#my fav tom-raising fic is Laeveteinn's where dumbledore gives him funhouse mirror disorders and he gets groomed by grindelwald.

[lightningant]

Do you think if Harry met a younger version of Tom Riddle before he became a murderer He would save him? Do you think you would feel empathetic for him? like Sure, he's kind of a little s***, but he's just a little kid that, at the age of 4, probably just wants somebody to adopt him and feel loved. He definitely doesn't get that at Wool's orphanage, and I think Harry would understand that.

I answered this before; I don't find Harry raising Tom to be even remotely interesting, because Harry's core character flaws don't really interact with Tom's in this situation and Harry would be a pretty average child-of-neglect parent. They would be an ordinary family, and Tom would grow up to be an ordinary bully with a competitive streak. They would have ordinary conflicts like Harry might develop malformed ideas about how much chores a child should be doing vs his reactive frustration with how much chores he wishes he never had to do again, or Harry who notoriously struggles to keep up with people's hobbies fumbling through connecting with Tom, and these are interesting stories about Harry, yes, but my blorbo isn't Harry. It's Tom. If my son doesn't have a personality disorder what's the point