~~~~~~~~~~ Chamber of Secrets, March, 1993 ~~~~~~~~~~
Gilderoy Lockhart peaked out from behind a suit of armor and saw the girl he was following head into the second-floor girl's loo as she had many times before. This particular girl was a mystery to him. Of all the girls in the school, she was the only one entirely unaffected by his charms. When he would stand in front of the class and reenact one of his many stories and flash a smile, many of the girls would give dreamy sighs or at least some indication of a typical adolescent infatuation. But not Ginny Weasley. It was quite concerning. Gilderoy knew exactly how astonishingly attractive he was, and it was simply inconceivable that this girl didn't notice it. Something had to be going on, and he was determined to find out! Was she being blackmailed?! Controlled with the imperious?! He was the hero, after all, and heroes rescued damsels in distress.
So, he had taken to observing her movement patterns and found that she regularly spent hours after curfew in this particular lavatory. He wasn't particularly keen on entering, but he was also curious as to what could be going on that would keep her in there so long. One could only spend so much time on the toilet, after all, and Ms. Weasley was well beyond what could be expected. Deciding that he needed more tools, he had practiced for several weeks and managed to add a simple spell to his tiny repertoire: the human presence revealing spell, hominem revelio. With it, he found that Miss Weasley would walk over to one of the sinks, pause, walk a short distance, and then disappear. Once, he cracked the door and saw her disappear down what looked like a secret passage. Scandalous!
Judging by how long it was before she reappeared, Gilderoy thought the secret passage might be taking her out of the school. That was probably where she was meeting up with the villain who was distracting her from properly appreciating his perfect smile! He thought of bringing it up in a staff meeting, but it would be easier for Miss Weasley if no one else knew about it. Plus, this way, he could take all the credit for helping, even honestly, for once. After all, if the blackmailer couldn't remember what he was supposed to be blackmailing her with, then she would be safe, and he would have secured another loyal fan.
As she stepped into the bathroom, Gilderoy dashed out from behind the armor over to the door and caught it in his hand just before it latched, thankful that he had enchanted silent shoes. He heard some hissing coming from the sink, and then the floor opened. Interesting… Perhaps the hissing was a password of some sort. Ingenious! What better way to make something secure than to make it a bunch of random sounds that no one would ever guess or accidentally say?
Watching through the cracked door, Miss Weasley walked over and jumped into the passage. As soon as she had vanished from sight, Gilderoy entered the bathroom and jumped in as it closed behind her. Silently sliding down the tunnel, he landed shortly behind the girl and ducked into a crevice, making sure to remain undetected. He was truly thankful for all the opportunities he had during his career to work on his stealth. It was really hard to sneak up on the powerful wizards who had done all the heroic things in his books, but Gilderoy Lockhart, the dashing fellow that he was, could surmount any challenge.
Carefully slinking along, he followed Mrs. Weasley down the hallway toward a set of grand, snake-covered doors that opened to the same hissing sound as the sink. 'Perhaps this little girl is a Parseltongue. Now, wouldn't that make a great story?' Gilderoy thought to himself. He passed through the double doors behind her and walked into the room before hiding behind a pillar. Watching, he saw the girl lay down. Once down, he watched as an apparition slowly solidified out of a black book she'd laid on the ground next to her.
"Now, that's definitely not normal… I seem to recall one of my sources mentioning seeing something like this once…' Gilderoy decided to do what he did best - hide, observe, and wait for an opportunity to present itself. As he watched, the apparition began speaking.
"Oh, poor Ginevra. Abandoned by your brothers, abandoned by your friends… No one cares about you. Not even me, really. Listening to you complain, day in and day out, about how nothing is going your way was fine for the first couple of weeks, but I can only bear so much, you know. Fortunately for you, your life is about to be put to a much better purpose. My revival. Within just a short while, I will have absorbed all the life from your body, and then I, Tom Riddle, will walk this Earth once more!"
'Wow, what an arrogant sod. He must love hearing himself talk to go off on a soliloquy like this with no one else around.' Gilderoy, deciding that he was a bit out of his depth, started slowly shuffling off towards the door while the apparition continued to spout off nonsense about his own greatness and how the world would cower before him. As he approached the door, though, all the previously bare sconces blazed to life and filled most of the room with bright light. This Riddle person apparently needed more light for his 'glorious revival.' There was no longer any way for him to reach the door and escape under cover of darkness.
Gilderoy quietly inched back into one of the few remaining dark corners, where he pondered his situation. He had two choices: wait for the apparition to finish what it was up to and leave, or confront it somehow. He didn't really like the first option since he, of course, was a hero, and heroes don't abandon damsels in distress. But the alternative was facing this obviously powerful wizard when he couldn't properly cast much more than obliviate.
As Gilderoy dithered about his options, Riddle continued to speak, "And once I have a body, all shall kneel before me! Albus Dumbledore will be the first to go. While I'm cleaning out Hogwarts, I'll follow up with that fraud Lockhart. That pretty boy couldn't cast his way out of a paper bag! He doesn't deserve to teach Defense Against the Dark Arts, no matter what his books say he's done. I'll awaken the basilisk once more, and he shall know the meaning of fear, pain, and death!"
Lockhart both paled in fear and grew red with rage. The result of the strange mixture was, unusually, rather reckless courage, and Lockhart decided that he was going to go for it. Either he would die here attempting to rescue the damsel, or he would emerge victorious as a true hero for the first time in his life. Spelunking with Students sounded like a great book title, after all.
Slowly and carefully sneaking his way closer to the front while keeping to the shadows behind pillars, Lockhart finally found himself in position for an attack. He wasn't quite sure if this would work, but his mentor had always said, "Stick with what you're best at," so Lockhart readied his wand and focused himself on casting the most powerful memory charm he had ever cast. He was going to hold nothing back since if this didn't work he'd likely end up as a burnt husk rotting in some forgotten corner of the chamber. At least he'd be a burnt husk with perfect teeth, though.
Before his courage could wane, Lockhart slipped around the column and shouted, "OBLIVATE!" Riddle spun to face the sound, but he had been so distracted by his monologue that he couldn't react in time. The spell struck him squarely in the forehead, and Lockhart practically felt the spell erasing the man's mind. There was significant resistance, and Lockhart realized such a powerful wizard would have normally been completely immune, but Lockhart's memory charms had been practiced to perfection and broke through all the man's natural and artificial mental defenses until nothing remained.
Riddle's ghost stared at Lockhart before blinking, "What am I doing here? Who am I?"
Lockhart silently cheered and put the next stage of his hastily concocted plan into motion, "What are you talking about, old chap? Don't stop now! You've nearly done it!"
"Nearly done what?" Riddle remained as confused as before.
"You've nearly saved your daughter! She was attacked by a monster and was on the verge of death, but you were bringing her back!"
"I was? How did I manage that?" Riddle seemed to be coming back to clear thinking.
"You were giving her your life force! You had nearly succeeded! Quickly, keep going, and we may yet save her." The urgent but melancholic face that Lockhart was making was so utterly appropriate and convincing that he was sure anyone would have been completely fooled. If only there was something to record his amazing acting for future generations, but alas, he would have to settle for a slightly dramatized recounting in the written word.
"Of course! Please, friend, if I don't make it, tell her I love her dearly and that she shouldn't blame herself." Lockhart held back a smug smile as his suggestion took root. The brain was a marvellous thing. Despite the complete and utter lack of memories in the man's head, Riddle's brain had filled in the blanks with whatever made sense given the surroundings. Lockhart had never tested the suggestibility of a mind right after a full memory wipe, but it seemed like this wizard was as malleable after his charm as any of the other poor sods he'd encountered.
"Of course! I'll be sure to let her know and ensure she is taken care of." Lockhart let big tears well up in his eyes as he continued, "I'm sorry it has to end this way, my friend. I hope you find peace with your wife in the next great adventure." Lockhart let the tears fall as the apparition faded into wisps of light that retreated into the small black book. The last image he saw of Riddle, he was smiling peacefully, which looked strangely out of place on the face of a man who had been ready to murder this little girl in cold blood only moments before.
As soon as it was gone, Lockhart dried the tears from his face and collapsed to his knees in relief as the tension of imminent death left him. Never was he more thankful for his school days in Ravenclaw when he quickly learned to fake some extra tears for the faculty after being bullied by his yearmates for being an incompetent ponce.
Once Lockhart had caught his breath and steadied himself, he made his way over to the small book and poked it with his wand to make sure it wouldn't come back to life. After it remained silent, he slipped it into his robe. It would have to be dealt with later, but for now, there were more important things to take care of! He pulled out his shrunken cosmetics kit from another pocket in his robe. One never knew when one might have to make a public appearance, after all, and it paid to look good when the opportunity arose.
'Oh dear… I'm dreadfully pale and covered in grime! I need a serious makeover!' After primping for about fifteen minutes, Lockhart felt ready to reenter the world. Now, he just had to figure out how much he to let the girl remember. It might be best if he left out the book and let her think that the monster had taken her into the chamber. Judging from what Tom said, it was probably a basilisk. 'I can imagine a hundred amazing ways for me to have driven away such a creature. This book will sell enough copies for me to retire in luxury! And I even did it, for once! At least, mostly. It will be glorious!'
With a huge smile on his face, Lockhart turned to the girl and carefully erased each and every memory about the diary, leaving her mind to gloss over the details. He thought for a moment about the most photogenic way to hold the girl before lifting her up and beginning the journey out of the chamber.
~~~~~~~~~~ July 23rd 1993 ~~~~~~~~~~
Dumbledore sighed as he signed the last bit of paper on his desk with a flourish. As it disappeared to some office somewhere in the ministry, Dumbledore relaxed. "Well, Fawkes, that should be everything. The Chamber of Secrets incident is officially closed."
After Professor Lockhart had emerged from the Chamber of Secrets telling tales of horrible beasts stealing away little girls, the media had been in a frenzy. Fortunately for his position as headmaster, Lockhart seemed content to spin a story that put Albus in a comparatively good light, though the headmaster suspected he had his own reasons for that.
Acting on Lockhart's information, he had put together a basilisk extermination team and headed down into the Chamber of Secrets, where a basilisk had indeed emerged and been put down with great prejudice. The pieces of the beast fetched quite a price at some of the local apothecaries, greatly increasing the Hogwarts budget for the coming year. Maybe now he could afford some new brooms, gnome patrols to keep students out of the forbidden forest, or perhaps a cursebreaker to look at the curse on the defense against the dark arts position. So many possibilities!
As he took a moment to enjoy thinking of ways to better his fine educational establishment, he was broken from his reverie by a tapping sound from his window. "Just a moment." Albus got to his feet and opened his window, and an owl dropped in, left a package on his desk, and sped out the window again before Dumbledore could do anything more than tell that it was rather brown and surly looking.
Turning his attention to the small, carefully wrapped package, he wondered how it had gotten around his redirection wards. Most of his owl mail didn't come straight to his office, instead going to a rather nice wicker bin he had set up in the owlery. Hiring an owl that would navigate around the wards would cost more than a couple of knuts.
With a swish of his wand, Dumbledore cast his usual battery of detection spells at the innocuous package, and then, when those didn't activate, he cast a few more obscure ones for good measure. Satisfied that whatever his special delivery was, it wouldn't kill him immediately, he carefully unwrapped it. Inside was a small, beat up, leather-bound book. "How very curious." He lifted the book and turned to the first page. Perhaps someone had written him a message? Maybe it contained some deep secret of magic?
"Property of… T.M. Riddle?!" a startled Dumbledore threw the diary away from him as though it were diseased and then started casting even more obscure spells at it. No one would possibly send him something like this if it was truly harmless. He continued casting, hoping to desperately to figure out what it was. Soul sucker. No. Flesh fryer. No. Brain burner. No. Archdemon anchor. No, but almost. "Could it be…?" Albus cast one last spell that at last told him what he had on his desk. A soul anchor. A horcrux. An abomination against all that was good. Dumbledore paled.
"How could I have not noticed this sooner? I should have known as soon as I touched it! Horcruxes bleed the evil of the soul they contain into everything they touch, but I can't sense any malice in this one." He needed more answers. Maybe knowing who sent it would give him some insight into this conundrum.
Albus turned to the empty wrapping and cast a few spells to try and identify who had written it, but it all came up with nothing. Whoever sent this had covered their tracks quite well. The handwriting charm couldn't find any matches, and no residual magic was attached. Nothing that a normal wizard would be able to detect. But Dumbledore was anything but a normal wizard. Concentrating, he pointed his wand at the wrapping, and with a few muttered words, it rose up and turned towards him as though it were looking at him. "Who wrote you?" Albus intoned.
"Gilderoy Lockhart. Quite a good-looking fellow, you know. Very dreamy and-" Before the animated paper could continue any further, Albus returned it to its normal state.
"Very curious. Very curious indeed…" Albus had some thinking to do. He could deal with spending the basilisk money tomorrow. For now, this was infinitely more important.