The house that came into Sherlock's view was in a far worse state of decay than the Riddle house.
The Riddle house, though equally dilapidated, still retained a certain dignity by virtue of its commanding position, it remained the largest manor in Little Hangleton. But this dwelling before him had not even managed a decent plot of land. It seemed to have been built in embarrassment.
To one side, massive trees had grown wild and unchecked, their thick trunks weaving together like a canopy of enormous parasols, blocking out every last ray of light. And this was only spring, come summer, when the branches grew heavier with leaves, those trees would likely swallow the valley below whole, leaving the house to sink into permanent shadow.
The walls were smothered in a thick coat of moss, draped over the stonework like a damp green blanket, cold and faintly fetid to the senses.
On the roof, countless tiles had long since gone missing; the bare rafters jutted out at odd angles, standing alone against the wind. Nettles choked the ground around the house, growing wild all the way up to the windowsills. The windows themselves were tiny, filmed over with years of grime layer upon layer of grey dust obscuring whatever lay within from the world outside.
A single glance was all Sherlock needed to be certain: this was their destination.
And sure enough, Dumbledore came to a slow halt before the decrepit little house. For a brief moment, something surfaced in his eyes, the color of memory, as though the old ruin had stirred something long buried. Then he turned to look at Sherlock, and his gaze was full of admiration.
"Sherlock," he said, "you gave me a great deal of inspiration."
He made no show of withholding anything. "For many years," he continued, "I have gone to extraordinary lengths to understand Voldemort's past. I have travelled far and wide, tracing every remnant of his life. But it was only after you and Harry helped me obtain that crucial memory from Professor Slughorn last year that I finally made a real breakthrough."
Sherlock gave a quiet nod.
Professor Slughorn's memory, the conversation between Slughorn and the young Tom Riddle about Horcruxes had indeed been a pivotal turning point.
"Do you remember what you said to me," Dumbledore asked suddenly, "about the black-stoned ring Voldemort was wearing?"
"Of course," Sherlock answered without hesitation. "That ring held tremendous significance for Voldemort. I deduced at the time that he had fashioned it into a Horcrux."
"And your deduction was correct." Dumbledore smiled. "Following that thread, I finally uncovered the key."
As he spoke, he reached out and gently pushed open the door, stepping inside.
Sherlock followed close behind.
The moment he crossed the threshold, a smell of rot and age hit him full in the face.
The interior was cramped and oppressive, as though the walls had been slowly pressing inward for years.
The central room served as both kitchen and sitting room combined though to call it either would be charitable. It was filthy beyond description.
Thick cobwebs hung in curtains from the ceiling; the floor was dark with grime; a pile of rusted pots sat heaped on the table. Two battered armchairs looked as though they might collapse if anyone so much as breathed on them. Two further doors led off into other rooms.
"Can you guess where we are?" Dumbledore asked.
Sherlock frowned. "Too few clues."
For all his extraordinary powers of observation and deduction, he could not conjure certainty from thin air.
Dumbledore smiled, then said quietly: "The ring's original owner was Marvolo Gaunt."
The instant the name reached Sherlock's ears, his eyes lit up sharp and sudden, like stars catching light.
"Then this is Voldemort's maternal grandfather's home," he said at once.
"Excellent, Sherlock!" Dumbledore said, clearly delighted.
"Marvolo Gaunt, along with his daughter Merope and his son Morfin, were the last descendants of Salazar Slytherin and the final remnants of the Gaunt family. It was a very old wizarding lineage, notorious for its instability and violence.
Generations of inbreeding had only made those traits more pronounced with each passing generation. They lacked all sense of reason, and had an especial fondness for grand living, so their fortune was squandered entirely several generations before Marvolo's time.
By the time it came to him, Marvolo had been reduced to destitution, possessed of a vile temper, and yet brimming with an insufferable arrogance and vanity. Even so, he still held two ancestral heirlooms in his hands and he prized them as dearly as he prized his son. Far more dearly than he ever prized his daughter."
Sherlock listened intently, processing the information with rapid precision. The moment Dumbledore reached his final sentence; he spoke without a pause for thought.
"Then one of those two heirlooms is Marvolo's ring later made into a Horcrux by Voldemort." He paused, then revised himself. "No, if both objects were in the same man's possession, then both must have eventually fallen into Voldemort's hands..."
His gaze swept once more across the crumbling room, and his words came quickly now.
"So this is the Gaunt shack, the home of Voldemort's grandfather, his uncle, and his mother. This is where his mother came to know his father, Tom Riddle Senior. The murders at the Riddle house fifty years ago were Voldemort's doing, he killed his own paternal grandparents and his father with his own hands.
Then he took Marvolo's ring and went to Slughorn to ask about Horcruxes, to confirm whether multiple Horcruxes could be created. And the reason you've brought me here today, you believe he may have hidden a Horcrux in this place."
"Brilliant, Sherlock!" Dumbledore's praise was entirely unrestrained. "I said only a single sentence, and you have already deduced the entire sequence of events!"
But Sherlock shook his head. "These are deductions only. I have no evidence."
"You may not have evidence," Dumbledore replied, "but the Ministry of Magic does."
"Evidence?" Sherlock looked at him.
"Indeed, though the conclusions they drew from it are entirely at odds with yours."
Dumbledore spoke slowly. "After our last visit to the Riddle house, you urged me to look into the unsolved case from fifty years ago. I followed your suggestion and used it as my starting point, and it eventually led me to some useful information."
As he spoke, he gave his wand a small wave. The two armchairs slid forward to meet them, and the dust upon them vanished entirely. When both men had settled, Dumbledore continued.
"As our previous investigation established, the Muggle authorities were completely baffled by the case, to this day they have no idea how the Riddles died. But the Ministry of Magic understood at once that it was the work of a wizard, because the Killing Curse leaves no mark..."
He paused and looked at Sherlock with a quiet, layered gaze. "With one exception, of course, your best friend."
The Boy Who Lived.
The words surfaced in both their minds at the same moment.
After a beat, Dumbledore drew his thoughts back and continued. "The Ministry's case files record Morfin Gaunt as the murderer."
Sherlock's brow furrowed. "You said the Ministry had evidence?"
"Correct. A Prior Incantato confirmed that his wand had indeed been used to kill the Riddle family."
"And besides that?"
"Morfin himself confessed fully. He provided details that only the killer could have known, said he was proud of having killed those Muggles, said he'd been waiting for the chance for years."
"And a motive?"
"As I mentioned both Marvolo and Morfin harbored a deep hatred for Muggles."
"That does seem sufficient."
"Moreover, before all this, Morfin had already served time in Azkaban for attacking one of the victims in this very case."
Sherlock fell silent.
He pulled his gaze from Dumbledore and turned it back to the old ruin around him. It all sounded so perfectly logical.
Witness testimony, physical evidence, a confession, motive, opportunity, and the murder weapon, everything aligned. Every fact pointed to Morfin Gaunt. He was the man who had killed Tom Riddle Sr. and his parents.
And yet Sherlock couldn't shake the feeling that something was wrong.
Particularly when he noticed the way Dumbledore was watching him, measured, expectant, with an air of patience.
Then something else caught his attention: the narrow path leading toward the village ran very close to this little of trees where the shack stood. If the windows were open, one could hear everything outside clearly. And from the garden, through the hedgerow, one would have a clear view of the only road into the valley.
Sherlock turned back to Dumbledore.
"The Muggle that Morfin attacked before, was it Tom Riddle Senior?"
"It was. That was some years earlier, would you like to know the full account?"
At Sherlock's nod of assent, a small smile crossed his face. He laced his fingers together, rested his chin on his hands, and leaned back slightly. "I'm all ears."
"Bob Ogden was working for the Department of Magical Law Enforcement at the time. I tracked him down and persuaded him to share a crucial memory with me.
The Ministry had received a complaint: Marvolo's son, Morfin, had used a jinx on a Muggle. As you surmised, the Muggle in question was Tom Riddle Senior. Since father and son refused all owl correspondence, Ogden went to deliver a summons in person, calling Morfin to attend a hearing at the Ministry."
Sherlock listened with complete focus. He sat slightly forward, his posture unchanged chin still resting on his laced hands, his grey eyes bright and searching, fixed steadily on Dumbledore.
Marvolo and Morfin refused to comply and attacked Ogden. He disapparated back to the Ministry and returned fifteen minutes later with reinforcements.
Father and son put up resistance but were both subdued and removed from the shack. In due course, the Wizengamot handed down its judgment: Morfin, already carrying a prior conviction for attacking a Muggle, was sentenced to three years in Azkaban. Marvolo, for assaulting both Ogden and several other Ministry officials, received six months.
Sherlock absorbed this in silence. After a moment, a small furrow formed between his brows. "Sir, you mentioned Merope earlier. What role did she play in all of this?"
Dumbledore laughed, with the unguarded delight of a child. "I knew it, even without the Pensieve, you'd find the crux of it. Why don't you work it out yourself?"
"Given what you've already told me," Sherlock said, "I think the answer is fairly obvious. Merope had developed feelings for Tom Riddle and her father and brother caught her in the act. Morfin attacked Tom Riddle over it, which brought that brave Ministry official to the door."
"Precisely correct, I'm almost tempted to wonder whether I've already taken you down Bob Ogden's memory lane without realizing it." Dumbledore shook his head in amusement, then added the remaining details with evident pleasure.
"Merope was a witch, but under the crushing tyranny of her father, her magical ability had never fully manifested, she had always been dismissed as a Squib.
Once her father and brother were both locked away in Azkaban and she was truly alone for the first time in her life, free to act as she pleased, she discovered the full scope of her power and used it to escape the existence she had endured for eighteen years."
"So she took control of Tom Riddle and left with him," Sherlock said. "And eventually bore Voldemort which also explains why he came to you from an orphanage."
"Exactly. After Marvolo and Morfin were taken away, the squire's son ran off with the vagrant's daughter and the scandal shook Little Hangleton to its core. Yet within a few months of their elopement, Tom Riddle returned to the village alone, insisting that he had been deceived and bewitched.
I believe he meant, quite literally, that a spell had been used on him and had since been lifted though he wouldn't have dared use those words for fear of being thought mad. From that day on, he never saw Merope again, and took not the slightest interest in his unborn child."
"He abandoned her while she was still pregnant?" Sherlock's frown deepened.
"I'm afraid this next part is speculation, Sherlock." Dumbledore shook his head slowly.
"I believe Merope loved her husband deeply, and that she couldn't bear to keep him shackled to her by magic. I think she made the decision to stop giving him the love potion and it is my personal belief that she had been using a love potion all along, given that Tom Riddle already had a Muggle love before Merope.
Perhaps she convinced herself that he would come to love her in time. Perhaps she believed he would stay for the child's sake. Either way, both hopes failed her utterly. Tom Riddle not only left, he never once troubled himself to find out what became of his son. The love born of a potion was never real. Even a child between them could not make him love her."
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