Chapter 1
Harry Potter finds himself in a world of white, an endless sea of thick ivory fog. He blinks once, twice, eyes adjusting to the bleached terrain ahead. The white swirls and shifts, splotches of hues dancing across his vision and a silhouette begins to materialise before him. His heart stutters as the form begins to take shape, tall, strong, a powerful stance—male.
Harry Potter retreats away, his hands twitching to grab at a phantom stick of holly on instinct, it’s become a habit after so long on the run. Although, his worries about the man who stood before him was unfounded, for he was Harry’s soulmate and soulmates would never want to hurt each other—at least, that was what magic had intended.
“Hello there.” A voice echoes through the bleak world and Harry’s heart drops to the pit of his stomach. For he knows this voice, he knows the sweet, silky, sibilant notes belonging to the voice of the Dark Lord in his youth.
Harry Potter’s soulmate was Tom Marvolo Riddle—Lord Voldemort. The reason for the scar marring his face, the reason for his dead parents, the reason for his life at the Dursleys.
And the reason for his bleak world.
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Lord Voldemort steps towards the blurred form of his soulmate. His soulmate. The thought itself makes him giddy. He had a soulmate. He was capable of love. He could be loved.
He covers most of the distance between himself and the other half of his soul with a few quick strides. The figure is short, male, and skinny, almost alarmingly so. Lord Voldemort would do something to remedy it—he pledged to himself. He would do…anything for his other half; the segment of himself that his soul has been yearning—no, screaming for throughout his unbearably lonely life. He was only an arm’s length away from the figure when the form stumbles away abruptly.
”Stop!...” His soulmate yells out and Lord Voldemort reels back as if burnt. What feels like hurt gnaws at his chest and confusion fills his mind.
“What’s wrong, my dear?” Lord Voldemort says as he reaches out a tentative hand to the cowed boy—well, he seemed to be a boy—before him.
“G-Get away from me, you-you…monster!” his soulmate shouts, his arms wrapping around himself protectively as he stumbles away, further away from Voldemort, his soulmate.
Lord Voldemort feels his chest seize. The one person who magic had deemed suited for him, hated him and thought him a monster like everyone else did. Like the children at the orphanage, like Mrs Cole, like Dumbledore and like so many more.
“You know who I am…”
What follows is a stretch of silence, his soulmate choosing to abstain from replying.
Voldemort parts his lips, eyes searching for any reaction before he begins to speak.
“…T-That’s right…I am a monster.” Lord Voldemort says shakily, his hands retreating back to himself.
He drags a hand over his weary eyes before dropping it and staring at the blurred silhouette of his other half.
“I’m cruel.” he takes a step forward.
“Ruthless.” another step.
“Sadistic.” he can hear his soulmate’s breath hitch. What a lovely sound it was.
“But above it all…” he stops inches away from the boy.
“I am filled with greed…” he reaches out and brushes his fingers over the warm, soft skin of his soulmate’s face and feels the ice in his heart begin to thaw.
He cups his soul’s face in his hands, and he breathes out a sigh.
“And, little one…” he brushes his nose against the boy’s warm cheek, trailing it up to his ear.
“I’ve always…gotten what I wanted…” and Lord Voldemort nips at the red tinged flesh, earning him a soft gasp which sends a shudder down the Dark Lord’s spine.
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“I’ve always…gotten what I wanted…” Voldemort whispers into Harry Potter’s ear before biting down on it. Harry gasps, feeling his heart stutter happily, his hands twitching to reach out for his destined pair—instead, he swallows it. He swallows it all down.
The telltale feeling of being near one’s soulmate, the butterflies, the feeling of ecstasy, the weightlessness, the euphoria, Harry gathers them up and jams them into a metaphorical closet in his mind as if they were a pile of clothing that you couldn’t be bothered to put away properly. Harry couldn’t afford to feel this. To feel happy. He was destined for this life the moment the prophesied words were uttered 18 years ago. He had a job to do and no soulmate of his could stand in his way.
If it ended with him dead, well, Harry just considered it unlucky.
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When one soulmate dies, the other follows. It’s a tragedy as old as time. Star crossed lovers, separated by death. The one left behind is sentenced to a life of mourning, always left as a shell of their former self before they eventually succumb to the soul’s call from the realm beyond.
That was why soulmates were generally of the same age, preventing the younger counterpart from meeting a premature death due to their pair passing before them.
But of course, Harry Potter and Lord Voldemort could never be normal.
No, Voldemort had to be a whole half a century older than him.
We never did do things by halves did we, Tom?
Age gaps aside, Harry had a purpose. That is, to kill Lord Voldemort. The Dark Lord and his soulmate. He was practically raised for it, hell, maybe it was even the reason for his entire existence.
Throughout his entire life, Harry James Potter’s life had always revolved around Voldemort. The scar. The dead parents. The-Boy-Who-Lived. The Chosen One. Undesirable Number 1.
And now? Voldemort’s-fucking-soulmate.
Harry sighs, pulling his mind out of reverie before pushing his soulmate away. He turns his back to The Dark Lord, and he strides away, venturing deeper into the fog of the dream world. Turning his back against the man, forgetting the horror, the fear and the pain. The euphoric feeling of utter completeness.
He hopes Hermione will come to wake him soon.
Harry hears a sharp hiss coming from behind him and he turns around reluctantly. It is unlike parseltongue, instead sounding like it was made out of pure rage.
“Do not walk away from me, darling.” Voldemort hisses, his head cocked.
Harry lets the man approach him, they couldn’t hurt each other here, fortunately.
“You knew it was me from the very beginning. How…on earth would you explain that darling?” the man whispers threateningly, his head low as he brings it closer to Harry’s face.
“Does it matter?” Harry sighs. He was tired of it all, even in his nights he could never escape Voldemort.
“Of course, it matters!” Voldemort spits out, his hands gripping around Harry’s forearms.
“It…doesn’t matter…” Harry looks up at the blurred face of Tom Riddle.
“Because I want no part of you… I never will.”
And as those words were uttered and Harry feels the tightening grip of his soulmate’s spindly fingers, the colours began to flow and swirl into an array of pigments before the ivory scene slips from his view and he falls.
Down. Down.
Down.
“—ry? Harry? Wake up…You shouldn’t sleep with the locket…Take it off, I’ll wear it.” Hermione comes into view along with the rest of the tent.
Harry sighs as Hermione slips the cold chain off the fevered skin of his nape before closing his weary eyes and dropping his head into the crook of her shoulder.
…Bad dream?
She asks somewhere far from the fog of Harry’s mind.
No. He replies