Chapter Text
Harry had been “home” (at his aunt and uncle's house, at any rate) for all of three days, and so far, this summer was shaping up to be...well, better than last summer, at least, but that was a bloody low bar. He wasn't locked in his room (and they hadn't replaced the bars on the window from last summer), and Hedwig, who was the smartest owl, had flown down from Hogwarts rather than getting in her cage, so she wasn't locked up either. She was currently roosting somewhere outside, maybe in the park. She'd stopped by to visit him, tapping on the window-pane to come in and keeping him company for a few hours, and he'd brought her cage back with him in case they got a bad storm or something and she wanted to stay inside, but so far she hadn't used it once.
Of course, not being locked in his room was probably less because the Dursleys had realised that it was probably some sort of child abuse to keep their nephew locked in a room all summer, and more because Aunt Petunia didn't want to weed the flower beds herself. Or wash the windows. Or do laundry or cook or do anything other than fawn over Dudley, watch daytime television, and gossip with her friends (either in person or on the phone) until Uncle Vernon came home from work.
He hadn't heard a peep from the Narrator since he'd crossed back to the muggle side of the platform at King's Cross. He'd started zoning out almost all the time immediately after they returned from the train station, and he hadn't even tried to remember to break himself out of it on occasion. It was just easier to deal with the Dursleys if he didn't really think about anything, just did as he was told, kept his mouth shut and his head down, and avoided Dudley's gang as much as possible. He was going to have to break into his cupboard to get to his school books and do his summer homework, but he kept putting it off, partly with the thought that it would be better to lull the Dursleys into a false sense of security first — let them stop being all jumpy every time they saw him before doing anything which might come off suspicious — and partly with the thought that it hadn't even been a week. If he was smart, he'd sort of ration out the homework as something at least mildly interesting and magic-adjacent, and make it last all summer.
He was out in the back garden, putting new mulch down without much thought whatsoever, when he jumped, startled by...apparently nothing. He looked around, but there was nothing moving in the corner of his eye, and he was pretty sure it hadn't been a sound. He was just...very abruptly much more aware of the moist, earthy smell of the wood chips; the birds he could hear in the neighbour's bird-bath; and the warmth of the sun and the sweat on the back of his neck. He sat back on his heels and stretched, feeling — quite suddenly — more awake than he had in...weeks, probably. More present in the moment.
It reminded him, more than anything, of when Riddle used to shock him out of his autopilot stupor with mind-magic, making him focus on the world around himself.
But that couldn't be it. Riddle's dead, he reminded himself. You killed him.
An entirely inappropriate urge to laugh bubbled up inside of him. It wasn't funny, he wasn't happy that Riddle was dead. Sure, he'd been an evil, lying git, Harry had been angry at him for opening the Chamber and attacking everyone, and especially Hermione and Ginny, but he hadn't wanted him dead. And depending on how much he was being forced into playing his part by the Narrator, Harry might not really be angry at him.
____Then I hope you'll be pleased to hear that rumours of my death have been greatly exaggerated, a voice (not the Voice) whispered inside his head.
Harry spun on his heel. “Riddle!” he said, as loudly as he dared. The windows were open and he didn't want Aunt Petunia to hear him talking to anyone, much less a memory-projection of Teenage Voldemort. “Where are you?”
____Ahh...about that. I'm actually in your head.
“What?”
____You don't need to speak aloud, I can hear you thinking. I'd appreciate it if you don't think of me as "Teenage Voldemort" by the way. I think I've made it clear that that was originally a hurtful nickname, and it's still not pleasant to hear. You can call him Voldemort, but I'm not him. Riddle is fine. Tom is fine. Or Marv, if you like. I didn't really have friends as a child, but that's what I called myself when I lived in the muggle world. There were an awful lot of Toms around, you see.
Harry got the impression that if he was going to be on first-name terms with the new voice in his head — Why the hell are you in my head? How are you in my head? — Riddle would prefer to be called "Marv" over "Tom". “Uh. Sorry?”
____I'm in your head because I didn't want to die, obviously. You'll have to forgive me for leading you to believe that I could survive without the diary. Plan "A" was to give you a fake to "kill" for the sake of the plot if the Narrator insisted that you finish me off — I could pull back into the actual horcrux and hide until you and Ginny left, then project my body again and walk out. I didn't think you'd be able to knowingly cooperate with such a deception, and I wanted you to know that I had no intention of killing you or Ginny, in case that made a difference and the Narrator might have actually let me walk away. Honestly, I still don't know enough about that to manipulate it effectively. I was just throwing darts at the wall.
____Plan "B"... You don't know anything about soul magic or the spell your mother cast to protect you.
“Er, no. I don't.”
____That wasn't a question, just an expression of my exasperation. I mean, I wouldn't really expect Dumbledore to fill you in, and he may not even know, if he did the analyses himself, rather than getting an expert in, but it's pretty obvious if you're looking for a connection between you and the wraith, which I was, because Quirrell was burned by a negative soul-resonance feedback loop.
“Um...”
____Right, so when you were talking to Dumbledore after you got out of the Chamber, he told you that Voldemort accidentally transferred some of his powers — i.e., part of his soul — to you when he was blown up. That wasn't right, but I can easily imagine how it would look like that just doing analytic charms, like you somehow got a splinter of his soul stuck in yours, or something. But that sort of thing doesn't happen by accident.
____There's actually a spell here that had trapped a piece of his soul. The way the spell is designed, it basically surrounds your soul with another soul, sort of sandwiched between two layers of spell-net. I can only imagine it was intended as a shield against soul-magics like the Avada. He must have felt Harry's confusion because he added, The Killing Curse you survived as an infant. That, I would like to note, is also not a counter-charm of any sort, but it's possible that your mother did deliberately sacrifice herself to use her soul as a shield for yours, since the spell didn't kill you.
____I don't know the specifics of the casting, obviously, so I can't guess how Voldemort's soul was drawn into the spell, but the piece that was trapped was relatively small and there's still a wraith version of him out there somewhere, so I can only assume that he did the soul-equivalent of gnawing off his own foot to get out of a bear-trap before he was fully drawn in.
“So– So there is a piece of him in me? That's why I can speak Parseltongue and stuff?”
____No, Parsel is blood-mediated. You could hypothetically have gotten it from an Indian ancestor at some point, but I think it's more likely that your mother was my alter-ego's daughter. I did the maths and that makes more sense than granddaughter. Maybe she was adopted, maybe her mother cheated or something, who knows, not important.
____And no, the soul-fragment is gone now. What is important is that there was a piece of Voldemort's soul trapped in this little soul-shield thing. Meaning it could effectively hold a soul here when it should have died. Do you see where I'm going with this?
“What, like, you somehow got yourself trapped by it when I killed the diary?”
____Exactly. I was hoping that I would still be able to project my consciousness and the simulacrum of my physical body, and just use the spell on you as a phylactery to anchor myself until I could find a better solution — I would have had to stay within a certain range of you, but I expected that it would be a large enough range that I could just set up shop somewhere in the Castle and you'd never even need to know I was here. That was Plan "B".
“And you're still in my head because...?”
____Because I was mostly making it up as I went along, and I think willingness to enter the spell-net thing might have been a component of the original spell, because I was drawn in much more fully than I had intended.
____Brass tacks: I can't project my simulacrum, much less put any real physical distance between us. I can do legilimency, but apparently only on you, and I'm only aware of the projected emotions of people within close physical proximity to you — on a scale of metres, rather than tens of metres. I can still assimilate projected emotions, but I can't skim them directly out of other people's minds. Basically, I can possess you and use your magic if I have to, but I can't use my magic outside of you at all.
____I also had to assimilate the soul-fragment that was trapped in here before — that was my way in, basically — and was torn up fairly badly forcing my way in. I'm sure the spell wasn't meant to be altered after it was set. It is holding me, though, and I recovered enough from the ordeal to properly take notice of my surroundings about two days ago.
____Since then I've been experimenting, and now that I've established that I'm trapped and won't be going anywhere any time soon, it seemed like it was time to alert you to the situation.
“So...you're just going to live in my head. Indefinitely.” What, like I didn't already have enough voices in my head?!
____Well, you did kill the basilisk, so it's still just two, really. And the Narrator seems to only check in to dictate major events a few times a year.
(Which had been more than enough!)
____If it helps, it was unintentional, and I will try not to be a terrible inconvenience whilst I'm here, but I would appreciate it if you would cooperate in helping me find a way to free myself.
“What's in it for me?” Harry asked, more because he resented being forced to help the evil, lying git who had just moved into his head than because he really wanted a reward beyond not having an evil, lying git in my head. (He could probably hear that, Harry thought, but that was kind of the point.)
____I could hear that, in fact, and I have to say, Harry, I think passive-aggression is beneath you. As to what's in it for you, however, I can teach you all sorts of shite while I'm here — freeform magic and a load of witchcraft and dark arts they won't teach you at Hogwarts, plus you'll pick up new spells more quickly than you can imagine by letting someone possess you and use your magic to cast them a few times — and I can keep you alert and focused enough between the Narrator's appearances to at least make some efforts to better your circumstances.
____It seems that there are constraints preventing you from doing certain things which would obviously entirely derail its plot — like turning in my diary, for example — but it clearly doesn't always stop you from doing things that seem small but might have a big impact down the line, like writing to me "early". We can definitely teach Dudley and his mates that it's a bad idea to pound on you, at the very least. I don't imagine their bloodying your nose is ever likely to be a major plot-point.
____And, well, if it comes down to it, I'm an evil, lying git. I can and will possess you if you refuse to cooperate. I don't think the Narrator cares too much what you do between plot events, so I should be able to do practically anything I like while you're "zoned out", so long as I continue to perform the basic elements of your character — attending lessons, maintaining your friendships with Ron and Hermione, et cetera — and don't derail the plot. Since I'm supposed to be dead now, I can't imagine that the Narrator will stop me looking for ways to remove myself from your life. Obviously if it comes to that, I'll modify your memory so you won't remember this conversation at all, lest your paranoia keep you more alert than you would normally be.
...Harry wasn't sure if Riddle was doing something so he wouldn't be angry about being threatened from inside his own bloody head, or if he'd just come to accept on a fundamental level at some point in the past two years that he had no control over his life whatsoever. “Has anyone ever told you that you're a real arsehole, Riddle?”
He felt an urge to laugh, which was probably Riddle's actually.
____Yes. But I can also be an extremely valuable ally, and you're stuck with me either way.
Fine. I'll help you. You're still a git.