Summary of the last chapter:

The Governors come to Hogwarts, concerned about the attacks in the school. Dumbledore manages to take some wind out of their sails by using Lockhart and Skeeter.

Meanwhile, Harry, Neville and Hermione stumble across a mysterious planner from 1943 someone had tried to throw away in Myrtle's bathroom. They finally realize that Myrtle was the victim of the monster when the Chamber was first opened, but unfortunately, she doesn't remember anything but 'big yellow eyes'. This makes the friends come up with the theory that someone is using a house-elf to attack students, which would make perfect sense if it weren't for Justin, who was attacked after the wards were improved to prevent foreign elves from popping into Hogwarts.

Secrets, Memories and Riddles

Valentine's Day came, and Lockhart, who never missed an opportunity to make a nuisance of himself, had decided the castle's inhabitants deserved a treat after having lived with so much gloom in the castle. Unfortunately, what he considered a cheer-up didn't meet the taste of approximately half of the student body – namely the boys. Though, to be fair, some of the upper years seemed okay with it as well, and most of the girls were thrilled.

Harry, Blaise and Draco were disgusted when they came into the Great Hall on February 14th. It was a nightmare in pink – worse than Madam Puddifoot's Tea Shop. Pink confetti fell from the ceiling, and a pink-clad Lockhart, who stood with a bright smile between his rather sour looking colleagues, shouted 'surprise!' He had engaged (bribed? Forced into service? Imperioed?) a small army of dwarves to act as Valentines. They were wearing golden wings and harps and looked ridiculous, but grimly determined.

Students were soon writing cards, composing poems or songs and whispering into dwarf ears. Harry noted that Neville and Hermione didn't seem to be as disgusted as he was with the goings on and were busy writing cards. When breakfast was over, the bearded cupids swarmed out into the hallways, delivering Valentines. The madness went on throughout the day. Dwarves lurked in corridors or even burst into classrooms (one had its wings, harp and card blown to smithereens by an enraged Professor Snape).

In the afternoon before Charms, one of the fake cupids planted itself in front of Harry, right in the middle of a group of first-years who'd come down the corridor.

"Quick, Harry! Run!" Tom shouted, alarmed, but it was easier said then done. The girls were blocking the way forward, giggling like crazy people – except for Ginny Weasley, who looked like she wanted to be elsewhere. Harry echoed the sentiment and turned on his heels in an attempt to escape to where he had come from. The dwarf would have none of it (it was a particularly determined fellow who took his job seriously) and grabbed Harry by his backpack, pulling him back forcefully. Harry resisted, but the backpack – still an old one from Dudley, why hadn't he replaced it? – ripped, spilling its entire contents on the floor: Books, parchment and quills, and last of all a bottle of ink that broke right on top of it all.

"I have a musical message to deliver to Harry Potter!" the dwarf declared unperturbed, and much to Harry's horror, started singing loudly. It was an absurd poem that compared his green eyes to pickled toad and hailed him as conqueror of dark lords. It didn't even rhyme properly. Unfortunately, Harry's resistance, the loudly singing dwarf and the crowd had drawn the attention of even more people, among them Draco with his cronies.

"I'm going to die from embarrassment right now," groaned Tom. "Goodbye, Harry, it's been nice being your brother!"

Harry wished he could die from embarrassment too, or from a lightning bolt striking, he wasn't picky.

"He's really divine?" Draco repeated one line of his Valentine, highly amused. "Must be because you're so sensitive. Is that a diary you're keeping? Is it helping you to keep in touch with your inner girl?"

He bent down and picked the black book up that had landed right beneath the ink pot. Harry, who, for some reason, hated to see the diary in Draco's hands, did exactly the wrong thing.

"Give that back, Malfoy!" he demanded irritably, which of course had exactly the opposite outcome. Tom moaned. He was obviously still in death agony. Draco opened the book, skimming through it. Harry caught the equally enraged expression of Neville and Hermione, the other kids were amused, while Ginny seemed horrified on his behalf. "No, not so sensitive after all ... there's nothing in it," said Draco, puzzled and disappointed at having lost the opportunity to make fun of his frenemy.

Before Harry could react, Neville had whipped his wand out and summoned the diary out of Draco's hands – nonverbally! The spell was performed perfectly, and the book landed safely in Neville's hands. He was utterly baffled by his own success.

Hermione cheered and Harry threw him a grateful look. Draco stared in shock, not comprehending what the heck had just happened. Tom, very much alive again, cheered Gleefully, "That's it, Neville! Brilliant! You really showed him!"

Draco, who didn't want to lose face, chose to have the last word and called to Ginny: "I don't think he liked your Valentine very much!", before he turned and sauntered away. Thankfully, Percy Weasley, the Gryffindor prefect, arrived on the scene and quickly dispelled the crowd, calling attention to the fact that they were already five minutes late for their next class.

Having gathered his books and the diary from Neville, Harry cast a 'Reparo' at his backpack, which served at least as a provisional patch-up. Given that it was Muggle and probably at least partly made up of synthetic material, he'd be lucky if it lasted the day.

When he got his charms book out in Professor Flitwick's class, Harry noted something odd. While all his other books were smudged in ink, the diary was pristine, even though Harry was sure that the ink pot had been right on top of it. And considering the amount of ink that had been in the broken jar, his things looked mostly fine. As if the diary had absorbed most of it somehow. The puzzle kept him occupied throughout the Charms lesson and he was determined to do some more experiments on the book as soon as he was able to.

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

After having observed that the ink just seemed to vanish into the diary, Harry was convinced the key to solving its mystery was writing into it.

"Just be careful, Harry," warned Tom, when Harry pulled out a quill and the diary when he sat in his bed at night, curtains drawn. "We don't know what this book is. It's heavily charmed, and someone must have kept it for a long time before throwing it away. It's all rather weird."

"Well, I can't imagine I'm going to die from writing in it. Whoever had it in their possession before surely must have tried it at some point, and no one's dead. So here goes nothing."

Harry dipped his quill into ink and carefully wrote into the diary: "My name is James Bond." Just in case, he and Tom had agreed that they wouldn't use his real name. As they had learned since they were part of the wizarding world, names were power.

As expected, the ink was absorbed by the paper with no trace remaining. Frowning, Harry started at the page that was pristine once more. What use could an ink-absorbing diary have? Then, suddenly, new words formed, as if written by a ghostly hand.

"Hello, James Bond," he was greeted in a very neat, old fashioned cursive. "My name is Tom Riddle."

Harry blinked in surprise. Of all the things he had expected, getting an answer and being addressed by the diary's previous owner wasn't one. Was that normal?

"What qualifies as normal in the wizarding world?" asked Tom with irony in his voice. "I wonder if we'll ever know for sure."

So, the owner of the diary could somehow communicate with them, and T. stood for Tom. Sure, the name was common enough in the Muggle world, but it felt weird to be addressing another Tom. Before Harry could write into the diary that he had a best friend named Tom, said friend held him back with another sharp warning. "No names, Harry! And don't tell him about me!"

Harry nodded. Of course he shouldn't. That he had almost forgotten his resolution to not tell the diary anything personal was proof enough that there were indeed compulsion charms at work.

"How is it possible that you can talk to me?" he asked, wondering if he was somehow communicating with a person who had a twin diary in front of him this very moment.

"Magic!" responded the diary, sounding a little smug. "I was rather good at Charms and managed to conserve the memories of a very eventful year in this diary. May I ask how it came into your hands?"

"Someone threw it into a toilet."

There was a substantial pause as the creator of the charmed object tried to come to terms with the fact that someone had done something so outrageous to it.

"Well, how lucky then that I put a lot of conserving charms on it," he finally dead-panned. "I always knew there were those who didn't want these memories to be shared."

"But there is nothing written in it," Harry objected.

"Oh, but there is!" replied Riddle – Harry wouldn't call him Tom, as that would be confusing. "The diary holds memories of terrible events that happened in Hogwarts."

"The opening of the Chamber of Secrets, you mean ..."

Again, the diary seemed surprised. Funny that Harry was feeling it, even if nothing was being written. "Indeed," Riddle wrote. "It was claimed to be a myth, but I knew that it wasn't. Someone opened it in my fifth year. I saw the monster who killed and injured multiple students and caught the person who opened the Chamber."

"You mean Hagrid?" Harry asked.

Riddle was silent for yet another moment but didn't try to hide his surprise this time. "I'm astonished it has become common knowledge. Everything was hushed up back then. But yes, I caught him with his huge pet Acromantula. I don't know what he was thinking keeping it in the castle – a poisonous, maneating monster! It had killed a girl. To the public, Headmaster Dippet gave out the story that it had been an accident – I was given a trophy for finding out about it. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned!"

"Well, yes – they broke Hagrid's wand and expelled him for keeping a dangerous pet inside the castle, and the monster escaped into the Forbidden Forest," Harry confirmed Riddle's rather portentous statement. "But Hagrid wasn't the one who opened the Chamber."

"Of course he wouldn't admit to it."

"No, he really wasn't. Aragog hadn't come from the Chamber. Or do you seriously believe that Hagrid, who's a half-giant, is the heir of Slytherin? Wasn't Salazar big on blood purity and all that nonsense?"

That seemed to give Riddle pause. "I admit I always wondered about that. But after he was kicked out, the attacks stopped, which made it very clear that he had something to do with it. I can show you, if you like … "

"Show me what?"

"How it was, back then. The day it happened."

"Okay," said Harry, before Tom could stop him or he could reflect on what exactly he was agreeing to. As if a powerful gust of wind had gone through the dorm, the diary pages flipped and turned to the square of June 14th.

The lines framing it suddenly began to glow in a white, dazzling light, expanding, until Harry was staring at a blinding screen covering both pages. And before he could think that this was very weird indeed and possibly shut the diary to give it some more thought, he was sucked right into it.

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

It was the weirdest feeling – a bit like falling and a bit like travelling by Portkey, just without the nausea or the stumbled landing. Harry landed smoothly in a scene of an old black-and-white movie. He was, he realized, still at Hogwarts, but was suddenly standing in front of the gargoyle staircase that led to the headmaster's office. Before him stood a boy of about sixteen years of age who Harry could only assume was Riddle. He wore somewhat old-fashioned school robes with a green and silver tie, and a prefect's badge. He was tall, had jet-black hair and even features, which were now screwed up in obvious concern. His face, for some reason, looked familiar, though Harry couldn't quite put his finger on it.

"Riddle?" Harry asked, dumbfounded. How had he landed in the past? When the boy didn't respond but whispered something to the gargoyle guarding the staircase instead, Harry called for Tom, needing to make sure he was with him.

He wasn't.

"Tom?" Harry called out in his head, feeling panic rise when he realized that the space inside him that was usually occupied by the solid and comforting presence of his friend was empty. How had that happened? Was the diary a Portkey that sucked people out of their time-lines to deposit them somewhere else? How was he supposed to get back? And where was Tom? He surely couldn't be gone, could he?

Harry had no time to think about these questions, as Riddle began walking up the staircase, and – as if holding Harry by an invisible leash – pulled him with him. "Riddle!" Harry called out once more, wishing the boy would explain what he had done and where he was, but he didn't even seem to hear Harry.

They entered the headmaster's office.

"Headmaster Dippet," Riddle greeted the wizard behind the desk politely. "You asked to see me?"

"Yes, Tom. I received your request asking me to let you stay in Hogwarts for the summer. You live in an orphanage, is that right? Muggleborn?"

"Half-blood, Sir. Muggle father, witch mother. She died just after I was born. They told me she only lived long enough to name me – Tom after my father and Marvolo after my grandfather."

Dippet made a sympathetic noise, but Harry gasped. Marvolo? The second name of Tom Riddle was Marvolo and he lived in a Muggle orphanage? But … this couldn't possibly be HIS Tom – how could it? But then an image flashed up in his mind – the face of a boy he had once seen in the Mirror of Erised. That's why Riddle seemed so familiar! He looked exactly like that boy! Just a few years older. Harry was looking at Tom! Harry wished he could have sat down as he felt a bit dizzy as his mind was reeling. But there was no chair and he wasn't sure if his body was physical enough to sit.

"My dear boy – I understand that you do not want to go back to the orphanage, especially with the war going on," said the headmaster, looking truly sorry. "I guess special arrangements might have been made for you, but with the current situation …"

"You mean the attacks?"

The headmaster nodded gravely. "You must see that it's impossible – Hogwarts is not a safe place anymore. After the tragic death of that poor little girl, the Ministry of Magic is talking about closing the school for good until we have found the source of all this … unpleasantness."

Harry could see that this shocked Riddle. Or Tom. Though the idea that they were the same was still too mind-boggling to simply accept at this point.

"So if the culprit was caught … if the attacks stopped …"

"Do you have any information about what's going on?"

"No, Sir."

The memory faded, but didn't end. Soon Harry, whose mind was still trying to process the shocking discovery that Tom was actually Riddle, found himself in the dungeon with the latter. Riddle seemed to know exactly where he was going and was striding with purpose towards a door leading to a storage closet. He yanked it open, startling a very tall figure who had been rummaging around inside.

It was Hagrid, Harry realized, when the boy turned around, flustered and quite obviously caught red-handed. No fully human student could be this tall. Something was stirring in the large box on the floor before him, and Harry, having a good idea what was in it, instinctively took a step backwards.

Riddle accused Hagrid of housing a dangerous beast inside the castle and told him that he had no choice but to turn him in.

"I don't think you meant to kill anyone. But monsters do not make good pets."

Hagrid protested, the two wizards argued back and forth, and when things got rough and Riddle pulled his wand, a spell landed on the box behind Hagrid and a huge spider came bursting out. Although he had expected something like this to happen, it nearly gave Harry a heart-attack. Before anybody could react, it was out of the room and down the corridor, its hairy eight legs carrying it away with uncanny speed.

*'*'*'*'*'*'*

With a gasp, Harry found himself back in his body, sprawled on his bed with the now perfectly normal looking diary on his stomach.

"Harry? Harry!" Tom's agitated voice greeted him. "You're back, thank God! What in heaven's name happened? Did you faint? I suddenly couldn't feel you anymore – not at all!"

Harry slowly sat up, his thoughts going back and forth over what his eyes had just seen and repeating the same incredible conclusion over and over again: He had just seen Tom in person – Tom had once gone to school here!

"I was … inside the diary," he finally declared, wondering if there was a gentle way to tell Tom that it was actually HIS. "Riddle somehow took me into the past. Everything was black-and-white, like in an old movie. I was with him in the headmaster's office, but they could neither hear nor see me. Riddle – he was a Slytherin prefect, about sixteen years old – asked the headmaster to stay in Hogwarts over the summer, because he was afraid to go back to where he lived."

Tom could feel that there was more to come and waited patiently for Harry to gather his thoughts and continue.

Harry took a deep breath, preparing to break the earth-shattering news to his friend. "This will come as a shock – it's still quite a shock for me, believe me - but … the name T. M. Riddle in the diary stands for Tom Marvolo Riddle. He's a half-blood who never got to know his parents. He grew up in a London orphanage ..."

"What?" Tom sucked in a sharp breath. "Marvolo?" he then asked weakly, remembering how the name had popped up in his mind seemingly at random. "Like Marvolo Gaunt?"

"He was named Tom after his Muggle father and Marvolo after his grandfather. The sister who had been making eyes at a Muggle? That must have been his mother. Riddle said she died after giving birth to him – probably in the Muggle word. That's why we didn't find out what happened to her."

"You think … Harry, do you believe this is my diary? Am I Tom Marvolo Riddle?"

"I recognized him, Tom! It's the boy I saw in the Mirror of Erised once. He's definitely you!"

Harry could feel his friend's disbelief, confusion and elation. Could it really be? Had they just found out who he was and would they finally understand how he had ended up in Harry's head?

"But Harry – he was a fifth year in 1943! It means he lived at least until he was sixteen, even if we assume he died shortly after the events recorded in the diary. I'm not that old! I surely would know if I was sixteen or older. I don't feel like it!"

"I have no idea how a sixteen year old feels. But I can tell you that you never felt as if you were older than me. More reasonable, maybe, but that's because you're a Slytherin and a smartass, and a bit of a scaredy-cat."

"I'm not! I'm just cautious and think about consequences, unlike some people."

"My point exactly. So no, I don't think you're sixteen. But you don't remember much of your life from before me. I suppose it's what we experience in life that makes us grow older. It changes us. And it makes us realize that time passes. If you take all that away – everything you learned, your memories, your experiences - you're like a newborn. In fact, you're like a whole new person."

"So we're back to the reincarnation theory, then? That this is my new life after death, as a new person? Only that I somehow ended up in a body that was still occupied? And that for some weird reason, I remember my early childhood from the life before – and a very specific part of my youth, like the bombing of London?"

Harry suddenly froze in fright.

"Tom … maybe it's not you something went wrong with. Something went wrong with me!"

"What do you mean?"

"Voldemort tried to kill me that night!" Harry was getting agitated. How could he never have seen this before? "I was supposed to die! Nobody understands how I survived the curse he threw at me! No one else has before! Maybe I'm the error! This was supposed to be your new body, but for some reason, I didn't leave it as I was destined to!"

"You mean – because your mum sacrificed herself for you?"

"Yes! Or maybe it was the kind of spell he used on me – the death curse. We don't know exactly what it does. Should it have stopped me from breathing, but didn't? Seriously, don't they have a grace period before they pass along a body to make sure the old owner has really moved out?"

"Harry, calm down! It's nothing but a theory, and it doesn't even make much sense. If it was my turn to be reborn, why would I be given the body of a one year old instead of a newborn? They surely wouldn't just replace the soul of one child with that of another, hoping the parents won't notice."

"But both my parents were dead, there was nobody who would have noticed! Maybe the curse Voldemort cast temporarily killed my soul, and they had to fill my body with a new one so as not to be left with a zombie!"

"Well, your soul's quite obviously not dead, so that theory is bogus. And no matter if the error was making me move in with you or you not moving out of the body that was supposed to be mine: We're in it together, quite literally. None of us is to blame. Maybe administration in heaven is a bit like at Hogwarts. They mean well, but are clearly incompetent."

"I hope you have no aspirations of becoming God next, just to put things in order," joked Harry weakly, attempting to lighten the mood. Finding out who Tom was was great. But it was also a bit scary.

"No worries," assured Tom. "It's still headmaster first and Minister of Magic next."

"You've been to Hogwarts in your previous life!" said Harry, when the facts had really sunk in. "You were here when it all happened!"

"Please, don't call him me. It's confusing! I don't have memories of going to Hogwarts before."

"Right. Riddle then. Who do you think had his diary all these years? What happened to it? What was Hogwarts like back then? He could answer so many questions!"

"You sound really enthusiastic about this ..."

"Well, aren't you, too?"

"I don't know. I have weirdly mixed feelings about this. When I look at the diary, it feels like I found something vital that I didn't even know was lost, something I have always been missing. But at the same time it feels wrong somehow."

"Wrong how?"

"Like some of those books in the forbidden section. I'm not sure books are supposed to whisk you away like that. It was scary. For a moment, I was afraid you wouldn't comeback."

"A lot of magic must have gone into the making of it. And Riddle said there are a lot of protective charms on it. It's probably just the magic that we're feeling."

"Possibly. But Harry, until we know more, we should really tread with caution!"

That was probably good advice. They had no idea what was going on – how Tom, a fifth year Hogwarts student, had somehow landed himself inside Harry's mind. The diary was a mystery by itself and a bit scary, but the fact that Harry now knew it had been created by a trustworthy person put his mind at ease. Harry wasn't sure if talking to Tom's previous self would shed any light on this, but this was the closest they had ever got to getting answers, and for that, they would eventually have to confide in him.