He'd managed to best the crystal for the first time just the day before and, to his immense satisfaction, was able to continue doing so throughout the rest of the night prior and now had an almost 50/50 ratio of success to failure: an astounding improvement from his previous prospects. His efforts at meditation were far less fruitful, a fact which tempered the raven's glee considerably and did nothing to improve his rather poor mood.
Dependent on who was asked he could be classified as either a true Lion or a true Snake but no matter who it was they'd be forced to admit that he definitely had a handful of traits which were quite troublesome and undeniably Gryffindor. Even the ritual hadn't been able to fully change that: in actuality the case could easily be made that completing the Horcrux and stabilizing his link with Voldemort had only exacerbated the issue. His impulsiveness was now melded with a Machiavellian edge which was distinctly Riddle in flavor and his already quick temper had been shortened yet further.
Harry Potter had never been a person capable of emptying out his mind and calming his thoughts, and now that he was pinned somewhere between a Slytherin and a Gryffindor his racing and still slightly unfamiliar mental processes had left him even less able to focus than usual. Still, mostly out of wanting to avoid the likely prospect of having even more work aimed at 'finding himself' being piled on his shoulders-or a desire to please the Dark Wizard that he didn't want to admit to having developed-the raven had submitted himself to what he felt certain from the onset was a hopeless enterprise.
Hungry.
His wandering thoughts supplied him with an image of the treacle tart which was one of the things he loved so much about the daily meals at Hogwarts and his stomach gave a little grumble despite the fact that he'd eaten lunch-alone, once again, as the Dark Lord usual took his meals in his study so that he could continue to work-not even an hour before.
Feels warm.
At current he was sitting in the library on a cushion which belonged to one of the surrounding couches with his back facing the massive windows. Basking in the bright light of the Mid-July sun as he pretended to do his assigned meditation. He had little doubt that Nagini was in the room with him as well, undoubtedly not far away and curled up asleep in the warm rays. Speaking of sleep…
Tired.
The cushion underneath him was more than soft enough to allow him to still be comfortable despite his rather stiff position sitting on the floor, and the sun on his back and in his hair felt marvelous. Harry's wandering mind gradually began to slow, becoming more and more sluggish until his posture slipped sideways his eyes fell closed and his glasses slid off of his face and onto the floor with a quiet click of wire on wood. The raven felt suddenly boneless and light as he began to drift away into the soft embrace of darkness. Floating downwards through a column of velvet black for what seemed like an eternity before coming to a stop.
Harry found himself lying on his back atop the uneven stone top of a jagged cliff, the sheer face of it descending with dizzying suddenness into a bottomless abyss of twitching shadows across which rose another cliff-face of death pale stone.
"Welcome to the shimmering expanse of the subconscious." A warped and hissing voice sounded from behind him, prompting the raven to whirl around. The speaker lounged on a velvet daybed which seemed wildly out of place amidst the otherwise savage and sparse surroundings of black rock, grinning at him with a mouth filled with sharp teeth. "Do mind the gap."
"Gap?" Harry repeated dumbly, staring blankly as the speaker rose fluidly from his seat and began to walk towards him. Dripping with the Dark Lord's grace and with Voldemort's eyes set into his face, the stranger who was now languidly approaching him was otherwise a carbon copy of his own reflection clad in a robe of crimson silk. The warped tone was caused by the clashing timbres of Harry's voice and that of Tom Riddle's and the constant dry hissing which underlined each word issued from the living serpent which extended from the base of its spine like a tail, hood fanned out and emblazoned with what was unmistakably the Dark Mark.
The shadow stretching from its feet was, Harry noticed, far from Human.
A single finger-looking as if it would have been perfectly at home attached to his own hand but tipped in a familiar talon-extended outwards to indicate the death-drop behind him.
"That, there behind you. I've been here for quite a while now and, to my knowledge, that's bottomless. I'm not sure what affect the main consciousness taking a tumble down that particular chasm would have: I don't know about you, Harry, but I'd rather not die so getting too close to that is a bad idea. That," he changed the direction of the finger to indicate the opposite direction, "would also be a bad idea to wander too close to. At the moment you're here by my power, not yours, so there's a real chance you could become lost forever within your own mind if you go wandering off like a hapless fool."
"My own mind? Here by your power?"
At his evident surprise the grin stretched wider, flashing the figure's shark teeth. "I noticed your artless floundering and decided to take pity on you, Harry. Protections placed upon us aside, I don't much fancy being stuck in a living vessel which isn't much better than an inanimate object."
"So this is all about bettering your own position, is it?" the raven narrowed his green eyes but his twisted double, if anything, only become more amused.
"Of course it is. Don't tell me you expected anything different?"
No, of course he hadn't. It was a stupid thing for him to have said. "You're the Horcrux. The one that's inside of me?" the red raven answered him with an indulgent nod. "And this is, what, the edge of my mind?"
"Put simply, yes. I suppose that you could call this place that."
"And that," Harry pointed at the opposite cliff which swam out of the gloom like a pallid mood. "That's the edge of Voldemort's? This is where our link comes from?"
"The place from which thoughts and feelings arc between you like electricity and across which even full consciousness can travel. On his side, at least: our Lord can take full control of your body should he wish to, now. Just as he can the snake."
"Your name?"
The Horcrux tilted his head to the side questioningly. "My name? I do not have one. I am, after all, a Horcrux and not my own independent being." He said. "Surely you've realized this, so why ask me?"
A dull surge of pity from what remained of his former self flooded through him. "Because I need something to refer to you as out loud which wouldn't give everything away."
The serpent tail coiled around his double's chest with an attention-seeking hiss as the other regarded him. "You may call me Nihil," he finally said, "as without you, my host, that is what I am. Nothing."
"…Rather grim."
The smile became less smug. "Being a shade of what was once whole, utterly dependent upon one's container for survival, does tend to lead one to become rather existential Harry."
He had to admit that the Horcrux-Nihil-had a point. "Why do you look like that?"
"Like that?" the red raven idly stroked the serpent's glossy scales, letting its tongue taste his pale skin. "You'll have to elaborate."
"Like me."
"There are two reasons which I can think of, though I cannot be sure which is either are correct. The first being that I am little more than 1% of a soul; even though I've only been fully connected to you for a handful of weeks, I've lived within you-you, with a complete soul and quite a strong one at that-for almost 15 years now. Bleed over is to be expected, though I only appear in Human form because that is how you expect to see me. Well," red eyes strayed almost self-consciously to the serpent tail, "mostly Human is a description which would, I suppose, be more accurate."
"You mean the Diary could have-?"
"Taken another form? No. The Diary was the oldest of us and had 50% of a soul, enough-if only just-to retain an unquestionably human form. The rest of us are far less-25%, 12.5%, 6.25%, 3.12%, 1.5% and 0.78% respectively, leaving only about 0.39% of a soul actually inhabiting the main body though such matters and their consequence are of no concern to our current topic of conversation-and are there by considerably more amalgamous. My form is largely shaped by your perception of yourself. A Slytherin by rite, but a Gryffindor out of fear of your own nature."
"What are you, then?" his eyes flicked down to the shadow again; Harry could make out only that the creature was four legged and big, but it didn't look like anything he'd ever seen before.
"You want to know?" the evidentially spoiled snake tail let out a disgruntled rasp when Nihil ended his attentions. "Cast a Patronus. That will answer your question."
"You're a stag?"
"…No."
"My Patronus is a stag."
The red raven blinked owlishly at him before turning to go back to his daybed. "Now I see why you're not getting much of anywhere." He said, flopping down onto the piece of furniture with an artful effortlessness. "Your Patronus, Harry, was a stag but it isn't anymore."
"But they don't-."
"They do change but it is only rarely, and only in the wake of something profound. Like 'falling deeply in love'" clearly Nihil shared his creator's distaste for the notion if the face he pulled was any indication, "or, perhaps, undergoing dark rituals such as the one meant to transform a human into a living Horcrux." He paused to rake his eyes over the other's face before continuing "You're not Harry Potter anymore. Not completely. Nor are your Lord Voldemort. You're a new and different being forged from both and until you accept that you'll continue to subconsciously resist your own efforts to master the power I can give you."
"I'm not subconsciously-."
"You are!" The other was off of his perch and in his face so quickly he blurred, red eyes sparking as what closely resembled black smoke gathered around him, swirling agitatedly about his tensed form. "That's rather the point of my saying subconsciously: you don't realize that you're doing it you twit! If you want to move that blockage and gain full access to what being not just a living Horcrux but a living Horcrux with its own magical separate magical core allows you to do you need to embrace me."
"What-?"
"Did I stutter? Are large words too big for you? Perhaps I'm speaking in a foreign language without realizing it, or maybe your comprehension of English isn't as sound as would seem. Do you not know what 'embrace' means?" Nihil huffed with Harry just continued to stare at him blankly in what almost amounted to disbelief and extended his arms forwards. "This may well be a metaphor, but don't make me do all the work."
Not wanting to really think too much about the fact that he was about to do what amounted to hugging himself nor to remain in the strange off-kilter landscape any longer than he had to Harry closed the distance between them. He barely registered their contact before waking with a startled jolt to find himself staring into a pair of amber eyes.
"Nagini?" He questioned sleepily.
"You toppled over without warning and went to sleep, brother. Master wanted you working, not napping and it's been almost an hour since it happened so I think I've let you doze for long enough."
"I, uh, wasn't sleeping." Harry said, pushing himself up into a much more dignified position as the serpent began making her way back to her favorite sunbathing spot. At least he didn't think that he had been. Then again, he could distinctly recall feeling quite drowsy just before finding himself face to face with Nihil. "Master had to step out around 20 minutes ago so he is no longer here, though I can send him to you when he returns. Why?"
"Because," he said as he bolted for the door, "I think I've made progress."
Harry was down the hall and back in his bedroom before she could respond, ripping open the doors of his wardrobe and posting himself in front of the mirror. It was probably better that Voldemort was out at the time, though he could return to the manor at any moment. It gave Harry time to actually produce something before running to the Dark Wizard with news.
His own green eyes glared back at him from the mirror with a look of pointed determination as he reached back into himself. Searching out the faint wisps of shadow which marked where the Horcrux rested. Struggling to grasp at the power Nihil had dangled in front of him, blind and groping in the dark.
I am Lord Voldemort's Horcrux, not the Golden Boy. I am the Black Lion, not the Light's Savior. He leaned closer to the mirror until his nose was nearly touching the cool glass, gaze boring deep into his own eyes as if searching for something there though he wasn't quite sure what he expected to find. I am not Harry Potter as he once was any longer, nor am I Tom Riddle or Voldemort; I am neither and I am both. Still nothing. I accept this.
A black haze had begun to gather across the glass in a faint veil, at first barely detectable before rapidly darkening before reaching solid black. Then the glass shattered and tumbled to the floor. Harry, suddenly feeling completely drained, followed the mirror shards down and landed-hard-on his knees. He was shaking all over, violently, and felt as if he'd just run for miles and to his horror the gnawing hunger was back!
He felt the presence of the other man join him in the room before he spoke. "It would seem that the use of your abilities drains you of the magic you've absorbed from others." A flick of the Dark Lord's wand set the mirror back to rights. "Your powers will be of great use to us once you've learned to control them, though it will undoubtedly serve better to find you stronger cores to feed on and for you to feed more often. Can you stand?"
Unable to find the strength to speak, Harry highly doubted it but true to stubborn form he tried. His second tumble was more than answer enough for Voldemort, who hauled him upright by the scruff as if he weighed nothing at all and deposited him on the bed.
"There is much room for refinement in your abilities, though that can be done when you're no longer under the watch of Dumbledore. You will rest for the remainder of the day; a House Elf will bring you food later and we will discuss your newfound abilities later. Are my instructions understood?"
He managed a stilted nod.
"Good. Recover yourself. You're of no use to me like this." Voldemort swept from the room in a whirl of black robes moments before Harry lost consciousness.
