The Darkening of Your Soul

Chapter 20

Not long after Tom announced his plans for revenge on the Weasley twins, Harry slipped into darkness. He wasn’t sure if he slept or if this was what a coma felt like. He woke up briefly once to find Madam Pomfrey standing over him, waving her wand. His eyesight was fuzzy but he could see her lips move. He just couldn’t hear a thing she said. Or hear anything for that matter. Madam Pomfrey offered him a quick smile and poured a potion down his throat. More darkness awaited him.

The next time he regained consciousness he was back inside the glass box and riding along with Tom. This time, though, nothing exciting happened as Tom spent several hours doing research on some potion that involved a lot of arithmancy that went way over Harry’s head. Harry used that time to quietly reassure himself that yes, he was still alive, and Tom was still his soulmate and even though the glass box prevented him from feeling Tom’s soul for himself, it wouldn’t last forever. Eventually he’d wake up properly and feel his soulmate again.

Harry woke up once more very briefly. This time Madam Pomfrey wasn’t alone, but a middle-aged man in green St Mungo’s robes stood beside her. They were talking between themselves, but it sounded like gibberish to Harry. Like they were speaking an entirely foreign language he’d never heard before. He must have made some sound of distress, because Madam Pomfrey placed her hand on his forehead while the healer gave him another potion.

Sharing dreams wasn’t nearly as much fun when you couldn’t twine yourself around the other part of your soul, Harry found out when he spent some time with Tom while he was asleep. Tom’s dreams started out in the reception room of Riddle Manor with Tom and a dream-Harry, looking to be seventeen years old or so, sitting opposite each other. They were talking and laughing and Harry couldn’t look away from Tom’s expression, relaxed as it was with affection and humour.

Dream-Harry got up and left, and Tom jumped up to chase after him. The moment he opened the front door of Riddle Manor, Tom stepped into a scene from his past. Dream-Harry walked on, never looking back no matter how loudly Tom yelled at him to stop as he ran through the Chamber of Secrets, which turned into the obstacle course hidden below the third floor corridor, which led to the graveyard where a snake-faced Voldemort shot spell after spell at dream-Harry. Tom screamed and tried to reach for his own wand but it became clear he didn’t have it. Dream-Harry ran and dodged the green flashes and made it to Riddle Manor which wasn’t Riddle Manor at all, but Wool’s orphanage. Tom relentlessly pursued dream-Harry through the empty, dilapidated corridors until dream-Harry found the door that led to the court-yard, which was in fact the clearing in the forbidden forest where Harry had gone to die.

Lord Voldemort stood surrounded by masked Death Eaters and dream-Harry stopped in front of him as Harry himself had done in his previous life.

“Harry Potter, the Boy Who Lived,” Voldemort said, just as Tom crashed the scene. Dream-Harry stood perfectly still while Tom frantically looked from Voldemort to dream-Harry and back.

No, stop!” Tom yelled, but it was too late. Voldemort spoke those dreaded words and a green flash left his wand, heading straight for dream-Harry.

Only to be intercepted by Tom who threw himself in front of dream-Harry with a primal cry of anguish.

Inside his glass box, Harry screamed and struggled against his invisible restraints. He’d just seen Tom die, killed by his alter ego while trying to save Harry’s life, and Harry couldn’t take it. Of all the people he’d lost, he refused to lose Tom. He wouldn’t allow it. He screamed and struggled and demanded he be released from these bonds.