A tunnel, a diary and a memory.....

[justcarol67]

No: HPFGUIDX 114323

Brent wrote:
> > Why would have had it for 50 years.  I would assume LV had it
until he lost at GH.  So Most likely LM only had it for 12 years or so.  
> It might have been part of a stash of stuff LV left in whatever 
> hideout he was using at the time.
> 
> Geoff:
> 
> But what does canon say.....
<snip> "I knew it wouldn't be safe to open the Chamber again while I
was still at school. But I wasn't going to waste those long years I'd
spent searching for it. I decided to /leave behind/ a diary,
preserving my sixteen-year-old in its pages so that one day, with
luck, I would be able to lead another in my footsteps and finish
Salazar Slytherin's noble work."'
> 
> (COS "The Heir of Slytherin" p.230 UK edition) - my emphasis.

Carol asks:
So you think that Tom Riddle left the diary in, say, the Slytherin
common room or his dorm room for another Slytherin to find? Wouldn't
it have made more sense, and still fit the meaning of "left behind,"
for him to give it to a school friend (say Malfoy's father) to be used
if it were needed? And if Malfoy Sr. died before Voldemort returned,
it could have been passed on to Lucius, who might or might not have
known what it was. The alternative is for a school-age Lucius to find
it at school, in which case the question becomes, why didn't someone
else find it first? There's a twenty-seven year gap between Tom
Riddle's age and Lucius Malfoy's. Surely the diary wouldn't have
remained hidden that long?

I agree that it wasn't in LV's possession in some hideout, but where
was it and how did Lucius come by it, in your view?

Carol, who isn't arguing, just trying to determine the point you're
making with the quotation