Before the Dawn | George Weasley

49

Dumbledore was deep in conversation with one of his portraits when I entered, their conversation coming to an abrupt halt as he spied me.

"Ah, Miss Weasley." He paused. "Or, perhaps, not Miss Weasley."

"Not Miss Weasley," I confirmed, looking down to see Ginny's ginger hair fading back to my own pale blonde colour.

"Miss Doyle!" he said, sounding delighted.

"Sir, I've got something rather important to share with you." I dug in my bag and pulled out my flask.

Dumbledore eyed it. "I'm afraid I gave up the drink years ago, Miss Doyle."

"No, I—" I huffed and moved to stand before his pensieve. "It's a memory. From Morfin Gaunt."

Dumbledore's eyes widened. "However did you manage that?"

"I went to his cell in Azkaban. I reckoned they'd let me in, seeing as the dementors are working for Voldemort nowadays, and, well," I showed him my arm. "Remus told me the ring you're seeking out belonged to his father, Marvolo Gaunt, and I thought he might be of some use."

"You could speak to him?" Dumbledore took a step closer, unfazed by my latest confession.

"I—Yes, sir, I could."

Dumbledore was watching me intently. "You speak it, then. Parseltongue."

"I-I don't know how, sir, but I suppose I do." 

I'd had a hunch that Parseltongue was what connected Morfin and myself, but I truly had no idea how that was possible. I'd never learned it, never studied, didn't know much about it beyond what it was. Yet I'd spoken it.

"And what did Morfin have to say?" Dumbledore took a step closer, unfazed by my latest confession.

"He was a bit... jumbled, sir," I confessed. "Nothing he said quite made sense. But I did manage to get him to share this memory of the boy who took the ring from him. It may give us a hint as to where the ring might be."

Dumbledore nodded, watching enthusiastically as I emptied the flask's contents into the Pensieve.

"Go easy on the firewhisky, Miss Doyle, it gets to the best of us," he murmured while he waited.

"Respectfully, sir, I need a bit to make it through the day anymore."

We both leaned, down, then, and entered the memory.

We were standing in a dark house, the ceiling coated with cobwebs and the floor crusted with grime; moldy food and unwashed dishes littered the kitchen. A single candle on a table allowed us to see a man slumped in an armchair, looking rather dead: Morfin.

A loud knock on the door roused him, and he grabbed a short-bladed knife from the table as he faced the door. When the door creaked open, a young man entered; he was tall, pale, and rather handsome. He glanced around the house, unimpressed, then spied Morfin.

Morfin was shaking with rage. "You!" he roared, and charged at the young man with the knife.

Before he reached him, though, the young man spoke. "Stop."

Morfin stopped.

I saw Dumbledore glance at me in the periphery of my vision, but I was too interested in the scene playing out to acknowledge him.

"You speak it?" whispered Morfin, and the hair on the back of my neck stood up.

"Yes, I speak it," the young man said. "Where is Marvolo?"

"Dead," said Morfin. "Died years ago."

The young man frowned. "Who are you, then?"

"Morfin."

"Marvolo's son?"

"'Course." Morfin raised his hand to push his hair out of his eyes, and I spotted a ring on his finger. "I thought you was that Muggle. You look mighty like that Muggle."

"What Muggle?"

"That Muggle that my sister took a fancy to, that Muggle that lives in the big house over the way," said Morfin, then spat on the floor at the feet of the young man. "You look right like him. Riddle. But he's older now, older than you, now I think on it..."

"He came back?" the young man asked, watching Morfin intently.

"Aye, he left her, and serves her right, marrying filth!" spat Morfin. "Robbed us, mind you, before she took off."

The young man pulled a wand from his pocket, and then the world fell dark.

I found myself back in Dumbledore's office, utterly confused. "What happened, sir? Why did it fade at the end there?"

Dumbledore was deep in thought. "This memory is incomplete," he murmured. "It's been altered."

"How so?" I suddenly wondered if maybe a spare drop of firewhisky had damaged it.

"I don't know," Dumbledore admitted. "But I suspect a memory charm was used to alter Morfin Gaunt's mind, and so the memory he gave you is only partial."

There was a long pause.

"Do you know who that young man was, Miss Doyle?"

I shook my head.

"Tom Riddle," said Dumbledore. "Although you'd likely know him as Voldemort."

My eyes widened. "That was Voldemort?"

"As a young man, yes." Dumbledore strode to his cabinet of memories, gazing at them thoughtfully. "I believe he may have attacked Morfin Gaunt that day, and stolen the ring."

"Sir," I said uneasily. "Morfin Gaunt is in Azkaban for killing that Muggle he mentioned. Do you think he did that after this, as revenge?"

"I'm not sure." Dumbledore paused. "I need to think on this. Do you mind if I keep this memory, Miss Doyle?"

I nodded, watching the older man carefully. "I don't need it—it didn't turn out to be of much use to me after all, since Voldemort took the ring and probably has it now."

"I don't think he does, actually." Dumbledore fixed me with his pale stare. "I think he may have left it in the very place he first came across it."

"Why would he do that?"

"To keep it safe. The Gaunt house has been abandoned for many years now, with its former residents either dead or imprisoned."

"So you think it's there? The ring?"

"I do."

My forearm began to tingle. I gritted my teeth, willing it not to be what I knew it was.

"I can make you a Portkey, if you'd rather not use Professor McGonagall's fireplace again," Dumbledore said kindly.

"I'm sorry sir, I can't right now." I clutched at my forearm, gasping as the tingling burned into a searing pain, the ink pulsing beneath my skin. "I-I'm being..."

"You can't apparate on school grounds," warned Dumbledore, plucking a goblet from a nearby shelf and tapping it with his wand. "This will get you to a place where you can disapparate, and do what you must."

"Thank you, sir," I choked out, and grabbed the goblet, allowing it to pull me to a nearby mountainside, where I then disapparated in a burst of black smoke.