Thanks to all my reviewers!
For those who noticed, I made a mistake in the last chapter . . . it's Bellatrix Lestrange, not Black . . . sorry.
I don't have time to talk much, so just read on and enjoy . . . ^_^
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Chapter 4:
The sky was blue, and white cotton-like clouds floated here and there. The summer time was rather fresh on the Hogwarts grounds, the temperature staying between twenty and twenty-five degrees. The lake was always rather cold, but its azure surface was very inviting to any swimmer . . . brave enough to bathe with the Giant Squid. The Forbidden Forest was as silent as ever, home to more than Centaurs, Acromantulas and Unicorns. The school wasn't completely empty, even though most of the teachers were gone on their summer vacation, just like all the students . . . except maybe four or five who didn't have a home to return to.
Tom Riddle was one of those students.
At the moment, he was taking a walk at the border of the forest, smiling to himself.
~Everything is going as planned . . . the Basilisk is staying quiet . . . that big oaf of Hagrid got expelled . . . They gave me a reward . . . I'm staying here for the rest of the summer . . . perfect.~
He saw a Hufflepuff, two Griffindors and a Ravenclaw also staying for the summer, relaxing under a large willow close to the lake's shore and changed direction in order to avoid passing near them. He all noticed them stop talking and look in his direction when they saw him coming, but pretended not to. He raised his head and lost his smile, giving them a strict and serious look.
The quadroon rose from the ground and with one last look in his direction, headed for the school, making Tom smile evilly in their backs.
He continued walking between the forest and the lake, until something caught his eye, just past the edge of the forest. A shadow was moving, walking.
"Hey you!" Tom yelled, pulling out his wand. "Stop! Stop right there!"
Seeing that the person was either deaf, either not listening, Tom sprinted forwards and pointed his wand at the form still walking, now almost running in the forest.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Tom repeated, shouting loudly.
The figure turned in his direction, wobbled for a moment, as if it was going to fall to the ground, but it stayed standing. Tom discerned a wand in the person's hand, and saw that it was pointed in his direction. He didn't take any chance.
"STUPEFY!" he yelled.
The figure was knocked off his feet and projected into the forest. Tom walked towards it, keeping his wand close by.
To what he could see, the boy in front of him was quite shaken, not just by the spell he had just thrown at him. He had black hair, like him, and he couldn't quite discern the color of his eyes, though he esteemed they were green. He was shorter than him but was the same age, had a bag over his shoulder, wore glasses and dusty wizard traveling robes. His forehead was bleeding and Tom could almost discern an odd scar under the blood that was coming from another wound, probably caused by a spell.
The boy looked flabbergasted to see him.
"Tom?" he said. "Oh no, come on. Not now. Please."
Tom stayed silent, wondering whom this stranger could be.
"Excuse me . . . do we know each other?" he asked, without lowering his wand.
The boy stayed silent, looking at him strangely. He looked unsure of himself, yet confident, which was an odd pairing.
" . . . you tell me," he finally said.
Tom looked at him for a long while and thought there was something familiar with him, though he definitely couldn't remember where he had last seen him. It was like if he was standing in front of a childhood friend he had almost completely forgotten. But it was impossible . . . he hadn't had any friends at the orphanage.
"Your name?" he asked, wand still in the air.
"You . . . you don't know?" the boy said, slowly getting to his feet. "Harry . . . Harry Potter."
Tom did find the name familiar, but did not say so out loud. He regained his serious look and glared at him.
"Well, Harry Potter," he said in a rather strict way. "Are you aware that you have broken school rules? The forest is out of bounds, and you were in it. In fact, I don't even recall you being on the list of students having permission to be here this summer. In what house are you in?"
"Wha-? . . . Griff- euh, I . . ." Harry mumbled. "I . . . listen Tom, I don't really understand what's going on. In fact, you're freaking me out. Just get me out of here or something . . . or at least let me go to the library, I could discover what's gone wrong with the book and-"
"That's it, you're seeing the headmaster," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "And try to talk to him clearly before he sends you to Saint Mungo's."
Before he knew what was happening, Harry felt Tom lower his wand a little, grab his arm rather tightly and start pulling him towards the school.
He didn't say anything, looking at the school in awe. It was exactly the same as he had known it, maybe a little cleaner, but otherwise, exactly the same.
"Come on," Tom said, visibly annoyed.
Harry followed him inside the school he knew so well and arrived, some moments later, in professor Dippet's office.
"Good evening, professor," Tom said solemnly. "I've found someone trespassing in the forest. He tells me his name is Harry Potter. The rest of his speech was rather . . . incomprehensible."
~No need to talk like I'm not there,~ Harry thought.
"Well, Mr. Potter," professor Dippet said, removing his glasses from the end of his nose. "Please explain youself."
"Well . . . I'm here to be a student," Harry said. "My situation is . . . euh, rather hard to explain. I just arrived here like that . . . and then Tom found me . . . but I have no idea what happened."
"He's been hit on the head, professor," Tom interrupted. "Maybe it caused a concussion. Should I bring him to the hospital wing?"
"Yes, yes, you do that," professor Dippet said, giving the impression to Harry that he didn't care about Harry's situation one bit. "He will become a new student then. What did you say your name was?"
"Harry Potter, sir," Harry said, finding that this headmaster wasn't worth a lot.
"Yes, and in what year are you?" professor Dippet asked lazily.
"I'm going in sixth," Harry answered.
"Fine then," the headmaster continued. "You will sleep in the Hufflepuff tower with the rest of the students staying here this summer until the Sorting Hat decides in which house you will be."
"But I already know I'm in Griff-" Harry said, interrupted by Tom who pulled his arm, indicating him that the talk was over and that he needed to follow him again.
Harry was pulled all the way to the other side of the school to get to the hospital wing, where the school nurse, a certain miss Swifton, gave him a long lecture about not getting into fights. Harry repeated that he hadn't been in one, but she didn't want to hear a thing.
She was a short woman with curly blonde hair slowly turning gray and brown eyes. She looked like the kind of grandmother children liked to have, and Harry had to approve that she was a very good nurse, seeing that his wound stopped bleeding and the ache disappeared in a matter of seconds after she had tend it.
Harry noticed that Tom had waited at the door the whole time, ready to bring him back to the Hufflepuff tower. Harry said that he would prefer walking around than directly going to the tower.
Tom simply rose his shoulders, hands in his pockets and walked away head up high.
Harry let him go without another question, wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible. Being with a young Voldemort felt very strange to him.
He immediately headed to the library where he found a new librarian sitting behind Mrs. Pince's desk. She was reading a copy of Witch Weekly and paid no attention whatsoever to Harry's entry.
She had straight black hair tied in a tight bun, and yet looked very young. She didn't have any glasses, her skin was rather pale and she wore simple black witch robes. Harry noticed something odd with her eyes, though he couldn't see them clearly.
"Excuse me, could you tell me if you have books about magical diaries or preserved memories?" Harry asked.
The librarian looked up and Harry almost made a step back. Now he knew exactly what was up with her eyes: the color of her pupil was red.
"Yes, of course I have," she said ever so normally, a smile on her face. "But they're in the restricted section and you don't have the permission from a teacher to go in there."
Harry shrugged.
"But we're in summer . . ." he said, trying to find a reason that would allow him to get the information he wanted.
"Well yes, but the rules still apply through July and August," the librarian said, smirking.
"Fine, I'll go see the headmaster," Harry said ~He's so dumb he'll probably immediately accept.~
~~~
"Yes, yes," professor Dippet said, removing his glasses from his nose once again. "Magic diaries and memories?"
"Yes, professor," Harry said. "I'd like to learn more on the subject."
The professor took his quill and a roll of parchment and started scribbling Harry's note while mumbling things like ~I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to learn about that' and 'must be a good student'.
Harry returned to the library with his note and handed it to the librarian with a huge grin. She took one look at it and smiled.
"Very well," she said. "Just one moment, please."
The librarian, called miss Modesty Barker as professor Dippet had informed him, had been practicing the dark arts since she was twelve, and had had a quite nasty encounter with a Basilisk quite a while ago. No one exactly knows what happened, but the Basilisk in question was found dead and miss Barker had obtained red eyes. The headmaster had also told Harry that she was sometimes sent on special missions by the Ministry, though preferred remaining a simple librarian for now.
Miss Barker came back with three books. The first was entitled 'Magical Diaries and how to Make Them', the second was called 'How to preserve a memory' and the third one was 'The perspective of memories seen through the eyes of the beholder'.
"Thses are the ones I think that will interest you must. Your name?" Miss Barker asked, pulling out her wand to imprint his name on her list and in the book.
"Harry Potter," Harry said, seeing his name appear in purple ink on her list and in the book.
"Thank you, have a nice day," miss Barker said, returning to her copy of Witch Weekly.
Harry walked away from the library after giving that strange librarian one last look. He crossed a Ravenclaw student on his way and asked her the way to Hufflepuff tower.
The student, a tall seventh grader with long auburn hair and green eyes named Emily Silverstone, showed him the way and gave him the password before walking away towards the Great Hall.
Harry found the Hufflepuff tower quite easily. It was hidden behind a large tapestry representing a green dragon being fought off by centaurs in a large wooden area, probably the Forbidden Forest.
Harry had done just like Emily had told him to do and had pointed his wand at the tapestry. He had muttered the words 'Here to stay all summer long', and the dragon in the tapestry had moved, pulling the tapestry sideways to reveal a passageway.
Harry immediately saw that the room had not only Hufflepuff colors, but also Ravenclaw and Griffindor. It seemed that the students staying during the summer time had all come together in this tower, bringing their colors with them.
Harry wondered why there were no Slytherin colors and the two Griffindors, that had been in the room when he had entered, had answered that it was because no Slytherin students were staying during the summer.
"But where is Tom Riddle staying?" Harry asked.
"Oh, *him*," the Griffindor named Felix said. "He stays in the Slytherin house."
"He's a prefect, so he's allowed to keep his room, and of course, he didn't want to lower his status to be with us," the second boy, Silvian, said. "I'm telling you, he's the worst Slytherin I've ever seen. He's not more evil than the others or anything, it's just that he thinks he's superior to everybody because he has good grades and that he figured out who was the one trying to kill muggle-born students last year. A real prick."
"Oh," Harry had simply answered, walking away to a table close to an open window to read his books in peace.
He started with 'The perspective of memories seen through the eyes of the beholder'.
'Preserved memories cannot be destroyed without demolishing or damaging the object, usually a book, in which it has been preserved. They are made by blending the memory to the object thanks to very complicated spells, and cannot escape its 'remembrance condition' unless it is given a mind of its own. If it has, it can be treated as a person without real body and could become more than a memory by absorbing the life of the one using it or her. This is why preserved memories with separate state of minds are considered very dangerous.
Dangerous they are, but they can also be very useful to their creators. If their creators die, these memories could 'bond' outside of their object and kill the one using them, steal their life force and become their creators. Because they are, after all, a part of their makers.
When a memory becomes a real being, the object that carried them is considered useless. If, on the other hand, the object is damaged or destroyed before they have the chance of completely transferring out of it, they are destroyed.
Once the object is destroyed or damaged, the memory has no great chance of recovering without the help of its fist maker, that will need to transfer another part of his memories to it in order for it to continue its 'existence'.
Other scenarios picture people that are dragged into the memory itself and trapped into the object. These people can only return to reality by the help of the source of the memory, the part of the maker's mind. If, for example, someone is dragged into the memory's object when it is malfunctioning, there is a problem. If the book or other object is destroyed, destroying the memory with it, the being dies with it.
When the memory is malfunctioning, it might have a certain loss of remembrance and forget who the person he has allowed to 'visit' him. The person must then make the memory remember him without exactly telling him that he is a memory. Remember, memories that are malfunctioning might not even remember that they are not real persons.
Ever worst, their memory becomes their world where time passes just like in real life. Hours, days, months and years pass and if the being dragged into the memory does not return to the real world and time, it can die because it is not in reality. The memory, on the other hand, can live on forever.'
Harry didn't feel very good. In fact, he was now very scared.
He needed to go back.
He needed Tom to remember him.
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I know I'm repeating myself at the end of all my chapters but . . . what do you think??? ^_^
For those who noticed, I made a mistake in the last chapter . . . it's Bellatrix Lestrange, not Black . . . sorry.
I don't have time to talk much, so just read on and enjoy . . . ^_^
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Chapter 4:
The sky was blue, and white cotton-like clouds floated here and there. The summer time was rather fresh on the Hogwarts grounds, the temperature staying between twenty and twenty-five degrees. The lake was always rather cold, but its azure surface was very inviting to any swimmer . . . brave enough to bathe with the Giant Squid. The Forbidden Forest was as silent as ever, home to more than Centaurs, Acromantulas and Unicorns. The school wasn't completely empty, even though most of the teachers were gone on their summer vacation, just like all the students . . . except maybe four or five who didn't have a home to return to.
Tom Riddle was one of those students.
At the moment, he was taking a walk at the border of the forest, smiling to himself.
~Everything is going as planned . . . the Basilisk is staying quiet . . . that big oaf of Hagrid got expelled . . . They gave me a reward . . . I'm staying here for the rest of the summer . . . perfect.~
He saw a Hufflepuff, two Griffindors and a Ravenclaw also staying for the summer, relaxing under a large willow close to the lake's shore and changed direction in order to avoid passing near them. He all noticed them stop talking and look in his direction when they saw him coming, but pretended not to. He raised his head and lost his smile, giving them a strict and serious look.
The quadroon rose from the ground and with one last look in his direction, headed for the school, making Tom smile evilly in their backs.
He continued walking between the forest and the lake, until something caught his eye, just past the edge of the forest. A shadow was moving, walking.
"Hey you!" Tom yelled, pulling out his wand. "Stop! Stop right there!"
Seeing that the person was either deaf, either not listening, Tom sprinted forwards and pointed his wand at the form still walking, now almost running in the forest.
"STOP RIGHT THERE!" Tom repeated, shouting loudly.
The figure turned in his direction, wobbled for a moment, as if it was going to fall to the ground, but it stayed standing. Tom discerned a wand in the person's hand, and saw that it was pointed in his direction. He didn't take any chance.
"STUPEFY!" he yelled.
The figure was knocked off his feet and projected into the forest. Tom walked towards it, keeping his wand close by.
To what he could see, the boy in front of him was quite shaken, not just by the spell he had just thrown at him. He had black hair, like him, and he couldn't quite discern the color of his eyes, though he esteemed they were green. He was shorter than him but was the same age, had a bag over his shoulder, wore glasses and dusty wizard traveling robes. His forehead was bleeding and Tom could almost discern an odd scar under the blood that was coming from another wound, probably caused by a spell.
The boy looked flabbergasted to see him.
"Tom?" he said. "Oh no, come on. Not now. Please."
Tom stayed silent, wondering whom this stranger could be.
"Excuse me . . . do we know each other?" he asked, without lowering his wand.
The boy stayed silent, looking at him strangely. He looked unsure of himself, yet confident, which was an odd pairing.
" . . . you tell me," he finally said.
Tom looked at him for a long while and thought there was something familiar with him, though he definitely couldn't remember where he had last seen him. It was like if he was standing in front of a childhood friend he had almost completely forgotten. But it was impossible . . . he hadn't had any friends at the orphanage.
"Your name?" he asked, wand still in the air.
"You . . . you don't know?" the boy said, slowly getting to his feet. "Harry . . . Harry Potter."
Tom did find the name familiar, but did not say so out loud. He regained his serious look and glared at him.
"Well, Harry Potter," he said in a rather strict way. "Are you aware that you have broken school rules? The forest is out of bounds, and you were in it. In fact, I don't even recall you being on the list of students having permission to be here this summer. In what house are you in?"
"Wha-? . . . Griff- euh, I . . ." Harry mumbled. "I . . . listen Tom, I don't really understand what's going on. In fact, you're freaking me out. Just get me out of here or something . . . or at least let me go to the library, I could discover what's gone wrong with the book and-"
"That's it, you're seeing the headmaster," Tom said, rolling his eyes. "And try to talk to him clearly before he sends you to Saint Mungo's."
Before he knew what was happening, Harry felt Tom lower his wand a little, grab his arm rather tightly and start pulling him towards the school.
He didn't say anything, looking at the school in awe. It was exactly the same as he had known it, maybe a little cleaner, but otherwise, exactly the same.
"Come on," Tom said, visibly annoyed.
Harry followed him inside the school he knew so well and arrived, some moments later, in professor Dippet's office.
"Good evening, professor," Tom said solemnly. "I've found someone trespassing in the forest. He tells me his name is Harry Potter. The rest of his speech was rather . . . incomprehensible."
~No need to talk like I'm not there,~ Harry thought.
"Well, Mr. Potter," professor Dippet said, removing his glasses from the end of his nose. "Please explain youself."
"Well . . . I'm here to be a student," Harry said. "My situation is . . . euh, rather hard to explain. I just arrived here like that . . . and then Tom found me . . . but I have no idea what happened."
"He's been hit on the head, professor," Tom interrupted. "Maybe it caused a concussion. Should I bring him to the hospital wing?"
"Yes, yes, you do that," professor Dippet said, giving the impression to Harry that he didn't care about Harry's situation one bit. "He will become a new student then. What did you say your name was?"
"Harry Potter, sir," Harry said, finding that this headmaster wasn't worth a lot.
"Yes, and in what year are you?" professor Dippet asked lazily.
"I'm going in sixth," Harry answered.
"Fine then," the headmaster continued. "You will sleep in the Hufflepuff tower with the rest of the students staying here this summer until the Sorting Hat decides in which house you will be."
"But I already know I'm in Griff-" Harry said, interrupted by Tom who pulled his arm, indicating him that the talk was over and that he needed to follow him again.
Harry was pulled all the way to the other side of the school to get to the hospital wing, where the school nurse, a certain miss Swifton, gave him a long lecture about not getting into fights. Harry repeated that he hadn't been in one, but she didn't want to hear a thing.
She was a short woman with curly blonde hair slowly turning gray and brown eyes. She looked like the kind of grandmother children liked to have, and Harry had to approve that she was a very good nurse, seeing that his wound stopped bleeding and the ache disappeared in a matter of seconds after she had tend it.
Harry noticed that Tom had waited at the door the whole time, ready to bring him back to the Hufflepuff tower. Harry said that he would prefer walking around than directly going to the tower.
Tom simply rose his shoulders, hands in his pockets and walked away head up high.
Harry let him go without another question, wanting to get away from him as quickly as possible. Being with a young Voldemort felt very strange to him.
He immediately headed to the library where he found a new librarian sitting behind Mrs. Pince's desk. She was reading a copy of Witch Weekly and paid no attention whatsoever to Harry's entry.
She had straight black hair tied in a tight bun, and yet looked very young. She didn't have any glasses, her skin was rather pale and she wore simple black witch robes. Harry noticed something odd with her eyes, though he couldn't see them clearly.
"Excuse me, could you tell me if you have books about magical diaries or preserved memories?" Harry asked.
The librarian looked up and Harry almost made a step back. Now he knew exactly what was up with her eyes: the color of her pupil was red.
"Yes, of course I have," she said ever so normally, a smile on her face. "But they're in the restricted section and you don't have the permission from a teacher to go in there."
Harry shrugged.
"But we're in summer . . ." he said, trying to find a reason that would allow him to get the information he wanted.
"Well yes, but the rules still apply through July and August," the librarian said, smirking.
"Fine, I'll go see the headmaster," Harry said ~He's so dumb he'll probably immediately accept.~
~~~
"Yes, yes," professor Dippet said, removing his glasses from his nose once again. "Magic diaries and memories?"
"Yes, professor," Harry said. "I'd like to learn more on the subject."
The professor took his quill and a roll of parchment and started scribbling Harry's note while mumbling things like ~I don't see why he shouldn't be allowed to learn about that' and 'must be a good student'.
Harry returned to the library with his note and handed it to the librarian with a huge grin. She took one look at it and smiled.
"Very well," she said. "Just one moment, please."
The librarian, called miss Modesty Barker as professor Dippet had informed him, had been practicing the dark arts since she was twelve, and had had a quite nasty encounter with a Basilisk quite a while ago. No one exactly knows what happened, but the Basilisk in question was found dead and miss Barker had obtained red eyes. The headmaster had also told Harry that she was sometimes sent on special missions by the Ministry, though preferred remaining a simple librarian for now.
Miss Barker came back with three books. The first was entitled 'Magical Diaries and how to Make Them', the second was called 'How to preserve a memory' and the third one was 'The perspective of memories seen through the eyes of the beholder'.
"Thses are the ones I think that will interest you must. Your name?" Miss Barker asked, pulling out her wand to imprint his name on her list and in the book.
"Harry Potter," Harry said, seeing his name appear in purple ink on her list and in the book.
"Thank you, have a nice day," miss Barker said, returning to her copy of Witch Weekly.
Harry walked away from the library after giving that strange librarian one last look. He crossed a Ravenclaw student on his way and asked her the way to Hufflepuff tower.
The student, a tall seventh grader with long auburn hair and green eyes named Emily Silverstone, showed him the way and gave him the password before walking away towards the Great Hall.
Harry found the Hufflepuff tower quite easily. It was hidden behind a large tapestry representing a green dragon being fought off by centaurs in a large wooden area, probably the Forbidden Forest.
Harry had done just like Emily had told him to do and had pointed his wand at the tapestry. He had muttered the words 'Here to stay all summer long', and the dragon in the tapestry had moved, pulling the tapestry sideways to reveal a passageway.
Harry immediately saw that the room had not only Hufflepuff colors, but also Ravenclaw and Griffindor. It seemed that the students staying during the summer time had all come together in this tower, bringing their colors with them.
Harry wondered why there were no Slytherin colors and the two Griffindors, that had been in the room when he had entered, had answered that it was because no Slytherin students were staying during the summer.
"But where is Tom Riddle staying?" Harry asked.
"Oh, *him*," the Griffindor named Felix said. "He stays in the Slytherin house."
"He's a prefect, so he's allowed to keep his room, and of course, he didn't want to lower his status to be with us," the second boy, Silvian, said. "I'm telling you, he's the worst Slytherin I've ever seen. He's not more evil than the others or anything, it's just that he thinks he's superior to everybody because he has good grades and that he figured out who was the one trying to kill muggle-born students last year. A real prick."
"Oh," Harry had simply answered, walking away to a table close to an open window to read his books in peace.
He started with 'The perspective of memories seen through the eyes of the beholder'.
'Preserved memories cannot be destroyed without demolishing or damaging the object, usually a book, in which it has been preserved. They are made by blending the memory to the object thanks to very complicated spells, and cannot escape its 'remembrance condition' unless it is given a mind of its own. If it has, it can be treated as a person without real body and could become more than a memory by absorbing the life of the one using it or her. This is why preserved memories with separate state of minds are considered very dangerous.
Dangerous they are, but they can also be very useful to their creators. If their creators die, these memories could 'bond' outside of their object and kill the one using them, steal their life force and become their creators. Because they are, after all, a part of their makers.
When a memory becomes a real being, the object that carried them is considered useless. If, on the other hand, the object is damaged or destroyed before they have the chance of completely transferring out of it, they are destroyed.
Once the object is destroyed or damaged, the memory has no great chance of recovering without the help of its fist maker, that will need to transfer another part of his memories to it in order for it to continue its 'existence'.
Other scenarios picture people that are dragged into the memory itself and trapped into the object. These people can only return to reality by the help of the source of the memory, the part of the maker's mind. If, for example, someone is dragged into the memory's object when it is malfunctioning, there is a problem. If the book or other object is destroyed, destroying the memory with it, the being dies with it.
When the memory is malfunctioning, it might have a certain loss of remembrance and forget who the person he has allowed to 'visit' him. The person must then make the memory remember him without exactly telling him that he is a memory. Remember, memories that are malfunctioning might not even remember that they are not real persons.
Ever worst, their memory becomes their world where time passes just like in real life. Hours, days, months and years pass and if the being dragged into the memory does not return to the real world and time, it can die because it is not in reality. The memory, on the other hand, can live on forever.'
Harry didn't feel very good. In fact, he was now very scared.
He needed to go back.
He needed Tom to remember him.
~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~*~
I know I'm repeating myself at the end of all my chapters but . . . what do you think??? ^_^