Chapter 1.1- Doom

In the end, the soul shard of Tom Riddle had presented no resistance to his absorption. To be honest, even the ignorant and unalerty Harry Potter had been harder to consume than h soul shard. It wa s apitiful thing, the accidental horcruxz. Definitely moe pathetic than the books or even movies had been able to portray. It was pitiful enough, that Doom was certain that even without the soul being dead, it would have still proven insufficient to a ct as a proper anchor for the rest of Riddle’s soul. It just didn’t have the power for that.

Done with dwelling on that, he turned his mind to his gains. The memories and essence of Harry Potter were useful, but Tom Riddle was the real treasure trove. If only the treasure wasn’t cursed from the very beginning. Tearing through the soul shard’s essence, he had found that Tom Riddle’s sanity had snapped the second he made his second soul anchor. Taking any of that into himself would have been reckless, dangerous, and probably fatal. Doom was many things, but a fool was not one of them. He recognised the value of those memories and experience yes, but they just weren’t worth it. They were intrinsically tainted by the insanity that plagued Riddle after he tore his soul for the second time and had himself exist in three wholes. Three wholes. He used the word purposefully. The term soul shard was a bit of a misnomer. The soul was not a pie to be cut into bits and pieces and shared across to whoever wanted a slice.

No, the soul was whole. Every bit of the soul was a whole soul. But in much the same way as there were greater and lesser infinities, each horcrux served as a lesser soul. The only problem with that was that the greater soul was supposed to remain in the body. The first horcrux could diminish the greater by a factor of a third, but the second was much worse, and could take away as much as a quarter. Once the greater soul stopped being within the body, things started to go downhill. He knew all this, because Riddle had known all this. But still he’d gone ahead with it. He’d thought some variations to the Horcrux ritual would have been enough to grant him immunity to the immutable laws of the universe. Arrogant beyond measure. In his defence, he had been 17 at the time, Doom added.

Sorting through a combined 31 years of memories between them only ended up taking the first four hours of the niht. Most of the memories were useless and could be disregarded. Doom did not need ten years of ill treatment at the hands of the Dursleys, and he also did not need eleven years of neglect at Wool’s orphanage. As for the experiences of both boys from their first days in Hogwarts, he devored those without hesitation. For Riddle, it was because each day was filled with so much learning and knowledge acquisition that he could not bear to skip even a single one. For Peter, on the other hand, the days were much less useful from a pure magical knowledge standpoint, but the knowledge would still be useful for selling the impression that he was truly the chosen one. The threat of Dumbledore discovering that he had taken the body of his favourite student was enough for Doom to be more than wary. In time, he would outgrow the old man and have no need to fear him, but he was still some ways from that itself. He had his personal theories of how magic worked that could pay dividends if they turned out to be valid but that was still some time away.

Done sorting the memories, he opened his eyes and stared at the banister of the bed. Or a blurry outline of the banisters, rather. Harry Potter’s eyesight was indeed just as terrible as legend said. He fiddled for the glasses by his desk and placed them on his face, breathing a sigh of relief when the world swam into focus. Being blind was not a feeling he had accustomed himself to, and it was a form of weakness that he would see solved at the first opportunity.

He picked up the wand and waved it at the bed, flawlessly fixing it up as he stood from it. He stared down at the warm piece of wood at that. Part of him had worried that the wand would stop woking for him, sensing that he was not Harry Potter anymore, but on the contrary, it seemed to be even better now than it had been for the Potter brat. With memories of both boys in his mind, he could tell that there had been a hesitance in the wand towards Potter’s magic and spellcasting that had not exited with Riddle’s and his wand.

He silently recalled Riddle’s study on Holly as a wand wood, ‘Holly is one of the rarer kinds of wand woods; traditionally considered protective, it works most happily for those who may need help overcoming a tendency to anger and impetuosity. At the same time, holly wands often choose owners who are engaged in some dangerous and often spiritual quest. Holly is one of those woods that varies most dramatically in performance depending on the wand core, and it is a notoriously difficult wood to team with phoenix feather, as the wood’s volatility conflicts strangely with the phoenix’s detachment. In the unusual event of such a pairing finding its ideal match, however, nothing and nobody should stand in their way.’May need help vercoming a tendency to anger and impetuosity. That sentence almost made Doom collapse in laughter. Doom needed no help in overcoming his own emotions.

And yet, the wand still worked for him. Worked better than it had for Potter. Perhaps it was because the wand could feel the parts of him that were both Riddle and Potter. Or perhaps it was just suited for Doom himself. He would never know.