Malfoy could feel that his skills had improved.
It was the power of the diary, inhabited by that great being… the Dark Lord, Voldemort.
Malfoy found that he could manifest magic he would normally have struggled with far more easily.
However, the entity that had granted him this power was no benevolent god. It was something far darker, far more dangerous.
And this kind of power usually came with a price.
In exchange, Malfoy had to obey Lord Voldemort's commands.
Whatever orders the diary gave, he had to carry them out, no matter how nonsensical they seemed.
Of course, this hardly felt like a significant price to pay. It was the very role his father had expected of him, after all.
On the other hand, there was a price Malfoy hadn't anticipated.
He had only noticed it very recently. After breaking a rooster's neck as usual and returning to the dormitory, Malfoy had opened the diary, and the next thing he knew, he was waking up in his bed. The memory in between was incredibly faint.
He had a vague recollection of writing something in the diary and feeling terribly dreadful, but it was as hazy as an old dream.
If it had happened once or twice, he might have dismissed it, but an event that occurred multiple times could not be due to mere fatigue.
Malfoy was by no means a dull child, so he quickly realized that there were often gaps in his memory. And that after these gaps, some incident would always occur.
…And yet, Malfoy did not stop using the diary.
Of course, Malfoy was well aware that the more he communicated with Lord Voldemort, the more bad things happened at school. Nevertheless, he thought to himself:
*Whether it's some Mudblood or a Squib, why should I care if scum like that die?*
Besides, he had a task more important than anything else: the restoration of the Malfoy family.
Therefore, to Malfoy, Tom Riddle's diary was a treasure that gave him power, a master he had to follow.
At least, that was what Malfoy had to believe.
No matter the cost, the most important thing to him was the Malfoy family.
In that sense, Malfoy was in a very good mood at this moment.
"Harry Potter, and his opponent is Draco Malfoy."
It was self-evident that if he could defeat Harry Potter, the so-called "Boy Who Lived," here at the Dueling Club, where all the students of Hogwarts who would one day lead the wizarding world were watching, his family's prestige would soar.
And Malfoy was brimming with confidence.
He knew full well that his magical skill was far beyond that of a second-year… and while the same was true of his opponent, Malfoy didn't think he would lose.
"Three, two, one!"
"Bombarda! Confringo!"
Indeed, Malfoy's confidence seemed quite justified. Even Potter was scrambling to defend against his powerful explosion magic.
Seeing this, Malfoy grew smug. *No matter how great Harry Potter is, he can't defeat me, who has received power directly from the Dark Lord!*
That was what he thought—for exactly five seconds, before Harry cast his next spell.
"You brought this on yourself. Aguamenti!"
Even seeing this, Malfoy couldn't hide a sneer. "Potter, this is a duel, not cooking class! What are you going to do, spray water on me—blaarghh-"
The water created by Harry shot directly into Malfoy's open mouth.
Malfoy shook his head, trying to spray the water out, but the stream from Harry's wand stubbornly kept targeting his mouth.
He thought he could hear the other students roaring with laughter at the sight.
Heat rose to Malfoy's face at the fact that he was being made a laughingstock by such a trivial spell. He brandished his wand, intending to block Harry's water with a shield charm.
…Then Malfoy realized a very obvious fact.
No matter how skilled they were for their level, they couldn't cast spells with their wands without speaking the incantation.
And, unfortunately, the human oral structure is designed in such a way that one cannot speak with a mouthful of water.
Malfoy's mind went blank.
He couldn't use any magic against this stupid water!
Of course, it wasn't as if Harry was trying to kill him (probably), and the water from Aguamenti wasn't blocking his airway. It was simply filling his mouth continuously.
But once a person panics, it is incredibly difficult to regain control, and Malfoy made the worst possible choice.
Instead of calmly breathing through his nose, he panicked and tried to take a deep breath through his mouth.
Naturally, this resulted not in fresh oxygen entering his lungs, but in freshly conjured water.
"Kehek. Kehek! Pfft! Cough!"
Having been subjected to a semi-forced waterboarding, Malfoy collapsed to the ground, coughing violently and spitting out water.
"Stop, stop! That's enough! Very well done! Harry, you're the winner!"
Snape's face looked as if he'd just chewed on a bug, while Lockhart boldly declared Harry's victory.
"Now, class! Did you see that? In a duel between wizards, even the most seemingly trivial spell can be useful! Harry, in that sense, your cleverness was truly brilliant. Of course, you're not as good as me yet, but with about ten years of practice, you might reach my level! And Malfoy, you should try to rely less on powerful magic. As you just saw-"
"Professor Lockhart, I believe that's quite enough. Or were you perhaps talking to yourself? If so, I have no intention of stopping you."
Lockhart, seeming to have completely forgotten that he himself had been sent flying by Snape, babbled on, praising Harry while simultaneously puffing himself up. It was Snape who finally cut him off with an icy voice.
*Cough, cough.* Malfoy, having finally stopped choking, managed to get to his feet and glared at Lockhart. He despised the man with every fiber of his being.
How dare that fool, who couldn't even cast a single spell properly, say anything!
After the Dueling Club ended, Malfoy all but fled, running back to the dormitory.
"Hey, Malfoy! That was some nice water-drinking earlier! Did you think it was a water-drinking championship?"
"Shut it. You think you're Harry Potter?"
A few clueless students tried to pick a fight with him, but they all quieted down when he shoved his wand under their chins.
Even seeing their terrified expressions, Malfoy couldn't control his anger.
*How dare they laugh at me! It's unacceptable!*
All Malfoy could think about was getting back to the dormitory as quickly as possible and opening the diary.
***
*"So, you just lost?"*
At the indifferent words that appeared in the diary, Malfoy protested vehemently. "If it weren't for Potter's cowardly and unconventional tactics, I definitely would have won."
*A shower of water in the middle of a sacred duel—so vulgar! Just as expected from someone who knows nothing of the decorum of the wizarding world. He probably didn't know how to use any other magic!* (Of course, if Malfoy had known the other spells Harry had been considering, he would have fainted from shock.)
But the diary seemed to have a different opinion.
*"There is no cowardice in the world of combat. That is called being practical. Harry Potter… he really does have the potential to bring me down one day. Quite excellent."*
Malfoy couldn't stand the tone, which sounded as if it was acknowledging Harry Potter. Was it really rating Potter higher than him, a pure-blood?
Furious, his face contorted, Malfoy scribbled furiously in the diary.
"Are you defending Potter now? Him, that wretched half-blood, instead of me?"
The moment he wrote those words, Malfoy felt a chill. A chill as if every single drop of blood flowing through his veins was freezing solid.
*"Malfoy. You haven't forgotten who you're talking to, have you?"*
Malfoy saw a hallucination of a face appearing in the diary. No, could it truly be called a hallucination?
A face of chalky white, a sharp, high-bridged nose, piercing eyes—but eyes like a snake's.
Only then did the childish, tantrum-like anger in Malfoy's mind vanish, replaced by a vague terror.
The entity he had been casually conversing with was no mere diary.
He was the Dark Lord, Lord Voldemort, who would one day return to this world.
Recalling what he had just written in the diary, Malfoy's face turned deathly pale.
Watching him, the apparition that looked like a face smirked.
"It won't be long now, Malfoy. Shouldn't you prove your usefulness?"
Just as Malfoy was struggling to breathe from the terror, the hallucination suddenly vanished.
As he gasped for breath, a new sentence appeared in the diary.
*"Don't be disappointed that I praised Harry Potter. Right now, you are greater than the Boy Who Lived. You are the Heir of Slytherin, are you not?"*
A child's strength and weakness is how quickly their emotions can change.
And Draco Malfoy, a twelve-year-old boy, was no exception.
Forgetting the fear from a moment ago, Malfoy's heart began to pound with excitement at the words "Heir of Slytherin."
"I… am the Heir of Slytherin?"
*"Yes. I told you before, didn't I?… Ah, you don't remember. Well, it's not important."*
Before Malfoy could even question it, more words appeared in the diary.
*"Well then, Malfoy, let's go open the door again. Just as you wished, you won't remember a thing."*
And Malfoy's memory grew hazy again from that point on.
And that evening, one of Slytherin's enemies and one ghost were petrified like statues.
***
From that day on, the atmosphere at Hogwarts was utterly gloomy.
The excitement that had built up from the Dueling Club completely dissipated, and the students of Hogwarts dared not speak of anything cheerful.
It was so bad that even the Weasley twins, known as the kings of pranks, didn't dare to pull any. And Peeves the Poltergeist, another incarnation of mischief, was not the type to play pleasant pranks, so the mood in Hogwarts only sank further.
One peculiar thing was that this time, the gloomy atmosphere had spread to Slytherin as well.
The reason was that this time's victim was a pure-blood.
Professor McGonagall sighed quietly to herself as she looked at the boy who had been moved to the hospital wing, Neville Longbottom. "I don't know what I'm going to tell your grandmother, Augusta."
This time's victim was the heir of the pure-blood Longbottom family, Neville Longbottom.
This indicated that the students who qualified as "enemies of Slytherin" were not distinguished by bloodline alone.
Naturally, a faint atmosphere of fear couldn't help but spread through Slytherin. Of course, there were still those who, based on the Longbottom family's history, felt it was only natural for someone who didn't fit the pure-blood mold to be targeted.
The mood in Gryffindor was, of course, even worse.
Following the recent attack on Colin Creevey, Neville Longbottom was also a Gryffindor. What's more, hadn't Gryffindor's own ghost, Nearly Headless Nick, also been a victim this time?
The mood among Harry and his friends after visiting Neville was also quite somber. Even if he could be cured, it hit much harder when a friend right next to you was attacked.
In this atmosphere, Hermione spoke to Harry and Ron. "I'm almost certain. It's a Basilisk."
"A Basilisk?"
"Yes, a Basilisk. A XXXXX-class snake monster. It's called the King of Serpents, and it possesses the petrifying gaze of a Gorgon's eye, which can turn its target to stone just by looking at them."
For some reason, Hermione glanced at Harry before continuing.
"…And, it has a terrifying venom that can only be cured by the tears of a phoenix."
Ron said in disbelief, "So you're saying there's a Basilisk in Hogwarts right now?"
Harry said, deep in thought, "A Basilisk, you say?"
Seeing what had happened to Neville, Harry was certain. There was no more time. For the sake of the Hogwarts students trembling in fear of the attacks, and for the sake of the snake who didn't even know it was in danger of being killed.
***