The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 26

Chapter 26

Tom smiled as he closed the mirror. He was willing to bet a handful of Galleons that Harry had no clue why he responded the way he did. Tom had experience with people’s extreme reactions upon seeing him in various stages of undress. He fondly remembered the time straight as a broomstick Abraxas brained himself on a bedpost when Tom exited the bathroom only wearing a towel riding low on his hips during their fourth year. Hormones were flying high with all of them, adolescents that they were, and Tom had experimented with how to use his body to manipulate those around him. Abraxas got to spend the night in the hospital wing while Tom collected some more useful data to work with.

Of course, this time he hadn’t purposefully talked to Harry while naked. Harry caught him right out of the shower. But that made the results no less entertaining.

Tom continued getting dressed while thinking about his little soulmate. He spent a lot of time thinking about Harry ever since he found himself stuck on the back of Quirrell’s head for the second time in his existence. This time, though, he had a complete soul and the first few days of coming back to life were perhaps the most confusing and terrifying days of Tom’s long life. To say he suffered through a brief but overwhelming existential crisis was putting it mildly. Poor Quirrell must have gotten more than a few splitting headaches before Tom came to his senses and started planning instead of panicking while questioning his own existence.

The thing was, though, that for Tom, it seemed like the past 50 years hadn’t really happened. Or rather, that they’d happened to someone else and Tom somehow got stuck with that person’s memories. Ever since he violently ripped his soul apart, it wasn’t really Tom anymore who had lived his life. The creature Voldemort was just that…a creature that became more and more of a monster, sliding deeper and deeper into insanity the further he ripped his soul apart.

Tom had a hard time coming to terms with what his life had become, all because of a spur of the moment decision he had made when still a child. Fuelled by fear and arrogance, Tom had decided to pursue immortality in the only way he knew how, through a ritual he’d read about in a single book.

Merlin, what a fool he’d been. And what a price he’d paid. Intellectually, he knew he’d done all those horrifying things. Murdered hundreds, tortured perhaps a tenfold more. Enslaved and humiliated those he once called friends. Pursued an agenda that would have seen the wizarding world destroyed.

Yes, Tom knew he had done all those things, had the memories of performing each and every foul act, yet emotionally Tom couldn’t comprehend what he’d become. No matter what righteous fools like Dumbledore claimed, Tom hadn’t been born a monster. His childhood had moulded him into a hard and resourceful child, used to fighting for every scrap of anything, willing to lie and cheat and hurt others to get ahead in life. But that was the result of his upbringing for the most part. Tom wasn’t heartless. Tom had normal, human emotions. Tom cared.

And then Tom ripped his soul apart and Voldemort had been born and fifty years later Tom found himself stuck on the back of someone’s head because his prophesized enemy decided for some inexplicable reason Tom deserved a second chance.

Some days, Tom realized his existential crisis was far from over. Never in a million years had he expected to do his life over again. After he came to his senses enough to realize he needed off Quirrell’s head as soon as possible, he’d realized he needed someone competent that he could trust to help him start the process of eventually regaining a human body.