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"My point is, we two have a connection! And you can check: my creator is named Tom Riddle and has received a special contribution award!" The diary quickly organized its thoughts.
Tom: "Well, you're quite impressive then."
Diary: "Thanks for the compliment."
The diary continued to get closer to Tom, and lines after lines of text appeared on the paper as Riddle inquired about Tom's family background.
After some thought, Tom wrote in the diary: "I'm an orphan, grew up in an orphanage, and later... some bad things happened, so I left the orphanage."
"Wait, you're saying you're an orphan too?" Suddenly, these words appeared on the diary.
Tom nodded. Later, he found out the diary couldn't see his gestures, so he wrote "yes" on the paper.
The diary was silent for a while and then a line of text appeared: "Can you tell me about your childhood?"
So Tom wrote a story, a long time ago, a story that seemed like a lifetime ago.
"I've never seen my parents since birth, always lived in a secluded orphanage, surrounded by high walls that isolated us from the outside world."
"The orphanage had many rules, and the caretakers were strict. And I, it seems, had an innate talent to discern people's attitudes towards me—good or bad. This talent made me unsociable because I knew that beneath feigned smiles, there was always malice."
"Wasting food was strictly prohibited. Once, a caretaker found a half-eaten apple in the trash can, asked who did it, and when no one admitted, she made me eat it."
"Sometimes there were inexplicable punishments. I remember once I had to take off my shoes, stand barefoot between the piano and the wall, but I couldn't remember what mistake I had made."
"There was also the malice of my peers. Little Red took my big sticker; she said she would exchange it for ten small ones, but to this day, she has not fulfilled her promise."
"Then there was the priest who came on Sundays. Every time he spent some time alone with a boy or a girl, baptizing them. The children were frail, and the conditions at the orphanage were limited, so we had to invite the priest. But baptism couldn't save innocent souls."
"Later, when it was my turn to be baptized, I unexpectedly flipped over the wall. I was seven that year."
Tom's story omitted some details, like the strange memories that often popped up in his mind as a child, the strange system he awakened at the age of seven, and the fact that his judgment of good and evil relied more on instinct and intuition—more like life experience than magical talent.
The diary remained silent for a long time, and finally, a paragraph appeared: "You and I are really alike."
Then the diary told its own story of being bullied in the orphanage. But its version seemed more like a protagonist's: a teenager who suffered bullying, used his fists and magical talent to crush those who bullied him, got admitted to Hogwarts but was looked down upon in his house—Slytherin. The orphan, despised at the beginning due to his humble origins, eventually rose to prominence, won the hearts of many, and finally became the head of his house...
Tom could see that the harsh life in childhood had twisted Riddle's soul, and during that time, he began to worship violence and enjoy fear. His foundation for control wasn't bloodline or ideals but fear. Of course, there was also the cliché pure-blood doctrine.
"Alright, we've talked enough for today. I need to digest this." Tom took the initiative to end the conversation and closed the diary—present-day Riddle was still too weak to influence the real world.
Tom put the diary in the drawer and transformed into the shape of a unicorn. Tom was afraid, afraid that he might unknowingly be contaminated by Voldemort and become an accomplice in a tragedy. Tom asked himself sincerely, if he became a puppet of Voldemort, the harm caused would be much greater than Ginny's. Hogwarts might really witness a bloody incident.
So, this unicorn form was his bottom line. If turning into a unicorn couldn't resist the contamination, he would immediately write to Dumbledore, confessing that he had found a powerful dark magic item.
After transforming into a unicorn, a warm stream surged from his heart. When the warmth spread throughout his body, Tom immediately felt a sense of relief. He realized that during the time he spent with the diary, he had unconsciously generated too many negative emotions— or rather, the diary had amplified his negative emotions.
The unicorn snorted, as if trying to expel those garbage emotions from its nostrils. Tom turned back into a human and felt a sticky, sweaty feeling all over. Disgusted, he shivered and hurriedly went to take a shower.
In the following days, Tom really didn't touch the Riddle diary again. He devoted more of his energy to rune carving, and, of course, he read a lot of books in the Flourish and Blotts bookstore.
Finally, Tom's rune carving made a breakthrough.
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(End of this chapter)