Disclaimer: This chapter contains excerpts from the book "Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince" by J.K. Rowling, translated from the translation by Gemma Rovira.

. . . . . . . . .

The Gaunts

At that moment, a second Albus Dumbledore appeared coming down the stairs that led to the next floor of the office.

"Look, there you are," Sev said laughing.

"Yeah. I am used to it, it has happened to me many times. This morning I came across myself here, when I finished with your friends to go to training as soon as possible."

"Well, thank you, Albus, for caring like that."

"I didn't do it just to provide you with protection. I have also enjoyed a lot watching you train. You've done well, Prince, you've won over the whole school. It seems to me that this thing about the enemy Houses is going to end."

"Hopefully."

The second Albus Dumbledore swarmed around the office for the next five minutes, going in and out of various doors. (He is finishing preparing everything for the day ahead.)

"How easy, eight forty-five," Sev continued. "We have aired a list in twenty minutes, wonderful. What time did we leave the Great Hall?"

"About half past nine."

"Okay, I say it to see the training for a while, we still have almost an hour left. Let's start with the thorny, so if we get tense we can relax for a while. These are very serious issues, Albus, I let you know." He read, "Information. I can cross out the first question, the five camouflaged malefics, Remus has already told you, work that he has taken away from us." (It's time to talk about the map.) "Thanks for the initiative to create a map for you too, I will feel much more secure with respect to Lily when you have it. By the way, one question, will the Room of Requirement appear in it?"

"It won't," Dumbledore replied.

"And the bedrooms?"

"Only those of the malefics, I don't like to interfere in people's privacy."

(Well, he has answered with absolute certainty, I can believe him. Ours won't show up, but maybe Lauren's will.)

"By the way, I'm warning you that there's a girl from your year left in Sly, Miss Parkinson," Albus continued.

(Ugh… Lauren.) "Yeah."

"But I don't think that she constitutes a danger, she is alone against the whole House."

(Of course.) "Then you won't watch her," Sev said.

"Only if you consider it necessary. She is your classmate, you know her better than I do and you have her closer at hand to read. Do you do it to the eyes?"

(Good…) "Yes, and also without looking and at a certain distance."

"How deep?" the Headmaster asked.

"Everything that is not occluded."

"And you started in December. What a job, Prince."

(What a job of hers precisely.) "I'll take care of her, Albus, I see her every day in class," Sev answered. "I have already read her other times and she is harmless. I think that she has stayed simply because she wants to finish her studies."

"It is fine. It seems highly unethical to meddle in the girls' bedroom. But at the slightest sign of danger let me know, if she plans to do something to you they will be immediate thoughts. When we move on to the teachings for your protection I will explain how."

(Oof…) "She is not going to dare to do anything, I am going to be accompanied continuously. All the good fifth-years have trained thoroughly, she can't beat four. Don't worry about her anymore, Albus. Let's leave her alone, she has enough already."

"Yes you're right. Also, her parents are just sympathizers, none of them are marked."

"Yes, I knew it. I have read her."

"I met them at school. They were from the same year and from their fifth year on they became a couple and walked apart from the rest of the pure-bloods," the Headmaster explained. "It surprised me when I found out that they had joined Voldemort's cause."

"Maybe they did it not to turn against their families, and you said it yourself, they're just sympathizers, they don't want to get into trouble and even less their own daughter. So don't worry about her anymore, I'll take care of keeping her at bay."

"Okay, Prince, less work for me."

(Okay, if he doesn't control her movements, we have three safe places to meet at night. Our bedroom, the Room of Requirement, and another Fidelius I plan to conjure, which also doesn't appear on the map.)

"When will you have the map ready?" Sev asked.

"I estimate that in a week, and another to make one for you, maybe less."

(Wow… one for me…)

"In addition, I will make the names of the five camouflaged and yours stand out in color, so that they are easier to locate," Dumbledore explained.

(Okay… not Lauren's.) "Great. I have never seen that map."

"It is a real wonder, a huge job."

"I can imagine. Thanks to Remus again, he's exceptional," Sev appraised. "Well, now let's get serious, here I go with the grave. Change of topic completely, this is no longer about our immediate safety, but that of the entire Wizarding World and probably the Muggle world as well. You were already a professor at Hogwarts in my mother's time, the '40s," Sev stared at the Headmaster. "Did you meet a student named Tom Riddle?"

(He is speechless, it is Voldemort.) "You can trust me, Albus, I know many things that you may not."

Albus swallowed hard. "Of course I met him."

"He is who I think, isn't he?" (He doesn't speak. He's trying to read me but he can't.) "Okay, I'll say it myself. It's Voldemort."

The Headmaster lowered his eyes.

"Albus, you must trust me. We must share the information we each have and collaborate in his destruction, which is going to be very, very difficult."

"Yeah. Tom Riddle is Voldemort," Dumbledore said without looking at him again.

"I wouldn't have needed you to confirm it, but thank you. All right, I will continue. Did you know that at that time he was a brilliant student who belonged to the Slug Club?"

"I did." He continued without looking at him.

"Know that you are simply confirming things that I already know, my mother coincided with him at school," Sev explained. "Have you ever thought to read Slughorn in relation to Tom Riddle?"

"I haven't, I don't usually read my colleagues."

"Well, a moment ago you tried to do it with me and you should consider me a colleague. I am going to reveal essential information to you and I will give it to you orally, I occlude perfectly, not like Slughorn. And we better not waste more time with games. From peer to peer."

"Okay, Prince." The old man looked at him again.

"Very well, I will tell you the process. Last summer I discovered in a second-hand bookstore in Diagon a book on the Druid lunar calendar, which includes rituals to perform in relation to the sacred trees. I consulted with my mother, who told me that there was a book on the subject in the R.S. when she was studying. I performed a ritual on the autumnal equinox and what I demanded in it was fulfilled."

(Very interested. On the autumn equinox is due the olive tree, which does not grow in the Forest, he does not know that it does not matter what day of the year you do it, as Lily has told me, that magic is always present. But we will talk later about that at another time, now I'm going to where I'm going to.)

"Urged to defend Lily from the Sly malefics, in December I began to learn Legilimency by myself and with her help, stealing a book from the R.S." Sev continued. "You already knew that, you just told me."

"I did."

"I practiced a lot since then and I continued performing rituals, on the winter solstice and on my birthday, in January. Everything I demanded was being fulfilled. When the students came back from holidays, I threw myself into Legilimency, also with Lily's help. I soon got deep enough to search and locate deep memories, and so interested in Druid Magic, I decided to try reading Slughorn, who was my mother's teacher at the time, to locate where the retired R.S. books were. Do you follow me?"

"I do."

"Very good, because the bomb is going to fall," Sev warned. "Slughorn doesn't know where they are, but related to that, I found out that he had hidden a book at his peril. The memory was blurred, as if he was trying to forget it himself. It was a Dark Magic book. The title didn't appear, but it did show that he had hidden it in the Room of Requirement in its storage aspect. You know what the Room of Requirement looks like in its storage aspect, don't you?"

"Of course I know."

(Because you've been there recently, as soon as you realized we weren't training in the Forest anymore and had found it out, to see if we'd gotten hold of the retired R.S. books. We've got you, Albus, you'd better to collaborate.)

"Fortunately, it did appear the appearance of the closet where he hid it. I linked with the motivation that had led him to do it and an also fragmented memory appeared in which Tom Riddle asked him, after a meeting of his damn Club, how to become immortal, and Slughorn, the big mouth, answered him, but not what exactly. Do you follow me?"

"Of course."

(Expectant, I have him in my pocket.) Sev thought. "You're already connecting the dots, aren't you?"

"I am."

"Then do continue."

"The Dark Magic book he hid was related to what he had answered to Riddle," said Dumbledore.

"Indeed."

"And you searched for the closet for months in the Room of Requirement."

"Well, weeks, it was enough for me to go through it, I had the mental image of it. And do you know what I found?" asked Sev.

"I don't. Back then I didn't study Dark Magic books."

"Well, you have to know the enemy, Albus, at that time you defeated Grindelwald. The book contains spells of all kinds, creating monsters, causing natural disasters, murdering in nefarious ways. Luckily apparently he didn't touch it, it's incredible that something like this was in the R.S. in the '40s, a dark time. But that is not what interests us, but how Voldemort has become immortal. Do you know what a Horcrux is?"

"I do," Dumbledore replied. "There was a wizard who split his soul in two long, long ago and stored half of it in his basilisk. As long as the basilisk was not destroyed he would live."

"Yes that's how it is. Herpo the Foul also appears in the book. And how to perform that spell, which can also be done on objects. Do you know what else Riddle asked Slughorn?"

(Fearful. Albus knows a lot about Riddle,) Sev thought.

"I don't. Tell me."

"How many times can it be done. And it can be done as many times as you want. The soul continues to divide, in geometric progression. In the first Horcrux, half, in the second, the fourth part, and so on."

The old man hung his head, defeated. (He knows there are a few. Rays… what are we going to do? I'm going to wait for him to recover.)

A minute later Albus looked back at him, deep anguish in his eyes. "Is there anyone else who knows besides you?"

(Yes. Lauren, just the one you mistrusted a while ago, and who is your best ally, although you won't find out about her for more than two years.) "There isn't, Albus, no one else."

"No one should know, they could be demoralized."

"Of course, Albus, I've already figured that out for myself."

"Tell me, can they be destroyed?"

"Yes, it's possible."

The old man sighed, partly relieved. "What a weight in the soul you must have been carrying."

"Of course, I've spent the whole training thinking about it. I take this opportunity to ask you to get Slughorn out of his head about coming over to the house today, he's going to make my night bitter if he does. We don't know how many lives will be lost because of him."

"Of course I will, as soon as we're done. I'll come up with some good excuse and I'll take the opportunity to read him further, to see if he revealed anything else."

"Very well, Albus, that is collaboration." (And now that he tells me, he is in the right mood, he can only entrust it to me.) "I know that if you were a teacher at that time, you should have been watching Riddle, because according to my mother, he was a very bad person, very popular with the teachers, but with friends of whom he was the leader, some bullies, and there were many rumors. about him. Did you track him down when he left Hogwarts? It's about knowing how many of those damn Horcruxes he's created. He has had thirty years to do it, and who knows where they are. It's your turn, Albus."

Dumbledore sighed deeply. "How right you were to suspect that we were going to need much more than five hours to talk. Of course I tracked him down, and not since he left Hogwarts, but since he entered it, in the year '38. I was already a Transfiguration teacher at that time and it was me who was in charge of going to communicate his admission to the school in the orphanage where he lived."

"Yes, I also knew that he was an orphan. It was rumored in my mother's time."

"I'm going to tell you everything I've found out so far about his life from the beginning, in chronological order, starting with how he was fathered. It's going to take us a long time."

(He already knows that he is Salazar's heir,) Sev thought."As long as it takes, Albus. We'll use the Time Turner during school hours and in peace."

"But you are one month away from the OWLs and you are also going to take charge of the training sessions."

"I take all the subjects well except Transfiguration. I will resist. Now at least I have been relieved of watching the malefic Slys."

"What a weight you are carrying on your shoulders boy, without yet having reached the age of majority," Albus commented.

"Well, I don't have much left. But yes, I have suddenly become an adult in less than six months."

"I can see that. I have some of the information stored in the form of memories that can be displayed in the Pensieve, so you can see them first hand," he said getting up and going to a closet.

The Headmaster took out the Pensieve and placed it on the desk between them. Then he went to a cabinet in which there were numerous glass vials and picked up one of them. "The first memory I am going to show you is of a certain Bob Ogden, who worked for the Department of Magical Security of the Ministry. He passed away recently and just before he did I got him to entrust me with this memory," he said as he took the cork out of the little flask and poured its contents into the Pensieve. "I will accompany you so that I can translate what some of the people who appear say, because they speak in Parseltongue, a language that I understand but cannot speak."

('He is indeed Salazar's heir, and Albus found out recently. When we finish with this memory, I'll tell him about the basilisk. And if he can't speak it, let's see how we can open the lair. Ugh…)

"You first," Albus said, pointing to the vessel.

Sev rose to his feet and leaned over the bowl, burying his face in the silvery substance. He felt his feet leave the floor and began to fall down a dark whirlwind, until he landed on his feet in the blazing sun. Dumbledore was already landing next to him.

(We are on a path lined with hedges. Ahead of us is a short, fat wizard, strangely dressed in a frock coat and leggings and very thick glasses, who is reading a signpost to the left of the path. Immediately he starts walking at a brisk pace down it.)

They followed him, and as they passed the post Albus said, "Look which direction he has taken."

Sev did. (The path taken by Ogden indicates 'Little Hangleton, 1 mile.') They followed Ogden down the path. (It runs down the side of a hill to enter a wide valley, into which a village can be seen. On the other side of the valley is a beautiful manor house surrounded by lawns.)

Albus pointed it out. "The Riddle mansion."

Because of the steep incline, Ogden was almost at a trot and they had to lengthen their stride to keep up. After a curve to the right, they saw Ogden disappear through a gap in the hedge that bordered the drive. They followed him down a winding path that continued downhill until it came out in a dark grove.

(Ogden has stopped and drawn his wand, before a building partially hidden by trees, its walls covered in moss and numerous tiles missing, the rafters visible beneath them. The Gaunts' dwelling, impoverished.

(A window opens, through which a thread of steam or smoke escapes. Ogden cautiously advances, stopping looking at the door of the house, where a dead snake is nailed. How awful. These ones are very sick in the head.)

Then there was a click. (A man in rags has jumped from the nearest tree and landed on his feet in front of Ogden, who jumps back and trips as he steps on the tail of his coat. The man hisses. Parseltongue.)

"Your presence is not welcome to us," Albus told him.

(The man's thick head of hair is very dirty, with several missing teeth, and he looks terrifying. Ogden steps back.)

"Good morning. The Ministry of Magic sent me."

(The guy hisses again.)

"Your presence is not welcome," Dumbledore repeated.

"Hey… I'm sorry, but I don't understand you," Ogden answered nervously.

(The ragtag brandishes a wand in one hand and a bloodstained knife in the other. He starts walking toward Ogden.)

"Look…" he began to speak, but a blow was heard and he fell to the ground covering his nose with his hands, a sticky and yellowish substance dripping between his fingers.

"Morfin!" a voice yelled from inside the house.

(An old man rushes out of it and slams the door, causing the snake to sway. He is shorter than the other and very disproportionate, broad shoulders and very long arms and a wrinkled face. He stands in front of the another, who laughs out loud.)

"From the Ministry, huh?" he said, frowning.

"Correct!" Ogden replied angrily as he wiped his face. "And you're Mr. Gaunt, aren't you?"

(Wow…Lauren is a wonder.)

"The same. He has hit you in the face, hasn't he?"

"Well yes!" Ogden complained.

"You should have warned us of your presence, don't you think?" Gaunt replied. "This is private property. You can't just walk in here and expect my son not to fight back."

"That he defend himself against what, if you don't care?" Ogden asked as he got up.

"Of busybodies. Of intruders. Of Muggles and undesirables."

Ogden interrupted the flow of pus that was still coming out of his nose with a spell by pointing his wand at it.

(Gaunt hisses at his son.)

"Come home. Don't argue," Albus told him.

(Morfin was going to reply, but his father threatens him with a look, he staggers to the door and slams it again.)

"I've come to see his son, Mr. Gaunt," Ogden explained as he wiped the remains of pus from his coat. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Yes, it's Morfin," corroborated the old man, indifferent. "Are you a pureblood?" defiantly.

"That's beside the point," Ogden replied coolly.

(Gaunt scrutinizes the other and retorts offensively.)

"Now that I think about it. I've seen noses like yours in town."

"I do not doubt it. Especially if his son has had something to do with it. How about we continue this discussion inside?"

"Inside?"

"Yes, Mr. Gaunt. I already told you. I'm here to talk about Morfin. We sent an owl…"

"I'm not interested in owls. I don't open letters."

"Then do not complain that his visitors do not warn you of their arrival," harshly. "I have come because of a serious violation of magical law committed here early in the morning…"

"It's alright, it's alright!" Gaunt yelled. "Get in the bloody house! For what it will serve you…!"

They followed both into the house. (It consists of a main room, which serves as kitchen and living room, and in the back wall there are two other doors. Morfin is sitting in a filthy armchair next to the smoking fireplace, playing with a live snake, which he makes move between his fingers as he hums to it hissingly.)

"Whistle, whistle, you little reptile, crawl on the ground and be nice to Morfin or I'll nail you to the eaves," Albus translated.

(Ugh… he's crazy. I have to make a huge effort not to laugh.)

Something moved in a corner, by one of the windows, and Sev turned to it. (There is a girl in a tattered dress, standing by a filthy kitchen, on which sits a steaming pot, fiddling with the items on a shelf.

(Gaunt's daughter, Voldemort's mother. She has straight, dull hair, a pale, ugly face with coarse features and cross-eyed like her brother. She looks neater than the men, but very miserable.)

"My daughter Merope," Gaunt muttered to Ogden, who was watching her.

"Good morning," he greeted her.

(She doesn't answer, she just looks embarrassed at her father. They have her intimidated, poor girl. She turns her back again and continues with what she was doing.)

"Well, Mr. Gaunt," said Ogden, "I'll get straight to the point. We have reason to believe that his son Morfin performed magic in front of a Muggle last morning."

There was a loud bang. Sev turned to it. (Merope dropped a pot. Gaunt shouts hissing.)

"Pick her up," Dumbledore said.

"That's right, Scrabble at the ground like a disgusting Muggle. What do you have the wand for, you useless dung sack?" Gaunt continued in English.

"Please, Mr. Gaunt!" Ogden replied, shocked.

(Merope has picked up the pot, her face covered in red specks, and she drops it again. She scrambles for her wand, trembling. She takes aim at the pot and mumbles an inaudible spell, causing it to roll across the floor, it hits the wall and breaks. Ugh... what was missing. Now you'll see…)

Morfin laughed wildly and Gaunt yelled, "Fix it, you piece of dunce, fix it!"

(Merope rushes over, almost stumbling, but before she can aim her wand Ogden raises his and yells.)

"Reparo!"

(The pot is instantly fixed. Gaunt looks like he's going to scold him, but he's just making fun of his daughter.)

"You're lucky this nice gentleman from the Ministry is here, don't you think? Maybe he'll have nothing against filthy squibs like you and I'll get rid of you."

(Looking at no one and visibly agitated, Merope picks up the pot and places it back on the shelf. She then sticks to the wall between the window and the kitchen, as if wanting to disappear. How awful. No wonder she escaped from this hell.)

"Mr. Gaunt," continued Ogden. "As I told you, the reason for my visit…"

"I heard you! So what?" Gaunt cut him off. "Morfin gave a Muggle what he deserved. What's up, huh?"

"Morfin has violated wizarding law," severely.

"Morfin has violated wizarding law," Gaunt replied sardonically.

(His son laughs out loud again.)

"He taught a dirty Muggle a lesson. Is that illegal?"

"Yeah. I'm afraid so," he took out a small scroll of parchment and spread it out.

"What's that? His judgment?" Gaunt yelled excitedly.

"It is a summons from the Ministry for a hearing…"

"A summons? A summons! And who do you think you are to summon my son anywhere?"

"I am the head of the Special Magical Operations Group."

"And you considers us scum, right?" he snapped, advancing towards him, pointing his finger at him threateningly. "A scumbag that will come running when the Ministry orders it, isn't it? Do you know who you're talking to, you dirty mudblood?"

(With Salazar's heirs.)

"I understood that with Mr. Gaunt," Ogden replied, undaunted.

"Exact!" he roared making an apparently obscene gesture with his hand.

(But he is showing him an ugly, bulky ring on his middle finger, waving it right before his eyes.)

"Come closer and look at it," Albus told him.

Sev did as Gaunt continued to yell. (It carries a large stone engraved with a geometric pattern. A circle inscribed in a triangle, and in the center a vertical line.)

"Do you see this? See it? Do you know what it is? Do you know where it comes from? It has been in our family for centuries, because our lineage goes back to time immemorial and we have always been of pure blood! Do you know how much they offered me for this jewel, with the Peverell coat of arms engraved on this black stone?"

(The Peverells! It's the Resurrection Stone! Booaaah…) Sev backed away.

"Well, no, I don't know," Ogden admitted, as the ring passed an inch from his nose, "But I think that's out of the question now, Mr. Gaunt. His son has committed…"

(Gaunt gives a yell of rage, and turning, he lunges at his daughter, throwing his hand at the girl's neck. How crazy he is, he's going to kill her. No, what he does is grab her by the gold chain she was wearin around her neck.)

"Do you see this?" he bellowed, waving a thick locket, while Merope tried to breathe.

"Yes, I see it!" Ogden hastened to say.

"Look closely at the locket," Dumbledore told him.

(Octagonal and gold. It bears an ornate S.)

"It's from Slytherin!" Gaunt yelled. "It's from Salazar Slytherin! We are the last living descendants of him. What do you tell me now, huh?"

(Wow…Lauren is a wonder, what she would give to be watching this.)

"His daughter is choking!" Ogden yelled, alarmed.

(Gaunt has already released Merope, who staggers back to her corner, rubbing her neck and catching her breath. Booff…)

"Very good!" Gaunt replied with satisfaction. "Don't talk to us like we were mud from your shoes again! We come from generations and generations of purebloods, all wizards! More than you can say, I'm sure!"

(He spits on the floor, by Ogden's feet. Morfin laughs again, Merope remains silent, huddled by the window with her face hidden by her hair.)

"Mr. Gaunt," continued Ogden, "I'm afraid neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter at hand. I'm here because of Morfin, him and the Muggle he attacked this morning. According to our information," he said reading the parchment, "his son performed a spell or curse against the aforementioned Muggle causing a very painful hives."

(Morfin chuckles, Gaunt growls hissing.)

"Shut up, boy," Albus said.

"And what if he did it?" he replied to Ogden, defiantly. "I suppose that they will have already cleaned that Muggle's filthy face, and incidentally, his memory."

"That's not what it's about, Mr. Gaunt. It was an assault without provocation against a defenseless person…."

"Do you know? As soon as I saw you, I knew you were a Muggle supporter," Gaunt sneered, and spat again.

"This discussion will get us nowhere," Ogden replied firmly. "It is evident that your son is not sorry for his actions, judging by the attitude he maintains." He consulted the parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on September 14th to answer for the accusation of using magic in front of a Muggle and causing physical and psychological damage to that same Mu…"

(There is a jingle of rattles and hoofbeats, and also laughter and voices, from the road leading to the village. Gaunt listens, wide-eyed. Morfin whistles and turns his head to the open window, and Merope raises it, she's white as wax.)

"Oh, what a monstrosity!" a woman's singing voice was heard. "How is it that your father has not had this shack demolished, Tom?"

"Tom Riddle senior," Albus said.

"It's not ours," a male voice was heard to answer. "Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but this house belongs to an old tramp named Gaunt and his children. The son is crazy; you should hear the stories they tell about him in the village…"

(The woman's laughter is heard, the tapping comes closer. Morfin starts to rise from his chair, Gaunt hisses.)

"Stay seated," said Dumbledore.

"Tom," the woman was heard, already in front of the house. "Maybe I'm wrong, but I think someone has nailed a snake to the door."

"Wow, you're right!" the man exclaimed. "It must have been the son, I already tell you that he is not right in the head. Don't look at her, Cecile, dear."

(Oh…Cecile, like Cecile. The sounds fade away. Morfin whispers in Parseltongue, looking at his sister.)

Albus translated, "Dear. He has called her 'dear'. You see, he wouldn't have loved you anyway."

(Merope is so pale she looks as if she might faint. She is in love with Riddle. Gaunt hisses harshly, looking from his son to his daughter.)

"How?" Dumbledore said. "What did you just say, Morfin?"

(Morfin also answers in Parseltongue, glaring wickedly at his sister, terrified.)

"She likes to watch that Muggle," Dumbledore translated for him. "She always goes out into the garden when he passes by and spies on him from behind the hedge, doesn't she? And last night…"

(Merope shakes her head pleadingly, but Morfin continues.)

"Last night she leaned out of the window to see him when he returned to his house, right?" Albus continued.

"That you leaned out of the window to see a Muggle?" Gaunt asked without raising his voice.

(Ogden is bewildered and irritated, for he is not learning anything. Gaunt hisses viciously, moving closer to the terrified girl.)

Dumbledore translated, "That's right? My daughter, a pureblood descended from Salazar Slytherin, flirting with a foul-veined Muggle?"

(Merope vehemently shakes her head and presses closer against the wall, Morfin hisses laughing.)

"But I hit him, Father," Albus said. "I hit him when he was passing by on the path, and all in hives he wasn't so handsome anymore, was he, Merope?"

(Gaunt roars in Parseltongue, lunging at her daughter and closing his hands around her neck.)

"Inept! Disgusting squib! Blood traitor!" Dumbledore translated for him.

"No!" Ogden shouted, raised his wand and yelled, "Relaxo!"

(Gaunt is thrown backward, trips over a chair and falls backward. Morfin leaps from the chair, threatening Ogden with his wand, casting hexes and brandishing the knife, causing the official to flee.)

"Let's go after him," Albus told Sev.

They both ran out of the house, while hearing Merope's screams. (Ogden throws his arms over his head and steps out onto the main road, where he crashes into a sleek brown horse ridden by a very handsome young man, along with another, gray, ridden by a girl. They both laugh out loud, because Ogden bounces and he runs wildly down the road.)

"There you have Riddle senior. We can go out."

They pulled the faces out of the Pensieve. They rose as if they were weightless in the darkness and shortly after they landed in the office. They stood face to face, on either side of the desk.

"What do you think?" the Headmaster asked gravely.

"A real hell," Sev replied.

"You've connected the dots, haven't you?"

"I have, some. Merope fled with Riddle, they are Voldemort's parents."

"I lack that information, but I suspect that she made him fall in love with Amortentia so that he would marry her," Dumbledore explained. "She was able to escape the hell that was her home because soon after Ogden showed up with Ministry officials, which both Gaunts, father and son, confronted. They were subdued and removed from the house and later condemned by the Wizengamot. Morfin, who already had a record for other assaults on Muggles, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban, and Marvolo, the father, to six months."

(Marvolo! Voldemort's grandfather. Lauren is a wonder.)

"They were the last descendants of the Gaunts, a very old family of wizards, famous for being extremely unstable and violent, a trait that was aggravated over generations of marrying cousins," Albus continued. "Lack of common sense combined with a strong tendency to delusions of grandeur, caused the family to squander all its gold several generations before Marvolo's birth. Some months after the episode we have just witnessed, there was a great scandal in Little Hangleton, for the son of the lord of the place had run away with the rascal's daughter. But the commotion of the neighbors was nothing compared to that of Marvolo. He left Azkaban and returned to his house, where he believed that Merope would be waiting for him with the meal ready. Instead, what he found was the dirty, abandoned house and a farewell note in which the girl explained what she had done. The disorder caused by her abandonment, or perhaps, simply, that he was not able to feed himself, caused his premature death, before Morfin was released from prison in his turn."

"And Merope? Did she also die?" Sev asked.

"Yes, that's how it was. But in that area we have to make some guesses. A few months after the marriage of the two fugitives, Riddle returned to the Little Hungleton manor without his wife. A rumor spread through the town that the young man claimed that Merope had seduced and tricked him. It is clear that with that he meant that he had been under the influence of a spell from which he had already been freed, but he did not dare to say it with those words because they would have taken him for crazy. However, what the neighbors assumed had happened from what Tom told was that Merope had lied to him that she was going to have his child and that he had consented to marry her for that reason."

"But she did indeed have a son with him."

"Yes, but she didn't give birth until a year after she was married," the Headmaster said. "Tom Riddle left her when she was still pregnant."

"She stopped giving him Amortentia."

"It is what I suppose, always in the field of conjectures. She was madly in love with him and she was not able to keep enslaving him through magic. She believed that by then, Tom would either have fallen in love with her or that he would stay by her side for the sake of the baby. In both cases, she was wrong. He left her and never saw her again or bothered to find out what had become of his child. She, without means of livelihood, gave birth in the orphanage and died an hour after doing so, on New Year's Eve of '26."

"Now I understand why Voldemort is so evil," Sev said. "He was not the fruit of love, but of a fictitious infatuation, and during his childhood he never had the love of his mother or his father."

"You said it, he is incapable of love. Nine thirty-five. I'm about to cross myself in the office, two Albus at the same time can be funny, but three already seems too much. Also, ten minutes later your friends are going to enter and at ten they will leave. Shall we take a break watching the training for half an hour? This also gives us time to assimilate the new information that we both have."

"Of course, Albus."

"I'm going to put the Pensieve away and we'll go up to the upper floor. I'll pick up the memory later."

The old man tucked the pensieve into its closet and preceded him up the stairs, leading him to a wide mullioned window that opened to the front of the castle, with a wide view across the meadow.

"We won't open it," he told Sev. "In case someone turns to here and sees us."

"Of course."

"There you are arriving with the fourth-years. I think it's very good that you haven't accepted smaller ones. Very well done with the little Slys."

"They were Beamy's friends," Sev said.

"I already knew. I think that if we get the Duel Chair that you have suggested, the subject should be an elective, from the third year, like the others, we are not going to put eleven-year-olds to fight or those who do not want to learn. How about?"

"Very suitable, and more with what we know now. That the war will probably be very long."

"Yes. And that would leave you more time in the future for other activities," said the Headmaster.

(Help him find and destroy the Horcruxes. Ugh… who would send me into such a mess? Lauren…)