Chapter 95: Lunar Alliance
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I would like to thank my beta, Akisu, for his help in this chapter.
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16 November 1992, Hogwarts
Slowly, the image of the older Slytherin had dissolved into nothing. Later, Harry realized what Riddle meant when he was on his way to sneak into Ravenclaw tower and saw an unconscious Luna Lovegood in the middle of the corridor. The issue was that she didn't have Riddle's diary with her. Damn it; he was so close. This was really getting old.
As Harry approached the stunned blonde slightly, and after looking around for the Diary, he sighed in exasperation and just Rennervated the young girl. The girl woke up with a start and asked, "What happened?"
"I just found you stunned here and woke you up. Do you remember what happened?" Harry answered.
"No, I think they hit me in the back. Although, it could be an angry pack of Wrackspurts. They can be pretty mean, you know. I did feel my head getting a bit floaty and unfocused before I fell asleep," the Ravenclaw answered dreamily.
"Seriously, Luna, you were stunned from the back. You've got to know that" the last Potter interjected.
"Maybe I was, maybe I wasn't. Isn't that wonderful, the uncertainty of it all."
"And is it also wonderful that they took Tom Riddle's diary too?" Harry asked with a raised eyebrow.
Suddenly, the girl looked panicked. She leapt towards her bag and frantically kept trying to find the book in question. She kept murmuring, "Where is it? No! No!"
She then looked at Harry with teary angry eyes, "Where is he? Where is Tom?"
The girl actually took out her wand in anger. Damn, she was really attached to the diary, huh.
Deciding to calm her down, Harry said, "I don't know where Tom is. I'm trying to find him, but someone else took the diary. Do you have any idea who it could be? Any clue would help me find him."
"Why are you even looking for him?" the younger girl asked suspiciously.
Harry grabbed the back of his head in embarrassment, "Well, he and I have been playing a game for a couple of months. I kinda won this round, and since he's such a sore loser, he decided to hide away."
The young Ravenclaw gave Harry a dry look, "I'm not an idiot Potter. Just give it to me straight."
Harry shook his head, "You won't like the answers I'm giving you…"
"I can take it, just tell me already. How do you even know about Tom?" Luna answered with a resolve that was unusual for an eleven year old girl.
The Potter scion looked around to make sure that no one was listening in on them before taking his wand and muttering, "muffliato."
"Look, it's a long story, but I'm kind of a seer. I get random flashes of things that happened in the future and the past. During the summer, I found out that a certain Diary was going to be used to release a monster on the student body. Since divination is very unreliable, I couldn't really tell anyone about it, especially since the specifics were hazy. I researched a bit and found out about the Chamber of Secrets and made a list of suspects who might have done it the last time. Tom and I found out about each other when I put a trap on the entrance to the chamber. We've been playing this game of cat and mouse for a while, where I'm trying to find his diary, and he's possessing a victim to petrify muggleborns. I ended up finding that you had the diary, and he freaked out. We duelled, I won, but he somehow got the Diary off you before I did."
Harry wasn't really lying as much as he was bending the truth. He was a seer ever since his magical crest gave him the ability. He did find out that the Diary was going to be used to release a monster on the student body, he did try to track down who had made it, and they duelled. Harry had objectively won, but Riddle had escaped enough to fight another day.
Hell, Harry was able to drain all the energy that Riddle was able to get from Luna. She wasn't going to get any of it back, but she could regenerate it in time. But that meant that Riddle was too weak to possess anyone for a while. Around two to three months to be exact. It was enough of a break that Harry would be able to prepare himself for the inevitable confrontation with the man again. Yeah, it took Riddle from August to October to have a strong enough influence over Luna that he would be able to possess her.
The young Ravenclaw though, looked stricken at Harry's revelation, "Are you sure about that?" at Harry's nod, she deflated, "I thought he was my friend. I really liked having one. He was just using me?"
"I'll be honest, I don't think he was. Not in the way he thinks, at least."
The girl started to get angry, "I trusted him with everything I had, everything I am. And in return, he took over my body to petrify two people and kill a cat. How is that not using me?"
"It's his nature. Fundamentally, he isn't a person, not really. He's a mistake that was weaponized. The real Tom Riddle put a part of himself in the diary, and that's all it is, a shard of a real person, a shadow, that somehow evolved into something more. He possessed you because it was what he was made to do, what he was designed for you. I don't know if he truly cared about you but the goal he was designed to do came first," Harry explained.
"I don't understand," Luna stated.
Harry forgot what he was talking to an eleven year old girl for a second and decided to change his approach, "Do you know the tale of the frog and the scorpion?"
She looked confused for a second and shook her head. Harry continued, "Well, it goes like this. A scorpion asks a frog to carry him over a river. The frog is afraid of being stung, but the scorpion argues that if it did so, both would sink and the scorpion would drown. The frog then agrees, but midway across the river, the scorpion does indeed sting the frog, dooming them both. The dying frog asks the scorpion why it stung despite knowing the consequence, to which the scorpion replies: 'I am sorry, but I couldn't resist the urge. It's in my nature.' Tom is like that scorpion, he was made to open the Chamber of Secrets, and no matter how much he liked you or not, he will do it."
"But he was so real," Luna protested, "He was understanding when I talked about the difficulties I had about being lost in my clairvoyance. The creatures I created interpret my visions without me being overwhelmed all the time, but I still get lost in my head sometimes. I told him about my mother, about my father's obsession with his newspaper. And he comforted me, he told me that everything was going to be alright, and I could tell that he was being truthful."
"Maybe he was. He's more than a painting but less than a person. He's like half a person that was put in a diary, but half of him is still missing."
"Yes, but he's a diary. How could he grab himself?"
Harry sighed, "He's smart. And when I mean smart, I mean a veritable genius when it comes to politics and mind games. He created a network of people that he's controlling somehow. It's more subtle than possession, it's more like selective compulsion charms when he wants them to have. He could have had one of them just stun you in the back and get the Diary before he made this magical projection for our confrontation. It was probably a backup plan in case it was a trap since I was able to take him by surprise and find you. I never got that close before in our little game and he probably panicked. It's just like him to be paranoid. So, please try to remember anything about who attacked you."
Yeah, that magical projection was insane. Honestly, the Potter scion had no idea how the hell Riddle pulled off creating a bastardized version of a poltergeist that was powered by his Diary's energy, and that he possessed to create a virtual body for himself. This was some bullshit magic right there. You know, they said that Riddle was a prodigy among prodigies, but Harry never conceptualized just how advanced he was until then. And his control over Fiendfyre using an obviously unsuited wand, with limited magical reserves, was just insane. Like seriously, an actual Tom Riddle with a real body would wipe the floor with him.
"I'm sorry, I don't remember anything."
Harry sighed in exasperation, "Damn it, I'll have to start from scratch. At least I have a couple of months until he's recharged enough to start attacking again with his new victim. Alright, I'm sorry I bothered you, Luna, but I really need to sleep. As you probably noticed, I'm kinda hurt now."
Yeah, Harry was practically limping away, with cuts on his face and arms, burned robes and a few patches. It wasn't that big of a deal, especially considering that he was near Fiendfyre of all things, but the young Slytherin was just tired.
As he made his way to leave, Luna caught his arm and stopped him, "I want to help you."
"Luna, you don't know what you're asking. We'll probably end up fighting a thousand year old monster."
"I don't care. He used me. I bared my soul to him, and he broke my trust," she looked down and croaked, "I thought that I had finally had a friend."
This was just too sad, and Harry instinctively hugged the young Ravenclaw, repressing a hiss as she touched his burns, "Fine, you can help, but only in the research department."
The girl looked up at him and grinned, "Thank you."
An idea struck Harry, "you said you were a clairvoyant, right? Does that mean that you can tell if someone is under Riddle's control?"
"Maybe. When someone is acting oddly, I can see Wrackspurts around their head. They're in a different pattern. I saw it when we tried using cheering charms in class. But it's hard to see from far. I don't mind trying though, but I need a reference to see."
"Lockhart is one of them if you need a reference," Harry answered.
"Ah, I remember. He's very fuzzy when he teaches, like there's something else giving the instruction. I just thought he separated himself into two personas, the warrior and the performer. Like he was damaged enough by his conflict that he didn't want to show it to the public somehow."
Harry shook his head, "No, that was entirely Tom's doing. He's just a performer, as far as I can tell, at least."
Luna shrugged, "I'll look into it. What else do you need me to do."
"Nothing right now. I bought us some time to plan things out without worrying about students being accidentally killed like Tom did when he was a student. We'll regroup later, while I'm not on the verge of passing out, and we'll plan then. Now, I need to get to the infirmary."
"Here, let me help you," the Ravenclaw responded while grabbing Harry's arm.
And thus, a friendship was born. The very next day, people were stupefied to see Harry Potter, the star student of his year, talk to Luna Lovegood, the known oddball that was nicknamed Loony. But neither of them really cared about the opinions of others, focusing entirely on their goal of stopping Tom Riddle and destroying the Diary.
It was the talk of the school for the entire day, at least until the announcement that Gilderoy Lockhart was opening a public duelling club of his own. Apparently, the man's fame and the general fear of another attack had made most of the school sign up. Harry though, decided to attend for a single reason. After all, if things went according to Canon, he would have his first experience with Parseltongue, and that could be useful. Yes, very useful indeed.
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If you want to support me check out my patréon at https://www.patréon.com/athassprkr
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.