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

you will have seen, he killed not for revenge, but for gain. He wanted the two fabulous trophies that poor, besotted old woman showed him. Just as he had once robbed the other children at his orphanage, just as he had stolen his uncle Morfin’s ring, so he ran off now with Hepzibah’s cup and locket.’
    ‘But,’ said Harry, frowning, ‘it seems mad … risking everything, throwing away his job, just for those …’
    ‘Mad to you, perhaps, but not to Voldemort,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I hope you will understand in due course exactly what those objects meant to him, Harry, but you must admit that it is not difficult to imagine that he saw the locket, at least, as rightfully his.’
    ‘The locket maybe,’ said Harry, ‘but why take the cup as well?’
    ‘It had belonged to another of Hogwarts’ founders,’ said Dumbledore. ‘I think he still felt a great pull towards the school and that he could not resist an object so steeped in Hogwarts’ history. There were other reasons, I think … I hope to be able to demonstrate them to you, in due course.
    ‘And now for the very last recollection I have to show you, at least until you manage to retrieve Professor Slughorn’s memory for us. Ten years separate Hokey’s memory and this one, ten years during which we can only guess at what Lord Voldemort was doing …’
    Harry got to his feet once more as Dumbledore emptied the last memory into the Pensieve.
    ‘Whose memory is it?’ he asked.
    ‘Mine,’ said Dumbledore.
    And Harry dived after Dumbledore through the shifting silver mass, landing in the very office he had just left. There was Fawkes, slumbering happily on his perch, and there, behind the desk, was Dumbledore, who looked very similar to the Dumbledore standing beside Harry, though both hands were whole and undamaged and his face was, perhaps, a little less lined. The one difference between the present-day office and this one was that it was snowing in the past; bluish flecks were drifting past the window in the dark and building up on the outside ledge.
    The younger Dumbledore seemed to be waiting for something, and sure enough, moments after their arrival, there was a knock on the door and he said, ‘Enter.’
    Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years before; they were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.
    The Dumbledore behind the desk showed no sign of surprise. Evidently this visit had been made by appointment.
    ‘Good evening, Tom,’ said Dumbledore easily. ‘Won’t you sit down?’
    ‘Thank you,’ said Voldemort, and he took the seat to which Dumbledore had gestured – the very seat, by the looks of it, that Harry had just vacated in the present. ‘I heard that you had become Headmaster,’ he said, and his voice was slightly higher and colder than it had been. ‘A worthy choice.’
    ‘I am glad you approve,’ said Dumbledore, smiling. ‘May I offer you a drink?’
    ‘That would be welcome,’ said Voldemort. ‘I have come a long way.’
    Dumbledore stood and swept over to the cabinet where he now kept the Pensieve, but which then was full of bottles. Having handed Voldemort a goblet of wine and poured one for himself, he returned to the seat behind his desk.
    ‘So, Tom … to what do I owe the pleasure?’
    Voldemort did not answer at once, but merely sipped his wine.
    ‘They do not call me “Tom” any more,’ he said. ‘These days, I am known as –’
    ‘I know what you are known as,’ said Dumbledore, smiling pleasantly. ‘But to me, I’m afraid, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers, I am afraid, that they never quite forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.’
    He raised his glass as though toasting Voldemort, whose face remained expressionless. Nevertheless, Harry felt the atmosphere in the room change subtly: Dumbledore’s refusal to use Voldemort’s chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the