Chapter Twenty One

Harry hadn't given his friends a chance to say anything more, quickly grabbing his bag and all but running from the Transfiguration classroom; something he was feeling rather guilty for now.

He was very grateful for the walk to Dumbledore's office, it was a chance for him to calm down, focusing on the steady plodding of his footsteps.

There was a small envelope sitting on the gargoyle, tucked neatly between the wings. Harry took it and saw his name written clearly on the front.

Harry tore it open and saw that evenings password, 'peardrops'. He waited for the gargoyle to move out of the way and stepped, slightly unwillingly, onto the moving stairs.

Dumbledore was waiting for him at his desk, exactly as he had been last time, although he seemed to be locking something away in his desk with his good hand. The pensive, already sitting on Dumbledore's desk.

Harry made his way over to the centre of the room and sat down opposite the headmaster.

"I heard about the… disruption, at Hogsmead." Dumbledore said after a few minutes, "Miss Lestrange was most annoyed. Would you care to tell me your version of events?"

"I saw her in Hogsmead." Harry insisted, "She ran off."

"How do you suppose she managed to escape the castle? I'm sure you've noticed that Filch, and other Ministry officials are checking each and every person who comes in or out of the school grounds." Dumbledore mused.

Harry didn't know, he knew he saw her though and was getting annoyed with people asking him how she could possibly have escaped.

"She's… maybe she used a forgetting charm on them or something. I don't know!" Harry said, letting out a loud sigh.

Dumbledore gave him a gentle smile, "I understand that you are worried Harry, I would like to think that I would have charged after her as well, should I have been the one who saw her, especially in my younger days. However I would caution you to think twice before doing so again. Your safety must come first after all."

Harry nodded, "Yeah, everyone seems to have said that. My friends weren't best pleased with me."

"Well, I'm sure they will get through to you more than an old man like I ever could, so I see no reason to keep beating the issue." Dumbledore smiled warmly, "You will remember, I hope, that we left off at Voldemort's beginnings. Where his young mother had taken a strong fancy to the handsome young man who rode by her window."

Harry nodded, he was unlikely to ever forget poor Merope's cries as she was attacked by her father and brother.

"And they married, and Merope quickly became pregnant. Why she stopped giving Tom Riddle the love potion we will never know, but she did and he left her and his unborn child without a second thought." Dumbledore said calmly, not the smallest hint of emotion in his voice, "Merope was left alone in London, pregnant with the child that would one day grow to become Lord Voldemort."

"How do you know she was in London?" Harry asked, it seemed a strange detail to be so sure on.

"Because of the evidence of one Caractus Burke." Dumbledore said, with a small smile, "You recognise the name?"

"Well I know a Burke was on of the founding members of Borgin and Burke's and there was also one who was hung for murder and grave robbing in Edinburgh, I can't remember his first name." Harry said, "Which one are you referring to?"

Dumbledore let out a small chuckle, "In this case, we are talking about the founder of the shop." he poured a memory into the pensive at let it swirl for a moment before gesturing to Harry to go first.

Harry lowered his head into the bowl and felt his feet leave the ground. They were in a dingy and ugly little pub, Harry could see two men at a round table, with at least an inch of grease and dirt on the top. One man was scribbling in a notepad, encouraging the other to drink up.

He was scruffy looking, a thatch of hair totally covering his eyes. A shabby coat that was badly frayed at the cuffs and hem completed the look of someone you would wish to avoid.

"Yes, we acquired it in curious circumstances. It was brought in by a young witch just before Christmas, oh, many years ago now. She said she needed the gold badly, well, that much was obvious. Covered in rags and pretty far along… going to have a baby, see. She said the locket had been Slytherin's. Well, we hear that sort of story all the time, 'Oh, this was Merlin's, this was, his favourite teapot,' but when I looked at it, it had his mark all right, and a few simple spells were enough to tell me the truth. Of course, that made it near enough priceless. She didn't seem to have any idea how much it was worth. Happy to get ten Galleons for it. Best bargain we ever made!"

The man laughed and Harry turned away in disgust, leaving the pensive. Dumbledore waited for Harry to speak, tapping his forefingers together.

"He only gave her ten Galleons?" Harry spat after a few moments.

"Burke was not known for his giving nature." Dumbledore said.

"She was desperate." Harry shook his head.

"Which I think is the only reason she would part with her family heirloom." Dumbledore mused, "It does however show us that, towards the end of her pregnancy she was in London, and in need of some help. Enough to force her to sell her one and only possession of any value, the locket that was one of Marvolo's treasured family heirlooms."

"But she could do magic, not a lot maybe but some. She could of gotten food and somewhere to stay surely?" Harry asked.

Dumbledore nodded, stroking his long beard, "Perhaps she could. But it is my belief, I am guessing once again here, that when her husband abandoned her, Merope stopped using magic. I do not think that she wanted to be a witch any longer. Of course, it is also possible that her unrequited love and the attendant despair sapped her of her powers. In any case, as you are about to see, Merope refused to raise her wand even to save her own life."

"But if she couldn't use her magic, which even you say could happen, I mean people have lost their powers in times of great distress…" Harry began.

"You are correct Harry." Dumbledore said slowly, wondering where Harry could be going with the observation.

"So… what I'm trying to say is, it might not have been a choice." Harry shrugged, "She might not of been able to help herself."

Dumbledore thought for a moment, "You are correct. Does it matter, however? The result was still the same, Merope was dead and Voldemort, an orphan."

"Of course it matters!" Harry said quickly, "Of course it does."

Harry stared at Dumbledore for a moment, seemingly neither of them wishing to be the one to break eye contact until Dumbledore smiled, if a slightly cold smile, and pulled out a glass vial.

"This time, we will be going into my memory." Dumbledore explained, neatly changing the subject, "I trust that you will find it both rich in detail and satisfyingly accurate. After you Harry…"

Harry fought the urge to roll his eyes at the headmaster's confidence and lowered his face into the pensive.

He fell through the darkness landing neatly outside a large, old fashioned building with a lot of people going passed. Harry guessed they were in London by the shouts around them.

He had spotted Dumbledore even before Dumbledore had the chance to point out his younger self. He was much younger, his long hair and beard were auburn rather than their current grey and rather than robes he wore an expensively cut plum velvet suit that left him looking rather out of place from his shabby surroundings.

They followed the young Dumbledore to a set of iron gates, which he walked confidently through and into a bare, depressing, court yard. There were a few, bedraggled looking children, at least a few years younger than Danica, digging in the hard earth. They didn't even look up as the man walked passed them.

Dumbledore skipped up the steps and knocked on the door. It was opened by a scruffy girl wearing a patched brown dress and a grey apron that had clearly once been white, many washes ago.

"Good afternoon." Dumbledore said with a smile, "I have an appointment with a Mrs Cole, who, I believe, is the matron here?"

"Oh…" said the confused looking girl, "Um… just a mo'… MRS COLE!" she yelled, her voice echoing behind her.

There was a shout in response, although Harry couldn't hear what was said.

"Come in, she's on 'er way." the girl said, allowing the young Dumbledore passed before running off down the corridor.

The hallway was dull, tiled in black and white and although it was shabby, it was spotlessly clean which Harry was surprised about.

A skinny, tired looking woman came hurrying over to them. Her face was not unkind, exactly, but filled with sharp angles and anxiety that would have put Harry off asking her for anything. She was talking to another young helper over her shoulder as she made her way to Dumbledore.

"… and take the iodine upstairs to Martha, Billy Stubbs has been picking hid scabs and Eric Whalley's oozing all over his sheets… chicken pox, on top of everything else." she muttered.

The lady spotted Dumbledore and she stopped suddenly, looking him up and down in confusion.

"Good Afternoon." Dumbledore said pleasantly, holding out his hand as Mrs Cole gasped at him, "My name is Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter requesting an appointment and you very kindly invited me here today."

Mrs Cole blinked, snapping out of her confusion at seeing Dumbledore, "Oh, yes. Well… well, then, you'd better come into my room. Yes…"

Dumbledore followed her into a small room as shabby as the hallway but once again perfectly clean and filled with mismatched furniture.

Dumbledore sat on a rickety chair and waited patiently, for Mrs Cole to seat herself on the other side of the cluttered desk.

"I am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future." Dumbledore explained.

"Are you family?" Mrs Cole asked quickly.

"No, I am a teacher." Dumbledore said with a smile, "I have come to offer Tom a place at my school."

"What school is this, then?" she demanded.

Harry thought that she clearly cared for the safety of her young charges, most people running such homes in those days were perfectly happy to get rid of children wherever they could.

"It is called Hogwarts." Dumbledore said, maintaining his calm tone.

"And how come you're interested in Tom?" she pressed.

"We believe he has qualities we are looking for." Dumbledore said, trying to explain without actually having to give her any information.

"You mean he's won a scholarship? How can he have done? He's never been entered for one." Mrs Cole said firmly.

"Well, his name has been down for our school since birth…" Dumbledore said.

"Who registered him? His parents?" Mrs Cole asked, looking at Dumbledore through narrowed eyes.

There was little doubt that Mrs Cole wasn't stupid, in fact Harry found himself with a certain admiration for her.

Apparently young Dumbledore had also realised that out smarting her wasn't going to be as easy as he had perhaps first hoped. Harry watched as he slipped his wand out and handed over a blank paper from Mrs Cole's desktop.

"I think this will make everything clear." Dumbledore said with a smile as Mrs Cole took the paper.

Her eyes slid in and out of focus for a second before she nodded, "That seems perfectly in order." she said calmly, all her distrust had gone.

Dumbledore smiled and returned the paper to her desk. Mrs Cole's eyes fell on a bottle of gin and two glasses that has certainly not been there a moment ago.

"Eh… may I offer you a glass of gin?" she asked.

"Thank you very much." Dumbledore beamed.

Mrs Cole poured them both a large glass and gulped her's down in one. Harry suspected that that was something else very common for the time.

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

Mrs Cole helped herself to more gin and nodded, "That's right. 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. 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."

Harry felt his heart break, break for people he never thought possible. He didn't believe that it was Merope's choice to leave her son. He'd seen how hard it had been for Nikka to keep it together loosing Sirius and he both didn't choose to leave her and had a chance of coming back.

Harry was sure that after Tom Riddle senior had left her and her unborn baby, HIS unborn baby, she was just too heart broken to save herself, in fact the pain and distress of leaving her baby probably only made things worse.

She shouldn't of died. There was no reason for it. Voldemort should never of been raised alone, feeling as unloved as the world now saw him. Harry couldn't help but think that if this hadn't happened, would Tom have ever turned into Voldemort?

"Did she say anything before she died?" Young Dumbledore asked, snapping Harry back to the memory, "Anything about the boy's father, for instance?"

"Now, as it happens, she did." Said Mrs Cole, who was far more relaxed than she should have been for the small number of drinks she had had, "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… and she said the boy's surname was to be Riddle. And she died soon after that without another word. Well, we named him just as she'd said, it seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor Marvolo nor any kind of Riddle ever came looking for him, nor any family at all, so he stayed in the orphanage and he's been here ever since."

Dumbledore nodded, listening closely to what she was saying.

"He's a funny boy." Mrs Cole said absently.

Dumbledore allowed himself a small smile, "Yes, I thought he might be."

"He was a funny baby, too. He hardly ever cried, you know. And then, when he got a little older, he was… odd." Mrs Cole said slowly.

"Odd, in what way?" asked Dumbledore gently.

Even through the haze of the magical gin Mrs Cole seemed reluctant to say anything more, "Well, he… he's definitely got a place at your school, you say?"

"Definitely." Dumbledore assured her.

"And nothing I say can change that?" Mrs Cole asked, narrowing her eyes at Dumbledore.

"Nothing." Dumbledore once again assured her.

"You'll be taking him away, whatever?"

Dumbledore nodded.

"He scares the other children." she said quietly.

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

Mrs Cole shrugged, "I think he must be, but it's very hard to catch him at it. There have been incidents… nasty things…"

Although the young Dumbledore was clearly interested he didn't push her, just nodding along with what she said and looking concerned.

She took another gulp of gin, "Billy Stubbs's rabbit… well, Tom said he didn't do it and I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't hang itself from the rafters, did it?"

Dumbledore looked genuinely concerned for a moment, "I shouldn't think so, no."

"But I'm jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it. All I know is he and Billy had argued the day before… And then on the summer outing, we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to the seaside, well Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, and all we ever got out of them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle. He swore they'd just gone exploring, but something happened in there, I'm sure of it. And, well, there have been lots of things, funny things…"

Mrs Cole looked at him closely, while her cheeks where now very red but her gaze still met Dumbledore's steadily.

"I don't think many people will be sorry to see the back of him." she whispered.

"You understand, I'm sure, that we will not be keeping him permanently?" Dumbledore said calmly, "He will have to return here, at the very least, every summer."

"Oh, well, that's better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker." Mrs Cole hiccuped.

She got to her feet, leaning heavily on the desk but still impressively steady, considering over two thirds of the gin was now gone.

"I suppose you'd like to see him?" Mrs Cole asked.

Dumbledore stood up as well, "Very much."

Harry took several deep breaths, his heart hammering in his chest as he followed them to Tom Riddle's room.