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Hermione knelt in the dust, a single, sharp basilisk fang in her hand, still dripping with a potent, shimmering venom. She looked at Tom Riddle's diary—the new one, the blank one she had just forged from Ravenclaw's Diadem—and handed the fang to the ghostly, translucent boy.
Tom, his handsome face a mask of cold, fascinated curiosity, took the fang. He understood the ritual. A Horcrux could only be destroyed by a substance so powerful it left no room for magical repair. He looked down at the duplicate of his own soul, a soul he had just met, and without a moment of hesitation, he plunged the fang deep into the heart of the book.
"AAAAAIIIIIEEEEEE!"
A high, piercing, inhuman scream, a sound of a soul in its death throe, ripped through the Chamber. It wasn't just a sound; it was a physical force, a wave of pure, negative energy. A torrent of black, inky blood erupted from the diary, and both Tom and the unconscious Harry on the floor convulsed in a shared, sympathetic agony.
A moment later, the screaming stopped. The new diary was just a book, a ruined, smoking, and utterly empty object. The fragment of Voldemort's soul that had once inhabited Ravenclaw's crown was, at last, truly gone.
Tom Riddle, the original diary's memory, straightened up, his form flickering but stable. "A fascinating process," he said, his voice a smooth, cultured whisper. "To destroy a part of myself, without feeling the loss. Thank you, Hermione."
Thank you? Harry, who was just beginning to stir, would have been horrified. But to these two, it had been a simple, logical, and necessary experiment.
Gilderoy Lockhart, who was huddled near the entrance, whimpering, had seen the whole, terrible, incomprehensible exchange. He saw the handsome boy, who was clearly a ghost, and the Gryffindor Witch, who was clearly a demon, conversing like old friends. He saw them calmly, ritualistically, destroy a screaming, bleeding book. He finally understood. He was not a hostage. He was a witness to a conspiracy so dark and so deep he couldn't even begin to fathom it. He wanted to run, but his legs, filled with a terror-induced lead, refused to obey. He could only watch, his eyes wide, his mind a shattered wreck.
Hermione, however, had already forgotten him. She was lost in her own thoughts. Her plan had been to let the plot play out, to let Harry be the hero, to let him destroy the diary. But then Ginny had changed the game.
A Few Days Ago, Gryffindor Common Room.
Hermione had just returned from the library when Ginny Weasley, her face a pale, blotchy mask of terror, had ambushed her at the dormitory door.
"Sister Hermione, you have to help me!"
The girl's voice was a high-pitched, desperate whisper. She grabbed Hermione's arm, her small hands gripping with a strength that was almost painful. "I… I can't control myself," she choked out, her body trembling violently. "The diary… it talks to me. It makes me do things."
Hermione's blood ran cold. She pulled the younger girl into the dorm, her mind racing.
"What things, Ginny?" she asked, her voice calm and steady.
"The writing on the wall…" Ginny's voice broke into a sob. "And Mrs. Norris… that was me. I didn't want to! It just… it takes over. I lose time. I wake up, and there's… there's blood and feathers everywhere. And it's getting stronger. It's in my head all the time now. I'm scared, Hermione. I'm so scared I'm going to hurt someone. I'm scared I'm a monster."
She was a child, broken by a magic she couldn't understand.
"Why did you come to me?" Hermione asked, her voice softening.
"Because," Ginny whispered, looking up, her eyes full of a desperate, drowning hope. "Because you're not like the others. You're… you're strong. You're not afraid of anything. I knew… I knew you would believe me. Please, Hermione. Help me. I don't want to be a monster."
She pulled the small, black diary from her pocket and thrust it at Hermione, as if it were a venomous snake.
Hermione took the book. It felt cold, and it hummed in her hand with a faint, dark, and hungry magic. This changed everything. She couldn't let Harry destroy it now. Ginny's confession, this act of trust, had given her a far more valuable, and far more dangerous, opportunity.
The Chamber of Secrets, Present Day.
Hermione opened the diary. A line of elegant, inky script was already appearing on the blank page.
Hello, Hermione Granger.
A strange, persuasive, and deeply seductive thought flooded her mind. A whisper that wasn't a sound, but a feeling. Trust me. Tell me your secrets. Let me help you.
Any other wizard, any other child, would have been instantly ensnared. But Hermione's mind, fortified by Occlumency and the cold, hard logic of her past life, was a fortress of steel. The diary's pathetic little mental probe shattered harmlessly against her shields.
"Stop playing games, Tom," she said, her voice flat and bored.
The handwriting in the diary paused, as if stunned. How did you know?
"Do you really think you're the only person in the world who knows how to play with anagrams?" she scoffed. A wave of her hand, and the letters of his name rearranged themselves in the air, floating in a glowing, magical script:
TOM MARVOLO RIDDLEI AM LORD VOLDEMORT
"Ginny was right," the diary's script reappeared, the tone now one of cold, calculating respect. "You are a genius. She told me all about you. The girl who defeated Quirrell. The girl with power she shouldn't have."
"Skip the flattery," Hermione said, her patience wearing thin. "What do you want?"
"My purpose is simple," the diary wrote. "I want a body. I want to be free of this paper prison. I want to inherit Slytherin's legacy and purge this school of its Mudblood filth." The script became sharp, almost violent. "Assist me, and I will share my power with you. I will even make an exception for you."
Hermione let out a single, sharp, disdainful laugh. "You're a prisoner, Tom," she said, her voice dripping with contempt. "A half-formed memory in a damp book. You are in no position to be making demands."
She pressed her thumb, hard, onto the open page. "Now," she whispered, her voice a low, dangerous purr, "you're going to be a good little Horcrux and do exactly what I say."