Chapter 61

[Voldemort’s Horcruxes / Tom Riddle]

The ink had been dry for weeks. Not because he had stopped thinking about the subject, but because he had nothing new to add. Still, merely looking at those pages was enough to remind him of the essentials.

It had been six months since he arrived in this world, and he never stopped thinking about the war that was coming and the chief culprit behind it.

The war, according to what he remembered from the Harry Potter books he’d read in his past life, took place roughly between 1971 and 1980. But that was only an estimate. The truth was that, at this moment, it had not yet officially begun. There were no mass attacks, no systematic disappearances. There were no panic-filled headlines or public movements by the Dark side.

Diagon Alley was still bustling as always, nothing unusual, at least on the surface. Voldemort had already returned from his study of the Dark Arts.

There was no doubt: he had spent years gathering power in silence, recruiting in the shadows, building his network of influence.

And at any moment, everything would start.

The name “Voldemort” did not yet inspire fear.

He was not the Unforgivable One.

He wasn’t even a public enemy.

At Hogwarts, Ryan was in his fifth year, and everything was relatively normal. There were no Slytherins like Mulciber, Rosier, Lestrange, or Avery showing interest in joining “the Dark Lord’s ranks.” No rumors, no recruiters. That murky atmosphere that would later dominate the castle corridors had not settled in yet. Nothing of the sort… for now.

But he knew it was coming, and at any moment the name and its supremacist ideas would begin to spread. Hogwarts, of course, would be the safest place because Dumbledore was there, and Voldemort feared the old man.

If he wanted any real chance of stopping Voldemort, or at least preventing him from resurrecting and causing another wizarding war in the future, he had to destroy his Horcruxes.

From what he recalled, Voldemort sought to split his soul into seven parts, believing that number to be the most magically powerful: six Horcruxes plus the portion that would remain in his own body.

But in theory, at the beginning of 1972, he hadn’t yet created them all.

He continued reading the page:

[Tom Ryddle’s diary — 1st Horcrux. Created during his years at Hogwarts. He made it using the soul of Myrtle Warren of Ravenclaw, whom Tom murdered by controlling the Basilisk after discovering the Chamber of Secrets. He opened the chamber and, with his ability to speak Parseltongue, controlled it, terrorizing Hogwarts and pursuing students who were children of Muggles.]

[He ultimately killed Myrtle, now known as Moaning Myrtle, the ghost in the girls’ bathroom. Voldemort used this murder to infuse a part of his soul into the diary, turning it into his first Horcrux.]

[Where is the diary now? Very high probability that Voldemort has it with him. From my knowledge of canon, at some point during the First Wizarding War, Voldemort entrusted the diary to one of his Death Eaters: Lucius Malfoy.]

Ryan underlined a line he had written some time ago:

[Lucius Malfoy is currently in his fifth year. The same as me.]

He was not yet a Death Eater. Not yet.

That would happen in a few years, when he left Hogwarts and joined Voldemort’s inner circle of followers.

And it was then, sometime later in the uncertain future, that Voldemort entrusted him with the diary, never revealing that that little notebook contained a fragment of his soul.

Lucius did not value it. And after his master’s supposed death, he saw it as an incriminating object that needed to be disposed of discreetly.

That’s how it ended up in Ginny Weasley’s schoolbag, decades later, hidden in her bag because of Lucius.

[Current probability of finding and destroying the diary?]

[Practically impossible.]

To do so, he would have to steal it from Voldemort in person.

And even if he managed that, destroying a Horcrux without the proper tools was an extremely difficult and dangerous task.

[For now, I can only observe. Wait and prepare.]

[HORCRUX No. 2 — Marvolo Gaunt’s Ring]

This ring belonged to Marvolo Gaunt, Tom Riddle’s maternal grandfather, an heirloom of pure-blood lineage descending from Salazar Slytherin.

An ancestral relic… and eventually, a Horcrux.

As far as Ryan remembered, Tom Riddle turned it into his second Horcrux by murdering his own father, Tom Riddle Sr., and his paternal grandparents, three victims, all killed in their country home in Little Hangleton.

That crime took place while he was still a student at Hogwarts, probably during the summer holidays of his sixth or seventh year.

“The bastard had already killed four people and wasn’t even of age yet…” Ryan thought as he read through the notebook full of his notes.

After the murders, Riddle returned to Hogwarts as if nothing had happened.

He wore the ring openly, as though it were a simple trophy. He didn’t even realize that the stone embedded in it was the Resurrection Stone, one of the three Deathly Hallows.

Or perhaps he did know, but simply didn’t care. Who did he want to bring back? He cared for no one but himself.

In theory, after a while, he lost interest in wearing the ring. Perhaps he wanted to hide it instead of carrying it, in case someone ever killed him?

It made sense, one creates Horcruxes out of fear of death, so logically, you hide them. You don’t carry them in your pocket like a keychain.

He returned it to the place where he’d found it, the ruined Gaunt shack in the woods near Little Hangleton.

There he buried it beneath the floor, protecting it with curses, magical wards, and other enchantments. The usual.

Not as elaborate as the protections he would later craft at the height of his power, but still dangerous, he was already a Dark Arts prodigy and had two Horcruxes by then.

He also cursed the ring itself, a lethal, insidious curse designed to kill slowly anyone who wore it.

This was the very curse that would one day doom Dumbledore, if events followed the same path. When Dumbledore recognized the Deathly Hallow, he put on the ring, hoping to bring back his sister.

A grave mistake.

Only Severus Snape’s immediate intervention prevented him from dying instantly.

Even so, the wound never healed, and Dumbledore was left with a year to live.

Of course, all of that was still in the future, it hadn’t happened yet.

The ring should still be there, hidden. Recoverable, and destroyable.

The difficulty: high, due to the Dark curses protecting it.

And the ring’s curse?

It wasn’t something that particularly worried Ryan. He would never put it on, knowing it bore a lethal enchantment.

As for the Resurrection Stone…

'Bah. An overrated trinket,' Ryan thought with a smirk as he lazily turned the diary page.

Talking to ghosts for a few seconds? Seeing them standing there telling you everything will be fine? Ethereal moral support?

That’s it?

For someone like him, who viewed magic through the lens of functionality and usefulness, the whole concept seemed… disappointing.

A relic so mythical, so coveted, so steeped in legend, created, supposedly, by Death itself. For what purpose?

It doesn’t heal.

It doesn’t revive.

It doesn’t solve anything.

That’s the great secret behind the Resurrection Stone?

A few words of comfort, and then they vanish forever?

Seriously? A pat on the back?

With all the power such an artifact could hold, with all its history, that’s the final result?

A few echoes.

A sad farewell conversation.

Not even guidance. No answers. No concrete warnings.

He wasn’t heartless, he could understand why someone who had lost a loved one might want to speak with them one last time, but it would only last a few seconds. Better to grieve normally.

So when he found the ring, he would destroy it without hesitation. The stone meant nothing to him. Maybe he could sell it as a collector’s piece for a good amount of galleons?

However, even if he managed to obtain the ring and overcome the defenses Voldemort had placed, he still didn’t have a way to destroy a Horcrux.

[HORCRUX No. 3 — Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup]

[HORCRUX No. 4 — Salazar Slytherin’s Locket]

Both objects were acquired by Tom Riddle after leaving Hogwarts.

What surprised many, including teachers and students, was that after graduating with impeccable grades, natural charisma, and a brilliant academic reputation, Tom didn’t accept any prestigious position at the Ministry or any other respected magical institution.

Instead, he took a job at Borgin and Burkes, a shop of dark magical artifacts with a shady reputation and an even shadier clientele.

A wasted genius, many thought.

But in truth, Tom wasn’t seeking prestige. He was seeking relics to turn into Horcruxes, he needed six, and he only had two.

During his time at Borgin and Burkes, he met Hepzibah Smith, a wealthy elderly witch, a compulsive collector, and apparently, rather naive.

Tom courted her with charm, kindness, and that poisoned beauty he wielded as a weapon.

And the fool, Ryan had literally written that word, showed him her most prized possessions:

A locket that she claimed had once belonged to Salazar Slytherin,

and Helga Hufflepuff’s Cup, an ancient relic passed down through her family.

Ryan had scribbled in the margin:

She hid those relics from her family for decades, but a handsome young man smiled at her a few times, and she handed them over on a silver platter.

The worst part? He was the future’s most dangerous genocidal maniac.

Days later, Hepzibah Smith was dead. Her house-elf was blamed for poisoning her.

Case closed.

Tom fled, he quit his job at Borgin and Burkes and vanished.

What really happened?

Tom Riddle murdered Hepzibah Smith.

He used that murder to turn Hufflepuff’s Cup into his third Horcrux.

As for the locket… Ryan couldn’t recall exactly whom he killed to create it, but he knew it became his fourth Horcrux.

Both artifacts disappeared without a trace.

And thus, Tom Riddle ceased to exist in the public eye.

He began his journey into the Dark Arts, the path that would lead him to call himself Lord Voldemort.

Which meant, in Ryan’s current time…

The Slytherin Locket would later be hidden in a coastal cave protected by dark magic, filled with Inferi, enchanted water traps, and weakening potions.

That was where Harry and Dumbledore would find it in the sixth year, except the one they found was a fake, placed there by Regulus Black, who had tried to redeem himself after joining the Death Eaters.

Regulus discovered the locket’s secret and ordered Kreacher, his house-elf, to help him replace the real one with the fake.

But… that hadn’t happened yet.

At this moment, Regulus Black was merely a third-year student at Hogwarts.

He had not yet joined the Death Eaters.

He had not yet uncovered the secret.

Therefore, the locket was still in Voldemort’s possession.

It was likely not yet hidden in the cave, or if it was, the entrance hadn’t been fully sealed.

As for Hufflepuff’s Cup, Voldemort would one day entrust it to Bellatrix Lestrange, his most fanatical follower.

But for now, Bellatrix Black was in her sixth year at Hogwarts.

She was not yet a Death Eater. She hadn’t yet demonstrated that blind, obsessive devotion.

So most likely, Voldemort still had the cup, or had hidden it temporarily in some nonfinal location while he searched for a worthier resting place.

[Recovery Probability: Very Low.]

Ryan knew it. These two Horcruxes were just as unreachable as the diary. Far too dangerous.

All he could do for now was wait, wait for Voldemort to hide them or hand them off to one of his followers.

Of course, he wouldn’t know when that happened… which meant he’d need some kind of information network or something similar.

Ryan turned the page, to the last Horcrux of Voldemort, at least in theory, if everything continued as it should.