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Chapter 90: Harry Potter and the Diary

Dracula and Selina each held a sunshade and leapt gracefully from the high castle walls, landing lightly on the ground.

Anyone who hadn't experienced the battle between the vampires and werewolves firsthand would have no idea from the ground's appearance that such a large-scale war had taken place here.

If anyone else passed by, they might only think it had snowed heavily in June.

There was no trace of blood on the ground beneath the castle walls, only a vast expanse of fine, snow-like ash, evenly spread across the battlefield.

Occasionally, a breeze would stir up a grayish-white haze.

Dracula and Selina walked quietly on the bone ash of the undead, leaving two shallow trails.

"I remember last night, the area below the castle walls was densely packed with undead, impossible to count," Selina suddenly spoke, breaking the silence. "But you actually managed to control countless bats to burn every undead into ashes?"

"Of course," Dracula replied with a smile, nodding to her. "Not a single undead within my sensing range was missed."

Selina puffed out her cheeks, seeming somewhat frustrated.

"Keep working hard, and maybe in a few hundred years, you'll reach this level," Dracula said with a light laugh.

However, the next moment, Selina's expression turned to surprise, and she pointed excitedly towards the other side of the battlefield.

"Look over there! That must be an undead. You can't deny it!" she exclaimed loudly, glancing at Dracula with excitement. "Admit it, even you can miss some."

Dracula looked in the direction Selina pointed and indeed saw a pale, stiff figure with cloudy eyes wandering aimlessly.

He frowned and instantly vanished from his spot.

When he reappeared, he was already beside the undead.

Unlike most undead, this one's body was well-preserved, with intact limbs and relatively unblemished skin, though slightly swollen as if it had been soaking in some liquid for a long time.

Dracula immediately checked the back of its neck and found a patch of charred skin.

"Selina, look here," Dracula called to Selina, who had just flown over, pointing to the back of the undead's neck. "I didn't miss this one. A bat with flames had landed here, but for some reason, it didn't ignite."

Selina wore a thoughtful expression.

"Could it be that your flames failed?" she asked. "Look at him, clearly soaked for a long time. Maybe the fire you sent with the bat was too small and got extinguished?"

"..."

Dracula stared at Selina in silence for a long time.

"Why are you looking at me like that?" Selina asked weakly. "Did I say something wrong?"

"I just wonder if you left your brain at home this time," Dracula said, exasperated. "Tell me, when did our innate flames become so weak that water could extinguish them? Besides, there's hardly any water left on him!"

"Don't be so harsh. I was just suggesting a possibility..." Selina muttered, lacking confidence. "I've never seen something like this happen before either..."

Dracula was also puzzled and began to scrutinize the undead's appearance.

This was a somewhat frail undead, with long, thick black hair that, despite prolonged soaking, hadn't fallen out. Unkempt, it covered half of his face.

Dracula gently waved his hand, a breeze brushing the hair aside to reveal a still handsome face, even though it was swollen, with a hint of arrogance in its expression.

"He must not have been an ordinary person in life. I wonder how he ended up like this," Dracula sighed softly.

His gaze moved downwards, inspecting the undead's body.

Though long soaking had faded his robes, their precious material was still discernible.

"Wait, look here!" Selina's voice suddenly rang out. "This mark looks familiar!"

Standing beside the undead, she lifted his left arm, pulling up the sleeve to reveal a fresh red mark on the inside of his forearm—

A skull with a serpent emerging from its mouth!

"This is... the Dark Mark?" Dracula stared at the mark in shock, feeling even more confused.

As Hogwarts' Defense Against the Dark Arts professor, Dracula had inevitably come into contact with information about the Dark Lord. He had even personally obliterated the Dark Lord's soul once.

So he knew exactly what this mark was.

This was the Dark Mark, a symbol possessed only by Death Eaters of high status. Lesser Death Eaters, like Fenrir, didn't have this mark.

But why was the Dark Mark on an undead summoned by Voldemort?

Had Voldemort gone so mad that he mercilessly killed his own followers and turned them into undead?

"If he was once a Death Eater, then it shouldn't be hard to find out who this wizard was."

Suppressing his confusion, Dracula pointed to the left chest of the undead's robe.

"Reparo."

A flash of light restored the left chest of the robe to a pristine state, revealing a family crest—

A shield adorned with a mountain symbol, two stars, and a short sword, flanked by two leaping greyhounds.

In heraldic terms, it was described as "Sable, a chevron between two mullets and a short sword, argent..."

...

Meanwhile, at number four, Privet Drive in Little Whinging, Surrey, England.

Early in the morning, the Dursley family was already arguing at the breakfast table—

"That's the third time this week!" a man, so fat he resembled a walrus, bellowed across the table. "If you can't control that owl, it will have to go!"

On the other side of the table, a skinny boy with glasses tried to explain.

"It's bored, it's used to flying outside. If I could just let it out at night..." He was cut off by his uncle, Vernon Dursley.

"Do you think I'm a fool?" Uncle Vernon roared, a piece of half-chewed fried egg dangling from his mustache. "I know what happens when you let an owl out!"

The skinny boy quickly finished his breakfast and rushed back to his room upstairs, locking the door and lying quietly on his shabby bed.

This bespectacled boy was none other than Harry Potter, the famous savior of the wizarding world.

However, this boy who had survived a deadly curse, the hero who won the House Cup for Gryffindor, was now locked in a small room, unable to communicate with his friends for most of the summer.

Since Harry returned home for the holidays, Uncle Vernon had treated him like a ticking time bomb, because Harry was not a normal child.

To Muggles like Vernon Dursley, Harry was indeed far from normal.

Harry was a wizard, a freak in the eyes of these Muggles. He had just finished his first year at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry and had to spend the summer with this unpleasant family.

If the Dursleys were unhappy about Harry being home for the summer, their unhappiness was nothing compared to how Harry felt.

He missed Hogwarts so much it hurt. He longed for the castle, the secret passages, the ghosts, and his magical classes. When he thought of his subjects, he remembered his admired Professor Dracula, the stern Professor McGonagall, the kind Professor Sprout... even his feelings towards the once-despised, now complex Professor Snape.

Harry clearly remembered that he had a big argument with Professor Snape before coming home, ruining their recently improved relationship.

Lying on his bed, he felt wide awake. However, when he recalled the argument with Snape over a month ago, the memory felt hazy.

Harry knew he had grown up in harsh conditions, bullied by his cousin Dudley and his friends, yet he always found ways to cheer himself up.

A boy growing up in such an environment rarely became quick to anger.

Now, thinking back, the argument with Professor Snape might have been an impulsive outburst, fueled by his eagerness to mend their relationship.

"I should write an apology letter to Professor Snape," Harry thought, staring at the yellowing ceiling of his room.

But he couldn't write a letter.

As soon as Harry got home, Uncle Vernon locked his spellbooks, wand, robes, cauldron, and his prized Nimbus 2000 broomstick in the cupboard under the stairs.

The Dursleys didn't care if Harry got expelled from the Quidditch team for not practicing. They didn't care that he hadn't done any of his holiday homework. To them, having a "wizard" in the house was the ultimate shame!

Uncle Vernon even locked Harry's owl, Hedwig, in its cage, preventing it from sending letters to anyone in the wizarding world.

"Ron, Hermione... Neville, why haven't you written to me?" Harry lay in his bed, longing for his friends. "If only you'd remember to send your owls, I could write back..."

Just as Harry was about to tear up, he heard the sound of pages flipping near the window.

He turned instinctively and saw a blank diary with a black cover flipping its pages by itself.

"Tom?!" Harry walked to the window in surprise, eyes brimming with tears. "How did you get out of the cupboard under the stairs?"

Then he realized the diary couldn't hear him directly, so he fetched a quill he'd hidden and dipped it in some saliva, writing his question in the diary.

Two neat lines of writing appeared on the blank page:

"Harry, I told you, I can use a little magic."

"Can you help me escape this awful place?" Harry wrote. "I don't want to stay here any longer, but I've lost my wand. I can't use magic without it, and there's no way I can deal with them."

"Patience, Harry," the diary wrote back. "I may not have the power to take you away from here, but I can give you a good idea."

"First, we must make them pay for all the suffering they've caused you!"

Seeing the increasingly erratic handwriting in the diary, Harry hesitated.

"Isn't that wrong?" he wrote. "I can't use magic outside of school; I'll be expelled."

"Don't worry, I'll take care of the revenge for you," the diary coaxed. "There won't be any trace left behind. When school starts, you'll still be able to take the express train to Hogwarts as usual."

"Now tell me, does this family have any important plans coming up? I'll ruin it for them, and once the revenge is complete, I'll get your wand back for you."

Harry thought for a long time. Ultimately, the desire to retrieve his wand won out, so he gritted his teeth and wrote in the diary:

"Tonight, Uncle Vernon is hosting a wealthy building contractor and his wife. They are very important guests; it's crucial for his drill sales this year."

"I understand."

These words appeared on the diary's page, and then it fell silent.

Harry carefully placed the diary under his mattress, afraid that Uncle Vernon and Aunt Petunia would discover it.

...

That evening, in the dining room of Number Four, Privet Drive.

Vernon Dursley was awkwardly chatting with Mr. Mason, the wealthy building contractor, and his wife.

"...Mrs. Mason, do tell Petunia those jokes about American plumbers; she's been dying to hear them..." Vernon Dursley said with a self-satisfied smile to the contractor's wife.

At that moment, the diary silently appeared on top of the china cabinet in the dining room's corner.

"Finite."

A spell to cancel any enchantment appeared on the diary's blank page.

The charms that had been cast on the house to make it unplottable and to repel were instantly lifted. The next moment, an owl that had been hovering nearby for several hours swooped into the house like a whirlwind.

It circled near the ceiling of the living room, searching for direction, as if still disoriented from the recently lifted enchantments.

After a while, it spread its wings and flew towards Harry's room.

Mrs. Mason screamed shrilly upon seeing the owl and fled the house, shouting "Lunatics, lunatics."

Mr. Mason lingered for a moment longer, telling the Dursleys that his wife was deathly afraid of birds of all kinds and sizes, and asked if this was some kind of joke they had planned.

Vernon Dursley awkwardly smiled and watched Mr. Mason leave.

Once Mr. Mason was gone, he quickly rushed upstairs with surprising agility for his size.

"What the devil are you doing?!" Uncle Vernon snarled, bringing his face dangerously close to Harry's.

"I've been in my room all this time, doing nothing!" Harry said anxiously, glancing nervously at the spot under the mattress.

And indeed, he had done nothing, just waiting for good news from Tom Riddle's diary.

"An owl! Again, an owl!"

Vernon's face turned red with impotent rage. "Last year, these damn birds made us homeless, and this year, one has ruined a huge business deal!"

He loomed over Harry like a furious bulldog, baring his teeth.

"An owl, is it?" Vernon said with a crazed expression. "Well, I have news for you, boy... I'm going to lock you up... No owl will ever get near you! And you'll never go back to that school! Never!"

True to his word, the next day, Vernon had bars installed on Harry's window.

He personally fitted a flap on the bedroom door to pass food through three times a day. They let Harry out to use the bathroom morning and evening but locked him up at all other times.

"Tom, look at what you've done," Harry thought sadly as he sat by the window, watching the sun set behind the bars, contemplating his future fate. He wrote in the diary, "Ruining Uncle Vernon's business deal did make me happy, but now I'm trapped forever."

A line of writing appeared on the diary, glaringly visible in the striped sunlight filtering through the bars.

"Harry, don't forget you are a wizard," the diary wrote. "A wizard can't be confined by a bunch of Muggles."

"But underage wizards can't use magic outside school," Harry wrote back. "If I use magic, I'll be expelled from Hogwarts."

"Don't worry, Harry, the Ministry of Magic only issues a warning for a first offense," the diary wrote cunningly. "Would you rather be locked in this tiny room for life or take a chance to escape this miserable place?"

"Think of the spells I've taught you, Harry."

The diary flipped through its pages again, finally closing, its black cover blending into the fading sunlight.

Beneath the spot where the diary had lain, a holly wand lay quietly.