Chapter 8
Memories, Pt. 2
In Mrs Cole's Office - Wool's Orphn., Autumn 1890
Mrs Cole was a tall woman with sharp features and grey hair, sitting at a dusty desk on which papers and books were piled up in ways that defied common sense. She seemed alarmed and uneasy as she stared at the black-haired boy sitting in front of her. The boy was equally disturbed, if not more so, with an added layer of shame visible on his small and round face.
"Tom…" she said, before finding herself unable to continue.
The boy looked at her and said, weakly:
"It's about Billy's rabbit, isn't it?"
"Well yes,… among other things. Poor Billy came to my office, whining and yelling, claiming that you had killed his rabbit."
Tom wasn't looking at her when he said:
"So I'm going to be punished again… right?"
"Oh, no…" answered Mrs Cole before she added: "Well, I don't think so. I had Peter look at that poor creature's remains. It bears no bruises of any kind; and it was old… If not for Billy Stubbs' protests that you were to blame, I would have naturally assumed it died of old age. You see, Tom? I don't think you did anything wrong."
The boy wasn't responding.
"Tom?"
Tom remained silent for a minute, and eventually blunted out:
"I killed it."
Mrs Cole was quite taken aback:
"How can this be? Tom! It's not possible. There is no way you could have killed that poor thing."
"I did!" said Tom, almost crying. "I don't know how I did… but… You see — Billy and I had been fighting. And the night before yesterday, he broke my storybook in half. I was… I was so angry… I thought I could make up for it by breaking something of Billy's, too… I wasn't thinking… I just… I saw the rabbit…"
"And?"
"And I wished it would die, I wished it with all my mind… and… and it did! Just then!"
The stern matron looked at him in disbelief, somewhat frightened; she quickly pulled herself back together and tried to reassure the anxious young boy.
"Don't worry", she said, as motherly as possible, "it can't be. There are no such things as magic and witchcraft… It was just a case of unfortunate timing, I'm afraid."
"No it wasn't. And… there are."
"What?!" she spat worriedly. The boy's sanity was clearly disturbed.
"There are such things as… as… magic, Mrs Cole. I can move things without touching them… and I can sort of hear what the other kids are thinking - it's not quite clear, but if I focus, I can…"
Harry's viewing of the scene was interrupted when he heard fast footsteps. Pulling his head out of the basin, he was just in time to see a definitely grumpy-looking Voldemort enter the Room.
"Boy, I must admit I expected you to find this room sooner or later, but I still had hopes that you would, well, ask me before you watched some of my personal childhood memories. I wouldn't blink if you were a Slytherin or even a Ravenclaw, but is that what a Gryffindor is supposed to do? Hm? Well. It is largely irrelevant. You have undoubtedly acquired a great deal of puzzling new information, about which you are going to pester me with questions, so we might as well get rid of that now."