Chapter Text
He had forgotten about the diary.
Headmistress McGonagall hadn't even known what it was, when she discovered a drawer with a false bottom in her office. Dumbledore had just hidden it away.
But she saw the name on it, and felt dark energy leaking off of it.
She called Harry, because of course she did.
He held it gingerly, turning it over in his hands, marvelling at all the wretched memories.
‘Is it dangerous?’ Minerva asked lowly.
‘Not anymore.’ Harry replied dully, tracing the hole where he had stabbed it. ‘I’ll still take it to the Department of Magical Artefacts, though. Can’t believe I forgot about it.’
‘You did have a lot on your plate at the time.’ Minerva replied reasonably. Harry barked a short quick laugh.
‘I ‘spose that’s true.’
Harry respectfully nodded at Dumbledore’s portrait before tumbling back through the floo. He stumbled out, somehow having managed to inhale a large amount of ash, which he promptly spat out, right onto the floor.
‘Scourgify.’ he mumbled, not wanting to inconvenience the elves.
People respectfully nodded at him as he strode through, clad in his auror garb (and soot). They probably thought he’d come back from some kind of fiery battle, which to be fair, wasn’t uncommon for him.
He threw the diary onto his desk and groaned, rubbing his eyes.
He’d only run to Hogwarts because the diary scared him, even though that fear was completely unfounded. It was as dead and empty as the man who made it.
Harry felt dirty, looking at the diary. Sometimes he felt like Voldemort had tainted his soul. He would look at Ginny’s flushed rosy cheeks and think about when they were pale and dead. He would look at her swollen belly and wonder if the child inside was corrupted by Harry.
Once he dreamt that she gave birth, but what came out was a pale snake child, a wraith. Harry had woken up shaking in a cold sweat.
The diary had fallen onto the desk at an angle, and flipped open.
There was writing inside of it.
Harry creased his eyebrows, wondering when someone wrote in it, and why? The diary was supposed to be blank. He picked it up, getting a shiver from just touching the leathery surface. It twisted his gut to remember that year, and everything after. The hole in the middle obliterated a few words, but was relatively unobtrusive.
That handwriting.
Voldemort had used it as a diary. When he made it into a horcrux, the writing must have been hidden, but there were no charms on it now, the fang tore apart every trace of magic within the thing, even spells which would have presumably been originally laid on it for the sake of privacy. Harry was aghast, the real thoughts of a teenage Voldemort were written in this. God, imagine if the reporters got their grubby little fingers on this, there would be no end to it. A dark lord, reduced to gossip. Harry wondered bemusedly if the diary detailed any crushes.
Perish the thought.
He would just read a page or two, then he really had to finish his paperwork as soon as possible. It didn’t begin with a ‘Dear Diary’, just a neatly penned date.
August 26th, 1938
This is my first entry into my diary. I am using it to organise my thoughts and plans.
I am going to attend a school for people like me. Special people, who can do impossible things. I have met a man that is from this school, and think that even though they are the same have the same abilities as me, I am still different in other ways.
I am different from everyone, there is no one like me.
Sometimes I feel alone but
-T.M Riddle
The handwriting wasn't as perfect as what Harry had glimpsed later in the diary, but impressive for an 11 year old nonetheless. Certainly better than Harry's chickenscratch. And it was very well written too. Harry thought of what his essays had been like at this age and grimaced. But that was Tom Riddle wasn't it? Perfect, Prefect, genius, head boy. Who was secretly a psychopath. Harry kept reading.
It was interesting, and though it tore into him, he couldn't stop. It hurt to read this, this thing that humanised Voldemort. The dead skin of the shadow-boy that almost killed Ginny.
It detailed Tom’s life, not day by day, but whenever he felt the need to write in it. Harry could sense that not everything was being said, that even this place which was supposed to be of utmost privacy wasn't considered safe for the depths of Tom Riddle’s psyche. The most revealing words were those that had been angrily crossed out, near or to the point of illegibility. They were the only places where this cold boy showed emotion, generally rage, sometimes sadness. Happiness was rare in this book, and where it was present, it was only half real, some kind of malicious glee at another's suffering, at the stupidity of his peers.
Harry kept on reading, and finally he came to it.
July 8th, 1943
Slytherin’s beast has grown to trust me, I am the last of her masters' kin, after all.
The Knights were in awe when I led them down to the chamber, showed her sleeping form. Who can dare to oppose me when I control such a power? I will use her soon. A death by basilisk is potent, potent enough for this.
It is coming close to the time now. Isn't it simply delightful that the best time to split a soul in half, is when the moon shows half of her face? The logic of magic continues to astound me.
I am going to be immortal, soon. This will likely be the last time I write in this diary, which will cease to be a vessel for my musings, and instead hold something far greater.
-Voldemort
That had been the last entry of course, and Harry closed the book, heart in his throat.
He had already been so far gone, even then.
He could almost see Riddle, sneering, standing over him as he bled, venom moving through him. Harry’s mind was ablaze, and he flinched slightly at a headache, fearing a pain in a scar he hadn't felt in years.
This thing should be burned. Voldemort feared death the most, and Harry wouldn't let his memory live on through a personal narrative. No one needed to know the life and times of Tom Marvolo Riddle. Harry knew that this diary would elicit sympathy, for the cold broken boy that never knew love. Harry pitied Tom Riddle, had for years, but the world didn’t need to. They had a story, and he would not taint it with nuance.
Harry made his way to The Office for The Disposal of Dark Artefacts. He knew that it was just a mound of parchment at this point, nothing remotely magical about it, but it would still ease him to thrust it into those bright pink flames rather than mundane ones.
It’s important to have closure.
Hermione's voice echoed in his head, from times where he didn't want to leave his house, didn't want to do anything when the war had ended.
‘And what are you disposing of today, Auror Potter?’ asked the woman at the desk. Harry had experienced enough fanaticism to know when someone was excited to speak with him, and her tone bordered on a squeal.
‘A book.’ he answered shortly.
‘A cursed book?’ she inquired.
‘Yeah, it slices off your toes if you write in it.’ Harry lied glibly.
She sighed pitchily,
‘Truly awful, what those dark wizards think up, isn’t it?’
‘I’d say.’ he muttered darkly.
She wrote down the report, and sent it through a chute.
‘You’re good to go, Auror Potter.’
‘Call me Harry.’
She seemed stunned.
‘Just… Harry?’
He laughed a little, at a joke no one else would get.
‘Yeah,’ he said. ‘Just Harry.’
Then loud, running footsteps struck behind him. He turned to see Ron, looking completely dishevelled and bewildered.
‘Oh, Harry! That’s good then, can you chuck this one in for me? I only have ten minutes to file that paperwork you know the one-’ and a metal object is pressed into Harry’s other hand before Ron is off again.
Thank you, Ron, for putting a presumably dark object into my hand for me.
He had her file that one too, under ‘unknown’, because Ron had not deigned to tell them the properties of the object, which was a rather nice looking wristwatch, and it didn't really matter that much anyway. Probably.
The disposal room smelled like smoky incense, due to the pink fire that took up the centre of it. Harry wasn't exactly sure about the particulars of how it worked, but it was pretty good at destroying dark objects, (excluding, of course, horcruxes) and that was good enough for him. Harry gripped the diary in his hand.
It was going to feel good to burn this.
It felt underwhelming when he threw the diary in lightly, followed by the watch. Harry was ready to go when the flames flared up a dark purple.
That had never happened before.
Harry began to reconsider the idea of recklessly handling anything even remotely associated with Voldemort.
He didn’t come here that often, it could be normal.
Harry decided it most likely wasn’t normal precisely the moment that the flames expanded to consume the entire room.
Everything turned purple, and he was gone.