Harry Potter 1. Prologue

**Framed & Fractured**

Prologue

lll

Harry remembered the first time he touched fire.

A storm had cut the Dursley's power, resulting in a frustrated Dudley who was in the middle of a video game, and a frazzled Petunia who attempted to soothe him. In the cupboard under the stairs, Harry sat in the dark, and wished for a light to chase away the loneliness. Then, as if someone had heard his wish, a candle lit up. Its presence drew him in, so he moved through the cramped space towards it. Harry imagined the small light to be a friend, brightening the darkness and warming the cold. He cannot recall moving his hand to the flame, nor bringing his fingers to touch it. All he remembers is the sensation of a pain so sharp and distinct, he never wished to feel it again.

However, this thing in front of him was not the candle from his room, but a beast composed of wildfire and destruction. Its heat was not a small warmth, but a volcano of magma, spewing a blaze incomparable to anything he had felt in his life.

Harry couldn't move.

He had come to the Room of Requirements to find Voldemort's horcrux, and he had found it. Only, throwing the diadem into the flames had enraged the Fiendfyre, the evil inside catapulting it into a new form, more vicious and beastly than before.

The terror alone would burn his soul if he let it, so he channelled the fear into a different compartment.

Survival.

So he ran.

Malfoy, Crabbe and Goyle dismissed their mission and followed in similar pursuit. Right now, all that mattered was surviving another day - another day to fight someone else's war, to cast obligated spells - simply because it was expected.

And expectations were something Harry understood with unforgiving clarity. He had been handed the crucial task of destroying horcruxes by Dumbledore on a heavy platter - etched with the names of all who had died - and the weight grew with every radio broadcast, every news clipping and broken family.

Crabbe stopped running, turned and cast a spell at the fire behind them, but the Fiendfyre lashed out, devouring him in a storm of outrage.

Harry's breath faltered and his eyes widened behind flashing spectacles.

Crabbe was gone.

Malfoy and Goyle's eyes held the same fear and shock Harry felt. Nothing could be done for Crabbe now. They were in a war, and war collected causalities like badges, but to see it so intimately, so violently - enough to smell scorched flesh - was a brutality that should not have been witnessed.

The beast paused after ingesting its latest victim, and swelled. It could have looked beautiful, like witnessing the beginning of something extraordinary, had it not split and ruptured.

Harry hurtled across the room from sheer heat and unadulterated power. His limbs were useless, a rag doll at the mercy of the elements, flying through a sky on fire, until he hit a wall.

His body spasmed and coiled in distress. His breath hitched, exerting itself, trying to regain an act close to breathing - but all it did was fill his lungs with smoke.

He needed to get out. He needed to find Ron and Hermione, needed to know if they were able to destroy Hufflepuff's Cup down in the Chambers and if they were okay. He forced his eyes open and immediately regretted it.

Harry swallowed the rising bile and panic. It was everywhere, surrounding him in a torrid embrace.

He directed his wand where the flames were the lowest and casted spells he hoped would stamp it out.

Nothing worked.

The inferno laughed and danced at Harry's encroaching hysteria, but it was amongst the laughter that Harry caught sight of movement and blonde hair.

Draco swerved and dodged the flames with expertise on an old broom. He pulled out his wand and aimed at the fire which barricaded Harry. The hell-fire faltered, its temper abating, but it was short lived.

It re-ignited in double agitation. Hope turned to ash in Harry's mouth and a heaviness coiled in his gut.

Draco left, his one attempt at heroism unsuccessful and unwitnessed.

Harry was once again left alone with his fear.

Loneliness was a familiar friend, but this was a completely different state of isolation. He would burn with the room if he didn't find a way out, without completing his tasks, leaving the burden for Ron and Hermione to take up.

Harry stumbled away from the approaching heat till his back hit a wall. He felt heavy.

Smoke polluted his body and his lungs drowned, needing untainted air. He wanted to move, but his limbs struggled to co-operate. His heart hammered at a furious pace, but there wasn't enough air to match its demand.

Memories of training an army of students went up in flames. The taste of his first kiss scorched and blistered. In a room of lost and hidden things, a new memory rose from the smoke and embers.

The Room of Requirements would become his tomb.

It was as Harry slid down to the floor, panting and coughing, that he heard it.

_"Come here."_

A tall, life-sized frame now stood behind him, hung on the last stretch of unscathed wall. It hadn't been there before. However the strangest part was the painting within the frame.

It was a painting of nothing; a canvas stitched of black threads.

_"Come with me."_

Its whisper was ice-like and barely there, a chilling mist amongst the sea of fire. Harry narrowed his eyes and peered beyond the canvas, and that's when he saw it.

In the black, swirled an even darker black, twisting and morphing into a beckoning hand.

The painting emitted a subtle energy. It didn't feel evil, the way a horcrux did - it didn't feel like anything Harry had ever come across - and this unsettled him.

Under any other circumstance, he would never listen to chilled whispers, or take the hand of a faceless entity, but he would rather risk facing uncertainty than fiery death.

So when the shadowy hand emerged through the canvas, beckoning, Harry took it and followed.

Immediately upon stepping through the threshold, it felt like being swallowed whole, sinking and breaking into soft membrane. Behind him, the blaze conquered the room and moved toward the painting. He could feel heat stabbing his back as he pushed further in, but before it reached him, the void stitched itself up and sealed.

He now stood in a dark chasm, only he wasn't truly standing. There was no floor, walls or celling. All that existed was an energy which hummed and pulled him in one direction.

So Harry did all he could do.

He fell.

lll

**1943**

The corridors of Hogwarts were quiet with slumber and dreams, save for one.

One corridor echoed with confident footsteps, controlled and perfectly paced. Despite Tom Riddle's calm demeanor, a dangerous excitement stirred within him.

Horcrux.

The word alone sent volts through his body, searing his nerves with anticipation. The book from the restricted section may not have been forthcoming, but Slughorn had certainly been useful.

He needed a place of solace where he could absorb his newly acquired knowledge, somewhere fitted for his extracurricular studies because this _school_ of 'enlightenment' didn't permit unconventional thought.

So on the seventh floor, Tom walked past a wall and requested his needs.

When a door appeared, he entered.

The room which materialised was tasteful enough to suggest a cultured occupant but spartan enough to support functionality.

He walked towards the grand mahogany desk, sat down and pulled out his diary.

As he placed his inkwell and quill in front of him, an object in the corner of his eye caught his attention.

On top of the fireplace, hung a painting. He noted that it should not have been there because he had not requested artworks to be part of his academic sanctuary. The painting itself was inconspicuous and unassuming, so the Slytherin dismissed the anomaly. He had better things to focus on, like his ambition and new found excitement for the future.

Death held ultimate power by dictating its fate upon every living being, with no regard for the good or wicked, old or young. Tom found it archaic and repetitive, a series of tomes with the same ending. No matter how great the story, grand the deed, the characters were always delivered the same fate, both heroes and villains.

Well, he did not wish to be another forgotten story in ink, destined to follow the same path of fatality; he wished to be the scribe who wrote his own destiny.

His story will be different.

He will conquer immortality till his greatness eclipsed Death itself.

Casting his eyes back to his diary, Tom began to plot, his handwriting elegant and ink black.

Behind him, away from sight, the painting on the wall tremored and shook.

* * *

><p>AN: Thank you for reading! I hope you enjoyed this and I look forward to hearing your opinions :)

Antediluvian Poet


	2. Chapter 1

**Framed & Fractured**

Chapter One

lll

Tom Riddle sat at his grand desk, back straight and head tilted down. The scratching of his quill against parchment was the only sound, and the shadows flickering across his face from a candle, the only movement.

The presumed impossible was now a tangible taste in his mouth, sharp and attainable. He possessed a method, a passage to a world privileged to only the gods.

_Immortality._

What he could do with eternity - the knowledge he would acquire, the societies he would shape, the possibilities - were only limited to the pages in his book and the ink in his well.

If the cost of forever constituted taking a life, or seven, it was a compromise worth another's blood, and the agony of a torn soul.

Then, his hand came to an abrupt stop.

A pulse at the back of his neck pulled and tugged at his senses, leaving the uncanny feeling of something dancing in the corner of his eye.

He was not alone.

Casting his eyes over the room, Tom catalogued and assessed all he could see.

He found nothing.

lll

Riddle's day had been festered with self-serving smiles and nauseating politeness.

They followed him like shadows, sycophants grappling at the blinding light he exuded. How easily they played games of coy smiles and flattery just for a slither of his brilliance, a bite of the apple.

Little did they know, his light was fake and the fruit was rotting.

So Tom found himself in front of his sanctuary on the seventh floor, and conjured a place to rid himself of residual tension. But as he entered, a scratching, carving of wood, grated the silence. Tom looked towards the area above the fireplace.

The sound stopped.

He walked towards the couch with casual ease, but noted the same painting from his previous visit, had stayed.

lll

When it came to his daily façade, he excelled at his role as exemplary student and role model.

It was an easy game of mimicry, but feigning their constructs of morality - _day_ after _day_ - was tiresome. The play-acting collected debris on his skin - dust from patience which disguised his perpetual irritation - and he itched to brush it off.

So he fashioned a Room for comfort and quietude, somewhere his mind could retreat with no need for a mask.

Deep colours surrounded him in low lighting. The fireplace burned in welcome and the cushions beckoned. It would have been perfect, had there not been a relentless rattling cutting into his calm.

He stood still, and after a brief moment, turned to face the opposite wall. Tom Riddle's eyes narrowed. It took no more than a few silent strides till he stood in front of the source, the tugging coiling tight. He found it.

It was not a spectacular piece of art, the brush strokes were no more refined than any of its peers in the castle and the colours were not vibrant or attention-seeking. Really, it was an undistinguished and unremarkable painting of a dimly-lit study.

And for a moment, Tom could have mistaken the artwork for a muggle painting, lifeless, with no movement.

But then something shifted.

All of a sudden, the most notable thing about the painting, was what he _couldn't_ see. He leaned in and searched, and within the deepest corner, was a silhouette hiding in the darkest shadows.

The painting had an occupant.

Tom spoke. "Hello?"

There was no answer. The silhouette remained still, trying to bleed back into the paint.

A beat later, Tom leaned back from his inspection and walked back to his desk.

Peculiar.

When he left the room, a new curiosity moved to the forefront of his mind.

He did not see the cautious green eyes which followed him.

lll

No matter the shape or skin the room wore, the paraphernalia it carried, it failed to change one thing.

The painting.

Every time Tom entered the Room, as he read or wrote, planned or studied, he watched the space above the fireplace from the corner of his eyes.

His uninvited guest was the epitome of skittish, always hiding and evading. Although its actions were not intrusive, its mere presence was invasive.

The Room of Requirements had always been _his_, an asylum, a refuge to escape the assembly of mediocrity. But now, it had become a shared space, and that was not acceptable.

So once again, Tom stood in the corridor on the seventh floor and closed his eyes.

_I request a room which will satisfy my academic needs, a place where only my mind and I can find peace. But most importantly, I request for no artworks to be part of the rooms interior._

A door etched itself from within the stone, slim and tall. He entered with certainty, but when inside, he halted.

The Room disobeyed him.

Because there it was, in the same place.

Former curiosity bled into suspicion. There was either a flaw in the inner workings of the Room, or the paintings continuous presence held an underlying motive.

He decided to find out.

As Tom strode towards the canvas, the figure inside dimmed its lantern further and vanished. When he reached it, his eyes narrowed and scrutinised.

And when he spoke, his voice controlled, the shadow tensed.

lll

Harry fell.

Energy swallowed him further down, propelling him through barriers which stretched then ripped as he descended.

Membrane after membrane severed until one layer did not.

He had reached the bottom.

With the cease of motion, Harry grew aware of how disconnected his body felt. It was as if his lungs had lodged up his throat, constricting his breathing. His body tingled, every stretch of skin pricked by pins and needles.

Heavy lids opened with caution, only to be met with blurry vision and tightened coughs. The floor felt smooth under his searching hands, and the scent of varnish rose with every brush. It was after he placed his glasses back on, did the sight in front of him clear.

How long he had been in there, he did not know.

The minutes seemed like hours, the hours seemed like days, and the days felt like only seconds.

All his time was filled with searching, inspecting and desperate rattling of a door knob, his only way out.

His activities were repetitive, dedicated and his attempt to hide his panic, obsessive. Anything to ignore the ghost of a young Dark Lord.

And he was succeeding, till the other leaned in and spoke:

"I can see you."

* * *

><p><strong>Authors Note: <strong>The unexpected wave of attention and support for the prologue has left me stunned. I am eternally grateful to all who have reviewed, faved and followed this story. It has encouraged me to keep writing and I hope this chapter doesn't disappoint!

And a _huge_ thank you to my Beta **~CADEL**. I'm honoured to have you involved in this project!

Constructive criticism, thoughts, questions and wishes are welcome:)

_~ Poet_


End file.
