Disclaimer: Still not mine

A/N: Thank you for your kind reviews. That there are people not only reading but also liking what my crazy mind produced made me grin for hours and motivated to write the next chapter. I hope you like it.

This chapter is now beta'ed, by the wonderful a-bit-of-madness.

Have fun reading.

On with the story

Chapter 2: Merging soul pieces

Thin pale hands with long fingers and sharp nails clutched the letter, trembling in sheer all-encompassing rage. But there was something else in his blood-red eyes, something like fear. The boy knew of his Horcruxes. If the boy knows, does Dumbledore also know? But how? His horcruxes were his most hidden secret, not even his most trusted Death Eaters knew about them.

Could the boy be right, though?

In all his research on horcruxes he'd never read about the possibility of insanity and loss of magic. Did he really cripple his magical core and magic accessibility? The few books he had found about Horcruxes talked about consequences and a price to pay, but never specified what and because he hadn't really felt different after the first one, he forgot about it.

But this was not the time to think about this. If the boy knew about his Horcruxes and possibly Albus too, they were in danger. He had to check on them. The boy mentioned the diary, perhaps he should call Lucius…

No, none of his follower really knew what he had done to become immortal. To call Lucius and inquire about the diary would be too suspicious.

Perhaps the ring…

Clenching his fist brought Voldemort back from his thoughts as looked down to the crumped letter, a passage catching his eyes. Was Harry Potter really his Horcrux? It would be truly ironic if it was true.

The quiet sound of Nagini shifting in her sleep made him glance at his familiar. The Horcrux in her deepened the familiar bond between them, enabling him to visit her mind and see through her eyes. Yes, it was quite like the connection he had with Potter. Had he managed what nobody had before?

Creating a human Horcrux…

The possibilities…

For a short moment Lord Voldemort felt smug, then his eyes went wide, and he looked at the letter again.

'a connection goes both ways'

Yes, he could use this. Voldemort drew his head back and laughed, a maniacal, sinister sound. Yes, a connection goes both ways, and he'd already used it this last school year quite satisfactorily to torment the boy.

A quick look to the window confirmed that it was still night, perhaps early morning. The boy would be still asleep.

Perfect.

Lord Voldemort sat down in the armchair in front of the fire. He searched for the connections with Nagini and Potter in his mind. Yes, they were alike, so the boy reallywas hisHorcrux. With this realization, Lord Voldemort felt a wave of possessiveness for Harry Potter.

He was his, his human Horcrux, and he must be protected.

He would have to tell his Death Eaters that he was to be brought to him – alive and unhurt.

But now he had to find out where Harry Potter was, what he knew and if Dumbledore suspected what Potter was. If he knew, he would kill the boy, or perhaps he had hoped that he, Lord Voldemort himself, would kill him if he was blind to the true nature of their connection.

Concentrating on the connection to Potter, Lord Voldemort lowered his occlumency shields and reached for the boy's mind.

A sharp pain in his scar woke Harry a few hours after sending Hedwig off with the first letter. Groaning he pressed his hand against the scar, sat up und looked around. Hedwig was in her open cage, asleep. She'd delivered it.

Harry hissed as another painful sting was felt in his scar.

Good, Tommy boy got his letter, and he was reading it. Harry had known before he even wrote the letter that Tom wouldn't like what he had to say. Therefore, the burning in his lightning bolt scar was not a surprise. He could feel the murderous rage echoing off the man while he read. Nice to know, that he still could rile him up.

A new wave of pain reminded Harry that he had to proceed to the next step of his plan. He lowered himself to the floor, cross-legged, and closed his eyes. This was the most important and most dangerous part. He could lose himself during the procedure.

Concentrating on his breathing, Harry descended into his mind.

He had done this a lot in the last weeks. First to find a way to protect his mind against Voldemort, but after studying the connection they shared, he often dwelled there and observed it. He had learned so much, not only about the connection and Voldemort, but also about his own mind.

The disastrous occlumency lesson with Snape had left him thinking he would never understand the art, but after he familiarized himself with his mind space, he now had quite strong shields.

Looking around, he found himself in a small, cosy room with an armchair in front of a large fireplace and bookshelves all around the walls. Books and boxes in various sizes and colours filled them. None of them were labelled, and there was no obvious order.

Harry sighed, everything was where it should be. He approached one of the bookshelves and took a grey box from it, then walked to the armchair and sat down with the box in his lap. Carefully, he opened the lid. A mass of red and green, not entirely solid but clearly not mist, swirled around something that looked like a wound in the shape of a lightning bolt, completely midnight black in its colour. Strings of red from the swirling mass vanished into the black wound.

Harry touched one of the strings… yes, Voldemort was furious, but he could also feel an underlying fear. Interesting, so he could still feel something besides anger. Leaving this string alone, Harry touched one of the others, this one thicker than the one connecting him with Voldemort.

The presence at the other end of the connection felt muted, there was still the ever-present anger Harry always could feel from Voldemort, but it felt more like an echo or a memory, nothing alive. Good, it wasn't Nagini. Taking a deep breath Harry reached with his magic along the string.

Whatever was at the end of the connection felt wrong, unnatural and malicious. But also, broken and lonely. As gently as he could, but with a strong and firm grab, he let his magic envelope the presence and tugged. Wherever it was anchored held tight, but Harry tugged harder and finally, after what felt like hours, it came free. A mist manifested before him, red and black colours, moving like it had a mind of its own.

Closing the box and setting it aside, Harry rose from the armchair. A quick glance to the middle of the room, confirmed that the basin he needed was there. His magic still enveloping the mist, Harry directed it to the basin. It was not filled with water, but with a grey, milky liquid. Colours drifted to the surface and sank again, forming swirls and ribbons and beautiful formations, only to diffuse and build new ones.

Harry held his breath as the mist, directed by his magic, floated above the liquid. Finger like structures rose from the liquid connecting with the mist. and with a warm breath of magic the mist was sucked into the liquid, leaving behind a surface smooth as glass.

A grin formed on Harry's lips. It was working… okay, he had been sure that he could move the soul piece in a Horcrux along the strings connecting them all to each other. But still… he had not dared to try it in fear of alerting Voldemort or Dumbledore.

But to see in practise what he only planned and studied in theory … it was… exceptional.

Harry sat back in the armchair and placed the box back in his lap. One down, four to go. Concentrating on the next string Harry reached out with his magic, to do what only he could do, reaching out from one Horcrux to the other.

In an old rundown shack a golden ring embedded with a black stone in a golden box under the floorboards shone shortly before, with something like a sigh, it cracked. The black stone rolled on the ground… and vanished.

Coming out of his mind Harry glanced at the clock. Good, not even an hour was gone. Harry got up from his position on the floor and stretched. It was draining to reach across the soul connection, freeing the pieces and bringing them to his mind. But he had managed.

A big grin formed on Harry's face.

Residing in the basin in his mind were now the soul piece from the diary- which had lashed itself to Harry after he had destroyed its original container- and five other pieces he had collected in the last hour. The pieces in the basin had merged together and Harry now had nearly the whole soul of Lord Voldemort aka Tom Riddle in his possession. Only three pieces were missing- the one in Harry himself, the one in Nagini and the one in Voldemort's body. He wouldn't call it the main piece because it was even smaller than the one residing in Harry, perhaps original or dominant would be an appropriate term.

A piercing pain in his scar brought Harry back to the matters at hand. He sat back and entered his mind space again.

Back in the cosy room, Harry checked the box with the red and green mass swirling around the black lightning wound. Only three strings were left, and the one connecting himself with Voldemort shone in a malicious red light.

Ah, Voldemort had opened the connection on his side. Harry smirked. Perfect, exactly what he wanted- an invitation. He only had to act fast enough, before Voldemort could invade his mind, and for what Harry wanted to do, he needed the occlumency shields down on both sides.

Taking a deep breath, Harry placed the box at the edge of the basin, then he reached out with his magic and wrapped it around the grey liquid, lifting it out. It looked a little bit like one of Trelawney's crystal spheres. Then he lifted the red and green mass with the black lightning bolt wound in the centre out of the box and positioned it under the liquid ball representing Voldemort's soul.

Outside of his mindscape he felt the sweat forming in his forehead.

Inside, Harry slowly brought the liquid and the black lightning bolt wound nearer to each other. The moment they connected a bright light flashed and Harry had to close his eyes.

Shaking from the strain on his magic he directed the soul liquid to the strand connecting himself with Voldemort. Immediately, the soul began to fight against his constraints and Harry led it along the connection through the black wound and then opened his tight grip, letting the soul find its own way.

The backlash of emotions coming through the connection when the big soul piece reached, connected and merged with the piece in Voldemort's body spoke of joy and happiness, but also sadness because they were still not whole. The magic backslash threw Harry from his mind and into unconsciousness.

At Malfoy Manor Lord Voldemort screamed as the pieces of his soul came back through the connection with Potter and merged with the small piece left in his body. With it came a rush of emotions and revelations and a surge in his magic, that overtaxed his mind. Crumpling in his armchair, Lord Voldemort fell into blissful darkness.

A/N: Thank you for reading. Please review and let me know what you think.

Many thanks to a-bit-of-madness for helping to improve my spelling and grammar.

First published: 8th of March 2018

Last edited: 23th of October 2018