Chapter Text
"You think you can stop me?" Tom’s voice dropped to a lethal, snake-like hiss. The calm, collected nineteen-year-old Hogwarts graduate was entirely gone, replaced by a man brimming with cold, terrifying fury. He stepped out from behind the counter, crowding Harry against a display case of cursed hands. "I am destined for greatness. I will tear this world apart, and you will never stop me."
The cursed hands twitched as if to cheer him on. Go Mr Tom, you can do it!
Harry blinked, looking at the handsome, furious twenty-something blocking his exit. He didn't draw his wand. Instead, he just sighed, leaned back against the shelf, and looked Tom dead in the eye.
"Yeah, okay, whatever, Voldemort," Harry said, rolling his eyes.
Tom paused at the sudden name drop. How on earth did this slightly attractive, slightly older man know so much about him?
Harry continued his rant. "But honestly? Have you looked at yourself in the mirror lately? You’re stressed. You’re working a dead-end retail job at Borgin and Burkes, scheming a bunch of murders in a dusty basement, and for what? A bunch of snake tattoos and a bald head?"
Tom froze, his dark magic sputtering in sheer confusion. "I... what?"
His wand let out a pathetic burst of magic, just as flustered as he was. Bald head? Tom Riddle, a handsome young man? BALD?
"I'm just saying," Harry continued, stepping closer and gently patting Tom’s perfectly ironed lapel, completely ignoring the death glare. "You’re way too pretty to ruin your face over a minor government coup. If you stop all this dark lord nonsense right now, I could literally show you what a home-cooked meal tastes like. But hey, if you prefer the dusty basement and creepy snake logos, that's your business."
Tom stared at him, his face flushing a furious, bewildered pink. "Are you... are you hitting on me during a villain monologue?"
Before Harry could answer, Tom threw his hands up in sheer, unadulterated frustration, turned on his heel, and stormed out of Borgin and Burkes in a massive, dramatic huff.
Harry blinked at the empty doorway. “Oh great, I’ve lost the future Dark Lord.” he deadpanned to the dusty air.
“Come back.” he said to nobody, maybe to the twitching cursed hand that had stopped moving now that the drama was over.
With a heavy sigh, Harry strolled out of the shop and spotted Tom marching down the cobblestone alley, his robes billowing with righteous teenage anger.
Harry didn't even bother running.
“Tom, turn around” he commanded.
The sudden domineering tone in his voice made Tom subconsciously do just that.
Pleased, Harry just raised his wand, aimed it at the confused figure, and cast a casual, overpowered Stupefy.
How well behaved, if only he had listened in the real world.
The red light hit Tom square in the back. The future Dark Lord went instantly rigid and collapsed forward like a felled tree.
Harry walked over, slung the paralyzed, stiff-as-a-board nineteen-year-old over his shoulder like a sack of premium potatoes, and looked around. He needed a place with seating and drinks to explain the timeline mechanics. Fortunately, the dingy sign for a creepy-looking pub was hanging just a few doors down.
Well, that would do, as long as their drinks weren’t spiked they should be just fine.
Marching inside the empty, frozen-in-time pub, Harry dumped Tom onto a wooden barstool, propping him up against the counter so he wouldn't slide off onto the floor.
Tom’s eyes were wide with a mixture of homicidal rage and utter panic. He couldn't speak, but he was glaring daggers at Harry.
“Right, first things first,” Harry said cheerfully, flagging down the weird, monochrome coloured bartender to pour two Butterbeers for Tom and himself. He slid one in front of Tom's paralysed hand.
“Listen, Tom, I’ve got some good news and some bad news. The bad news is, you’re currently a soul fragment trapped in a magical book, your fate is completely sealed, and your future self becomes a noseless, bald, snake-faced freak who gets obliterated by a literal toddler.”
Tom couldn't scream, but the absolute horror in his dark eyes was a work of art. His jaw was locked by the spell, so he immediately started protesting in silence, wiggling his torso around on the stool and shaking his shoulders furiously in sheer denial.
Poor thing, what happens when I tell him the part when he disintegrates in a school courtyard?
“Don’t wiggle at me,” Harry chuckled, leaning in close and gently patting Tom's perfectly smooth cheek. “I'm just stating facts. But the good news is, you’re way too pretty to end up like that. If you promise to behave, I can literally take you back to the future with me. Think about it. No world domination stress, a stable home-cooked meal, and you get to keep your nose. What do you say, darling?”
Tom’s wiggling intensified, his face turning an even deeper, more explosive shade of pink.
Harry thought he was so, so smooth.
Harry sipped on his butterbeer, proud of himself for sexually harassing Tom Riddle. All he had to do was agree to help him, and he could leave this wretched book for good.
As the last of the stunning spell finally wore off, Tom got up in a huff, slamming his hands down on the table.
“Lies. All lies! You deceive me, because you are afraid of the power I will possess in the future!” he spat. “I have shown you mercy, but you have pushed me too far, Potter.”
Harry rolled his eyes. Well here goes nothing.
“Are you really sure this is the route for you? Think about it, if you escape this construct of reality, I’m willing to let you intern for me. But if you’d prefer to evaporate in a school courtyard that's fine too.” Come on, take the bait.
Tom's eyes twitched. He was immortal. What this eccentric Mr Potter was saying was a trap! He couldn’t have been defeated, it was impossible!
But, what if this man really was from the future? What if he was telling him the truth?
Would he really be willing to risk it all, just to die?
Reality hit Tom Riddle harder than a heavenly tribulation bolt. If Tom was going to escape his bleak future, he had to cooperate with the handsome older man in front of him.
“Fine, I’ll follow you back to ‘the real world’, on one condition,” he paused.
Harry smiled, he expected Tom to cave once he realised the risks of staying where he was far outweighed the benefits.
“Teach me how to summon the Woman of Knowledge. We will escape, and you will hand over her full power to me.”
He sounded so serious, Harry was shaking trying to stifle his laughter.
“I will, I promise. In fact, you can keep this for yourself now.” he said calmly, tossing his phone to the shocked teenager in front of him.
I’ll just buy a new one later, no big deal.
Tom greedily caught the phone, eyeing it like it was his biggest prized possession.
"Woman of Knowledge, reveal to me the secrets of immortality."
…
"Here are some web results."
Harry almost died of laughter as Tom greedily read the search results.
(While true biological immortality remains a futuristic concept, science is shifting toward reversing the aging process and dramatically extending human health spans. The "secrets" to longevity lie in cellular reprogramming, clearing "zombie" cells, and harnessing data-driven medical optimization.)
“Cellular reprogramming… You will get me one of those as well, Potter” he demanded.
Harry smiled to himself at the intimidating teenage Voldemort acting like a petulant little toddler. “Sure, I’ll get you one of those too. Heck I’d even teach you how to use Netflix if you help me escape.”
“Netflix…? What is it?”
“An endless information storage of different stories. You can even choose the language you want your shows in. I watched one with a crazy dude with a flute and his boyfriend. It was fun, all the main characters were the uncle of this one guy.” Harry spoke as seriously as possible, trying his best to hype up a streaming platform and the drama he was watching on it as well.
“A massive, global information store… Like the Woman of Knowledge, but with visual information instead… How intriguing.” Tom was absolutely enamoured with the over-the-top descriptions of modern entertainment platforms. Before he spoke, he looked at the older man in front of him with uncertainty, the first hint of vulnerability he had shown all day.
"Wait, language selection?" Tom's eyes narrowed, his fingers scrolling with a frantic, unnatural speed through the tiny glowing brick of plastic and glass. "And... an uncle? What sort of dark family ritual is this?"
Harry bit the inside of his cheek so hard he tasted copper. He was talking about The Untamed, the legendary Chinese drama adaptation of the web novel Mo Dao Zu Shi. Explaining the complex sect dynamics, the demonic cultivation, and why Wei Wuxian and Lan Wangji were technically just "very close soulmates" in the eyes of the censorship board was going to take hours.
And Harry was going to cherish every single second of it.
"It's a very prestigious historical documentary," Harry lied smoothly, leaning over Tom’s shoulder to point at the screen. "You see, the guy with the flute is a necromancer. He practically invented a whole new branch of dark magic just because he felt like it. Sound familiar?"
Tom’s eyes widened. "A necromancer? He commands the dead with a... a musical instrument?" He stared at the phone as if it held the secrets to the Deathly Hallows. "Fascinating. A highly efficient focus for acoustic spellcasting. And you say he has a boyfriend? Is that his second-in-command?"
"Exactly. His very stoic, very handsome co-conspirator who wears a forehead ribbon and plays a magical stringed instrument," Harry snorted, finally giving up on suppressing his grin. "They basically fight a corrupt magical government together, break every rule in the book, and adopt a random kid. But that's for later. Right now, we have a memory construct to break out of."
Tom reluctantly pulled his gaze away from the screen, clutching the phone tightly against his chest. "Yes. The real world. If what you say is true, Potter... if my future self truly lost his intellect, his followers, and his attractiveness to a mere infant, then this timeline is fundamentally flawed. I refuse to inherit a legacy of failure."
"Spoken like a true, vain teenage sociopath," Harry cheered, clapping him on the back. "Alright, diary boy. To get out of here, you need to channel your soul energy directly into the core of the book. I'll tether us from my end. When reality cracks, you hold onto me, got it?"
Tom scoffed, smoothing down his slightly wrinkled robes to regain his dignity. "I do not require your protection, Potter. But... I will allow you to guide the way. Only because you promised me the home-cooked meal and this 'Netflix' archive."
"And the cellular reprogramming," Harry reminded him with a wink. "Can't forget your immortal youth."
Tom’s face flushed that brilliant, furious pink again. He turned away, muttering under his breath about arrogant, older wizards, but he didn't pull away when Harry closed his hand over his wrist.
“If I go back with you to the future, how can I be sure you won’t kill me there itself? You told me that I was a manic mass murderer. You work for the Ministry. Surely they won’t just turn a blind eye to me resurrecting from a book?”
Harry paused. This was a very valid question. What exactly was he going to do once they got back? What was he going to tell his supervisor?
What exactly was Harry supposed to tell his supervisor?
Good news. The Horcrux has been contained.
Better news. He had successfully domesticated Tom Riddle.
Unfortunately, Harry had also accidentally promised to become his romance-adjacent roommate.
That was a surefire way to get sacked.
Tom stared down at the glowing glass rectangle as if it were a newly uncovered Dark artifact, his thumb hovering with deep suspicion over the screen. He had managed to bypass Harry’s vague explanations of the "Woman of Knowledge" and had stumbled upon a digital archive labeled with a strange, globe-like jigsaw icon.
Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia.
"You said this repository houses all known historical data of your era," Tom murmured, his voice tight with an obsessive curiosity. His fingers tapped the search bar with practiced precision, despite never having seen a keyboard before.
Harry ignored him, trying to find a way to break the shocking news to his supervisor in his head. Most versions in his imagination ended with his head being blown apart.
Tom scoffed at Harry who was actively ignoring him now. He typed: Voldemort.
Harry leaned back, taking a slow, long draught of his Butterbeer. He didn't stop him. In fact, Harry was actively enjoying the silence. It was the longest Tom Riddle had gone without threatening to flay someone alive or demanding a blood sacrifice. He could start planning his next few moves.
Then, the color began to leave Tom’s face.
It started at the tips of his ears, draining downward until his sharp cheekbones looked like freshly carved marble. His dark eyes darted back and forth across the glowing text, reading at a speed that shouldn't have been humanly possible.
Lord Voldemort (born Tom Marvolo Riddle)... a dark wizard who sought to conquer the wizarding world...
"A sensible beginning," Tom whispered, his chest swelling slightly with an arrogant pride. "As expected. A grand conquest."
He scrolled.
...split his soul into seven Horcruxes...
Tom’s eyes widened. "Seven? I achieved seven? Exceptional. The most powerful magical number."
...including a diary, a ring, a locket, and accidentally, Harry Potter.
Tom froze. He looked up from the screen, his gaze cutting to Harry like a physical blade, then snapped his head back down to the text.
...Physical Appearance: Following his resurrection, Voldemort was described as having deathly pale skin, a skeletal face, red eyes, and slits for nostrils, resembling a snake...
A low, trembling sound escaped Tom’s throat. It sounded like a kettle reaching a violent boil. "A snake? No nose? No nose? I look like an overgrown garden pest?"
"Don't skip the endgame, Tommy," Harry chimed in cheerfully, swirling his drink. "That's where the real poetry happens."
Tom’s thumb practically cracked the glass as he dragged it upward, bypassing sections on the Death Eaters and the First Wizarding War, landing squarely on The Battle of Hogwarts (1998).
...Voldemort attempted to cast the Killing Curse on an infant Harry Potter. The curse rebounded due to his mother, Lily Potter, sacrificing herself out of pure love, leaving Voldemort a disembodied spirit...
The pub began to vibrate. The monochrome wooden stools rattled against the floorboards. The yellow, inky sky outside the window flickered violently, flashing with a sickening green light.
"A mother's hug?" Tom’s voice cracked, dropping from its smooth, lethal register into a pitch of sheer, unadulterated teenage hysteria. "I lost to a toddler because of a mother's hug?!"
Tom Riddle’s inflated ego was savagely popped and deflated like a pathetic balloon.
"Technically, it was ancient sacrificial magic," Harry offered, ignoring the fact that the counter beneath his elbows was beginning to turn into liquid black ink. "But yeah, basically a really aggressive maternal cuddle. It blew your body right apart."
"I am the heir of Salazar Slytherin!" Tom shrieked, standing up so fast his barstool flew backward, dissolving into a puddle of ink before it even hit the ground. "I am destined to conquer death! I am the greatest magical prodigy of the century! And I was obliterated by a nursery rhyme?!"
He stared at the final paragraph of the page.
...Riddle’s final curse rebounded off Potter's Disarming Charm, killing Riddle once and for all. His body fell forward, ordinary and broken, in the school courtyard...
"An Expelliarmus?" Tom screamed, his hands tearing at his perfectly styled hair. "The signature spell of a third-year schoolboy?! I evaporated in a dirt courtyard like a common piece of rubbish?!"
"Actually, in the movie version, you turned into weird, flaky confetti," Harry corrected. "Personally, I think the book version where you just thudded onto the floor like a sack of turnips was way more embarrassing."
"AAAAAAAHHHHHHH!"
Tom’s magical core didn't just spike; it exploded. The sheer, overwhelming humiliation of reading his own Wikipedia page broke his teenage mind. He couldn't process the absolute failure of his future self. The dark magic built up inside the memory construct turned volatile, rejecting its own narrative.
You thought Chu Wanning’s spiritual core was unstable? Take a look at this guy!
The yellow sky tore open like wet parchment. The walls of Borgin and Burkes and the dingy pub melted together, bleeding down into a swirling vortex of raw, black ink.
"Potter!" Tom yelled through the roaring wind of the collapsing reality, his pristine robes whipping around him as he sank into the floor.
"Grab hold, diary boy!" Harry yelled, reaching out and tackling Tom by his perfectly ironed lapel.
Tom froze up instantly as Harry enveloped him in a warm embrace. “Don’t let go, and we should be fine! I hope!”
With a violent, bone-rattling jerk, the entire book ejected them both, tearing them out of the parchment and slamming them back into the harsh, bright world of the living.
***
Harry hit the hardwood floor of his office with a dull thud, his lungs burning as he gasped for air. Beside him, Tom Riddle collapsed, his body perfectly rigid for a split second before the lingering effects of the magic snapped, allowing him to curl into a defensive ball on Harry’s rug.
For a long moment, the only sound was the distant conversation outside.
Tom slowly pushed himself up, his hands shaking as he touched his face. He felt his straight, aristocratic nose. He ran his fingers through his thick, dark hair. He let out a shaky, ragged breath of genuine relief. He was still beautiful. He was still nineteen. He was not a bald snake.
Then, he looked around the room.
The office was a chaotic blend of wizarding nonsense and high-end Muggle convenience. A flat-screen television hung on the wall, a modern sofa was cluttered with moving photographs, and a stack of Ministry files sat dangerously close to a half-empty mug of tea.
"Where... What is this place?" Tom demanded, his perfect mask sliding back into place, though his eyes remained wide and panicked. "Is this the future?"
"Welcome to 2026," Harry said, groaning as he pushed himself up to a sitting position. "Mind the rug, it’s antique."
Tom scrambled to his feet, instantly drawing his wand, only to find it missing. He hissed, checking his pockets frantically. "My wand! Where is my wand?!"
"I’ve got it right here," Harry said, pulling the fifteen-inch yew wand from his own robes and tossing it onto the high kitchen counter, well out of Tom's immediate reach. "Standard procedure for resurrecting dark entities. No weapons until we establish some ground rules."
Tom’s face flushed that explosive, furious pink again. He stepped forward, his fists clenching. "You dare disarm me? I am The Dark Lord! Tom Marvolo Riddle!"
"A nineteen-year-old soul fragment with a massive identity crisis and a dead-end retail resume," Harry finished smoothly, making himself comfortable on his chair. "Look, Tom. Let's be real here. You saw the wiki. You know how your little dark lord project ends up. Do you really want to go back to that dusty basement and plan a coup that gets defeated by a teenage boy using a disarming spell?"
Tom flinched. The memory of the Wikipedia article was clearly burning a hole in his pride. He crossed his arms tightly, glaring at the floorboards. "If I go back to your Ministry, you will execute me. Or lock me in that frozen fortress you call Azkaban. I am Lord Voldemort, just hotter and resurrected. They will never let me live."
Harry paused, staring at the kettle as it began to hum.
This was the exact problem he had been ignoring while he was busy being smooth in the diary. What was he supposed to tell Kingsley Shacklebolt or his department supervisor?
If the Ministry found out Tom Riddle was wandering around London, they would have a collective aneurysm. The Auror office would spend millions of Galleons on specialized containment units, half the Wizengamot would demand an immediate execution via the Veil, and Harry would be summoned before he could even finish his tea.
Harry looked at Tom. The boy was currently staring at a picture of a digital microwave with an expression of intense, hateful fascination, his fingers twitching as if he wanted to dissect it to find the magic inside.
He was meticulous. He was obsessive. He was a psychopath with an absolute passion for neat filing, perfect organization, and flawless presentation.
Harry looked over at the corner of his office, where three massive, overflowing crates of unpaid civil service paperwork had been sitting for three months. The Ministry’s administrative backlog was a nightmare that even magic couldn't fix because nobody wanted to do the tedious, mind-numbing labor of sorting century-old goblin property deeds.
A brilliant, utterly unhinged idea formed in Harry’s mind.
"Kill you?" Harry chuckled, leaning against the kitchen counter. "Mate, I'm understaffed. The Ministry's absolute worst weakness isn't dark magic, it's their complete reliance on unpaid civil service labor."
Tom blinked, turning his sharp gaze back to Harry. "What are you talking about?"
"You're not a dark lord anymore, Tom. The world doesn't need another guy with a snake logo," Harry said, walking over to the largest crate of files and kicking it gently. "You are my new, completely off-the-books, intern."
Tom stared at the crate of paperwork as if Harry had just handed him a bucket of dragon dung. "You expect me, the greatest sorcerer of the age, to do clerical work for the corrupt institution I swore to destroy?"
"Think about it," Harry said, stepping closer and dropping his voice into a whisper. "The Ministry doesn't check the credentials of interns or administrative assistants as long as they don't complain about the quality of the coffee. You'll be invisible. Hidden in plain sight right under the Minister's nose. You get a warm flat, a stable roof over your head, and all the home-cooked meals you can eat. What do you say, pretty boy?"
Tom’s eyes narrowed, he tried to school his expression into one of disdain but Harry’s last sentence threw him off. A slow pink blush spread across his cheeks, and disappeared as quickly as it came. Shaking his head, he looked at the crate of files, then at the glowing television screen on the wall. "And... the information archive? The one with the necromancer and the acoustic spellcasting flute?"
"Unlimited access to Netflix," Harry promised, crossing his heart. "I'll even give you your own profile. You can name it 'The Dark Lord' if it makes you feel better."
Tom stood perfectly still, his brilliant mind running through the calculations, weighing the pros and cons with the efficiency of a true tactician. On one hand, he was being reduced to an intern. On the other hand, he got to keep his nose, avoid a catastrophic death in a school courtyard, and gain access to a futuristic Muggle entertainment archive that clearly held high-level narrative strategy.
"Fine," Tom spat, smoothing down his robes with an elegant flick of his wrists. "I accept your terms, Potter. But do not think for a moment that I have surrendered. I am merely... adapting my strategy to the current landscape."
"Sure you are, Tom," Harry smiled, walking over to the counter and picking up a sleek, black smartphone. "Now, come over here. Before I show you how to use a filing cabinet, I need to teach you the most important spell of the 21st century."
Tom stepped forward, his curiosity piqued. "An ancient incantation?"
"No," Harry said, tapping the screen and opening an app. "It's called the 'Skip Intro' button. If you don't master it, your binge-watching sessions are going to be incredibly inefficient."
Tom grabbed the phone, his eyes lighting up with that familiar, terrifying ambition as he stared at the Netflix home screen.
Harry huffed as he watched Tom fiddle with the apps on his phone. So much wasted time. If I’d figured he was going to be this easy to bribe, I’d have done it ages ago.