The Enemy of my Enemy

The Memory, Part I

"Morfin!"

An elderly man had come hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically. The man was short than the first, and oddly proportioned. His shoulders were extremely broad and his arms over-long, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey.

He stopped beside the man he had called Morfin and looked down at Odgen. Morfin, on the other hand, was howling with laughter.

"Ministry is it?" the older man asked.

"Correct! And you, I take it, are Mr. Gaunt?"

Teddie gasped, her eyes wide. She now understood what Dumbledore meant when he had said that, if these memories didn't reveal her to be the power that prophecy was describing, at least she would understand her heritage a little better.

These two men were Gaunts, and the Gaunts were her ancestors.

Harry frowned at her.

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

"Yes, he did!" snapped Odgen.

"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?" said Odgen, clambering back to his feet.

"Busybodies. Intruders. Muggles and filth."

Odgen pointed his wand at his own nose, which was still issuing large amounts of what looked like yellow puss, and the flow stopped at once. From the corner of his mouth, Mr. Gaunt ordered Morfin to go back inside the house, and to do it without argument.

Despite looking like he wanted to argue, Morfin lumbered off back inside, slamming the door in his wake, after his father shot him threatening look.

"It's your son I'm here to see, Mr. Gaunt," said Odgen. "That was Morfin, wasn't it?"

"Ar, it was. Are you pureblood?"

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

Mr. Gaunt squinted. "Now I come to think about it, I've seen noses like yours down in the village," he said.

"I don't doubt it if your son's been let loose on them. 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 have no use of owls. I don't open letters."

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

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

The inside of the house was a lot smaller than the outside portrayed. It consisted of only three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as the kitchen and living room combined.

Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue.

"Hissy, hissy, little snakey,

Slither on the floor.

You be good to Morfin