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Chapter Text

I think it's beyond impossible to describe what it feels like to be half a soul trapped in a journal for an undeterminable amount of time.

Tom Riddle couldn't explain it in words, and he was effectively half a soul trapped in a diary.

More precisely, he was half the soul of a powerful sixteen-year-old wizard who had decided to use his old school journal to preserve his memory and one day unleash a huge deadly basilisk with the sole purpose of killing the mudblood scum who studied at Hogwarts.

Come to think of it, perhaps it hadn't been such a great plan to leave a Horcrux in charge of a basilisk, whose fangs were one of the few weapons that could have destroyed such a Horcrux, therefore half of its soul.

But Tom Riddle would never admit, even under torture, that one of his ideas wasn't exceptional and perfect.

Because he was like that: exceptional and perfect.

And... he was also trapped in a diary that was tossed around without knowing at all when and if one day he would get out of there and complete the mission that had been entrusted to him… by himself.

Luckily for him, or perhaps unfortunately, he wouldn't have been able to say it either, he wasn’t really feeling trapped. He wasn’t feeling at all, or, well… not much.

He was in a state like sleep, and at the same time self-awareness, but it was a minimal awareness.

And he had no dreams, just some sort of general thoughts, some memories, no idea of how much time was passing.

He wasn't even entirely sure he still existed as a person, he didn't feel any sensation other than slight self-awareness.

He didn't see, he didn't hear, he didn't feel a physical body, it was as if he was floating in nothingness.

As if he had actually stopped living.

But he wasn't dead, of that he was certain.

He was just waiting.

But for how long? How much longer? Would he ever wake up, sooner or later? Or would he remain there forever, wandering with minimal awareness of his own existence in the void, in the limbo, in nothingness?

These were questions that, in his state, he couldn't quite ask himself, actually.

They were a fleeting thought in a corner of his mind that he didn't even physically possess.

They were considerations that he felt in those rare moments where he felt slightly less non-existent, less asleep, when someone took hold, even just for an instant, of the diary where his soul resided dormant, waiting, wishing, to be awakened.

And in the last… days (but it could also have been minutes, years, weeks or months) he had felt taken more often, perhaps moved, held in the hands of different people, directly or indirectly.

It was more of an impression than a real physical sensation, since he no longer had anything physical of himself, but the magic reacted to other magic, and he had become a concentration of pure magic.

Maybe the soul was made of pure magic? Tom hoped not, because otherwise breaking it could make him weaker, and obtaining maximum strength was his only goal.

Well, together with being immortal, and creating a Horcrux was the only way to become one in the most absolute way, without depending on silly stones or magical concoctions.

Not that Tom had any hope at the moment, or was capable of any complex reflection, but some fundamental points of his being were clear to him even in that state, and power and immortality were the main goals he would achieve in that state. the only life he had available.

Well… not necessarily the only one, right?

He had divided his soul for that, to have an anchor in case something unexpected happened.

Who knew if he could have created more anchors like that... he would have had to ask Slughorn for information, cunningly. Tom had many plans for that year, now that the Chamber of Secrets had been closed for a while.

Well… perhaps the other half of his soul had already concluded such projects.

He wondered if he had met his father… that useless dirty Muggle.

And maybe he had also found some relatives on the helpful side of the family. He would have liked to meet someone else who spoke Parseltongue like him.

Tom began to realize that the eternal torpor of the last few years (or days, or months, or minutes, he couldn't quite tell) was giving way to a certain ability to begin to reflect.

The awareness of existence was becoming slightly stronger, and he seemed to feel something, on the other side of the pages.

Was a person keeping the diary? Was it time to wake up?

Perhaps the other half of his soul had entrusted the diary to someone to use to achieve their goals.

Someone powerful but manipulable, who followed him loyally and whom Tom would command like a puppet.

That was the plan, after all: get out of Hogwarts, become a Defense Against the Dark Arts teacher (perhaps after a few years of personal research) and open the chamber of secrets again while having an excellent alibi as a teacher and using the diary instead to accuse other people. The details were yet to be worked out, but the other self had certainly nailed them down.

Tom felt the slightest hint of annoyance at the thought of another self controlling his… life? Could his state still be called a life?

But who better than yourself to entrust yourself to someone, right?

His increasingly conscious thoughts were interrupted when he felt, for the first time in decades (or months, or years, or days, or hours, he couldn't know) a sensation.

Someone was writing something.

He expected a respectful greeting.

Something like “Lord Voldemort, I bow to your will, tell me how to open the chamber of secrets and free the mudblood scum from the illustrious school of Hogwarts.”

Obviously he would not give out personal information, he had no intention of revealing the location of the room or the way to get there to anyone. No, he would take possession of the unsuspecting servant and do the task himself.

He wondered if he would have felt real physical sensations, possessing someone's body, or if he would have controlled the person by sensation, like a puppeteer, like an imperius. Just being a thinking head was philosophical, but it wasn't particularly pleasant.

I mean, it wasn't even unpleasant, it just wasn’t, really.

And Tom Riddle wanted to be.

Meanwhile, the future servant of his evil plans had begun to write in a rather disorderly way, at times one could almost say listlessly.

Tom didn't read what he wrote, he felt it. The words arrived in his head, like a thought that wasn't his.

He was the diary, after all, and those words had become part of his being.

But… they weren't the words Tom had expected at all:

“Herbology homework: research on mandrakes and their technical uses (ask Neville for some help). P.s. Avoid Lockhart”

…what in Merlin’s beard was that?!

Chapter Text

When Harry had returned from Diagon Alley, he had felt quite tired. It had been a full day, and not just with positive things.

Of course, he had been happy to see Hermione again, and to return to Diagon Alley, that city was truly magical and constantly reminded him that being a wizard was not just a dream, but a reality that one day he would live every moment of his life, far away from the Dursleys.

But still, it hadn't been nice to see Malfoy again, end up in Knockturn Alley by accident, and inhale so much ash that he was pretty sure he'd be sneezing for days.

He had to admit that he couldn't wait to take a bath and get rid of the dirt he felt everywhere even though the Weasleys had tried to clean him up, but he was a guest in that welcoming house, and he didn't feel like making any requests at the moment.

It was already a good thing that they were hosting him for what remained of the summer, after all.

So, back at the Burrow, Harry simply stayed out of the way while Mrs. Weasley sorted out the things she had bought, and ordered her children around to help her.

He had also tried to offer his help, but Mrs. Weasley had reassured him that there was no need and that he was certainly tired so it would be better if he rested a bit before dinner.

Harry was indeed tired, but he would have rather helped than stay in Ron's room without Ron present, feeling like an unnecessary burden on the shoulders of that wonderful family.

A dull thud outside the bedroom door caught his attention, and he rushed to check, finding Ginny on the floor, with several books strewn around her.

She had dropped the cauldron while trying to carry it to her room, spilling its contents.

Harry hurried towards her.

“Need help?” he proposed, eager to lend a hand, already starting to collect the books.

Ginny stared at him as if he were a ghost.

No, actually, ghosts were normal at Hogwarts… she stared at him as if Harry had just grown a tail.

“I… well... there's no need…” she muttered, in an embarrassed peep, getting up and trying to straighten out her clothes and disheveled hair.

“No problem! The two of us will carry everything more easily” Harry insisted, with a big smile.

He was afraid that Ginny didn't like him very much, as she continued to avoid him at every opportunity, and although Ron had assured him that he needn't worry, Harry was keen to make a good impression on his best friend's family.

Everyone was always so nice to him, he wanted to prove he deserved it.

And he liked the idea of feeling, in a way, a little bit part of that family.

“Th_thank you” Ginny muttered, picking up the cauldron and some other books, and walking past him to her room.

Harry followed her, finally feeling useful in that house.

He would have liked to have a conversation, but he didn't feel comfortable enough with Ginny to start talking to her, so he simply remained silent, and began to absently observe the books in his hand: the standard book of spells for Charms, some of Lockhart's books which Harry himself had given her at Flourish and Blotts, and a very worn volume of transfiguration, the same one that snobbish Lucius Malfoy had commented on with disdain.

The difference between that book and Lockhart's was clear, and Harry couldn't help but feel a surge of empathy towards the little girl in front of him.

He knew exactly what it felt like to start a new school with second, third or even fourth-hand clothes, books, and objects, fished out of the waste bin because you didn't have the money to afford better, or, in Harry's case, his guardians didn't think he deserved better, and didn't even bother trying.

“Hey, Ginny…” he attracted the girl's attention, who suddenly turned to look at him, surprised that he had spoken to her.

“Y_Yes?” she asked, holding the cauldron tighter against her chest as if it could protect her from something.

Harry didn't understand the reaction at all, but he tried not to mind it much, and his smile widened.

“You know, last year we had the same transfiguration manual too. I don't need it anymore, but it's still in excellent condition. If you want I can give you mine, this seems almost illegible to me” he proposed “Also Charms and Herbology” he added then, indicating the other second-hand books.

Sure, Harry's were second-hand too, but they were much more recent editions, and the boy had to admit with some shame that they looked really new, almost never used.

In his defense, he had been busy the year before, it's not like he had had much time to study.

Ginny stared at him for a few seconds, as if trying to understand the words Harry had just said to her.

“Your books?” she repeated then, in a whisper.

“Only if you prefer them. They are well preserved, they look almost new, and… well… I don't use them anyway. I'm sorry I didn't think of it sooner, we could have saved some money” Harry found himself unconsciously using the "we" as if he were part of the family.

Ginny, however, didn't seem to notice his little slip.

“I wouldn't want to... I wouldn't want to take advantage of it, I don't think I can accept, mom…” she lowered her voice.

Harry had fought tooth and nail to get Molly Weasley to agree to Harry giving his Lockhart books to Ginny, and he understood why Ginny felt uncomfortable about accepting more of them.

“We don't have to tell Mrs. Weasley. Actually, you'd be doing me a favor, I don't even know where to put all those books now that I don't need them anymore” Harry tried to convince her, encouragingly.

Ginny seemed internally conflicted, but eventually one side of her won out over the other, and she nodded slightly, with a grateful smile.

“I… I'd like to have your books. I should have taken Ron's transfiguration one, but…” she bit his lip.

“Yes, Ron told me that it inadvertently exploded. Probably Seamus’ fault” Harry chuckled at the thought.

Ginny's smile widened too.

“The Charms book has been around since Bill's time at Hogwarts” she admitted, lowering her gaze.

Wow, a long-lived spell book.

“There’s a risk it will explode too, better keep yourself safe. I'll put Lockhart's books in your room and go get the others, what do you think?” Harry proposed, pointing to the door.

Ginny nodded, and invited him into her room.

It was very pretty despite not being very big, nor very full. Harry noticed a book about quidditch on the bedside table, but made no comment, and simply put all the new books on the floor next to the trunk, before picking up the old, worn ones again.

The exchange was carried out without too many problems, and without anyone noticing them.

In the end, Ginny thanked Harry wholeheartedly, and the boy felt decidedly better at having prevented her from being teased by bullies like Malfoy because of the condition of her books.

It was truly the least he could do to repay the enormous sacrifice the Weasleys were making to host him there.

And if there was a family that deserved a few more books or galleons, it was the Weasley family.

Back in his room and with not much else to do while Ron helped his mother cook, Harry approached the old books he had just exchanged.

He was sorry to throw them away, even if they were no longer useful to him.

Despite what he had told Ginny, he currently had no shortage of space in his trunk, and Hermione had advised him to keep the books from past years because they could prove useful for any revisions.

Harry didn't think he'd ever need the Charms book again, but he trusted her. Regarding her studies she was the intelligent one of the three.

He took the transfiguration manual, by far the oldest and most worn out of all, and began to leaf through it wondering if it was actually readable, being rather surprised when another, smaller book slipped from the pages and fell into his lap.

Harry put the school volume to one side, and grasped the new discovery with a bit of curiosity and confusion.

Was it another one of Ginny’s books that had ended up in the middle by accident? Maybe he should have returned it.

He picked it up looking for a title, but there was no title, because it was not a book, but a diary.

Old, black-covered, and tatty, the only information was a date fifty years before, and a name written on the first page: T. M. Riddle.

This Riddle was probably the old owner of the Transfiguration book, and had forgotten that he had also put his diary inside before selling it.

It had already happened once to Harry that he had also found a strip of colored stickers in an old second-hand primary school book. 

Driven by curiosity, Harry just leafed through the journal, wondering what on earth could be written in a diary from fifty years before, but the pages were empty.

Oh, curious.

Harry had never been one for diaries. Hermione had one where she wrote down all the homework and things she had to do, but Harry usually wrote them down on a piece of parchment which he then threw away, or asked her directly.

A diary could be useful to him, even if it was old and worn out.

It was small, portable, and… there was something strange about that diary, something that intrigued Harry, even if he couldn't explain the reason for this curiosity.

The only books that had intrigued him were the first magical books he had browsed before entering Hogwarts, when everything seemed too good to be true and magical, and the Quidditch books.

But that diary, abandoned and forgotten in such an old book, seemed to call him in some way. It radiated a certain energy.

“Harry, dinner is ready!” Ron's voice from under the stairs called him to attention, and Harry put all the books in the trunk, including Riddle's diary, and closed it with a thud, hurrying down to eat.

In the end, it was nothing special, probably.

But maybe Harry could actually use it to write his homework on.

Chapter Text

Although Harry had some crazy experiences to write about in a diary, he had never thought of writing down what happened to him, his thoughts, or anything like that.

Harry was a boy, after all, and everybody knew that it was girls who kept secret diaries. Also, Harry had grown up with Dudley Dursley, therefore with the total and absolute certainty that if he had ever kept a secret diary in which to reveal his every emotion or thought or even just what happened to him, it would have been found by his cousin within a few minutes, and used against him in the worst possible ways.

The golden rule of living with the Dursleys was to show no weakness that his relatives could use against him, and a diary would have been too big of a target on his back.

Therefore, after finding T. M. Riddle's blank diary, Harry had completely forgotten about it.

He had had other things to think about, after all.

Between last-minute studying to finish his homework before returning to Hogwarts, the excitement of the last few days at the Burrow, and above all a trip in a flying car with the fear of not arriving and then of being expelled, Harry’s mind had been elsewhere, and he only remembered that he had a second-hand diary on the morning of his first herbology and transfiguration lessons, when, while looking for the books for the day, he found himself clutching the diary in his hands, again.

And again he felt something that intrigued him in that diary.

He couldn't say exactly what, but he wanted to find a way to use it.

It was small, portable, and didn't use up much space, so Harry decided to put it in his bag with the other books, and then quickly headed off to his first lesson.

And he soon found a way to use the diary while looking for a sheet of parchment to write down his homework.

Well, writing homework in the diary was definitely much more convenient than carrying around too many parchments, wasn't it?

He took it out, took the quill with the ink, and quickly wrote down what Professor Sprout had just announced to the class:

“Herbology homework: research on mandrakes and their technical uses (ask Neville for some help)”

Neville was good at Herbology, and unlike Hermione, he would certainly help him without criticizing him too much for his lack of desire to study things on his own.

Then Harry thought back to the meeting he had at the beginning of the lesson with the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, and decided to add a small note, to remind his future self:

“P.s. Avoid Lockhart”

Harry then closed the diary without even waiting for the ink to dry, and followed Ron and Hermione, not noticing that, a few seconds after writing his Herbology homework, those words had disappeared from his diary, as if sucked into the pages.

Tom Riddle was speechless.

And not only because he literally couldn't speak because he was a diary that didn't even feel his body but only thoughts and vague sensations of existence, but because he would have expected everything, except ending up in the hands of a random person who would use his diary to write his herbology homework.

Who did that person think he was, littering his illustrious pages with simple homework, also written in messy handwriting that left ink stains?!

Not that Tom could see the handwriting, but he felt it, somehow.

And he was annoyed.

Because the plan was different!

The plan was to rely on someone specific, manipulable, who would have liked to open the chamber of secrets, and who knew about the properties of the diary, not just a random person!

And how did his diary end up in the hands of some random person in the first place?!

The other part of his soul couldn't have been so stupid as to lose his diary and Horcrux, right?!

Or perhaps centuries had passed, and his body was now…

No, no, it wasn't possible.

Centuries or not, he would still be alive, he was immortal, after all.

That was the point of the Horcruxes, Merlin's beard!

But it still didn't explain what in Morgana’s sake was his other half-soul left in a body doing, and why did he entrust the diary to that random person!

Okay, okay, calm down Tom, think.

The writing was messy, so he could have been a young, first or second-year student.

Probably a second-year if they were studying mandrakes, or perhaps a third-year if the herbology teacher was poorly prepared or slow with the program. The fact that the student had written their homework meant that they were at Hogwarts, and the fact that they made a point of asking someone for help meant that they weren’t a great scholar.

By the calculus of probability, it was a male, judging by the writing, not that Tom could be certain, but he was pretty sure of it.

He was using his right hand, since he hadn't smudged the ink, and he was probably in a hurry, since he hadn't let it dry. Or he was just clumsy.

The postscript made it clear that he intended to use the diary to write other things besides homework. That person named Lockhart could have been an unwanted admirer, or a bully who had targeted him. Judging by previous statements, they were more likely a bully, because the student didn't seem like a person worthy enough of attention to have admirers.

But Tom still didn't have enough information, so he decided not to reveal himself for the time being.

He simply deleted the note and waited to receive other writings.

It was better to have a clearer picture of who was on the other side of the page.

Sure, he was a Horcrux, and it was difficult to destroy a Horcrux, generally speaking, especially if the person trying to destroy it didn't know it was a Horcrux, but a prudent student could still take the diary to a teacher if he or she feared that it was full of dark magic or something.

Tom would have pretended nothing had happened and wouldn't have responded to any potential teachers, but he didn't want to attract attention, anyway.

Better to be patient, he had been waiting years (or centuries, or weeks, or hours, or days, who knows), he could have waited a little longer.

If he was lucky, the student with the bad handwriting would have lost the diary, or given it to someone more interesting.

If he wasn't lucky... well, he would have worked hard to manipulate the student with the bad handwriting and convince him to do what he wanted anyway.

He was persuasive, and irresistible.

Even in diary form.

No one could get the better of Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Harry realized the strangeness of the diary a few days after the last and only time he had used it.

He had forgotten about its existence again, and found it in his hand while he was frantically looking for a parchment on which to write the homework that Snape was assigning quickly and with the clear intention of annoying Harry and not making him write them down properly.

Harry knew he could just have asked Hermione in the future, but he didn't want to give Snape any excuse to pick on him again or take any points from Gryffindor because he wasn't paying attention, so he took the diary, and started writing Snape's homework in a blank random page.

“A potion I don't remember, ten centimeters of parchment (?), Snape is unbearable! I’ll ask Hermione later. Why don't they just kick him out?! He shouldn't be a teacher!”

Harry soon got distracted from writing down the right information and simply pretended to write something down, as he couldn't quite understand what Snape was saying in that slurred voice of his.

And writing down his irritation was a strangely satisfying outlet.

“Potter, may I know what you continue to write? I finished the instructions several seconds ago” Professor Snape's slow yet triumphant voice brought him out of his thoughts.

“I was just finishing writing what you dictated, professor. I'm just slower than the others” Harry quickly justified himself, closing the diary and starting to put it in his bag.

If Snape had asked to see it, Harry was done for.

That's why he didn't keep diaries or write down his thoughts!

He knew they were a significant weakness!

“Potter, bring me that diary” Snape ordered him, raising his hand, and preventing Harry from following his classmates out of the classroom.

Ron and Hermione stopped and looked at him worriedly.

Harry motioned for them to go without him, sighed, took the diary out of his bag again, and walked towards the professor, ready to have at least fifty points taken from him, receive severe punishment, and at least a threat of expulsion, to be generous.

He handed over the diary without reopening it to the right page, hoping that Snape wouldn't find it at all.

The professor took it with a raised eyebrow.

“An object with its own history, apparently. With the money left by your parents, can't you afford a new diary to write your important homework?” he immediately mocked him, insulting the conditions of the second-hand diary.

Harry gritted his teeth, but didn't answer.

It wasn’t a good idea to give in to his taunts, even though every time Snape mentioned his parents he felt a knot forming in his stomach.

He focused on the fact that at least Ginny wouldn't receive similar insults due to the condition of her books.

Disappointed at not having provoked any reaction in Harry, Snape began to quickly leaf through the diary, without reading the name on the cover or the date, but looking for the page with homework that Harry had not marked.

Harry braced himself for a metaphorical beating, but after a few seconds, Snape snorted, and told him the last things Harry expected to hear.

“I see that the great Harry Potter is too superior to write homework like his fellow classmates, who are just mere mortals, unlike him. Five points from Gryffindor, and don't be late with your essay, Potter” he handed him the diary back with a glare, and encouraged him to leave the potions classroom.

Harry was extremely confused by his words, but he didn't have to be told twice, and hurriedly ran out of the classroom before Snape decided to check the diary better.

He hadn't found the page? That wasn't like Snape, who was very scrupolous when it came to making Harry's life hell.

“Everything okay, Harry?” Ron asked him, once Harry had joined him and Hermione in the great hall.

Harry nodded.

“He couldn't find the writing and only took five points away from me” he explained, looking at the hourglasses with the points and rejoicing at the fact that the ranking hadn't changed that much.

"I didn't know you had a diary," said Hermione, who seemed torn between scolding him for writing something inappropriate, or praising him for following her advice to stop writing on loose sheets of paper. The last week she had been the only one who always knew the homework they had to do, as she reminded them constantly.

“Yes, well, I found it inside a book” Harry shrugged, and began to leaf through the diary to look for the offending entry. He should have erased it or torn out the page to make sure Snape never saw it, but… he wasn't finding it.

“Anyway you should have written your homework and that's it. I don't know what you added but it would have been better if you didn’t” and here's Hermione's rebuke.

“Leave him alone, Hermione! At least he tried to write something. I couldn't understand anything Snape was saying” Ron immediately defended him, and Hermione rolled her eyes.

"It was simple if you paid attention," she insisted.

“Still, Snape…” Ron continued, but Harry interrupted them both when he noticed the unexpected.

“It's not there!” he exclaimed, surprised, leafing through the diary for the third time and confirming that the entry written during potions class had disappeared.

“What isn't there?” Ron and Hermione asked in unison.

“What I wrote... has disappeared from the diary” Harry explained, pointing to the blank pages.

Hermione looked at him curiously.

“Are you sure you wrote it?” she asked, analyzing the diary too.

“Yes, and the Herbology homework I’ve written on the first page has also disappeared,” Harry explained, showing the first page, completely blank.

“Maybe it's a haunted book” Ron supposed, observing it with slight fear.

“Maybe the old owner cast a spell to prevent anyone from reading what he wrote inside” guessed Hermione, turning it over a bit in her hands, but then giving it back to Harry without investigating further.

“But what's the point of a diary in which you can't write?” Ron shook his head, not convinced by the usefulness of that little book.

“It certainly can’t help with homework. You should buy another one, Harry,” Hermione suggested, before returning to her meal.

Harry nodded, and put the diary back in his bag, but in his mind, a thought had begun to form.

It was true that such a diary was useless for writing down things you wanted to remember, like homework.

But it could be really useful for writing down what Harry had always kept inside of him, and had never had the chance to express.

Memories, doubts, fears and outbursts would have been written in that diary, and then forgotten forever.

No one could have used his written words as his weakness.

It was only a matter of time before Harry decided to pick up a quill, and write his first truly interesting words in that diary.

Words that Tom would erase from the book, but keep forever in his memory.

“It is more likely that Lockhart caused the disasters instead of solving them. I can't believe he actually did what he wrote in his books! He is absolutely incompetent!”

Chapter Text

“It is more likely that Lockhart caused the disasters instead of solving them. I can't believe he actually did what he wrote in his books! He is absolutely incompetent!”

Oh, finally his diary’s new owner had started writing more than homework.

Even though Tom had already had the impression from the second writing that homework would soon be forgotten in favor of small personal outbursts towards professors or other students.

He seemed like a nervous kid, and the fact that he couldn't stand people could be a point in Tom's favor and a good way to push him to kill half the students.

Calmly, one step at a time, but it was a beginning.

Hoping that the people he hated were the right ones, and that the student wasn't a muggle fan or mudblood himself.

Because in that case, ew, it’d suck to be handled by someone like that.

But there was still hope, because Professor Snape, about whom the owner of the diary had vented in his second writing, did not have a well-known surname that could be associated with a high-ranking family of wizards. And Tom knew all the important surnames, he had spent his entire first year eagerly studying every register trying to connect his name to that of any important magical family, even if only to ward off the bullies in his house who pointed him out as mudblood.

Not that Tom had ever been particularly hurt by the bullying towards him, well... I mean, not that Tom had ever been bullied!

He was handsome, intelligent, the best student Hogwarts had ever had, and the best wizard there had ever been in the whole world!

Even Grindelwald had surely bowed to him at some point.

And so his search far and wide for evidence that he was as incredible as he knew he was was just a way to hasten his rise to power and gain followers as quickly as possible.

And all those who bullied him (not that he was bullied, anyway) had been the first to pay dearly for their mistakes!

However we are procrastinating...

Tom had also analyzed the second message with his great acumen, discovering more things about the student who had found his diary in his hands.

“A potion I don't remember, ten centimeters of parchment (?), Snape is unbearable! I’ll ask Hermione later. Why don't they just kick him out?! He shouldn't be a teacher!”

And he had deduced that the student was: an idiot, a rebel, not a great listener, he had a friend called Hermione who definitely did his homework for him (it could also have been a little girl he picked on to do his homework), he didn’t have great respect for authority or at least for that Snape, and either he didn't know what a parchment was (which reinforced the idea that he was really stupid) or he wasn't sure if he had to write only ten centimeters of parchment.

Tsk, in Tom's time at Hogwarts, potions essays were forty centimeters.

…okay no, in reality Slughorn had always been very indulgent, it was Tom who made them long to always be constantly in his good graces.

Slughorn was so manipulable and stupid, and of course he had always been Tom’s favorite teacher, with his Slug Club and the fact he always turned a blind eye whenever Tom would do something slightly questionable.

Oh, actually Tom had discovered something else.

Surely a few years had passed, because Slughorn was no longer a potions teacher, evidently, and had been replaced by that Snape.

On the one hand, Tom was a little sorry, since he could have reached him and used him in some way, since he knew him well, but on the other hand, he was happy that that man wasn't there to risk recognizing Tom’s diary or his work.

Tom wondered if Dumbledore was still at Hogwarts.

And he hoped he'd kicked the bucket, because the old man could have been an even bigger problem than Slughorn.

He had no way of finding out unless he asked the student, a thing he had no intention of doing yet.

He was still just observing and analyzing, like the good strategist he was.

And finally, the third message had arrived, not connected to any homework, but which perhaps once again referred to a professor.

“It is more likely that Lockhart caused the disasters instead of solving them. I can't believe he actually did what he wrote in his books! He is absolutely incompetent!”

Tom's theory stemmed from the fact that a student could hardly solve disasters nor write books, unless you counted some silly student loitering.

But from the way the writer spoke about him, Lockhart seemed like a boaster of heroic deeds, therefore, perhaps, a professor.

Perhaps transfiguration, or defense against the dark arts.

The second was more likely, but it caused an annoying knot in Tom's stomach, and he didn't even have a stomach.

Because the one that had to be behind the defense against the dark arts chair was him!

But the older Tom was probably too busy ruling the world and didn't have time to teach, or maybe they had already made him headmaster.

Yes, it probably was just like that.

He was too strong to be just a simple teacher.

…but if he was the headmaster, he would never have hired an incompetent person to do that job. It was an important subject.

Well, at the moment it was more important to understand what kind of person the student was, and he definitely didn't seem like he respected his professors very much.

Or maybe he was just very emotional towards some of them.

Tom didn't know whether to hope so, the emotionality was annoying, but it could prove to be a good point to press on to manipulate him better.

It was also possible that the boy was just letting off steam by taking advantage of a diary that didn't allow anyone to read anything of what was written on it.

Tom continued to analyze, and over the days, the sentences began to be more and more frequent.

“Finally quidditch starts again! I can't wait to ride my Nimbus and show it off to the Slytherins! This year the cup must be ours, or Oliver might curse himself out of desperation."

Okay, no!

No!

Nope!

Too many things in that sentence disturbed Tom quite a bit, and he had to make a huge effort not to reply something like "How dare you, Slytherins are the best!"

But he held back, and limited himself to analyzing, as always.

Well, clearly the student wasn't a Slytherin, and given the rivalry with the Slytherins, it was very likely that he was a Gryffindor, or perhaps a Hufflepuff, but the Hufflepuffs weren't particularly enthusiastic, generally speaking.

The student also loved playing Quidditch, which was blameworthy because Tom hated Quidditch players, and Quidditch in general.

Tsk, a bunch of overly paid people riding around on broomsticks passing balls and scoring on hoops, bah, really ridiculous and pointless.

The fact that Tom could barely stay astride a broom was completely irrelevant, and was not the reason for such hatred.

Tom was too smart and ambitious to distract himself with silly sports.

And anyway he knew how to ride a broom, he didn't do it just because it was useless.

(He hoped his non-diary self had managed to create the spell that made him fly without a broom because he couldn't keep making excuses for never getting on a broom again, for Merlin’s sake!)

Anyway, the student was a Quidditch fanatic, so yes, he was definitely very stupid, and probably very manipulable, but he was also probably a Gryffindor, so it was possible that he had a do-gooder morality, and that could prove to be a problem.

However, it was nothing that a little Tom-style mental manipulation couldn't solve, especially if that guy was actually as stupid as he seemed.

And then, who knows, maybe he was a pureblood. There were illustrious pureblood families who were famous Gryffindors and who frowned upon half-bloods and muggle-borns.

The only good thing about that message was that they hadn't won the Quidditch Cup in previous years.

IN YOUR FACE!

“Quidditch practice couldn't have gone any worse! First Colin followed me around the whole time asking questions. It wouldn't even have been so bad if I hadn't been so tired, and especially if he hadn't tried to get me to autograph his stupid photo of me and Lockhart! How embarrassing!

Then Oliver kept us for hours with strategies, and we didn't even manage to get on the brooms before the Slytherins came to evict us, and the new seeker is Malfoy! Who gave brooms to everyone to get accepted into the team. Hermione is right that he bought the place on the team. And he even dared to insult her! I didn't even know what that term meant, but if I had known it before I would have thrown myself against him like Fred and George. I just can't stand him anymore!

If only Ron hadn't had a broken wand, Malfoy would be the one spitting slugs by now, and not him.

He’d deserved it!

I hope Ron gets better soon.

Today we also have the punishment for the flying car issue. And I have to go help Lockhart, of all people! I'd much rather polish trophies with Ron, but that idiot specifically asked for me. Why everyone is so obsessed with me?!”

Ah… well…

It was by far the longest rant the student had written up to that point.

And he had just broken every single egg in Tom's basket. Geez, if Tom hadn't had immortality as his primary ambition, he would have wanted to die right then and there.

In short, not only was the student who was handling him a Gryffindor (obviously!) Quidditch lover, which was already a point against him, but apparently he had real admirers, at random, without certainly any valid reason why since the boy must have been twelve, maximum thirteen years old!

And a student with admirers would certainly have been under everyone's eyes, and would have had more difficulty acting in the shadows.

Well, Tom was also full of admirers and in everyone's sight and had never had any problems acting in the shadows, but it was also true that Tom was intelligent, and that guy didn't seem like it.

Then he had a heated rivalry with Malfoy, who in this case was clearly a student, and also a member of one of the most important, pure-blooded and richest families in England. (Maybe he was Abraxas' son? Or nephew?).

A family that was also a great ally of his, unless in future generations they turned out to be dirty traitors, but that was unlikely.

Because if that had been the case, Tom would have already extinguished them all and put an end on the family line.

Therefore, if Malfoy was still an elite member of the pureblood Slytherins of Hogwarts, the student who owned the diary was not of the same opinion in the slightest, given that they were rivals.

And the fact that Malfoy had insulted that friend, Hermione, the intelligent girl Harry had mentioned about homework, with a specific term, made it quite likely that this Hermione was a mudblood.

Ewww.

But at least it was very likely that the student wasn't a mudblood himself, because then Malfoy would have called him the same name to insult him, and that hadn't been the case.

Tsk, the student had no idea what that term even meant, he was just stupid!

Or raised among muggles and therefore ignorant of that world.

Ewwww.

(The fact that Tom was also raised among muggles is not worth mentioning! He is heir to the great Salazar Slytherin, don't forget that!)

Another interesting piece of information was that another friend of the mysterious boy, a certain Ron, had a broken wand.

And this raised two deductions:

1) That Ron was a poor guy who couldn't even afford to buy a new wand (useless);

2) Funding for needy Hogwarts students who couldn't afford materials was still very low.

And this, combined with the previous information, made it clear that Tom was not responsible for that school in any way, because otherwise he would have replenished those funds (and also kicked out all the mudbloods from the school, but that was another matter).

Finally there was one last piece of information to keep an eye on.

IN WHAT SENSE A PUNISHMENT DUE TO A FLYING CAR?!

Since when did cars fly?! And since when were twelve or thirteen-year-old students allowed to drive?!

At least if there were flying cars, Tom could have used one of those. They were definitely better than a broom, there was no doubt about it.

But it was cooler to fly, he had to work hard for that spell.

...or rather, the part of himself that was still in a body and living his life had to work hard on it, and perhaps had already made it work.

Tom, after all, was stuck there.

Analyzing an idiot Gryffindor who loved getting into trouble and had a mudblood and a poor guy as friends.

A fundamentally useless person.

Maybe it was time to reveal himself and try to communicate, but Tom didn't think he had enough information yet, and what he did have didn't give him a good impression.

Of course, the student’s disdain for some professors made him unlikely to report the diary to anyone.

And the fact that he was Gryffindor allowed Tom to act without fear of being immediately caught.

But he wasn't exactly the puppet Tom would have wanted to manipulate.

“I wonder what kind of person T. M. Riddle was…”

...?

The message arrived a few days (maybe) after the Quidditch one.

There had been other comments, but nothing particularly significant.

A few insults towards Malfoy, a complaint about the punishment, a compliment towards the mudblood Hermione and a tirade about how a certain McGonagall was fantastic but really too strict with homework.

Tom absolutely didn't expect to be mentioned so suddenly.

“Today Malfoy tried to steal my diary. He saw it in potions class and thought it was my secret diary. He's not entirely wrong, but he was very upset when he didn't find anything written on it, and he tried to burn it to teach me a lesson."

MALFOY HAD DONE WHAT?!

Once he got out of there, Tom would make him pay dearly!

That ugly, traitorous spawn of Abraxas!

“But the diary rejected the spell. I managed to get it back, and I think I'll keep it more hidden. I would be a little sad if I had to stop writing. It's difficult to open up, even to an inanimate object, but it's nice not to have to fear repercussions for once.

And I couldn't help but think of T. M. Riddle.

If he was the one who enchanted the diary, I wonder why.

Maybe he, like me, knew that writing down his thoughts and feelings would be a weapon that could be used against him? Maybe he too lived with people who would exploit every single one of his weaknesses? Maybe he too was targeted by other classmates?

I know it's been fifty years, and I'll probably never know him. Maybe he wasn’t even the one that enchanted the diary, and it was already sold like that.

But I can't help but think about him.

I don’t even know what his full name is..."

Tom was speechless, and again not just because he couldn't actually speak since he didn't have a mouth.

But, differently from last time, Tom was speechless also because he didn't expect an analysis of him at all.

Not like that, anyway.

Up until that moment he had been the one analyzing the student’s writing, and he didn't conceive that the opposite could happen. He hadn't taken into account that the student could be so… empathetic?

Was it the right word?

Tom had never felt empathy.

He could understand people, but not put himself in their shoes, it was a feeling he only knew the theory of.

But he didn't like that analysis, he didn't like it at all.

It made him feel too vulnerable.

Who was that stupid guy with mudblood friends who allowed himself to insinuate that Tom was living with people who would exploit his weaknesses, and that he was being picked on by his classmates?!

How dare he compare the two of them?!

Tom was impossible to analyze, because he was unique, and special!

Tom was perfect!

Tom was loved by everyone!

And the reason he had enchanted the diary was because there were terrible secrets to be kept, and certainly not because his dorm mates had tried to read it multiple times, and in the Slytherin dorms personal information was the biggest weakness of every individual!

Tom was furious with the stranger.

So furious that he didn't even notice that, Merlin's pants, fifty freaking years had passed?!

But at the same time, he felt something strange inside him.

A feeling he had never felt in his entire life.

A sort of… connection.

He was inadvertently making a connection with the person on the other side of the pages.

As soon as Tom realized this, his first thought was a wave of panic.

He had never experienced emotions like that (you could say he had never experienced emotions of any kind directed towards other people, unless they were pure anger or indifference), and they scared him.

But he immediately forced himself to put these sensations in a corner and forcibly eradicate them from himself.

He was the great Tom Riddle, the future Lord Voldemort, he would never, EVER, feel fear.

Especially not towards an emotion that couldn't hurt him physically.

The fact that this was the first time he felt understood in some way by someone and not judged was not the slightest reason to get sentimental or any of that nonsense.

Stay focused, Tom!

That moment of weakness was then soon replaced by a huge triumph.

Because if he had established an emotional connection with the guy on the other side of the diary, it meant that the guy (not him) was starting to get attached in some way, and Tom had the opportunity to use that bond to control him, possess him, and make him open up the Chamber of secrets to make a massacre.

Hope was not lost.

He just had to expose himself, talk to him, get on the same wavelength as him, and create an ever stronger connection (on the student's part, not his, he was only going to lie and manipulate).

For the first time since the boy had started writing to him, Tom decided to reply.

It was only fair, after all.

He had mentioned him directly, this time.

He had practically asked him a question.

“My full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle”

He replied, simple and neat.

A second later, he felt himself being completely flooded with ink.

Ah, well, thanks for the shower, idiot!

Chapter Text

“My full name is Tom Marvolo Riddle”

As soon as Harry had read that sentence that he had definitely never written, he was so taken aback that he inadvertently spilled the entire ink onto the notebook.

But can you blame him? His secret diary, in which he had been writing for weeks, had just responded to him!

Very elegant writing, but that wasn't important at the moment.

The diary had responded to him!!

So he had read what Harry had written!

Who was that person? Who was that Tom?

Perhaps all this time Harry had been writing not in a diary, but remotely with its previous owner? Maybe two diaries were connected in some way?

Harry wasn't an expert enough in magic to be able to make any real theories that made any sense. For all he knew, it could have been a prank by Malfoy to tease him.

Or the diary could have been possessed by a ghost.

But why hadn't it answered him before, if it could?!

Even just to ask him to stop writing his thoughts in the diary. It was rude to write thoughts in other people's journals.

He stood there staring at the pages for a few minutes, not knowing what to do.

The waterfall of ink that had ended up on the diary had already dried, even if it had soiled the covers of the bed where he had started writing, away from prying and judging eyes.

He should have changed them before going to sleep.

But at the moment he was more worried about that diary.

Not so much for the fact that it replied, but because all that time he had believed that he was the only one who read what he wrote, and it embarrassed him to think that all that time, this Tom Marvolo Riddle had always seen everything.

After a few minutes of immobility and panic, new words appeared in the diary.

“I didn't mean to scare you, is everything okay?”

He seemed kind…

Harry started to take his pen and write a reply, but he had no more ink, and he hurriedly got another bottle.

“I didn't expect to receive an answer, to be honest,” he admitted, a little uncertain.

"Understandable. I didn't intend to reveal myself, but then I saw that you were talking about me and it seemed polite to answer you"

Harry felt a blush creep up his cheeks.

So Tom had read everything he had written, there was no doubt about it.

“I'm sorry for writing in your diary, I didn't know anyone could read it” he immediately put his hands forward, and decided that from that moment on he would never write a single word in there again.

(Oh oh, Tom, things are looking bad for you.)

Before he could close the diary and throw it in a corner, however, Tom replied, very quickly, as if he had realized Harry's intentions.

“It's not my diary anymore, apparently. Can I ask you how you came into possession of it?” he continued the conversation.

It wasn't a difficult question, Harry could answer it.

“It was in a very old transfiguration book. Did it end up there by mistake? Do you want to have it back? I can send it to you with my owl if you want” he proposed, accommodating and kind.

He was sure that if he asked Hedwig to deliver the diary to Tom Riddle, she would find him, she was truly wonderful and skilled at her job.

Tom Riddle took a few seconds to respond.

Mainly because he was busy cursing all the famous ancient wizards and witches and wondering how, for Merlin's sake, could he have gotten his most precious diary into a old as Morgana book of Transfiguration, holy Salazar!

But Harry obviously had no idea of Tom Riddle's state of mind at the moment, and waited patiently.

“A very kind proposal, but I think it's quite difficult. You see, I am the diary” he explained, in a few words.

Harry was increasingly confused.

In what sense was he the diary?

Ah well, he shouldn’t have asked too many questions anymore about the wizarding world. Paintings spoke, plants screamed, and he could turn cockroaches into buttons. It wasn't so strange that a secret diary answered him.

“Excuse the question, but… were you born a diary, or did someone trap you there? I mean, were you a real person before?” Harry asked just to be sure.

If he was trapped there it was terrible. He should have told Dumbledore or Professor McGonagall and tried to help him somehow.

Again, Tom hesitated a little bit before answering.

(ARE YOU MAYBE IMPLYING THAT I WOULD EVER GET TRAPPED IN A DIARY AGAINST MY WILL?! WHO DO YOU TAKE ME FOR?! I WAS THE ONE WHO IMPRISONED PEOPLE, NOT THE OTHER WAY AROUND!)

And also, you must know, he didn't know exactly what to write.

The plan certainly wasn't to reveal information about himself to anyone who wrote in the diary.

But he also couldn't get caught or be put in a corner and forgotten. Not now that he was starting to make a connection.

“A good question. I am a memory, preserved in the diary and which has taken some sort of consciousness. You have nothing to fear, what you write cannot be seen by anyone but me, and I would never judge you.”

Harry felt a little better.

The journal seemed really kind.

And he was reassured by the fact that there was no one trapped inside, and that other people couldn’t read what Harry had written.

“Okay, I think I understand… so you don't mind if I keep writing?” Harry asked, a little uncertain.

It was starting to become a habit, and it was so liberating.

“I would appreciate it if you continued to write, that's why I'm here, to welcome thoughts and memories” the diary reassured him.

Harry didn't hold back a smile.

But he was still a little hesitant to confide in him.

“May I ask why you didn't answer me before?” he asked, hoping not to sound too suspicious.

He just wanted to try to understand a little what kind of person Tom Riddle was, and if he could really trust him.

The wizarding world was full of dangers, after all.

Only the year before he had discovered that his Defense Against the Dark Arts professor had Voldemort in the back of his head, he didn't want to risk something like that again.

However, he was pretty sure that if Voldemort had anything to do with the diary, Harry would have noticed because of his scar.

"I did not mean to scare you. And I was surprised that someone wrote in my diary. I preferred to stay in the shadows, but then you piqued my curiosity me when you mentioned me explicitly" replied Tom Riddle.

He seemed sincere.

“What year were you in? How old are you?" Harry continued to ask, starting to get curious about the person on the other side of the pages.

A person who had probably attended Hogwarts fifty years earlier.

“Oh, were you at Hogwarts too?” he asked then, before Riddle could answer, realizing that he couldn't take it for granted.

“I don't think I can put an age on myself at the moment, but this is the diary of my fifth year, I was sixteen when I wrote it, and yes, I was at Hogwarts. I was a prefect,” the diary recounted, giving no sign that the personal questions troubled him.

Harry was more and more interested.

“What house were you sorted into? I'm a Gryffindor,” he confirmed Tom’s deductions.

The diary hesitated.

"I don't really believe in Hogwarts houses, I fear that they could cause unnecessary rivalries between students" he avoided the question in a very intelligent way.

Harry didn't insist, he didn't want to pry too much.

He looked for something else to ask, or to write in general, but he felt stuck.

He was feeling a little strange.

He didn't even understand what drove him to seek contact with that diary so much, but he wanted to continue talking to him.

Yet, until a few moments ago, he only wanted to use the diary to vent every now and then, to share his day, for a few minutes a day.

Now he felt some kind of connection.

Yet Riddle was only a student who attended Hogwarts fifty years before.

What was it that pushed Harry so much to open up to him when he knew it could have been dangerous, considering his former experiences?

Was it his clear need for a confidant with whom only he could speak, without there being any trace of judgment or evidence?

Was there some dark force at work?

Did both the diary and Harry possess a piece of the same person's soul and were they somehow trying to connect? (Nah, that’s definitely not it… right?)

Or maybe Harry genuinely needed a counselor due to all the trauma in his life and the diary seemed like the second best option?

Perhaps all of these things together.

The fact was that Harry wanted to talk to him, but he didn't want to seem desperate or pushy, so he didn't know what to say to him at all.

Maybe it was better to close the conversation for now, and maybe ask Ron and Hermione for advice.

But before the twelve-year-old could write a generic goodbye and close the diary to go to his friends and maybe ask Hermione for help with his Potions essay, Tom wrote something.

“How rude, I didn't even ask you your name. Curious, I know you're on the Quidditch team, I know the names of your friends and even your rivals, and yet I don't even know something as simple as your name" he commented, affably.

Harry called himself rude for not thinking of it sooner, but for some reason he assumed Tom already knew, like he read his mind or something.

But it was true that he had never written his name on the pages of that diary, at least until that moment.

“My name is Harry, Harry Potter” he introduced himself.

And a second later, he regretted what he had written.

He could have pretended not to be Harry.

For once he could have talked to someone who didn't know his identity as the Boy Who Lived.

Perhaps this was also what had motivated Harry to continue talking to Riddle.

It was the first time in the wizarding world that he had been able to talk to someone who knew nothing about him.

He knew he should have been grateful that so many people knew his name, but celebrity was uncomfortable for him.

It was the one thing about his life at Hogwarts that he couldn't stand.

Always all those eyes staring at him, scrutinizing him, positively or negatively.

Everyone always expected something more from him, people always stared at his scar, as if something magical could emerge from it at any moment.

Harry felt like a freak, in some ways no different than when people stared at him for less flattering reasons, in his old school, and in his old life, when he was seen as a difficult kid, a poor boy, a weirdo, and Dudley's eternal victim.

No matter what world he lived in, Harry had always been watched and judged, for everything.

But Tom had never even known his name, until that moment.

Tom hadn't seen him with different eyes.

“Harry Potter? There were no Potters when I was at school, but I know Fleamont Potter, I think he's a potion master. Maybe he was a relative of yours,” Tom replied, showing the same curiosity towards Harry that Harry felt towards him.

And the boy finally realized that his name meant absolutely nothing to Tom.

Tom had lived before Voldemort, before Harry, a good fifty years before.

To Tom, he wasn't the great Harry Potter, he wasn't the boy who lived.

He was just Harry, a twelve-year-old boy who had found his diary.

And Harry finally understood why he wanted so badly to continue the correspondence, and to get to know the person behind the pages better.

Finally, for the first time in his life, he could be treated like a normal boy.

Chapter Text

Tom Riddle had already taken a great dislike to Harry Potter.

He couldn’t really stand him.

And it wasn't just because Tom hated people in general, but Harry seemed exactly the prototype of everything Tom had always hated the most: Quidditch player, idealistic, annoying, stupid, and far too emotional.

Tom hated emotional people.

But perhaps what Tom really couldn't stand about Harry Potter was his insatiable curiosity.

Not that Tom was a stranger to people asking him for personal information: a lot of girls at Hogwarts were always interested in him because of his good looks, not to brag (he bragged a lot), so he was used to people trying to extort information from him, out of curiosity or with less noble intentions.

But when he had a body it was easy to act mysterious or avoid questions and make the girls (or boys, or teachers or whoever) distracted with something else.

In diary form, it was definitely more difficult.

Especially if he had to get the person writing to him to continue writing and reveal more information about himself.

Because getting to know Harry Potter better, no matter how unpleasant the prospect, was the only way Tom had to strengthen the connection, and have the chance to possess him and use him as a puppet for his mission.

It was a noble cause!

And the best way to convince him to open up quickly was to be the first to open up himself.

Ergo, he couldn't stop himself from answering too often, even if he still avoided mentioning some things, like his Hogwarts house.

Given the hatred Harry had shown towards Malfoy and the Slytherins, he didn't want to get off on the wrong foot by admitting that he was a member of his rival house.

Perhaps Harry suspected something (though given his poor intellect Tom doubted it), but he didn't ask the question again, which showed he was sensitive.

Ew, disgusting!

Thanks to Merlin, though, although Harry had already asked several general personal questions like Tom's favorite color ("I like green"), or whether he liked playing Quidditch ("I've always preferred to focus on my studies"), he had never touched on the subject of family.

And usually, after asking Tom a question, he would answer too.

In fact, Tom now knew that Harry's favorite color was red (typical of a snooty Gryffindor) and that he was the team's seeker (not that Tom cared much).

And over the next few days, Harry had started to open up more and more, and Tom felt the connection growing, and couldn't help but feel quite victorious about how things were evolving.

Perhaps he had overestimated the mental strength of the boy behind the pages.

Or perhaps he had underestimated his immense persuasive and manipulative skills.

And it was very strange that he overestimated someone or underestimated himself, he was an egomaniac with delusions of grandeur who wanted to conquer the world and commit genocide, after all.

Classic teenager behavior.

Actually, Tom was pretty sure he could have already started to control Harry, but he still wanted to play it well, and there was no point in going straight inside the chamber of secrets without being sure of having the full loyalty of his subordinate.

...he would never have had his loyalty, but at least full mental control of him.

He didn't want a twelve-year-old going around exposing his secrets.

Luckily he had managed to get Harry to promise to keep Tom’s personal information to himself, because, and here he had to show off acting skills worthy of an Oscar: "You know that I could never betray the trust you have placed in me by confiding in this diary, but I fear I cannot do the same. Not that I don't want to trust you, Harry, but you interact with a lot of people, and as you can imagine from the way my diary is structured, I've never enjoyed exposing myself too much to others."

He was truly a writing genius!

And Harry had responded with a very simple "I understand very well, don't worry Tom, I haven't told anyone".

Tom didn't know how much he could trust that sentiment in the distant future, but for now, it was fine.

He was a Gryffindor, and Gryffindors were fair, usually.

Not that Tom was the type to rely on house stereotypes to judge people.

He hadn't been totally lying when he told Harry that he didn't believe much in houses.

He had known Slytherins with strong loyalty, extremely cowardly Gryffindors, Hufflepuffs capable of great malice, and Ravenclaws lacking in rationality.

But it had to be admitted that, from a first analysis, Potter seemed to be the perfect definition of a Gryffindor, so Tom could partly base his judgment on stereotypes.

But he still couldn't throw himself into controlling him right away, because he felt that despite his openness in talking to him, Harry was still rather reluctant to tell him the most important things.

And Tom didn't have the slightest intention of asking questions, because then he would have had to answer those questions like Harry always did, and he hated that reciprocity.

In fact, he had been wondering for a while why Harry was so interested in finding out information about him.

He was just a diary, after all.

And so the days passed…

“Tom, did you have any rivalries at Hogwarts? I can't stand Malfoy since before the sorting! And he's been targeting me ever since."

“I am happy to say that I have always been quite appreciated by my classmates. Is there a reason that sparked the rivalry with this Malfoy?" Tom occasionally tried to investigate Harry's relationships to better understand his thoughts on muggles and mudbloods.

Not that you needed Sherlockian skills to know them.

“He insulted Ron and his family! He is a horrible person obsessed with fame, wealth and purity of blood. You can't help but be his rival! And anyway, he started it. I just wanted to spend a quiet year and learn as many things as possible" in fact, the answer made clear his ideals as a defender of Muggles and similar rabble.

The Potters were indeed famous for being very lenient with muggles, helping them when they needed it. Harry's parents had probably raised him the same way.

BAH!

“He doesn't seem particularly kind, to be fair,” Tom replied to give Harry the impression that he was on his side.

“You were lucky to get along with everyone,” came Harry's comment.

And something else also came to Tom.

Like a sigh.

It was but a very slight sensation, almost imperceptible, but it tugged at the connection Tom was starting to get between him and Harry, as if the two were, slightly, drifting apart.

“I didn't really get along with everyone, but I didn't have a big rivalry like you,” he admitted truthfully.

And he didn't know either the reason he hadn't just closed the topic, given that there was certainly no point in providing unnecessary information.

Yet, perhaps, it was necessary.

Because the light line that united them almost seemed to strengthen, just a little.

Maybe because Tom had related to Harry?

Was this necessary? Relate to him? Tom wasn't entirely sure how to do it, since he had so many qualities, in fact, he had all the qualities in the world because he was perfect, but if there was one quality that wasn't exactly his best one, it was that thing called empathy.

You could tell he had never felt it in his entire life.

But… maybe… with Harry…

NAAAAH, it was just another way of manipulating him.

And if he had to appear to be slightly less perfect to make Harry, mind you, HARRY, empathize with HIM, he could have made that sacrifice.

For the mission!

“There's a flu epidemic lately. A lot of students went to the hospital wing to get cold medicine. I'm sorry about Ginny."

Ginny? Who the Salazar was Ginny, now?

"Your friend? I'm sorry for her"

“Well, not really, I mean, she's Ron's younger sister. Actually, I think she doesn't like me too much…” Tom could understand the feeling "...she's the only one I know who is ill, so I'm sorry. I feel sorry for everyone, though. The flu is annoying"

Well, Tom didn't understand that feeling.

Why did Harry care if someone else was hurt? The important thing was that he was well. And maybe his friends, if the fact that they were sick might have made them useless to him, but still, why worry about others if it didn't do him any good?

“I'm sure she'll be better soon. When I was at Hogwarts the hospital wing was very good, I suppose it's only gotten better over the years." Tom said a generic encouraging phrase to make him feel better.

A sentence that was also sincere, however, because it was true that the hospital wing was very efficient.

“Oh, definitely! Last year I spent the last days of the year in the hospital wing, and Madame Pomfrey was very good. Although I hope I never have to go back there again. I don't like staying in bed,” Harry replied, giving some more information.

Information that Tom found curious.

He had never heard of students staying in the hospital wing for more than a day, unless they were really serious.

"What happened?" he asked, hoping to get some more information about Harry Potter's history at Hogwarts.

Although, knowing him, it might have been because of a Quidditch match gone wrong, or one of his flying car things.

“Oh, nothing… it was resolved quickly, Madam Pomfrey kept me just to be safe” Harry, for the first time since he started talking to Tom, avoided the question.

Tom felt partly offended, partly curious, because on the one hand he didn't understand why Harry would keep secrets from a diary that no one other than him could read, and this also led him to think that it was something really interesting.

He wanted to investigate, but decided to be respectful and keep the information in mind and bring it up later when their bond was stronger.

"You're fine now?" he just asked, pretending to worry about his health.

“Yes, I haven't had a cold in years… have you ever been to the hospital wing, Tom?”

But why did he keep asking him questions?!

Tom considered the idea of lying and saying no, because he was perfect! But then he remembered that to bond with Harry better he had to be relatable, and so he thought about saying yes and lying about the reason he went there just to get the matter out of the way.

But Tom knew he had to be very careful about how he lied to Harry, because unlike Tom, who was a diary, the student was at Hogwarts, and had access to documents that could attest to whether Tom was telling the truth or not in their chats.

And if Tom lied and Harry found out, he would be less inclined to trust his answers in the future, and Tom needed Harry to trust him.

He decided to tell a very general truth.

“I was in the hospital wing a few times, the first few years. Nothing serious, just a few spells gone wrong,” he admitted, keeping things vague.

“It seems very like you to experiment with magic,” Harry commented, and Tom could sense that he was… amused?

Wait… was he laughing at Tom?! How dare he?!

“Well, you have to experiment if you want to change the world, right?” he replied, defending his honor.

“Wow! Very inspiring. Personally, I don't want to change the world too much, but I admire people who experiment, like Fred and George, even if they do it for jokes and pranks.”

Jokes?! PRANKS?!

Harry was comparing Tom Riddle's great experiments to stupid jokes?!

Not that Harry knew what Tom actually did, but he still felt offended

“I didn't do many pranks,” he just said, hoping Harry couldn't sense his irritation.

“I thought so, Tom, haha”

…had he really written ‘haha’, like laughter? But what kind of way of writing was that?!

Tom didn't comment further.

But if he had a mouth, he probably would have smiled just slightly.

Mockery, of course!

A mocking smile!

Tom Riddle was not amused or something like that.

He didn't even know what that word meant!

“Were you good at school?”

He was a prefect, duh! Are you really asking these obvious questions?!

“I don't want to brag, but I was doing pretty well. I have always given a lot of value to my studies" replied Tom, bragging indeed.

But, come on, he didn't say he was top of the class, he kept himself humble.

"I imagined. You were prefect, after all."

If you already knew, why did you ask?!

“And did you have a favorite subject?”

Why do you even care?!

“I was really good at Potions, but my absolute favorite subject was Defense Against the Dark Arts.”

Tom had decided to be as honest as he could, and admitting his favorite subjects seemed harmless.

Even though he still didn't understand why Harry was asking him all those questions.

“Good at potions?! I bet you didn't have Snape as a teacher,” Harry complained. Any excuse was good to insult Snape.

"No, I didn’t. My Potions teacher was Professor Slughorn, he was very friendly with certain students, and I was lucky enough to end up in his good graces,” Tom explained, thinking back to the Slug Club.

That professor really had a nose for smart people. It was quite satisfying.

“But I'm unlucky with Snape! He hates me because my father saved his life when they were at Hogwarts together” Harry's next sentence took Tom out of his nostalgic thoughts.

He wasn't an expert on gratitude, empathy, or emotions, but even he wouldn't hate someone who saved his life.

Maybe he wouldn't have given that person preferential treatment, and if they turned out to be dangerous to his plans he would still have killed them, but he would have thought twice about it, and he wouldn't have hated the person for that reason.

It didn't make the slightest sense to him.

And he was a genocidal madman, so not exactly a paragon of morality.

That Snape was strange.

“…seems like a strange reason to hate someone” he commented, confused by such mentality.

"They were also rivals, like Malfoy and I," Harry explained.

“It's not right to blame the children, anyway,” observed Tom, who hated being associated with his parents, whom he considered insignificant, and he had lived far too long with his father's Muggle surname, which had brought him nothing but trouble.

"I think so too!"

“What's your favorite subject, Harry?” Tom changed the subject before he was forced to think too much about his family, and before Harry could ask anything about it.

It was honestly the last thing he wanted to talk about.

“I don't think I have one, to be honest. I hate Potions, I'm not good at Herbology, Astrology always puts me to sleep. Transfiguration is very complicated even if it is interesting, and I like Charms a lot but I don't know if I should consider it a favorite subject. I think Defense Against the Dark Arts could be really interesting, but Lockhart is really bad at teaching it, and Quirrell…” Harry stopped writing.

Tom waited a few seconds.

And then he didn't hold back.

“Who is Quirrell?” he asked, innocently.

“Last year's teacher. He wasn't any good either” Harry replied in a few words.

Oh, Tom wanted to investigate so badly.

But he forced himself not to ask too many questions.

“I'm sorry,” he just said, generically.

“I wonder if any teachers have remained since you attended Hogwarts” this time it was Harry who changed the subject.

It was actually an interesting change.

“I doubt it, they were all quite old, and it was fifty years ago, after all,” Tom supposed, reflecting on how old Dumbledore might have been at that time if he had survived those fifty years. He sure hoped not, anyway. It wouldn't have been right if Slughorn had died, and Dumbledore hadn't. It was even older than him!

"I suppose you didn't know McGonagall, she's probably my favorite teacher, even though she's very strict" Harry continued to write. He wanted to chat, that afternoon.

And in fact, Tom had to admit that McGonagall sounded like a surname he knew, and not just because Harry had already mentioned it a few times.

“By any chance is her name Minerva?” he asked, remembering someone he'd seen his first year.

“I don't know to be honest, why?”

“There was a Minerva McGonagall at Hogwarts with me. Only for a year though. She was in her seventh year when I was in my first year. Gryffindor, Quidditch star,” Tom explained, thinking back to his first year.

It hadn't been a good year.

Perhaps the worst since he had arrived at Hogwarts.

“McGonagall played Quidditch?!” Harry seemed shocked.

Cute… I MEAN, RIDICULOUS! TO GET EXCITED FOR SUCH A STUPID THING! BAH!

“From what I remember. Then she had an accident that year" Tom recounted, being careful not to say that it was his housemates who had caused the accident, and Tom had given considerable help, so as to finally be accepted by... it wasn’t important!

"What a pity. Now I understand why she really wants us to win the cup,” Harry mused.

“You'll have to make her proud” Tom commented, generic as he often happened, even if a part of him thought that perhaps, for a year, the Gryffindors could even win the Quidditch cup.

After all, Slytherins had everything else.

"I do my best"

After Harry's last sentence, there were several seconds without any sentences, and Tom thought the boy would close the diary and go wherever he needed to go.

But after a few minutes, he went back to writing, quickly, as if he was in a hurry to share the thought with Tom.

“Maybe I know who you might have known!”

"Who?" Tom was surprised by the vehemence, and also a little curious.

“Dumbledore!”

…

What?!

Oh no!

Tom prayed with all his heart that it was Dumbledore's son or nephew, or a brother, or any other Dumbledore, and not HIS Dumbledore!

“…Dumbledore?” he asked, playing dumb, and trying not to express his internal anger at just hearing his name.

“Yes, he's the headmaster. Did you know him, Tom?”

HEADMASTER?! HE HAD BECOME THE HEADMASTER?! THAT OLD JUDGMENTAL PRICK WAS A... calm down, Tom, calm down, or your blood pressure will rise.

No, his blood pressure couldn't have risen, he was a freaking diary without blood vessels!

But still, it was best to stay calm in front of Harry.

“Oh, so Dumbledore became headmaster, it shouldn't surprise me,” he made a generic reply that betrayed boundless anger.

“Wasn't he already the headmaster when you attended Hogwarts?” Harry was surprised.

Do you really think someone has been a principal for more than fifty years?

Although in fact, given that Dumbledore was old as hell, it was normal to think that he had been headmaster for half a century AND HAD TO RETIRE!

“He was my Transfiguration teacher. I admit that I have never particularly excelled in that subject" admitted Tom, mildly.

Transfiguration itself was interesting, but it was a little difficult to concentrate when the professor was constantly staring at you with an inquisitive look like you had done something wrong.

Okay, most of the time Tom really did do something bad, but Dumbledore couldn't have known that, could he? He was just judging!

“Really? But Dumbledore is amazing! He's the best wizard in the world! The most powerful and the smartest, even more than…” Harry stopped.

Tom for once didn't notice, and didn't pay any attention to his hesitation.

He was too busy being indignant.

Dumbledore? Dumbledore was the best wizard?! That old man who always showed favoritism to Gryffindors and who had frowned upon him from the day Tom had discovered he was a wizard because of him? He would have been grateful if the teacher hadn't also given him an unsolicited lecture that day and if he hadn't always looked at him with that absolute lack of trust whatever Tom had done ever since then.

If there was one person Tom truly hated with all his heart, it was Dumbledore.

But he couldn't point this out too much to Harry, who apparently thought highly of him.

“I'm glad Hogwarts is in good hands,” was the first thing that came to mind.

"Absolutely!"

Harry evidently had terrible taste in teachers. Tom was starting to re-evaluate Snape and Lockhart.

Or maybe, unlike with Tom, with Harry Dumbledore showed favoritism and treated him well.

Tsk, and he even dared to say that the Slug club wasn't a good idea. Dumbledore was the Slughorn of Gryffindor! Hypocritical.

UGH! Tom couldn't BELIEVE that he was the headmaster.

Now he should have been even more careful!

“Tom, can I ask you something a little personal?”

He hadn't done anything else for days, actually.

“Sure, Harry, anything.”

Look at what Tom had to say to make Harry trust him!

“Did you have a girlfriend when you were at school?”

…

…What?!

Why did he care?!

Tom's love life was personal!

And non-existent…

But above all personal!

Why would a twelve-year-old think those things?!

"Why do you ask me that?" he asked, trying to avoid the question.

“Today Lockhart was talking about some witch he conquered and some prize for the most charming smile or whatever, and I heard Parvati and Lavender talking about boys behind my back, and… I don't know, it made me think. You were sixteen, right? You were old enough for a girlfriend, I suppose."

The reasoning made sense, but it didn't explain why, by Merlin's beard, Harry was interested in TOM's romantic life.

But in general, to Tom's life.

It didn't make the slightest sense!

“Why do you always ask me all these questions?” he found himself asking, without even seriously wanting to write it to Harry. The question had been written in the diary practically by itself, it slipped out.

Tom didn't want to ask, really, but he just couldn't understand how a twelve-year-old with so much to say would be so interested in the old life of a sixteen-year-old who had lived fifty years before and was currently in a diary.

Shouldn't he have used it to vent and gain comfort? To reveal his secrets and that's it? Why did he care about Tom? He had never seen him, would never see him, and for all Harry knew, he could have been dead, already!

…Tom wasn't dead and literally couldn't be dead because he was immortal, but that was a detail Harry didn't know.

Harry took a long time to respond, and when he finally did, Tom could sense that he was very fearful and uncomfortable.

"It bothers you?" he asked, writing hesitantly.

Now, Tom had screwed up!

Which never happened because he was perfect!

It was all Harry's fault, surely!

It was always someone else's fault.

But he still had to try to fix it.

“No, of course not! I'm happy to hear your questions, I just don't understand why you ask them. I'm not a particularly interesting person,” belittled Tom, who considered himself extremely interesting, but didn't want to give Harry the impression that he was boasting too much.

“You're very interesting to me, Tom. And I like to know things about my friends"

…

…

…

…

Harry's response had short-circuited Tom's brain (which he didn't have) for a few moments.

F_friends?

Friends?!

What in Rowena’s name was Harry saying?!

Tom barely knew that word, to be honest.

And it didn't suit him at all.

Friends? Bah! Tom had never had friends, by choice (others' at first, and then his) and he certainly wouldn't have started with Harry Potter!

But… but… looking at the situation logically, it was a good thing.

Because if Harry considered himself Tom's friend, then he could continue with the plan.

Yes, that was a very good thing for Tom.

Ah! He had you, Harry! The manipulation was succeeding.

So why did Tom feel a kind of knot in his stomach?

Tom erased the sensation, putting it in a corner.

He didn't have a stomach, after all!

“Tom?” Harry caught his attention, and Tom became focused again.

Yes, he had to answer him, but how could he respond to such a statement?

Mmmmm, it must have been calm, as always.

A confident Tom full of intrinsic coolness.

Chill.

“Oh, sorry, Harry, but I've never had many friends, and your message surprised me.”

Okay, it could have come out better.

“And did you have a girlfriend?” there was a clear subtext of mockery behind that message, but Tom didn't notice, too busy trying to recover his savoir faire.

“I've never been one for girlfriends, I preferred to think about other things”

This, too, could have come out better.

What was happening to him at that moment?!

“I also prefer to think about Quidditch rather than girls” Harry seemed satisfied with the answer.

Yes, of course, Quidditch.

Tom was more towards world domination, but everyone had their hobbies, right?

The important thing was that he had taken a step forward in winning Harry over.

But… Tom was starting to believe that the connection forming between the two wasn't exactly what he'd hoped for.

But he had to work with what he had, keep his mind clear, and above all experiment with possible possession.

He would act soon.

Chapter Text

“What are you writing that makes you laugh so much?” Ron asked at a certain point, glancing at Harry and lifting his gaze from the chessboard where he was overwhelmingly winning over Neville.

They were in the dormitory before bed, and Harry had taken the opportunity to write the latest news to Tom.

“Nothing” he replied, shrugging and closing the diary, where Tom's last response had already disappeared from the pages.

It was strange for him to have a secret that he wouldn't share with Ron and Hermione, but he liked the idea of Tom being a friend all for himself, a personal confidant only he knew.

Also, Tom had asked him not to talk about him too much with others, so he certainly couldn't betray his trust.

Although Harry felt a little guilty keeping certain information from him, such as his status as the boy who lived, his history with Voldemort, and his family.

There had been opportunities to talk about it, and it was certainly one of the things he wanted to vent about most, but he just couldn't bring himself to tell Tom anything.

It was just too pleasant to constantly write to someone who had no idea who Harry Potter really was.

And he was really happy to be able to consider him a friend, even if he also admitted that he didn't know enough about the boy behind the pages to completely trust him, and at times it seemed to him that he answered his questions in a somewhat generic way.

And he feared it was because Harry bored him, making the boy feel a little guilty.

But then Tom would respond in a lighter, more sincere and reassuring way, and Harry would convince himself that perhaps he was just imagining it.

And he kept writing.

And he kept asking questions.

Because Tom Riddle was a really, really interesting person, just as it was interesting to find out what wizards were doing fifty years before.

And now Harry knew that he was a bookworm, that he didn't play Quidditch, that his favorite color was green, that he had never had owls or cats or toads at Hogwarts, and he had never had many friends or a girlfriend either.

For some reason, even though Tom hadn't revealed his house to him, Harry had the impression that he might be a Ravenclaw, and in his mind, Tom Riddle was a very sensitive and kind boy who was constantly picked on by his classmates despite his skills.

Harry, this description is more similar to Moaning Myrtle than Tom Riddle, but oh well… we know that Harry is not the most observant person in the world, he has other qualities.

Regardless, Harry enjoyed talking to Tom, and felt a real bond starting to form between the two.

It had been very funny to see him get flustered when Harry called him his friend. He probably heard very few people calling him that.

Harry wasn't very good at analyzing others, and he wasn't a great observer, but he made up for this with a strong empathy towards others, and once he actually realized something, he very much internalized the emotions a person could feel in certain circumstances.

And he felt like he was starting to really understand Tom, the way he responded.

Tom seemed like a kindred soul, to Harry (oh, Harry, you have no idea).

“You certainly weren't doing the Transfiguration essay. That makes one cry, not laugh!” Ron's next sentence brought Harry out of his thoughts.

“The Transfiguration essay?” Harry asked, falling from the clouds.

“Was there a Transfiguration essay?!” Neville also looked shocked, and his distraction didn't help his situation on the board, allowing Ron to eat one of his bishops.

“Twenty centimeters of parchment, and Hermione has already said over and over again that she has no intention of helping us... and she has made forty centimeters. Forty! Couldn't she give ten to us both and help us a little?” Ron began to complain, checkmating Neville, who sighed and recovered the poor remains of his chess pieces, going to his trunk and taking the necessary for Transfiguration, which he was surely going to do.

“The funny thing is that for how small Hermione writes, we could have made twenty centimeters out of her ten” Harry chuckled, making Ron snort.

“Indeed! I thought we were friends!” he complained, melodramatic.

Harry rolled his eyes.

“We're friends, Ron. And she already helps us a lot without us also making her do our essays” he pointed out to him.

There was some complaining about homework every now and then, but Hermione was truly an angel most of the time, and even when Harry was screwed with homework he never felt like blaming Hermione for his own incompetence.

“I know... I know... anyway I guess you weren’t doing the essay” Ron returned to the gist of the conversation, pointing to the diary closed in Harry's hands, who shook his head.

“To be honest... I forgot there was an essay to do” he admitted, putting a hand uncomfortably through his hair.

“Do we want to work on it together tomorrow? At least we’ll fail in two” Ron proposed, and Harry nodded, relieved.

“If Oliver doesn't keep us too much in the Quidditch field for training... but tomorrow we should only have the field in the morning, so we can work on the essay in the afternoon” proposed Harry, who would never have managed to do that essay on his own in such a short time.

“Okay, and I'll take advantage of the morning to try to convince Hermione to help us” Ron looked determined.

Harry found this unlikely, but didn't tell him so, and went back to his diary, wondering if Tom would have been able to help him with a Transfiguration essay.

He had never asked him about homework until now because he didn't want to give the impression that he wasn't good at school, but since his friend behind the pages was a nerd, and he was even older, he could turn out to be very useful, even if transfiguration wasn't his favorite subject, from what he'd said.

He hadn't seemed very happy to find out that Dumbledore was headmaster, and that was strange.

But maybe Harry had just misunderstood.

Dumbledore was an extraordinary man, after all, only dark wizards could have despised him.

And Tom couldn't possibly be a bad person.

“I don't understand how Filch can work at Hogwarts!! Why was he hired?! He hates students deeply, he just tries to punish us all for every reason, and sometimes it's almost scary! Even his cat is scary. And I usually kinda like cats."

Wow… it had been a while since Harry complained like that. It was always interesting when he threw a fit, without restraint.

More things to analyze, for Tom.

But it was better to answer first.

“What happened, Harry? Are you alright?” It was always better to be kind.

“Yes, but I risked a bad punishment... for a moment I feared that Filch was going to torture me as he always threatens to do, and for nothing! It's not right! Luckily Nearly Headless Nick helped me..."

“Calm down, Harry, I didn't understand the dynamics very well… what happened?” Tom tried to ask again, starting to get confused.

“Quidditch practice was a disaster today. The weather was horrible, there were more problems booking the field, and in the end, I returned in the evening, covered in mud and dead tired! And to make matters worse, Filch took me into his office to punish me for littering the corridors, and then Nick distracted him with Peeves, and…” Harry hesitated for a moment.

"What?" Tom encouraged him to continue, becoming interested in the matter.

Not because it was interesting, but it could have given him information that he could have used against Harry, and then, even if he wouldn't have admitted it even under torture, he was starting to get a little passionate about the events of Harry Potter’s life.

Perhaps because the connection between the two was strengthening, perhaps because when Harry wrote to him, Tom felt less like a book and more like a person, or perhaps just because he had absolutely nothing else to do in that void other than read his words, but every time he felt the familiar sensation of the quill writing on the pages of the diary, Tom always felt a little more… alive.

Even if the goal was always to manipulate Harry, possess him, and make him open the Chamber of Secrets.

That was the plan, and it would remain so until all the mudbloods were eliminated.

“…I admit that I could have avoided reading his correspondence, but I was all alone and the letter was right there, and I got curious. Anyway, Filch went really mad, but it was just a correspondence course in magic, it didn't seem like much to me” Harry finally answered, and if Tom had had eyes, he would have rolled them, shaking his head.

It was just like Harry not to mind his own business and snoop around, that curious boy.

But one thing about his story struck Tom.

…correspondence course in magic?

“What do you mean a course in magic?” he tried to ask, confused.

“I don't know, I'll have to ask Ron when…” Harry stopped writing, and Tom was too busy thinking to immediately notice that he had stopped abruptly.

A magic course... evidently Filch was the caretaker and not a professor, since he had complained about the dirt and Harry had more or less told Tom about almost all his professors up to that point.

But if he wanted to do a magic course, was it possible that he wasn't… a wizard?

It might be like Dumbledore to hire a muggle, but Tom doubted it was legal, given the laws of the Statute of Secrecy, which stated that magic could not be practiced in front of muggles unless there were extraordinary circumstances. 

So maybe… he was a squib?

More likely, but why would someone hire a squib as a caretaker anyway?!

How cruel of Dumbledore to hire one person to clean the entire immense castle... without that person being able to do it with magic.

Inhuman!

…not that Tom considered squibs, muggles or mudbloods to be human, and they deserved even worse, but still, what a stupid decision!

“Tom…”

Tom was so intent on thinking about the matter, shuddering at the thought of how low Hogwarts had fallen since Dumbledore was headmaster, that at first he didn't realize that Harry had started writing to him again.

“Tom… can I ask you a favor?” but these words rallied him.

A favor?

Did Harry want to ask him a favor?

It could have been interesting.

If he trusted him enough to ask for a favor, Tom could earn his trust even more, and maybe even start experimenting with controlling him.

Of course, it depended on the favor.

But Tom was certain that he was capable of doing anything for Harry.

…anything he could do from inside a diary, but Harry knew he was a diary, he wouldn't have asked for anything impossible, right?

“Of course, Harry. If I can do it, anything” he offered his availability, wondering what on earth a twelve-year-old could want from a sentient diary.

"So... it's not like I wanted to do this last minute, and I usually don't have problems with essays, I prepare them in advance, but today I had some unexpected events, as I was telling you, and Ron just told me that he convinced Hermione to help him and he did it with her because I wasn't there, and… he offered to make me copy but I think McGonagall will notice if we do it the same way, and now Ron is doing something with Fred and George, and Hermione is already doing her Potions homework and I don't want to disturb her, so, I was wondering..." Harry began a preamble so long that if Tom had had a body he would have fallen asleep waiting.

And after a while he interrupted him, realizing where he was going with this.

“Do you want me to help you with some Transfiguration homework?” he asked, getting to the point, assuming with great insight that he wanted help, and that the subject was Transfiguration because he had mentioned McGonagall.

It took Harry a few seconds to respond.

“Yes, we have a twenty-centimeter essay for tomorrow, and I'm quite desperate. I know Transfiguration wasn't your favorite subject, but if you can suggest something it would still help me a lot" he admitted, and it was clear from the tremor in his writing that he was very uncomfortable asking.

Tom felt a very strange sensation bloom slightly in him, delicate as a little caress, which he couldn't quite define or understand, and which he barely noticed, in general. A sense of tenderness, perhaps amusement… who knows.

In fact, it didn't even last a moment, and was immediately replaced by annoyance.

How dare Harry Potter assume that Tom couldn't do a very simple second-year Transfiguration essay?!

He was of OWL age, and would have gotten Outstanding in every single course, even Transfiguration! He was outstanding as a person!

But he was careful not to show his indignation.

“Of course I can help you, Harry. What is the topic about?” he was going to write such a spectacular essay that Harry would have become the best scholar of his year!

…although maybe this would have caught the professors' attention, if Harry wasn't a great student, and he didn't look like a great student.

But nothing that came out of Tom Marvolo Riddle's hands could be anything other than perfect, so it would be very difficult not to make an equally perfect essay, even if he didn't try hard.

But above all… maybe he could have taken advantage of that moment to try and control Harry.

He could have hypnotized him with the words in the diary, taken control of him, wrote the essay himself, and if Harry had any suspicions, he could have said that he had simply been distracted while doing his homework, on some people they had a stupefying effect.

Not on Tom, of course, Tom always got excited about doing his homework.

That is, not because he was a nerd who got excited about doing such basic things, but they were so simple, for him who was perfect, that he had no problem putting in the effort and concentration.

…wait.

Harry wasn't responding.

Why wasn't he responding?

Had he changed his mind?

But why?! Now that Tom had the chance to possess him and experience the powers of the diary, Harry was gone like this?

Had it all been a test to see if Tom was willing to cheat, and now that he realized Tom would do it, he wanted to put him aside?!

Tom would never have understood this Gryffindor trait!

And also, Tom had offered him help, not to write the essay in Harry's place... which he intended to do but Harry didn’t know that.

“Harry?” he tried calling him, confused that he wasn't answering, and also rather resentful.

A part of him also began to consider that… wow… he was becoming more and more aware of the time that was passing. The connection with Harry probably made him more active, as if awakened from his long sleep.

“The topic is about the difference between animal transfigurations and those of inanimate objects” came Harry's response after a while, written very hastily and full of ink stains.

…Oh.

Luckily Tom didn't have a body, because if he had he would have laughed.

"Did you not know?" he asked, even though he was sure he already knew the answer.

Tsk, that silly Harry didn't even know what kind of essay he had to write... Tom absolutely had to write the most mediocre essay of his life, or Harry would have been discovered immediately. He was clearly not very studious.

“I just wanted to be sure, and I asked Hermione. Luckily she was in the common room and it took a short time” Harry's response hid his clear admission. Tom didn't insist, but a little doubt assailed him.

“Are you in the common room now?” he asked, to get a sense of where Harry was.

“No, I'm in the dormitory. I wouldn't want Hermione and Ron to realize that you're the one helping me... by the way, I'm not asking you to write the essay for me, just to give me advice and..." Harry put his hands forward again, and Tom once again felt that faint emotion of tenderness and amusement from before, which however he immediately put aside.

They were futile emotions that didn't really belong to him. He had to work! And in that particular moment he had to concentrate.

“Don't worry, Harry, there's nothing wrong with having a tutor every now and then. And I'm happy to help you. I'm here for this too" he replied, very affable, ready to help him.

“Okay… how… how would you organize the work?” Harry was clearly uncomfortable, it showed in the way he was holding the quill in his hand.

And Tom took advantage of it, without hesitating even a moment.

He began giving directions, dividing the work, then suggesting the introduction, and then dragged Harry into starting to take dictation, using his written words to lower his guard, and his concentration.

And then he felt it.

He could almost physically feel the thread connecting him to Harry.

He managed to grab it and barely move it.

He saw a light, far away on the horizon, the first light in the darkness that always seemed to surround him.

And then, getting closer and closer to that light, he finally reached what could be called a kind of rift, a rift in a wall of darkness, shaped like a lightning bolt.

And for the first time since Tom had started writing to Harry, he seemed to see something.

It was distant, but it was increasingly vivid.

And the familiar feeling of control he felt when he cast the imperius curse, which he had learned the year before, and had proven very useful indeed, flooded him.

It wasn't exactly the same, but he was in control of Harry without physically feeling Harry's body, or his mind.

As if he had hypnotized him, in a certain way, and could also see from his point of view.

Tom tried to look around, and identified some red and gold curtains… Gryffindor dormitory, obviously.

There was no one in the room other than him… well… Harry, and the candlelight barely illuminated the essay parchment, and the diary.

The diary.

Tom had to make sure that he was actually in control, and that it wasn't just his feeling, and ordered Harry to take the quill, and write something.

Something simple and that wouldn't arouse suspicion if Harry had been conscious, but still something that Harry definitely wouldn't have written.

“Dumbledore is not a good teacher”

The words came to him, and Tom quickly erased them from the diary, delighted by the control he had managed to establish.

It wasn't total yet, and he couldn't maintain it for long, but it was something.

A great start.

And the writing was also Harry's, not Tom's, so he could write the essay without worrying about anyone recognizing his writing.

That was excellent too.

Tom probably could have taken the opportunity to get out of the common room and explore around a bit, but if he wanted Harry to trust him more and more, he had to actually do trustworthy things, and finishing the essay they started together seemed like a good thing.

So… he said twenty centimeters, right?

And Tom couldn't make it too much longer.

He had to think like Harry, and Harry wasn't a good student.

…but there was so much to say about those spells! Twenty lines were too few.

And in the end… Tom got a little carried away.

While remaining as similar as possible to a twelve-year-old, and carefully avoiding copying the style of his previous essays, so as not to be recognized.

But there was something that Tom definitely hadn't considered about controlling Harry.

That is… how nice it was to be back doing homework! Wow!

Tom hoped that Harry would ask him for help more often, because it was really exciting.

…FOCUS, VOLDEMORT!

Chapter Text

Harry was a little torn between three conflicting emotions.

On one hand, he felt a little guilty for having clearly cheated on the essay.

On another, he was confused because he hadn't even realized that he had written such a long and well-crafted essay, and he barely remembered having written it beyond the first few lines.

And on the other hand, he was super proud and happy because McGonagall complimented him at the end of class, saying his essay was the second-best in the class.

She had looked at him with a slightly suspicious frown, but she had also smiled at him, and that was enough to make him feel more proud than anything else.

Except that then Hermione had looked at him with suspicion, Ron had been upset because Harry hadn't helped him too, and both, knowing how far behind Harry was on the essay and how he was down to the last minute, had peppered him with questions about how he had managed to get out thirty centimeters in such a short time.

And Harry hadn't been able to answer.

Or rather, he hadn't wanted to.

Because Tom was his little secret.

And he could already imagine Hermione's reaction if he’d told her about him: “Harry, you can't cheat like that! It's not right! And also who is this Tom? Are you sure you can trust a diary like this? Maybe it's better if you give it to a professor."

And even if he’d only told Ron, the reaction wouldn't have been much better: “Did you cheat with a magic diary?! Why didn't you tell me before?! We can cheat together! Can you lend it to me, Harry? Can Tom help me too?”

It was certainly less dangerous than if he had told Hermione everything, but Harry didn't want to share Tom Riddle with him.

He had no problem sharing things with his friends, but Tom Riddle was an exception.

He was his confidant, his friend, and his diary.

He didn't want Ron to start talking to him.

And above all, he didn't want to use him to do his homework, he would have felt like taking advantage of him, and Harry didn't want to do that.

Sometimes he felt like Tom was dependent on Harry, and he didn't like the feeling. That's why he always asked him questions, and tried to be as accommodating as possible. He wanted to establish an equal relationship, like two friends, and not like a boy and his secret diary.

Sometimes he imagined how lonely and sad it was, being there, all alone in a diary, unable to do anything other than talk to the person writing in it. It seemed like a really unhappy life.

Therefore he had not the slightest intention of asking Tom to do his homework again.

…maybe some light help if Harry found himself desperate, but nothing more.

However, regardless of his mixed emotions, once he returned to his room he immediately rushed to get the diary from his bag.

“Tom! The essay was great!!” he wrote, excited and happy to share the good news with the person responsible for his success.

“I'm glad I helped you,” Tom's reply came immediately.

“I wasn't sure if it was too good, I barely remember writing it. I feel like I cheated,” Harry added, admitting his doubts to the only person familiar with the genesis of his essay.

“Come on, Harry, you haven't done anything wrong. You just asked an older student for a little help, I helped other students many times when I was at school" Tom reassured him.

He was good at always saying the right things, and he always made Harry feel better.

“Yes, you are definitely right. But I'll try not to ask for your help too much in the near future” In any case, he didn't want to take advantage of it, and he didn't want to make Tom think he was an incompetent child who needed someone to do his homework.

It was true that he preferred playing Quidditch to studying, but he enjoyed attending Hogwarts classes, and learning spells.

“Even if you do, in the future, it wouldn't bother me at all. I'm happy to help you,” Tom reassured him.

He really didn’t seem bothered, thankfully.

"You're a true friend, Tom." Harry smiled at the diary, even though he knew Tom probably couldn't look at him.

“So… was it the best essay in class?” the diary then asked, and it was rare for him to be the first to ask a question.

Of course a nerd like him was curious about the outcome of the essay he helped write.

“Second place after Hermione! Unheard of! Professor McGonagall was really surprised,” he said enthusiastically. He had reread the essay rapidly before handing it in, and it was a really good essay, even Harry could see it.

"Congratulations! And congratulations also to Hermione for the best essay,” Tom replied.

Harry smiled as he thought of his friend.

“It's normal for her, she's the best in the whole school. If I had done better than her I would have felt quite guilty, I have to admit,” he wrote.

And Hermione probably wouldn't have talked to him for at least a week, proud as she was.

“She seems unbeatable”

“She really is! No one is better than her, it’s impossible to even try” Harry boasted of his friend, and at the same time tried to reassure Tom that although Hermione had done better, it didn't mean Tom's essay wasn't fantastic anyway. He had the impression that his pen pal was quite proud as a person.

“And she's also a muggleborn, right?” Tom asked, and Harry felt a slight knot forming in his stomach.

They hadn't talked much about Hermione and blood purity, but Harry had noticed that they had often broached the topic, and Tom always seemed quite interested in hearing his opinion, without asking for it explicitly.

Harry honestly couldn't understand why some wizards were so obsessed with having wizard relatives themselves, it seemed completely irrelevant.

And he didn't particularly like Tom's comment.

“Yes… so? Why should that matter?” he became slightly defensive, a little worried that his friend in the diary might have the same vision as Malfoy.

He would have been really disappointed.

“I just find it admirable that, despite knowing nothing about the wizarding world until she was eleven, she still managed to fit in so easily. You know, I also discovered I was a wizard a few months before arriving at Hogwarts" came Tom's reply, which untied the slight knot that had formed in Harry’s stomach.

“Are you a muggleborn?” Harry asked, curious.

If he was a muggleborn himself, he certainly wasn't prejudiced. Maybe he was empathizing with Hermione a bit since they were both studious.

Probably if they had met one day they would have gotten along very well... or a small rivalry would have been created.

Not that Harry intended for them to meet.

He was so lost in his thoughts that he didn't notice the long hesitation Tom had before answering his question.

“Muggle father, witch mother,” he finally replied, with little detail.

Wow, a bit like Harry!

His parents were both wizards, but his mother was muggle-born, so people often called him a half-blood.

He was just about to write it to Tom when he stopped.

It was a topic he still had difficulty writing in the diary.

In the end, he decided to remain vague too.

“Wizard father, Muggleborn mother… I must leave you, Tom. I have to go do my potions homework and I think if I asked you for help Snape would notice" he decided to close the diary and the conversation, before Tom asked him for more details.

And he didn't notice the peculiarity of what Tom had told him.

Because if his mother was a witch, and his father a muggle... how come he had only discovered he was a wizard at eleven? Hadn't his mother told him?

Luckily for Tom, Harry never asked himself this question, nor did he ask it to him.

Because it would have been quite difficult for the diary to answer it.

Tom was so satisfied with himself that even the hot topic of his family and the knowledge that a mudblood had been better than him in an essay, making him come second (unacceptable disgrace) had not managed to disturb his... not joy, but let's say pride and satisfaction with what he had managed to achieve after possessing Harry during that evening.

And it wasn't just a splendid essay (albeit mediocre by Tom's standards, who had tried not to give it his all but, hey, he couldn't do anything unexceptional, after all), but a window into the world.

Because ever since Tom had managed to find that lightning-shaped crack in the darkness that surrounded him since he ended up inside the diary, every time Harry had the journal nearby, and Tom concentrated hard enough, he managed to see the world through Harry's eyes, a little bit, for a little while.

It was a little different from control, and it was like peering through a keyhole, but it was still much more than he had seen so far, and it was a turning point in his mission.

So he had gotten to see a little of Hogwarts, and it didn't seem to have changed much since he was a student.

Considering that it hadn't changed much since it was founded, Tom considered it quite normal that in just fifty years there had been no notable changes.

Although it had made a certain impression on him to see how much Minerva McGonagall had aged.

Tom hadn't known her very well, he had only ruined her life during his first year, but still it was difficult to associate that austere woman with the young Quidditch player from Gryffindor.

And he realized once and for all how much time had actually passed.

He hadn't been able to hear anything, for the moment he had only unblocked his vision, even a little blurry, but it was already something.

And when he could, he tuned in for a few minutes to check on the situation, bored and curious, since he had nothing else to do anyway.

So he could get even more information without necessarily asking Harry.

And he had seen Ron, or at least a person who he thought was Ron, often in Harry's company, with carrot-colored hair and lots of freckles.

And Hermione, probably, with a frizzy bush for hair and an urgent need to get her teeth adjusted… okay, she wasn't ugly or anything, but it rankled Tom that she'd done better at the essay than him, even if CLEARLY he would have beaten her if they had played on equal terms!

However, he had seen other professors too, and Malfoy, probably.

He looked a bit like Abraxas, actually. The same blond hair and the same expression of superiority.

The only one he had never been able to see, since he had never passed in front of a mirror and Tom observed the world from his subjective perspective, was Harry himself.

Which displeased him, a little.

Because he was curious to know what the boy who had been writing to him every day for weeks looked like.

And in all of this, Tom had also realized that Halloween had arrived.

And on what he assumed would be Halloween night, he prepared to tune in to watch the grand feast, which when he had been at Hogwarts had always been incredible.

…I mean, more or less acceptable for his great standards.

But when he opened the small crack, he was surprised to notice that Harry was in a rather creepy room full of ghosts.

It wasn't the Great Hall, clearly.

But where was Harry, then?

And why didn't he tell Tom he was going to a place full of ghosts on Halloween?!

Bah! Secret diary and special confidant, and then he forgot these important details that…

Tom's irritated thought died down when he noticed, in a corner, a familiar sight.

Tom would never have expected that among so many ghosts, many of which he had personally met during his years at Hogwarts, the only one that would catch his eye would be that of his first, and currently only, victim.

Mainly because he never thought Myrtle Warren would return as a ghost.

She hadn't made her ghostification known yet when Tom created the diary, but maybe he should have thought about it.

Because Myrtle's presence as a ghost at Hogwarts could have proven itself to be truly dangerous for his plan. What if she saw something?! What if she remembered what killed her? Certainly not who, because otherwise she would have said it immediately... probably… but still it could have been dangerous.

“Myrtle…” he was so surprised, and so in need of information, that he found himself inadvertently switching to Harry's control, and made him whisper that word, as if for a moment his soul had locked onto Harry's in a desperate attempt to stay afloat in the real world.

And he was able, for the first time since he was a diary, to hear.

A sound from afar, muffled and not entirely clear, but it was still so unexpected and sudden that it sounded like thunder.

Although Harry's voice, heard from inside, had a strangely pleasant tone, albeit young.

But that was just the first thing Tom noticed, before he was flooded with all sorts of sounds, from ghosts talking, to the wind through the cracks in the walls, the footsteps of Harry and his friends walking away from Myrtle, and everything… everything else.

Tom was almost overwhelmed by the sound he heard for the first time in surely a very long time.

"Yes, Moaning Myrtle, she lives in the girls' bathroom on the second floor," Hermione explained, taking Harry's whisper as a question.

Did she live in that bathroom?! But why?! And now how could Tom free the basilisk if there was that stupid ghost girl watching the entrance and keeping guard all day and night?!

“Does she live in a bathroom?” Ron asked, confused about this.

Exactly, it was a terrible place to live in! Wasn't it better to haunt the courtyard, the clock tower, or the dormitories? The divination room was very comfortable, she could have settled there. Why live in a bathroom?!

“Yes, it’s always out of order because she has nervous breakdowns and floods everything. I always try to avoid it if I can,” Hermione said, in a low voice to avoid the ghost behind them hearing her.

Tom glanced at her sideways.

She was identical to when Tom had last seen her, only more evanescent and pale.

Tsk, he’d done the right thing by taking her out. She was as annoying in death as when she was alive! A real plague!

He had a knot in his stomach… why did he have a knot in his stomach?!

Tom didn't have a stomach to tie a knot in.

“Do you know why she haunts that bathroom?” Tom tried to ask, using Harry's voice, and hoping not to show his nervousness.

Hermione shrugged.

“I don't know, no one ever talks about Moaning Myrtle”

“It must be sad to be dead and have no one thinking about you, and she seems so young” Harry observed, and this time it was Harry himself who spoke.

Tom still managed to control him, but it was only half control, and Harry was still quite aware of what was happening, but unaware that what Tom made him say did not come entirely from him.

And something came to Tom that he never expected to experience.

Empathy… pain… sadness.

From the link that allowed him to see and hear what Harry saw and heard, the emotion he was feeling at that moment was transmitted to him.

He could see the darkness of the bathroom, which served as his tomb, dark and cold and empty as a cupboard under the stairs, everyone hating him and avoiding him, or laughing at him.

No one who remembered, no one who cared.

The future being ripped away from him. To forever remain a sixteen-year-old in a dark place, never being able to be more than that.

He saw Mirtilla, in a corner, ignored even by the ghosts around her, and he seemed to see himself.

A fragment of a soul trapped in a diary for fifty years, abandoned in a book of transfiguration. Dependent on others to have a minimum of self-awareness.

In some ways, Mirtilla, his victim, was even better off than him, because at least she could move, interact with others, see and hear without needing an intermediary.

Yet, Tom did not envy her.

He pitied her.

And he felt strange as if… as if… as if he felt guil…

NO!

Absolutely not!

What was happening to him?!

What was that sudden and inexplicable weakness?!

Lord Voldemort was not like that! He didn't pity people! He didn't feel useless! And he certainly didn't feel guilty!

Guilt, empathy, sorrow, were not emotions contemplated in Lord Voldemort's life!

And Lord Voldemort wasn't even one to hesitate, and Tom was hesitating too much, it was now clear.

He had been writing to Harry for weeks, and had already controlled him once with no consequences.

He had formed such a strong bond that he had managed to unlock his sight and now his hearing, through Harry. Of course, with the connection, a series of unexpected and unpleasant emotions were also creeping into him, but Tom was not sentimental, and he was very practical, he could bury and ignore, or rather, completely erase such emotions and send them back to the sender.

Voldemort did not hesitate.

Voldemort had no emotions.

Voldemort had no remorse.

And if Tom finally wanted to emerge from the shadow of his father's disgusting Muggle origins, he absolutely had to become Lord Voldemort, and abandon all traces of Tom.

He had to open the chamber of secrets, and he had to do it now!

Killing Myrtle had been the right thing to do, and he would prove it by continuing the job!

“Can you wait a second for me? I have to go to the bathroom for a moment” he made Harry say, tightening the control, which for a while had slipped from his hands, on Harry like a rope around his neck.

“Can I accompany you? I don't want to stay here if I can avoid it” Ron tried to propose, approaching him. Tom kept him at a distance.

“I wouldn't want Sir Nicholas to feel bad about it, and we can't leave Hermione alone. It'll take me a few minutes, I'll be right back” he prevented Ron from hindering his plans, and ran away towards the bathroom which hid the entrance to the chamber, taking advantage of the fact that Myrtle was at the party to do his own thing without her noticing him.

“Sir Nicholas?” Hermione frowned at him a little, but neither she nor Ron did anything to stop him.

No hesitation.

No remorse.

Voldemort was at Hogwarts, and would complete the mission entrusted to him by his important and illustrious ancestor.

That evening the castle would be dyed red.

Metaphorically, given that the gaze of the basilisk killed instantly without the need for bloodshed, but whatever.

…unless he took some paint and left a real red mark… it was an interesting idea.

Harry was a little groggy at the moment.

He felt like he wasn't fully conscious, and he really needed to sleep.

Perhaps also due to the gloomy atmosphere of the party, and the dim lights, but it was as if every memory of what was happening to him that evening slipped away as soon as he stopped living that moment, leaving him with only a vague awareness of the actions he had performed.

Not that he was doing much: he had reached the party, talked to Ron, Hermione and a few ghosts. He had gone to the bathroom, and now he was looking for an excuse to take his leave and return to the Great Hall with the hope that there was something left in the banquet to fill the hole he felt in his stomach.

“I swear if Nick tries to invite me to another party, I'll call in sick!” Ron was complaining, huffing, while Harry waited for Nick to stop talking to his guests to ask permission to leave.

His eyelids were heavy, although he felt strangely more awake than before.

Maybe the prospect of a meal and getting out of there was waking him up.

However, he didn't hold back a deep yawn.

“Everything okay, Harry?” asked Hermione, frowning at him.

Ever since he had done well in the Transfiguration essay, Hermione had tended to often look at him with a suspicious frown, although Harry didn't understand why.

He ignored the look to focus on her words.

“I’m just a little tired, and I'm hungry” he shrugged.

“Tell me about it! I would eat Filch's cat if I found it in front of me!” Ron supported him, his stomach rumbling making more noise than Uncle Vernon's drills.

“Ron!” Hermione complained, finding his joke in bad taste.

“I don't think you even need to ask. He saw that we're here, you talked to Sir headless-hunter-whatever, we can just go and I don't think he'll be upset” Ron tried to convince Harry to run away without saying goodbye. Harry was a polite boy, and it didn't seem ideal to leave without telling Nick, but he had to admit that he was getting really tired of being there.

“Actually, yeah… I don't think he'll be offended. Shall we go to the Great Hall?” Harry pointed to the door, and turned to the two friends he had dragged there, ruining their Halloween party.

They both nodded vigorously.

Even Hermione, who had found the idea of attending that party fascinating, couldn't wait to leave it and fill her stomach.

They left the room without attracting too much attention, and began to walk along the gloomy corridors of the school, illuminated by the dim lights of the candles.

“Let's hope there are still pumpkin pies” Ron began to look forward to dinner.

"And maybe the apple pie too," added Hermione.

Harry just wanted to put anything in his stomach, and above all he couldn't wait to go to sleep, although as he left the gloomy atmosphere of the party room, he began to feel more awake and present.

Until an unexpected and disturbing voice, which seemed to come from the walls, completely caught his attention.

“Blood… kill… rend… a long time…” Harry stopped suddenly in his tracks, with a huge shiver running down his spine.

Ron and Hermione turned to him, surprised that he had stopped so suddenly.

“Come on, Harry, or they'll finish everything!” Ron tried to encourage him, approaching ready to drag him in case Harry didn't follow him.

Harry, however, wasn't exactly listening to him, and approached the wall, trying to understand where that disturbing voice that seemed almost, slightly, familiar was coming from.

It was as if he had heard it in a dream… and very recently.

“Finally… back… ready to kill…” the voice continued, and seemed to move.

“Do you hear it too?” he asked Ron and Hermione, who looked at each other in confusion.

“Hear what?” Hermione tried to ask, a little uncertain.

“A voice... in the walls... and I think... I think it wants to kill someone!” panic replaced confusion, and Harry started running in the direction where he had heard the voice, ready to stop whatever threat was going to appear in front of him.

Ron and Hermione began to follow him, more and more worried, until they found themselves in front of a deserted corridor full of water.

“Harry, there's no one, let's go to…” Ron tried to take his arm to make him stop, but was interrupted by a hushed exclamation from Hermione, which attracted the attention of the two boys, who turned to see what she was pointing at.

On the wall, written in bright red, there was a disturbing message, and on the ground, still as a statue, was Mrs Purr, Filch’s cat.

“The Chamber of Secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir… beware”

Harry, Ron, and Hermione didn't even have time to let out a breath before the corridors began to fill with people leaving the now-concluded Halloween feast, bringing chaos to the school, and more and more confusion in Harry's already confused and aching mind.

There was something just wrong at Hogwarts, at the moment.

And Harry felt he absolutely had to talk to Tom about it.

Chapter Text

"Tom, do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets?” was the first sentence Harry wrote when he returned to the dormitory. If Tom had indeed learned to discern the passage of time, very little had passed since he had opened the Chamber of Secrets using Harry.

…AND HARRY HAD ALREADY GUESSED THAT TOM WAS INVOLVED?!

How was that possible?! Harry was stupid!

Maybe his friend Hermione would have realized, but Hermione didn't know Tom even existed... did she?

He decided to be vague.

"Why do you ask?" he inquired, feigning surprise.

He wanted to just deny it and say something like, “Never heard of that in my life,” but that wasn't exactly a good idea. When he was at Hogwarts, at least in the Slytherin dormitory, it was a very common legend. Tom remembered finding out about its existence in his first year, when he heard some classmates say that they hoped the heir of Slytherin would arrive at Hogwarts soon to free the school from mudblood scum like Tom.

And since then Tom, in his infinite pettiness, had started looking for information because if he had found a way to open the Chamber himself, he would have shown it to the others who did have mud in their blood!

Then he discovered that he was actually the heir of Slytherin, and it was probably the greatest satisfaction of his life, but that wasn’t the point.

The point was that it was a common legend, and there was a chance that Harry would find out that, oops, Tom had won a trophy for Special Services to the School for catching whoever had first opened the chamber fifty years before. 

And at that point, if Tom didn't tell him anything about it it would have been suspicious, and it would have been even more suspicious if Tom actually lied and said he didn't know about it.

And if Harry finally found the connection between the Tom of fifty years before and the Tom of the diary with the opening of the Chamber, and realized that the timing coincided too well...

…

Perhaps Tom had acted slightly on impulse.

It was all Myrtle’s fault! She had destabilized him!

Okay, come on, don't panic. Harry was stupid, he would have never found out he was involved.

There wasn't even an absolute certainty that it was the Chamber of Secrets that had been opened, right? 

Everything was shrouded in mystery.

Even for Tom... he hadn't indicated a victim, in fact, he had only told the basilisk to attack an unworthy being at random, and then disappear until further notice.

“During the Halloween feast, someone attacked Filch’s cat and left a message on the wall, near the bathrooms: 'The chamber of secrets has been opened. Enemies of the heir, beware’ with blood!!”

…maybe Tom should have taken a course on impulsivity and one on communication.

The first one because the sentence written in blood (which was just red paint, actually) could certainly have been avoided, especially by writing it right next to the entrance to the chamber. That had been idiotic!

The second was because… in what sense had A CAT been attacked?! Tom had said to attack someone unworthy, but he didn't think he needed to specify ‘human’ as well.

Tom thought back to the sudden unorganized attack of the night before.

He had made Harry go to the bathroom, made sure no one was there, and then opened the Chamber of Secrets, slipping inside.

He had obviously taken care to make Harry cover his eyes before proceeding further, and had called the basilisk, hoping to be able to speak Parseltongue even while controlling a person who couldn't speak Parseltongue, and luckily he had succeeded.

The basilisk had appeared, surprised and ready for action. And Tom had ordered him, introducing himself as the heir of Slytherin and his master, to get out of there, eliminate a creature unworthy of attending Hogwarts, and then return to the room without being caught. He had said it in more lucubrated terms, but that was the summary.

Then he went out, being careful not to be seen, he wrote a threatening message on the wall because he wanted to scare everyone and start Voldemort's new rise with a bang, and... he returned to the party.

He had barely made it back to the party, in fact, and had had to leave because controlling Harry for so long had exhausted him. And he hadn’t been able to make even the slightest contact for the rest of the evening.

Even now he felt like he wouldn't have even been able to control his eyes and ears… it was frustrating.

But anyway… he didn't think there would be anything important to discover. He was good when it came to covering his tracks.

However… Harry was perhaps a little less so?

It was better to investigate a little.

“Terrible, do you know who did it?” he asked, trying not to show any reaction that could be misunderstood, and at the same time asking for more information. He was also curious to find out if he had actually succeeded in terrifying everyone.

“They blame me,” Harry replied, and it could be seen from the quivering of his quill that he was nervous.

HOW?! WHY?! HE HAD NOT LEFT CLU… in fact, Tom had been careless, to be honest.

He hadn't given Harry a complete alibi, while almost the entire school was at the feat. He had written the message in Harry's handwriting, and Myrtle had also returned to the bathroom just before Tom left the room. Not that they had met, but Tom had heard her crying and it had flooded the bathroom and adjacent hallways.

In short, it had been the least discreet operation in the universe.

If Tom hadn't learned to recognize every nuance of Harry's writing, he might almost have thought that Dumbledore or some other professor had found the diary and was writing to him for information.

It would have made sense.

But Tom recognized Harry's writing and his attitude.

“Why would they think that?! You wouldn't hurt anyone" he told him in a comforting way, to remove any suspicion from himself, and above all to prevent Harry from asking again what Tom knew about the chamber of secrets, because it was a topic on which he absolutely had to lie, or at least keep quiet.

“I discovered Mrs Norris, that's why they think it was me, but I didn't do anything. Luckily Dumbledore defended me,” Harry explained.

“What do you mean you discover her? Are you alright?” oh no! What if he had realized what Tom was doing with him, and once he got out of control went to find the cat to help her or... well, he shouldn't have known that the cat would be attacked, but she was in front of the bathroom, so maybe he went to the bathroom to check or something, and caught the first victim.

Oh well, he couldn’t have known that Tom had controlled him, if so, right?

Maybe that's why he was investigating?

Tom was starting to get a little nervous, but he had nothing to fear.

He was a diary, no one other than Harry knew of its existence and consciousness, and he had the situation under control.

"We were leaving Nick's deathday party, and I was about to go with Ron and Hermione to the Great Hall, when..." Harry stopped.

Oh…

So he hadn't done it because he remembered about the opening of the chamber, hopefully.

But it was still strange.

Tom had made his way from Nick's deathday party to the girls' bathroom, and he knew for a fact that the girls’ bathroom was in the opposite direction to the Great Hall from the room of the party.

Why would Harry be there if he was heading to the Great Hall?

“I suppose you passed there by chance and it was along the way. I'm sorry, Harry, it couldn't have been nice” Tom suggested, but set up a little trap to see if Harry would lie to him.

“Yeah, I found out about her by accident, but Snape and Filch are convinced it was me, Ron and Hermione just because we were there” Harry fell straight into the trap, and that attracted Tom's attention and suspicion.

There was something he clearly wasn't telling him.

He had not found the victim and the writing by chance.

And it could be a problem if he got out of control and saw something.

Unless he heard the basilisk, who had a bad habit of talking to himself, and heard his voice, but that was impossible, because Harry didn't speak Parseltongue. No one but Tom spoke Parseltongue.

Unfortunately, Tom couldn't ask him for information explicitly without risking giving away his involvement.

“And how is the cat?” he asked instead, curious about the status of his first victim in fifty years, although not the one he wanted to hit.

“She has been petrified, but Dumbledore says the professors will be able to save her,” Harry wrote optimistically.

…

“Oh, what a relief”

AND WHAT IN THE NAME OF MERLIN?! What do you mean just petrified?!

She had to be dead!

It's okay, nothing serious. In the end, she was just a cat, she couldn't trace the attack to anyone. They couldn't interrogate her, or take her memories, and her worst sin was being the cat of an aggressive and disgusting squib. Not exactly an intended victim.

“Have you ever heard of the Chamber of Secrets when you were at Hogwarts?” Harry repeated the question he had asked when he entered.

Tom would have snorted if he could.

Why was Harry so insistent?! It wasn't yet time to reveal too much to Harry about the chamber.

Would be damned the moment he had ended up in the hands of such a curious boy!

“What is this Nick's deathday party? You didn't tell me about it" he tried to change the subject, hoping that Harry wouldn't get suspicious, but that he would still understand that it was better not to insist.

Luckily for him, Harry was distracted, and told him in detail about the terrible and boring evening spent at the ghost party.

He no longer asked Tom about the chamber, and soon went to sleep. Tom hoped he wasn't going to write to him for a while. He had to put his thoughts in order and figure out what to do from then on.

Tom had avoided the question.

Even Harry had noticed, and didn't understand why.

If Tom didn't know any information about the chamber, he would have replied something like "I've never heard of it, Harry, I'm sorry", but instead he just avoided answering.

Usually, when he avoided a question, it was because the answer wasn't very flattering to him, like when Harry asked him if he had a girlfriend. Tom was always kind and helpful, as well as humble, but Harry had noticed that he responded much more quickly when he could brag about something, and much more slowly if he didn't make a good impression with the answer. Maybe he hadn't answered about the chamber because he really didn't know anything, and didn't want to appear ignorant?

It was a good guess, but Harry wasn't convinced.

Maybe talking about the chamber evoked bad memories?

Possible.

In any case, it was better not to insist.

Therefore they asked Professor Rüf for information, who explained everything about the chamber of secrets and the Slytherin monster. Very disturbing and interesting information. Definitely the most exciting lecture that Professor Rüf had ever given in his hundreds of years of teaching, both in life and as a ghost.

Then he, Ron and Hermione had explored a bit around the place where Mrs Norris had been found, without unfortunately obtaining much information.

But they had a prime suspect, and a plan to find out if he was actually the heir of Slytherin.

And that suspect was obviously Malfoy.

It made sense, after all. His contempt for Muggle-borns, his satisfied look when he saw the writing, his comment…

Between research, studying, investigations and even Quidditch training, which became increasingly demanding as the first match approached, which would have taken place against Slytherin, Harry had had very little time to write to Tom.

And by "very little time", it meant that he practically only wrote him good morning and good night, he forgot to take the diary with him around, leaving it mostly in the dormitory, and at the moment he hadn't picked it up for two days.

It's not that he didn't want to write to him, on the contrary, he missed doing so, but he was really distracted, and the only things he wanted to tell him he didn't want to bring up because he was afraid of annoying him, given that there was a possibility that the Chamber of Secrets was a heavy topic for him.

So it was only on the eve of the Quidditch match, immediately after taking the Potions book to create the polyjuice potion that Hermione would make as soon as possible to spy on Malfoy and find out if he was the one responsible for the attack, that he took out a minimum of time to write to Tom something more than the usual "Good morning, today there is Transfiguration, I hope McGonagall won’t assign too much homework" or "Very busy day today, I'm too sleepy, goodnight".

Even if he started out the same way.

“Today Lockhart was more unbearable than usual” he thought back to the demonstration he had to do in front of the whole class as the werewolf that Lockhart had defeated. Definitely humiliating!

“I see, goodnight then,” Tom replied, surprising Harry a little with the coldness of his words.

“Why goodnight?” he asked, confused.

“Oh, forgive me, did you want to write it to me first? I just played in advance."

He sounded irritated.

“Everything okay, Tom?” Harry asked, starting to worry that he had done something wrong.

Maybe Tom was starting to get irritated by talking only to him all the time. Maybe Harry was complaining too much. Or maybe Tom didn't like him writing trivial things.

“Sure, why wouldn't it be? I'm just a diary, after all. I literally can't feel bad,” Tom replied.

On the one hand, his words seemed calm, but Harry detected a note of extreme annoyance and sarcasm in what he wrote.

He hesitated a little before answering, searching for the right words.

Maybe he was misunderstanding the situation, and should have just written normally, maybe talked about his day, or asked Tom a few questions. He always seemed happy to answer.

But he couldn't pretend nothing had happened, and he preferred to be sure.

He didn't want Tom to be angry at him.

"Have I done something wrong? Did I say something that bothered you? If so, tell me and we can talk about it,” he wrote, accommodating and ready to communicate. Communication was important between friends, and keeping it all inside wasn't good for people.

“I should actually be the one to ask this question. You're the one who suddenly practically stopped writing to me" Tom replied, quite surprising Harry, who finally understood what had bothered Tom.

It wasn't because of what Harry might have said, but something he was NOT telling him.

And he understood why.

After all, Tom lived through Harry. Harry was the only person with whom the diary had any contact, and while up until now Harry had thought that Tom had no great concept of the passing of time, as he seemed to be surprised at the years that had passed since he had been a diary, he was finally realizing that he noticed right away when Harry didn't write to him for some time.

And he probably felt lonely or bored.

Harry was sorry.

But at the same time, he felt a slight warmth in his stomach.

Because it had never happened to him that someone was so happy to talk to him, so much so that they would get angry if they didn't speak to him for a while.

In his old life, before he discovered he was a wizard, everyone always tried to push him away, or thought he was boring and annoying, especially the Dursleys.

And since he was a wizard he was surrounded by people who were always eager to meet him, and he also had excellent friends, but it was because of a fame that he couldn't control.

Tom didn't know anything, and, sure, he definitely wanted to talk to Harry mainly because he was the only person he could talk to, but it was still nice to feel important to someone.

Although it was a big responsibility.

And anyway, if Tom wanted to talk to other people, he just had to tell Harry, and he would have arranged it. The fact that he had asked the boy to remain a secret meant that he trusted him and that Harry was ultimately enough.

They were creating a really good bond.

Finally aware of what was troubling Tom, Harry was quick to respond.

“Sorry, I didn't do it on purpose, but it's been a busy few days. Between lessons, quidditch, and investigations,” he wrote, justifying his absence.

“Investigations about what?” Tom asked, surprised.

Oh, dang it! Harry didn't want to talk to him about it! But he had written without thinking.

“About nothing important” he tried to close the topic immediately, hoping Tom wouldn't insist.

"You do not trust me? I thought we told each other everything, Harry” Of course, Tom insisted.

Harry actually wanted to talk to him about the chamber of secrets, about Malfoy, and also about all the horrible looks he'd been getting since that message appeared, but he didn't want to burden Tom with his problems.

“It's not that, I just don't want to upset you,” he replied, sincerely, but without offering details.

“…upset me? Why would you upset me?” Tom showed no signs of closing the subject.

Harry hesitated slightly, pondering whether he should actually say something or not, but he didn't want to create any misunderstandings with Tom, so in the end, he decided to be honest.

He owed it to him.

“It's about the chamber of secrets, and since you've avoided the topic, I suppose it might be a topic that bothers you,” he explained, a little embarrassed.

Tom took a few seconds to respond.

“Oh…it's not like I avoided the topic! But maybe it's better if you don't investigate the chamber of secrets, it could be dangerous,” he finally wrote.

It was clear he knew something he didn't want to tell Harry.

"Why? Do you know anything about the chamber?” and now that the subject was out in the open, perhaps Harry could investigate a little. It was important to understand how to proceed.

“Only that it is dangerous and it is better not to investigate it”

Harry sighed, disappointed, and didn't answer. He didn't want to be lectured by Tom like Percy had already done to him. Tom was a prefect, after all, he was certainly stiff just like Ron's brother.

He decided it was best to change the subject and not share anything more with Tom about the chamber of secrets.

It was clearly not a good topic to bring up with him.

“But if you want to investigate so much, at least tell me what you intend to do, so I can help you” Tom's addition, after a few seconds, surprised him quite a bit.

“Help me?” he didn't expect Tom to offer to help him at all.

He was afraid that he would just scold him because he went against the rules.

After all, he looked like a nerd and was a prefect, wasn't he?

“Harry, I'm not here to judge or scold you. I'm here to listen to you if you want to vent, and help you if you need it. But I can't do that if you don't tell me what's bothering you or what you're investigating. I'm your diary,” Tom reminded him, trying to get him to write to him.

It was true that Tom had never judged him, and Harry had started writing to him precisely to vent about those things.

Yet the more they became friends, the more difficult he found it to open up, in some ways.

“I don't like to think of you as a diary, I prefer to see you as a friend,” Harry replied, a little nervous.

Tom took a few seconds to respond.

Although Harry had already written to him that he considered him a friend, and even that time Tom had seemed surprised by the statement, the diary had never reciprocated by saying that he considered Harry a friend in turn.

Who knows, maybe he wasn't used to it, or maybe he didn't feel human enough to be someone's friend? But Harry hoped that sooner or later he would have reciprocated.

“If being your friend means you don't want to bother me with your thoughts or you don't feel safe enough to vent, or you fear my judgment, then I'd rather just be your diary,” he finally replied.

Harry didn't know what to make of those words at all. And he didn't know how to respond.

Somehow he had completely nailed Harry's behavior, which was changing as they got closer.

But at the same time, Tom was acting strangely.

Yet, although he was proving to be different from the affable and precise image he had wanted to convey in those days, Harry wasn't entirely sorry to see that side too.

It made him more… human.

And the more human he was, the more difficult it was to continue to see him simply as a diary in which to vent.

Harry, however, tried to loosen himself a little, because he could understand Tom's irritation at that moment.

I mean, it was normal to get nervous when you were bored being a diary and no one talked to you.

“Okay, I understand. Sorry I haven't written to you for a while. There's no need to take it so badly. However, I don't have much to say. Professor Rüf told us about the chamber of secrets, we found no clues near the bathrooms where the writing appeared, no one else was attacked, and we think that the heir of Slytherin could be Malfoy" he summarized the last few days, informing Tom of discoveries.

“Malfoy?” Tom seemed surprised by the accusation.

"Pureblood, Slytherin, and when he saw the writing he said: ‘You’ll be next, mudb… muggleborns’, but he didn't say muggleborns” Harry explained, shuddering at the thought of the sentence the boy had uttered with a truly disturbing smile.

“Normal pure-blood Slytherin behavior, it seems,” Tom blurted out.

“Were they bad even when you attended Hogwarts?” Harry asked, curious.

If he’d found out that the Slytherins had bullied Tom too, he would have been really angry. It was a bad house!

…a house where the sorting hat had wanted to send him, but Harry tried not to think about it.

“I wouldn't say bad. I don't think Slytherins are all bad, Harry. I told you I don't believe in stereotypes about houses,” Tom was quick to defend them.

But Harry wasn't convinced.

Somehow he felt the need to get as far away from that Hogwarts house as possible, to avoid at all costs anyone associating him with it.

All the suspicious looks were enough without people finding out that he was actually supposed to be a Slytherin.

“Well, surely the heir of Slytherin can't be a Hufflepuff, can he? Always better to be cautious. I've never met a decent Slytherin,” he thought of Malfoy, of Crabbe, Goyle, Snape.

And above all, he thought of Voldemort, the worst Slytherin of all.

Why would the Sorting Hat want to put him in the same house as his parents' murderer, the man who had tried to kill him when he was only a toddler?!

At that moment he deeply hated Slytherins.

It was all the fault of that house, and their founder, that Harry couldn't get even a normal year of school!

“Obviously… and what evidence do you have against Malfoy?” Tom changed the subject, and Harry noticed that his writing seemed thicker and stiffer.

But he didn't pay too much attention to it, because he wasn't a great observer.

“None yet, but we intend to interrogate him as soon as possible and make him confess,” Harry explained, not talking about the polyjuice potion and the plan because he didn't want Tom to find out that they would be breaking the rules.

He certainly wouldn't have approved.

“Good luck with whatever the plan is. I hope you get an excellent confession." Tom, fortunately, did not ask for additional information, even though the writing remained very rigid.

"I hope so too. I want to find the person responsible before they can attack other people." However, Harry only felt encouraged, determined to solve this problem as soon as possible and get through the rest of the school year normally.

“May I ask why a 12-year-old is responsible for investigating a dangerous creature in a secret chamber? Shouldn't it be the responsibility of the teachers or at least the prefects and head guys?” Tom asked, after a few seconds.

He raised excellent points.

But Harry got annoyed.

“I thought you said you wouldn't judge me” That was a very Percy phrase to say, actually.

“I wasn't judging you, it was a question. I worry about you and I don't want you to get hurt,” came Tom's reasonable response.

Harry sighed, considering his words better without immediately becoming defensive.

In fact he should have let others take care of it, but he didn't feel that was the best thing.

He felt that he was the only one who could actually do something.

Maybe because of the voice he heard before finding Mrs. Norris? Maybe it was just a feeling? Or perhaps he believed that if he hadn't found the culprit, no one would have stopped looking at him with suspicion.

“I feel like I have to take care of this, somehow,” he only said, without going into detail.

He didn't want to tell Tom about the mysterious voice. He didn't want Tom to think he was crazy. Even Hermione and Ron had looked at him strangely.

“Can I ask why? You have nothing to do with this.” Tom continued to investigate.

He was strangely insistent.

“But everyone thinks it was me”

Come on, Tom, that's enough of an excuse! Stop that!

“Just because you found the cat? Then why don't they accuse Ron and Hermione too? It doesn't make much sense for them to just accuse you."

Of course they only blamed Harry! Harry was the famous one, always on everyone's lips!

“It's different, Tom. You couldn't understand" he wrote quickly, irritated, hoping that Tom would stop investigating.

He had the right to have secrets!

“Understand what? What aren't you telling me, Harry?"

There were many things he wasn't telling him. That he was famous, that he was the boy who lived, that everyone always stared at him and always considered him for better or for worse, that the year before he had killed a man and the whole school knew it, that the reason why he had found Mrs Norris was because he heard a disturbing voice.

Too many things that he really wanted to confide in a diary.

But not to Tom.

Because Tom was his friend, not his diary.

And every day he seemed to become more and more human.

And, for better or worse, Harry was starting to be more careful about what he said and what he kept hidden.

Because it was true that with his friends he always put some censorship on himself, to appear better, or not to bother them.

They are social norms, after all. We rarely show ourselves to others without masks.

And just as Tom wore a mask, Harry also felt entitled to wear his own from time to time, with him.

"Nothing. And I think it's time for me to go to sleep. I'm tired, and tomorrow is the Quidditch match against Slytherin. I have to be in good shape” he tried to close the topic.

“Yes, of course, I understand. You will absolutely have to defeat all those horrible scoundrels of that irredeemable house!” Tom wished him, and for the first time his writing seemed not only stiff, but also angry. He even left a few ink stains.

Harry would have loved to just close the diary, but he didn't want to end the conversation that way.

It didn't seem right to him.

"Why are you angry with me?!" he asked, exasperated, not understanding this sudden hatred in the slightest.

Just because he didn't tell him everything? But what right did Tom have to know everything about Harry?

"I'm not angry!"

He wrote, clearly angry.

“You look angry!” even Harry had noticed it, he couldn't pretend he wasn't mad at him.

“I'm just… I don't know, Harry. Better if you just go to sleep" Tom, however, didn't want to talk.

Well!

A feeling Harry could understand!

But he wouldn't let him have the last word.

“Anyway, you can't lecture me just because I don't tell you everything about my life. You never tell me anything about yours either, unless I ask you!” he said as the last thing.

Tom didn't answer.

And Harry went to sleep quite upset.

That night he dreamed of something very strange indeed: a dark, damp dungeon made of stone, and a long tail of a giant serpent near his feet.

He also vaguely heard a hissing voice whisper something like: “A human being, master?”

And a voice that sounded like his own replied “Yes, human, after the Quidditch match. It doesn't matter who he is, he just has to be unworthy, and distract attention from that stupid game!”

When Harry woke up on the day of the match, he didn't feel rested at all.

Chapter Text

Yes, it's true that Tom had hoped that Harry wouldn't have written to him for a while, after the uncomfortable questions about the Chamber, but not that he would have practically stopped writing to him altogether!

And, by the way, he wasn't just annoyed that Harry was keeping secrets from him, and was speaking to him less and less.

There were actually many things that were irritating Tom beyond measure, and some of these things even contradicted each other.

First of all, he was obviously annoyed that Harry was keeping secrets from him and ignoring him, because he felt that the connection between the two was starting to become shaky, and, without the connection, Tom risked no longer being able to open the Chamber of Secrets, which was always the main mission.

But it wasn't just because of the Chamber, actually.

Because Tom had now gotten used to talking to Harry every day, sometimes for quite a long time.

He had gotten used to his questions, his curiosity and his comments.

And now that Harry wasn't even carrying him around, preventing him from accessing his eyes and ears, Tom was starting to miss talking to Harry.

He felt not only bored, but abandoned, somehow.

Because he needed Harry.

He depended on Harry.

And perhaps this feeling was the thing he hated most.

He was Lord Voldemort, he did not depend on anything or anyone other than himself.

Yet his whole life at that moment was in Harry's hands.

And he couldn't help it.

Because the connection not only served to open the Chamber of Secrets, but also served to make him feel alive, human, truly existing.

And when Harry didn't pay attention to him, he felt a lot less real.

And he was torn and confused about his feelings. And when Tom was confused and conflicted, he usually ignored those feelings and replaced them with anger, irritation, manipulative and passive-aggressive behavior.

More passive-aggressive than manipulative.

He had tried to be nice to Harry, as always.

But some of his inner venom had come out, without Tom being able to hold it back.

And it was a huge risk to the mission.

Although a side of Tom was almost hoping, very very deep down, that Harry would stop writing to him.

Because it would be proof that Tom was right about him.

In short, if Harry abandoned Tom just because he had once proved himself to be vaguely unpleasant, it would have demonstrated that Tom had been right in controlling him for his own purposes. So much talk about being a good person and a good Gryffindor, and he was going to abandon Tom at the first fight?! Stupid spoiled brat!

But at the same time, the idea of being abandoned by Harry, while infuriating, was also terrifying.

Without Harry, what would have happened to Tom?!

Would the connection be broken? Would Tom return to the void? Without seeing, hearing, and feeling anything?

Now that he had had a taste of life, Tom couldn't go back to being just a diary.

And as you could have seen from the Halloween chapter, when Tom was nervous and felt somewhat conflicted, he made messes and acted on impulse, so he ordered the basilisk to attack someone after the Quidditch match.

He wasn't so angry that he wouldn't let Harry play, but he was irritated enough that he wanted to take the attention away from the game and focus it all on him.

However, unlike Halloween, he had learned his lesson, and had made sure with the basilisk that he was going to kill a human being this time.

Actually, not kill him.

Tom had no hesitations about killing, to be honest, but since the basilisk had disappointed him the previous time by attacking a simple cat, and now he wasn't exactly in a position to designate appropriate victims, he had given orders to the basilisk to hit to petrify, therefore not to look directly at people, but make sure that the victim looked at him through a reflection.

The cat had been petrified, after all, so it would have been clear that it was another victim of the heir of Slytherin, but at least Tom wouldn’t have risked accidentally killing a pureblood or Harry himself (or Ron or Hermione) because his giant snake and killer was completely incompetent.

Obviously he didn't do it out of any remorse, or anything else.

He simply did not want to kill unnecessary victims and not in line with his noble purpose.

And then who knows, even with just petrifying people he could have still scared away all the mudbloods just so they would be safe, and the objective would have been achieved even more easily.

In any case, Tom didn't want to entrust someone's death to the basilisk, he knew very well how incapable he could be, even if he tried hard.

And until he could possess Harry enough to control his giant pet, it was better to just petrify.

For safety.

Yes.

Not for anything else.

…

Tom was feeling decidedly strange.

And alone.

And empty.

And Harry was probably at the game at the moment, and he hadn't even said good morning to Tom.

Nor had he brought the diary with him.

That was fine, amazing even! Hmpf! Harry was useless!

…it wasn’t fine at all.

Ugh, why did Tom have to feel that way?!

Tom shook his metaphorical head that he didn't have, determined not to let Harry control him.

It was a one-way control, and the direction was from Tom to Harry.

So he had to take a deep breath, wait for his return, and try to get him back on his side, calmly apologizing for his inappropriate behavior the night before, and hoping to recover the relationship.

Every word would be fake, a mask to convince Harry to trust him again.

…even if masks didn't work much on that boy.

Oh well, the important thing was to get back to talking to Harry, one way or another.

For the mission.

Unless the game had lasted at least twelve hours, Harry should have been back by now.

It had been a long time since that morning...right?

Tom wasn't sure he could still discern time passing well, but it felt like hours.

And Harry wasn't coming back.

He knew this because when Harry approached, Tom felt the connection, but at the moment it was weak, almost non-existent, and that meant Harry was far away.

It was as if the world was black and white.

Actually, only black.

A huge black and empty void.

Where was Harry?!

Why wasn’t he coming back?

Had something happened at the match?

No, probably not.

Surely Gryffindors had won and Harry was celebrating with a butterbeer or something.

…was he old enough to go to Hogsmeade?

No, no, he was only in his second year and Hogsmeade’s visits started in the third year.

Maybe he was celebrating in the common room, or the great hall, or the courtyard, or anywhere else that kept him away from Tom.

Maybe the basilisk had already attacked.

Oh, maybe he wasn't coming back because the teachers were questioning everyone about Tom's attack.

Ah! So he had succeeded.

…but he didn't want the attack to stop Harry from returning to the bedroom.

The darkness was starting to seem rather enveloping to Tom.

Suffocating.

The thread connecting him to Harry also seemed much thinner than usual.

Almost transparent.

Harry?

…Harry, where are you?

Tom hadn't realized how horrible it was to be a diary until now.

Two days had passed since Harry had last written to him. Two days since the first and probably last fight they'd had, and Tom felt more and more like his consciousness was starting to fade by the second.

As if his body, which he didn't have, was bringing him ever closer to falling asleep against his will.

He could no longer see, he could no longer hear, and he no longer felt the thread that connected him to Harry.

Harry hadn't come closer in those two days, or maybe Tom simply hadn't noticed him.

He wasn't even entirely sure that two days had passed, because it could just as easily have been a month, since he couldn't fathom time passing anymore.

There was only black.

The void.

Nothingness.

Maybe Harry had thrown him away somewhere.

He had decided that the unpleasant personality he had noticed behind Tom's perfect mask during their argument was too horrible to waste any more time on.

Maybe Tom reminded him of Malfoy, maybe now he just hated him.

Tom didn't have many emotions about it, not even anger or sadness.

Because it was as if his emotions were escaping him, all of them, replaced only by an asphyxiating apathy.

Not that Tom wasn't struggling to keep them anchored to him.

He wanted to be angry at Harry.

He wanted to hate mudbloods.

He wanted to be indignant at Dumbledore.

But the truth was that he also wanted to feel that warmth he had felt while talking to Harry.

That sense of tenderness that he had only touched upon, a couple of times, and which he had then buried deep down, but never completely erased.

And now that it was being taken away from him, he missed it.

He missed Harry.

If there was one thing Lord Voldemort hated, it was being dependent on someone or something.

He had created his horcrux precisely for that, to always have himself to count on to never die.

He had never had friends, only followers.

He had been abandoned by every person who had ever been close to him. His own father had abandoned him before Tom was even born.

Only because he had discovered that his mother, his weak mother, who had never even held him, was a witch.

And now Harry was gone too.

And Tom should have just thought it was for the best, because Harry wasn't good enough for him.

Better alone than with terrible company.

Emptiness is better than depending on someone.

Better to be apathetic than to have weaknesses.

But in that moment, while he was losing the awareness of actually existing, trying to cling with all his might to the life that he couldn't consider as such from inside the diary, Tom would have given up everything just to feel the pen write.

He hated being dependent on anyone, but he needed Harry!

He really needed him!

And not just for the mission, but for himself.

He couldn't live without Harry.

He could only survive.

And he prayed, with all his heart, that Harry would return soon, before he was completely lost.

Tom would have apologized, he would have been the perfect diary, he would have never complained again.

But Harry had to come back!

Tom wanted to see and hear again.

He wanted to feel emotions. Any emotion, even the bad ones, which were most of the ones he usually felt.

It was better than the void that was claiming him.

Why had he made himself a Horcrux?!

It had been a terrible idea!

“Tom, you have no idea the disaster that has happened!”

…

Harry?

When those words reached him, written so quickly that it was probable that Harry had run into his room, taken the diary, and written without even giving Tom time to notice his presence with how quickly he had done it, for the diary it was like breathing again after being under water for hours.

Harry was back!

…and wrote to him in such a normal tone?

“Is everything alright, Harry?” Tom asked, very tense.

Their last conversation ended very badly and Harry hadn't written to him for a very long time... probably.

Tom just didn't know what to say, what to do, what to think.

“I don't even know where to start! It was a crazy weekend! There was another attack, and we won at quidditch, but I remained hospitalized in the infirmary and for safety Madam Pomfrey kept me there until now but I immediately rushed to write to you after I was discharged because a lot of time had passed and I was sorry to leave you like this for this long” Harry wrote so quickly that Tom wasn't entirely sure he understood everything he wrote.

Because it didn't make much sense.

Why was Harry writing to him so calmly, as if they had never argued?

And why had he been in the infirmary for so long?

The part about the other attack didn't surprise him, but…

Wait a minute…

“You were attacked?!” he asked, shocked.

Could his basilisk have been stupid enough to attack Harry?!

And Harry was absent because he was petrified and therefore had to wait to be unpetrified before returning to his room?!

Luckily Tom had only said to petrify, otherwise it would have been the end!

Just the thought of Harry being killed by the basilisk was inconceivable to Tom.

He needed Harry.

And he didn't want him to die, just yet.

…and probably in general.

It wasn't necessary to kill him, so it was better if he didn't die!

“No… well, yes, kinda. It's complicated. During the match a bludger came at me and chased me and broke my arm, so I ended up in the infirmary,” Harry explained, and Tom could sense his frustration.

Now that Harry had returned to writing to him, he could sense many things. All the emotions that had been ripped away from him had returned as if they had never left, also making him feel rather pathetic for having wanted them so desperately.

He tried to calm down and think logically.

So Harry hadn't been attacked by the basilisk, which was a relief. And evidently he had been admitted to the infirmary due to a broken arm, but…

“Three days in the infirmary for a broken arm?” he asked, surprised and also a little skeptical.

When he was at Hogwarts, broken arms were healed without even going to the infirmary, all it took was a flick of a wand.

Then the injured person went to the infirmary anyway to be safe, but they stayed there for five minutes at most.

"Yes I know! I wanted to go straight to Madam Pomfrey and heal it in five minutes, but that idiot Lockhart wanted to take care of it and made all the bones in my arm disappear! They grew back in one night but Madame Pomfrey kept me for two days just to be safe, since it was the weekend anyway and I needed to better recover the use of my arm. A torment!” Harry explained, becoming indignant and starting to vent about Lockhart.

“How is it possible that this man is a defense against the dark arts teacher?! He is completely incompetent!” Tom, who as an aspiring teacher of that very subject, was sure that he would have done a much better job than him, and yet Dumbledore hired guys like that!

Bah!

“They say that job is cursed. Lockhart is cursed to me! I hope they fire him soon!” Harry continued to complain, agreeing with him completely.

“So that's why you haven't written to me for a few days…” Tom observed, finally realizing that all his despair, his fear and his certainty that Harry had abandoned him, were completely unfounded.

A relief enveloped him that he didn't think he could physically feel, but it seemed to fill him with warmth.

Thank Salazar Harry didn't hate him!

He had not yet been abandoned.

Tom couldn't let his guard down, but he felt too relieved, at that moment, to be completely lucid.

“Yes, and I'm so sorry! I know I told you I would write more but I just couldn't. I wanted to ask Ron to bring you to me, but you asked me to be discreet and I thought it would be a little better to wait. Have you been well these days?" Harry asked, and it was clear that he was mortified.

Tom wanted to reply in a passive-aggressive tone, something like “I can't be well, I can’t feel things since I'm a diary”, or in an overly polite way “Of course, I'm always at your disposal, you don't have to write to me all the time, Harry, don't worry."

But in the end he answered with the utmost sincerity.

Probably not the right choice, but it came naturally to him. Surely it was the torpor of the previous days that was still a bit on him, despite Harry's return.

He had practically just woken up, he needed to fuel up a bit before he was at his best.

“I was afraid you were angry with me. I missed you, Harry,” he admitted, and as soon as he realized what he had written, he crossed out the sentence so quickly that it was very likely that Harry had not managed to read it all.

Tom hoped so.

He felt pathetic, weak and vulnerable.

But Harry read quickly when he wanted to.

“You know, I missed you too. And I'm sorry for how we left the last conversation, but I'm not mad at you, not at all! In fact, I liked seeing this side of you too, and I understand that you might be annoyed here in this diary. I like seeing you more human, it makes me feel like I’m closer to you” Harry's response left Tom completely speechless.

Closer?

More human?

Why did he feel this heat in his chest? A chest that he didn’t even have, nonetheless.

Tom was feeling… understood?

Not judged?

Accepted?

Harry was very, very strange.

“You're very mature for your age,” he wrote without even thinking, very surprised by Harry's words.

He'd always thought of him as stupid, but maybe he was better than Tom at least at something: emotional intelligence.

He will never admit it even under torture, but it's a fact.

"Thank you! And I also wanted to tell you that you can be more relaxed when you talk to me. After all, just as you don't judge me, know that I don't judge you either. So you can tell me things without any problems, okay? I mean, unless you killed someone, but I find that unlikely, hahaha" Harry tried to be encouraging and friendly, without having the slightest idea that that joke was a bit, how should I say…

I mean, Tom had actually killed someone after all.

Well, at least he knew exactly what not to say to Harry.

"I'll keep this in mind. And you can tell me about all the times you break the rules,” he replied, hoping that the boy would keep him more informed about his investigation about the Chamber of Secrets.

Although Tom still didn't understand why he was investigating, since he was only twelve years old and it wasn't his responsibility to deal with the matter in the slightest.

“Speaking of which, you were good at potions, right?” Harry asked, changing the subject but showing that he was opening up more.

"Yes why? Need help with homework? I'm available to write you an essay if you want” Tom was eager to pick up the paper and parchment again. He missed doing his homework.

He could probably regain the use of his eyes and ears now that Harry was back, but he needed to concentrate, and he couldn't do that while writing to Harry in the diary. At least not easily. So he was going to wait for that conversation to end.

“No, no, but… you know… about the investigation about the chamber of secrets, I told you about it, right?” Harry began to explain.

Oh, finally!

“You didn't go into details” Tom prepared himself for the gossip. It was a shame he didn’t have a pack of Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans to munch on while hearing the news.

He didn't have a mouth to eat them with, but that was another matter.

“Well, we think it's Malfoy, and to interrogate him we decided to make the polyjuice potion. Unfortunately, it won't be ready before Christmas, but it's very urgent given the situation" Harry explained, a little hesitant in writing.

Ohhh, polyjuice potion. Very ambitious as a potion. Tom would help as much as he could if Harry asked, although he honestly doubted that second years would be capable of actually preparing it well, so he was ready to at least prevent Harry from taking the potion in the very likely case it turned out badly made and therefore dangerous. He needed Harry, after all, and he didn't want to risk being separated from him again at all. Never again!

"What situation? You mentioned to me that there was another attack" Tom, however, put the information aside, for now, to focus on more important things.

Was the attack, in fact, successful?

Had someone been petrified?

Was that someone a mudblood?

A human?

How much did he have to fear the basilisk's incompetence?

“Yes, Colin Creevey. Luckily only petrified, but I was very sad when I found out that he was petrified. And Ron told me that everyone is even more convinced that it was me because I got angry when he tried to take a picture of me without the arm bones. But I wasn't mad at him, I was angry at Lockhart!” Harry explained, and you could tell he was genuinely sorry.

Merlin’s undergarments… Harry was truly freaking unlucky! 

It was true that he was indirectly responsible, but Tom had never tried to hit the people close to him, yet the first victim had been the cat of the man who had punished him a few days before, and the second the fanboy with whom Harry had been angry just that day.

What immense bad luck!

“I hope the rumors will stop soon. I'm sure you would never do anything like that, and that people will understand that soon" he tried to reassure him, really hoping that was the case.

He didn't want to attract unwanted attention.

“Especially if we find proof that it was Malfoy! Maybe he's trying to set me up, or he targeted Colin because he took a lot of photos at the game, and Malfoy played very badly. Served him right!" Harry began to vent like he hadn't in a long time.

It was strangely pleasant.

Almost relaxing.

"How was the match?" Tom asked for more information.

That sport wasn’t of any use to his plan, and he hated Quidditch.

But Harry was so enthusiastic that it seemed only right to ask for a few more details.

“It was tiring! The Slytherin brooms were much faster, and the bludger chasing me prevented me from seeing the snitch, and at one point the snitch was right next to Malfoy, but he didn't notice, and luckily in the end I… ” Harry began to recount in great detail the game he had miraculously won, and Tom let him speak, enjoying the words that flowed through him and strengthened a bond that until recently he had thought was dissolved forever.

Tom knew he couldn't let his guard down, and that he had to be cold and calculating, focused on his mission.

Sooner or later Harry would have abandoned him, like everyone else, and he had to find a plan B to never end up in the situation he found himself in those days again.

But for the time being, with Harry looking far from ready to throw him away, Tom allowed himself to relax for a few seconds, and feel the enthusiasm of the boy he had bonded with.

It was too pleasant to abandon immediately.

Harry really made him feel human.

More than he had ever felt, even before he became a Horcrux.

Chapter Text

Things had been going well for Harry lately. Everything was resolved with Tom and they had started talking every day again, as usual, perhaps even with more confidence than before.

The polyjuice potion was brewing without a hitch, and there had been no further attacks. The students were still cautious, though, and they were avoiding Harry like the plague, although his victory at Quidditch had attracted a few fans.

Also, a duelling club had been announced to train students to defend themselves in case of attack, and everyone thought it was a really good idea.

Even Tom, when Harry had announced about the club, had seemed interested and had asked Harry to keep him updated, commenting that at least they would have had a decent defence education, since Lockhart didn't provide it.

“As long as Lockhart isn't the club's teacher” Harry whispered, as he wrote the answer with an amused smile.

“What?” Ron turned to him, lifting his head from his Charms homework.

Harry blushed slightly, surprised at himself for having let what he was writing slip by. He closed the diary before reading Tom's response.

“Nothing, I was thinking that I hope the duelling club isn't taken care of by Lockhart” he commented, putting down the diary to take the books and parchment.

“Why not? In my opinion, he would be an excellent duelling instructor” Hermione joined the conversation, without looking up from her essay.

“Only because you like him, Hermione” Ron complained, rolling his eyes, and making his friend blush.

“Cut it out! Rather, why are we talking about this instead of doing homework?” Hermione was quick to change the subject, pointing out the essays that weren't very close to being completed.

“I don't know, Harry started it” Ron shrugged.

“I was just thinking out loud, don't mind me, I'm a little distracted today” Harry defended himself.

He was pretty distracted, lately, and often found himself with his head in the clouds, and not just because of Tom. His mind wandered to the attacks, to some strange dreams he had recently had, and to the warnings Dobby the house elf had given him in the infirmary before Colin's attack. He had spoken in riddles, as always, but still, he had left an interesting dilemma for Harry when he asked him about Voldemort being involved.

Because Dobby had replied that he-who-could-not-be-named had nothing to do with the situation, but had looked at him with eyes that seemed to say otherwise.

And Harry couldn't even ask Tom for advice because he didn't want him to know about Voldemort and his parents, so he didn't know what to think and how to interpret the strange things Dobby said.

He wanted to trust him as an ally because he seemed sincere, but he was causing more damage than good, between the blocked passage at King’s Cross and the tampered bludger!

“Yes, and he always writes in that diary with the disappearing words” Ron leaned towards Harry and took the diary he had hidden under the books, distracting him from his thoughts.

“I thought you threw it away, it's not very useful” Hermione commented eyeing it.

“Well, it was useful when Malfoy tried to take it and was humiliated” Ron defended it, leafing through it absentmindedly and smiling at the memory.

“It's a great way to vent since no one can read it” Harry explained, a little embarrassed, trying to take the diary back from Ron. Unfortunately, he was intercepted first by Hermione, who looked at him with a raised eyebrow.

“It seems like a good method, but it's not good if you get distracted. We have to submit the essay by tomorrow and it is likely that this topic will be at the exams” Hermione continued, always the usual nerd. Tom was a nerd too, but at least he wasn't so obsessed that he only thought about that! Why couldn't Hermione be a little more like him?!

“Okay, okay, you're right. Give it back to me so I can put it in my bag” Harry raised his hand to get the diary back with an apologetic smile, trying to close the topic quickly and above all get Tom back.

“I’ll keep it until we finish our homework” Hermione started to put the diary in her bag.

“When you do that you look like McGonagall” commented Ron, chuckling, and returning to his essay.

Harry, however, felt a very unpleasant sensation when he saw the diary disappear into Hermione's bag. He knew, consciously, that he would get it back soon, and that nothing bad would have happened if he didn't keep it for a couple of hours.

He had gone three days without writing while in the infirmary, after all, but at least those days he knew the diary was safe in his room and no one could take it.

Now it was in Hermione's hands, and although Harry knew that his friend was reliable, even more than him, he didn't feel comfortable with the idea of ​​leaving Tom in the hands of others.

The diary was his responsibility, and if Hermione started writing anything in it, Tom would have known that Harry had been careless.

Harry had realized that he was very sensitive, and he didn't want him to think that Harry was taking him lightly and giving him away to others. He could have been very upset about it and Harry could have lost his trust.

“Give it back to me now!” he exclaimed, much more aggressively than he intended to sound, standing up and motioning for Hermione to give him back the diary.

Both Hermione and Ron were dumbstruck by such vehemence.

Harry himself was surprised by his own behaviour. He hadn't meant to blurt out, but it was as if something inside him had controlled him for a moment. Panic, perhaps? Maybe something deeper and inexplicable.

“Sorry, Hermione, I swear I'll put it in my bag. Can you give it back to me?” he asked, more kindly, with an apologetic smile, keeping his arm raised but sitting back down on the chair.

“You're strange lately, Harry” Hermione commented, opening the diary and starting to leaf through it.

Harry took it out of her hands forcefully, starting to get annoyed.

“I wonder why, with all the attacks, accusations and homework” he commented, sarcastically, putting the diary in his bag.

“I understand, Harry, but Hermione is right. You're not usually this aggressive” Ron took Hermione's defense, placing a hand on his friend's shoulder to calm him.

“I’m just a little tired. Shouldn't we go back to studying?” Harry tried to change the subject and focus on his essay.

Ron and Hermione gave each other a worried look, but then they both decided to let it go and return their heads to their books. Harry didn't notice, but Hermione had written a note in her homework diary: T. O. Riddle.

And she had every intention of investigating him.

Harry, for his part, hoped that the matter was closed, and made a mental note to act better in the future, so as not to worry his best friends.

His mind drifted back to the duelling club.

He was genuinely curious to see how it would go, and couldn't wait to tell Tom everything.

Tom was pondering what to do, and he was procrastinating, he knew it.

But he had to check Harry carefully and lower suspicion on him before going down to the chamber again. It could have taken years, even.

Art should not be rushed. And, anyway, he had achieved a certain personal balance with Harry, and observed and listened to the world through his eyes and ears with much more ease, although only when Harry held him, so he hadn't seen much, really.

Unfortunately, Harry wasn't carrying him around too much to avoid accidents like Hermione's the other day, so Tom was missing out on the duelling club.

And he didn’t like that.

There hadn't been a duelling club when he was at Hogwarts, although Tom himself had started one with the Knights of Walpurgis. Maybe that club was a bit of his legacy, even if with a decidedly worse name.

He couldn't wait to read Harry write about it.

He was always very interested in duels, so he was genuinely curious and enthusiastic, even if he would never admit it.

He heard Harry come back into the room through their bond that strengthened when they were physically close, and he prepared to be picked up.

He was like a little dog loyally waiting for his master.

…don’t let Tom know of this metaphor, or he might end me.

He felt Harry pick the diary up, open it, the first drop of ink falling onto the page.

And then nothing.

Numerous seconds passed, without Harry writing anything.

Confused, Tom began to look with his eyes, fearing he was with someone, but the dormitory seemed empty.

And I say 'seemed' because his vision was blurry.

Had Harry taken off his glasses? He was wearing glasses, right?

It seemed that way to Tom from the type of vision. The room was completely silent, except for Harry's slightly laboured breathing.

What was happening? What was he waiting for?

Tom felt a few more drops of ink wet him and went back to focusing on being a diary.

Perhaps during the duels they had cast a spell on him that prevented him from writing? Tom didn't know any, he had to find out. They could be useful against possible spies.

More drops of ink began to fall.

And Tom finally realized that it wasn't ink, but water.

Wait a minute… water?

Blurred vision…

Heavy breath…

Was Harry perhaps... crying?

Tom didn't know much about crying except in theory. Crying usually annoyed him and made him feel uncomfortable, as he considered it loud, unnecessary, and a form of weakness. He didn't want Harry to cry. He didn't know how to behave!

“Everything okay, Harry? What happened?" he inquired sincerely concerned.

Had there been another attack? Maybe Hermione had been hit? But why did the monster always attack people close to Harry?!

…wait a minute, that wasn't possible.

Tom had given no order to attack, and the basilisk was not the type to act alone.

For a moment he had forgotten that he was the heir of Slytherin. He had pretended to be a friendly and caring prefect for so long, with Harry, he had almost started to believe his perfect lie.

Anyway, why was Harry crying if Hermione wasn't dead?

Didn't people usually cry over really sad things?

"Tom..." Harry wrote, much messier than usual, as if his hand was shaking.

“Tell me what happened! Was there another attack?” Tom knew perfectly well that it wasn't possible, but it was better to pretend to deflect suspicion.

And make sure that the basilisk hadn't actually gone rogue and started attacking on its own.

“No, don't worry, it's okay, Tom. Nothing happened,” Harry reassured him quickly.

Tsk and who cared?! Certainly not Tom!

“Then why are you crying?” he taunted, leaving the spots of water that continued to fall on him, to prove to Harry that his analysis was correct and that he was crying.

“I'm not…” Harry tried to object, Tom brought back the tears he had left until then, and Harry stopped writing.

He remained silent for a few seconds, and for a moment Tom feared he had gone too far and that Harry would just close the diary.

Not very mature, but plausible. If anyone had accused him of crying, Tom would have used crucio.

Because Tom didn’t cry!

He didn't think he had ever cried in his life, not even as a child.

So you couldn't accuse him of doing something so weak!

Harry, however, was clearly crying.

He should have hidden it better if he didn't want Tom to confront him about it.

After a few seconds, Harry wrote as if nothing had happened.

“Guess who was in charge of the Dueling Club” he began to talk about the afternoon's event, and did a pretty good job of distracting his journal.

“Lockhart,” Tom replied immediately, hoping he was wrong.

“Yeah, supported by Snape. It was chaos!” Harry replied, confirming Tom's fears.

Of course such an important job was entrusted to the most incompetent of professors.

Natural!

Dumbledore's fault for not hiring better people!

Always Dumbledore's fault!

“I understand why you were crying, then,” Tom teased Harry, not letting himself be completely distracted. He wanted Harry to tell him everything, and he couldn't stand not knowing something about him. Maybe he was starting to get a little obsessed, but who could blame him?

Harry had become his whole world!

“I wasn't crying about that!” he complained, offended.

“So you admit you were crying!” Tom faced him, victorious, happy that Harry had succumbed to the oldest trick in the world.

Maybe he was overdoing it, but Harry clearly needed to vent.

And if he didn't do it with him who was his secret diary, who was he gonna vent to, Hermione?!

“I don't judge you, you know. If you need to talk, I'm here" he then encouraged him to confide, comforting.

Harry left a few ink stains before convincing himself to tell him everything.

Tom expected he would complain about Malfoy, or Lockhart, or Snape. Maybe people who kept accusing him of something he had actually done but for which he was not responsible. Maybe he had argued with Ron and Hermione.

The last thing he expected was what Harry wrote to him, which left him completely stunned.

“What do you know about parselmouths?” the boy actually asked.

Why such a question? Had people discovered the basilisk? Had Harry gotten information about him? Did he no longer trust Tom just because he was capable of talking to snakes? It's not like there were many parselmouths around, so why on earth was Harry questioning him about it?

Tom decided to be vague, as he always did with Harry when he wasn't sure how to answer him without saying too much.

“I know that wizards with this ability are very rare, like metamorphmagus or natural legilimens. Why do you ask?" nerd response, it was the best.

“Do you think parselmouths are evil? Genetically, I mean,” Harry asked, and a few more tears wet the pages.

Was he seriously judging Tom just because he was a parselmouth and therefore evil regardless?! Tom didn't believe Harry was so superficial!

Well, he could believe it a little, since he hated all Slytherins for no apparent reason, but he was friends with a mudblood, he didn't have high standards, so he couldn't afford to judge!

“Why should talking to snakes be a symbol of evil? People are too sensitive! So are metamorphmagus bad because they can transform into anyone and trick people or act in the shadows? And I personally think that natural legilimens have the evilest potential, as they read everyone's minds indiscriminately. But we shouldn't generalize there either, and in any case, snakes are noble creatures capable of great affection!” he wrote in one breath, irritated by the discrimination.

It was true that he was the first to discriminate, and was proud of being evil and parselmouth, but it was only the product of his time, which he had to adapt to avoid being discriminated against and isolated himself!

And he evidently had a lot of pent-up anger about this topic.

Strange, he usually didn't get this pent-up. But the thought of Harry judging him negatively just because he was a parselmouth particularly irritated him.

He hadn't chosen to be one.

(And muggle-borns don't choose to be muggle-borns, Tom).

“Thanks, Tom,” Harry wrote, distracting the diary from his thoughts and confusing him quite a bit.

Why was Harry thanking him? Because Tom had reassured him? But there was no point in thanking him. Harry should have apologized for doubting him. Hmpf!

"For what?" he asked anyway, letting Harry explain himself.

“For not judging me,” Harry explained, without explaining absolutely anything.

Judge? But what in Merlin’s name was he talking about?!

“What should I judge you for, sorry?” he insisted, increasingly confused.

“Because I talk to snakes,” Harry wrote, with a hint of uncertainty in his writing.

…

…

…What?

Excuse me?

How did Harry talk to snakes?

And why on earth would Tom judge him, since he was a parselmouth too!

Unless… oh!

So Harry didn't know anything about Tom, but he had asked because he, Harry, was a parselmouth, and he was afraid that Tom would think Harry was evil for it.

And that's because surely everyone else believed Harry was evil because of it. Maybe even Ron and Hermione.

Evidently he had just discovered it, perhaps at the duelling club.

So it was possible that it was a skill he had acquired and couldn't control well.

But above all... Harry Potter was a parselmouth.

Tom had never met another parselmouth besides himself.

And he was really torn about how to feel.

Because on one hand he had to be unique and inimitable. He was special and perfect and no one could be like him.

And being the only Parselmouth speaker at Hogwarts had always been a source of great pride and satisfaction for him. Proof that he was truly as special as he wanted to be.

And now this twelve-year-old boy came along and stole the show like this? Showing off such an important and rare ability without even being completely sure to have it or how to control it?! It was an insult!

While on the other hand... Tom had always wanted to speak in Parseltongue with another parselmouth like him. He didn't need friends because he didn't suffer from loneliness, but sharing things was a human and innate need. And Tom, after all, was human, no matter how hard he tried to hide that humanity.

He had always been alone, since birth.

He was born alone, grew up alone, and until he wrote that diary, he had always remained alone. Because he had never found anyone like him.

No one who would meet his high standards.

He was special, after all. He needed someone special by his side.

But what if there was someone as special as him? Someone who could be even slightly close to his level, with whom he could share everything, even world domination… it was not a completely bad prospect, if such a person was Harry.

If Harry was the one stealing the show with his special ability… Tom could accept it.

In fact, you could tell he was quite happy about it.

The person who had found him, the person with whom Tom had formed a strong bond, was also special, like Tom.

It was as if it were destiny that had brought them together, fifty years apart.

Unless Harry could speak Parseltongue precisely because of his bond with Tom... it was possible, in fact, and it would explain why Harry hadn't discovered it before.

Tom had to investigate.

“How did you find out?” he asked, trying to recap the facts.

“We were having duels in pairs, and Snape put me with Malfoy, who plays dirty! We just had to disarm each other, but he used other spells. I defended myself, however, and eventually he let out a snake, which headed for Justin, a Hufflepuff boy in my year who I met in Herbology. So I told the snake to stay still and not attack him, and the snake listened to me” Harry began to recap, adding various details as Harry often did when he needed to vent.

Tom listened to him carefully.

"It seemed like a nice thing to do, but everyone looked at me really badly, and after Snape made the snake disappear..."

Tom felt sorry for the poor defenseless creature.

“…Ron and Hermione dragged me away and told me I was speaking another language, Parseltongue, and that I was a parselmouth, but I didn't even realize it. For me I was speaking normal,” Harry said, and his handwriting became shakier as he summarized the facts.

A single tear fell onto the diary, and Tom sensed that Harry had tried to wipe it away as quickly as possible, probably in the hope that Tom wouldn't notice it.

He made no comment about it.

He was too busy analyzing the situation.

So, Harry had spoken Parseltongue, it was obvious, there were plenty of witnesses.

But Tom had always clearly felt the change from English to Parseltongue, they were two completely different languages. The fact that it was natural didn't change that he knew when he spoke one way or another. It was strange that Harry didn't feel the difference.

“And was this the first time you talked to a snake?” Tom then asked, curious. Maybe he really had passed the ability on to Harry.

It would have been really interesting, even in that circumstance.

“No, actually it happened to me even before I discovered I was a wizard. I was at the zoo with my cousin, aunt and uncle, and I accidentally released a boa constrictor that had never seen Brazil. He was kind,” Harry said, and his writing was becoming calmer.

Okay, that confirmed that he had been a Parselmouth before he met Tom, but that raised more questions.

What did he meant with 'before I discovered I was a wizard’?

Tom had long realized that Harry always avoided talking about his family, but he had said that his parents were both wizards. How was it possible that they hadn't told him as soon as he was born that he was a wizard? Were they, like, such big fans of muggles that they raised their son as one? It was strange even for Potters.

“Before you found out you were a wizard?” he asked, inquiring about it.

Harry's response was so quick that Tom felt as if he were being showered with ink.

“Before I went to Hogwarts! I meant that! I put it weirdly. However, it was the only time” he awkwardly tried to close the topic and not dwell on his slip.

Tom was speechless.

Had Harry just deliberately lied to him?

Tom was used to Harry keeping things from him, but this was the first time Harry had lied to him.

And it was clear that he was lying from what he wrote.

Tom sensed these things well, because he had become a master at avoiding such blunders.

Harry wasn't usually a great liar, so this statement hit Tom more than he would have expected.

He wanted to investigate and get angry. He was already angry, because how dare Harry lie to him like that?! And why, also? He had no reason to want to lie to Tom!

Maybe he had lied to him all along that he was half-blood when in reality he was muggle-born and ashamed of his blood status? But he was friends with a mudblood! And he was a Potter. The Potters were a famous pureblood family!

And even then, why lie to Tom, who said he grew up among muggles himself?!

Why lie to someone who didn't have a body, someone who had lived fifty years ago? Why hide and lie to a friend like Tom? The perfect friend to confide those very things to?!

Tom couldn't come up with an answer, but he took a deep metaphorical breath, trying to calm himself.

The last time he had argued with Harry for keeping things from him, he hadn't seen him for days and had attacked a boy. It was worth avoiding if he didn't want to repeat the event.

No, Tom had to tighten the bond, and push Harry to tell him everything over time.

He was a patient boy... when he didn't lose his cool.

And he was doing everything he could to prevent his cool from being lost at the moment.

He needed Harry too much to be mad at him.

So he decided to embrace the change of subject.

“For what it's worth, Harry, I don't see anything wrong with it. I think you have a really special and interesting skill that you could use to do good,” he encouraged, his words almost entirely truthful. It was a wonderful skill.

…maybe he could reveal to Harry that he too was a parselmouth.

It would definitely unite them.

Maybe he could give him a tip and…

“But everyone is convinced that I am the heir of Slytherin because Slytherin was a parselmouth, and since there are no others, the only parselmouth is definitely his relative… do you think I could really be one, Tom?” Harry expressed further doubts about the situation, and Tom held his tongue.

Saying he was a parselmouth was too risky in that circumstance.

Maybe in the future, when their bond would be even tighter.

Be patient, Tom, be patient. Patience is the fuel for good results.

He focused on Harry.

“You know you're not the one attacking people, so soon everyone else will notice too,” he reassured him, comfortingly.

“What if I did it without realizing it? At the Halloween party my mind was a little confused and I don't remember everything I did, especially when I went to the bathroom, I did things very mechanically. What if I was being controlled by something of Slytherin?” Harry supposed, worried.

…but what in Morgana’s name…?!

How had Harry figured this out?!

HARRY WAS STUPID!

…although Tom was realizing more and more that Harry wasn't just stupid, in reality.

He was optimistic and not very perceptive, so he didn't get to things straight away, but he was capable of some leaps, especially in understanding people.

And that made him more dangerous than Tom had thought.

He definitely should have been much more careful!

(And that wasn't an excuse to procrastinate further, no no, what makes you think that?)

“But after the Quidditch match you were in the infirmary, you have an iron alibi!” Tom tried to suggest.

“But I was half asleep and there was no one with me!” Harry insisted.

“Harry, you're not responsible, I'm sure of it” Tom was adamant.

He couldn't let Harry find out.

Things were suddenly getting too dangerous!

And the worst thing was that it wasn't even because he was a parselmouth that Harry was responsible! And he had unleashed the basilisk before the match, not after! So he was also making a mistake in the analysis even though he arrived at the right conclusion.

What kind of witchcraft was that?!

"Why do you think that?" Harry asked, with a hint of uncertainty but also clearly seeking reassurance.

Tom really didn't have much to say to him.

…because he had to convince him that he wasn't?

It was the only real reason.

Because objectively it was true that Harry was partly to blame, even if not responsible.

“Because you are a valiant Gryffindor! You have nothing to do with Slytherins,” he tried to throw out a random excuse. After all, a true heir of Slytherin would find himself in Slytherin house, right? It was unassailable logic. And, in fact, using Harry was a great alibi especially because he was a Gryffindor. It was strange that no one else saw it the same way. Bah! Strange!

“But the sorting hat wanted to send me to Slytherin, and I said no!” Harry objected, his writing tinged with panic.

…Oh.

Wow…

This was unexpected.

Very unexpected.

So Harry was more connected to Slytherin than he wanted.

Wait a minute... was he actually an heir of Slytherin too?

It would have explained many things: the close bond between the two, the parseltongue, why everyone suspected him...

Tom, however, quickly put the thought aside. He had done his research, and Slytherin's only relatives were the Gaunts. He was the only descendant of the Gaunt family, other than his old and isolated uncle, and Tom doubted that such a guy would have anything to do with the Potters.

So unless Harry was a descendant of Tom himself, which was not only unlikely, but completely impossible, given that he would never, ever have offsprings, the very thought disgusted and annihilated him, there was no way that he was also an heir of Slytherin.

It was logic… and hope.

And sensation.

Although it was true that he felt connected to Harry, but by something other than blood.

It was more about magic.

Tom decided not to think about it.

He had to find a way to convince Harry that he wasn't responsible for anything before he went and blurted out all his doubts to Dumbledore.

“Harry, I've never read about any genetic magic that makes you evil. There are spells from other people that can control you, but it doesn't come from you or ghosts or ancestors, so trust me when I tell you that you are not responsible for what is happening. You could never hurt someone, I know that. I trust you" he said, heartfelt, trying to sound convincing, and barely tightening the invisible thread that connected them.

Harry was silent for a few seconds, but then he seemed pretty convinced.

Tom felt a vague sense of relief and hope.

And then came the words.

“Thanks, Tom. You really are a friend” the writing was still uncertain, but he wasn't very panicked anymore.

If Tom had a body, he would have breathed a sigh of relief.

“What are Ron and Hermione saying?” he then asked, investigating how much his other friends knew.

And hoping, deep down, that they knew less than Tom about the situation because it would have meant that he was Harry’s bestest friend.

“They’re on my side, but I'm a little scared” Harry didn't have many words, and Tom decided not to insist.

Part of him was happy that at least Harry wasn't alone going through this.

A very buried part of him, but which was starting to take hold more and more, without him fully realizing it.

“Come on, the polyjuice potion will be ready soon, and you might find evidence against Malfoy,” Tom suggested encouragingly.

They probably wouldn't find even half a piece of evidence against Malfoy, but at least until Christmas Tom could be at peace. And also he highly doubted that a twelve-year-old would be able to finish the polyjuice potion in an exemplary way, so surely the plan would fail before it even started, they would look for new ones, and in the meantime Tom would develop a winning strategy for his mission.

“Hopefully… I would love to find any evidence whatsoever, actually… I'd better go to sleep now, I'm really tired” Harry ended the conversation, and Tom understood why, as it was getting late.

“Goodnight, Harry, and if you need anything you know that I'm always here for you” Tom said goodbye, always making himself available also to obtain more information for the evil plan that he would implement, sooner or later.

“I know, Tom. Goodnight, love you,” Harry wrote as the last thing, before closing the diary and going to bed.

…

The words were like a stab in the chest that Tom didn't have.

And they did far more harm than he thought was possible for half a soul in a diary.

Love you?

No one had ever said anything like that to Tom.

He had received a few declarations of love from various girls fascinated by him, but never a simple but sincere “Love you" said by someone who really knew him.

And it seemed to take his breath away and pierce his stomach.

How could such positive words hurt so much?

The answer is that it wasn't the affection that hurt him.

But the guilt.

An increasingly large crack was forming in the young Lord Voldemort's thick armour of indifference.

A crack that seriously threatened to make it collapse.