It was another week before Dumbledore called Harry into his office again, and the note had been given to him during potions class. He met his father’s eyes, and knew the man had read the missive before Harry had, just by the knowing look in his eyes. He decided he’d make sure his father knew he wouldn’t be back in their quarters until after dinner that night, just in case.

“What’s that?” Draco asked as he stirred their potion with practiced ease. He was very glad to be up to par with his studies now that he was confident he had at least ninety-nine percent of his full memory back. The thought of having to redo his O.W.L.s had nearly stopped his heart when he was still studying to keep up.

Harry looked around to make sure no one else was listening in, and sent a smile to Hermione as he caught her looking down suspiciously at the crumbled parchment in his hand. She smiled back and turned back to hers and Ron’s potion once more. “A note from Dumbledore, actually. Our next meeting is tonight.”

“And you’ll really let me come to the meeting with Ron and Hermione afterwards?” Draco asked, trying his hardest not to glare at the aforementioned Gryffindors on the other side of the classroom.

Harry rolled his eyes at Draco’s continued paranoia on the subject. “Yes, Draco, I already promised you I would. I’m just hoping Ron won’t try to put up a fight. Hermione won’t have any problem, other than asking if it was wise to tell you. Then you can shove it in their faces that you know more than they do about it.”

Draco gave him a smug, self-satisfied smile as he added the next ingredient, rose water, and nudged Harry’s shoulder playfully. “You really are part Slytherin.”

“And don’t you forget it.” Harry smirked, winking at the blonde as he continued to mince the hellebore. He chuckled when Draco blushed and pushed him again.

“Enough roughhousing, boys,” Severus said as he walked past Harry and Draco and saw their playful shoves. Any other time he would have just smiled and let them be, but when dangerous potions were involved, he had to put his foot down.

“Sorry, Dad. Er, I mean Professor,” Harry quickly amended, blushing as half the class gasped and stared at him. “What? Like you wouldn’t accidently call your Professor ‘Dad’ if your parents taught here!” Harry snipped, glaring at his fellow students.

Severus just smiled amusedly and moved on to check the other student’s potions, taking pleasure in the way his students looked wary of his pleased expression, like they expected him to curse them for laughing at his son. He mentally awarded Gryffindor ten points, just for giving him a good laugh.

S~S~S~S

“Good afternoon, Harry. I trust you’ve been doing well in all of your classes?” the Headmaster asked with a warm smile and twinkle in his ice blue eyes. Harry had that familiar sensation that he was being x-rayed as he sat in the chair facing Dumbledore’s desk. The last time he had spoken to the man, he had said some unkind things, and he felt like he needed to apologize.

“Yes, sir. As well as I can,” Harry said, somewhat distractedly. He took a deep breath and frowned, wondering why this felt so hard. “I wanted to apologize, Professor, for the way I spoke to you last time. I was very disrespectful, and I’m sorry.”

The Headmaster’s smile widened and the twinkle in his eyes became so bright, Harry was sure it would have lit up the entire office if they’d been sitting in the dark. “I forgive you, Harry, as some of the things you said I actually deserved. As you know, a wise old man’s mistakes are generally much larger than those of others.”

“Now, Harry, the first memory I want to show you is my own recollection of the first time I met young Tom Riddle. I hand delivered his letter as the Deputy Headmaster at the time, which used to be quite customary for students who grew up in the Muggle world, unaware of their magical heritage.”

“Wish someone would have done that for me in the first place, though it was quite fun to see Hagrid scare the hell out of the Dursleys,” Harry said with a sad little smile, remembering that those Dursleys were gone now, and it was because Death Eaters had been trying to get to Harry. He had no love lost on their account, but every human life was worth something, even if Harry didn’t particularly like them.

Dumbledore nodded sagely, gently tapping the edge of his desk with the fingers of his good hand. “Yes, that probably would have been more appropriate, but I must admit that I never thought your family would lie to you about who you were. How woefully mistaken I was.”

Harry could not agree with that statement more. He moved forward somewhat excitedly as Dumbledore pulled his pensieve out and sat it on the desk between them, a vial with swirling silver mist lying beside it. He tipped the opened vial into the swirling, ethereal light in the pensieve, and beckoned Harry closer.

“You know how this works, Harry. I’ll be right beside you,” the Headmaster assured the Gryffindor, lifting a hand to indicate that Harry should go first.

Taking a deep breath to prepare himself for the unpleasant falling feeling, Harry touched his wand to the surface, and was immediately sucked down into an old memory. As his feet hit solid ground, Harry threw out his arms to steady himself, and looked up at the large and looming building before him.

It looked like it had definitely seen better days, and the wrought iron gate that surrounded it was rusty and looked like a good wind could knock the entire thing over. Harry jumped as Dumbledore landed beside him, wasting no time in following the old man towards the gates. That’s when Harry spotted the younger Dumbledore, his hair still auburn, and his face less lined. He followed both Dumbledores through the gates and down the path which led to a set of steps. The wooden door looked ancient, and the shape was slightly warped. Young Dumbledore gave it three firm knocks, and then waited with his hands crossed lightly in front of himself.

The door creaked open, and a young girl, perhaps about Harry’s age, looked out, wiping her hands on a dirty apron. She paused and looked his plumb suit up and down, her brow creasing in confusion.

“Aye, ye be the man old Loretta said was comin’, eh?” the girl asked in an Irish accent that properly matched her Weasley-esque red hair.

“I am Albus Dumbledore, and yes, Ms. Brooks is expecting me,” Dumbledore replied with a slight bow and a warm smile.

“In, then. I’ll get the Mistress.” The girl turned left towards a long corridor and let out a shrill whistle that made Harry jump. “Loretta! Man here fer ya’!”

They were standing in a medium sized entrance hall, nothing like at Hogwarts, and though the outside of the building looked ancient, the inside was plain and clean, nothing too significant. Harry looked towards the staircase and saw children playing, all in matching blue jumpsuits and white trainers. It was an orphanage.

A plump lady with flyaway dirty blonde hair bustled down the corridor the young Irish girl had disappeared down. She sent Dumbledore’s suit a flashing look before stopping in front of him with a smile that didn’t quite reach her eyes and a firm handshake.

“Loretta Brooks, Headmistress of Wool’s Orphanage. Come, come, we’ll have a cuppa before you meet the little blighter.” She walked back down the corridor, young Dumbledore, his older counterpart and Harry following in her bustling wake. She had that air that reminded Harry of Mrs. Weasley, and recognized it as determinedly motherly in nature. The tone in which she spoke of Tom Riddle, however, did not bode well for the small boy.

Ms. Brooks slid behind her small desk, which looked to be in a state of disarray, and rang a bell, which summoned another young girl in an apron. She asked for a tea service to be brought in, then sat down and waved her arm for Dumbledore to take the seat across from her.

“It’ll be a mo’ for the tea, I’m afraid. Holly there is a new trainee, and as blessed as her little heart be, she’s sometimes a bit clumsy.”

A thick manila file folder was sitting in front of her looking innocent and plain. As she nudged it accidently with her elbow, she looked down, and made an unpleasant face before pushing it towards Dumbledore.

“I took the liberty of extracting Mr. Riddle’s disciplinary file for ya’. Sorry to say that the thickness of it doesn’t lie; the boy is a troubled soul,” Ms. Brooks said, her tone sad, but her expression wary.

“Why do you say that?” Dumbledore asked as the young girl, Holly, brought in the tea service and sat it very carefully down on the desk between them. She gave an awkward curtsy before quickly leaving the small office once more.

“Sugar, cream, brandy?” Ms. Brooks asked as she poured two cups of tea, stirring quite a lot of cream and sugar into one.

“Nothing, thank you,” Dumbledore replied, gratefully taking the offered cup of tea with a thankful nod of his head. He took a deep sip, then set the cup aside, flipping open the manila file folder and looking down at the first page. It seemed to be a report, written by one of the orderlies.

‘T. Riddle caught out of bed well passed curfew, walking the halls while playing with a garden snake. Snake confiscated, T. Riddle sent back to bed with the punishment of no dessert with dinner the next day.’

There were many such small offenses, growing more and more strange and alarming as Dumbledore turned the pages. He stopped when he read a particular one that caught his interest. He flipped the paper around so that Ms. Brooks could read the line he was pointing to.

“This one here states that Mr. Riddle was accused of killing another child’s pet rabbit. What evidence did you have for such an accusation?”

Ms. Brooks looked slightly green, her eyes haunted as she remembered that horrible day. “Billy Stubbs, one of the boys who used to share a room with Riddle, got on his bad side one day after commenting on his strange fixation with hissing at snakes out on the grounds. That night, Billy woke up to find his pet rabbit, hanging from the rafters of their room with its neck snapped. Now, I’m hard pressed to tell ya’ how Riddle got it up there, but they were the only two boys in the room and Riddle had threatened Billy with revenge that day. Riddle has his own room now, as all of the other children are simply too frightened to share a room with him.”

Dumbledore made a noncommittal noise as he turned the paper back towards himself, flipping to the next and then the next, pausing on the very last page of the file.

‘T. Riddle, accused another child of trying to steal his blanket. T. Riddle went quite mad, screaming at the top of his lungs as he scratched the other child viciously. R. Talbot in infirmary for the various scratches on his face and arms. T. Riddle’s play time and dessert taken away for a month, and required to apologize to R. Talbot. Psychiatric evaluation needed immediately.’

“This blanket he accused Mr. Talbot of trying to take, why was it so very important to him?”

Ms. Brooks sighed heavily and shook her head, setting her teacup aside as she rung her hands. It was clear that young Tom Riddle was the cause of much stress in this poor woman’s life, and Harry felt extremely bad for her.

“Riddle was born here in this orphanage. Poor wretch of a girl stumbled in one night, New Years Eve in fact, frozen to the core and in labour to boot. We tried as hard as we could to save her, but the cold and the bleeding got the best of the poor thing. She only had breath enough to tell us she wanted the boy named Tom Marvolo Riddle, odd name that, and then she was gone. There aren’t many children actually born here, Mr. Dumbledore, and the orderlies saw Riddle as something of a novelty. One of the young girls, Sasha I think her name was, stitched Riddle’s initials into one of the baby blankets we used for him. He’s had it ever since, and cherishes the thing. He believes it has some sort of close connection with his deceased mother.”

“I think I’d like to meet Mr. Riddle, now,” Dumbledore said as he finished his tea and stood up. Ms. Brooks stood as well, leading the way out of the cramped office and towards the staircase. She stopped at the first landing and turned to the now-Headmaster, a worried look on her face.

“You’re sure this school of yours can help him? I’d hate to just pawn him off on another place that will only make matters worse for the other children attending. He’s not a normal boy, but we just can’t place what went wrong with the child,” Ms. Brooks admitted with a bewildered look, as if she had been working on an extremely confusing puzzle for a long time, and only just realized she was missing some pieces.

“I think my school will help Mr. Riddle quite a bit. Our approach is aimed towards children who are not exactly viewed as normal. He’ll have to return here every summer between school years until he is finished with school, of course. However, we do not tolerate untoward behaviour and our disciplinary rules should help Mr. Riddle learn to control himself better,” Dumbledore assured the Headmistress with a small smile.

Ms. Brooks frowned as a crease formed between her brows. “You don’t cane the children, do ya’?”

“Oh no, never. We believe in firm discipline through lecture, loss of privileges, and instil in our students the best we can the sense of shame that comes with breaking rules, and the honour that comes with following them.”

Ms. Brooks looked satisfied with that answer, and continued up the next flight of stairs. She turned down a corridor to the left, and squinted at the numbers on the doors before stopping at one at the very end, room three-thirteen. She gave a sharp knock and entered without any answer.

A small boy with black hair and dark eyes looked up from his lounging position on his small bedstead. He looked annoyed and angry at being disturbed, until his eyes fell on Dumbledore, and widened at his plumb coloured suit. He didn’t return the smile that the now-Headmaster offered him.

Harry was disturbed to see that the young Tom Riddle, the little boy who would eventually turn into the creature that was Voldemort, looked scarily similar to the way Harry had at the same age. He knew he had things in common with Voldemort, but this one struck him as extremely more eerie than anything else. Take away an eleven-year-old Harry’s glasses and change his eyes to a dark, almost black and they would have been nearly identical.

“Tom, this is Mr. Dumbledore. He’s here to talk to you about a special school that you’ve been accepted to,” Ms. Brooks said in a gentle voice, as if speaking to a wild, wounded animal. She turned back towards Dumbledore and gave him a tight smile. “I’ll leave you to it then.”

Once Ms. Brooks was gone, Dumbledore closed the door and made his way over to a small desk chair opposite the bed and the young boy, who was still gawking at his choice of clothing. “It’s nice to meet you, Tom. My name is Professor Albus Dumbledore, and I am a teacher at this special school you’ve been accepted to.”

“By ‘school’ you mean madhouse, right? Because there’s nothing special about me according to old Brooks. She thinks I’m barking, but she’s the one who’s going round the twist, I tell you!” the young boy exclaimed, his face growing red as his anger surged. The nerve of that old codger, trying to send him to some nuthouse!

“By ‘school’, I mean just that, Tom. It is a special school for people who have a rare gift. Have you ever done anything you couldn’t explain, something the other children aren’t capable of?”

Tom gave Dumbledore a wary look, and nodded slowly. “Yeah, I have. I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who are mean to me. I can make them hurt if I want to...” he trailed off, his eyes seeming far away as if lost in his recollections. He came back to himself with a jerk of his head, and met Dumbledore’s eyes once more.

“One time when the other boys were teasing me at lunch, I made my glass of milk explode. Brooks thought I just slammed it down too hard. And another time, it was really cold outside during playtime, and I wanted to warm up, so I rubbed my hands together, and it started a fire. I had some nasty blisters after that.”

Dumbledore gave Tom a sympathetic look, though his smile was still in place. “These things, Tom, things that others consider abnormal or weird, are actually a gift. You’re a wizard, Tom, and my school is a school of Magic called Hogwarts.”

The young boy blinked, then stared at the Headmaster for a long minute before scowling. “Yeah, sure, that’s what you tell all the crazy kids before you lock them up, right? Pull the other one, old man.”

“I can prove it to you,” Dumbledore said, pulling his wand out of his sleeve. He peered around the room, and his eyes alighted on the small wardrobe in the corner. With a casual flick of his wand, the wardrobe went up in flames. He watched as Tom made a noise of horror and jumped off the bed.

“Everything I own is in there! Make it stop!” Tom yelled, wanting to run to the wardrobe and save his things, but fearing the heat of the tall flames.

With another flick of his wand, the flames were gone, and the wardrobe stood as it had before, no damage to it whatsoever. The doors were rattling faintly, and Tom was staring at it in fear.

“There’s something trying to get out, I think. Open the door, Tom.”

The young boy walked hesitantly over to the wardrobe, and turned the brass handle. He leaned down, and found the source of the rattling; a small box. He took it over to his bed, and turned it upside down, spilling the contents across the sheets. A small set of jacks, three playing cards, a little metal cross, and a pink bow lay pell-mell.

“We do not tolerate thievery at Hogwarts, Tom. Return those items to the children they belong to at once. You will also learn how to control these wild outbursts of accidental magic, and magic is not to be used intentionally outside of school. It is against the laws of our world. Do you understand?”

“Yes, sir,” Tom said in a small voice, placing all of the items back in the box and sitting on the bed beside it. He looked chagrined, though still annoyed.

“Now, I have the list of all of the items you will need for school here, and a train ticket that will take you to the school on the first of September.” Dumbledore asked as he passed the Hogwarts letter addressed to Tom Riddle to the young boy.

“I haven’t any money, Professor, and Brooks isn’t going to pay for me to go to a magic school. You think she’s pegged me as crazy now, wait till I tell her I need money to go learn how to do magic tricks,” Tom said with a scowl, crossing his arms over his chest. It was obvious the young boy did not like the Headmistress of the orphanage very much.

Dumbledore pulled a small velvet pouch from inside his coat and passed it to the young boy, who weighed it in his hands with a slight smile. “There is a special fund for children who cannot afford to pay for Hogwarts on their own. I took the liberty of pulling out the money you will need for your supplies. Would you like me to accompany you to buy your school things?”

“No, I can do it on my own. Just tell me where to go.”

Dumbledore told Tom how to get to the Leaky Cauldron, and also to ask Tom, the barkeep, to help him pass through the barrier into Diagon Alley. Young Tom looked quite annoyed that the barkeep shared his name, and it was the now-Headmaster’s first glimpse into his self-importance. Once he was about to leave, Tom stood up and grabbed his wrist.

“Wait. I can do something else that the other kids can’t do, and they make fun of me for it. I’m not sure if it’s magic I’m not supposed to do outside of school, either.”

“What is it, Tom?” Dumbledore asked, though he had a feeling he knew what it was, from the report about Billy Stubbs’ rabbit.

“I can talk to snakes. They find me, whisper things to me. Is that normal for a Wizard?”

The Deputy Headmaster hid his frown, and patted Tom gently on the shoulder. “It is a rare gift in the Magical world, but certainly not unheard of. It is allowed outside of school. However, it would be best if you refrained from doing so around the Muggles, or non-magical folk. It is not normal in the Muggle world, and that’s why the children make fun of you for it. I shall see you September the first, Tom. Goodbye.”

“Goodbye, Professor Dumbledore.”

Harry felt a firm grasp on his arm, and was pulled up out of the memory with a head-over-heels spinning sensation. He landed on his bum in the seat across from Dumbledore, who had a much smoother landing as he sat down slowly. Harry had so many thoughts flying through his head, he couldn’t decide what to say or ask first.

“We even looked the same,” was the first thing that came out of Harry’s mouth, and it was in a properly horrified tone.

“As young Tom got older, the similarities became less and less, but yes, as eleven-year-old boys, you and Tom Riddle did look remarkably alike. The most worrying part of this memory, in my opinion, was that fact that Tom had already realized that these strange occurrences were special powers, and had already began to consciously use and manipulate them. His powers were much stronger than an average Wizard of his age, and the amount of control he had over them without any training was extraordinary. The most disturbing part was that Tom knew he had control over other people if he used these powers against them. That, I believe, is when his thirst for power was first kindled.”

“Did he intimidate you, sir? He seemed extremely brazen for an eleven-year-old, especially after admitting to his powers. You seemed unnerved. Did you know then?” asked Harry, still quite shaken up about their similar appearances. That he could share something so intimate as his appearance with Voldemort felt like a horrible violation.

“I was intimidated by him, very much so. Did I know then that he would grow to be the creature he is today? Of course not. He was a headstrong boy who had learned to take care of himself practically from birth, much like yourself, and obviously had a need to prove himself. Ambition, as most people who are not in Slytherin believe, is not synonymous with evil.”

Harry was quiet for a while as he thought back on the memory, trying to pull out all of the significant things. He still wasn’t sure what was so important about this memory, other than seeing that Tom Riddle was sadistic, even as a little boy. “Sir, what am I supposed to be gaining from this?”

Dumbledore gave him a knowing smile, as if he had been waiting for Harry to get to this point, and ask this question. “The box of trinkets Tom retrieved from his wardrobe was full of things that did not belong to him. He had stolen them from victims of his various bullying schemes. They were treated as prizes or talisman for his work. This trait stayed with Tom Riddle as he got older. He took trophies, items that would help remind him of the things he had done. This is important because – ”

“Because the Horcruxes are probably those items that he kept. But how do I know what he took and from where?” Harry asked, feeling his heart speed up at the idea of finding the elusive Horcruxes that much easier. He had thought it would be near impossible, but if he had clues, he could solve the puzzle.

“That is one thing we can only speculate about. However, if you pay close attention to the memories I have collected for your benefit, you may see things of significance that Tom takes for himself. I am not guaranteeing that this will lead you to find any of the Horcruxes, but it is the best chance we’ve got.”

As Harry left the Headmaster’s office, thoughts of random talisman and trophies Voldemort could have taken swan through his mind. He had no doubt that something had been taken from his parents’ house after their murder, even if he didn’t take it until after he returned two years ago. Perhaps something from the orphanage, the graveyard in which he returned, even Hogwarts. Harry paused as that thought slammed into him. There could be a Horcrux, maybe more than one, at Hogwarts. After all, the diary had ended up in the school.

Distracted by thoughts of Horcruxes and hiding places, Harry didn’t realize the staircase he was walking down had decided to change direction. Though notorious for switching quite unexpectedly, the staircases never changed when a student was nearing the end, lest they fall to their death. This time, however, the staircase was not so careful.

Harry’s mind quickly caught up with his surroundings when, as he went to step down, his foot met only air and he began to fall, letting out a load yell of surprise. Thinking quickly, Harry reached up and caught the ledge of the stairs he had just come down with his right hand, hanging on for dear life as his feet dangled. He glanced down and felt his heart leap into his throat as he realized how far he had to fall if he lost his grip.

The stone of the steps was digging into his fingertips, scrapping the skin away as his nails scrabbled to keep holding on. Using his legs to help propel him, Harry swung his other hand up to grasp the ledge as well. Thankful for his short stature and pitiful weight, Harry pushed up with his palms, and heaved his torso onto the ledge, shimming the rest of his body to the steps above.

His breathing was heavy and his heart was still lodged in his throat as he lay exhausted on the steps. In all his years at Hogwarts, he had never known the staircases to change so suddenly. He had not been that lost in his thoughts, had he? Looking down at his raw and bloodied fingers, Harry decided that his own carelessness could not be all to blame for the scary experience.

Fifteen minutes later, as Harry was heading to the Great Hall for dinner, his father caught up with him from the stairs to the dungeons. He felt himself blush at the memory of nearly falling to his death on the sixth floor, and knew it was inevitable that his father would find out sooner or later.

“How did the lesson go, Harry?”

“Pretty good. I learned something quite important, as well as a lot of disturbing things. It was the trip back that nearly killed me, though,” Harry said nonchalantly.

Severus stopped in mid-step and turned to his son, a confused expression on his face. “The trip back? From where?”

Harry lifted his hands to show his mangled fingers, and gasped when his father gripped his wrists with a look of utter horror. “I was walking down the stairs from the seventh floor to the sixth floor, and the staircase changed really quickly. I had no warning, and I stepped off the ledge. I managed the grab on and eventually heave myself up. I’ve never seen one of the staircases do that before.”

“That’s because the staircases are not supposed to shift until all students are at least fifteen steps away from the place of disjoint! Sweet Merlin, the sixth floor? Harry, you surely would have died if you hadn’t grabbed on when you did,” Severus said in a shaking voice as he pulled out his wand and started to heal his son’s fingers, one by one. He grimaced as he had to re-grow a few nails as well.

“Yeah, trust me, I know. I happened to look down while hanging on by one hand. I’m bloody glad I’m so scrawny and could pull myself up. Why do you think it happened?” Harry asked, flexing his newly healed fingers as his father stowed his wand away.

Severus took Harry’s hands and put slight pressure on each finger tip, testing the smoothness of the new skin. He noticed his own hands were shaking a bit, and tried to pull himself together. “I have no idea, but I’ll surely be looking into it. There are ancient wards in this castle that control these things. It’s bad news if they’ve been altered. Come, we’ll fix your scrawniness with some dinner, shall we?”

Harry glared at the Potions Master slightly, but followed that man into the Great Hall anyways. When he sat down at the Gryffindor table and retold his story to Ron and Hermione, they both looked properly horrified, Ron’s mouthful of food on full display as he gaped, and Hermione’s hand firmly over her mouth.

“But that’s impossible! It says in Hogwarts: A History that the staircases cannot shift until any students walking them are at least fifteen steps away from the place of disjoint!” Hermione claimed indignantly, looking as though she wanted to reach for her copy and point it out to Harry.

Harry rolled his eyes, finding it quite amusing that both Hermione and his father had used the same phrasing to spout off that information. Apparently Hermione wasn’t the only one to memorize information verbatim. “Yes, I’ve been told. That doesn’t change the fact that it happened, and I was nearly killed by the bloody castle. My dad reckons the wards might have been altered.”

“That is bad news, Harry,” Hermione said, her expression quite frightened, which only served to scare Harry even more, and Ron gape so much that partially chewed food started to fall out of his mouth.

“Yeah, he said that too.”

S~S~S~S

The Room of Requirement looked much more like the Gryffindor common room this time, and Harry knew it was because Draco would be there. He was still a little embarrassed that the place he seemed to find the most comfort in was an almost exact replica of the Slytherin’s personal quarters.

“Urgh, too much red and gold, Harry. I get to design the room next time,” Draco said with a grimace and he plopped down on the maroon sofa and held out his arms so that Harry would sit next to him and fall into his embrace.

Harry made no move to pull out of the embrace, even when Ron and Hermione entered the room and took the sofa opposite them. It was time they got used to this situation, especially Ron, who seemed to go a little pink when he saw how Harry and Draco were currently sitting. Harry felt rather than saw Draco’s smug look, and elbowed him gently in the side to admonish him.

“So, you had a meeting with Dumbledore before dinner, right?” Hermione asked, apparently trying to break the ice, as they all knew exactly why they were here.

“Hang on, why is Malfoy here, Harry? I thought you could only tell Hermione and me?” Ron asked, his expression not exactly hostile, but not too friendly either. He earned an elbow from Hermione, and glared at her.

“I decided that my family needed to know what was going on as well. It’s only fair, and they need to know in case something should go wrong. I know you guys will always be there for me and you’d do anything to help, but I need Draco’s support too. We share something much closer than friendship, and I couldn’t possibly keep something so big from him. I trust him, and you should too,” Harry said firmly, smiling when Draco kissed him gently on the cheek in gratitude.

Ron looked like he might be sick, but Hermione was smiling with a particularly doe-eyed looked that made Harry want to roll his eyes. Girls.

“I trust him, and I understand your need to tell your family and all, but what about Professor Dumbledore’s order not to tell anyone but the two of us? Didn’t he make you take an Oath or anything?” Hermione asked, still giving the Gryffindor and Slytherin a soft look.

“Nope, so he must not have been too concerned about me not telling. Besides, even if he had, I would have made him cancel it so I can tell. It’s not right to keep secrets from the people you love.”

“Can we just get on with what you learned, Harry?” Ron asked quickly, looking as though the word love associated with Draco Malfoy was the most disgusting thing he had ever heard.

Harry gave Ron a reproving look, but sighed in resignation. He hadn’t expected things to be perfect from the go; he’d just hoped Ron would have been a little more tactful.

“Right then. Well, Dumbledore showed me a pensieve memory of the first time he met Tom Riddle as a little boy. He was born and raised in a Muggle orphanage in London. He was an evil little shite back then, too. He got in massive amounts of trouble and terrorized the other kids. I think the scariest part was that he looked a lot like I did at eleven.” Harry shuddered, still unsure of why that particular detail disturbed him so very much.

“So he was a lonely little orphan who didn’t lead such a charmed life. Not to make you feel bad, Harry, but you were as well, and you didn’t go around the bend and start murdering people,” Draco said with a look of purest loathing. Harry was sure he was thinking of his deceased mother.

“The immediate difference is that Tom didn’t seem very surprised to find out he was a Wizard. In fact, he had already acknowledged that he had special powers, and had begun to consciously use them against others. No eleven-year-old should have that much control over their magic with no training. Evil or not, Tom was a very strong Wizard from the get-go,” Harry admitted. Knowing these things about Voldemort felt strange, like he was prying into somebody’s life he had no business to pry into. He had to know his enemy, however, especially if he ever wanted to find the Horcruxes.

“But what does this have to do with Horcruxes?” Ron asked, always the one who wanted to get straight to the point. Then again, he probably didn’t want to be in the same room as Draco for longer than was absolutely necessary.

“After every time Tom would do something bad to one of the other children, he would take something of theirs, as if it were a trophy. Dumbledore said that he never got rid of this little trait, which means anything he did of significance as he got older had the potential of providing more and more of these trophies. Since we know he only made six Horcruxes, I think he used trophies from his most significant triumphs as an adult to turn into Horcruxes. For instance, the diary Horcrux that I destroyed second year must have been made when he originally opened the Chamber of Secrets.”

“But then that would mean that he was making Horcruxes while still attending Hogwarts!” Hermione said, her voice quite scandalized at the thought.

“The Riddle from the diary said he was sixteen. It makes sense, Hermione. Like I said, he was an evil shite at eleven; he had five years to harbour that evil and gain more knowledge before he committed the ultimate act of evil,” Harry said with a shrug.

There was a silence as they all seemed to be lost in their own thoughts and theories about the evilness of a teenage Voldemort. Draco was the first to snap out of it.

“But who would he have murdered at Hogwarts to be able to make a Horcrux? I mean, wouldn’t a student’s death be a little suspicious?” he asked, looking mainly at Harry.

“Not necessarily. The year he opened the Chamber, many students were petrified by the Basilisk’s gaze, much like our second year. A death could have been passed off as another victim of the monster. Besides, only one student died...” Hermione stopped as she seemed to realize what she was saying, and shared a look with Ron and Harry.

“Moaning Myrtle!” they all three crowed at the same time, making Draco look at them like they were crazy.

“Who?”