Chapter 26: The Archive of the Soul
The chaos of the fight between Arthur and Lucius had dissipated, but the crowd in front of Flourish and Blotts remained dense. Timothy watched from a distance as the Weasley group regrouped, their faces a mixture of anger and shame. Harry and Ron were busy consoling their father, and Mrs. Weasley was furious.
The target, however, was Ginny.
The girl had lagged a bit behind, clutching her heavy second-hand cauldron, her face flushed. She seemed to be on the verge of tears, torn between her family's humiliation and the excitement of being so close to Gilderoy Lockhart.
It was the perfect moment.
Timothy took a deep breath, deactivated the slight disillusionment charm he was using to go unnoticed, and set off. He walked with the calculated haste of a student heading to another shop.
He deliberately "bumped" into her. It was a gentle shoulder bump, just enough to be a credible accident, but firm enough so that the cauldron, heavy and ill-balanced, slipped from her hands. Lockhart's books, new and old, spilled across the cobblestones.
"Oh, I am so sorry!", exclaimed Timothy, his voice was the epitome of polite Ravenclaw concern. He crouched instantly, his body blocking Ginny's view of the cauldron's contents. "How clumsy of me. Let me help you".
Ginny was red with embarrassment. "No, no, it was my fault...!"
"You dropped this", he said, pointing to a copy of Year with the Yeti that had rolled near her feet.
It was the perfect distraction. While Ginny, grateful, turned to pick up the book he indicated, Timothy's hand moved in a blur. It wasn't magic, it was pure and simple sleight of hand. His hand dipped into the cauldron, his fingers finding the leather spine of the diary. He pulled it out.
In the same instant, his other hand, which had been in his robe pocket, dropped an object he had prepared: a smooth pebble from the alley, transfigured that morning to have the exact weight and size of the diary. The replacement object landed at the bottom of the cauldron with a dull, imperceptible thud. The entire exchange took less than two seconds.
"Here you go", said Timothy, stacking Lockhart's books back into her cauldron, now Horcrux-free. "Have a nice day".
"Thank you", murmured Ginny, still blushing.
Timothy nodded politely and walked away, with the small, dark book now safe in the inner pocket of his robes, beating faintly against his ribs like a captured heart. No one noticed. The greatest threat of the school year had been neutralized. And all it had cost him was a simple act of opportunism.
That night, Timothy was not in the dusty Diagon Alley apartment. He was inside his seven-compartment trunk, in the absolute safety of his personal library. The silence was total.
He placed the small black diary on his polished oak desk.
He stared at it for a long minute, feeling the dark and corrupt magic emanating from it. It was repulsive. And fascinating. It was a soul fragment. A piece of consciousness torn away and bound in leather and paper. A Horcrux. 'Specimen 01', he thought, his analytical mind already cataloging it. He felt no fear. This was not a threat; it was a treasure trove of data. A priceless acquisition opportunity.
Finally, he reached out and placed his hand on the cover.
"Archive".
It wasn't a data stream, like with a normal book. It was a psychic scream.
A wave of pure arrogance, hatred, and power crashed against his mind. DO NOT DARE, INSECT! I AM LORD VOLDEMORT! KNEEL BEFORE ME!
Tom Riddle's soul fragment, sensing the intrusion, counterattacked with all the force of its being, expecting to dominate the mind of a vulnerable child.
And it found nothing.
The attack didn't hit a child's mind. It hit Timothy's Occlumency defenses. It hit the wall of a conceptual fortress, cold, organized, and impenetrable as granite. Riddle's scream was absorbed by Timothy's mental library like a sound in a vacuum.
Timothy felt the resistance and... felt disappointed. 'Is that it?', he thought, as the soul fragment's impotent fury battered his shields. 'How noisy. How... primitive.'
With an effort of will that was the mental equivalent of closing a fist, his Archive imposed itself. It grabbed the screaming soul fragment. It didn't fight it. It didn't reason with it.
It copied it.
Riddle's arrogance turned into a shriek of terror as Timothy's Archive deconstructed the fragment's consciousness, analyzed it, and archived it. The process took thirty seconds. When it finished, he withdrew his hand. The diary on his desk was still there, but now it was... empty. The dark magic was gone. It was just an old, wet book.
Timothy leaned back in his chair, closing his eyes. The real prize was now inside him. He opened the new file in his mind.
"Specimen 01: Soul Fragment, T. Riddle".
And everything flowed into him.
It wasn't like reading a book; it was like downloading someone else's consciousness. He felt Riddle's arrogance, his memories of the orphanage (so disturbingly similar to his own), the discovery of Hogwarts, his obsession with his lineage, and his first experiments with dark magic.
And then, the keys.
A new language settled in his mind, a sibilant and ancient understanding that felt completely natural. Parseltongue. ~Speak like this~, he thought, and the concept felt right, like remembering a forgotten mother tongue.
Then, he saw the map. He saw the entrance. Moaning Myrtle's bathroom. The sink with the engraved snake. He saw the Chamber of Secrets, the damp tunnels, the vast hall with the statue of Salazar Slytherin. And he saw the beast. The Basilisk. Its route, its purpose, how it was controlled, the sound of Riddle's voice ordering it to sleep.
Timothy opened his eyes in his silent trunk-library. A slow, calculating smile spread across his face.
It had been a spectacular day of work.
The school year's greatest threat was neutralized. There would be no attacks. There would be no petrifications. There would be no chaotic drama interrupting his research. His second year was now completely free. Free to practice. Free to continue analyzing Muggle science.
And now, he had a new and lucrative side project: planning a visit to the Chamber of Secrets to collect a few hundred pounds of shed basilisk skin.
- - - - - - - - -
Thanks for reading!
If you want to read advanced chapters and support me, I'd really appreciate it.
Mike.
Patreon / iLikeeMikee