Chapter Text
Harry Potter wasn't having what he would call a great day. Hermione was still in hospital after the misadventure with the Polyjuice over break. They still had no idea who the bloody Heir of Slytherin was. (Rumours that it was Harry still abounded, of course.) And on top of all that, Snape had given out enough homework he felt he would be lucky to finish it before he took his bloody OWLs. But on the whole, it was a day very much like any other recently, right up until, while he and Ron were making their way back up to Gryffindor after visiting Hermione in the Hospital Wing— An angry outburst from the floor above reached their ears.
"That's Filch," Harry muttered, as they hurried up the stairs. They paused, out of sight, listening hard.
"You don't think someone else's been attacked?" said Ron tensely.
They stood still, their heads inclined towards Filch's voice, which sounded quite hysterical. "...even more work for me! Mopping all night, like I haven't got enough to do! No, this is the final straw, I'm going to Dumbledore..."
His footsteps receded and they heard a distant door slam.
They poked their heads around the corner.
Filch had clearly been manning his usual lookout post: they were once again on the spot where Mrs Norris had been attacked. They saw at a glance what Filch had been shouting about. A great flood of water stretched over half the corridor, and it looked as though it was still seeping from under the door of Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. Now Filch had stopped shouting, they could hear Myrtle's wails echoing off the bathroom walls.
"Now what's up with her?" said Ron.
"Let's go and see," said Harry, and holding their robes over their ankles they stepped through the great wash of water to the door bearing its "Out of Order" sign, ignored it as always, and entered.
Moaning Myrtle was crying, if possible, louder and harder than ever before. She seemed to be hiding down her usual toilet. It was dark in the bathroom, because the candles had been extinguished in the great rush of water that had left both walls and floor soaking wet.
"What's up, Myrtle?" said Harry.
"Who's that?" glugged Myrtle miserably. "Come to throw something else at me?"
Harry waded across to her cubicle and said, "Why would I throw something at you?"
"Don't ask me," Myrtle shouted, emerging with a wave of yet more water, which splashed onto the already sopping floor. "Here I am, minding my own business, and someone thinks it's funny to throw a book at me..."
"But it can't hurt you if someone throws something at you," said Harry, reasonably.
Internally, Harry winced. That wasn't reasonable, he thought at the Voice. I'm not an idiot, I can see she's upset! I wouldn't say that!
The Voice, as always, ignored him, and his mouth kept saying words he knew were stupid, even as he said them. "I mean, it'd just go right through you, wouldn't it?"
He had said the wrong thing. (No shite?) Myrtle puffed herself up and shrieked, "Let's all throw books at Myrtle, because she can't feel it! Ten points if you can get it through her stomach! Fifty points if it goes through her head! Well, ha ha ha! What a lovely game, I don't think!"
"Who threw it at you, anyway?" asked Harry.
"I don't know... I was just sitting in the U-bend, thinking about death, and it fell right through the top of my head," said Myrtle, glaring at them. "It's over there, it got washed out."
Harry and Ron looked under the sink, where Myrtle was pointing.
A small, thin book lay there. It had a shabby black cover and was as wet as everything else in the bathroom.
Harry stepped forward to pick it up, but Ron suddenly flung out an arm to hold him back.
"What?" said Harry.
"Are you mad?" said Ron. "It could be dangerous."
"Dangerous?" said Harry, laughing. "Come off it, how could it be dangerous?"
"You'd be surprised," said Ron, who was looking apprehensively at the book. "Some of the books the Ministry's confiscated — Dad's told me — there was one that burned your eyes out. And everyone who read Sonnets of a Sorcerer spoke in limericks for the rest of their lives. And some old witch in Bath had a book that you could never stop reading! You just had to wander around with your nose in it, trying to do everything one-handed. And—"
"All right, I've got the point," said Harry, which was a shame, because he’d like to hear more about cursed books. That sounded much cooler than the soggy little book right here in front of them, which didn’t seem cursed at all.
The little book lay on the floor, nondescript and soggy. (Thank you, Captain Obvious.)
"Well, we won't find out unless we look at it," he said, and he ducked ‘round Ron and picked it off the floor.
Harry saw at once that it was a diary, and the faded year on the cover told him it was fifty years old. He opened it eagerly. On the first page he could just make out the name "T. M. Riddle" in smudged ink.
"Hang on," said Ron, who had approached cautiously and was looking over Harry's shoulder. "I know that name... T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago."
"How on earth d’you know that?" said Harry in amazement.
"Because Filch made me polish his shield about fifty times in detention," said Ron resentfully. "That was the one I burped slugs all over. If you'd wiped slime off a name for an hour, you'd remember it, too."
Harry peeled the wet pages apart. They were completely blank. There wasn't the faintest trace of writing on any of them, not even "Auntie Mabel's birthday", or 'dentist, half past three".
"He never wrote in it," said Harry, disappointed.
"I wonder why someone wanted to flush it away?" said Ron curiously.
Harry turned to the back cover of the book and saw the printed name of a newsagent's in Vauxhall Road, London.
"He must've been muggleborn," said Harry thoughtfully, "to have bought a diary from Vauxhall Road..."
"Well, it's not much use to you," said Ron. He dropped his voice. "Fifty points if you can get it through Myrtle's nose."
Harry, however, pocketed it.
*
Hermione left the hospital wing, de-whiskered, tail-less and fur-free, at the beginning of February. On her first evening back in Gryffindor Tower, Harry showed her T. M. Riddle's diary and told her the story of how they had found it.
"Oooh, it might have hidden powers," said Hermione enthusiastically, taking the diary and looking at it closely.
"If it has, it's hiding them very well," said Ron. "Maybe it's shy. I don't know why you don't chuck it, Harry."
"I wish I knew why someone did try to chuck it," said Harry. "I wouldn't mind knowing how Riddle got an award for special services to Hogwarts, either."
"Could've been anything," said Ron. "Maybe he got thirty O.W.Ls or saved a teacher from the giant squid. Maybe he murdered Myrtle, that would've done everyone a favour..."
But Harry could tell from the arrested look on Hermione's face that she was thinking what he was thinking.
"What?" said Ron, looking from one to the other.
"Well, the Chamber of Secrets was opened fifty years ago, wasn't it?" he said. "That's what Malfoy said."
"Yeah..." said Ron slowly.
"And this diary is fifty years old," said Hermione, tapping it excitedly.
"So?"
"Oh, Ron, wake up," snapped Hermione. "We know the person who opened the Chamber last time was expelled fifty years ago. We know T. M. Riddle got an award for special services to the school fifty years ago. Well, what if Riddle got his special award for catching the heir of Slytherin? His diary would probably tell us everything: where the Chamber is, and how to open it, and what sort of creature lives in it. The person who's behind the attacks this time wouldn't want that lying around, would they?"
"That's a brilliant theory, Hermione," said Ron, "with just one tiny little flaw. There's nothing written in his diary."
But Hermione was pulling her wand out of her bag.
"It might be invisible ink!" she whispered.
She tapped the diary three times and said, "Aparecium!"
Nothing happened. Undaunted, Hermione shoved her hand back into her bag and pulled out what appeared to be a bright red eraser.
"It's a Revealer, I got it in Diagon Alley," she said.
She rubbed hard on January the first.
Nothing happened.
"I'm telling you, there's nothing to find in there," said Ron. "Riddle just got a diary for Christmas and couldn't be bothered filling it in."
*
Harry couldn't explain, even to himself, why he didn't just throw Riddle's diary away. The fact was that even though he knew the diary was blank, he kept absent-mindedly picking it up and turning the pages, as though it was a story he wanted to finish. And while Harry was sure he had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, it still seemed to mean something to him, almost as though Riddle was a friend he'd had when he was very small, and half-forgotten. But this was absurd. He'd never had friends before Hogwarts, Dudley had made sure of that.
It was also absurd because Harry didn't feel like T.M. Riddle meant something to him. The Voice had just made that up. On a whim (a very annoyed whim), he flipped it open to the first of January and scribbled a sentence:
Why the hell would the Voice think that I know who the bloody hell you are, Riddle?
The ink glistened in the light of the setting sun, its last few rays sneaking through Harry's dorm window. Then it vanished, not like a spell, but slowly, just sinking into the page until it was gone. (What the hell?)
Harry quickly flipped the page over, then fanned through the rest of the book for good measure, but there was no ink to be seen anywhere, just that old, faded, T.M. Riddle on the end-paper. When he flipped back to the front, though, there was a response:
____Voice? I don't know why you would know me. Who are you?
Well. That was something, finally. (He couldn't believe it had taken all these weeks to finally think of writing something in the book himself. Sometimes he really was an idiot.)
Harry Potter. So, you're a book that writes back? Why would someone try to flush you down a toilet?
____I'm something like a memory, preserved in this book in the hopes that someone might eventually find me and help me create a new body, like a message in a bottle flung not into the ocean but the future. Perhaps the wizard who created me lived longer than we expected, and you've heard my name in passing.
Harry was fairly certain that wasn't what the Voice had meant. Ron had, after all, identified the name immediately.
____I expect the girl who was writing to me was upset by the idea and decided that it would be best to destroy me rather than helping me. Children raised in Magical Britain can be awfully superstitious about such things.
That Harry could easily believe, given Ron's reaction to the idea of picking up the book in the first place.
____Is it still 1993?
____What did you mean by “the Voice"?
Yes, it's 1993. I only found you a few weeks ago. The Voice is(—
Harry hesitated. He'd never really told anyone about the Voice before. He'd always been afraid it would sound mad. But he'd already mentioned the Voice, and he was still annoyed at it. Ranting about it to a stranger who was in fact a book and therefore couldn't walk off and tell anyone he liked that Harry Potter was insane, sounded pretty nice, actually.
—)in my head, (he continued,) but it's not mine. It sort of says what's going on around me and sometimes forces me to do things, and I think it makes me sort of go on autopilot when nothing really exciting or memorable is happening, and then describes what happened, like "Harry kept absent-mindedly picking up the diary and turning the pages. He was sure he had never heard the name T. M. Riddle before, but it still seemed to mean something to him, as if Riddle was an old friend he'd half-forgotten." Except I don't feel like it should mean something, and it's always annoying when the Voice says I feel something and I don't, and if I'm annoyed, I'm paying attention, and if I'm paying attention, I can do things like write to you instead of just being on autopilot.
Why did you think you weren't going to live very long? And why would that girl be afraid to help you?
She clearly hadn't had enough of a problem with the book to give it over to a professor...
____I was raised in a muggle orphanage in London. I'm guessing by your question that you were raised with muggles, too. Do they still talk about the Germans bombing us in the Second Great War?
You lived in London during the Blitz?
____They call it the Blitz? The Jerrys didn't win, did they?
No, the Allies won. Germany surrendered in 1945. I don't know why they call it the Blitz and not just London Getting Flattened or something.
____Well, "the Blitz" is snappier, I'll give it that. I asked Headmaster Dippett if I could stay at Hogwarts for the summer of 1942. He said no. I thought there was a very good chance I would die before the end of the War.
Oh. I guess that makes sense. But then, why wouldn't that girl have wanted to help you? I mean, I don't know where I'd start if I were you, but you had to have a plan when you made this diary, right?
____Little witches and wizards are told not to trust anything if they can't see where it keeps its brain in much the same way muggle kids are warned off talking to strangers. It might be a possessed object that will try to possess them or something.
____Technically I am a possessed object, but if you want to get right down to it, so are you. You're just possessing a meat puppet instead of a book.
Harry had never thought of living in quite those terms before, but he couldn't argue with it.
So you're like a ghost or something?
____A spirit. A ghost is an impression made on the local magic when a mage dies, usually suddenly or thinking about unfinished business they felt they needed to address before they moved on.
____Spirits are mundane consciousnesses that don't have bodies. Then you have aspects of magic, which are different facets of Magic's consciousness; shades, which are usually Death pretending to be a specific dead person, portraying them as they were at a certain point in time based on their strongest and most defining memories; and wraiths, which are demonic spirits — they don't belong on this plane, either because they somehow got here from Elsewhere or because they were originally mortal, mundane beings and they should be dead but they're somehow clinging to this plane rather than crossing the Veil.
I feel like I should be taking notes, they don't teach us anything like this in lessons.
____Well, they wouldn't, would they? Necromancy is a Greater Dark Art, and anything to do with spirits is Necromancy.
(Necromancy? Okay, now Harry was starting to get why that girl might have wanted to flush the book. He wasn't sure he wanted to mess around with Necromancy...)
____Even if it's completely harmless, like knowing the difference between a ghost and a spirit. Are you at Hogwarts? They might teach you some stuff about the Dark Arts when you get to NEWT lessons. How old are you?
12. 2nd year.
____I was 16 when I made this diary. End of 5th year. Pretty much all the good magic I ever learned was self-study. But I heard Hogwarts actually started covering neat stuff in Defence and Divs at NEWT level.
____But tell me more about this Voice. Because honestly, that sounds a bit concerning. You said it forces you to do things you don't want to do. What kind of things?
Well, like last year— This is going to take some explaining, so please don't take the words until I'm done so I can make sure I get everything.
____Sure.
Okay. So, the biggest one so far, like I thought was actually going to get me killed, is last year, one of our teachers was possessed by an undead dark lord who I kind of may have been involved with him getting blown up when I was a baby. I'm sure I didn't have anything to do with it. My mum must have done something, or maybe it was the Voice just deciding that I would miraculously survive. Whatever.
Anyway, I guess this guy Voldermore would be a wraith now, since he should be dead but he's not, right?
____Yes. And I believe it's spelled "Voldemort".
Was he already around in your time? Jesus, he must be ancient. Anyway, he's a wraith and he was possessing my Defence professor and killing unicorns and trying to steal the Philosopher's Stone.
____Nikolas Flamel's stone? Why would that have been at Hogwarts?
Yeah, and you have no idea how much I wish I'd met you a year ago, we spent months trying to figure out who Flamel was. I guess he gave it to Dumbledore to protect it, which is weird, because Dumbledore's a lunatic — though I guess he could also be a victim of the Voice and not even know it. I didn't realise until it started making me “think" things I never would, like I "know" I should feel bad about Mrs. Figg tripping over one of her seventy billion cats and breaking a leg and the only reason I didn't was because I wouldn't have to go over to hers when honestly I wouldn't feel bad if I heard she died. I hate her, she always tries to make me eat extra cabbage and look at pictures of dead cats — well, she wasn't as bad the last time I saw her, but still — and it's her own fault for having so many cats. And I guess I don't feel bad because I don't have to see her, but even if I never had to see her again, I still wouldn't feel bad. It's usually just little things like that normally, the Voice, or making me say something aloud that I only meant to think, like barely noticeable, it could just be me being dumb. But it's definitely not.
Last year it made me do this crazy dive to catch a rememberall in my very first flying class before we were even allowed to be in the air, and somehow I ended up on the quidditch team instead of being expelled, and it made me fight a troll to save some girl I didn't even know — we're friends now, but she was just an annoying know-it-all before Hallowe’en — and made me not tell anyone about Hagrid's dragon, even the healer after Ron got bit or after we had a plan to get rid of it. I'm sure he wouldn't have gotten in too much trouble since he was already giving it up, and Prof. Sprout or maybe that old wizard who teaches Care of Magical Creatures could have just let Charlie’s friends pick up Norbert out on the grounds instead of at midnight on the top of the bloody astronomy tower or something, and then someone who could have done something about it would probably have realised that he told some stranger how to get past Fluffy (cerberus) way earlier, but no, that would be too easy and we wouldn't have been caught out of bounds and made to go out into the Forest with Hagrid to find whatever was hunting unicorns for detention. It was awful. I almost died. If a centaur hadn't saved me, V. would have gotten me that night, I'm sure of it.
But the worst was at the end of the year when we figured out that Snape was after the Stone and Dumbledore was out of the Castle and he knew how to get past Fluffy. I wanted to go tell Prof. McGonagall or Flitwick, but it made me tell Ron and Hermione that they wouldn't believe us and we had to go after him ourselves, even though what the hell were we supposed to do to protect the Stone anyway, we were all just firsties, I knew he could knock us all out with one hex. He could probably kill us all with one curse if he wanted to.
And then it turned out that it wasn't Snape at all, it was Quirrell, possessed by V., and he probably wouldn't have gotten to the Stone if I hadn't gone after him because it was stuck in a magic mirror and the only way to get it out was to want it but not want to use it, and "I" just "wanted" to keep it away from him. (According to the Voice — I really wanted it to stay in the mirror since he obviously couldn't get it out, but it doesn't matter what I really want.)
This year it's just been things like saying yes to going to a Death Day party on Hallowe’en when I didn't want to go to a party at all, I just wanted to be alone for a while and maybe light a candle for my parents or something — they died on Hallowe’en — and then hearing a voice that wasn't THE Voice (the second voice is more hissy and seems to be talking to itself, inside the walls or something) and being in the wrong place at the wrong time and getting accused of petrifying a cat, and agreeing to Hermione's stupid polyjuice plan. I mean, it turns out Malfoy is dumb enough he'd probably just tell Crabbe and Goyle if he was the Heir of Slytherin or if he knew who it was, but it was still a stupid plan because he goes around spouting off about mudbloods and "you're next" and he's not smart enough to do something like that trying to trick people into thinking it couldn't possibly be him like it's too obvious, and I don't think whoever it is would've told him or asked him for help, either, and he's definitely too stupid to figure it out if we can't.
____What happened at the end of last year, with the Stone?
Oh, Quirrelmort figured out I had it somehow and tried to take it from me, but his hands burned when he touched me — no idea why, something to do with my scar, I think? It gave me an awful headache, but didn't hurt me, hurt me — so I shoved my hands in his face so he'd be distracted and couldn't just curse me, and after I passed out, I think V. abandoned Quirrell's body and escaped. He didn't get the Stone though. I think Quirrell must have been hurt too badly to get him out. Dumbledore said he — D. — destroyed it, and now the Flamels are going to die, but it's okay because they wanted it this way. Moving on to the next great adventure or whatever.
____...I realise this is a rather invasive thing to ask on first meeting someone, but would you be willing to share some related memories with me?
Why? And how?
____Because that's bloody weird and I'll be able to make a better guess as to what's going on here if I know what it feels like when you're forced to do these things. And you don't need to do anything, just be willing to let me into your mind. I'll do the rest.
You mean you have some idea what this is? Do you know how to fix it or make it stop or whatever?
____There are a couple of possibilities but as I said, I need to know what it feels like to narrow it down. Whether I know how to fix it depends on what it is.
Yeah, alright. Go ahead and do it, then. Whatever it is.