So he lay on the stone, with light, symbolic silver chains linking his wrists together. Another one linked his ankles. The silver chains sang with charms in the shape of dragons, and stars and constellations in the shape of several Harry recognized and a lot he didn't. Aunt Andromeda had said they were all the stars and constellations Blacks in the last few generations had been named for.
Aunt Andromeda stood in front of him, her wand drawn. Mother was standing on the other side of the circle, opposite her, and Draco at a point where Harry could just see him if he turned his head. Tonks was standing opposite Draco, her posture stiff and her hair a flat black. Harry had been warned not to turn his head too often, in case the motion disrupted the ritual.
From what Aunt Andromeda had said, she was going to cast a curse at him that was meant to shatter the soul. Then she was going to start picking through and removing the shards of the Horcrux. Since it was spread all over Harry's soul, the spell should shatter it and not Harry's.
Theoretically.
But just in case the theory was wrong, Aunt Andromeda was also using a ritual that would anchor Harry's soul among the members of his family. There were many more Blacks than Malfoys, and Harry had been named for a star when he was born, so they were the ones anchoring him. Father was here, too, standing on a dragon carved into the floor and whispering his own chant, to anchor the part of Harry that was Malfoy. Uncle Ted was standing near the entrance, out of sight, somehow balancing Tonks, his daughter, but also not coming too close because he wasn't related to Harry by blood.
That was how Harry understood it, anyway. He thought it was more complex than that, but his head was still spinning just from the revelation that he had a Horcrux spread all over him and growing like a cancer, and he hadn't paid that much attention.
He knew what he was supposed to do, and not do. That was enough. He had to lie there, and not turn his head too much.
He could scream, though. Aunt Andromeda had given him permission to do that.
His aunt looked up now, her eyes liquid and dark. Harry took a deep breath and watched her. He didn't trust her as much as his parents, but he trusted her enough to let her do this.
Which he thought was probably a lot of trust.
"Are you ready, Henry?" Aunt Andromeda asked.
Harry nodded. He didn't think it was his imagination that echoes of other voices spoke along with Aunt Andromeda, murmuring words that were just on the edge of hearing, just on the edge of understanding. Mother had said the ritual would reach out to all other living Blacks. Harry wondered for a moment what Black—Sirius—would make of it, but then put the thought out of his mind. Maybe Sirius would be useful for once in Harry's life.
"Good." Aunt Andromeda raised her wand and closed her eyes.
Mother began to chant. When she started to repeat the same words—Latin words, not ones Harry knew, and not ones he'd cared to read the translation of—Draco started speaking. When Draco reached the beginning of the chant over again and Mother started speaking for the third time, Tonks joined in.
Harry could hear Father's voice, distantly, but he could hear the echoing voices even more strongly. A wind had begun to move around the ritual chamber, and Aunt Andromeda nodded her head along in time to the chant. At first Harry thought she might get lost in it and forget to cast the soul-shattering spell, but she opened her eyes before Harry could wonder whether he should remind her.
"Confringo animam!"
The spell that coiled out of her wand was a deep, sickly blue, and it struck Harry in the chest. Harry shuddered. It hurt at a level deeper than his bones, as if he'd broken something in the center of his being. He threw his head back and howled.
Aunt Andromeda cast another spell. Harry didn't hear what it was. He knew it would begin picking through the shards of his soul, picking out the shards of the Horcrux. He still ached and burned, and the fear he'd confessed to Draco darted through his head, that the Horcrux was his soul, and there was no difference between him and Voldemort—
The chanting voices surged up and around him. Harry felt the chains break. He had a moment of sheer panic, and then darkness and coolness descended on him, and he realized he was no longer in the ritual circle.
He opened his eyes and spun around.
He stood on what seemed to be a field of dark grass, under a field of stars. Harry gaped a little as he tilted his head back. He had never seen the stars so well, not even through a telescope during his Astronomy class at Hogwarts. They blazed and shimmered at him, and he recognized the constellations Draco and Andromeda, directly overhead. He turned his head, instinctively seeking the star Aldebaran.
"Hello, Henry."
Harry's attention snapped away from the sky, and he found himself facing a tall boy with a handsome, sculpted face. His eyes burned red, though, and he clutched a pale white wand that told Harry who he was.
"Tom Riddle," Harry whispered.
"The most important one of that name," Riddle agreed, and looked around the field with the air of someone staring at a painting in a museum. "An interesting battlefield your family has created for us."
Harry said nothing, but he was sweating. This wasn't supposed to happen. He hadn't paid attention to all the details of the ritual, as overwhelmed as he was, but he knew that it was supposed to be just him lying there feeling pain, while Aunt Andromeda healed him and Draco and Mother and Tonks and Father chanted.
Riddle smiled at him. "I am not a Horcrux like other Horcruxes," he said, as if using Legilimency on Harry. "And you are not one, either. It is almost a shame that there can be only one soul in this body. I would have enjoyed talking with you, perhaps working with you to see if we could both serve the cause of my immortality."
"Fuck off."
"Take your own advice, Henry Malfoy," Riddle said, and laughed, and cast the Killing Curse at him.
....
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