ack. I was
sympathetic, I was kind. Ginny simply loved me. No one's ever
understood me like you, Tom .... I'm so glad I've got this diary to
*309*
confide in .... It's like having a friend I can carry around in my pocket . . . .
Riddle laughed, a high, cold laugh that didn't suit him. It made the hairs
stand up on the back of Harry's neck.
"If I say it myself, Harry, I've always been able to charm the people I
needed. So Ginny poured out her soul to me, and her soul happened to
be exactly what I wanted .... I grew stronger and stronger on a diet of
her deepest fears, her darkest secrets. I grew powerful, far more
powerful than little Miss Weasley. Powerful enough to start feeding
Miss Weasley a few of my secrets, to start pouring a little of my soul
back into her. . ."
"What d'you mean?" said Harry, whose mouth had gone very dry.
" Haven't you guessed yet, Harry Potter?" said Riddle softly. "Ginny
Weasley opened the Chamber of Secrets. She strangled the school
roosters and daubed threatening messages on the walls. She set the
Serpent of Slytherin on four Mudbloods, and the Squib's cat.
"No," Harry whispered.
"Yes," said Riddle, calmly. "Of course, she didn't know what she was
doing at first. It was very amusing. I wish you could have seen her
new diary entries ... far more interesting, they became .... Dear Tom,"
he recited, watching Harry's horrified face, 'I think I'm losing my
memory. There are rooster feathers all over my robes and 1 don't know how
they got there. Dear Tom, l can't remember what 1 did on the night of
Halloween, but a cat was attacked and I've got paint all down my front.
Dear Tom, Percy keeps telling me I'm pale and I'm not myself. I think he
266
suspects me... There was another attack today
*310
and I don't know where I was. Tom, what am I going to do? I think I'm
going mad... I think I'm the one attacking everyone, Tom!"
Harry's fists were clenched, the nails digging deep into his Palms.
"it took a very long time for stupid little Ginny to stop trusting her
diary," said Riddle. "But she finally became suspicious and tried to
dispose of it. And that's where you came in, Harry. You found it, and I
couldn't have been more delighted. Of all the people who could have
picked it up, it was you, the very person I was most anxious to meet . .
. ."
"And why did you want to meet me?" said Harry. Anger was coursing
through him, and it was an effort to keep his voice steady.
"Well, you see, Ginny told me all about you, Harry," said Riddle. "Your
whole fascinating history. " His eyes roved over the lightning scar on
Harry's forehead, and their expression grew hungrier. "I knew I must
find out more about you, talk to you, meet you if I could. So I decided
to show you my famous capture of that great oaf, Hagrid, to gain your
trust -"
"Hagrid's my friend," said Harry, his voice now shaking. "And you
framed him, didn't you? I thought you made a mistake, but -"
Riddle laughed his high laugh again.
"It was my word against Hagrid's, Harry. Well, you can imagine how
it looked to old Armando Dippet. On the one hand, Tom Riddle, poor
but brilliant, parentless but so brave, school prefect, model student ...
on the other hand, big, blundering Hagrid, in trouble every other week,
trying to raise werewolf cubs under his bed, sneaking off to the
Forbidden Forest to wrestle trolls ... but I
* 31:L *
admit, even I was surprised how well the plan worked. I thought
someone must realize that Hagrid couldn't possibly be the Heir of
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Slytherin. It had taken me five whole years to find out everything I
could about the Chamber of Secrets and discover the secret entrance
... as though Hagrid had the brains, or the power!
"Only the Transfiguration teacher, Dumbledore, seemed to think
Hagrid was innocent. He persuaded Dipper to keep Hagrid and train
him as gamekeeper. Yes, I think Dumbledore might have guessed ....
Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers
did ......
"I bet Dumbledore saw right through you," said Harry, his teeth gritted.
"Well, he certainly kept an annoyingly close watch on me after Hagrid
was expelled," said Riddle carelessly. "I knew it wouldn't be safe to
open the Chamber again while I was still at school. But I wasn't going
to waste those long years Id spent searching for it. I decided to leave
behind a diary, preserving my sixteen-year-old self in its pages, so that
one day, with luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps, and
finish Salazar Slytherin's noble work."
"Well, you haven't finished it," said Harry triumphantly. "No one's died
this time, not even the cat. In a few hours the Mandrake Draught will
be ready and everyone who was Petrified will be all right again -"
"Haven't I already told you," said Riddle quietly, "that killing Mudbloods
doesn't matter to me anymore? For many months now, my new target
has been -you."
Harry stared at him.
"Imagine how angry I was when the next time my diary was
*312*
opened, it was Ginny who was writing to me, not you. She saw you
with the diary, you see, and panicked. "What if you found out how to
work it, and I repeated all her secrets to you? What if, even worse, I
told you who'd been strangling roosters? So the foolish little brat waited
until your dormitory was deserted and stole it back. But I knew what I
must do. It was clear to me that you were on the trail of Slytherin's
heir. From everything Ginny had told me about you, I knew you would
go to any lengths to solve the mystery --
268
particularly if one of your best friends was attacked. And Ginny had
told me the whole school was buzzing because you could speak
Parseltongue ....
"So I made Ginny write her own farewell on the wall and come down
here to wait. She struggled and cried and became very boring. But
there isn't much life left in her .... She put too much into the diary, into
me. Enough to let me leave its pages at last .... I have been waiting for
you to appear since we arrived here. I knew you'd come. I have many
questions for you, Harry Potter."
"Like what?" Harry spat, fists still clenched.
"Well," said Riddle, smiling pleasantly, "how is it that you a skinny boy
with no extraordinary magical talent - managed to defeat the greatest
wizard of all time? How did you escape with nothing but a scar, while
Lord Voldemort's powers were destroyed?"
There was an odd red gleam in his hungry eyes now.
"Why do you care how I escaped?" said Harry slowly. "Voldemort was
after your time ......
"Voldemort," said Riddle softly, "is my past, present, and future, Harry
Potter . . . ."
He pulled Harry's wand from his pocket and began to trace it
through the air, writing three shimmering words:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLE
Then he waved the wand once, and the letters of his name
rearranged themselves:
I AM LORD VOLDEMORT
"You see?" he whispered. "It was a name I was already using at
Hogwarts, to my most intimate friends only, of course. You think I
was going to use my filthy Muggle father's name forever? I, in whose
veins runs the blood of Salazar Slytherin himself, through my
mother's side? I, keep the name of a foul, common Muggle, who
269
abandoned me even before I was born, just because he found out his
wife was a witch? No, Harry - I fashioned myself a new name, a
name I knew wizards everywhere would one day fear to speak,
when I had become the greatest sorcerer in the world!"
Harry's brain seemed to have jammed. He stared numbly at Riddle,
at the orphaned boy who had grown up to murder Harry's own
parents, and so many others .... At last he forced himself to -,peak.
"You're not," he said, his quiet voice full of hatred.
"Not what?" snapped Riddle.
"Not the greatest sorcerer in the world," said Harry, breathing fast.
"Sorry to disappoint you and all that, but the greatest wizard in the
world is Albus Dumbledore. Everyone says so. Even when you were
strong, you didn't dare try and take over at Hogwarts. Dumbledore
saw through you when you were at school and he still frightens you
now, wherever you're hiding these days -"
The smile had gone from Riddle's face, to be replaced by a very ugly
look.
*31-4*
"Dumbledore's been driven out of this castle by the mere memory of
me!" he hissed.
"He's not as gone as you might think!" Harry retorted. He was
speaking at random, wanting to scare Riddle, wishing rather than
believing it to be true
Riddle opened his mouth, but froze.
Music was coming from somewhere. Riddle whirled around to stare
down the empty Chamber. The music was growing louder. It was
eerie, spine-tingling, unearthly; it lifted the hair on Harry's scalp and
made his heart feel as though it was swelling to twice its normal size.
Then, as the music reached such a pitch that Harry felt it vibrating
inside his own ribs, flames erupted at the top of the nearest pillar.
A crimson bird the size of a swan had appeared, piping its weird music
270
to the vaulted ceiling. It had a glittering golden tail as long as a
peacock's and gleaming golden talons, which were gripping a ragged
bundle.
A second later, the bird was flying straight at Harry. It dropped the
ragged thing it was carrying at his feet, then landed heavily on his
shoulder. As it folded its great wings, Harry looked up and saw it had a
long, sharp golden beak and a beady black eye.
The bird stopped singing. It sat still and warm next to Harry's cheek,
gazing steadily at Riddle.
"That's a phoenix said Riddle, staring shrewdly back at it.
"Fawkes?" Harry breathed, and he felt the bird's golden claws
squeeze his shoulder gently
"And that -" said Riddle, now eyeing the ragged thing that Fawkes had
dropped, "that's the old school Sorting Hat -"
So it was. Patched, frayed, and dirty, the hat lay motionless at Harry's
feet.
Riddle began to laugh again. He laughed so hard that the dark
chamber rang with it, as though ten Riddles were laughing at once
"This is what 