The Four Swords of Hogwarts

Chapter 7: Searching for Memory

"Professor, does anyone know what's wrong with Robert Stobey?" Harry asked Dumbledore. It had been a few days since Ravenclaw's Robert Stobey collapsed in the middle of Transfiguration. He hadn't been to class or meals, but none of the professors had said anything about him.

"It is still unclear," Dumbledore said shortly. "I can say no more on the matter."

Harry nodded, but was unsatisfied. There was something in him saying Dumbledore knew more than he was letting on, but there wasn't much he could do about it. Besides, Dumbledore always knew more than he seemed to...always had secrets.

"Come, let us get started," Dumbledore said, pouring the evening's memory into the Pensieve.

Harry moved to the Pensieve and instantly entered the memory. He landed inside a familiar broken down shack: the Gaunt house. His attention was pulled to the door as it opened. A young man, pale with dark hair and eyes, dressed smartly in a black suit and robes, stepped into the tiny home. Harry recognized the man immediately: Voldemort when he was still Tom Riddle. It was the Voldemort he encountered through the diary and in the Chamber of Secrets.

Voldemort swept over to the lump of a man that was sunken in a moth-eaten armchair. The man's hair was long and stringy, covering his sunken, white face with its overgrown beard. A bottle of some dark alcohol hung from his fingers, half empty. The man looked up as Voldemort came to stand in front of him. His face twisted in a sneer and, with a speed Harry hadn't anticipated, lunged at Voldemort.

'Enough,' Voldemort said, Harry realizing almost instantly that it was Parseltongue.

The man stopped in his tracks, though the glare on his face never dropped.

'I am looking for Marvolo Gaunt,' Voldemort hissed.

'Dead,' the man said also in Parseltongue and Harry realized this was likely Morfin Gaunt, Voldemort's uncle that had cursed Tom Riddle Sr. years earlier. 'You look like him.'

'Like who?'

'The filthy Muggle boy my whore sister ran off with,' Morfin spat.

Harry saw a flash in Voldemort's eyes, but that was his only reaction to the comment. Remembering the Muggle boy from Bob Ogden's memory, Harry had to agree with Morfin. Voldemort was the spitting image of his father.

'What happened to them?' Voldemort asked.

'Merope got herself knocked up with his filthy spawn, but he didn't much care for that since he came back here years ago, all alone,' Morfin explained. 'Obviously he left the dumb bitch. Serves her right, dirtying herself with the likes of him, sullying our pure family line.'

Harry saw Voldemort's eyes flicker to a ring on Morfin's hand. He recognized it as the ring Marvolo had shoved in Ogden's face.

'And your sister?' Voldemort pushed.

'She came back, too, a bit after the Muggle did,' Morfin said. 'Robbed us, she did. Took the locket as though she were still worthy of the Slytherin blood. Nothing but a Muggle whore. Never seen her since.'

'So, she and her child were abandoned? By the Muggle father?' Voldemort confirmed.

'Sure was,' Morfin said. 'Like I said, well deserved.'

Voldemort's face turned angry and he started towards Morfin. However, the scene went black and Harry was back in Dumbledore's office before they could see what happened. Harry looked at the headmaster questioningly.

"That was all Morfin could remember of his visit with his nephew," Dumbledore said as they took their seats. "By the time he awoke, Voldemort was gone and so was the ring he wore."