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Chapter Text

Harry scratched irritably at his itchy ankle, bent over as he was in the shower with shampoo lather running over his closed eyes from his soaked hair. He'd been itching and scratching sporadically since the graveyard. At first, he had ignored it, but sometime between being put away for his yearly stint in Durskaban and the appearance of the dementors and the Order, the itch had appeared more often and was harder to soothe.

Hermione thought it might be stress related and urged him to see a healer about it. Ron had tossed him a jar of home-made ointment his mother always put on him and his siblings when their skin was dry and irritated.

Sirius had gleefully thrown out all of Dudley's handmedowns, declaring them unfit for swine, much less his lovely godson. The excitable mutt then spent a solid week playing dress-up with Harry as his doll, making him try on several generations of Blacks worth of pureblood clothing in expensive fabrics and outdated styles.

All the while Molly, the twins and Remus took notes, made sketches and planned out how best to tailor the clothes to fit Harry and how to modify the frilly horrors to suit a more modern wizarding fashion.

In Harry's opinion, the lot of them were having fun at his expense. At least it got him out of cleaning duty for a few days and kept his mind off of the hearing. He was almost sure the only reason Sirius and the twins kept suggesting outrageously showy and poncy outfits for Harry was to keep him on his toes and force him to pay attention as his new wardrobe came together.

If his throughts strayed for too long, the uncorrigible pranksters might foist some ruffled horror upon him and he'd be too late to politely decline it.

In the end, he had a full wardrobe that would have cost a fortune at a tailor's. The clothes actually fit his body, were charmed with every possible comfort and protection charm, courtesy of the two Marauders and the twins. Even Molly had added some housewife's trade secret charms.

Harry looked like the scion of a noble house in his new clothes, which Sirius assured him was the point. Best of all, the fabrics, although very slightly used, were silky and didn't irritate his skin at all.

Unfortunately, his ankle still itched.

"Sorry, pup," Sirius had said when the diagnostic charm failed to detect anything wrong. "Your bookworm might be right. It could be stress."

Harry finished washing the soap from his hair and body. He scratched his ankle again. Slapped the itchy area, then shook his leg irritably. He would probably have to go to a healer if the itching didn't stop after the hearing. He would try to wait until Hogwarts. Going to St. Mungo's for an itchy ankle sounded far too whiny and stupid, and with Harry's luck, it would be plastered all over the front page of the Prophet for the entire magical world to laugh at.

He could imagine the headline already: PONCY POTTER FLAUNTS WEALTH IN PRICY SILK - COMPLAINS OF SENSITIVE SKIN (more on the boy saviour's new clothes on pgs. 3-9).

There would be pictures, of course, of an irritated Harry scratching at his ankle with a grimace while a stern healer watched him. In the background would be chaos; teams of healers rushing to save the lives of several badly wounded witches and wizards, just to make Harry look like an overdramatic, selfish git. The many golden cufflinks and buttons adorning his new clothes, all of them Black family heirlooms, would reflect light just as the image looped back to the beginning, so everyone would know just how spoiled Harry Potter was, dressed to the nines and taking up valuable time from a healer just to bitch about his stupid itch.

The mere thought of it had Harry's blood boiling. He imagined the headline being read outloud to him on repeat, first by Malfoy, then by Snape, then by many snide voices overlapping, followed by laughter.

He had just turned off the water when he felt a familiar pull beneath his navel. At the same time, the itchy spot on his ankle warmed up.

"No!" he screamed. The single, pleading syllable was torn apart as Harry was yanked into a straw and spat unceremoniously onto a stone floor in a dim, candle-lit chamber.

Something metallic clattered away from him. His seeker-trained eyes tracked a fuzzy, golden glint until it disappeared behind a glowing line that split the floor in two sections.

Harry scrambled to his feet and squinted, trying to make out any details he could. He was wet and naked and his glasses had been left behind on the bathroom counter. Worse still, his wand had been left where his glasses were.

Even worse than that, Harry thought with dawning horror, the light on the floor was glowing ever brighter all around him in the blurry, but still obvious, shape of a ritual circle. Harry now noticed the tingling static of powerful magic pressing down on him. He gulped in the ozone scented, smoky air of the ritual chamber, too caught up in his fear to even attempt to escape.

Not that he could move a single finger. There was a whispered chanting coming from behind him, growing louder in tandem with the swelling of magic. Harry soon collapsed to his knees, buckling under the might of whatever was being done to him.

Now, panting on his hands and knees, Harry could do nothing but grit his teeth, endure, and hope the consequences of the ritual would be something he could live with, should he survive it at all.

▪︎

Voldemort was in the middle of the last part of the ritual when a naked person manifested itself in the middle of his ritual circle. His heart skipped a beat as he watched the priceless artifact he spent years of his youth tracking down skitter right out of the circle.

How would he finish the horcrux ritual without the vessel? He didn't dare stop chanting, knowing full well that once a ritual is started, for better or for worse, it had to be completed.

He would shred the damn fool that dared disturb Lord Voldemort, as soon as the ritual finished.

He was nearly struck silent when the naked figure, the boy, managed to turn his head enough for Voldemort to catch a glimpse of his unique eyes. Killing curse green, glowing with the excess magic filtering into the boy from the ritual.

It was a worst case scenario. Voldemort was desperate to replace his destroyed diary horcrux, yes, but not enough to hide a piece of his own immortal soul in the very much mortal body of his prophesized vanquisher!

Yet, there was little he could do to stop it from happening. Harry bloody Potter, professional menace, stood naked in the middle of the circle. There was nothing else for the horcrux to latch on to. Only Voldemort, sans robe or wand, and the Boy-Who-Lived-To-Ruin-Everything.

Desperate, Voldemort chanted with reneved vigour, pushing every ounce of his willpower into the ritual. He fought the building magic, tried to reverse it, stop it, anything. He'd rather imbue his own claw or a scale of his own skin with his horcrux than any part of his nemesis.

Alas, even the great Lord Voldemort was no match for such powerful magic as the horcrux ritual. His magic drained out of him, straining his core as he stubbornly fought against the very outcome he'd been aiming for since he entered the blasted ritual chamber.

Something had to give. As the ritual reached its crescendo and the weight of the magic became nigh unbearable, Voldemort braced himself for the agony of tearing his soul.

It never came.

▪︎

Harry crumbled in the middle of the ritual circle, screaming. The pain that wracked him was worse than Voldemort's cruciatus. Worse than every ache he'd ever felt combined.

Somehow, it was a familiar pain. An agony Harry recalled with some distant part of himself. An agony he knew would yield him something precious if he let it.

So, he let it.

As soon as he gave in to the ritual's demand, the gathered magic descended upon him and tore him apart.

▪︎

At the end of the ritual, Voldemort staggered forward. He knelt over Potter, frantically ran his hands over the twitching, unconscious boy.

"No, no," he chanted, mindless with horror. So aggrieved was he, he didn't notice when he switched to parseltongue. § No, by Morgana's pierced tits, no. No! §

He was too drained after powering and then fighting against one of the most draining rituals in existence to even muster a simple soul scrying spell (albeit simple only for one as powerful and learned as the Dark Lord). Instead, he grabbed Harry by the wrists and activated his portkey, letting the priceless artifact he brought along lay where it fell. It was useless to him anyway until he figured out what in the world just happened.

Was the boy his horcrux now? Why then had Voldemort felt no pain while the vessel, the supposed unfeeling receptacle, screamed the scream of torture beyond comprehension? Nagini had not felt a thing when he made her a horcrux.

Something went wrong. Very wrong.

The Dark Lord locked and warded his chambers mechanically. Barked instructions to his familiar. He then positioned the boy on one side of his bed, lay himself down on the other and proceeded to hyperventilate until he lost consciousness from sheer exhaustion.

▪︎

Harry awoke in a massive four poster bed, wrapped in a heavy snake who kept scolding him.

§ Sssstupid hatchling! Annoying my massster, sssslithering into an active ritual circle. No brain. No cunning. Could have died. Could have hurt massster. §

The end of her tail flicked to and fro over his face, as if she were actively keeping herself from whipping his cheeks with it but only barely managing to hold back her ire.

§ Ssssorry § Harry said meekly. § I didn't notice... §

The serpent's massive, human sized head whipped around to face him. Her long, forked tongue darted out to scent him, inadvertently tickling his nose.

Harry scrunched his nose. He couldn't even rub it to stop the lingering tingles.

§ Oh no, § she lamented. § Massster was right. Hatchling now sssspeaks! Ssstupid hatchling! Ssstupid ritual! §

Harry was a bit affronted by the snake's dismay. The rest of him mostly felt sore and confused. At least he didn't feel afraid. Or was that worse?

§ Nagini, wasss it? § he asked politely.

She nodded.

§ I have alwayssss been able to ssspeak § he said.

For some reason, this made her freeze.

§ Nagini? Why isss it bad that I ssspeak? §

She shook her head. Faced her master, who still slept, looking like a partially decomposed corpse with his unnaturally white skin and noseless, gaunt face. He neither looked nor sounded like he was breathing, so still was he in his exhaustion.

Harry tried not to think about how and why he was sharing a bed with Voldemort. In fact, he ignored the Dark Lord completely in favour of staring down the man's familiar.

Nagini clearly gave up on getting aid from her master and slumped on top of her own coils, which tightened around Harry as if to make sure he and his problematic everything would stay nice and still and silent until Voldemort was awake to deal with it.

§ I can't feel my armsss, § Harry complained. He tried to wriggle his fingers, but only managed to slightly curve the very tips, scratching at Nagini's scales.

§ Go back to sssleep, hatchling, § Nagini admonished.

She did loosen her hold on his arms a little. Not enough for him to slip from her grip, but enough so he could flex and relax his muscles minutely, to hopefully lessen the pins and needles, if not outright to return blood flow to the sleeping limbs.

Even such tiny movements were agony. Whatever that ritual did, it left him sore down to his marrow.

When Harry adamantly remained awake despite his pain and exhaustion, Nagini let out a slow hiss that resembled a long-suffering, motherly sigh.

She began to sing, swaying in place right in front of Harry in rhythm to the slow tune.

§ Sssleep, sssleep, hatchling sssleep. Dream of coiling safe and warm. Dream of nesssting sssoft and deep. Dream of roiling nessst-mate ssswarm. §

As Nagini sang, magic built in Harry's chest. His eyelids grew heavy. Her coils dragged over his weary limbs, massaging the tension out of him. It hurt, but in a good, satisfying way.

§ When you wake and bare your fangs, ssslither out to tassste the air. Little sssnake, from hunger pangs, do not pout, you'll have your share. §

Harry yawned. His body instinctually relaxed, knowing that breakfast came after sleep and no sooner. He'd eat his fill after a little nap. Hopefully, by then, the pain would be gone.

§ Sssleeep hatchling. Dream of prey, yummy flesssh and crunchy bonesss. Dream of hunting. Dream of play. Dream of sssun and sssunning ssstonesss. §

A smooth warmth filled his limbs. He sank into contentment. Briefly, he wondered how often Nagini put Voldemort to sleep with this song.

Then he wondered no more.

▪︎

The next morning, Voldemort was pacing in his office, heart racing, thoughts flitting past his conscious mind at such speeds he had no chance of catching them. He didn't realize he was hyperventilating until Nagini sank her fangs into his thigh and he had too little air in his lungs to even yelp. All that escaped him was a dry, hoarse whimper.

§ You panic, massster, § Nagini complained. § When you ssshould celebrate. §

Voldemort closed the bleeding punctures from her dry bite with the wave of a hand. At his familiar's words, he scoffed and let himself fall into the regal looking couch in front of the crackling fire.

§ Celebrate, Nagini? Thisss isss a disssassster! §

She ignored him as she was wont to do, opting instead to slither up the back of the couch to wrap around his shoulders. The bulk of her weight lay coiled in his lap while her head hung off of his shoulder, facing him.

§ Ssstop and breathe, massster, § she scolded.

Voldemort, as much as he hated being told what to do, knew better than to disobey his familiar. He took care to deepen his breaths. As his heartrate slowed, he sank into his mindscape and spent a moment to reinforce his occlumency shields.

§ Good, massster, § the serpent crooned. § Now think. The prophecy is void now. You have won. The boy hasss alwaysss carried your sssoul, longer even than I. And now, you carry hisss. Neither of you can die unlessssss you both will it. §

It took several repetitions of her words as they echoed in his mind before they began to make sense. When they did, Voldemort shot to his feet, much to Nagini's displeasure.

§ You are right! § he shouted. He ignored how his darling familiar recoiled from his noise and his frantic pacing. § I mussst have made him my horcrux unknowingly that night. Yesssterday'sss ritual, fighting the magic, I mussst have sssomehow made him the sssubject of the ritual and myssself the object. But who has the boy murdered in cold blood to sssplit his sssoul? §

Nagini snorted. § He burned a man. A teacher, § she reminded him.

If Voldemort were a lesser man, he might facepalm. Instead, he let a wild grin bloom across his lipless maw.

§ Of courssse! Quirrell, that ussselessssss worm wasss good for sssomething after all! §

His glee seemed to finally soothe his familiar, who had retreated back on the couch and coiled up in a sulking heap of snake when he jostled her earlier. She accepted his wordless offer, when he held out his arm to her, and took her rightful place around his shoulders once again.

Voldemort rewarded his familiar by scratching her scales just where she liked it. He chuckled at her pleased hisses.

§ The sssecond part of the ritual ssshould negate the pain we feel when we touch, the boy and I, § he mused on the way back to his bedroom. § Two sssoulsss have never intertwined asss closssely as oursss. We are tied by prophecy. By blood and sssacrificial blood protection. By brother wandsss, by phoenix feathersss. Eternal life. Endlessssss resssurrection! Yesss. §

He hoped Harry was awake. He was far too excited to wait howeverlong it took the boy to recover after making his first horcrux. Honestly, Voldemort did all the heavy lifting. The boy had nothing to complain about, except maybe a tiny little tear in the fabric of his soul.

This was something no one had ever done before, powering the horcrux ritual for another. In fact, it was one of the fundamental rules of soul magic that no one could perform it for another, beyond scrying and diagnostics. This was yet another achievement that only Lord Voldemort could boast about! Along with being the world's first reciprocal human horcrux, completing a closed loop of intertwined souls.

Voldemort felt so giddy, he couldn't help cackling like a madman as he glid through the ostentatious halls of Malfoy Manor.

The implications were monumental. The arythmantic calculations alone behind this miracle of magic would make even masters weep. It opened up an entire new facet of an ancient form of magic. A facet that no one but Voldemort had ever discovered!

Deep inside the Dark Lord, something purred in happiness at his thought process. It seemed that Harry's soul wholeheartedly approved of Voldemort's love for magic. The horcrux flooded its host with pleasure and love. Pure love.

Lord Voldemort was too elated to notice.

▪︎

Nagini's risky plan could not have gone better. After all, two speakers to pamper her were better than one, and a living master was better than an insane or a dead one.

Planting that portkey Voldemort had given her for her own safety on the hatchling was the best idea Nagini had ever had. After all, it did bring whoever touched it directly to the Dark Lord when activated and Nagini knew the parseltongue password to activate it, no matter where in the world it was. It was designed so either she or Voldemort could activate it, no matter how far away from each other they were, just in case Nagini was knocked out by her hypothetical assailants. It would overpower any wards, even the fidelius, for Nagini was not just her master's familiar, no. She housed his very soul.

As it turns out, that was probably why the portkey worked just as well on Harry-hatchling, she thought smugly. And she hadn't even planned it.

She'd known as soon as her master started monologuing in that graveyard that the hatchling would get away. The hatchling was too busy staring glassy eyed at her master to notice when Nagini stuck the portkey to his ankle. A simple parselspell to make the portkey sink under his skin and a few anti-detection spells, and voilá!

Hatchling-on-demand, to be dumped in her master's lap whenever he was about to do something stupid and needed to be distracted.

Like yesterday, when Nagini's master had ignored her warnings and locked himself in the ritual room to do stupid, harebrained things once again.

Her stupid master kept tearing his soul into smaller and smaller pieces. She had hoped to distract him from tearing off more and losing even more of his sanity. What better distraction than the hatchling he obsessed over, to the detriment of all his other plans and his esteem in the eyes of his servants?

How could she have known her master would complete the ritual even with the hatchling unexpectedly joining in? Nagini was just a snake. A loyal snake, yes, but only as far as there was anything left of her master to be loyal to.

In her mind, either the boy would successfully distract her master from shredding his soul, if only for a while, or both her master and the boy would die as the ritual backfired. It was an acceptable risk to her. Better a dead master than an insane one. The real Voldemort would not have wanted to end up as such a shameful shell of himself.

To think, her master used to be so cunning. A true snake. After his return from the unlife, he regularly threw tantrums like a two-legger hatchling and made either inadequate plans or overly bloated ones that quickly fell apart.

Now, hopefully, her master would find solace in the boy. Solace that he could never find in others. Hopefully, it would stave off his urges to mutilate his own soul. Curb his rashness, or at the very least dampen his flintspark temper.

The way her master's eyes gleamed with intellectual hunger gave her hope. It was tinged with madness, but then again, her master had always been a bit mad. Brilliant, but mad. As long as he could enjoy himself again. Feel other emotions apart from only rage and more rage and even more furious rage.

As long as her beloved master was himself again, Nagini would be happy by his side. She'd follow him into immortal eternity if he wished it of her. Always and everything for her lovely Tom-hatchling that she raised herself.

▪︎

Harry awoke thinking he must be in the hospital wing. He was sore, as if he'd just played a brutal quidditch game that ended, as such things are wont to do, with Harry getting severly injured and losing consciousness. He thought he might not mind. Judging by the giddiness bubbling in his belly, he and his team must have won the game.

"Not quite," said a familiar voice, dripping amusement. "But close."

Harry squinted. His vision was extra blurry, not yet recovered after his deep sleep. He tried to rub the gunk from his eyelids, but gave up when his arms hurt too much to move.

"What happened?" he asked. His voice was hoarse from screaming. Or cheering. He was fuzzy on the details of the past few days... weeks... months...

Wasn't it summer hols?

As dread washed over Harry and memories of dementors and fancy clothes and endless itching sped through his syrupy brain, the voice chuckled.

Its owner bent over Harry, close enough for him to easily recognize who it was.

Voldemort.

They stared at one another for a heartbeat, then Voldemort sat down on the bed.

"What do you remember?" he asked.

Harry just kept staring, silent. Was this a dream? Some kind of ritual-induced hallucination? Voldemort sounded almost amiable. He certainly seemed in a good mood, although the fact he had Harry in his grasp, too helpless and sore to fight back, might have explained that egregious deviation from the norm. But nothing explained his sudden friendliness.

Harry squinted, as if he might spot a motive somewhere in that blurry face.

"The ritual you so rudely invited yourself to join last night has fused our souls together. We are now, as we shall forever be, one person in two bodies, or as close to it as two people can become. What we have achieved goes against the very fundamental laws of magic. So, congratulations, Harry. You have become part of history yet again, and as before, it was through no effort or genius of your own."

Harry blinked stupidly. Voldemort waited in silence, seemingly very interested to hear what Harry thought about the news.

"Did you take drugs?" Harry blurted.

Hissing laughter erupted from the other side of the bed. Even just moving his head took effort, but Harry pushed through. Nagini was coiled up beside him, shaking with laughter.

Harry ignored the room spinning wildly around him as he moved his head back so he could see Voldemort, and just as he thought from the odd sound, the bastard was laughing along with his familiar.

Bewildered, Harry didn't know if he should laugh along or scream. His decision was made for him when Nagini, weak with laughter, fell on his thigh. Pain shot through Harry's abused body, tearing a scream from his lungs.

His vision blackened.

He fainted.

▪︎

At Grimmauld Place nr. 12, a ginger horde was gathered by a locked bathroom door. A single bush of frizzy, brown bed-head faced the door, the obvious leader of this pyjama-clad troupe.

"I'm telling you, Ronald," Hermione said, mouth pinched as it always was when she knew she was right but no one believed her. "He either fell asleep, lost consciousness or he somehow managed to get himself kidnapped. With his luck, it's the last option. We need to open that door, now!"

To emphasize her point, Hermione beat the door as loudly as she could.

"Owie!" whined one of the twins. "Calm down, woman. He's prolly just havin' a wank. You banging out a rhythm won't make him finish any faster."

His twin nodded, hiding a yawn behind the back of his hand.

"I'm telling mum you said that," snickered Ginny.

Hermione huffed. She beat the door again. Knocking had proven ineffective, and if slamming her hands on the wood as hard as she could didn't produce the desired result fast, she wouldn't hesitate to ramp it up to kicking. After that, she'd resort to using one of the Weasley's as a battering ram.

"I need to pee, open up!" Ron piped up. His eyes were barely open and he was swaying on his feet. Hermione doubted he was awake enough to have any clue what was going on.

"Use the downstairs bathroom," Ginny said.

Ron nodded and ambled away.

The twins exchanged a loaded look. "We'll get Sirius."

The dog animagus was amused at first, but when Harry didn't answer his exceptionally loud knocking and yelling, and when the twins' Bangtastic Boom-Blaster only succeeded in giving everyone present tinnitus, his expression fell.

"Kreacher," Sirius ordered. The gnarly elf popped up with a sneer. "Unlock the door."

As a security measure in Grimmauld, the only easy way to unlock a door that a member of House Black had locked was if the Lord of the House ordered a house elf to do it. Kreacher grumbled insults under his breath, but eventually he snapped his fingers and disappeared with a petulant crack.

"If you're not descent, tough luck, pup. I'm coming in!" Sirius warned. He opened the door just wide enough to peek in. Whatever he saw must have been bad, because he immediately threw the door wide open and marched in.

Hermione was close on his heels. She spotted the problem immediately.

Harry's clothes were folded on the bathroom counter. His glasses and wand were on top. His towel was hung up, ready to use. He'd even forgotten to put the toilet seat down.

Harry himself, though, was nowhere to be seen.

"I hate when I'm right," Hermione muttered to herself, desperately blinking tears from her eyes.

Chapter Text

Dolores Umbridge hummed shrill and toneless to herself as she rapidly flicked through folders and file organizers. She'd trapped the lying brat expertly. In a few days, Harry Potter's hearing would be held, of course early enough that the boy had no hope of attending it. He ruined enough things as it was without being handed opportunities to ruin even more.

Cornelius was very happy with her at the moment. She planned to make him even happier. With a sharp smile, she snagged the right folder out of the filing cabinet and flicked it open with a cry of success!

Only for her brows to scrunch and her face to slowly lose its colour until its pallor clashed horrobly with her pink frock.

These were the automatically updating file folders where every status change, legal vow, bond and declaration from Gringotts to illegal rituals would be magically documented and a copy added under every participant's name.

Harry Potter had just gotten a new file a few hours ago. Was the little whelp attempting to do something to ruin Dolores' plans? Hm?

She almost dropped the files when she realized what she was looking at.

"What in Merlin's..." she muttered, rapidly leafing through the parchment files, back and forth a few times. Nothing changed. "This... is a problem." She gulped.

Harry Potter had somehow been legally emancipated due to Cornelius and Dumbledore and Crouch all signing his permission slip to participate as an adult in the Triwizard Tournament, which meant he shouldn't even have the Trace right now. And somehow, the Boy-Who-Lived had managed to merge his profile with that of one Tom Marvolo Riddle, a man half a century his senior.

Umbridge felt her stomach sink in trepidation as she scanned the documents in her hands, looking for anything she could use to fix the situation. Cornelius was so excited about the trial. She couldn't tell him the boy couldn't be tried for underage magic since he'd been emancipated this whole time. Her heart couldn't take it! But of course, she couldn't not warn him... She'd need to find some other way first. Stave off his disappointment beforehand. There had to be something.

She choked.

"No way," she gasped, leaning closer to make sure she was reading correctly. She was. There it stood, black on faded cream, clear as day:

Harry James Potter and Tom Marvolo Riddle have established a mutual soul bond. The Ministry of Magic's automatic sorting system cannot determine the legal nature of this bond due to Error: Bond Not On File. This is a new type of bond. Please choose between
Soul identical twins
Soul bonded marriage
Soul merging due to possession
Soul bond with magical creature
Other

Umbridge eyed the Other option. If they hurried, they could file this anomaly as something illegal and use that instead. Oh, and they could mock the child as well! Obviously, he used soul magic to try to subvert the law, attempting to take on the identity of this Mr. Riddle to beat the age laws! Too bad the kid was already emancipated and hadn't had any need to resort to dark rituals. Bad for him, that is.

This was excellent news for the Ministry.

▪︎

The following day, three different people had three very different reactions to the same news.

▪︎

Albus Dumbledore felt his heart palpitate as he read the summons he had received as the possibly former magical guardian and the current legal, financial and educational guardian of one Harry James Potter. The hearing he'd already been summoned to in regards to Harry's unfortunate breach of the restrictions of underage sorcery had been changed to a criminal trial for illegal soul magic, establishing an illegal soul bond and to determine if, due to said soul bond, Harry James Potter would retain his human status or be reclassified as either a half-breed or a magical beast, seeing as he somehow managed to bond himself as a familiar to-

Albus choked. No. What in the name of the Greater Good had happened? Was this the horcrux bond? Had the Ministry somehow found out about Harry being Voldemort's horcrux? Were they about to broadcast this very important secret to the public for nothing more than a political tantrum?

How did they even conclude that Harry was now somehow the bonded familiar of Tom Marvolo Riddle? Dumbledore restarted his heart with a quick lightning spell. He had no time for a heart attack. The blasted fudgeheads at the Ministry were handing Voldemort the Boy-Who-Lived on a silver platter! Either they would spill the one secret capable of stopping Voldemort, as long as it never reached his ears, or they'd make Voldemort the legal owner of his prophecized vanquisher!

Panting with effort, Dumbledore powered through the magical overload that came with kickstarting your own heart and wandlessly staving off another heart attack. He needed to alert the Order. He'd take over the Ministry by force if he had to. This absolutely catastrophic farce could not, under any circumstances, be allowed to go through!

Terrified, Albus Dumbledore failed to summon his patronus. Thank Merlin that Fawkes obeyed no matter how frazzled his master. The pair disappeared in a flash of phoenix fire.

▪︎

Lord Voldemort sometimes received official post under his birth name. It wasn't often, but it did happen. Today, he'd received the most ridiculous pair of official Ministry letters he'd ever heard of. One statement claiming him the legal owner of his very own magically bonded familiar, Harry James Potter, species undecided. And one summons to a trial for conducting illegal soul magic to establish an illegal soul bond to make another human being his familiar.

The most ridiculous thing? The Ministry, instead of dropping the harebrained familiar angle, wanted a trial to determine if Harry Potter should be reclassified as a non-human due to now being a wizard's familiar.

It boggled the mind.

Worse. Harry was his. Harry's soul was his. The boy was his horcrux. Nobody touched what was his.

Shocked, insulted and irritated, Lord Voldemort pocketed the letters, as well as the similar pair intended for the boy laying comatose in his bed, and stalked out of his chambers. On his way through the sprawling Malfoy Manor, he summoned a full meeting of every marked Death Eater.

The majority had already arrived by the time he wandlessly and wordlessly slammed open the double doors to the ballroom and strode inside, oozing menace. He spun on his heels in front of his throne, heedless of the pops and hushed footsteps of his minions still arriving, focusing only on those already there.

"The Ministry of Magic has summoned me for a trial," he snarled. He magically amplified his terrifying, hissing voice, taking satisfaction from the way most of his followers flinched away from him. He spread his lips in a nasty grin and lowered himself into a confident sprawl upon his throne. "And I am going to make them wish they hadn't."

▪︎

Rita Skeeter broke into mad bursts of giggles, cackles and hair raising squeals as she penned her latest masterpiece. This would be her best article yet. The Ministry wanted that arrogant asshat humiliated, well... Rita was very good at humiliating those she wrote about.

▪︎

When Harry awoke from his second bout of post-horcrux ritual unconsciousness, he was greeted by the perfectly clear face of an adult Tom Riddle grinning maliciously out the window by his bedside.

Tom whipped his head around at Harry's gasp. At seeing the boy awake, Tom chuckled darkly.

"Oh Harry," he purred, sending ripples of shivers down Harry's spine. "We've got a trial to attend."

Harry, eloquent as always, blurted out: "What?"