Title: A Broken Soul
Author: Pied Flycatcher
Rating: K+
Genre: Drama/General
DLP Category: Alternate
Pairing: None
Status: Oneshot
Summary: What exactly is the nature of a soul? And when Lord Voldemort so willingly split his own soul in half, what damage did he do to himself? Oneshot.
Link: A Broken Soul


The story is a slight crossover with His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman. However, one doesn't need to have read that to understand this story. The fic is a Tom Riddle centric one-shot. It is very nicely written and features some intriguing ideas about Horcruxes. Tom's own feelings about the creation of Horcruxes is quite detailed and nicely described.

 

Well written, but I didn't like it much. The original idea about souls is fine but not that well exploited. However, the concept that he needed to know the name of the spell, or that he needed a potion to prepare his body for his soul to be ripped apart are neither very original or plausible.

This sounds like all he needs are the incantation and the wand movement, which is a bit lame. If my memory serves well, a piece of the soul is torn away in any case of murder, so that element of the theory isn't very well integrated either - the fact that the tearing happens in any case, and what he needs to know is how to trap the piece of soul.

The Imperius Curse to extract information is also a bit stupid - mostly defeats the purpose of Veritaserum.

I would have liked the story to concentrate more on the way the pieces of his soul acted once in the Horcrux: the magic behind the diary, and how sentient it became, for example. I mostly don't understand why the author didn't go further with Nagini. I didn't see him mention the fact that she's a Horcrux, and he doesn't take his daemon idea all the way, by making the connection between her and Voldemort very real.

Voldemort's characterisation is good, but not very compelling. The writing in general is high quality.

3/5

 

Canon states that murder breaks the soul. The creator of the Horcrux must then use this to his advantage to tear his soul apart by the use of a spell. So, yes, all Horcrux creation needs is a spell after the act of murder.

 

I'll admit I only read HBP and DH once, and I don't keep a copy of those with me, so I'm not very sure about this. I don't really see why you would need a spell to tear a piece of soul away, if murder essentially does that already. I also wouldn't mind knowing where in the books it is stated that a spell is needed.

The other thing is that it was written before DH, so I'm inclined not to take that book into consideration.

In any case I was lamenting the fact that it's the name of the spell he needs - almost as if he's just wondering which incantation to say when he waves his wand.

 

That, according to Slughorn in HBP, is exactly what the spell is for.

 

This was excellent. The writing is first-rate and the characterization superb. Its only real weakness is that it doesn't devote much time to showing us the changes in Voldemort after each new horcrux.

Other than that, I'm not sure how it could get any better.

4.5/5

 

I liked it, but for Tom's soul being in the metaphysical form of a snake. I was really looking forward to whatever the writer came up with in exploring the HP-verse soul, and ended up being disappointed.

4/5.

 

Imo it was a pointless crossover, sure the whole idea of the daemon in Pullman's works does connect, but you need to READ all 3 books in order to fully understand the full implications - could have been done better, just seemed to... bland (?) without going back and re-reading HDM.

 

I haven't read His Dark Materials by Philip Pullman, still I didn't find any trouble understanding the story at all. The fic is an excellent piece of writing and do not require prior knowledge of HDM trilogy.

 

This was an oddly compelling tale. 4/5

 

I'm impressed by this fic. Good writing and excellent characterization. The one thing which didn't appeal to me was the use of a potion AND a spell. I felt the potion was unnecessary.
4.5/5

 

Every soul has a story.Voldemort also has one.
True his a heartless man.But even he was once capable of love and feelings.It's the circumstances that made him an evil dark lord.It's the pureblood supremacy and way of society that made him different.Of course I agree that doesn't give him a license to be evil.He should have chosen a better path but I appreciate the authors approach on giving this guy a story that would define him.I am not being sympathetic but from a psychological point of view Lord Voldemorts journey to become one of the most powerful dark lord of the century is an admirable feat.
Hats off to the author.