The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 10

“And then he had the gall to use my own humour against me,” Harry finished his story to a visibly intrigued Barty. “He called me soulmate and closed his mirror, that utter tosser.”

“Yeah, I can see how unfortunate your life is, Harry.” Barty snorted and shook his head. “You’re effectively immortal, get to do your life over again and you’re best mates with the Dark Lord to the point where you have funny nicknames for each other.”

Harry ducked his head, suitably chastened about his whining. My god, he’d been pulling a Draco there for a moment, hadn’t he? Complaining about things that didn’t need complaining about. “Sorry. It’s all a little overwhelming at times. Plus I’m suddenly surrounded by eleven-year-olds all day. I think they might be rubbing off on me.”

“Nah, don’t apologize to me,” Barty was quick to say and then gave Harry a look that could best be described as intensely focused. “In fact...thank you.”

“Huh?” Harry blinked at Barty. “What are you thanking me for?”

“Because I doubt our Lord would ever thank you for bringing him back improved, but that doesn’t mean he isn’t grateful. As am I,” Barty said, his eyes shining a little too much.

Harry shrugged, suddenly feeling awkward. “That’s fine. No need to thank me.”

“I mean it, though,” Barty insisted. “Our Lord has told me a little about what happened during your previous lives, how far off the rails he’d gotten when it came to his plans for the Wizarding World. He never wanted to cause so much destruction. None of us do.” Barty smiled briefly. “Well, at least not the sane ones among us followers.”

“Yeah, the Voldemort I knew during my first life was very different from the Voldemort we have now,” Harry said while remembering some of the things the previous Voldemort had done. “I mean, look at what he did with Hogwarts. If there is one thing Voldemort ever genuinely cared about it was this school and he set the Carrows loose in it to cast the cruciatus curse at just about every single student.”

Barty nodded in agreement. “Our Lord has always valued learning and education. That he would purposefully sabotage Hogwarts in such a way is hard to believe.” Barty’s eyes became a little shiny again. “I’m just glad you brought him back full of plans for improvement of our society instead of its ruination.”

“Me, too,” Harry quietly agreed. “I’m going to sleep. I’ve got classes first thing tomorrow.”

“Ah, to be a student again and worry about nothing but homework and Quidditch,” Barty said with a dramatic sigh. “Night, Harry.”

“Night, Barty.” Harry closed his mirror and burrowed under his blankets. It had been a very long day and thankfully he was asleep in minutes.

The next day they had Defence and History in the morning, which meant at least one extra hour of sleep. Harry needed it badly. Mentally he was fine with staying up well past midnight while still getting up early for classes, but physically he was only eleven and he noticed that his young body wasn’t used to having so little sleep.

In the afternoon they had double Transfiguration and Harry was happily surprised when McGonagall handed out matches and instructed them to turn them into needles. His memories of his first-year classes in his previous life were vague at best so Harry hadn’t realized they’d be doing magic so soon in Transfiguration.