The Story of a Soul and a Struggle for Control
Best Laid Plans
Harry eagerly approached the gargoyle that guarded the entrance to Dumbledore's office and gave it the password, excitement thrumming in his chest. Over the last fortnight, the Headmaster had been gone from Hogwarts, and not a single member of the staff had any idea where he had disappeared to or when to expect him back.
Then, a mere day after he had finally returned Harry had received a missive requesting his presence in Dumbledore's office that very evening. It was a good sign, as far as Harry was concerned. He was quite eager to learn what Dumbledore had discovered during his absence.
His enthusiasm lasted right up until the moment in which he stepped into the office and saw, sitting in front of Dumbledore with a scowl upon his face, Harry's least favorite teacher- Severus Snape. When Snape caught sight of him, he jumped to his feet, an ugly scowl crossing his face.
"What is he doing here?" Harry and Snape both demanded at the same time, turning to Dumbledore.
"I hardly need to explain my actions to you, Potter." Snape sniffed, giving Harry a nasty look. He turned to Dumbledore. "It was my understanding that we would be discussing matters of some... delicacy. I daresay the subject matter might be too sensitive to discuss around someone as inept at protecting his mind as Potter is."
"Harry is here by my invitation, Severus." Dumbledore replied with a smile on his face, though there was a sternness beneath the lightly spoken words. "Please trust me to have considered this already. Now, please take a seat. You too, Harry. We have much to discuss."
Snape obeyed, though the tightness in his mouth showed that he was far from happy with the proceedings. Harry sat down, keeping his eyes on Snape's greasy head, amusing himself with attempting to explode it with the power of his mind.
"Excellent!" Dumbledore declared jovially once they were both seated. "Now, new information has come to light, and you both will have very important roles in the following proceedings. More important, perhaps, than you expect even now. I will need you two to work together, for the sake of the wizarding world. Are you prepared to do that?"
Harry nodded solemnly, and Snape too gave a stiff jerk of his head.
"Very well. In that case, let me explain where we now stand. Harry, you will be pleased to hear that I have located instructions to perform the ritual we had discussed."
"Ritual?" Snape questioned, his lips pursed so tightly together that the word was almost intelligible. It was as if it were physically painful for him to admit to any ignorance in front of Harry.
"Harry has recently given me some information which lead me to believe that a ritual might exist that could bypass Voldemort's safeguards against immortality." Dumbledore replied. "I have spent the past two weeks searching for anyone who might have information on how to perform it, and yesterday, I finally managed to find a lead.
"He was an old hermit, well known in the local village for being eccentric, and perhaps slightly dotty, but with a propensity for collecting precisely the sort of information I was interested in. It took quite a while to locate his house, and even longer to bypass the protections he had placed around it to prevent any unwanted guests from approaching. This beauty-" he rolled up the sleeve of his healthy arm to reveal a large blue and purple bruise covering half of it- "I received courtesy of his pet Hippogriff. Rather short tempered beast, much like its owner."
"Get on with it." Snape growled impatiently. Harry wondered if he was always so rude to Dumbledore or if it was just his own presence that was making Snape more foul-humored than usual.
"Very well." said Dumbledore, a bit more coolly than before. "The long and short of it is that while it cost me my wand, I managed to obtain the instructions for the ritual."
With a flourish, he whipped out a piece of parchment from on top of the tottering pile on his desk and presented it to Harry and Severus.
Harry leaned forward eagerly to read it, but slumped back a moment later in disappointment. It was written in Ancient Runes.
Snape picked the parchment up deftly and perused it. "It's dark," he said, looking up at Dumbledore "very dark." He seemed to be communicating something with his eyes to the Headmaster. Something he wasn't willing to discuss in front of Harry.
"So dark, in fact," said Dumbledore softly, "that it requires a human sacrifice."
Snape glanced sharply at Dumbledore, and then inclined his head slightly. An understanding seemed to pass between them that was all too easy for Harry to understand.
"You plan on being the sacrifice." Harry said slowly, gazing at Dumbledore incredulously.
Dumbledore inclined his head. "Severus has agreed to do the honors. But Harry, what you need to understand is-"
"No!" Harry interrupted him with a shout, jumping to his feet, "No way! Are you mad? Are you both mad?!"
He turned to Snape. "You can't do it! You know the war is doomed without him! Please, Sir!" he said, addressing Dumbledore again, "I'll do it instead. It should be me according to the prophecy. Or better yet- we can kidnap Bellatrix Lestrange and use her instead! We'd be doing the world a favor! Or Fenrir Greyback-"
"Harry!" Dumbledore raised his voice over Harry's protests, "I am going to die anyways!"
That stopped Harry short in his tracks. "What?"
Dumbledore held out his blackened hand, presenting it to Harry. "The curse will eventually spread to the rest of my body. It can only be held at bay for so long." He said gently.
Harry felt himself fall into his seat with a thump. "So... You're going to die?"
"As surely as the Chudley Cannons will finish bottom of this year's league." Dumbledore told him.
Snape looked up. "You already used that-"
"Yes, thank you, Severus." Dumbledore said, cutting him off. "Harry, do you understand now?"
Harry did understand, even if he wished he didn't. "If you're going to die anyways, you want it to be helpful in some way in the fight against Voldemort."
"Yes." Dumbledore said. "And Severus being the one to kill me will hopefully buy Voldemort's complete trust, finally. Which is why it is extremely important that Voldemort not find out that my death was planned. In any other situation, I would not risk telling you this for fear of Voldemort discovering it. It is essential to the plan, though, that you be aware of this."
"Why, Sir? Am I also part of the plan?"
"Indeed you are, Harry," Dumbledore beamed, as though he had not just shaken Harry's world and destroyed his hopes for winning the war. "You see, Severus cannot be the one to perform the ritual. While I certainly hope the ritual works, and I believe it is worth trying, I do not have complete trust in its success. Our source was not, after all, a well-known one, nor has it ever been established as trustworthy.
"We cannot risk Severus performing the ritual, since if it doesn't work, his actions will arouse Voldemort's suspicions and ruin the trust in him we've put so much work into establishing. Therefore, while Severus will be the one to kill me, you will need to be the one to collect my blood and use it in the ritual. Are you prepared to do that?"
The thought of collecting blood from Dumbledore's cooling body made Harry queasy, but he understood the importance of the task, and it far outweighed his own personal inclinations. Anyways, being the one to perform the ritual would make his plan to save Tom Riddle much easier. He nodded seriously, to show Dumbledore that he was prepared for the task.
"Excellent! In that case, I believe we are done for tonight. Harry, I will arrange a meeting with you soon during which we shall go over the ritual and make sure you know exactly what needs to be done. Goodnight Harry, Severus."
Harry left the office with Snape after wishing the headmaster a good night in return, and stepped onto the moving spiral staircase alongside Snape. Snape glared at him, obviously displeased with the need to involve his most hated student with the delicate and risky plan. He opened his mouth to speak, and Harry almost groaned. After the monumental shock of the evening's revelation he was longing for peace and quiet, and had no patience for Snape's insults and provocations.
All Snape said, though, was: "I wish to make it absolutely clear, Potter, that the information you received this evening will go no farther. Not to Miss Granger, not to Mr. Weasley, and not to anyone else who you might be misguided enough to think has any business knowing. The Headmaster wishes to involve you in some very delicate matters, and it is his prerogative, but I will be damned if I allow such risky and potentially damaging information about me to go any further."
Harry nodded, trying to assume an expression of obedience and respect. After six years of trying to kill Snape with his glares, arranging his face into a cowed expression was a struggle. But Harry did understand Snape's fear- if Voldemort discovered that Snape had known Dumbledore was dying and hadn't informed him, Snape would be as good as dead. Also, Harry didn't want to give Snape a reason to try to gauge his intentions by reading his mind.
"I won't tell anyone, Sir." He said calmly and seriously. Lying to Snape was much easier than lying to Ron and Hermione.
In the following weeks, Dumbledore instructed Harry on the intricacies of the ritual and made sure Harry could perform it perfectly. Each Latin phrase was memorized and practiced and tested by Dumbledore so often that Harry began to hear the words in his sleep.
Once Dumbledore was confident in Harry's ability to perform the ritual flawlessly, he decided it was time to act. And that was when Harry realized that the time had come to have a talk with Ron and Hermione.
He had approached them in the common room, and asked them to follow him to the boys' dormitory. They looked at each other, then followed him wordlessly. As they reached the room, Ron and Hermione sat on his bed, and looked at him expectantly as he stood in front of them.
It was only then that Harry noticed a strange sort of tension between the two of them, and realized that with all his worrying about the ritual, destroying Voldemort, and saving Tom Riddle, he had failed to keep up with the events occurring between his two best friends. Was Ron still with Lavender? Harry surprised himself with the discovery that he didn't know. Was the strange look that passed between Ron and Hermione one of resentment? Or one of mutual understanding?
"Harry, is everything alright?" Hermione prompted.
"Oh, er, yeah." he replied, deciding to ponder the Ron and Hermione question later. Or, perhaps, not at all. "It's just that Dumbledore told me that the plan is to do the ritual tomorrow."
Harry quickly glanced at the mirror by his bed to ensure that no one was listening from the other side. Then, for good measure, he cast a Muffliato. "Dumbledore thinks he knows where another Horcrux is, and he wants to go get it tomorrow. Snape is going to give us two hours to find the Horcrux before he tells Malfoy the we've left the school. We're pretty sure that Malfoy will pass the message on to Voldemort, and we're hoping that the lure of having both me and Dumbledore outside the protections of Hogwarts will be enough to get Voldemort to come to the location Snape will give. We've already set up everything for the ritual there, so once Voldemort comes the only thing left will be to perform the ritual that will hopefully get rid of him."
"I don't understand why you have to perform the ritual right after you go looking for the Horcrux." Hermione protested. "You're giving yourself a very constrictive time limit to get the Horcrux, not to mention whatever obstacles might be placed in your way could seriously tire you out. Don't you want to be well rested and alert when you finally perform the ritual?"
Good old Hermione, always so sensible. "It's because of Dumbledore. He's afraid that the defenses around the Horcrux will be very dangerous, so he doesn't want me to deal with them alone. He's afraid that the defenses will weaken him so much that, well-"
Harry paused. He wasn't sure how to break the news to his friends. "The ritual we're going to do requires a human sacrifice, and Dumbledore doesn't want to die before we have a chance to complete the ritual, so we're doing it right after we deal with the Horcrux. In case- in case whatever it is guarding the Horcrux doesn't leave him with much time to live."
"No!" Ron had jumped to his feet, face white with shock. Hermione had covered her mouth with her hands and looked close to tears.
"Harry, you can't let him-"
"Dumbledore was already fatally injured getting the last Horcrux." Harry told them dully, having by now resigned himself to these facts. "He's going to die soon anyways, there's nothing we can do. All this ritual will do is allow him to leave on his own terms, hopefully taking Voldemort along with him."
"That's- that's horrible." Hermione whispered. Her voice wobbled, but to Harry's relief she did not break into tears. "Harry, you won't have to- Well, will you have to be the one to do it?"
"No," Harry assured her, "I don't think I could be capable of it. That's Snape's job. This way, in case anything goes wrong with the ritual, Snape will still have an in with the Death Eaters. Dumbledore doesn't completely trust the source of this ritual. That's why we're still looking for Horcruxes, and that's why he's putting Snape in a position that if the ritual doesn't work he'll gain Voldemort's trust."
"And if the ritual does work?" Asked Ron.
"If it does work, then it's my job to testify in front of the Wizengamot that Snape did what he did with Dumbledore's permission. And if-" this was why he needed to let them in on the plan "if something goes wrong and I don't make it, you need to be the ones to make sure Snape doesn't go to jail for killing Dumbledore."
"Harry," Ron said slowly, "is there any reason to expect you not to make it back to us tomorrow?"
Harry gulped. "No, no reason. It's just good to have a backup plan for these sorts of things, you know? Can't have innocent people going to Azkaban. One Sirius is enough, don't you think?"
Hermione and Ron exchanged a look.
"Harry," Hermione said slowly, as if approaching a timid animal who would snarl at her and run away at any second, "we know that it's hard for you to see someone in distress and not try to help them. We also know that you must be feeling really bad about the whole Tom Riddle situation and how Dumbledore wasn't able to come up with a way to save him. But if you're thinking of doing something- something foolhardy-"
"I'm not thinking anything!" Harry yelped before she could finish talking, doth protesting too much.
"Well that's certainly true." Ron said, grinning, "But seriously, Harry. Your er, self destructive tendency to run off into danger out of a sense of duty is- is harmful to- damn it, how did you phrase it Hermione? You'd said it really well."
A horrible realization dawned on Harry. "You planned this in advance! You planned this whole conversation and prepared what you were going to say! What is this- some kind of intervention?"
"Don't be melodramatic, Harry." Hermione said, rolling her eyes. "You were the one who initiated this conversation. It's just that as your long time friends we know you well enough to, well, anticipate the sort of things you might do, and we may have discussed it between us. We do worry about you."
"Yes," Ron chimed in, "and this just seemed like a good opportunity to tell you some of the things that are on our minds. And let you know that if you are planning something stupid there are many reasons why you shouldn't do it."
"What kind of thing do you think I'm planning?" Harry asked nervously.
"Oh, I don't know exactly." Ron replied, "Only when you were talking about how Dumbledore said nothing could be done to save Tom Riddle you got that- that look in your eyes, and I suddenly had a vision of you jumping on Death and trying to stick your wand up his nose when he came for Voldemort. Or- or something like that." It would have been offensive if it weren't so accurate.
That put a wrench in Harry's plans. He had wanted to use this opportunity to say goodbye to Ron and Hermione and let them know how much their friendship had meant to him. If he tried to do any of that now, they'd know that they were right about him planning to sacrifice himself tomorrow and would try to stop him. Perhaps, instead, he should write goodbye letters and leave them for his friends to find once he was gone? Oh Merlin, Hermione was right, he was being melodramatic.
"Look," Harry finally said testily, "I'm not planning anything, but thanks for worrying about me."
"Oh, because that's convincing." Hermione said sarcastically, "because you always give us warning before you do stupidly brave-"
"Fine!" Harry said, rolling his eyes, "You know what? Hermione, you're an annoying know-it-all. Ron, I'm better than you because your family's poor. There. Now I have to come back tomorrow so I can apologize for the horrible things I've just said. Are you happy now?"
Ron gaped at Harry for a few moments before looking to Hermione for guidance. Hermione frowned at Harry suspiciously, but finally her lips twitched and she nodded.
"Thank you!" Harry exclaimed, throwing his hands up. "Now, if you don't mind, I'm off to take a shower. I'll see you later."
"Bye, Harry." Hermione said, giving him a hug, "Good luck tomorrow!"
"Yeah," Ron said, giving Harry a pat on the back, "and don't forget to apologize once you get back tomorrow."
Hermione and Ron would have been happy had they known that their conversation had caused Harry to second guess himself. When the equation had just been his life against Tom Riddle's, the answer had been obvious, but Harry had not quite taken his two best friends into account.
Harry's death would break their hearts, and the cruelty of deliberately doing that to them chilled Harry. Tom, on the other hand, would probably not be missed. At least not by anyone except for Harry himself. Not by anyone who knew and loved him.
But that was the crux of the matter, wasn't it? With all the hardships Harry had undergone in his life, he had also received the huge treasure of true friendship and love. Tom had probably never had that. Tom was perpetually lonely, trapped inside his own head, unable to interact with anyone in the world save for the demon that possessed him. And yet, despite all that, despite the horror of such a situation, he remained brave and strong and defiant.
Tom deserved a chance to live, if anyone ever did, and that was why twenty four hours later, found Harry just as set on his previous path as before.
He was breathing heavily, his pants echoing in the damp cave, as he grabbed onto Dumbledore's thin and trembling arm. "Come on, Sir, just a little bit longer. We still have the ritual ahead of us."
"I can't." Dumbledore gasped, voice still raw from earlier tears, "Harry- you need to apparate us."
"Right." Harry muttered, half to himself, and gripping Dumbledore's cold arm as hard as he could, he concentrated, and turned.
To Harry's relief, once the darkness dissipated and the feeling of compression abated, he found himself and Dumbledore as expected, in a deserted field a few kilometers away from Hogsmeade. Snape was already waiting there, as was Draco Malfoy, looking even paler than usual.
Before Harry had a chance to catch his breath, Snape had already disarmed and bound Dumbledore. Harry let out an obligatory outraged exclamation of "Traitor!" and sent a halfhearted petrification spell at Snape, which Snape deflected back at Harry with ease. The red spell hit Harry, and caused him to freeze in place. Harry had cast a weak spell deliberately so that it would wear off in time for Harry's part in the evening. For the moment, though, he was unable to move.
"Go on, Draco." Snape drawled, sounding for all the world as if he were bored. "Once this is over with I will call the Dark Lord so that he may deal with Potter once and for all."
Draco raised his wand to point at Dumbledore, but even in the dim lighting of the moonlight it was obvious that his wand arm was shaking.
"Draco." Dumbledore said, "You don't have to do this. It's not too late."
Malfoy's mouth twisted uncontrollably, and for a horrible moment Harry thought he was going to cry. "That's not true!" he snarled, "I have to! I don't have a choice!"
"Severus." Dumbledore's whisper was soft but firm. "Severus, don't let him kill me. Please, Severus."
"Very well, Albus." Snape snarled, pushing Malfoy aside. "I won't. Avada Kedavra!"
There was a rushing sound and a flash of green light, and Dumbledore crumpled to the floor.
A genuine cry of anguish tore itself from Harry's throat. The knowledge of what had been coming had not made the death of his mentor any easier to watch.
Harry's sob must have signaled to Snape that the petrification spell on him was wearing off, because he pulled back his left sleeve and pressed his finger to the ugly tattoo on his forearm.
Pain exploded in Harry's head as he felt a rush of triumph that was not his own. Dimly, beyond the pain, he heard Snape say: "The Dark Lord is coming. Your role here is done, Draco, you may leave if you wish." Malfoy took one look around him, and scampered off in the direction of Hogsmeade.
The pain in Harry's head doubled as a crack split the air and the tall and menacing form of Voldemort appeared in front of them. His gaze fell on Dumbledore's bound and lifeless body, slumped on the ground, and a high shrill cackle of triumph emerged from his mouth.
As Voldemort reveled in his triumph, Harry felt the last of the spell binding him dissipate, and grabbed his wand, preparing to send a severing curse at Dumbledore's cooling body. As horrifying as it was, Dumbledore's blood was an essential part of the ritual.
As if sensing the movement, Voldemort turned to Harry at last, an ugly smile on his lipless mouth.
Just as Harry slashed his wand through the air, a familiar shiver traveled through Voldemort's body. Suddenly, the man who turned towards Harry was no longer the same man he had been mere seconds ago, and Harry felt himself freeze as wide red eyes locked with his own.
It must have been mere moments later, though it felt like far longer, that Tom Riddle wrenched his gaze away from Harry, and, before Harry could gather his senses, turned around and disapparated.
"No!" Harry cried, grabbing onto empty air just a moment too late. Tom's good intentions had come at the worst possible time. The idiot thought that he was saving Harry when, in fact, Harry should have been the one saving him right now.
"Potter!" Snape growled, rounding on Harry, "He-"
"I know, I know!" Harry snarled, batting his arm away "I'm working on it!"
He closed his eyes and focused on the pain in his scar, until he could feel the cold, the fear, and the steely determination that was being experienced on the other side of the connection.
I need to be there. Harry thought. Bring me to where he is.
He focused on the cold, and the wet spray of water he could feel coming from Tom through his scar, and most of all he focused on the feeling on Tom's presence. He disapparated.
As the feeling of being sucked into a straw began to lift, Harry was suddenly pounded by a wave of skin-piercing cold. He could feel himself being pummeled from all directions, and for a terrifying moment wondered if apparating with no destination had been a horrible mistake and now he was stuck in some sort of limbo. At that moment, he opened his mouth, and the saltwater that rushed into it made him realize that he was in the middle of the ocean.
Desperately kicking, Harry tried to keep his head above water long enough to determine the direction Tom had gone. A great black outline some meters away caught his eye. Land.
It took some exhausting minutes of fighting against the waves, and by the time Harry had reached it, his hand around his wand felt numb, but he finally managed to pull himself onto the rocky ledge. Making his arm stop shaking long enough to cast a drying and warming charm at himself was a challenge, but when he finally succeeded, Harry scrambled to his feet and took in his surroundings.
He was on an island, but apart for the small strip Harry himself had climbed up on, all the land was surrounded by a wall so tall Harry could not see the top of it. Directly in front of him stood an iron gate- it appeared to be the only way onto the island. As Harry approached, he thought he could hear a sound being carried on the wind. Was it just his imagination, influenced by the frightening surroundings and the recent images of Dumbledore's death, or was it really the sound of screams of anguish?
Harry reached the gate and tentatively pushed at it. It opened with ease. As Harry crept in, a deep rattling sound emerged from up ahead, and the moon and the stars were swallowed up by darkness. As a feeling of overwhelming despair slammed into Harry, he finally realized where Voldemort had led him to.
He was in Azkaban.
A flick of Tom's wand had the gates of Azkaban flying open. They were never locked. The mere prospect of an escaped prisoner getting as far as the gates to the prison without being intercepted was considered ridiculous.
As Tom entered the stony courtyard, the gates slammed shut behind him. His steps wavered for a moment as Marvolo gave an especially strong push, but he managed to remain in control of his body, though he could feel himself weakening. He was still just one seventh of a soul struggling against Marvolo's complete one.
The fact that he had managed to maintain control for this long was incredible in and of itself. He had not questioned it, or even thought about it for too long for fear of Marvolo listening in on him and discovering it, but he had felt himself gradually becoming stronger for the past few years. Once he had noticed it, he couldn't help his natural defiance- he had begun to think of ways out.
Since he was scared to think of it for more than a split second at a time, it had taken a while for the plan to form, but the fact that he was becoming stronger than he had been in decades had given him enough hope to slowly but surely work on it- seconds at a time.
Now that the moment had come, Tom's first chance in seventy years to escape this life, the strength of his determination helped him maintain control for the next critical few moments.
Then, a rattling sound of breath being drawn emerged from deeper within Azkaban, and a swarm of dementors began to emerge from within the dark.
With the last of his strength, Tom threw his wand as far as it would go, and fell to his knees.
Marvolo had seized control again, but it didn't matter anymore. In the dark, there was no way for him to find the wand again before the dementors were upon them.
Already, a cold and rotted hand had seized his chin, and was tilting his head back. The dementor's putrid breath stung his face, and then it breathed in, and something more than air was pulled along with it.
Tom was being split in one thousand directions. The dementor was pulling at his soul from one end, and his Horcruxes, keeping him anchored to this word were pulling from another. It was pain beyond imagining, but it was also triumph.
There was only one power in the world strong enough to sever the ties between Horcruxes. When dementors kissed, they consumed the soul, shredding it into pieces and reducing it to nothingness. And Tom knew that if they could tear at the very fabric that kept a soul together, they could tear the bonds that chained him to his Horcruxes. And, most importantly, they could tear at the bonds that chained Tom to Marvolo.
Tom could feel Marvolo's rage and terror pounding into his mind, but the glee at knowing it would be the last of his grandfather's emotions he would ever sense overshadowed it. And moments later, the agony of being torn apart overwhelmed everything else, until with a wrench and a jerk something essential snapped, and Tom could no longer sense Marvolo.
He was free, finally and completely. He had never known euphoria such as this before. Even the dementor gripping him paused, repelled by the joy that at that moment could not be stifled. Tom was finally his own person, capable of making his own decisions and controlling his own body. Suddenly, Tom realized that he didn't want to die.
He had already made his peace with the fact that there was only one way for him to ever be free of Marvolo. To Tom, the knowledge that Voldemort would die along with him was victory enough. But now that he felt his eyelids flutter and his breath come in short pants with no one to fight him over his own body for the first time since he was sixteen, Tom realized he was not quite as resigned to dying as he had thought.
Still, it was hopeless. His wand was still lost somewhere in the dark, and as the dementor that gripped his chin took in another rattling breath, the anguished cries of tortured muggles began to ring in his ears.
The pain was beginning to build again. The very fabric of his being was being rent apart. The pain grew, reminiscent of the pain of creating a Horcrux only a hundred times more intense. There was a high cold laughter in his head, there were screams, and flashes of green light, and just before there was nothing, there was the faint sound of hooves.
It was stupid of Harry, and risky. What if Voldemort's soul had survived along with Tom's? But Harry couldn't help himself. The thought that after all that Tom had been through, all the things he had endured, his life would meet its end in the most horrible way imaginable made Harry's heart hurt. He had to try, if there was even the slightest chance of Tom surviving.
When Harry had finally reached Tom, it had already seemed as if it were too late. He was on his knees, a dementor leaning over him, his soul being pulled from his mouth. It had been a strange and morbid sight- two intertwined beings, one pulsing dully, and one bright and thin, fluttering frantically as they were pulled towards the gaping cavern of the dementor's mouth. Then, for a split second, The dull glow disappeared, and only the bright light remained, struggling against the pull of the dementor.
Harry knew instinctively, without needing to think, that that was Tom's soul- still intact, but not for much longer. He knew that this was his one change to save Tom. He thought of Ron and Hermione, and he thought of the moment earlier that night, when he had locked eyes with Tom. He thought of what he was trying to save, and with more determination than he had ever felt before he had shouted: "Expecto Patronum!"
Harry watched with awe as a magnificent being of pure light galloped forward, and approached the dementor at lightning speed. It charged straight at the dementor and then, ever so gently, it took the glowing ball of light that was Tom's soul in its mouth.
The dementor screeched with rage, but the beast simply turned around and touched its mouth, bearing the precious cargo to the pale, lipless mouth of Tom's body.
The body glowed a brilliant white that illuminated its surroundings. A moment later the light ceased and the patronus disappeared, seemingly absorbed into Tom's skin, and Harry leaned over the limp, pale, body, ignoring the fleeing dementors.
"Tom?" He asked, shaking the body gently, "Tom, are you there? Please wake up!"
The terrible thought that perhaps he had been wrong snaked into Harry's mind. Perhaps he had been too late, and Tom's soul had already been destroyed. Perhaps all he had seen was a figment of his imagination, caused by wishful thinking. He shook the body more insistently.
And beautifully, miraculously, the pale eyelids fluttered for a second before opening.
"Harry Potter?" The inquiry was soft and tired, but there was a tinge of drunken euphoria to the words.
"You're Tom Riddle, aren't you?" Harry asked, hardly daring to believe that it was truly over, "It's only you now, isn't it? The other one- Voldemort, he's gone, right?"
Tom's lipless mouth relaxed into a smile that, despite his twisted features was radiant.
"I'm free." He sat up then, suddenly. "How did you know, Harry? How did you know he wasn't me? Did you see me? Did you understand?"
"I-" said Harry, beginning to answer, but Tom cut him off, muttering in a hysterical voice, that sounded like it a mix between a laugh and a sob.
"Did you realize, back then with the Philosopher's Stone that it was I who made Quirrell unable to use his magic, forcing him to use his hands? Did you notice, back at the graveyard, how when our wands connected and the golden thread formed, it was I who helped you push the beads of light away from yourself and back towards my wand? Did you realize then that he wasn't me?"
His eyes were searching Harry's frantically, imploringly, but before Harry had the chance to answer, they rolled back in his head, and Tom slumped into a dead faint. Looking down at the prone body, Harry came to the conclusion that it was a miracle he had managed to stay coherent that long. After Harry himself had been attacked by dementors back in his third year, it had taken him hours to regain his consciousness, and he hadn't come as close to being kissed as Tom just had.
Harry cast the levitation spell on Tom's body and gently guided it back across the island and towards the gate. Then, going back, Harry spend a quarter of an hour searching for Tom's discarded wand before finding it on the ground and placing it gently in Tom's robe pocket.
Upon exiting the gate, and thereby the anti-apparation spells, he grabbed tight hold of Tom's arm and turned, apparating to the only place he could think of. He landed inside his room at number 4, Privet Drive with a crack, and tensed for a few long painful moments, waiting to see if the sound has aroused any of the sleeping inhabitants of the house.
After a few minutes of silence, Harry felt safe to move.
He placed Tom as gently as he could on his narrow bed, and sat down at the foot of it, trying desperately to decide what to do. Could he tell people the truth of what had really happened to Tom? Would anyone believe him? Maybe they would think Voldemort had Confunded him, like they had when Harry had told Fudge that Sirius was innocent. Fudge had insisted that Harry was confused and that Sirius be kissed despite Harry's vehement protests. He couldn't risk the same thing happening to Tom. Not now, after all this time, not when he was finally free. Coming to a decision, Harry got up pried up the loose floorboard. There were some scraps of parchment and broken quills still down there, in his secret hiding place, and Harry scribbled down a quick note: "Tom, I've taken you somewhere the wizarding world will never think to look. This is the house of my muggle relatives. Please don't make any noise, they don't know you're here, and would be very unhappy if they found out. I'll tell everyone that you're dead, I'll make sure no one will look for you. From this moment on, you're free. Run away from here, and make a life for yourself. I wish you all the luck in the world. Yours, Harry Potter."
Harry placed the note in the most obvious place he could find, and then gathered the last of his strength and apparated for the fourth time that night. He landed, panting, at the gates of Hogwarts.
