The three followed Dumbledore’s younger self a short distance, finally passing through a set of iron gates into a bare courtyard that fronted a rather grim, square building surrounded by high railings.
Was this the place?
Evan looked around curiously. This should be the orphanage where Voldemort lived in his childhood.
A notorious place, the beginning of evil, and it looked very unpleasant.
As Evan looked around, young Dumbledore mounted the few steps leading to the front door and knocked.
After a moment, a slovenly girl in an apron opened the door.
“Good afternoon. I have an appointment with a Mrs. Cole, who, I believe, is the matron here?”
“Oh,” said the bewildered-looking girl, taking in Dumbledore’s eccentric appearance. “Um … just a mo’ … MRS. COLE!” she bellowed over her shoulder.
A distant voice shouted something in response, and the girl turned back to Dumbledore. “Come in, sir, she’s on ’er way.”
Dumbledore stepped into a hallway tiled in black and white; the whole place was shabby but spotlessly clean. Evan, Harry and the older Dumbledore followed. Before the front door had closed behind them, a skinny, harassed-looking woman came scurrying toward them.She had a sharp-featured face that appeared more anxious than unkind, and she was talking over her shoulder to another aproned helper as she walked toward Dumbledore.
“… and take the iodine upstairs to Martha, Billy Stubbs has been picking his scabs and Eric Whalley’s oozing all over his sheets — chicken pox on top of everything else,” she said to nobody in particular, and then her eyes fell upon Dumbledore and she stopped dead in her tracks, looking as astonished as if a giraffe had just crossed her threshold.
“Good afternoon, ma’am!” said Dumbledore, holding out his hand.
Mrs. Cole simply gaped, speechless for a long moment.
“My name is Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter requesting an appointment and you very kindly invited me here today.”
Mrs. Cole blinked. Apparently deciding that Dumbledore was not a hallucination, she said feebly, “Oh yes. Mr. Dumbledore’s letter, of course! Well — well then — you’d better come into my room. Yes.”
She led Dumbledore into a small room that seemed part sitting room, part office. It was as shabby as the hallway and the furniture was old and mismatched. She invited Dumbledore to sit on a rickety chair and seated herself behind a cluttered desk, eyeing him nervously.
“I am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future,” said Dumbledore.
“Are you family?” asked Mrs. Cole, her tone skeptical.
“No, I am a teacher,” said Dumbledore. “I have come to offer Tom a place at my school.”
“What school’s this, then?”
“It is called Hogwarts,” said Dumbledore.
Obviously, Mrs. Cole had never heard of such a place, and the look of suspicion on her face became more intense.
Scammers used this excuse to lure children away, and they might do anything after they left. Such sensational reports could always be seen in newspapers.
Mrs. Cole might not like Riddle very much, but she had to be responsible for the safety of the children here.
“And how come you’re interested in Tom?”
“We believe he has qualities we are looking for.”
“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?”
There was no doubt that Mrs. Cole was an inconveniently sharp woman.
Dumbledore apparently thought so too. Instead of continuing to answer her question, he slipped his wand out of the pocket of his velvet suit and, at the same time picked up a piece of perfectly blank paper from Mrs. Cole’s desktop.
“Here,” said Dumbledore, waving his wand once as he passed her the piece of paper, “I think this will make everything clear.”
Mrs. Cole’s eyes slid out of focus and back again as she gazed intently at the blank paper for a moment.
It was a beautiful move, a perfect mind-inducing magic.
Evan felt that Katie might have been under this spell yesterday. Something in the girls’ bathroom of the Three Broomsticks was enchanted, maybe the brown paper package itself, and Katie was induced as soon as she touched it.
One thing was certain, this was definitely not magic that the Ministry of Magic allowed wizards to use.
Evan glanced at the older Dumbledore, who seemed to know exactly what he was thinking and gave him a small smile.
““That seems perfectly in order,” said Mrs. Cole placidly, handing the paper back to Dumbledore.
Then her eyes fell upon a bottle of gin and two glasses that had certainly not been present a few seconds before.
“Er — may I offer you a glass of gin?” she said in an extra-refined voice.
“Thank you very much,” said Dumbledore, beaming.
It soon became clear that Mrs. Cole was no novice when it came to gin drinking. Pouring both of them a generous measure, she drained her own glass in one gulp.
Smacking her lips frankly, she smiled at Dumbledore for the first time, and he didn’t hesitate to press his advantage.
“I was wondering whether you could tell me anything of Tom Riddle’s history? I think he was born here in the orphanage?”
Judging by Dumbledore’s effortless handling of the situation, it was clear, he was no novice either…
Induction magic combined with relaxing gin, and nearly imperceptible Legilimency.
Merlin’s beard — Dumbledore wasn’t just gathering information about Riddle. At this moment, he could effortlessly extract anything he wished from Mrs. Cole. Anything at all. And he did it with such grace.
Had it been another wizard, they might have taken a far more forceful approach.
Veritaserum or the Cruciatus Curse. Those were the methods Dark wizards preferred.
“That’s right,” said Mrs. Cole, helping herself to more gin. “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, frail, so exhausted. She had suffered, no doubt about it. I don’t know how she even made it that far. She 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.”
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