Summary of the last chapter:

On Valentine's Day, Harry has an 'accident' with his backpack when accosted by a dwarf. Ink spills all over his stuff, including the diary, which to his surprise, absorbs it, remaining undamaged. Harry decides to write in the diary and see what happens. To his surprise, T. M. Riddle answers, telling Harry that he knows all about what happened when the Chamber was first opened. What he believes to be true has already been proven wrong, but Riddle still takes Harry into his memories. To his great shock, Harry realizes that Riddle is Tom. The stunning news leaves both Tom and Harry utterly confused, shocked but also a bit elated. Are they closer to answering the question of how Tom ended up in Harry's body? Did something go wrong with the death curse cast on Harry by Voldemort? The boys decide to keep writing to the Riddle of the diary, who, after all, is Tom. What could possibly go wrong?

Chats with Riddle

"You look like you didn't get a lot of sleep last night," noted Hermione, when she and Harry walked to their Ancient Runes class next morning. "Bad dreams?"

"No, it was something else entirely," said Harry, rubbing his eyes, which were indeed a bit heavy today. "I have a lot to tell you. But not in the library, I don't want anyone to overhear. Let's go to Myrtle's bathroom. She deserves to know as well."

"Fine. We'll meet there after our last lesson. But I wish you hadn't raised anticipation like this when we have to wait until after classes to know!"

Harry was a bit reluctant to tell Hermione and Neville about his communication with the diary. It wasn't like he didn't want them to know, but since they didn't know anything about Tom, he'd have to be careful not to give away too much. And he wasn't sure his friends would be as enthusiastic about the diary as he was. So he skipped the part about interacting with Riddle and just told them about how he, when looking at July 14th, had suddenly fallen into the memory.

And sure enough, Hermione reacted fearfully. "The diary transported you into 1943? That sounds … creepy. I'm not sure books should be doing something like that."

"Well, there are books that will do that," objected Neville, much to Harry's relief. "They're really expensive, though. They have drawings or even pictures to illustrate scenes that you can sort of dive into and watch play out, like in a Pensieve. It's a bit like your movies, except that it's just short scenes. But it feels like you're really in there."

"Really? Like a 3D animation?" asked Hermione, who in her excitement failed to realise that there were no drawings in the diary. "That's awesome – I wish our school books were like that!"

"Well, they require a lot of charm work and are really hard to make, and they're always one of a kind."

"But then – how did Tom Riddle manage to charm his diary so?"

"I don't know. Maybe he was exceptionally talented in charms and put a whole lot of effort and time into it?"

"Oh, he was!" said Myrtle, who had been following their conversation eagerly. "In fact, he was the top student of his year. I really don't know much else about him, but he had a reputation of being very smart and studious – the brightest wizard of his age, some called him. And he was quite charming, if my year mates are to be believed. Not that I would know. He would never have been charming towards the likes of me."

Harry frowned at that. There was no reason for Tom Riddle to not be nice to Myrtle if he didn't even know her. Maybe what she meant was 'to someone younger' or 'someone not from his house'. Slytherins were known to stick to their own.

"So Tom Riddle was a descendant of the Gaunts?" mused Neville. "That puts him high on the list of potential heirs!"

"He's right," said Tom, sounding shocked and slightly scared. "Everything fits!"

"No, he's not the heir," said Harry aloud and with conviction in reply to both of his friends. "He was sure that it was Hagrid who opened the Chamber. In fact, he was the one who found him with his Acromantula and told the headmaster."

To Tom, he silently said: "Don't be ridiculous! You would never have attacked your fellow students or tried to kill them. And you're clearly not the heir now."

"He was the one who got Hagrid wrongly expelled?" asked Hermione, displeasure in her voice. It seemed she was determined to not like Riddle.

"Well, to be fair: Hagrid did keep a maneating monster in the castle," Harry defended Tom's former self. "Even if it wasn't responsible for Myrtle's death, Riddle was right to assume that it posed a threat. He couldn't have known it was harmless – and we only have the word of someone who thinks dragons make good pets for that. He just wanted the school to be safe again, so that it wouldn't be closed. Besides, he can't have been the heir. First of all, he was a half-blood who grew up among Muggles, with no motive whatsoever to purge the school of Muggleborns, and secondly, Riddle can't be responsible for anything going on in Hogwarts today, given that he's dead."

"How do you know he's dead?" asked Hermione.

Oops. Harry knew because Riddle was reincarnated in Harry's head. But that wasn't an argument he could give his friends.

"Because we have never heard of the name before, and neither has Flitwick," Harry answered lamely. "Looks like Riddle never had kids."

"So what? That's hardly a reason to assume that he's dead. We might find out by doing research, but the best thing to do is show the diary to a teacher. It's uncanny, if not dangerous. And there might be important information about the heir in it, even if it wasn't Riddle."

"No, there isn't," insisted Harry, who didn't like the idea of any teacher knowing about the diary. He was very protective of Tom, and that included being protective about Riddle. Who knew what kind of questions might come up? "I told you that Riddle was convinced Hagrid was the heir. He clearly didn't know where the Chamber was either, or he would have told the headmaster."

"Well, Hagrid wasn't sent to Azkaban for murder, but only expelled for keeping a dangerous pet in the castle, so most likely they knew it wasn't Aragog. Dumbledore obviously believed him, otherwise he wouldn't have made him groundskeeper. I guess they were just happy when the attacks stopped and didn't investigate further."

"I would like to know what became of Riddle," said Harry. "We know he graduated in 1945, his name was on the list. Is there a way we can find out what he did after that?"

"I can dig into the newspaper archive once more and see if I can find anything," Hermione offered. "Though it's not like everyone has their name in the papers at some point."

"It's worth a try."

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

"Why did you lie to your friends, Harry?" asked Tom, when they were back in their dorm after dinner.

"I didn't lie to them. I just didn't tell them the part about actually writing into the diary and getting an answer."

"That's a rather big omission."

"You know how Hermione is. If I had told her, she'd have insisted that we show it to a teacher. Besides, telling them about communicating with Riddle without telling them about you is a rather big omission, too."

"True. Still, it doesn't feel right."

"I know." Harry sighed. "I will tell them if any useful information comes up. But why bother if everything else Riddle has to say about events in Hogwarts is just regular school stuff? I suppose he took me right to the highlight."

"I guess we'll see about that," said Tom, when Harry took his quill, the diary and closed the curtains around his bed.

"Hi, Tom!" he wrote onto the same page as yesterday. It felt funny addressing the boy in the diary so, but it would be rude to call him 'Riddle' to his face. So just for the greeting, Harry compromised.

"Hello, James," the diary replied back immediately. That was even weirder, but well, it was his own fault for giving himself a name that also happened to have been his father's. "I'm glad that you've come back to chat with me. I suppose you have more questions as to what happened back then?"

"Well, I would really like to know who the real heir was, given that it wasn't Hagrid."

"You sound so sure about that. I still think it was him. All the attacks stopped after he was expelled."

"Yes, that's a funny coincidence, but still just a coincidence. Myrtle remembers a pair of huge yellow eyes, and that certainly doesn't sound like a spider. Besides, there are more reasons to assume that you're the heir than to assume that it was Hagrid – you are, after all, truly Salazar's descendant; he's not."

Again, it took a long while for Riddle's neat cursive to appear on the page.

"You know of my family?"

"Well, you told Dippet that you were named after your grandfather, who I suppose is Marvolo Gaunt. He had a daughter, Merope, who got involved with a Muggle."

"Why do you assume that I'm named after Marvolo Gaunt? Surely, there must be other Marvolos in the wizarding world. And how do you know about the Gaunts anyway?"

Harry could understand very well that Riddle was reluctant to admit to his ancestry. The Gaunts were really not a family to brag about, probably worse than his own.

"We did some research into Slytherin's bloodline to find clues about the heir. When you told Dippet that your full name was Tom Marvolo Riddle and that your father was a Muggle, I assumed that you're the grandson of Marvolo Gaunt. Are you not?"

It took another moment for Riddle to answer, and he only seemed to do so reluctantly. "I am."

"Don't feel bad about it," Harry tried to console him. "It's hardly your fault they were such a sorry lot. I would know. My relatives are nothing to speak of either."

"The Bonds? I've never heard of a wizarding family of that name."

"No, you wouldn't have. One of my parents was Muggleborn." Neither statement was a lie. He was really getting better at circumventing a truth he didn't want to tell.

"So you grew up in the Muggle world, too?"Riddle asked interestedly.

"I did, but only because my parents both died when I was young. Like yours. I never got to know them." Harry told him that he grew up with his Muggle aunt, and why he didn't like it there.

"It's difficult, growing up among Muggles as a wizard," Riddle remarked sympathetically. "They don't understand."

"I didn't understand it myself. It was quite amazing to find out I was a wizard, not a freak."

"They called me a freak, too."

"I know."

"You do?"

"Harry!" said Tom, aghast.

"Sorry! It just slipped out." Harry hastily wrote: "I mean, I assumed that's what they did. Happens to many Muggleborns."

They spoke about their childhood experiences and bursts of accidental magic, which had caused Riddle a lot of problems in the orphanage, as other children and teachers found him freakish. That at least was something they could bond about.

"How did you manage to make this diary?" Harry asked then. "It's very impressive."

"It is, isn't it?" Riddle said proudly. "It's a pet project of mine. I was rather clever at Charms and challenged myself to see if I could replicate and combine the spellwork found in living history books, portraits and a Pensieve.

"What exactly is a Pensieve?" Neville had mentioned it before, but Harry had been too distracted by other things to ask about it.

"A basin that allows you to dive into a memory, much like you did with the diary. You extract your memory and put it into the liquid. If you touch your face to it, you are sucked right into the memory. Spiritually, of course – your body remains where it is. The same is true for living history books that allow you to literally step into a depicted scene. Of course, only as an objective observer – you're not really there. When I came across these charms, I was curious and wanted see if I could create something like it."

"But how is it that you can interact with me?"

"You haven't come across wizarding portraits yet, have you? Did you notice all the portraits in the headmaster's office? You can actually talk to them – just like they were real people. Of course, they're just soulless paintings, made while the person represented was alive, and charmed to record their memories and opinions. The portrait is taught to react and respond like the person it represents, to mimic their mannerisms and their manner of speaking."

Harry remembered the many portraits of former headmasters he had seen in Dumbledore's office. He hadn't spoken to them, though. "But this isn't a portrait. It's a diary."

"Yes. But that was the challenge, you see? I wanted to reproduce something like a portrait in a different form – I'm not a great artist. Why shouldn't it be possible to do so with a book? After all, it's much easier to put thoughts and memories into words than into a picture."

"So what are you, exactly?"

"I'm the conserved memory of sixteen year old Tom Marvolo Riddle."

"Do you know what happened to your real self?"

"No. How should I? I kept this diary for a year. I have no idea what happened to him after that."

Harry was really tempted to tell him about Tom, but his friend kept him back with sharp words.

"Don't, Harry!"

"Just why not? He's basically you, just older and more knowledgable. He might know something helpful."

"We discussed this! And we don't know him. I feel like he's not saying everything."

"Why should he?" Harry asked. "I'm not being open with him, either."

"Let's just keep up the mutual distrust for a while then. Until we know him better."

Harry reluctantly agreed. "Sorry," he wrote into the diary. "It got late again. I have to stop writing and get some sleep."

"Will you come back tomorrow? It's awfully lonely inside here, and boring. I like chatting with you."

Harry briefly wondered how a mere memory could feel anything at all, but maybe it was just something the diary was programmed to say. Maybe sixteen year old Riddle had liked to have company.

"I'll try to. But I might have to go to sleep early tomorrow. Good night!"

"Sleep well, James!" Harry closed the diary and dropped his quill, then fell down on his back, already half asleep.

"Harry?"

"Hm …"

"Are you okay?" asked Tom, sounding concerned.

"Just very tired."

"It isn't really that late yet. Writing into the diary must be exhausting for some reason."

"It's probably the charms on it," murmured Harry. "Like the trunk. Draining."

"Might be. But – there's something else ..."

Harry wanted to ask him what he meant, but he couldn't really focus his thoughts enough to make Tom hear him. He was really knackered.

"Sleep, Harry," sighed his friend. "We'll discuss it tomorrow."

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

"Sorry about yesterday," said Harry when they got up the next morning. "I think I was half asleep the moment I closed the book."

"Yes, you were. And frankly, you still look tired. I think you shouldn't write into the diary tonight."

"You still think there's something wrong with it?"

Tom seemed reluctant to answer. "The diary gives me weird feelings when you hold it in your hands," he finally admitted. "An aching and yearning that I can't really describe."

"An aching?"

"Yes. It hurts. Not like Quirrell did, which was a piercing pain in my head. This is more in my chest - it's a lesser, but deeper pain. Not the kind that makes you scream, but more the kind that makes you cry, if that makes any sense."

"Oh." Harry had never seen – or rather felt – Tom cry. He wasn't overly emotional. What could cause his friend to feel like crying? "Why didn't you tell me sooner? Do you want me to get rid of the diary?" Harry admittedly didn't like the idea. There was still so much he wanted to ask Riddle. But above all, he didn't want his friend to hurt.

"No!" came the immediate reply. "The thought of not having it near is upsetting as well. You know – it's a bit like with the Philosopher's Stone: I want to have it, but I don't want to use it, if that makes any sense."

"It doesn't really," said Harry, feeling lost. "Although … It's a part of yourself we're holding in our hands, if you think about it. It's something you created, and it has some of your magic and some of your memories. I guess you feel that it belongs to you, so you want it near."

"Yes, that sounds about right. But I can't help feeling manipulated by feeling that way. And there's a definite wrongness about it."

"Well, I'm not sure if reincarnated people are supposed to have memories of their previous life. I guess it would mess with their minds. So, what do we do about it?"

"Tread with caution," suggested Tom, after having given it some thought. "Talk to it, but don't get too lost in the diary. And don't write into it two nights in a row."

Harry promised, took a cold shower to drive the sleepiness away and got ready for a new day of classes.