What's this? Could it be? Yes! It's a double-chapter day!

Why am I uploading two chapters in one day, you may ask? Because I felt like it, that's why! It certainly has nothing to do with my irregular postings these past two weeks. No, no...

Thanks for your patience during my brief time off! And in case you missed the last chapter, go back and read it!


Chapter One Hundred and Thirty-Five - The House of Gaunt

"This you?" Harry asked, sliding the book across Snape's desk.

Harry spent the better part of the week perusing the pages of Advanced Potion Making, reading the notes scribbled over the pages and even trying a few of the spells he had seen annotated in the margins. It hadn't taken him long to find an inscription written inside the back cover:

This Book is Property of the Half-Blood Prince

The nickname hadn't meant anything to Harry, but after his second class with Slughorn, in which the Prince's instructions once again placed him at the top of the class, he could no longer ignore the familiar handwriting.

Snape glanced down at the book and froze, though his expression remained the same.

"Where did you get this?" he asked.

"Slughorn let me borrow one of the classroom copies," Harry explained, "It's yours, isn't it? I recognized your handwriting."

"I'd forgotten about it," Snape said absently, looking away from the book as if it mattered very little to him, "Must have left it behind when I switched classrooms."

"Can I keep it? Slughorn was pleased by my… by your potion making. And Dumbledore asked me to get close to him, for some reason, so I thought if I do well in his class…"

"Keep it," Snape replied.

A pause followed this flat directive. Perhaps Snape expected Harry to leave with the book before he could change his mind, but he remained standing in Snape's office. His classroom may have changed, but Snape remained in the same dungeon office he had occupied since Harry began attending Hogwarts. Harry ignored the many dusty glass jars with their pickled inhabitants as he stared at Snape, thinking. Meanwhile, the professor had continued grading the stack of essays waiting on his desk, uninterested in speaking with Harry further.

"The Half-Blood Prince is kind of a lame nickname."

Snape drew a sharp line through some poor student's essay and replied, "I'lll ask you not to mock my mother's maiden name, Potter."

"But Half-Blood? Really?" Harry insisted. "That can't have made you very popular among the Slytherins back in the day…"

"Your father wasn't much better at choosing a name for himself, was he?" Snape replied tersely.

"... I'd like to see you come up with something better than Prongs."

"For a stag? I would have gone with Cervus."

"Shit, that is good…" Harry muttered under his breath, though he quickly added, "Bit on the nose, don't you think?"

Snape finally set down his quill and looked up at Harry, "Did you come here to question me on old textbooks and childish nicknames, or was there something you needed?"

It served a reminder of the note Harry still kept in the pocket of his school robes. Like the textbook, he slid it across the desk for Snape's inspection. "Dumbledore needs me for a private lesson. I can't come to detention this Saturday."

Snape glanced at the note, his eyes lingering for a moment on the headmaster's signature, before he passed it right back to Harry.

"Fine. You're excused."

Harry found himself growing frustrated. Every time Harry thought he had unlocked the secret to Snape's personality, he felt the professor withdraw further into himself. Snape was acting distant again, and Harry couldn't understand why.

"What did you want to see me for?" Harry asked impatiently, "I know you didn't give me detention just for backtalk. You'd've docked points for that if it was only that. So what did you want to talk about? And don't say this is about Draco, again. He's doing just fine without…"

"I did not want to discuss Draco Malfoy," Snape interrupted.

Harry felt some of the tension in his shoulders release. Snape didn't attempt to deny there was something he had wished to discuss with Harry, and that felt like a promising start. Harry grew quiet, waiting for Snape to continue.

"You seemed… distressed that I had taken the Defense Against the Dark Arts position. Why?"

"Because it's cursed, obviously," Harry replied with an impatient wave of his hand.

"So I've heard… But why should that be a concern of yours?"

Harry glared. He had spent years thinking that Snape thoroughly hated him. It wasn't long ago that Snape was docking points from Gryffindor for Harry's transgressions, refusing to believe that a Potter could have been sorted into his own house. And yet, since Harry's discovery of Snape's secret affection for his mother… A reverence for Lily that he still cherished, leading him to come to Harry's rescue time and time again… He would never admit to caring for Snape. Not even the Cruciatus Curse would drag that out of him. But that didn't change the fact that he couldn't stand the thought of Snape throwing his life away.

Snape interrupted Harry's sullen silence himself, stating, "What I wished to tell you, Potter, is that Wormtail… I should say Peter Pettigrew… Has been an inmate of my house all summer…"

Harry's eyes bulged behind his round glasses, "What?!"

Snape gestured for patience and explained, "It is not pleasant to me either, I assure you. But after Narcissa's betrayal of the Order, and the catastrophe at the Ministry… I am not blaming you, Potter," he amended, seeing Harry flinch, "I mention it only because my loyalty has been called into question. The Dark Lord is clearly keeping a close eye on me. He has something planned this year which, I think, may force me to perform a task I take no pleasure in, though it will be necessary to prove my fealty to him, and him alone…"

"What does he want you to do?" Harry asked.

"Me? Nothing…" Snape replied cryptically, "He has given the task to another. But… It is very likely that my position at this school will change before the end of the year. I knew this when I accepted the role of Defense…"

"So you know you're going to die?"

"Not every teacher who has filled this role has died, Potter," Snape reminded him, "But circumstances being what they are, it is possible that I will be forced to leave Hogwarts."

"So what's he have planned?" Harry asked. "Voldemort, I mean? And if he didn't ask you to do it, then what's it got to do with you leaving Hogwarts?"

He didn't really expect Snape to answer. He was used to adults telling him he wasn't old enough, not strong enough to know yet. But after a moment of careful consideration, Snape quietly admitted, "I am no longer the Dark Lord's most trusted advisor. As such, I do not have all the details… However… You have noticed the wound on the headmaster's hand?"

"Yeah, I saw it. It's the same as…" The name caught in his throat. He couldn't say it himself.

"Sirius Black," Snape concluded for him, "Who, incidentally, I would have called Friginari."

Harry was taken aback. "What… Is that Italian? What's it mean?"

"It's a contraction of Frigidus Naribus. Latin for Cold Nose. Though perhaps 'Fleabag' would have been more appropriate for him…"

Harry gaped at him for a moment, until against his own inclination, he laughed.

"Go on, then. What about Wormtail? I suppose he'd be something like Vermis Horribilis?"

"No," said Snape with a curl of his lip, "Wormtail is actually a very fitting name for him. Your father chose perfectly, in his case."

When Harry's giggles subsided and Snape spoke again, his tone, though as calm and collected as always, had a lightness to it that had not existed before.

"I would advise you to pay close attention to the headmaster's lessons,Potter. I have only a vague idea of what they will entail, but as Dumbledore has chosen to share the information with you, it will no doubt be useful in the future."

He lowered his head toward the papers on his desk once more and took up his quill. Harry knew then that he was being dismissed. What was more, he still had an afternoon Potions class to attend. Picking up the copy of Advanced Potion Making, he made his way to the door, pausing when Snape commented behind his back, "If you have any other questions for me, Potter, you need not insult me during class. You may find me in my office any time."

"Even without a detention?" asked Harry, partially glancing over his shoulder at the professor.

Snape shrugged. Harry was suddenly reminded of their former arrangement, and he abruptly asked, "What was my mother's favorite candy?"

"Lily preferred salty snacks," Snape replied instantly, "Though black licorice wands were a preference of hers."

"Black licorice?" Harry repeated, wrinkling his nose, "My mum had bad taste."

Snape smiled slightly, shook his head, and replied, "I've been saying that for years."


Saturday evening at eight o'clock, the precise time Dumbledore had indicated in his note, found Harry standing outside the headmaster's office door. He rapped twice against the wood with the brass knocker and waited to hear Dumbledore's voice of welcome before entering.

"Good evening, sir," he said, sidling through the door.

"Good evening, Harry. Please have a seat. I understand you have been very busy this week? A detention already!"

Harry could see the headmaster's blue eyes dance behind his half-moon spectacles. He returned the lighthearted teasing with a slight smile and replied, "It was only a misunderstanding, sir. I've already resolved things with Sn… Professor Snape."

Dumbledore seemed genuinely surprised to hear this, and abruptly asked, "And how are you and Professor Snape getting along these days?"

Harry shrugged. He came there to talk about these mysterious lessons, not about the former Potions Master. He took a surreptitious look around the office, looking for some indication of what Dumbledore had planned for him that evening. But the office looked just as it always did. The delicate silver instruments stood on their spindle-legged tables. Portraits of previous headmasters and headmistresses dozed in their frames. The Sorting Hat rested quietly on a high shelf behind Dumbledore's desk, underneath a mounted sword with a glittering, ruby-encrusted handle. Seated on a tall perch beside Dumbledore sat the headmaster's magnificent phoenix, Fawkes.

As Harry stared at the bird, the bird stared back, and Dumbledore eventually said, "I suppose you have been wondering what I have planned for you during these, for want of a better word, lessons?"

Harry turned his eyes away from Fawkes and met Dumbledore's keen gaze with a nod.

"Does it have something to do with what you asked of me this summer?" he guessed, "When you asked me to get close to Slughorn?"

"Yes, Harry. It does indeed. But there are other things you need to understand first. I have explained why Voldemort chose to attack you as a baby. I now feel that it is time I gave you certain information about Voldemort's history. That is to say, of the boy, Tom Riddle."

"His past?" Harry repeated, "But… What does that have to do with the prophecy? How will that help me… You know, survive?"

"There is power in knowledge, Harry," Dumbledore advised, "That is the reason for the axiom 'know thy enemy.' I believe there is information contained in Voldemort's history that will help you to defeat him, once and for all."

The words of the prophecy came swimming back into Harry's memory. The one with the power to vanquish the Dark Lord approaches… he will have power the Dark Lord knows not… neither can live while the other survives… Harry had to be prepared. Straightening up in his seat and clenching his fists, he declared, "OK. I'm ready."

He watched as Dumbledore got to his feet and walked around his desk to a cabinet beside the door to his office. When he turned around, he was holding a familiar shallow stone basin etched with odd markings around its rim. Harry stiffened. He recognized the object from his Occlumency lessons with Snape the previous year. His experience with the odd device, which stored and revealed memories, though highly influential in forming his current relationship with Snape, had contained uncomfortable truths, as well. He was suddenly much less eager for whatever Dumbledore had planned.

"This is called a Pensieve," Dumbledore explained, "I believe you may be familiar with its properties? Professor Snape asked to borrow it last year…"
Harry gave a curt nod, his jaw tight. Dumbledore must have noticed his apprehension, but was polite enough not to mention it, for he merely continued, "Tonight you and I will be observing the memory of one Bob Ogden, a former Auror with the Department of Magical Law Enforcement. We are about to accompany him on a visit he made in the course of his duties. If you will stand, Harry…"

Dumbledore withdrew a tiny, crystal bottle from his mint turquoise robes. Inside the vial was the same swirling, silvery-white substance Harry recalled Snape withdrawing from his mind before each Occlumency lesson. Dumbledore struggled for a moment with the cork stopper. His injured hand seemed stiff and painful. Harry looked away, reminded again of SIrius and wondering how exactly Dumbledore had injured himself.

At last, Dumbledore resorted to his wand, and the cork flew out with a small pop! He then tipped the contents into the Pensieve, where they swirled and shimmered, neither liquid nor gas. Dumbledore beckoned Harry forward with his healthy hand, and Harry leaned over the basin. He took a deep breath, and in the next moment felt his feet leave the office floor.

When he landed, he was standing on a country lane boarded by high, tangled hedgerows, blinking in the sudden dazzling sunlight. Dumbledore stood by his side, quietly observing a short, plump man wearing enormously thick glasses. He was dressed in an odd assortment of clothing, revealing himself at once to be a wizard trying desperately to look like a Muggle, and failing miserably. Harry knew this must be Ogden. He consulted a signpost for a few moments more, then set off at a brisk pace down the lane.

Harry and Dumbledore followed Ogden through a gap in the hedgerow, down a narrow, crooked, rocky path sloping downhill. It led them into a dark patch of trees, where Ogden came to an abrupt stop. Harry and Dumbledore halted behind him, watching as Ogden drew his wand. As Harry's eyes adjusted to the shift from bright sunlight to the murky gloom cast by the trees, he discerned a building half-hidden amongst the trunks. The walls were mossy and so many tiles had fallen away from the roof that the rafters were visible. Just as Harry wondered if it was abandoned, one of the windows burst open, and a thin trickle of steam issued from it, as if someone inside were cooking.

Ogden moved forward, quietly and cautiously. He stopped again when he caught a better view of the cottage's front door, on which someone had nailed a dead snake. Harry jumped as the branches above their heads rustled and cracked, and a man dressed in rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing catlike on his feet directly in front of Ogden.

"You're not welcome," said the horrible stranger.

The man standing before them had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any color. Several of his teeth were missing. His eyes were small, dark, and stared in opposite directions. Harry did not blame Ogden for backing away several 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," said Ogden nervously.

Harry could understand the man perfectly. If his words weren't clear enough, then the wand he brandished in one hand, and the short, bloody knife clutched in the other made his intentions perfectly plain.

"I must understand him, Harry?" Dumbledore said quietly, as if his voice would interrupt the interaction between the two men. Of course, being nothing more than a memory, they were not disturbed by Harry or Dumbledore's presence in the slightest.

"Of course, why wouldn't I…" Harry paused. He had just caught sight of the dead snake nailed to the door of the home again. Realization washed over him.

"Parseltongue?" Harry hissed, "He's speaking parseltongue?"

"Very good," said Dumbledore, nodding with a knowing smile, "Now, watch…"

The man in rags had advanced on Ogden, who tried to ward him off, but too late. There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted between his fingers.

"Morfin!" said a loud voice.

An elderly man came hurting out of the cottage, banging the door and its dead snake behind him. This man was shorter than the first, with broad shoulders and overly-long arms. He came to a halt beside the man with the knife, who cackled with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground.

"Ministry, is it?" said the older man, looking down at Ogden with his wrinkled face.

"Correct!" said Ogden angrily, dabbing at his nose. "And you, I take it, are Mr. Gaunt?"

"S'right," said Gaunt. "Got you in the face, did he?"

"Yes, he did!" snapped Ogden.

"Should've made your presence known, shouldn't you?" said Gaunt 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 asked, clambering 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."

Better prepared, Harry recognized the parseltongue this time. Underneath the words he so easily understood, he could distinguish the weird hissing noise that was all Ogden could hear. Morfin seemed to be on the point of disagreement, but when his father gave 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.

"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, mopping the last of the pus from the front of his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Aye, that was Morfin," said the old man indifferently, "Are you pure-blood?"

"That's neither here nor there," said Ogden coldly.

Gaunt squinted into Ogden's face and muttered in a way that was clearly meant to cause offense, "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," Ogden replied intelligently, "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," said Gaunt, "I don't open letters."

"Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of visitors," said Ogden tartly, "I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of the morning…"

"All right, all right, all right!" bellowed Gaunt. "Come in the bleeding house, then. And much good it'll do you!"

The house consisted only of three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main area, which served as both kitchen and living room combined. Morfin sat in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly to it in parseltongue.

A scuffling noise in the corner alerted Harry to the presence of another person. Beside the open window was a girl whose ragged gray dress was the exact shade as the dirty wall behind her. She was standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove. Her hair was lank and dull. Her features were heavy and reminiscent of the two Gaunt men. Her eyes, like Morfin's, stared in opposite directions. Harry had never seen a more defeated looking person.

"M'daughter, Merope," said Gaunt grudgingly, as Ogden looked inquiringly toward the girl.

"Good morning," said Ogden.

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, as if searching for an excuse to appear busy.

"Well, Mr. Gaunt," Ogden began again, "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."

There was a deafening clang. Merope had dropped one of the pots.

"Pick it up!" Gaunt bellowed at her in parseltongue before abruptly switching back to English, "That's it, grub on the floor like some filthy Muggle. What's your wand for, you useless sack of muck?"

"Mr. Gaunt, please!" Ogden gasped.

Merope, who had already picked up the pot, blushed, lost her grip on the pot once more, and let it roll back to the floor. At her father's insistence, she drew her wand shakily from her pocket. She pointed it at the pot, muttered a hasty, inaudible spell, and sent the pot shooting across the floor away from her, where it hit the opposite wall and cracked in two.

Morfin let out a mad cackle of laughter while Gaunt screamed, "Mend it, you pointless lump, mend it!"

Merope stumbled across the room, but before she had time to raise her wand, Ogden had lifted his own and said firmly, "Reparo."

Gaunt looked for a moment as though he was going to shout at Ogden, but he seemed to think better of it. Instead, he jeered at his daughter, "Lucky the nice man from the Ministry's here, isn't it? Perhaps he'll take you off my hands. Perhaps he doesn't mind dirty Squibs…"

Harry had heard this word before. It referred to a child born into a wizarding family who had no magic powers. Coming from Gaunt's mouth, it sounded like a dirty slur, not unlike 'mudblood.' Harry made a mental note to ban Blaise from using it in his presence anymore as Merope returned the mended pot to its shelf, her hands trembling. Ogden returned to the reason for his visit, sounding rather exasperated now, but Gaunt once again cut him off.

"I heard you the first time! And so what? Morfin gave a Muggle a bit of what was coming to him. What about it, then?"

"Morfin has broken Wizarding law," said Ogden sternly.

"Morfin has broken Wizarding law," repeated Gaunt in a crude, sing-song imitation of Ogden's voice. 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. Gaunt angrily demanded to know if it was Morfin's sentence. When Ogden replied that it was a summons to the Ministry for a hearing, it only enraged Gaunt more.

"You think we're scum, do you?" he screamed, advancing on Ogden with a dirty yellow-nailed finger pointed at his chest, "Scum who'll come running when the Ministry tells 'em to? Do you know who you're talking to, you filthy mudblood, do you?"

"I was under the impression that I was speaking to Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, looking wary, but standing his ground.

"That's right!" roared Gaunt. For a moment, Harry thought Gaunt was making an obscene gesture, but then he realized that he was showing Ogden an ugly, black-stoned ring he wore on his middle finger. Harry felt a thrill of recognition. It looked exactly like the one he had seen on Dumbledore's left hand, though in this memory, the stone was still intact, not broken.

"See this? See this? Know what this 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," said Ogden, 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 another howl of rage, Gaunt ran toward his daughter. For an instant, Harry thought he was going to throttle her, as his hand flew to her throat. But the next moment, he was dragging her toward Ogden by a gold chain around her neck.

"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 replied hastily, clearly concerned for the girl.

"Slytherin's!" yelled Gaunt, "Salazar Slytherin's! We're his last living descendants! What do you say to that, eh?"

Harry audibly gasped. He was positive that he recognized the dangling pendant at the end of the chain. It was the same locket that fell from the Sorting Hat in Harry's second year. The one that Regulus Black had stolen from Voldemort. The one that had cursed Sirius when he tried to destroy it.

"Mr. Gaunt, our daughter!" said Ogden in alarm, but Gaunt had already released Merope. She staggered away from them both, back to her corner of the room, massaging her neck as she gulped for air.

"So!" said Gaunt with vicious triumph, as if he had just proved a very complicated point beyond all possible dispute. "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!"

He spat on the floor at Ogden's feet. Morfin cackled again. Harry was starting to hate the sound of his voice. Merope, meanwhile, huddled beside the window, her head bowed and her face hidden by her lank hair.

"Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden 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 at the scroll of parchment still clutched in his hand, "Is that Morfin performed a jinx or hex on the said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives."

Morfin giggled. It was only slightly less annoying than his cackle.

"Be quiet boy," snarled Gaunt in parseltongue. He then turned to Ogden, switching effortlessly back to English, "And so what if he did, then? 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?" persisted Ogden, "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenseless…."

"Aye, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt. He spat on the floor again.

"This discussion is getting us nowhere," said Ogden with a tone of finality. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions." Consulting his parchment once more, he then declared, "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 paused, but it was not because Gaunt had interrupted again. Instead, the jingling, clopping sounds of a horse and rider were heard drifting through the open window. Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry. Merope raised her head, and in that moment Harry saw that her face was starkly white.

"My God, what an eyesore!" rang out a girl's voice as her horse carried her on a path rather close to the cottage. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom?"

"It's not ours," said the voice of a young man. "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 jangling sound of the horses' harnesses were growing louder. Morfin's body tensed as he prepared to get out of his armchair.

"Keep your seat," warned his father in parseltongue.

"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly passing just outside the house, "I might be wrong, but has somebody nailed a snake to that door?"

"Good lord, you're right!" said Tom, "That'll be the son. I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling."

The sounds were beginning to grow fainter. Morfin eyed his sister mockingly and hissed in parseltongue, "Darling, he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway."

"What's that?" said Gaunt sharply, also in parseltongue. He looked angrily between his son and daughter, "What did you say, Morfin?"

"She likes looking at that Muggle," said Morfin. "Always in the garden when he passes, peering through the hedge at him, isn't she? And last night… Hanging out of the window waiting for him to ride home, wasn't she?"

"Hanging out of the window to look at a Muggle?" said Gaunt. The low, quiet hiss was far more frightening than any of his previous yelling and posturing. All three of the Gaunts seemed to have forgotten Ogden entirely, who was looking bewildered and slightly unnerved by this renewed outbreak of incomprehensible rasping.

"Is it true?" asked Gaunt in a deadly voice, advancing 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, unable to speak.

"But I got him, father!" Morfin announced proudly, "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, the last of his self-control snapping as his hands closed around his daughter's neck.

Both Harry and Ogden shouted "No!" at the same time. Then Ogden raised his wand and cried, "Relashio!"

Gaunt was thrown backward, away from his daughter. He tripped over a chair and fell flat on his back. With a roar of outrage, Morfin leapt out of his chair and ran at Ogden, brandishing both his bloody knife and wand with equal ferocity, firing off hexes at random.

Ogden ran for his life. Harry and Dumbledore followed him, while Merope's screams echoed in their ears.

Ogden hurtled up the path and erupted onto the main lane, nearly colliding with a glossy chestnut horse ridden by a very handsome, dark-haired man. Both he and a pretty girl riding beside him on a gray horse burst into laughter at the sight of Ogden in his strange attire, who bounced off the horse's flank and set off again, his coat flying behind him.

"I think that will do, Harry," said Dumbledore. He took Harry by the elbow with his uninjured hand and tugged. The next moment, they were rising effortlessly into the sky, then darkness, until Harry felt his feet landing safely on the carpeted floor of Dumbledore's office once more.

"What happened to her?" Harry asked immediately, "What happened to the girl in the cottage?"

"Ogden apparated back to the Ministry and returned with reinforcements within fifteen minutes," Dumbledore advised, much to Harry's relief. "Morfin and his father attempted to fight, but both were overpowered, removed from the cottage, and subsequently convicted by the Wizengamot. It may not surprise you to learn, Harry, that this was not Morfin's first transgression against a Muggle. He was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo… That is to say, Mr. Gaunt, who had injured several Ministry employees in addition to Ogden, received six months."

"Marvolo?" Harry repeated wonderingly. It was not a name he could easily forget. He had once twisted it into several amusing anagrams. "Then that man… That was Voldemort's…"

"Grandfather," Dumbledore nodded approvingly, "Marvolo Gaunt, his son Morfin, and his daughter Merope. They were the last of an 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. Their own lack of sense, coupled with a great liking for grandeur, meant that the family gold was squandered many years before Marvolo was born. He, as you saw, was left in squalor and poverty, but it did not diminish his arrogance and pride. He cherished the family heirlooms you just saw as much as his son, and rather more than his daughter."

"So then Merope… Merope was Voldemort's mother?"

"Yes, and it so happens that you also had a glimpse of the man who would become Voldemort's father. I wonder whether you noticed?"

"You mean the man on the horse? The Muggle that Morfin attacked?" Harry asked in awe, "But… How? I mean… I can't imagine any two people less likely to fall in love…"

"You are forgetting that Merope was a witch," Dumbledore reminded him, "And while her abilities did not appear to best advantage while she was being terrorized by her father, once Marvolo and Morfin were safely in Azkaban, I am sure she was free to give full reign to her powers and plot her escape from the desperate life she had lived for eighteen years. I suspect she used some magical means of entrapping the handsome Mr. Riddle."

"A love potion?" suggested Harry, thinking of the Amortentia he had seen in Slughorn's class.

Dumbledore nodded, "So I assume. Whatever the case, there was quite a scandal when the squire's son ran off with the tramp's daughter. When Marvolo was released from Azkaban, he found an empty home and a note from Merope, explaining what she had done. The shock of her desertion may have contributed to his early death. Or, and this is more likely, a congenital health defect, paired with a lifetime of bad habits, finally caught up to him. Either way, he did not live to see Morfin return to the cottage upon his release."

"And Merope?" Harry asked, "What happened after that?"

"Ah, here we must do a certain amount of guessing, although I think it is not difficult to deduce what happened. There are records that show the pair were indeed married, but within only a few short months, Tom Riddle returned to his father's manor house without his wife. Rumors in the village talked of Riddle saying he had been 'hoodwinked' and 'taken in.' What he meant, I am sure, is that he had been under an enchantment that was now lifted. Perhaps Merope, besotted by love and pregnant with his child, stopped giving him the potion. She may have believed his magically imposed obsession to have grown into true affection, or that he would stay for his child. Or perhaps she simply ran out of her supply of love potion. In either case, it is certain he abandoned his wife and never inquired into the fate of his son. Merope died in childbirth, surviving only long enough to bestow a name to her boy."

The sky outside the office windows had become inky and black. Harry stood for a moment in silent reflection. Dumbledore had said these memories, this knowledge of the past, would help him in his fight against Voldemort. He thought of what this memory had revealed, and of how it could possibly help him, but only one thing stood out in his mind.

"Sir," he began tentatively, "That necklace… The one Merope was wearing… It was the same locket that Sirius destroyed, wasn't it? The one that cursed him?"

Dumbledore directed a keen glance at Harry and nodded his head, "Yes, they were the same."

"Then the ring…"

Dumbledore opened a drawer on his desk and placed the ring before Harry. A strange coat of arms was set into the black stone, its geometric design bisected by the crack that split the setting in two.

"I have already told you my suspicions regarding Slytherin's locket," said Dumbledore, "After obtaining this memory, I went in search for the Peverell ring. It seemed possible to me that if Voldemort had enchanted one object connected with his family, he would do so to another. My search brought me to Little Hangleton, where I found the remains of the Gaunt family home, hidden amongst many years' worth of weeds and brush. I might have passed the spot without ever finding the cottage, it was so well-hidden. But a number of powerful enchantments told me I had found the right spot, and that a search in that area would not be in vain. After passing through spells, I discovered a small golden box hidden under the floorboards of the shack. This ring was inside.

"And was it like the locket?" Harry asked, "Was it a… a horcrux? Like you thought?"

Dumbledore nodded, "Indeed. I think we can consider that suspicion confirmed. And thanks to Sirius's sacrifice, I was better prepared to destroy the horcrux hidden within the ring, as he had destroyed the locket."

"How?" asked Harry, a note of determination in his voice.

But Dumbledore shook his head, "Ah, Harry… I would not have you repeat the same magic I used… Your life is too precious for you to become cursed as well. No, what I hoped for you to understand is that we now know something very vital about Voldemort. We know for a fact he was creating horcruxes. And I believe there are more."