223This bones of this fic are ancient, have been moldering in my fanfiction folder, and I'm well aware I'm never going to make this into a full-length fic. But it's Tomione Month over at Enchanting the Bookworm, and I thought I might as well finish it, polish it, post it to celebrate. Gifting this fic to Maloreiy, admin extraordinaire, whom we love dearly for all the work she does.
I'll post a chapter a weekday or so until it's done. Maybe it'll amuse someone and give you a laugh. Enjoy!
Tom Riddle was severely annoyed.
He'd slipped into the Hogwarts library after dinner to continue researching. He'd heard of something called a Horcrux, but it was barely mentioned anywhere. Slughorn had only confirmed what it was in the vaguest possible manner. Books refused to elaborate. Others even said "we dare not speake of it," which was even more frustrating to find than finding nothing. But it was possible that this "horcrux" could be the key to immortality. Tom had to find it. He had to.
The book he was paging through, though it offered lot of information on souls, seemed to be mostly about healing souls, finding souls, the difference between souls and ghosts, and everything except splitting your soul. Which wasn't helpful – Tom needed to know how to split his soul, what the ritual was to designate an object, and how to make the horcrux. The last thing he needed was information on bloody ghosts.
Resisting the urge to groan, Tom dropped the book and rubbed at his temples, warding off a headache. The last thing he wanted to do was crawl through a dozen dry books like this looking for what he wanted. Why wasn't there just a magical card catalog with the entry HORCRUX he could use?
He reached for the book to put it away, pausing as his eye caught the page it had fallen open to.
SOULMATES
Soulmates?
That sounded like romantic muggle garbage. But it was here in this book. So… soulmates were real?
Quickly disabling the alarm spell on the book, Tom pocketed it and slipped out of the library, feeling mildly intrigued, intending to read more.
"Soulmates are said to be the perfect complement of each other, sharing key traits while also filling in the weaknesses of the other. Their magic is sympathetic, and together the pair can cast much stronger magics than they could ever hope to do alone. Legend says that soulmates are generally born within each other's lifetimes and intuitively seek each other out one way or another. Not every soul has a soulmate; those that do are rare and chosen by Fate.
"Though legends of reincarnation are left to legend, actual instances of soulmates are verifiable. The spell of "Vidaito" with a circular motion over the crossed wrists will either produce a thin beam of red light which will bind the wrists together before dissolving, or a string of white light that will dissolve into harmless sparks. The former result indicates soulmates; the latter indicates no connection of souls between the two.
"There have been many great quests in history to find one's soulmate, but soulmates have fallen out of public favor since Edward the Bold captured and killed 30 maidens in search of his own. Since Edward's terror in 1745, however, there have been quiet developments in the verification and discovery of soulmates, difficult though it may be.
"In 1898, the French Department of Mysteries published a ritual designed to locate one's soul mate and bring the soulmates together. It was published with a warning, however, that the ritual could cross space and time. After three wizards disappeared after trying the ritual, it fell into disfavor. One of the wizards later reappeared in 1912, however, with his soulmate – the ritual had leapt him forward in time to be united with her.
"The ritual is republished here with the permission of the French Ministry."
Tom stared at the book.
A soulmate?
Immediately, Tom wanted one.
A soulmate meant you were special, chosen. Not everyone had one, after all. The romantic blathering about being perfect compliments and whatnot he couldn't care less about. Casting sympathetically, though – that was powerful magic. Not even Grindelwald was able to do that with anyone. Dumbledore couldn't either, as far as Tom knew. To be able to perform that caliber of magic…
Tom scanned the ritual. The ritual wasn't dark magic, but it definitely bordered on gray. He would have to offer blood to the ritual to allow the magic to find the connection, as well as a sacrifice of… dubious nature. The other soul had to consent to being found, somehow, though the ritual didn't specify how. There would be a powerful reaction, and the two souls (and their bodies) would be able to cross space and time to be united with each other.
There was nearly a page and a half of warnings after the ritual that Tom didn't read. He could feel his heart quivering with excitement. To be chosen by Fate. To have someone at his side as he reached his goals, a perfectly paired-partner… to cast sympathetic magic…
So it was very late on September 1st, 1943 when Tom Riddle slit his wrist open, his blood falling into the ritual circle where he'd set a shrieking owl on fire, and said the ritual words. There was a bright flash and a powerful gale that swept through the dungeon room, blowing everything all over the place.
When things settled, Tom Riddle was gone, as was the owl, leaving only a small pile of ash and a few drops of blood behind on the floor.