What Souls Are Made Of is a Harry Potter fanfiction written by Emeralds_and_Lilies
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The fic starts during Deathly Hallows, with Harry, Ron, and Hermione seeking out the Horcrux in Bellatrix Lestrange's vault at Gringott's. A mishap with an object in the vault causes the trio to suddenly be transported through time, landing them at Hogwarts during Tom Riddle's time of attendance. Hoping that Dumbledore might be able to get them back to their time, the trio enroll as students, with Hermione and Ron in Gryffindor as usual, and Harry in Slytherin...with Tom Riddle.
The first chapter of the fic was posted on February 4, 2019. The author eventually took it down for personal reasons, but re-uploaded it. The re-uploaded version can be found here.
Tropes:
- Accidental Time Travel: The premise of the story; Harry doesn't mean for the pocket watch to send them to 1944.
- Amnesia Missed a Spot: Tom obliviates Belinda so that she won't remember her confrontation with Harry or how he resolved it. Unfortunately, Belinda is protected against such spells and remembers everything.
- Belligerent Sexual Tension: Harry and Tom have this in spades. Whether they're threatening each other, actively battling to the death, or getting along fairly well, there is always a degree of BST in their interactions.
- Big Brother Instinct: The sister variant: Belinda Lestrange is willing to suffer through an arranged marriage to an unkind older man, in order to ensure a similar fate isn't foisted on her younger sister. In fact, many of her actions are done with the wellbeing of her sister in mind.
- Break Them by Talking: Tom seems to be a bit of an expert in this. Harry tends to give as good as he gets, but the likes of Abraxas and Hermione can be daunted by Tom's calm, yet razor sharp style of conversing.
- Deadpan Snarker: Many of the characters are this. Harry and Tom, naturally, have their fair share of snark, but Belinda Lestrange has her moments, as well.
- Frame-Up: Belinda's plan to get out of her arranged marriage and protect her little sister turns out to involve framing her parents for the murder of the man she would have been forced to marry.
- Heroic BSoD: Happens a few times, but especially when the trio learn that they can't return to their time and their loved ones no longer exist.
- Mind Probe: Tom is a master Legilimens. He uses this ability on Ron and Hermione, which is how he learns about the future.
- Nightmare Sequence: There are a few of these, as a result of Harry and Tom sharing each other's dreams. They see many of the more vulnerable parts of each other's childhoods.
- Old Man Marrying a Child: Hogwarts-aged Belinda is engaged to a much older man.
- Secret Relationship: Tom isn't terribly invested in what others think, but Harry does not want Ron and Hermione to know that he is seeing the person who will become Voldemort.
- Sexiled: Tom and Harry lock the door to the dormitory when they're about to do it.
- Shipper on Deck: Implied to be the case with Slughorn, who expresses disappointment every time Harry and Tom have a falling out. Some of the Slytherins also show shades of this, mainly because it's much harder to be around Harry and Tom when they aren't getting along.
- Slipping a Mickey: Belinda does this to Harry, at one of the Slug Club parties, in order to snoop through his possessions.
- Snark-to-Snark Combat: Present in a lot of the character interactions, but especially between Harry and Tom.Harry: I never imagined Slytherin was fond of slides.
Tom: It’s convenient for the basilisk.
Harry: Are there swings too?
Tom: There is a roundabout and a see-saw. It’s how he lured the muggleborns down. - Trapped in the Past: This will be the consequence if Dumbledore can't figure out a way to get them home. Eventually, it is revealed that not only can Dumbledore not send them back, but their own time was destroyed as soon as they made changes to the past.
- Troubled Sympathetic Bigot: All of the Slytherins are treated with nuance, but they still hold their canonical anti-Muggle beliefs. At times, this throws Harry for a loop, like in The Reveal that Abraxas, by now his friend and already established to be an artist, designed the Dark Mark of which Harry has so many awful memories.
- Truth Serums: Tom tries one on Harry, to unearth his secrets.
- "Well Done, Son" Guy: Abraxas craves his father's approval very much.
- Wham Episode: There are many chapters that advance the plot in a big way, but Chapter 24 stands out as the chapter where Tom finds out that Harry is from the future, that Harry was destined to defeat him, and that Harry is a Horcrux.
