Archive of Our Own ^beta

Tom woke up. Doesn’t it always start that way? But there was something eating at him inside, something he should know, something he should remember. Then suddenly, he did.
“Harry! My Harry, no.” He rushed to the window, the sky dark, cloud cover hiding most of the stars. It was a long, long way down.

Harry had died. Harry, who had joined him at Hogwarts in their sixth year, had died. Discovering Harry was his horcrux, too late. Discovering Harry had travelled from the future, too late. Harry’s green eyes looked cloudy, his face rippled silently in pain as he pulled Tom down to meet his eyes, forcing Tom into his mind with legilimency. Tom had been trying all year, and yet Harry remained a mystery, elusive, his walls too strong, as if he knew exactly who Tom was and how he was going to respond.

Yet, on the brink of death, Harry showed Tom everything.

The whole ugly truth. That Tom had succeeded in becoming Voldemort, that it was not sane, that it did not go well to change the world in the way he’d imagined, but indeed had started a war. That he had become a monster, that he had been the one to kill Harry’s parents- in attempt to kill him.

Harry’s breath had stopped and Tom still held his hand, put his ear to Harry’s chest, had taken his wand for a last touch of his magic. Because, although there was so much Tom had not known about Harry, there was something that Harry had managed to teach him.

Love.

He loved Tom, something Tom would have doubted had it come from anyone else.

And in return, Tom would do anything for Harry. Anything to have him back.

And now, here in this castle, alone, Tom remembered what stood in the way.

Dumbledore. Always Dumbledore.

The accusations were strong, fast, too fast. And then, Tom ended up here.

As he explored the castle, Tom found himself hearing a tone keeping pace behind him, speeding up as time went on, but eventually it caught up with him. The rooms were always neat, and it was clear that he had been here before. His robes were laid out over the back of a chair, his boots set by the fireplace like he would have at the orphanage. Even with his wand, he couldn’t sense an obliviate, but he didn’t remember doing this, being here.

He was in this castle alone, completely alone, except for the quiet beat of a metronome warning Tom that something was coming for him.

Tom saw the dinner laid out on the table, a book laid out for him. Nothing of importance, only a muggle mystery. The word 'cage' written on the cover page.

It had to have been a matter of twenty four hours when the tone reached a speed that forced Tom’s heart to accelerate, his wand tight in his hand. What was coming for him? What had Dumbledore sicced on him, to hunt him down and feast on him in this damned castle?

He stood at the entrance to the room, just to the side of the doorway, ready to bombard it the moment the thing made an appearance.

And it was… Shocking, scary, but Tom never felt scared. He felt angry, yes, he felt infuriated, and overwhelmed, but he didn’t feel fear.

But it looked like Death. It was draped in veils like a reaper. It looked like it was ready to claim him. Tom cast offensive spells at the being, but they rippled through it, its mouth opened like a dementor taking off its hood, ready to absorb Tom.

“What is it you want? Me? You can’t have me,” he said as he backed into the room, the Veil creeping still so slowly, the tone disappeared when it came into sight. “I am Tom Marvolo Riddle, heir of Slytherin, and I won’t die.”

The Veil said nothing.

“I have a future, I am Lord Voldemort, and you will not touch me, none can best me.”
He was running out of space, the castle had erased the other exit. He was being cornered, and there had to be something, if this was the end what would he say. Would his horcrux work in this mystery of a castle, in this prison that Dumbledore had placed him in? What was it that the wizard was planning for him?

“There’s a thousand ways for average wizards to die, but I am better than all of them, and worse than all of them, and I know that you are not the one who manages to kill me!”

The Veil stopped in its tracks, only centimetres from Tom’s face. He felt the shift as the being disappeared, as the castle rumbled, rooms shifting into a different order, staircases upending and connecting differently. And the mocking tone was back, slow and steady, promising Tom that he had time before he met the Veil again, but that it would be coming.

Tom held his wand again, found a stash of potions, taking a calming draught, and another for clarity. There was something about this castle, this being that he was locked in here with.

Harry, dead and gone. Dumbledore, needing to know how, why. He knew Tom was guilty, knew that Harry was different, but didn’t have enough information. What was it that Dumbledore intended to get out of Tom with this?

Was Dumbledore using this being, this Veil to interrogate him? The ever chasing, the solitude, the fear that was struck into Tom, it was clearly meant to be one. The Veil had even succeeded in getting Tom to spout something in what might have been a plead, a defence that he couldn’t possibly die.

Perhaps Dumbledore was in search of just that, what Tom had succeeded in doing in the last year, beginning his journey of making horcruxes. Now, that was a secret that would never come from his lips.

But the Veil had accepted the truth that Tom had told. That he knew the Veil was not the one to kill him.

Because the sad truth was that it was Harry. In his far far off future, Harry had killed Voldemort. And now, Harry was dead while visiting Tom in the past.

As the days passed, as he faced the Veil with each small, new truth that had never been spoken aloud, something of shame or grief or worry, Tom studied the castle and his imprisonment.

The Veil was always sent away, back to wherever it began, the rooms were always reset with each truth. And Tom observed the rooms in full.

There was writing on the dirt floor, the lighting shape of Harry’s scar. Each time he passed it, Tom wiped it out, the hurtful reminder that he was dead. And each time he spoke with the veil, it reset.

Tom had dozens of things to admit to the Veil, some more trivial than others, but he had done hundreds of wrongs. He had hundreds of plans. He had hundreds of secrets stacked up of his own, from others that he held as leverage.

The veil accepted each one, and Tom was allowed more time.

All the same, he felt he was getting nowhere. He was trapped, the rooms reset, and Harry was still dead.

The image of his scar scratched into the dirt turned from a reminder, to a hint, to a question. Again, how?

How were the rooms implying that he had been here before? What was he missing?

The time came where the Veil had approached him yet again.

He had to have another truth, another thing he had yet to admit to himself. “If I could love, it would be him.”

The Veil froze. Tom closed his eyes, and felt the castle begin it’s cranking, but in the rumble he heard only Harry’s voice in his mind.

Because Tom had to strategise, had to think, and the best way to do that was with an audience. And the only company he wanted was Harry.

“If I’ve a piece of you, don’t you think we’re meant to belong together? That you need to find me? You need to be smarter than this.”

“I am!” Tom growled, his wand seemingly useless in his hand. “There’s not a spell, time does not move forward here, I am in a loop! How am I supposed to reach you?”

“Reach me.”

“This place is forever the same. No matter how I change it, the rooms return to their original layout once I speak to the Veil.”

“What else?”

“I can evade it for nearly a few days, but that means no real sleep. It’s not restricted to the paths I follow, can seemingly appear through the walls, and there’s this always ticking, always reaching for me.”

“Why, Tom?”

“Because Harry, it’s here to scare me. And oh it’s right, I am afraid. Afraid of whatever comes next, but it’s not meant for me. And I won’t face it. You had to face death already and I vow, I vow that I’m going to get you back.”

“How’s that going then?”

Tom scoffed at his imaginations’ weak attempts at Harry’s banter, “I’ll do whatever it takes. If living an eternity can do anything for me, it’s taking me to you.” He could envision the sad look on Harry’s face, knowing that Harry wouldn’t want this for him.

But right now, it didn’t matter what Harry thought was good. Because Harry was dead. But he wouldn’t be gone forever.

Tom searched the castle, looking for anything, a potion, a pensieve, a cursed object, anything that he could possibly have missed in the times before.

He’d found a wall, freshly coated, picking at it for hours he discovered the runes. It was a trap, a place designed to keep someone in, this of course he knew, but now Tom knew where to focus his energy. His time at the wall in the center of the castle would be interrupted by the Veil, who he needed to keep away from this area so that when the Veil froze, and the castle reconfigured itself, Tom had time to run back and find where the place had moved to, and get the furthest from the Veil as possible while still making progress.

Tom had hated his findings, that Dumbledore thought himself that much better of a wizard that he would be able to trap him away, to discover what he needed. It was laughable that the man thought Tom would be driven to madness or to break from solitude, from loneliness.

No. Tom did not have need of followers, nor classmates, nor friends. He may fear death and that he may have admitted to the Veil, but it was not enough to get him to confess to the truths that Harry revealed on his brink of death.

The thought of Harry’s hand dropping, his eyes losing their light, it made Tom sick. This boy belonged to him. Harry was his, now and forevermore. This would not be the end of him. Tom would find him again, even if he had to chip at this wall for a millenia. His body would last, his horcrux would hold, and the Veil would become a companion of sorts.

He would reach Harry’s time, he had said fifty years in the future. That, Tom would be able to do. Here, trapped in this castle with nothing but a mystery and the constant chase of the Veil, Tom would continue on.

He didn’t know how many times he’d managed to evade the Veil, how many hours it took for him to split the runestones. But he did it, bleary eyed and on the edge of the worst idea.

Tom had made it through. He broke the runestones, the wards that kept this castle stuck in this moment of time were broken. He could feel it, it was a cold shiver that ran down his spine as the ward was lifted.
But there was still the ongoing tick-tock as the Veil creeped closer, and Tom knew he would have to face it again.

He prepared for it, unsure what would happen this time, would the castle adjust? Would the Veil remain? Would Tom’s end finally come? What exactly had he promised himself if not his escape?

The Veil approached, its billowing cloak dragging on the floor, its head leaning forward as if it knew the time had arrived.

Tom uttered something so honest and miserable that not even Dumbledore could hate him for it. “What if Harry’s the only way I can feel whole, and everything he’d done to find me was wasted?”

This time however, the worried truth did not stop the Veil. It moved into the last inch of space that Tom had given between them, and it grasped his head, cradling it with its translucent skeleton hands. The touch brought Tom into unconsciousness, falling. The Veil lowered him to the ground, and for once, it was the one who walked away from him.

Tom woke up. Doesn’t it always start that way? But there was something eating at him inside, something he should know, something he should remember.

Then suddenly, he did.

“Harry! My Harry, no.” He rushed to the window, the vast night sky daunting, the crashing waves below calling to him. It was a long, long way down.

He yelled through the castle, “Whoever you are, and wherever you’ve brought me, know this: I will escape and I will be with Harry again, and one more step taken against me is one you will eternally regret!”

The beat of the metronome began, and the unceasing chase and neverending mystery resumed.

The lightning scar in the sand.

The jump into the cold sea.

Admitting something never spoken.

The diversion of the Veil.

The runestone wall, slowly being chipped away.

Why? Why was he here? Tom wasn’t going to run from the Veil forever, no, if he had learnt anything from Harry it was to accept what was coming.

Harry had travelled into the past, knowing exactly who he was facing, who he was befriending…falling in love with. Harry, he had died. Had known he was Tom’s horcrux.

And that made Tom scream, again and again. Not that he was mad his horcrux had died, but that it was Harry who had died. Harry, who had taken in a shard of his soul and made it a home. Harry, who had searched for him and held him, and then was torn away.

Every time the Veil approached, Tom admitted what he needed to, to get some relief, some peace from it as he rediscovered the mystery of the castle, the plan, the strange inkling in his head that he needed to remember something more, that this was more than a prison.

He struck through the runestones again, the wards keeping time in place fell, and the Veil came to hear what Tom feared would be his last words.

“It should have been me.”

But the Veil was not death, it was a new beginning, another chance to face whatever Tom had devoted his mind to.

He awoke. His mind obliviated of all the previous loops spent in the castle. He had one thought. Not horcruxes. Not escaping. Not becoming Voldemort.

Just Harry. Just getting to Harry.

The castle rotated.

The Veil lurked forwards, slowly steadily, always sent away with an honest discovery. A fear. A secret.

Until Tom broke the runestone that held the Veil back, kept the castle in that moment in time.

Every repeat. Every obliviation, waking up in mourning.

Every scream, howl, and voice cracking threat just before the Veil cradled Tom’s head.

Each one moved the prison forward one second in time.

Then the Veil creeped away, and the cycle began again.

Tom- remembering that Harry was dead. That Harry loved him. Every secret that Harry had kept. That Harry had known the true him all along, and he still had hope.

It gave Tom hope. He would get out of here, no matter how many times the castle rearranged itself, how many times he had to escape the Veil.

No matter that he was stuck there far longer than he ever truly predicted.

Waking, remembering Harry had died.

Drawing the lightning in the sand.

“I would change for him”

The Veil touched him, drifting him to the floor.

Finding himself in this strange castle, Harry dead.

Laying out the muggle mystery book.

“Harry changed my life for the better.”

The Veil caught him as he fell.

Sitting up abruptly, torn from a nightmare or placed in one.

Hanging his robes over a chair, his shoes by the fireplace.

“I wouldn’t be here if it weren’t for my own mistakes.”

The Veil touched Tom’s cheek as tears welled in his eyes.

Harry dead. The one who managed to love him.

Writing the word cage for himself to know, there had to be a lock, a way out.

“He was good, and that’s not weak.”

The Veil nodded and touched him gently, beginning again.

Tom travelled time this way. Trapped in his prison.

Remembering a fraction of the time he experienced. Experiencing a multitude of the time that truly existed.

While the world had fifty years to pass, Tom had 1,577,836,800 seconds to overcome, which could only be done second by second, hit by hit, by breaking the wardstone and losing his memory to the Veil.

Running from the Veil, realising the clues he’d left himself, never really knowing what had gotten him here, or how far along he’d gotten, or when the escape would come, each loop lasted days if not weeks.

Which meant by the time he’d fully broken the wardstone and aligned it with his own, freeing both himself and the Veil, Tom had lived fourteen times the amount of time that had occurred in reality.

Not only fifty years to reach Harry.

But six-hundred ninety four years.

And over a billion obliviations.

While time had never ceased for the outside world, they had been rid of Tom. No Voldemort, no war, nothing serious. Death Eaters had died down, resuming their pureblood lives, concerning themselves with nothing more than obtaining power the way they always had- without bowing to the Dark Lord Voldemort.

Dumbledore had lived quietly happy, without having to worry about Tom. If he had not yet arrived, there was nothing to be concerned with. It seemed the boy, Harry, was nothing more than a minor error, and if he had had anything to do with Tom’s plots, then Dumbledore stepping in may have just saved the entire wizarding world.

The Harry from all those years ago had died, and Tom had been captured, and there hadn’t been a sour day at Hogwarts since.

It was merely coincidence that the Potters’ named their child Harry, Dumbledore had to laugh at that. Apophenia. His new favourite muggle word, the tendency to connect unrelated things.

This Harry had been sorted into Gryffindor, and had proved to be as excellent in potions as his mother, as fiery as his father, and plenty proud like his godfather.

The Harry of the past had been a Slytherin, seemed to know the school as well as the ghosts, and was taunting and angry, teasing and bitter.

This Harry was a seeker, a reader, a friend quick to lend a hand.

The Harry of the past had clung onto Tom Riddle like it was his birthright.

This Harry went home for the holidays and wrote home to his parents.

The Harry of the past was closed off and had a clear look of war about him.

No, Albus Dumbledore was confident that there was nothing to be concerned about. He may have just changed the fate of the world.

Then.

His ring broke.

The same ring that he’d taken off of Tom Riddle’s own hand, the curious thing, simmering with magic, but not that of the young boy’s. He had spelled it into a container, enchanted and enlarged it to hold all of young Tom inside. Away from the world, yet within his grasp.

Were Tom to confess what he’d done to the Harry of the past, what his monstrous plans were for the future, the teenager would be provided an exit and simply appear before Dumbledore, free from the prison.

Yet what Albus had not expected, was the magic of the ring breaking free along with Tom.

He should have.

It was of course, the most fearsome, respected power that nearly no one believed.

But Dumbledore had.

He had searched it out. Had been shocked to find that Tom had managed to find it, had had it in his possession that year. Dumbledore had found the Hallows, had restraint in not claiming the invisibility cloak for himself- it was the Potters’ he’d found out. Containing Tom- Voldemort- was for the greater good. This was supposed to be good.

Yet it was the dark that appeared.

The shadowy draped creature loomed forward, the ring flying off of Dumbledore’s hand and hovering in circles around the creature. Dumbledore’s magic cast with the elder wand was useless, it swarmed and disappeared underneath the Veil’s cloak. The Veil summoned the wand and it answered its call, flying to join the ring in its orbit.

Dumbledore was pale, watching the Veil reach out its hand, translucent fingers showing straight down to the bone.
“Tom, please,” the wizard gasped out, looking past the Veil but to Tom, searching those brown eyes for any trace of mercy.

“Harry.” Tom demanded.

Dumbledore’s eyes went wide, his fears found. “No,” he looked to the Veil, begging, “You can’t, you can’t.”
The Veil’s touch on Dumbledore’s temple first took his mind, his soul, then his body, as his skin turned shrivelled and there was not a single breath more from his lips.

Tom stepped over the dead wizard and gripped his own yew wand, ready to search Hogwarts for Harry. He’d reach him.

He’d have him.

For better or for worse, together or not at all.

The Veil followed him in its inky way, hiding within Tom like it belonged with him, underneath him like a shadow, behind him to protect him. Tom was out of place, out of time.

The Veil had left its prison, had been freed and now had a debt to pay.

Tom walked through the castle, Hogwarts, home, finally, home. The Veil led him, instinctually knowing where to find Harry, searching out the cloak. The Hallows, wanting to be together, and now finding where they truly belonged.

Harry leaned against a goalpost on the Quidditch pitch, draped in his invisibility cloak, watching the Slytherin team practice. It wasn’t all fair, but it wasn’t the same level of cheat that the snakes did. So, Harry was willing, and he’d suggest changes to make to Ginny’s plays if they’d help.

They always did.

He found out what the Slytherins managed to learn, and how they planned to counteract that expectation. Then, the Gryffindor team would do whatever it took to surprise them last minute.

His dad had ruffled Harry’s curls when he’d admitted that was the only ‘bad’ thing he wanted to do with the cloak. His mum had rolled her eyes and only said not to get caught.

Harry expected to get caught at one point or another. He was wearing an invisibility cloak outside, in the wind, and as magic as that thing was, it couldn’t be flawless.

But the way that this tall Slytherin boy was looking directly at him from across the pitch, Harry thought for a moment that he wasn’t wearing the invisibility cloak.

The boy walked closer, and Harry held his breath. He had the most handsome face, determined and proud, a look of accomplishment. The way he stared into Harry’s eyes- but wait, he couldn’t be- made Harry’s heart thump straight up into his throat.

“Harry,” his voice nearly cracked.

Harry’s eyes darted over the boy’s face. He didn’t know him, hadn’t seen him before. But there was a fragile, hopeful look that said this person knew him, maybe even knew him intimately. Harry had seen that look on his parents' faces after a catastrophe or an argument, a look of apology, of love, of regret.

And yet Harry didn’t know him.

The boy’s eyes gazed over Harry’s forehead, to his eyes, looking for something, some sign of recognition from Harry. He held out his hand, upturned for Harry to take.

Harry asked, “You, you can see me?” It felt silly, but this wasn’t like the boy had a magical eye like his dad’s friend Moody. Harry felt his breath quicken under the boy’s regard.

“I don’t want to go another day without seeing you.” He flushed, “It seems I’ve been trained into despicably embarrassing honesty, you’ll have to excuse that, I fear you liked me better bitter and ruthless.”

“Liked you better?”

The boy turned his hand over, Harry still hadn’t taken it, was still meant to be hidden from view. There was a ring on his finger, black stone, radiant cut. “I’ve travelled time, in a ridiculous way, slowly and bigger on the inside, from a point where you’d known me and found me and died, and now I know you and have found you, and I won’t. I won’t die. But I’ll make sure you know me, that you remember me. Things, things will change, for both of us. For the better. I can see you. And you can know me.”

Harry should have thought he was raving mad. But time travel and love, and being known and being seen, there were crazier things.

“What makes you think I should? What about this is meant to give me confidence in taking your hand?” But there was something in Harry’s voice that said he even disagreed with himself, his hand was already rising to fall into the one outstretched to him.

“Isn’t wanting to enough?”

That, and the pull in Harry’s gut that said this was something that he couldn’t resist. Something either disasterous, or wonderful, or simply a fact of life.

Harry pulled off the cloak. “You know, you’re not special, I’d kill for a mystery around here.” And he laid his hand into the others’, the boy placing his spare hand on Harry’s temple.

Memories poured into Harry’s mind, the time they’d spent together in the past- the day that Harry had arrived as a transfer student, the way they’d spiralled around each other until they finally near got along. The sudden death, and how Harry’s memories from an alternate timeline were shown to Tom- of his form as Voldemort, of how he’d killed Harry’s parents, and distraught an entire generation. How that Harry had been so altered by Tom’s malice.

Then Harry’s mind flashed with the thousand upon thousands of times that Tom was chased and obliviated, how he lived on the edge of anger and fear and desperation, all in order to find Harry again.
Tom lowered his hands, holding tight onto Harry’s.

Harry looked at Tom’s face discerningly. “Tom,” he said worriedly as if there was never a moment he hadn’t known him in this timeline. “Are you okay? What happened to you was- How long were you in there? Why did you, why did you do that to yourself?”

“Fine, I’m fine. And you. It was you that was killed, I was just…held on trial. And I held out, couldn’t be broken. Made friends with the jailor.” Tom smiled smartly.

Harry’s brows furrowed, “But how long? How could you?”

“Fifty years. But I went for weeks and weeks before I, well, you saw, before I had to start over. Without knowing how long it had been since I’d last seen you, had existed in reality. It wasn’t just the castle that reconfigured itself, it had happened to me too.”

“But you’re still so,” Harry trailed off.

“What?” Tom said, rubbing his finger over Harry’s skin.

“Young. And not that you shouldn’t be, not with that magic, but…your horcrux ,” Harry said, fondly concerned, touching his forehead, the lightning scar no more, “ it’s gone, this world isn’t the same one I’d come from before, I don’t think you have them.”

Then he scoldingly added, “Not that you should have had them in the first place, killing isn’t something you do, and splitting your soul had to have done something rotten to you to become…like that.”

Tom’s grin grew, “We don’t need to be tied together that way. And I no longer have to search for something that will secure my lifespan. I trust I can do plenty with the one I’ve got.”

The Veil clung to Tom to ensure this, becoming the only follower he ever needed. And Harry his equal, the same in this as in every other timeline.