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He opened his eyes to a brilliant flash of white. It took a few moments for the blinding light to mute, his eyes blinking to adjust. It took a few more moments for him to realise that he was not wearing glasses. Even then, it took a few more moments still for him to realise he was not standing in the forbidden forest. No… this was Kings Cross Station. There were no trains. No busy London commuters. No hurried foot steps or disembodied voices announcing the next train to arrive at platform 7. It was far cleaner than Harry ever remembered. The previously cigarette covered platform was now a spotless surface. White. Everything was white. The tracks, the notice boards, the benches. There was something red under the benches.
Harry leaned down, onto his hands and knees. The creature was curled in on itself, in the fetal position. Soaked in a red mucus, sticking to malnourished limbs and bony joints. The creature wept. A pitiful, pathetic noise. He reached out to it.
“I wouldn’t bother.”
Harry’s head snapped up, now noticing that the bench was occupied. A man sat there, dangerously familiar yet so difficult to place. A black suit fitted his form perfectly without a crease in sight. Delicate fingers laced together, placed deliberately on his lap. Sharp, high cheek bones and intelligent green eyes. Thick, curly hair so neat in comparison to Harry's mop of scraggly black hair. Where had he seen this face before?
“Who are you?” Harry asked. The man regarded him with a bored expression.
“After all these years, you still don’t recognise me?” The man sighed, then patted the bench next to him. Harry hesitated. “It’s too late for that creature. Leave it.”
Harry’s eyes lingered on the being. Its pitiful cries starting to grate on his soul. Each hiccup, each sniffle. It chipped away at him in the silence between him and the man. In fact, it irritated him that the man did not seem bothered by it.
“There must be something I can do.” He said, reaching to the creature again. The man sighed.
“Why do you think you can save everything?” The Man said. “Sometimes the kindest thing to do is to let it die.”
He faltered, stopping himself from touching the creature. Maybe that was for the best… the creature did seem to be in pain. Harry reached for his wand in his back pocket, only to find it empty. Ha. As if he was brave enough to actually kill this creature. Even if it was in a fit of compassion. Who was he kidding. He decided to sit next to the man, and aimlessly stared across the platform.
“Where are we?” He said, after a few moments of silence.
The man sniffed, and looked around.
“Kings Cross Station.”
“Why are we here?”
“Why are we here?” The man echoed back, side eyeing Harry. “You ask a lot of questions.”
“You don’t have many answers.”
“I spent my life seeking answers. Perhaps it was foolish to believe that there were any.” The man said dryly. He looked out to the train tracks. “I wonder if there will be any more trains.”
“Where do they go?” Harry asked.
“Another question. Care to answer one for yourself?”
“Alright.” Harry said, following the man’s gaze back to the tracks. “I think it goes to Hogwarts.”
“Is that where you want to be?”
“It’s where I belong.”
The man nodded.
“Then after, when Hogwarts has served you enough. Then where will you go?”
“I… I never thought that far ahead.” Harry chewed on his lip. That was a good point. What was there after Hogwarts… Life. He guessed. The rest of his. Whatever it was going to be. “I think I was so excited to go back to Hogwarts I never fully appreciated it when I was there.”
“I see.” The man stood and stretched. He turned, and held a hand out to Harry. “Walk with me?”
“Where?”
“To eternity, of course.”
Harry laughed, shaking his head. The man quirked a brow. What a strange man. It was a train station. Should they take a romantic stroll to the coffee vendor? Wait for each other outside the toilets? What a funny idea from a funny man.
“Eternity? Eternity…” His smiled dropped, the pin dropping in his head. “Am I dead?”
“You are at peace.” The man shrugged, seemingly unconcerned with the possibility that his life was also finished. “I suppose that is different.”
Harry took in the man’s appearance once more. The man’s voice… he was almost certain he had heard it before. Smooth, deep. It rumbled in his chest and expelled itself to the surrounding air with a cool confidence. That face, haunting yet comforting. A face he had seen a million times before, even in sleep. In his dreams, his nightmares. A face which shadowed his future, scoured his past, lingered in his present… he knew this man. Knew him well.
“Who are you?” He said at last.
“The piece that has always been with you.”
Harry’s brain snapped into place. Ah, of course. How hadn’t he realised before?
“You’re Tom Riddle?”
“The final part of his humanity. When he was a different man. When I was a different man.”
“A child murderer?”
“A frightened man.” Tom looked back again towards the tracks. “A different man.”
Harry stared at him for a moment. What could he say to that? That the man he was had hurt so many people? That the man he was had torn his family part? How could he even begin to describe the hurt he had experienced because Tom was ‘frightened’. All those years of abuse, locked in cupboard, starved, beaten, bullied. Of family occasions ruined, birthdays he had no idea he had missed. Of the tender hugs and kisses he had missed out from his mother. Of the days of playing with his father? Of the years of separation he had faced from his Godfather, only to have him torn away from him again. How Teddy Lupin will live without a family. How Teddy has now lost his Godfather. How the cycle of hurt and abuse has just spun again. Another family ruined by his hand. His ‘frightened’ hand. Harry swallowed thickly. What can he say to that? How dare he try to reap sympathy from him.
Harry opened his mouth to speak, but Tom simply raised his hand.
“I know what you want to say. I know what you want me to say. But I won’t say it. We’ve lived as one long enough to know that we won’t bow to each other.”
“Don’t you regret anything?” Harry’s voice strained, his anger flashing out before him. Exasperated by the arrogance of the man before him.
Tom hummed, “I think we are past the point of ‘regret’, don’t you?”
“Not really.”
“What is regret going to do for you now?”
“I dunno.” Harry kicked the floor with his toe. “Something.”
Tom shook his head.
“It’s going to hold you back-“
“-Why are you saying these sorts of things? Like you care?”
“I wouldn’t have spent my life obsessing over you if I didn’t care.” Tom frowned, and sat back down on the bench. “I don’t care about you-“
“-figures-“
“-I do care about my soul. And since you have unwittingly become a part of it, I suppose I have had to learn to care about you too.”
Harry shuffled away from Tom.
“I preferred it when you were trying to kill me.”
“I succeeded in killing you. What am I to gain from keeping up the pretence now?”
“But I am alive.”
“Are you sure?”
“Of course I’m sure.”
“Interesting." Tom folded his hands back together in his lap. He was right, Harry supposed. What was the point of being angry now? Their quarrel had ended. Most definitely so. At least, the quarrel between this part of Tom Riddle and him. If he was angry, he should have done something about it before he ended up on a bench in Kings Cross Station. It was a waste to force himself to have another fight when fighting would mean absolutely nothing. Tom's voice pulled him out of his thoughts. "So I suppose you will get the train back to Hogwarts?”
“I thought there wasn’t any-“
Harry’s eyes flicked to the notice board. There it was, in pale yellow on a faded grey. Hogwarts. Though the time was blurred, and the departure time obscured. It didn't take a genius to work out what this meant. He certainly didn't feel dead. He certainly didn't feel alive either. He looked back to Tom.
“I suppose I will.”
“It’s not here yet.” Tom stated the obvious, looking up at the board.
“It’s not here yet.” Harry echoed.
“Which means there is something keeping you here… Is there something you wanted to say?”
Harry swallowed. What do you say to a life long enemy? How can you translate years of hardship and sorrow into something meaningful? How many people that had to die for something so small, so stupid? How can you sum up eighteen years of trauma to someone who knew it as well as you? Was there one great saying, a fantastic one liner? Something which would shock him into silence? Something to make his eternity painful… is that what Harry wanted? Harry sat quietly for a moment.
“Why?”
“Why what?”
“Why me?”
Tom put a hand on Harry’s. It was warmer than he had expected, those long fingers looking more human than they ever had in real life. No longer the stuff of nightmares, but something offering a vague comfort in response to the question that had haunted Harry since he was a child. Why was it him, the beaten child under the stairs? Why him, the malnourished child with bars on his window? Why him, the child without a true guardian? Why him, the child witnessing his friends murder? Why him, a poster child for a war he never signed up for? Why him, ‘Savior of the Wizarding World’? Harry’s eyes began to water, tears which refused to stop despite the rubbing of his sleeves.
“I don’t think I can give you the answer you want. You want me to say it’s because of the prophecy, which of course, is part of it. You want me to say it’s because your parents were dangerously close to my undoing. You want me to say it is because you are some special chosen one, like they will tell you you are.” Tom gave his hand a squeeze. “The answer is not so straightforward.”
“Could you lie?”
“I think I have been one of the only people in your life who has never lied to you. I am not about to change now.” Tom smirked. Harry, despite himself, let out a bitter laugh. “I could lie. What would you like the lie to be?”
“Something that makes this heartache worthwhile.”
“You believe the truth is not worthwhile?”
“… I’m worried the truth is petty.”
“That’s something entirely different.” Tom shook his head and released Harry’s hand. “I’m not fountain of false wisdom, like Dumbledore. Perhaps he should have been the one to meet you here.”
“He would have told me to go back.”
“He would.”
“Would you?”
“I don’t care. Go back and fight me to the death. Go forward and find Eternity. It’s the only true choice you will ever get to make that is your own. Don’t let me stop you.”
“And the answer to my question? Why me?”
Tom paused, taking a moment to examine Harry’s face. The answer, of course, would not change a single thing. It was an empty gesture. Empty and pointless and utterly useless. It would not give Harry back the years of stolen childhood. It was unlikely to bring him closure. It certainly would not restore his friends back to life. Why him? Why him?
“Why not.”
The Hogwarts Express rolled into view. It’s glistening red paint and grey steam spoiling the perfect white of their sanctuary. For something that brought him such joy, Harry was shocked to feel sick at the sight of it. Perhaps it was because it was the end of the conversation. Perhaps it was because it meant there was nothing else to be gained from this conversation. Perhaps it is because Harry was now being pressured to make his choice.
“It seems that that was enough for you.” Tom mused, standing at the sight of the train, as though it was a respected mentor. “Do you feel I answered your question?”
“No. Not really.” Harry said, glancing back to Tom. “I don’t feel satisfied with that answer.”
Tom nodded, but did not agree. It was a nod of understanding. A level ground in which Harry was not wrong for being dissatisfied with the answer, but that did not matter. The truth was spoken. That was the end of that.
“Nothing will change it.” Tom said, following Harry as he made his way to the train. “I have told you my truth.”
“I know.”
“So you will go back?”
“I have some things left to do… will you wait for me?”
Tom blinked in surprise.
“You want me to wait for you?”
Harry nodded.
“If you would. I’ve done so much on my own. The last thing I want to do is die alone… you owe me that much.”
Tom watched Harry board the train. Harry leaned out of one of the windows, awaiting Tom’s response.
“You are strange Harry. Don’t be too long.”
“You’d like that, huh?”
“The sooner you leave, the sooner you come back.”
The train began to pull away. Pulling the lost souls apart from each other. It hurt. Harry felt like he was losing a piece of him, the threads that bound them fraying the further the train drew from the platform. In honesty, he was not surprised. He had lived with the Dark Lord occupying space in his heart for his entire waking life. Every memory he had ever experienced, Tom had been witnessed to. For the first time, he was truly going to live alone.
Perhaps that is why he felt the need to wave, not in goodbye, but as part of his promise to return.