Chapter 1
Harry collapsed in his chair, a mountain of books on his desk in front of him. He was rather proud that he managed to pull this off. One would think that sneaking away to Diagon Alley would be more difficult when you have round-the-clock guards, but his invisibility cloak made it rather easy.
He grinned to himself. He pranked the order! Sirius would be so proud. Harry's good mood diminished at that thought, but he was determined not to think about Sirius too much. He had already cried and screamed and moped and sulked enough over the last two weeks, and he knew that Sirius wouldn't have wanted that. He was a man of action, of plans and rushing into things with everything he had.
When Harry had realised that the day before, he had made up his mind. He could not change the fact that he had to kill Voldemort, so he just had to figure out a way to do that so he could get on with his life. Normally he would brainstorm with Ron and Hermione to come up with a plan, but they had distanced themselves from him after the debacle at the ministry. Not that he blamed them, if he had a way to get out of this war he would take it with both hands and get the hell out of here. He liked being alive, thank you very much, and having a homicidal maniac out to kill him wasn't making it easy to stay that way.
His friends had obviously figured that out themselves, and though they tried, there just wasn't a nice way to tell someone that they couldn't be friends anymore because they didn't want to get killed. That they told him this only a day after he found out about the prophecy and Sirius' death didn't help his mental state either. For the last week at school and the first week at Privet Drive, he was a mess. Harry was rather glad that he had snapped out of it this soon. Killing Voldemort wouldn't be an easy task and since he had to do it all by himself he'd better get started as soon as possible. Ron and Hermione would not help him anymore, and Dumbledore seemed to think that he just had to 'kiss and make up' with Voldemort and everything would be okay.
Harry snorted. 'The power of love', yeah right. Since that obviously wasn't going to help him, he sneaked off to Diagon Alley today and got lots of books. Mostly about defense, but also books about bonds between two people. He wanted to find out more about the link between him and Voldemort, either to use it against the dark lord or to get rid of it. Those books already made quite a heap, but he also took a lot of books on obscure topics. Flourish&Blotts had a corner with books that no one wanted, or were so specialised almost nobody knew what the titles meant. Neither did Harry, for that matter, but Ectomancers by Joanne Boot and On Enchanting by Steven Cornfoot sounded rather interesting, and you never know, maybe there was a spell or ritual in there to solve all his problems.
Harry looked over the books with a critical eye. He could try to organise them by topic, but since he didn't know what half of the books was about that would be rather pointless, and he still wouldn't know where to start. Okay, plan B then, let's go with the Potter luck. He closed his eyes, felt around a little and grabbed a book. Technomancy by Roy Richards, one of the mystery books. Harry cracked open the book and got started.
Later that night he finished the book with a disappointed sigh. Technomancy was extremely interesting, since it dealt with adapting muggle inventions so they would work on magic instead of on electricity. Dropping a bomb on Voldemort's hide-away would probably kill him rather effectively. The only problem was that nobody had found a way to make the theory work yet. The book was filled with arithmancy and runes, broken down so more people could understand it, but still way above his skill level. If Masters in those fields had been working on this for so long without solving the problem, it was doubtful that he could figure it out in the near future. Disappointing, true, but he would definitely keep an eye on any new books about the field. This sort of thing wasn't taught at Hogwarts, but it was fascinating. And cellphones were so much easier than owls, it would definitely be an improvement.
Over the next few days, Harry researched. He made a list with useful curses and shields to use in fights and an other list with spells he never knew he missed. Things like a toothbrushing spell may not be useful against Death Eaters, but he sure wished he had known it before. Harry also realised that there were many fields of magic that he'd never heard about, and that weren't taught at Hogwarts, but could be extremely useful. Enchanting for example sounded very interesting, but was something that could take years to master. It basically meant putting a spell on an object that wouldn't fade. It wouldn't do after all to hit your broomstick with an accidental finite to find out it was just a stick. Warding sounded useful as well. It would also take a lot of time to master, but Harry made note of some easier wards, like a password protected locking ward and an anti-apparition ward, to try out once he could use his wand again.
Of course he had also bought several useless books, like the one on Ectomancers that had sounded so interesting but was basically a list of people that could communicate with ghosts. While it would be amazing to talk to Sirius again, or ask advise from his parents, Harry knew that wasn't very healthy. They were dead, and he was alive. They would meet again after he died, but until then he was on his own.
Harry looked over at the pile of books he had read, and the pile he had not. They were almost the same height now. He realised he hadn't read any of the books on magical bonds yet, and picked up the first one. Magical Bonds by Armando Duffel. It was an interesting book, filled with basic rituals to bind two people together. There was an Adoption Bond, which made the child magically and legally the heir of the parent. The Nanny Bond, which was a bond that lasted only a couple of hours, and let the nanny know where the kid was and if he were alright. The Blood Brother Bond, which made two friends legally brothers, and warned them where the other was and when the other was hurt. The Slave Bond, which sounded like a more lenient variant of the Dark Mark. There were also several marriage bonds with different levels of intimacy.
Harry was reading the chapter on the Soul Bond when something caught his eye.
When the Soul Bond Ritual is performed, all previous bond will be removed. This was discovered in 1154 when two slaves performed the ritual and ended up free.
All previous bonds will be removed. This meant he could get rid of his link with Voldemort! He put his enthusiasm on hold and reread the chapter. The Soul Bond was one of the most invasive bonds that existed. The bonded could feel where the other was, what emotions they were feeling and could even send telepathic messages. Even Occlumency couldn't block that. The bonded also gained the natural skills from the other. For example when one was clumsy and the other graceful, the clumsy one would become more graceful. Or if one was adept at Occlumency, the other would gain the skill with minimal training.
The benefits were amazing, but it was a bond for life, that would only be broken once one of the bonded died. Harry shuddered at the thought of having Hermione in his mind for the rest of his life. He loved the girl like a sister, he really did, but having her nagging about homework without being able to play deaf? That was just scary. Still though, anything was better than Voldemort in his head.
He skipped to the part on performing the ritual, and saw the reason it was listed as a marriage bond. The initial bonding was a simple Marriage Bond, which made the bonded married in the eyes of the law and gave them the ability to sense where the other was and whether he was hurt. After that, the marriage had to be consummated daily for two weeks, with a little ritual afterwards, to gain the specific abilities of the Soul Bond.
Harry closed the book and laid down on his bed. It would be the solution to all his problems. His link with Voldemort would be gone, and since it was a marriage bond his magical guardian would be his bonded instead of Dumbledore. If he chose right, he might even get some new abilities that may come in handy. He could leave Britain and never come back! Voldemort would win, but he had always focused on Britain. After the war with Grindelwald, the magical ministries in Europe unanimously decided that as long as dark lords stayed in their own country, they wouldn't intervene. Once they decided to take over other countries however, all the ministries would work together to prevent that. And it wasn't like other people had to stay in Britain. Anyone who didn't like it here could leave the country as well.
He would have to choose his bonded carefully though. This was like an arranged marriage: most of them worked out fine, if both spouses were willing to make the best of it. A Soul Bond however, was a lifetime commitment that could not be broken like a normal marriage. He would have to choose someone with a very good reason to try this in the first place. That didn't leave him with a lot of options. There were only three reasons someone would want to do this with him. They want to get rid of a bond themselves, they wanted to gain his talents or they just wanted to be Soul Bonded to Harry Potter.
Since most common bonds could be broken fairly easily, the only people he knew in the first category were Death Eaters. Unwilling Death Eaters, but Death Eaters nonetheless.
Harry was extremely talented on a broom, and had a lot of potential in defence, but if someone was willing to do a Soul Bond for those talents it meant they were rather pathetic themselves, and probably not someone he wanted to be bonded to. Wormtail was pathetic, but he had still an animagus form. He didn't need a god, but if he had to spend his life with someone he didn't want some paper-pusher.
The last category was the worst, giving him nightmarish visions of being married to fans like Ginny or the Creevey brothers.
Harry sighed, he could already see where this was going. He was going to be Soul Bonded to a Death Eater. He briefly wondered if there was an metamorphagus amongst the Death Eaters, since that would be an amazing skill to gain, but decided there was probably not. He could always ask Tonks, but then he would be married to a girl and that just wasn't an option. He had only recently figured out that he was gay (describing his kiss with Cho as 'wet' was a rather obvious sign), but the point of this Soul Bond was to gain his freedom, and being married to a girl was definitely not Harry's idea of freedom.
So, let's see: male, reluctant Death Eater and preferably skilled. Snape was the obvious choice, he would be perfect, but they had Issues with capital I. The whole thing with his father and the pensieve and the Occlumency lessons didn't really work in his favour. On the other hand, the man probably wanted out of his situation as much as Harry, being a double agent couldn't be fun. He would get rid of two masters and all his obligations at the same time. Hmmm this was worth thinking about...