Shortly after the start of the school year, Jane and Neville received notes from Professor Dumbledore asking them to meet him in his office. They went. They greeted him, and sat down, wondering why they were there.

"Neville, now that the death eaters have gone after you multiple times, and Voldemort is back, I think there is certain information that you should know. Jane, since you speak parseltongue you should probably know this too."

"You two are going to enter the pensive with me," he said, pointing.

Jane looked at it. She knew of pensive's, but she'd never seen one until just now.

Minutes later, Professor Dumbledore had some difficulty opening the bottle, with his injured hand.

"Would you like me to open it, sir?" Neville asked.

"No matter," he said, pulling out his wand and opening it that way.

"Sorry about your hand," Jane said. She wondered how that happened, but she didn't ask because she feared that might come off as annoying or rude.

"Please, don't concern yourselves with such trivial matters as my injured hand."

They went into the pensive and watched as Ogden went up to a house with a snake on the door, and a scary-looking man answered.

"You're not welcome," he said.

Jane and Neville grabbed each other's hands.

Ogden backed away. "Er - Good morning, I'm from the ministry of magic -"

"You're not welcome."

"Er – I'm sorry. I don't understand you."

"You both understand him, I'm sure?" said Professor Dumbledore quietly.

Jane nodded, wondering why she wouldn't.

"Yes," Neville said, nervously.

As Jane watched Mr. Gaunt and Morfin interact, she noticed a weird hissing noise and realized that was what Ogden could hear. They were speaking parseltongue.

Morfin later played with a snake and threatened to nail it to the door. Jane trembled, tightening her grip on Neville's hand.

Even worse, was the way Mr. Gaunt treated his daughter.

"Lucky the nice man from the ministry's here, isn't it?" he sadi to her. "Perhaps he'll take you off my hands, perhaps he doesn't mind dirty little Squibs. We should have gotten rid of you like your Squib brother, but for some reason, you used to have some magic. I wonder where it all went."

Later he even grabbed her necklace and basically choked her. Jane didn't think it could get any worse, but then some muggles went by and Morfin mentioned that she liked looking at one of them, and then Mr. Gaunt started strangling her. Fortunately Ogden whipped out his wand and saved her, but he soon ran away.

Professor Dumbledore took Jane and Neville back.

"What happened to the girl?" Neville asked.

Jane nervously rocked back and forth, while listening intently.

"Oh, she survived," Professor Dumbledore said. He explained how Ogden had returned with help and managed to capture them both and took them to Azkaban. He then went on to explain about the Gaunt family.

"She's not related to the Gaunts, is she?" Neville asked.

"I don't know for sure, but it seems likely that she's related to them from the squib brother," Professor Dumbledore replied.

Jane hung her head down, trembling, and leaning closer to Neville.

"It matters not what someone is born, but what they grow to be," Professor Dumbledore said.

"I hope so," Neville said. "Merope doesn't seem so bad."

"After her father and brother got taken away, she got better at magic. She used a love potion, or maybe the imperious curse, to get Tom Riddle to fall in love with her."

Jane and Neville both looked down, thinking that maybe Merope was so bad after all.

"Eventually, he left her. She probably stopped using it."