand but is restraining himself. And you call me the child, thinks Harry. "You're making assumptions off of what you know of my counterpart -- when will you bother to learn who I am, apart from that?"

"I've learned enough." And he has, definitely. He knows that he is a President that is more of a Dictator. He knows he has no real concept of boundaries or consent, or what you can or cannot say.

He is planning to learn more about Tom and Tom's reign. His policies, his speeches, his tenants. He will scour them over and consume them because an ignorant soldier is not a soldier but a drone.

Harry Potter is not a drone. He is a leader and a follower (only to those special few), but never a drone.

"Maybe, if you learn enough, you will like what you see."

"You wish, Tom."

"Of course."

Harry frowns deeper and shuffles further away from him.

Voldemort was obsessed with him. Obsessed with killing him, obsessed with the one that got away. It is frustrating and rage-inducing and has made Harry just as obsessed with his downfall as Voldemort is with his.

Voldemort was obsessed with him and Tom is like Voldemort. The only difference is the funneling of their obsession. Voldemort, with his death. Tom... with the very control of his life.

Even so, Harry wishes he could go back to that. If only to have an enemy he understands.

The mediwitch finishes with Sirius, who is redressing by his bed. His check-over and heal were quick; Harry's glad he was alright... Physically, at the very least.

She, the mediwitch, makes her way over to them, clipboard in hand. When she finally takes a look at him, her eyes go wide, and she blinks several times over. "Uh," she squeaks. He blinks more, looking him over, up and down, more violating a look than anything Tom has done to him thus far.

"What?" snaps Harry.

"Oh... it's that, uh."

Tom warns her, "Sarah. Watch your tongue, please, if you would. He is dear to me."

Dear? Being dear to Tom Riddle? What an ugly thought that is. (And scary. Harry's glad he'll be shipped way to Hogwarts soon, even if he will be working for tom part-time. There is safety in distance. There is relaxation in safety. And you know what Harry makes of a restless soldier.)

"I'm sorry, Mr. President, sir, he's just so..." Harry knows what's coming out of her mouth before she even thinks to say it. In a moment's notice, Harry's hands are fists and his already raw knuckles ache in anticipation. He is angry at Tom and unable, at the moment, to do anything about it. But that does not mean he can do nothing. "... fat."

Tom Riddle said no violence. Not during mealtimes, not during this. But Harry's pretty sure Tom meant toward him.

And even if he didn't, Harry Potter is dear to him. He's sure he'll be granted some amount of leeway.

Harry's fist flies into her face and comes away bloody, gross, and with a satisfying crack.