Harry shook Lucius Malfoy's hands. Then suddenly, he pulled Harry towards him. “Forgive me,” he said as he parted Harry's hair with his cane, revealing his lightning bolt-shaped scar.

  “Your scar is legend,” Lucius said in a soft and admiring tone, “As was the wizard who gave it to you.”

  “Voldemort killed my parents!” Harry replied in slight anger. “He is nothing more than a murderer.” Harry took a step back.

  Upstairs, Lucius' appearance had caught Sol's attention. He was keeping a sharp eye on happenings downstairs.

  There are rumors of Draco's father being a Death Eater. Let’s see how much of that is true. Sol thought as he used Mana Eyes. Instantly, his vision became filled with the mana in the air and the auras of people. He squinted as he looked at Lucius’s aura.

  He's really done a number of crimes, hasn’t he? Though it’s not as black as Quirrell, it’s still blacker than most. And-

  Sol's eyes widened from shock. Because Lucius was emanating the same frequency as Voldemort back when he was inside Quirrell.

  I-It can't be...

  Lucius started to feel uncomfortable as though someone was staring a hole into him. He tried to search for its origin. As such, his eyes wandered to the second floor. There he saw a boy near the stairs engrossed in a book. Lucius shook his head and thought nothing of it. Shifting his gaze to people in front of him.

  Lucius smiled at Harry, “You must be very brave to mention his name...or very foolish.”

  “Fear of the name only increases fear of the thing itself,” Hermione chimed in with a defiant look on her face.

  Lucius turned his attention to the brunette girl. “And you must be Miss Granger,” he looked at his son, Draco, seeking confirmation. Once Draco nodded, he spoke again, “Yes, Draco had told me all about you...and your parents.” They both turn to look at a corner of the store where Hermione's parents and Mr. Weasley were talking.

  Lucius then turned to Hermione, “Muggles, are they?” Hermione stared back at him with an angry look.

  Lucius then looked towards the Weasleys, “Let’s see red hair, vacant expression-” he turned his gaze towards the cauldron in Ginny's hands which she had used to keep her books. He said as he pulled the books out of the cauldron inspecting them, “Tatty, second-hand books...” he looked towards the children as Mr. Weasley came to them with a serious expression. Lucius smiled, “You must be the Weasleys.”

  Mr. Weasley came in front of the children and shot a look towards Lucius. He then said to the children with a smile, “Children! It’s mad in here. Let’s go outside!”

  “Well, well, well, Weasley Senior,” Lucius looked at Mr. Weasley coldly.

  “Lucius,” Mr. Weasley was equally cold.

  “Busy time at the ministry, Arthur. All those extra raids... I hope they’re paying you overtime,” Lucius looked at the tattered book in his hands, “But judging by the looks of this, I think not.”

  He then shot a disdainful look at Mr. Weasley as he spoke through grit teeth, “What's the use of being a disgrace to the name of Wizard-” he smirked, “-if they don’t even pay you well for it?”

  “We have a very different idea as to what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy.”

  The narrative has been illicitly obtained; should you discover it on Amazon, report the violation.

  “Clearly.” Lucius then looked to a side, “Associating with muggles...” He then came close to Mr. Weasley simultaneously putting the book back in Ginny's cauldron. However as he was about to open his mouth, the piercing gaze he felt before had come back much more intensely. He quickly searched around but found nothing. The boy he looked at earlier was still reading the book. However, this time he was smiling as though he had read something funny. Lucius felt unnerved but put those thoughts to the back of his head as he had finished what he set out to do.

  He exhaled and told Mr. Weasley, “I'll see you at work.” And left the store.

  Draco walked towards Harry and Ron, glaring at them. “See you at school,” with that he followed his father out of the store.

  Mr. Weasley watched them leave and after a while, looked at the children, “Come on, let’s leave.” He looked towards the back of the store where Mrs. Weasley had finished getting everything signed, “Molly's done as well.” His eyes searched around and finally fell on Sol who was coming downstairs, “You too, Sol. Come on!”

  “Coming!” Sol came downstairs and everyone as well as Hermione and her parents left the store. As they walked through Diagon Alley, Mr. and Mrs. Weasley chatted with Hermione's parents while the others talked with each other. As Ginny was talking with Hermione about Hogwarts, Sol called from behind, “Ginny.”

  Ginny and Hermione looked at Sol, wondering what was up. But Sol said nothing and just reached into Ginny's cauldron and took out a black diary. He then smiled at Ginny as he held the diary in his hands, “It seems one of my books got mixed in with yours.”

  “Wha-” Ginny looked down at her cauldron as she didn’t remember the book being there. She then looked at Sol. But before she could say anything, Sol opened his mouth, “I can have this back, right?”

  “Huh? Oh...uh...yes!” Hermione noticed Ginny's reply to be a bit odd but couldn’t put her finger on it.

  Sol beamed, “Thank you,” as he patted Ginny's head, the book in his hands disappeared. Hermione noticed this and sighed, “You use magic for the littlest of things.”

  Sol simply said, “No magic is little when it serves a purpose.”

  “What purpose did that serve then?”

  Sol grinned, “To look cool, obviously!”

  Both Ginny and Hermione rolled their eyes at him and walked past him. As soon as they did, Sol's expression turned grim. He used Mana Eyes to look at the black diary that was in his cloak. The aura of Voldemort had an ominous feel to it. He could not help but wonder: Is this the plot device for their second year?

  That Night

  Sol was sitting at Fred and George's desk. Whenever he would stay over at the Weasleys house, he'd have to stay in Fred and George's room. And this time, Harry was to sleep in Ron's room. In his hands, was the black diary he snagged from Ginny. He now fully believed Lucius Malfoy was a Death Eater. Otherwise, why would he have Voldemort's possessions and why would he try to sneakily give them to a young girl? Sol examined the diary. At the back of the book, the name ‘Tom Marvolo Riddle’ was written in gold letterings.

  Ho? Was that Voldemort's name?

  Sol opened the diary and flipped through the pages. The yellow pages had no writings or any sort of markings on them and looked clean as though it was bought yesterday. He wasn’t particularly surprised by this and just picked up and nearby quill. He dipped it in ink and started writing.

  “Hello, is someone here?”

  The ink writings started being sucked into the pages and soon nothing remained. Sol wasn’t in a hurry, so he waited. But he didn’t have to wait for long as ink began surfacing from the pages and turned into a sentence.

  “Hello, my name is Tom Riddle.”

  Sol sighed. This is going to take a while. Sol had no idea where to go with this. He knew that the diary would do something. Otherwise, Lucius wouldn’t just try to hand it to Ginny. Sol looked at the diary again. If the diary had the ability to answer back, he might as well try to get more information about Tom Riddle. So he began writing.

  “Tom, were you a student of Hogwarts?”

  “I am.”

  “In which year are you in?”

  “6th.”

  Sol smiled in relief. At least, he had a direction to go towards now. He also understood that this diary belonged to 16-year-old Tom.

  “How good were your grades?”

  “They were alright.”

  “Do you have notes on spells?”

  “I do.”

  “What kinds?”

  “Charms, jinxes, light spells, and dark spells.”

  Sol felt a bit surprised. This dude started Dark Spells when he was 16? No, maybe even younger. Jesus...well, I can’t blame him too much since I am starting at 13.

  “Can you teach me some dark spells?”

  “I can.”

  Sol’s eyes glittered.

  Hallelujah, this book is a treasure trove!

  actually suffocating). But it did give me a good chance to think about which direction I wanted my writings to go to and what I wanted to do as an author(can I call myself an author? I think I can, idk). So, I'll share some of those here since writing another ‘Author's Mad Ramblings’ is hella wasteful(the stuff about the apartment room was just a context for me to write this, don't mind it).

  Jojo's Bizarre Adventure, The MCU, Assasin's Creed, etc, etc. (Ik some of those are cringe). But none of those ideas stuck for me. So at long last, I settled on Harry Potter. I thought, hey, if many people on Royal Road can do it, why can't I? And so I did.

  at least I'm keeping my promise. In the prologue, I wrote that I would post a chapter at least once every three days. From 2 chapters in day to 1 chapter a day to 1 chapter in 2 days to lastly, 1 chapter every three days. And that was fine. I was also reading novels in my free time and would become engrossed in them so every free minute was greatly appreciated. Though I would still write routinely.

  well-read. And even that was fine to me. My goal was to better myself through writing this fanfic and not to gain followers. And comparing my writing up to Arc 2 and onwards from Arc 3, I think I succeeded(though not as well as others. It's more readable). So, I kept on writing. However, sitting in the dark, empty room last night made me lose a bit of motivation.

  Domestic Girlfriend, would you read it? Given of course you know the ending. Jesus Christ...).

  Magical Adventure. It is your standard reincarnation with knowledge of the plot. It is the kind of story you read when you have nothing else to read. And even then you have to turn of your brain to do so. Hell, so much so that I've forgotten most of what I read there. But the most memorable aspect of there was the romance. Jesus Christ, I'll pick Domestic Girlfriend(the good parts) over the romance of that story. The MC crushes over Ginny and ends up in a relationship with Hermione. Mind you they were still under fifteen as far as I remember. I can't even... I won't talk about the other things like how the magic the MC over there does is far more unattached to the rules of the world.

  Rebirth In A Magical World. The MC is also a standard reincarnator with knowledge of the plot but he isn't constrained by the plot all that much. The author managed to make the characters even more lively. So I recommend you check it out. Some people are cursing the MC whereas others are praising him but I just have a neutral stance. I enjoyed the story but couldn't keep reading it.

  Monarch Of The Ninth Hell