Harry Potter and the Seven Split Soul
By: Krystal Lily Potter
Chapter One: Something Different
Rating: T
Summary: My continuation to the canon Half-Blood Prince. Now that Dumbledore is gone the wizarding world has fallen into a place of fear with only one beacon of hope left: Harry Potter. Facing evils that he'd never thought he'd have to endure, Harry sets out with Hermione and Ron to find the six items that Voldemort placed pieces of his soul into. But the demons that Voldemort forces upon Harry are the least dangerous ones of all that he must face. Can he bring back the light to the wizarding world or will the darkness be too great for even the Boy-Who-Lived to escape?
Warning: There will be physical violence, this might include gory images, I'm not sure yet. There might be some cursing and will be more mature themes such as death (no this story does not contain any sex so if people are looking for that then I'm sorry to disappoint you)

The floorboards groaned under his feet as he slowly, and carefully walked across the decaying floor. His dark eyes continued to gaze a head of him, locked onto his unseen goal.

Finally he reached his destination. With a careful shove he pushed the old door open and found himself in a dark, dusty room.

Everything in the room was covered by a thick layer of grime and mold. It was very obvious that no one had been in this house for years, and he was the only living thing that would be entering it anytime soon.

"Unless old man Dumbledore realizes what's going on," the young man muttered to himself, "it wouldn't surprise me if he's still constantly watching me."

As he started searching the room for the specific item he was looking for his thoughts went back to the old man he had referred to. Albus Dumbledore had been his Transfiguration teacher back when he attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, and was the only teacher who hadn't worshiped the ground he walked on.

To all the other teachers, including the Headmaster, he was their golden boy: brilliant, good looking, well liked and well behaved. Yes, Tom Riddle had had it all in school, and it was quite unwilling to let it all go when he had graduated.

Once graduation had come around he had asked Headmaster Dippet to allow him to stay at the school to teach, but the Headmaster had reluctantly declined his request, because he was too young. Tom intended on taking the old man up on his proposition one of these days.

Of course, there was also the fact that Dippet had been getting on in his years, and if Tom wanted the job of Defense Against the Dark Arts he knew he would have to return to the school soon. There was no doubt in his mind whom the next Headmaster would be: Albus Dumbledore. He was not only the Head of the Gryffindor house; he was the Deputy Headmaster of the school as well.

A dark look appeared on Riddle's face, and his anger boiled as he continued thinking about Dumbledore. How he despised that man…

Suddenly he stopped moving and his eyes rested on the item in front of him. It was hidden behind layers of grimy items, but because of its luster it was quite visible when concentrated on. Gold in color with a small seal embroidered in it, and not a single spec of dust on it (even though it had been in that exact same spot for years), it was exactly what Tom Riddle had been looking for.

With a look of greed, he slowly reached forward and took the item into his hand, when a flash of quick and furious pain flew through his body. With an agonizing yell he dropped the item to the ground and it rolled off to the side of the room. It rolled until the seal on it was clearly seen: an eagle with a light outline of bronze and blue…

A loud scream was heard and he shot up into a sitting position. He squinted at the figure above him and, in his tired confusion, said, "What the hell Hermione?"

The young woman he was referring to was Hermione Granger. She was sitting on the bed above him, staring out the window with a look of horror plastered over her pretty face.

"Hermione?" he asked again and frowned. Reaching onto the desk just above his head he put his glasses on his nose and peered at his friend. Now that his mind was calm and his dream was well separated from reality he was able to see his friend's shaken expression with ease.

"I'm sorry," she said after a moment, her eyes turning from the small window to him, "I didn't mean to wake you."

"No it's ok, you didn't scream too loud," he said reassuringly. He grinned at the look of disbelief that she displayed next and made a quick motion to the other figure laying on the ground in a pale green sleeping bag, "Hey you didn't wake Ron up so that's a bonus."

She actually snorted and said, "Honestly Harry, you know better than I do that Ronald could sleep through a heard of stampeding hippogriffs.

Harry's grin widened and he said, "Probably." To prove her point his gave his friend a light kick in the head. Ron Weasley let out a loud snort before muttering, "No thanks mom, I think I'll have tea instead" before going silent again.

Hermione giggled quietly and it took nearly all of Harry's will power to stop him from laughing. After the two settled down she began peering at Harry with her knowing brown eyes.

He sighed and said, "You want to know what I woke up."

"Well if it wasn't me screaming then it must have been something else," she insisted.

"I'll tell you only if you tell me why you screamed. If it was Dudley's snoring I can always go stick a pair of socks in his mouth."

She laughed quietly again before saying, "No it was…a dream…"

"What was it about?" Harry questioned.

She smiled slightly before saying, "It was my fears Harry. I don't have significant dreams like you do. Mine are purely fiction created by my mind. I saw you…Ron…my parents…all of you…"

Tears were welding up in her eyes and Harry let out a small sigh. He leaned back against the desk and patted her leg before saying, "You don't have to explain, I understand."

She seemed relieved that she didn't need to explain her dream anymore. The vision had been terrible enough the first time. Now though, the images of her slaughtered friends and family were pushed out of her mind and replaced with the curiosity that made her famous in Hogwarts.

"What did you dream about?" she asked.

"How do you know I had a dream?" Harry shot back.

Hermione smiled slightly before saying, "You, Harry James Potter, can not lie to me and you know it. I've been one of your best friends for six years now and I know that when you wake up, startled, it means you've had a dream…a significant one…"

"I suppose you do know me better than to believe my lies. Well…I don't really know where I was, but it was a broken down mansion that looked like no one had lived there for centuries. I was watching everything…I watched Riddle search for something, and he found it too," Harry explained, trying to concentrate on the details of his dream.

"Riddle? Do you think he was checking on one of his horcruxes?" she asked.

"No, he was young, maybe 23 or 24. I think…well I know he found what he was looking for. I can't remember what it was, but I do remember the insignia on it…it was Ravenclaw's crest," he said thoughtfully.

Hermione automatically went into her deep thinking mode. Her brow furrowed and she said, "So, we know that there was Riddle's diary, The Gaunt Ring, Slytherin's Locket, Hufflepuff's Chalice, something of Ravenclaw's, possibly Voldemort's snake and—"

"-Voldemort himself," Harry interrupted, "but my dream left no clues as to where Ravenclaw's item is."

"We'll figure it out Harry, we always do," Hermione encouraged him.

Ron grunted in his sleep and said, "Full steam ahead!"

"See," she said with a small smile as she sat cross-legged, "Ron agrees with me too."

Harry shook his head at her and said, "We should get some sleep, tomorrow's going to be another hectic, Dursley filled day."

"No doubt," she agreed with a small sigh.

Petunia Dursley had known for years, for almost sixteen years to be exact, that her peaceful, normal life that she so greatly appreciated would one day come to an end. The day she had realized that was the day she had taken her young nephew into her home.

Harry Potter, her nephew, was not a normal boy; oh no, that would have been too kind of her sister to send her a normal child. Her nephew went to a boarding school up in Scotland and only returned in the summer for about a month because of some kind of ancient magic that had to do with the fact that she had the same blood as her dear little sister. Her nephew, Harry Potter, was a wizard.

When Petunia had first seen the child she had known right away who it was. She had screamed from shock and woke the poor sole up with the shattering of a milk jar, but she had felt an overwhelming sense of...something when she had first seen him lying on her doorstep.

Petunia stopped combing out her blond hair and stared at the mirror in front of her for a moment. What was it she had felt when she had first seen Harry? Disgust? Loathing? Foreboding? No, she realized she had felt none of that; instead she had felt a massive urge to protect the small child. She had never really hated him to the extent that she let on, but her husband and son's welfare came first, and to them that meant being a nasty witch to the boy.

She chuckled softly at the irony of her thoughts; a nasty witch was exactly what she thought her sister to be. In reality she had been jealous of her sister all her life. Her mother had told her that Petunia was an angel with blond hair and blue eyes, but that didn't stop her from being jealous every time she peered at her younger sister. Lily had always had dark red hair and emerald green eyes, giving her a more majestic look than anything else. At first that was all Petunia had been jealous about, but when Lily got her Hogwarts letter she had been green with envy that her sister could perform magic and she couldn't. Perhaps that was why she loathed magic so much.

As she got up to go down stairs her thoughts turned to Harry once again. She knew that even in the wizarding world he wasn't normal, and that there was something terrible in that world that only he could face. It broke her heart that her nephew had to face such horrible trials; he never did get the chance to be a normal child, even though Vernon said that was what they were making him as he grew. Petunia had agreed at the time, but now that she looked back she realized that they had never let Harry be a normal child, and, just maybe, if they had been kinder to him he would have been the normal child they desperately wanted him to be.

No, Petunia corrected her thoughts; he was too much like both his parents. He looked like James but his eyes were strictly Lily's; his personality on the other hand was what Petunia remembered from her sister mostly: kind, compassionate, loyal to friends, but with a flaming temper. Petunia had only met James a hand full of times and never had any liking for him (neither had her father for some apparent reason) but she could see some of him in the way Harry acted as well, it just wasn't as pronounced as Lily's attributes were.

When Harry had turned up early this summer, even before Dudley had come home, he had been with two people. A tall, uneasy looking boy with flaming red hair and bright blue eyes (he was one of the ones that had blown up her fireplace a few year prior, Petunia had noted) and the other was a petite girl with curly brown hair and brown eyes that had stared at her with great distaste. Harry had simply said that he had to stay until his birthday, but since the protection would be wearing off on his seventeenth birthday he would leave that day and never return. He had added that his friends would be staying with him, whether the Dursleys liked it or not. He had added, as a side note when Vernon had been about to argue, that both his friends were already of age in the wizard world and both could legally do magic as they pleased; that had quickly put any thoughts of arguing with Harry strictly out of Vernon's mind.

They weren't such a hassle anyways, Petunia thought, she had rarely noticed the three extra people in the house. For the most part they stayed outside away from the house or locked away in Harry's small room.

Curiosity got the best of Petunia Dursley as she quietly approached her nephew's room. She carefully peaked her head in and saw the red head lying in a sleeping bag on the floor and the girl on the bed, both sleeping, her quietly, him…not so much.

The sleeping bag between the bed and the other boy was empty, and now that Petunia paid attention she could smell breakfast being cooked downstairs. She wasn't really surprised; he always got up early to make breakfast this summer so that there would be enough for he and his friends to eat as well as the Dursleys. Petunia did appreciate him doing that, but she would never tell.

Quietly closing the door and making her way downstairs she did indeed find Harry in the kitchen making breakfast. She observed him for a moment before noting that at least she had taught him how to cook, it was one life skill that he would thank her for later on when he was trying to impress some girl with a nice homemade meal.

Harry looked up as his aunt as she entered the room. He was a little surprised, normally she would be up about a half an hour after he was done with breakfast, but it didn't really matter to him.

There was a silence in the room as she stood there, observing him, and to be frank it made him uncomfortable.

"Your birthday is in two weeks, is it not? On Thursday I do believe…" she said to him suddenly.

The question startled Harry. Aside from the time she had told him when his birthday was she had never given him even the impression that she knew when his birthday was, but she hit the target right in the center; Thursday, July 31, 1997 would be his seventeenth birthday.

"Yes," he said slowly, "then I'll be out of your hair forever, don't worry."

A small smile appeared on Petunia's face and she said, "You know, that's exactly what your mother said to me the day before her seventeenth birthday."

Harry looked over at Petunia as he started putting the fried bacon on a plate. Curiosity was evident on his face as he asked, "she did?"

"Oh yes, she was quite the spitfire, Lily was. I know most people who knew your parents, when they first look at you, expect you to be a clone of James with green eyes, but I raised you, whether I did it well is not the question (she added when seeing the protest on his face), even you can't deny that I did raise you. I see very little of James Potter in you, in fact I see more of my sister than anything else."

A small smile appeared on Harry's face as he finished with the eggs and asked, "What was my mother like?"

"I'm sorry?"

Harry shrugged and said, "Well you're in a good mood so I thought I'd try. See I met many of dad's old friends and I know what he was like in their eyes (his thoughts flickered back to the sadistic teenager he had seen humiliating Snape in the man's memory) but I don't really know about my mother."

Petunia stared at him thoughtfully as he continued to make enough food for his friends as well as the living garbage disposal (as Ron took to calling Dudley). Harry assumed her silence meant that she wasn't going to tell him anything and was startled when she suddenly said, "You have her temper."

A small grin appeared on his face and he said slowly, "Her temper?"

"Yes, you have much of her personality. When she was younger she was shy, much like you were, but as she grew up Hogwarts made her into a person who was willing to take on the rest of the world on her own. She had three good friends that I met: Alyssa Bones, Sarah Prewett and…" Petunia trailed off, a slightly disturbed look on her face.

"Bones, they were a prominent pureblood family in the wizarding world. The only one that is left of that family is Susan Bones," Harry said slowly, "And Prewett was Mrs. Weasley's maiden name."

"I think Lily mentioned that Alyssa was an aunt, the girl would be only a few months older then you," Petunia said reluctantly, "Lily also told me that Sarah was constantly having family issues, especially with her older sister, who was married to a man named Arthur Weasley."

"Wait, you're telling me that you and mom still spoke to each other after she graduated?"

"Yes, we kept in touch," Petunia said, "originally we intended on keeping as far away from each other as we could but when our older sister, Vera, died we were reunited at her funeral."

Harry slowly took in the information that he had another aunt, but he didn't question anything about her yet. There was still one thing that was bugging him, "You said that she had three close friends. Who was the third?"

"Well you see Harry…you had two aunts that I've never told you about. Unfortunately both died at a young age at the hands of that evil man in your world. The first was my sister Vera, the second was your mother's friend and your father's twin sister: Karmen Potter. She was nothing like her twin…" Petunia said.

Harry digested the information as he turned off the stove and went to work cleaning the dishes he had used. It was a lot for him to take in, but it was not all that information that bothered him the most.

"Why are you being so…unPetuniaish to me?" he asked out of the blue.

She blinked and hid the grin that appeared on her face as she said, "I thought you ought to know about your aunts before you left…"

Harry and Hermione sat side by side on his bed, both with amused looks on their faces. Ron was clueless to their stares as he wolfed down his breakfast.

"This is great, you're aunt does make good food mate," Ron said to Harry between mouthfuls.

Harry chuckled and said, "I bet she does." He didn't mention that he was the one who had cooked the food.

Hermione had reached down and pulled out one of her magical daily planners. She gazed at the calendar in it and said, "Nine more days before we can leave."

"You guys don't have to stay," Harry said right away.

"You've been saying that ever since we got here a month ago Harry," Hermione said to him.

"Yeah and we're still here," Ron added.

Harry smiled slightly at them then said, "Ron, you might was to duck."

Ron looked around quickly and ended up getting a face full of old owl, "Bloody hell! Errol?"

Hermione took the old owl into her arms, carefully undid the letter attached to his leg and set him beside Hedwig in her cage. Hedwig hooted and moved so the old owl could get a drink. Most of the time Harry's snowy owl was rather cold to any other animals but she seemed to understand that this bird had been through a lot.

"It's a letter from mom I bet," Ron said and reached out to take it but Hermione swatted his hand away.

She stared at Ron for a second before passing the letter to a blank looking Harry and said, "It's addressed to H.J.P."

Harry opened the letter and looked through it once. He winced slightly as he looked at it.

"What?" Ron asked curiously.

"It's not from your parents," he muttered before passing Hermione three small white envelopes that were inside the letter, "these are wedding invitations to Bill and Fleur's wedding, but this letter is from Ginny."

"Need some alone time to think of your girlfriend?" Ron teased.

Harry tensed up for a moment before saying, "Actually mate…I…erm…I kinda broke up with Ginny…"

The shocked look on both his friends' faces was understandable, but there was something in Hermione's face that Harry couldn't decipher, but he knew the angry look on Ron's anywhere.

"You broke up with my sister? When? Why?" Ron spluttered out.

"Yes, at D-the funeral (he couldn't bring himself to say Dumbledore name aloud just yet) and…well…I just thought it was for the best," Harry admitted.

Hermione smiled sadly and said, "You're too self righteous Harry. Giving up what you want isn't always the best thing you know."

Harry shrugged and said, "I know, but I know what I did was the right thing."

There was a pause before Hermione asked, "What's the letter about, if you don't mind me asking?"

Harry handed it to her and she read it over.

Dear Harry,

It's been nearly a month now since you, Ron and Hermione went to stay with those horrid people, although I don't quite know why. I miss you a lot and can't wait until you come back to the Burrow for Bill's wedding. The plans are going great! You know I'd never thought I'd say it but I'm kinda glad that Phlegm is as prim and proper as they come…she is doing an excellent job at planning the wedding. I was hoping that you would like to come as my date, I'm sure Ron and Hermione are going to go together like that. (Hermione made a face that once again Harry could understand). I can't wait to see you again, and I hope Hogwarts is open this year so we can spend more time together. I need to go now, I need to get fitted for my dress, its beautiful!

Missing you,

Ginny Weasley

Hermione's mouth turned into a thin line and she said, "Well at least the wedding is going good."

Harry chuckled slightly but was curious about why she suddenly seemed so angry…

Author's Note

Yes I know this isn't a sequel to Scars of Time but I don't really care…I just had this story stuck in my head for awhile so…here it is. What did you think of chapter one? It's not much but it's a start. A few people who have read my other stories would have probably noticed that this chapter was slightly more…descriptive then my other first chapters. Also normally I jump right into the story, but I don't really know how the plot is going to develop myself so might as well not back myself into a corner right off the bat eh?

Also I mentioned up there that Harry's 17th birthday would be on a Thursday…I actually looked that up (yes I'm a loser) if anyone was wondering.

Well please review and tell me what you think! Also don't be afraid to suggest some things for the plot and such!

Krystal Lily Potter