Chapter Text
Sirius was rescued. Peeves was to be a small hiccup in their path, as Harry pulled Hermione to hide in the nearby classroom. A flash of gold, the time-turner's chain broke and Harry's seeker instincts had him diving to make contact with the device. All at once, Harry was alone, a strange London rising through summer steam around him.
"Boy! You speak when spoken to"
The sunlight leaks in through dirty blurred windows. Between them stands the elderly matron of Wool's, snorting in the dust.
"I'm 13," Harry says flatly. "My mum and dad are dead."
The nosy young woman who had brought him to this establishment, stands behind and nods as if that's a typical comment in conversation. Harry wants to thank her for thinking of where he could sleep for the night but a bitterness clings. She was the one to tell him it was 1937.
The remnants of the time-turner crunches in his fist. Harry scans the room for a place to hide his wand, he has an inkling of what this orientation is leading up to.
"Old enough to be leaving age," the matron mutters, mostly to herself. She bypasses Harry to dismiss the young woman. "Bless you, Millie, it was the right thing to bring him here." Harry kneels in a mimic of tying his trainers, takes that moment to tuck his wand in a corner where the top of the wooden desk meets its legs.
He's stranded, and has no one to blame but himself.
Before his eyes the staff disassemble Harry's robes, commenting what the fabric could get them at the market. When questioned, Harry lies that he stole his trainers off an American boy and he's allowed to keep the peculiar shoes. They don't fit any of the other kids. Harry is washed and de-nitted. His efforts of informing them that he was already nit-less earns few chortles.
Afterwards, Harry is given reprieve to sit out in the courtyard and dry off, under the supervision of a droopy kid named Danny. The boy is armed with a broom, perfect for stirring up the dirt and bits of dead leaves for Harry's wet hair to absorb.
The yard is all dirt, no grass, save for a gnarled tree that sticks out like an unhammered nail. The brick of the stairway grates his wet skin.
"What's your number?" Danny mumbles.
"Seven."
Excitedly, Danny comes to stand before Harry, who gets a good sweep to the face, "You get a spiffy pillow."
Since he arrived in the past, every rotation of his mind scrapes at a hole Harry didn't know existed in his chest. Despite that, he tries to enjoy the news of his pillow. He presses himself up further against the bricks till it burns.
The constant chores are to be expected, the schooling is out for the summer, and the meals are sparse. So in reality it's not that different than the Dursley's. Only a week or two into this new predicament that Harry encounters him.
At breakfast, a nervous energy permeated the general populace of kids. They're not allowed to speak during meals. Yet a tizzy of information traveled from one glance to another in that dining hall. Harry was left on edge, not fluent in the language they all spoke.
It's wash day, Danny explains under his breath, which means all their hands get extra red from the powder that goes into the water. They're spread out across different stations of the process. In the yard there is a flapping of cloths like a flock taking flight. Abruptly, a hush smothers all talk.
Harry looks to Danny, whose shoulders are hunched, gaze fixed at the top of the stairs. The figure is unmistakable, Harry's hair bristles at the sight. This smaller, juvenile boy, baby fat clinging to what will sharpen into a deadly face. Frozen mid descent, hands white knuckling the handrails.
Tom Riddle watches back.
This is a sick joke, that he will not entertain for a second longer, Harry scans the yard in lieu of acknowledging the phantom of his past? Future? At their backs.
The rest do their best not to address the Riddle shaped figure in each room, and Harry falls in line.
The hole in Harry is much harder to ignore, like a loose tooth he needles at the edges. A unending pit that lays at the very core of his mind and body, unyielding in it's depth. Unfixable, empty. He's too scared to question if it has always been with him. There is one thought helps Harry cope when he nestles in nightly.
Tom Riddle means that somewhere out there is Dumbledore and Hogwarts. Maybe not tomorrow, but soon.
Years of muggle schooling and Harry is still unprepared for the challenging of fitting in. The other children are confused by his vocabulary, making communication difficult with everyone, even the adults. There are meager chances to speak. He keeps his oddities under wraps for as long as possible.
Salvation passes overhead like a vulture, never landing. September arrives and leaves. Anxiety concerning Hogwarts strengthens in Harry's throat, souring every bite of food, every breath. He relocated his wand to the old ash tree in the yard. Tucked it alongside other treasures the children have placed in the not-so-secret hole in the trunk. He does not know what shape his escape from the muggle world will take.
Sundays are the worst and best. The food is better on those days, the actual meat tantalizes silently until it reaches his plate. A happiness just out of reach, and fleeting once on his fork. But a complete dearth of knowledge concerning the bible means Harry gets his name in the book of punishments very often. Cane or hand or book, Harry takes all discipline standing up. He gives voice to no complaints, up until his magic has other ideas.
During his latest visitation from the cane, Harry bit down on his lip, and the tool of pain simply popped out of existence in the matron's hand. Her eyes had bugged out of her head and she collapsed into prayer right at his feet. Harry remained standing, unsure if he was dismissed or punishment was delayed.
Word of the miracle travels fast, and he has royally buggered up this time, without even having to open his mouth. That night, he is last to finish washing up. Only the cold steel frame of bed number seven and anticipating stares of his dormmates greet Harry.
He surveys the other beds for his blanket, his pillow, and unmistakably under one boy is two mattresses. Its just a prank, but the bitterness he's been nursing for weeks wells up. One of the older boys steps to block the exit door.
Harry's face is unbearably warm.
"Let me through!" He pushes at the reedy boy, "I can't be in the same room as you lot!"
The clanging begins and that freckled face pales at Harry. All the bed frames buck up with their inhabitants, possessed by the spirit of a thousand horses. The clamoring intensifies and it's his chance to duck under the outspread arms.
"He's a demon!" Can be heard over the screeching of the kids within the dormitory. Danny, he's sure.
A soft frost caresses the grounds this late autumn. Burgeoning moonrise paints everything in pastels. Harry slots into the roots of the ash tree, wishes he could wrap himself in the wood. It's a poor excuse for a blanket. He doesn't get long to gather his thoughts before a thin figure slides onto the scene. Stands at the entrance, as if it was by chance he came to walk the yard.
It's useless to question why Tom Riddle is here. They are planets orbiting one another, in all this time Riddle has been boring a hole into Harry's head. Waiting for him to slip up, clearly.
"You're just like me," Riddle says, and Harry turns to glare.
"No I'm not."
"I'm just Harry." He tries to explain to the boy who will ruin his life, his existence. But hasn't yet.
Riddle shrugs off the idea, "I'm Tom. You're special like me, it's why I get my own room."
And doesn't anywhere inside sound nicer than the peck of snow in the air. Who is Harry really protecting, when he'd accept even his cupboard at this point. Tom steps forward, twigs cracking underfoot. He goes to grasp Harry's wrist, does it with the delicacy of holding an egg, like he's never attempted the action.
Back into the building they go, out of the chill wind. Up the stairs and for a brief second, fear grips Harry that he'll have to see all those accusing faces again. But Tom leads him past that door, up countless steps, like traveling up Gryffindor Tower. There is a dull ache in Harry's chest.
Tom Riddle has two blankets, and a room to himself.
"This is warmer?" Harry circles the space. There are worst places to be, smaller cupboards and damper rooms. Wordlessly the younger boy waits on the bed until eventually Harry lays down. Tom tucks them in with the two blankets, their own ends of the pillow.
The younger children often share two or more to a bed. Harry supposes if Tom lived in the dormitory with all the rest he would too. In the corner, a wardrobe looms tall and in another a spiderweb twinkles close. He is too tired to do anything but shut his eyes to the unfamiliar room.
And if in the night, Tom's face finds it's way to the side of Harry's neck, he does not comment. For at least they are not cold.