Voldemort walked out of the headmaster's office and headed towards the Great Hall.
The students would be arriving soon, and he had to make the old man's customary speech.
If he had to choose one thing he disliked most about possessing Dumbledore, it'd be that. Not only did he have to keep up appearances, but he also had to act exactly like the old fossil. That was annoying at best, and maddening at worst.
He really wanted to kill somebody.
'It's such a shame that Potter ran with his tail between his legs,' the Dark Lord thought and wondered where his apparent nemesis had escaped to.
Sadly, this version of Voldemort had not kept up to date with the happenings of the world and didn't know much about Potter, really.
Voldemort had made Marvolo Gaunt's Ring a horcrux after graduating, and thus, his knowledge was woefully lacking. Thankfully, while he explored the school in his new persona, he stumbled upon Rowena Ravenclaw's Diadem.
Needless to say, he was surprised to find out that the item had been housing a piece of his soul, and spent no time absorbing it.
Yes.
Voldemort had concluded that shattering his soul into as many pieces as he did was a careless mistake, one that cost him dearly.
'I should have found another way to achieve immortality, one not at the expense of my power and sanity…'
Since his return, Voldemort felt much weaker than he remembered, and there was also the fact that he heard dead people's voices. The ones he had killed were especially annoying and followed him around most of the time.
To what purpose, he didn't know.
That's why he painstakingly created a new spell, which took the form of an invisible bubble and stopped souls from passing through. It was the same spell he had used against Harry Potter's senses.
'How can a weakling like him be so good at magical sensing, though? Is it from a ritual?'
Voldemort didn't know but planned to find out.
Thankfully, absorbing the piece in the diadem had helped him feel a little bit better.
That was why Voldemort was on a quest to find his remaining self.
However, he wasn't the only one searching for the horcruxes, and he was furious for it.
He found out that Harry Potter and Albus Dumbledore had been trying to bring him down for quite a few years.
The first sign of that was when he examined the old man's office and, much to his horror, found his old diary in which he remembered putting the first bit of his self in. The problem was that it had a huge hole in the middle of it, and Voldemort didn't feel even an inkling of a soul inside it.
Following that, he had gone straight to the Chamber of Secrets and stumbled upon the basilisk's body.
Oh, how he'd enjoy ripping Harry Potter piece by piece.
He also went to the sea cave in which he dropped Salazar Slytherin's locket and found a fake.
The locket was not his. Instead, it had been replaced by one R.A.B.
Voldemort was furious, and if Regulus Black had still been alive, he'd have gone and remedied that.
The last horcrux he knew of was Helga Hufflepuff's Cup, and thankfully, it was the most secure one as well. He had given it to his most loyal follower, Bellatrix Lestrange, who had put it inside her Gringotts vault.
While he was very confident that the cup was still there, he couldn't just go and grab it…
'Damn Goblins.'
Suddenly, Voldemort's hands shot to his head, and he stopped dead in his tracks.
"Agh!" he cried out in pain.
Without delay, he dove deep into his mindscape, searching for the source of the pain.
In the depths of his mind, Voldemort didn't keep his current form, and instead looked like some sort of snake-man
It didn't take long to find himself standing before a shackled Albus Dumbledore—unlike in the physical world, this was the real deal.
"Hello, Tom," the accursed man greeted. "Have you not had enough of my body yet, Tom? I'll never stop fighting you, Tom. No matter how deep and sophisticated you bury me, there will always be a part of Albus Dumbledore here, resisting your control, Tom."
To his dismay, the Dark Lord knew that was indeed the case.
The old fossil had somehow clung to his body, despite Voldemort's best efforts to kick him out, and made himself an ever-constant nuisance.
Taking a very big moment not to lose his calm, Voldemort tried to ignore that Dumbledore had just called him Tom four times.
"Now, now, Albus. What's the hurry? Just sit back and enjoy the show. Did you perhaps not like the new laws I've been passing in your stead?" he drawled with a lazy smile.
If the old man's souring expression was anything to go by, he must have won their little exchange.
Instead of answering, Dumbledore continued his mental assault, and Voldemort felt his headache worsening.
"Merlin be damned," the Dark Lord muttered before conjuring additional shackles to bind the old man. He also took care to create more wards designed to suppress magic, not that they seemed to work very well…
"You can't fight me forever, Tom," Voldemort heard as he returned to the real world. He didn't want to stay in the old fossil's presence any more than he had to—he was infuriating.
'We shall see, Albus,' he thought and continued walking to the Great Hall. He was almost there.
…
Harry appeared in Hogsmeade Station, a tiny, dark platform, and stood waiting for the Hogwarts Express to arrive; it wouldn't be long now.
He also finally realised that there had been a conversation going on in his head all this time, and that Fleur was not happy with him.
Wincing, Harry toned down the volume of his shouting girlfriend and watched as the scarlet train arrived at the station with clouds of steam billowing from its sides.
"Adiafano," he muttered and cast the improved invisibility spell on himself.
Harry saw the students crowding at the windows, faces pressed eagerly against the glass as they approached Hogwarts for another year.
He took a deep breath and stood still, waiting for a certain bushy-haired girl to emerge from the train.
Soon enough, he caught a glimpse of Hermione stepping onto the platform, hand in hand with Neville.
Harry smiled evilly, not that anyone could see him, and moved towards his friends.
He took note to dispel the invisibility spell at the right time to blend in perfectly with the returning students.
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Chapter 131: It's Finally Over