After confirming his current strength and his inability to destroy the diary, Evan decided to try to communicate with Tom.
I should not believe whatever he says.
That night, Evan sat on his bed, he took out a quill and wrote, 'Hello my name is Evan Masson.'
The black ink shined brightly for a second but then in the next, it seemed to be sucked into the paper and disappeared without a trace.
Then a set of words that he had never written appeared, 'Hello Evan Masson, my name is Tom Riddle, how did you find my diary?'
Seeing the other person respond made Evan's heart skip a beat.
The words disappeared when he began to write more.
'You seem to have offended someone so they threw your diary in the toilet where I found it,' wrote Evan
'Luckily I recorded my thoughts in a more lasting way than ink since I knew there will always be people who didn't want this diary to be read. This diary records some terrible things from the past, some of them are from Hogwarts,'
'Oh, so you were a student at Hogwarts?'
'Yes, when I went, the Chamber of Secrets was....'
Before riddle had finished, he was interrupted by Evan writing in the diary, 'Great, you will be able to help me with my homework,'
'Homework?' Tom was stunned, he didn't reply for a while.
'Yes, I've been looking for a senior to help me, but they seem to be only interested in Quidditch. Professor Snape and Binns gave us some difficult work.'
Evan's handwriting was quick and sloppy, like a first-year who hasn't adapted to Hogwarts and finally found someone who could help him with his homework.
'These assignments are very difficult, and with my ability, it is completely impossible to complete them. Tom, won't you help me?'
'I'm sorry, Evan, but I think homework should be done by yourself. If you want, I can tell you something else, such as things about the Chamber of Secrets! When I was in my fifth year, the Chamber was opened, and the creature inside attacked several students and killed one. I finally caught the man who opened the chamber of secrets and he was then expelled.'
'Yeah, good for you! But if I don't finish before the holiday ends forget the monster, the professors will kill me, so nice talking to you, bye!'
With a flick of his writ, he closed the diary.
Evan breathed in and fell backward on to his bed. Today he was only making first contact with Riddle so there isn't a need to do an in-depth conversation with him.
And he has to be careful when he is dealing with Voldemort, he can be led on by him, so Evan took the initiative in the conversation.
Anyway, he has the diary, he doesn't need to worry about the attacks continuing, for now, there is still time for him to communicate with Tom before he has to deal with the Basilisk.
A few days later all the students returned to Hogwarts.
The news of Justin being attacked, already spread throughout Hogwarts. And the few joys that Christmas created vanished in an instant.
The atmosphere was depressing, panic filled all the teachers and students' minds. They all became more vigilant and suspicious.
As long as there was the slightest hint of trouble, they would run away.
Although Harry wasn't there for the third attack, it doesn't prevent anyone from suspecting him. Especially in the face of inquiries, Harry couldn't explain to them why he left the Christmas party early, which is very suspicious.
More and more people began to whisper to each other and Hufflepuff's Ernest Macmillan said, "Ever since Justin accidentally told Potter that he was a Muggle-born, I have been expecting this!"
But what was worse about him saying this was that people actually believed him because they thought Evan and Hermione were accomplices to Harry and this caused their newspaper to do even worse.
Peeves wasn't any help because he kept popping up in crowded hallways and loudly singing, "Oh Potter oh Potter, you're up to no good, you kill students and find it a hoot!���
He also danced when he sang.
Besides Colin, Luna, and the Weasley family, almost no dared to approach Evan, Harry, or Hermione.
It also seems that Malfoy guessed that Evan and Harry had beat him up on Christmas Day so he was always leading Goyle and Crabbe around them, provoking them, like a hyena looking for a chance to attack.
Besides class, they spent most of their time in the library.
Hermione was combing through books from fifty years ago, trying to find who opened the chamber. Their only clue was that they had been expelled from school and had been held in Azkaban until now.
As for Harry and Ron, they decided to learn more about Tom Riddle, the found an award for services to the school, that he was a Prefect, and head boy.
"You know he sounds like Percy" frowned Ron
"It seems he was an excellent student," said Hermione
"Yeah, I never thought he would be that kind of person" replied Ron, he then turned his head and looked nervously at Evan, "How is your investigation on the diary?"
"I've learned nothing," said Evan as he shook his head, he thought it was for the best to not let them know anything about Riddle for now.
"Just like I said, it's just a regular diary."
"I would hardly call it ordinary, I made sure it was waterproof, fireproof, and spell proof, I can't find a way to destroy it."
"That's good, Riddle must have wanted to protect his diary," said Ron with an unnatural expression.
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Time flies, in the blink of an eye it was already February.
After his brief conversation with Tom Riddle on Christmas, he didn't try to contact Tom again, Evan thought it was necessary to ignore him for a while.
The atmosphere in the school is still tense even though the attacks have stopped and the Mandrake root has matured but most students were still in a panic.
Lockhart seemed to think he needed to do something.
"You don't need to worry, the chamber of secrets will never be opened," that's what Lockhart said at the end of every defence against the dark arts class. "The culprit must have known I would catch them sooner or later, so they wisely stopped before I did."
"What is needed now is to eliminate the bad memories," said Lockhart, "I don't have much to say but I think I have the answers,"
By the time they had breakfast on February 14th everyone knew what Lockhart was doing to boost morale.
When Evan entered the Great Hall early that morning, he saw that all the walls were covered with big, bright pink flowers. Worse still there was countless heart-shaped confetti that kept following from the light blue ceiling.
Lockhart sat at the teacher's desk, wearing a bright pink robe that matched the decorations, and the professors sitting beside him had a strange face. Professor McGonagall slightly twitched and Snape looked like he was going to barf.
Next, Lockhart announced he arranged a small surprise.
In the next moment twelve dwarfs walked through the doors, unlike regular dwarfs, they all had golden wings and a harp on their backs.
Lockhart called them friendly little cupids.
He told the students they could use them to deliver Valentine's cards or ask Snape for advice on how to brew a love potion.
Evan didn't know if anyone dared to ask Snape about the potion, but the dwarfs kept rushing around the school delivering Valentine's cards.
Among the teachers, Lockhart received the most cards, nearly 200 or more.
It made him the least popular among the teachers and when a dwarf came into the classroom for the twelfth time, Professor McGonagall ran them out with a nasty stare.
Next, a dwarf brought him a song for his Valentine's day gift.
But Evan was quicker than the dwarf and cast 'Silencio'.
To prevent other dwarfs from finding him, Evan went back to the common room.
Evan decided to talk to Tom Riddle once more, it seems after more than a month of neglect made the other side impatient.
When Evan opened the diary an article that answered his last question for potions class appeared.
"I've already done that assignment myself and Professor Snape gave me a lousy grade, so my question now is...." said Evan with a wry smile, he wrote his recent magical research question.
After about a minute, there was an answer written on the page.
Riddle gave him a perfect answer which gave him a deep sense of enlightenment, it seems Riddle's understanding was even deeper than the professors.
In this way, Evan began to communicate with Tom Riddle for the second time.
Every night, after everyone was asleep, he quietly took out the diary, he wrote his difficulties in his magical studies, the problems became more and more difficult, there are many questions young wizards wouldn't normally ask.
But Riddle didn't seem to notice, Riddle wanted to talk to Evan about the Chamber of Secrets, and the man who opened it.
But every time Evan changed the subject, Riddle was adapting to Evan's way. A strange agreement formed between the two, first Riddle told a story about the chamber of secrets and then Evan asked his questions.
As a young Voldemort, Tom Riddle had a vast reserve of knowledge and could answer almost every question that Evan raised if he wanted to.
From the simplest classroom assignment to the most esoteric magical theory.
For example, the method of recording sound that bothered Evan for so long was given to him by Riddle which could save a sound to any item.
Thanks to Riddle's help the 'Academic research' section of the Hogwarts' Magic was booming, there was no longer any boring articles like the ones Luna wrote but actual research articles.
After Transfiguration class, Professor McGonagall even told Evan that she was surprised at the depth of his research on Animagus.
In addition, the editor of the Daily Prophet, who had been following his newspaper, had offered to reprint some of his research articles, and Evan even received some manuscripts from a number of professional magical academic journals.
But of course, most of the articles were Tom's.
In just a month, Evan's progress had soared to new heights.
He learned a lot from Riddle, such as theoretical knowledge that wasn't taught in class, including dark magic. In fact, the other side seems to have been intentionally or unconsciously teaching Evan the Dark Arts and encouraging him to use these spells.
At first, Evan didn't feel anything unusual.
After consulting with Professor Flitwick, he learned that Tom had been teaching him dark magic.
Until then, Evan was unaware how serious the problem was, he thought it would be helpful to know more about dark magic.
After a while, he finally noticed what was wrong, and the dark magic seemed to have affected his thinking. He grew more irritable and sensitive, and every time he practiced the dark magic there were cruel thoughts that appeared inside his head.
In particular, when he recently clashed with Malfoy, Evan was tempted to pull out his wand and use a new spell he had just learned.
It was similar to Snape's 'Sectumsempra' spell but way more powerful and if Malfoy gets hit, he might die.
Because he stopped himself at the last moment, it didn't lead to any irreversible consequences.
This made him terrified, this was a dangerous sign.
He now realized why Riddle would uncharacteristically teach him magical knowledge.
Riddle was looking for a way to weaken Evan's will since Evan was always wary of him and not interested in the Chamber of Secrets so he tempted Evan with magical knowledge and when Evan is lost in power, that would give him a chance to control Evan.
Even if Riddle can't control him, Evan's final result was likely to become the same as Voldemort, an evil dark wizard.
Since then, Evan never dared to touch the diary again, Tom Riddle is truly evil he can gradually take control of one's mind.
Even people like Evan who were on high alert from the beginning can fall into his clutches.