Chapter 707: The Gaunt Family (Edited)

After wandering for a while, Fish found himself on a rural road, flanked on both sides by tall, tangled hedges, with a clear blue sky above and the sun shining so brightly that it must have been summer.

About ten steps ahead, there was a short and chubby man wearing a pair of extraordinarily thick glasses and dressed in a peculiar manner: a formal coat over striped swim trunks, with shoe covers...

Clearly, he was another wizard who knew very little about the Muggle world and had no interest in learning about it.

Fish, who had often seen the memories of others in the Pensieve, knew that this must be the man Dumbledore had mentioned, Bob Ogden, the owner of this memory.

So, he slid forward and looked at the wooden sign that Ogden was staring at.

There were two arrows on the post, one saying: Great Hangleton, 8 kilometers. The other said: Little Hangleton, 1 mile.

Fish, who had a good memory, thought for a moment and immediately remembered where that place was... The place to which he and Harry had been transported with the Portkey was called Hangleton, about which he later asked Snape.

At that moment, Hermione and the others also entered Ogden's memory, and Fish greeted them immediately.

"Albus, is this man waiting to go to Voldemort's house?" Fish asked.

"What makes you think that?" Dumbledore asked curiously.

"Because the sign over there says Hangleton, Voldemort's father's grave should be around here, nya..." Fish said as he looked around. "But Fish hasn't found the grave yet."

"Even if you did, it would be of no use because old Tom Riddle wasn't even dead at this time," Dumbledore explained as he caught up with Ogden along with the trio, "And to be precise, Voldemort hadn't even been born yet."

Now not only Fish but also Harry and Hermione were confused.

"So, what's the point of this memory, Professor?" Harry inquired. "Voldemort hasn't even been born yet, and certainly, there are no clues about his Horcruxes at this time."

"Don't speak in absolutes, Harry." Dumbledore wagged his blackened index finger and said, "Watch quietly, we will have plenty of time to discuss it once we're done viewing Bob's memories."

So, Fish and Harry kept their mouths shut and followed Ogden along the secluded path that led to the dark forest where the old Gaunt house stood, the place where Dumbledore had obtained the Resurrection Stone.

The Gaunt house was no better than the dilapidated and dangerous house it would become eighty years later.

The walls are covered in moss, and many of the roof tiles have fallen off, revealing the beams inside here and there. The house is surrounded by thick nettles that reach up to the small, heavily dirtied windows.

There was a dead snake nailed to the door of the house.

While Hermione and Harry watched Ogden, Fish raised his head.

When witnessing someone's memories in a Pensieve, the sounds and smells of their surroundings were also reproduced, even if the owner of the memories couldn't perceive them.

That's why Fish immediately spotted the man sitting on a nearby tree branch, dressed in rags.

The man jumped down from the tree and landed in front of Ogden, startling him.

"Hiss..." Morfin Gaunt warned Ogden in Parseltongue.

And Harry, alerted by Fish, fulfilled his duty as an interpreter.

They were then introduced, as Ogden remembered, to Morfin, who seemed to not speak English, to Merope, who was subservient, and to the old Gaunt, who was grumpy and blindly proud of his lineage.

It was also revealed that they were descended from Slytherin and Peverell. As for the reference to another lineage, Peverell, not even Hermione, who had researched in the library, knew who they were referring to.

Harry looked at Merope, who was being scolded at will by Old Gaunt, but she didn't dare to resist... She hadn't been treated any better than her at the Dursleys'.

Just as Ogden solemnly informed Morfin of his trial time, the sound of two young Muggles, a man and a woman, laughing and joking, could be heard at the door. Through their exchange, Fish knew that the man was also named Tom.

"That's right," Dumbledore nodded with a smile, noticing the exchanged glances between the three. "That's Voldemort's father, the young Tom Riddle."

"Fish will go out and see, nya!"

=(?ω?)

Fish immediately ran through the wall and out of the house.

After a while, he came running back through the wall.

"That man looks a lot like Voldemort when he had a nose," Fish said, who had seen Voldemort when he was young.

But before Hermione and Harry could ask more questions, old Gaunt attempted to strangle his daughter for falling in love with a Muggle. When he was stopped by Ogden, Morfin attacked Ogden, brandishing a sword and a wand.

Ogden fled. Dumbledore gestured for them to follow his lead.

Ogden shielded his head with his arms, ran up the dirt path, quickly turned onto the main road, and collided with a bright red horse. It was at that moment Harry and Hermione saw Voldemort's father as a young man.

He was a very handsome and dark-haired youth, and Harry could barely imagine how Voldemort had transformed from having a face like this to the terrible face he had today.

Tom Riddle, on his horse, startled at Ogden's sudden appearance, but soon he and the pretty girl on a gray horse beside him laughed heartily because Ogden's disguised body was comical.

"Well, it's time for us to leave," Dumbledore told Fish as he watched the embarrassed Ogden retreating, and he reached out to grab Harry's elbow, while Fish took hold of Hermione's arm.

The four of them made a synchronized lifting motion, and they flew weightlessly higher and higher into the darkness, finally landing firmly back in Dumbledore's office, where it was already dark outside the window.

"What happened to the girl in the cottage?" Harry immediately asked, "Is she Merope something?" Due to what had happened, Harry was very concerned about her well-being.

Dumbledore waved his wand, lit a few more lamps, and replied, "She survived. Ogden used Apparition to reach the Ministry and returned fifteen minutes later with reinforcements. Morfin and his father resisted, but they were both subdued and escorted out of the cottage, and later the Wizengamot sentenced them."

He resumed his seat behind the desk and gestured for Fish to sit as well, while he opened a drawer and took out some snacks, placing them on the table.

"Morfin has already served three years in Azkaban for a previous conviction of assaulting a Muggle. Marvolo was sentenced to six months in prison for injuring several Ministry of Magic agents, including Ogden," he continued.

Harry let out a sigh of relief, then followed Fish's lead and grabbed a Chocolate Frog from the table, taking a bite.

"So, what have you all learned from that memory you just saw?" Dumbledore asked with a smile, leaning his elbows on the table and intertwining his fingers.

Fish attentively ate his sandwich, completely uninterested in Dumbledore's question.

Harry chewed more slowly, his suspicions about Voldemort's origins lingering in his mind.

However, just as he was about to speak, Hermione beat him to it. "That witch, Merope... is she Voldemort's mother?"

Speculating was not uncommon, after all. From what he remembered, Merope had almost been strangled by her own father because she had fallen in love with Tom Riddle.

"Yes," Dumbledore said, "Sorvolo, his son Morfin, and his daughter Merope were the last of the Gaunt family, a very ancient wizarding family known for their restlessness and violence—a character trait that worsened from generation to generation due to their habit of marrying close relatives. Their lack of rationality, combined with a particular fondness for squandering their money, caused the family fortune to dwindle long before several generations of Marvolo."

He spoke to Harry and Hermione about the Gaunt family.

"As you just witnessed, Sorvolo ended up poor, terribly ill-tempered, but arrogantly conceited beyond reason, and he possessed two ancestral relics that he valued as much as his son and much more than his daughter."

"Did Voldemort turn both of them into Horcruxes?" Hermione asked keenly. "The ring that hurt you, the one the old Gaunt held?"

"If this were a class, I would award you fifty points," Dumbledore applauded in praise. "Indeed, Voldemort turned that ring into a Horcrux and cast a vile curse upon it. I accidentally fell into it."

He spoke casually of his injuries, then shook his head with a slight regret and said, "Unfortunately, I haven't been able to find the locket Merope wore around her neck, not even a clue, but it is highly likely that Voldemort also turned it into a Horcrux."

"How many Horcruxes did Voldemort make?!" Hermione exclaimed.

"I don't know," Dumbledore sighed, "That's what I'm currently trying to find out."

"What's so difficult about that?"

(?ω?)

Fish finally looked up from his sandwich and said perplexed, "Just go and capture Voldemort, then give him Veritaserum, wouldn't that work? Didn't Severus have a potion that could disable Legilimency? The same one Sirius drank."

Dumbledore froze for a moment, never seeming to have considered such a direct and brutal method, but after a brief pause, he shook his head again and said, "It's highly unlikely that we could capture Voldemort and make him drink Veritaserum and Severus's Legilimency-disabling potion without any resistance, and with his expertise in Legilimency, Severus's potion may not necessarily work."

"It doesn't hurt to try."

(`ω´)

Fish stuck to his plan.

Without arguing with him, Dumbledore smiled and said, "Then let's wait until later, when Voldemort won't be in hiding." He glanced at the wall clock. "That's all for tonight. Next time there's a new story, I'll ask Fish to inform you."