Anyway, the odd combination of curses and wards made the entire language somewhat distasteful to warders nowadays. Honestly, Harry thought that they missed the point entirely. It being that the language was optimized to not give a protective shell like most wards but to imbue entire areas with an effect of sorts. The fact that they decided to incorporate curses was the Ancient Egyptian's decision. Still, the entire language was fascinating and so abstract, since it was more like drawing then writing, unlike Norse Runes. That allowed a certain level of flexibility when designing a ward, focusing more on the intent during the carving, then the actual ward itself. On the other side, it was far more volatile, and sometimes even mutated over time, so that made it somewhat undesirable for long term project. Expert believed that the curses on the Pharaohs' treasures somehow had warped the wards to be that deadly and cruel. It made sense, but it was still a theory at best.
Harry had almost forgotten about the entire Diary mess when he Lockhart opened the door to his classroom. The Potter scion took a deep breath and watched as the man disabled his wards with a wave of his wand and walked to his office. He followed the man silently and waited until the blonde professor slumped on the chair tiredly. He pointed his wand at the Defense Professor and murmured, "Somnus!"
It was a sleeping spell that was a less violent variation of the stunning charm. Well, the stunning charm was based on it, really. Only it is violent, and the sleep itself was more of the victim being unconscious, so it's more visible. Somnus was more natural, in a way, and it showed how successful it was when the man slumped into his seat and fell asleep.
With that done, Harry looked around the room with distaste. It was gold, like disgustingly so, and there were like five different portrait and picture frames of the man. With barely more than a thought, Harry waved his wand and froze all of them, and then he finally removed his invisibility cloak.
He looked around and saw a stack of autographed photos of the man on the desk, next to a pile of what appeared to be fan letters. The Potter scion shook his head with disgust; that man was barely more than a celebrity writer. The fact that there were no dark object detectors or anything really, was proof that the man really didn't know anything.
But Harry wasn't here to prove to everyone that the man was a fraud, he was here for the Diary. He looked around the room, with his Arcane Magic, and tried to spread his senses. Yeah, barely anything was more than a commodity. Harry didn't expect to see the diary immediately since he knew that it could hide from his Arcane Hearing, and thus from any magical detection spell.
So, the answer wasn't to find the diary but to discover where someone like Lockhart would hide his most prized possession. He wouldn't risk it being stolen, so he wouldn't just keep it on his everywhere, but he would keep it close by for it to advise him. Instead of trying to find something inhuman, Harry decided to just focus on any kind of odd enchantment in the office.
He gasped when he noticed something. It was hidden by the giant painting somehow. It must have acted as some sort of protection, both against detection and stealing. It was obvious that it wasn't enchanted by the same person as the one who did the wards. That was further proof that the man was a fraud. Still, with a little focus, Harry disabled the sticking charm on the portrait and allowed it to open. When it did, there was a small safe hidden behind the painting, which would open with a certain key. Harry was sure that he wouldn't have been able to open it since it was obviously enchanted. He could destroy it, but that would show that someone broke into the safe and that would mean that Aurors could be involved, something that Harry wanted to avoid.
Now he needed to find the key, and where would someone as cunning yet foolish as Lockhart hide something, he uses frequently? No, he wouldn't have it on him, he probably put it somewhere near. Harry focused on a shell of magic outside his body and used his Arcane Hearing to make it similar to Lockhart's before waving his wand and summoning the safe key. Unsurprisingly, nothing came of it, but what was odd was the small ping of magic near one of the drawers. Harry slowly walked until he found a small golden key inside. Well, that was easy.
Harry shrugged and simply put the key in the small vault and opened it. There was some gold, of course, but the most important thing was the small black Diary that was inside. It was strangely magical, all things considered, especially for something that could actively camouflage itself like before. Was it taking the properties of the safe somehow?
Deciding to just grab the thing and go, Harry first noticed something was wrong when he first touched the Diary. He was wearing Dragonhide gloves in fear that it would be cursed with something, and yet the entire room turned white. No, it wasn't a curse, that would be impossible. It was an illusion. The Diary was connected to the wards of the room somehow and put on an illusion for Harry to look at.
The Potter scion almost jumped when he heard a voice behind him, "Hello Harry Potter."
He turned and took a look at a brown-haired teenage boy that looked around sixteen and Harry instinctively knew who that was, "Hello Tom Riddle."
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