In his office, Jane and Neville met Professor Dumbledore. "Jane, I have a question for you. When and how did you find out Salazar Slytherin could talk to snakes?"
"The year before I entered Hogwarts, during Neville's first year. It was in a Hogwarts history book I had borrowed from Mrs. Longbottom. I was really upset about it."
"I bet you were."
He then told them some more about Matomorvool Riddle. "He was placed in Slytherin House almost the moment the Sorting Hat touched his head," he explained. "How soon Riddle learned that the famous founder of the house could talk to snakes, I do not know – perhaps that very evening. The knowledge could only have excited him and increased his sense of self-importance.
"However if he was frightening or impressing fellow Slytherins with displays of parseltongue in the common room, no hint of it reached the staff. He showed no signs of outward arrogance or aggression at all." Apparently, most of the staff liked him, as he acted polite and thirsty for knowledge, but he never tried to charm Professor Dumbledore the way he did the others.
He gathered a click of peers to lead, some of whom went on to become the first death eaters. During their years at Hogwarts, there were a number of nasty incidents of which they were never proven guilty. "The most series, of course, was the opening of the chamber of secrets, which resulted in the death of a girl. As you know, Hagrid was wrongly accused of that crime."
"Wait," Jane said, "did opening the chamber really result in the girl's death? In my first year, I managed to talk to the basilisk once. I told him never to hurt anybody ever again, and he said he only took commands from his master. When I pointed out that I might also be an heir of Slytherin, he said that didn't matter because he only took commands from his master, who had no heirs. When I pointed out that Salazar Slytherin put him in the chamber, he said that wasn't true. His master put him in the chamber, after getting the idea from a legend. I wouldn't be surprised if his master was Voldemort."
"Well, there's some interesting information I wish I knew before now. It makes a lot of sense though."
"Sorry sir," Neville said. "We didn't really think to tell you."
Professor Dumbledore soon continued talking about Matomorvool Riddle. The few people he could find who would talk to him about Matomorvool said he was obsessed with his parentage. He searched in vain for the name Tom Riddle, on trophies and old-school records. He then tried his mother's family. The only thing he had to go on was that his first name was her brother's name. After a lot of research through wizarding family records, he found a family with a Matomorvool, although the records claimed he died as a small child. The summer Matomorvool Riddle was sixteen, he went to find his Gaunt relatives.