Chapter 1088

"Yes, I think it is the ancestral home of Gaunt, but before that, we have a memory about Merlot, or about Voldemort before entering Hogwarts."

"Voldemort before entering Hogwarts? I remember that he grew up in an orphanage."

"Oh, yes, the handsome Muggle Tom Riddle abandoned his wizard wife Merlot and returned to his hometown of Little Hangleton. Merlot stayed alone in London, pregnant with the child who would become Voldemort in the future."

"How do you know she is in London, Professor?"

"According to the evidence provided by Caratakus Burke," Dumbledore said, "he helped us find the store that owns the necklace by chance, the one in your hand."

Dumbledore pointed to the necklace in Vanlin's hand and said, just like in Hogwarts, his hand unconsciously stirred the contents of the meditation basin, like a gold digger sifting out gold.

A slowly spinning little old man emerged from the silver vortex in the Pensieve. He looked like a ghost, but more real than a ghost, and his thick hair completely covered his eyes.

"Yes, we got it under strange circumstances. It was brought by a young witch just before Christmas, oh, of course many years ago. She said she was in desperate need of gold, well, that was obvious. She came from far away in rags... and was going to have a child. She said the locket was Slytherin's. Well, we always hear people say, 'Oh, this is Merlin's, this is his favorite teapot,' but when we examined it, we found that it really had the Slytherin mark on it, and we only needed a few simple spells to find out the truth. Of course, it was almost priceless. She didn't seem to know how much it was worth. She was happy to exchange it for ten Galleons. It was the best deal we ever made."

Dumbledore shook the Pensieve particularly hard again, and Caratakus..Burke sank into the vortex of memory.

"He only gave her ten Galleons?" Vanlin said helplessly. This was obviously unfair to Mello.

"Caratakus Burke was not generous," Dumbledore said. "So we know that in the last days of her pregnancy, Mello stayed alone in London. She was in desperate need of gold, so she sold her only valuable property, the Slytherin locket, Marvolo's treasured heirloom."

"But she knows magic!" Vanlin hesitated. He saw that Mello was not a squib, but was scared by Marvolo and dared not use magic. "She could use magic to find food and everything she wanted, couldn't she?"

"Ah," said Dumbledore, "perhaps she could. But I believe - this is speculation again, but I am sure I am right - she stopped using magic after being abandoned by her husband. I think she didn't want to be a witch anymore. Of course, it may be that unrequited love and the subsequent despair drained her strength; this may happen. In any case, she was unwilling to raise the wand again until her death."

"It's a sad thing, Professor," Vanlin shook his head, "If Melo hadn't chosen to give up Tom, I think..."

"Everything is very unexpected, isn't it." Dumbledore said, pressing his wand against his temple and pulling out a strand of silver from it.

"Where are we going next?"

"This time," said Dumbledore, "we are going to enter my memory. I think you will find it rich in detail and will be satisfied with its accuracy. I will follow you, Vanlin..."

Vanlin bent over the Pensieve; his face immersed in the cold memory, and fell into darkness again... A few seconds later his feet touched the solid ground, and he opened his eyes to find that he and Dumbledore were standing in a busy old-fashioned London street. Soon, Rutherford also came in, and Vanlin had almost forgotten him...

"I'm there," Dumbledore said happily, pointing to a tall figure in front, who was crossing the road in front of a horse-drawn milk cart.

This young Albus Dumbledore had long hair and beard of auburn. After crossing the road to their side, he began to stride along the sidewalk, wearing a dark purple velvet suit that was very gorgeously cut, attracting many curious eyes.

"Nice clothes, Professor," Vanlin said, and Dumbledore just chuckled. The three of them followed the young Dumbledore at a short distance, and finally walked through a set of iron gates into an empty courtyard. In front of it was a square, dark building surrounded by high railings. He walked up a few steps and knocked on the door. After a while, a girl wearing an apron and ragged clothes opened the door.

"Good afternoon. I have an appointment with Mrs. Cole, I think she is the matron here."

"Oh," the girl stared at Dumbledore's strange look and looked confused. "Um... wait a minute... Mrs. Cole!"

She turned back and shouted.

Vanlin heard a loud response from a distant place. The girl turned back to Dumbledore.

"Come in, she's coming."

Dumbledore walked into the corridor paved with black and white tiles; the whole thing looked shabby, but spotless. Fan Lin and old Dumbledore followed. Before the door closed behind them, a thin, tired woman hurried toward them.

Her face was sharp and she looked more anxious than indifferent. As she walked towards Dumbledore, she was talking to another assistant wearing an apron beside her.

"...then take this bottle of iodine to Martha upstairs, where Billy Stubbs is picking at his scabs, and Eric Willie's sheets are covered in sweat—but chickenpox is the top priority. ," she said to herself. After seeing Dumbledore, she froze there, with a surprised expression as if she saw a giraffe walking in.

"Good afternoon," Dumbledore held out his hand. Mrs. Cole was still in a daze. "My name is Albus Dumbledore. I wrote you an appointment letter, and you kindly invited me to come here today."

Mrs. Cole blinked. Apparently making sure Dumbledore wasn't a hallucination, she then said, "Oh, right. Um - well, then - come to my office. Yes."

She let Dumbledore into a small room that was half living room and half office. It was as run-down as the hallway, and the furniture was old and mismatched. She asked Dumbledore to sit on a rickety chair, and she sat behind the messy desk, staring at him nervously.

"I am here, as I said in my letter, to discuss with you Tom Riddle's future arrangements," Dumbledore said.

"Are you a family member?" Mrs. Cole asked.

"No, I'm a teacher," said Dumbledore. "I'll come and take Tom to our school."

"So, what school is this?"

Wizard school... Fan Lin couldn't help but murmur in his heart, although it seems a bit cheating now...

"It's called Hogwarts," Dumbledore said.

"Why are you interested in Tom?"

"We believe he has the qualities we are looking for."

"You mean he won a scholarship? How could he? He never signed up for a test."

"Well, he was put on the school roster when he was born—"

"Who registered him? His parents?" There is no doubt that this is a shrewd woman who is not easy to deal with.

Apparently Dumbledore thought so too. Fanlin saw him quietly pull out the wand from the velvet suit and at the same time pick up a completely blank piece of paper on the table.

"Look at this," Dumbledore waved his wand as he handed the piece of paper to her, "I think this explains everything."

Mrs. Cole's eyes suddenly became confused, then brightened again, and she stared intently for a moment at the blank paper.

"It looks like it's perfectly in order," she said quietly, handing the paper back. Then her eyes fell on the bottle of gin and two glasses, which a few seconds before had certainly been empty.

"Uh--a gin?" she said with extra politeness.

"Thank you very much," Dumbledore said, smiling. It was obvious that Mrs. Cole was an expert at drinking gin. She refilled their glasses and drank her own glass in one go. She smiled at Dumbledore for the first time, smacking her lips unabashedly, and Dumbledore seized the moment.

"I was wondering if you could tell me something about Tom Riddle's past? I think he was born in this orphanage, right?"

"That's right," said Mrs. Cole, pouring some more gin. "I remember it so clearly because I just came up here. It was New Year's Eve and it was freezing and snowing, you know. Bad night. And then this girl, who was a little older than me at the time, she stumbled She walked up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first one. We brought her in and she gave birth to her baby an hour later."

Mrs. Cole nodded sentimentally and took another swig of gin.

"Did she say anything before she died?" Dumbledore asked. "Like the father of the child?"

"What a coincidence, she said that," said Mrs. Cole, now looking very much enjoying herself with a glass of gin in her hand and another enthusiastic audience in front of her.

"I remember her saying to me, 'I hope he looks like his dad,' and honestly she was right because she was not good-looking at all - and then she told me to name him Tom, after In honor of his father, the middle name is Marvolo, in honor of her own father - yeah, I know, weird name, right? We're still wondering if she's from the circus - and then she says boy's. The last name is Riddle. After saying this, he died."

"Well, we named the baby what she said. The poor girl seemed to take it very seriously, but no Tom or Marvolo or anyone named Riddle came to see the baby. He didn't have any relatives, so we kept him in the orphanage until now." Mrs. Cole poured another glass of wine, almost in a trance.

There were two blushes on her cheekbones. Then she said, "He's a strange boy."

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "I think it might be."

"He was weird as a baby. He almost never cried. Then, when he got a little older, he became... weird."

"Weird, what kind of weird method?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"Well, he -" Mrs. Cole stopped suddenly. She glanced at Dumbledore inquiringly over the wine glass, her eyes no longer so blank.

"He will definitely go to your school to study, you said?"

"Definitely," said Dumbledore.

"Wouldn't what I said change that?"

"No," said Dumbledore.

"You're going to take him away anyway?"

"At any rate," Dumbledore repeated solemnly. She narrowed her eyes at him, as if wondering whether she should trust Dumbledore. Apparently she finally decided to believe him, because she suddenly said, "He scared the other kids."

"You mean he's a little bully?"

"I think so," Mrs. Cole frowned slightly, "but it's hard to catch him. There's always trouble... troublesome things..."

Dumbledore didn't rush her, but Fanlin could see that he was very interested. Was this the professor's bad taste?

She took another sip of gin, her rosy cheeks growing redder. "Billy Stubbs's rabbit...well, Tom said he didn't do it, and I don't know how he could have done it, but even so, the rabbit couldn't have gone to the rafters and hanged himself, could it? "

"I think so too, it's impossible," Dumbledore said quietly. "But I really don't know how he got up there and did it. All I know is that he and Billy had just had a fight the day before. And then—"

Mrs. Cole took another swig, this time a little spilled onto her chin, "We go hiking in the summer - you know, we take them out once a year, to the countryside or the beach - well, Amy Benson Both of them became abnormal after that. We questioned them again and again, but they both just said that they went to a cave with Tom Riddle. Tom swore to us that he just went on an adventure, but something must have happened there. What, I'm sure. And, well, lots of things, weird things..."

She looked at Dumbledore again. Although her cheeks were bright red, her eyes were firm.

"I don't think too many people will be sad to see him go."

"Surely you can understand that we won't keep him there forever," said Dumbledore. "He still comes back here, at least, every summer."

"Oh, well, that's better than him hitting people in the nose with a rusty poker here," Mrs. Cole burped softly. She stood up, and Fanlin noticed that although she had drank two-thirds of the gin in the bottle, she was still steady.

"I assume you'd like to meet him?"

"Very much so," Dumbledore also stood up. She led her out of the office and up the stone stairs, giving instructions to the assistants passing by and yelling at the children.

Fan Lin saw that the orphans were all wearing uniform gray blouses. It can be seen that they are all well cared for, but it is undeniable that this place for them to grow up is too harsh and unforgiving.

"This is it," said Mrs. Cole, as they turned around the second landing and reached the door of the first room in a long corridor. She knocked twice and walked in.

"Tom? Someone's here to see you. This is Mr. Dumbleton—sorry, it's Dumbledore. He's here to tell you—forget it, let him talk." (To be continued)