After Lockhart left Snape's office, he thought back on their exchange. The more he thought about it, the more something felt off. Just talking about potions and his adventure experiences, it seemed that Snape was a little too curious about his methods. Snape had even asked about his ways of evading magical animals and briefly mentioned the Forgetting Spell, which he was best known for. Although these were minor mentions, they touched Lockhart's sensitive nerve.
Could Snape have found some traces of his original self? Well, maybe he was overthinking it. He had been a little too sensitive these days because of Dumbledore.
After returning to his office, Lockhart took out the black notebook hidden in the box again. He turned to the latest page and wrote while thinking.
"From today's experiment, a rune was discovered that can increase vitality to a certain extent."
"To be precise, it should store and release a small part of the vitality. Although the amount is not large, if it is used for alchemical items, I guess it may further increase the storage limit."
"Because it is mainly through blood that a certain amount of vitality is obtained."
"I named it - bloodthirst!"
"After experiments, the life force in other people's blood can be converted into one's own through bloodthirst runes, but the loss is huge."
Lockhart cast a disguise spell on himself as usual and wrote some tempting research insights in his notes. Suddenly, he noticed that the ink in his notes began to fade faster and faster. Soon, the page turned into a blank sheet of paper. Immediately afterwards, a line of text gradually appeared.
"Professor Lockhart, are you the owner of the notebook?"
"I am an alchemical item made by the previous owner, Tom Riddle. You can call me Tom."
Seeing the changes in the notebook, Lockhart's eyes flashed with joy. The fish had finally taken the bait.
Then, Lockhart quickly closed the notebook. After pausing for a few seconds, he opened it again and used the wand in his hand to cast spells on the notebook.
"Revelio!"
After a series of spells, the notebook showed no response, as if Lockhart was letting all his tricks go. In other words, it was confident enough to make all Lockhart's methods useless. After a while, Lockhart stopped casting spells. Feeling another secret fluctuation of mind reading on him, he deliberately revealed a trace of nervousness, worry, and fear of the idea of researching and leaking it.
Immediately afterwards, a line of text appeared on the notebook.
"Professor Lockhart, I am just an alchemical item, not a dark magic item."
Immediately afterwards, another line of text appeared.
"You can find Tom Riddle's name in the trophy room at Hogwarts."
"I have part of his memory, to a certain extent, as I was at Hogwarts 50 years ago."
Seeing this, Lockhart wrote with a pen: "Don't think that I am a fooled little wizard, I am a genius of Ravenclaw. I will verify everything you say. As long as there is any problem, I will destroy you."
This time the notebook paused, and for more than ten seconds, a line of text appeared again.
"Professor Lockhart, don't worry, the rules of the notebook itself do not allow lying. Lies cannot appear in the notebook. These are the rules set by the refiner, you can rest assured."
Seeing this, a sneer flashed in Lockhart's eyes. Lying is not allowed yet. If he really believed this, he might be tricked to death at some point. Immediately afterwards, he felt another wave of extremely small invasive mind reading on him. This time Lockhart revealed the idea of testing.
He paused for a few seconds and wrote in his notebook.
"Tell me all the information about your original owner, Tom Riddle, and I will make a judgment."
"Okay, Professor Lockhart. In a sense, I am Tom Riddle and I have a lot of his memories and knowledge. I was originally a student of Slytherin."
Next, in the next ten minutes of the diary, Tom Riddle's experience in school was introduced tirelessly. According to his description, Tom Riddle was a good student with excellent academic performance and was praised by many teachers. He was also the most popular person in Slytherin House.
Lockhart watched quietly without expressing any thoughts. The notebook seemed to know that this meant nothing to Lockhart. Then, a line of text appeared in the notebook again.
"Tom became the heir of Slytherin in his fourth year and received a lot of knowledge about Salazar Slytherin. I was also born at that time. You could say I am the product of Salazar Slytherin and Tom Riddle. Similar to the Sorting Hat, I have my own thoughts, but the rules dictate that I cannot deceive anyone."
Seeing this, Lockhart smiled with satisfaction. Finally, the other party gave him some benefit. The series of essays he wrote in his notebook before were actually intended to give an impression to the Horcrux. He is a researcher who yearns for immortality and power and believes that runes are the best way to achieve his goals. Therefore, if the other party wants to get his recognition, to be precise, he wants to get his research on immortality, and even wants to control him, there is no way to communicate with Lockhart without showing its worth.
A notebook with Salazar Slytherin's knowledge inheritance also has its own thoughts and cannot lie. If such an item is not used as a research assistant, it would be outrageous for both humans and gods, and it is unforgivable. Once it becomes a research assistant, wouldn't everything about it be revealed?
Then, as if to push Lockhart to resolve, the notebook continued.
"Professor Lockhart, there is a soul illusion space in the notebook, which can simulate some small experiments or perform magic exercises to a certain extent. Tom has been using this function to practice spells and conduct experiments. However, turning on this function requires a certain amount of magic and mental power. Do you need to turn on this feature?"
Seeing this, Lockhart felt another wave of spiritual intrusion on him. He quickly released some cautious but greedy and longing thoughts. After almost detecting this, Tom immediately took back his spiritual thoughts without leaving any trace. Lockhart couldn't help but feel a little emotional. Tom was worthy of being the Dark Lord. This wave of operations is really slippery. If you are not careful, you can easily fall into the Dark Lord's routine.
When mental power or soul enters the space in the notebook, don't forget that there is a fragment of Voldemort's soul inside. It said there is nothing fishy about this. How did the original Ginny become a puppet? But when he thought of Kamar Taj's magic and the soul shell provided by the system, a smile appeared on Lockhart's lips.
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