I Must Not Break Harry Potter

Chapter 1

I know most stories depict the Horcrux in Harry's head as sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle, but it made more sense to me to use the image of Tom Riddle that had attacked Harry as a child.

Harry stared down at his bleeding hand, the words I must not tell lies dripping down his skin in blood-red liquid.

And snapped.

His magic swirled around him, making everything not nailed down in the common room shake. The fire flared, almost lighting the carpet on fire.

To Harry's surprise, the cuts on his hand closed, and the words faded to pale scars.

Then he blacked out.

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Harry blinked.

He was standing in a darkened, Kings' Cross station. There were no other people, and no trains.

Where...?

"It's about time."

Harry spun around and found himself face-to-face with Voldemort.

He didn't look like the cross between a vampire and a snake, however. He looked like the thirty-year-old version of Tom Riddle, with amber eyes instead of green.

Harry frowned. "You aren't Voldemort."

Not-Voldemort raised a brow. "No, and yes."

"That makes no sense."

"Nothing in this world has ever made sense to you," Not-Voldemort pointed out in a drawling tone. "Why Dumbledore gave you to the Dursleys, who made it quite clear they hated you; why wizards would have a gateway that any Muggle could just walk into; why no one sent someone to check on you; why Mrs. Weasley shouted about Muggles in a crowd full of the filth, ignoring the Statute of Secrecy-"

"I get the point, Tom," Harry interrupted. "What -- who are you?"

Not-Voldemort wrinkled his nose. "Must you use that foul name?"

"Yes," Harry said bluntly.

Sighing, Not-Voldemort replied, "I am a Horcrux."

Harry stared at him blankly.

"A piece of Voldemort's soul," Not-Voldemort explained, rolling his eyes. "Merlin, no one has taught you anything. When Voldemort tried to kill you that night, a piece of his soul -- me -- broke off from his, admittedly, unstable soul and latched onto the only other living person in the room: you."

"Unstable?" Harry repeated.

"Before he tried to murder you," the Horcrux explained, "he had created six other Horcruxes: the diary, Slytherin's locket, a ring belonging to the second Peverell brother, Ravenclaw's diadem, Hufflepuff's cup, and Nagini, his familiar."

"...the giant snake?" Harry said slowly, recalling the huge serpent at the graveyard.

"Yes. Each time he created a Horcrux, he split off half of his soul."

"That's... stupid," Harry declared.

"Yes, it was," Not-Voldemort snorted, rolling his eyes. "One Horcrux would have sufficed to keep him alive, and wouldn't have destroyed his sanity."

"Where am I?" Harry asked.

"You're in your mind scape," Not-Voldemort said lazily.

"...Oh."

"So... what are you going to do now, Harry?"

"What do you mean?" Harry asked, feeling another flash of fury, recalling what Umbridge had done to him not an hour earlier.