diff --git a/markdown/extensions/headeranchor.py b/markdown/extensions/headeranchor.py
index 6c15111c..a17c75dc 100644
--- a/markdown/extensions/headeranchor.py
+++ b/markdown/extensions/headeranchor.py
@@ -40,13 +40,10 @@ def run(self, root):
                     id = stashedHTML2text(''.join(itertext(tag)), self.md)
                     id = unique(slugify(id, self.config.get('sep')), used_ids)
                     tag.set('id', id)
-                text = self.markdown.htmlStash.store(
+                tag.text = self.markdown.htmlStash.store(
                     LINK % {"id": id},
                     safe=True
-                )
-                if tag.text is not None:
-                    text + tag.text
-                tag.text = text
+                ) + tag.text if tag.text is not None else ''
         return root