The Room of Requirement was extremely mysterious. At the very least, none of the four Marauders who had created the Marauder's Map knew about it.
Which meant the Room of Requirement did not appear on the Marauder's Map, and naturally, neither did anyone inside it.
Leonard looked at the bare wall and put away the Marauder's Map, wondering whether he should leave now or stay and see what the new Defense Against the Dark Arts professor was doing in the Room of Requirement.
Then black lines suddenly appeared on the wall in front of him, sketching out the shape of a door.
The person inside was coming out.
Leonard cast a powerful Disillusionment Charm on himself and simply stood where he was, waiting for Harris Raymons to come out.
The door opened, and Harris Raymons stepped out. Through his body, Leonard caught sight of piles of clutter stacked inside.
It was the Room of Requirement's storage space.
The door slowly shut, and the black traces gradually faded, hiding the existence of the Room of Requirement once more.
Harris Raymons glanced back at the empty wall, then at the object in his hand, a trace of wariness flashing through his eyes.
Leonard frowned slightly, his gaze naturally dropping to Harris Raymons's hand.
Harris Raymons was wearing dragon-hide gloves and holding a ring-shaped object wrapped in dragon hide. Judging from his reaction, he clearly attached great importance to it.
Leonard observed carefully. Through a gap where the dragon hide had not been wrapped tightly enough, he could see a glint of silver.
The Ravenclaw Diadem. Voldemort's Horcrux.
Leonard took a slight step back and watched Harris Raymons leave with the Ravenclaw Diadem, a thoughtful look in his eyes.
What did he want with the Ravenclaw Diadem? And how had he learned it was hidden in the Room of Requirement? The Raven organization's intelligence network?
After thinking it over without reaching any answer, Leonard shrugged.
If he wanted to take it, then let him take it. Leonard was not particularly interested in the Ravenclaw Diadem right now.
He had no plans to kill Voldemort, so there was no need to collect his Horcruxes. Otherwise, he would have found the Ravenclaw Diadem and taken it away last year.
What Leonard wanted now was simply to dig the secrets of the Chamber of Secrets out of Tom Riddle's diary, then go in and kill the Basilisk for materials.
Watching Harris Raymons's name move down the stairs on the map all the way back to the Defense Against the Dark Arts professor's quarters, Leonard finally put away the Marauder's Map and activated the Room of Requirement again.
As the door reopened, a quiet room appeared. Leonard stepped inside and pulled out the diary from his robes, wrapped tightly in dragon hide.
Like Harris Raymons, Leonard's attitude toward Horcruxes was perfectly clear.
Be careful. Very careful.
No matter what, Leonard was not going to touch the diary with his bare hands. He did not have Harry Potter's protagonist halo, and he had no desire to be sucked dry by the piece of Tom Riddle's soul inside the diary.
Leonard carefully put on his dragon-hide gloves, made sure there was not the slightest gap in them, then slowly unwrapped the dragon hide to reveal the diary inside.
The diary, made of some unknown material with a black cover, lay there quietly, looking completely unremarkable.
Leonard opened it. The yellowed pages were completely blank. Every sheet had a thick, solid feel to it, so distinct that Leonard could sense the quality of each page even through his gloves.
Every single page was parchment attuned to dark magic.
Of all the Horcruxes, Tom Riddle's diary was probably the most unique, because it was an object Voldemort had made himself.
The others, whether the Gaunt family ring, Slytherin's locket, Hufflepuff's cup, or the Ravenclaw Diadem, were all treasures passed down through wizarding history.
As for the unusual Horcrux Harry Potter and the special Horcrux Nagini, those both belonged to a different category of special Horcruxes.
That alone showed Voldemort's ambition. He had placed himself on the same level as the founders of Hogwarts and believed he could surpass them. That was why, after creating the diary Horcrux, he went on to seek out the founders' relics to make more.
Compared with the other Horcruxes, the most distinctive thing about Tom Riddle's diary was that it contained an independently conscious soul entity.
That soul entity belonged to the young Tom Riddle. It had the ability to devour other people's souls to strengthen itself and could even bring itself back to life.
That was why Leonard was being especially cautious with it.
Looking at the blank diary, Leonard casually took out a fountain pen and began writing on the page.
"Hello."
The ink spread across the parchment, then quickly vanished.
But no reply from Tom Riddle appeared in the diary. It lay there quietly, as though it were just an ordinary blank notebook.
Leonard stared at the diary for a moment and thought it over, then roughly understood what was going on.
The diary had the ability to gradually awaken by devouring the soul power of its holder and then bewitch that holder.
The prerequisite for that was direct contact and consuming a portion of someone's soul power.
Otherwise, how could a diary that had been left alone for decades possibly have the energy to communicate with the outside world?
To put it bluntly, the diary had been sitting too long without power and needed to be charged.
But the source of that power did not necessarily have to be a human soul. Any living creature with a soul would do.
Cats, dogs, mice, cockroaches. Any of them would work.
But where was Leonard supposed to find something to power the diary at a time like this?
...
Leonard rubbed his chin and quickly came up with an idea.
Then he took out the Philosopher's Stone.
Leonard had never stopped researching the Philosopher's Stone. He wanted very much to understand the principles behind its existence and uncover its other uses.
As his research went deeper, Leonard discovered that the solidified magic contained in the Philosopher's Stone was practically a universal substance. By using that solidified magic, Leonard could create objects out of thin air and could even produce blank souls without consciousness.
It sounded a little frightening, but in truth it was just a spiritual body. In some magical texts, the Philosopher's Stone was also called the Sage's Stone, the physical manifestation of spirit.
So releasing a little of the Philosopher's Stone's power to create a spiritual body out of thin air did not seem like much at all.
A red light flickered from the Philosopher's Stone, and a translucent milky-white soul body appeared in front of Leonard. Under his control, it drifted onto the diary.
In an instant, the translucent soul body was slurped into the diary like a strand of noodles. It looked so smooth that Leonard almost felt hungry watching it.
As the soul body was fed into it, the plain-looking diary suddenly underwent a subtle change. Its color became more vivid, and it gave off a faintly seductive aura that made people want to touch it and pick it up.
Leonard showed a disdainful smile, then suddenly closed the diary and wrapped it back up in dragon hide.
It was obvious at a glance that this thing was not honest, so he might as well leave it alone for a while and let it go hungry a bit, just so it could better understand its current situation.