Harry Potter :Diamond Heart

It was always unfair. Harry had done nothing to deserve this. His parents had done nothing to justify their fate, neither had Sirius, or any of the others who had suffered at Voldemort's hand. Yet there was nothing that could be done.

He raised his wand from his sleeve and pressed the tip against the centre of Sirius' letter. The parchment browned where the wand's tip touched it, then burst into flames, curling upon itself and disintegrating into ash. The word win was illuminated briefly, surrounded by yellow licks of flame, then it was gone with the rest.

Harry hated having to burn the letters his godfather sent him. They were the only ones he got and watching them crumble to pieces twisted something jagged within him. Again, though, there was nothing that could be done. If the letters were discovered then so might Sirius be and his godfather's life and soul were worth far more than any regret Harry felt for destroying his letters.

Writing a reply would be just as painful as burning the letter. He would have to pretend everything was as it had been when he sent the first. The Triwizard Tournament would need to seem his main concern and finding whomever had put him in his second. Katie, horcruxes and the Chamber of Secrets would never appear. It was little better than lying to the one man who cared about him more than anything else and went so against the grain of Harry's nature it physically hurt.

He tilted his hand and let the ashes slip into the pool beneath the bridge. Somewhere down at the bottom of the cold, dark water they would join what little was left of the other letter Sirius had sent. Harry watched them scatter across the surface, float, then eventually sink, with a clenched jaw and a heavy heart. Nothing ever seemed to go his way. The only consolation he would get in return for his hopes, dreams and life was that Voldemort would be coming with him into death.

It was very little solace to him.

Dying would make him nothing again, and this time it would be permanent. In an awful moment Harry imagined the nothingness that came after death might be the same as the consuming emptiness he felt when he stood alone amongst others.

If that is true, then I never want to die.

Salazar was still staring down at Tom Riddle's notes on Horcruxes, just as Harry had left him, when he eventually mustered up the will to stand up from the bridge and enter the study.

'I may have a solution,' he announced grandly the moment Harry walked in.

'Tell me,' Harry replied tiredly, wanting nothing more than to forget and escape from the yearning he felt for the warmth Katie's hand had gifted him.

'I believe that the piece of Tom Riddle's soul must have latched on to your own in order for it to survive being in the same body as another soul. A body cannot house two souls in conflict, one must be subdued or they must coexist peacefully.'

Coexisting peacefully did not seem a very appropriate description to Harry. He remembered all too clearly the lengths to which Quirrell had needed to go to house Voldemort. Drinking unicorns blood and subjugating himself to his phantasmal master. The man had tried to kill him twice, coming closest when he jinxed Harry's broom. Quidditch, of course, just reminded him of Katie.

Maybe I won't be seeker next year after all.

'And that means what for me?' Harry tried to focus on what the portrait was saying about horcruxes, crucial to him as it was, but the slowly cooling damp patch on his robes was a potent reminder of the girl he had thought he would allow him to remain someone.

'Since you are still in control of yourself and were unaware of its presence the soul fragment must be subdued. From the notes a connection must exist between the two souls within you.' The portrait drew itself up, face solemn. 'It should be possible for you to either absorb or expel it once the link is broken. The latter is more likely since I only saw a single reference to the absorption of soul fragments and it was in hypothetical reference to pieces of ones own soul.' The portrait peered down at the notes to refresh its memory. 'There it is. The author believed that true, complete remorse, the opposite of the intent used to fracture the soul, combined with an attempt to undo the creation of a horcrux might reverse the affects of one, transferring and absorbing the piece back to where it belongs.'

'How would I break the link?' Harry queried, finally forgetting about Katie in the hope of having a way to escape death.

'You would have to fracture your soul,' Salazar responded.

'No.' Harry knew exactly what the painting meant and he would not do it. 'Find another way.'

'I tried,' his ancestor confessed, 'I knew you would not agree so I kept searching.'

'You found nothing,' Harry deduced, a wry, regretful smile crossing his lips as his hope died once again.

'I found nothing.' The snake writhed agitatedly across the shoulders of the founder. Slytherin knew that he would fail and his family would end if he did not convince Harry, his desperation and determination were obvious, but futile

'Then I must die,' Harry decided with a hollow smile. 'Once we are sure there are no other horcruxes, I must die. There is nothing that can be done about it.' 'You do not need to be a sacrifice,' Salazar pleaded. 'You are my heir, the last of my family that I recognise.'

'So I should sacrifice someone else in my place?' Harry demanded.

'Someone must die,' Salazar said bluntly. 'It can be you, or someone of your choice.'

'I will not kill to save myself,' Harry declared vehemently, switching to Parseltongue as his emotional state fluctuated wildly between despair and anger.

'You can choose someone who already deserves death,' Salazar suggested. 'The Killing Curse will not change its affect and you, who deserve more, do not need to be sacrificed. A single, deserving death to temporarily fracture your soul, then a moment's pain to rip the piece of Riddle from you if you can find it. Tell me that it is not a sacrifice worth making to preserve your life. You are a good wizard in more ways than one, your death is unnecessarily noble, be selfish for once. In the end the wizarding world may profit from it too.'

'I will not do it,' Harry decided. 'It is not my place to judge others, or sentence them.'

'You have grown much since you first found me here, Harry, but you still let others use you for themselves without a thought to what it will mean to you. Nobility was Godric's curse too, but even he listened when I offered alternatives.' Salazar shook his head sadly. 'I hope you reconsider in the time to come,' he finished.

'I do not let others use me,' Harry denied. 'There are plenty of those who wanted nothing from me but friendship.' 'How many of them stand alongside you now,' the portrait asked. 'Your housemates have abandoned you, the few who you tell me have returned to you want things you cannot give them. Albus Dumbledore has kept you alive, but only to sacrifice you later when it best suits him.'

'My godfather,' Harry responded fiercely. A day ago he would have added Katie's name, but now, even if she still hoped to be with him, he was not so sure.

'Sirius Black,' the painting stated sceptically. 'You told me his story and for all his determination to stand by you now, which is both resolute and admirable, Harry, his first reaction to the death of your parents was revenge, not seeing to your well being. Sirius Black may care for you a great deal, but his past actions have been misguided. Vengeance rather than justice, a failing I know too well, wallowing in misery for thirteen years rather than trying to change things, then ignoring the lesson of the past and trying for revenge again. When he has to choose between being there for you and Peter Pettigrew what do you think he will do?'

Harry could not refute the implication his ancestor made. It had been the same as last year when he broke out of Azkaban to kill Peter Pettigrew. Sirius was his godfather, he did care, Harry cared for him, but his hatred of the treacherous Wormtail had been more important to Sirius than Harry before.

'There are alway things that are placed above you because you let those around you feel that you will always stand by them and help them no matter what they choose, so they choose whatever they want most and rely on you to sacrifice and endure. They exploit your nobility, your generosity and your tenacity, they always have, and they always will. I wish you would not let them.'

'I will find others,' he echoed Salazar's words from before, 'equals. They will stand alongside me, never let me down and never leave me alone.'

In the eye of Harry's mind he was standing next to Katie, a smiling, blushing Katie with one hand in his and the other lightly resting upon her stomach. One of his arms lay across her shoulders, a glinting band of silver adorning the third finger of his hand and hers. Equals, partners, bound together by more than magic. It was an image more bittersweet than anything the Mirror of Erised could have shown him.

'I

hope

you

do,'

the

founder

replied sorrowfully, 'but what good are such friends when you know their eventual role will only be to bury you.'

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