Leon thought some magical mishap had fried Peeves' brain.
He quickly yanked Peeves out of the Basilisk's body.
"Duang~"
Peeves, that little menace, was surprisingly bouncy, like a blob of jelly.
Then Leon was hit with a barrage of insults, thick as a swarm of owls.
"You rotten, puss-oozing, toe-rotting little git! Lock me up again, and I'll %￥#&^+@[BEEP][BEEP][BEEP]…"
Well, guess he's not broken after all.
Leon promptly stuffed Peeves back into the Basilisk's body.
He was worried about damaging that massive snake carcass.
Once back inside, Peeves-the-Basilisk turned into a drooling "Aba Aba" simpleton again.
Interesting.
Leon figured it was probably the Basilisk's physiology—its tiny brain capacity limiting things.
Even a sharp mind like Peeves' got dumbed down in there, not much smarter than the original Basilisk soul.
When Leon had devoured the Basilisk's soul, he'd noticed something.
Its memories were basic.
Unlike with Voldemort, where it took ages to sift through a lifetime of flashbacks, the Basilisk's centuries-long life boiled down to three things: eat, sleep, kill.
Its entire memory was a measly few hundred kilobytes, no compression needed.
With Leon's brainpower, he absorbed it in a flash.
And just like that, Leon learned how to hunt.
His rat-catching skills? Maxed out instantly.
He'd thought consuming the Basilisk's soul would only boost his magical power, but watching Peeves transform into Peeves-the-Basilisk sparked an idea.
Time to test it on something alive.
Leon went and caught a rat.
And, gotta say, the Basilisk's Skill #1 was pretty handy.
Wearing gloves, he pinched the rat by the back of its neck.
He focused, channeling the Basilisk's state when it used its ability, staring straight into the rat's tiny eyes.
He tried directing his magic to his eyes, transforming it into a spell and casting it outward.
[Petrify]
The rat kept thrashing its little legs, struggling like mad.
Again!
[Petrify]
"Squeak! Squeak squeak…"
…
Leon lost count of how many tries it took, but he finally made progress.
He managed to petrify the rat for two seconds.
Two seconds later, the rat snapped out of its stone-like state, freaking out, squealing, and thrashing even harder.
Leon quickly jotted it down:
[Experiment Log #123: Stone Man]September 5, 1992. Subject: Small rat. Petrified for 2 seconds.
Leon was over the moon, like a balloon pumped full of helium, soaring skyward.
Sure, he could only petrify small creatures for two seconds so far, but as he digested the Basilisk's soul more and got better at controlling his magic, his [Petrify] skill would only get stronger.
This was basically a watered-down version of the Basilisk's "death stare."
The Basilisk's eyes were built for that ultimate "glare and kill" move—a passive ability that was always on.
Talk about a natural-born monster.
An instant-death skill as a default passive? That's just unfair.
Petrification, though, was the discounted version of the death stare.
Instant death required direct, unobstructed eye contact.
If something blocked the gaze or it was reflected, the effect weakened to petrification.
Leon thought the instant-death skill was insanely powerful but not super practical. No need to obsess over it.
Mastering petrification, though? That could be a game-changer.
If he could level it up to its peak, it'd be a killer trump card.
And if he somehow managed to crack the instant-death skill? Even better—his ultimate, hidden ace.
But if he couldn't, no big deal.
After all, only the Basilisk's massive eyeballs were built for that move.
Leon wasn't about to gouge out his own eyes and swap them for snake ones just to become a walking death machine.
…
With a new trump card in his pocket, Leon felt a bit safer.
It was already the wee hours, but he was buzzing with energy.
Today's luck seemed off the charts.
He had a Charms class at 10 a.m., so he decided to ride the high and stay up, tinkering with the diary.
The diary held 16-year-old Voldemort, aka Tom Riddle.
Leon figured that, as a Horcrux fragment, this piece of Riddle hadn't had contact with the outside world in ages.
He planned to exploit that information gap for an unprecedented experiment.
Leon summoned Tom Riddle's diary from his ring.
He instructed Kreacher to keep a close eye on him during the experiment.
Every fifteen minutes, Kreacher was to check in with Leon.
If Leon didn't respond, Kreacher was to immediately toss the diary into a jar of Basilisk venom Leon had prepared and seal it tight.
This was to prevent the Horcrux from taking control.
Everything set, Leon opened the diary.
Before he could even pour ink on the page, words started appearing on their own:
"Hello, Hogwarts junior. I'm Tom Marvolo Riddle."
At the same time, Leon felt a sneaky magical presence probing from the diary, aiming straight for his mind.
He'd already activated Occlumency and crafted a fake identity.
Grabbing a quill, he wrote:
"Hello, Tom, my senior! I'm Draco Malfoy."
The ink faded, then reappeared:
"Malfoy? What's your relation to Abraxas Malfoy?"
"He's my grandfather! You knew my grandpa?"
"Knew of him, not closely. He was Head Boy when I started at Hogwarts, so we didn't cross paths much. He probably doesn't even remember me. But it's no surprise—the Malfoys are a big name in the wizarding world. A bit of pride comes with the territory."
Tch, young Voldemort sure knew how to sweet-talk.
Leon shook his head, playing up the role of a smug, pure-blood-obsessed brat.
"Haha, the Malfoys are an old pure-blood family. It'd be weird if we weren't proud. You made this fancy magical diary, so you must be pure-blood too, right, Tom? Only, I've never heard of any Riddles among Britain's pure-bloods."
Riddle's reply was slick:
"The Malfoys are all Slytherins, and guess what? I'm a Slytherin too."
Leon wasn't buying it.
"So, what, you're foreign? Or a half-blood? Or maybe long dead? I know every pure-blood wizard in Britain, and you're not one of them. Wait… are you a Mudblood?"
This time, Riddle's handwriting wobbled slightly.
"I carry the noble blood of Salazar Slytherin himself!"
Leon smirked and kept poking:
"Pfft! Who'd believe that nonsense? Claiming some ancient bigshot as your ancestor—convenient, since no one can verify it. I could say I've got Merlin's blood! My dad says wizards who brag like that are always Mudbloods."
Riddle's words stayed polite, but the ink pressed harder at the ends.
"I have proof. I'm a Parselmouth. That's a rare gift, exclusive to Slytherin's heirs."
Leon grinned wickedly, pushing further:
"Oh, Parselmouth, huh? Big deal! You probably just heard the term somewhere and thought it sounded cool. If you're such a hotshot, say something in Parseltongue! Go on, say it! Don't just hide in there!"
Heh, too bad for Riddle—he's just a diary. No matter how hard he tries, all he can do is make the pages go flip-flap. Parseltongue's a spoken language, not written. Good luck "saying" anything!
Riddle went silent for a long while, probably regretting picking a diary for his Horcrux. A enchanted radio would've been way better.
But he wasn't ready to give up this rare chance to connect with the outside world.
Using some of his dwindling magic, he decided to reel this brat in first.
Once he'd drained "little Malfoy's" soul, well, hmph.
A new line appeared on the page:
"I can't speak it for you, but I can show you."
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