Chapter 194: Young Tom: I Want to See Harry Potter!
Defence Against the Dark Arts Office
Lockhart scratched away at the battered diary with his peacock-feather quill:
Is it really time to go after the students so soon? Shouldn't we wait a bit longer? The risk still feels too high.
As the ink faded from the page, Lockhart waited, anxiety tightening his chest.
He did not know why, but lately Tom's replies had been coming more and more slowly. It often took several minutes before fresh writing appeared. Even the words Lockhart himself wrote were vanishing at a slower pace. Before, they had disappeared almost the moment he finished writing.
"Don't tell me something's gone wrong with Tom," Lockhart muttered to himself, unsettled. "He said he's only a memory…"
He could not bear to lose such a marvellous magical object. He could not bear to lose a "friend" who understood him and helped him. And he certainly could not bear to lose the honour and fame he could almost taste.
Inside the Diary
In a room that was practically a copy of the Headmaster's office, Young Tom lounged back in a chair, looking nothing like the frail, fading existence Lockhart feared.
"Lockhart," Tom mused, smacking his tongue in faint disgust. "His magic is pathetic. About the level of an average wizard fresh out of school. Honestly, some of the better students are stronger."
He gave a soft laugh. "But he does have one advantage. He's easy to lead. His desire is loud and obvious. That makes him convenient."
After a moment's thought, Tom picked up his quill and wrote in a pristine diary:
Your kindness moves me. But didn't you say it yourself? A student called Leonardo can provide mandrake juice. The antidote for petrification will be brewed, and the students will only be in bed for a few days.
But if we don't speed things up, if the incident isn't dangerous enough, not shocking enough, then how will you become a hero, my friend? How will you create the sort of headline you deserve?
Opportunities vanish in an instant.
Tom wrote the sickeningly sweet words while planning his next steps.
A student who could produce mandrake juice was an inconvenience, admittedly, but not a serious one. It did not change the broader plan.
Even if he had the basilisk petrify that student, Leonardo, it would accomplish nothing. The mandrake juice had already been turned into the basis of an antidote.
Besides, this was not the time to begin slaughter.
Tom needed to accumulate strength first, until this sliver of soul could rebuild a body.
And when that day came, then the storm of blood would begin.
There was Dumbledore to drive out, for one thing, and then there was another person.
The moment Tom's mind caught on that name, anger and unwillingness stained his soul.
"Harry Potter!"
"What a joke. How could I possibly be defeated by a baby?"
"No, that wasn't me. That was 'me' decades later. Ah!"
"What in the world is the 'me' of decades later doing?!"
Over this stretch of conversations, Tom had learned a great deal of what had happened in the years since. Lockhart had been all too happy to gossip about major events, especially anything dramatic enough to sound like the plot of a bestselling memoir.
Naturally, that included the chaos stirred up by "You-Know-Who".
At first, Lockhart had not even dared to write the name Voldemort in the diary. After Tom's careful prompting and steady guidance, Lockhart had finally admitted the truth: the mysterious Dark Lord was Voldemort, and Voldemort was, in fact, Tom's future self.
Tom had always assumed that his future self would reshape the world and rise to the peak, wielding magic so powerful it would crush hope itself.
And yet what was the result?
Voldemort had been defeated by a baby.
It was absurd.
Tom had asked again and again, refusing to believe it, until Lockhart had confirmed the story everyone knew: that Harry Potter, still an infant, had defeated the Dark Lord Voldemort.
In that moment, Tom had felt his soul fragment tremble, as though it might splinter into even smaller pieces.
He was furious. Decades of study and exploration. Mastery of magic. Pushing the Dark Arts further than anyone before him.
And he still lost to a baby?
And the whole world knew it?
"What is my future self doing?" Tom snarled. "Did he misplace his brain?"
He forced his emotions down, yet it still felt wrong, like he was insulting himself and insulting someone else at the same time.
Tom had decided on one thing, though. Once he regained a body, he would see Harry Potter with his own eyes. He would find out what, exactly, was so special about the Boy Who Lived.
A baby defeating the Dark Lord?
Even if he were Merlin reborn, it should not be possible.
Outside the Diary
When Tom's reply appeared, Lockhart exhaled in relief. Thank Merlin. Tom had not gone silent.
But the moment he read Tom's persuasive words, Lockhart's brow creased again.
After a long while, he wrote:
I'll think carefully about it, my friend. But are you all right lately? You don't seem yourself. Is there anything I can do to help?
He was so wound up that he did not notice the ink fade a little faster this time than it had before.
Inside the diary, Tom leaned back in the Headmaster's chair, and a strange smile tugged at the indistinct edges of his face.
"Hooked."
Slowly, carefully, Tom wrote:
My friend, you know I am only a memory. I will eventually fade away. I'm grateful to have met you… I once read in a book that things rich in life, such as dragon blood, might ease the symptoms…
Beside Hagrid's Pumpkin Patch
"Ho ho, I really have to thank you, Leonardo," Hagrid said, hauling enormous pumpkins out of the patch and stacking them beyond the fence for Halloween in a few days' time. "If you hadn't helped, I don' think we'd have enough big ones this year."
"No trouble," Leonardo replied, using magic to guide another heavy pumpkin into place. "But there should be a usual number, shouldn't there? What happened this year? New pests? Have you run out of the insect repellent I gave you?"
Hagrid waved a hand, a grumbling voice emerging from behind his thick beard.
"Plenty left of your potion. It ain' pests. It's Lockhart, your Defence Against the Dark Arts professor. He came over a few days ago, all out of nowhere, sayin' he knew how to make pumpkins bigger. Waved his wand about for ages, then the charm he cast shrank a whole patch of 'em!"
Hagrid's fists were, in truth, about the size of cauldrons, but Leonardo still thought a pumpkin that big was not exactly tiny. Compared to magical Halloween pumpkins, though, it would look ridiculous.
Hagrid, as if he had been waiting for the chance to complain, kept going.
"Earlier, he tried tellin' me how to stop grindylows gettin' into the well. Like I don' know that. Then he started on about drivin' off werewolves, beatin' banshees, that sort o' thing."
Hagrid snorted. "Last time he came by, he started talkin' about dragons and chimaeras and other dangerous beasts. Only everything he said was wrong, every last bit. Then he asked where you'd get a lot of blood from creatures like that. Like he thinks the Forbidden Forest's full of 'em."
After all that, Hagrid let out a heavy sigh.
"Hard enough findin' a Defence professor these days. Everyone says the post's cursed, don' want it. Dumbledore can tell there's somethin' off about Lockhart, but he might've been the only one willing to take the job this year."
At the mention of Lockhart asking about large quantities of powerful creatures' blood, Leonardo understood at once.
That would be Tom's need. Draining life from a person was slow. Supplementing it with massive amounts of magical creatures' blood would speed things up considerably.
With Lockhart's means, he would not even need to risk anything reckless. A bestselling author could simply buy what he needed through proper channels.
The Great Hall
The Halloween decorations returned, as they did every year.
Pumpkins, bats, ghosts, the whole familiar spectacle.
And the little bats were the same as last year, Transfigured from sweets and snacks. Catch one, and you earned yourself a piece of candy.
Dumbledore had conjured them personally again. He had said Leonardo's idea from the last Halloween had been excellent, so they would keep it.
Mixed in among them were some magical sweets Leonardo had made himself. Their effects were, naturally, random, adding a little more surprise and laughter to the night.
All along the way, students tried to catch the snack-bats with their hands or with spells, squealing when one slipped through their fingers.
Leonardo had no need to chase them. He had an entire bag of sweets tucked in his arms, all from Honeydukes in Hogsmeade.
Hogsmeade was the all-wizard village near Hogwarts. Only third-years and above were allowed to visit, and only with a signed permission form from a parent or guardian, on designated Saturdays.
Leonardo had not bought the sweets himself, though he could have used a secret passage or simply had Aurelius carry him there.
The bag had been a gift.
From Filch.
Filch had shoved it into Leonardo's hands earlier, awkward and stammering, thanking him for saving Mrs Norris. He had admitted he did not know what Leonardo liked, so he had gone to Honeydukes and bought a bit of everything.
Providing mandrake juice had been effortless for Leonardo, but it had saved Filch's beloved cat.
Leonardo had not wasted the man's sincerity. He had accepted the bag, which contained Bertie Bott's Every Flavour Beans, Fizzing Whizzbees, Ice Mice, Jelly Slugs, and more besides.
With a Sugar Quill between his lips, Leonardo was just about to sit at the Ravenclaw table when a voice called out.
"Leonardo! Come here, quick! We've found a new clue!"
Harry appeared out of nowhere and pulled Leonardo towards the Gryffindor table.
"Here," Leonardo said, grabbing a handful of sweets and dropping them into Harry's hands. "Have some. Happy Halloween."
"Thanks. Happy Halloween, Leonardo," Harry said, grinning.
Leonardo sat down with them and handed sweets to Hermione and Ron as well, trading quick Halloween wishes.
Hermione immediately launched into analysis, brisk and organised.
"About the attack on Mrs Norris, the writing mentioned the Heir and the Chamber, but it also mentioned a 'monster'. If we can work out what the monster is, and how it's moving through the castle and attacking people, that's another direction to investigate…"
Leonardo listened, mildly impressed by the pace.
Was it because they did not have a single suspect yet, not a single target to fixate on, so they had widened their thinking and decided to begin with the creature instead?
In the original path, sneaking into the Slytherin common room with Polyjuice Potion only ruled out Malfoy, and it revealed the Chamber had been opened fifty years ago.
As for the monster's identity, in that same original path Harry and Ron had gone into the Forbidden Forest to ask Aragog, only to come away without a clear answer. Hermione, meanwhile, had learned the truth earlier, from a library book: it was a basilisk.
That was not actually difficult to uncover.
Then a shout rang out, cutting through the feast.
"Someone's been petrified!"
"I think you lot should know!"
It was Halloween again.
The same kind of cry.
Another crisis.
No professor had arrived to control the chaos yet. Some students chose to huddle in the Great Hall. Others, braver or more reckless, demanded the location and ran for it at once.
"Don't panic, don't run, I'm a prefect, listen to me, do as I say!"
The voice tried to steady the sea of bodies, like a rock in the surf.
Then, in an instant, it vanished beneath the wave.
The crowd swallowed the prefect whole.
Leonardo was already moving. From the moment he heard the shout, he knew it. This was the point in time when there would be a victim. Things really were off the rails now. The more changes he introduced, the less he could rely on any familiar outline of events.
Harry, Hermione, and Ron followed close behind.
They reached the scene quickly.
There was writing on the wall again, smeared in red:
"The first…"
Only two words, yet it still sent a chill through the corridor.
Leonardo looked at the victim.
A pretty girl with long, curling hair, frozen mid-step.
He recognised her at once.
Penelope Clearwater, an older Ravenclaw student.
Leonardo pushed forward through the crowd and drew his wand, examining her rigid body.
Petrification, without question.
At this stage, Tom still meant to petrify rather than kill. If he started murdering students, panic would turn into hysteria. The school might even be closed, the students sent home. That would ruin both Tom's plan and Lockhart's.
Leonardo studied Penelope's face. Her skin was pale, her eyes wide, as though she had seen something horrifying.
One of her hands was raised, as if she had been holding something near her face.
Leonardo's gaze swept the floor nearby.
A small round mirror lay there, cracked all over.
So she had looked into the mirror at the wrong moment and seen the basilisk's eyes only by reflection.
Around them, whispers began to spread.
"'The first'? Last time it was only a cat. Is it really students now?"
"Am I next?"
"Are you Muggle-born?"
"Well, no. I'm pure-blood…"
"Does anyone know her?"
"I think that's Penelope, the Ravenclaw girl…"
Fear crept through the crowd all the same. Petrification was terrifying. A monster roaming the castle was terrifying.
But the last victim had been a cat, and not even a popular one. Plenty of students disliked Mrs Norris.
This time it was a person. A student just like them.
Someone who had been in class earlier that day, alive and ordinary, now turned into something rigid and wrong. The pale skin, the staring eyes.
A thin, dark grey cat padded past, yellow eyes like lamps as it glanced at the gathered students before strolling on.
"Er, Mrs Norris?"
"She's recovered already?"
"That's right, Leonardo had that huge jar of mandrake juice, didn't he? The antidote was brewed in just a few days!"
"So Penelope will wake up soon, then?"
"Still, petrification's horrible. What if…"
"Stop whining. I'm going to get myself a bottle of the antidote to carry around. If I get petrified, one of you girls can pour it down my throat. If it's one of you lot, forget it."
Someone else, far too cheerful, said, "You know, if you get petrified and then saved, you don't have to go to class or do homework for days…"
A few people stared.
Then the corridor filled with a strange kind of silence, the sort that comes right before fear turns into something sharper.