Leonard covered his nose and took a step back, putting some distance between himself and the man soaked in urine.
Tom Riddle saw the same scene from inside the diary. Looking at Peter Pettigrew, whose body was splashed with that disgusting yellow liquid, the diary began to shake violently.
Get away from me, you piss-covered idiot.
Tom Riddle roared inwardly, desperate to get away from this filthy creature, but as a diary, he had no way to resist. He could only watch as Peter Pettigrew pressed his wet hand against him.
At this rate, being burned by Fiendfyre would have been better.
Wild, chaotic blotches of ink spread across the diary's pages, fully reflecting Tom Riddle's agitated, nearly deranged state of mind.
To get rid of that hand covered in suspicious liquid as quickly as possible, Tom Riddle hurriedly transmitted the command for opening the Chamber of Secrets directly into Peter Pettigrew's mind through soul consciousness.
Originally, he had intended to tamper with the process a little, perhaps by using some curse technique he had obtained from the Chamber to create a curse that could spread through consciousness.
If this damned fool with his wet hand failed to imitate Parseltongue, then that Hufflepuff student might try to obtain the command through something like Legilimency.
If that happened, the curse would activate, giving Tom Riddle another bargaining chip the boy would have no choice but to take seriously.
But at this moment, Tom Riddle had no mind for curses at all. His only thought was to make this damned bastard get his hand off him as fast as possible.
Bang!
The moment he finished transmitting the command, Tom Riddle used the last of his strength to fling Peter Pettigrew away, then frantically scrawled words across the diary.
"Quick! Quick, burn me with Fiendfyre again. Disinfect me!"
After that brief contact, Tom Riddle felt as if some disgusting liquid had seeped through the diary and stained his soul itself. He could practically smell that awful odor.
Leonard looked at the writing in the diary with a strange expression, then flicked his hand and had the Fiendfyre wrap around it once.
It was no effort at all, and Leonard did not mind giving Tom Riddle a little psychological comfort. A Horcrux was impervious to water and fire. There was no way any liquid could have stained it. Tom Riddle was simply being overly sensitive.
Still, the moment did remind Leonard of something.
He picked up his pen, about to write something in the diary, but then paused. After glancing at it in silence for a moment, he handed the pen back to the Fiendfyre.
Mm. It was not sensitivity. It was caution.
"I hope our cooperation will be a little more sincere from now on, Mr. Riddle," Leonard wrote. "Otherwise, I'll throw you into the fertilizer pile in the greenhouse so you can spend the rest of your days keeping company with manure."
The diary trembled twice, then finally produced a few words.
"Pleasant cooperation."
...
Leonard put the diary away again and tossed it back into the storage space of the miniature man-eating flower. Then he looked at Peter Pettigrew, who was lying on the floor in a daze.
"Repeat the sound you heard," Leonard said.
Peter Pettigrew got to his feet, thought for a moment, and tried to imitate it.
"...Op... en..."
A hoarse, sinister sound came out, as harsh and unsettling as a snake hissing with its tongue flicking.
"Are you sure?" Leonard asked.
After repeating it twice more, Peter Pettigrew nodded respectfully.
"I'm sure."
"Good. Come with me. We're leaving," Leonard said. He glanced at the Marauder's Map, then led Peter Pettigrew out of the Room of Requirement.
There was not a single person in sight in the deserted corridor. Only the tapestry of Barnabas the Barmy being clubbed by trolls moved on the wall, with poor Barnabas taking blow after blow to the head in an endless loop.
Hardly anyone came here all year. By all logic, it should have been very safe.
Still, just in case someone happened to come by and catch him walking out of the Room of Requirement, Leonard always checked the Marauder's Map whenever he entered or left.
The doorway in the wall slowly sank back into it and turned into an ordinary ink-wash painting. Then the traces of ink faded, and the outline of the door disappeared completely.
Peter Pettigrew stared blankly at the scene. Even after spending seven years at Hogwarts, he had never known a place like this existed.
And yet, for some reason, the sight felt strangely familiar, as though he had seen the door to the Room of Requirement vanish before.
But he should never have been here. As far as he remembered, this was his first time.
"Thank you very much for your help, Mr. Peter," Leonard said, turning to the stunned Peter Pettigrew. He pulled out his wand, pointed it at him, and said, "Obliviate."
The confusion in Peter Pettigrew's eyes vanished at once as his gaze lost focus. About two minutes later, he gradually came back to himself, and his eyes regained clarity.
"M-Master? Did you need something from me?" He looked at Leonard in surprise and asked cautiously.
He only remembered suddenly receiving a summons from his master to come here. He had no idea what he had been brought here for.
Something similar seemed to have happened before, but what had his master made him do last time?
Why could he not remember a single thing?
Peter Pettigrew, whose memory had been erased again and again by the Memory Charm, scratched his head, looking utterly confused.
Why did he feel a little dizzy? Why did he feel so tired? What was wrong with him?
"It's nothing. You can go back now," Leonard said as he put away his wand.
"Yes, Master."
Peter Pettigrew did not dare question him. He let out a sigh of relief, turned into a fat rat, and scurried off along the wall.
Great. Looks like nothing's wrong.
Though Leonard had once used him as experimental material and erased all his memories related to those experiments and the Room of Requirement, the fear of Leonard's commands still remained deep in his subconscious.
That was why, the moment he learned Leonard had no further use for him, he fled as fast as he could, terrified that Leonard might change his mind.
After dashing to the corner, Peter Pettigrew suddenly felt weak all over. Dizzy and lightheaded, he collapsed to the floor.
"What's wrong with me? Why do I feel so weak?" Peter Pettigrew was filled with confusion. He even felt as though he had gotten stupider.
"Is it because I haven't been eating enough lately? Looks like I need to eat more and build myself back up."
Shaking his head, Peter Pettigrew treated himself like a real rat and hurried toward the Gryffindor common room.
Then, when he turned a corner, he spotted his owner, Ron Weasley, walking with his head lowered along the wall, as though searching for something.
Great. Found the group again.
The moment he saw Ron Weasley, Peter Pettigrew let out a relieved breath, then gave two excited squeaks and ran over.
...
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