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Chapter 69: Riddle's Diary
Chapter 69: Riddle's Diary
"Blood-cursed orc. A curse passed down through generations."
The dim light illuminated the space in front of Sherlock's desk.
After finishing his second-year classes in the morning, he began preparing the lecture materials for next week's lesson on dark creatures. Apart from teaching a class to the fourth-year students in the afternoon, he spent the rest of his time in his office, gathering and organizing information.
Before he knew it, the sky outside had grown dark. Sherlock stood up from his chair and paced around the office, stretching his stiff body.
He hadn't eaten dinner and had no appetite.
The current situation at Hogwarts was a mess, though it wasn't entirely his fault.
However, the chaos was closely linked to his presence.
Sherlock wasn't a self-sacrificing hero, but he didn't want to shirk the responsibilities he had taken on.
By crossing over to this world and assuming the identity of the original owner, he had become a professor at Hogwarts. While enjoying the benefits that came with this identity, he also had to fulfill the obligations that came with it.
Protecting the school and the students was his duty and responsibility.
Otherwise, if his presence caused the original storyline to deviate, leading to Hogwarts failing to resolve the Chamber of Secrets incident and ultimately closing down, he could have simply left this place with a clear conscience.
But Sherlock felt that such a course of action would be too low. He couldn't bear the thought of it.
To run away from the problems he had created would be the act of a coward.
Therefore, Sherlock was deeply invested in catching the Heir of Slytherin. He had shared all the clues he knew from his previous life, which he had learned from movie commentaries, with Dumbledore.
However, the current situation made those clues seem irrelevant. The situation was spiraling into an increasingly unknown and unpredictable direction.
Sherlock stood quietly by the window, gazing at the dark mountains outside, muttering to himself.
"It has completely deviated from the original story. It's a mess."
At the same time, in the Gryffindor common room.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had been frowning and discussing the matter for a long time but had come to no conclusion.
"Let's just go to bed. We'll look for more clues about the Heir of Slytherin later, to see who else might be a suspect besides Malfoy."
They parted ways in the common room, with Harry and Ron walking back to their dormitory together.
"Where are Neville and Seamus? Why haven't they come back yet?"
Seeing the empty dormitory, Harry asked, puzzled.
Ron knew the reason.
"Snape caught them after dinner this afternoon. He looked furious. It seems there was a problem with the potion they were brewing together in the last Potions class, and they were sent to clean up the potion ingredients as punishment."
Harry's face immediately showed concern for Neville and Seamus.
"I hope they make it back alive."
He sat down on his bed, exhausted, but as he was about to lie down, he caught a glimpse of an old, worn diary on his desk, which had appeared there at some point.
Harry sat up again, walked over to his desk, and picked up the diary, looking confused. He turned to Ron and asked,
“Is this yours?”
Ron, drawn by his words, turned to look and shook his head.
“I’ve never kept a diary,” he said, shrugging. “I suggest you don’t open it. There are many curses in the magical world that are released through books, like the notorious thirteen-line poem of the malevolent wizard.”
But even as he warned, Harry had already opened the diary.
The pages, yellowed with age, were completely blank, with no writing at all.
“It’s just an ordinary notebook, not as scary as you make it out to be.”
Ron was taking off his sweater, preparing to take a shower before curfew.
“Alright, maybe you picked up someone else’s notebook by mistake during class. Since there’s nothing written in it, the person who lost it probably won’t come looking for it. I’m going to take a bath. Hope Filch doesn’t catch me on the way back.”
With that, he hurried out of the dormitory, leaving Harry alone in the room.
Harry sat at his desk, continuing to study the blank diary.
Ron’s theory was clearly wrong, as Harry noticed the faded date on the cover, indicating it was from fifty years ago.
Moreover, the diary wasn’t entirely blank. On the first page, he could make out a name written in faded ink: Tom Riddle.
As he flipped through the pages, they remained completely empty.
Finally, Harry turned to the back cover and saw the name of a newspaper vendor on Vauxhall Road in London.
“Riddle must be a Muggle,” Harry mused to himself, “which is why he bought the diary on Vauxhall Road.”
Harry studied the diary for a long time but couldn’t make any more sense of it.
Then he yawned and went back to bed.
But Ron and Neville hadn’t returned, and Harry found himself sitting back at his desk, bored.
He took out a bottle of ink and dipped his quill, deciding to write something in the blank diary.
However, as his quill tip traced the page, it left a trail of ink that quickly disappeared as if absorbed by the diary!
Harry’s eyes widened.
He tried pouring ink directly from the bottle onto the diary, and it acted like a dry sponge, soaking up every drop.
As Harry stared in amazement, a line of black text suddenly appeared on the blank page.
“Hello, no need to pour more ink. You can write on the diary to communicate with me.”
Harry’s excitement grew; he felt like he had discovered something extraordinary.
He picked up his quill again and wrote:
“Hello, my name is Harry Potter.”
The diary responded quickly:
“Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you find my diary?”
The words disappeared as soon as Harry began to write hastily.
“I don’t know why, but it just appeared on my desk.”
“They wanted to get rid of me. Fortunately, I recorded my past in a way that lasts longer than ink. I always knew there would be people who wouldn’t want this diary to be read.”
Harry became even more excited. He had a hunch that Riddle in the diary must know something about the Chamber of Secrets!
“What do you mean?”
He scribbled quickly, pressing so hard that he tore the paper.
(End of Chapter)
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