With his pen on the book, Loki paused for a second, 'What do I even write?'
But then to his shock and surprise words began to appear on the page he'd opened to write in.
'Not going to write anything?' The book asked startling Loki.
'How did you know?' Loki asked with weariness apparent as the words sank into the paper and vanished as if having melded into the book itself lost to time and space.
'I can feel you stabbing something pointy into me.' The diary wrote back smoothly.
'Who're you?' Loki wrote trying to see if he could get You-Know-Who to confess.
'My name's Tom M. Riddle, who are you?'
'I am Gehrman Sparrow.' Loki shamelessly wrote back.
'Well then Gehrman Sparrow, how did you come across my book?'
'I found it after someone flushed it into the toilet.'
'They did?' Tom asked back immediately.
'Yes, don't you know how drenched your book was a few minutes ago? I dried it using the fire charm.'
'I see, do you have any other questions for me?'
'What are you?' Loki wrote back.
'Ah! I am just a student who's left back something of value to help my fellow students at Hogwarts.'
'You studied at Hogwarts?'
'Yes. I was a top student at Hogwarts fifty years ago! Do you want me to help you with something?'
'...could you help me with Ancient Runes? So that I could make something like you have? Or perhaps help me in making a spell?'
There was a slightly long silence from the book as it didn't respond to Loki's question for a little bit but then just as Loki thought Tom had bailed on him he responded.
'Oh? You want to make a diary? Like mine?'
'Why the silence? Can't I?'
'No! No! It's not that. It's just that the Diary is, what can I say, a little special.'
'Special?'
'Yes, it'll take a large amount of skill to be able to make the diary and I can't say if you can get there for sure in a little bit of time.
Even making a new spell deeply involves ancient runes.'
'How complex is it? I already have a strong foundation in Runes.'
'Which year are you in?'
'I'm in my fourth year.' Loki lied since the topic was about Runes where he'd definitely attained to such a degree of mastery.
'Hmm…I will need you to answer a few questions for me to see if you are really as good as you say you are.'
'Sure, why not?'
'Hmm….then tell me which is the most stable symbol in rune casting and what does it do when you prepend it to a charm?'
Loki paused for a little bit which Tom assumed meant that Loki didn't know the answer and wrote back, 'Don't know? That's alright, it was an advanced ques-'
But before Tom could continue, Loki broke his silence by writing using his ballpoint pen, 'That would be the symbol that commonly represents infinity in arithmancy. It has the most stable shape for spirituality to take and prepending it to a charm causes the charm to gain stability that makes the person trying to remove the effects of the charm have to expend more spirituality to disrupt it.'
There was a slight pause after which Tom responded back, 'That was very informative and I didn't find any obvious mistakes in your explanation. Congratulations, you've passed the test. I can teach you all I know about Ancient Runes, but it will depend on you to progress enough to make a book like this or even a spell, do you understand that?'
'Yes, I do, it's not as if you would be to blame for my stupidity.'
'Haha~ you have a good sense of humour too. Do you have any other questions for me?'
'When will you teach me more about Runes?'
'Hmm….give me a little bit of time, I need to sort things out and organise myself so that I can teach you more about it in a professional manner that will help you.'
'I see, then that is all for tonight.'
'Good Night.'
With that, the book went back to being still without any ink appearing on its pages as Loki relaxed into the backrest with a sigh.
'That was confusing.'
'But why didn't I feel anything happen to me?'
'Did he not do anything because it was our first meeting?'
Loki looked at the book and rubbed his thumb and index finger to turn on his spirit vision.
'Damn, I should've done this before.'
There was a pale hue to the book, indicating that it was alive.
'That's why when I poured in my spirituality to look at the runes in the book nothing showed up.'
'Because the book is not an alchemical item but something that is actually living.'
'Is that why Tom was so reluctant to share his secrets with me?'
'Trying to divert me away from Runes so that I wouldn't realise that the book was alive?'
'Was he using Ginny's aura as a cloak to hide himself during the time I scanned her using spirit vision?'
'And how did my potion digest so much so fast?' Loki wondered as he closed his eyes and scanned himself to find that five more per cent of the potion had already been digested making his total come up to thirty-five per cent.
'Is it because he's a Beyonder?'
'Did he perhaps somehow manage to separate the excess characteristics from his body into a book? Or perhaps his soul? I don't know enough about this, yet.'
'I could ask him about it…but how?'
'What are you trying to do Tom?' Loki wondered and picked up the book and sealed it away in a box by creating a wall of spirituality and tossed it into the bathroom where he locked the door.
Only after a few minutes once he found everything had returned to normal did he pull out his Two Way Mirror and begin talking to Elane.
After he spoke with Elane Loki helped the little Niffler digest his potion by listening to more of his poems which seemed to have only gotten worse over time.
"You know what!?" Loki said to Sunny. "Go out! Go out and annoy other people with your poems! I've had enough of you! I think I'm growing deaf with how often you choose to *screech* into my ears! And why am I paying you to listen to your poems!? Isn't this exactly what you should be doing!?"
The Niffler looked at Loki with injustice carved on his face but eventually reluctantly slipped out from under the door and went on its way to explore the expectantly absent nightlife of the castle.
And then right before he went to sleep, Loki entered the Sefirah Castle and used a series of divination questions to ascertain that he was in the best of health before exiting with a smile of relief and falling asleep like a log in winter.
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