The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 4

“Voldemort,” Harry said with a little wave as he stopped a few feet in front of the Dark Lord.

“Potter.” Voldemort’s voice was soft, even a little raspy, not as high-pitched as it once had been.

“So how is that complete soul working for you?” Harry asked, since he’d never been one to beat around the bush. “You’re welcome, by the way.”

Voldemort gave him an incredulous look. “You claim credit for turning this into a mere trinket?” he asked, his small hand reaching inside the neckline of his child-sized black robes. It came back holding a silver chain on which the Gaunt ring dangled. “I wonder how and when you managed such a thing, since all I remember is dying and waking up on the back of Quirrell’s head.”

“No, that’s not what happened,” Harry said, sinking down in one of the chairs standing opposite Voldemort’s, feeling strangely disappointed at Voldemort’s dismissal. “You don’t remember white King’s Cross Station? I made a deal with Death to put your soul back together and I spent ages looking for all the little Toms.”

“That was a dream,” Voldemort said, and then waved Barty, who was lingering near the door and staring at them as if he was seeing water burn, towards a chair. “That had to be a dream.”

“No dream.” Harry was terribly amused by the shocked expression on Voldemort’s face. “It was limbo and you were stuck there in pieces until I came along. Death was there, all living shadows.”

Voldemort shuddered for a brief moment. “If that was limbo, then you died in our duel as well. Otherwise you wouldn’t have been there.”

“No, I didn’t die during our duel. I died two months later.” Harry glanced to the side as rage consumed him. Beside him, Barty was sitting very still on the edge of his seat with the posture of a small child desperately trying not to be noticed by the adults around him lest he be sent from the room and miss out on hearing all the adult conversation he wasn’t supposed to hear in the first place but really wanted to listen to.

“I was betrayed,” Harry said through gritted teeth.

Voldemort’s lips quirked up in a small smile. “Do tell.”

Unable to contain the red-hot anger that suddenly coursed through him, Harry jumped up from his seat and started pacing the room. It was funny, not to mention ironic, that only now that Harry was surrounded by enemies did he feel he could unleash his emotions. So far he’d tried to bury all the anger and rage that came with the betrayal by only letting himself feel small bursts of pain from time to time. But now the emotional dam well and truly broke and Harry had to get all these feelings off his chest.

“I was at Hogwarts, helping to rebuild,” Harry said, staring straight ahead as he paced from left to right and back again. “Got a letter from Kingsley Shacklebolt, the new Minister for Magic, asking me to stop by. Was ambushed by about ten thousand Aurors and spent a week alone in a cell without any explanation. Then they silenced me and put me on trial in front of a full Wizengamot.”

Harry inhaled a deep breath and tried to keep his hands from trembling without much success. “Dumbledore, that meddling old asshole had sent a letter to be delivered after your defeat, telling the Ministry to kill me because when you tried to kill me when I was a baby and got imploded a piece of your soul broke off and attached itself to me. Except Dumbledore had told me that horcrux could be destroyed by letting you hit me in the face with a killing curse and I’d be fine probably. But that motherfucker lied.”