Chapter 3. Meeting Dumbledore

The snow continued to fall but the rays of sun beamed through the clouds.

"Everything changed after that professor visited", Mrs Cole said with a half-happy sigh. "Things stopped disappearing, the amount of odd accidents decreased." She twiddled her wedding ring. She never stopped wearing it though her husband had been long gone.

"You waited for the September to come and the closer it got the more often I caught you smiling alone in the front stairs."

August 1938, London, Wool's Orphanage.

In the beginning of the autumn of the year 1938 I had gotten a very formal letter from a man who I recall calling himself Albus Dumbledore. He had suggested a meeting, writing he wanted to meet Tom Riddle.

I was scared the couple who had considered adopting Dorothy had believed the story about Tom hanging Billy's rabbit and that the rumour had found the ears of the man.

I had accepted his letter anyway, and in the response I asked him to come to the orphanage two weeks later.

"Mrs Cole!"

I heard Hannah calling me from the hall. "I'm coming!" I wiped my hands on my apron and hurried from the kitchen. Dorothy, fifteen at the time, rushed after me.

"… and take the iodine upstairs to Martha", I said to her and handed a small bottle. "Billy Stubbs has been picking his scabs and Eric Whalley's oozing all over his sheets – chicken pox on top of everything else."

Dorothy took the bottle and went upstairs. I stopped to meet a man at the hall. He was old, older than me at least, and he was wearing a rather eccentric plum-coloured suit and his hat on his left hand.

"Good evening", the man said. He reached his hand to meet mine but I didn't take it. "My name's Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter", he continued. Yes, I remembered. He had sent me a letter and I had asked him to come today. I had completely forgotten that.

I asked Mr Dumbledore to come my room and he followed me. I beckoned nervously the stool on the other side of my desk. "Please, sit down."

He didn't waste time. When he had sat he crossed his hands over his knees and looked at me. "I'm here to, as I told you in my letter, to talk about Tom Riddle and his future." His tone worried me, made me nervous.

I asked if he was related to Tom but he denied it, telling he was a professor. He said he was offering Tom a place in his school.

"What kind of school it is?" I asked.

"Its name is Hogwarts", that man, Dumbledore replied, and I frowned lightly. I had never heard of a school by that name. It couldn't be in London, at least.

"And why are you interested in Tom?"

"We believe that he has certain abilities we're looking for."

I was dumbfounded. "Do you mean he has gotten a scholarship?" I bombarded the man with questions as his answers didn't satisfy my needs until he gave me a piece of paper.

I read it once, I read it twice. Everything seemed to be okay but I felt so confused. Who would want to offer a mere orphan a scholarship? In addition, offering it to Tom who was, of course, very intelligent, but many other children would have deserved a place at a school more than him. And I was afraid to let him leave the orphanage.

I glanced at the side table. I didn't remember having a bottle of gin there but Martha had probably bought it and brought here. It couldn't hurt to offer a drink to the professor. After the first glass he allowed me to fill his glass again.

"I was wondering whether you could tell me anything of Tom Riddle's history?" he asked. "I think he was born here in the orphanage?"

"That's right." I filled my own glass as well. "I remember it clear as anything, because I'd just started here myself. New Year's Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night." I shivered because of the memory. I looked at Dumbledore, in case if he still was listening. He was and I continued. "And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."

I silenced for a moment, letting what I had told to sink in. I hadn't really told about what had happened that night to anyone else but Martha. Louisa had been there but she was gone now. I nodded at him and sipped a mouthful of gin.

"Did she say anything before passing away?" Dumbledore asked. "About the boy's father, perhaps?"

I smiled, rather widely I might add. I could say it was because the alcohol, or because for once someone was willing to hear that story. Nevertheless Dumbledore seemed genuinely interested.

"I remember she said to me 'I hope he looks like his papa', and I won't lie she was right to hope it, because she was no beauty, and then she told me he was to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for her father – yes, I know, funny name, isn't it? We wondered whether she came from a circus." The possibility that his mother was from a circus was something I never had told Tom. I looked at Dumbledore who merely raised a brow.

"And she said the boy's surname was to be Riddle. And she died soon after that without another word."

I also told Dumbledore that no Tom or Marvolo or Riddle or any other relative ever came to look for the boy. I smiled slightly. "He's a very peculiar boy."

"Yes." Dumbledore said with a nod. "That's what I thought."

"Even as a baby he rarely cried." I didn't mention how I had thought it to be a good sign. I didn't mention how bad mother I felt now. Maybe he would have needed more comfort as a small child? If I had been with him more, noticing him more then maybe… Perhaps if I had been less strict and hadn't raised my voice so often… I frowned, shaking my head.

"And when he grew up he became… a little weird."

Dumbledore smiled gently and asked how I found him weird. I felt myself ashamed of even saying so. I swallowed. "Well, he–" I stopped abruptly and inquiringly gazed at him. "Did you say that he most certainly has a place in your school?"

Dumbledore nodded. "Absolutely."

"And nothing what I say can change that?" How would I dare to do anything to risk the possibility given to Tom by talking too much?

"Nothing can change that", Dumbledore said.

"You'll take him away, whatever happens?" I asked half-hopefully.

"I'll take him whatever happens", he said sternly, very seriously. I looked at him and something in that man told me to trust him. That it would be good for Tom to go with him, or at least talk with him.

I took a deep breath. I felt like I would have to tell Mr Dumbledore everything. "He scares the other children", I said.

"You mean he is a bully?" Dumbledore asked.

I frowned. "I think he must be, but it's very hard to catch him at it." Had I even tried hard enough? Had I let those things happen? "There have been incidents… Nasty things…" I took another sip of gin as an encouragement. I had never been a very courageous person.

I told Mr Dumbledore about Billy Stubbs' pet rabbit and nervously continued to tell him about the trip to the seaside and how oddly Amy and Dennis had acted after it. Just exploring, Tom had said. "And well, all kinds of weird things…"

I didn't mention Louisa's piano, or things moving from their places and disappearing completely. I couldn't even say a word about James telling me that he had heard Tom speaking to a snake before Eric had gotten bit. I looked at Mr Dumbledore. "I don't think that many here would be offended by Tom leaving."

"But you do understand that we won't keep him entirely", Dumbledore said firmly. "He would have to return for the summers."

I took Mr Dumbledore to upstairs to meet Tom. How Tom would react on meeting the man I didn't know. I knocked the door of Tom's room couple times before opening it. Tom was sitting on his bed, reading like he often did. Few years back I was so proud when he expressed his interested in books. I couldn't know he would preferably stay in his room and read than spend time with the other children outdoors.

"Tom, you have a visitor." I beckoned the man in the doorway. "This is Mr Dumberton – I'm sorry, Dunderbone." The gin was whisking in my head. "He's here to tell – or let him tell you himself."

Mr Dumbledore entered the room and I gave the boy a smile before closing the door and leaving them alone. I leaned to the door and inhaled deeply. I granted them a little privacy and went to downstairs. Yet I couldn't help but wonder what they were currently talking about.

After half an hour I found Mr Dumbledore from the hall. He took his hat and bowed lightly before opening the front door. "Goodbye, Mrs Cole", he said and I just nodded at him. He didn't tell me anything he had talked about with Tom. He just left.

But at the dinner, when I looked at Tom, I couldn't believe what I saw. The difference wasn't major but somehow Tom seemed happier.

So much happier it scared me.