Chapter Text
Harry's POV
Over the last week since Harry had received the blank book from Flourish and Blotts, he had been working on making it seem like a diary from long ago.
First he decided on who the diary would belong to and went with a witch named Agatha and used no last name. He figured if he did use a last name, Tom would attempt to find the woman in historical records or family that could be related to her when she never existed. To prevent this he used a common name and didn’t add details like locations or a family name that could give any potential leads.
The diary wasn’t actually a regular diary, from the way Harry wrote it. Instead he wrote it as a woman’s search for immortality and the only reason the book existed was because her lover had wanted others to know the dangers of horcruxes. Perhaps for one reason or another—such as enough description on how to make a horcrux—the book ended up hidden away hundreds of years ago.
Harry stuck with writing the book in Old English—Anglo-Saxon—which took quite a bit of concentration. Old English was very different from Modern English, so Harry was hoping that Tom would be able to understand it—assuming the boy didn’t already know a spell that could help with translating. It honestly wouldn’t shock Harry if Tom came up with such a spell in order to read more books. Not even just Dark Art books, but all books in general.
Harry always knew that Tom was intelligent, but he didn’t expect the boy to be such a bookworm. Truly, the future Dark Lord—or not, since Harry aimed to stop him—was more of a bookworm than Hermione Granger herself.
Harry hoped that placing this journal with the other darker magic books might catch Tom’s attention. If not, then he’d have to find a way for the book to end up in Tom’s possession or choose an entirely different way to keep him from making horcruxes.
“Property of Agatha,” was written on the first page in light, thin Anglo-Saxon handwriting, each word linked to the next by a small loop.
“Please read this; heed the warnings within. Immortality is not worth playing with your soul. If I had known, perhaps my lover would still be here,” was written just beneath the light and thin handwriting in dark, thick lines and what looked to be a few drops of water that could be tears.
Harry went all out with the book—diary?—to make sure it looked as authentic as possible, even adding a plot with a lover who was the whole reason the book was even in the Chamber of Secrets’ library.
The outline of the book was simple; a witch—Agatha—had a deep fear of what happened after a person died as well as the fear of being forgotten after her death. On her search for immortality she met a wizard named Arnauld and they fell in love and married. For a short amount of time she put her search for immortality on hold before picking it back up again. After searching for a year or two, Agatha finally found information on how to make a horcrux and battled with herself over killing someone. So she decided to kill someone who she felt deserved it and used a bracelet her grandmother had given her to make into the horcrux.
Life returned to some normalcy, though Agatha noted how her skin had become paler and she had aged somewhat after making the horcrux, but she didn’t look ugly or sick so she didn’t mind her slight decline in looks.
Things were fine until she realized that the horcruxes could be damaged. Sent into an anxiety induced frenzy, she set about making a second horcrux and used the wedding ring Arnauld had given her. She noted again that her looks declined, her hair thinning further and her skin becoming even paler. She also noticed that her once saint-like temper had become short and she began to snap at Arnauld more and more. In fact, she continued to get into fights with him when they once had a very peaceful marriage.
The next bit of the diary—book—was written with the same dark, thick handwriting at the beginning.
The new person writing in the book described how after the first horcrux, Agatha changed drastically. It wasn’t just her looks that had changed, but everything about her. Her temper was shorter and her obsession with immortality grew. At first she seemed completely fine with just one horcrux, but after realizing the horcruxes could be destroyed, she went into a frenzy and made a second.
The reason she knew the horcruxes could be damaged was because Arnauld had accidentally dropped the bracelet and one of its links had come undone. For the first time in their relationship, Agatha used Crucio on Arnauld. Immediately after, she began to cry and apologize for her behavior, saying that it was difficult to control her impulses.
Arnauld—the owner of the dark, thick handwriting—went on to describe Agatha’s descent into insanity and how she only wanted to make more horcruxes to ensure she’d never die. Other than that, she concentrated on becoming famous in many different and increasingly worrying ways.
Finally, for her last horcrux—her fourth—Agatha planned to use Arnauld as the sacrifice. She had gone on about how him being the sacrifice would just bring them closer. How that piece of soul in one of her favorite earrings would hold a bit of him as well if she used him as a sacrifice.
Arnauld was understandably upset and ended up having to kill Agatha and destroy her horcruxes after researching how to destroy them. It took a few years to find a reliable way to destroy the horcruxes, and by the time he was done, Arnauld had become old and tired.
On the last page he simply reiterated how it wasn’t worth it to try to achieve immortality with horcruxes. The loss of sanity, health, and vitality should be enough to caution others who might want to try making more than one horcrux.
Harry had made sure to transfigure the book permanently so it took on an old, aged appearance and looked as though it had been hand bound. From what Harry recalled about the Chamber of Secrets’ library, there was a spell to keep books from decaying, but after many, many years of being unopened the spell had lost its strength. This caused the books to still be legible, yet a person had to be delicate with the books or they’d risk destroying some of them.
Finally happy with the book—and checking to make sure there was nothing that could possibly give him away that the book was a fake—Harry waited until just before curfew to head out. Only there was an issue.
‘Why can’t I summon the cloak?’
That would be because Charlus is using it to sneak here to visit a certain witch who is sneaking out at night.
‘Wait… Charlus and Dorea are already that close?’
They have been since second year. It’s actually a very innocent relationship, so they’re not sneaking to do anything untoward. They just meet in the common room and talk about their day sometimes.
‘How should I get to the Chamber, then?’
You do remember you are an animagus, right? An unregistered one, at that.
‘Oh. Wait, how do you know all of that?’
Magic likes to gossip about human’s inane lives and sometimes I actually listen.
‘How kind of you.’
Harry sighed as he tried to figure out how to transport the book without destroying it. His options were limited since now he not only had to avoid his roommates, but he also had to avoid two lovebirds in the common room.
With a quick wave of his wand, Harry shrunk the book down so it’d fit into his mouth and also made sure to put a soft-of-stasis spell so none of his saliva would get onto the book.
Once everyone crawled into their beds, Harry gave Mort a pat and made sure to cast a spell so the cat couldn’t leave his bed while he was gone. As much as he disliked having to do such a thing, with how lazy Mort was, Harry doubted the cat would even notice that a spell had been cast.
Harry laid the tiny book on the bed and shifted into his animagus form for the first time as himself. He had the memories of when Hieronymus did it, and he had his own memories when he successfully turned into a stag for the first time. The difference between becoming a stag and a cat was clear. The four legs were somewhat similar, but how close Harry was to the ground still bothered him just a bit.
Carefully, he picked the book up in his mouth and lept from the edge of the bed. His landing was a little sloppy, but he still landed on all four paws.
‘Merlin I nearly fell on my arse.’
Harry trotted towards the door to the dormroom and looked towards his roommates to see if anyone was awake. He let out a raspy meow and scratched at the dorm door.
“Harry! Let your cat out!” Abraxas snapped out as Harry—the cat—continued to scratch at the door and meow loudly.
“Uuugh, fine, but I’m not letting you back in!” Abraxas huffed as he opened the dorm door and Harry slipped out.
Dodging the lovebirds in the common room was easy enough, as they were so wrapped up in each other that they hardly noticed a cat trotting its way outside of the Slytherin common room.
Once Harry made his way into the second floor’s girl lavatory, he changed back into his original form and spat the book out from his mouth. He took it and wiped it against his robes, making sure that there were absolutely no saliva on it.
Now he stood in front of the sink and let out a long sigh. Opening the Chamber of Secrets really brought back a lot of memories.
Some of which had to do with Ginny, which caused a feeling of revulsion to curl in Harry’s stomach. She wasn’t evil, just so obsessed with him being the Boy-Who-Lived that she went to lengths she didn’t need to go to. Harry genuinely liked her before he realized he was being dosed with love potions. He really did wonder where things had gone wrong between him and Ginny, but after time she did calm down and found her own lover and became a better mother to his kids.
He still hadn’t had the time to really cry about the fact his kids would never exist. He had mourned their deaths a long, long time ago, but now that he’d gone back in time, they would never exist. At least when he was hundreds of years old he could still visit their graves, but now there would be nothing. Just him and his memories.
Harry shook his head and let out another long sigh.
“ Open .” Harry hissed out and watched as the Chamber began to open. The top of the sink began to lift in the air and Harry quietly cursed to himself. He never really cared how noisy the opening of the Chamber could be, but at the moment he didn’t want anyone finding him. Not only was he out after curfew, he was also opening the Chamber of Secrets and if that didn’t get Dumbledore on his case, he isn’t sure what else could.
Harry casted a noise canceling charm on the room for the time being. He had to focus on getting into the library which meant dealing with slipping by the Basilisk unseen.
Each sink began to move away from each other and one slid beneath the floor with the grate covering it soon after, and then came Harry’s absolute favorite part of getting into the Chamber. The slide , which was neither fun nor nice.
Without much thought, Harry slid down into the chamber and groaned as he landed below.
What shocked Harry was how nice the Chamber still looked at this point. It was gross, yes, filled with the bones of some of the things the Basilisk ate and shed skin, but overall it was a lot more dry than Harry was used to.
‘Huh, Salazar really took the snake motif seriously, didn’t he?’
Can you imagine if one of the founders had something like a pigeon motif?
‘Oh and just what would their name be, Pidge Pudgeons?’
Imagine the amount of bird shi-
‘No. Merlin .’
Oh, or a poodle motif.
‘So… Umbridge?’
Oh, nasty bint, that one. Accurate though.
Thankfully, Harry didn’t need to call the Basilisk into the room to get access to the library. The opening to the library actually sat between the many snake statues and had been hidden previously due to the flooding. It wasn’t exactly an opening one noticed unless they were looking for it or had too much time on their hands while exploring.
Harry was actually somewhat excited about the library because when he had stumbled across it in his past, most of the books were not salvageable.
‘Should probably make the entrance to the rest of the Chamber more obvious so Tom can find it, later. I’m not sure if he knew about the rest of the Chamber since talking to his sixteen year old self only focused on mudbloods and the Basilisk.’
How do you know he didn’t find the library?
‘If he had, he probably would’ve decided on something other than horcruxes to be immortal.’
Harry finally found the entrance to the library—technically it was many different rooms that each served a different purpose, such as probably a place for Salazar to live while alive—and stopped in front of the third snake statue to the left of the hallway nearest the entrance.
This snake, unlike the others, had a long split down its lower jaw, hidden slightly by the tongue that stuck out.
“ The Heir of Slytherin has returned. ” Harry hissed out and watched as the snake statue’s jaw turned until it was at a 90 degree angle with the ground. The lower jaw split into two and the tongue disappeared into the new opening. The jaw finished opening and a pair of stairs were revealed going downwards.
Harry was quick to descend the stairs and ignored every other room other than the library. While he wanted to stay and read all of the books, he had a goal in mind at the moment.
It took about an hour for Harry to gather the correct books and to slip his fake book with the other books in relation to immortality and soul magic.
Once he was happy with the placement of the book, he began to leave, but before completely leaving, he made sure to resettle the dust with magic so it looked as though no one was there.
Harry just hoped that this would all work out and that Tom had patience to translate from Old English to Modern English. Knowing that the teen had a hunger for knowledge, Harry didn’t think Tom would just ignore the one diary-like book amongst all the other books on immortality and soul magic. It would be ridiculous to ignore something, and odd for Tom to ignore his own curiosity. At least that is what Harry was hoping for.
Quickly making his way out and back into his dorm—as a cat, that Abraxas reluctantly let back in—and crawled into his bed. He did a few spells to get rid of all the dust and grime off of him and just fell asleep in his usual clothes. He’d change into a different uniform tomorrow, right now he just wanted to sleep.