Lover of Mine
Lover of Mine
In a world where soulmates existed, the name of your soulmate would appear on your wrist at some point. You wouldn’t know when it would happen. It might be the first time you met them, the first time you heard their name, or simply at a completely random moment.
None of Harry’s friends had their destined name yet. It was completely normal since they were still young. Some people didn’t receive their soulmate’s name until the very end of their lives. That’s why there was a theory that soulmates were just a scam—maybe you had to truly love someone for the name to appear on your wrist.
Love was something both familiar and foreign to him.
The love of his mother flowed through his veins, but Harry yearned for something more tangible—a love that took shape in human arms and the warmth of another body.
He didn’t tell anyone about this. In truth, among his peers, he was the one who longed for his soulmate the most. Harry couldn't wait for the day his soulmate's name appeared—the day someone would love him as much as his mother had.
Of course, he knew this thought was naive. Life had never been easy for him.
-
Harry dipped his quill into the ink bottle, pausing for a moment. Wasn’t he too old to be writing in a diary? But this wasn’t just any ordinary diary. It might even be a dark artifact.
"T. M. Riddle. That must be the owner's name."
Harry couldn’t help but be amazed by the handwriting. Every letter was written in such an elegant way, far more refined than his own messy scrawl. He felt a bit ashamed by the comparison.
The name stirred something in him. It sounded strangely familiar, as if they had known each other before. Harry mumbled Riddle’s name a few times, and a vague feeling arose in his heart, while his mind grew clearer and clearer. It was as if he was about to uncover an answer he had been searching for all along.
As he hesitated, a drop of ink accidentally fell onto the diary’s paper. Harry watched in awe as it vanished, sinking into the page as if it had never existed.
Harry decisively wrote in the diary, "My name is Harry Potter."
The paper absorbed the ink once more, and a second later, a line of text appeared on the yellowed page.
“Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?”
That was when the unexpected happened.
Harry suddenly felt a sharp stinging pain on his left wrist. His heart skipped a few beats. Dropping the quill, he hastily pulled up his pajama sleeve, revealing his once-blank wrist—now beginning to be carved with words.
Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The words were written in Riddle’s— his soulmate’s —beautiful handwriting.
Harry caressed the words he had just received, over and over again. He chanted the name Tom Marvolo Riddle, over and over again. To him, these letters were the most beautiful words he had ever seen, and this name was the most pleasing name he had ever heard.
His thoughts were sappier than the disastrous love letter he had received that morning, Harry concluded.
He turned his attention back to the diary. The yellowed page now bore another line: "Where are you, Harry?"
The boy, who had just received his soulmate’s name, felt delirious, as if he were hallucinating. That was the only logical explanation for why he could hear the diary calling his name softly—even though there were only letters written in black ink. Soulmates were truly a powerful magic. It must have been their souls calling to each other.
Harry clutched the diary in his hands and brought it closer, until there was no space left between it and Harry. To put it simply, he hugged it. Hugged him . His soulmate, in the form of an old diary bought from the Muggle world.
Could Tom Marvolo Riddle sense that he was in Harry’s arms? Could he feel the warmth of Harry’s small body?
For the first time in his life, Harry thought he could love someone as much as his mother had loved him.
-
Okay . Harry patted his chest, then his burning cheeks. Calm down, Harry .
Surprisingly, his mind was clear. He wasn’t naive enough to go running around with the diary, shoving it in front of Ron and Hermione, declaring it as proof of his soulmate. No one had a diary as their soulmate.
And Tom Riddle was a real person. He existed. Or had once existed.
To be fair, the man was at least sixty-something years older than him—old enough to be his grandfather. And, worse, he might have already died. Maybe this diary was the only connection left in the world for him to find his soulmate, even after Death had taken him.
Harry buried his face in his hands. He might have shed a few tears then. A few of them must have fallen onto the diary, because now, on its page, was a new line of ink.
"Are you alright?"
Oh Merlin, life had never been easy for him.
-
Tom Riddle was confused.
He knew that the foolish Weasley girl had realized something was wrong with her and her diary. The girl had even had the audacity to flush him down the toilet. But now, he was in someone else's hands.
He couldn’t suppress the joy in his soul when he discovered that his current owner was the famous Harry Potter—the boy who was said to have vanquished Lord Voldemort. In other words, this kid had killed his main soul.
Tom was intrigued by the boy because Ginevra had written about him constantly in the diary. The girl’s admiration for Harry had tired him at times. However, Tom Riddle was no stranger to pampering others. He had sweet-talked that foolish girl while sucking away her magic in return.
He was happy. Yes, a Horcrux could be happy. He had found a new victim right after being ditched by a blood traitor.
But now, he was confused.
Harry Potter hadn’t answered him after he had introduced himself.
How rude. The boy even had the audacity to ignore him.
That was when the unexpected happened.
Tom had been in the diary for 50 years. He had lost all sense of time and place. A Horcrux was just a vessel for a soul fragment—there was nothing to feel but emptiness. But the strange thing was… now he felt warm. A warmth like the fireplace in the Slytherin Common Room on Christmas holiday, when no one else was around and Tom could have the heat all to himself.
Except—back then, something had been missing.
Now, he felt whole.
A soul fragment that felt whole? What nonsense.
The diary Horcrux was extremely confused. He was the teenage fragment that Voldemort had sealed away. He was young and had always been young. He wasn’t good with feelings, his own feelings, to be precise. He didn’t know how to deal with the strange emotions that, somehow, a Horcrux could harbor.
Had the boy done something to him?
Was this how Lord Voldemort had been defeated by an infant?
And had the boy just cried?
Damn. He hated sentimental kids the most.
-
Harry hadn’t written to Riddle again that night. He lay awake with the diary resting on his chest, his hand still gently touching it. His mind drifted between thinking about everything and nothing at all. He didn’t even know when he had fallen asleep.
-
“Harry’s been so off lately, don’t you think?” asked Hermione.
Ron took one look at Harry, who was absent-mindedly stirring his porridge.
“Yeah,” he said. “I’ve been thinking the same thing.”
He knew Ron and Hermione were worried about him. Lately, he had been unmotivated—no talking about the Chamber of Secrets, no talking about Malfoy, no talking about Lockhart.
But honestly, wasn’t that a normal reaction after finding your soulmate?
-
There were a few things Harry had listed about Tom Riddle:
First, his soulmate was an old man born in the late 1920s. The "man" part was bad enough—the Dursleys hated gay people, claiming it was a disease. And a 60-year age gap? That was enough to be considered disturbing by anyone.
Second, his soulmate was a diary. Was he trapped in it? Was he still alive somewhere in the world? Did he even know that Harry was his soulmate?
Third, his soulmate had been a straight-O student. A Prefect, a Head Boy, and even the recipient of a special award for services to the school. He couldn't help but feel that he wasn’t enough for someone as brilliant as Tom Riddle.
Harry buried his face in his hands again (Ron and Hermione whispered something about him in behind).
Maybe fate thought he lacked a father figure and decided to gift him with a man older than James.
-
He decided to write in the diary that night. He told himself it would be fine and spent thirty minutes planning what to say.
Step one in his plan: create a friendly atmosphere.
“Hello Riddle. Sorry for not replying to you last time.”
Harry waited a few seconds for the ink to fade. He wanted to write more—to explain, to apologize, to say “It’s because I realized you’re my soulmate, and it kind of gave me anxiety.” He hoped Tom would write back. But it would be understandable if the diary didn’t want to. After all, Harry had ghosted his soulmate for a whole week.
Harry jolted as a line appeared where he had just written: “It’s alright. Though I hope there won’t be a next time. It’s lonely here.”
His first thought was, Ah, his handwriting is so beautiful. And his second thought was that the way his soulmate worded it made it sound like there was something between them.
But the truth was, there was nothing.
He would change that. It was the second part of his plan: getting to know each other.
“I'm really sorry. I'm Harry Potter. I hope we can get to know each other again,” Harry wrote, doing his best to keep his handwriting neat. He really should've taken Hermione's advice about practicing his writing more seriously.
A moment later, the ink faded, then reappeared in elegant cursive: “My name is Tom Riddle. Fancy to know you, Harry Potter. Can I call you Harry?”
He stared at his name written in his soulmate’s handwriting. He promptly screamed into his pillow, imagining how Tom might say it if they ever met in real life. When he had calmed down a little, he wrote back: “Yes, you can. Then can I call you Tom?”
“Of course.”
“How old are you?”
“I’m sixteen. And you?”
“Sixteen?” Sixteen? He was sure his calculations couldn’t be wrong. Or perhaps the Tom Riddle who had received the special award was his soulmate’s grandfather—or father.
“Yes. Is there something wrong?”
“I saw your name on a trophy.”
“Ah, I see. That was me. I’m actually a memory of my sixteen-year-old self stored in this diary.”
Now he wanted his calculations to be wrong.
“A memory can be kept in an object?”
“Yes. Magic can do many things, dear. And you haven’t answered my question yet.”
The twelve-year-old boy took a long time to suppress the burning in his cheeks. He even considered ripping out the page and sticking it into another diary—maybe he should buy one—just to note: “The first time Tom called me ‘dear.’”
“I'm twelve.” Twelve and sixteen weren’t that far apart.
“If you saw my trophy, that means you're also a student at Hogwarts, right?”
“Yes. I’m a Gryffindor.”
“You must be an energetic lion, then.”
Harry blushed at that too. He smacked himself a few times.
“Do you like Gryffindor?” he wrote, then prayed for his soulmate’s answer.
“Lions are lovely.”
Harry screamed, kicked, and giggled like a teenager in love—which, technically, he was. By the time the clock struck midnight, he and Tom had exchanged all sorts of information about themselves and about Hogwarts, both past and present. Harry had completely forgotten his original reason for writing in the mysterious diary. The Chamber of Secrets couldn’t possibly be more intriguing than his soulmate, could it?
-
The kid wrote back to him after a whole week. There was no one who could resist his charm—except Dumbledore. He knew Harry Potter must be that old bee’s favorite student, but that kid couldn’t possibly become a second version of Dumbledore at such a young age.
This diverted him from his original intention, which had been framing Hagrid again to corrupt this mini Dumbledore.
“It’s alright. Though I hope there won’t be a next time. It’s lonely here.” Guilt-tripping was his strength.
“My name is Tom Riddle. Fancy to know you, Harry Potter. Can I call you Harry?” Calling someone by their first name was step one. A friendly atmosphere always brought people closer.
“Yes. Magic can do many things, dear. And you haven’t answered my question yet.” Ginevra had loved it when he called her dear . This kid couldn’t be that different.
“You must be an energetic lion, then.” A reckless brat willing to spill his guts to a suspiciously alive diary, he meant.
“Lions are lovely.” Lovely—when they bit into their prey’s neck and blood splattered everywhere.
By the time the clock struck midnight, he and Harry had exchanged all sorts of information about themselves and about Hogwarts, both past and present. This kid was far more intriguing than that Weasley girl. The fact that he called the real him Voldemort was enough to make Tom entertain him.
And the kid had the same kind of upbringing as him—alone, unloved, and with the rare ability to talk to snakes.
At least his enemy should be this interesting.
-
He wanted to find the current Tom Riddle. He had not revealed the fact that he was his soulmate to Tom the Diary. It was weird. They couldn't even see each other's faces. How could Tom believe him?
Harry sighed.
The most comforting thing that had happened lately was that there were no more attacks.
He couldn’t afford to worry about something else. Also, he felt so tired lately. That was strange.
-
Tom was bored. Yes, a Horcrux could be bored. It must be a side effect of consuming too much magic lately.
Harry had more magic than he imagined. He still couldn't control the kid. That was strange. If it had been someone else (Ginevra Weasley) they would have been his toy a long time ago.
He was tired of listening to this kid’s nonsense every day. There had only been useful information at first: about the kid’s encounter with Voldemort last year, the Philosopher’s Stone, and how wonderful his mother’s love was—not only saving his ass once but twice. Now, there was only Snape with his hateful attitude toward Harry, and Abraxas’s grandchild with his equally hateful attitude toward Harry as well. These two were boring. If Tom could have a body of his own, he would bully Harry in a much more interesting way. Like letting his dear little snake bite this kid, just to see if his mother could still protect him from the deathly venom.
-
A lot had happened all at once. He lost his diary—his fucking soulmate—after forgetting his bag in the common room for just two minutes. Then Hermione got petrified. Ginny was nowhere to be found. He and Ron figured out what the monster was and how to get into the Chamber of Secrets. By then, his soulmate had already been pushed to the back of his mind. Whoever had hurt his friends had to pay.
After many obstacles, only Harry continued deeper into the chamber. The giant statue of Salazar Slytherin was ugly. Had the founder carved it himself?
With his poor eyesight, Harry could just make out two figures at the base of the statue. One was lying down. One was standing. He quickened his pace.
As he got closer, the figures became clearer. It was Ginny—unconscious. And standing beside her was a boy. Harry had never seen him before, certainly not in Slytherin. A boy that attractive would’ve been famous at school.
He cleared his throat. “Er… hello?”
The older boy narrowed his eyes at him. In his hand was a black diary. Harry was absolutely sure it was Tom’s.
Something stirred inside him. The Slytherin looked eerily familiar, like someone Harry had known forever. He stared. Black hair, dark brown eyes, pale skin. Tall. Handsome. Harry knew he hadn’t seen this boy before, but something in his chest said otherwise.
His heart pounded. The answer stood right in front of him.
He let out a shaky breath. “T-Tom?”
The boy smirked, clearly pleased with Harry’s guess. “Yes, dear.”
Harry was speechless. Mind blank. Gone. By then, the basilisk had already been pushed to the back of his mind. He lunged forward, wrapping his arms around Tom.
Tom Riddle was real. Not as warm as Harry would’ve liked, but real.
-
Tom frowned. This kid was strange. Did he not realize what kind of situation he was in? The boy even had the audacity to hug him. The hug was so tight that it seemed to crush his newly achieved body. Had Tom accidentally created such a friendly atmosphere that the boy was now under the illusion they were best friends?
Tom lifted Ginevra's wand, a curse ready on his lips.
“Imyoursoulmate.”
Harry's small voice came from his chest. Tom was dumbfounded. Could a Horcrux be dumbfounded? No. Not even Voldemort could be dumbfounded.
“You are my what?” Tom asked.
Harry turned his head up to look at Tom. His green eyes were indeed as pretty as Ginevra's description, and his cheeks were flushed a beautiful red. The boy loosened one arm to show his left wrist, where ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ was indeed engraved.
Tom couldn't help but let out a mocking laugh. Life truly was not easy on Harry Potter.
The boy's face showed confusion. Tom felt a bit of regret, having to shatter his wonderful and naive thoughts. His joyful eyes were so gorgeous that Tom wanted to keep them to himself. After all, green was his favorite color.
Tom caressed Harry’s face. The boy’s cheeks turned bright red, but he didn’t shy away from the touch. Tom’s smile deepened.
“My dear Harry, do you know who I am?”
Harry’s eyes flickered. He nodded, then shook his head. “I don’t know you, but you’re my soulmate.”
Tom clicked his tongue. He swirled Ginevra's wand in his left hand. His name appeared in the air. Harry stared at it, focused. With another flick of his wrist, the letters rearranged. Tom’s eyes stayed on Harry’s face, watching with satisfaction as the color drained from it, red fading into a sickly green.
The boy’s hand, which had still been resting on Tom’s back, slipped away. He took a step back. But Tom wasn’t about to let Harry escape that easily. He had to bite this kid—just a little payback for making him listen to all that rambling these past days.
Tom’s left hand held Harry firmly in place. The boy was so weak, he couldn’t even break free from his grip. With his right hand, Tom lifted the messy hair that hid Harry’s famous scar.
A scar shaped like lightning. Tom recognized it, of course—the same motion used to cast the Killing Curse.
Harry trembled in his arms, his emerald eyes glistening with tears, shining so brightly that Tom couldn’t help but be amazed.
This must be how you looked when you first faced Lord Voldemort, he thought. So full of fear and despair.
Tom touched the scar. Harry tried to move, but it was no use. His breath hitched as Tom’s fingers finally pressed against it. Tom watched the boy freeze. It was as if he were bracing for something worse.
The boy—or more precisely, the scar—stirred something strange in him. Something eerily familiar. As if it was… part of him.
And then, realization struck.
“Soulmate,” the word rolled off Tom’s tongue, smooth and deliberate. “You’re so pitiful, Harry Potter.”
-
Harry was indeed pitiful.
This summer couldn’t have been worse than the previous one. He was left in that household again.
“Harry, you can just kill them,” a voice living in his head told him.
“I can’t use magic outside the school, Tom.”
“You don’t need magic to kill someone. I can teach you a few effective ways that won’t leave any trace.
Harry tuned out Tom’s monologue about ninety-nine ways of killing people. He focused instead on organizing his things into the trunk. He had homework to do, and he figured he might as well take full advantage of having a straight-O student living inside him.
One by one, Harry took out his notebooks and textbooks, placing them neatly on the shelf. Then there was only one thing left in his trunk—a black diary that had accompanied him for a short time.
Harry ran his fingers over the smooth leather cover.
Had he done the right thing back then?
Tom had stopped his monologue some time ago. His soulmate said, “Dumbledore did suspect you. I advise you to practice lying more.”
Harry sighed and turned to rub his forehead. “You know I’m not worried about that.”
“That’s a wasteful thought, Harry. I won’t hurt you. You’re my soulmate, after all.”
The word "soulmate" was laced with some mirth, and it made Harry's heart ache.
"I forgave you once," Harry said.
"Yes, you did."
"If there's a second time, I will no—"
"If there were a second time, do you really think you'd have that luck again?"
Harry fell silent. If it weren’t for Fawkes in the Chamber, he would have died. His mother’s love hadn’t worked on Tom. Despair swelled up in his heart, and he hated feeling miserable.
Harry felt like crying.
“Tom…”
"What’s wrong, dear?"
His voice caught in his throat as he choked out, "I want you to love me."
"You’re so pitiful, my dear Harry." Tom’s voice echoed through their connection, accompanied by a soft chuckle.
Harry barked out a dry laugh. Life would never be easy on him, would it?
But Tom was not Voldemort. He was Voldemort's soul, and his memories stayed when he was sixteen. He was not the one who killed Harry’s parents (though he had killed Myrtle).
It was such naive thinking, yet Harry couldn't help but cling to it.