Snakes And The Moon

Chapter 15

It was a couple of days later and Harry was reading in his dorm room from the Dark And Deadly Curses book he stole from the library to keep himself entertained. Everyone else was down in the common room but Harry claimed he was feeling tired and in need of a nap so they all left him alone. 

Nessie had taken to sticking by his side like she said she would, once she made the offer of bonding with him and he accepted. He didn't know what he expected from that arrangement but it was a whole lot better than he anticipated. She goes on the grounds during the day to, as she says, stretch her scales, then if she doesn't find anything of interest to hunt, Harry will summon a rat or mouse for her, which he has been getting particularly good at these past few days.

In return, Harry will go collect her after dinner time and she will stay with him at night to make sure nobody can hurt him, threaten to bite anyone who annoys him and overall, is his protector. 

He loves it and he loves her.

The amount of times she's threatened to bite Malfoy has permanently put a smile on his face these days. All that little blonde brat has to do is say one more thing and he swears, he'll let Nessie have her way with him.

When he sat down with her and asked what kind of snake she was, she immediately got excited to share. Apparently, she was a crossbreed between a regular venomous boomslang which originated from Africa, and some kind of magical serpent who's origin she didn't know, as she escaped from an animal shop where there were wizard owners who had a long history of breeding regular and magical snakes for selfish purposes. Those purposes being to extract their venom and use them in potions or poisons.

Harry was horrified to hear it and wanted nothing more than to find those wizards and rip their heads off their bodies. She had calmed him down with some soothing words and a hug.

After about twenty minutes of reading his curses book, Harry noticed that Riddle's diary was still hidden away in his drawer and curiosity got the better of him.

He still felt somewhat pulled towards the thing yet he had no clue as to why. He sat down his curses book and picked up the diary, scanning through the pages and still seeing nothing. He frowned and spotted his quill sitting on the table, reached for it and decided to write in it.

My name is Harry Potter
The ink shined brightly for a second before turning invisible, as if it were getting sucked into the pages. His eyes widened in shock.

After about a minute of waiting, ink started to appear on the paper again.

Hello, Harry Potter. My name is Tom Riddle. How did you come by my diary?
He was stunned, was this diary talking to him? He bit his lip and decided to write back, just to see what would happen.

Someone tried to flush it down a toilet
A few seconds later, there was a reply.
Lucky that I recorded my memories in some more lasting way than ink. But I always knew that there would be those who would not want this diary read
What do you mean? Harry wrote.

The diary replied instantly. 

I mean that this diary holds memories of terrible things. Things that were covered up. Things that happened at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry
That's where I am now. I'm at Hogwarts, and horrible stuff's been happening. Do you know anything about the Chamber of Secrets? Harry asked.

Riddle replied quickly, as if eager to share what he knew.

Of course I know about the Chamber of Secrets. In my day, they told us it was a legend, that it did not exist. But this was a lie. In my fifth year, the Chamber was opened and the monster attacked several students, finally killing one. I caught the person who'd opened the Chamber and he was expelled. But the Headmaster, Professor Dippet, ashamed that such a thing had happened at Hogwarts, forbade me to tell the truth. A story was given out that the girl had died in a freak accident. They gave me a nice, shiny, engraved trophy for my trouble and warned me to keep my mouth shut. But I knew it could happen again. The monster lived on, and the one who had the power to release it was not imprisoned
Harry's heart was hammering. This was a lot to take in.
It's happening again now. There have been five attacks and no one seems to know who's behind them. Who was it last time? he asked, hurriedly.

I can show you, if you like. You don't have to take my word for it. I can take you inside my memory of the night when I caught him
Harry hesitated. Did he really want to go into someone's memories, especially if they belonged in a book, somehow? It could be potentially risky, but he's been dying to find out answers as to what the Chamber of Secrets is, and despite the fact that he knows there's a Basilisk in there, he's curious to know who was responsible for it's opening last time. Perhaps he could steal some ideas from this person and put even more blame on Malfoy... 

Riddle wrote back one more time. Let me show you