Characters: Orion Black Date: March 6, 2000 Location: Starlight Manor Rating: PG-13 Summary: Orion takes another trip into the pensieve to have a look at the memories of Tom Riddle. This time he explores the orphanage in which Dumbledore finds Riddle, and makes a decision on where to look for the next horcrux. Status: Complete
It was late when Orion stirred from sleep, rolling over in a lazy and listless way, not particularly mindful that he was asleep on a solitary set of sofa cushions. He managed to roll completely off in his quest for comfort, dropping the three inches to the floor with a solid little thud. He let out a groan when his head connected with the worn carpet and he blinked hard as he opened his now watery eyes, struggling to remember why, exactly, he was asleep on a moldy former piece of furniture. It took a few moments for the memories to come flooding back but when they did, it was like running full tilt into a brick wall.
Little Hangleton; the Gaunt house; the ring that was a horcrux and the roof caving in. Once all of these things settled at the forefront of his mind he turned his head and there was Caradoc, sprawled out asleep on the mattress that Orion usually slept on, head hanging back and chest not moving. It was a little bit odd, to see someone not breathing and know they weren't dead, but it was comforting in a way. His Godfather he was here, and it was nice to not be alone. Especially not after having stared down the face of Voldemort's trickery twice, and sure dumb luck being the only reason he'd came out of it without being in a body bag.
Sitting up he rubbed the back of his head and let out a groan, groping for his discarded watch in the semi-darkness. The fire had nearly died out and the room was chilly, and when he checked the time he noted that it was was after 3 a.m. He had slept away the majority of the day after they'd returned from their mission, his body demanding the rest. Now it was complaining in a different way, wanting warmth and food, and though he was loathe to move he knew he couldn't just ignore the shivers and hunger pangs.
Forcing himself to his feet, Orion stumbled over to the stack of wood and tossed a few sticks into the fire to get it stoked again. He'd never been good at starting those handy fires in jars that he heard Hermione was good at, and while he could use his wand to spark the initial flames, he was far better off keeping it going the old fashioned way. Once the room was starting to warm up he poked around in the small store of food he kept upstairs, the majority of it in the lower chambers to be kept cool. He found an apple and some biscuits and settled down to eat, staring into the flames thoughtfully as he picked at the food.
They had two horcruxes now, the locket and the ring. Maybe, wherever Harry was, he'd found another or two by now. It had been awhile, surely he'd accomplished something in his journey. He hadn't written, to any of them, probably for safety reasons but it was still hard being kept in the dark. There was even the possibility that Harry had found nothing at all, which was a possibility since none of them had any real idea of where to be going next.
Where would I hide horcruxes if I were Voldemort, Orion thought to himself, tossing his apple core into the now crackling fire. Where does one even get the notion to splice their soul into bites? How do you even choose a hiding place for something like that? I wish this came with a road map.
He was lost in the maze of his thoughts, running in absolute circle around it all, when he spotted the pensieve out of the corner of his eye. Feeling a bit daft he wiped his hands off on his dirty jeans and crawled across the floor to where the stone basin sat resting, the vials of memories lined up along the edge of the hearth. They were all labeled by year, and he selected one that read 1938 in very scrawling script, tipping it over into the basin. The silvery strands of the memory flowed out like melted down sickles, the liquid swirling around once it was out of it's containment, shadowy figures visibly just below the surface where he couldn't quite see them.
Checking over his shoulder one more time to make sure Caradoc was still sleeping, Orion leaned down and put his face into the penseive, allowing himself to be tugged into the memory. Immediately he recognized that they were in London, pre-war, the buildings much older looking than now and the people dressed quite right for the time period. A street sign told him that this was indeed Vauxhall Road in London, and at first he was wondering who, exactly, he was looking for. It only took him moments though to zero in on the culprit, spotting Dumbledore in his outlandish attire that made him stick out, rather oddly, from the muggles on the street.
Orion fell in to step behind the very much younger Albus Dumbledore, trailing him down the busy thoroughfare. They seemed to be heading for a large, and rather ominous looking, building at the end of the block that loomed over the other more squat buildings around it. It was dingy looking, with tall painted shut windows and wide stone front steps, and it was when Dumbledore started jogging briskly up them that Orion's suspicions were confirmed. A sign above the door that was imprinted into a very broad piece of inlaid stone announced the place to be Stockewell Orphanage, though the name rang no immediate bells in Ri's head. They were at an orphanage? Well, okay then.
He slipped through the door as Dumbledore nudged it open, and the pair came to a rather abrupt stop in the dimly lit foyer. The place looked just as dingy on the inside as it did on the outside, the lime colored tile floor faded and in need of a good scrubbing, dusty cobwebs thick in the corners of the high ceiling. He was so busy contemplating this that he nearly missed the squat little harried looking woman who appeared on the landing of the winding wooden stairwell, sounding distinctly out of breath as she hurried down to greet them.
"Can I help you?" The girl asked when she reached the bottom of the stairwell, looking back and forth between the in a rather suspicious manner.
"Ah, I believe you can," Dumbledore said with a nod, extending a hand to her that she did not shake. "I have an appointment with a Mrs. Cole?"
There was no need for the girl to go and fetch anyone, as Mrs. Cole herself appeared with a corked bottle in her hand. She was tall and leaner than the girl in front of them, her features sharp and while not unkind she did look rather harassed and put-upon. "Martha," she addressed the girl first, thrusting the bottle at her. "Take this iodine upstairs, Billy has been picking at his scabs and Eric's chicken pox are oozing all over his bed sheets. Get him into an oatmeal bath and get his bed changes, then make sure everyone is washed up for supper." She finally turned to address Dumbledore, eying him a bit wearily. "May I help you?"
"I'm Albus Dumbledore," he tried again, extending out his hand in a kindly way. "I wrote you a letter requesting an appointment and you extended me an invitation to come by."
"Oh, right," Mrs. Cole said, the memory seeming to slowly come back to her. "Well, we best go talk in my office then. Yes, follow me."
She turned and headed down an adjacent corridor and Dumbledore and Orion both briskly followed her inside, where the door was promptly shut. Mrs. Cole sat behind her paper littered desk and Dumbledore in a rather rickety chair across from her, and then what was going on became rather clear to Orion.
Dumbledore was at Stockwell Orphanage to discuss the matter of young Tom Riddle attending Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry with a rather weary Mrs. Cole. After a bit of discussion, and very little convincing, Dumbledore finally pulled out his wand and performed a bit of very clever magic to fool, or rather to mix up, the equally as clever Mrs. Cole. When things were finally in a bit of order, and Mrs. Cole seemed rather agreeable to the idea of sending Tom off to this school that she'd never heard of, they shared a bit of gin and then things got interesting.
"I was wondering," Dumbledore ask, taking advantage of the moment to piece together some things for himself, "if you could tell me anything about Tom Riddle's past? I believe he was born here, yes? In this orphanage?"
Mrs. Cole nodded, still lost in her gin glass and addressing it more than she actually addressed the man in front of her. "That's right, yes. I remember it, it was on New Years Eve, cold as all and snowing. A girl, not much older than myself back then, came staggering up the steps. It happened quite a fair bit and so we took her in without hesitation. She had the baby within the hour and died in another hour. That was, as they say, that. The child was in our care."
Pursing his lips, Dumbledore leaned back and tapped his fingertips together, rather lost in thought as he spoke again. "Did this girl happen to say anything before she died?"
"Matter of fact, she died," Mrs. Cole said, slamming her gin glass down in a rather animated fashion that, any other time, would have made Orion laugh. "She said 'I hope he looks like his papa', and then she requested that he be named Tom, for his father, and Marvolo for her father. It's a funny name, isn't it? Marvolo? Anyway, we wondered if she wasn't a bit oddly turned as she asked that the boy be given the surname Riddle. She died right after that, never uttered another word. We named him just as she asked, but nobody named Tom, Marvolo, or any other Riddle ever came to fetch him. He's stayed with us ever since."
She paused then to pour herself a bit more gin before she continued. "That Tom, he's a funny boy."
"Hm, yes, well. I thought perhaps that would be the case," Dumbledore said with a slight inclination of his head.
"Twas a funny baby too," she continued, "hardly every cried. Then he got a little older and just became...odd."
"Odd in what sort of way?" Dumbledore inquired, leaning forward a bit in his chair.
"Well, you see...."
Mrs. Cole looked thoughtful and then cut herself off short, looking at Dumbledore above the rim of her full gin glass. "You definitely have a spot for him in your school?"
"Definitely," Dumbledore nodded.
"Nothing I can say will change this fact?"
"Not a thing, dear lady."
"He scares the other children," Mrs. Cole whispered, almost like it was a scandalous thing.
Dumbledore raised an eyebrow but showed no other emotion on his face. "You mean to say he is a bully?"
Mrs. Cole nodded slightly. "I believe that he must be, yes. It's just very hard to catch the boy up in anything. The children have...accidents, that happen to them. Nasty things...like Billy's rabbit. Tom swore and declared he didn't do it, but I mean, well that is to say...rabbits just don't hang themselves from the rafters now do they?"
"No, dear madame, I don't believe they do," Dumbledore agreed.
"I'm not sure how he managed it, but he and Billy argued about that rabbit just before it happened," she continued, eyes a bit wide with gin. "We take them out every summer, on an outing, and we go to the countryside or the sea. Well, two other children were never quite right after, and all we ever got from them was that they'd gone into a cave with Tom Riddle. He said they just went to explore but something happened, I'm quite sure of it. There's just been a lot of funny, funny things."
"Cave," Orion whispered, aware that they couldn't hear him and that it was okay to speak aloud. "Cave! The cave by the sea, the necklace! That's why he picked the cave!" He snapped too when he realized they were still speaking, and that he'd missed a bit of it. They were suddenly standing up and exiting the office, and Orion hurried to follow them.
They went up the winding rickety wooden staircase and turned left at the top. They were moving down a corridor that was lined with doors, some opened and some shut tight. Orion recognized that this was the quarters where the boys lived, as he caught glimpses of beds, desks, and wardrobes as they went passed the doors that stood ajar. They finally stopped in front of one and Mrs. Cole knocked twice before opening it a crack.
"Tom, you have a visitor. This is Mr. Dumbledore, and he's come to tell you...well...let's let him do it, shall we?"
Mrs. Cole stepped aside and let Dumbledore enter, Orion sliding in with him. She shut the door and left them alone in the small room. There was an old and small iron bed, a tall wardrobe, a small desk with a chair and nothing else. A young boy was sitting on top the worn blankets, a book on his lap from which he did not immediately look up. There was no trace of the Gaunt family on his face, he obviously took for his father the elder Tom Riddle, and Merope Gaunt had obviously gotten her dying wish. He was dark haired and very pale, and when he finally spoke his voice was rather cold for that of a child and his eyes narrowed at Dumbledore in his odd velvet suit.
"You look weird."
Dumbledore merely smiled rather pleasantly, seemingly not affronted by the boys lack of tact. "How do you, Tom?" He asked, stepping forward and extending a hand in greeting.
It seemed like, for a moment, that Tom would ignore the hand but he finally stood and took it, shaking it slowly. Once they were thus introduced Dumbledore drew up the chair and sat, still looking rather jovial.
"Tom, I'm Professor Dumbledore..."
"Professor? What's a professor? Are you another one of those doctors? Did she send you up here to talk to me? She wanted you to look at me, didn't she? You better not lie to me! Tell me the truth!"
The last words had Orion himself a bit put out, the boy sounded so forceful and commanding. He seemed to be the sort who knew what he wanted and was very used to giving orders. He glared at Dumbledore hard then, as though expecting an admittance of truth that, yes, Mrs. Cole wanted him looked at by a 'professor' which was just another fancy word for 'doctor'.
"Well? Who are you then!"
"I told you already. I'm Professor Dumbledore, and I come from a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school, that is if you'd like to come."
Tom took a step back and pointed accusingly at Dumbledore, eyes still narrowed into angry little slits. "Don't lie to me! You can't fool me! You're from an asylum, aren't you? Aren't you! Well I'm not going! That old cat is the one who should be in the asylum! I never did anything to the other children, and you can ask them yourself! They'll tell you I didn't do anything!"
"I am not from the asylum, Tom, I am a teacher. If you just sit down and calm yourself, I can tell you all about Hogwarts. If you'd rather not come, however, I shan't force you. If you'd prefer to stay here I rather understand, but you see...Hogwarts is a school for people with special abilities. It's a school of magic."
That seemed to catch Tom's interest and he dropped his angry gaze for a more curious look. "Magic? Is it...it's magic that I can do?"
"What sort of things can you do Tom?" Dumbledore asked, glad that the boy was at least somewhat calmer and warming to the notion.
"I can do all sorts of things," Tom said, a bit of color in his pale face now as he began to grow increasingly excited. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do anything I want without training them. I can make bad things happen to people that annoy me...I can make them hurt if I want to." He had to sit down on the edge of the bed then, his excitement making his legs feel a bit shaky and odd. "I knew I was different, I knew it. I knew I was special."
Nodding his head slightly, Dumbledore cleared his throat a bit. "Well, you were quite right, Tom. You are a wizard."
Lifting his head, Tom looked at Dumbledore with an almost fiery stare, critical and curious all at once now. "Are you a wizard too?"
"Yes, I am."
"Prove it," Tom whispered, the curiosity leaving his gaze now, leaving behind only the cynical disbelief. "Tell the truth!"
Dumbledore quirked an eyebrow then, intently studying young Tom Riddle. "I take it that you are going to accept your place at Hogwarts then?"
"Of course I am!"
"Then you will do well to address me as 'Professor' or 'Sir'."
Tom's gaze hardened for a fleeting moment and then it passed. "Please, Professor. Could you show me?"
Orion took a step back away from the wardrobe, his arms crossed over his chest. He could scarcely believe what he was witnessing, that Albus Dumbledore had once sat in a room with young Tom Riddle like this, explaining to him the idea of magic. It was obvious that, while Dumbledore knew even then that Tom was not quite right, that he'd had no idea of what the boy before him would grow up to be. As he was thinking this Dumbledore flicked his wand and the wardrobe burst into flames from which there came no heat and the wood did not truly burn.
From inside the wardrobe there came a sound then, a shaking noise like something trembling. With another flick of his wand the flames died and Dumbledore looked at Tom in an expectant manner. Tom looked frightened but Dumbledore merely gestured to the wardrobe.
"Open the door," he said calmly, watching as Tom reluctantly obeyed him and opened the door of the wardrobe. Inside sat a wooden box, and Dumbledore nodded his head. "Take it out then, go on. Then tell me, Tom. Is there anything in that box you shouldn't have?"
"I suppose so," Tom said in a begrudging manner, looking up at Dumbledore again.
Dumbledore nodded his head, tapping the box with a long finger. "Open it up."
Orion leaned forward, expecting something ghastly, and was rather disappointed to see a mess of nothing really worthwhile. There was a yo-yo, a thimble, and an old mouth organ among other trivial things. He watched as Tom tipped up the box and the objects tumbled out onto the bed where they lay silent and still.
"You will return to them to their proper owners," Dumbledore informed him as he stood from his chair, looking down at Tom. I will know whether or not you have done so. Stealing will not be tolerated at Hogwarts, do well to remember that. At Hogwarts we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have been using your powers in a way that is not taught or tolerated, Tom, and while you are not the first student to let your powers run away with you, you must learn to contain it. Hogwarts can expel students, and once you have begun your studies, the Ministry of Magic will not tolerate your using magic outside of school or to harm others. Do you understand?"
Tom did not look pleased but he nodded just the same. "Yes, sir."
They went on to discuss spell books and wands, and where these were purchased and how. Dumbledore handed over the envelope and they discussed how one was to get to Diagon Alley, and the lists that were contained with the scarlet envelope. Orion was losing interest, feeling bored with how mundane the memory had turned, when Tom audibly flinched when Dumbledore mentioned Tom the bartender. The professor caught this too and seemed to backpedal curiously.
"You dislike the name Tom?"
"There are loads of people named Tom," he said, shrugging a little. "My father was named Tom Riddle...was he a wizard too?"
Dumbledore didn't truly have an answer for that. "I'm afraid I don't know-"
"My mother can't have been magic, or she wouldn't have died," Tom said, fidgeting a little. "It must have been my father. When do I come to this Hogwarts then?"
"All the details are in the letter in your envelope," Dumbledore said, still studying Tom curiously. "You will leave September the first, and there is a train ticket there as well. Don't lose it. I'm afraid I must be going now."
Tom paused and then blurted out his next words like a secret he'd been dying to tell. "I can talk to snakes. They come and they find me, and they whisper to me. Is that normal for a wizard?"
Dumbeldore kept his voice calm and even, though his eyes spoke volumes for what his mouth did not speak. "It is unusual, yes, but not unheard of. Goodbye now, Tom. I will see you at Hogwarts."
The memory began to fade away, and Orion raised his face from the basin. He rocked back off his knees and onto his backside on the floor, blinking hard. He felt like he had just learned so much from so little, and more than ever he wished that Harry was there to see it for himself. They had not gone through the memories completely before he had left, and these were things Orion felt that he should know.
It was clear that Tom Riddle had been fascinated with the idea of death and immortality from a young age, and had believed that magic would allow him to live forever. He had always been sinister and dark, even as a child, and had since a young age taken pleasure in the pain and suffering of others. He had also loathed the orphanage, the place where he had spent his childhood and where he had been born, and Orion got the idea that maybe, just maybe, the next horcrux or a clue was hidden there.
He had to see Stockewell Orphanage for himself, and immediately.