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It was tempting, so so tempting. The feeling crept from his swiftly beating heart through his body until every limp tingled in yearned action. His traitorous feet moved on their own, agreeing with his heart what his shaking head tried to deny.
"Wool's Orphanage" the capital letters spelled out in front of Harry. His mind had regained the reins, finally getting his feet to stand still.
Seeing what was once a shared memory so corporeal in front of him…Harry's breathing quickened and he gripped the metal bars of the entrance to the orphanage where he knew that a seven-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle was currently residing in.
Harry bit his lip and after a minute of alternate glances between the door and the alleyway he had woken up in after being killed in the forest's clearing, he took a deep breath and strode forward and knocked—the simple sound never having been so jarring before.
Was this a mistake? He took a step backwards but before he could convince his legs to flee, the door opened. A scrutinizing look met him—understandable, it was quite late.
"Good evening," the older woman said neutrally, seemingly not having come to a decision about the fidgeting man before her. Harry didn't blame her.
He cleared his constricted throat. "Er…Good evening. May I–Is–" Harry pressed his lips together, his thoughts running too wild in his head, playing tug-of-war with each other. The matron of the house slightly raised one of her greying eyebrows but otherwise waited patiently for Harry to detangle his words.
"I'm here to adopt Tom Riddle."
Somehow, this sentence felt monumental as it left his lips. Saying his plan out loud…it both terrified him and strengthened his resolve. Magic or Fate or Death or whoever was responsible for people waking up in different timelines, they had probably brought him here for this reason. They must have.
Harry gulped and shifted his focus back towards the woman. She was frowning.
"You are the second person today to make that request," she said, and Harry blinked in surprise. "He is still up with Tom in his room. Follow me."
As the creaking door fell shut behind him and he ascended the equally creaking steps after the woman's swishing skirt, Harry told himself that it was probably nothing. Tom Riddle had always been pretty, maybe he had been adopted and brought back by hopeful couples when they noticed his magic?
Harry barely heard the sound of playing children as he walked down the old hallway to Tom Riddle's room. Somehow he already knew behind which door he lived, something inside him could feel it.
The door opened and–and–
Twin brown eyes shot towards him, and Harry's heart fell on the floor. He didn't get a chance to wonder why its impact had made no sound, for the older copy's eyes narrowed and darkened with a vicious glare.
"What are you doing here?!" Voldemort hissed through gritted teeth, nearly descending into parseltongue. To Harry's further surprise, he moved protectively in front of his younger version as he stared Harry down. The matron just looked between the two before leaving them alone with Tom to check on some other children.
"Who's that?" Tom asked, scrutinising Harry with his adorably big brown eyes. He walked a bit to the side so Voldemort's slender back didn't obscure Harry anymore.
Neither man answered him, too busy glaring at each other.
"Did you come to be a hero, Potter?" Voldemort spat, "To end me early?"
Harry's brows furrowed and his mind lagged behind a few seconds before Voldemort's accusation fully sank in. "…what?" Harry asked, bewildered, looking from Voldemort to his child-self with his mouth gaping open.
"Voldemort, I would never hurt a child—unlike you."
The wizard was moving in front of Tom again, not believing Harry. "Then why are you here? How do you even–" Voldemort began, his face darkening when realisation struck "–Dumbledore."
Harry's face heated up. Deciding to raise the young version of Voldemort himself was one thing…admitting it to the very man a whole other. "Er…" he said, hoping he wouldn't have to say it, but judging by Voldemort's face he would have no choice.
"Well… " he said, chewing on the inside of his cheek for a moment, before taking a deep breath and looking into Voldemort's former red eyes. "I came to adopt you."
Voldemort's eyes widened, before his handsome face clouded with disbelieving confusion, he opened his mouth but before words could leave it, another voice beat him to it.
"Adopt him?" Tom asked, walking around the older man to point at him, looking at Harry like he had lost his mind.
The thought of adopting Voldemort, the adult version, was so unexpected that he started to laugh. His stressed nerves liked that idea and did not let him stop.
"Potter," Voldemort barked, "this is not funny. Stop laughing."
Harry did not stop laughing.
"Is he mad?" Tom whispered to Voldemort, who nodded his head in agreement.
Finally, after minutes, Harry's nerves released him from all the laughing and he regained control of his body.
"Sorry, sorry, all of this is still so bat-shit crazy," he apologised.
"That's a bad word." Harry cringed at the reproachful look Tom was giving him. Right, no swearing in front of children…
"Whatever that Gryffindor head of yours has come up with, i won't let you hurt him–"
Harry interrupted him with clenched, shaking fists.
"I don't want to hurt him, I want to love him!"
All three blinked at that statement, disbelieving. Not even Harry could believe what he had just shouted. His only just now cooled face heated up again in record time. He was glad Tom's small room did not possess a mirror—he did not want to see how red his face was.
The two Toms looked at each other, exchanging unspoken words. Harry was panting and looking at the floor.
"I don't believe you," Voldemort whispered, any traces of his previous fury gone. "Not even you could love someone you know will kill your friends and parents."
Harry shook his head, catching and holding Voldemort's eyes. "I wouldn't have hunted you. Not out of revenge. If you had decided to change after your resurrection, I would not have went after your soul. Even at the end…I did not wish to kill you," he, too, whispered.
"Besides…maybe growing up with love will be all the difference. Maybe not. Either way, I will love him."
It felt like a betrayal of sorts to release his thoughts into the world from the protective confines of his mind. They were true nonetheless.
The air in the room was charged—whether emotionally or magically didn't matter, they all felt it. Not even little Tom dared interrupt them as they stood there and stared at each other, into each other's heart and soul.
"You…you would really love him?" The words were barely audible, hissed in the language only the three of them spoke. Harry took a step forward, closing the distance between himself and the man who had consumed his life for the past years, whose very soul had resided within him since he was a baby.
Something had changed within him. Maybe it was dying. Harry didn't care, only that the wizard in front of him, who was looking so so vulnerable, believed him. "I will love," Harry repeated in parseltongue, this time without the embarrassment. And clever, so brilliantly clever Voldemort understood Harry's underlying meaning, the word unspoken.
When little Tom grew too impatient and demanded answers, both men chuckled, feeling free-er than they had in a long while.
"Congrats, Tommy, you now have two dads!"
"WHAT?! But–but Marvolo! He's mad, you just said so yourself! He can't be my dad!"
Voldemort ignored the bewildered boy. "The child will address me as father, 'dad' is for commoners–"
"You are a commoner."
"That's gay!!"