The room was silent for a long, heavy moment as everyone seemed to be processing what he had told them. From the kids to all the older members of the Order, no one had words. The knowledge that Dumbledore had been nurturing a sacrifice, that their hope, their friend, was a tool, was a shock wave that left them paralyzed. What could they say right now? The world had tilted on its axis.
"I'm going to kill him," Sirius finally growled, the words guttural and low, vibrating with a deep, murderous intent that had been dormant since his days in Azkaban. He surged forward, powered by a blinding mix of parental fury and the absolute horror of the betrayal from the man he trusted.
Remus, who had sat down dazed in a chair to process the truth himself, shot up instantly. He knew Sirius in this state that the man was actually serious about what he was saying, and he would go to kill Dumbledore if left alone. "Sirius, stop and think! We can't afford to lose control now!"
But the man was having none of that. Logic was useless when the life of his godson, the last link to his best friends, was at stake. He struggled violently with the werewolf, furniture scraping across the floor, his eyes blazing toward the closed door. The others, Arthur, Moody, and even Molly, just watched the desperate, physical struggle, unable to interfere, their minds too occupied with the monstrous reality.
Nobody knew what to say. The foundation of their team for the fight against the darklord, their belief in their leader, had crumbled to ash with just one conversation.
Young Harry didn't even seem to register all this. For him, the chaos was a muffled background noise, a distant storm. He was just numb at the moment, suspended in a cold, emotional vacuum.
How could he not be? He could barely hear the ruckus that was going on. The man he had trusted all these years, the kind, twinkling-eyed grandfather figure, was setting him up to die. How did one even begin to process that?
He felt the strength drain from his legs and collapsed onto a chair by Hermione and Ron's side. The two quickly rounded up on their friend, flanking him for support. They were saying things, but all he could hear was muffling. A crushing narrative formed in his head, all his life was suffering in his uncle's home, followed by a brief happiness in Hogwarts, only for the old man to send him to die. Was that it. Was that how it was supposed to go.
And the terrible truth was that Harry knew he would have walked off to his death. That was a thought he was grappling with even now, after his older self had confirmed that he did indeed have a connection to Voldemort that required him to die for them to kill the Dark Lord. For his friends, for the world, he would do it. He would give up his own life if it meant the people he loved would live to see a better future, before the future had looked bleak, but suddenly, the path was clear.
He turned his head to his older self, who had somehow gotten a book and was reading casually, ignoring the chaos around him that he had caused as the other adults seemed to have joined in trying to keep Sirius from running and killing the Headmaster.
"What is it?" Harry voiced, the sound thin and strained, drawing attention back to himself.
His older self seemed to look at him, the corner of his mouth twitching slightly. "Hm?" he hummed, looking back at Harry.
"What is the connection?" he asked his older self again, needing to know the full truth about the connection.
The older boy gazed at him, his emerald eyes holding a chilling weight as Harry felt like he was being judged by some higher entity, before speaking. "It's a part of his soul."
The struggle in the room died instantly. Everyone gasped, a unified, sharp intake of breath. Harry felt a sudden wave of nausea, like he was going to throw up. He had a piece of Voldemort's soul in him. He felt violated, unclean, and utterly disgusted.
"How?" thankfully, Hermione asked what he wanted to. She looked utterly sickened, her mind reeling from what she had just heard about her best friend.
"It happened the night he first tried to kill us," the older one said, looking detached, as if discussing ancient history. "Whatever Mum did stopped him, but as his body was being destroyed, a splinter of his soul, already fragmented by his dark magic, found its way out. It sought the nearest living host to cling to. It chose you. chose us"
Harry couldn't help the shiver that ran throughout his body. He felt a deep, instinctive recoil. To carry a piece of him in his body. The very thought was repulsive.
"Where?" Ron asked, his voice rough.
Harry noticed how the gaze of his older self landed directly on his scar. His hand shot up to his forehead, clutching the lightning bolt.
Hermione gasped, her mind clicking into overdrive. "That explains so much now," she said, looking at Harry with a mixture of terror and realization. "All those times it hurt when you came close to him. The accidental Parseltongue. The visions! The scar. This makes so much sense." She turned back to older Harry, who simply nodded, confirming her deductions.
He tuned out what she said next as his mind started racing. As Hermione said, this actually made more sense than Dumbledore's cryptic answers and deflections.
Harry was so unused to knowing what to do with straight answers that the clarity was almost dizzying. He shook his head, pushing back the nausea. But wasn't this good in a way? Now that they knew how to kill Voldemort, wouldn't it be the right thing to actually just go through with it? The path to ending the war was simple, painful, but absolute.
He suddenly felt someone flick his head.
"You're thinking something stupid right now, aren't you?" his older self said, his voice flat and cutting, and Harry couldn't stop the blush of shame. He hated that this stranger could read his suicidal heroism so easily.
"Let me guess," he continued, an almost bored tone masking his disapproval, "you're actually thinking about going through with it right now."
The silence that followed was heavy with condemnation and fear. Everyone else snapped their heads to him, confirming the unspoken fear when he didn't meet their gaze.
"No, absolutely not!" Sirius yelled out, rushing to him and grabbing him in a tight, desperate hug that was more restraint than comfort. "I lost James and Lily, Harry! Please don't do anything stupid! We can find another way! We'll tear the world apart, but we will find another way!"
"Sirius, we don't have long," Harry argued back, his voice muffled against the expensive robes. "It's actually a miracle that Voldemort hasn't yet attacked anyone yet. We're safe now, but when he recovers and gathers his followers again… Don't you think it's better to just get it over with now than let a lot of people suffer, than to lose the Weasleys, Remus, everyone?"
"I don't CARE!" Sirius shouted, pulling back slightly to look him in the eye, tears burning in his own. "I don't care about the 'greater good.' They died fighting, Harry! You would be dying as a sacrifice Dumbledore groomed. Not on my watch! I promised to watch over you, and I failed before, failed James and Lily, and I failed you. Please don't do this."
Older Harry observed the emotional moment, he was reminded of his own Sirius, then spoke again, shattering the moment. "Hey, you're speaking as if you're doing some great world-saving sacrifice," he said, his voice laced with patronizing amusement. "Don't bother, Mini-me. After all, even if you die, it's not like Voldemort would be that much affected."
"But you said...." Harry started, confusion replacing his despair.
The older man cut him off with a dismissive wave. "I know what I said, but did you really think someone like Voldemort only made one soul fragment? The man is vain, megalomaniacal, and terrified of death. Do you think he'd bet his immortality on one single trinket? An accidental one at that?"
That seemed to quiet everyone.
"Are... are you saying he has more out there?" Remus asked, the intellectual horror freezing the last vestiges of his composure.
"Yeah," Older Harry said, nodding slowly, an amusing gleam in his eyes as he watched the realization dawn. "Well, if your world is that similar to mine, then yes. He has seven soul fragments he's hidden around in total."
The number hung in the air, heavy. Seven. Not one, but seven anchors tethering the greatest evil in their world to existence.
"Se-sev-seven," Molly Weasley repeated, her voice a reedy tremor, the word escaping her like a curse. She closed her eyes, swayed, and then finally succumbed to the shock, collapsing onto the chair, her children swarming around her to make sure she was okay. Arthur, his jaw clenched, moved toward her, his face a mask of sick despair. The scope of the conflict had just grown from a solvable problem into an impossible, hopeless quest.
For a long minute, nobody spoke. The revelation of the seven Horcruxes didn't just complicate the war, they felt it made Dumbledore's planned sacrifice utterly meaningless. Harry's death would have been in vain, serving only to stroke the old man's ego while securing nothing. Or did the old man know they were more out there. Was he planning to destroy them all before Harry died. But then why hasn't he told any of them.
Then, Tonks spoke up, her usual bubbly enthusiasm replaced by a fierce resolve. She looked directly at older Harry, her eyes reflecting the desperate hope the room now pinned on him.
"But you know them, right?" she pressed. "You know where they are. You know how to destroy them."
Every eye in the room, Sirius's tear-filled gaze, Hermione's frantic, pleading stare, Ron's wide-eyed panic, locked onto the stranger.
"You can tell us, right? You can help us. I bet you can even help with Harry, too, right?" she said, her voice dropping to a raw, honest plea that cut through the silence.
Older Harry was silent for a few seconds, letting the weight of their expectations settle on him.
Then he sighed, a sound of resignation. "Yeah. I can."
A wave of relieved, joyful cries swept through the room, the noise a sudden, overwhelming contrast to the previous despair.
"But why should I?" he said, making them speechless at what he had just said. He raised a hand, cutting off the instant rush of argument. "I didn't ask to be here. My world is fine. My job is done. Your war is not mine."
"But, but, but," Ron sputtered, utterly failing to form a complete thought.
They all started yelling and talking over each other again, pleading, but Older Harry didn't even bother to look up from his book. He simply waited for them to quiet down.
"Please," Tonks said again, stepping forward until she was just a few feet away, her arms held loosely at her sides.
Harry looked up, meeting her gaze. He held it for about a few seconds, studying the pure, uncomplicated compassion in her expression, the look of his own Tonks. He saw the genuine goodness and loyalty in her eyes, god, she was just like his tonks, he couldt say no. He was only gone a day, but he missed his girls so much that even a copy of Tonks seemed to sway him.
He really didn't want to get involved, but it's not like there were any consequences anywhere.
He sighed again, the sound laced with weary acceptance. He snapped the book shut with a decisive thwack.
"Fine," he muttered. "Let's get this over with."
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