Prologue

September 6, 1993
Hogwarts

Hariel Potter had thought she'd known what her Boggart was going to be. She had thought she'd known her greatest fear was a Dementor. But it wasn't the dark wraith that appeared before her and the rest of the class. It wasn't the pale, freakish face of Lord Voldemort that came into being. Instead, Hariel Potter found Tom Marvolo Riddle knelt before her, looking up with wide red eyes and true fear on his face. She heard Lavender give a gasp of wonder at his beautiful face, heard Professor Lupin's confused snort at the lack of Voldemort, heard Hermione's half worded question.

But she couldn't pull her attention away from the teenaged Dark Lord, as he knelt before her with the dark gleam of excitement in his eye, that twisted smirk upon his face.

Somewhere in the back of the classroom, she heard Malfoy hiss about the Slytherin uniform the Boggart now wore, how he didn't know this student at all and why Potter was so scared of him. But Harry couldn't focus.

"You like this, don't you, Hariel?" Tom was looking up at her now, and that fear on his face was completely gone. Instead, there was a defiant twist to his lips, a knowing smirk, and his dark eyes -blue, she numbly realised, dark blue- sparkled with guilty pleasure. "Like having me kneel, brought so low, far lower than you managed that night I tried to kill you."

Confused muttering echoed through the classroom as the student body struggled to put together just who the Boggart had taken the image of, but Tom didn't so much as blink. Just kept staring up at Harry, who just kept staring down, just as frozen, just as shocked, as the boy's smirk grew into a devastatingly handsome smile.

"Do you like this face more? Does it make it better, knowing that I was just like you? That I used to get that same high, that same thrill when it all fell into place. That same rush when you achieve something?" And suddenly Tom was on his feet, eyes wild and grin haunting. "After all, that thrill, the triumph," he stopped, eyes bright and stood right before her, their faces mere inches apart.

"It was why you kept the Diary after all."

.

June 15, 1993
Hogwarts Express

Hermione was worried. After she had woken up from her stint as a statue, the bushy haired brunette had been informed of the details of Hariel and Ron's adventure into Slytherin's Chamber of Secrets. Between the two of them, the details of solving the puzzle with the clues she had provided, the retrieval of Lockhart and subsequent locating the Chamber entrance and they gave special emphasis to Lockhart's betrayal and deception.

After they got separated, however, the details were scarce. Hariel looked away, fidgeted before giving a brief summary of the events. It was remarkable similar to Julius Caesar's declaration, "I came, I saw, I conquered," with most of the specifics, such as how she actually beat Riddle, left out. As such, Hermione was worried.

They were on the train, leaving for another two and a half months and Hermione was trying to coax out more details from the Girl-Who-Lived, but she had nothing to show for her efforts as Hariel had stormed out of the compartment shouting, "leave me alone!" Hermione glanced at Ron who shrugged in confusion. Hermione huffed at her friend's cluelessness.

"Maybe she doesn't want to remember it." Hermione glanced back at Ron in surprise. Not in surprise at the insightful statement, as she knew Ron could be pretty smart when he tried, but rather her surprise was at why that thought didn't even cross her mind earlier. If it had, she would have backed down.

"Maybe…" Still, something felt off. She couldn't put her finger on it, but there was something wrong with the situation. Something that made Hermione nervous. Huffing again, Hermione stretched, removing stiffness from her legs. As she sat back down, Ron got up. Stretching for a moment, Ron opened the door of the compartment. "Where are you going?" she said. Ron blinked.

"Oh, right," he said after a moment, "just want to check on Ginny." He left, unaware of the soft smile on Hermione's face. For all his loudness and bluster, Hermione found that Ron had a tender and sensitive side. The top ranking student of her year closed her eyes and dozed off.

.

June 31, 1993
4 Privet Drive

Hariel stared at the black diary in her hands with a guilty expression on her face. Her mind flashed back to the confrontation between her and Riddle in the Chamber

"Let Ginny go," she demanded, holding the basilisk fang over the diary. Riddle was on his knees, begging her to stop, complying with her demands and following her orders.

And it had felt so good to dominate him like that. The only time she had felt so in control was when she accidentally set the snake on Dudley before her first year.

She didn't destroy the diary. She kept it. Looking back, she wasn't sure what she was thinking at the time. However, she knew Riddle would understand. It wasn't as if he'd try to take control; their roles had been established a month ago. She was in charge. He answered to her.

She opened the diary to the first page, pulling out a quill and ink bottle. She dipped the quill into the ink before removing any excess, then in flowing handwriting‒ the only thing Aunt Petunia taught her ('even a freak needs to know how to write,')– Hariel wrote, Riddle? The word faded away and for a moment, nothing happened. Dropping her quill into the inkwell, Hariel slumped back in her chair. Then, as if it was teasing her, a word began to appear on the page.

Hariel? Hurriedly, Hariel sat forward and grabbed her quill. More words wrote themselves, I didn't realise you had kept me. Hariel neatly scrawled her reply.

I'm not sure why I kept the diary, she wrote, but now I need to ask you something. Riddle didn't respond for several moments and Hariel had the feeling that he would've been smirking if he could.

What do I get out of helping you? She could almost hear the smug tone and her temper flared. How dare he expect something after what he'd done. More so, how dare he expect something when he was a diary.

I don't pull the basilisk fang out and stab you. She felt the same rush of euphoria from controlling someone as he hastily replied, now there's no need for that. What do you want to know?

Why did I keep the diary?

.

July 31, 1993
4 Privet Drive

"Shut up! Just shut up!" Hariel glared at the fat woman before her, Vernon's sister Marge, who had just spent the last ten minutes insulting her parents and comparing them to dogs. "You foul creature, how dare you talk about my parents like that!" Petunia looked terrified, but Hariel didn't care. She continued shouting at the sister of her Uncle, "my parents were better people than you could ever hope to be!" Without another word, Hariel stormed away and the slamming of her door was heard through the entire house.

Marge was just about to follow the girl and give her a good what for when her skin started to itch. The itch got worse before it started to sting. Soon, the sting turned to a burning sensation and Marge started screaming. Her pain was so intense that she didn't notice her body swelling like a balloon.

Hariel kicked her door, before slumping in her chair. She turned to the diary to vent. Horrible woman, I won't let her insult my parents! Her writing wasn't as smooth as it usually was, but she was angry. Riddle replied promptly, not wanting to suffer her wrath.

What do you mean? Before Hariel could reply, she heard Marge screaming. The teenage witch was slightly conflicted, feeling satisfaction at hearing the beast suffer but horrified that someone was being hurt. The ecstasy of dominating someone overrode her conflicting feelings as she smiled, satisfied with the sounds she heard. She turned back to the diary.

The walrus' sister, Marge has been staying for the past few days, she wrote, and spent the last ten minutes slandering my parents. There was silence and no words appeared on the page. Hariel collected her things, knowing that Vernon would kick her out now that she lost her temper at the beast. After she packed most of her trunk, she turned back to the diary to see the last thing she expected to see.

I understand. Of all the things she expected Riddle to say, that wasn't one of them. The dynamic between them since the confrontation in the Chamber had always been levelled, with her in charge and him answering to her. And she always enjoyed it. But these two words of compassion put the preserved memory of her parents' killer, if only for a moment, at her level. This gave rise to a strange feeling, one she wasn't sure she understood. Hariel decided to get Riddle to elaborate later, putting the quill and inkwell away and stuffing the diary in her pocket. She opened up her door and tried to creep to the door. Unfortunately, Vernon was right there.

"YOU BRING HER BACK," he roared, "YOU PUT HER RIGHT!" Hariel's temper reared its ugly head as her eyes seemed to flash and not only Vernon but Petunia and Dudley as well, found themselves being pressed to the ceiling by an invisible force.

"For twelve years, you've treated me like a servant," she said softly, though that just made it more terrifying to the Dursleys, "you've called me a freak as if you were the paragon of normality." The force increased slightly, drawing a whimper from Dudley while some of the china smashed. "Let me tell you something." Hariel's voice was little more than a whisper now. "I'm not the freak." Her eyes flashed again, causing more things to break. "You are." All of a sudden, everything stopped and the Dursleys fell back to Earth while Hariel bolted.

Stopping just outside Magnolia Crescent, Hariel all but collapsed on the sidewalk. She felt exhausted, but at the same time, adrenaline was energising her. The show of power that terrified the Dursleys made her blood sing and her heart leap. It was exhilarating. With nothing else to do for the moment, Hariel pulled out Ridd-the diary and posed her question.

What do you mean when you say you understand?

.

August 5, 1993
The Leaky Cauldron

Hariel was acting differently. Both Ron and Hermione noticed. Neither of them could put their finger on it, but it worried them. After they met up, Ron and Hermione promptly apologised for not writing as often as they could. Hariel accepted their apology and forgave them, but Ron couldn't help but feel like it was flat.

"Harry?" Ron asked as he approached her one morning. Hariel's brown eyes drifted to her first friend before they returned to her breakfast. Ron was many things, but ignorant was not one of them. He could tell that Hariel wasn't interested.

"Yeah, Ron?" Ron's eyes snapped back to his best friend to find the Hariel that seemed to have been missing for the past week. Her eyes were alight with humour and her lips were quirked into a smirk that was rarely on Hariel's face, but it was still the old Hariel. He must have been staring too long because Hariel giggled and said, "are you going to stare all day?" Ron grinned in reply.

"Sorry Harry, just thinking." Her lips twisted into a smirk again and she tossed her hair over her shoulder as she replied, "well don't think too hard, you'll break your brain." Ron chuckled as he fell into an easy conversation with his best friend.

.

Hariel felt her guilt return when she saw Ginny. The red headed girl was so very grateful to her, she who kept the diary that took control of the girl. She tried to get away, to find any excuse to escape the girl, especially when the offending item was in her pocket; she had asked Tom the innkeeper to shrink it to a pocket size. It was still useable and Riddle had complained about being shrunk, but it was a more manageable size.

Her saving grace was actually from the most surprising source. It seemed Malfoy senior had business in the Leaky Cauldron and Mini-Lucius was accompanying him, because Draco Malfoy declared very loudly, "Come off it, weasel-girl, can't you see that Potter wants to get away?" Ginny, mortified that the entire pub was now staring at her, fled very promptly with very red cheeks. Hariel looked at Malfoy in surprise. The teenage aristocrat seemed to look her appreciatively for a fleeting moment, but the moment passed so quickly that Hariel decided she imagined it. He walked over to her.

"Why?" she said, "why'd you do that?" Malfoy smirked as he stooped over her. He must have gone through a growth spurt over the summer, Hariel thought.

"Isn't it obvious, Potter?" he asked before a smirk worked its way onto his lips, "the only one permitted to get a rise out of you, is me." He stepped closer. His voice became something akin to a growl. "You're my rival and no one else's." There was something in his eyes that Hariel didn't like. His words ran through her mind as the Malfoy heir waited for a response.

"No one owns me, Malfoy," she hissed, "no one stakes a claim on me, in any way." Malfoy smirked as he walked away. No one owns Hariel Potter. She is the master. Hariel shook her head to dismiss the stray thought from her head. Putting the strange exchange out of her mind, Hariel noticed Mr Weasley waving her over to a secluded corner. What could he want with me? Hariel soon arrived at the side of the Weasley patriarch.

"Hariel, how good to see you again," Mr Weasley greeted, though Hariel could tell he was nervous, "have you enjoyed your summer so far?"

Right, Hariel thought, I enjoyed getting tormented by the trio of sorry excuses for humans and having my parents insulted by another. Her thoughts were not spoken though. Instead, what she said was, "it's been alright, Mr Weasley." Mr Weasley smiled, an expression Hariel imitated, though thinly.

"Hariel." Mr Weasley's tone caused the false smile to drop into a frown. Never before had Hariel heard the Weasley patriarch use such an authoritative and serious tone. "What do you know about Sirius Black?" Hariel blinked. That was unexpected.

"Only that he's dangerous enough for the DMLE to coordinate with Scotland Yard." Mr Weasley's eyes widened before he remembered that the Ministry had used it to make their forces seems superior; they made the muggle law enforcement out to be like children with wind-up toys while the DMLE was depicted as the pinnacle of professionalism.

"Well," Mr Weasley said, "Black was You-Know-Who's top supporter." Hariel, being a lot smarter than she looked, connected the dots easily.

"And he's coming after me for revenge against his master." Mr Weasley nodded. He grabbed her gently by the shoulders and looked at her square in the eye.

"Hariel, promise me you won't go looking for Black." Hariel scoffed.

"Why would I go looking for someone who wants to kill me?"

"Promise me."

"I promise, Mr Weasley."

.

September 6, 1993
Hogwarts

Professor Lupin stepped between Hariel and Riddle, his face set into a frown. Riddle's expression soured as he soon twisted and shifted into a white orb surrounded by clouds. A moon, Hariel thought absently.

"Riddikulus!" Lupin incanted, flicking his wand. The moon turned into a white balloon that quickly deflated while Hariel was frozen in her position. The boggart flew around the room until Lupin directed into the cupboard he'd brought it out of. The rest of the class was staring at the petrified Hariel. The brunette looked much like a deer in the torchlight. Hermione stepped forward to comfort her when, much like a deer, Hariel fled at the slight movement. She ran from the classroom and didn't stop running until she reached a small corner somewhere in Hogwarts that she knew no one knew about. Curling up there, Hariel hid from everyone. She was shaking. In an attempt to distract herself, the Girl-Who-Lived pulled the diary from her pocket. She needed to talk to someone about this.

What she didn't realise, was that three people left the classroom to find her. Hermione and Ron were easily expected, being Hariel's friends, and Professor Lupin, after dismissing his class, was fulfilling his duty as a teacher.