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

I’m gone …’
    She slid back the fine, filigree clasp and flipped open the box. There upon the smooth crimson velvet lay a heavy golden locket.
    Voldemort reached out his hand without invitation this time and held it up to the light, staring at it.
    ‘Slytherin’s mark,’ he said quietly, as the light played upon an ornate, serpentine S.
    ‘That’s right!’ said Hepzibah, delighted, apparently, at the sight of Voldemort gazing at her locket, transfixed. ‘I had to pay an arm and a leg for it, but I couldn’t let it pass, not a real treasure like that, had to have it for my collection. Burke bought it, apparently, from a ragged-looking woman who seemed to have stolen it, but had no idea of its true value –’
    There was no mistaking it this time: Voldemort’s eyes flashed scarlet at her words and Harry saw his knuckles whiten on the locket’s chain.
    ‘– I daresay Burke paid her a pittance, but there you are … pretty, isn’t it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe …’
    She reached out to take the locket back. For a moment Harry thought Voldemort was not going to let go of it, but then it had slid through his fingers and was back on its red velvet cushion.
    ‘So there you are, Tom, dear, and I hope you enjoyed that!’
    She looked him full in the face and, for the first time, Harry saw her foolish smile falter.
    ‘Are you all right, dear?’
    ‘Oh yes,’ said Voldemort quietly. ‘Yes, I’m very well …’
    ‘I thought – but a trick of the light, I suppose –’ said Hepzibah, looking unnerved, and Harry guessed that she, too, had seen the momentary red gleam in Voldemort’s eyes. ‘Here, Hokey, take these away and lock them up again … the usual enchantments …’
    ‘Time to leave, Harry,’ said Dumbledore quietly, and as the little elf bobbed away bearing the boxes, Dumbledore grasped Harry once again above the elbow and together they rose up through oblivion and back to Dumbledore’s office.
    ‘Hepzibah Smith died two days after that little scene,’ said Dumbledore, resuming his seat and indicating that Harry should do the same. ‘Hokey the house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress’s evening cocoa by accident.’
    ‘No way!’ said Harry angrily.
    ‘I see we are of one mind,’ said Dumbledore. ‘Certainly, there are many similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death –’
    ‘Hokey confessed?’
    ‘She remembered putting something in her mistress’s cocoa that turned out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison,’ said Dumbledore. ‘It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused –’
    ‘Voldemort modified her memory, just like he did with Morfin!’
    ‘Yes, that is my conclusion, too,’ said Dumbledore. ‘And, just as with Morfin, the Ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey –’
    ‘– because she was a house-elf,’ said Harry. He had rarely felt more in sympathy with the society Hermione had set up, S.P.E.W.
    ‘Precisely,’ said Dumbledore. ‘She was old, she admitted to having tampered with the drink and nobody at the Ministry bothered to enquire further. As in the case of Morfin, by the time I traced her and managed to extract this memory, her life was almost over – but her memory, of course, proves nothing except that Voldemort knew of the existence of the cup and the locket.
    ‘By the time Hokey was convicted, Hepzibah’s family had realised that two of her greatest treasures were missing. It took them a while to be sure of this, for she had many hiding places, having always guarded her collection most jealously. But before they were sure beyond doubt that the cup and the locket were both gone, the assistant who had worked at Borgin and Burkes, the young man who had visited Hepzibah so regularly and charmed her so well, had resigned his post and vanished. His superiors had no idea where he had gone; they were as surprised as anyone at his disappearance. And that was the last that was seen or heard of Tom Riddle for a very long time.
    ‘Now,’ said Dumbledore, ‘if you don’t mind, Harry, I want to pause once more to draw your attention to certain points of our story. Voldemort had committed another murder; whether it was his first since he killed the Riddles, I do not know, but I think it was. This time, as