Cold, harsh reality

Prologue

When Herpo the Foul created his first horcrux it was something that originated from a stroke of luck. In his endless research he had reached a point at which it was possible to break a part of ones soul off and store it within an object. 

It didn't last. Souls weren't something that could be kept on the mortal plane for long. Even a body of whatever life form could only keep it for how long its physical and psychical state permitted it. Most souls wanted to go back to where they came from. 

Only Over time had the human body adapted to keep it on the mortal plane for approximately a century. But after some time the body would inevitably deteriorate and lose its power to keep the soul. Only a wizards body allowed the soul because of its inherent magical powers to stay on the mortal plane for a longer time. 

But Herpo the Foul of course didn't know that. And so his first attempt of reaching immortality failed and he ended up with a part of his soul missing. During his research he concluded that the thing that kept a human alive was its soul, when it disappeared the human died. 

But human bodys couldn't last forever. So he tried to forcefully bind the soul to the mortal plane sho his mind would be immortal and able to possess living beings and make himself a new body. Because of his lack of understanding he failed. And so he kept on experimenting. Killing wizards and non-wizards in the process alike when he finally found a way. For the part of the soul to stay where it was, it had to be caged. Caged by something even it, which clearly wasn't from this plane couldn't escape. 

With this in mind he started to immerse himself in even darker parts of dark magic. Part of this was his creation of a snake which hadn't been seen before. A basilisk. So of course Herpo was delighted when he found out that he had created something that normal wizards stood no chance against. What he didn't know though was, that at the same time he brought fort one of the only things that could destroy the seal he was working on. Now armored with a defensive force wich kept his enemies at bay his research started to bear fruits. He was able to roughly draw the draft for a runic circle wich allowed the object that was placed inside to hold whatever was stored in it for a long amount of time. 

And like that he split his soul again.

Years started to pass one after another and he continued to live while his peers slowly died one by one when his horcrux started to evolve. 

Over time it had collected huge amounts of magical energy and was able to create its own mind. With parts of his personality stored in his soul and and it being able to build an own mind, Herpo had created a different version of himself. They weren't the same person but they shared certain traits and memories and like that Herpo encountered his very first foe who came really close to killing him.

 Not killing in sense of killing his body but in sense of destroying his mind and taking over his body. The part of his soul he had separated from him decades ago wanted to take Control over the main body. Only the fact that Herpo's mind was older and more experienced than that of his artificial counterpart allowed him to win in this battle of willpower. And so he was forced to destroy his very own horcrux. 

After another few decades of research he started to feel the effects time had on him and knew that without another horcrux he wouldn't survive for much longer. But the time he had had was enough. While not being able to stop his horcrux from forming his own personality and self, the original reason he didn't even think of putting his soul inside another living being which could betray him, he forcefully bound it to his word.

Satisfied Herpo the Foul scribbled his achievements down. Per coincidence 200 centuries ago he had discovered how to write words in Parseltongue down. In truth when he looked at what he wrote it looked like utter nonsense, even for him, but when he cast a spell which could read the contents aloud he understood every word. 

50 years ago he had met another person who was able to speak to snakes. While speaking in some barbaric language which he couldn't understand he was able to converse with him trough the language of serpents. It seemed like that peron was treated as some kind of god from his tribe and so he tried to kill him in order to get rid of possible competition. In short, Herpo destroyed him completely. It was really a shame he mused. But in the end it was for the better. 

But fate was a cruel mistress. In the end while the roman empire rose and fell Herpo died because of the rebelling of his basilisk which accidentally destroyed his third horcrux and many of his scripts got lost in time.