Chapter Text
Dumbledore is building up to something. When isn’t he?
All of these memories and enigmatic conjectures. He says he wants Harry to understand Voldemort-know thy enemy-and sure, that’s a part of it, but not all of it. A storm is brewing, a lightning strike about to hit, and Harry has a target on his brow. He isn’t sure if he’ll survive it a second time.
But for now, with static electricity in the air, Harry is being taught how to understand Voldemort.
As if anyone could know him better than Harry.
Because he does, has since he was 12 years old and being manipulated by a sentient diary. Sure, he was naïve, too trusting, too starved of affection to be discerning about where he got it from.
But he wasn’t the only one. Young Tom Riddle was starving too, and not only because he’d been trapped for over 50 years. No, that hunger was bone-deep. And while Harry made sure Tom’s knowledge of him didn’t make it out of the chamber, Harry still hordes what he knows of Tom Marvolo Riddle. And perhaps worse, or at least more damning, he sees it in Voldemort now.