[HP]Aluet

I lay in bed, holding up the unused two-way mirror, feeling mixed feelings.

I ended up putting it away just fine.

Even if you don't need it anymore, just take it as a souvenir, even though it doesn't mean anything.

When I went to Diagon Alley to buy school supplies for fourth grade before school started, I got a copy of the Daily Prophet.

There was a bright photograph on it, and I recognized him as the man Riddle had met in Little Hangleton, with his hair disheveled and his head bowed dejectedly.

[...Morfin Gaunt was interrogated on August 21. I confessed to the crime of using the Unforgivable Curse in front of Muggles and inflicting pain and death on three Muggles. His behavior is extremely bad and he is hereby sentenced Served life in Azkaban. ]

I folded the newspaper randomly and stuffed it into my bag.Sure enough, since he did it so decisively, there is always a way to get rid of the investigation.

I think he probably used some method to force Gunter to confess to the trumped-up crime.That's what he's good at.

Is the Ministry of Magic really that easy to fool around?Whether it's Legilimency or Veritaserum, they should be able to find abnormalities.Unless... Gaunt's memory has been tampered with.

On the first day of school, I managed to find an empty compartment on the train and sat in it. I closed the door and leaned against the window quietly. I took out a novel and a pack of Bibi Douwei beans from my bag.I want to relax myself.Alone, wide and free space, isn't it good?

But I still have a hunch that this semester is probably going to be sad.

I sighed.

When I’m alone, I can’t help but think about a lot of messy things, such as counting the people I’ve known since I was a child—Billy and I broke up, Hagrid was fired, and Myrtle can only work in the public office now. Talk to her in the bathroom, Minerva has graduated this year, Riddle...

Hogwarts didn't feel so much like a home either.

Who else can say a few words to me now?Possibly Weasley, Ellen and Caroline?But in fact, because Hagrid is in the middle as an intermediary, Hagrid is gone, and I will not stay with them, let alone they belong to Gryffindor. — Oh, and Weasley has graduated too.

Or Blake?Although he is a nice person, it is not difficult to see that he is such an arrogant person, it is impossible for me to become friends with him.

Maybe I'm just right to be alone.

I tossed a Bibi multi-flavored bean into my mouth, filling my mouth with the taste of toffee.At least I was lucky when I ate Bibi multi-flavored beans.Thinking of this, I turned my gaze back to the page.

"Can I sit here? There's no room."

A familiar cold voice sounded, I turned my head, Blake's hand was still on the door, before I reacted, he stood outside waiting for my response, and after I nodded, he stepped in and sat quietly Come across from me.

It's impossible to say that there is no place, but it's just that I'm the only one here, so it seems a little empty.

Perhaps Blake hates crowded and noisy environments, which is easy to understand.

In this way, we have some similarities.

After thinking for a moment, I moved the bag of Bibi multi-flavored beans to the middle of the table, and then I stopped worrying about other things and continued to read my novel.

"Tom Riddle isn't with you?" he asked suddenly.

Which pot is not opened and which pot is lifted, it is better not to talk...

I could only shake my head, trying to make myself look more relaxed and natural, but my eyes never left the line I saw last second.

[...Annie thinks the sunshine today is particularly annoying...]

My eyes stayed here for nearly a minute, I frowned, and simply turned to the next page, but my thoughts were no longer in the plot.

"Are you familiar with Riddle?" I felt a little irritated by the question I asked.

"It's okay," he said.

"You have a good relationship?"

"generally."

"..." I pursed my lips and paused for a few seconds, "How about others?"

"Are you asking me?" He glanced at me. "Not good."

I froze.

I thought that with Riddle's usual appearance, everyone would like him.Moreover, I remember that Black and Riddle had a good relationship at the beginning, at least I saw them communicate together.

"If you ask his followers, they may give you another answer." His dark eyes did not waver at all, and his tone was exactly the same as that of his so-called "advice" back then, "Fortunately, you are not like them." Same."

I hesitated for a moment, feeling that he might know something, so I asked tentatively, "Did he ask you to do anything?"

Black frowned slightly in disgust, and a trace of disdain flashed in his eyes: "It's them, not me."

"Can you understand people who enjoy being served like servants?" he said. "I don't. They probably think Tom Riddle considers them friends, and they can't even tell."

"Is it really easy to tell..." I muttered to myself.Thinking of every word and attitude of Riddle now, it seems that it is not so difficult to judge, but why didn't I feel any abnormality at the beginning?

I can't help but feel a little lost.Is he really just using it, but everything he shows is so real.I think he may be a little different to me at least, maybe he wants me to be like him, and wants me to accomplish what he wants to do with him-I know that what he desires to achieve is absolutely not that simple.

But I didn't choose to support him, I chose to stick to myself.

I can't do something like that, and I can't agree with his ideas.

The people I ran into with him in the bathhouse, Malfoy, Mulciber, Avery... people who were close to Riddle, if they knew what terrible things he did, they would how?Will you choose to leave like me, or will you continue to be friends with him?

Rather than being friends, it is more appropriate to say follow.Thinking about it carefully, it would be understandable for him to disdain making friends, after all, he had no sense of making friends when he was in the orphanage.It's really strange that I suddenly made so many friends when I came to Hogwarts-it's rare that I, who grew up in the same environment as him, never doubted anything.

I dare not continue to think about it.I have decided to stay away from him, this is not something I should think about.

This semester I have been more devoted to my studies, filling my free time with busyness, and deliberately avoiding Riddle by the way.And I almost never saw him again.He can't persuade someone like me who is in the way, and he probably wishes I could disappear.

Fortunately for me, after two months, Mr. Cande came back and sent me a letter. I don't know what happened to him in Paris, but he said that he is now in the old place and returned to the old place. I brought some new and eccentric gadgets.If he hadn't been too serious when he said he was going to Paris, I almost thought he was just going for a trip.

I sat on the bed in the dormitory and opened a package, took out a hat and shook it, and a lot of fluorescent bombs, exploding balloons, bubble powder, etc. jumped out.

I burst out laughing, playing with those things.

It's naive, like coaxing a child.

Burst opened the door.I stuffed all the things in my arms into the cabinet, got into the bed and covered my head, pretending to be asleep.

Habitual operation, avoiding communication-even though I have been here for three years, I have long since ignored the first grade.

I pricked up my ears, and heard the footsteps pause for a while, and then the sound of closing the door was softer. After a rustling sound of packing things, she turned off the light and sat on her bed, holding a magic wand and looking at her hands with fluorescent lights. book of.

After a while, I was really sleepy and fell asleep until I got up for class the next morning.

I found that my recent state is not quite right.

For example, when Blake knocked on the table in front of me, I suddenly came back to my senses and found that the tip of the quill in my hand had stayed in place for a long time, and a black spot was smeared by ink on the parchment.

"Miss Field, answer the question I just asked."

I looked up and met Dumbledore's slightly stern face blankly.

"..." I dawdly lowered my head and rubbed the penholder.

"Matchbox!" I heard several voices reminding me secretly.

"What matchbox..." I didn't hear what Professor Dumbledore said at all just now.

"I'll say it again. Don't be distracted in class..." He turned around and wrote on the blackboard, "There are still a few sleeping people behind..."

I let out a sigh of relief.

The parchment was gently pulled by Blake, he continued to write my last word, and returned it to me without changing his expression.

"Thank you." I glanced at our Professor Dumbledore and whispered something, but Black didn't respond, as if he wasn't the one who just supplemented my notes.I lowered my head again to copy down the newly written content on Dumbledore's blackboard, and then took out the wand to practice with everyone.

After class, I was called to the office.

"Your condition is really bad recently, Ashley." Dumbledore stared at me through the shiny lenses, and said calmly, "Have you encountered any difficulties?"

"No."

"If you have any difficulties, you must tell me, understand?" He blinked.

I nodded.

"I have one more thing to ask you." He was a little more serious. "Did you know about Morfin Gaunt during the holidays?"

My heart tightened suddenly: "...I saw it in the newspaper."

"You know that's not what I asked." He didn't wait for me to speak, and continued, "At this point, I think it's time for you to understand something." He led me around to the cabinet in the office , there is a shallow stone basin inside, and the mouth of the basin is carved with strange letters and symbols that I don't know.The thing in the basin was silvery, and it was unclear whether it was a liquid or a gas, like a piece of bright silver, but it was constantly flowing, like the surface of water rippled in the breeze, and spread out like clouds, softly rotate.

"This is?" I asked.

"It's called the Pensieve," said Dumbledore. "Sometimes I feel that there are too many thoughts and memories in my head. At this time, I need to suck the excess thoughts out of my mind and pour them into this basin. Take a good look at them when you’re in a state where it’s easier to see their shape and how they’re connected to each other.”

Dumbledore drew his wand from his robes, and inserted the tip into his hair, near his temple.When he pulled out his wand, a tiny wisp of silvery-white substance stuck to the tip.

"You go in first." Dumbledore pointed to the Pensieve and said.

I leaned forward, took a deep breath, and plunged into the silvery substance.My feet seemed to leave the office floor and fall through the swirling darkness.When the light returned, Dumbledore landed beside me.

I walked into the familiar orphanage and turned to look at him suspiciously.

"You remember, this is when I came to inform Tom to go to school, and I met you here." Dumbledore smiled.

I saw another Dumbledore standing in the doorway.To be precise, it was Dumbledore in his memory.And nine-year-old me standing in the hall—it was really weird seeing myself, honestly.

"...bring the iodine upstairs to Martha, Billy Stubbs scratched his scabs, Eric Walley's blood stained the sheets--too bad luck Got chicken pox!"

"..."

everything familiar.

We followed Mrs. Cole to her office.

"I wonder if you can tell me about Tom Riddle's life experience? He seems to have been born in this orphanage?" Dumbledore asked in memory.

"That's right," said Mrs. Cole, pouring herself some gin. "I remember that incident very well, because I had just come here to work. It was New Year's Eve, and it was snowing outside, and it was cold Fuck. One night in bad weather. The girl, not much older than I was, staggered up the front steps. Well, we've been through that kind of thing a lot. We got her in, and within a She gave birth when she was a child. Within an hour, she died."

"Did she say anything before she died? About the boy's father, for example?"

"I remember her saying to me: 'I want him to look like his daddy.' She was right to be honest, because she wasn't much of a looker herself—and then she told me that the kid would do whatever he wanted. Father's name was Tom, and her middle name was Marvolo after her own father's—yes, I know, that's a weird name, isn't it? We wondered if she was from a circus—and she said the boy's Last name was Riddle. Then she said nothing more, and died soon after."

"Tom's mother is Merope Gaunt." Dumbledore beside him spoke suddenly.

"Gaunt?" I repeated the last name.I think of Morfin Gaunt in the papers.

"And the three Muggles killed by Morfin Gaunt were from the Riddle House." He waved his hand, my eyes went dark, and after a while, I landed in his office again, "according to the Ministry of Magic In the investigation of this case, Morfin himself admitted that he committed the murder, but I don't think he had any motive for doing so. You can probably understand what I mean, right?"

I bit my lip.Dumbledore is very smart, and he has been paying attention to Riddle, because after learning about Riddle from Mrs. Cole, he probably realized Riddle's problem, but who would have thought that a few years later, but caused this thing.

There is indeed a lot of doubt about this matter. Dumbledore may have suspected Riddle, and he seems to have some confidence.

I suddenly thought of the Occlumency Riddle had taught me.I probably understand now that he was afraid that Dumbledore would know something from me... Perhaps Dumbledore had discovered the clue a long time ago, but he didn't expose it.

"Old Tom Riddle abandoned Merope when she was pregnant with Tom, and I don't know why, and I can only guess. I think he should have figured out his own life in the past few years , so it seems that there are traces to follow." He said.

No wonder Riddle hated his Muggle father so much...

Dumbledore stopped talking, as if waiting for an answer, but I neither denied nor gave an affirmative answer, just fell silent with him.

"You get closer to Tom, and you may also know what kind of character he is. I tell you this because you are the key, Ashley, and I think you should have your own judgment. Before things get out of hand, I hope this can be prevented from happening."

In Dumbledore's earnest and earnest eyes, I guessed what he wanted to express.My relationship with Riddle can be regarded as a breakthrough. If we are still the same as before, I will indeed be able to understand many things that others cannot understand.

But I have already made a decision in front of Riddle... I have chosen to leave him, and this means that I have to go back to deliberately approach him again, and try to gain Riddle's trust as much as possible by pretending. And Riddle knows my temperament, and will never trust me again.What's more, I'm not good at disguising, and someone as smart as him may easily detect it.I used to believe he treated me differently, but now I don't know what he thinks.

Also, I'm still reluctant to hurt him.

I have already decided to get out, and I don't want to go back and get stuck in it.

I don't want to take care of these things at all, and I'm not a selfless, brave and fearless hero. I don't want to bear such responsibilities, so I keep silent.

"How to choose is still up to you." Dumbledore didn't seem to want to embarrass me too much, so he just said this and ended the topic.