THE SOUL'S EXCHANGE

Echoes of the Dark Soul

31st October 1981.

The memory of that night had always lingered, sharp and vivid in the dark recesses of Tom Riddle’s fractured mind. His wand had been raised, the words of the killing curse dancing on his tongue like a hymn of power and death. He had seen her — a little girl with raven-black hair, barely more than a toddler. But what had startled him the most were her eyes: brilliant, startling emerald, eyes too old for such a young child. They had felt… familiar. And her magic, though untrained, had hummed in the air, so similar to his own, that for a brief, fleeting moment, Tom had hesitated.

But he had cast the curse anyway, and the world had exploded in light.

---

He hadn’t expected to survive that night. His soul had been fractured, scattered into Horcruxes, but he never imagined that one shard would find itself tethered inside the living body of a child—her body.

In those early days, Tom had raged, confused and furious. How was this possible? A Horcrux was meant to be placed within an inanimate object, not something living and breathing. Not a child, let alone this child.

Sitara Evangeline Potter Black.

Even before he knew her name, he could feel her. In the beginning, he could sense her fragility — the raw pain that seared through her tiny body as she suffered. He couldn’t see, couldn’t act, but he could feel. Every time she was hit, beaten, or bruised, it felt like he was reliving the worst days of his own miserable childhood at Wool’s Orphanage. Every time she was starved, overworked, or locked away, Tom Riddle seethed with a dark fury he hadn’t known in years.

He could do nothing but feel her suffering. He hated it. Hated feeling weak, helpless. But worse than that, he started to care.

---

As she grew, he learned more about her. He learned her name, her legacy. He had felt an odd sense of pride when he first discovered who she was—the daughter of the prestigious Potter and Black lines, both noble houses of great power. Yet the irony wasn’t lost on him. He had tried to kill her, to eliminate her before she could rise to her full potential. And now, here he was, trapped inside her very soul, a silent witness to her suffering and her rise.

By the time she reached Hogwarts, he had come to begrudgingly respect her. This girl, this small and seemingly insignificant child, had survived horrors that might have broken others. And more than that, she fought back. She was resilient in ways he hadn’t expected.

In her first year, Tom had watched as she navigated the mysteries of the Philosopher’s Stone. He had tried to communicate, to alert the piece of his main soul about his presence in her body, but it was futile. Sitara's magic was too strong, too resilient. He could only influence her in brief moments, mostly when her defenses were down, like when she was weak, exhausted, or hurt. But even then, her power flared, and she overpowered him.

During the events with the Stone, he had admired her strength. He had even felt a hint of something… unfamiliar to him. Could it be pride? She was powerful. And somehow, some part of him felt proud to be connected to her.

---

Year after year, he observed her growth, her pain, her triumphs. In the second year, when his own 16-year-old self had emerged through the diary, Tom had felt an odd sort of anticipation. Here was another piece of himself, another Horcrux, surely that part of him would recognize the soul inside Sitara. But no. The diary’s fragment of him remained oblivious, blind to the shared connection.

Sitara had fought his younger self in the Chamber of Secrets. She had survived again.

By the third year, Tom had felt something foreign to him: protectiveness. When her godfather, Sirius Black, had escaped from Azkaban, Tom had felt her fear—she had believed Sirius was out to kill her, just like he had been. But she had been wrong, and by the time she had saved Black from the Dementors, Tom found himself caring about her well-being more than he cared to admit.