My classmate at Hogwarts is Voldemort

Chapter 2 Albus Dumbledore

Dumbledore strode into the building of the orphanage. He was tall and extraordinary. In the orphanage where the average person was malnourished, his face was yellow, and his skin was thin, he seemed to stand out from the crowd, but compared with the children downstairs playing happily around the bonfire, He seemed to fit better with the bare yard and gloomy old-fashioned buildings of the orphanage.

He walked into the foyer of the orphanage and saw Mrs. Cole, anxious and thin like everyone else, who was threatening a little girl with a handkerchief to clean her charcoal-stained face: " If you don’t wash your face well, you will be careful of scarring!” She turned her head and saw Dumbledore who had pushed in the door, raised her head again in surprise, and finally saw Dumbledore’s face .

"Good afternoon." Dumbledore extended his right hand to Mrs Cole. "I am Albus Dumbledore, who wrote to you earlier, and you invited me to come here today."

Mrs. Cole was stunned. She seemed to have forgotten that she had issued an invitation to this guest. She hurriedly stretched out her hand, then retracted to rub her apron, reached out to Dumbledore again, and took his hand: "Please. Come into my room, and we'll sit down and talk." With that, he led Dumbledore into a room as shabby as the hall and courtyard and this building.

"You are a worthy lady!" Dumbledore said deeply to Mrs Cole, looking over the room.Mrs. Cole gave him an embarrassed forced smile and asked him to sit on a rickety chair while she sat across the table.

"Mrs Cole, I'm here mainly for Tom Riddle and Nelson Williams." Dumbledore cut to the chase.

"What about them?" Mrs. Cole was still a little confused. She glanced at the purple suit on the man opposite her, and asked Dumbledore nervously, "Are you going to adopt them?"

"No, I'm a teacher," explained Dumbledore. "I want to invite them to our school."

"Your school? What school is it?"

"The name of the school is Hogwarts," Dumbledore replied.

"Why are you two interested in them both?"

"We think they have some qualities that we value."

Mrs. Cole, increasingly suspicious of the man who claimed to be a teacher, pressed: "You mean they won a scholarship? But as far as I know they never applied to any school."

"That's it, their names are in our files from birth."

"Mr. Williams has relatives who may have helped to register. But what about Riddle? Did his parents register him?" Mrs. Cole continued.

Dumbledore couldn't resist Mrs. Cole's series of questions. This shrewd woman gave him a lot of pressure. He decided to solve the problem in a magical way-he took out his wand from his pocket and faced a blank sheet of paper on the table. He waved and handed it to Mrs. Cole: "You can see it all by looking at this."

Mrs Cole took the piece of paper in a trance, stared at it for a while, and handed it back to Dumbledore. "There is no problem with the procedure." She nodded to Dumbledore, "Do you like gin? ?"

"It would be great if I could have a drink." Dumbledore responded with a smile.

Mrs Cole filled two glasses of wine, clinked with Dumbledore, took up her own glass and drank it, then slammed her mouth and said, "Temperton... I'm sorry, Mr. Dumbledore, you are willing to give Tom that The child has a great future, and we have been very worried about his future."

Dumbledore raised his glass and motioned her to continue.

"Tom... Tom's child's life is not very good, but which child in the orphanage has a good life? Tom and I almost came here together, I remember clearly, that was the first time I lived here since I came here. A new year, just the night before the new year, it was snowing heavily that day, and a girl with a big belly came here... Damn, we actually experienced a lot of this kind of thing, but..." She took out the piece to help the little one The girl wiped her face with a handkerchief and wiped the corners of her eyes.

"I can understand." Dumbledore said solemnly, "I have experienced this too."

"You're a very thoughtful man," continued Mrs Cole. "She fell on the steps, we helped her into the house, and within an hour she gave birth to Tom, and within an hour, She's dead."

"Does she have any last words?" Dumbledore was interested. "Like the child's father?"

"She said that she wanted the child to look like her father. I think she was right. She herself is really not upright, but Tom's appearance should follow her father's. See him later. You know, he's handsome." She poured herself another half glass of wine and took a sip. "Then she named the child, Tom Marvolo Riddle, Tom is the father's name, Marvolo in the middle follows her father, and Riddle is the child's surname. Tom's name is quite ordinary, and Marvolo is a little weird." She commented.

"Then we named the child according to the last words, but no one called Tom, Marvolo, or Riddle ever came to him. He seemed to be alone from birth and had to grow up in an orphanage." Mrs. Cole seemed to be getting drunk, and her face flushed, "We are all worried, generally speaking, this kind of child is prone to psychological problems, and he is still a little withdrawn, and he has been a little weird since he was a baby... …In this day and age, as an educator, you should know that orphanages like ours don’t have the budget to hire a psychiatrist.”

"That's it," Dumbledore nodded and asked curiously, "In general, you say?"

"Yeah, in general. Tom made friends at the orphanage, which gave him a lot of sunshine. Yes, made friends, another kid you're taking to school, Mr Williams is a good friend of his , they are inseparable. But who can resist being friends with Nelson? He is very good, very sensible, humble and gentle, not like a child of his age." Mrs. Cole's eyes lost focus again, as if recalling something, "But after they got together, strange things often happened."

"A strange thing? What a strange thing?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"Uh. I don't know if the staff have developed the habit of blaming their own negligence on their heads, there are many such things, such as Martha's injury, we wrapped her up, and the gauze fell off the next day. Then I found out that Martha didn't hurt her leg at all, just like a prank, oh yeah, Martha lives next door to Nelson. Once they were playing chess in Tom's room, and then the room's window blew, you know, the explosion Then Tom had to live in the hall." Mrs Cole said brightly, "Once again, I saw a cat flying from the water to the shore in front of Nelson, like a waterfowl, and flew out!"

"Having said so much, you didn't say anything about Mr. Williams." Dumbledore was a little curious, "Can you talk about him?"

Mrs Cole looked up at Dumbledore and said: "Nelson would have been adopted by his aunt, but you know, our government has a special policy for war orphans, his uncle is a journalist and travels a lot, and his aunt does not have a stable job. , so the adoption procedures have been unable to go through. He himself said that he wanted to live with his friends, and sometimes he would go to his aunt's house. Today is a Sunday. Usually, after attending services on Sundays, he will come to the orphanage to help out. Our carers love him and no one will dislike him."

"War orphans?" whispered Dumbledore. "Tom Marvolo and Nelson Wilttening."

"You're sure you're going to take them to your school, aren't you?"

"I'm sure."

"Tom should really be in a new place and make some new friends. No other kid dares to deal with him."

"He'll love the new school."

"I hope so. You must be eager to meet them in person." Mrs Cole rose to her feet.

"That couldn't be better." Dumbledore followed her to his feet.

Mrs. Cole led him to the door of the office. Dumbledore opened the door first and asked Mrs. Cole to go first, but saw a person already standing at the door.

It was one of the purposes of his trip - Tom Marvolo Riddle.

Dumbledore carefully looked at the boy blocking the door. Although Tom was short compared to Dumbledore, Tom was tall for an 11-year-old human child. He had black hair, black eyes and Deng Xiaoping. Bully looked at each other.

Mrs. Cole was a little surprised when she saw Tom, and then said: "Tom, this Mr. Dumbledore is here to find you, you take him to your room to chat, I'll go to Nelson."

"No, ma'am, Nelson is on the roof, I'll call him later." He spoke to Mrs Cole, but never took his eyes off Dumbledore.

Mrs. Cole nodded, motioning for the two of them to talk first, then walked back to the office and closed the door.

"Hello, Tom." Dumbledore stretched out his hand to Tom, Tom hesitated for a moment, then reached out and held Dumbledore's hand, then he turned and led Dumbledore to his room without saying a word on the way .

"I'm Professor Dumbledore." Dumbledore was the first to speak after Tom took out a chair and asked Dumbledore to sit down.

"Professor?" Tom showed a strange expression, "Why did the professor ask me? I haven't even gone to college yet." He was a little wary.

"I work at a school called Hogwarts, and I'm here to invite you to my school—your new school."

Tom looked at him without speaking. Dumbledore continued: "Hogwarts is a school for people with special talents."

Tom looked suspiciously at Dumbledore's fuchsia suit, and he felt more and more that the man was a liar, but he still didn't speak.

"Hogwarts, a school of magic."

Hearing the words "School of Magic", Tom was shocked, raised his head, and looked into Dumbledore's eyes again.

(End of this chapter)