Chapter 123: The Unicorn and the Diary

Silven took out the quill he had prepared earlier and wrote on the blank page of the other half:

"Hello, Tom Riddle."

The handwriting quickly disappeared—clearly the thing was genuine.

And seeing this, Malfoy completely gave up struggling… Silven wasn't bluffing; he knew how to use the diary.

Damn it, didn't that Riddle say he was the first friend he'd ever had?

Malfoy felt his eyes sting, and he fought hard to keep the tears from falling… Liar, just like Potter—both liars!

…

Five minutes later.

Silven thought he was being quite polite—his first words were hello, not a direct insult.

But he had waited until now and still received no reply.

"Are you sure this thing is real?" Silven looked at Malfoy, but Malfoy likewise refused to communicate with him, his reddened eyes looking elsewhere.

"Four points…"

"Yes, it's real!" Malfoy shouted in exasperation. "You snatched it off me—of course it's real!"

"Strange." Silven frowned. "When you used it, did it respond this slowly too?"

"What slow response."

"How long it takes him to reply to you."

"Instantly." Malfoy said. "Just like two friends writing to each other face to face."

Speaking of friends, Malfoy's eyes reddened again.

"Fine then." Silven nodded—it looked like Riddle was refusing to communicate with him.

That made things easier.

Silven first pulled Malfoy back out into the corridor, and before he could speak, swapped his wand back for Silvermane.

"Stupefy!"

The Stunning Spell he'd just learned at the Dueling Club wasn't particularly practiced, but luckily Malfoy wasn't in great shape either—having been strung up so long had already left him dizzy and muddled, and the moment the spell hit him he passed out on the spot.

Moaning Myrtle's bathroom had been sealed off by the headmaster, so Silven could only drag him into another empty classroom nearby, stepping inside himself as well.

He tossed the diary into the air, then raised his wand.

A blue unicorn leapt from the wand's tip, and without Silven needing to say a thing, the unicorn, before it had even fully formed, simply lowered its head, aimed the horn on its forehead at the diary, and thrust straight at it midair!

The translucent horn should have been able to pass right through the diary, like a ghost through a wall, but instead it let out a dull thud.

Then came an even more piercing scream…

"Ah!"

The diary suddenly began to tremble, and drops of ink seeped out from within, as if it were bleeding.

The ink then transformed into a black mist, gathering into a… something that looked like a person.

"Hello, Tom Riddle." Silven greeted him again, exactly the same as what he'd written in the diary—except Tom Riddle didn't look particularly well right now.

A strange, hazy glow radiated around him, but only the left half looked human; the other half was a blurred, ragged black mist, as if someone had forcibly torn half of him away from the middle.

Silven would swear this wasn't the unicorn's doing—a simple thrust might leave an extra hole, but losing half of oneself was far too dramatic.

"We meet again… Ollivander, or should I call you, Harry Potter…" Riddle spoke, his voice thick with an immeasurable resentment that seemed to drop the temperature around them by several degrees.

"Wait…" Silven had been about to say something, but froze at his words. "What did you just call me?"

"Harry Potter, the savior who killed the Dark Lord." Riddle said. "You must be very proud of yourself."

"No, I'm not proud at all." Silven shook his head. "You've got the wrong person. I'm Silven Ollivander. Harry Potter is another boy—if you want, I can introduce you."

"Impossible, I couldn't be mistaken!"

Riddle immediately grew agitated. "It was you who killed my future self. I can feel it—that unwillingness and resentment of a soul scattering. You can't fool me. I felt it the very first time we met!"

Because he was so agitated, the only half of a body he had left suddenly dispersed, only to coalesce again a few seconds later.

But Silven noticed that the unconscious Malfoy twitched involuntarily, the color draining further from his face.

"I've been wanting to ask this for a long time." Silven looked at him. "Do you have some kind of misunderstanding about me? I'm quite sure this is the first time we've met, and the first time I've ever seen this diary."

"Still pretending?" Riddle suddenly let out a cold laugh. "Weren't you looking for me in that bookshop?"

Bookshop…

Flourish and Blotts?

"Impossible." Silven blurted out. "How could you possibly know what happened back then."

"Want to know?" Riddle said, a fake smile on his face. "I can answer you, but before that, you need to answer my question."

What answered him was Silven's wand turning, and a long blue horn sinking into a shoulder.

"Ah… damn it…"

The scream echoed through the empty classroom.

The unicorn thrust at him again, this time nearly tearing his arm off.

"You don't have any other choice now." Every time Silven turned his wand, the unicorn would leave another hole in him.

"If you want to kill me… that boy won't live either…" Riddle hissed.

"Don't care." Silven kept turning his wand. "It won't be traced back to me anyway."

Soon, Riddle had become an ugly sieve, and he finally couldn't hold out any longer, saying loudly:

"It's resentment. I felt the resentment from your soul scattering, and it's the same as mine!"

Silven stopped what he was doing, but at that moment Riddle became even more blurred.

"That resentment is like a knife stabbing into my body, letting me clearly feel that you're looking for me, that you want to kill me!"

The resentment after a soul scatters… could it be that wand?

If there was any connection between him and Voldemort's soul, it was only that two-inch wand.

Just days before going to Flourish and Blotts, he used that wand to kill six Death Eaters, and the wand's own nature completely destroyed the piece of Voldemort's soul embedded as its core.

So strictly speaking, he really did kill one of Voldemort's souls, and at the time he heard Voldemort's voice… but would that thing still harbor any resentment?

Silven twisted the wand again, and the unicorn immediately butted him in the head again.

"Ah… I've already answered you…" Tom Riddle said, furious.

"Sorry, habit." Silven waved his hand dismissively. "How do we solve this problem?"

Carrying Voldemort's resentment around all the time doesn't feel like a good thing.

"No need." Tom Riddle gritted his teeth. "The magic of this castle has already scattered it."

"You're not lying to me?"

"I'm not you, who even has to fabricate a name." Tom Riddle sneered.

"I really am not Harry Potter." Silven took a deep breath. "Forget it. Let's talk about something else—where were you then?"

"A wizard picked me up." Tom Riddle said. "When I realized you were looking for me, I had to do something, so I took control of the nearest wizard and got myself out of your sight."

"Of course, it wasn't easy—the cost was half my soul—but I succeeded. That filthy wizard, half-goblin blood, took me away from the bookstore." Tom Riddle's tone was casual, but his eyes churned with malice nearly solidifying into substance.

Losing half his soul meant he could no longer easily achieve rebirth through others' lives; he could only remain trapped inside that tiny diary.

How could he not resent it?

"Then how did you end up in Malfoy's hands?"

"That wizard brought me." Tom Riddle glanced at the unicorn, which was gathering strength again, and gave up struggling entirely. "He came to take photos of Lockhart, but forgot me in his office when he left."

"Photos… that wizard who took pictures?" Silven remembered—on the feast day, there had indeed been a photographer from the Daily Prophet taking photos of Lockhart.

"So the first person to get you was Lockhart?"

"Yes. He signed the diary with ink mixed with dragon's blood; the magic in the dragon's blood helped me survive my weakest phase," Tom Riddle said.

"Afterward, I realized this was a perfect opportunity—he was a true wizard, not some filthy goblin-blooded trash. I could rely on his life force to grow strong again."

"So you took control of him?" Silven recalled Lockhart's first bizarre Defense Against the Dark Arts lesson.

"No." Tom Riddle shook his head. "When I tried to do so, I was interrupted by a group of students."

"Gilderoy Lockhart never saw my reply—but someone else did."

"Draco Malfoy." Silven said.

"Exactly. He seemed to think I was a powerful magical artifact, so he stole me." Tom Riddle continued:

"How wonderful—the Malfoy was also a wizard who believed in pure-blood supremacy. We quickly became inseparable friends; he opened his heart to me, confiding his secrets."

Tom Riddle glanced again at the unconscious Malfoy on the ground, a flicker of contempt in his eyes.

"But it was so boring. I thought he'd ask me how to gain power—but he didn't. Instead, he complained every day about how stupid Harry Potter was, how stupid his friends were…"

"Yet precisely because of that, I learned your name for the first time—the famous, the Savior who killed the Dark Lord."

"I already said I'm not Harry… forget it." Silven stopped explaining. He simply waved his wand.

The unicorn happily galloped over and butted Tom Riddle right in the mouth.

While he recovered, Silven mentally organized what had just been said.

Tom Riddle probably wouldn't lie—he couldn't, since the unicorn could truly kill him. Most methods of destroying Horcruxes target the object itself, like piercing the diary with a basilisk fang.

But the unicorn was different—it could directly damage the soul fragment inside the Horcrux. Though the damage was minor, it hurt—and for Tom Riddle, that hurt was worse than a basilisk fang.

He likely wasn't lying, but he couldn't possibly be telling the whole truth either; Silven would have to sort it out himself.

But now Silven finally understood why he hadn't found the diary at Flourish and Blotts—the reason was right on him.

But could a soul fragment also function as a warning device?

If so, did that mean he could never approach any other Horcrux again?

If it ran away the moment he got close, how was he supposed to deal with it?

Though Tom Riddle claimed the castle's magic had scattered the resentment on him, what if some residue remained? He could ask again later.

…

(End of Chapter)