Annabeth Chase and Things Are Getting Intense

Chapter Seventeen

Eleven year old Tom Riddle was sitting on his bed in the orphanage, a book set on his outstretched legs. He looked up when Mrs. Cole and her guest entered.

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

Mrs. Cole nodded and backed out of the room, closing the door behind her. Annabeth questioned her smarts at this point—leaving a child alone in a room with a stranger you've just met didn't seem like a very wise option. But the forties were a different time, apparently.

The room was bare except for a wardrobe, a bed with an iron frame, and a single wooden chair. It looked more like a prison cell than a bedroom.

Tom Riddle looked nothing like his mother. Annabeth had only caught a fleeting glimpse of Tom Riddle Sr. during their last lesson, but this boy was the spitting image of him. He had pale skin, a narrow face, and cold eyes that narrowed slightly as he took in the man before him.

"How do you do, Tom?" Dumbledore asked, walking forwards and holding out his hand.

The boy hesitated, but he shook Dumbledore's hand. Dumbledore drew up the chair and sat down. He looked more like a visitor in a hospital than anything.

"I am Professor Dumbledore."

"Professor?" Riddle repeated. "As in 'doctor?' What are you here for? Did she send you in here to have a look at me?"

"No, no," Dumbledore said, smiling.

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

The last three words were spoken with such force that they seemed to reverberate through the room. It was obviously a command, one that Riddle had issued many times, and one that he was used to being obeyed.

"Who are you?" He asked, glaring.

"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, should you choose to come."

At that, Riddle jumped out of his bed and backed away, shaking his head frantically. "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 that should be in an asylum. I never did anything to little Amy Benson or Dennis Bishop, and you can ask them, they'll tell you!"

"I am not from the asylum," Dumbledore said with remarkable patience. "I am a teacher and, if you can sit down calmly, I shall tell you about Hogwarts. Or course, if you would rather not come to the school, no one will force you—"

"I'd like to see them try."

"Hogwarts," Dumbledore continued like he hadn't been interrupted, "is a school for people with special abilities—"

"I'm not mad!"

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

Riddle froze. His eyes went to Dumbledore's face and stayed there, as if trying to catch him in a lie.

"Magic?" He whispered.

"That's right," Dumbledore said.

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

"What is it that you can do?"

"All sorts," Riddle breathed, leaning forward. A flush crept up on his cheeks as he got more excited. "I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals do what I want them to, without training them. I can make bad things happen to people who annoy me. I can make them hurt, if I want to."