Chapter 36: The Giving Tree
Sorry about the delay. I've been so busy preparing for school to start. Now that it has, I have more free time. I'll have the rest of the story up soon enough.
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Silver along the ceiling, catching in the light in such a way that it seemed to move like it was molten. The more Harry stared, the more he wondered if it was really liquid, and the more he assured himself that it couldn't be. It's an optical illusion, he thought. It seems to be one thing, but it really isn't. Like a horcrux seems to be a cheat on death, but it really isn't.
He'd been laying there on the floor next to Tom's body since yesterday. No one had tried to get him to do anything but talk, which he did. He wasn't sure how much time had passed, but he had seen Gemini fall asleep beside him and wake up, so the night had probably passed. Sometime last night, James had sent a patronus to Draco and he had taken the Potter children home. James had come closer to understanding, he thought. And Lily and Albus had gotten further from it.
He knew he should probably do something. He had to feed Gemini or the poor boy was going to starve. Gemini surely wasn't going to feed himself as long as Harry remained in that spot. But when the thought of moving came to his mind, it was as if his body would not respond.
Harry had never pegged himself as the dramatic depression type. He had always been the angry/angst type, ready to fight anyone and everyone. He didn't feel like fighting. He felt like laying there on the floor for forever, until he himself died and became a corpse, just like the body that was beside him.
But then Gemini would, too, he thought.
Gemini laid at Harry's other side, staring up at the same ceiling. He wondered what color Gemini's eyes were. He wondered what Gemini was thinking, and if he shared the thought that Harry was a failure.
If he couldn't bring Tom back, what would happen to Gemini? Harry couldn't let him go back to that orphanage. Not after all they had been through in the past few weeks. That would be like letting an eleven-year-old Harry return to the Dursleys' house so that he could face worse neglect than he had ever felt in his life, cut off from the magical world and all the people who inhabited it. No, he wouldn't let Gemini go back there. It was what Tom would've wanted.
He's not dead, damn it! he told himself. He still lives! You have to bring him back.
I can't, another part of him thought. I don't know how.
Find out! he thought. You are one of the most powerful wizards on the planet. You have the resources. There's another way.
Harry sighed—the first sound in probably the past few hours other than his and Gemini's breathing.
But first, he thought, promise Gemini he will not return to that orphanage.
But he's got to go back, he thought reasonably. At least for the adoption process. Can't adopt a child that isn't there.
Then do not make a promise you cannot keep.
"Gemini," Harry said quietly, barely above a whisper, though he hadn't meant it to be. He supposed he hadn't spoken for a while. How long, exactly, he couldn't say. "I promise that no matter what happens, this will always be your home. Your days at the orphanage are past."
Beside him, Gemini turned his head to look at him. Harry met his eyes: navy blue lined with darker blues in it, like velvet.
This child is marvelous, he thought. He deserves so much more from life.
"Thank you, Mr. Potter," Gemini replied softly.
Once more, Harry sighed, readying himself again. "Are you ready to try again?" he asked, a bit more control in his volume.
"Try what again?" Gemini asked in reply. "We went through all the books about horcruxes Tom has."
Harry sat up slowly, but his eyes still went dark for a moment with blood rush and dizziness. His head hurt from the hardness of the floor, but he ignored it. "Yes, but we have an entire library. It took Tom eleven years to come back the first time he died, and twenty-two years the last time. We've only given it two days. We've got time, but the sooner we start," Harry watched as Gemini sat up, too, "the sooner he's back."
Gemini nodded. "Alright. What shall we look for, then?"
"For now?" Harry carefully stood, finding his legs weak. Still, he extended a hand to help Gemini up. "I suppose we take inventory of the subjects he's got. See where we go from there."
Gemini grabbed his hand and Harry pulled him up gracefully.
"Right then," Gemini said. "Well, we've pillaged the section on horcruxes. Next to that section is Legilimency and Dark Arts."
Harry nodded as he walked towards the table. He picked up the quill laying on the table and quickly summoned a piece of parchment. On it, be began to list out the number of bookcases, making a neatly organized table of the information.
"There are…fifteen rows with five bookcases each in them…horcruxes were on row three, case two," he said while writing.
"Legilimency was on the same case," Gemini called out. "Dark arts is in cases three and four."
"I saw history books in row four, cases two and three…" Harry was scribbling like mad. The action made him feel productive, like maybe they really were getting closer to getting Tom back.
Once he finished, he turned back to look at the isles of cases. "One of these rows has muggle books down it." Harry scanned them, trying to remember. "Was it…row ten?"
Harry walked over to the isle, his mind running fast with thoughts. He scanned the first case. "Magical Law in the Past and Present, Third Edition…" he mumbled to himself, scanning over titles. "…The Ministry of Magic: Moments of Movement in Magical Law… I'm going to say this is whole case is about Magical Law."
He heard movement and poked his head out of the isle to see Gemini rushing over to the parchment to write that down. Harry went over to the next case, and the next. "There's loads on magical creatures, especially dark ones. Oddly, most of them are by the same author, Newt Scamander." Harry's eyes continued to scan and skim. "Cases two, three, and four are all magical creatures. Case five is all about…snakes? Of all different kinds, magical and not." Harry chuckled to himself. "What a Slytherin," he muttered.
"What was that?" Gemini asked.
"I'm moving on to isle nine!" he replied, making his way around the last case of isle ten and into isle nine.
Looking over these books, it seemed difficult to pin point one subject on them, as they covered many subjects. After a moment, Harry found the commonality between them all.
"Case five is all How-To books! Everything from surviving in the wild to playing the piano. Hm." Harry wondered for a moment if Tom had ever read that book on playing the piano, or if he just owned it because he eventually wanted to play it.
He moved onto the next case and smiled seeing familiar names amongst the authors. "Edmund Spencer, Emily Dickenson, Lord Tennyson…" he chuckled even more as he skimmed over the lower shelves. "Alice in Wonderland? Charlie and the Chocolate Factory? Oh Merlin, poetry and children's books."
As he went along, he only continued to be surprised by what he found. "Muggle Non-fiction? There's Shakespeare…a whole case dedicated to him! Classic muggle novels…" Harry touched a few titles he knew, from 1984 to Pride and Prejudice to The Lord of the Rings.
Harry had just found Tom's guilty pleasure, hadn't he? Muggle books of all kinds.
Turning his head, he called to Gemini, "All of isle nine is muggle books!" only to find that Gemini was standing right beside him. "Oh."
"Is it really all muggle books?" Gemini had a sort of astonished half smile on his face as he stared at all the books.
"It is," Harry said, stepping back and marveling at it, too. That was something the three of them shared: an insight into the muggle world most others did not have. They spent warm summer days inside while everyone else played. Tom copied words from the dictionary, both as a punishment and as an effort to learn new ways to say things. Harry snuck off with Shakespeare books—the only type of book his aunt and uncle owned that wasn't entirely pictures—to his cupboard in hopes to escape the world for just a moment.
"What sorts of books did they let you have at the orphanage, Gemini?" Harry asked quietly, unsure if the subject was one Gemini wanted to discuss.
"Either really complex ones or incredibly childish ones. Not much in between," Gemini said, running his hands over the book spines in the fourth case. "Lots of these ones, actually." Gemini smiled somberly as he pulled one out, cover bright green like it was colored with child's paint.
Harry stepped closer to inspect it. "The Giving Tree?" Harry had never heard of that book before, or the author. "By Shel Silverstein. Never heard of him."
"He's American," Gemini whispered as he opened the book carefully, as if it might fall apart in his hands. "This is the one they would read us when parents came in to look at adopting."
Once inside the book, there was no color but the whiteness of the page, the black lines of sketches and printed words.
"What's it about?" Harry asked.
"Well," Gemini a bit louder than earlier. "There's this tree who loves this boy who always spends time with it, eating its apples, climbing its branches. And the boy loves the tree. But one day, he stops coming to play. Much later, he comes back, grown up a bit. The tree offers itself for the boy to play on, but all he wants is money. The tree offers for him to take all its apples and sell them in the city to make money so he can be happy. He does. He's gone for a long time again. Then he comes back one day. The tree offers again for him to play on it, but he just wants a house so he can have a family. The tree offers its branches for him to build a house so he can be happy, and he builds one, and is gone again for a long time. Then, the he comes back again and says he wants a boat to get away from everything. The tree offers for him to cut down its trunk and make a boat so he can be happy. He does, and is gone again. Then, he comes back an old man. The tree stump is sad because it doesn't have anything to offer to him to make him happy, but he just says he is tired and wants a place to sit. The stump offers for him to sit on it, and he does. It ends saying the tree was happy."
Harry's brows furrowed as he let the story sink in a moment. After he thought about it, he realized he was no closer to the meaning. "What?" he said lamely.
"The ladies at the center used to tell us they were the Giving Tree, and that we could come to them for anything and that they would provide it if it would make us happy." Gemini scoffed. "It was just a show for the prospective parents. That doesn't even make sense for them to say, if you think about it. The boy is never happy, even after he has all these things he thought he wanted. The only time the book says he is happy is when he is a child, playing on the tree."
Gemini closed the book and put it back onto the shelf.
Suddenly, Harry thought maybe he understood it a bit better. "Yeah. Life's a lot like that. Everyone is always looking to be happy. Material things and people are never enough," he said, thinking back to his life. He thought he would be happy before, many times in his life, like there was some formula to reach it, and he had all the variables. Of course, he hadn't had a happy childhood, so maybe he wasn't like the boy, after all.
Gemini took in a deep breath. "I guess we should be looking around the dark arts section? Surely something in there could help Tom."
Harry nodded. "Yeah, let's look there."
Gemini and Harry walked out of isle nine of the library and into isle three, where over half a bookcase was still empty.
"I'll look in case one," he told Gemini. "You take three. Then if we don't find anything, we'll look at four and five."
Without another word, Gemini began skimming titles and picking out books in the third bookcase while Harry did the same in the first bookcase.
The Oldest of Magic: the Mind, Body, and Soul of Wizards…The Laws of the Soul…The Sun and the Soul… Harry read. "Soul magic?" he whispered to himself. He grabbed the three books from the shelf and continued to read: If Magic be the Light, the Soul be the Lightbulb, Soul Magic and its Repercussions, The Secret Magic of the Soul, Dark or Light: Types of Soul Magic.
These were all books that seemed could be helpful. Grabbing his wand, Harry charmed them all to follow him as he made his way back to the table. They landed nicely on a free corner of the table. With another flick of his wand, the books on horcruxes that littered the table flew back to their bookcase and placed themselves on the shelves (all out of order, likely, but Harry would worry about that later). He placed two of the books in his arms on top of the stack and opened the last one to read, parchment and quill ready to take notes.
The soul is the sense of self of the individual, residing inside the materialistic body, he read. "It serves as the memory, awareness, and individuality mindset," he said aloud, the quill writing down his words. It is supposed to remain intact and unharmed, as ripping it is considered a violation of the laws of nature.
Blah blah, yeah okay, Harry thought. He skipped to the next part.
While the human body relies on the soul to have their own unique mindsets, a torn soul is dependent on the item which encases it. That is to say, if a human dies, their soul would be able to move on beyond the Veil or return as a ghost, while if a Horcrux is destroyed, the soul within would die away and disappear. This seems different for the "main" portion of the soul that remains within the body…
I know all this, none of it matters, Harry thought with an inward skipped ahead a bit once more.
Any portion of a soul that has been torn and stored away externally can gain a sense of sentience by sapping away the life-force of any person to come in possession of such an item, and in turn that portion of soul can gain a solid human form for itself…
Harry stopped reading. Like Ginny during second year, he thought. Tom's Diary was sapping the life from her to regain its humanity. Can a soul do that if it doesn't have magic?
"A piece of a soul that has been torn and stored away externally can gain sentience by sapping away the life-force of any person to come in possession of such an item and in turn that portion of soul can gain a solid human form for itself," Harry said to the quill behind him. He then continued reading.
While a soul cannot live without a body, of sorts, it is possible for a body to live without any soul at all so long as their heart and brain are still functioning. However, without a soul, they are left in an incurable vegetative state — they have no awareness of themselves or the world around them. The soul cannot be recovered once it has been lost. This is a fate far worse than death.
Harry skimmed the remainder of the page, which began to explain the various influences of the soul on the mind and body of a wizard. He flipped through a few pages, each one continuing on the same subject. He supposed with a title like The Oldest Magic: The Mind, Body, and Soul of Wizards that the topic likely spanned the rest of the book. He went to the end of the book, searching for an index. He had no such luck in finding one. Instead, he went to the bibliography, finding a few of the old horcrux books he had already read through, but nothing else of much merit. He set the book aside and moved onto the next book: The Laws of the Soul.
The beginning of the book was incredibly similar to the last he had just read, explaining the inner workings of the soul and the body. He supposed that made sense, considering the soul was complex and such background knowledge was a necessary foundation. He skipped ahead a bit, past where the book explained about the types of soul magic and which are harmful to, helpful to, or indifferent to the state of the soul as a whole. He picked up at the first real chapter afterwards, discussing the first "law" of the soul, since each chapter seemed to be a law.
The Law of One Soul per Body, Harry read. A single body usually cannot host more than one sentient soul without taking a heavy toll. Many wizards in the past have attempted to tie their soul or soul pieces to animal hosts. These animals had their lifespan drastically reduced. Human hosts, however, are more likely to last as a successful container, as they are able to apply measures to prevent their body from decaying/dying at a much more rapid pace. Wizarding hosts are preferable to muggle hosts, for their obvious ability to do magic and access to magical creatures. A typical remedy to a body holding more than one soul is drinking Unicorn blood to sustain the body's ailing health, although there are potions in existence which may mimic the temporary healing abilities of unicorn blood, since the death of a unicorn is thought to be a curse upon the murderer. More powerful types of soul magic may be used to placate the other soul(s) inhibiting the body so that one soul may have full control of it, though this type of magic is thought to harm the body even further.
In recent years, dark wizards have found mysterious ways to manipulate soul magic beyond what was once thought possible, though they have not shared their secrets. These secrets hold the key to the breaking of the first and most important rule in this book. Without these secrets, any witch or wizard attempting to place a full soul into a body of any sort will find themselves reenacting the life—and death—of the greatest soul magician of all time. Sir Terrenford Stanley was born…
Harry huffed. He thought he was getting somewhere with this book. He had a portion of some other soul inside his body that he needed to remove. It was possible the chapter discussed it after the story, right? He flipped a few pages ahead.
Just after the spell was a success, Stanley recorded an odd feeling he felt in his head, as if he were about to-
Harry skipped ahead further until his eyes caught the word "muggle" on a page he was about to pass.
Of course, wizards like Mr. Doogle often find that there is so much about the soul the Wizarding world has yet to understand, and here is why: wizarding souls are still capable of magic; the simplest form of legilimency is possible between the souls of the wizard and soul of the host body. Muggles, on the other hand, would not be able to perform any such magic on the occation that wizards in the past turned muggles into horcruxes—and there have been plenty. For example, a wizard who placed a horcrux inside the muggle King of France, only to find that he was later beheaded during a revolution. The wizard has a telepathic link with that muggle. When wizards in the past turned themselves into horcruxes for muggles—which is a considerably smaller amount—they still have a telepathic link with that muggle.
In the case of Mr. Doogle, he found that he was able to communicate telepathically with the piece of his muggle wife's soul that he placed inside himself until the death of her body. Many suspected his wife of being a witch during her lifetime, but frequent testing revealed for certain that she was not. They also confirmed that Mr. Doogle was not the one performing the magic to be able to communicate with his wife. This is a phenomena many wizards have not been able to understand. If muggle souls are not capable of magic, let alone legilimency, how is it possible for them to have a magical telepathy with wizards? Is the soul magical in itself, no matter its host body? This question bring us to our next law: The Law of a Healthy, Stable Soul.
Harry sat back in his chair astounded. This book explained why he couldn't hear Tom in his mind anymore. He hadn't realized that Tom shouldn't have been able to communicate with him through their mind connection in the first place because he didn't have magic. Surely, Tom knew that, of course. Had he read this book? Or had it been one of the ones he owned but hadn't gotten to, yet?
He held a finger to the page he was on and closed the book around it to inspect the cover. The spine was slightly worn in the section he was at as well as a section towards the middle of the book. He assumed that meant Tom had that section open for a while if the book was new when he got it. It seemed to be written fairly recently, as opposed to some of the ones on horcruxes Harry had read.
Just as Harry had been about to open the book back up where he had left off, a thought occurred to him. There was a reason that other section was worn at the spine: it had also been read.
Harry flipped the pages, looking for the section worn at the spine. When he reached it, he began to read.
The Law of Fixing a Damaged Soul. Of course, just as a soul is able to break, it is able to mend. Often, time and emotions are best to heal the soul, but magic can be helpful as a quick fix for small things. While the splitting of a soul is unable to be healed by magical means—only true remorse may heal it—something simple as magical over exhaustion is easily remedied by magic. However, it is not usually the magic itself doing the healing, but the magic prompting the body to heal itself. Healing of a soul is, as such, not possible if the soul is not connected to a body which may heal it.
Many wizards have theorized that a body with multiple souls in it is under a great amount of stress in attempting to care for more than one soul at a time. Any other stress in the body may cause the souls to lash out, even if they have been placated. In muggles, this is usually causes symptoms of the muggle disorder schizophrenia, usually involving multiple voices present in the affected muggle's head, behavioral issues, inappropriate emotional responses, or delusions. In wizards, this may be unintended magic that affects their surroundings.
Well that explains Gemini's magic, Harry thought. Thomas's potion, mixed with Amayra's, pushed all those souls into Gemini's body. Even if they weren't destroying his body normally, they took a toll on him when he was put under incredible emotional stress. It made sense.
"Multiple souls in the body of a wizard, page 54 of The Laws of a Soul," he said to the quill before he continued reading.
No doubt, there are several forms of dark magic that attempt to heal one soul with another's—which I refuse to cover in this book. No matter how broken or damaged the soul is, the energy from a soul is the most powerful in the world, and would fix even the most mangled of messes. However, once the energy of a soul is used up, the soul dies, meaning the soul which did the healing is not able to recover. As such, proper wizards never use such methods, though proper methods will only heal souls which have been used properly. Once dark magic has touched a soul, proper methods will never quite do it well.
This is it, Harry thought. We need to heal his soul with another one. Instead of feeling hopeful, as stomach grow heavy. Of course he had to kill someone else to bring Tom back. What had he been expecting? He sighed and closed the book.
"What's wrong, Mr. Potter?"
Harry met Gemini's eyes, whose amber eyes held much concern.
"I know how to bring Tom back," he said, "but it's not going to be pretty."
Gemini set down the book he had been skimming through, his eyes turning a deep brown, and his face seeming developing lines of age than should be possible for such a young child. "What is it?"
"Well," Harry began, "I know that I can't communicate with Tom's soul now because he doesn't have magic. There is still a piece of his soul inside me, but it's broken beyond normal repair. Because his soul isn't magic, it can't inhabit another body, which would be able to heal it. I suppose my body is up-keeping it, for now, but it is just a piece. For him to have a proper soul, it needs to be fixed. The best way to fix it completely is for it to drain another soul."
Gemini nodded, his expression surprisingly calm. Not at all the confused and/or saddened expression Harry had expected.
"So, are we going to take someone's soul, or are we going to let him be dead?" he asked quietly, his tone a bit deeper, more serious than Harry had ever heard it.
Harry, who was about to answer the latter, took a moment to really look at Gemini. His eyes were so dark brown, it was difficult to see if they weren't black. His face was hardened, his jaw strong and set. He's ready to do it, Harry thought. He would take a life for Tom. Maybe Gemini would have reservations about taking the life of just anyone, but he would have no problems taking the soul of someone terrible, much like Tom had taken the life of that criminal to make the horcrux. He was surprised Gemini hadn't minded about who they had killed to do so, but he knew now, thanks to the lengthy explanation Harry had given to James. Maybe Gemini felt just as connected to Tom as Harry did. Enough to die for them. Enough to kill for them. It all felt the same, in the end.
"I don't know whose soul we would use," Harry replied softly. "Obviously we don't want to take just anyone's. The soul dies after we use it, and although the body doesn't die afterwards, it will want to."
"Does it have to be a human soul?" Gemini asked. "A wizard soul? Or is it possible to use an animal's soul?"
Harry thought a moment. "I would assume it had to be a human soul, otherwise fixing a soul would be easy. The soul gives the body a sense of self, so I assume using an animal's soul would break even more laws of nature than we have already. We don't want Tom to think he's a chicken, or something equally as horrid."
Gemini was quiet for a while, and so was Harry. He couldn't believe they were discussing this, but did they have a choice? They had to bring Tom back. It seemed like the only option in his heart. Who was Harry without Tom? One part of a two-part mind. Half a whole person. A body without a soul. And what was Tom without Harry?
A father to be, he thought, looking at Gemini. More knowledgeable and more real than anyone I've ever known. Someone with a past to overcome. Someone who died fighting a fight meant for Harry, who was too angry at the time to actually bring down Thomas himself. Really, he should be the one alive right now. Gemini needed him. But who needed Harry? Surely his days as a hero were numbered…
"I'll give my soul," Harry said, barely a whisper.
For a moment, nothing was said, the air was quiet around them.
"What?" Gemini said loudly, his brown eyes lightening up to an orange.
"I said I'll give my soul," Harry said louder. He meant it. Guilt ate at him now, just as it had for every person who died before. Harry was responsible.
Gemini's eyes flashed bright yellow, then went back to orange. "That's what I thought you said. And no, no you won't."
Harry nodded. "Gemini, I'm not sure you understand bu-"
"No." Gemini stood from the table, shoulders straight and tense. "No. That isn't an option."
"It's for the best," Harry said, trying to argue, though his mind was already made up.
Gemini's orange eyes faded into red. "Would you let me give my soul for Tom? No! So I won't let you give yours. You aren't dying, Mr. Potter." Gemini took a deep breath and let it out slowly. When he opened his eyes, they were his normal color: one blue, one brown. "Besides, if we can't move Tom's soul out of your body, how are we to ensure that you don't die before Tom's fully heals? What would a piece of a soul do without a body?"
"Die," Harry answered.
"Exactly," Gemini replied. "It has to be someone else. We're not risking killing both of you in one move."
Harry nodded. Damn, that made sense. Harry wasn't sure his option was best, anymore. In fact, it seemed worse. So if not Harry's soul, then whose?
"We should look for the spell to do it before we pick a soul," Harry said. "This book mentioned it, but didn't cover it wholly. It's likely in one of the dark arts books you have. These books seem to be focused on the theory of soul magic, not the practice of it."
"There was one in one of the horcrux books, wasn't there?" Gemini asked, picking up one of the many pieces of parchment Harry had notes on. He picked up a few more before he found what he was looking for. "Draining for a horcrux?"
Harry nodded. "Alright. Then I suppose we have more information than I thought." He sighed. He didn't want to take someone's life for this.
"Well then, what other notes do we have?" Gemini started glancing over pieces of parchment, though Harry wasn't sure of what he was looking for. "What've you found on souls? Knowing about how they work is probably good for this process."
Without thinking, Harry handed him the piece of parchment from the air, letting the quill fall to the table, splashing a bit of ink on it.
Gemini scanned over the page, his brows furrowing has he neared the end. "What does this bit about multiple souls have to do with Tom? You didn't put what it said, only how to find it."
"Oh, that's actually about you," Harry said, the words leaving his mouth before he had the thought of stopping them.
"About me?" Gemini asked.
The realization hit Harry hard, making him a bit dizzy. Was Gemini the answer?
"It, uh…" Harry looked away from Gemini to the floor. Surely it would be a bad idea, right? How could they differentiate the other souls from Gemini's? Especially if they had been turned into an extension of Gemini's magic after all these years?
"What about me?" Gemini asked again, eyes going yellow.
"The book-" Harry said, gesturing at the book on the table before him. Before he could say another word, it was in Gemini's hands.
Gemini flipped back whole chapters until he found the right page. He read for a while, and Harry watched as his eyes went from one side to the other calmly, but rapidly. Likely faster than Harry cold read. It was only when his eyes started getting brighter did Harry realize he had found the part.
Gemini set the book down carefully on the table, looking off into the air before him.
"The people Thomas killed…he took their souls. He gave those souls to my mother to try and fix her, but when she took that other potion…they went to me."
"The souls didn't die off. Your mother was still sick after taking the potions," Harry said softly, letting Gemini know what Thomas had told him and what he could guess from what he now knew about souls. "They must made the souls weak enough so that they blended into your mother's, but they were still there. After finding out what Thomas had been doing, he told us that she tried to kill him…maybe that was the magic from them, like the power you have. Thomas said it was supposed to kill you, too. Maybe the reversal potion she took…maybe her soul is in there with all the others."
The corners of Gemini's mouth turned down and his lips pressed together. Was he trying to hold it in? Harry wasn't sure because his bright blue eyes gave him away.
"She died for me…" Gemini said softly. "She gave me life and magic…until she herself was nothing…" He was quiet a moment, a silent tear falling down his face. "Like the Giving Tree."
Harry said nothing, worrying about Gemini's next line of thought.
After a long moment, Gemini nodded, though Harry wasn't sure of why.
"I won't die," he said. "I wanna give Tom one of the souls inside of me."