Coup de Foudre [Fred Weasley] [6]

⚡️ Chapter 23 ⚡️

"Professor," Harry said, after a short pause. "Did Professor McGonagall tell you what I told her after Katie got hurt? About Draco Malfoy?"

"She told me of your suspicions, yes," Dumbledore said.

"And do you –?" Harry asked.

"I shall take all appropriate measures to investigate anyone who might have had a hand in Katie's accident," Dumbledore said. "But what concerns me now, Harry, is our lesson,"

Vega knew that Harry was frustrated over being shut down, and quite honestly, she herself felt like there was a lot that could be discussed. It wasn't that Vega wanted her cousin to be a Death Eater, regardless of how much she hated him and his family – but those three had made sure on every occasion that they had no positive morality left in them.

And on the other hand, Vega wondered: If their lessons were so very important, why had there been such a long gap between the first and second? She wondered if Dumbledore was still trying to piece together all the information about Voldemort.

However, Harry did not say anything more about Draco Malfoy, but watched with Vega while Dumbledore poured the fresh memories into the Pensieve and began swirling the stone basin once more between his long-fingered hands.

"You will both remember, I am sure," Dumbledore said. "That we left the tale of Lord Voldemort's beginnings at the point where the handsome Muggle, Tom Riddle, had abandoned his witch wife, Merope, and returned to his family home in Little Hangleton. Merope was left alone in London, expecting the baby who would one day become Lord Voldemort,"

"How do we know that she was in London, Professor?" Vega shot out immediately, and then turned a bit pink. "If it is okay to ask... I mean..."

"Of course, you may, Vega," Dumbledore replied. "It is because of the evidence of one Caractacus Burke – who, by an odd coincidence, helped found the very shop whence came the necklace we have just been discussing,"

Vega watched in silence as Dumbledore swilled the contents of the Pensieve as she had seen him swill them before, much as a gold prospector sifts for gold. Up out of the swirling, silvery mass rose a little old man revolving slowly in the Pensieve, silver as a ghost but much more solid, with a thatch of hair that completely covered his eyes. He spoke:

"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!"

Dumbledore gave the Pensieve an extra-vigorous shake and Caractacus Burke descended back into the swirling mass of memory from whence he had come. Vega stared at the Pensieve, stunned at what she had just head and turned to Dumbledore quickly.

"He only gave her ten Galleons?" Vega asked rather indignantly.

"Caractacus Burke was not famed for his generosity," Dumbledore said. "So, we know that, near the end of her pregnancy, Merope was alone in London and in desperate need of gold, desperate enough to sell her one and only valuable possession, the locket that was one of Marvolo's treasured family heirlooms,"