Ethan stared at the fragment floating before him.
For several seconds, he didn't move.
He was certain of what it was from everything he remembered about the Diary. There was no other explanation that made sense.
The fragment pulsed faintly in the darkness, almost like a tiny heartbeat.
It was a strange, glossy substance, black at its core with veins of amber shifting beneath its surface, neither solid nor liquid.
It fluctuated within the endless void, constantly changing shape without ever truly moving, as though reality itself couldn't decide what it was supposed to be.
To Ethan, it looked almost like a glitch in the system.
Something that shouldn't exist.
Ethan slowly moved closer. The closer he got, the stronger the sensation became, until something deep within his instincts was practically telling him to touch it.
He wasn't entirely sure he should.
After all, what happened if you touched a soul?
A fragment of one, perhaps, but a soul nonetheless.
Ethan had spent years studying the human mind, but this was completely outside anything he'd ever encountered.
There were no instruments to measure it, no theories to explain it, and no scientific paper he could fall back on.
For once, Ethan had absolutely no idea what would happen. And that uncertainty made him want to touch it even more.
The soul shard was slowly depleting. Thin tendrils were seeping from its surface and dissolving into the darkness, as though the fragment was gradually destroying itself.
Ethan watched it carefully.
He didn't have much time to decide what to do.
If the fragment disappeared completely, there was a chance nothing would happen to him.
The Diary might simply become an ordinary, empty book, leaving Ethan trapped inside it with no way to influence the outside world.
But there was another possibility.
If he absorbed it, perhaps he would inherit whatever power remained inside the fragment. More importantly, he might gain control over the Diary itself and find a way to escape.
'Well, there is only one way to find out,' Ethan mused to himself.
Ethan extended his awareness toward it, stopping just short of making contact.
The fragment seemed to react to his presence, its amber veins brightening as though it had sensed him.
His consciousness touched the surface.
The reaction was immediate.
Its glossy surface rippled, and the amber veins beneath it flared brightly before the entire shard collapsed inward.
Ethan felt the fragment pull against his consciousness, but this time he didn't resist. He allowed it to come closer, letting the strange substance seep into him.
Then it broke apart.
A flood of memories, sensations, and knowledge poured into Ethan's mind. For a brief moment, he was no longer certain where Tom Riddle ended and he began.
He saw Tom Riddle's childhood again, but this time the memories weren't distant images. They felt like his own.
He remembered the first time he spoke Parseltongue, the first wand placed into his hand, the first spell he successfully cast, and the countless hours he had spent studying magic.
Years of study and experimentation poured into Ethan's consciousness faster than he could process them.
It wasn't simply like remembering something he had read; the knowledge felt instinctive, as though his mind already understood the principles behind it.
Ethan's consciousness struggled to contain it all.
Spells appeared in his mind.
Incantations.
Wand movements.
The structure behind magic that Tom had spent years learning.
It wasn't simply knowledge anymore. Then something inside him changed. He could feel it.
Magic.
It wasn't an abstract concept anymore. It was something real, something flowing through the strange new existence that had become his consciousness.
Ethan instinctively reached toward it.
The magic responded.
For a moment, Ethan simply stared into the endless darkness, stunned by what he had just experienced.
I can use magic.
The thought had barely formed when the entire Diary seemed to react.
The parchment surrounding him trembled violently, and Ethan suddenly became aware of something he hadn't been able to sense before.
Everything.
Every page.
Every layer of parchment.
Every trace of ink.
The cover.
The spine.
All of it was connected to him.
It was as though the Diary had become an extension of his consciousness.
He could feel the outside world now. He was inside something as if hidden from view.
Slowly, the sensations began to fade as the soul shard disappeared completely, its remaining essence absorbed into Ethan's consciousness.
For a moment, he simply remained still, trying to understand what had happened.
Ethan then began checking himself.
His memories were still there. His thoughts felt like his own, and his personality seemed unchanged. As far as he could tell, he was still Ethan.
But that didn't necessarily mean everything was fine.
He had just absorbed a fragment of someone else's soul, along with everything that had been contained within it.
Who knew what kind of side effects something like that could have?
Ethan certainly didn't.
But Ethan knew one thing for certain: he was the new owner of the Diary, and the Horcrux that had once belonged to Voldemort was gone.
Ethan decided to test the new abilities he could feel inside himself.
Just as Tom Riddle had done, he gathered his thoughts and began shaping the magic around his consciousness, slowly giving himself a form. A body began to take shape.
Ethan sat down on a chair that materialised beneath him as soon as he imagined it. He leaned back and let out a quiet breath.
'Ah, that was eventful. Who would have thought my day would become this interesting?'
He paused for a moment, going over everything he now knew.
'Let's see. I'm somehow in the world of Harry Potter, I've taken over Voldemort's Diary, and I've somehow absorbed the Horcrux inside it.'
'And from what I can tell, I'm not at Hogwarts.'
That narrowed things down considerably.
'Which means I'm either still tucked away in Lucius Malfoy's manor... or he's already slipped the diary to Ginny Weasley.'
Ethan's expression sobered. 'Now the real question is: what is the next step?'
From a few experiments, Ethan quickly discovered that his control over the outside world was extremely limited.
He could sense what was happening around the Diary and manipulate things within its magical space, but actually affecting the physical world was another matter entirely.
That wasn't going to cut it. Ethan wanted out.
He began thinking through the possibilities, drawing heavily on what he had inherited from Riddle.
There were a few ways he might be able to eventually construct himself a body, and the most obvious one was the method Riddle himself had intended to use, feeding on the life force of another person and using it to create a new physical form.
It was tempting on paper.
But there was a problem.
Ethan could instinctively feel that a body created that way wouldn't be accepted by this world. Something about it was fundamentally wrong, as though the world itself would recognise the body as an intrusion and reject it.
He didn't know why.
Maybe it was because he wasn't originally from this universe. His consciousness had crossed from another reality and somehow ended up inside a magical object that belonged here.
Perhaps the world simply wouldn't accept a body created when the soul occupying it didn't belong to this reality in the first place.
Ethan frowned. He would have to test the theory.
Unlike Riddle, Ethan actually had the energy necessary to construct a physical body.
His instincts were warning him that it wouldn't work, but instinct alone wasn't enough for him to dismiss a possibility.
If there was a chance, he wanted to know what would happen.
And if it failed, he would simply learn something from it.
If he couldn't create a body for himself, there was another option take over someone else's.
He would need a body that was compatible with his soul, someone whose body and soul could withstand the presence of another consciousness without rejecting it.
After absorbing Riddle's soul fragment, Ethan could think of only two people who might meet that requirement.
The first was obviously Voldemort himself, but he didn't have a body himself, so that was tough.
That left another possibility.
Harry Potter.
Ethan's thoughts became more focused as he considered it.
Harry carried a fragment of Voldemort's soul. That alone created a connection between them that shouldn't have been possible under ordinary circumstances.
If Ethan could take control of Harry's body and absorb the soul fragment already residing within it, he might be able to establish himself as the dominant soul without the body rejecting him.
It was dangerous.
It was also the first plan Ethan had come up with that might actually get him out of the Diary.
Ethan leaned back in his chair, considering the implications.
Harry Potter.
A faint smile appeared on his face.
Well, that certainly complicates things.
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