A/N: Hi everyone! Here's chapter 28 of my story done and dusted at last. Enjoy everyone!
Chapter 28: The Diary
Over the next few days, Harry noticed a change in Ginny. She seemed to close herself off from everyone, even him. He asked some of her classmates if she had been acting strange during lessons. While they were clearly scared of him after the Parseltongue reveal, they decided to tell him if only to make him leave them alone. Her classmates told him that she never answered any questions anymore, stayed very silent and seemed to be writing in this black book a lot.
Knowing now that something was very, very wrong, Harry decided to confront Ginny today and try to get her to open up to him again. He couldn't bare to see her like this. As he turned around the corner on his way to the common room, however, he saw water flowing across the floor coming from the girls' bathroom where Moaning Myrtle resided.
Deciding to check it out, Harry sprinted down the corridor and entered the bathroom to see all of the taps running, the sinks overflowing and Myrtle crying on the windowsill. She saw him and her sobbing lessened as she began to speak timidly.
"Come to throw something else at me, have you?" Myrtle asked.
"Why would I throw something at you?" Harry replied at the absurd question.
"Don't ask me. Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks that its funny to throw a book at me," Myrtle explained.
"A book? Wait, who was it? What did they look like?" Harry asked, hoping that it wasn't who he thought that it was.
"I don't know. I didn't see them. I was just in the U-bend thinking about death and it just went through my head. I saw them sprint off and then noticed the book over there," Myrtle said as she sobbed and floated away.
Harry looked to where Myrtle gestured and saw a black book lying in a puddle of water. This was not what he was expecting when he came in here. Something felt very wrong about all of this.
~Is it just a little strange to you that we just hear about Ginny's condition and her writing in a black book, only to find out that someone threw a black book away in here where only four people have been recently?~ Harry asked.
~I think that we should refrain from making assumptions until we ask the one person that has you so worried in the first place~ Sabrina replied.
~You're right. I just hope that this is all just a coincidence and Ginny isn't involved. If anything or anyone has hurt her then there's going to be hell to pay~ Harry said.
As soon as Harry picked the book up, he felt that wrongness again, but more prominent than before. Whatever it was, it was connected to the book. He didn't quite know why he thought to do this, but he did it anyway. It was a spell that he had recently uncovered after finally making a start on his book on Soul Magic.
The spell could be used to determine who had held an item last by scanning the residual soul energy given off by magical beings. The residual energy would then form a wispy image in the shape of the person whose soul was detected. As useful as it could be in terms of criminal trials, it was only able to be used by those who had a natural gift with Soul Magic, which the majority of the Wizarding World, and those in the Ministry, lost long ago. The fact that Harry had this gift was not something to be taken lightly.
"Animus deprehendere," Harry said, waving his wand over the book.
Harry knew that this would confirm whether this was the book belonging to Ginny. He hoped that it wasn't, but he had to be sure. Soon, his fear was realised as the wispy form of Ginny appeared over the book. He sighed and prepared himself to confront her about this, hoping that it may just force her to open up to him about what was bugging her, but the next thing that happened stopped him in his tracks. The wispy form of Ginny then changed into the form of a young male student. However, he didn't look like anyone that Harry had seen before.
The student looked like he was in his mid-teens, probably 16, had dark black hair that seemed to be combed to perfection, sharp, yet charming, features and he was wearing old-fashioned Slytherin robes. A prefect badge was also pinned on his robes. It looked like this was a previous student. Harry then turned the book over and saw an inscription in the bottom corner.
"Tom...Marvolo...Riddle?" Harry pondered aloud.
~Maybe this was this Tom Riddle's diary? It certainly looks more like a diary rather than a textbook~ Sabrina suggested.
~You're probably right~ Harry said.
But if this Tom Riddle was the original owner of this diary, how did Ginny get her hands on it? Did her parents by it without realising what it was? Did she just stumble across it? With these thoughts running through his head, Harry almost missed what happened next. The wispy form of Tom began to change. Instead of having the blueish, ghostly hue that is considered normal, Tom seemed to regain his colour and looked like a perfectly cast and painted model. Tom's form also seemed to solidify, losing the usual wispy form. What did this mean?
~Sabrina? Are you seeing this?~ Harry asked.
~Yes, this isn't anywhere in the Soul Magic book at all. Harry, I think that we need to run some checks on this thing before you talk to Ginny about it after all. There may be more to it than any of us could ever imagine~ Sabrina replied.
Harry nodded and cancelled the spell. He put the diary in his robes, but he could still feel it. He could still feel that sense of something being wrong about the diary. It felt like...there was something dark and utterly unnatural about it. The reaction that the soul detection spell had on it only seemed to prove this feeling correct. He had to get it checked out. He couldn't risk having Ginny get it back if there was a chance that it may do any harm to her.
What if it had already done something to Ginny? Harry didn't think that he could live with himself if he allowed it to continue. No, he needed to find out everything he could about this Tom Riddle and dispose of the diary before it could hurt anyone else.
Harry took the diary back to the common room. Seeing that no-one was around, likely either studying, being in detention or just generally hanging around the school, he got the diary out of his bag and laid it on a desk. He sat down at the desk and pondered what to do with it. As much as he didn't want to invade Ginny's privacy, the dark aura that he sensed around this book made him think that taking a peek may give him some insight into this Tom Riddle and whatever happened to Ginny.
Harry flipped the cover and was confused when he saw that the first page was blank. He flipped over another page. Blank again. The next page; blank again. Every page in the book was blank! How could this be? Was their an enchantment on it to prevent anyone but the current owner from seeing the entries? He slumped back in the chair as he realised that he was back to square one. If he couldn't view the entries, then he would get no answers to any of his questions.
In his frustration, Harry roughly got out of the chair and caused the desk to shake. This knocked the pot of ink over right onto the open diary. Cursing his luck, he wondered how he was going to explain this to Ginny when she eventually found out that he had the diary. That is, until he noticed something very strange happen. The ink got absorbed into the page, leaving it entirely spotless. Then something even stranger happened. Words began to appear on the page.
'That was a bit clumsy, wasn't it? You could have ruined my diary if it was not so special.'
The diary could talk back to you? Harry had heard of a diary somewhat responding to what you wrote, but only to reassure or advise you directly in line with what you wrote. There was never any indication that a diary could talk back fluently after an ink spillage, nor absorb it into the page, nor refer to the diary as theirs. Any other enchanted diary usually addressed itself as 'Diary', not 'my diary'. Something was different about this one and Harry intended to find out what it was.
Not wanting to fall into any traps, Harry closed the book and thought about how to get his answers. The first thing to do would be to find out whatever he could about Tom. However, he couldn't just walk into the library and get records of old Hogwarts students. And he couldn't go to Dumbledore to ask to see any old student records without it looking suspicious or giving the old fool any reason to try and manipulate him. Thinking about it further, Harry remembered the prefect badge on Tom's chest and came up with an idea.
~What if Tom became Head Boy in his seventh year?~ Harry said.
~If he was, then he would be recorded in the Trophy Room along with the year he was the Head Boy~ Sabrina said, seeing where Harry was coming from.
~We could find out when he was at Hogwarts and then try to find out what happened during his time there. I have a bad feeling about this. I feel like his diary showing up this year with everything going on is not a coincidence. I just hope that Ginny hasn't been dragged into any of this~ Harry said.
~You're cute when you care, my Harry~ Sabrina teased.
Harry shrugged the comment aside and made his way to where the Trophy Room currently resided. Once inside, he went straight to the Head Boys and Girls table and scanned it until he came across the name that he was looking for.
~Tom Riddle. Head Boy of 1944-1945. That would mean that he started at Hogwarts in the year 1938. That means that...~ Harry trailed of as his thoughts drifted back to just how coincidental this all was.
~He was at Hogwarts when the Chamber of Secrets was last opened~ Sabrina finished for him.
~This is definitely not a coincidence. Tom's diary ends up in Ginny's possession. The Chamber is opened again. Tom was here when it was opened the first time. Something is definitely not right about this and it all links to one Tom Riddle. What if…? If I'm right about this, then maybe it might be worth asking the diary some questions after all~ Harry pondered.
~What are you thinking?~ Sabrina asked.
~I think that, somehow, Tom preserved part of his consciousness in the diary. That's why it can actually respond in real time. Sort of like a memory imprint of some sort~ Harry trailed off again, worried at where he was going with this himself.
~I don't like this. Perhaps this is why Ginny got rid of it. She found out about all of this too and linked Tom to the Chamber like us~ Sabrina said, clearly thinking along the same immoral lines as Harry.
~We need to be extremely careful. Considering this nagging feeling in my head, I wouldn't doubt that this diary has something to do with what has gone on this year. I'll have a word or two with it and if it doesn't give me the answers that I want...then I will destroy it just in case~ Harry said as he felt the wave of wrongness flow through the air again.
As Harry went to exit, he noticed something in the corner of his eye. It was a trophy for a Hogwarts Award for Services to the School. A Medal for Magical Merit was also close to the trophy. Inscribed on both was the name Tom Riddle.
~So he also got these awards too? He must have been a very gifted individual...We better be on our toes. The year that the trophy was awarded was 1943; when the Chamber would've been opened last. This is just going from bad to worse~ Harry said.
Harry took a brisk walk back to the common room and found it packed. It looked like everyone had finally come back from whatever they were up to now. He would have to try and sneak up to the boy's dormitory and hope that no-one was inside. The less that people knew, the lower the chance of anyone else getting involved and hurt. Unfortunately, just as he was about to go up the stairs to the dorms, he was stopped by the voice that he really wanted to avoid for the first time this year.
"Harry? What are you doing?" came the voice of a tired and wary Ginny.
Harry spun around and saw Ginny standing there looking so...tired and small. He hadn't really seen her since that day that they talked to Malfoy and he was saddened by her appearance. She had bags under her eyes as if she hadn't had any sleep. Her eyes were red raw from the lack of sleep and possible crying. She was also extremely pale, more so than usual. What had she been doing to herself? This only steeled his resolve further, just knowing that this diary and the Chamber had something to do with her state.
"Nothing much. Just got a textbook that I want to read. I'll tell you about it later, alright?" Harry said quickly, hoping that she would believe him.
Ginny just gave a long, tired sigh and nodded her head before walking off and sitting in the corner of the common room away from everyone else. Harry knew that he needed to do this quickly. He couldn't stand seeing her like this. He would get to the bottom of this and make everything right again.
Harry was fortunate. No-one was up in the dorm, so he could interrogate the diary in peace. Sitting on his bed, he got a quill from his bedside table and began to write. Sabrina slithered out of his shirt collar and onto the bed so that she could see the diary's response to his questions herself.
'Sorry for not responding to you earlier, I had to do something quickly. I am surprised to see a diary react to something so precisely though,' Harry wrote.
Harry and Sabrina waited a few seconds before the words faded into the diary and a new message appeared.
'That is not a problem. Student life is quite busy with homework and studying after all. I remember that well,' came the diary's response.
Harry and Sabrina looked at each other and nodded. The diary had unknowingly given them the ammunition to begin the interrogation in full force.
'You remember being a student? How is that possible? You're just a diary, aren't you?' Harry wrote, hoping that the piece of Tom inside would fall for the bait.
'I was the student called Tom Riddle. I was here at Hogwarts over fifty years ago. I preserved a part of myself in this diary to help later generations,' came the response.
~Gotcha!~ Harry hissed in triumph at his theory being proven correct.
'If you were around fifty years ago, then you must know about the Chamber of Secrets then,' Harry wrote.
'Yes, I do,' Tom wrote back.
'What can you tell me about it? That is, if you are here to help,' Harry wrote, knowing that what Tom wrote about helping was perfect for him to exploit.
'I can't tell you...' Tom wrote.
Harry frowned at the refusal and was about to write an angry retort before another line appeared on the page.
'But I can show you...Let me take you back fifty years ago...' Tom wrote.
Harry was left confused. How could Tom show him anything from back then? It was just a diary, even with part of a person inside. Soon, his confused grew as the diary began to flick through pages on its own. Harry stared in both shock and intrigue as the pages continued to go past until it stopped on a page towards the back of the book. A date then appeared on the page; 13th June 1943.
At that moment, Harry was started to get concerned as this must be an important date in relation to the Chamber being opened. Was this when it was opened? When it was closed? He didn't have much more time to think about this as a light began to radiate from the crease between the pages. He readied his wand as Sabrina slithered into his sleeve and up to his collar, peeking slightly out of curiosity, to protect herself from whatever might be coming. The light grew brighter until it blinded them and they had to cover their eyes. When they opened their eyes again, they found themselves before the Grand Staircase of Hogwarts, but everything seemed different...and older…
'What just happened?' Harry thought.
A/N: Sorry that I haven't uploaded this chapter until now, I kept going back and forth about how to work this part of the story out and how Harry will react to the diary. I think that I have a general idea on how he will react to horcruxes from now on, so it should be smooth sailing from here on out. Also, for anyone wondering about the name of the spell that I had Harry use here, it was the direct translation of 'detect soul' using Google Translate. As the words that came up somewhat sounded like it would fit in the Harry Potter world to me, I decided to run with it and I will probably do this for other spells that I come up with in relation to Soul Magic etc.
