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Chapter 81- Riddle Me This!
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Feeling the paper cut on my cheek, I quickly bend down and start to search the knocked-out student. I don't care about possible booby traps or curses anymore since there is something much more worrying on my mind that could really set shit off the deep end and send everything into chaos. My hands ruffle through the student's robes, searching within for anything but finding nothing. I check the pockets and the nooks and crannies but find nothing, but I am unwilling to leave it at that.
I start to pull off the boy's clothing, piece by piece, making sure there is nothing on him, and indeed, there isn't. In the end, I am left standing there in the middle of an empty hallway with a naked fifth-year Slytherin boy unconscious on the floor. Angry and frustrated, I levitate the boy into the air along with his clothes and wands and then storm to a nearby broom closet and open it before blasting the boy in along with his possessions, leaving him in a mess on the floor before slamming the door shit. I could give a fuck about the little brat; right now, I have much bigger concerns than this naked student waking up naked in a broom closet with no recollection of how he got there.
I'm stressing out, and that will help no one. First things first, deal with the immediate problems. Looking around at all the mess we made in the fight, I waved my wand to fix it all. "Reparo." And with that, debris and items begin to float through the air, fixing themselves as they return to whence they came. The transfiguration reversed as they returned to their original state, and everything in the hallway went neatly back into its place like nothing ever happened. A spick and span hallway, with no evidence that anything had ever happened. That's one thing dealt with, now very all the other crap.
Releasing a sigh as I drag my hand through my blonde curls, I wave my wand and conjure a chair for me to sit down on and have a rest and a breather as I sort out my thoughts. Okay, let's review what we know so far. I was tracing the diary using the soul link between the Horcruxs, tracking the diary by using the Diadem, and through following that link, I found this student who was clearly under the control of Tom Riddle. A battle ensued and I captured him, after which I started the process of searching his body for the diary in a cautious way.
However, before I could get very far with it, a paper shouted out of his robes and shot off around the corner before I could react, too quick for me to get more than a bar glimpse at it. And then I searched the student, and he had nothing on him, even though he was being possessed fully by Riddle. This leads me to only one conclusion. The page was what was controlling him. I am no investigator or expert on paper, and I'm definitely no Sherlock Holmes who can identify every little thing about the paper, but I do know one thing. The page was about the size of a diary. A diary page.
Somehow, Riddle was able to take a page out of his diary and control it. He put it on a student and controlled them fully through it. And that doesn't make sense at all because in the original story, it took Riddle pretty much the entire year to drain Ginny of her life so he could get a body, and he was nearly finished with the process before Harry stopped him. So, it doesn't make sense that he has enough power to do this. To take a page out of his diary and send it off, controlling it to even fly throughout Hogwarts and then possess a student through it. And the imp[lications alone...
How many pages does his diary have? Fifty? A hundred? Two hundred? Could he control all of them? At the same time? How did he even manage to accumulate enough power to do this? Why hasn't he already used that power to make his body when he definitely has more than enough to do so? There are so many questions and no answers at all. And I don't even have proper confirmation on any of this. I am pretty sure, but I have to be one hundred percent sure.
Suppose I am correct and he is controlling more than one student without their knowledge. In that case, it stands to reason that if I were to cast the spell again, then it would lock onto the closest stable connection. Perhaps even the page that just fled from me, and if it went crying back off to Mama, then there is a chance I can track it back to the original diary and take it. Calling the cage over to me, I go to cast the spell but then stop, thinking things over once more.
If Riddle is indeed controlling countless students throughout Hogwarts, then the only possible way to track them down and identify who is being controlled is through the Diadem and my spell. If I were to lose this cage or if Riddle were to take it, then there would be nothing I could do to track him or his pages down again. Now isn't the time to charge in all foolhardy. It is the time to be extra cautious and prepared. Taking the cage, I apply a tracking charm to it so I can keep track of it, and then I apply a disillusionment charm to it so no one can see it.
With this, I can keep track of it, but no one else can, and no one else will know about it. Now I am ready to try the spell again, and I do, and again, another trail appears before me, leading off into the Hogwarts corridors. Either this is the fleeing page, or it is another page entirely, which means it is a different student being controlled. I need confirmation so I can figure out what I am going to do next and make a game plan to take Riddle down properly. And maybe reevaluate my position and how to deal with Riddle, and whether I should get some help from others, because the situation has changed drastically.
I cast the spell, and it locks onto a stable connection. Which means it is locked onto another Horcrux connection entirely or the same thing that was just on this boy. Maybe I am just blowing things out of proportion, and Riddle just found a way to make his diary really flat and capable of flight, and that was what shot past me. It's nice to dream, but I am sure the truth is much more complicated than all of that. It is like Shroedinger's cate or whatever. At the end of this line is either the diary, which I had mistaken for a singular page, or it is a different page. I won't know until I find it... Or it is both until I do. I don't know how the bloody cat works; I just need to follow the trail to see what's in the box.
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I continue to follow the trail with a more hurried gait than the first time I did this tonight, and that is because I only have so many hours at night, and there is a chance that Riddle is fleeing. Sure, I can track him down anywhere with the spell and the Diadem, but if he goes somewhere I can not possibly get to, like a secret room that you need to be a Parseltongue to get into, I am pretty fucked as I won't be able to get to him. Not without Harry, and I am not sure whether or not I would be willing to breach that again after what happened last time.
I went a bit crazy as I could finally be truthful without consequences and to someone who was so intricately involved with everything, and was pretty much the centre of the universe. I revealed everything, assured that my Obliviaion would make sure there would be no problems, and of that I am still sure, but I still shouldn't have spoken so freely. That was the last time I would ever do that, and I'd rather not have to involve Harry in anything so soon. I still want to deal with this on my own if possible. It is a personal challenge I have set myself and will try my utmost to complete.
The trail leads off again through the halls of Hogwarts, though not in the direction that the page had disappeared, which makes that one possibility look more likely. More walking through the castle, ignoring the animated things and deflecting the interest of the portraits while also manoeuvring around all the obstacles Hogwarts puts in my way. But in the end, I finally made it. I encounter another student, and thankfully, this time, they don't pot me before I spot them, and that makes all of this a lot easier. I am so glad that the trail led me to them from behind and that I could get the drop on them.
I can't even see any clues to their identity since all I can see is the back of their black robes, and they have their hood up, but they are pretty short, so I assume it to be a female student. I hypothesise that perhaps the page was able to escape earlier because the student was technically still awake but just immobilised, and that allowed the paper to escape, so this time, I go straight for the ending blow. "Stupefy." And with that, a ball of red magic shoots out faster than my opponent can react and strikes them in the back, knocking them out. I wave my wand and gently lower them to the ground on their back before stalking towards them, my wand still at the ready in case of any unexpected surprises.
An unexpected surprise turns out to be the identity of my opponent; instead of an older Slytherin student lying on the ground like I expected, it was instead a younger Ravenclaw student. I remember seeing her in my classes as she was such a rabid fan of mine. A sweet red-haired first-year Ravenclaw student who could hardly manage a spell if it was violent in nature, and here she was on the floor being controlled by the fragmented soul piece of a lunatic. I didn't waste any time trying to find a page within the robes of the student, but I didn't find anything. The Diadem was definitely leading to her, but there is no page or diary on her person.
"So, you were somehow tracking me down. Interesting." Suddenly, the girl on the floor speaks, her eyes still shut closed but her mouth moving. However, her voice isn't that of an innocent young girl but of an eloquent young male teenager with a hint of arrogance in his tone. The contradiction between the two really set me on edge, and I jumped back a bit, rapidly throwing multiple spells at the girl to bind her properly, the girl making no move to defend herself. She is still lying there, and I am levelling my wand at the girl, ready to blow her to bits.
"Man! Fuck! Do you have to be so fuckin' creepy!? Like, fuck!" I shout, my wand just a second away from shooting a spell, especially when the girl on the floor opens her eyes. Instead of normal human pupils, her eyes are entirely red, from eyelid to eyelid. Like some fucking omen damien six six six shit. I swear to god, if this little girl starts to rotate her head 360 degrees, then I am gonna slice a little bitches head off with no regrets because I am not dealing with that.
"...I apologise for that. However, this is currently my only form of communication. You have no idea how much I long for my own mouth to speak through, but for now, this will have to do." The person who is no doubt Tom Marvolo Riddle speaks through the little girl's mouth, smiling apologetically at me. I can't even see where he is looking as their eyes are all red, and I can't possibly identify the pupil if there even is one. I try to ignore the creepiness and keep the conversation going as that is evidently what Riddle wants as well; plus, with no diary or page on her, I have no other avenues, so it is time to gather information.
"Who are you? Why are you possessing and controlling this girl, and what is your goal in this school?" I ask, playing my part as the worried teacher who is trying to defend the school against the malevolent evil force. Apparently, my acting is quite all that as Riddle just laughs derisively at my words, smirking up at me. "Come now, Professor. No need to act the fool anymore. I'll admit you had me believing it in the beginning, but no idiot would discover the entrance to the Chamber of Secrets and set up a ward scheme in front of it to capture me." He says, acting smug.
"It would take an idiot not to notice all of the petrifications occurring all over the school, and it wasn't hard to connect the dots along with what happened fifty years ago to find the entrance. Not that that did anything, as there are probably other exits you can use. But I still don't know who you are or what you are up to in this school." I say, staring hard down at Riddle, my wand lighting up dangerously in threat. "Now, now. We know you aren't going to hurt the little innocent girl." He says sardonically.
"There is also no reason to continue to play the fool, Lockhart. You have proven yourself a worthy adversary. After all, you have somehow tracked me down twice on the same night, and that is no coincidence. So You definitely know what I am, and you most likely know who I am, but you definitely don't know what I am up to... and I don't know what you are up to since anybody else would have already involved the other Professors and Dumbledore to help take me down, as you know how dangerous I truly am, but you haven't." Riddle logically lists, looking at me with curiosity.
"I don't-" I go to reply, but he cuts me off. "Don't bother, I don't particularly care about you or your motivations." Rude, and I wasn't about to explain anything to the little bitch. "However, you have piqued my curiosity and have shown yourself to be skilled and capable, so I am going to give you this one offer. Join me, Lord Voldemort, and work for me. Work under me, and I will grant you all the things you desire. It could all be yours if you bend the knee and swear your fealty to me. Decide." Riddle states imperiously and then stares at me, waiting for my answer.
"I appreciate the offer, I really do, but I will have to decline at this time. It's just not a good fit for me at this time, but I will be sure to contact you if that were ever to change." I say, a lightness to my voice as I reject him in the most mocking way possible for him being such a rude little shit, but he just smiles back. "Humorous. Well, laugh all that you can now, as you will not be able to do so for much longer now that you have chosen to stand against me." I can feel him building to something, and so I ready myself for anything.
"I know you are after me now, and I am after you now Gilderoy Lockhart. You will come to regret this slight when you are bleeding at my feet with you touching my feet." He says, his face is full of wrath and condemnation as his red eyes somehow get redder as he glares at me. "Yeah, well, good luck with that. But as far as I can tell, you are somehow stuck in this girl, so I don't see how you are going to go about the bleeding at your feet thing." I say, giving him a hit of my dashing smile for extra effect. He doesn't give it any notice.
"Thank you for the idea, Lockhart." Movement suddenly occurs, and I automatically use a Protego to defend myself as I witness the page suddenly shoot out of the girl's vibrant red locks. The page was hiding within her hair! Before I can dispel my barrier to try and get it, the page suddenly lets out a bright flash of light that blinds me, and so I maintain my shelf while lamenting about the fact I vanished my sunglasses. THis motherfucker used my own trick against me and did a Solar Flare. By the time I can see again, the page is nowhere in sight, and there is an unconscious little girl on the floor.
I was okay with leaving the boy out, but I'm not so comfortable doing that with the girl... How am I going to handle this?
How am I going to deal with Riddle?