Harry Potter and the Time Fluke

A Hint of Drakness Within

To say Harry was annoyed would be an understatement.

He was livid, furious, in fact. It had been over an hour since Dennis Bishop, Amy Benson, and Tom had gone missing and Harry was forced into looking for the three rather than savoring what precious little time he had to explore the White Cliffs of Devonshire. The whole thing was completely ridiculous.

Of course, he knew where they were. He knew what Tom was doing to them, and did he care? Harry smirked as he peered over the jagged ledge to the ocean far below. If you'd asked him that question five years ago, his immediate answer would have been, "Where's my wand, it's time for me to kill Tom," but now...it meant little more to him than what he'd be having for dinner.

Tom was Tom and would be Tom no matter what Harry tried to do to prevent it. After a few events that had taken place over the years, he was fairly certain that Tom would become Lord Voldemort one day as well, but instead of trying to prevent it, Harry had resolved to stay by Tom's side and keep his friend from going insane. It was his time spent at Hogwarts and immersion into the Dark Arts which was what twisted Tom's mind and body, creating the deformed mass that was Lord Voldemort. If Harry was there, he could prevent most of it from happening.
Harry knew Tom and could not accept that the devious, witty, conniving boy who could also turn on the charm and get whatever he wanted was also the megalomaniac Dark Lord in the future, obsessed with a sixteen-year-old boy he couldn't defeat, and quite frankly, Harry didn't think he'd be able to defeat Voldemort either.

It had nothing to do with any feelings he developed for Tom so much as the fact that Voldemort was the most powerful Dark Lord ever. Period. And he, Harry, was sure that he didn't even know a quarter of the dark spells Voldemort had tucked under his belt. Harry knew he was okay in duels, usually coming out on the winning end, but against Voldemort–who even Dumbledore couldn't defeat–Harry was sure that he would lose. It wasn't a comforting thought, but it was honest; not sugarcoated, not seen through rose-colored glasses, but an undeniable fact.
Harry had promised himself the day he decided to become friends with Tom that if Tom started acting even a bit like Voldemort he would off him right then-and-there, but could he do it? Could Harry kill his best friend? No, he couldn't. Asking that was like asking him to kill Ron or Hermione, it was simply impossible for him to do it even if he had a wand at his throat. Harry felt like he was going through a mid-life crisis.

After an hour of unsuccessful searching, a joyous shriek given from Martha alerted the party that the three had been found. Amy and Dennis looked shell-shocked and just about ready to piss their pants with Tom following behind, insouciant with his hands in his pockets.

While Martha and Mrs. Cole tried to pry from Amy and Dennis what had happened–completely ignoring Tom–the source of Harry's problems walked over to him.

As Tom got closer, Harry's eyes got smaller until they were two slits on his face. "What were you doing, Tom?" he hissed as soon as the boy was within earshot.

Tom soaked in Harry's onslaught of wrath like it was nothing. "Experimenting," was his clam reply.

"'Experimenting', huh? On them?"

Tom seemed to have anticipated this question and not even a muscle on his face twitched in disloyalty "And if I did?"

Harry stared at Tom, not expecting him to admit to it so easily.
"Erm, I don't know. Why'd you do it?"

"Curiosity. Isn't that what fuels any analysis?" Tom threw back coolly.

Martha was still trying to get Amy and Dennis to talk, but Mrs. Cole was glaring over at where Tom and Harry stood.

"Fine," Harry huffed, knowing that he wouldn't get Tom to feel remorse over using human test subjects. "Then what were you doing to them?"

Now it was Tom's turn to become tight-lipped as Harry pursed his. He had his own hypothesis about what Tom'd done, aware that Tom, by now, had the ability to make people hurt along with parseltongue, forcing animals to do his bidding, and "telekinesis", but still wanted Tom to divulge the information to him on his own accord.

Their trip continued with Harry trying to get what he wanted out of Tom and Martha doing the same to Dennis and Amy but none of the three children gave anything away.