In the weeks that followed, Draco became a devotee of the Room of Requirement.
Under Elijah's calculated distance, the boy flourished, fueled by a newfound obsession with minor hexes and, surprisingly, alchemy.
At Malfoy Manor, Lucius had forbidden such pursuits, viewing the tinkering with magical gadgets as a distraction from pure-blood "essentials." But Draco possessed a genuine, tactile intuition for the craft.
Recognizing a prime opportunity to deepen their bond, Elijah pivoted his lessons toward the art of refinement.
He guided Draco to the Room of Hidden Things to scavenge for broken artifacts—among them a fractured Pensieve—and taught him the delicate work of restoration.
"If you truly wish to master this," Elijah advised through the diary's pages, "you must take Ancient Runes in your third year."
Modern alchemy was a marriage of smithing and linguistics, and Draco, blinded by the novelty of a "secret" mentor, began to consider his future curriculum with uncharacteristic seriousness.
For the first time, he felt he had a peer who understood his potential—and he began calling his mentor "Little Diary" with the casual affection of an elder brother.
Elijah tolerated the indignity with dry amusement. If Lucius ever discovered his son was addresssing the Dark Lord like a younger sibling, the man would likely collapse of a heart attack.
While Draco thrived, the rest of the school suffered under a mounting tension that Gilderoy Lockhart decided to "cure" with a Valentine's Day extravaganza.
The castle was soon besieged by "Cupids"—surly, grey-skinned dwarves with golden wings and harps—who roamed the corridors delivering musical messages at the top of their lungs.
In the Gryffindor common room, the atmosphere was bleak.
Harry, Ron, and Hermione had spent weeks searching for the diary, but the trail had gone cold.
"Maybe it's gone for good," Ron muttered one evening, his optimism depleted. "The attacks have stopped, haven't they? Maybe Riddle... I don't know, maybe he sacrificed himself to stop the Heir."
The suggestion that "Mr. Riddle" had met a tragic end sent Ginny into a fit of sobbing, punctuated by a well-aimed kick that nearly sent Ron into the fireplace.
But even as Harry fretted over the theft, he was distracted by Wood's relentless Quidditch practices and Lockhart's insufferable class performances.
Draco, too, found the Valentine's festivities revolting—mostly because the thought of being the recipient of a public, dwarf-led confession was social suicide.
"If anyone writes me a card," Draco snarled to the diary during lunch, "I'll make them regret it."
"I think you're looking at this the wrong way," Elijah wrote back, his ink swirling with a hint of malice. "Think of the potential for humiliation. You loathe Harry Potter, don't you? Why not send him an anonymous card? Something... vivid."
Draco's eyes lit up. "You're a genius, Diary! What should I say?"
"Something about his eyes," Elijah suggested. "As green as a freshly pickled toad. Let the 'Boy-Who-Lived' crumble in public."
Draco nearly knocked over his inkwell. "Perfect! And I'll have them deliver it during Charms. Or better yet—Potions! Snape would murder him!"
Elijah paused, mentally tracing the memory of Severus Snape. He knew the man loathed Potter's very existence, but those eyes... those eyes were a dangerous territory to tread in Snape's presence.
"You're dancing on a minefield, Draco!"
...
The delivery took place during Charms. Professor Flitwick was mid-lecture on the Freezing Charm when a particularly surly dwarf burst through the doors.
"Harry Potter!" the dwarf bellowed.
Harry attempted a desperate retreat, but the dwarf was relentless, seizing his bag with a grip like iron. There was a sickening rip as the leather tore open. Books, quills, and ink bottles shattered across the floor.
"I have a musical message to deliver!" the dwarf grumbled, sitting squarely on Harry's knees to pin him down. He began to pluck his harp with aggressive discordance.
"His eyes are as green as a fresh pickled toad, His hair is as black as a blackboard, so neat, I wish he were mine, he's truly handsome and sweet, The Hero who conquered the Dark Lord!"
The classroom erupted. Flitwick, usually the soul of patience, finally lost his temper and blasted a crater into the floor near the dwarf's feet to drive him out.
Harry sat in the wreckage of his belongings, his face the color of a beet. He caught sight of Malfoy across the room, doubled over with laughter.
"It was him," Harry hissed to Ron as they gathered his ruined parchment. "Only Malfoy would be that cruel."
Harry's eyes followed his rival. He saw Malfoy leaning over a small, black notebook, scribbling into it with frantic glee.
It looked like a common diary, and since the trio had already ruled Malfoy out as the Heir weeks ago, Harry didn't give it a second thought—save for the burning desire to see Malfoy suffer.
That night, the laughter died.
Deep within the Chamber of Secrets, Draco stood before the towering statue of Slytherin, his hands shaking. Beside him, a tall, handsome figure shimmered in the green light—a translucent phantom of a young man.
Elijah had absorbed enough life force from the diary's owners to manifest his shadow, a fleeting, ghost-like presence that felt cold to the touch.
"Are we... are we really going to kill someone?" Draco whispered.
The Basilisk lay coiled in the shadows, its massive head bowed toward the phantom.
"Are you afraid?" Elijah asked, his voice a silk-wrapped blade. "Like the girl before you? I thought a Malfoy was made of sterner stuff."
"I'm not afraid!" Draco's voice cracked. "It's just... the others didn't die. They were just petrified. Why can't we just... do that to Granger?"
Elijah stepped closer, his illusory form looming over the boy. "She is a Mudblood, Draco. Why does her life matter to you?"
"It doesn't! It's just..." Draco's breath came in ragged gasps. The glory he had envisioned was crumbling under the weight of actual blood. He wanted to impress his father; he wanted to be the great Heir. But he was thirteen, and the smell of the damp earth felt like a grave.
Elijah reached out, his translucent fingers hovering over the hawthorn wand in Draco's pocket.
"Hawthorn," Elijah mused, his voice becoming a melodic, hypnotic hum. "A wood of healing and death. A paradox. And a core of Unicorn hair—the most stubborn of all to the Dark Arts."
He looked into Draco's terrified eyes.
"You are suffering, Draco. Your good is not pure enough to be saintly, and your evil is too weak to be effective. That is the root of your pain."
Elijah's hand rested on the boy's shoulder. The phantom felt like a weight of dry ice.
"What you cannot do, I will. Give ...your body to me!!"