2. Hogwart
The name of the man who had save my young life was Albus Dumbledore.
Was it a chance that brought him on the embankment that horrible night and linked our fates once for ever? Or maybe it was a sneer of destiny that I had survived thanks to the man I were to hate so much in future?
But again I look too much ahead. Our paths have only crossed...
After leading me out on the shore, he was watching me searchingly for several seconds and I believe he was talking to me, but I was still too much shocked by everything that had just happened to realise what was going on around. Despair, grief, memory of a deadly fear which seized me when the cold, dark water closed softly over my head, all in all it made me remain in a state of a total shock. I didn't know where I was, what was happening and what part the mysterious stranger played in it. A good many seconds had passed before I came to my senses just enough to be able to see him better.
He was the most peculiar person I have ever met. He wore a long, dark-green robe of a strange fashion, resembling a bit a Roman toga. From underneath the robe's hem, trimmed with a golden thread, black boots with sharp, comically curved toe-caps were emerging. In his hand the man held, with a completely unknown purpose, a dozen centimetres long stick. If I add that he had long, auburn hair and the same bushy beard, a haircut rather unusual in pre-war England, it shouldn't surprise that in the first moment I wasn't sure whether it was a dream or reality. It even crossed my mind that I had died and here I was staying face to face with a guardian of the other world (I knew by heart all tales about the eternal happiness that was in store for the well-behaved children, but since I started to think independently I ceased to believe in them), but I rejected quickly this hypothesis as a complete absurd. And meanwhile the man, as if he was aware perfectly well of all my unspoken questions, was watching me intently over the rims his half-moon spectacles.
'No, Tom, it's not a dream,' he said gently 'though I believe that you would prefer it was. I know how painful is a loss of somebody dear. But live must go on...' he sighed heavily and a grief twinkled in his eyes as if those words awakened in him some painful memories.
'It was my fault he died ...' I whispered more to myself than to him.
Dumbledore roused himself from musings and looked squarely in my eyes. I had a strange, prickly feeling on my back.
'No, Tom, you are not responsible for a death of Elias Homer.' he said slowly, not taking his gaze off my face 'Nor for a death of Felix.' he added softly and his blue eyes flashed.
I gasped in amazement. How did he know...
Dumbledore rubbed his forehead ad looked at me with concern.
'Forgive me, Tom, I peeped for a moment into your memory. I wanted to understand you better' he added in a tone of excuse.
If I was surprised a while ago, now I felt completely confused. What did he mean by saying: 'I peeped into your memory'?
'I prefer not to think what could happen if I hadn't my own things to settle here,' said Dumbledore shaking his head 'I thought that I could take the opportunity to deliver you a letter from Hogwart...and now I see it was one of the best ideas which had ever entered my head.'
Through the curtain of shock and bewilderment I understood only one word.
'A letter...?' I repeated mechanically though I was quite sure that on the whole world there was not a single person who could write to me.
Dumbledore smiled slightly, for the first time that evening, and took a large, yellow envelope out of his pocket. I fixed my astounded gaze on it. With big, black letters a name was written there: 'Tom Marvolo Riddle'. I couldn't believe my eyes. The letter was addressed to me!
'Tom, the time has come you know the true.' said Dumbledore solemnly and handed the envelope to me.
Once more I cast a disbelieving glance at my name and surname and I quickly turned away the letter to read its sender. And next moment I almost fainted since a black, carefully calligraphed inscription said: 'Hogwart School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'.
Several seconds had passed before I fully understood the meaning of those words. I was staring at them with the vacant eyes, wondering inwardly whether I went mad or whether somebody was poking fun at me. I looked at the man who, as a deliverer of the letter, I could suspect first of all, but his face expressed only seriousness and deep-felt kindness.
'What...what dose it mean?' I whispered, trying to control my stiffened tongue.
And then Albus Dumbledore informed me of something that was to change completely my whole live. 'Tom,' he said solemnly 'You are a wizard.'
*
I was wondering many times when I really understood that everything Albus Dumbledore had told me about that night wasn't a fiction of a madman but the truest truth. Was it when he dried my wet clothes with a single movement of his stick (or rather, as I was going to know soon, his 'wand')? Or when, after escorting me to the gate of the orphanage, he disappeared suddenly as if he dissolved in the sultry air?
No... When I woke up next morning I was deeply convinced that I had simply a strange and horrible dream. And only a streak of soot on my cheek mad me realise that the bookshop had really burnt down, that Homer had really died and that I had been really ...
'A wizard?' I whispered with disbelief.
When uttered, the word sounded much more peculiar and absurdly than when I was repeating it in my mind. I shook my head with disapproval for myself. It was a pack of rubbish!
And yet... Several days later, during the breakfast, a large grey owl flew into the dinning-room through the opened window. It passed over the rows of the risen heads with a silent rustle of the wings and, after landing on the table just near me, it put a small, white envelope in my palm.
I was staring at it for a while as if it was nothing less than a hundred pounds note. I hadn't the slightest idea what it meant. I kept, however, enough sense to hide the letter into my pocket when I noticed a band of teenagers, stealing up towards my with the smiles that didn't presage well for my mysterious correspondence. In the same time the nuns were also running in my direction, disturbed by my collusion with the large, grey owl.
So I did the only thing that seemed reasonable in that moment. I started up and rushed out of the dining-room, pursued by angry shouts of the nuns and furious howling of the teenagers' band. I hadn't stopped as long as I reached the shore of the bay. I hid myself under a heap of fishing-nets lying on the deck of an old boat and I carefully took out the letter. And next moment I gasped with amazement. The sender was Albus Dumbledore.
I tore open an envelope impatiently and glanced over the lines of a very laconic text.
'Tom, the school covers the costs of your books and all equipment. I'm expecting you at Trafalgar Square, London on August 31st, at twelve o'clock. Albus Dumbledore.'
As I was reading my eyes were growing wider and wider with surprise. School, books, equipment... The words were spinning before my eyes in a swirling dance. I reached into the other pocket and pulled out a crumpled, yellow envelop which I had got from Dumbledore the day of our first meeting. Inside there were two pieces of parchment. The first one informed me that since September I was going to begin studies in the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The second one contained a list of books and a surprising set of objects (robes, cauldron and herbs didn't sound the most oddly, compared with a wand or a pair of protective gloves of dragon skin) which were needed in Hogwart. I read the list several times and then I looked at the message from Dumbledore. I began to understand what he meant by the equipment. However, it didn't change the fact that it was still hard to believe that anything of that all could have the slightest connection with reality.
So I was extremely astounded when, after coming back to orphanage, I was called to the office of strict, wrinkled mother Constance who informed me, not even trying to mask her disbelief, that I had been admitted to the boarding-school. As a proof, which were to convince more her than me, she showed me a letter from the headmaster of the school. I recognised a careful, nice handwriting of professor Armando Dippet who informed that an orphan boy from Liverpool had been included among the students of Hogwart. I read the letter very carefully but I didn't find the slightest mention about the magic.
And so in the evening on Agust 30th I got on a third-class car of a night train to London, clasping a small bundle with all my belongings. Even then I still didn't believe in all those stories about magic and wizards but when the engine whistled and the train moved, my heart was brimming over with joy and hope. Whatever was waiting for me in the new live I was just beginning, it couldn't be anything worse than my gloom existence in the orphanage.
*
Twenty four hours later I had no more doubts that the magic world was something real. I was sitting in a small room of the hotel 'Morpheus Bed' which windows were looking straight on the Diagon Alley. Though it was quite late, it was still full of the murmur of voices. And it wouldn't be anything extraordinary, if not the fact that it was not the common London's street but the main promenade of the most magical part of the capital, where only witches and wizards were allowed to enter.
For the tenth time this evening I began to look systematically through my equipment which we had been buying with Dumbledore for the whole day in different shops at the Diagon Alley. I read once more titles of the school-books; some of them, like 'Herbology', were funny, the others like 'Potions' or 'Charms' enigmatic, and finally the others, like 'Transfiguration', completely obscure. I carefully put aside a set of the glass vessels which, as I could guess, were used to prepare the mixtures, and I reached for an object that had fascinated me since the moment I had taken it into my hands. It was a wand, thirteen and half inches long, made of yew and containing a single feather of a phoenix. I was examining with admiration its smooth, black surface reflecting, like a mirror, flickering flames of the candles. And anytime I clenched my fingers on the cold handle I had a strange feeling, almost a conviction, that I and this wand had been created for each other; that I would achieve great deeds with it...
Later that evening Dumbledore told me about the new world I was entering and I knew nothing about. I learned many about Hogwart, the only school of magic in England, where, by the way, Dumbledore was a teacher. I knew the name of the present Minister of Magic, the most important person in the wizarding world. I heard with amazement the complicated rules of Quidditch, a kind of sport that exited the witches and wizards like a football the common people.
Dumbledore told me also something else, something that sank into my memory for a long time, though it had to pass many years before I really understood its meaning.
'Tom,' he said seriously 'You must know that magic is not a human invention. It existed long before the first homo sapiens appeared on the Earth. One can say it is a kind of a hidden power, or better a form of energy contained in everything around us, both in the living creatures and in the ordinary matter. If you are able to control it you can perform deeds which are believed to be impossible among the common people. That is what you will learn at Hogwart.'
I looked at my hands, expecting subconsciously that I would see them radiating a subtle glimmer. But they were still the normal hands of an eleven-years-old boy. I lifted my eyes up to Dumbledore.
'But...why me?' I asked quietly.
The wizard fell to thinking.
'You see, an ability to sense the magic is a natural feature of any living creature, and so of a human. It allowed him to live in unity with the nature, not as a master of the world but as its integral part. However, as the civilization was developing and the human's domination was increasing, the magical perception began to diminish, though, of course, it didn't disappear completely. Every person is born with that ability but among the non-magical people, who we call the Muggles, it's just very, very weak.'
'So where do the people like you arise from... the wizards?' I asked.
'Good question' smiled Dumbledore. 'But the answer is simple. It's just a statistic. In every large population individuals occur who can have a certain feature much stronger than the others have. That is also the case of the magical perception. There exists a group of people who are able to use it. What is more, it's genetically transmitted to the next generations and that's why there are whole wizarding families. But it can also happen that a strong magical perception occurs with a child of Muggle parents. Well, it's genetics too.'
'And it was my case?' I stated more than asked.
Dumbledore looked at me piercingly and shook his head.
'No, Tom,' he said slowly 'In your case a mechanism of heirdom acted.' and noticing my surprised gaze he added in a solemn voice 'Your mother was a witch.'
*
I was lying on a bed, staring at the darkness. Midnight has already passed long time ago but I still haven't slept a wink. Too much happened today, too many rare things I heard for I could now easily fall asleep...
Finally I knew who I really was. Me, Tom Marvolo Riddle, the only son of Felicia and Tom Riddles, a witch and a Muggle. I clenched my fists at the very thought of my father. A truth, which I so keenly had desired to know for so many years, now appeared in the whole cruel form. It was his fault that I had spent my childhood in the orphanage. It was him who I owed to those eleven gloomy years that for me were the unceasing series of sufferings and misery, a dark, stuffy tunnel, rarely lightened up with the bright rays of happiness.
My heart was brimming over with a grudge and bitterness. My own father renounced me, only because he was afraid that I would be the same that his wife had turned out to be: a wizard. He abandoned her, pregnant, and doomed for a lonely wandering amongst cold and blizzard. I think he wouldn't have qualms of conscience if I also died that January night.
But I survived. I survived to hate him and wait for the day when my vengeance would reach him.
Elias Homer told me once: 'Remember, Tom, do not hide rancour and grudge in your heart. These are false counsellors, they will destroy not only the one against who you summoned them, but also you. Learn how to forgive and you will gain the biggest victory.'
In the past I wanted to believe in everything that Homer believed in and share his philosophy of life...
But now he was dead.
*
I was in Hogwart.
I was standing, together with a group of the other first-years, in an illuminated hall of a great castle, which tremendous walls and forest of spiry towers I had been observing with bated breath on my way from the station. Now we were waiting only for a signal of a wizard (who was nobody else but Albus Dumbledore) to enter the Great Hall, where the welcome feast was about to begin.
Massive door drew aside noiselessly and I entered the biggest room I had ever seen. In the middle there were four long tables at which hundreds of students were sitting, wearing strange, black robes and pointed hats (identical to my own which I still couldn't get used to). High ceiling was dark as a night sky and dotted with stars, but the hall was plunged in a flood of warm, bright light.
Dumbledore led us towards the fifth table, standing perpendicularly to the others. A dozen or so women and men at different age were sitting there and I identified them, rightly, as the teachers. The oldest of them, and undoubtedly the most stately, was a balding wizard, sitting in a great, throne-like armchair in the middle of the table. Though frail and of short stature, he emanated a great authority and dignity. He was Armando Dippet, the Headmaster of Hogwart.
I was so absorbed in the scores of new impressions that before I even had time to ask myself a question: why did they gather us in the middle of the hall, the answer, in the form of a large, ragged hat appeared in front of me on a three-legged stool.
'Let's start the Sorting Ceremony!' said Dippet solemnly.
The Hat quivered and, to my inexpressible amazement, it began to sing. It was so surprising for me (I had never seen before that any piece of clothing could emit a sound, not to mention singing) that I didn't pay attention to the words of the song. When the unusual soloist has finally ceased humming, Dumbledore unfolded a long roll of parchment and started to read the names of the students who, one by one, approached the stool and put on a Hat. And this one, at once or after a while of reflection, directed a first-year to one of the four Hogwart Houses.
I was just wondering by what principle the Hat was sorting the students, when a dark-haired boy with a hooked nose and a wide mouth, puffed-up in a supercilious grimace, pushed me aside and marched towards the stool before even Dumbledore read:
'Perseus Potter!'
The boy put on a Hat vigorously and assumed a pose of a bored expectation for a result well known in advance. And sure enough, the Hat didn't have to think long and before five seconds passed it shouted:
'Gryffindor!'
Perseus Potter rose from the stool with a truly monarchal dignity, bowed to Dippet and marched towards one of the four tables, with his head hold superciliously high and not honouring the others first-years with a single glance. The Gryffindors greeted a new student with a storm of applause. Potter nodded them shortly and sat at the table with a slightly scoffing expression on his face.
Dumbledore read the next name.
'Tom Riddle!'
Approaching the stool, I hadn't a specified wish of belonging to any definite house. I knew about them only what Dumbledore had told me yesterday evening. Each of them has been established by one of the Hogwart founders and in each the virtues were priced, which had been considered by a founder for being the most desired with a budding wizard. When I asked, which house was the best, Dumbledore smiled and said that these were students who decided about the value of the houses. During hundreds of years of the school's history, each of them has already released many famous witched and wizards. The Headmaster Dippet used to belong to the Hufflepuff and Dumbledore himself to the Ravenclaw.
When I put the Hat on my head, it was silent for a while and then began to emit different 'Hmm' and 'Ooh', an obvious evidence of some great problem I had caused him with my person.
'Well...' he said finally in a more articulate way 'You are a riddle for me, my boy. I really do not know which house should I sort you to. It has never occured to me before...' he sighed heavily with a tone of reproof for itself and again started to emit the sounds of a deep frustration 'Let's think it over again,' he said thoughtfully 'He is clever, oh yes, very clever and talented... It would classify him to the Ravenclaw. But he is also tenacious and hard-working, he will not get discouraged by thickness of the books he will have to struggle through in search of the knowledge...and these are features of a typical Hufflepuff. Hmm...' it muttered 'Yes, I can see a courage here ...oh yes, he will not retreat, will not take fright face to face with a danger. So maybe Gryffindor?' it asked itself hopefully 'Yes, it wouldn't be a bad solution, if he wasn't so awfully ambitious. He wants to be better than the others, wants to show what he could do...and he can do much. And who priced such features more than Slytherin? Hmm... A difficult decision...' it gasped with a growing despair 'Difficult... But when the mind fails, one has to relay on intuition. And it tells me that this boy belongs to...'
I held my breath...
'Slytherin!'
*
From the first day of school it became evident that I had a great talent. I was surprised myself by the fact that I had no difficulty in learning subjects, I met with for the first time in my life. I left far behind the rest of my classmates and since a goodly part of them descended from the famous wizarding families, one could expect that they had sucked in the magic with their mothers' milk. But it was I, a half-Muggle from an orphanage, who got the name of one of the most clever and witty students who had ever come to Hogwart.
Teachers were delighted with me; I say even more, they admired me. And no wonder. I was not only talented but also a model student. Polite, well-mannered, I always behaved with a due respect towards the teachers. I have never broken any school rule, I didn't have rows with the colleagues. Contrary, during the quarrels I took on a role of a mediator and I must say that I always managed to restrain fiery temperaments of the opponents.
Among all the subjects taught in Hogwart my favourite one was Transfiguration, lectured by Albus Dumbledore. A difficult art of transforming one object into another has fascinated me since the very first lesson, when Dumbledore turned a fine, batiste handkerchief into a colourful butterfly with a single wave of his wand.
I must say, without a false modesty, that my swift progress in the art of transfiguration aroused amazement even in Dumbledore, who was commonly believed to be the greatest talent in this field. In two months I mastered a transformation of a quill into a steel blade of a knife, which task crowned a year of study in the first class. Intrigued Dumbledore invented more and more difficult exercises, but for me it was not enough only to wave my wand mechanically with the suitable incantations. I wanted to understand the very mechanism of transfiguration. When I had presented my request to Dumbledore he frowned and looked on me searchingly, as if he was trying to estimate my real power.
'Well, Tom' he said finally 'I'm not going to conceal that a theory of transfiguration belongs to the most difficult issues that a wizard studying magic can face. In Hogwart we don't teach it at all, restricting ourselves only to the practical applications of transfiguration, which are quite enough for an ordinary use. In this aspect, however, transfiguration is a purely imitative art; to perform a definite change one must know a formula. So you are not able to transform whichever pair of objects. Only knowledge of a full theory allows to elaborate independently completely new spells and changes related with them. Yes,' he nodded 'transfiguration is a very interesting and still developing field of science. But also extremely difficult,' he added significantly giving me a serious glance.
'I'd like to learn it!' I declared enthusiastically, absolutely undeterred by the last comment of Dumbledore.
And so I began long and arduous studies, which in the future...but no, don't lest us anticipate events.
I liked Potions, too. Just as Transfiguration, it was a typical exact science, logical and consistent. And it made me no difficulty, either. I quickly convinced myself that it's not a great challenge to prepare even a very complicated and complex mixture, if only to start doing it after a good theoretical introduction and carrying out instructions carefully and with concentration. In my opinion, mean effects of my classmates resulted from their carelessness and lack of understanding for a beauty of potions' art, which they considered as something between a pharmacy and a course of cooking.
It is also difficult not to mention the Charms' lessons, lectured by professor Glamour, a witch pretty young and very friendly. Since I could perform perfectly every spell presented during the classes at one go, I quickly became the apple of her eye and the model for the other students. Professor Glamour didn't want me to be bored while the rest of the class was toiling at the most primitive charms, so she found for me different magical curiosities: little known spells and situational variants of the basic charms. And I really enjoyed myself with them.
There were, however, also taught subjects which I myself considered dull and completely useless. I could still tolerate Herbology, though I would feel satisfied enough knowing only the magical properties of plants, without caring for them personally and smearing my hands in a wet soil. But the Care of the Magical Creatures was a mere waist of time and some kind of hypocrisy. After the class of Potions I realised perfectly well that most of the wizards dealt with the magical creatures only when they were already dead, using their blood and organs to make mixtures and the protecting cloths. So the word "care" rouses in that context a bitter smile.
On the other hand, such subjects as Divination and Astrology put me in a real rage. I couldn't understand why a wizard as eminent as Armando Dippet made us learn such rubbish. Revealing the future from a crystal sphere, observing the stars in order to find information about the man's fate - for me they were all pseudo-sciences and bluff. I didn't believe in predictions, I didn't believe in prophecies. I believed only in a power of a pure mind.
*
In those days the Dark Arts were a field of magic not very popular and relatively little known, remaining beyond the main trend of interest for the majority of wizards, in the background of a briskly developing transfiguration. Few who decided to dedicate themselves to the Dark Arts, usually gave up after several years, frustrated and discouraged with a lack of the actual results, if only earlier they hadn't lost their lives in an unsuccessful attempt to perform a complicated dark curse. I think they were just lacking a real talent.
I started my studies at Hogwart a century after a death of the last great Dark Witch, Isabel de la Sangre, who became famous as an author of the most bloody massacre in the history of parliamentarism, killing with one curse 559 members of the Iberian Warlocks Council. Since that time, however, neither witch nor wizard has appeared who could compare with Isabel's terrible fame. And hence many people believed that the Dark Arts had already used up all their ominous potential and there was no point to deal with them any longer.
An advocate of such a view was Armando Dippet. At the time of his headmastership, the Dark Arts weren't even mentioned in Hogwart. For the arguments of the opponents of such a policy, among them Dumbledore, who pointed the fact that the Dark Arts included not only cruel curses but also a whole range of other dangers, in most cases even not connected with the human activity, that every witch and wizard should be able to deal with, he answered that the one who had never seen the night sky wouldn't dream about reaching the stars.
Several years later the discussion was to flare up again and change once for ever an attitude of the magical community to the Dark Arts and those who dealt with them. But I will tell about it later on.
*
To enter the magical world was for me as to be born again. The orphanage was only a bad, gloomy dream and my real life was here, at Hogwart. I found a passion that gave sense to my whole existence and for the first time made me looking cheerfully in the future, full of optimism and conviction that my cursed fate had finally changed.
I'm not going to conceal how much, as a result of spectacular magical successes I achieved every day, my self-confidence and faith in my own strength increased. Finally, for the first time in my live, I felt as somebody really exceptional and, to tell the truth, better than the others. It was a feeling I have never experienced before. In mother's Ulrica school I was also one of the best students but in those days everybody saw me only as a poor boy from the orphanage. And they treated me according to such a shabby descent.
Only at Hogwart I have been appreciated for what I had achieved and not for who I was. Here it wasn't important whether I grew up in a palace or in a mean hut. And I naively believed that the magic world was an idealistic utopia, that Elias Homer have been looking for all his live and which main motto was: the most important is to be a real Human .
I felt free and happy. I thought that the dreary demons of my childhood had been defeated and destroyed forever. I didn't expect they just hid themselves in the shadow of my euphoria, ready to attack again any moment and stick the icy claws of grudge and bitterness straight into my heart.
*
Perseus Potter, grandson of the former Minister of Magic, son of the present-day president of the British Warlock Council, for everyone considered to be a continuator of a glorious family traditions on the highest ministerial levels, expected, as the most natural thing, that he would be the brightest star in Hogwart.
And in fact, before a month he became an undeniable leader of the Gryffindor and, though it can seem incredible, he had a following even among the seven-years. The teachers liked him and he could use it perfectly well. No other student could indulge as much as Perseus Potter. When it came to a row with the other students, usually caused by Potter himself, he always was innocent and with the fire of indignation in his eyes he demanded to punish severely the ones who had dared to rise their wands at him. Even ten witnesses who swore that they had seen Potter, attacking the other student, was not enough to overweigh his word on the scale of a teachers' justice.
Of course, that only increased his inborn arrogance and confirmed his conviction that all over the world there was no other human being as perfect as Perseus Potter. But, sooner or later, an alarming discovery had to penetrate through that thick armour of conceit and cock-sureness. A discovery, that there is somebody else in Hogwart, whose talent and abilities could before long eclipsed his own fame.
The one was Tom Riddle.
*
It was Perseus Potter who brutally brought me back to reality and made me realise that the magical world didn't differ at all from the Muggles' one, full of envy and meanness, which I had left with such relief.
It was a cloudy, rainy day in the end of November. I was sitting in the Great Hall, cutting a pork chop with one hand while with the other turning over the pages of my Potions textbook. Absorbed in lecture, I didn't hear that somebody approached the table and sat next to me on a wooden bench.
'It's so pitiful,' a sneering voice hissed 'That dirty Mudblood from an orphanage couldn't even afford to buy his own books.'
Several seconds had passed before I realised that those words were aimed at me. I rose my head and looked straight into the eyes of Perseus Potter, now full of dislike and contempt.
'And what are you staring at, Mudblood ?' he barked through the clenched teeth 'Rubbish like you should behave with more respect towards the pure-blood wizards.'
I was looking at him dumbfounded. I didn't know what the word he had called me meant, but judging by his sneering smile it must have been something very insulting.
Perseus Potter leant towards me and, not taking his burning eyes off my face, he whispered sinisterly:
'You think you can show off at Hogwart with a risen head ? You are wrong, Riddle. You are nobody ! You are lousy, Muggle bastard and I still wonder why Dippet let you study in that castle. But if you are already here, you must know your place. Remember it well, Riddle: what is really valued is a pure blood ! No matter how the teachers admire you; for me you will always remain a dirty Mudblood.'
And he walked away, leaving me entirely shocked.
That was how I found out that the magical world was not so perfect as I had imagined and that some people believed to be better than the others only because of their origin.
Mudblood is an insulting name of a witch or wizard who was Muggle-born.
The name of the man who had save my young life was Albus Dumbledore.
Was it a chance that brought him on the embankment that horrible night and linked our fates once for ever? Or maybe it was a sneer of destiny that I had survived thanks to the man I were to hate so much in future?
But again I look too much ahead. Our paths have only crossed...
After leading me out on the shore, he was watching me searchingly for several seconds and I believe he was talking to me, but I was still too much shocked by everything that had just happened to realise what was going on around. Despair, grief, memory of a deadly fear which seized me when the cold, dark water closed softly over my head, all in all it made me remain in a state of a total shock. I didn't know where I was, what was happening and what part the mysterious stranger played in it. A good many seconds had passed before I came to my senses just enough to be able to see him better.
He was the most peculiar person I have ever met. He wore a long, dark-green robe of a strange fashion, resembling a bit a Roman toga. From underneath the robe's hem, trimmed with a golden thread, black boots with sharp, comically curved toe-caps were emerging. In his hand the man held, with a completely unknown purpose, a dozen centimetres long stick. If I add that he had long, auburn hair and the same bushy beard, a haircut rather unusual in pre-war England, it shouldn't surprise that in the first moment I wasn't sure whether it was a dream or reality. It even crossed my mind that I had died and here I was staying face to face with a guardian of the other world (I knew by heart all tales about the eternal happiness that was in store for the well-behaved children, but since I started to think independently I ceased to believe in them), but I rejected quickly this hypothesis as a complete absurd. And meanwhile the man, as if he was aware perfectly well of all my unspoken questions, was watching me intently over the rims his half-moon spectacles.
'No, Tom, it's not a dream,' he said gently 'though I believe that you would prefer it was. I know how painful is a loss of somebody dear. But live must go on...' he sighed heavily and a grief twinkled in his eyes as if those words awakened in him some painful memories.
'It was my fault he died ...' I whispered more to myself than to him.
Dumbledore roused himself from musings and looked squarely in my eyes. I had a strange, prickly feeling on my back.
'No, Tom, you are not responsible for a death of Elias Homer.' he said slowly, not taking his gaze off my face 'Nor for a death of Felix.' he added softly and his blue eyes flashed.
I gasped in amazement. How did he know...
Dumbledore rubbed his forehead ad looked at me with concern.
'Forgive me, Tom, I peeped for a moment into your memory. I wanted to understand you better' he added in a tone of excuse.
If I was surprised a while ago, now I felt completely confused. What did he mean by saying: 'I peeped into your memory'?
'I prefer not to think what could happen if I hadn't my own things to settle here,' said Dumbledore shaking his head 'I thought that I could take the opportunity to deliver you a letter from Hogwart...and now I see it was one of the best ideas which had ever entered my head.'
Through the curtain of shock and bewilderment I understood only one word.
'A letter...?' I repeated mechanically though I was quite sure that on the whole world there was not a single person who could write to me.
Dumbledore smiled slightly, for the first time that evening, and took a large, yellow envelope out of his pocket. I fixed my astounded gaze on it. With big, black letters a name was written there: 'Tom Marvolo Riddle'. I couldn't believe my eyes. The letter was addressed to me!
'Tom, the time has come you know the true.' said Dumbledore solemnly and handed the envelope to me.
Once more I cast a disbelieving glance at my name and surname and I quickly turned away the letter to read its sender. And next moment I almost fainted since a black, carefully calligraphed inscription said: 'Hogwart School of Witchcraft and Wizardry'.
Several seconds had passed before I fully understood the meaning of those words. I was staring at them with the vacant eyes, wondering inwardly whether I went mad or whether somebody was poking fun at me. I looked at the man who, as a deliverer of the letter, I could suspect first of all, but his face expressed only seriousness and deep-felt kindness.
'What...what dose it mean?' I whispered, trying to control my stiffened tongue.
And then Albus Dumbledore informed me of something that was to change completely my whole live. 'Tom,' he said solemnly 'You are a wizard.'
No... When I woke up next morning I was deeply convinced that I had simply a strange and horrible dream. And only a streak of soot on my cheek mad me realise that the bookshop had really burnt down, that Homer had really died and that I had been really ...
'A wizard?' I whispered with disbelief.
When uttered, the word sounded much more peculiar and absurdly than when I was repeating it in my mind. I shook my head with disapproval for myself. It was a pack of rubbish!
And yet... Several days later, during the breakfast, a large grey owl flew into the dinning-room through the opened window. It passed over the rows of the risen heads with a silent rustle of the wings and, after landing on the table just near me, it put a small, white envelope in my palm.
I was staring at it for a while as if it was nothing less than a hundred pounds note. I hadn't the slightest idea what it meant. I kept, however, enough sense to hide the letter into my pocket when I noticed a band of teenagers, stealing up towards my with the smiles that didn't presage well for my mysterious correspondence. In the same time the nuns were also running in my direction, disturbed by my collusion with the large, grey owl.
So I did the only thing that seemed reasonable in that moment. I started up and rushed out of the dining-room, pursued by angry shouts of the nuns and furious howling of the teenagers' band. I hadn't stopped as long as I reached the shore of the bay. I hid myself under a heap of fishing-nets lying on the deck of an old boat and I carefully took out the letter. And next moment I gasped with amazement. The sender was Albus Dumbledore.
I tore open an envelope impatiently and glanced over the lines of a very laconic text.
'Tom, the school covers the costs of your books and all equipment. I'm expecting you at Trafalgar Square, London on August 31st, at twelve o'clock. Albus Dumbledore.'
As I was reading my eyes were growing wider and wider with surprise. School, books, equipment... The words were spinning before my eyes in a swirling dance. I reached into the other pocket and pulled out a crumpled, yellow envelop which I had got from Dumbledore the day of our first meeting. Inside there were two pieces of parchment. The first one informed me that since September I was going to begin studies in the School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. The second one contained a list of books and a surprising set of objects (robes, cauldron and herbs didn't sound the most oddly, compared with a wand or a pair of protective gloves of dragon skin) which were needed in Hogwart. I read the list several times and then I looked at the message from Dumbledore. I began to understand what he meant by the equipment. However, it didn't change the fact that it was still hard to believe that anything of that all could have the slightest connection with reality.
So I was extremely astounded when, after coming back to orphanage, I was called to the office of strict, wrinkled mother Constance who informed me, not even trying to mask her disbelief, that I had been admitted to the boarding-school. As a proof, which were to convince more her than me, she showed me a letter from the headmaster of the school. I recognised a careful, nice handwriting of professor Armando Dippet who informed that an orphan boy from Liverpool had been included among the students of Hogwart. I read the letter very carefully but I didn't find the slightest mention about the magic.
And so in the evening on Agust 30th I got on a third-class car of a night train to London, clasping a small bundle with all my belongings. Even then I still didn't believe in all those stories about magic and wizards but when the engine whistled and the train moved, my heart was brimming over with joy and hope. Whatever was waiting for me in the new live I was just beginning, it couldn't be anything worse than my gloom existence in the orphanage.
For the tenth time this evening I began to look systematically through my equipment which we had been buying with Dumbledore for the whole day in different shops at the Diagon Alley. I read once more titles of the school-books; some of them, like 'Herbology', were funny, the others like 'Potions' or 'Charms' enigmatic, and finally the others, like 'Transfiguration', completely obscure. I carefully put aside a set of the glass vessels which, as I could guess, were used to prepare the mixtures, and I reached for an object that had fascinated me since the moment I had taken it into my hands. It was a wand, thirteen and half inches long, made of yew and containing a single feather of a phoenix. I was examining with admiration its smooth, black surface reflecting, like a mirror, flickering flames of the candles. And anytime I clenched my fingers on the cold handle I had a strange feeling, almost a conviction, that I and this wand had been created for each other; that I would achieve great deeds with it...
Later that evening Dumbledore told me about the new world I was entering and I knew nothing about. I learned many about Hogwart, the only school of magic in England, where, by the way, Dumbledore was a teacher. I knew the name of the present Minister of Magic, the most important person in the wizarding world. I heard with amazement the complicated rules of Quidditch, a kind of sport that exited the witches and wizards like a football the common people.
Dumbledore told me also something else, something that sank into my memory for a long time, though it had to pass many years before I really understood its meaning.
'Tom,' he said seriously 'You must know that magic is not a human invention. It existed long before the first homo sapiens appeared on the Earth. One can say it is a kind of a hidden power, or better a form of energy contained in everything around us, both in the living creatures and in the ordinary matter. If you are able to control it you can perform deeds which are believed to be impossible among the common people. That is what you will learn at Hogwart.'
I looked at my hands, expecting subconsciously that I would see them radiating a subtle glimmer. But they were still the normal hands of an eleven-years-old boy. I lifted my eyes up to Dumbledore.
'But...why me?' I asked quietly.
The wizard fell to thinking.
'You see, an ability to sense the magic is a natural feature of any living creature, and so of a human. It allowed him to live in unity with the nature, not as a master of the world but as its integral part. However, as the civilization was developing and the human's domination was increasing, the magical perception began to diminish, though, of course, it didn't disappear completely. Every person is born with that ability but among the non-magical people, who we call the Muggles, it's just very, very weak.'
'So where do the people like you arise from... the wizards?' I asked.
'Good question' smiled Dumbledore. 'But the answer is simple. It's just a statistic. In every large population individuals occur who can have a certain feature much stronger than the others have. That is also the case of the magical perception. There exists a group of people who are able to use it. What is more, it's genetically transmitted to the next generations and that's why there are whole wizarding families. But it can also happen that a strong magical perception occurs with a child of Muggle parents. Well, it's genetics too.'
'And it was my case?' I stated more than asked.
Dumbledore looked at me piercingly and shook his head.
'No, Tom,' he said slowly 'In your case a mechanism of heirdom acted.' and noticing my surprised gaze he added in a solemn voice 'Your mother was a witch.'
Finally I knew who I really was. Me, Tom Marvolo Riddle, the only son of Felicia and Tom Riddles, a witch and a Muggle. I clenched my fists at the very thought of my father. A truth, which I so keenly had desired to know for so many years, now appeared in the whole cruel form. It was his fault that I had spent my childhood in the orphanage. It was him who I owed to those eleven gloomy years that for me were the unceasing series of sufferings and misery, a dark, stuffy tunnel, rarely lightened up with the bright rays of happiness.
My heart was brimming over with a grudge and bitterness. My own father renounced me, only because he was afraid that I would be the same that his wife had turned out to be: a wizard. He abandoned her, pregnant, and doomed for a lonely wandering amongst cold and blizzard. I think he wouldn't have qualms of conscience if I also died that January night.
But I survived. I survived to hate him and wait for the day when my vengeance would reach him.
Elias Homer told me once: 'Remember, Tom, do not hide rancour and grudge in your heart. These are false counsellors, they will destroy not only the one against who you summoned them, but also you. Learn how to forgive and you will gain the biggest victory.'
In the past I wanted to believe in everything that Homer believed in and share his philosophy of life...
But now he was dead.
I was standing, together with a group of the other first-years, in an illuminated hall of a great castle, which tremendous walls and forest of spiry towers I had been observing with bated breath on my way from the station. Now we were waiting only for a signal of a wizard (who was nobody else but Albus Dumbledore) to enter the Great Hall, where the welcome feast was about to begin.
Massive door drew aside noiselessly and I entered the biggest room I had ever seen. In the middle there were four long tables at which hundreds of students were sitting, wearing strange, black robes and pointed hats (identical to my own which I still couldn't get used to). High ceiling was dark as a night sky and dotted with stars, but the hall was plunged in a flood of warm, bright light.
Dumbledore led us towards the fifth table, standing perpendicularly to the others. A dozen or so women and men at different age were sitting there and I identified them, rightly, as the teachers. The oldest of them, and undoubtedly the most stately, was a balding wizard, sitting in a great, throne-like armchair in the middle of the table. Though frail and of short stature, he emanated a great authority and dignity. He was Armando Dippet, the Headmaster of Hogwart.
I was so absorbed in the scores of new impressions that before I even had time to ask myself a question: why did they gather us in the middle of the hall, the answer, in the form of a large, ragged hat appeared in front of me on a three-legged stool.
'Let's start the Sorting Ceremony!' said Dippet solemnly.
The Hat quivered and, to my inexpressible amazement, it began to sing. It was so surprising for me (I had never seen before that any piece of clothing could emit a sound, not to mention singing) that I didn't pay attention to the words of the song. When the unusual soloist has finally ceased humming, Dumbledore unfolded a long roll of parchment and started to read the names of the students who, one by one, approached the stool and put on a Hat. And this one, at once or after a while of reflection, directed a first-year to one of the four Hogwart Houses.
I was just wondering by what principle the Hat was sorting the students, when a dark-haired boy with a hooked nose and a wide mouth, puffed-up in a supercilious grimace, pushed me aside and marched towards the stool before even Dumbledore read:
'Perseus Potter!'
The boy put on a Hat vigorously and assumed a pose of a bored expectation for a result well known in advance. And sure enough, the Hat didn't have to think long and before five seconds passed it shouted:
'Gryffindor!'
Perseus Potter rose from the stool with a truly monarchal dignity, bowed to Dippet and marched towards one of the four tables, with his head hold superciliously high and not honouring the others first-years with a single glance. The Gryffindors greeted a new student with a storm of applause. Potter nodded them shortly and sat at the table with a slightly scoffing expression on his face.
Dumbledore read the next name.
'Tom Riddle!'
Approaching the stool, I hadn't a specified wish of belonging to any definite house. I knew about them only what Dumbledore had told me yesterday evening. Each of them has been established by one of the Hogwart founders and in each the virtues were priced, which had been considered by a founder for being the most desired with a budding wizard. When I asked, which house was the best, Dumbledore smiled and said that these were students who decided about the value of the houses. During hundreds of years of the school's history, each of them has already released many famous witched and wizards. The Headmaster Dippet used to belong to the Hufflepuff and Dumbledore himself to the Ravenclaw.
When I put the Hat on my head, it was silent for a while and then began to emit different 'Hmm' and 'Ooh', an obvious evidence of some great problem I had caused him with my person.
'Well...' he said finally in a more articulate way 'You are a riddle for me, my boy. I really do not know which house should I sort you to. It has never occured to me before...' he sighed heavily with a tone of reproof for itself and again started to emit the sounds of a deep frustration 'Let's think it over again,' he said thoughtfully 'He is clever, oh yes, very clever and talented... It would classify him to the Ravenclaw. But he is also tenacious and hard-working, he will not get discouraged by thickness of the books he will have to struggle through in search of the knowledge...and these are features of a typical Hufflepuff. Hmm...' it muttered 'Yes, I can see a courage here ...oh yes, he will not retreat, will not take fright face to face with a danger. So maybe Gryffindor?' it asked itself hopefully 'Yes, it wouldn't be a bad solution, if he wasn't so awfully ambitious. He wants to be better than the others, wants to show what he could do...and he can do much. And who priced such features more than Slytherin? Hmm... A difficult decision...' it gasped with a growing despair 'Difficult... But when the mind fails, one has to relay on intuition. And it tells me that this boy belongs to...'
I held my breath...
'Slytherin!'
Teachers were delighted with me; I say even more, they admired me. And no wonder. I was not only talented but also a model student. Polite, well-mannered, I always behaved with a due respect towards the teachers. I have never broken any school rule, I didn't have rows with the colleagues. Contrary, during the quarrels I took on a role of a mediator and I must say that I always managed to restrain fiery temperaments of the opponents.
Among all the subjects taught in Hogwart my favourite one was Transfiguration, lectured by Albus Dumbledore. A difficult art of transforming one object into another has fascinated me since the very first lesson, when Dumbledore turned a fine, batiste handkerchief into a colourful butterfly with a single wave of his wand.
I must say, without a false modesty, that my swift progress in the art of transfiguration aroused amazement even in Dumbledore, who was commonly believed to be the greatest talent in this field. In two months I mastered a transformation of a quill into a steel blade of a knife, which task crowned a year of study in the first class. Intrigued Dumbledore invented more and more difficult exercises, but for me it was not enough only to wave my wand mechanically with the suitable incantations. I wanted to understand the very mechanism of transfiguration. When I had presented my request to Dumbledore he frowned and looked on me searchingly, as if he was trying to estimate my real power.
'Well, Tom' he said finally 'I'm not going to conceal that a theory of transfiguration belongs to the most difficult issues that a wizard studying magic can face. In Hogwart we don't teach it at all, restricting ourselves only to the practical applications of transfiguration, which are quite enough for an ordinary use. In this aspect, however, transfiguration is a purely imitative art; to perform a definite change one must know a formula. So you are not able to transform whichever pair of objects. Only knowledge of a full theory allows to elaborate independently completely new spells and changes related with them. Yes,' he nodded 'transfiguration is a very interesting and still developing field of science. But also extremely difficult,' he added significantly giving me a serious glance.
'I'd like to learn it!' I declared enthusiastically, absolutely undeterred by the last comment of Dumbledore.
And so I began long and arduous studies, which in the future...but no, don't lest us anticipate events.
I liked Potions, too. Just as Transfiguration, it was a typical exact science, logical and consistent. And it made me no difficulty, either. I quickly convinced myself that it's not a great challenge to prepare even a very complicated and complex mixture, if only to start doing it after a good theoretical introduction and carrying out instructions carefully and with concentration. In my opinion, mean effects of my classmates resulted from their carelessness and lack of understanding for a beauty of potions' art, which they considered as something between a pharmacy and a course of cooking.
It is also difficult not to mention the Charms' lessons, lectured by professor Glamour, a witch pretty young and very friendly. Since I could perform perfectly every spell presented during the classes at one go, I quickly became the apple of her eye and the model for the other students. Professor Glamour didn't want me to be bored while the rest of the class was toiling at the most primitive charms, so she found for me different magical curiosities: little known spells and situational variants of the basic charms. And I really enjoyed myself with them.
There were, however, also taught subjects which I myself considered dull and completely useless. I could still tolerate Herbology, though I would feel satisfied enough knowing only the magical properties of plants, without caring for them personally and smearing my hands in a wet soil. But the Care of the Magical Creatures was a mere waist of time and some kind of hypocrisy. After the class of Potions I realised perfectly well that most of the wizards dealt with the magical creatures only when they were already dead, using their blood and organs to make mixtures and the protecting cloths. So the word "care" rouses in that context a bitter smile.
On the other hand, such subjects as Divination and Astrology put me in a real rage. I couldn't understand why a wizard as eminent as Armando Dippet made us learn such rubbish. Revealing the future from a crystal sphere, observing the stars in order to find information about the man's fate - for me they were all pseudo-sciences and bluff. I didn't believe in predictions, I didn't believe in prophecies. I believed only in a power of a pure mind.
I started my studies at Hogwart a century after a death of the last great Dark Witch, Isabel de la Sangre, who became famous as an author of the most bloody massacre in the history of parliamentarism, killing with one curse 559 members of the Iberian Warlocks Council. Since that time, however, neither witch nor wizard has appeared who could compare with Isabel's terrible fame. And hence many people believed that the Dark Arts had already used up all their ominous potential and there was no point to deal with them any longer.
An advocate of such a view was Armando Dippet. At the time of his headmastership, the Dark Arts weren't even mentioned in Hogwart. For the arguments of the opponents of such a policy, among them Dumbledore, who pointed the fact that the Dark Arts included not only cruel curses but also a whole range of other dangers, in most cases even not connected with the human activity, that every witch and wizard should be able to deal with, he answered that the one who had never seen the night sky wouldn't dream about reaching the stars.
Several years later the discussion was to flare up again and change once for ever an attitude of the magical community to the Dark Arts and those who dealt with them. But I will tell about it later on.
I'm not going to conceal how much, as a result of spectacular magical successes I achieved every day, my self-confidence and faith in my own strength increased. Finally, for the first time in my live, I felt as somebody really exceptional and, to tell the truth, better than the others. It was a feeling I have never experienced before. In mother's Ulrica school I was also one of the best students but in those days everybody saw me only as a poor boy from the orphanage. And they treated me according to such a shabby descent.
Only at Hogwart I have been appreciated for what I had achieved and not for who I was. Here it wasn't important whether I grew up in a palace or in a mean hut. And I naively believed that the magic world was an idealistic utopia, that Elias Homer have been looking for all his live and which main motto was: the most important is to be a real Human .
I felt free and happy. I thought that the dreary demons of my childhood had been defeated and destroyed forever. I didn't expect they just hid themselves in the shadow of my euphoria, ready to attack again any moment and stick the icy claws of grudge and bitterness straight into my heart.
And in fact, before a month he became an undeniable leader of the Gryffindor and, though it can seem incredible, he had a following even among the seven-years. The teachers liked him and he could use it perfectly well. No other student could indulge as much as Perseus Potter. When it came to a row with the other students, usually caused by Potter himself, he always was innocent and with the fire of indignation in his eyes he demanded to punish severely the ones who had dared to rise their wands at him. Even ten witnesses who swore that they had seen Potter, attacking the other student, was not enough to overweigh his word on the scale of a teachers' justice.
Of course, that only increased his inborn arrogance and confirmed his conviction that all over the world there was no other human being as perfect as Perseus Potter. But, sooner or later, an alarming discovery had to penetrate through that thick armour of conceit and cock-sureness. A discovery, that there is somebody else in Hogwart, whose talent and abilities could before long eclipsed his own fame.
The one was Tom Riddle.
It was a cloudy, rainy day in the end of November. I was sitting in the Great Hall, cutting a pork chop with one hand while with the other turning over the pages of my Potions textbook. Absorbed in lecture, I didn't hear that somebody approached the table and sat next to me on a wooden bench.
'It's so pitiful,' a sneering voice hissed 'That dirty Mudblood from an orphanage couldn't even afford to buy his own books.'
Several seconds had passed before I realised that those words were aimed at me. I rose my head and looked straight into the eyes of Perseus Potter, now full of dislike and contempt.
'And what are you staring at, Mudblood ?' he barked through the clenched teeth 'Rubbish like you should behave with more respect towards the pure-blood wizards.'
I was looking at him dumbfounded. I didn't know what the word he had called me meant, but judging by his sneering smile it must have been something very insulting.
Perseus Potter leant towards me and, not taking his burning eyes off my face, he whispered sinisterly:
'You think you can show off at Hogwart with a risen head ? You are wrong, Riddle. You are nobody ! You are lousy, Muggle bastard and I still wonder why Dippet let you study in that castle. But if you are already here, you must know your place. Remember it well, Riddle: what is really valued is a pure blood ! No matter how the teachers admire you; for me you will always remain a dirty Mudblood.'
And he walked away, leaving me entirely shocked.
That was how I found out that the magical world was not so perfect as I had imagined and that some people believed to be better than the others only because of their origin.
Mudblood is an insulting name of a witch or wizard who was Muggle-born.