ruins ; harry potter [1]

twenty nine ; tom riddle's orphanage

"You mean he's won a scholarship? How can he have done? He's never been entered for one."

"Well, his name has been down for our school since birth--"

"Who registered him? His parents?"

Under the desk, Diana watched Dumbledore pull out his wand and pick up a piece of blank paper. He waved his wand, then handed the paper to the woman.

"Here," he said. "I think this will make everything clear."

Her eyes slid in and out of focus as she looked at the paper for a moment.

"That seems perfectly in order," she said, handing it back to Dumbledore at once.

"I was wondering if you could tell me anything of Tom Riddle's history? I think he was born here in the orphanage?" said Dumbledore after a moment.

"That's right," said Mrs. Cole. "I remember it clear as anything, because I'd just started here myself. New Year's Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night. And this girl, not much older than I was myself at the time, came staggering up the front steps. Well, she wasn't the first. We took her in, and she had the baby within the hour. And she was dead in another hour."

Diana's heart clenched slightly for Merope.

"Did she say anything before she died?" Dumbledore asked the woman. "Anything about the boy's father, for instance?"

"Now as it happens, she did," Mrs. Cole said, who seemed to enjoy telling the story. "I remember she said to me, 'I hope he looks like his papa,' and I won't lie, she was right to hope it, because she was no beauty--then she told me he was to be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for her father--yes, I know, funny name isn't it? We wondered whether she came from a circus--and she said the boys surname was to be Riddle. And she died after that without another word.

"We named him, just as she'd said, it seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor Marvolo nor any kind of Riddle ever came looking for him, nor any family at all, so he stayed in the orphanage and he's been here ever since."

She grabbed a bottle of gin from beneath her cupboard and two dusty glasses. She poured Dumbledore some and she then served herself a generous portion of it, downing it whole in two gulps. It was silent for a moment.

"He's a funny boy," she said.

"Yes," said Dumbledore, taking a small sip. "I thought he might be."

She poured herself another large glass and took a sip. "He was a funny baby, too. He hardly ever cried, you know. And then, when he got a little older, he was...odd."

"Odd in what way?" asked Dumbledore gently. She took another sip, and two pink splotched appeared high on her cheekbones.

"Well, he--"

She cut herself off abruptly, eyeing Dumbledore suspiciously over her nearly empty glass.

"He's definitely got a place at your school, you say?" she asked.

"Definitely."

"And nothing I say can change that?"

"Nothing."

"You'll be taking him away, whatever?"

"Whatever."

Diana's heart thumped quickly as the woman down the rest of her glass. "He scares the other children."

"You mean he is a bully?" asked Dumbledore.

The woman obviously seemed very hesitant, as if she were to reveal anything, she would be breaking rules. "I think he must be," she said with a frown, "but it's very hard to catch him at it. There have been incidents...Nasty things..."