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2021-04-05
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2021-12-26
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9/?
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The Visions Of Us

Chapter 9: 1938 [Veni, Vidi, Vici]

Summary:

“All the details are on the second piece of parchment in your envelopes,” said Dumbledore. “You will leave from King’s Cross Station on the first of September. There is a train ticket there too.”

Tom was about to say something but Harry’s hand tightened around his.

Don’t say it, Tom.

Notes:

(See the end of the chapter for notes.)

Chapter Text

 

“Distrust is like a vicious fire that keeps going and going, even put out, it will reignite itself, devouring the good with the bad, and still feeding on empty.”

― Anthony Liccione


August 1, 1938
Wool’s Orphanage London, England

[Veni, Vidi, Vici]

 

Harry blinked and suppressed the vomit that quickly rose in his mouth. At least Harry proved to Harry he had a little bit of control over his visions.

“…near the end of her pregnancy, Merope was alone in London and in desperate need of gold, desperate enough to sell her one and only valuable possession, the locket that was one of Marvolo’s treasured family heirlooms.”

Marvolo.

So this was a vision about Tom then? Or was the world vision Harry was in had many people named Marvolo?

“But she could do magic!” said Vision-Harry impatiently. Harry didn’t understand why he was angry. Who was Merope? “She could have got food and everything for herself by magic, couldn’t she?”

“Ah,” said Sir, or should Harry say, Dumbledore, “perhaps she could. But it is my belief— I am guessing again, but I am sure I am right— that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think that she wanted to be a witch any longer. Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers; that can happen. In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life.”

“She wouldn’t even stay alive for her son?” Who was Merope’s son? Was it Tom?

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “Could you possibly be feeling sorry for Lord Voldemort?”

Of course. Who wouldn’t with a backstory like that? Dumbledore was already in his bad books, him saying that only dragged him down further.

“No,” said Harry quickly. Why aren’t you sorry, Harry? “but she had a choice, didn’t she, not like my mother —”

“Your mother had a choice too,” said Dumbledore gently. “Yes, Merope Riddle chose death in spite of a son who needed her, but do not judge her too harshly, Harry. She was greatly weakened by long suffering and she never had your mother’s courage. And now, if you will stand…”

The pieces clicked in place. Riddle? Harry needed to talk to Tom immediately.

“Where are we going?” Harry asked, as Dumbledore joined him at the front of the desk.

“This time,” said Dumbledore, “we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate. After you, Harry…”


As Harry rose from his nap, Mrs. Cole knocked on the door twice before opening it. Why did Harry have a feeling something was about to happen? A chain of events, maybe?

Tom glanced at him expectantly but Harry only shook his head. He could tell Tom later. Tom’s lips pursed at the response but stayed silent and closed his book.

The rain in the background rhythmically tapped against the window.

“Tom? Harry? You’ve got a visitor. This is Mr. Dumberton— sorry, Dunderbore. He’s come to tell you— well, I’ll let him do it.”

Dumbledore? Harry’s paranoia and curiosity heightened when the man himself, the ‘Sir’ in his vision, slightly younger, stood in the doorway of their room. He seemed surprised that there were two of them.

Why?

Harry’s eyes flickered to Tom and saw the suspicion in his narrowed eyes at both Harry’s reaction and Dumbledore’s eccentric appearance. 

“How do you do, Tom? Harry?” said Dumbledore, walking forward and holding out his hand.

Tom hesitated, then took it, and they shook hands. Harry did the same thing. Dumbledore drew up the hard, wooden chair beside the cabinet, so that they looked rather like hospital patients and their visitor.

Harry didn’t like the implications of that.

“I am Professor Dumbledore.”

“‘Professor’?” repeated Tom. He looked wary. As he should, Tom knew the name of the man in the visions Harry kept seeing. Harry knew Tom would forever ingrain the name in his mind after he told him all the things that happened in the visions.

Harry butted in. “Is that like ‘doctor’? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at us?”

Harry pointed at the door through which Mrs. Cole just left. They couldn’t be caught suspicious of him. To everyone else, they had just met the man today. There was no need to be suspicious of him, is there?

“No, no,” said Dumbledore, smiling.

“I don’t believe you,” said Tom. “She wants us looked at, doesn’t she? Tell the truth!”

He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking, not to Harry himself at least. It was a command, and it was one that Harry heard many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Tom stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still.

Harry let out a long sigh, the only break in his composure that he’ll allow himself. Why was Tom so demanding? Especially in front of a man they knew to be dangerous.

Harry needed to reign him in. 

“Tom, it’s fine,” he said, smiling. Tom wavered but narrowed his eyes at Harry. Harry just widened his smile and raised his eyebrows a bit, he had this handled. “He might be who he says he is. You don’t have to be so suspicious.” Harry looked at Dumbledore but held no obvious sign that he was as suspicious as Tom was. “Sorry sir.”

“It’s quite alright, Harry.” Harry’s smile tensed at the casual use of his name.

“Who are you?”

“I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school— your new school, if you would like to come.”

Hogwarts. The name sent a warm feeling in Harry’s chest. It sounded like home and heaven at the same time but there was this… tug. A tug of something that Harry couldn’t describe. What was it?

“Is that some kind of asylum then?” Tom asked, “The old cat should be the one in the asylum. Did she tell you about Dennis and Amy? We did nothing to them, you can ask them, they’ll tell you.”

Harry didn’t know what plan Tom had in store for the both of them but Harry decided to play along. “Tom…”

Tom’s eyes snapped to Harry, softening a bit but it still blazed with something akin to anger and disgust. Anger and disgust to Dumbledore but it was thinly veiled with different intentions.

“What?” Tom snapped. “I’m not wrong. We did nothing to them!”

“I am not from the asylum,” said Dumbledore patiently. “I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you —”

“I’d like to see them try.” Harry’s voice was above a whisper, almost as if he was just a shadow passing. Despite this, the way he said it held a pillar of determination and a promise of something else. Even Dumbledore flinched a bit.

“Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Harry’s words, “is a school for people with special abilities —”

“We’re not mad!”

“I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic.”

There was silence. Tom had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore’s, as though trying to catch one of them lying.

Lying with his intentions, maybe, Harry thought. Harry knew that Tom knew there was a truth to Dumbledore’s words, even if it’s just a little. The visions were enough proof.

“Magic, sir?” Harry repeated.

“That’s right.”

Tom’s voice cut through with faux disbelief and wonder. “It’s… it’s magic? What we can do?”

“What is it that you can do?”

“All sorts,” breathed Tom. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks; he looked fevered. Harry worried what he was going to say. “I can make things move without touching them. I can make light out of nothing. I- I can make the temperature colder if I want it to.”

Harry had no doubt Tom wasn’t acting that when he said it.

Harry swallowed. Compared to Tom, Harry was much more cautious than Tom was with Dumbledore, and Tom was suspicious of every single thing they saw. Harry knew that he had to tell at least a little bit of truth to tell this act.

“The drawings I sketch sometimes feel like they’re moving,” Harry said, a small smile etched on his lips. Dumbledore sent an intrigued glance at Harry. Gotcha. “I always knew we were different, special. Always.”

“Well, you’re quite right, the both of you,” admitted Dumbledore, only the ghost of his smile left. What made Dumbledore suspicious of them? “You are both wizards.”

Tom looked up at Dumbledore. There was something to his face that tugged Harry, a wild happiness that made Harry’s stomach turn sour. He knew it was all an act but it hurt Harry that he only saw Tom’s face like that only once or twice and it took attempts for Tom to react like that. Dumbledore’s words only took seconds to utter.

“Are you a wizard too then?” Tom asked. “Wand and everything?”

“Quite right, Tom.”

“Prove it then.”

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. “If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts —”

Tom glanced at Harry before answering, “Of course we are!”

“Then you will address me as ‘Professor’ or ‘sir.’“

Tom’s expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognizably polite voice, “I’m sorry, sir. I meant— please, Professor, could you show me—?”

Harry was sure that Dumbledore was going to refuse, that he would tell them that there would be plenty of time for practical demonstrations at Hogwarts, that they were currently in a building full of non-magical people and must therefore be cautious. To his great surprise, however, Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at their shabby closet in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick.

The closet burst into flames.

Both Harry and Tom jumped to their feet. When Tom rounded on Dumbledore as Harry flew open their closet, the flames vanished, leaving everything completely undamaged.

Tom’s expression grew a bit greedy before Harry poked him in the back and settled. “Where can we get one?”

“All in good time,” said Dumbledore. “I think there is something trying to get out of your wardrobe.”

And sure enough, a faint rattling could be heard from inside it. Harry’s face grew panicked but then calmed when he remembered Tom moving their box of trophies under his bed before Harry had taken his nap. The only things left that resembled trophies were practically useless stuff they stole from the store or from the street.

On the topmost shelf, above a rail of threadbare clothes, a small cardboard box was shaking and rattling as though there were several frantic mice trapped inside it.

“Take it out,” said Dumbledore. Tom took down the quaking box. He looked a bit unnerved but Harry knew it was all for show.

“Is there anything in that box that you ought not to have?” asked Dumbledore.

Breaking character, Tom threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. “Yes, I suppose so, sir,” he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

Tom took off the lid and tipped the contents onto his bed without looking at them. A mess of small, everyday objects: a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished harmonica among them fell onto the bed. Once free of the box, they stopped quivering and lay quite still upon the thin blankets.

Nothing of importance.

“You will return them to their owners with your apologies,” said Dumbledore calmly, putting his wand back into his jacket. “I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned: Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts.”

“But sir,” Harry interjected, “found them down the street!” 

“Then donate them and give them to other kids.”

Tom did not look remotely abashed; he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, “Yes, sir.”

Harry echoed his best friend’s words. “Yes, sir.”

“At Hogwarts,” Dumbledore went on, “we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have— inadvertently, I am sure— been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school.” Harry’s expression tightened at the statement. “You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic— yes, there is a Ministry— will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws.”

“Yes, sir,” they both said again.

Tom was quiet when Harry gathered the objects back into their box and set them on the table. When he had finished, Harry turned to Dumbledore and said, “We haven’t got any money.”

“That is easily remedied,” said Dumbledore, drawing a leather money-pouch from his pocket. “There is a fund at Hogwarts for those who require assistance to buy books and robes. It might not be enough and you might have to buy some of your spell books and so on secondhand—”

“Where do you buy spell books?” interrupted Tom, who had taken the heavy money bag without thanking Dumbledore, and was now examining a fat gold coin.

“In Diagon Alley,” said Dumbledore. “I have your list of books and school equipment with me. I can help you find everything —”

“You’re coming with us?” asked Tom, looking up.

“Certainly, if you—”

“We don’t need you,” said Tom. “We’re used to doing things for ourselves, we go around London on our own all the time. How do you get to this Diagon Alley— sir?” he added, catching Dumbledore’s eye.

Harry thought that Dumbledore would insist upon accompanying them, but once again he was surprised. Dumbledore handed Tom two envelopes, explaining that it contained their list of equipment, and after telling them exactly how to get to the Leaky Cauldron from the orphanage, he said, “You will be able to see it, although Muggles around— non-magical people, that is— will not. Ask for Tom the barman— easy enough to remember, as he shares your name—”

Riddle gave an irritable twitch, as though trying to displace an irksome fly. Harry led him to sit on his bed instead. Dumbledore followed the movement.

“You dislike the name ‘Tom’?”

“There are a lot of Toms,” muttered Riddle. “Only Harry gets to call me that.” Then, as though he could not suppress the question, as though it burst from him in spite of himself, he asked, “Was my father a wizard? He was called Tom Riddle too, they’ve told me.”

Harry’s hand tightened around Tom’s. Tom gave him a long stare. “What is it?”

Harry shook his head but latched his pinky finger around Tom’s own. Tom tightened his finger in response before he looked back up at Dumbledore. Harry will tell Tom later, when Dumbledore had already left.

“I’m afraid I don’t know,” said Dumbledore, his voice gentle.

“My mother can’t have been magic, or she wouldn’t have died,” said Riddle, more to himself than Dumbledore. “It must’ve been him. So— when I’ve got all my stuff— when do I come to this, Hogwarts?”

“All the details are on the second piece of parchment in your envelopes,” said Dumbledore. “You will leave from King’s Cross Station on the first of September. There is a train ticket there too.”

Tom was about to say something but Harry’s hand tightened around his.

Don’t say it, Tom.

“Is everything alright?” His tone was casual but his eyes moved curiously over Riddle’s face. They stayed silent for a moment, man and boy, staring at each other. The stare was broken; Dumbledore was at the door. “Is there something you boys want to say?”

Harry answered for both of them. “No, sir.”

“Good-bye, Tom, Harry. I shall see you at Hogwarts.”

And he left.


“What did you want to say to me, Harry?” Tom turned around on the bed and stared at Harry, waiting. Waiting for what exactly? Tom didn’t know.

Harry sat in front of him, quiet as a mouse but thoughts so loud that Tom could practically hear them from the whispering atmosphere of the room itself. His hand was still in Tom’s, pinky fingers still latched onto each other.

Tom was tempted to hold Harry’s other hand too.

After a few minutes of silence, Tom saw Harry gulp and muster himself the courage to tell Tom. Tell what exactly? “It’s about your parents, Tom…”

What?


“I…” Harry grimaced at Tom’s reaction. Eyes full of disbelief and posture frozen in place. Tom’s hand tightened in Harry’s. “I’m sorry, Tom.”

“What did your vision say?” Tom’s question was more of a plea than a question or a demand. A plea of desperation.

“How your mother died,” Harry whispered, voice cutting through the thick silence of the room, “and who your father really is.”

Tom frantically shook his head. A single word on the tip of his tongue that Harry already knew. Intimately. Harry gently grabbed Tom by the shoulders and leaned his head on his shoulder. Tom stayed silent but tugged Harry’s waist and set him on his lap before burrowing his face in Harry’s neck.

Harry couldn’t do anything. Not when Tom’s like this. He lost all the motivation he had to comment about their position.

“You don’t want me to tell you, don’t you?”

Harry felt Tom shake his head. Of course not. Who would after all these years?

“When do you want me to tell you?” Tom’s grip on Harry grew tighter and Harry petted Tom’s curls in response, a silent show of support. What else could Harry even do in his situation?

Tom’s voice was a deathly whisper, so quiet that Harry had to strain to hear it.

“Years later…”

“Alright.”

Harry took that request to heart.


That night, Dumbledore sat in his study, a glass of whisky in his right hand. 

It was quiet, and a bit cold for an August night. The fire was quietly crackling in the small office but its warmth washed through Dumbledore like those summer nights back in 1899.

Dumbledore sighed and ran a hand down his face, stopping right on top of his mouth and holding back a yawn.

Tom Riddle and Harry James were a one-of-a-kind pair.

Dumbledore sipped on his whisky.

It was clear those two had a connection no one else in their life had. Their subtle glances at each other, how they knew exactly what the other is thinking from just a small indication.

It was fascinating how two 11-year-olds could have communication that was clear and subtle while some wizards take years to practice with each other. The level of trust between the two was insurmountable.

It was amazing, incredible even of how much trust two people could put in each other before it broke. Before it collapsed and broke like concrete dust of ruins.

It reminded Dumbledore of himself and Gellert.

He had missed the man quite dearly, even after years of no direct contact. After what happened in France, the man had gone quiet but Dumbledore knew the implications of his ex-partner’s silence. If he could, Gellert would never be that silent. The man was subtle, but not quiet. Not at all.

According to Newt, Gellert had talked about freedom and to avoid another Muggle war, another tragedy upon the world. He had told the crowd that they weren’t violent, the non-followers of his agenda were.

Us. People who support himself, Dumbledore. But how is it violent and barbaric if Dumbledore and the other people of the Wizarding World only fought to preserve the peace Gellert disrupted? Why does he blame the rest of the Wizarding World for being opposed to them if he manipulated poor Credence to lash out in New York?

But that was nearly 11 years ago.

Dumbledore took another sip of his whisky. 

Nevertheless, he should keep an eye on those two. If he saw the same bond he and Gellert had in Tom and Harry, he must keep an eye on them. For the sake of the Wizarding World. He mustn't let another tragedy like his and Gellert’s relationship affect the Wizarding World more than it already has now.

It was his duty and cause to protect the Wizarding World of Gellert Grindelwald and those who will follow in his footsteps.

Dumbledore may have made the plans that shaped Gellert’s agenda when he was young, but he had learnt of his mistakes and mustn't let those plans come into fruition. He may have been young and ambitious then, but he was also quite reckless. The bones of his and Gellert’s plans were pure enough but the skin and muscle that made it strong were catastrophes waiting to be sent down on the Wizarding World.

He mustn't let those rain down on them. For the sake of the Wizarding World.


Billy Stubbs bombarded them the moment they went downstairs for dinner. The other boy smelled like mud and petrichor from the ongoing rain, making Tom scrunch his nose up. How hasn’t Mrs. Cole seen Billy yet and how easily he could be taken as a worm? He smelt and left disgusting marks on the floor with no sense of self cleanliness.

“Finally saw a doctor to get you checked?” Billy spat, saliva and rain flying to the two. Harry reeled at the audacity of Billy when the only one with behavioral issues was himself.

“Shame it wasn’t for you,” Harry retorted, fists slightly balling on instinct from just being around the messy boy. “You would have been someone better if you did get checked.”

Billy ignored the retort again like he always did. Out of habit of not understanding or not, Harry didn’t know. “So you did get checked out then?” Billy’s eyes were filled with glee as he realized the implications of Harry’s insult, ignoring the actual meaning behind it.

Stupid, boar headed git.

No,” Tom spat out, nose slightly nasally from the crying he’d done earlier. Harry wondered how well he coped with the runny nose. “Obviously not. Someone took us back on the scholarship we applied for.”

Billy stood there for a few moments to process what Tom said before he gaped at them, slowly realizing.

“You’re going to a different school then, ah?” There, underneath all that disgust and glee was a thinly veiled blanket of hurt and desperation from Billy, Harry realized. Desperate that he was going to lose his two main victims? Or something else?

“Obviously.”

Billy slowly backed away before his slightly hurt expression turned into one of pure delight and he ran to the dining area.

Both Tom and Harry sat there, staring at the direction Billy ran off to. What even was that interaction?

“Was Billy acting off to you or was it just me?”

“It wasn’t just you, mon cher,” Tom confirmed before sneezing into his hands.


“What do you think about Dumbledore?” Harry wondered, leaning against Tom, sketching as the other boy sneezed into the sheet of tissues from the roll Mrs. Cole gave him. Tom still hasn’t recovered from his cold, despite doing all he and Mrs. Cole could to stop it. “He was a bit more wary of us than he was in the visions.”

As Harry shaded in the shadow of the fallen tissue beside them, a tribute to the rare times Tom got sick, Tom croaked out, “More suspicious than Mrs. Cole was when we got in trouble for Benson and Bishop. He was watching me more than you.”

“Great acting, by the way, Tom,” Harry absently commented, idly shading in more shadows. “I absolutely did not know where you wanted to go with that performance but I am here for it.”

Tom snorted and blew into his nose. “You should have seen yourself,  mon cher,” he pointed out. “You might have set us up for Dumbly-shit’s good books.”

Harry laughed and shook as he tried to recover from Tom’s mocking of Dumbledore’s name.

“What?” Tom questioned, whipping his nose again, a crack of a peeking through the tissue. “What I said was true.”

“Just shut up!”


 

“Achilles' eyes were bright in the firelight, his face drawn sharply by the flickering shadows. I would know is in dark or disguise, told myself. I would know it even in madness.”

― Madeline Miller, The Song of Achilles

Notes:

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