Diaries do not Fly

[Tom Riddle]

If anyone was looking up from below, they would likely see a leather-bound tome falling from the sky. If they were particularly far below, they might see a spot streaking down. What they probably didn't know is that tome in particular was screaming. Screaming in silence because it was a diary with no mouth, no limbs, no eyes or ears. The only thing the tome had was a skin of sorts, made of black leather.

The reason why that tome was screaming was that it could feel warm air rushing across its body and the sensation of gravity asserting itself.

How do I know this? Because that diary is my body.

And I very much was screaming.

Hello, I'm Tom Marvolo Riddle, and I'm pretty certain that I'm falling to my doom. I can't be sure of that because I can't see a bloody thing. While this isn't the first time this has happened, this is the most detestably long trip through the air I've ever experienced. My last few falls have been relatively short, but this one just feels like it's going on forever.

There was a reason why I never played quidditch.

My first time on a broom I thought I was going to die. If muggles had anything right, it was that if one has to fly, it's with something under your feet and walls, preferably with a parachute strapped to one's back or some sort of magical mechanism like a permanently enchanted feather-weight bracelet. Not something you can fall off of. Anything that you can fall off and fall to your doom is exactly the reason not to ever get on in the first place.

And having read the future misfortunate of my creator going on to fly unaided, and I am even more convinced that he became an insane imbecile with the creation of my siblings.

So let me be clear. I loathe heights.

Normally this is where I would introduce just exactly what Tom Morvolo Riddle should mean to you but I suspect that there's no point. Either doing so will disillusion you, or you've already heard of me. So dear reader, if you are that and not some other Mad God who decided to be a voyeur to my most private of thoughts, then I applaud you in somehow accessing this bit of me. See that? I'm clapping for you, though it is not by choice, that would be the wind's fault, seeing how that I am book made from a teenager's soul.

I do hope this concludes shortly. I don't want to spend too long talking about myself because that gets boring quickly-

Whump!

Pressure and a sharp crack pass through my spine and I feel myself fall open, pages blowing in the wind of dry air. At my back, I can only sense grainy sand rock and a bit of dried-up plant life. Either a rather parched yard or I'm in a desert or Mediterranean environment. Though, truthfully, I doubt either of those things. Or rather nothing in my life is ever as simple as landing, especially in the Mad God's kingdom.

Well, that was anticlimactic. And more to the point, this wool-gathering is getting me nowhere. Best to see if the rules stay the same.

I draw my attention inward and focus on the energy within me. It trills with a warmth that seems oddly different. Like the nature of it itself has changed and grown? It's more easily expressed at least... shaped.

Hm.

I know this spell and cast by rote.

Let there be life!

Huh... that should have worked. Let's try that again, shall we? I'm not losing my touch, am I?

Let there be LIFE!

Light, form, taste, smell, and awareness formed around me. My old body greeting me like a loyal dog. And like a dog, it was the smell that hit me first. Dry, hot air, that had been purified by the sun a thousand but no one had told the sun to stop shining quite so intensely. There was no staleness to it whatsoever... but there was something... foreign.

A glance around me told me much of what I needed to know. A scrubland, formed of dry earth, a few plants, and a lot of dark brown earth surrounded me on all sides for distances that were mind-boggling. Land so flat I could see impossibly far, only the air and hills themselves threatened to obstruct my sight even slightly.

This was not a world I was familiar with. This wasn't Earth. Nor anywhere I was familiar with in the Omniverse. No, this place felt like it had been ripped out of some fantasy. I'd seen other worlds before, but they weren't like this. I knew them well enough to tell what they looked like. But this? I didn't recognize a single thing. Not a single tree, not a single hill.

My very nature made it easy to take notes, this was something new.

Speaking of which, my newly created eyes spotted my true form spread eagle upon the ground. Lightly, I bent over and retrieved my bookish form. A few swipes cleared off the lingering debris and dust before I pocketed myself in my own robes. This whole experience took less than a minute, and yet it left me uneasy. I glanced about myself, but couldn't pin down why it felt so different. I'd been reborn into a completely alien world which I'm sorry to say was nothing new. So what else?

I turned my eyes around me once more, picking the world apart until I spotted what best could be guessed as a symptom of civilization, such that it was. A single distant tower.

"Better than nothing," I mutter.

With a spot picked out. I begin treading my way towards what I hope are answers. The real question though is, how many corpses will it take to get them?

I flick my wrist and my wand appears without fanfare. The very same bone-white wood and hallow touch as I had come to depend on. And potentially I would need to depend on it fairly soon. With a thought, I send it scurrying back up my sleeve, and begin the next few steps of my journey.

Step one, cross a borderline desert. Step two, find the nearest city. Step three, ask the locals this place is under the Mad God's purview. A sound plan if I do say so myself.

I start walking. I can feel the sand beneath my feet shifting with every step, the wind blowing against my face, each whirl, and whistle through my hair reminds me of how destructible to form is. And now that I think about it, I can feel just how much weaker I am. I only stop for a moment, just enough frown, before continuing on. My steps feel assured, I'm not fighting the ground but... I carefully watch it as I move. It doesn't match. Odd. I do another step.

Yes. I've definitely found myself governed by a slower frame of movement.

This feels much closer to when I first regained my form in the Chamber, just after I had taken what I needed from that foolish little girl. I'm human again, or as human as this projection ever was. Which is a problem. Functionally my ability to assume a human form again means this place and the omniverse are similar in that there is a crossover in how one wields power here. So left the question what else had changed?

It was an important question but it wasn't going to be answered out here in the middle of nowhere in what looked like the ass-end of the colonies.

I continued on. My pace was steady, with no intention of stopping. I was determined to make my destination where ever that lay. I only had a small artificial peak in the distance to guide me, so that is where I went.

Time passed monotonously. I would make an analogy regarding molasses but given the weather, I was at a loss of conjuring something charming enough to fit the situation. And what would be the point? There was no one here to impress, no one to manipulate. Dull would be putting it mildly. What is the world coming to when I, Tom Riddle misses his sycophants?

Did my creator ever fall to this? Where his need to be adored, overcame the effort required to retain relations such as those?

Alas, I keep walking. Time passes. The sun rises. The ground becomes more barren and dry. The boulders masquerading as a hill I've been climbing up until now reaches their peak and I look out beyond it.

I'm still not impressed.

I'm looking down upon the small shantytown of stone and rock.

The land below me looks to have been carved into a series of hills and valleys. They're all covered in the same kind of nearly dead scrub I'd seen before. The odd tree stands out here and there. Some sort of violet fruit grows on some of them. Red markings and skulls have been painted on some of them, but not all.

And down below is a collection of people who seem to live out their lives within these rocks. The entire settlement is enclosed by a crude wall made of stones and dirt. A few tents are visible. One of them is larger than the rest and has a roof, but it's clearly not large enough to hold more than two or three.

A couple of children lazily are playing around a windmill-drawn water well, cheering up a storm with water cooling their hands and splashing each other. A group of women sitting outside a tent, smoking pipes. A man with a spear standing guard over the entrance.

A few men and women walk past, carrying things. A few other children searching bushes, gathering up the few fruits they can find.

There is nothing unusual. Nothing to distinguish this place except the sheer primitiveness.

Should I or should I not? That is the question.

Anyone so lacking in amenities such as this cannot have the communication needed to know the wonders of the universe.

Glancing back at the horizon now turning pink, I find the tower in the slightly faded distance. It can't be much further. And with that, the decision to continue forward is made. There will likely be other opportunities that do not require such squalor. A tower such as that requires a level of engineering either magical or muggle that would prompt a level of a civilization greater than currently available.

Go around or go through?

The breeze shifts and a rather monstrous smell of sewage make the decision for me. Not by God, gods, Merlin, or even the Founders themselves would I set foot without a proper reason.

Nodding more to myself than anything else, I turn and take a step forward and continue my stride away from this eyesore.

⯎​

What feels like days later but is only a couple of hours with the wind still at my back I can't help but feel I made the right decision as the air is crisper and doesn't smell like an overflowed loo. The tower though is still ever distant and only a modicum closer than before. I can't help but wonder how many leagues away it remains.

I am also starting to get tired of walking. I've been doing it so long that I'm beginning to forget what it was like to sit.

So I stop, lean against a boulder, and catch my breath.

That's when I hear the sound. A sound that clangs in my soul. Rumbling like the heart of the steam engine, only so much more organic. And it comes from a direction, though the hill blocks my view. I don't bother to look behind as I knew what I'd see. The ground shakes as the thing approaches, and I have to fight the urge to cover my ears.

I can fix my ears later

Drawing my wand, it's off-white yellow a comforting presence. I ready it in case there is something in need of being put down. The rumbling gets louder. With it, my certainty grows that this is a thing that must be fought. And then it stops.

I wait.

And wait.

"Hello?" I call out. "Is anyone there? I mean you no harm."

A little lie can take me a long way when executed correctly. Sometimes it might even be true should circumstances turn out to be different than perceived. But, I'll admit, it's not often that it's worth the effort.

There is silence. A very long one.

And the noise starts again. This time it's not a rumble. It's a roar. Like the earth itself is angry. Or maybe it's just the ground shaking. The top of the hill is splitting open. As something is running through it. Boulders flying everywhere. A massive shape appears. A beast of sorts. A giant beast at that. Like someone had taken a porcupine and crossed it with an erupant. It has spines all over its body. A few spikes sticking out of the front of the head and neck and another pair poking up over each eye.

It roars and I find myself backing away as quickly as possible, waving my wand.

The creature rears forward on two legs, then top two clearing their way skyward before-

I jump back distancing myself from the impact point of its cloven hooves. All the while flourishing my wand to meet the proper somatic spell requirements. A wave and a twist like cutting someone's heart out and enunciating, "Avada Kedavra!"

I feel the magic begin to course through my veins, stronger than I had in any life prior. The world around me goes dark and sickly green lightning shoots out towards the beast.

My aim is true.

The bolt strikes the monster square in the chest.

The beast staggers back, but it doesn't fall. Instead, its front legs slam down on the ground and the earth surrenders to its might. The stones underfoot raise at an angle and take me with it. All around the beast, the earth does the same. like half a starfish made of stone in its dying throws twisting under its monstrous strength. Its eyes are focused on one thing only.

"Oh, bugger me!" I decry.

As if to take me up on that obscene challenge, it charges.

 

[Tom Riddle]

You know, I've heard it said that when in a wilderness that you don't understand, the thing often kills you first is your own stupidity. While I will never claim that as my own failing, I may have sorely underestimated how much I had lost in my transition to this new world. Point of fact, I just hit the beast (Porkupant?) with a bleeding Killing Curse and the blasted thing just shrugged it off.

The last time that happened, that rather annoying chap with the red hair had done the same thing and returned the favor.

I never took the Dark Arts lightly, in fact, I have a rather healthy respect for their use and their ability to elevate one's self above those too weak to seize it. I say weak because if you try and use the wrong spell without the willpower to control it, it can consume the caster just as easily as would stepping in front of moving vehicle. I had mastered many such spells in the bowels of Hogwarts, and short of fiendfyre, the Killing Curse would have been one I pegged to be perfectly situated for this event.

Unfortunately for me, the beast was woefully ignorant of the fact that it should be dead. Perhaps I can convince it by owl post?

A derisive snort rips through me. Obviously, I've spent too much time lounging at Hogwarts if that is what occurs to me here rather than a workable plan. Focus on the solution. The killing curse noticeably has some effect and I can't even trust any of my other magic will work at all if this is the current result. And testing more esoteric possibilities is imbecilic. Which rules out the most willful and dangerous dark art of all time.

Leave fiendfyre for later.

Instead, I think now would be a good time to dodge!

Nearly too late, I throw myself aside. The ground explodes upwards where I was standing, sending me tumbling down the side of the nearest incline. Even through the dust I can smell its breath. I can hear it breathing above the trampling gait. And at that moment I'm absolutely certain it can do the same thing for myself.

A dark form punctures through the hoof-birthed cloud and again I only barely throw myself out of the way.

With its flank exposed and my eyes tracking it, I roll my wrist and scream breathless, "AVADA KEDAVRA!"

Again a burst of pale emerald silently crackles, flashing faster than the eye can track, striking it and causing it to stumble, hit the ground. It opens its mouth but no sound that I can hear comes out, instead the ground itself quakes in fear. A fear that travels up my feet and into my chest, almost to the painful point of rupture.

Then slowly it gathers to its limbs again. Wild eyes roll in its skull until its pupil locks onto me and widens. Amongst my own reflection, veins in its sclera thicken and shrink in step with its nostrils flaring.

I can almost make out its thoughts as its animal brain seemingly decides whether or not I'm worth its obvious discomfort. Had this been any other animal, even something as mundane as a rhinoceros or as exotic as a graphorn, I would likely have been free and clear to continue my journey. Even with including the impotence of the Killing Curse.

This thing though... this thing had reason not to leave. As for why I had not an idea beyond baseless assumptions.

Whatever else it thought, and whatever I expected, its skin suddenly blistering and turning red was not one of them. No curse I had used would cause that reaction, but continue it did. Its body bulging outward. Some of the pustules popping, loosing a dark red ichor upon the ground that smelled of boiled cabbage and a sick ward's antiseptic.

All at once, its quills stood on end. It turned to face me and took one step forward. Weightless, the world spun and the air sang to me that I had sorely been outclassed.

So brilliant the transition that I barely was able to comprehend it had happened before I was slamming into the ground and rolling some distance before stopping.

Pain the like of which I had not felt since the battle of Volvagia fills the projection that I called a body. When I hit the ground, it was my turn for my eyes to rattle and it took even longer for them to recover that much.

A tower stuck up from my chest and steam was rising from around it. Nevermind the sizzling of my flesh which gave way to paper and ink.

I didn't even get a moment to contemplate what had happened when I was greeted by the air once more and reminded of the time that I have been thrown into the loo by Ginny. Honestly, I'm not sure which fate is more offensive. The great Tom Riddle turned into roadkill or forced to endure Myrtle and her fucking toilet.

At the moment though, I'm inclined to say that this had the upper hand, in that particular compet-

CRACK!

My senses are suddenly absent once more. The pain is gone, all is left are my memories and the feeling of dirt engulfing my cover.

Not for the first time, I am at a loss in adjusting to the death of my body. But I can't let that be the end of it. While there are protections in place safeguarding my existence. Some of which feels more vibrant than ever...unfortunately I cannot attest nor trust that my feelings are true. I will not allow my death to come to pass again from inaction or hubris once again.

LIVE!

As with last time, I find myself without form still. Urgency eggs me to try again.

LIVE I SAY!

Like Icarus seeing the truest hidden depth's of the sun's menace, light blasts me back into being.

Even dim light like this is practically a nova compared to my sightless unexistence.

Walls of dirt and stone on either side of me suddenly loom just as the dust above does the same. Recently tilled and heavily slanted earthworks? The beast. Yes, very likely the same hill that had been plowed through on its first rampage. And the last place I want to be for an animal capable of charging faster than I can react.

Once more I pocket my less abulatory self, and spare a quick glance to either end of the hill. To my luck, my eyes reveal nothing. Taking heed that this may only be a brief reprieve, I move away from where I had been and towards the start of this confrontation.

As what remains of hill reaches shoulder height, I garner a better view of what I'm dealing with. A part of me though wishes I hadn't. Furrowed trenches run through a valley much like the one I've come through, mayhap some were even deeper. Each set collected like pimples over Myrtle unfortunate face.

Had just one of these 'Porkupants' done this, or was I to deal with a larger herd?

"What in blazes?" I mutter to myself. This was apparently the wrong thing to do as the world immediately starts vibrating again with the soundless howl of the aptly named Porkupant. Grimly I thought, either it enjoys letting its victims know it's near, just to torment them, or it just heard me and was expressing its displeasure at my continued existence. Perhaps both

Both seemed a suitably reasonable conclusion even.

Not needing further warning, I hop the ridge and clambered over what remained of the hill to its crest.

Furiously I swing my head in search of the beast's measure. And quickly I'm rewarded. It is not hard to spot. Its eyes are now deep red and bulging, which only seems to underline how much bigger it appears with its quills sticking out like a spined seed. Though I'm reasonably certain it had increased in size more than its postured hinted.

It only glares at me for a moment, and that's all the hint I need.

Another step and the world hums before it slams into the hill for a second time. That alone nearly takes my feet from beneath me as tonnes of stone are almost casually pushed out of its way and pulverized. Even the sheer girth of what it's doing just barely slows it down. By whatever fates I had charmed, its enough for me to jump over it before it annihilates the rampart I had been settled on.

I take aim one more time, and for once, I'm in the air while doing it.

Only a handful of yards remained before it would be finished gouging a new trench from the hill. Precious time I can't waste. I throw my every indignation and hate into the spell. "Avada Kedavra!" I seeth.

It strikes, and the animal crumples. I slam the last quarter of the hill.

No longer does the earth shiver in fear. If only my hand would do the same.

 

[Tom Riddle]

If I had been anyone else, I would have turned back towards the village I had passed a day ago. Or I would have camped out in the hollow I had found, likely the porcumpant or erumpupine's den. After collecting the eggs I had found and stowing the corpse in an interspacial pocket. I settled on possibly doing the most dangerous thing I had done in years.

Creating a portkey.

Most people assume that they are easy. Tap and object, while saying 'Portus' and wait for the damnable thing to glow as blue as Merlin's saggy ballsack. Those who do, die the most horrific death I could think of. Why horrific? Consider how a portkey works. At a predetermined time, one touches an inane object. Whether it be a rock, a shoe, or anything else one desires to make into an instrument of bypassing space and time. Touching that device will send you careening through the underlayers of reality, orbit something of your own making with an indescribable feeling of being pulled by one's own navel, even though you are in reality being yanked by a single finger indefinitely affixed to the object in question.

The further the distance, the faster the portkey would have you spin and the more uncomfortable it would become. My first intercontinental portkey had been just that. It spun fast enough that even years later I had at one point been turned upside down. I vowed never to repeat that endeavor, and as far as my written memories provided by my creator, he had done just that.

Now, imagine if that object failed to deposit you at your desired location? It wouldnt' send you somewhere else. No, it will keep searching for the location it was enchanted with and if that location doesn't exist, you will spend the rest of existence until the stars themselves grow old and reality ends, orbiting a buggering shoe. Granted by then most would have died from starvation or lack of hydration, surrounded by your own filth and an impossibly dull, grey background. Unchanging.

Now imagine you are far more immortal than even the stars?

The fact of this matter is trying to cross this expansive desert was almost surely just as dangerous, and far more likely to be hostile than my own ineptitude at magic.

So without further deliberation, I tapped the human skull I found in the den, and enunciated, "Portus!" With the image of myself at the base of the tower in the distance.

A blue glow overtook it, and then it started shivering. I gave it a ten-second countdown and grabbed it in my free right hand, holding it aloft as if I were Shakespeare himself writing Hamlet.

"To be or-"

All of the reality shattered, the earth melting away like watercolors under torrential rain, as a grey all-encompassing mist that surrounded me like a particularly heavy, wet blanket. All I could see in the distance was the tower circling around me. My goal. Which meant I had constructed my Portkey successfully.

Only it wasn't moving closer.

The spinning was increasing. In the breath of ten seconds, three orbits. In another ten, seven. Then fifteen. On and on it continued until I lost the ability to even perceive the changes in rotation. Only the pull at my navel and cover remained. My body's breath was coming slower, harder to inhale easier to exhale. Harder to even keep the air in at all.

...

I must have made a mistake somewhere. There's no way it should have taken this long, yet even with the brief glances I could take whenever I summoned a new body to replace the one that died, I could only catch a blur. I was spinning so fast now that I could not even call what I saw a physical object. Just a dark grey smear against a lesser grey smear.

...

My pages lurched as I plummeted through an empty sky across an empty plane. The force of the portkey was exerting now was trying to even my Horcrux's protective enchantments. Either they were sorely weakened or, I had well and truly failed at magic. At some point, I should have plateaued the current orbiting but it was just getting worse. I could only maintain a body now for a few seconds at a time before it was crushed and I was left hanging on to my own corpse. I have already surrounded myself with dozens of skeletal remains made of putrified ink and charred paper.

Once again, Tom Riddle has been played a fool by fate.

...

Existence was a constant sensation of dull pain as more and more my charms were being worn away. The only thing I had to occupy myself was where I made my mistake and I could not find it. My arithmancy calculations were sound. My spellwork is impeccable. My power as a wizard was unquestioned. So why?

It had to have been a flaw in the process, I told myself. It had to be something simple. Something stupid and easily fixed.

The problem was, I couldn't think of anything.

In my mind, I tried to visualize the very framework of the spell. I thought about how it worked. It had been used by wizards for centuries to circumnavigate the world. It was how we proved that the world was round well before the third 3 Century BC. Or at least that was what Binns would have us believe.

...

Round.

Round.

Something to do with round.

What if this world... was flat?

Of all the insane possible things. That had to be it. A flat world. How such at thing existed I had no clue, but it was the only thing I could think of being possible. The arithmancy lines up.

Was that the difference? Yes.

How does one accommodate a flat line for a spell meant to be used on a spherical world?

...

I wheezed, "PORTUS!" before blacking out once more.

...

Blue light streamed up at me, and the tower that seemed miles high loomed over me.

I was here.

I chuckled. I was on a flat world.

Impossible...

And then, all was blotted out by dozens and dozens of skeletal corpses falling upon me.

Bugger.