As Halloween approached, Lynn was once again frantically writing to harass Tom.
(Tom, the Professor gave us a thinking question in class today: A cage contains several Phoenixes and several Unicorns. There are 30 heads and 88 feet in total. How many Phoenixes and Unicorns are there?)
Lord Voldemort felt a deep sense of powerlessness.
Have Hogwarts' teaching standards fallen this far in 2868?
He couldn't help but roar internally, "They can't even tell the difference between a Phoenix and a Unicorn?"
And what wizard would be bored enough to put them and a Phoenix in the same cage to count heads and feet?! This "Carrow" was either a hopeless idiot or was finding ways to mess with him!
(Tom? Why aren't you talking, Tom?!)
Seeing that the diary was slow to respond, "Carrow" "anxiously" urged him again, poking the paper with the tip of the pen.
Lord Voldemort could now say he completely couldn't be bothered with this "Carrow."
Looking back at his exchanges with "Carrow," every time he tried to steer the conversation toward deeper topics—such as asking about the outside world, probing the other party's thoughts, or, most critically, demanding life energy—
This "Carrow" would immediately fob him off with various stupid questions or a dry "I'll think of a way," and then mercilessly slam the diary shut with a "snap."
Lord Voldemort's patience was completely exhausted. He decided to give "Carrow" one last chance.
If he didn't take the bait this time...
Handwriting slowly appeared in the diary, carrying a deliberately crafted sense of weakness:
(I apologize, Carrow... This question, and many previous questions... I am afraid I can... no longer answer them.
My remaining energy... is about to be completely depleted, and my consciousness is starting to blur... I may soon...)
The handwriting here became extremely faint, as if it would disappear at any moment, designed to provoke the other party's sympathy and urgency.
However—
(I'm going to class!)
"Snap!"
Before Lord Voldemort's "dying words" could fully appear, Lynn wrote those five words and then decisively closed the diary.
Here we go again. Lynn curled his lip and put the diary back into the drawer.
After harassing this broken book for so long, Lynn had figured out its routines.
As soon as it starts with "I apologize," nothing good follows; it either wants blood or life. Time to bail.
"Let's go, time for class."
Lynn turned and greeted his roommates. This time he wasn't lying; it was indeed time for History of Magic...
Feeling that familiar closing sensation, Lord Voldemort's fury almost broke through the diary's restraints.
I already gave you a chance... you didn't value it. I originally... didn't want to use this method.
As the words fell, the diary in the drawer began to vibrate violently, as if something were crashing around frantically inside.
The cover twisted and deformed, and the pages rapidly flipped on their own, whooshing like they were caught in a gale.
Immediately afterward, a thin stream of black substance slowly seeped out from the gaps in the diary.
This substance twisted and condensed in the air, struggling to outline a vague humanoid shape.
It had no clear facial features, only two red dots that barely counted as eyes.
The phantom lowered its head and "looked" at its almost transparent hand, then glanced around the "Azkaban Academy" dormitory.
"So this is... the Azkaban Academy dormitory?" the phantom's voice carried a hint of doubt. "Never mind, I don't have much energy; I can't worry about it now. I must leave here first and find a... more suitable 'collaborator.'"
He controlled this extremely unstable phantom and reached the castle corridor.
However, the moment he left the support of the diary, the soul fragment's rate of energy consumption rapidly accelerated.
Lord Voldemort felt his outline visibly becoming dimmer and more transparent, his power draining away like an ebbing tide.
He couldn't even maintain a clear form, becoming thinner than the actual ghosts in the castle.
"Damn it! Too little energy, I can't sustain this for long!" Lord Voldemort cursed inwardly, hating that stingy "Carrow" even more. "I must find a host immediately—anyone will do!"
Lord Voldemort drifted rapidly along the corridor like a headless fly, desperately searching for any student who might be alone.
However, it was class time, or perhaps just bad luck; this corridor, and the few paths he took, were completely empty—not even a shadow of a ghost could be seen!
Lord Voldemort's phantom was so faint it was almost merging with the air.
Just as he felt he was about to dissipate again and be forced back into the diary, he drifted to the doorway of a classroom.
The door was tightly shut, and the sound of a professor lecturing faintly drifted out. Lord Voldemort had neither the time nor the energy to search further for a better target.
"This is it..." Lord Voldemort didn't bother calculating the odds and immediately made his decision.
The next moment, the phantom completely vanished into the air. Calm returned to the corridor, as if nothing had happened.
---
Only that diary lay quietly by the classroom door, waiting for the next "fated person" to pick it up...
"Dear Tom~ I'm back to chat with you!"
Having just finished Professor Binns' History of Magic class and caught up on sleep, Lynn felt refreshed and thought of Tom, the diary.
He yawned and walked toward his desk.
"Hmm?"
The drawer opened easily, but besides a few rolls of parchment, a half-used bottle of ink, and a few Fizzing Whizbees, the diary was nowhere to be found.
Lynn froze. "Strange... I distinctly remember putting it back in this drawer before class, didn't I? Did I remember wrong?"
He scratched his head and started searching.
First, he pulled the entire drawer out, dumped everything onto the desk, and rummaged through it—nothing.
Next were the other drawers of the desk, not even sparing the one where he kept his socks—they were all empty.
He moved the thick-spined books piled on the desk surface one by one—still nothing.
"That's weird..." Lynn muttered, his gaze starting to sweep elsewhere.
Lynn lay on the floor, peered under the bed, and flipped up and shook his quilt, pillow, and sheets. Besides making a mess of the bedding, he still found nothing.
"Impossible, it can't have grown legs and run away, can it?"
Refusing to give up, Lynn pulled out his wand again and aimed at the empty space ahead:
"Accio diary!"
There was no whooshing sound of an object breaking through the air, nor did he feel any feedback of attraction.
Lynn drew a conclusion:
"Damn! Hogwarts... was fucking robbed!!! Of all things to steal, they stole a diary?!"
---
Happy Reading. Be sure to leave a review!!!
Visit my Patreon for early access to 20+ chapters!!!
P@treon: mrfanfiction140