Thanks for the support, no amusing comment this time, too busy, enjoy... ~F

Chapter Seven

Tom Riddle

Hermione left the hospital wing dewhiskered, tail-less, and completely fur free, at the beginning of February. On her first evening back in Gryffindor Tower, Harry showed her T. M. Riddle's diary and he, Faykan and Ron told her the story of how they had found it. She found the fact that Faykan refused to touch the little book curious, but chalked it up to the same reasoning that Ron had for wanting to leave it in Myrtle's bathroom.

"Ooh, it might have hidden powers," said Hermione enthusiastically, taking the diary and turning it over in her hands, looking it over. She figured that since the little black book was fifty years old it might hold information about the last time the Chamber of Secrets was opened, but even after using both Aparecium and her Revealer she couldn't find any trace of writing anywhere on the book except for the name on the front.

Ron was convinced that Riddle never used the diary, while Harry kept wondering about why it had been in the bathroom. Faykan however, Hermione noticed, didn't speculate about the diary, but constantly asked Harry to dispose of it as quickly as possible.

Coupling that with his reluctance to touch the book, Hermione was almost certain that he was afraid of Riddle's diary. But despite all of the boy's pleadings Harry clung to the book like Riddle was an old friend. The four of them looked in the trophy room at the award that Riddle had received for special services to the school, but there were no clues to be found as to what services he had performed to earn it. They also found his name on an old Medal for Magical Merit as well as the list of old Head Boys, but no other clues that might point to his identity.

"He sounds like Percy," said Ron, wrinkling his nose in disgust. "Prefect, Head Boy... probably top of every class…"

"You say that like it's a bad thing," said Hermione in a voice feigning hurt, while Faykan snorted in suppressed laughter.

~~Sina tea kirma : This is a line break~~

The Heir of Slytherin didn't make a reappearance at the school during the first two weeks of February, yet most people were still convinced that Harry was the Heir, having 'given himself away,' at the Dueling Club meeting. Ernie Macmillan of Hufflepuff was leading the spread of rumors throughout the school that Harry had purposely sought out Justin and attacked him, even leading into the absurd conclusion that Faykan was most likely the monster.

Gilderoy Lockhart seemed to think that his timely intervention had made the attacks stop. Harry overheard him telling Professor McGonagall that, and that he would protect her if need be while the Gryffindors were lining up for Transfiguration.

"I don't think that there'll be any more trouble, Minerva," he said, tapping his nose knowingly and winking in what he must have thought was a charming way. "I think the Chamber has been locked for good this time. The culprit must have known it was only a matter of time before I caught up with him. Rather sensible to stop now, before I came down hard on him. You know, what the school needs now is a morale booster. Wash away the memories of the last term! I won't say any more just now so as to not spoil the surprise, but I think I know just the thing…"

Lockhart's idea of a morale booster became apparent at breakfast on the fourteenth as Harry and Faykan entered the Great Hall. Harry had been up quite late the previous night with Quidditch practice, and Faykan had stayed up to wait for him in the common room, so they were slightly late from sleeping in. Faykan shuddered visibly as they entered, and Harry thought that they had entered the wrong room.

The walls were covered with large and lurid pink flowers. Worse still, heart-shaped confetti was falling from the pale blue ceiling. Harry dragged Faykan over to the Gryffindor table, where Ron was sitting looking sickened, and Hermione seemed to have been overcome with giggles.

"What's going on?" Harry asked them, sitting down and wiping confetti off his bacon.

Ron pointed at the teachers' table, apparently too disgusted to speak. Lockhart, wearing bright pink robes to match the decorations, was waving for silence. The teachers on either side of him were sitting straight-backed and stony faced. From where he sat, Harry could see a muscle going in Professor McGonagall's cheek. Snape looked as though someone had just fed him a large beaker of Skele-Gro.

"Happy Valentine's Day!" Lockhart shouted cheerfully. "And may I thank the forty-six people who have so far sent me cards! Yes, I have taken the liberty of arranging this little surprise for you all… and it doesn't end here!"

Lockhart clapped his hands and a dozen surly-looking dwarves marched through the doors to the entrance hall. Not just any dwarves, however. Lockhart had them all wearing golden wings and carrying harps.

"My friendly, card carrying cupids!" beamed Lockhart. "They will be roving around the school today delivering your valentines! And the fun doesn't stop here! I'm sure my colleagues will want to enter into the spirit of the occasion! Why not ask Professor Snape to show you how to whip up a Love Potion! And while you're at it, Professor Flitwick knows more about Entrancing Enchantments than any other wizard I've ever met, the sly old dog!"

Professor Flitwick buried his face in his hands. Snape was looking as though the first person to ask him for a Love Potion would be force fed poison.

All day long, the dwarves kept barging into their classes to deliver valentines, much to the annoyance of the teachers, and late that afternoon as the Gryffindors were walking upstairs for Charms, one of the dwarves caught up with Harry.

"Oy, you! 'Arry Potter!" shouted a particularly grim looking dwarf, elbowing people out of the way to get to Harry.

Hot all over at the thought of being given a valentine in front of a line of first years, which happened to include Ginny Weasley, Harry tried to escape. The dwarf, however, cut his way through the crowd by kicking people's shins, and reached him before he'd gone two paces.

"I've got a musical message to deliver to 'Arry Potter in person," he said, twanging his harp in a threatening sort of way after shoving past Faykan.

"Not here," Harry hissed, trying to escape.

"Stay still!" grunted the dwarf, grabbing hold of Harry's bag and pulling him back.

"Let me go!" Harry snarled, tugging.

With a loud ripping noise, his bag split in two. His books, wand, parchment, and quill spilled onto the floor and his ink bottle smashed over everything.

Harry scrambled around, trying to pick it all up before the dwarf started singing, causing something of a holdup in the corridor.

"What's going on here?" came the cold, drawling voice of Theodore Nott. Harry started stuffing everything feverishly into his ripped bag, desperate to get away before Nott could hear his musical valentine.

"What's all this commotion?" said another familiar voice as Percy Weasley arrived.

Losing his head, Harry tried to make a run for it, but the dwarf seized him around the knees and brought him crashing to the floor.

"Right," he said, sitting on Harry's ankles. "Here is your singing valentine:"

"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad,

His hair is as dark as a blackboard.

I wish he was mine, he's really divine,

The hero who conquered the Dark Lord"

Harry would have given all the gold in Gringotts to evaporate on the spot. Faykan finally grabbed the dwarf and heaved the small man off of Harry, muttering angrily into its ear. All Harry could hear as Faykan pushed the dwarf away was, "Ishkhaqwi ai durugnul. How far the house of Durin have fallen to stoop to this." The dwarf looked at Faykan with a mix of surprise and anger before storming valiantly to laugh along with everyone else, Harry got up, his feet numb from the weight of the dwarf, as Percy Weasley did his best to disperse the crowd, some of whom were crying with mirth.

"Off you go, off you go, the bell rang five minutes ago, off to class, now," he said, shooing some of the younger students away. "And you, Nott…"

Harry, glancing over, saw Nott stoop and snatch up something. Leering, he showed it to Crabbe and Goyle, and Harry realized that he'd got Riddle's diary.

"Give that back," said Harry quietly.

"Wonder what Potter's written in this?" said Nott, who obviously hadn't noticed the year on the cover and thought he had Harry's own diary. A hush fell over the onlookers. Ginny was staring from the diary to Harry, looking terrified.

"Hand it over, Nott," said Percy sternly.

"When I've had a look," said Nott, waving the diary tauntingly at Harry.

Percy said, "As a school prefect…" but Harry had lost his temper. He pulled out his wand and shouted, "Expelliarmus!" and just as Snape had disarmed Lockhart, so Nott found the diary shooting out of his hand into the air. Grinning broadly, Ron reached out and caught it.

Percy shouted after Harry as the three younger Gryffindors moved off to Charms, but none of them listened. It wasn't until they had reached Professor Flitwick's class that Harry noticed something rather odd about Riddle's diary.

All his other books were drenched in scarlet ink. The diary, however, was as clean as it had been before the ink bottle had smashed all over it. He tried to point this out to Ron, but his best friend was having trouble with his wand again; large purple bubbles were blossoming out of the end, and he wasn't much interested in anything else. Harry didn't try to tell Faykan, because he was starting to get sick of him pleading with Harry to ditch the book in a bin or burn it in the common room fireplace every time it was mentioned.

Harry sat on his four-poster that night and flicked through the blank pages, not one of which had a trace of scarlet ink on it. Then he pulled a new bottle out of his bedside cabinet, dipped his quill into it, and dropped a blot onto the first page of the diary.

The ink shone brightly on the paper for a second and then, as though it was being sucked into the page, vanished. Excited, Harry loaded up his quill a second time and wrote, 'My name is Harry Potter.'

The words shone momentarily on the page and they, too, sank in without trace. Then, at last, something happened. Oozing back out of the page, in his very own ink, came words Harry had never written.

'Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?'

These words, too, faded away, but not before Harry had started to scribble back.

'Someone tried to flush it down a toilet.'

He waited eagerly for Riddle's reply.

'Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink, but I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read.'

'What do you mean?' Harry scrawled, blotting the page in his excitement.

'I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.'

'That's where I am now,' Harry wrote quickly. 'I'm at Hogwarts, and horrible stuff's been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?'

His heart was hammering. Riddle's reply came quickly, his writing becoming untidier, as though he was hurrying to tell all he knew.

'Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally managing to kill one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. Everyone was told that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned.'

Harry nearly spilled his ink bottle in his haste to write back.

'It's happening again now. There have been three attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time?'

'I can show you, if you like,' came Riddle's reply. 'You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him.'

Harry hesitated, his quill suspended over the diary. What did Riddle mean? How could he be taken inside somebody else's memory? He glanced nervously at the door to the dormitory, which was growing dark in the fading light of the lamps. When he looked back at the diary, he saw fresh words forming.

'Let me show you.'

Harry paused for a fraction of a second and then wrote two letters.

'Ok'

The pages of the diary began to blow as though caught in a high wind, stopping halfway through the month of June. Mouth hanging open, Harry saw that the little square for June thirteenth seemed to have turned into a miniscule television screen. His hands trembling slightly, he raised the book to press his eye against the little window, and before he knew what was happening, he was tilting forward; the window was widening, he felt his body leave his bed, and he was pitched headfirst through the opening in the page, into a whirl of color and shadow.

He felt his feet hit solid ground, and stood, shaking, as the blurred shapes around him came suddenly into focus.

He knew immediately where he was. This circular room with the sleeping portraits was Dumbledore's office; but it wasn't Dumbledore who was sitting behind the desk. A wizened, frail looking wizard, bald except for a few wisps of white hair, was reading a letter by candlelight. Harry had never seen this man before.

Harry looked around the office. No Fawkes the phoenix, no whirring silver contraptions. This was Hogwarts as Riddle had known it, meaning that this unknown wizard was Headmaster, not Dumbledore, and he, Harry, was little more than a phantom, completely invisible to the people of fifty years ago.

There was a knock on the office door.

"Enter," said the old wizard in a feeble voice.

A boy of about sixteen entered, taking off his pointed hat. A silver prefect's badge was glinting on his chest. He was much taller than Harry, but he, too, had jet black hair.

"Ah, Riddle," said the Headmaster.

"You wanted to see me, Professor Dippet?" said Riddle. He looked nervous.

"Sit down," said Dippet. "I've just been reading the letter you sent me."

"Oh," said Riddle. He sat down, gripping his hands together very tightly.

"My dear boy," said Dipper kindly, "I cannot possibly let you stay at school over the summer. Surely you want to go home for the holidays?"

"No," said Riddle at once. "I'd much rather stay at Hogwarts than go back to that… to that…"

"You live in a Muggle orphanage during the holidays, I believe?" said Dippet curiously.

"Yes, sir," said Riddle, reddening slightly.

Dippet clucked his tongue sympathetically.

"The thing is, Tom…" He paused and sighed. "Special arrangements might have been made for you, but in the current circumstances..."

"You mean all these attacks, sir?" said Riddle, and Harry's heart leapt, and he moved closer, scared of missing anything.

"Precisely," said the headmaster. "My dear boy, you must see how foolish it would be of me to allow you to remain at the castle when term ends. Particularly in light of the recent tragedy ... the death of that poor little girl... You will be safer by far at your orphanage. As a matter of fact, the Ministry of Magic talking about closing the school as we speak. We are no nearer locating the, err… source of all this unpleasantness..."

Riddle's eyes had widened.

"Sir, if the person was caught… if it all stopped…"

"What do you mean?" said Dippet with a squeak in his voice, sitting up in his chair. "Riddle, do you mean you know something about these attacks?"

"No, sir," said Riddle quickly.

But Harry was sure it was the same sort of 'no' that he himself had given Dumbledore earlier when he had asked both him and Fay if they had any suspicions about the attacks.

Dippet sank back, looking faintly disappointed.

"You may go, Tom..."

Riddle slid off his chair and slouched out of the room. Harry followed him.

Down the moving spiral staircase they went, emerging next to the gargoyle in the darkening corridor. Riddle stopped, and so did Harry, watching him. Harry could tell that Riddle was doing some serious thinking. He was biting his lip, his forehead furrowed.

Then, as though he had suddenly reached a decision, he hurried off, Harry gliding noiselessly behind him. They didn't see another person until they reached the entrance hall, when a tall wizard with long, sweeping auburn hair and a matching beard called to Riddle from the marble staircase.

"What are you doing, wandering around this late, Tom?"

Harry gaped at the wizard. He was none other than Dumbledore, fifty years younger than the one he knew.

"I had to see the Headmaster, sir," said Riddle.

"Well, hurry off to bed," said Dumbledore, giving Riddle exactly the kind of penetrating stare Harry knew so well. "Best not to roam the corridors these days, not since..."

He sighed heavily, bade Riddle good night, and strode off. Riddle watched him walk out of sight and then, moving quickly, headed straight down the stone steps to the dungeons, with Harry in hot pursuit.

But to Harry's disappointment, Riddle didn't lead him into a hidden passageway or a secret tunnel, but to the very dungeon in which Harry had Potions with Snape. Riddle pushed the door almost closed and started to watch the outer passage when Harry saw movement in the room they were in. Riddle seemed to be aware of it, but didn't react until there was a dark shape directly behind him. Spinning quickly, Riddle grabbed the shape and lit his wand at the same time. Harry gasped in astonishment as Riddle pinned a boy against the wall of the dungeon, a boy that looked exactly like a sixteen-year-old Faykan. But surely it wasn't Faykan, Harry thought, it must have been his grandfather at least…

"Hello Tom," the older version of his friend said with an eerily similar grin.

"Undol…" Riddle replied, not withdrawing his hand from the other boy's throat. "Why are you following me?"

"What's wrong Tom," the mysterious duplicate of an old Fay replied cheekily, "no whispered words for me, like you do with all you other 'friends'."

"You know perfectly well we're not friends." Tom hissed back, "You made sure of that almost six years ago…"

Harry studied the boy, looking for differences with his friend. He couldn't find anything except for age . The older Undol had slightly longer hair, but the same piercing blue eyes, and the only other glaring difference from his friend were the Slytherin robes he was wearing. It made some sense that Faykan's ancestors were in Slytherin, as the sorting hat had tried to place his friend in the house as well. Riddle ignored the comment the shorter boy had made and stepped closer to him, lowering his voice to a deadly whisper.

"You shouldn't be out this late Undol, the monster has killed a Mudblood and it's still on the loose." Tom added after turning back from glancing down the corridor through the crack in the door.

The older Undol didn't seem phased by the mention of Slytherin's monster, "I'll take my chances Tom," he said."The better question is why perfect Prefect Tommie is out chasing after wayward Slytherins in the dead of night…" he smiled again and started playing with the sleeve of Riddle's robes, clearly doing so just to irritate the other boy.

Riddle tightened his grip on Faykan's ancestor and glared at him, "I'm not here chasing after you, if that's what you think." He let go of the other boy with a shove and directed him to the door. "Get back to the common room or I will inform a teacher of your little nighttime stroll."

Undol just grinned back at Tom, "I'll go Tom, but don't think I haven't a clue what you're up to; Dumbledore isn't the only one that sees through your façade." Riddle pushed Undol out the door and with a glare closed the door back to a crack. The other boy merely laughed to himself and walked away, sending a pointed look and a wink back to where Riddle and Harry were hidden, leaving them back to the silence of waiting.

It felt to Harry that they were there for at least an hour. All he could see was the figure of Riddle at the door, staring through the crack, waiting like a statue. And just when Harry had stopped feeling expectant and tense and started wishing he could return to the present, he heard something move beyond the door.

Someone was creeping along the passage. He heard whoever it was pass the dungeon where he and Riddle were hidden. Riddle, quiet as a shadow, edged through the door and followed, with Harry tiptoeing behind him, forgetting for the moment that he couldn't be heard.

For perhaps five minutes they followed the footsteps, until Riddle stopped suddenly, his head inclined in the direction of new noises. Harry heard a door creak open, and then someone speaking in a hoarse whisper.

"C'mon... gotta get yeh outta here... C'mon now... in the box..."

There was something familiar about that voice...

Riddle suddenly jumped around the corner. Harry stepped out behind him. He could see the dark outline of a huge boy who was crouching in front of an open door, a very large box next to it.

"Evening, Rubeus," said Riddle sharply.

The boy slammed the door shut and stood up.

"What yer doin' down here, Tom?"

Riddle stepped closer.

"It's all over," he said. "I'm going to have to turn you in, Rubeus. They're talking about closing Hogwarts if the attacks don't stop."

"N' at d'yeh…"

"I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters don't make good pets. I suppose you just let it out for exercise and…"

"It never killed no one!" said the large boy, backing against the closed door. From behind him, Harry could hear a funny rustling and clicking.

"Come on, Rubeus," said Riddle, moving yet closer. "The dead girl's parents will be here tomorrow. The least Hogwarts can do is make sure that the thing that killed their daughter is slaughtered..."

"It wasn't him!" roared the boy, his voice echoing in the dark passage. "He wouldn'! He never!"

"Stand aside," said Riddle, drawing out his wand.

His spell lit the corridor with a sudden flaming light. The door behind the large boy flew open with such force it knocked him into the wall opposite. And out of it came something that made Harry let out a long, piercing scream unheard by anyone present.

A vast, low-slung, hairy body and a tangle of black legs; a gleam of many eyes and a pair of razor-sharp pincers, Riddle raised his wand again and cried, "Arania Exumai." He was too late. The thing bowled him over as it scuttled away, tearing up the corridor and out of sight. Riddle scrambled to his feet, looking after it; he raised his wand, but the huge boy leapt on him, seized his wand, and threw him back down, yelling, "NO!"

The scene whirled, the darkness became complete; Harry felt himself falling and, with a crash, he landed spread eagled on his four-poster in the Gryffindor dormitory, Riddle's diary lying open on his stomach.

The door to the dormitory opened and Ron and Faykan entered.

"There you are," Ron said.

Harry sat up. He was sweating and shaking.

"What's up?" said Faykan, looking at him with concern.

"It was Hagrid." Harry said, breathless, "Hagrid opened the Chamber of Secrets fifty years ago."

Ishkhaqwi ai durugnul : I spit upon your grave

Potenial Spoiler's Ahead, you have been warned!

Only small additions here for clarity, truly preoccupied right now with other things, college and homework and other things. More next time, enjoy! ~F