Born again.
I had come home, not really though, it wasn't my home, it would become it soon however. I gazed upon an earth and although it was not my earth of origin, I still felt that same familiar feeling of returning home wash over me. A pull at my being and the glow of blue giving me a peace I had not known I missed. I ventured down toward the surface and landed somewhere within Britain, It was night and I felt the chill typical of winter, nothing about this universe stood out to me compared to the others I had visited, but before I took my leave I felt something peculiar.
I had felt something similar in my prior visit to a world with your typical magic system, elves, dwarves, dragons and wizards throwing fireballs, this feeling felt like I was in the presence of a lich, that type of absence one can sense near a being that once held a soul but no longer does. This presence was weaker and a bit different but at its core it was the same type of energy, or magic if you would. I followed the trail of energies until I came upon one of the cookie-cutter houses within this neighborhood I had found myself in.
Number 4 privet drive. Now I've been to a few Harry Potter worlds (Wizarding worlds if you would.) and I'm a bit embarrassed to say it took me that long to identify a horcrux, obviously that feeling of void I had picked up on was from the horcrux living rent free on Harry's forehead. I had come this far so I might as well take a peek on how this version of the bespectacled boy was doing. Phasing through the door and looking through the wall of the stairs I found myself inside the cupboard of number 4, and the sight that greeted me was not... pleasant to say the least.
This version of Harry had it rough, he resembled a ghoul with how starved he was, his skeleton was showing through his skin and I could tell his soul was... folding in on itself? I believe the boy was undergoing the process of becoming an obscurus, but due to the horcrux feeding on his magic and the weak constitution of his body he would not live through it. It was then I felt a pull, It took me awhile to understand what the feeling was but then I realized, my spirit had the capability of taking over his body without the need of starting from a blank slate that typical rebirth entails. I was unsure how his body could handle a soul touched by the void on top of a fragment of a dark lord, his own soul was... dim, compared to mine. The flesh reflects the soul and the soul reflects the flesh as it were. I considered undergoing the merging process and if the worst happened I'd simply just end up dead again, with that in mind I approached the child and felt myself funneling into Harry, like a whirlpool of water.
It was during this that I felt Harry's own soul start to merge with my own, it had become so unstable due to the state of his magic turning in on itself, that it sought the only avenue of survival it had, which was to merge with my own being and for us to become one. I felt his memories become my own, his hopes, his dreams, his nightmares, the countless hours of abuse at the hands of the Dursleys and the fear he felt as his body howled in hunger and his own magic began to collapse unto itself. I was... ANGRY , how dare these piles of subhuman filth treat a child in such a way, my anger burned within me like a supernova going critical and as I started feeling the physical sensations of the body and the pain from its battered state I momentarily embraced unconsciousness.
I awoke fully awash in my new flesh and felt indescribable pain at not only its state, but at the state of my own soul as it had increased in power by merging with Harry's, feeling as if it was slightly too big for my body. Speaking of Harry I recalled his last thoughts before falling into unconsciousness, they were of joy at finally being able to see his parents and at leaving behind the constant torture he'd endure everyday, this served to reignite my anger and I spent the next half hour slowly getting a feel for my new body as I grew accustomed to inhabiting a physical plane once again. It was then I felt a pain in my chest and remembered that Harry was undergoing the process of becoming an obscurus (obscurification?), I could feel my magic tangling itself into a tighter and tighter knot, as it started to grow darker and more closely resemble that black mist it appeared as in the movies.
Taking a deep breath and steeling myself I started to meditate (as well as I could with all this pain) and focused on gently untangling my magic and spreading it evenly throughout my physical body, the sensation was unpleasant, but it soon started to provide relief from the pain. My body started feeling lighter and I took notice as the mist started brightening until it resembled that of the northern lights, a beautiful ever flowing stream of colors within me. With my metaphysical self being stable for now, I took note of my physical side. Harry had improperly set bones, barely any muscle and was starting to suffer from vitamin D deficiency, his skin was a sickly pale color and from what I could remember of his face, he had dark circles under his eyes with most of his face being sallow and sunk in. I could definitely feel the neglect in every micro movement of my body.
My first thought was to use my magic and properly heal my injuries but my magic was barely stable as is, and it was taking most of it to actually keep me alive, it was then a thought struck me, I had another albeit small reservoir of magic living rent free in my forehead and I could use every scrap of magic I could get my metaphysical hands on, also the absence of a spiritual tumor on my soul would probably help with my recovery.
I redirected the strands of light in my head to wrap around the barrier of the Horcrux and start applying pressure, it took awhile to actually command my magic in such a way but I eventually felt the strands of my magic respond as they begun slowly coiling and curling around it. The horcrux put up a barrier but it was nowhere near the strength of a full soul and I had the power of two (albeit one was significantly weaker) souls within me. The Horcrux removal process isn't that difficult (for a reincarnated dude that spent nearly an eternity just existing as a soul) the problem is usually no one has any idea on how to even go about manipulating souls or their magic in such a way, A fully trained Auror would never encounter, nor have use for this type of magic. Let alone a tiny neglected child. Now magic and the soul are heavily intertwined and its hard to differentiate the two but the main difference I've spotted is that magic can be manipulated and in turn manipulate the physical and metaphysical plane to the users will, while the soul IS the user, but they're both made of the same energy and are technically the same, think of the pseudopodia of an amoeba. Where the pseudopod is the magic and the main body is the soul...except...its nothing like that...honestly trying to explain this is like trying to describe colour to a blind man using sign language.
In the present I felt a slight tinge of whiplash throughout my body as a small crack appeared in the Horcrux's defense, I channeled my magic to slowly seep in and felt a pull on the part of my being that had been touched by the void, this caused my magic to become as dark as the void itself, but also, paradoxically as bright as a shining star, compared to the rainbow of colors it had been. I heard? felt? saw? I witnessed... the horcrux scream as it seemed to be consumed and as it died I witnessed the fragmented memories of one Tom Marvolo Riddle.
The experience was painful as I essentially assimilated another being into myself, though I managed to maintain my original sense of self as the piece of me that had been void touched began...consuming? doing... something, to the mind within the horcrux. I was not taking on any of lord Voldemort's personality traits no siree thank you, I obtained a few of his later memories and the more esoteric rituals he had performed in his later life, but anything earlier than his late 30s was not present and even then there were a few holes. It makes sense I guess, when you split your soul you split your being, that includes thoughts, memories, personality and magic. Although since this was my first time doing this and I was basically running on instinct...a few of his character traits may have slipped through. I'm sure that has nothing to do with the sudden rage that has come over me.
Now that I had come down from that unpleasant experience I felt as if I could think clearer and my body felt like it was a better... 'fit' as it were. I still felt tired and the malnutrition was not helping, but I had more magic available to me and it was no longer at work defending itself from the sentient tumor that was lord Voldemort. The mist throughout my body was more plentiful and it had returned to the bright kaleidoscope of colors it had been originally, I focused on it and directed it deep into my body, it seeped in through my pores, past my muscle and directly into the marrow of my bones. Then with a few deep breaths and concentration I willed my magic to shift into the physical plane, within my body.
In a process that took hours, I laid still as I 'felt' every part of my skeleton with my magic, every clump of scar tissue and every slightly misaligned joint and socket, I slowly and painfully broke my bones along their scars and realigned them into their proper shape and healed them to such a degree that there was minimal to no scarring at all, this process was taxing, but they looked (well, felt) good as new and my magic had partially used itself as energy to encourage cell growth, creating more bone tissue to fill out the damage the malnutrition had caused. This had the effect of causing an increase in my height and stretching my skin and muscles, I had to will my magic into my various tissues so they could grow with my bones so I wouldn't tear myself open. (This process was extremely painful but thankfully the memory is pretty blurry)
By the end the process had nearly become automatic but was still highly inefficient, my magic was nearly depleted and I had to let the rest of if flow throughout my body to maintain homeostasis, I was only aware I could heal myself in such a way due to my time spent as a wandering spirit and the insights I had gleamed about the soul, on top of Tom's research into the healing properties of parselmagic which was now floating around inside my head. Speaking of... whenever I tried accessing memories from my time spent incorporeal there was a slight fogginess to them and I believe I could actually feel myself going insane, the drawback to being flesh once again is that I had to wait for my neurons to rearrange themselves to process the information properly, my horcrux memories didn't have such a risk as they were from when Tom was still living as a human (well aside from some of the rituals he did where he glanced upon parts of the metaphysical plane with his plain ol' flesh and blood eyes). My body and magic would recover automatically without my direct input, so laying on a cot a bit too small for my new height, caked in sweat (and possibly other fluids) and coming down from the tremors of pain that still went through me, I closed my eyes and let the blissful feeling of sleep wash over me and off I was to dream land.
I awoke to an awful screech and pounding on the door. "YOU BETTER BE AT THE STOVE IN THE NEXT 10 MINUTES OR YOU WON'T BE GETTING ANY BREAKFAST"
yeah like she was actually going to feed me, as if. That lovely wake up call was courtesy of Harry's and now my, aunt Petunia, a horribly awful woman who loved to take out all her frustrations on Harry's young and fragile body. After all my hard work fixing my skeletal structure I won't be letting this woman make a balls of it, getting up quickly and opening the door before Petunia had a chance to turn around I was greeted by a bright light and a horse faced woman looking at me in horror.
Oh yeah my eyes aren't used to daylight because my relatives made me live in the fucking dark. "What have you done to yourself you FREAK?!?!?!" shrieked my 'wonderful' aunt.
I had momentarily forgotten about my growth spurt brought on by my healing last night and on top of that, the assimilation of Tom's soul fragment had caused my scar to burst open and I was caked in dried blood. Looking at Petunia I became awash with a sudden anger, How dare this tiny, insignificant mortal, this absolute subhuman ghoul of a woman treat a child like this?!?!? . Apparently the assimilation wasn't as clear cut as I thought, as I had gained some of Tom's anger (or was it my own?), but hey I'd take that over lack of empathy and sadism.
Coming back to myself I came to a conclusion, I was not putting up with this bullshit any longer, these people have proven themselves to be less than human and should not be respected. Calling forth my magic I willed it to shoot forth from me and as it did, it materialized into a beautiful bright and dark spear that defied geometry. Petunia's eyes widened in fear and shock as her rib cage was pierced and my magic started to siphon hers away and into myself, like some horrid leech, seems ol' aunt petunia was a squib and actually had some magic in her.
I steeled myself against the pain of assimilating Petunia's wretched soul and meager amounts of magical energy, my soul was being nourished and strengthened and apparently my body grew jealous as it cried out in hunger. Just as I was going to break the connection from Petunia and go to the kitchen for food I felt the spear of my magic subtly shift and change its structure to become more present in the physical plane, as it answered my body's request and started funneling the nutrients and resources from my aunt's body into myself.
my body and magic assimilated the physical matter and I felt my frame fill out more and that constant sharp hunger I had grown accustomed to started dulling, as my aunts cries of terror died in her throat and she passsed (god I felt like some monster that came from beyond the stars, but satisfying that ever present hunger felt so GOOD ). Petunia's body lay shriveled up and grey, like if Gollum were left out in the sun and starved for a month. I barely paid attention to her memories and sure as hell didn't take on any of her disgusting personality traits, the influx of magic was small and Petunia was a thin woman so my body was far from satisfied. With a cruel grin resembling that of Voldemort during his height of power, my attention turned to the still sleeping bodies upstairs... my stomach growled in hunger .
It was late evening and I was in the backyard of one, number 4 Privet drive, I had incorporated the biological resources of the remaining Dursleys into myself and was now burning their shriveled corpses in a bonfire to remove any traces of their existence. I made a note to investigate why my magic manifested in such a way, but my current theory is probably void bullfuckery. Vernon was a plain mundane and Dudley was a squib so my magic wasn't completely left out, after I had made meals of them I let my magic flare out and recognized a similar magic that was flowing through my veins... the blood wards, the magic felt like family and home, so all signs pointed it towards being Lily's magical signature.
My original soul only gained magic after merging with Harry so my magic signature was that of his, whereas I assimilated Tom's, essentially adding on new stuff to my own magic like parseltongue, while leaving my core magical signature completely unaltered. I used my magic to slowly and gently lift the ward out of the foundation of the house and layer it upon the protections already in my body, thanks to Tom's knowledge of wards and the fact that I now Had Petunia and Dudley's blood and magic flowing within me, the wards recognized me as living with my 'own blood' and they settled in nicely. My love for myself (and what doesn't say self love like murdering your abusers?) started to charge the wards now within me to a level they never would have reached living with the Dursleys, I felt like I was being hugged by a loving mother and the parts of me that were Harry suddenly felt an overwhelming melancholic feeling of joy and sadness. resulting my eyes to water...I'm sure its probably allergies or something...
Back to the present the fire had died and the ashes were cooling, I had a backpack filled with money taken from around the house and any other belongings I could make use of. I shoveled the ashes of the Dursleys into a bag and tied it tight, there's probably a ritual I can use this stuff for. Privet drive was no longer safe and soon people would notice, Dudley not coming too school, Vernon not coming to work NOR calling in sick and I definitely don't wanna be here when the wizards start taking notice of the evidence of blood wards being present, such things leave a certain 'feeling' in the air.
I didn't take any credit cards as using them would leave a paper trail, only physical cash and jewellery for me thank you. Once I had made and packed enough food to last a week, I closed the front door of number 4 privet drive and stood in the driveway, looking back at the house and with only one thought on my mind, I spoke aloud
"If I ever see this place again it'll be too soon" and so I turned around to face the street and wider world and took off to find out what this version of the wizarding world has in store for me.