There was something about this woman that would just not fit. She had a majestic air about her that came in contrast with her dusty torn robe, which looked as old as time itself. Despite the robe she wore and the serious face she kept on, she did not look as stern as one would think. As she opened the door her eyes grew a bit, yet not with surprise but rather with a resigned fear. "Why hello professor…" she greeted with a warm smile. "Hello miss Torch, it is a pleasure to see you again." She did not respond to this but merely nodded her head to show the approval of these words. "Won't you come in please….i was just about to have some hot chocolate." She nodded again and sat down, across from the professor. As she sat near his desk the light emanating from the fire had the gift of making her appearance a lot warmer, changing her blonde hair to a copper red one; her eyes were just as cold and unforgiving though. "Thank you..." she muttered while taking a sip "Warm night is it not? Peaceful..." she said calmly as if in a daze. "Yes, I was actually telling Fawlkes the same thing only a couple of seconds before you came." The woman's eyes traveled towards the clock. "I'm sorry for being late...I saw the boy leaving and thought it best to wait a while just in case he would come back." "No trouble at all, I have become accustomed with your tardiness a long time ago, somehow I always considered it a sort of signature trait of yours..." he said smiling. "Éclair?" Dumbledore offered and the woman's eyes shun while taking one and placing it on a small saucer. "Congratulations...your best yet!" She complimented. "Yes well i do remember they were your favorites". The woman smiled now, a true smile and for a second her face light up, the transformation was so obvious that it couldn't possibly be overlooked, not even by a man Dumbledore's age. A moment of silence followed, heavy, which the two people seemed hesitant to break, each waiting for the other to make the first move. Mathilda thought it right that she should be the one to do exactly that. "I'm sorry for my behavior the last time i was here..." the woman said taking another sip of coco. "As you can see it's like it never happened." The man said smiling again and pointing towards the vase on his desk that had field flowers in it. 'Like it never happened' These words rang deep in the ears of Mathilda Vesta Torch and echoed more loudly then she had ever imagined them to be able. So many memories filled her mind that moment and the regret of that which had passed quickly followed, like it had done for so many years."I should have said everything sooner, but i didn't know...I didn't think there would be more... I made the dire mistake of trusting him once more." She said saddened. "Mathilda I have told you time and time again...Nothing of what happened is your fault. You did everything in your power to prevent it. You proved grate strength by surviving it, you prove grate strength by being in this room tonight. Surely you know that Vol- please forgive me, I do remember how much you hated people calling him that- Tom Riddle is back…You are of the few who knew that he was not truly dead to begin with, you know more of him then anybody else who is still alive on this earth. His death eaters believe that they know him, that they are close to him, but he does not look at them as more then his mere servants... You are the very element that might tilt the scale of good-fortune in our favor, something which at the moment is greatly, if not direly needed." "What do you know up till now?" She asked cutting the professor short- she did not like long curled fraises which had the soul purpose of postponing something inevitable, and usually, people postpone sad news, that which they find most difficult to say…The prospect, worried her. Dumbledore did not seem bothered by this lack of respect though, but actually quite pleased….this time at least she was taking interest in the matter, something which had not happened in his previous attempts. "The information which I hold was difficult to come by yet after some efforts and a few persuasive measures –at this his eyes sparkled mischievously- I have gathered some clues that might award me with a better insight on Tom Riddle. I have come to know that he is responsible for the death of his father and his father's relatives to begin with. I also know of his great thirst for power which he, out of sheer imprudence, demonstrated when I first met him..." The woman frowned slightly at the lack of information which Dumbledore appeared to have gathered, somehow she had considered him capable of finding out more, a man of his great power, how could he not? As if reading her mind the old man was quick to add. "One should never ignore the intricate details which the smallest of things can hold"- he paused slightly and carried on with a much more grave tone. "-the most important thing that I have found out, however, something which I regret knowing, and regret even more so for not realizing it sooner is that I have reason to believe that he has also performed several hocruxes-" At this the cup in the woman's marble white hand started shaking ever so slightly with unease. Dumbledore wouldn't have perceived the movement had it not been for the sound made when the cup touched the saucer. This attracted Dumbledore's attention, he eyed her hand for a moment before raising his gaze to her once more…he might have been right he thought, but it was far better to let her tell him should she wish to... The woman was still very much in doubt if she should be here in the first place. "- And I find myself at the present moment in the position of attempting to find out where he hid one of them." "And you are sure that I have knowledge of its whereabouts…" She said reprehensively arching and eyebrow. The professor smiled once more calmly. "I have no proof of that, and I am sure that should you know where the hocrux was hidden your good will would have edged you to divulged it. What I was hoping for was that the details you would give me could lead to it, help me find and destroy it… Mathilda, as always, I shall be honest with you. You see for some time now I have been trying to find more information about the man you once knew as Tom Riddle...in an attempt to stop him. So far though, I have not been as successful as I would have liked." Mathilda smirked in her cup at this. "Tom had a good way of leaving no trail behind..." She said in a bitter tone. "Indeed, I have come to find this out by my own- that offers an explanation to why my findings were so scarce and difficult to come by...Of what I know, you my dear are the only person who knew him far better then anyone, even better then his closest Death Eaters, though I know you were never one." Dumbledore made a slight pause so as to try and maybe spot if he's reasoning had reached the woman as he wished, yet her eyes were harsh, he questioned whether she would go along with this as he carried on with his words. " Tonight I stand here in front of you asking for your help...which is dreadfully needed at this point I am afraid. The Ministry, as you might have heard, have taken a blind and def stand to the obvious signs of Riddle's return. His army is growing once more...the darkest forces are on his side and against him the only thing we have is a handful of wizards...and the hope which we place in a boy" "Harry Potter...The Chosen One" She said remembering. "Yes- the same one. Mathilda, I know that I have no right to pride into your life..." "That's right, you don't..." She warned and for a second Dumbledore's hope diminished at hearing her retaliating once again. However the woman continued, seeming in a tight struggle yet not with Dumbledore, but with her own self. "But it doesn't matter now does it? I came here willingly tonight...Not one single day passes without thinking of it, without being constantly reminded of what happened, what's the use of hiding it from the world if I'll never be able to hide it from myself?" And as she said this she emptied a large pocket that her torn robe was concealing. On the desk she placed the only things that she owned today: a couple of old photographs and she pushed them slightly towards the professor who smiled sadly at them, recognizing some of the people there, including the woman before him who looked so different in the pictures... "Those are of less importance to you then to me...Yet they are all that I'm left with... These however-" she said holding two bottles that contained a silvery liquid. "May very well shed some light on questions you might have about the past..." She smiled a bit, but the smile seemed bitter, stretched as if. "Thank you…" Dumbledore said and the woman started to talk, starring at the few pictures that the proffesor had held in his hand.
"I remember Tom Riddle from my first day at Hogwarts…. He was but a child of 11 then, yet there was something about him that created unease. When professor Dippet told us to sit in alphabetical order I found myself sitting right after him. His eyes were traveling all over…from corner to corner trying desperately to see everything, capture everything in the grasp of his gaze and never let it go- it was fairly obvious he had had a muggle upbringing. I myself did not speak to him on that day…. I was nervous as it was. Yet I remember that when the sorting hat touched his head it boomed "slitherin". It proved to be , like all the Sorting hat's, a most righteous decision…It did not take long for Riddle to become a favorite among the professors, or should I better say-" at this she eyed the professor with a sad yet admiring smile "- some professors" Dumbledore chuckled a bit yet his tone held a bitterness to it. "I knew of his immense ambition and thirst, I thought it, then, that it was unwise to inform others of what I knew, but an old man like me should not go looking for excuses…" He ended with a slight sad smile. "Professor, from what I've lived and known, people never change, no matter what…Some things, may make them better for awhile yet this turn will always prove fleeting. I trust that no matter what, Tom would've become who he is today…. It is something that eases my sleep at night, and that makes my own thoughts of guilt lift." She moved towards the pensive and opened the first bottle. "Professor in order to make you understand everything I should probably tell you some things about myself as well, seeing how they are more or less linked with Tom." The man gave his approval and the woman continued. "Yet as I was saying….It did not take long for Tom to draw the attention of Hogwarts on himself, which he was most proud of, which he was careful to use and manipulate to his utter will- something which had become oblivious to all. I, along with my cousin- Rubeus Hagrid who was three years younger than myself- was sorted into Griffindor. You see my mother was his father's cousin, so I have no giant blood in me, as such I wasn't targeted by the slitherins as was Rubeus…" she said shaking her head "- as large as he was for 11 years old, he would still cry when the older slitherins would taunt him" "Yet you were always by his side if I remember correctly" "As much as I could be…. For though I was not a giant, I had something of my own to conceal. One of them being that my mother had gotten herself into St. Mungo's after a fight with a dark wizard- she was an auror. To my shame, I had tried to hide that as much as I could….. I did not want to explain myself or my life, and I knew that should the Slitherins as well as members of other houses-even my own- find out, I would be facing greater hardships. As you know, I was- and still am a Metamorphogus. Yet at the time so little was known about us that people were scared. Plus being but a child I couldn't control the gift as well as I would've liked so letting it slip- when mad or very saddened- was not one of my plans. For six long years I had managed to control it some-what, better then one could've thought possible. I had never been a great talent when it came to magic, as I believe you remember professor, but somehow I could always react violently when provoked, all that magic, bottled up inside, would just explode. Till my sixth year at Hogwarts it never happened yet one day it all changed...I am afraid that no words which I might say will shed more light on the situation then the memory itself….May I?" she asked motioning towards the pensive. Dumbledore nodded. "Miss Torch no matter what you might think….i do understand how difficult this must be for you and I pray that you forgive this foolish old man for troubling you" The woman showed her sad smile once more and poured the liquid into the pensive.
The image formed quickly and Mathilda could recognize in it her old Transfiguration class at Hogwarts. It was just as she remembered it, after all how could it not been...it was her own memory. It didn't take more then a second for her to spot Riddle sitting in front, yet at the very sight of him a feeling of emptiness cut through her like a knife. She expected this, yet she never thought it would hurt so much, that it would bring back so much pain. What scared her even more was that she didn't even feel that hate she thought would inevitably come...the feeling made itself scarce.
At the start of class a gray haired professor went next to Tom Riddle right after he entered class. All heads were tilted slightly so as to catch at least part of the conversation. In the back of the class a young Mathilda could hear her tell him something yet she only caught slight glimpses of the conversation which made little to no sense- she felt uneasy seeing how when the professor's back was turned Riddle looked at her and frowned a bit to which Mathilda responded with a stunned expression on her face. Class went on, Mathilda was in the far corner of the class, like always, hiding behind the larger students in the hopes that her teacher would not spot her, but alas, her presence never went unnoticed, specially when they had to practice what they learned from Transfigurations, Mathilda's least favorite subject. "I can't even remember how i got into that class, how i even passed my O.W.L.S. but i found Transfigurations harder and harder, I finally gave up on trying to do anything and just retreated in the back of the class, it was the only place where i was ever quiet though..." "Oh yes, I remember..." Dumbledore nodded with a smile on his face.
"Miss Torch, I would like to have a word with you..." Mathilda sighed and grumbled something but did as she was told. She looked so different in comparison to her older counterpart, you would not think that the proper person standing next to Dumbledore and the young blonde shuffling her feet towards the professor in an attempt to stop time itself were one and the same person "Yes professor?" The girl asked "I've been noticing your lack of attention and activity in class..." "Yes, i thought you would professor..." "I must say i'd terribly like to know what the reason behind this is... You were always a good student Miss Torch, no teacher has ever bothered to complain about you, except for your disrupter of class from time to time, and if i remember correctly you used to be quite fond of Transfigurations, which is why you took it in the first place if i'm not mistaken." "Yes professor, i know, it's just that-" Mathilda obviously hated having to explain something to which the only logical explination would have been pure, common laziness, so she just shook her head. " The professor scoffed slightly at her pitiful explination yet carried on. "Well whatever the reason, I'm afraid you are in need of some help..." "Help?" Mathilda asked curious. The professor nodded." And since i cannot help you, i have asked a student to do so..." An exasperated look formed on the girl's face as she put two and two together.. "Merlin, please professor, i promise you I'll try to do better, i don't want ..." The professor cut her off though. "Nonsense, Mr Riddle is a fine young man and i dare say one of the best that Hogwarts has ever seen..." "That's exactly the problem..." Mathilda said in a grumble. "I understand that this might be hard on you Torch, yet i do not see you with good eyes right now. If you do not grasp the basics how do you expect to pass or at least understand what we'll be moving on to next?" "But surely, another student could do it… A Griffindor, or a Ravenclaw." "True, yet I believe this should very well serve as an opportunity for a Griffindor and a Slitherin to get along at long last….Plus Mr. Riddle is one of the-" he paused a bit annoyed as at the time he was the head of Hufflepuff."- i actually dare say the best. He'll help you learn quickly and remember everything..." he finished in a cheery voice. Mathilda inwardly cursed her professor's humanitarian tendencies, she spared as much favor on Slitherins as she would on any other vial loathing creature. "So i can't do anything about it?" Mathilda asked frowning. "Not unless you plan on finding someone better..." "I understand..." She said angrily. "Now I've taken the liberty of talking things over with him...and he agreed to tutor you- at least for today. Meet him in the library in half an hour, from then on you can plan your own sessions, if you think more will be needed...Miss Torch there is no shame in this what-so-ever." He added in an indifferenttone. "Really? Sure doesn't seem like that to me..." Mathilda said. "Nonsence, I'm sure soon enough you'll get the hang of it again. Now hurry up, Mr Riddle is waiting for you i'm assuming..." he ended cheerfully. Mathilda frowned at him uneasily. It was not like her to give up without a fight, but she knew better than to go against a teacher, a teacher who was not quite fond of her to begin with. "Good-day professor..." She ended and trudged out of the classroom.
