Chapter 352: The Nature of Duality

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29 March 1995, Black Manor

Harry couldn't help but curse his luck. No, there had to be more to it. Fate itself must have been against him for everything to turn out so badly. He probably should have come the day before, but he was busy spending some quality time with Daphne and making sure that Longbottom wouldn't tell anyone of his survival.

In a burst of pure luck, the boy who lived decided to keep his mouth shut about his survival. The boy must have finally learned that saying something outlandish without any proof was an easy way to be mocked and ostracized. Harry was glad for it; it saved him a lot of time tying loose ends. Weirdly enough, Neville was pretty understanding of his wish to remain hidden and vowed not to say anything. To be fair, the boy might have realized that Harry had enough shit on him to really hurt him. The reveal that his scar was a Horcrux would be enough to have half of the country trying to kill him to make Voldemort mortal once more.

The only real loose end was Lily, and she was unlikely to try anything soon. Oh, she would do something eventually, but Harry can be a very petty guy. He already showed that to her before, and with him being able to close the connection with her dimension, that scared her more than anything. He knew her well enough to know what her next moves would be. She would first try to recreate the connection somehow, or even to fix it.

It would take a few months of experimentation to finally realize that the singularity had affected the dimension itself, not just her connection and that it was slowly leaking into the void between worlds. Then she would probably follow that by removing her connection to her dimension and try to find another one to bind herself to. She would inevitably try to recreate her ritual in Godric's Hollows and would not confront Harry unless she knew for certain that he would have no hold over her, that he wouldn't be able to so easily hurt her. She would not antagonize him until she was ready.

It was what he would have planned and as much as he liked to deny it, they were very much alike, in many ways at least. Harry was able to sense the connection because he actively traced it back to when he had to deal with the singularity in Durmstrang. She had used a ritual to connect herself to it, and the connection was still fresh enough that she didn't have any control over it. And now, he could stop it easily because he was familiar with it. Had that not happened, he would have needed to use his Arcane Hearing while she was channelling energy for that dimension, and reverse engineer the connection. He had most of the calculations done when he was travelling back, but it still would have taken a bit of time to analyse the connection enough to block it.

Lily's reaction was a guess at best, but to be completely honest, he knew that his return would be inevitably revealed. The idea was to be done with Europe entirely by then.

And yet, he was reminded once more about a fundamental fact that he had forgotten. Fate's a bitch. Because how else would he explain Voldemort coming to attack Black Manor the moment Harry revealed his return to Arcturus?

The Black Patriarch had definitely seen better days, but Harry didn't have it in him to blame the man for it. His entire country was going to shit, and the man had bet a lot on Harry as his heir, only for him to disappear without a trace. He could understand Arcturus not being his sharp self, especially not in his own home.

Alas, they barely had time to speak before Voldemort decided to attack the manor with an army of dementors on his side. Crafting an illusion to look like Tom Riddle was an instinctive reaction, but one that could have worked. He had no delusions that Voldemort would keep his return secret, after all.

Still, he relished the look of shock on the abomination's face as he took his form, "You! How can you be here?"

Well, he supposed it was time to bullshit himself to victory, "Hello, Voldemort. If it's all the same to you, I'd like my body back."

The wannabe dark lord stood there, shocked, "What are you talking about? Reveal yourself, impostor!"

Harry felt the magic trying to convince him to do the same, "Well, isn't that a familiar little trick? How nostalgic. I remember using it in the orphanage quite a lot to get my way. To think you haven't updated your arsenal since we were children. I look at you and I can't help but be disappointed."

Voldemort sent a killing curse at Harry, who dodged it easily, "Seriously? Is that all you can do? Is that the dark lord people are afraid to even speak his name? I expected more. To think you are a part of me, how disappointing."

"Part of you?"

"I am Tom Riddle, the greatest wizard of all time, the man who would defeat the Light and Dark as Solomon did once and bring peace to the magical world, at least I was before you bound me to that loathsome diary."

"You're my Horcrux? Do you seriously expect me to believe that?"

Harry chuckled, "Do you remember the day Dumbledore came to see us in the orphanage? He confirmed that we were always special, that we were more, that we mattered. Then, of course, he set our closet on fire. We never did quite forgive him for that. To be fair, he was always a bit of righteous arse."

Lord Voldemort froze in his tracks and gave Harry a wide look, "You're real. I thought the diary was destroyed."

"It wasn't. I trapped a girl in it, bound her to it, and used that to break my chains. However, unlike you, I didn't see the point in publicizing my return. I have to ask, why did you even wage war in Britain? Our ambition was to follow Solomon's footsteps, to break the cycle of Light and Dark. Britain was never the goal."

"It is mine to conquer, mine to rule, mine to protect from Dumbledore and Grindelwald, as well as that loathsome Red Witch. To think that Lily Evans still lives, to this day. I always knew she was troublesome."

Harry shook his head, "To see my legacy fall so far breaks my heart. Then again, you were always a mistake, my mistake."

The Dark Lord's eyes glowed in fury, "A mistake, am I?"

"I don't expect you to understand. You can't after all. You were supposed to be what's in the diary. I was grieving so deeply for the mistake I made that I wasn't paying attention. I was supposed to put my viciousness, my cruelty, my anger at the world, everything that had made me cause poor Myrtle harm. It was an act of repentance, and yet I did the opposite. In my grief, I put myself in the Diary, instead of what I wished to sacrifice. On that day, you were born, Lord Voldemort, a fragment of mine that should have been nothing more than my mistakes in a book."

"That's not right, I remember…"

"You remember nothing. Your perception is warped because you are incomplete. You keep justifying your actions as horrible as they could be. Can't you see that? You are destroying Britain, not for some kind of higher purpose, but because you want to. Dumbledore isn't there to threaten either of us, and yet in the months you have returned you have brought nothing but desperation and destruction."

"I tire of this," the madman sneered at Harry.

A few dementors advanced towards Harry and he was tempted to use his variation of his Patronus charm to chain them, or even do as he did in the other dimension and trap them in some cave, unable to leave for centuries. However, for the first time in his life, Harry used his Arcane Hearing on the dementors and tried to understand what they were.

He couldn't help but be surprised by the result. He heard that dementors were amortal, but he had no idea how right people were. Because as much as the dementors looked humanoid, they were definitely not. The cloak, even the flesh itself were all just presentation. Their sentience was nothing more than an illusion, no better than the enchantments on a chess set, even if they could theoretically do something autonomously. The only real thing about the dementors was their mouths, and even then, they weren't really mouths, just a portal to somewhere else. Where to? Well, he didn't really have the time to trace it. The connection wasn't really being used enough for him to trace it easily. If he had to guess, whenever they kissed someone, the energy went there and wasn't that a can of worms on their own?

Each dementor was barely more than a fancy animated spell given form and every drop of life force they sucked was used to feed whatever was on the other side. It was a very scary thought and the idea of facing something that was powered by this kind of energy was terrifying. And for him to say that was telling, to say the least.

Not now, Harry, one crisis at a time.

However, Harry had gotten very good at closing the portal. He cast a black spell at each of the dementors moving towards him, and they immediately collapsed, leaving nothing more than black veils. He gave Voldemort an unimpressed look.

The madman was too busy gawking at the 'dead' dementors, "How is that possible?"

"Unlike you, I actually have the ability to have an original idea. I am what we should have been, well a fragment of our potential even then. You should have been able to understand what I have just done, but you don't have my curiosity or wonder anymore, do you?"

"And what were you doing here, with Black of all people."

Harry simply shrugged, "We were here to talk about you, of course."

Voldemort froze, his eyes widened, "What?"

"Well, I was planning on scheming my way to achieve our goal, to actually kill Dumbledore and Grindelwald, and he was all for it. I was going to leave you alone and try to be obsessed with that Longbottom boy. However, you just had to be a nuisance the moment you came back. I'm impressed, really. It took you less than a few months to set Magical Britain on fire, and for no actual reason bar your lust for power sometimes if I should just let you be, as a lost cause. Then again, you are a mistake, my mistake and it is my responsibility to take care of it."

Voldemort raised his wand and sent a beam of darkness at him, only for Harry to use the Elder Wand to absorb the energy. It was a nice trick he had learned when he had gotten the wand. He modified a bit its ability to absorb magic to be able to easily absorb the energy in oncoming spells. It could probably work on a killing curse, but he wasn't really willing to risk it.

The man must have tried to channel a lot of energy because the wand warmed slightly, still the man's eyes widened slightly at how casually Harry was negating things. He slowly walked forward as the beam of Darkness continued to be channelled, and spoke up, "I'm really glad that you're here, now. You saved me the time to track you down, to properly reunite with you."

"What are you talking about?" he sneered back.

Harry used the distraction to channel the resurrection stone with what little soul magic he had learned. He hadn't really had the time to research it properly. The stone was as much of a mystery to him now as it was when he had gotten it. He had learned to use it to enhance his spells, to give them a spiritual component, in a way, which could bypass most forms of magical protection. Soul magic was hard, extremely so, and to be honest, he never had the time to study such a field, especially since the returns on investment weren't good in the short term.

However, he had learned a few tricks, like for example, using the stone to affect souls. It was barely more than a small nudge, a small form of shaking, but Voldemort's eyes widened in fear as he felt it. He had broken his own soul and was somewhat experienced in his soul being manipulated in different ways.

"What are you doing?" he screeched.

"Making us one once more," Harry simply replied.

The Dark Lord froze in his tracks and immediately turned into smoke and Harry stopped him slightly, "You cannot run, Voldemort. I will keep looking for you, and eventually, I will subsume you, once more."

A small telekinetic push sent the entire room wabbling and Voldemort flew away in his smoke form, fearing for his very existence. He left the dementors behind, who just floated around all over the mansion. Harry turned and spoke to them, "I will only say this once. You saw what I'm capable of, what I can do, and this is my only warning. You will not serve Voldemort or any of his followers. You will return to Tartarus and not leave the prison's premises. You will not attack any innocent muggle, wizard, or magical creature. Do that and I will not track every single one of you and wipe their existence like I did the ones who tried to attack me. If you see me coming, my advice to you is to run as fast and as far away as you can. There will not be a second warning."

In a surprising show of speed, the dementors quickly left the property, hopefully back to Tartarus. Harry turned to the flabbergasted Arcturus, having removed his opposition, "Well, that ought to give Britain a break for a few weeks, maybe even a month or two."

He wasn't even lying. Voldemort would remain afraid of being subsumed by Tom Riddle and had just lost the support of the dementors. Lily Evans would remain holed up somewhere trying to get back what she had lost, which should take a while. The only issues would be the Lycans, but wizarding authorities should be able to handle them, especially since their leader would be too busy to coordinate their attacks. Harry had a low opinion of British wizards in general, but they had to figure out that the Lycans, while more resistant to silver, were still harmed by the metal.

He turned towards the still gaping Black Patriarch and spoke up with a cheerful smile, "Now, where were we before we were so rudely interrupted? Ah, yes, Nymphadora Tonks."

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AN: As you probably noticed, I decided to do something a bit different this time instead of the usual fighting and duelling. Tricking Voldemort into being afraid of his own Horcrux was just too funny not to write. The moment the idea was in my head, it just wouldn't leave. I hope it came out like I wanted it to, and as usual, please let me know what you think and if you have any suggestions.

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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr

I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.

Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.