Chapter 99
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Saturday came quickly.
"Evening, sir," Rebekah greeted as she walked into the headmaster's office,
Dumbledore smiled as she approached the desk, sitting down before him with Emperor following diligently behind her. "I hope you've had an enjoyable first week back at school?"
"Yeah, thanks, sir,"
"You must have been busy, Slughorn has been singing your praises again," He laughed. "You have a way with Potions teachers."
"Probably more because I know what I'm doing most of the time," She said. "Potions has always been a good class for me."
"But defence moreso,"
"Defense is practical, easier to remember when it's useful,"
"So," Dumbledore began, clasping his hands on the table, showing off the rotten one by accident as the ring reminded her of something she couldn't place. "You have been wondering, I am sure, what I have planned for you during these, for want of a better word, lessons?"
"Yes, sir."
"Well, I have decided that it is time, now that you know what prompted Lord Voldemort to try and kill you fifteen years ago, for you to be given certain information."
There was a pause.
"You told me most of what you knew last year," She stared at him coldly, nothing too out of the norm for her. "I have a feeling there is more."
He nodded. "From this point forth, we shall be leaving the firm foundation of fact and journeying together through the murky marshes of memory into thickets of wildest guesswork. From here on in, Rebekah, I may be as woefully wrong as Humphrey Belcher, who believed the time was ripe for a cheese cauldron."
"But you think you're right?"
"Naturally I do, but as I have already proven to you, I make mistakes like the next man. Being, forgive me, rather cleverer than most men, my mistakes tend to be correspondingly huger."
Rebekah nodded, glancing at his blackened hand again and decided to ask. "Sir, how did you injure your hand?"
"Now is not the moment for that story, Rebekah. Not yet. We have an appointment with Bob Ogden."
Dumbledore tipped the silvery contents of the bottle into the Pensieve, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas.
"After you."
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The house hid between the tree trunks, nettles, mossy and vines covering the sides to help keep it from prying eyes. One of the windows was thrown open with a clatter, and a thin trickle of steam or smoke issued from it, as though somebody was cooking.
Rebekah bared her teeth in anger when she saw the dead snake nailed to the front door, the tattoo on her right thigh burned as Fidele came out of his pocket universe and slithered onto her shoulders. She pet his head as he laid there, wrapped around her neck like a scarf.
Bob Odgen leapt back as a man in rags jumped in front of him, screaming "You're not welcome."
It wasn't in English or any human language, rather it was in Parseltongue.
The man standing before them had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any colour. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small and dark and stared in opposite directions. He might have looked comical, but he did not; the effect was frightening, and Rebekah could not blame Ogden for backing away several more paces before he spoke.
"Er, good morning. I'm from the Ministry of Magic —"
"You're not welcome."
"Er, I'm sorry, I don't understand you," Ogden said nervously.
The man in rags was now advancing on Ogden, knife in one hand, wand in the other.
"Now, look —" Ogden began, but too late: There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers.
"Morfin!" A loud voice said.
An elderly man had come hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically. This man was shorter than the first, and oddly proportioned; his shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scruffy hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey. He came to a halt beside the man with the knife, who was now cackling with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground.
"Ministry, is it?" The older man said, looking down at Ogden.
"Correct!" Ogden said angrily, dabbing his face. "And you, I take it, are Mr Gaunt?"
"S'right," Gaunt grinned. "Got you in the face, did he?"
"Yes, he did!" Ogden snapped.
"Should've made your presence known, shouldn't you?" Gaunt said aggressively. "This is private property. Can't just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself."
"Defend himself against what, man?" Ogden said, clambering back to his feet.
"Busybodies. Intruders. Muggles and filth."
Ogden pointed his wand at his own nose, which was still issuing large amounts of what looked like yellow pus, and the flow stopped at once. Mr Gaunt spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Morfin.
"Get in the house. Don't argue."
The weird hissing noise was all Ogden could hear. Morfin seemed to be on the point of disagreeing, but when his father cast him a threatening look he changed his mind, lumbering away to the cottage with an odd rolling gait and slamming the front door behind him so that the snake swung sadly again.
"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr Gaunt," Ogden said, as he mopped the last of the pus from the front of his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"
"Ar, that was Morfin. Are you Pureblood?" he asked, suddenly aggressive.
"That's neither here nor there," Ogden said coldly,
He squinted into Ogden's face and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, "Now I come to think about it, I've seen noses like yours down in the village."
"I don't doubt it, if your son's been let loose on them," said Ogden. "Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?"
"Inside?"
"Yes, Mr Gaunt. I've already told you. I'm here about Morfin. We sent an owl —"
"I've no use for owls," Gaunt said. "I don't open letters."
"Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of visitors," Ogden said tartly. "I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of this morning —"
"All right, all right, all right!" Gaunt bellowed. "Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it'll do you!"
The house seemed to contain three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as kitchen and living room combined. Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue:
Hissy, hissy, little snakey,
Slither on the floor,
You be good to Morfin
Or he'll nail you to the door.
There was a scuffling noise in the corner beside the open window, a girl whose ragged grey dress was the exact colour of the dirty stone wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove and was fiddling around with the shelf of squalid looking pots and pans above it. Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother's, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but she was even a more defeated looking person.
"M'daughter, Merope," Gaunt said grudgingly, as Ogden looked inquiringly toward her.
"Good morning," Ogden said.
She did not answer, but with a frightened glance at her father turned her back on the room and continued shifting the pots on the shelf behind her.
"Well, Mr Gaunt," Ogden said, "to get straight to the point, we have reason to believe that your son, Morfin, performed magic in front of a Muggle late last night. Morfin has broken Wizarding law," Ogden said sternly.
" 'Morfin has broken Wizarding law.' " Gaunt imitated Ogden's voice, making it pompous and singsong. Morfin cackled again. "He taught a filthy Muggle a lesson, that's illegal now, is it?"
"Yes," Ogden said. "I'm afraid it is."
He pulled from an inside pocket a small scroll of parchment and unrolled it.
"What's that, then, his sentence?" Gaunt said, his voice rising angrily.
"It is a summons to the Ministry for a hearing —"
"Summons! Summons? Who do you think you are, summoning my son anywhere?"
"I'm Head of the Magical Law Enforcement Squad," Ogden said.
"And you think we're scum, do you?" Gaunt screamed, advancing on Ogden now, with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointing at his chest. "Scum who'll come running when the Ministry tells 'em to? Do you know who you're talking to, you filthy little Mudblood, do you?
"I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr Gaunt," Ogden said, looking wary, but standing his ground.
"That's right!" Guant showed off the ugly, black-stoned ring he was wearing on his middle finger, waving it before Ogden's eyes. "See this? See this? Know what it is? Know where it came from? Centuries it's been in our family, that's how far back we go, and pure-blood all the way! Know how much I've been offered for this, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on the stone?"
"I've really no idea," Ogden said, blinking as the ring sailed within an inch of his nose, "and it's quite beside the point, Mr Gaunt. Your son has committed —"
With a howl of rage, Gaunt ran toward his daughter and dragged her toward Ogden by a gold chain around her neck.
Rebekah subconsciously touched her neck, seeing the heavy locket on Merope's neck and knowing she was wearing the exact same one.
"See this?" He bellowed at Ogden, shaking a heavy gold locket at him, while Merope spluttered and gasped for breath.
"I see it, I see it!" Ogden said hastily.
"Slytherin's!" He yelled. "Salazar Slytherin's! We're his last living descendants, what do you say to that, eh?"
"Mr Gaunt, your daughter!" Ogden said in alarm, but Gaunt had already released Merope; she staggered away from him, back to her corner, massaging her neck and gulping for air.
"So!" Gaunt said triumphantly. "Don't you go talking to us as if we're dirt on your shoes! Generations of purebloods, wizards all — more than you can say, I don't doubt!"
"Mr Gaunt," Ogden said doggedly, "I am afraid that neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter in hand. I am here because of Morfin, Morfin and the Muggle he accosted late last night. Our information" — he glanced down at his scroll of parchment — "is that Morfin performed a jinx or hex on the said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives."
Morfin giggled.
"Be quiet, boy," snarled Gaunt in Parseltongue, and Morfin fell silent again.
"And so what if he did, then?" Gaunt said defiantly to Ogden. "I expect you've wiped the Muggle's filthy face clean for him, and his memory to boot —"
"That's hardly the point, is it, Mr Gaunt?" Ogden said. "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenceless —"
"Ar, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt, and he spat on the floor again.
"This discussion is getting us nowhere," Ogden said firmly. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions." He glanced down at his scroll of parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on the fourteenth of September to answer the charges of using magic in front of a Muggle and causing harm and distress to that same Mugg —"
Ogden broke off. The jingling, clopping sounds of horses and loud, laughing voices were drifting in through the open window.
Apparently, the winding lane to the village passed very close to the copse where the house stood. Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry. Merope raised her head. Her face was starkly white.
"My God, what an eyesore!" rang out a girl's voice, as clearly audible through the open window as if she had stood in the room beside them. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?"
"It's not ours," said a young man's voice. "Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children. The son's quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village —"
The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder. Morfin made to get out of his armchair.
"Keep your seat," said his father warningly, in Parseltongue.
"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, "I might be wrong — but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?"
"Good lord, you're right!" said the man's voice. "That'll be the son, I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling."
The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing fainter again.
" 'Darling,' " whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. " 'Darling,' he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway."
Merope was so white and she looked like she was going to faint.
"What's that?" Gaunt said sharply, also in Parseltongue, looking from his son to his daughter. "What did you say, Morfin?"
"She likes looking at that Muggle," said Morfin, a vicious expression on his face as he stared at his sister, who now looked terrified. "Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn't she? And last night —" Merope shook her head jerkily, imploringly, but Morfin went on ruthlessly, "Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn't she?"
"Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?" Gaunt said quietly.
All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden, who was looking both bewildered and irritated at this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible hissing and rasping.
"Is it true?" Gaunt said in a deadly voice, advancing a step or two toward the terrified girl. "My daughter — pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin — hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?"
Merope shook her head frantically, pressing herself into the wall, apparently unable to speak.
"But I got him, Father!" cackled Morfin. "I got him as he went by and he didn't look so pretty with hives all over him, did he, Merope?"
"You disgusting little Squib, you filthy little blood traitor!" roared Gaunt, losing control, and his hands closed around his daughter's throat.
Ogden raised his wand and cried, "Relashio!"
Gaunt was thrown backwards, away from his daughter; he tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of rage, Morfin leapt out of his chair and ran at Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing hexes indiscriminately from his wand.
Ogden ran for his life while Dumbledore tugged on Rebekah's elbow, knowing she would follow him if he didn't stop her.
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Back in the office, they both sat back down on the chairs.
Dumbledore began with what happened after they left. "Ogden Apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes. Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered, removed from the cottage, and subsequently convicted by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record of Muggle attacks, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, who had injured several Ministry employees in addition to Ogden, received six months."
"That was all of Tom Riddle Jr family on his mother's side, before she died and he was born,"
"I am glad to see you're keeping up quite easily,"
"Tom didn't know much about his parents when he was younger. His grandfather is where he gets his middle name from."
"Yes. Marvolo, his son, Morfin, and his daughter, Merope, were the last of the Gaunts, a very ancient Wizarding family noted for a vein of instability and violence that flourished through the generations due to their habit of marrying their own cousins. Lack of sense coupled with a great liking for grandeur meant that the family gold was squandered several generations before Marvolo was born. He, as you saw, was left in squalor and poverty, with a very nasty temper, a fantastic amount of arrogance and pride, and a couple of family heirlooms that he treasured just as much as his son, and rather more than his daughter."
"I doubt Tom Riddle Sr liked Merope," Rebekah muttered mostly to herself. "So she used a potion to trap him. Most likely a love potion to get the love she wanted, becoming pregnant but what happened after?"
"I believe she thought that she was safe, deeply in love with her husband and so could not bear to continue enslaving him by Magical means. She could have made the decision to stop giving him the potion. Perhaps, besotted as she was, she had convinced herself that he would by now have fallen in love with her in return. Perhaps she thought he would stay for the baby's sake. If so, she was wrong on both counts. He left her, never saw her again and never troubled to discover what became of his son."
The sky outside was inky black and the lamps in Dumbledore's office seemed to glow more brightly than before.
"I think that will do for tonight," Dumbledore said, standing up as Rebekah did the same.
"That ring, sir," Rebekah started, her eyes suddenly glued to the ring in question.
"Yes?"
"It's the Gaunt family ring, isn't it, sir?"
"The very same."
"The Peverell ring then,"
"Perhaps so," Dumbledore smiled sadly. "You shall hear the story another time. Good night."
"Good night, sir."
Rebekah exited the office with slight defiance in her step, biting the inside of her lip to stop the array of questions she had.
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