Harry Potter’s Defense Professor

"I've already completed a private lesson for Harry," Dumbledore told the four youngest Order members, sitting firmly behind his desk, "Now, before the next lesson for Harry, let Take a look at another memory I've collected."

Dumbledore said, and took out a new bottle containing silver-white memories from inside his robe, poked it with his wand, and pulled out the cork.

"This time, let's take a look at Voldemort..."

"His memory?" Tonks asked in surprise. "How did you get it?"

"This is actually my memory," Dumbledore smiled and poured the memory into the Pensieve, then waved his wand to enlarge the Pensieve. "The memory from decades ago would have been blurred if it hadn't been preserved."

"Are you going to show Harry this memory in a few days?" Black asked.

"Yes, what's the problem?" Dumbledore looked at Black. "Don't you think Harry is inappropriate for Voldemort's memory."

"Do not……"

"Come on then."

"As for Voldemort's early experiences, I think you'll remember the last time we talked about the handsome Muggle, Tom Riddle, who abandoned his witch wife Merope and returned to his village in Little Hangleton. home. Merope is alone in London with the child who will become Lord Voldemort in his womb."

Following Dumbledore's introduction, several people buried their heads in the Pensieve. They fell into the darkness again...Seconds later, Lockhart's feet were on solid ground, and he opened his eyes to find him and the others standing on a busy old-fashioned street in London.

"Voldemort's mother gave birth to him in order to get a little money and sold the necklace we saw last time." Dumbledore walked the street with the four of them. "That's me." Dumbledore pointed to A tall figure ahead said cheerfully, who was crossing the road in front of a horse-drawn milk cart.

"Sold it for how much?" Black asked.

"Ten Galleons."

"Ten Galleons?" Black said indignantly. "That's a Slytherin pendant! I'd pay a hundred thousand for it!"

"His mother is obviously desperate..." Dumbledore led a few people, followed the young Dumbledore not far or near, and finally passed through a large iron gate and entered a bare yard.

Behind the yard was a boxy, gloomy, old-fashioned building surrounded by tall railings. He walked up the steps leading to the front door and knocked. After a while, a scruffy girl in an apron opened the door.

"Good afternoon, I've made an appointment with a Mrs. Cole. She's the steward here, I think?"

"Oh," said the girl, bewildered, gazing sharply at Dumbledore's odd outfit, "well...wait a minute...Mrs Cole!" she exclaimed, turning her head.

"An orphanage," Lupin said dispassionately.

A voice shouted in the distance and answered her. The girl turned to Dumbledore again.

"Come in, she'll be here soon."

Dumbledore entered a hallway covered in black and white tiles. The whole room looked shabby, but very clean and spotless. The crowd and old Dumbledore followed. Before the door was closed behind them, a scrawny, tired-looking woman trotted towards them. Her face was chiseled and looked more anxious than vicious. As she walked towards Dumbledore, she turned to another helper in an apron.

"...brought the iodine upstairs to Martha, Billy Stubbs scratched his scabs, Eric Walley's blood stained the sheets--what a bad luck Chickenpox!" she seemed to speak into the air, when her eyes fell on Dumbledore. She stopped abruptly, with a look of astonishment, as if she saw a giraffe crossing her threshold.

"Good afternoon," Dumbledore said, extending his hand.

Mrs Cole looked at him dumbfounded.

"My name is Albus Dumbledore. I wrote you a letter asking you to see me, and you have kindly invited me to come here today."

Mrs Cole blinked. She seemed to have decided that Dumbledore wasn't her hallucination, and she said with a strong composure: "Oh, yes. Well--well--you'd better come to my room, yes."

She led Dumbledore into a cabin that seemed to be part living room and part office. It was as shabby as the foyer, and the furniture was outdated and out of place. She asked Dumbledore to sit on a rickety chair, and she herself sat behind a cluttered desk, watching him nervously.

"I have told you in the letter that I am here to discuss with you about Tom Riddle and arrange a future for him," Dumbledore said.

"Are you his family?" asked Mrs Cole.

"No, I'm a teacher," said Dumbledore. "I've come to invite Tom to our school."

"So, what kind of school is this?"

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

"Why are you interested in Tom?"

"We think he has some of the qualities we were looking for."

"You mean he won a scholarship? How could that be? He never applied."

"Oh, as soon as he was born, our school had his name on the record—"

"Who registered him? His parents?"

There is no doubt that Mrs Cole is a very shrewd and a bit of a headache woman. Dumbledore apparently thought so too, and Harry saw him draw his wand from the pocket of his velvet suit and at the same time pick up a completely blank piece of paper from Mrs Cole's desk.

"You brought You-Know-Who into Hogwarts?" Tonks asked in disbelief. "Can't you see what's wrong with that kid?"

"You mean he's going to be the Dark Lord? Do you think I can see that?" said Dumbledore regretfully. "You'll see him first."

"Here," said the young Dumbledore, handing her the piece of paper, waving his wand, "I think you'll see it all by looking at this."

Mrs. Cole's eyes flickered for a moment, then focused again, and she stared at the blank piece of paper for a while.

"The Imperius?" Lockhart asked.

"Not exactly, it's actually a pretty good mind-confusion spell," Dumbledore explained softly.

"It seems perfectly in order," she said quietly, returning the paper to Dumbledore. Then her eyes fell on a bottle of gin and two glasses, which must not have been there a few seconds ago.

"Well—may I buy you a glass of gin?" she said in a particularly suave voice.

"Thank you very much," Dumbledore said with a smile.

It was clear that Mrs Cole was no novice when it came to gin. She filled the glasses of the two of them, and drank her own glass in one gulp. She unabashedly smacking her lips and smiling for the first time at Dumbledore, who immediately struck while the iron was hot.

"I wonder if you can tell me about Tom Riddle? He seems to have been born in this orphanage?"

"That's right," Mrs Cole said, pouring herself some more gin, "I remember that very well because I had just come here to work. It was a New Year's Eve and it was snowing and cold outside. Damn. One bad weather night. The girl, not much older than I was, staggered up the front steps. Well, we've been through this a lot. We brought her in, no more than In an hour she gave birth. In less than an hour she died."

Mrs Cole nodded meaningfully and took another gulp of gin.

"Did she say anything before she died?" Dumbledore asked. "Like, about the boy's father?"

"Yeah, she said it." Mrs. Cole, gin in her hand, and an eager audience in front of her, obviously got her in the mood.

"I remember her saying to me: 'I want him to look like his dad. 'Honestly, she was right to hope that, because she wasn't very good-looking--then, she told me, the child was named Tom after his father, and Marvolo was the middle name after her own father-- Yeah, I know, that's a weird name, right? We wondered if she was from the circus - she added that the boy's last name was Riddle. Then she said nothing and died soon after.

"Afterwards, we named the child as she said, and the poor girl seemed to take it very seriously, but no Tom, Marvolo, or Riddle ever came to him, nor did he have any any relatives, so he stayed in the orphanage to this day."

Mrs Cole almost absentmindedly poured herself another full glass of gin. Two blushes appeared on her cheekbones. Then she said, "He's a weird kid."

"Yeah," said Dumbledore, "I guessed that too."

"He was weird when he was a baby, he almost never cried. Then, as he got older, he became very...weird."

"Weird, in what way?" Dumbledore asked gently.

"That's right, he—"

Mrs. Cole stopped suddenly, and cast an inquiring look at Dumbledore over the gin glass, without the slightest daze or confusion.

"He can definitely go to your school, can't he?"

"Sure," said Dumbledore.

"No matter what I say, won't change that?"

"No," said Dumbledore.

"Anyway, you're going to take him away?"

"Anyway," Dumbledore repeated solemnly.

"This woman is afraid to scare you, Mr. Headmaster," said Lockhart with a chuckle.

Mrs Cole squinted at the young Dumbledore, as if deciding whether to trust him or not. In the end she apparently thought he could be trusted, and suddenly blurted out, "He scares other kids."

PS: (The manuscript is less than 40,000, so I am writing desperately, and the update is late. I want to collect and recommend tickets, - and because the original content appears, tomorrow is Monday again, so there will be a third update in the middle of the night...)