Diana Floo'd to Hogwarts a day before term started. The students would be arriving the next day through a special Floo connection the Ministry had established that would allow students to return safely and quickly, and Diana wanted to make sure she didn't get caught up in all the commotion.
She Floo'd to the Hog's Head, and said a quick hello to Aberforth before trudging up to the quiet castle. Her Extended bag was crossed around her torso per usual, and the small pouch she had received from Harry was tucked safely away in the depths of the bag. She had put the four Communication Mirrors and Dumbledore's note inside of it. She was planning to give them the Mirrors soon, she just couldn't find the right time.
She stayed the night in the deserted castle and kept to her bedroom when the students arrived the next day. In fact, she didn't leave her room until Hermione came bursting inside through her portrait door.
"Harry and Ron are behind me," she said. She spat Ron's name out with disgust. Diana sighed but said nothing. Moments later, Ron and Harry trailed inside, and the latter closed the portrait behind him.
"We're here to talk about everything that has happened over break," stated Hermione curtly, and the three arrivals sat on her bed with her. Hermione was determined to sit as far away from Ron as possible.
So, for many hours, the four sat on her bed and talked about all of the new information. Harry explained what he had overheard between Snape and Malfoy, and about Scrimgeour visiting them at the Burrow. Hermione, as Diana had suspected, was much less convicted about Malfoy and Snape as Harry was, but she didn't push it.
"How's Lupin?" Hermione asked. Harry had just mentioned how he was underground, spying on the werewolves.
"Not great," said Harry. "Have you heard of this Fenrir Greyback?" he asked the group.
"Yes, I have!" said Hermione. "And so have you! Malfoy threatened Borgin with him," she explained. "In Knockturn Alley, don't you remember? He told Borgin that Greyback was an old family friend and that he'd be checking up on Borgin's progress!"
"Fenrir Greyback," started Diana, and their eyes snapped to her, "is one of the most vicious werewolves in history. He is very openly supportive of Voldemort, and is one of the most useful Death Eaters he has at hand. Fenrir has been able to turn a whole army of werewolves to support Voldemort. He's evil and cruel; he attacks children for fun or for revenge, like Remus.
"Oh, also, by the way--" she pulled her the pouch from Harry out of her bag and opened it with ease. "I got these from Dumbledore for Christmas. One for each of us."
She handed one mirror to each, leaving on for her own. They examined them curiously.
"What are these?" asked Ron.
"Communication Mirrors," she replied. "They're only connected to each other. If you ever need to talk to one or more of us, you chant the name or names three times and you'll be able to see and talk to them through the Mirror."
"These are incredible," breathed Hermione, running her hands over her reflection. "These will be really useful, I bet."
"Dumbledore thought so," she said with a shrug. The three Gryffindors left her room not long after, promising to keep their mirrors safe. She put hers back inside the pouch with the note that had been attached, and set it back into her bag.
She fell asleep fully clothed. Her mind spun, and she didn't think she'd ever be able to fall asleep.
But she did, and found no relief in her slumber as she delved into the depths of yet another nightmare. The next morning, she felt no relief in waking.
++
A few days later, Harry and Diana arrived at Dumbledore's office at the same time. They both entered and took a seat in unison, and Dumbledore smiled pleasantly at them.
"I hear that you met the Minister of Magic over Christmas?"
"Yes," said Harry. "He's not very happy with either of us."
"No," sighed Dumbledore. "He is not very happy with me either. We must try not to sink beneath our anguish, Harry, but battle on."
"It was Fudge's idea, wasn't it?" said Diana with a laugh. "Of using Harry as the Ministry's poster boy. It sounds like something he would come up with."
"Indeed it was," replied Dumbledore, chuckling. "During his last days in office, was desperate for anything that might keep him in office, he hoped that you would give him your support--"
"After everything Fudge did last year? After Umbridge?"
"I told Cornelius that there was no chance of it, but the idea did not die when he left office. Within hours of Scrimgeour's appointment we met and he demanded that I arrange a meeting with both of you--"
"So that's why you argued!" Harry blurted. "It was in the Daily Prophet."
Dumbledore smiled. "Yes, that is why we argued. Well, it appears that Rufus found a way to corner you at last."
"He said that we are Dumbledore's children through and through," Diana said quietly.
"How very rude of him."
"I told him that we were."
It was silent. For the first time, Dumbledore appeared to be speechless. He opened his mouth a few times, only to close it again and again. Diana looked closer, and his eyes were watery.
"I am very touched, Diana."
Harry decided to bring up Malfoy and Snape after a moment. He explained what he had heard, and Dumbledore listened impassively. His eyes flickered imperceptibly to Diana.
"Thank you for telling me this, Harry," he said calmly, "but I suggest that you put it out of your mind. I do not think it is of great importance."
"Not of great importance?" repeated Harry. "Professor--"
"Harry," pleaded Diana gently. "Trust us. Trust me. Please."
Harry hesitated for a few moments, but nodded nonetheless.
"And now, I must insist that we press on," said Dumbledore. "I have more important things to discuss with you this evening.
"I have two more memories to show you this evening, both obtained with enormous difficulty, and the second of them is, I think, the most important I have collected."
Harry did not say anything, for he was still slightly miffed about Dumbledore's passiveness about Snape.
"So," Dumbledore continued, "we meet this evening to continue the tale of Tom Riddle, whom we left last lesson poised on the threshold of his years at Hogwarts. You will remember how excited he was to hear that he was a wizard, that he refused my company to Diagon Alley, and that I, in turn, warned him against continued thievery when he arrived at school.
"Well, the start of the school year arrived and with it came young Tom in secondhand robes, sorted immediately into Slytherin. Also with it came shy and meek Vera Beauregard, who had been quickly sorted into Ravenclaw," Dumbledore waved his hand at a nearby shelf where the Sorting Hat perched. "How soon Riddle learned that the famous founder of Hogwarts could talk to snakes, I do not know--perhaps, that very evening. The knowledge could only have excited him and increased his sense of self-importance.
"As for Vera, who you and I, Harry, have not talked about much, she excelled in her studies from the beginning. Tom and Vera, even at such a young age, were two of the school's most intelligent students, and both had a very intense, yet oddly friendly, competition against each other. As Tom Riddle could talk to snakes, Vera also had a peculiar gift that piqued my interest the moment she told me when I first met her. Diana, as you may remember, at the orphanage, Vera mentioned to me that she hears voices in her head, which I would later learn more about. Diana, this is where I will be divulging knew information to you. Please don't yell at me for withholding it."
Diana's heart thumped loudly, and her breaths were shallow. "What did you not tell me, Dumbledore?" she asked through gritted teeth.
"I promise you, you will not wait long to find out," he assured quickly. Diana clenched her jaw but stayed silent.
"So, as I was saying, however, if he was frightening or impressing fellow Slytherins with displays of Parseltongue in their common room, no hint of it reached the staff. He showed no signs of outward arrogance or aggression at all. As an unusually talented and very good-looking orphan, he naturally drew attention and sympathy from the staff almost from the moment of his arrival. He seemed polite, quiet, and thirsty for knowledge. Nearly all were favorably impressed by him, and in some cases, some favored him over Vera."
"Didn't you tell them, sir, what he'd been like when you met him at the orphanage?" asked Harry.
"No, I did not. Though he showed no hint of remorse, it was possible that he felt sorry for how he had behaved before and was resolved to turn over a fresh leaf. I chose to give him that chance."
Dumbledore peered at Harry inquiringly as Harry opened his mouth to speak.
"But you didn't really trust him, sir, did you? He told me...the Riddle who came out of that diary said, 'Dumbledore never seemed to like me as much as the other teachers did.'"
"Let us say that I did not take it for granted that he was trustworthy," said Dumbledore. "I had, as I have already indicated, resolved to keep a close eye upon him, so I did. I cannot pretend that I gleaned a great deal from my observations at first. He was very guarded with me; he felt, I am sure, that in the thrill of discovering his true identity he had told me a little too much. He was careful never to reveal as much again, but he could not take back what he had let slip in his excitement, nor what Mrs. Cole had confided in me. However, he had the sense never to try and charm me as he charmed so many of my colleagues.
"As he moved up in school, always tied in first place with Vera, he gathered about him a group of dedicated friends; I call them that, for want of a better term, although as I have already indicated, Riddle undoubtedly felt no affection for any of them. In fact, for the rest of his life, he would only ever feel affection toward one person. This group had a kind of dark glamour within the castle. They were a motley collection; a mixture of the weak seeking protection, the ambitious seeking some shared glory, and the thuggish gravitating toward a leader who could show them the more refined forms of cruelty. In other words, they were the forerunners of the Death Eaters, and indeed some of them became the first Death Eaters after leaving Hogwarts.
"Rigidly controlled by Riddle, they were never detected in open wrongdoing, although their seven years at Hogwarts were marked by a number of nasty incidences to which they were never satisfactorily linked, the most serious of which was, of course, the opening of the Chamber of Secrets, which resulted in the death of a girl. As you know, Hagrid was wrongly accused of that crime. Tom Riddle's followers caused havoc, oh yes, but none were tormented by them as much as Vera was. To this day, I can only speculate the reason--maybe they sensed Tom's weakness toward her, or maybe they felt loyal to Tom and thought that she was in his way. I do not know indefinitely, but for years, they relentlessly teased and harassed Vera, but, most surprisingly, behind Tom's back. Tom did not find out about such activities until their fifth year, and to say he was furious would not do his anger justice. It's a miracle that his Death Eaters were alive after he found out.
"Vera, though, was one of the strongest people I had ever met. In her first years at Hogwarts, she was shy and quiet; an easy target for those cruel enough. Something, though, changed in her the summer between her fourth and fifth year. I do not know what had prompted such a change, but when she arrived on the first day of sixth year, she was confident and strong and she radiated power; much like you do, Diana. The moment the Death Eaters cornered her for the first time that year, I found out later that it was her who had sent them the hospital wing with many injuries and maladies. She was never accused, for by then they feared her, and there was no later evidence of any other instances of tormenting.
"I have not been able to find very many memories of Tom at Hogwarts," Dumbledore began, and pulled the Pensieve from beneath his desk. He laid his withered hand on top of it. "Few who knew him then are prepared to talk about him; they are too terrified. What I know, I found out after he had left Hogwarts, after much painstaking effort, after tracing those few who could be tricked into speaking, after searching old records and questioning Muggle and wizard witnesses alike.
"Those whom I could persuade to talk to me told me that Riddle was obsessed with his parentage. This is understandable, of course; he had grown up in an orphange and naturally wished to know how he came to be there. It seems that he searched in vain for some trace of Tom Riddle senior on the shields in the trophy room, on the lists of prefects in the old school records, even in the books of Wizarding history, Finally he was forced to accept that his father had never set foot in Hogwarts. I believe that it was then that he dropped the name forever, assumed the identity of Lord Voldemort, and began his investigations into his previously despised mother's family--the woman whom, you will remember, he had thought could not be a witch if she had succumbed to the shameful human weakness of death.
"All he had to go upon was the single name 'Marvolo,' which he knew from those who ran the orphanage had been his mother's father's name. Finally, after painstaking research through old books of Wizarding families, he discovered the existence of Slytherin's surviving line. In the summer before his seventh year, he left the orphanage to which he returned annually and set off to find his Gaunt relatives. Now, if you will stand..."
The three sank into the murky Pensieve and fell through the darkness. She had gotten used to it by now, and in no time they landed on a dirty stone floor in almost total darkness.
Once her eyes had adjusted to the darkness, she recognized where they were: they were standing in the Gaunt house in Little Hangleton, but it was even more dilapidated as it had been. Cobwebs were strung in every corner and a thick layer of dust coated the room. The pots were rusted and the walls were eroding, and the only light source was the single, flickering candle placed at the feet of a man with an overgrown beard and hair. He had so much untamed hair that you couldn't see his eyes or mouth. He was slumped in an armchair by the fireplace, with the candle flickering lightly at his feet.
There was a loud knock at the door, and the still man sprung awake and rose his wand in one hand with his knife in the other.
The door creaked open. Stepping over the threshold, holding an old-fashioned lamp, was teenage Tom Riddle. Then, to Diana's surprise, another figure stepped out from behind him and stood next to him, and the light from the lamp revealed their face.
Diana's breath hitched. She felt like she couldn't breathe. Standing tall and strong beside Tom Riddle was Vera Beauregard, with her hair pulled back into a loose braid down her back and a casual, black dress with a cinched waist. She looked beautiful, but she looked dark and powerful.
Both of their eyes peered around the ruins of the home and they landed on the man in the armchair. For a few seconds, the man stared at Tom, then abruptly staggered upright.
"YOU!" he bellowed. "YOU!"
He lurched toward Tom with his knife aloft.
"Stop."
Tom had spoken in Parseltongue. The man skidded clumsily to a halt and stared at Riddle in silence.
"You speak it?" said the man.
"Yes, I speak it," said Riddle. He moved forward toward the middle of the room, and Vera closed the front door quietly. Diana couldn't help but admire their complete lack of fear; their faces were both a mask of emotionless impassivity.
"Where is Marvolo?" Tom asked.
"Dead," said the other. "Died years ago, didn't he?"
Tom frowned, and now Vera opened her mouth to speak.
"Who are you, then?"
Diana's head began to spin. She stumbled slightly into Harry, and he held tightly onto her and helped her upright. "How," she whispered feebly. "How does she speak it?"
"I'm Morfin, ain't I?"
"Marvolo's son?"
"'Course I am, then..."
Morfin pushed his unruly hair out of his face, and the Marvolo's black-stoned ring glinted on his finger.
"I thought you was that Muggle," whispered Morfin. "You look mighty like that Muggle."
"What Muggle?" asked Riddle sharply. Diana watched Vera put a hand on his shoulder. He didn't push it away.
"That Muggle that my sister took a fancy to, that Muggle what lives in the big house over the way," said Morfin. Suddenly, he spat harshly onto the floor between them. "You look right like him, Riddle. But he's older now, in 'e? He's older'n you, now I think on it..."
Morfin swayed drunkenly and leaned on a table for support. "He come back, see," he added stupidly.
Tom, or Voldemort, gazed at Morfin as though considering something. He took a step closer, and Vera's hand fell from his shoulder. "Riddle came back?"
"Ar, he left her, and serve her right, marrying filth!" said Morfin, spitting on the floor again. "Robbed us, mind, before she ran off! Where's the locket, eh, where's Slytherin's locket?"
Tom did not answer. Vera and Tom watched patiently as Morfin seemed to rile himself up. "Dishonored us, she did, that little slut! And who're you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It's over, innit...it's over..."
"Do not use that word," snapped Vera at once. "Do not say 'slut' ever again, do you understand?"
Morfin staggered and Tom moved forward, and an unnatural darkness fell upon the scene. Dumbledore gripped Harry and Diana's arms and they went soaring out of the memory and entered reality back in Dumbledore's office.
"Is that all?" Diana breathed.
"That is all that Morfin could remember," said Dumbledore, gesturing for them to take a seat. "When he awoke the next morning, he was lying on the floor, quite alone. Marvolo's ring had gone. Meanwhile, in the village of Little Hangleton, a maid was running along the High Street, screaming that there were three bodies lying in the drawing room of the big house: Tom Riddle Senior and his mother and father.
"The Muggle authorities were perplexed, but the Ministry knew otherwise. They also knew that a convicted Muggle-hater, who had already been imprisoned once for attacking one of the murdered people, live just across the valley.
The Ministry arrested Morfin, and he admitted to the murder on the spot, giving details only the murderer could know. He was proud, he said, to have killed the Muggles, had been awaiting his chance all these years. He handed over his wand, which was proved at once to have been used to kill the Riddles. And he permitted himself to be led to Azkaban without a fight, and that is where he remained for the rest of his life."
"So Voldemort--and...Vera... stole Morfin's wand and used it?" asked Harry, throwing a hesitant glance at Diana. Her face was paled and she looked like she was ready to throw up, and Harry doubted whether she was even listening to them right now.
"That's right," said Dumbledore gently, for Diana's sake. "We have no memories to show us this, but I think we can be fairly sure what happened. Voldemort Stupified his uncle, took his wand, and the two proceeded to the Riddle house where either Tom alone or the both of them murdered the Riddle family. Then, he returned to the Gaunt hovel, performed the complex bit of magic that would implant a false memory in his uncle's mind, laid Morfin's wand beside its unconscious owner, pocketed the ancient ring, and they both departed."
There was an uneasy silence as they both watched Diana with worry.
And then, in nothing more than a whisper, Diana said, "why? Why didn't you tell me?"
Dumbledore looked down in shame, and when he looked back up, his eyes were remorseful and his face was sad.
"How--how is it even possible that she spoke--? I never knew--I mean, she was there, with him--"
"Diana, I give you my word that I shall explain, but only after I reveal this next memory and Harry is safely off to his dorm. Please, just give me a little time."
Diana, though inclined to protest, merely hung her head in exhaustion. This was too much for her, and all she wanted right now was to be in the silent comfort of her bedroom.
"And Morfin never realized Voldemort had done it?" Harry asked after a few moments.
"Never," replied Dumbledore. The atmosphere of the room was slightly tense as Diana was in such a pained state. She didn't speak, and the other two felt odd talking about this with her there. "He gave, as I say, a full and boastful confession."
"But he had his real memory in him all the time!"
"Yes, but it took a great deal of skilled Legilimency to coax it out of him," said Dumbledore, "and why should anybody delve further into Morfin's mind when he had already confessed to the crime? However, I was able to secure a visit to Morfin in the last weeks of his life, by which time I was attempting to discover as much as I could about Voldemort's past. I extracted this memory with difficulty. When I saw what it contained, I attempted to use it to secure Morfin's release from Azkaban. Before the Ministry reached their decision, however, Morfin had died.
"Whatever Morfin was, he did not deserve to die as he did, blamed for murders he had not committed. But it is getting late, and I want you both to see this other memory before we depart..."
Dumbledore poured the next, most important memory out of his robes and poured it inside. Diana mindlessly stood and wearily placed her face into the Pensieve, where they fell through darkness and into a memory for the second time that night.
And in the light of the new scene inside this memory, she had never felt the allure of death so strongly before then.