Chapter Text
The killing curse felt gentler the second time. There was no sudden understanding of life and death beneath the green light and pain. Only exhaustion settling heavily into Harrys bones as Voldemort's curse struck him head on..
Green light flooded his vision, blinding and familiar, and somewhere faraway someone was screaming his name.
Then came silence.
Not peace. Just… nothing.
Harry thought dimly that he should feel angrier about this. He had survived too much to die in the ruins of Hogwarts like this, too many funerals, too many names carved into stone, too many years spent fighting in a war that never truely ended and had consumed everyone he loved.
Instead all he could think was:
I’m tired.
Then sudden darkness swallowed him whole.
-.-.-.-.-
Harry flinched awake with a gas, his heart thumping violently as panic flooded through him before his eyes had even opened properly.For one terrible moment he thought he was still in the Great Hall with smoke choking the air and Voldemort standing over him over him, wand raised for another spell.
But there was no smoke.
No ruined stone, no blood.
Only darkness.
Cramped suffocating darkness.
Harry froze instantly.
No.
No, no, no-
His breathing quickened before his mind fully caught up, instinctively terror clawing up his throat as his hands slammed into the wooden walls barley inches from his face. He scrambled backward and hit another wall immediately, knees knocking painfully against something cold and metal.
A cupboard. The cupboard under the stairs.
Dust clogged the air around him. The familiar smell of dust balls and old shoes settled into his lungs and suddenly the space get far too tall, the ceiling too low, the walls too close together. Harry shoved himself upright too quickly and hit his head hard against the low ceiling with a curse that sounded paniflully high pitched to his own ears. He went still.
Slowly, shakily, Harry lifted his hands infant of his face.
Small, thin, childish.
His body was too small.
Not his body.
“Oh god,” Harry whispered.
The words came out smooth and frightened. A child’s voice.
For one disorientating second he genuinely thought he’s finally gone mad.
Then pain flared sharply hard against his forehead.
Harry sucked in a breath and pressed trembling fingers against his scar. The familiar lightning bolt burned faintly beneath his touch, warm and real against his skin.
Still there.
Which meant-
The cupboard door burst open so suddenly that Harry recoiled instinctively away from the flood of light during inside .
“What are you making all that noise for, boy?”
Uncle Vernon stood in the doorway looking exactly as Harry remembered him from childhood: broad and furious.
Alive.
Harry stared at him in mute horror.
Vernon frowned at Harry's silence. “Well? Get up!”.
Harry couldn’t move.
Because Voldemort was alive.
His parents were dead.
Sirius was still in Azkaban.
Everything was happening again.
Except, something felt wrong. Not wrong in the way time travel itself should feel. This was something deeper, stranger, like reality itself had shifted sideways without warning .
Harry’s scar burned strangely beneath his fingers, hit the familiar sharp pain of Voldemort, but something deeper. Warmer. Alive in a way it had never been before.
And underneath the panic, underneatth the terror, grief and nausea twisting vilely through his chest, someone laughed softly inside his head.
Harry went completely still.
The voice was low, amused, unmistakable.
“Well,” it drawled lazily, “this is inconvenient”.
Ice flooded Harry’s veins.
No.
No, no no-
He knew that voice. he heard it in nightmares and graveyards and whispered through horcruxes.
Tom riddle.
Vernon barked something at him from the doorway, but the words were barely registered over the rushing wounds in his ears. Because Voldemort was in his head again.
Only this time… he sounded aware.
“Oh dear,” the voice murmured mockingly. “You look like you’ve seen a ghost.”
Harry squeezed his eyes shut enough to hurt. This wasnt real. He died.
He remembered drying. The battle. The greenlight.
Now-
A cupboard.
A child’s body.
Tom Riddle alive inside his head.
“Interesting,” Tom said softly, amusement fading slightly from his voice..
Harry’s eyes snapped open.“What do you want?” he whispered furiously.
Vernon blinked from the doorway. “What did you say?”
Harry's stomach dropped. He hadn’t realised he’d spoken out loud.
“I-nothing”.
Vernon looked disgusted. “Freak”.
Th door slammed shut again. The darkness returned.
Harry curled instinctively against the wall, breathing too fast as panic consumed him.
Think. Think.
If this was real. If he was truly back then Voldemort had not returned yet. Sirius was still imprisoned. Pettigrew was alive.
And everyone Harry had lost…
Alive.
The thought hit so hard his chest hurt.
For one dangerous moment hope flared.
The Tom spoke again, quieter this time.
“There is something else wrong”.
Harry stiffened immediately.“What?”
A long passed followed and when Tom finally spoke again all amusement had vanished from his voice entirely.
“I remember dying too”.
Silence took over the whole cupboard.
Harry stared blindly into the darkness while something cold slowly curled in his stomach.
If Tom remembered-
If time itself had broken-
Then maybe this wasn’t the world Harry had left behind at all.