The Price of Trust

Adrian paused, and sighed. What was he hoping for? There was no way that this diary and his father would trust him so readily.

'I know you opened the Chamber,' Adrian wrote carefully, 'Where is it?'

The words sunk in, and he didn't get a response until nearly two minutes later. The words were written considerably slowly, although not with hesitation of pondering words.

'I'm sorry, I just caught the Heir, I don't know. But I hear your school is suffering what mine did as well, fifty years ago. Shall I show you?'

Adrian scratched two letters, 'No.'

He could tell he was confusing the book, although it was doing a marvelous job at hiding it.

'Alright,' It almost seemed to test the water, 'It sounds wonderful that the situation is under control once more.'

Adrian snorted against his better judgement, a smile curling at his mouth. Was this what it would be like to actually have a conversation with his father?

'My name is Hadrianus Selwyn,' Adrian wrote carefully, 'I have a familiar, his name is Lutain. Only two people can speak to him,'

'That's very interesting, as well as your name. You are very lucky to have a familiar while also in Hogwarts. I hear it is very difficult to obtain one.'

Adrian wasn't entirely sure the book hadn't been charmed with a monitor spell. Anything he wrote could be rewritten someplace else; he had to be subtle.

'You could talk to him as well,' Adrian wrote, hoping that the book was picking up the now not so subtle clues. 'He was a pain to speak to at first.'

'I'm sorry, I don't know what you're talking about. I wasn't aware of a creature which could speak English fluently.'

Adrian growled annoyed.

'I thought you'd be smarter for the Heir of Slytherin,' Adrian scribbled out frustrated.

'I'm sorry, I only caught the Heir.'

The book was being evasive because he didn't trust him, which was understandable given that it was talking to a stranger.

"It doesn't trust me," Adrian hissed to Lutain, who was still peering at the book questionably. Adrian hadn't ever taught Lutain how to read English.

"Nagini?" Lutain offered, "Only something Nagini knows?"

"Like what?" Adrian sighed, "I don't know what much about my father to begin with."

This book would start getting sassy if he didn't start responding fast.

'You're being very uncooperative.' Adrian huffed, flinching as the book suddenly dropped in temperature. It was seeping cold, tingling up the nerves, It stung, creeping like a numbing tar in his blood.

'Stop that,' Adrian scratched out, hand shaking slightly.

At once, it receded and paused.

'Stop what?' It asked innocently, the strange sensation tickling the back of his head.

'Reaching up,' Adrian wrote awkwardly, 'Going up my arms.'

'You can feel that?'

'Yes.' Adrian wrote, was he not supposed to?

It flared suddenly, not burning or tingling but moving up his hand once again. Rolling oil invisibly over the surface of his skin.

He felt it touch his barriers, sliding through like legilimency without any mind.

Adrian choked, folding over and clutching his scalp between shaking hands.

"Master?" Lutain hissed in alarm, "Master?"

"Possession," Adrian choked out, feeling as if the invisible presence was clawing in his throat, "It's-"

'Oh,' an invisible presence whispered, sliding between each wall of his mind like water, 'oh,'

Then it receded, withdrawing so fast it left Adrian slamming backwards heaving against the back of his headboard.

"Back!" Lutain hissed, rearing in a lethal display as he revealed his long fangs, glaring in Adrian's face with the viciousness of a wild animal, "Leave!"

"It's me," Adrian blinked, wincing as he fumbled for a vial of pain relief potion he received for Christmas.

He almost kicked his foot out to send the book flying across the room. An artifact with sentience strong enough to possess someone? What was his father thinking? At least he knew the book wasn't spelled to compromise him.

A single word scribbled back across the page, shaky in contrast to its normally precise lines.

'How?'

So now it believed him. It was alarming and a bit terrifying how quickly it demolished his Occlumency shields, he was proud of them.

'I'm your son,' Adrian wrote, his handwriting shaky for what was happening, 'Voldemort is injured. The Chamber of Secrets has been opened and I can't find the entrance.'

'Impossible,' It wrote instantly, 'Voldemort cannot be harmed.'

So his father had a god complex as well.

'He is,' Adrian tapped the edge of the quill against his lip, 'He looks like a mandrake.'

'What.' It deadpanned. Adrian paused with his quill still on the page, ink seeped into a larger blot the longer he waited, 'A mandrake. A screaming shriveled root.'

....

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