When Harry woke up the next morning it took a few moments for him to remember why he was laying in a bed and not the forest floor. When he remembered, he couldn't stop the insane sounding cackle that escaped him. Either he had completely lost his mind, or last night actually happened.
There was one way to be certain, not that he didn't not want it, but just that small reassurance that would make a huge difference. But he didn't know how to call Death...
"Hello, Harry" Death spoke.
Harry jumped a little, pulling his wand out, ready to defend himself. Once he realized it was Death, he put the wand down.
"Sorry, didn't mean to scare you," Death apologizes, with a little bit of amusement in his eyes, "Do you need something?" Death adds.
"I just needed to be sure..." Harry says sort of sheepishly. "I don't know what to do, I know what I want, but I don't know how to achieve it. Where do I start? What if I fail? What if the world is destroyed again?" Harry says, starting to ramble.
"Then it is." Death replied calmly, breaking Harry from his spiraling thoughts. "The only thing that made me angry about the last world's destruction had been how much it caused you pain, that you had suffered. The death of a planet does not matter to me. If you destroy this planet we will just move on to the next one. You are no longer mortal, Harry, you are still a wizard, a human, but you are no longer mortal. For beings like us, the death of one planet is something quite insignificant," Death says.
Harry nodded. Death had told him that he would outlive everyone and everything, he couldn't afford to let a single death affect him. Sooner or later it would drive him crazy, well crazier.
Harry looks at Death, "Thanks. I guess I just needed that push to accept everything. I know you told me yesterday, but I think the shock kept me from actually understand it," Harry admits.
"It is completely understandable, my son," Death assured Harry. "So, what are you going to do first?" Death asks, a small smile on his lips.
"Speaking with Voldie is the first on my list," Harry replied instantly.
"Do you have to?" Death complained, Harry chuckled a little when he saw Death's expression.
"I thought you would have liked him, after all the destruction, death and chaos he caused," Harry asks.
"I do, I would have liked him better if he stayed away from you though," Death replied.
It was there that it finally dawned on Harry that Death was a caring father, that just is not something you picture an immortal being as. "Thank you," Harry says.
"For what?" Death asks, looking a little confused and intrigued.
"Everything," Harry states.
Death's eyes filled with so many different emotions that Harry's breath hitched. Slowly, Death raised his hand to Harry, giving Harry time to pull away. When Harry didn't, Death caressed Harry's cheek and smiled at him.
"Anything for my son," Death replies.
Harry's heart jumped for joy, he had waited a lifetime to hear those words be said to him, he was happy he would have an eternity to enjoy them.
They broke apart as they heard someone walking towards the room. "Call if you need anything," Death says, and vanished as Hermione enters the room.
Hermione looks upset with a few pieces of toast in her hands.
"Morning, Hermione," he greeted her. Her annoyance vanished as she saw him in a good mood.
"Good morning. I thought you would want to avoid the Great Hall this morning," she said, handing him the toast.
"Is it that bad?" Harry asks her.
"The Hufflepuffs, surprisingly enough, are angry about the situation, but not at you. Most of the sixth and seventh years are worried about you, especially those that wanted to participate. Many of them had read about past tournament tasks. The Ravenclaws are split, the older ones do not doubt that you did not enter, especially when hearing about the Oath you took. The younger ones, mainly the girls, support Cedric and think you are lying. The Slytherins, well, they are the same as always. Gryffindor is 100 percent behind you, at least most of them," Hermione says, giving me a look.
"Let me guess, Ron?" Harry asks her.
At her nod, she adds, "I don't know why he is being like this. He knows you didn't enter your name."
"Jealousy." Harry replied, "Ron has always had an inferiority complex, this was just the breaking point. I think you should be with him. Wait, before you go off on a tangent, listen. He is jealous, if you stay with me, you are picking me over him, giving him more to be jealous about. Stay with him, let him calm down, then we will see," Harry finishes.
"What about you?" Hermione asks, looking concerned.
"Well, today I plan to avoid everyone. Find a secluded area and hide out there. Tomorrow I plan to go to the library, to see what I can find out about the tournament, see if I can find any clues about what the first task will be about."
Reluctantly Hermione nodded.
"Alright, but only for a few days, then I am helping you," Hermione stated.
Harry nods with a small sigh, knowing he won't be able to change her mind. Hermione nods and leaves the room, muttering about knocking some sense into red-haired prats.
When the door closed, Harry slumped back into his bed. It was easier talking to Hermione than he thought it would be. The talk he had with his father had helped. His Hermione is dead, this one would eventually die too. He was now immortal, he would live long after she died. And that is ok. This doesn't mean he doesn't miss his Hermione, it just means he can move on. Plus, he was now helping this Hermione have a better life, even if she won't agree with it.
With a nod, he got himself up for the day, he had a lot of things to do. Might as well do it while he is alone.
Harry walked up the road while whitling. Sneaking out had been child's play, considering they were not at war. Using the night bus, he arrived at Little Hangleton.
Checking to make sure he was alone, he snuck into the house. It was in a far worse state than he had remembered, but considering the owners, it wasn't a surprise. He walked up the stairs to what he thought was the office and opened the door.
"Hello, Tom,"
The next moment a bright green light filled his vision.
"Son, just because you cannot be killed, does not mean you shouldn't move out of the way of the curse heading your way."
Harry opened his eyes and looked around. He was in the same office he had been in when the muggles killed him. With a sheepish smile he replied, "yeah, it seems that Voldemort wasn't too pleased to see me."
"Really? What gave you that idea?" Death says, with a small laugh.
"I thought Avada Kadevras don't affect me anymore," he said, looking at Death curiously.
"They don't, you just need time to adjust to the new power. Until you are used to it, you'll just come here and I will send you back," Death answers him.
With a nod, Harry stands up.
"You aren't going to change your mind about this Voldemort stuff, are you?" Death asks, with a defeated sigh.
"Nope," Harry says, firmly.
"Alright. There is something I need to ask you. The Horcrux is back in you, do you want me to remove it?" Death asks.
"No!" Harry shouts a little too quickly. He ducks his head before adding, "I want to keep it."
"You missed it," Death states, "it gave you comfort in that cupboard, even if you were not consciously aware it was there, your subconscious knew you weren't alone,"
Harry doesn't look up to meet Death's eye. Some part of him knew he had missed it, but didn't want to admit it. It was difficult to hear it from someone else though.
"Do you want to go back now?" Death asks, an understanding smile gracing his lips.
"Yes. But let a few seconds pass to let Voldie collect his thoughts," Harry says.
"I doubt that will do much," Death says, but sends him back.
___
Voldemort just stared at the body. He checked to make sure that he wasn't dreaming or hallucinating. He had killed Harry Potter. Ignoring the fact that Harry Potter was in his house, he always thought that when he finally killed the brat it would be in front of a crowd, to destroy their hope. This, however, was rather anticlimactic.
Then something happened that he didn't think was possible. Potter groaned and sat up.
Upon instinct, he shot the killing curse again. Third time's the charm, as the muggles say. Maybe Potter will finally do what is socially accepted and stay dead after being hit with a killing curse.
For a few moments, all he did was stare at the body, again. Maybe he was losing his mind. Thirteen years as a floating spirit cannot be good for one's sanity.
___
"Back again?" Death asked, rather amused.
"Yeah, yeah," Harry grumbled, "Just send me back already."
The last thing he heard was Death chuckling.
___
Voldemort wasn't sure if he should be surprised or not when Potter got back up. He controlled his instinct of firing another killing curse at him; after all the definition of insanity is repeating something over and over and expecting a different result. So he just observed Potter, trying to understand what was going on. Clearly, Potter didn't have the decency to stay dead or be a hallucination.
"I swear to Melin, if you do not stop hitting me with killing curses, I am going to go over to you and slap you silly," Potter snapped, standing up. "Can we talk or are you going to continue with the Avada Kedavras?"
Voldemort just stared at Potter incredulously. Well, he had already ruled out hallucinations, but it could be a dream. He hoped.
"I am going to take that as a positive response," Potter said and sat down in the armchair in front of his desk.
They were silent for a few moments before Voldemort finally concluded that this was real.
"Potter," Voldemort states, not knowing what to honestly say.
"Yes?" Potter replies, raising an eyebrow.
"What are you doing here?" Voldemort asks, deciding that was a good place to start.
"Truthfully I am here for three reasons," Potter replied, looking rather calm for someone who was sitting in front of a Dark Lord. "First, I came to stop you from making a huge mistake. Second, I came to give you a body, and third, I came to tell you a story."
Voldemort stared at Potter for a few seconds then started to laugh. Maybe it was Potter that had lost his mind.
"And what do you want from me for giving me my body back and for stopping me from making a big mistake," Voldemort asks, sarcasm dripping in his voice.
"All I want is for you to listen to me. I will even swear on my magic that what I'll tell you is nothing but the truth, as I know it. You have nothing to lose in accepting," Potter admits.
Voldemort narrowed his eyes as he tried to enter Potter's mind, only to be stopped by occlumency barriers as strong as his. Surprised, he studies Potter intentionally and now that he has looked at him he could see it. It was well hidden but he could see it. Power. Dark, seductive, deadly power. This Potter is nothing like the light puppet he had met three years ago.
"Are you being serious?" Voldie asks because now he was curious. There was something different about Potter and he wanted to know what it was.
"I came here, didn't I? If I wasn't I wouldn't have come," Potter replies.
"Very well," Tom agreed, not believing what was coming out of his mouth. "What is this huge mistake I am about to make?" he asks, not stopping the sarcasm from slipping into his voice.
"The ritual for your resurrection," Potter told him, completely ignoring the sarcasm. "I know that you think it is the only way to get your body back, now that the Philosopher's Stone is destroyed. And it seems like it will work out rather well, but in the long run, it won't. The unicorn blood unwillingly given will curse you. It will take from you what you value most. Funnily, I had always thought it would be your magic or your life, but it will take your mind. If you proceed with the ritual in three years, you will be so far gone you won't even realize you had already won the war. You will let your little sycophants destroy everything you ever fought for. You will obsess with one thing and ignore everything else. It will be your end." Potter explains.
Voldemort wanted nothing more than to deny everything he just heard and hit Potter with another Avada Kedavra. Sadly, he couldn't, aside from the curses not affecting Potter, the brat knew too much about the ritual to be lying about this. How had Potter known about the ritual? He hadn't told anyone. How could he know?
"Why are you telling me that?" Tom asked, trying to understand this strange Potter sitting in front of him. "If it is going to destroy me, why are you trying to stop me? Isn't my destruction something that you wish? And how did you know where to find me?"
"I think it is rather obvious that I do not wish for your destruction, I want you to get a body back. The reason I want this is one of the things I have to tell you as well as how I knew where to find you. The question is now: Do you want me to give you your body back?" Harry replies.
Voldemort wanted to force the answers out of Potter but did not think it would work. Besides, Potter did say that he will explain everything. He knew that he should kill Potter and be done with it, but, not taking into account that the killing curse seems to not affect Potter, he had no idea of what could work. Plus, he was curious. He wanted to know what changed. Potter was so different, people do not change that much in three years. Their magic doesn't change that much in three years. Besides, the promise of a body is tempting. He didn't see how Potter intended to do it, but what did he have to lose?
"Alright," Voldemort agreed.
"Excellent. Now, this is my first time doing this, but don't worry, theoretically, I know how it works," Harry says, jumping to his feet.
Before he could tell Potter that that wasn't reassuring, he felt his soul being torn from his body. For a fraction of a second, he felt nothing but fear. He did not want to go back to being a wandering spirit, he hated it. He couldn't be that vulnerable again. Then rage, how could have been so stupid! Why had he trusted Potter? He knew that people weren't to be trusted, how could he have allowed such weakness? Luckily, before he lost himself to the fear and rage, he felt something surround him. He could feel a body around his soul, it was tiny, no bigger than an embryo, but he could feel it growing and developing.
In five minutes he was as big as a five-year-old and he kept growing every second. All he could do was stare at Potter disbelievingly.
Twenty minutes later the magic surrounding him left and he had to grip his desk so he wouldn't fall. He was still looking at Potter, who was sitting in the armchair now, panting and with sweat dripping down his face.
"You are an Elemental," he whispered roughly, his vocal cords appeared to need a little adjusting. However, that did not matter right now. What mattered was that Potter, Potter, was an elemental! How was that possible? Weren't they all extinct? How could Potter be one and how can he control his powers? Did Dumbledore know? If he did, no wonder he wanted to use Potter as a weapon. Elementals are rumored to be pure power. They embody the power of nature in it's purest form. Even the weakest elemental could destroy a small town in a fit of anger. If Potter was one, no wonder the prophecy said he would be the one to destroy him. He looked at the small form slumped over on the armchair and hunger he had not felt for a long time filled him.
Potter looked at him, his eyes widened and he looked away.
"Could you, um, put some clothes on?" He asked, looking anywhere but at Tom. Tom smirked, who would have thought Potter was so... innocent.
Tom picked up his wand and conjured a mirror, not at all in a hurry to conjure clothes. He never had a problem with nudity, not that he walked around naked all the time, just that he was comfortable in his own skin. Plus, he enjoyed seeing Potter all flustered, call it payback for being a pain in the arse.
Tom wasn't sure what to expect when he looked at himself in the mirror, but it wasn't what he saw. He looked like a twenty-something-year-old Tom Marvolo Riddle! With all the rituals he had done, he had lost his looks. He accepted it because he valued magic more, however, to see himself again was a relief. Though his eyes were still red, which he did not mind, he liked his red eyes.
After examining what Potter had given him, he finally conjured clothes and turned back around. He smirked when he saw that Potter still wasn't looking at him.
"You can turn around now, Potter," Tom states. He sat down on his seat, after clearing the dust away from his homunculus, it had turned to dust as soon as his soul left. "I'm waiting," Tom said when he noticed Potter was just looking at him.
Potter sighed and nodded.
"Alright, I am just going to do a magical oath," Potter said taking out his wand. "I, Hadrian James Potter, swear on my magic that what I am about to tell Tom Marvolo Riddle is the truth as I know it, so mote it be," a soft golden light envelops Potter then it slowly dissipated.
With a sigh, he began.
"As you know, before I was born there was a prophecy that Snape partially overheard and told you about. You already know what happens next so I am not going to explain it. What you don't know is how I survived, nobody knows. Dumbledore thought it was because of the sacrifice my mom made, so to keep me protected he left me with my mother's sister and created blood wards. I spent the next ten years being a slave for those disgusting muggles, sleeping in a cupboard under the stairs. No clue who or what I was."
Voldemort snarled at that, "What! How dare they harm a magical child. They should be killed for it!"
"Feel free to kill them," Harry replied, slightly surprised with Tom's reaction. Though, it really shouldn't, given how similar their childhoods were; plus this Voldemort still has his mind. From what he learned about Voldemort after the war was that he never harmed children, even when he went to kill families, he never tortured the children. No pain, just death. Painless and fast.
He wasn't sorry for handing the Dursleys over to Tom either. He will never forgive Petunia or Vernon for what they had done to their grand-daughter when they found out she was magical. The little girl had been born a year or two before the war began. She had her first case of accidental magic when she was six years old. Dudley had been at work and her mother was sick with the flu. Petunia and Vernon saw it happen. Those jackasses sold her to a laboratory that wanted to make experiments on wizards, by that time magical beings were seen as nothing more than animals by most people. The staff was quite happy to pay Vernon and Petunia for little Violet. He only knew because Dudley had called him, begging him to save Violet, his baby girl.
By the time they found her it was already too late. She had been with them for only a little over two days. It was unbelievable the amount of damage they had been able to do in such a short time. It was far more merciful to end her suffering.
A week later the bodies of Petunia and Vernon were found, shot in the head. Dudley walked into the lab where they kept Violet, with a bomb strapped to his chest. He took the whole building down and more than half of the staff. A letter was found addressed to his wife. Harry later found out that it had said that he did not want to live in a world where a sweet little girl, his innocent little flower, could be tortured just because she was different and people found that normal. Dudley wrote that if that is being normal, torturing someone for being different, then he would rather be a freak. Truthfully, that was the only moment when Harry could remember being proud of his cousin.
"I thought you were a muggle lover," Voldemort remarked, bringing him out of his thoughts.
"You thought wrong," Potter replied, his eyes cold. The shadows seemed to gain life as they moved around, Tom felt the temperature drop suddenly, the whole atmosphere felt oppressed.
Voldemort observed the changes with fascination. He had read about what happens when an elemental loses control of their emotion, but it was completely different being able to see it. It was no wonder that elementals were so feared that they had been hunted to extinction. It disgusted him, knowing what people did in the name of the Light. Out of fear they labeled elementals as dark beings and hunted them down. They were powerful, but not all-powerful. It varied, just like wizards. They completely ignored that wizards were in some way elementals, not a true elemental, like Potter, but they still had some control over some elements. It was true that elementals were dangerous, but so were wizards. The hypocrisy disgusted him. Power like that, like Potter's, should be cherished and treasured, not feared and hated.
Potter took a deep breath and everything went back to normal. Tom hadn't taken his eyes off Potter. That hunger was back, he wanted that power.
"You know what happened in my first year, you were there. In my second year, I met you again,"
"No, you didn't," Voldemort interrupted.
"Yes, I did. Not you specifically, but a version of you, trapped in a diary," Potter says.
Tom tensed as he sees Potter's knowing look in his eyes, he snarled and pointed his wand at Potter.
"What did you do to it?" Tom demands.
"I destroyed it," Potter says calmly.
Tom found it hard to control the rage he felt.
"Calm down," Potter said, frowning. "I still have many things to tell you. We can talk about this when I am done if you want to."
Tom took a few deep breaths and calmed himself down. He could kill Potter later for destroying his Horcrux. It was more important if Potter knew what the diary was and if he knew that there were more. How could he have found out? Maybe Dumbledore found out and told the brat. He would need to check on the others, he couldn't risk more of his soul.
Potter told him about the rest of the year and even though he was still not happy about what happened to his Horcrux, he understood. Potter hadn't even known that it was him he was facing and after he found out it was all about survival. If it had been him in that situation, he would have done the same. Lucius on the other hand... Lucius will suffer for disobeying him.
Potter continued telling him about his third year. He didn't go into much detail, just a quick overview of what happened and how Wormtail escaped.
When Potter reached his fourth year, things started to get interesting. Potter told him about the tasks and what he did in them. Tom wanted to speak up, but one look from Potter made him wait. He almost wasn't able to hide the disbelief when Potter told him about the ritual he would have performed to get his body back. The duel Potter described was unbelievable. Unfortunately, Potter didn't stop there. He continued to talk about his fifth year. Voldemort was so transfixed he hadn't even blinked when he heard the entire prophecy. He would think about it later.
By Potter's sixth year, he wanted to deny everything coming out of Potter's mouth, but he couldn't. Those eyes showed everything. Potter was being honest, taking into account the magical oath he took before starting. This was the truth, it just didn't make it any more believable.
Tom never thought he would feel so relieved to hear about his death. He now understood what Potter meant when he said he would have been too far gone. He sounded like a rabid dog, rabid dogs should be put down. He had never wanted to destroy the wizarding world, it was his home. The one place he truly belonged. No matter what happened, he never allowed himself to lose his mind. Granted, he knew he wasn't the sanest person around, but he was still rather rational. He prided himself on being one of the most brilliant minds that the wizarding world had ever seen, to lose that to insanity and not even noticing, was truly horrible.
"We had peace for around 19 years, though in a blink of an eye, everything changed. One day we were living in our homes, the next we were being hunted. The muggles found out about us," Potter states.
For a moment, neither said anything. Harry lost in thought, Voldemort trying to believe what he just heard.
"What?" he asked, his voice low and deceivingly calm, "How?"
"The muggle prime minister exposed us. We later found out that he was a squib. He hated us for having what he didn't. He was adopted by a good family, had a good life, even his magical family stayed in touch. Even set up a Gringotts account for him. No tragic life, no abuse, just pure jealousy. Pure envy.
He exposed our world, and since he was a squib, he knew where and what to use to get people to believe him. The religious fanatics were the first to adhere to campaigns to exterminate us or to put laws in place that would see us no better than animals. I still can't believe how fast those laws went into place to deny us human rights. They could do anything to us and get away with it. For two years there were muggles that cared, but that changed when information about Grindlewald came out, how Hitler would have never gotten as far as he did if it wasn't for wizards. Going from helping Hitler, to creating Hitler wasn't a far stretch in their minds. Soon enough, wizards were blamed for everything, even natural disasters. For the first time ever, the world stopped caring if people had different colored skin, what religion they followed, what their sexuality was. They all had one common enemy, wizards. The church saw this as a chance to reinstate the Inquisition.
The war that followed was... I don't think there was a word that could describe it. Many of us preferred to kill ourselves than to fall to the Inquisition. When we saw how bad it was, we believed our wards would protect us. We were wrong.
Hogwarts..." Harry pauses to take a breath.
"Hogwarts was the first destroyed. They targeted it because they knew it was a school. They did not care that they were innocent children. In their minds, they had magic, so they must die. I still remember the blood, fire, and burned flesh," Harry stops a second.
"I had to dig out the broken, and burned body of my daughter from the ruins. My little Lily was the first of my children to die."
Potter stops again, trying to gain control over his emotions and his tears.
For the first time, Tom didn't know what to do. He didn't know if he wanted to hear anymore, he didn't want to know what nightmarish world Harry had left behind. But a part of him wanted to know more, wanted to know everything. What Potter was telling him may sound unbelievable, and he wanted to write it off as Potter going crazy, but those eyes... Those eyes do not lie, it is impossible to fake such pain. For a fraction of a second Potter looked like the tired old man he was, who had seen and lost too much, not the fourteen-year-old he looked like, who had his whole life ahead of him.
"Even after everything they had done, they still weren't satisfied. They turned to use their nuclear weapons in us," Potter started again.
"What?" Tom whispered. He couldn't believe that the muggles would use nuclear weapons. He knew what kind of damage those weapons caused, didn't they see the damage they would do?
"Yes, I didn't even know there were so many of them. Before they had just resorted to biological weapons, however, our magic kept us safe from muggle diseases and they never got their hands on any wizarding diseases. They killed far more muggles with their bioweapons than magical beings, but they didn't care. If they had to kill a hundred muggles to kill one wizard, they saw it as a success. Stupid things," Potter sneered, and Tom agreed. Even though the muggles outnumbered them, it would be stupid to use such weapons knowing they were killing more of their own kind, rather than magical beings.
"They destroyed the planet. Large animals were all but extinct, vegetation wouldn't grow, the rain was toxic. The planet was dying.
When the muggles shot me, there were only a handful of wizards left. Not that the muggles were doing any better. The big cities were practically abandoned and there was no cluster of civilization that had more than one hundred people. The male and female muggles had become infertile, even if they survived on a dying planet it would be impossible to repopulate. It was one of the consequences to radiation and bioweapons. They had made one that was supposed to affect our sperm. It did nothing to us, but to the muggles... That combined with everything else they created, was enough to make even most animals infertile. There hadn't been any births or pregnancies in the last six years. Either way, the muggles were doomed."
Voldemort couldn't really imagine a world like that. It was a true nightmare, his darkest fears come to life. He had lived through World War II, he had witnessed the bombings. He had always wondered what would happen if all that destructive force was aimed at them. Now he knew and wished he didn't.
"I died and woke up in an office..."
Well, maybe he should be thankful that Potter didn't appear to want to fight him. Death's son. Fate really hated him, didn't it? How in Salazar's name was he supposed to win against Death's son?
"That was how I survived. I was born an Elemental. That combined with my mother's sacrifice allowed me to live. Death gave me complete control over my abilities, which is how I got you your body back. You already had your soul, it just needed a body to go with it. I just enhanced the life that was already there. Granted, there are limits, I didn't have enough energy to age you farther than twenty-five," Potter wrapped up.
"Why did you come back?" Tom asked when Potter stayed quiet for a while.
"I am going to kill them all," Potter replied and for a few moments, it was like he was looking Death in the face. No, not Death. Death's son. He couldn't stop the shiver that ran down his spine. It was difficult to see the Light's puppet that he had met a few years back when he was looking into killing curse green eyes that shown with deadly intent. He wondered how Dumbledore would react if he knew what his little pawn had become. Personally, Tom wanted to be there when he found out. He doubted that Potter would play student for much longer.
"Oh, I almost forgot. I have your Horcrux again. Can I keep it, or do you want to transfer it to another receptacle?"
Tom had almost forgotten that little detail. Potter was his Horcrux. Death's son was his Horcrux.
"You are truly immortal," Tom replied, "I will be too, as long as my soul stays with you. What do you want?" he asks, narrowing his eyes. Both of them knew that Potter had all the cards in his hand. He was at a huge disadvantage and both of them knew it.
"I want an alliance between us. However, the safety of your Horcrux isn't depended on it. I will keep your Horcrux safe as long as I have it with me. I want you to align yourself with me because you want to, not because you think I will destroy your Horcrux if you don't," Potter said.
Tom was shocked, to say the least. With Potter at a high advantage, he wasn't asking for much, nothing was even a concern if Voldemort decides not to.
"I need time to think," he told Potter because he truly did. He was almost certain he would accept but he needed to organize his thoughts. Potter had told him so many things, he needed to think them over.
"Alright. You can contact me through Barty," Potter told him as he stood up.
Tom nodded and Potter waved before leaving his office whistling. He shook his head, why did he think that life just got a lot more complicated?