Legacy of Harry Potter

November 1994

Diagon Alley

Dumbledore's question about the horcrux brought uneasy silence among the participants of the meeting. They exchanged awkward glances among each other, while Moody had his eyes widened in shock.

"What are you trying to imply, Dumbledore?" Moody asked; his tone increasingly grave.

Albus did not speak immediately as he looked around the room.

After some moments he sighed, "Now that all of you that Voldemort's real name was Tom Marvolo Riddle."

"He was once a student of Hogwarts. From the very first meeting, I had with him in the orphanage he was brought up, I knew that Riddle was a genius student," sighed Dumbledore. "He had a natural affinity with magic… he could wield magic smoothly. He was a prodigy."

"At Hogwarts, he was among the best students and almost favourites of all professors," Dumbledore continued. "He had a very obedient… very gentle and trustworthy demeanour."

"Only if I had known that he had fooled us all," added Dumbledore in pained voice.

"In reality, he was too ambitious… too cunning. He hated his half blood heritage," he continued. "He wanted to rule the world… stand at top of everything.

"At that time, we had a professor, you all must know him, Horace Slughorn," said Dumbledore. "As you know, he was very fond of making connections with genius people… and Tom Riddle was undoubtedly his favourite."

"Using his gentleness… desire to learn and gather knowledge, Tom Riddle learned about a very specific piece of magic. A ritual that had ability to grant him immortality."

Everyone's eyes flashed with shock and surprise at the moment.

"That ritual was to create horcrux," he continued. "It is an extremely foul… horrid piece of magic."

"It requires dozens of innocent lives… wizards and other magical creatures alike to be killed in cold blood to be performed one time."

"Horcrux… it involves the splitting one's soul. The split soul is then stored into a suitable vessel… some kind of non living object," said Dumbledore. "When one splits his soul, he gets an additional life. Even if that person is killed… he will return back with the other split piece of soul as medium."

"Voldemort created horcrux," murmured Sirius. "It means he is still alive."

Dumbledore continued ignoring Sirus' comment, "Voldemort, I believe, created 6 or 7 horcrux."

Everyone's mouth widened in shock while Alastor Moody who had the most understanding of horcrux and its foulness almost stumbled from his chair.

"How evil that guy was?" he mumbled in shock… disgust and hatred. "How many dozens of innocent lives he would have taken."

"When that night Voldemort attacked Lily and James," Dumbledore continued. "I suppose he had already performed a ritual for further splitting of his soul but had not performed the final step which was to transfer his split soul into the vessel."

"No one knows for whatever reason call it fate or magic," said Dumbledore. "When he fired the killing curse at Harry Potter, his physical body got vanished."

"One part of his soul fled in an extremely weakened state while the other portion of the soul latched on to Harry… specifically on his scar and into his mind consciousness."

"Dumbledore," shrieked Sirius. "Are you implying that Harry has been taken over by Voldemort?"

Dumbledore still did not answer and continued, "I discovered this anomaly immediately after Hagrid brought Harry to me."

"Although, there are certain methods to remove such kind of latched soul, it was not possible to perform them on baby… they could have only been performed once Harry had turned 18."

Dumbledore sighed, his eyes brimming with tear, "I knew there was a certain risk of Voldemort taking over Harry's body... but I was powerless."

"Hence, I used other methods," Dumbledore continued. "I bound Harry's magic to a certain degree… so as that the latched soul is not able to draw extra magic to power itself."

"I kept Harry away from the magical world with the same hopes."

"I did not inform him of his heritage or any other wizarding matter for the same reason," Dumbledore continued. "I believed that a life free of arrogance and unwanted attention would help Harry have a stable consciousness making it difficult for Voldemort to take over his body."

"Running wilding in the wizarding world with the fame of Boy who lived and the name and wealth of Lord apparent Potter would have done Harry no good."

"I admit, I threw him into a life of hardship, not the luxury he deserved, but it was all for Harry to remain Harry," said Dumbledore in a slow and pained voice.

"I won't go into details but this was the best way possible," he continued. "And the method seemed to work to."

"Harry did not show any signs of abnormality up to his 3rd year stress."

"I was happy… I was waiting for him to turn 18 so that the soul piece would be received and I would inform him of his heritage."

"I would have personally trained him for what was about to come," he said; tears still brimming his eyes. "But it all came crashing down."

He faced Sirius, "As for your question, Sirius, I also do not want to believe this but do you have a better explanation or a better reason to explain the sudden changes in Harry Potter."

Dumbledore's little 'secret' was followed by a stunned silence.

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