All the Time in the World

Chapter Thirty Seven

Tom looked at his uncle. "This is a brooch," said he.

Morfin waved his hand. "That was your mum's. Thought you might like it. Don't think that muggle father of yours have anything of hers!"

"No," said Tom. "He doesn't. Thank you."

He held out his own present. "Merry Christmas, uncle."

Morfin tore out the wrapping paper and took out the bottle inside, opening it and giving it a sniff.

"Good stuff," said he, before taking a swig, straight from the bottle.

"You're welcome," muttered Tom as he went out of the shack. The brooch looked fairly ordinary. But it also looked familiar. It was dull and tarnished, though Morfin had apparently made an effort to clean it up to give him. He turned it over in his hand. It looked very, very familiar.

Then it came to him. He had seen it in Potter's trunk. But it was shining and not tarnished, but otherwise exactly the same. Tom frowned. What was this brooch doing in Potter's trunk? And how did it become like new? If his theory about Potter and his friends were true, the brooch should have looked even more battered.

He wished he could use magic. There was this useful little spell he'd invented that allowed one to know if an object was magical or not. But any magic here, and he'd be getting a warning from the Ministry before he could say Jack Robinson. And Tom knew that he had to keep his nose clean. He needed a clean record at school.

But, there was another possibility. He turned back to look at Morfin's house. That was a wizard's dwelling. And magic in there would not attract the ministry's attention. And if he knew his uncle, the man would have finished that bottle of Firewhiskey by now and would be snoring away in drunken stupor.

He went into the shack, pushing open the door that Morfin had not bothered to lock. Morfin was on the couch, snoring away, the empty bottle on the floor near his hand that was dangling off the edge of the couch.

Tom went to the upstairs bedroom that had once belonged to his mother. Not that he was sentimental about it, but it was the only room in the house that did not stink of stale Firewhiskey. Of course, the room was just as dirty and dusty as the rest of the house. He took out his wand and performed a cleaning spell, wrinkling his face in distaste. Whoever heard of a dark lord performing a cleaning spell?

He took out the brooch from his pocket and laid it on the bed. He placed his wand-tip to it and whispered the spell.

The jolt of magic he got from the brooch knocked him back and he landed heavily on the floor, staring at it. A powerful magical artefact! He smiled. It was the best Christmas present.

But it still did not explain what the brooch did or how Potter got it. But Tom was not daunted. He did have a book at home, one he'd taken from the Hogwarts library just before the holidays. Christmas time at the Riddle Mansion was always stiff and formal and boring. Tom just needed something to pass his time. And a book on magical artefacts had seemed just the thing. Now that he thought of it, he did remember seeing something like this brooch when he rifled through it.

He was grinning like an idiot when he went out of his uncle's house, the brooch in his pocket.