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A Soul By Any Other Name

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"Wait, Umbitch has the locket?!" Harry exclaimed.

"'Umbitch?'" Severus repeated in a slightly strangled tone. Draco was muffling a snicker into his hand.

"What? She's a bitch."

Severus pinched his nose. "Be quiet, Dragon," he said sharply to the blond boy, who went red and shut up.

"I know, right?" Harry muttered out of the side of his mouth, and Draco glared at him, flustered.

Severus rolled his eyes. "I assume you do not want to deal with the... bitch."

"I don't know how easy it is to steal from her," Harry agreed.

"Do you have a better idea?" the older man drawled.

"I do, actually."

 

Dear Voldemort,

Hi! Have you been drinking enough water? Hydration is important, you know.

So, funny thing, Regulus stole your locket Horcrux from your cave, and now Umbitch (Umbridge) has it. How she got it is a long story, that's not important.

Who invented your resurrection ritual, by the way? You should sue, you look like a snake fucked a vampire.

Very Sincerely,

Scarhead

 

Dolores Umbridge Found Murdered!

 

Potter, I am going to murder you slowly.

How did you find out about the Horcruxes?

 

Voldemort woke up to find a large crate sitting by his bed, a book lying on top of it. He cast a few spells on both, and found nothing wrong. Slowly, he picked up the book first.

Wixen's Guide to Immortality, by Salazar Slytherin.

Wait, what? Voldemort opened the book and found a note in Potter's writing.

Page 394.

Curious now, he obeyed.

Horcruxes --  an object containing half of one's soul

Wait, half?! Voldemort read faster.

This is one of the few paths to immortality I would suggest against. This is because of the three-pillar rule -- do not toy with your soul, core, or mind with magic, or the other two will become just as unstable.

Making a Horcrux involves the murder of one close to you, followed by a ritual where you drop your own blood and the blood of the person you murdered on the object you wish to be your Horcrux. You can make a Horcrux without this ritual, as it involves the desire to place part of your soul into an object, but the connection will not be stable.

When you split your soul, you do not take a piece of it. You split it completely in half. Making one Horcrux will cause you to become insane and your magic fractured. Making more than one will destroy you completely, unless you are a Dark Lord and the objects you use as Horcruxes are magical in their own right. Making more than one Horcrux will also cause your soul to be fractured, and if someone attempts to kill you without destroying the Horcruxes, you will become a wraith, and half of your soul will split off and attach to the closest living being in the room.

You cannot make a living being a Horcrux, as it already has a soul. Attempting it will just return the piece of soul back to you. If the living being is young enough, the souls will bond briefly, making you a third parent of the child.

Voldemort blinked.

When his killing curse had rebounded onto him, half of his soul had latched onto Harry Potter. If the book was telling the truth, the boy had been a Horcrux just long enough to-

Wait, he had a child?!

The book hadn't finished, however.

Destruction of a Horcrux does not destroy the piece of soul inside it. The soul will flee to the closest inanimate object, unharmed.

This was good news because the diary soul piece, which was 50% of his entire soul, hadn't been destroyed, but it was bad news because Voldemort didn't know where it was now!

Frustrated, he threw the book across the room. A piece of paper fell out of it. Voldemort snatched it up, recognizing Potter's handwriting again.

Congratulations! It's a boy!

He didn't care if Potter was his child, he was still torturing the brat.

You don't have to worry about the soul pieces that were in the diary and the ring -- wait, the ring? -- because I found them. All your Horcruxes are in the box.

Also, I'm pretty sure the prophecy is fake, 'cause Dumby is supposed to have teacher interviews in his office and instead he had it in his brother's inn the day of my mum's bridal shower. He thought Sev had a crush on Mum, but he was wrong.

Hey, does this mean you'll be in a threesome with my parents?

Stupid fucking BRAT.

Just kidding! Necrophilia is illegal.

STUPID FUCKING BRAT.

Sev says to stop infuriating you and get to the point. The prophecy's fake and I'm not gonna kill you, so could you maybe stop torturing me and trying to kill me?

Your favorite son,

Scarhead

Voldemort set the paper on fire.

Then he went back to the book to figure out how to fix his soul.

 

Potter, I think we need to talk. I assume you do not want to deal with Bellatrix, so I have provided a Portkey to Slytherin Manor. You may bring Severus, since you two seem to be buddies now.

Tom