Outside the window there was the sound of clanging horses' hooves and loud laughter. Pen % fun % Pavilion www.biquge.info

Apparently the horse was standing in the bushes, close to the winding path leading to the village.

Gangte was stunned, his eyes wide open as he listened outside. Morfen hissed and turned her head in the direction from which the voice had come from, her expression full of longing. Merlot looked up.

Harry saw that her face was very pale.

"God, what an ugly thing!" A girl's voice said as clearly as if she was standing in the house and talking. "Can't your father clean up this dilapidated house?"

"That's not ours," a young man's voice said. "Everything on the other side of the valley belonged to us, but the hut belonged to an old homeless man named Gonter and his children. His son is crazy, and you should have heard some stories in the village—"

The girl smiled.

The clanging of horses' hooves grew louder and louder.

Morfen tried to get up from the armchair.

"Sit in your chair," his father warned in a parseltongue.

"Tom," said the girl again, as they had walked to the side of the house. "Maybe I'm mistaken—did someone nail a snake to that door?"

"Oops, you're right!" The man said. "That son must have done it, I told you he wasn't in his right mind. Don't look at it, Cecilia, dear. ”

The clanging sound of horses' hooves faded away.

"'Honey,'" Morfinn whispered in a parseltongue, looking at his sister. "'Honey,' he called her. So he won't want you anyway. Merlot was so pale that she looked like she was going to faint.

"What's that?" Gangt also shrieked in snake language, looking at his son, and then at his daughter. "What did you just say, Mofen?"

"She likes to look at that Muggle," he said, staring at his sister with malice on his face, who now looked scared. "She always ran into the garden to see him through the cracks in the hedge when he passed by, didn't she? And last night—"

Merlot shook her head violently and begged him.

But Morfen ruthlessly continued, "Stick out the window and wait to see him ride home, don't you?" ”

"Sticking out the window to see a Muggle?" Gangter whispered.

The three members of the Gangter family seemed to have forgotten about Ogden, and he seemed a little overwhelmed and angry at the sudden series of incomprehensible hisses.

"Is it true?" Gonte said lifelessly, taking two steps towards the frightened girl. "My daughter—a pure-blood Slytherin descendant—loves a filthy, filthy Muggle?"

Merlot shook her head like crazy and leaned against the wall, apparently speechless.

"But I've got him, father!" Morfen giggled. "I caught him as he passed, and he didn't look pockmarked with a pockmarked face, did he, Melo?"

"You disgusting little squib, you filthy betrayer of blood!" Gonter lost control and grabbed his daughter by the throat with a roar.

Harry and Ogden shouted at the same time, "No! ”

Ogden raised his wand and shouted, "Forceless!" ”

Gonter was thrown away from his daughter; He tripped over a chair and fell to the ground.

With a roar, Morfen jumped up from his chair and ran towards Ogden, brandishing his bloody knife and firing a spell indiscriminately with his wand.

Ogden began to flee for his life. Dumbledore called Harry to run after him, Merlot's screams echoing in his ears.

Ogden hurried across the trail with his head in his hands, and rushed into the main road, where he bumped into a handsome young man with black hair, who was riding on a chestnut stallion with smooth fur. Behind him, along with a beautiful girl on a gray horse, he yelled at Ogdon, mixed with giggles.

Ogden bounced off the side of the horse and ran again, the gown fluttering behind him, dust from head to toe, and finally he stumbled and disappeared at the end of the road.

"I think that's enough, Harry," Dumbledore said.

He grabbed Harry's elbow. After a while, they flew together again, weightlessly through the darkness until their feet hit the ground again, and they returned to Dumbledore's office, bathed in dim light.

"How's the girl in the house?" Harry said immediately, and Dumbledore flicked his wand and lit some more lights. "Merlot, or whatever her name is?"

"Oh, she survived," Dumbledore sat down again behind the table, and motioned for Harry to sit down as well. "Ogden Apparition returned to the Ministry of Magic and returned with reinforcements within 15 minutes. Morfen and his father tried to resist, but they were subdued, and they were taken out of the room before being convicted by the Wizengamot. Mofen, who already had a record of attacking Muggles, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, who wounded several Ministry of Magic employees, including Ogden, was sentenced to six months in prison. ”

"Marvolo?" Harry repeated, feeling a little strange.

"Yes," Dumbledore smiled appreciatively, "I'm glad to see you keep up." ”

"That old man is ......"

"Voldemort's maternal grandfather, yes," Dumbledore said. Marvolo, his son Morfin, and his daughter Merlot were the last descendants of the House of Gunte, an ancient family of wizards known for their capricious and violent temperament for their own siblings. The lack of rationality, combined with a penchant for nobility and luxury, meant that the family's fortune had been squandered for generations before Marvolo was born. As you can see, they have become destitute, bad-tempered, unimaginably arrogant, and cherish several treasures that have been passed down from the family as if they were their own sons, while he treats his daughters quite badly. ”

"Then Merlot," Harry leaned forward in his chair, staring at Dumbledore, "and Merlot is...... Professor, does that mean she's ...... Voldemort's mother? ”

"Yes," Dumbledore said. "It just so happens that we had a relationship with Voldemort's father. I don't know if you've noticed? ”

"That Muggle that Morphy attacked? The man on horseback? ”

"Very true, actually," Dumbledore said with a laugh. "Yes, that is Tom Riddle Sr., a handsome Muggle who often rode past the Gunter house, for whom Merlot Gonte had secret, fanatical affection."

"They got married?" Harry said incredulously that he couldn't think of anyone more unlikely to fall in love than these two.

"I think you've forgotten," Dumbledore said, "Merlot is a wizard. I believe that under the intimidation of her father, her magical abilities were not fully realized. Once Marvolo and Muffin were obediently in Azkaban, once she had been free and alone for the first time in her life, I was sure that she would have complete control over her ability to plot an escape from the desperate life she had lived for eighteen years. Can't you guess what Merlot might have done to make Tom Riddle forget about his Muggle partner and fall in love with her instead? ”

"Imperius?" Harry guessed. "Or is it love medicine?"

"Good. Personally, I'm inclined to think that she used love pills. I'm sure she thought it would be more romantic, and it wouldn't be difficult to implement, and on a hot day, when Riddle was riding alone, she could just persuade him to drink some water. Anyway, a few months later, in the village of Little Hangleston, where we had just met, people began to talk about a huge scandal. You can imagine the gossip that the squire's son eloped with the homeless man's daughter.

But the villagers' shock was nothing compared to Mavolo. When he returned from Azkaban, he expected his daughter to cook a hot meal and wait faithfully for his return. Instead, he found only inches of dust in the house, and a goodbye note explaining what she had done.

"As far as I know, he hasn't mentioned her since. His untimely death may be due to her running away from home - or because he simply didn't learn how to support himself. Azkaban made Mavolo very poor, and he did not live to the day when Mofen returned home. ”

"What about Merlot? She...... She's dead, isn't she? Didn't Voldemort grow up in an orphanage? ”

Harry asked hurriedly.

"That's true," Dumbledore said. "We'll have to guess here, but I don't think it's hard to guess what's going on. You see, within a few months of their elopement and marriage, Tom Riddle returned to little Hangerton's house alone. Neighbors say he was 'blinded' and 'deceived'. I'm sure he meant that he had been enchanted and then the magic had dissipated, and I guess he was afraid to use such precise words for fear of being mistaken for a psychopath. The neighbors, after hearing him, speculated that Merlot had lied to Tom Riddle that she was pregnant with his child, and that he was forced to marry her. ”

"But she did give birth to his child."

"But that was a year after they got married. Tom Riddle left her pregnant when she left. ”

"What went wrong?" Harry asked. "Why did the love pill fail?"

"It's another guess," said Dumbledore, "but I'm sure Merlot loves her husband too much to bear to continue to use magic to control him." I believe it was she who decided to stop taking the drug. Perhaps, she foolishly assumed that in return he would fall in love with her from now on. Maybe Mellot thought he would be by her side for the sake of the child. If so, she's miscalculated both. He left her, never came back to see her, and didn't care how his son was doing. ”

The sky outside was as dark as ink, and the lights in Dumbledore's office seemed brighter than ever.

"I guess that's all for tonight, Harry," Dumbledore said after a while.

"Okay, Professor." Harry said.

He stood up, but did not leave.

"Professor...... Is it important to know all of Voldemort's past? ”

"Very important, I think." Dumbledore said.

"And this ...... Does this have anything to do with prophecy? ”

"It's very closely related to prophecy."

"Okay," Harry was a little confused, but relieved.

He turned to leave, remembered something again, and he turned back again.

"Professor, can I tell Ron and Hermione everything you told me?" Dumbledore looked at him carefully for a moment, then said, "Yes, I think Mr. Weasley and Miss Granger have proven that they can be trusted. But, Harry, I want you to tell them not to mention this to anyone else. I don't want people to talk about it, say I know, or guess about Voldemort's secrets. ”

"No, Professor, I'll promise only Ron and Hermione know. By the way, and Duten......"

"Du Teng should know more than you know, although I didn't take him to see those memories specifically, but you understand that with Du Teng's strength, it is still very easy to investigate these contents."

"Well, yes, is that so......"

Harry's face was uncertain.

"I'm sure." Dumbledore smiled, "And I know you have a lot of questions for him, and I can tell you in advance that he left for some very special assignments. Especially when school opened, he had to leave here. But now it's no problem, the mission is over, and Du Teng has returned, if you have anything you want to know, you can go and ask him in person. ”

"Okay, okay, thank you, Professor, and, good night." Harry turned again, almost to the door, and found that on the long-legged tables were not only a number of silver-colored utensils that looked fragile, but also an ugly gold ring with a large, broken black stone set on it.

"Professor," Harry asked, staring at the ring. "The ring—"

"How?" Dumbledore said.

"You wore it the day we visited Professor Slahhorn."

"Yes," Dumbledore agreed.

"But isn't that what it is...... Professor, isn't this the ring that Marvolo Gonter showed Ogden? ”

Dumbledore nodded.

"It's the same ring."

"But how-? Have you always owned it? ”

"No, I just got it a while ago," Dumbledore said. "Actually, just a few days before I went to pick you up at your aunt and uncle's house."

"So, that's when your hand was wounded, Professor?"

"Those days, yes, Harry." Harry hesitated, and Dumbledore smiled.

"Professor, what the hell is that?"

"Haha, it's just a little problem, I didn't expect such a powerful spell on the ring, I was careless, so I was injured a little, but it's okay anymore, Professor Snape has prepared a healing potion for me, you don't have to worry. Well, it's getting late, Harry! I'll tell you about it next time. Good night. ”

"Good night, Professor."