Author's Note: Harry kept Voldemort's soul inside him for seventeen years. There should have been consequences to losing it.
It took him a long time to realize the truth.
He didn't actually love Ginny Weasley, but Ginny loved him so much and he'd grown used to her. She was to him, the easiest option. She was one of the reasons why he was able to cope despite the horrors that they had to go through during the war and even before that.
It's not as if he completely got over them – all the people that died for him, and all the people that died because of him. He was no saint, despite the popular belief.
She was the balm to his many wounds.
Harry supposed, it was partly because of him. It was all because of Tom Riddle.
No one else apart from him had been more exposed to Tom Riddle's soul. Harry thought it made her stronger in a way that he never was. While the sliver of the soul he once held brought out his more violent aspects, it wasn't the Diary… The diary was the only horcrux that had the ability to talk to the people it possessed. Unlike her, he was not exposed to his manipulations, lies, and companionship.
Ginny had that all and she survived because Harry saved her. She chose him and Harry had no other choice but her.
No one else would understand what it felt like.
He sometimes pitied Voldemort for dying so pathetically. He claimed to be the greatest dark lord of all time, and in a way he was – with the almost unanimous support he had with the dark wizarding families of Great Britain who were all ready to die for his cause… it was just pathetic that he was defeated by him, a mere baby, then a mere student…
The greatest dark lord defeated by a bunch of students.
It was wasted potential. Voldemort had the power at one point – to change all the wrongs that he claimed there was in the wizarding world. He promised everyone illusions of grandeur for the betterment of their kind. He once listened to the drivel Draco once gave him, and other than the blatant oppression of the muggleborns, it wasn't so bad. It's just as if Voldemort got derailed and started becoming trigger happy killing people left and right. Instead of becoming a revolutionary, he fell to the likes of a mere terrorist – just like his dead deranged lieutenant.
Bellatrix Black. A devoted follower – devoted enough that they had a child together. The child who, in the hopes of meeting her parents, ended up getting tossed to prison. Harry sighed.
Perhaps, the reason why Bellatrix hated him so much was because Harry held all of Voldemort's attention despite all her efforts. The man was obsessed with him and it ultimately lead to his demise. What was one kid in comparison to all of Britain? If the Dark Lord secured his bases first, and used manipulation instead of brute force, then he wouldn't be dead or he wouldn't be dead so early.
Life after Voldemort was terribly bland, he thought. Harry was used to the adventure that every year presented, though the challenge of raising his kids was also fulfilling too in a way. He was growing older. He was a father now.
But the face on the mirror remained unchanged and yet each day added lines to hers.
.
.
.
"Morning, Harry. I hope you slept well." Her voice was like the sun, and he felt her hands down there, touching him – Eyes sparkling mirth. Hair… aflame just like his mother's. A kiss to his cheek, and then some.
Then she rolled over, sitting atop him, dress, transparent, looking flushed and eager – and so very young – like a temptress with her breasts, and pink pert nipples in front of his face, dangling, and then it was wet, and violent – heat and bliss, and all he could do was groan at how she swallowed him whole. He moaned.
"I love you. –Hah…ree"
And how does one reply to that?
"Nghh ahh- Ginny… Merlin… Ah love you –"
And Harry thought his thoughts didn't matter and all that mattered was this intense feeling of pleasure, like waves upon waves. Never ending. He could lose himself to this, and fuck her until she was could barely breathe. He wanted to sink into her – be inside her, ramming pulling out then pushing back in, the wet noises of slapping flesh like a symphony. Turned her over and began plowing into that tight wet little hole, raising her legs up high and making her scream in just the right way, till the red on her cheeks bled to red, breaking her open-savagely almost wanting to claw into her chest until they were one and "Ginny!" until he didn't feel sofuckingalone.
Then it was gone and she left it feeling emptier than before. As if every drop taken from him was a loss.
And why did it feel this way, Harry? Do you know why it feels so…
…empty?
Harry fingered the gold locket.
Ginny heard his voice in her head.
It was a figment of her imagination and it was something that healers could never take away. It always taunted her with how she had all she wanted but it was never enough.
So what? It was just an imagined voice... but it was still there like a stain on the pure white of her mind.
Like a parasite.
Her love was justified. She knew why she was with Harry. She had a crush on him since she was small, and it evolved to a burning desire that could not be satisfied by anyone else but him. She tried and god she tried.
She knew her feelings were genuine but sometimes she pondered about the thin line between love and hate. She thought of him the parasite.
It was in her first year that she first experienced emotions alien to hers. What kind of school lets monsters in their school and expects their victims to heal in just couple of pepper ups and hugs?
But sometimes she missed her best friend. The friend in her pocket that was the parasite in her head.
In that moment where her soul was being consumed and she was nothing but a husk, she felt what Tom felt and for a moment, they were one entity. 'And is this how Harry felt?' Like a film covered their eyes and rendered the world dull and grey where the only thought was of greed, and power – and the knowledge that they loved Harry but Harry Potter was their prey and Harry would die by Tom Riddle's hand and his alone. The excitement, the thrill – the feeling of utter euphoria when the boy finally arrived to see her body lying on the ground dead and he was alive. Joy in seeing the confusion, revulsion, hate. Toe curling pleasure that her machinations worked out and he would have him and see his pretty green eyes turn red as he savaged his body with the sweetest torture.
An eleven year old can only handle so much.
For months later, she felt the same bloodlust every time Harry was around, but soon, her feelings of love came back.
But what if Tom Riddle loved Harry Potter too? What if the subconscious part of him knew they were one and the same? What if the feeling of love wasn't hers alone and Tom loved him too? What if that feeling of wanting to savage him was similar to how she wanted to fuck Harry like a cat in heat?
How could someone be so obsessed – so dedicated with murdering just this one person and not feel anything else? She felt the chase was perverted, and sick because was it truly just hate? What if Voldemort knew that Harry held his soul and had it since he was a year old? What if he began to treasure him just like Nagini? Keep him in a box and treat him as if he was the most precious thing on earth?
'You only love him because I did. That's the sad truth, Ginny.'
Would that have changed things? Would she be sharing Harry Potter's bed? Would they have kids if he knew?
She sometimes had dreams of how Tom Riddle would taunt her, of how he would take her husband away because he truly didn't love her and loved him instead. That Harry Potter was just as obsessed – in love – with him…
It's not as if she didn't see the locket that Harry had taken to wearing, and something inside her would just close up because she didn't want to find out the truth. It was as if all the voice got locked somewhere inside her throat and no matter how she forced them out, it was just a ball of pain and anger.
She was happy enough pretending that everything was alright.
It was okay even if Harry still had nightmares of him.
It was okay when he says his name unconsciously at night, while he's asleep and pressed up against her.
She loved him enough and she had him when no one else could have.
Harry Potter belonged to her. He was her happy ending.
The obsession didn't truly stop. Trinkets that once housed the souls of the dark lord were collected.
As Ginny watched Harry metaphorically begin to claw at his chest for something that wasn't there, surrounding himself with familiar things that once housed his soul, she felt heart broken. Because really.
'Am I not enough?'
She felt as if Harry was cheating on him, although he wasn't because… cheating meant the person had to be in a sexual relationship with another person right? Cheating was when somebody lies to your face, tells you that you're the only one but sees someone behind your back.
And she can only watch him smile, and tell her the logical reasons why it's okay to have a shrine built dedicated for him. "Because in the end, he's still human. I'm doing something for him that no one else would do. It's a waste of priceless artifacts if we just destroy them. People would look at this collection, and remember him… how I defeated him. It would be a testament as to how someone who had so much promise can be corrupted by using the dark arts. The money would go those who lost their family during the war. It's a good thing, Ginny."
Good Fucking Thing.
"Alright, Harry."
It was a shrine that exposed who Voldemort truly was. A half-blood orphan boy who was born from a witch's unrequited love. His story recounted having had to live through the muggle war, anecdotes of the professors… books that recounted his life, something that Harry avoided knowing until now. It painted him human. He was a monster. He had to remain a monster but Harry spared no secrets and no lies for him.
'What could be the reason Ginny? Why do you think he's so obsessed with collecting pieces of me?'
It hurts all the same, but she nods along and pretends it's okay. She likes to daydream that Voldemort hated her the most, because the dead could never have the living and Harry Potter – Harry Potter was hers.
There was another ring on his finger.
He was looking up at it. He laid in the forest where he first thought he was dead and he was looking up at the stars with his hands reaching up to it. The ring reflected the light of the moon. It was never meant to be apart from him. He was its master after all.
It called out just like the others. Like the wand in his pocket, like the cloak by his feet.
He knew someone was watching. He knew she was there somewhere, the constant presence in his life. But she could not come to him, no matter how much she tries to push herself through the invisible wall. She can watch him for all he cared.
She broke her promise and told everyone and that hurt because he trusted her. Any moment, his friends would come and ask him questions he had no answers to. They would worry, and he would feel immense guilt, more than what's already been eating him up. But… if you've been pushed to the edge of a cliff and there was no way out… would you rather be pushed or just…?
Jump?
Perhaps she was just as sick as he was. It felt like a curse upon him. He was the drowning man who couldn't ever drink a drop of water. It felt empty enough and it hardly made sense. How things that were once satisfying could become meaningless, an endless repetition of the day before and the next.
His existence was already… meaningless.
And she held on to his threads and tried to keep him stitched together – in just the way she wanted and just the way everyone wanted. Like a puppet on strings for their own peace of mind and not his.
No more.
A few turns here and there, and a shimmering presence descended to hover atop of him, the perfectly sculpted face of his once enemy before he turned into a monster. A hand pressed almost lovingly against his cheek.
It was so cold but he felt warm.
"You finally called me."
"HARRY! HARRY! Oh my god Harry! What are you thinking! Come back! Don't listen to him!"
"I waited for such a long time and you've been so good, Harry."
"Harry! Why is he there? Tell me why are you calling out to him!"
"Don't you want to be with me?"
"Why didn't you tell us Ginny? You should have told us! Let us through! Harry!"
"I do."
It was as if the voices had gone silent, pushed aside, unwanted. He only had eyes for his soul. Tom was smiling at him, his face, even though translucent was so gentle – almost loving, caring, devoted–
–and Tom was pressing ghostly lips against his, setting his heartbeat drumming into a frenzy, hissing in a language he should have forgotten, "You know the spell. Say it, Harry..."
Harry shivered, and a large sigh of relief left him because finally, he was coming home.
He smiled as he took the elder wand and pointed at his temple.
"Avada Kedavra."