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Slughorn had given Tom good information on Horcruxes, especially the possibility of creating more than one, but Tom had to find out how to make a Horcrux on his own. Every source he found said that it was a bad idea to make a living animal or person a Horcrux. Tom mostly figured this was good sense. After all, that would be limiting his lifespan to the lifespan of the living Horcrux. However, one obscure source also warned that living Horcruxes were vulnerable to love and laughter. Tom dismissed this as fairy tale logic.
XXX
"The one with the weakness to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches... born to those who have thrice defied him, born as the seventh month dies... and the Dark Lord will mark him as his equal, but he will have weakness the Dark Lord knows not... and either must die at the hand of the other for neither can live while the other survives... the one with the weakness to vanquish the Dark Lord will be born as the seventh month dies...."
Well, that's a very odd prophecy, thought Albus Dumbledore.
Severus Snape, who had only heard the first half, reported what he had heard to Voldemort. Of course, he must have misheard the word “power.” Odd that he would hear “weakness,” but that word wouldn't make any sense.
XXX
“Who's a handsome boy? Is it you? It is!”
“He's not a dog, Sirius.”
“Same principle,” Sirius replied, making ridiculous faces at his infant godson.
“He'll pick up better language skills if we just speak to him like a normal person,” Lily said primly. She leaned in quickly to rub her nose against Harry's and said, “You're such a cutie pie! Your mummywummikins loves you very much. Yes, she does!”
Sirius smirked at her as she left the room. “Your mummy is very silly, Harry. You would never be silly, would you?” As he asked this question, he scribbled his fingers over Harry's tummy.
Harry's reaction was immediate and electric. He screeched with laughter, kicked his little legs, and tried to roll away from the fingers.
Sirius was overjoyed. “Well, would you look at that! My godson is TICKLISH! Oh, we are going to have so much fun with this!”
His fingers danced all over Harry's torso, just so he could coax some more of that delightful laughter out of his precious godson.
XXX
Mr. and Mrs. Dursely of Number Four Privet Drive touched Harry as little as possible. The less contact they had with their freaky nephew, the better.
Dudley Dursley, their son, did not hold this same view. He had learned very early on that he could hit, kick, pinch, bite, and throw things at his cousin as much as he pleased without consequence. Dudley had a limited imagination, so this might have been the extent of things he would do to Harry if his friend, Dennis, hadn't had a younger brother.
It started during recess when Dennis was bragging about the ways he tormented his little brother. Dudley and his other friends were laughing at Dennis' stories as they thought that tormenting others was very funny.
“And then, when he threatened to tell Mum and Dad, I pinned him down and tickled him until he peed his pants. I mean, he literally peed his pants! Was so embarrassed that he never told Mum why, and I got off scot-free!”
The other boys laughed, but Dudley frowned, confused. He was very easily confused.
“Tickled him?”
“Yeah. You never heard of tickling?”
“I know what tickling is!” Dudley quickly yelled a little too defensively. “But it's not, like, punching someone or shoving their head down the toilet. It's stupid.”
“Not to my little brother. He's deathly ticklish, and he hates it. He'd rather I punch him a million times than tickle him for three seconds,” Dennis retorted.
Dudley was not a bright boy, but even dull bulbs can receive unexpected surges of electricity. He thought very hard. It was a bit painful for him.
“I wonder,” he said slowly, “if Harry is ticklish.”
Dudley and his gang all grinned at each other, excited by the idea of a new game.
They couldn't often catch Harry, as he was very fast, but they were lucky that day. Harry had spent the previous days trying to balance an increasingly long and difficult list of chores from his aunt and uncle with school work, and he was tired. He wasn't paying enough attention, and almost before he knew what was happening, Dudley and his gang had him pinned to the ground.
Harry bit back a groan. It was always awful when Dudley and his gang beat him up. It would make his chores much more difficult that evening. Something seemed different this time, though. Dudley and his cronies were looking at each other uncertainly instead of immediately taunting and attacking him.
“What, did I look like a comfortable seat to you lot? Or were you stupid enough to mistake me for a chair?” Harry knew it wasn't wise to provoke them like that, but they were going to beat him up anyway, and he wanted to get it over with.
“You start, Dennis. You're the expert,” Dudley blustered.
Dennis jumped as he'd expected Dudley to take the lead the way he usually did.
“So, Potter, tell us. Are you...ticklish?” Piers leered as Dennis hesitated.
“What? N-no.” Harry didn't know if he was ticklish or not. He didn't remember ever being tickled.
“Oh, then you won't mind if I do this,” Dennis said, and squeezed Harry's sides.
Harry screamed. He didn't usually scream when he was hurt. He'd trained himself out of that response some time ago. But this was different. It was intense and unbearable and oddly reminded him of something fun from a long time ago. He couldn't even try to linger on why he didn't find the situation completely unpleasant, though. The only thought in his mind, if it could be qualified as a thought and not pure instinct, was that he needed to get away.
He thrashed so violently that he surprised Dudley's gang and managed to come free. Thinking quickly, he got to his knees and tried to run.
“No, you don't!” Dudley cried. “Grab him!”
Harry didn't get two steps before he was tackled once again. Dennis sat on his legs and immediately scribbled behind Harry's knobbly knees.
Harry screeched again and tried to kick. He now knew what tickling was, and this tickled a lot.
“Wow! You might be the most ticklish person I've ever met!” Dennis cried.
Dudley was getting jealous. He wanted to join in on the fun. His parents had tickled him a few times for fun, so he still didn't quite get why Harry seemed to be suffering, but he wouldn't argue with something that worked. Malcolm had Harry's hands pinned above his head, so Dudley tried to recreate something his mum did sometimes and began tickling Harry under his arms.
Harry went ballistic. Dudley's fingers were rough and unskilled, but they still did the job. His underarms were more ticklish than his sides or the backs of his knees. He was going out of his mind from the tickling in two spots.
“PLEEEHEEHEEHEEASE!! STOHOHOHOP!” he cried involuntarily.
Encouraged, the other members of the gang joined in. Harry was only afforded two mercies. The first was that he was on his stomach and thus they couldn't tickle his front. The second was that it didn't last long. The bell rang, and everyone had to leave to go back into the school.
Harry lay and caught his breath for a few moments after the bullies had abandoned him. He didn't have words to describe how his life had just changed. He somehow knew that he would always define his life as before he knew what tickling meant and after. He could never go back to the innocence before this day.
Dudley and his friends couldn't catch Harry often, and they still liked to beat him up sometimes. But whenever they did catch him, Harry often found himself with fewer cuts and bruises. Instead, his skin would tingle from the powerful sensations of tickling. He soon forgot the fun, happy associations he'd formed with tickling during the first year of his life and began to see it as the worst form of torture.
XXX
Harry loved his first year of Hogwarts. It wasn't just that he learned magic or that he got to eat three square meals a day or even that he had such wonderful friends. It was that for the first time in ages, he had gone a year without being tickled once. It was oddly intoxicating.
He hadn't even been tickled over the summer. The first half of the summer, the entire Dursley family was too terrified that he'd curse them if they went too far over the line. The second part of the summer, he was locked in his room, and the third part of the summer was spent at the Weasleys'. Harry began to walk a little taller.
The situation might not have been quite as bad if Harry had read ahead in his textbook. As it was, the first he heard of it was when Professor Flitwick entered the Charms classroom near the beginning of his second year.
“Today we will be learning the Tickling Charm. The incantation is Rictusempra. Now, let's get to work.”
Harry froze in something that felt oddly similar to terror. Of course there would be a way to tickle people magically. It made perfect sense. But for some reason it hadn't occurred to him, and today he would have to face it.
Harry went through the class with mounting dread. He told himself he was being stupid. It was just tickling. He shouldn't be afraid of something like that. But then he'd remembered his desperation whenever Gordon's fingers found his hips, and he'd shudder.
Finally, it was time to practice the spell. Harry and Ron were partners, as they usually were.
Harry cast first. “Rictusempra!”
Ron just stood there. “Come on, Harry. Try again,” Ron encouraged.
Harry knew he hadn't been concentrating that first time. This time he concentrated and followed Professor Flitwick's instructions. “Rictusempra!”
Ron wrapped his arms around his stomach and began giggling.
“Well done, Mr. Potter! Five points to Gryffindor!” Professor Flitwick squeaked before waving his wand and removing the spell from Ron.
Harry smiled. That hadn't seemed too bad, and the points for mastering the spell so quickly were nice.
But now it was Ron's turn. Harry breathed deeply and forced himself to stand still as Ron pointed his wand at him.
“Rictusempra!”
Nothing happened.
Ron tried several times. Harry did his best to encourage him and once lied and said that he might have felt a little something on one attempt. But eventually he felt a bit of tension ease out of him. Maybe Ron wouldn't get the spell this class period.
Time was nearly up when Ron narrowed his eyes and once again cried, “Rictusempra!”
Harry immediately fell to his knees laughing. It wasn't the most intense tickling he'd had, but it was everywhere – between his toes, his neck, under his arms, in his belly button. No matter how he moved or covered himself, the tickling was unaffected. He didn't have time to truly panic before Professor Flitwick lifted the spell.
“...proud of you, Mr. Weasley,” the professor was saying.
Harry got to his feet on wobbling legs and tried to catch his breath. “Good job, Ron,” he gasped.
After class, Ron said, “Wow, Harry. You're REALLY ticklish!”
Harry shrugged, uncomfortable. He didn't know how to talk about this subject. Eventually, he just said, “Yeah, I guess.”
“Just don't let Fred and George find out. They'd never leave you alone,” Ron said casually. “Do you reckon Lockhart is going to spend this next class talking about how to make your teeth that white?”
And with that, the subject was dropped. Later that year when he used the Tickling Charm on Malfoy, he felt a bit of closure. Maybe this was his way of taking the power back when it came to tickling.
XXX
The years passed. Harry managed to avoid being tickled again. As long as he was quick during the summer when Dudley and his gang got bored, he was safe. Eventually, tickling stopped being something he thought about on a regular basis.
The peace lasted until the summer before Harry's fifth year at Hogwarts. He and Sirius were sitting next to each other on a sofa in Grimmauld Place, laughing and joking, when Sirius slyly reached out and squeezed Harry's ribs.
Harry's squealed, shoved Sirius' hands away, and slid off the sofa.
“Don't!” he cried.
Sirius stopped, confused. “Harry?”
Harry took in several deep breaths. “I don't like being tickled.”
Sirius continued to look confused, but also sad. “Of course. If you don't like being tickled, I won't tickle you. It's just that I used to tickle you as a baby, and it was a fun thing. I didn't – ”
Harry immediately felt guilty for making Sirius feel sad and found himself blurting out the whole story of how Dudley and his gang had bullied him with tickling for so many years and of how excruciatingly ticklish he was.
Sirius pulled him back on the sofa and hugged him. “They shouldn't have done that to you. Of course you don't like tickling after that. I promise not to tickle you again.”
Harry hugged Sirius back. He was constantly amazed by how safe and loved Sirius made him feel all the time.
XXX
That hadn't lasted long. Sirius was dead, and it was all Harry's fault.
Harry had yelled at Professor Dumbledore, and somehow that had lead to the headmaster showing him the prophecy that lead to his parents' deaths.
Finally, Harry spoke. “The weakness to vanquish the Dark Lord? What's that supposed to mean?”
“It is a rather odd way to word it,” Dumbledore agreed. He then continued to explain his thoughts on the prophecy.
Harry wasn't sure he bought into Dumbledore's theory that the weakness was love. Love could be both a power and a weakness, and Voldemort didn't seem to have any of it in his life, but the explanation didn't quite ring true.
But then, it didn't make sense for any weakness to be capable of defeating the Dark Lord.
XXX
Harry was dreaming. That was the only way any of this made sense.
First, they were captured by Snatchers and taken to Malfoy Manor to be interrogated. That made sense. Then Mrs. Malfoy had somehow convinced Bellatrix to let her take care of the trio instead. Next, she had told them that she wanted to switch sides because Voldemort was hurting her son, she knew about the Horcruxes because she was born a Black, she claimed that Harry WAS a Horcrux, and the only way to destroy it and kill Voldemort for good was to tickle Harry. That last bit was when Harry realized he must be dreaming.
“I've been tickled loads of times, and the Horcrux still seems to be there,” Harry protested weakly.
“It takes a lot of intense tickling, but it's the only way to remove a Horcrux from a living vessel without killing them. Done properly, since all parts of the soul are still connected, it can destroy all the Horcruxes and main soul at once.”
“I thought the point was that the soul pieces were separated, not connected,” Hermione protested.
“How else do you explain Mr. Potter's mental connection to the Dark Lord?” Mrs. Malfoy pointed out.
“So you want to tickle Harry?” Ron asked. He looked mildly disturbed.
“Yes.”
Harry's instinctive reaction was to reply, “No way!” But he bit his tongue before it came out.
That brief minute when he thought this was a dream had shattered. He had a piece of Voldemort's soul in his scar, and the only way to get it out was either death or his worst nightmare.
“Harry, we don't want to lose you,” Hermione said.
Harry couldn't ignore that, and he was a Gryffindor.
“Fine,” he bit out.
XXX
After Harry consented, Mrs. Malfoy – “Call me Narcissa.” – had taken him away, made him take off all his clothes so he was wearing nothing but a pair of shorts, and sat him on a device that was similar to a rack. Actually, Harry was pretty sure it was a rack.
“Drink this,” she said, handing him a potion.
“What is it?”
“I see Draco wasn't exaggerating your lack of prowess in Potions. It's a stimulant to keep you from passing out.”
Harry gulped but dutifully chugged down the potion. Then Narcissa strapped him to the rack.
Harry took deep and calming breaths. It had been years since he had been tickled. He didn't even remember much of anything from Sirius' tickle because it had been over so quickly. Maybe he wasn't as ticklish now that he was older.
Narcissa lifted a single finger and ran it down the sole of his left foot.
Harry stiffened. He was right. He wasn't as ticklish as he'd been when he was younger. He was much, MUCH more ticklish now.
Harry whimpered and giggled as Narcissa ran that single finger up and down and around his foot. He desperately wiggled his foot in an attempt to shake her off, but she followed it easily.
He squealed when she found the bad part on his instep, and she immediately focused all her attention there.
“Heeheeheehee! Stop it!” he cried.
“Oh, I've barely begun.” Narcissa warned.
Harry jerked as Narcissa's other hand ran lightly over the pads of his toes on his other foot. It really wasn't fair that she had two hands. One was more than enough.
“Naharharharharcihihissssssahaha!” He giggled helplessly.
Narcissa was enjoying this more than she probably should. Harry's giggling was delightful, and it was just so easy to draw reactions out of him. She found herself fascinated and wanting to tickle him more and more.
Suddenly, she raked all ten fingernails up both his soles, and Harry yelped.
“Well, I think I have an idea of where your feet are ticklish now. Let's test the rest of your body.”
“That was just a test??” Harry cried.
She answered by drawing circles behind his knees. He instinctively tried to bend his knees, but the restraints prevented him from doing much. “Eeeheeheeheeheehee! Are you sure this is necesahahahahaha!”
Narcissa didn't dignify this half-question with an answer. She proceeded to scribble on the tops of his knobbly knees and squeeze the very tops of them. Harry felt his heartbeat quicken. He'd been tickled lots in the past, but he was beginning to realize just how truly helpless he was and how much more tickling he would be enduring this time compared to anything else he had experienced.
“Waihaihaihait!” he panicked.
Narcissa trailed her fingers up his thighs. Harry felt very uncomfortable, especially as he realized that his thighs were just as ticklish as the rest of him. He strained to move his legs as she feathered her fingers up the insides of his thighs, down the backs, and then jumped and wailed as she began to knead the tops of them.
“EEEHEEHEEHEEHEEHEE! NAHAHAHAHAHA!”
Narcissa stopped, and Harry panted for breath. If only he realized that his had only been going on for a couple of minutes. He saw her hands move towards his hips, and he flinched away as much as he could.
“Not there! Not there!”
“Yes there! Yes there!” Narcissa teased.
She touched his hips, and Harry screamed. “NOHOHOHOHOHOHO NAAAHAHAAHAHAAHAHAHA!”
“Oh, is this your worst spot?”
It wasn't, but it was definitely his second worst spot. He couldn't have told her this even if he'd wanted to. All his breath was concentrated on laughing and trying to escape.
“And your tummy?”
Sirius would have recognized the way Harry laughed as fingers skittered over his stomach.
“Ihihihihis the Hohohohohorcrux ahahahalmohohost ouhouhouhout?” Harry asked.
“Oh, nowhere near out.”
If Narcissa said anything after this, Harry didn't hear it. Narcissa's fingers had ventured into his belly button. Harry's belly button was his death spot. He was extremely ticklish nearly everywhere, but he was excruciatingly ticklish in his belly button. Dudley's gang had been ecstatic when they discovered this, and the only reason they didn't exploit it every time they tickled him was because Harry's accidental magic lashed out most of the times they tickled him there. Unfortunately, now that Harry was more trained, his magic didn't respond as quickly.
“AAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAAA!!” Tears poured down Harry's cheeks.
It seemed to go on forever, but it really only lasted a few seconds. Narcissa smiled evilly.
“I'll have to remember that spot for later.”
For now, she trailed his fingers up his sides. He responded equally to light fingers stroking his sides and to squeezes up his sides and ribs. Narcissa marveled that anyone could be this ticklish.
“PLEEHEAHEAHEAHEASE! OOOOOHOHOHOHO! I'M TOO TIHIHIHIHICKLIHIHISH!” Harry echoed her thoughts.
“Now, Harry, do you want to defeat the Dark Lord or not?”
“I do! I just NOHOHOHOHOHOHO!!! EEEEEEEEEEEEHEEHEEHEEHEE!”
In the middle of his sentence, Narcissa attacked his underarms. She was thrilled to find another spot that seemed more ticklish than the rest of his very ticklish body. Draco was also insanely ticklish under his arms. Harry oddly reminded her of her son as he frantically tried to lower his arms to protect them.
Again, it seemed to last forever as she tested different techniques. Each was torturous in its own way. Finally, she stopped and let him breathe again. This was the longest that Harry had ever been tickled in one go, and his Gryffindor courage was quickly draining away.
“Let's see. Where else?”
She quickly established that his ears and neck were also ticklish, although not to the same degree as his underarms. Harry was dismayed to learn that the rack was magical and allowed him to levitate off of it without giving him more freedom to move. He hoped his back wasn't ticklish, but of course, it was. He giggled and snorted as she ran her fingers over his shoulder blades, down his spine, and around his lower back.
“All right! Time to get that Horcrux out. Rictusempra!”
Harry screeched. He was being tickled everywhere. Narcissa's charm was more powerful than Ron's first attempt had been back in second year. Harry thrashed around, but he couldn't find a modicum of relief.
Suddenly, the tickling intensified under his arms. Narcissa had returned and was also tickling him with her hands. She'd found that pressing in and wiggling deeply produced the best results.
“NO MORE NO MORE NO MORE!! AIIIIIHIHIHIHIHIHIHIA!!!”
“Oh, this isn't enough. Not nearly enough,” Narcissa taunted.
She switched and squeezed his hips. If he hadn't taken the stimulant potion beforehand, he would have passed out. The tickling was worse than the Cruciatus Curse, something Harry could say having experienced the Cruciatus first-hand.
“AAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA!! NAAAAHAHAHAHAHAHA! PL-PL-PLEEEEEEEEHEHEHEHEASE! STOHOHOHOHOHOP!”
Narcissa lingered on his hips for a long time. Harry's shook his head violently, unable to comprehend how the tickling continued on and on and on and never became easier to bear.
“Honestly, I'm surprised the Horcrux hasn't been killed by now. I guess we need to step it up,” Narcissa said. She turned and grabbed her wand and some peacock feathers from a nearby table.
“WAIT – ”
Narcissa proceeded to enchant the feathers to tickle both of his feet, both of his sides, under both of his knees, and all over both of his thighs. “I CAHAHAHAHAN'T TAHAHAHAKE IHIHIHIT! I CAN'T! I AAAAIIIIIIIIIIIIII!”
Harry lost the plot after Narcissa placed a small, soft brush into Harry's belly button and tapped it with her wand. The brush spun in his belly button by itself, and it didn't dislodge a bit no matter how he moved. The Tickling Charm had already been tickling his belly button, and it had already been horrible, but this --
Harry thought he'd been tickled several times in the past. He thought he'd felt sensations that were powerful and unbearable. He'd been wrong. He'd been so, so wrong.
THIS was tickling, this all-encompassing feeling that couldn't be born for even a whole second.
“I've changed my mind!” he sobbed between laughs and screams and squeals. “I don't want to defeat Voldemort! I don't want to do this! PLEEEEAASSEE!”
Narcissa became vaguely worried as the seconds turned into minutes turned into longer. She alternated between tickling his hips and tickling under his arms. Harry went in and out of silent laughter, tears streaming down his cheeks. Narcissa was afraid she wouldn't be able to push him much further than this or he would either pass out despite the potion she'd given him or end up in St. Mungo's for either physical or mental damage.
Harry wanted nothing more than for the tickling to stop. He could barely remember a time when he wasn't surrounded by tickling, but he wanted nothing more than to be free of it. He wanted to die.
This lasted for what seemed like hours when, suddenly, his chest felt light. It was odd, like there was a bubble inflating in his sternum. He felt light and free. For a moment, the tickling was fun the way it had been when Harry was a baby. Then the sensation crashed back down, just as agonizing as before, only to stop a second later.
“It worked. It actually worked,” Narcissa panted.
Harry took a moment, shivering as he felt the echos of tickling all over. “It's over? He's gone?”
“He's gone,” Narcissa said.
They both sat in silence.
XXX
“So the weakness in the prophecy is that you're the most ticklish person on the planet?” Fred asked, grinning with delight, as Harry finished telling the story.
“Apparently,” Harry answered dryly.
“And I guess Voldemort wasn't ticklish?” Ginny asked.
“Not a bit. Even the Tickling Charm couldn't make him giggle. Lucky bastard,” Harry muttered.