Harry Potter & The Hand God

Tom is busy. Draco doesn't like that. "You hardly spend time with us anymore," he whines, watching Tom get dressed. "It's always melting pot this and melting pot that -- and research, always researching."

"You do know it is our final year," Tom says, securing his tie around his neck, intentionally avoiding the question. "I would be a fool not to study."

"But these books," Draco says, lowering his voice. "They aren't about school subjects. Tom, you are up to your neck in religious texts and body-sharing nonsense and more Dark Magic tomes than one is able to check out while avoiding suspicion."

"I admit to having been taking some rather unconventional classes."

Draco throws his hands up before dropping them to his side, sighing. "Tom," he says. "What is going on? You hardly treat us anymore. And, more than that, I'm.. I'm worried, Tom. You seem obsessed."

Seem? Draco, I thought you knew me better. Me and my curiosity, it has me positively consumed. "Are the others concerned with their current reward system?"

Draco pales. "I --  erm--"

"Not a problem!" Tom says, flashing Draco a grin that is both lovely and vicious. "Tell Nott to gather the gang. I will treat them tonight."

Draco bows his head. "I'm sorry to have brought it up--"

"Why be sorry? I am not asking for apologeticness."

You are not, Draco says. You are forcing it out of us. "Alright, Tom. I'll tell him."

"Wonderful. If anyone asks, tell them not to disturb me." He heads toward the dungeon's door. "I have a feeling I am on the edge of a breakthrough."

Tom does not wait for a reply, because, really, nothing he could've said would've mattered and they both know it, and he walks past the entrance to the Great Hall, toward the library. Harry will wonder where is he is, but it isn't as essential to earn his trust if Tom can figure everything out on his own.

Apologies, Harry, Tom thinks while setting three books down in front of him. You are secondary.

From his time researching, he found that there are a lot of wizarding religions and most of them are nonsense. Ditto with Muggles. 

There's the mainstream wizarding ones -- the ones he'd considered in his early years, searching desperately for a greater force to save him death before deciding that the "greater force" he's looking for is himself. The idea that The Tales of the Beetle and The Bard is more a bible than storybook is spoken upon a lot, regarding Death God. Once his items are brought together, his gifts reunited, the world will see its Doomsday. Death will rule all.

Tom finds this religion silly, if not superstitious. It implies that Death, or, at the very least, death does not already "rule all." 

Its popularity is only rivaled by the Church of Merlin. Their political influence is unnerving enough to some to warrant a spot in the heart of Dismantilists, mainly for the ant-Squib ideologies pushed. Merlin, being the most powerful wizard alive in his time and now, spoke a lot. Because he was powerful, people listened and praised until, boom, a religion is formed. It really is that simple. 

Controversies include being pro-Muggleborn but anti-Squib. "Those born with magic have a right to the knowledge of it." Many have tried to get this legalized in the Ministry, but, as of now, no such luck. 

There are also the more absurd ones. Belief that Thestrals are angels. Belief that those who are naturally inclined to Dark magic are demons; those with Light, angels. Belief that Phoenixes are holy and should be treated as such (fascinating in practice -- a poachers got his hands on someone's Phoenix and he was found a week later with his eyes missing, Tom could almost laugh if it was not so disturbing. Religion made people forego logic in place of delusion. Something so terrifying is nothing to laugh at.)

Tom would consider himself an atheist if he did not know better.

He searches through books an manifestos and Bibles, buying them off of Muggleborn students and Purebloods alike. He looses himself for hours. He reads until he reaches for the next book the pile and realizes that there's nothing left.

Throughout every religion, every single sense of spirituality picked up and spun by Muggles and magic, there is nothing about a giant hand. Giant woman, sure. Giant men, even more so. But a giant hand, detached from a body, disembodied in both voice and form?

Not a god damned word.

So, today, he sits down with no intention of a breakthrough concerning what religion the hand God belongs to. He can see an dead end when he hits it. No, today he's looking into something else. 

Harry Potter. Specifically, whatever lies within him that isn't him.

He was first fixated on pink. The hands in his head were pink and Harry's eyes glowed pink -- surely, that is more than coincidence. That is purposeful. Significant. He is sure that "pink" represents some aspect of this being's identity, but his certitude ends there. Which aspect of the being's identity? Is pink correlated to its name, its form, its intentions? To time, age, magical core? 

It is not so much a dead end as it is there's too many ends to check them all, especially with the limited amount of knowledge he has. Tom starts to feel himself get frustrated and thinks, Good. It has been a while since he's been genuinely challenged. 

So pink is a no-go, at least until he has more information. He decides to next focus on the nature of its possession and the primordial concept of possession alike.

Tom cannot say much about the possession in question. He hasn't heard any rumors of Harry having shiny pink eyes, even within Harry's closest circle. The entity is conscious just as much, if not more than, Harry Potter himself. He knows that Harry Potter hasn't the slightest idea about the entire situation whatsoever. 

("Do you wander through corridors alone, after hours, often?" Tom had questioned the day after the inciting incident.

"No?" Harry says, absently, which means he's not putting enough brainpower into his answer to lie. 

"Really? I had saw you while patrolling yesterday. You seemed lost. Do you need a chaperone?"

Harry scoffed. "Don't patronize me. And don't accuse me of going out after-hours; I do all my dirty work publicly. I'm not fucking shady."

And he isn't, Tom's sure. Harry Potter's business is an open book (likely because Harry has to write it literally in an open book to keep up with it all.))

Tom can tell one important thing between the layers; whoever, or whatever, shares Harry's body? It does not want to share it. This body is rightly Harry's and it knows it and it wants Harry to live out his life uninterrupted. 

Love. Yes. Tom supposes Harry would call this love.

Problem is, Harry loves a lot and Harry loves hard. Tom assumes that it often goes both away. There are hundreds of possibilities. 

Possession, breaking away from Harry's particular case, had dozens of books written about it. Theory is discussed multiple times over, written about in hypothetical situations. The question what if? is tossed around frequently. But Tom isn't here for theory because Harry's situation isn't just in theory; it's real. It already happened and is still happening, the question what IF? is already questioned.

Tom wants case numbers. He wants experiments. He wants to see theory applied, wants to see the real life results of all these authors' thinking and research and all their thinkingthinkingthinking.

But that is where it stops. There is nothing more to do than think. People answer the question what if? with there is no if. Bodies are full enough already. They cannot hold anything or anyone else.

Tom is livid. He is disappointed. These people write hundreds of pages but they talk about nothing. It is worth less than gossiping schoolboys drunk and huddled around the fireplace; then, everything said is said with intention true or muddled enough to be perceived as such. 

Harry is living proof against them. If possession does not exist, then what of Harry? If a body sharing two souls cannot happen, then what of Harry?

... Maybe he is thinking of this in a sense too black and white. 

He assigned a word to a concept before he fully understood it and that, this time, is on him. 

Who says that Harry's case is that of possession? Hm? It shows signs, shows the symptoms of "possession," but it also shows symptoms of other things.

Possession in the wizarding world is regarded as the forceful intrusion of a soul, presumed deceased, into a human body, still-alive. There is not enough room in the soul for extras.

But what if Harry's soul is not whole? Tom has looked into the magic before. He knows it is possible. If Harry's soul was not whole, then there would be room -- just enough -- to fit another, considering their souls are compatible.

Compatible meaning that the two were previously bound by other means; love and blood shared. (This answers the question of who? Who is dead, loves Harry potter, shares his blood, and is a girl (given the feminine voice, and all)? His mother.) 

To split ones soul, Dark magic is required. Murdering others in the name of sadism, of your own pleasure, is a necessity, and, unfortunately, Harry Potter does not seem the type. A pity. 

So Tom looks into soul damage non-self inflicted. To split ones soul, one must utilize Dark magic, but to split anothers soul? Dark magic is required, but it's much more likely in this scenario.

He finds his answer in a Healer's book. Tom has not even considered reading it before. 

It discusses memory loss in magical children. Typically, being of magic origin makes the body more resilient, lengthening the average lifespan in wizards and their physical durability. IQ is generally higher and memory better. There are a few rare exceptions. If, during development in the womb, the body builds itself around the idea that they will not be magical, but is magical anyway, then the body will work to reject the situation in the most direct form possible; the brain. 

To help with memory loss, a journal is routinely given to record thoughts that the mind might not keep. Routines are enforced and magical use is to be encouraged. Within the child's first 4 years, the problem should fix itself.

If it does not, past that, then the worst can be assumed. Insanity and eventual death is predicted, but there is a treatment, albeit illegal and bloody. It requires exposing the child with images horrific and traumatizing. Their mind is already unstable and at constant war with itself, their soul the same.

It will not be able to handle it. 

It will break and crack and then chip, and while a gap exists (that, given, will repair itself over time if left alone) a third party fills the hole with the dying soul of someone compatible. Anything that cannot fit into the gap dies with the body. The mind, with the stability of a second party, will stabilize. Hopefully, the last thing they will forget it what made them break. This procedure is largely untested for obvious reasons, but whether or not the added soul is conscious varies widely. 

Souls are naturally adaptive. If they are hurt, they will heal when the mind does. If it is broken down into a discard hunk, it will come to grow into the size of of a full soul once again. 

Lily's soul, and every soul that has been shoved into another person, becomes unwilling codependent. It expands and swells and Harry's soul moves, thankful for the comfort and stability, shrinking into itself to make room until it is more of a half-and-half state of affairs. They share the same amount of control. It is no wonder that Lily can take over when she does.

No wonder it was so hard to figure this out. This was not a case of possession. This was a fucking medical procedure. 

But something's wrong here. If the procedure was supposed to help Harry's memory improve, then why is it still shit? Why is Harry unaware of Lily occupying his body? (He is unique in that way; every recorded case has the child being informed of the procedure, sharing their body while grasping why. Most are very close with each other.) 

... Why hasn't Madame Pomfrey, his current guardian, noticed anything about it?