This Was When He Should Ask the Almighty Dumbledore for Help

"If I wanted to assassinate someone at school, how should I do it?"

That one sentence instantly brought Tom back to that evening over seventy years ago, when he had killed someone to save a snake.

Well, he could not say he had only saved one snake. Back then, he had also driven Hagrid and his Acromantula out of Hogwarts.

So, in a sense, he had saved an entire generation of Hogwarts students.

And now, Kane's question had completely snapped Tom awake. He could not keep wallowing like this!

He still had Mudbloods to deal with, enemies to kill, and his true body to resurrect. He could not keep wallowing like this!

And it would all begin with tricking this goddamn student into the Chamber of Secrets, killing him, draining his life force, and resurrecting himself!

But at that thought, Tom felt somewhat helpless, and the once-stiff pages went limp again.

It sounded difficult, and it was not easy to do, either.

If Ginny Weasley and Gilderoy Lockhart were practically defenseless mentally, while Luna's mind was like an impregnable fortress, then Kane's mind was like a polar iceberg.

Sometimes, his mind was so calm that not a single ripple could be seen, like a model inside a snow globe. It did not even feel like a state of mind a human should possess.

When he used magic intensely, he would sometimes seem listless, like an iceberg melting into a puddle of briny seawater. But whenever Tom sensed an opportunity and acted on it—

Kane's mind would turn monstrous. At least, from Tom's perspective, it was no longer like seawater then, but sulfuric acid—the kind that would explode if touched for even one second too long.

And that state never lasted long. Very soon, the seawater or sulfuric acid would freeze