Hagrid's booming voice and massive presence acted as a perfect shield, extracting Harry from the oppressive gloom of Knockturn Alley and shepherding the three of them back into the bright, bustling chaos of Diagon Alley. Just as they emerged, a chorus of relieved cries met them. The Weasley family, looking frayed and frantic, descended upon them like a flock of worried redheaded birds.
Mrs. Weasley enveloped Harry in a bone-crushing hug, fussing over the soot on his clothes and scolding him gently for his travel mishap. Mr. Weasley clapped him on the shoulder, his face alight with relief, while Fred and George offered mock salutes. In the happy pandemonium of the reunion, Ariana and Hermione stood back, allowing the family their moment.
"Right then," Mrs. Weasley said, finally releasing Harry and taking charge with renewed vigor. "To Flourish and Blotts! We still need to get everyone's books."
The scene inside the bookshop had, if anything, grown more manic. The crowd was a solid, sweaty wall of witches and wizards, all clamoring for a view of the preening celebrity at the front. Gilderoy Lockhart, dressed in robes of a brilliant, forget-me-not blue that perfectly matched his eyes, was flashing his dazzling smile for a photographer from the Daily Prophet.
As the Weasleys, Harry, Hermione, and Ariana tried to squeeze through the throng, Lockhart's eyes, constantly scanning for opportunities, landed on Harry.
"It can't be!" he boomed, his voice magically amplified to carry over the din. "Harry Potter!"
The crowd parted like the Red Sea. In an instant, Lockhart had lunged forward, grabbed Harry by the arm, and dragged him to the front of the shop. The photographer's camera began flashing with renewed ferocity, capturing the image of the famous Boy Who Lived alongside the famous monster-slayer. Harry, red-faced and utterly mortified, was trapped. Lockhart draped a heavy arm over his shoulders, announcing to the delighted crowd that he was not only donating a full set of his books to Harry but would also be taking up the post of Defence Against the Dark Arts teacher at Hogwarts.
After what felt like an eternity, a flustered Harry managed to escape, dumping his armful of Lockhart's garishly-covered books into Ginny Weasley's cauldron. He tried to retreat into the crowd, but Lockhart's gaze, sweeping for another photo opportunity, fell upon Ariana.
He saw her standing there, a vision of serene, ethereal beauty amidst the chaotic crush of people. Her calm was a stark contrast to the surrounding fervor, and her striking looks made her a perfect subject.
"And this lovely young lady!" Lockhart boomed, starting to move towards her, his hand
outstretched, a predatory gleam in his eye. "A picture with Hogwarts' newest celebrity and another clearly bright young student would be…"
He never finished the sentence. A shadow fell over him. Hagrid, who had been watching Lockhart's antics with a deep, rumbling disapproval, stepped directly into his path. The gamekeeper's huge hand, as large as a dustbin lid, closed gently but with immovable firmness around Lockhart's wrist, stopping him mid-reach.
"I don't think," Hagrid said, his voice a low, dangerous growl that cut through Lockhart's magical amplification, "that Miss Dumbledore is interested in havin' her picture taken."
Lockhart's smile faltered. He tried to pull his wrist free, but it was like trying to move a rooted oak tree. He looked up into Hagrid's stony, disapproving face and his bravado evaporated. With a nervous, high-pitched laugh, he stammered, "Of course! Of course! A shy one! Perfectly understandable!" He retreated back to his podium, rubbing his wrist and pointedly avoiding looking in their direction again.
Ariana watched the exchange with a flicker of internal disappointment. Her mind had already been tracing the pathways of a subtle but intensely uncomfortable hex—something that would cause Lockhart's perfect teeth to temporarily feel as though they were coated in fur. Hagrid's intervention, while well-intentioned, had deprived her of the satisfaction. She gave Hagrid a small, grateful nod nonetheless.
With the spectacle finally over, they began the arduous task of gathering their schoolbooks. It was during this process, as they queued to pay, that the day's final, and most significant, confrontation occurred.
"Well, well, well—Arthur Weasley."
The voice was a cold, aristocratic drawl. Lucius Malfoy, his pale, pointed face a mask of contempt, stood before them, his son Draco smirking at his side. He surveyed the Weasleys' pile of secondhand books with disdain.
"Still struggling, I see," Lucius sneered, his cold grey eyes flicking over their frayed robes and wornout supplies. "I suppose it's the best you can do on a civil servant's salary. Tell me, what's the point of being a disgrace to the name of wizard if they don't even pay you well for it?"
Mr. Weasley went scarlet. "We have a very different idea of what disgraces the name of wizard, Malfoy."
The two men exchanged heated words, their mutual animosity a palpable force. Draco took the opportunity to taunt Harry and Ron, his gaze full of the usual petty malice.
Ariana and Hermione simply stood back, observing the scene with a shared, weary disdain for the childish posturing of it all. Ariana didn't even bother to acknowledge Draco's presence; to her, he was an irrelevant variable, a buzzing insect not worthy of her attention.
Lucius's gaze then moved from the Weasleys and landed on the two girls. He looked at Hermione with a sneer, clearly identifying her Muggle-born heritage. Then his eyes fell on Ariana. He paused. He had heard the stories from Draco, of course. The strange Dumbledore girl who was as powerful as she was beautiful, the one who had neutralized the troll and dominated her first-year classes. He saw the serene composure, the unnerving intelligence in her periwinkle eyes. She was a Dumbledore, an offshoot or not, and that made her a player in the grand game, a piece on the board he had not yet accounted for.
An idea, slick and insidious, formed in his mind. His original plan had been simple. He would slip the old, dark school diary of Tom Riddle into the cauldron of the youngest Weasley girl—a poor, pure-blood family with close ties to Dumbledore. It would be a perfect way to disgrace Arthur Weasley, unleash chaos within Hogwarts, and rid himself of a dangerous dark artifact, all in one go.
But now… a new opportunity presented itself. Giving the diary to the Weasley girl was a blunt instrument. Giving it to this girl… that was a move of exquisite, calculated malice. She was Dumbledore's namesake, clearly a protégée of the old fool. To have her be the one to open the Chamber of Secrets, to unleash the monster, to be possessed by the memory of the Dark Lord… the political and emotional fallout would be devastating. It would shatter Dumbledore's reputation and destroy his prized pupil from the inside out. It was a far more elegant, far more cruel, and far more damaging plan.
Lucius's sneer transformed into a thin, reptilian smile. While Mr. Weasley was distracted by his wife, Lucius reached into his robes, his hand closing around the small, black diary. He stepped forward, his movements smooth and practiced. He stopped in front of Ariana. "And you must be the talk of the school," he said, his voice a silken, dangerous murmur. "Another Dumbledore at Hogwarts. How… quaint." He looked down at the pile of new, expensive-looking books in her arms. "It seems not all students have to make do with hand-me-downs."
His hand moved with lightning speed. He reached into Araian's cauldron, which she was, plucked out a copy of A Beginner's Guide to Transfiguration, something Ariana could have stopped by simply petrifying him close range, but she allowed curious of his actions. With the same motion as plucking out the book, Lucius slipped the small, black diary into Ariana's stack of books. It was a movement of such deftness that only someone watching for it would have noticed. And Ariana had been watching his every move, her mind analyzing his body language, his shifting gaze, the subtle tensing of his muscles.
"A book someone like the Weasleys would never be able to afford," he said condescendingly, thrusting the book back in Ariana's cauldron. "I'm not sure though whether even you might be able to afford one, should the benevolent headmaster fall from grace."
He then gave a final, dismissive sneer at the Weasleys and turned, sweeping from the shop with Draco in his wake.
Hermione was about to protest the man's rudeness, but Ariana placed a calming hand on her arm.
She looked down at her stack of books. There, nestled between Advanced Runic Translation and The Standard Book of Spells, Grade 2, was a small, plain, black-covered diary. It felt cold to the touch, and a faint, almost imperceptible whisper of dark, hungry magic emanated from it. Tom Riddle's Horcrux.
A slow, secret, and utterly predatory smirk touched the corner of Ariana's lips. It was there and gone in an instant, replaced by her usual serene mask. Lucius Malfoy, in his arrogance, thought he had planted a seed of chaos in the heart of Dumbledore's fortress. He had no idea what he had actually done. He hadn't given a weapon to a victim. He had handed a live grenade to a master of magical ordinance who already knew exactly how to disarm it.
She hugged the stack of books to her chest, the diary held securely within. "Come on," she said to Hermione. "We've gotten everything we need."
This year, she thought, was going to be very interesting indeed. Lucius Malfoy had just made a terrible, terrible mistake. And she was going to enjoy every moment of his eventual regret.