I don't own Harry Potter

Prologue

Dumbledore sat in his office, feeling every bit of his hundred and fourteen years of age. When Harry had placed the diary on his desk all of his fears had been confirmed. It had taken all of his skill to maintain a passive face as he started to realize what the diary was.

No mere charmed book could have possessed a person. That quickly narrowed the possibilities. What had perhaps been more frightening still was that, according to Harry, some sort of projection had left the diary. A projection with the power to perform a spell? No, he thought, this was no mere magical imprint Voldemort had left behind, this was something far darker.

Sighing at the thought of the long night ahead, he pulled one of the darker books he kept from the shelf. If anything could shed light on what Tom had done it would be here. Flipping to the section on Horcruxes he began to read "By trapping a piece of their soul in an object, the caster is bound to earth as long as that fragment remains….. There have been some wizards who have attempted to connect a horcrux with a magical imprint. In theory an object, such as a magical portrait, would be enhanced and able to truly interact with the world."

Tom what have you done?

He wondered absently what would have happened if the diary had succeeded in resurrecting itself through Ginny's soul. The horcrux inside would almost certainly have been consumed in the process. That was probably not the purpose it had been created for. Only a fool would design a horcrux to consume itself. He was many things, but Tom was not a fool.

Maybe a sixteen year old version of Tom would have come to life. How would today's Voldemort have taken that? He chuckled at the thought. No the diary could not have been designed to be a resurrection tool. Not when their where fare simpler dark rituals that would be able to bring him back. He must have created more than just the diary. The diary was clearly a weapon, foolishly flung by Lucius into the hands of a young girl. Besides it was out of character for Voldemort to trust anyone with anything, let alone with the key to his immortality.

And so he had come to the crux of the matter. He had seen Voldemort at the end of last year, confirming with his own eyes the subsisting spirit. While the proof that the dark lord was still bound to the world worried him, tonight he focused on a different issue. Harry James Potter.

The nature of Harry's rescue proved to be the heart of his dilemma. It was quite possible that, because of him saving Ginny's life, a soul bond could form between them in the future.

Soul bonds often form when a person risks their life for the person they are destined to be with. While uncommon, they are not unheard of. Each bond varied in strength, with some couples even claiming to have been able to sense each other's thoughts.

Soul bonds were mostly found in romance novels with complex plots and cookie cutter characters. In real life they were only a magical manifestation of a connection that had already formed between two people. Life changing events are the heat that welds the souls together.

All in all a soul bond would be something Dumbledore would celebrate if it were between any other two people. The problem weighing on his mind was how this would affect Harry in the times to come. The soul bond would not develop for many years, and would only happen if the two grew closer. Unfortunately that could mean Harry would have to deal with it at the same time as a possible return of Voldemort.

Harry's cursed scar; almost certainly a fragment of Voldemort's soul- a memento of his encounter one Halloween, almost 12 years ago. What would this soul bond add to the mix?

With no other choice, Dumbledore leaned back in his chair, extinguishing the lone candle with a flick of his wrist, and allowed his mind to rest. Even for a wizard as powerful as him, sometimes the best thing to be done was simply to wait.