Riddle smirked, "Do you know why the Hogwarts wards are considered impregnable? The official story is that it's powered by seven leylines that the founders harnessed very efficiently, but the scrolls I found here say differently. They say that the founders found a repository here, frozen from the age of the gods, that contained magical energy unlike anything they had seen before, a fragment of the magic of old, that they harnessed to create the miracle that is this castle. There is a reason this school is far more magical than it has any right to be. Slytherin passed on the way to channel the source of the school, enough to enchant a small diary into a true repository of souls."
Harry didn't know how much of that was real, but Riddle was obviously holding something back about that repository of magic. But that wasn't important. He needed to figure out what his angle was because so far, his motivations just didn't make sense.
"No, for all your talk of altruism, you have something else in mind. Oh, that's brilliant. The magic they leave behind. Your victims, every student here would have their magic absorbed to sustain your new body. You can't regenerate magic, can you? So, you're using an overwhelming amount to take that into account. That's your goal, isn't it, to escape the diary permanently."
The older boy's smile widened even further, "This is why I like you so much. You can keep up with me. All my life, I've been looking for a distraction, someone to see the world like I am. And that's you. I've beaten you. And you know what, in the end, it was easy. I was almost tempted to wait until you're older enough to do anything, but you see, I'm not that patient. Fifty years in a diary is more than enough for me. Maybe you would have stood a chance here."
"And how exactly did you beat me?" Harry questioned.
"Really? It barely took more than a single month. You've been chasing me like a bloodhound and followed the exact path I paved for you. Do you think that I would have told you my plan if there was the slightest chance that you had to stop it? You're here because I want you here. My network is planting evidence in your dormitory. I took one of Lockhart's essays to learn your handwriting and have been writing a diary for a good week, your diary to be exact. They'll see the traces to the Undercroft, all the way to the opened chamber of secrets, to see the boy who lived finally dead and the bodies of a muggleborn and a Slytherin loner, who petrified his only friend because she found out he was the heir. At least, according to his diary, he has. The Potter name is tarnished forever, cursed as the end of his line, and you die with the legacy of being a monster. Dumbledore gets blamed for a Basilisk being in the castle on his watch and him not reporting it, and I get a new lease on life. See, you're beaten. Morgana, did you have to be so slow?"
"So, you're planning on killing me, then?" Harry questioned.
"Well, I can't have you stopping me in the future, so I kinda have to do it. And just like that, I beat you. I'll have to deal with the other ordinary people. And it turns out that you're ordinary, just like them. What a disappointment!"
Harry stood silent for a moment before answering, "I can still stop the ritual…"
"No, no, no," Riddle said while shaking his head disappointingly, "The ritual is outside of this room. And you can't leave without my permission. You're making this too easy. Now, I'm starting to doubt if you were ever a worthy rival. Maybe I just overestimated you in my head, because so far, you've done nothing but disappoint me."
"You still haven't considered my other variable. After all, I didn't really come to this place by myself, did I?"
The older boy looked puzzled for a second before giving Harry an incredulous look, "Longbottom? That's your plan? You think that failure can do anything?"
Harry snorted, "Longbottom alone, no, but he's not alone, is he? Have you wondered why your older self would attack the Longbottom family? It would have been easier to kidnap the boy after killing his parents and mould him into a political tool that would obey him. Lord Voldemort was many things, impulsive, irrational at times, but he was not stupid."
"Why then?"
"A prophecy. The dark lord would mark him as his equal, and he did. The scar on his forehead is proof enough…"
Riddle raised an eyebrow, "That's what you're relying on? Divination?"
"Prophecies are tricky things. They can be invalidated, of course, but if there's a chance they can be fulfilled, especially if it's already partially over, then the entire world would move so that this chance would be seized. And the prophecy states that only Lord Voldemort can kill Neville Longbottom."
"I am Lord Voldemort!" Riddle exclaimed.
Harry shook his head, "No, you're not. You're not even a person. You're a diary, you will always be a diary. When Tom Riddle killed poor Myrtle, he was devastated. He hated himself, his cunning, his cleverness, the characteristics that made him open the chamber in the first place. When Tom Riddle used her death to make a Horcrux, he put a lot more of himself than he should have. The soul isn't quantifiable, not in the way people can perceive it at least, it's the combination of who a person is, and when he created the diary, to get him to cheat Death, he put away his empathy, his cunning, his controlled nature, a fragment of his personality that was so large, so deep, that it started to develop a sentience that became you."
"No!"
Seeing a pressure point, Harry ignored him and continued, "Tom Riddle started to lose his personality, and became Voldemort. The process was slow of course, he had to forget the characteristics that he used to be. Making more Horcruxes sped up the process until he became the monster, he always feared he would be. He enchanted the diary, you to act as a weapon if he needed to get Dumbledore outside of his seat of power, and you had to obey. Your motivations are a lie…"
"That's wrong."
"Then tell me why you needed to open the Chamber of Secrets to perform your goal. You could have kidnapped the students in a day and readied the ritual. But you didn't, did you?" Harry asked with a pitying tone.
"I needed Dumbledore to leave the castle. His connection to the wards…"
"Then you could have changed the venue, get an older person to write in a diary and do your ritual in the ministry. There was nothing stopping you…"
The boy was stuck speechless, and Harry continued, "You never thought of it, did you? That's the problem. You were made to open the chamber of secrets, anything else is secondary. Your motivations, your goals are meaningless. They're not even your own."
Riddle had a furious look on his face. He stood up and started to pace, "This doesn't change anything. I won."
Harry kept giving him a pitying look, and the older boy snarled in response, "You hear that? I won!"
"Perhaps you did, but when you think about it, does your win even mean anything? Will you ever trust a single thought in your body to not be the programming that Voldemort planted in your head? You might have ensured that I lost, but you definitely did not win."
"The game is over, Potter!"
Before he could say anything, they both heard a loud banging. Harry's smirk widened, "Is it?"
It took less than a minute until a ragged boy entered the room with what looked like a bloody silver sword that was glowing faintly. Harry gave the boy a warm look, "Ah, you sure took your time, Longbottom."
He then turned to Riddle, "Are you still sure about your chances? Oh, and Knight takes rook, check."
The young Slytherin had a smug smile on his face. After all, his plan was still viable. He just needed to see what else Riddle had up his sleeve before going for the kill.
.....
Want to read ahead by more than 60 chapters. Then join my p@treon Right Now.
Link: p*atreon.com/BookReaderBoy (Remove the *)
Also Free members get 2 advanced chapters for Free as well.