Soul Splitting

Chapter 40: Soul Splitting

"I feel like I drank Draught of Living Death."

Ron's words left Charles baffled.

"Last night," Ron explained, "after drinking the soup you made, I found that I slept really well."

Charles blinked. So that could happen?

He glanced at the others who had eaten a late-night snack together last night. Everyone else shook their heads.

"In that case..." Charles rubbed his chin thoughtfully. "Come find me whenever you suffer from insomnia."

Ron immediately shook his head. "No need. It's too expensive."

Charles merely smiled.

At that moment, Harry said to Charles indignantly, "I think Professor Quirrell is targeting you."

Charles stopped eating dinner and asked him doubtfully, "Why do you think that?"

Harry and Voldemort had a wireless connection. Charles wondered if Harry had sensed Voldemort's hostility toward him.

"Isn't he?" Harry said angrily. "He actually gave you detention today just because you entered the classroom with your left foot first."

Seeing that was what he meant, Charles said, "It's fine. The professor was joking. He asked me to help organize his lesson plans."

After a month of effort, he had finally finished organizing all the curses material Voldemort had prepared. As a result, Professor Quirrell's teaching had improved dramatically.

Professor Quirrell's lectures had become much more organized. He only needed to rattle off the contents of the curse cards, then add demonstrations and lessons on defensive spells. It was much better than his previous dry recitation from books.

Percy and the other fifth-year students who would be taking the Ordinary Wizarding Levels exam next June breathed a sigh of relief. With a reliable professor, they finally had hope of passing the exam.

Charles thought that after spending the next month extracting the case studies from that flamboyant peacock's books, he might even be able to cobble together a textbook for Defense Against the Dark Arts Class.

After dinner, Charles arrived at Professor Quirrell's office right on time. A tall stack of Gilderoy Lockhart's books had already been prepared on the small table.

Voldemort had been acting strangely lately. Perhaps Hermione had possessed him. Every night, he flipped through the books, seemingly searching for something.

That evening, just as detention was about to end, Charles suddenly asked Voldemort, "Professor Quirrell, do you know about Horcruxes?"

Voldemort abruptly raised his head. He was more serious than ever. After scrutinizing Charles for quite some time, he asked, "Why would you ask such a question?"

He marveled inwardly. Good grief, he noticed Horcruxes in his first year. What will he become when he grows up?

Charles put on a puzzled expression and asked with an excuse he had thought about for a long time, "I read in a book that creating a Horcrux requires splitting off a piece of your soul. I was wondering what it feels like after splitting your soul. The people in the paintings look alive. Are they Horcruxes too?"

Voldemort studied him for quite a while. Only after confirming that Charles showed no signs of panic and genuinely wanted to ask—not that he was a spy sent by Dumbledore—did he answer, "Paintings aren't Horcruxes. They contain a kind of false soul."

He glanced at the books in front of him and continued, "If a soul is a book, then the false soul in a painting is like copying part of that book. It isn't an entirely identical book."

"If a person dies without becoming a ghost, their soul disappears. Then there's no book left to copy, and no painting can be created."

"A split soul..." Voldemort thought for a moment before continuing. "The soul is far more mysterious and powerful than we know."

"When a soul is split, the pieces retain a special connection with one another."

After saying this, he tore the two books in front of him into shreds and mixed them together. Then he took out his wand and used the Repair Charm to restore them, producing two books once again.

After demonstrating, Voldemort continued, "Because the pieces of the same split soul remain connected, when a person's body dies, the soul is held back by the split soul fragments instead of sliding into the abyss of death."

"As long as the Horcrux remains and the soul fragment inside it survives, the person won't die. Even if his body has decayed, his soul will remain alive. He only needs to find a new body."

Charles nodded. "I see. I wonder whether he'd still be able to collect his original pension after changing bodies."

Voldemort's face.jpg

"Ghosts don't have bodies." Ignoring the matter of pensions, Voldemort continued, "But they still retain the memories they had in life. Do you know what that means?"

Charles thought for a moment and answered, "Memory. The soul is the vessel of memory."

Voldemort said with satisfaction, "Exactly. Stupid Muggles believe that human memory is carried by the brain. Heh..."

"The soul carries a person's memories. If someone consciously splits their own soul, they will make preparations beforehand so they don't lose the memories contained in that part."

"But some people split their souls because of accidents, without any preparation, and lose those memories. It's like a book suddenly having many pages torn out. The table of contents might still record what was lost, and other pages might mention it, but no matter what, the detailed contents can never be found again."

"The connection between the soul and its fragments... In theory, it should make a person feel as though something far away is calling to them."

Charles asked again, "Then can a soul fragment develop an independent consciousness? Like a plant growing from a single branch into a great tree, eventually becoming another version of itself?"

The question left Voldemort silent. He thought for a long time before answering, "I don't know. Very few people have created Horcruxes, and no one has studied this question."

After thanking him, Charles nodded thoughtfully, understanding what Voldemort had said.

He thought that whatever had caused him to cross over was probably not anything good. His soul had likely suffered severe damage, causing him to lose part of his memories.

And since he had never felt anything calling to him, the lost part of his soul was probably already gone—or had remained in his old home and failed to come with him.

The Old Man and the Sorting Hat had said that a great pain lay deep within him. Perhaps it had been caused by the damage to his soul.

But Charles still had another question, so he asked, "Professor Quirrell, are the Patronuses summoned by the Patronus Charm always animals? Could a human appear?"

Voldemort's answer surprised him. "A human Patronus? A wizard in Japan once summoned one. They called this humanoid Patronus... 'Soul of the Back'... or something with roughly that meaning. It's said to have protected its wizard ever since the moment of his birth."

Charles nodded silently. The term "spirit behind one's back" seemed acceptable too.

But the problem was that he could tell without even coloring it that his Patronus was a Ship Girl. What kind of nonsense was that?

In the end, he decided to stop thinking about it. The Dementors would be the ones giving him a real headache when the time came.