Harry Potter 06 - Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince

the memory; he felt the familiar sensation of falling through nothingness and then landed upon a dirty stone floor into almost total darkness.
    It took him several seconds to recognise the place, by which time Dumbledore had landed beside him. The Gaunts’ house was now more indescribably filthy than anywhere Harry had ever seen. The ceiling was thick with cobwebs, the floor coated in grime; mouldy and rotting food lay upon the table amidst a mass of crusted pots. The only light came from a single guttering candle placed at the feet of a man with hair and beard so overgrown Harry could see neither eyes nor mouth. He was slumped in an armchair by the fire, and Harry wondered for a moment whether he was dead. But then there came a loud knock on the door and the man jerked awake, raising a wand in his right hand, and a short knife in his left.
    The door creaked open. There on the threshold, holding an old-fashioned lamp, stood a boy Harry recognised at once: tall, pale, dark-haired and handsome – the teenage Voldemort.
    Voldemort’s eyes moved slowly around the hovel and then found the man in the armchair. For a few seconds they looked at each other, then the man staggered upright, the many empty bottles at his feet clattering and tinkling across the floor.
    ‘YOU!’ he bellowed. ‘YOU!’
    And he hurtled drunkenly at Riddle, wand and knife held aloft.
    ‘Stop.’
    Riddle spoke in Parseltongue. The man skidded into the table, sending mouldy pots crashing to the floor. He stared at Riddle. There was a long silence while they contemplated each other. The man broke it.
    ‘You speak it?’
    ‘Yes, I speak it,’ said Riddle. He moved forwards into the room, allowing the door to swing shut behind him. Harry could not help but feel a resentful admiration for Voldemort’s complete lack of fear. His face merely expressed disgust and, perhaps, disappointment.
    ‘Where is Marvolo?’ he asked.
    ‘Dead,’ said the other. ‘Died years ago, didn’t he?’
    Riddle frowned.
    ‘Who are you, then?’
    ‘I’m Morfin, ain’t I?’
    ‘Marvolo’s son?’
    ‘Course I am, then …’
    Morfin pushed the hair out of his dirty face, the better to see Riddle, and Harry saw that he wore Marvolo’s black-stoned ring on his right hand.
    ‘I thought you was that Muggle,’ whispered Morfin. ‘You look mighty like that Muggle.’
    ‘What Muggle?’ said Riddle sharply.
    ‘That Muggle what my sister took a fancy to, that Muggle what lives in the big house over the way,’ said Morfin, and he spat unexpectedly upon the floor between them. ‘You look right like him. Riddle. But he’s older now, i’n ’e? He’s older’n you, now I think on it …’
    Morfin looked slightly dazed and swayed a little, still clutching the edge of the table for support.
    ‘He come back, see,’ he added stupidly.
    Voldemort was gazing at Morfin, as though appraising his possibilities. Now he moved a little closer and said, ‘Riddle came back?’
    ‘Ar, he left her, and serve her right, marrying filth!’ said Morfin, spitting on the floor again. ‘Robbed us, mind, before she ran off! Where’s the locket, eh, where’s Slytherin’s locket?’
    Voldemort did not answer. Morfin was working himself into a rage again; he brandished his knife and shouted, ‘Dishonoured us, she did, that little slut! And who’re you, coming here and asking questions about all that? It’s over, innit … it’s over …’
    He looked away, staggering slightly, and Voldemort moved forwards. As he did so, an unnatural darkness fell, extinguishing Voldemort’s lamp and Morfin’s candle, extinguishing everything …
    Dumbledore’s fingers closed tightly around Harry’s arm and they were soaring back into the present again. The soft golden light in Dumbledore’s office seemed to dazzle Harry’s eyes after that impenetrable darkness.
    ‘Is that all?’ said Harry at once. ‘Why did it go dark, what happened?’
    ‘Because Morfin could not remember anything from that point onwards,’ said Dumbledore, gesturing Harry back into his seat. ‘When he awoke next morning, he was lying on the floor, quite alone. Marvolo’s ring had gone.
    ‘Meanwhile, in the village of Little Hangleton, a maid was running along the high street, screaming that there were three bodies lying in the drawing room of the big house: Tom Riddle Senior, and his mother and father.
    ‘The Muggle authorities were perplexed. As far as I am aware, they do not know to this day how the