Chapter Text
Harry was panicking, not only had he not finished cleaning the windows, but the carpet in the upstairs hallway wasn’t vacuumed yet. He quickened the pace at which he wiped down the windowsill, hoping that by the time he was done with his remaining chores, uncle Vernon had yet to return home.
Locking at the oven clock, his heart skipped a beat. It was already 4:45 pm, uncle Vernon would be home at roughly 5 pm. Harry knew he couldn’t just do a sloppy job in order to finish in time, aunt petunia always double checked his cleaning and if it wasn’t up to her impossibly high standards he was sure to go hungry. His arms throbbed from the endless hours of cleaning and gardening he had done the days prior. Recently the weather had started getting warmer so making aunt petunias flowerbeds perfect had been a top priority set form him. In 2 weeks the local garden competition was taking place and aunt Petunia was determined to place first this year, last year he had only managed to get her third place, he shuddered at the thought of the hunger he had felt the days following.
Harry let out a shaky breath when he finished cleaning the windowsill and saw he still had around 10 minuets to vacuum. Hastily he put the cleaners away and got out the vacuum, dragging it up the stairs carefully as to not hurt his already sprained wrist from 2 days ago when uncle Vernon had roughly dragged him into his cupboard. He was halfway finished when the front door opened. Harry froze, thoughts going rapidly through his small head as he stared at the half vacuumed rug. Uncle Vernons voice bellowed through the house as he called out to Petunia and Dudley that he was home. He was trembling, his vision completely fixated on the carpet and hyper aware of every thunderous step of his uncle as he came up the stairs. Harry startled as the vacuum suddenly lost power, he turned around but didn’t dare look uncle Vernon in the face, opting in stead to look at his meticulously polished shoes he wore for work.
”What do you think you are doing BOY?!” Yelled uncle Vernon. Harry tried his best not to flinch, uncle Vernon despised it if he did, it always made his punishment worse. ”Vacuuming, uncle Vernon sir” replied Harry quietly. Uncle Vernon’s face turned a deep red as he yelled at Harry for his lack of time management, how he should do better to even try to be able to repay them for all the things they have given him and the money that he was costing them, how ungrateful he was and how he was on the path of becoming just like his drunks for parents, that just cost normal upstanding citizen money, like himself, Petunia and Dudley, to live instead of working for it like respectable people.
With every word Harry shrunk in on himself, his hope for dinner dwindling with every second. He hadn’t eaten all day and was really starting to feel it. When uncle Vernon grabbed his injured wrist he couldn’t suppress a flinch and wince from the pain. A fist met his stomach, causing him to almost double over, were it not for his detained wrist. Uncle Vernon started walking down the stairs, Harry with his much shorter legs was barely able to keep up with him without being completely dragged. After uncle Vernon had told him he was to come back out in 2 hours to start preparing a dinner he would not be eating, he was promptly shoved in the cupboard, the lock clicking shut behind him.
Harry looked around his cupboard, cradling is injured wrist and stomach and sat down on the thin, lumpy mattress he would probably outgrow in the next year or two. Barely anything was in the cupboard, there was a stack of old, worn and too large clothes next to his mattress, a shelf opposite of him which held a few half used pencils he had gathered from Dudley, as-well as a small broken toy soldier and lastly some cleaning supplies aunt Petunia kept in here. Tears threatened to spill from his eyes but he quickly wiped them away, not wanting to seem weak. He wasn’t even seriously hurt, he told himself, he has had way worse so he shouldn’t complain. Memories from that day 1 year ago forced themselves to the front of his mind.
_______________________
Aunt Petunia had told him earlier that day to tend to the garden, he didn’t really know why, as it was currently winter but he didn’t dare voice this to his aunt. So here he was in the garden, wearing a thin windbreaker and two hoodies in a feeble attempt to stay warm using his few clothes, and trimming the seemingly half dead rose bushes. The sun was already starting to set, he shivered as the small warmth it had provided started to disappear. Previously the combination of the sunlight and the physical labour had managed to keep him somewhat warm, but now with the sun almost gone the cold was starting to get to him. The fact that he had been out here for hours now, only being allowed inside twice, once to cook lunch and then another time to use the bathroom, did not help.
He was lost in his mind thinking about how he was going to get through the upcoming winter holidays. In school he was guaranteed a warm lunch and 6 hours away from the Dursley household. Even if the teachers weren’t that nice to him, believing the lies the Dursley had told them about him, school was still his absolute favourite place to be, he was always curious and loved learning new things, even if he wasn’t allowed to have better grades than Dudley. His train of thought was interrupted as the back door slammed shut. He turned around only to see uncle Vernon taping a note to the window and then promptly shutting all the curtains. Upon closer inspection the note raid: ”Since you decided you like the outdoors so much as to slack of, why don’t you spend some more time out there boy? Tomorrow morning you will be let back in to cook breakfast. Do not attempt to come in boy, your punishment inside will be worse.”
For a second Harry forgot how to breathe as the horror of spending the night in -1° weather sank in. He now regrets not having put on every single shirt he owned like he wanted to earlier this morning. Looking around the garden he spotted a small hole in the side of the shed which seemed to be large enough for him to barely squeeze through. He decided that would be his best bet against the snow that was supposed to fall tonight. Inside the shed every surface was cluttered but the floor was mostly empty, in the corner he recognised the box that held the pillows for aunt Petunias lawn chairs. Harry got to work layering the cushions to make a makeshift mattress, after some digging he even found an old stained picnic blanket that he hastily wrapped around himself. It wasn’t very thick but it offended some insulation due to the waterproof characteristic of it. By now he couldn’t see the sun in the sky anymore, as he looked out of the small window of the shed, but the sky wasn’t completely dark yet, rather a navy blue with a few stars sprinkled here and there. Harry let out a shaky breath, if he had been at all surprised by this, maybe he would have cried, he sure did feel like it, but by now he’s already over shedding tears for them.
Harry was shivering uncontrollably and was completely rigid. The sun had set maybe forty minuets ago and somehow it has gotten even colder since then, the measly blanket doing nothing to protect him from the cold. Slowly his eyes grew more and more tired from exhaustion until he blacked out and collapsed.
When Harry woke up he wasn’t outside in the shed anymore, but rather in a comfortable looking living room with a big, warm fireplace. Harry looked around confused, he had never seen this place before and was wondering how he had gotten here. Slowly he walked towards the couch right in front of the fireplace, it was a dark maroon red with an assortment of different coloured pillows on top of it. Additionally a brown, extremely soft looking, quilt was folded on the couch. He hesitated to touch anything, afraid that the owner of wherever he was would not take kindly to it, but even with the warmth radiating from the fire he was still shivering so Harry settled on carefully taking the quilt and draping it around his shoulders. Just like he imagined, the quilt was indeed very soft. Slowly he started looking around the room. The walls displayed a dark brownish-reddish wallpaper on the top half and the bottom half was covered in dark wood panelling. On top of the fireplace mantle sat a pretty looking vase filled with dried flowers and a couple of books. Speaking of books the wall to his right was completely covered in bookshelves which were filled to the brim with all kinds of books. He noticed that there weren’t any windows or doors leading out of the room, that was certainly odd. Slightly to the left of the couch was an armchair, equipped with its own pillow and quilt although both the armchair and the quilt were a deep Forrest green. On the floor laid a big rug that covered a majority of the room, the material was short but very soft and had a nice dark ochre colour, making the room feel incredibly homey.
Suddenly a door appeared on the wall to his left and in walked a man. He was tall and looked aristocratic, his body was rather slim but still very toned. The man wore rather formal, comfortable looking clothes. Styled dark brown hair sat on top of his head and his expression was one of sadness but also curiosity as he sat down on the armchair and faced Harry. He motioned for Harry to sit down on the couch, which he hesitantly did, monitoring the man’s face for any changes.
For a minute, the mysterious man just studied Harry, causing him to squirm, before he spoke, ”Hello, Harry. My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, but you may just call me Tom. I’m sure you are confused as to where we are right? This place here is a section of your mind, it is the place were my soul meets yours, although you must not concern yourself with that part yet. This space can be manipulated by you as-well as your subconsciousness to whatever you need or desire it to be. The reason I am able to talk with you right now is the rather unfortunate situation you have found yourself in because of your relatives. You came here as an escape.” Harry didn’t know what to say, half of what this man, Tom, had told him made barely any sense to him. His silence urged Tom to speak yet again. ”I can see everything you do, I can hear everything you do but before now i was never able to communicate with you. I have been with you since you were just a one year old baby. Admittedly at first I despised you, how could a mere babe defeat me? But through the years were you experienced such cruelty, my hatred started to crumble. I myself lived a similar childhood as you do, so how could I hate you?”
Harry’s confusion only grew tenfold, a million questions buzzed through his head. While he was usually to afraid to ask any questions, one thing nagged him so much he just had to ask. ”What do you mean when you say I defeated you? I’ve never fought someone” Tom chuckled a little ”I knew you would ask, those relatives of yours really have a nerve to not tell you a single thing about what you and your parents did. When you were not even born, it was foretold that you would be the one to defeat me. You see I was what some would call a dark lord, anyways I thought to put an end to you as early as I could, so when you were one year old, I tracked you and your parents down, broke in, killed them and tried to kill you. I was unsuccessful, your mother had cast a protection spell on you, something old and uncommon. The protection backfired the curse I had sent to you, and it hit me instead. While I was unable to die and only my body was destroyed, my soul was split yet again on accident. That’s how I came to be, a sliver of the original soul anchored to your soul.” Harry was speechless, this man, no this apparently soul fragment, killed his parents. They weren’t drunks, they had saved him.
Harry wasn’t to sure how he felt, meeting the man who killed his parents and got him sent to the Dursleys, but the longer they talked the calmer he got. Whenever Tom gave him tips on how to avoid punishment from the Dursleys he felt extremely thankful. Eventually Tom became more serious again, he told Harry exactly what he should do when he woke up again so that he would survive the night, and that come morning and he was let in again to cook he should take as much here and there where he could and to eat as much as possible. Additionally should either uncle Vernon or aunt Petunia be in a good mood he should try his best to be allowed to shower, that he should not be afraid to tell lies in order to get him permission and then if he got it, he was to shower hot, even though he isn’t actually allowed to. Slowly Harry could see the room start to blur as he realised he was waking up. He told Tom goodbye as he faded away. The last thing he thought to himself was that not everything had been bad about this punishment.
_______________________
Harry has mixed feelings about that day, he had nearly died and still sometimes loses feeling in his hands when they got exposed to the cold but meeting Tom was possibly the best thing that had happened to him. He only ever meets Tom when he’s asleep and either hurt, distraught or in danger, which to be honest he was quite a lot. Because of this he has spent a lot of time with Tom, he knows there is no excuse for the countless bad things he had done in his time as Voldemort, he had eventually told Harry that that used to be his alias, but he still somehow took a liking to the man. Tom was kind yet sometimes stern to him and always had his survival as his top priority. So yes he forgave Tom for the things he did to his parents and all the other people.
Harry’s focus returned as he heard and felt the thunderous footsteps of his uncle coming down the stairs, he readied himself and waited until uncle Vernon unlocked the cupboard door to let him out. As soon as the door was open he slipped out and headed in to the kitchen to start dinner. When he was done he plated three portions, arranged them on the table and promptly stood in the corner. This always happened when he was forbidden from eating. During the entire meal he was to stand in the corner and watch the Dursleys eat so that his hunger was as provoked as possible only to never be satiated. Uncle Vernon and Dudley always ate with such vigour that he ends up feeling disgusted.
”Dad I want to go to the arcade tomorrow!” Dudley spoke up loudly. ”Duddeykins, mum has an appointment tomorrow and we can’t possibly leave the freak home alone! God knows what he would do in our precious home unattended, we would have to take him with us, do you really want that?” Uncle Vernon asked in return. ”I DON’T CARE! I want to go to the arcade!!” Dudley whined. ”Okay my precious Dudley, we will go to the arcade. BOY you will stay outside do you hear me?! If we see you inside the arcade you will really learn to regret it, understand?!” The change in tone from uncle Vernon was so quick and intense, Harry might have been concerned about the man getting whiplash if he had cared at all about him. ”Yes, uncle Vernon sir” Harry said ”good, now go in that stupid cupboard and be quiet!” Bellowed uncle Vernon. Quickly Harry scurried away and into his cupboard. His shoulders relaxed and he let out a sigh, glad that his punishment hadn’t been worse and that he could rest. Tomorrow would surely be a long day, and with that he fell asleep.