“Harry,” Antioch said, his voice grave and tense, “now, it is time that we discuss the second unique situation we mentioned regarding you.”
Harry nodded.
From their expressions, he could tell this was not going to be good news.
“We would not mince our words, Harry,” Antioch continued.
“There is a piece of a soul latched onto you, specifically, here in your mindscape.”
It took Harry a couple of moments to process what he had heard and then realization struck Harry instantly.
“Voldemort,” he mumbled, an expression of shock and surprise on his face.
“We also believe it is him,” Ignotus added.
“After hearing your story, we suspect it happened the night you or whatever else vanquished him.”
“He latched onto your forehead, specifically, into your scar,” he informed.
“It has to be him,” Harry said with a finality and surety in his voice.
“Every time I was near Quirrell, my scar hurt.
Even while facing Voldemort’s soul-wraith in the Chamber of Secrets, I had a tingling sensation in my scar.”
“I did not know what was happening at that time,” he continued.
“But now I know.
It was his soul pulling his own soul.”
“To tell you the truth, Harry,” Antioch picked the conversation once again, “it is a wonder that, with your magic, soul, and mind bound as they were, Voldemort’s soul was not able to take possession of you.”
“Is it going to be a problem?” Harry asked, his tone bordering on frightened.
The three brothers shook their heads.
“Can this be solved?” He asked, hopeful and the three brothers nodded their heads.
“I,” Cadmus scoffed, disdain and disgust obvious in it, “suspect your Headmaster Dumbledore did all this knowingly and willingly.”
“He either hoped you would turn into a Squib under those bindings, or he hoped the soul latched onto you would eventually take possession.
Whatever his motive had been, I am not willing to believe that he did not know about the soul latched on to you.”
Harry wondered inwardly at this.
The recent events coming to light made him certain that Dumbledore was manipulating him, keeping him uninformed and isolated from the wizarding world outside of Hogwarts.
Still, he found it hard to believe that Dumbledore could have fallen so low as to plot something this dark.
And he hoped that something like this should not have happened.
“I agree with that,” Antioch muttered.
“How come the greatest wizard of your time never noticed this?
Or how come the healers at Hogwarts did not notice a literal soul piece on your scar?
That is no ordinary soul piece.
It is foul and dark, and it smells of sickness.
It should have been spotted and dealt away with.”
“Very true,” Ignotus remarked.
“If you survived a Killing Curse with only a scar left on your body, then that scar should have been thoroughly checked.
How come it never happened?”
“None of it makes sense, if you think about it logically,” he added.
The logic of the three brothers made perfect sense to him.
“In our time, wizards had the means and the knowledge to deal with such a situation.
Goblins would have also done an excellent job in removing that latched soul piece,” Ignotus continued.
“After all, they are specialists in curse-breaking and soul magic.
They would have noticed it easily when they removed your bindings.
The only reason they were not able to detect it was because, as soon as we arrived, we trapped it shut and masked its presence so that it would not disturb our conversation.”
“You trapped it shut?” Harry mumbled.
“So, will it remain trapped forever?
What are we going to do?”
He was almost frantic.
He did not even wish to imagine Voldemort taking over his body.
“Dealing with the soul piece is not that difficult, Harry,” Cadmus responded.
“We will help you,” he continued and Harry’s face almost lit up in joy.
“Though we are not ‘souls’ in the true sense, merely consciousness left behind by ritual magic, we are sufficiently powerful in this mindscape.”
“Furthermore, the soul latched onto you is no complete soul, but a broken and small piece with hardly any power,” he continued.
“Given enough time, if you had remained unaware, it might have taken control.
But now you can access your mindscape with your full magical reserves and a complete soul.
I believe that even without experience, you could deal with it.”
Still seeing a solemn expression on their faces, Harry frowned.
“Then what is the problem?” He asked.
“We could deal with it.
What is worrying you?”
“At first,” Antioch sighed.
“We considered it nothing major, perhaps a fluke or an accident.”
“We even wondered if this foul soul was the reason Death blessed you.
But as you told us your life story, specifically your encounters with two soul-wraiths of the same person this latched piece belongs to.., it indicates things are moving in a certain direction.”
“What direction?” Harry asked.
“Horcrux,” muttered Cadmus.
Harry frowned, searching his memory to see if he had ever heard the term.
He had not.
“What is it?” He questioned, his eyes narrowed.
“It is a dark magical ritual,” Antioch sighed.
“Very dark, and very foul.
Even during our time, people shuddered at the mention of it.”
“It involves splitting one’s soul into pieces and anchoring them to specific objects.”
Harry did not understand the specifics but he could feel that it was a very serious and grave matter.
“It is a method used to attain immortality,” Cadmus said.
“A method to deceive Death.”
“And to truly kill such a person who has created his Horcrux, every Horcrux must first be destroyed,” he informed. This chapter is updated first at g.com.
“Since there is no singular, a complete piece of soul left to move on, Death has nothing to claim, preventing the person from dying of natural causes.”
“The physical body may grow old and fade, but the soul fragments remain.
Over time, that person can possess others or even create a new physical body for themselves.
Various rituals and magical artifacts can assist in this.
The Elixir of Life from the Philosopher’s Stone you mentioned being one of them.”
“The diary I destroyed and the scar on my head are Horcruxes, while the one possessing Quirrell would be the main soul,” Harry added.
He could see the pieces, the puzzle falling into place.
The three brothers nodded in response.
“He must have created more.
How many exactly, only he would know,” replied Cadmus.
“Horcrux creation is a heinous act, Harry,” Antioch said.
“It involves the literal splitting of your soul.
To split your soul even once renders a person insane and their mind deformed.
Any sense of morality is stripped away from the person.
You cannot expect morality or sanity from such a person.”
“To split the soul once involves a lengthy ritual requiring the blood and ingredients from many innocent creatures.
But do you know what truly makes the ritual so heinous?” Ignotus questioned.
Harry waited for the answer, already sickened by what he had heard and what he was about to hear.
“At the final stage of the ritual, a sacrifice is required, supposedly for Death,” Cadmus picked up the explanation.
“Thirty-three cold-blooded murders are required to complete it.
Eleven unicorns, eleven centaurs, and eleven wizards or witches must be sacrificed.”
Harry felt his stomach churn.
If he would have been in real physical body he would have vomited at this.
He could not imagine someone falling so low.
He was disgusted to his core.
He could not wrap his mind around how low Voldemort had fallen just to cling to life.
What would have he even achieved by this?
AUTHOR: Most stories describe one cold blooded murder as a requirement for the creation of a Horcrux.
But Voldemort was already killing innocent people in dozens during his raids.
How is that one murder is something extreme?
That is why I decided to go more sinister and heinous about his Horcrux creation which actually makes it foul and dark even by Voldermort’s standards.
I may have overdone it but I felt it to be appropriate.
You may take this or may take this as mere exaggeration.
It is not going to affect the story in any manner.
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