Chapter 80

Since everyone's attention was on Lockhart's book signing or the two wizards fighting, Black's outburst remained mostly unnoticed. After the reminder to not draw attention, Sirius endured in silence while waiting for his godson to make a move.

'The boy is entirely to mature for his own good.' Sirius thought to himself, resisting the urge to sulk at a missed opportunity to prank Malfoy.

Instead of Draco insulting Potter to start the fight, like in canon, it seems Ron had taken Harry's place as the target. Finally, after a parting insult accompanied by a sneer of disdain, Lucius gathered up Draco, and the two of them left to continue shopping elsewhere or were off to invent new Weasley insults.

After a quick request for Sirius to draw attention away from himself while he got the Horcrux, they walked across the street and entered the bookshop. Picking a few random books off the shelf, Chad then 'accidentally' bumped into Ginny.

Just like it did when Mr Weasley had thrown himself at Malfoy, it caused her cauldron to once more tumble over and spill her school supplies over the ground. Of course, Chad had also 'dropped' his books in the process.

"Oh, sorry, I wasn't looking where I was going. Here, let me help you." Chad kindly said, making sure to slip Riddle's Diary into his own pile of books as he picked everything up.

When Ginny saw the dashing and helpful stranger had a lightning bolt scar on his head, her face turned redder than her hair. After all, she was meeting her crush for the first time, and he was even helping her.

A quick scan of her surface thoughts told Chad that Ginny did indeed have a crush and some childish hero-worship towards him, but it had yet to turn into anything sinister like gold-digging.

Placing her books back into her cauldron, Chad once again gave his apologies as he made his escape. He had seen Gilderoy Lockhart making his way over and wanted nothing to do with the man.

Thankfully, that was what Sirius was for. While Chad had been bumping into little girls to steal dark artifacts, he had been drawing everyone's attention with his boisterous behaviour, nearly rivalling Lockhart's need to be the centre of attention.

Hiding behind one of the many bookshelves, Chad placed the books he had selected for his ruse back onto a random shelf and put Riddle's Diary into a prepared Mokeskin pouch.

While Sirius and Gilderoy battled for who could be the most ostentatious, Chad found an assistant to gather all of this year's books except for Lockhart's fantasy novels. The assistant raised his eyebrows when Chad paid and also placed his purchased books into the Mokeskin pouch, but what was he going to do, ask to look inside?

Accusing Harry Potter of stealing would see both House Black and Potter destroy his bosses store. But even if he did insist on seeing the contents of the magical bag of holding, a blank diary would not raise any questions.

A signal to Sirius before quietly leaving the store and Chad was home free with the Horcrux secured. He could have just stunned Ginny at Hogwarts and taken it then, but better to get the Diary before she even uses it.

Who knows what compulsions or damage Voldemort's Horcrux could do to her eleven-year-old mind. It could be half the reason for her sudden 'forceful and independent' behaviour from the shy and blushing girl she was before the Chamber of Secrets incident.

Ten minutes later and Sirius met him in the Leaky Cauldron where Chad had already booked a private room and was enjoying a Butterbeer. He was amused to find his godfather was holding a pile of Lockhart's books.

"That man has some serious problems. I was drawing a crowd to distract attention away from you when Lockhart came over and somehow managed to surpass me in being outrageous! Me, Sirius Black, a Marauder, outdone by some jumped up author!" He complained, so annoyed he didn't even make a name pun.

"Why did you buy his books then?" Chad asked, stifling a laugh at the man's antics.

"I didn't! He somehow managed to turn the whole situation into personally signing them at my request and even forced me to take a picture for the Daily Prophet!" Sirius groaned as he exaggeratedly flopped down into a chair.

Chad muffled a laugh as he took pity on the man and summoned someone to order him a butterbeer. That was the beauty of private rooms, priority orders, and a means to summon a waitress or old Tom himself.

After a waitress had supplied both of them with a butterbeer, Sirius settled down and asked the question that had been bothering him since he found out why they were in Diagon Alley in the first place on this specific day.

"So you got it then, Voldemort's Horcrux?" Sirius asked both excited and a little fearful.

Chad just reached into his Mokeskin bag and tossed the Diary to him. The casual way Chad had just chucked a dark artifact at him nearly made Sirius spill his butterbeer and caused him to fumble and drop the Diary onto the floor.

"Merlin Harry, you can't just throw a Horcrux at a man!"

"Relax, they are nearly indestructible, and this one will only affect you if you write in it. Besides, the look on your face was worth it!" Chad replied, laughing at his aggrieved expression.

Grumbling about brats and Potter genes, Sirius gingerly picked the cursed book up and opened it to reveal its blank pages.

"It's empty."

"Yes, it will only write back if you dab some ink on it. Oh, I just thought of a great idea! Lets prank Voldemort!" Chad said excitedly.

Sirius' jaw nearly dropped to the floor at the idea of playing a prank on the Dark Lord that had struck fear into the wizarding world and killed his best friends. But then a malicious gleam flashed across his eyes, and he smirked.

'As a proud Marauder, how could he not go down in history as the man who pranked old snake face?'

"I'm in!"

What followed was an afternoon of butterbeer and angry replies from a sixteen-year-old Tom Riddle. Though Chad had warned Sirius not to leave his mind open to attack, it was a Horcrux after all.

Chad had let Sirius in on how he had already made one Horcrux believe it was hundreds of years in the future and that Voldemort was worshipped as the god of muggles with an obsession for virginal boys.

With that as a baseline and a proud tear leaking from the man's eye, Sirius requested a quill and ink from the waitress and set about ruining Hogwarts age Voldemort's day.

With his Occlumency shields in place, Sirius wrote an emotional 'dear diary' entry that would make even the most spoiled teenage girl green with envy at the drama inscribed onto the pages.

'My daddy didn't buy me this', 'My daddy didn't do that', 'Mummy makes me eat vegetables', 'I would rather die than do chores'.

The sheer absurdity being written must have shocked Riddle into not instantly replying because Sirius had written a full page worthy of a day time TV drama before he introduced himself. That or he was questioning if it was worth talking to this mouth-breather or waiting for someone else to write in his Horcrux Diary.

Either way, when he finally bit the bullet and replied to the ramblings of what appeared to be an emotional teenage girl, Riddle started off slowly by asking if she was ok and then assuring her that he was a real magical book when challenged.

"What's your name then? I can't call you magic book, that sounds lame." Wrote Sirius, enjoying playing the role of a bratty teenage girl.

"My name is Tom," came the neat and flowing handwritten reply after the ink was absorbed into the page.

Say what you will about Voldemort, but the man had impeccable penmanship.

"Don't you have a surname? Gross, don't tell me you are a peasant, daddy says I shouldn't talk to servants!"

"My name is Tom Marvolo Riddle, it's written on the cover!" Came Tom's indignant reply.

"What, like that Dark Lord from years ago, the one that fathered a troll army? I always wondered how you managed to sleep with all those female trolls, weren't they ugly and really, really big?"

"WHAT?! I never slept with a troll, how dare you slander the name of Lord Voldemort!"

"Lord Voldemort? I thought you said you were Tom Riddle the troll f*cker? Why are you now claiming to be Dumbledore's sex slave?"

Sirius Black had always thought the world was not fair until this day. The two hours he spent trolling Lord Voldemort with his godson almost made up for the ten years he spent being emotionally tortured by Dementors. Almost.

When Tom Riddle finally refused to write back, Sirius wiped the tears of laughter from his eyes and gave the Horcrux to Harry. Even though he was worried about letting his godson play with such a dangerous dark artifact, the boy had already destroyed all of the other ones. It would be a bit hypocritical to now say it was too risky.

It wasn't like he could really complain seeing as the brat kept smugly reminding him that he was more mature than a guy that couldn't get Skeeter to owl him back after jokingly calling her his b*tch. Even after explaining the joke to her about his Animagus form, Rita was still giving him the cold shoulder.

'Merlin, Azkaban really killed my game.' Sirius morosely thought to himself, 'At least Harry turned out alright, even with mother and Kreacher raising him. Much better than Regulus and me anyway!'