Chapter 624 Young Tom Riddle

The man in the hard wooden chair and the boy sitting on the bed observed each other. Because of the perspective, it looked like the relationship between a visitor and a patient. So it was not surprising that the following conversation took place.

"Professor? Is it like a 'doctor'? What are you doing here? Did Mrs. Cole ask you to come and check on me? I didn't do anything to little Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop. You can ask them yourself, they will tell you!"

Felix looked at Tom Riddle's young and alert face, and was not unfamiliar with these words. After all, he had heard them many times.

"I said - I am Professor Dumbledore, I work in a school called Hogwarts. Today I come to invite you to study in that school -"

Riddle jumped off the bed with an angry look, and Felix lowered his eyelids slightly. "Hogwarts is a magic school, and I am a wizard." He said.

Riddle's words were stuck in his throat. He originally thought that the so-called 'Hogwarts' was just a lunatic asylum, and that the man in front of him was sent by Mrs. Cole because she could no longer bear it and wanted to get rid of him, but what the other party said was completely different. There

was a long silence. Riddle stared at Felix expressionlessly, scanning him up and down, as if trying to find flaws from the smallest details. Felix looked back at him with interest, without a trace of discomfort. .

"Magic?" Riddle finally repeated softly, "My abilities, are... are magic?"

"What abilities do you have?"

"Various. I can make things move without touching them. I can make animals obey my orders without training. Whoever makes me angry, I can make them unlucky. I can hurt them as long as I want." Riddle said in a low voice, his expression excited, and his face covered with an abnormal blush. He lowered his head and stared at his hands, which were shaking violently, "I knew I was different. I knew I was special. I knew there was something here."

From the perspective of an adult, you can see that Riddle's sunken cheeks twisted into a fanatical arc. Felix decided to do something, not to follow the original trajectory, but to make a change from the beginning.

He put his hand into his trouser pocket. Riddle's eyes suddenly tried to look up, staring at the movement of the hand. His head was still in a low posture, so several deep wrinkles piled on his forehead, and a large area of ​​white of the eyes could be seen from under the bulging eyebrows.

Felix took out a piece of parchment.

"What's the matter?" he asked gently.

"Nothing." Riddle said immediately, so Felix withdrew his gaze, unfolded the parchment by himself, and stared at the contents on it. Riddle hesitated for a moment and said, "I thought you would carry a weapon."

"Weapon?"

"Something to cast spells.

" "You mean a wand?"

"So you really have one?" Riddle's eyes immediately looked around his pockets, as if trying to find a place to hide something. "The orphanage once invited someone from the church to come. I asked that person, but she knew nothing about the abilities of witches and wizards. She only said that they were evil."

"Wizards are a secret to ordinary people." Felix explained, waving his hand in front of Riddle, and a black wand appeared out of thin air. Riddle's face immediately showed a greedy light, pointing at the wand.

"Where can I get one?"

"I will have it when the time comes. In addition, it is not a weapon, but a tool to assist us in casting spells. You can go to school to learn how to control the casting of spells." Felix said lightly: "Let's get back to the topic. As a school professor, I have the responsibility to help little wizards from Muggle families-"

"What is a Muggle?" Riddle interrupted him unceremoniously.

"-It means that the parents are not wizards, or they grew up in a non-magical environment, and it is impossible to determine the blood relationship."

Riddle muttered something.

"I continue to say that I have the responsibility to popularize the common sense of the magical world to little wizards from Muggle families, and to assess their psychology and confirm whether they are qualified to study at Hogwarts."

Riddle's face suddenly became stiff. The sky outside the window darkened, and thunder roared in the distance.

"Psychological assessment?"

"It's just a routine procedure," Felix explained, glancing out the window, and speaking faster: "Although Hogwarts is a magic school, it doesn't mean that there are no requirements for moral character. Forget it, you stay and see for yourself." He handed the makeshift thing to Riddle.

Riddle's eyes withdrew from the wand and lowered his head to read the contents of the parchment.

"Caring for classmates, strictly prohibiting bullying... Prohibiting stealing and occupying property..." He seemed to have suddenly thought of something and threw out a sentence stiffly, "I don't have money."

"The school has subsidies." Felix looked at Riddle, "Do you have any questions about the above content?"

"What will happen if you violate it?"

"It depends on the situation. Generally, it will be detention. If the situation is serious, you may be expelled or sent to Azkaban, which is the wizard prison."

Riddle was silent with an expressionless face, as if weighing the pros and cons.

"You said that the wand is not a weapon?" He suddenly changed the subject and asked.

"Yes."

"Prove it to me." He said arrogantly.

Felix raised his eyebrows.

"I mean... please," Riddle added, becoming polite, "Can I call you Professor Dumbledore, sir? Because you said... you would teach me common sense about magic, and I grew up in a magical desert and have never seen anyone like you..."

Strangely, as he spoke, the thunder outside gradually subsided.

Felix stood up and waved his wand casually. The wooden chair he had just sat on immediately turned into a majestic lion, rolled on the ground and turned into a badger. It ran around the room and climbed up the old wardrobe that was the highest in the room. Riddle became nervous, but the little badger opened its arms and turned into a bronze eagle with its wings spread. It stood on the wardrobe and swooped down at the two of them, and at the last second it turned into a vivid snake.

Riddle almost immediately showed his love for it.

He said in Parseltongue, "Stand up." The snake raised its head obediently. Riddle quietly raised his eyes to look at Felix and whispered, "I can talk to snakes, Professor Dumbledore. Is this normal for a wizard? Can you talk to snakes?"

"It's rare. I've only seen such records in books."

Riddle stared down at the little snake, and after a moment, he spoke in Parseltongue, and the little snake lazily turned up its belly, twisting and twisting in front of them, hissing. Felix's expression remained normal, with a faint smile on his face.

But the Parseltongue meant 'Can you die like a real snake?' '

"Where should I buy books, Professor Dumbledore?"

Felix took out another envelope from his pocket and handed it to Riddle. "There are shopping lists and tickets inside. You can take a look at it first. I will come again next week and take you to buy the necessary items for school--"

"I don't need you," Riddle said. "I'm used to doing things on my own. I always run around London alone. So, where should I go-Professor Dumbledore?"

"I'm afraid not," Felix shook his head. "I don't have any money today, and-it's dangerous enough to let a little wizard go to a strange place. I still have more than a dozen households to visit this week. After that, I will take you to Diagon Alley. There is everything you need."

"Maybe you can make one or two friends in advance."

The two stared at each other. This was the first time Felix clearly refused Riddle since he entered the door. Boom! A flash of lightning exploded in front of the window, but neither of them looked away. "Okay, Professor Dumbledore, see you next week." Riddle said.

Felix nodded at him, ignoring the red light in his eyes. With a wave of his hand, the twisted snake on the ground turned back into a wooden chair.

The moment he closed the door, the scenery outside became blurred, and the long corridor opened its bloody mouth, ready to devour people. Felix strode down the stairs, and a skinny woman - she was the orphanage's manager, Mrs. Cole - quickly came to meet him.

"Mr. Dumbledore - excuse me, is it Dumbledore? Well, are you done with your work?"

"Yes, Mrs. Cole. I will visit you again next week."

"No problem," Mrs. Cole said, and the two of them went downstairs together. "It's a good thing - oh, slow down, you're walking too fast." She shouted, and when she reached the corner in the middle of the first floor, Felix had already appeared at the door.

He opened the door and turned to look at the shabby, black and white tiled hallway with large clouds of black smoke, but strangely, the people around him all turned a blind eye, and their eyes also had a creepy red light like Riddle.

"Why don't we finish the bottle of gin... Hep?" Mrs. Cole's voice became low and hoarse, and people with red eyes approached stiffly.

"Goodbye." Felix just said briefly, and then slammed the door.

The street was surrounded by black clouds and the wind was howling. Felix jumped down the steps outside the door quickly and walked briskly through the bare yard. Clang! The heavy iron door closed hard behind him. As

soon as he came out, Felix waved his arms vigorously.

The wind blew more fiercely, and the black clouds seemed to be so low that they were rubbing against the nearby buildings. A hideous face twisted out of the rolling clouds, and a crack appeared on the ground under Felix's feet, extending rapidly into the distance.

The entire Wu's Orphanage sank suddenly.

Felix's expression was serious, knowing that the backlash of changing strategy had come, and Voldemort's will began to automatically clear this memory that should not exist. He pulled out a silver-blue mass from his pocket that was neither gas nor liquid, and then his figure flickered continuously, and the blank memory fragments merged into the cracks, patching up the cracks.

When Felix stopped, the vision disappeared. Although the ground was left with ugly scars and the sky seemed to be taped, this place was temporarily saved and was not completely abandoned by Voldemort.

Felix stood on the sidewalk and breathed a sigh of relief. After more than two months of trial and error, and with the information provided by Dumbledore, he finally took the first step and successfully planted a seed in Voldemort's mind.

What he had to do was far more than just modifying his memory.

Scattered memory fragments were useless. A great wizard like Voldemort had a perfect defense against his own memory. Changing, covering up, shielding, or sticking a few false memories would only make him realize that something was wrong immediately, and the impact would be minimal.

Felix didn't think that false memories would make Voldemort cry and sincerely repent.

Moreover, Voldemort's soul was already very fragile due to the split. If Felix made drastic adjustments, the result might be devastating.

So Felix decided to open up another battlefield - a branch from Voldemort's memory, which is the Wu's Orphanage in front of him. Felix would replace Dumbledore in Riddle's impression, train him, and be his Transfiguration teacher for seven years, just like he really went back to London, England in the 1930s.

Of course, Felix didn't need to spend seven years.

Time in memory was still quite fast. He only needed to appear at the key time point of Voldemort, give appropriate guidance, and fix the good results brought about by this with "memory nodes" to make this Riddle stronger.

Felix didn't expect to make Voldemort a good person. From the scenes of his previous observations of the first meeting between Riddle and Dumbledore, it can be seen that Riddle had developed an independent, cautious, indifferent character early on, and was extremely aggressive. Felix

just hoped that Riddle could become an ordinary person with a life trajectory different from that of the Dark Lord. The richer his "experiences", the more different his personality is from his original body, but the two will eventually merge. Because memory is memory, not soul, and cannot exist independently.

Felix paced around the orphanage, he turned to one of the walls and stared at a window on the third floor.

From this angle, he could only see the top of Tom Riddle's head.

At this moment, Riddle was sitting on the bed with an expressionless face. In front of him were a list of books, tickets, and a questionnaire that should not exist. Slowly, he frowned. For some reason, when they just parted, he suddenly wanted to attack the young Professor Dumbledore. This desire came suddenly.

But this is definitely the stupidest thing to do. He still needs this person to enter the magic world.

When Riddle thought of magic, his nostrils expanded with excitement and he exhaled heavily from his nostrils. Then he lowered his head and stared at the questionnaire. He was more mature than his peers and had enough wisdom to analyze the hidden facts from a few words.

Hogwarts has its own rules, just like those annoying rules outside. This means that the magic world is also orderly. Riddle was unsure how much the professor knew about his affairs, but Dumbledore had mentioned "making friends", was that a hint?

Riddle was a little uneasy, staring at the old wardrobe.

Stealing was forbidden at Hogwarts.

Dumbledore would be back next week.

He had to do something. Riddle got out of bed, walked over to the shabby wardrobe, and flung the door open. Inside were a few old clothes, and on the top shelf was a small cardboard box.

Riddle took a deep breath. He remembered clearly the origin of everything in the box. Dennis Bishop's Yoyo pull-string reel, little Amy Benson's harmonica and silver thimble... they were all trophies he had snatched from other children.

But there was no need to rush, Riddle thought. It would be better to hand them over the day before Dumbledore came next time.

He slammed the door shut and stared at the gray mirror on the door. Then a smile began to appear on his face. Riddle showed a patience far beyond that of a child of his age. He kept adjusting the curvature of his mouth, the position of his arms, and his posture.

He was gifted and soon did it well.