Chapter 83: Gambit
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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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18 October 1992, Hogwarts
Yes, whoever had the diary wasn't a student, and from the sounds of it, there was a suspect that already fit this profile. Lockhart.
Gilderoy Lockhart had just opened the Chamber of Secrets. And for the first time in over a month, I grinned wholeheartedly. I had my first true suspect and now I only needed to steal the damn thing.
It took three days for Harry to realize that an attack wasn't coming. Sure, it was too soon, especially compared to the original stories, which happened on Halloween night. So, the question was whether Riddle was just seeing that everything was in place or not, or was he spooked somehow by someone knowing that he was going to open the chamber of secrets once more.
Harry was in unknown territory now and that was slightly terrifying. Starting from today, the stories would hold little sway on how the future worked. They were already spotty, but now, they would be actively false. The heir of Slytherin was coming, and Harry needed to be ready.
The good news was that as of now, no one knew about the Chamber of Secrets opening once more, and the Basilisk was still locked up. But the bad news was that if things stick to the original story, Harry had thirteen days until a Basilisk would be set loose on the student body, something that he needed to stop at all costs.
And to do that, he needed the Diary. He still didn't really know how to destroy it. Basilisk Venom was practically non-existent and if it was, a vial would be worth more than Harry's entire inheritance. The only plan he had was to contact Arcturus Black and hope for the best. But the main issue was getting to the diary itself.
He needed to act quickly. The answer was remarkably simple, Harry needed to sneak into Lockhart's room at night while he would be sleeping, and try to steal the diary, somehow.
Yes, Lockhart was the most prominent suspect not only because of the age and gender that Harry discovered with his little trap but also because of the steady rise in teaching quality his classes showed. He still had his arrogance and pride, but there was a confidence with which he walked that was missing before. The pretence of competence that he always held started to fade away. Tom Riddle, even as a sixth year, was probably more knowledgeable than most Aurors, especially when it concerned Defense Against the Dark Arts, and with the possession being in place, connecting him to Lockhart, it would explain the man's teaching better material.
So, yeah, Lockhart was the most probable culprit and Harry needed to steal it from him somehow. It was a terrible idea, but it was the only plan he had. In general, just stealing from a member of the staff could get anyone suspended or even expelled. Hell, they could get arrested and charged if whatever they wanted to steal was expensive enough. It was generally a bad idea, but Harry had no other choice.
The good thing was that for the possession to occur Lockhart and the Diary had to be close for long periods of time, especially since the perpetrator is a shard of a soul that resided in an inanimate object. The possibly fraudulent professor had to have been writing in it for at least an hour a day.
Lockhart was a fraud that thinks he found a ticket to stop being one, to be competent enough that no one would ever doubt him, and that meant that he treasured the Diary more than anything. It was his security measure, his trump card. The man's biggest fear is to be discovered, and that diary guaranteed that this would never happen. He had to keep it close, especially at night, because he would never want to risk it being stolen.
That meant that stealing it at night, when it was guaranteed to be in Lockhart's room was the way to go. Now, professors were given two rooms, independent of their classes. They had a bedroom, which is connected to their office, which is also connected to their classrooms. They could use the bedrooms and office to do with them what they wish. They were under no obligation to not change anything about their personal rooms. Harry had read that in the charter when he was bored the previous year.
So, that night, after Dinner, Harry excused himself and slowly walked to the Defense Against the Dark Arts classroom, put on his cloak and walked inside. His invisibility cloak was one of Harry's strongest advantages because it pretty much allowed him to ignore magic entirely when he walked through.
Harry used his Arcane Hearing to see anything about the wards in Lockhart's office. They were oddly very powerful, especially considering how horrible of a wizard Lockhart really was. It was in his magic. While his magic was getting smoother and more controlled, it still didn't come close to that of an Auror, a Hit wizard, or anyone that's a master of any magical field. Yeah, these wards were unknown enough that they had Tom Riddle's fingerprint all over them.
Harry could have just ignored them and walked in, but that would mean that he would need to disable the basic wards in the classroom so that he would be able to physically open the door, and that would leave traces. Instead, the Potter scion decided to wait for Lockhart to come back to his office and do his work for him.
In the meanwhile, the young Slytherin took out a book and started to read. He was advancing pretty quickly with his ancient Runes. Having learnt Norse and Elder Futhark, Harry decided to focus on Hieroglyphs instead. It wasn't that useful in enchantment, which was what Harry liked the most, but in warding and curses, they had few equals. The Aztec ones came close but with the civilization being pretty much wiped out, and so are half its ruins, the language is still being studied today. It was why there were so many curse breaker expeditions in the area. Countless ruins still haven't been discovered yet, and the traps there tended to be less fatal than the Ancient Egyptian ones, who honestly didn't give a fuck about crimes against humanity. Seriously, there were wards that turned people inside out, killed people and trapped them in a time bubble that kept looping, making them die again and again, living an eternity of agony and pain. So, yeah, Gringotts decided that it was more cost effective to focus on Aztec Runes for the moment. At least their methods of killing were somewhat humane.
Anyway, the odd combination of curses and wards made the entire language somewhat distasteful to warders nowadays. Honestly, Harry thought that they missed the point entirely. It being that the language was optimized to not give a protective shell like most wards but to imbue entire areas with an effect of sorts. The fact that they decided to incorporate curses was the Ancient Egyptian's decision. Still, the entire language was fascinating and so abstract, since it was more like drawing then writing, unlike Norse Runes. That allowed a certain level of flexibility when designing a ward, focusing more on the intent during the carving, then the actual ward itself. On the other side, it was far more volatile, and sometimes even mutated over time, so that made it somewhat undesirable for long term project. Expert believed that the curses on the Pharaohs' treasures somehow had warped the wards to be that deadly and cruel. It made sense, but it was still a theory at best.
Harry had almost forgotten about the entire Diary mess when he Lockhart opened the door to his classroom. The Potter scion took a deep breath and watched as the man disabled his wards with a wave of his wand and walked to his office. He followed the man silently and waited until the blonde professor slumped on the chair tiredly. He pointed his wand at the Defense Professor and murmured, "Somnus!"
It was a sleeping spell that was a less violent variation of the stunning charm. Well, the stunning charm was based on it, really. Only it is violent, and the sleep itself was more of the victim being unconscious, so it's more visible. Somnus was more natural, in a way, and it showed how successful it was when the man slumped into his seat and fell asleep.
With that done, Harry looked around the room with distaste. It was gold, like disgustingly so, and there were like five different portrait and picture frames of the man. With barely more than a thought, Harry waved his wand and froze all of them, and then he finally removed his invisibility cloak.
He looked around and saw a stack of autographed photos of the man on the desk, next to a pile of what appeared to be fan letters. The Potter scion shook his head with disgust; that man was barely more than a celebrity writer. The fact that there were no dark object detectors or anything really, was proof that the man really didn't know anything.
But Harry wasn't here to prove to everyone that the man was a fraud, he was here for the Diary. He looked around the room, with his Arcane Magic, and tried to spread his senses. Yeah, barely anything was more than a commodity. Harry didn't expect to see the diary immediately since he knew that it could hide from his Arcane Hearing, and thus from any magical detection spell.
So, the answer wasn't to find the diary but to discover where someone like Lockhart would hide his most prized possession. He wouldn't risk it being stolen, so he wouldn't just keep it on his everywhere, but he would keep it close by for it to advise him. Instead of trying to find something inhuman, Harry decided to just focus on any kind of odd enchantment in the office.
He gasped when he noticed something. It was hidden by the giant painting somehow. It must have acted as some sort of protection, both against detection and stealing. It was obvious that it wasn't enchanted by the same person as the one who did the wards. That was further proof that the man was a fraud. Still, with a little focus, Harry disabled the sticking charm on the portrait and allowed it to open. When it did, there was a small safe hidden behind the painting, which would open with a certain key. Harry was sure that he wouldn't have been able to open it since it was obviously enchanted. He could destroy it, but that would show that someone broke into the safe and that would mean that Aurors could be involved, something that Harry wanted to avoid.
Now he needed to find the key, and where would someone as cunning yet foolish as Lockhart hide something, he uses frequently? No, he wouldn't have it on him, he probably put it somewhere near. Harry focused on a shell of magic outside his body and used his Arcane Hearing to make it similar to Lockhart's before waving his wand and summoning the safe key. Unsurprisingly, nothing came of it, but what was odd was the small ping of magic near one of the drawers. Harry slowly walked until he found a small golden key inside. Well, that was easy.
Harry shrugged and simply put the key in the small vault and opened it. There was some gold, of course, but the most important thing was the small black Diary that was inside. It was strangely magical, all things considered, especially for something that could actively camouflage itself like before. Was it taking the properties of the safe somehow?
Deciding to just grab the thing and go, Harry first noticed something was wrong when he first touched the Diary. He was wearing Dragonhide gloves in fear that it would be cursed with something, and yet the entire room turned white. No, it wasn't a curse, that would be impossible. It was an illusion. The Diary was connected to the wards of the room somehow and put on an illusion for Harry to look at.
The Potter scion almost jumped when he heard a voice behind him, "Hello Harry Potter."
He turned and took a look at a brown-haired teenage boy that looked around sixteen and Harry instinctively knew who that was, "Hello Tom Riddle."
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I tend to upload drafts of early chapters on there to get people's opinions of them so you can read up to 20 chapters ahead as a bonus.
Thank you guys for your support in these hard times.