ALBUS DUMBLEDORE strode off along the pavement, drawing many curious glances due to the flamboyantly cut suit of plum velvet that he was wearing. He finally passed through a set of iron gates into a bare courtyard that fronted a rather grim, square building surrounded by high railings. He mounted the few steps leading to the front door and knocked once. After a moment or two, the door was opened by a scruffy girl wearing an apron.

"Good afternoon. I have an appointment with a Mrs. Cole, who, I believe, is the matron here?"

"Oh," said the bewildered-looking girl, taking in Dumbledore's eccentric appearance, "Um . . . just a moment. MRS. COLE!" she bellowed over her shoulder. "Come in, she's on 'er way."

Dumbledore stepped into a hallway tiled in black and white, the whole place was shabby but spotlessly clean. Harry and the older Dumbledore followed. Before the front door had closed behind them, Mrs. Cole walked toward Dumbledore.

". . . and take the iodine upstairs to Martha, Billy Stubbs has been picking his scabs and Eric Whalley's oozing all over his sheets, chicken pox on top of everything else," she said to nobody in particular, and then her eyes fell upon Dumbledore and she stopped dead in her tracks, looking as astonished as if a giraffe had just crossed her threshold.

"Good afternoon," said Dumbledore, holding out his hand. Mrs. Cole simply gaped, "My name is Albus Dumbledore. I sent you a letter requesting an appointment and you very kindly invited me here today."

Mrs. Cole blinked. Apparently deciding that Dumbledore was not a hallucination, she said feebly, "Oh yes. Well • well then — you'd better come into my room, yes."

She led Dumbledore into a small room that seemed part sitting room, part office. It was as shabby as the hallway and the furniture was old and mismatched. She invited Dumbledore to sit on a rickety chair and seated herself behind a cluttered desk, eyeing him nervously.

"I am here, as I told you in my letter, to discuss Jasmine and Tom Riddle and arrangements for his future," said Dumbledore.

"I can help you with Tom, but not with Jasmine." she said.

Dumbledore raised an eybrow, "And my I ask you the reason for that?"

"She ran away from the orphanage two years ago, Tom remained her. Can't imagine why. She never seemed the type for something like that."

Dumbledore was lost in thought for a moment.

"Are you family?" asked Mrs. Cole.

"No, I am a teacher," said Dumbledore. "I have come to offer the two kids — well, now only Tom — a place at my school."

"What school's this, then?" she asked.

"It is called Hogwarts," said Dumbledore.

"And how come you're interested in Tom?"

"We believe he has qualities we are looking for." Dumbledore explained.

"You mean he's won a scholarship? How can he have done? He's never been entered for one." she said.

"Well, his name has been down for our school since birth." Dumbledore said.

"Who registered him? His parents?" Mrs. Cole asked sharply.

Dumbledore discreetly slipped a wand out of the pocket of his velvet suit, at the same time picking up a piece of perfectly blank paper from Mrs. Cole's desktop.

"Here," said Dumbledore, waving his wand once as he passed her the piece of paper, "I think this will make everything clear."

Mrs. Cole's eyes slid out of focus and back again as she gazed intently at the blank paper for a moment.

"That seems perfectly in order," she said placidly, handing it back. Then her eyes fell upon a bottle of gin and two glasses that had certainly not been present a few seconds before.

"Er, may I offer you a glass of gin?" she said in an extra-refined voice.

"Thank you very much," said Dumbledore, beaming.

It soon became clear that Mrs. Cole was no novice when it came to gin drinking. Pouring both of them a generous measure, she drained her own glass in one gulp. Smacking her lips frankly, she smiled at Dumbledore for the first time, and he didn't hesitate to press his advantage.

"I was wondering whether you could tell me anything of Jasmine and Tom Riddle's history." he said.

"New Year's Eve and bitter cold, snowing, you know. Nasty night. And this nurse from a cheap hospital on the block, comes in with two children. Twins. She says the mother died giving birth."

Mrs. Cole nodded impressively and took another generous gulp of gin.

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

"Now, as it happens, she did," said Mrs. Cole, who seemed to be rather enjoying herself now, with the gin in her hand and an eager audience for her story. "She said it to the nurse while naming the boy. She said she names him Tom, after his father, and Marvolo after her father, and give him the father's surname, of Riddle. The girl, she named Jasmine, because she had smelt unusually of Jasmine, and she gave her daughter her own name as the middle name, Merope. Well, we named them just as she'd said, it seemed so important to the poor girl, but no Tom nor any kind of Riddle ever came looking for them, nor any family at all, so he stayed in the orphanage and he's been here ever since."

Mrs. Cole helped herself, almost absentmindedly, to another healthy measure of gin. Two pink spots had appeared high on her cheekbones. Then she said, "They were funny kids."

"Yes," said Dumbledore. "I thought they might be."

"They were funny babies too. They hardly ever cried, you know. And then, when the boy got a little older, he was. . . odd."

"Odd in what way?" asked Dumbledore gently.
"Well, he —"

But Mrs. Cole pulled up short, and there was nothing blurry or vague about the inquisitorial glance she shot Dumbledore over her gin glass.

"He's definitely got a place at your school, you say?"

"Definitely," said Dumbledore.

"And nothing I say can change that?"

"Nothing," said Dumbledore.

"You'll be taking him away, whatever?"

"Whatever," repeated Dumbledore gravely.

She squinted at him as though deciding whether or not to trust him. Apparently she decided she could, because she said in a sudden rush, "He scares the other children."

"You mean he is a bully?" asked Dumbledore.

"I think he must be," said Mrs. Cole, frowning slightly, "but it's very hard to catch him at it. There have been incidents . . . . Nasty things . . .

Dumbledore did not press her, and she took yet another gulp of gin and her rosy cheeks grew rosier still.

"Billy Stubbs's rabbit . . . well, Tom said he didn't do it and I don't see how he could have done, but even so, it didn't hang itself from the ceiling fan, did it?"

"I shouldn't think so, no," said Dumbledore quietly.

"But I'm jiggered if I know how he got up there to do it. All I know is Billy was making fun of Tom's sister, and then," Mrs. Cole took another swig of gin, slopping a little over her chin this time "on the summer trip, we take them out, you know, once a year, to the countryside or to the seaside, well, Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop were never quite right afterwards, speechless, and all we ever got out of Tom was that they'd gone into a cave. He swore they'd just gone exploring, but something happened in there, I'm sure of it. And, well, there have been a lot of things, funny things . . . I never saw Jasmine come back to the orphanage with us. He said she'd run away then."

She looked around at Dumbledore again, and though her cheeks were flushed, her gaze was steady. "I don't think many people will be sorry to see the back of him."

"You understand, I'm sure, that we will not be keeping him permanently?" said Dumbledore. "He will have to return here, at the very least, every summer."

"Oh, well, that's better than a whack on the nose with a rusty poker," said Mrs. Cole with a slight hiccup. She got to her feet, "I suppose you'd like to see him?"

"Very much," said Dumbledore, rising too.

She led him out of her office and up the stone stairs, calling out instructions and admonitions to helpers and children as she passed.

"Here we are," said Mrs. Cole, as they turned off the second landing and stopped outside the first door in a long corridor. She knocked twice and entered.

"Tom? You've got a visitor. This is Mr. Dumberton — sorry, Dunderbore. He's come to tell you — well, I'll let him do it."

Mrs. Cole closed the door on them. It was a small bare room with nothing in it except an old wardrobe and an iron bedstead. A boy was sitting on top of the gray blankets, his legs stretched out in front of him, holding a book.

"How do you do, Tom?" said Dumbledore, walking forward and holding out his hand.

The boy hesitated, then took it, and they shook hands. Dumbledore drew up the hard wooden chair beside Riddle, so that the pair of them looked rather like a hospital patient and visitor.

"I am Professor Dumbledore."

"Professor?" repeated Tom. He looked wary. "Is that like 'doctor'? What are you here for? Did she get you in to have a look at me?"

He was pointing at the door through which Mrs. Cole had just left.

"No, no," said Dumbledore, smiling.

"I don't believe you," said Riddle. "She wants me looked at, doesn't she? Tell the truth!"

He spoke the last three words with a ringing force that was almost shocking. It was a command, and it sounded as though he had given it many times before. His eyes had widened and he was glaring at Dumbledore, who made no response except to continue smiling pleasantly. After a few seconds Riddle stopped glaring, though he looked, if anything, warier still.

"Who are you?"

"I have told you. My name is Professor Dumbledore and I work at a school called Hogwarts. I have come to offer you a place at my school, your new school, if you would like to come."

Riddle's reaction to this was most surprising. He leapt from the bed and backed away from Dumbledore, looking furious.

"You can't kid me! The asylum, that's where you're from, isn't it? 'Professor,' yes, of course, well, I'm not going, see, That old cat's the one who should be in the asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop!"

"I am not from the asylum," said Dumbledore patiently. "I am a teacher and, if you will sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Of course, if you would rather not come to the school, nobody will force you."

"I'd like to see them try," sneered Riddle.

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities."

"I'm not mad!"

"I know that you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."

There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes were flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore's, as though trying to catch one of them lying.

"Magic?" he repeated in a whisper.

"That's right," said Dumbledore.

"It's . . . it's magic, what I can do? I knew it."

"What is it that you can do?"

"All sorts," breathed Riddle. A flush of excitement was rising up his neck into his hollow cheeks. he looked fevered. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to do, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt if I want to."

His legs were trembling. He stumbled forward and sat down on the bed again, staring at his hands, his head bowed as though in prayer.

"I knew I was different," he whispered to his own quivering fingers. "I knew I was special. Always, I knew there was something."

"Well, you were quite right," said Dumbledore, who was no longer smiling, but watching Riddle intently. "You are a wizard."

Riddle lifted his head. His face was transfigured, There was a wild happiness upon it, yet for some reason it did not make him better looking, on the contrary, his finely carved features seemed somehow rougher, his expression almost bestial.

"Are you a wizard too?"

"Yes, I am."

"Prove it," said Riddle at once, in the same commanding tone he had used when he had said, "Tell the truth."

Dumbledore raised his eyebrows. "If, as I take it, you are accepting your place at Hogwarts?"

"Of course I am!"

"Then you will address me as 'Professor' or 'sir.'"

Riddle's expression hardened for the most fleeting moment before he said, in an unrecognisably polite voice, "I'm sorry, sir. I meant, please, Professor, could you show me?"

Dumbledore drew his wand from an inside pocket of his suit jacket, pointed it at the shabby wardrobe in the corner, and gave the wand a casual flick.

The wardrobe burst into flames.

Riddle jumped to his feet. He howled in shock and rage, "No! Stop it! Not the wardrobe"

the flames vanished, leaving the wardrobe completely undamaged. Riddle stared from the wardrobe to Dumbledore, then, his expression greedy, he pointed at the wand.

"Where can I get one of them?"

"All in good time," said Dumbledore. "I think there is something trying to get out of your wardrobe — and someone too."

And sure enough, a faint rattling could be heard from inside it. For the first time, Riddle looked frightened.

"Open the door," said Dumbledore.

Riddle hesitated, then crossed the room and threw open the wardrobe door. On the topmost shelf, above a rail of threadbare clothes, a small cardboard box was shaking and rattling as though there were several frantic mice trapped inside it.

"Take it out," said Dumbledore.

Riddle took down the quaking box. He looked unnerved.

"Is there anything in that box that you ought not to have?" asked Dumbledore.
Riddle threw Dumbledore a long, clear, calculating look. "Yes, I suppose so, sir," he said finally, in an expressionless voice.

"Open it," said Dumbledore.

Riddle took off the lid and tipped the contents onto his bed without looking at them. Harry, who had expected something much more exciting, saw a mess of small, everyday objects: a yo-yo, a silver thimble, and a tarnished mouth organ among them. Once free of the box, they stopped quivering and lay quite still upon the thin blankets.

"You will return them to their owners with your apologies," said Dumbledore calmly, putting his wand back into his jacket. "I shall know whether it has been done. And be warned, Thieving is not tolerated at Hogwarts."

Riddle did not look remotely abashed, he was still staring coldly and appraisingly at Dumbledore. At last he said in a colorless voice, "Yes, sir."

"At Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, "we teach you not only to use magic, but to control it. You have ?inadvertently, I am sure you've been using your powers in a way that is neither taught nor tolerated at our school. You are not the first, nor will you be the last, to allow your magic to run away with you. But you should know that Hogwarts can expel students, and the Ministry of Magic, yes, there is a Ministry will punish lawbreakers still more severely. All new wizards must accept that, in entering our world, they abide by our laws."

"Yes, sir," said Riddle again.

"I know that's not all in your wardrobe that's trying to get out, Tom."