"Draco." Snape caught the fleeing little snake in a school corridor.
"No—please don't follow me." Draco was bawling like a whining crybaby. He'd already cursed his two cronies into leaving, but a professor wasn't so easy to shake.
Snape's face was cold. He grabbed Draco by the shoulder and dragged him into an empty classroom, then used magic to produce a set of clothes. "Put these on. Look at you!" he snapped.
Once Draco was dressed, he stopped crying. He sat there blankly on the floor—then suddenly yelped, "My book! My book!"
"What book?"
"A diary… my diary is gone."
"What diary? What was it for?" Snape frowned as he pressed him.
Draco wasn't arrogant anymore. He spilled everything he'd been hiding.
Last summer, the Ministry of Magic introduced a new policy tightening control over Dark artifacts. To avoid getting burned, Lucius Malfoy sold off some of his privately hoarded Dark items in Knockturn Alley. There was one special diary he didn't sell—because Lucius meant to use that mysterious Dark object to brew a bloody conspiracy.
In the original story, Lucius Malfoy had a clash with the Weasleys at Flourish and Blotts and took the chance to slip the diary into Ginny Weasley's Transfiguration textbook.
That diary was actually one of Voldemort's Horcruxes, storing a fragment of his soul from his school days. Once it entered Hogwarts, the remnant soul inside would stir up trouble—controlling Ginny Weasley, opening the Chamber of Secrets, directing the basilisk to kill, and even planning to drain Ginny's life to revive itself.
That plot was bound to involve Harry Potter. And that was why the Malfoys' house-elf, Dobby, overheard it and went to Harry, trying to stop him from returning to school.
That was how things were supposed to go.
But now everything had been turned upside down. Because Lockhart had made a wish, every book in the world had become his autobiography—and the Horcrux diary was no exception.
In the chaos back then, Lucius Malfoy didn't notice the diary's cunning—because it was intelligent. It disguised itself as Lockhart's new book, slipped in among the textbooks Draco had just bought, and by pure accident, Draco carried it right into the school.
"That book talked to me. It was alive." Draco trembled as he confessed to Snape. "It even taught me a lot of magic."
"Who was the diary's original owner?"
"Gilderoy Lockhart," Draco said shakily. "That's what the book claimed."
Snape looked startled. His brow furrowed. "Anything else?"
"It… it claimed it was the Heir of Slytherin," Draco stammered. "And it said it wanted to make me an heir too."
"You opened the Chamber?!" A vicious, icy light shot through Snape's eyes. Draco had never seen that expression on the face of a familiar elder—like a lioness that had just discovered her cub was hurt.
"N-no! Not me! I don't know anything!" Draco shook his head wildly. "At night I always fall asleep early."
"You were being controlled, you idiot," Snape cursed under his breath. "Come. You're coming with me."
Snape brought the pale-faced Draco to the Headmaster's Office.
The moment they entered, Dumbledore hurriedly pulled a red velvet cloth over Azura's Star on the desktop. That mind-bending, dazzling orange glow still flickered faintly beneath the fabric.
"What is it, Severus? Weren't you busy with the Dueling Club?" He blinked, then looked at Draco. "It seems Mr. Malfoy has run into a small… situation?"
"Not a small one." Snape's expression was so dark it looked ready to drip—though he still hadn't realized the missing diary was a Horcrux. If he had, he'd have been panicking.
Snape explained everything from start to finish, but he hid Lucius Malfoy's plot, only saying Draco had found the diary at Flourish and Blotts. Draco, listening beside him, showed a quiet flicker of gratitude.
Dumbledore leaned back a little, putting on a face that said, "Well, I never." The old wizard's instincts were sharp: he not only sensed Snape was holding something back, he also immediately understood that the diary was no ordinary object.
The wizarding world had no shortage of malicious books. There were stories of a wizard who read a book and had his face stick to the page forever. Stories of strange volumes that left readers plagued by nightmares. Books that would bite off a reader's fingers.
Examples like that were endless. Wizarding elders always warned children not to touch books of unknown origin. If anything felt wrong, they should throw it away at once and tell their parents to handle it.
Draco's father had hammered that lesson into him more than anyone. And yet Draco still got caught. It wasn't entirely fair to blame him—Horcruxes were genuinely dangerous; even veteran Aurors could be ruined by them.
"Mr. Malfoy, I hear you caused quite a sensation in the Dueling Club," Dumbledore said. "Would you demonstrate your magic for me once more?"
Draco's cheeks burned. He shook his head hard and claimed he hadn't brought his wand.
Snape handed over his own wand and urged, "Stop stalling."
So Draco had no choice. He aimed at a pile of sweets on the Headmaster's desk and fired [Reducto].
This time, a weak, sluggish red glimmer seeped from the wand tip, barely cracking the glass bowl. That was all—perfectly in line with a second-year's level. Clearly, what he'd shown in the Great Hall earlier had been abnormal.
Snape frowned. "That book boosted your magic? What did it say to you?"
Draco bit his lip, hesitated, then finally said, "The diary told me to worship it. To open my mind and offer it to the great Gilderoy Lockhart."
He'd barely finished the sentence when it hit him like a nightmare. His eyes rolled white and his whole body started to shake.
"Draco!" Snape's face changed violently.
In less than half a second, the boy went still. But his posture and expression turned exaggerated and theatrical—and he let out a chilling, crooked laugh. Snape's wand was clenched in his hand like a lethal weapon.
Dumbledore shot to his feet. "Lockhart?"
"It is I—indeed, I am Gilderoy Lockhart. N-no, that's not right. I'm not Lockhart. Who am I again?" Draco laughed nervously, his face twisting. The voice that came from his throat was both polite and slickly deceitful. "Ah, doesn't matter. Doesn't matter at all. Seeing you is such a delight, Albus… and you too, Severus."
Snape's face went whiter than March snow. The cadence in Draco's voice felt disturbingly familiar. A fear buried deep in his bones snapped like cold lightning and seized his heart.
Dumbledore rested a hand lightly atop Azura's Star. "Tom… is that you?"
"Tom? Damn it—who's that? Why can't I remember… I'll need to check my earlier memories. I made backups." He hummed to himself. "Mm. Mm… good. I understand now. Tom is a failure. Hah—defeated by a baby, then stuffed into a dog's body. And that thing dared to call itself a Dark Lord? I discarded that name long ago."
Draco threw his head back and laughed wildly.
"Now I am Gilderoy Lockhart! The whole world is calling that name—what a magnificent man! Fame is influence, influence is power, and my power now stands above everyone in this world. Infinite magic is howling, all things obey my command—I am the one true god!"
Snape was trembling at the side, as if he wanted to lunge at Draco—but he looked deeply wary, not daring to move rashly.
Dumbledore's expression hardened. "Leave that child. Whether you are Tom or Lockhart—do you hear me?"
Draco gave a ridiculous little grin. "You would resist the great Lockhart? I command you—submit!" He raised the wand and pointed it at Dumbledore.
"[Imperio]!"
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