The door rattled in its frame, and Harry was sure that if he could, he would have felt a cruel wind blowing against his face.
“This way, Harry,” said Dumbledore, smiling widely. A young man in billowing jet-black robes was walking along the ancient cobbled pavement. He eyes glittered in the dingy street lamps as he strode through the deserted alleyway. His pale, white skin echoed the image of the shining moon, his claw-like hands gripping tightly onto a wand.
“Confingo” the man muttered and a crate at the end of the alley was blown apart, along with a segment of wall. He crouched down and made his way through the debris into the brick house on the other side of the wreckage of the crate. Harry and Dumbledore followed suit. The man gave a wave of his wand a loud shriek echoed through the house.
“Where is Espino?” he shouted at the man. The mans voice was young, yet had the brutality of older men. There was another cry of pain from inside the house as the room shook with the power of his curse. There was a feeble muttering from the house before the man spoke again. “You have proved to be disappointing.” The last word long and every syllable pronounced thoroughly.
There was a flash of a soft blue light before the man turned and left, his cloak ripping against sharp splinters of wood. Harry made to follow the man in the dark robes but was held back by Dumbledore, a soft hand on his shoulder
“Harry, we have finished here now,” he said, his soothing voice calming Harry. Who had been that man who had attacked the man in the house, who had blown apart his wall? As Harry turned to look at Dumbledore, he saw a site of devastation. Blood covered the wall, and fragments of bone and clothes lay torn over the furniture. Harry felt a gentle tugging of his robes as he was pulled upwards and into Dumbledore’s office. The bright lights dazzled him for a moment before his vision returned to normal.
“Was that Riddle, sir?” Dumbledore nodded. He had not expected this. When Dumbledore had told him in the shack at the Weasleys that he would be tutored, he had thought of learning great spells and curses. He had not realized what he would be studying. The images of the man still in his mind, Harry asked; “Who was that Espingio person?” he asked again, his voice shaking.
“Espino, Harry, is who we need to find out about. For we need to find him to understand him and uncover the mystery of what happened and what’s happening.”
“So you have no idea, sir, no idea of who he was?” Harry said, feeling slightly betrayed once more to find that Dumbledore knew little, however much he portrayed himself to look like he knew so much.
“I have a slight idea, but we need evidence Harry, we can not base my theories upon air.” He looked at Harry, his half-moon spectacles slipping down his once broken nose. “Unless you’re Paracelsus,” he added, smiling softly at his own joke at the alchemist.
“So, we need to find out who he is, but that’s impossible, he could be anyone, he could be dead, he might not even exist sir!” Dumbledore chuckled at Harry’s indignation that he knew so little.
“As I said Harry, I have a slight idea as to he might-” but Dumbledore was interrupted.
“Sir, how do you know, who is he, he -” This time it was not Dumbledore who interrupted.
“Back in my day,” came a slick, self-assured voice, “if a student talked to me like that I’d have them out of my office and detention everyday for the rest of the month.” Dumbledore ignored the portrait and looked directly at Harry. Harry understood that this was sign not to interrupt again.
“So Harry, for the rest of this first lesson I am going to show you some more memories. It was very hard to obtain that one and it could not be required by the usual method. The others weren’t as hard. However, I believe Voldemort now has realized that I have that memory. Our confrontation last year, when I dueled him I presented a problem. I considered myself to be the most important and strengthened member in the Order Harry, yet I was not. At that moment when he used the killing curse against me, I thought I was going to die. I knew I was and I felt scared.” He took a deep breath before continuing yet Harry took this as an opportunity to cut it once more.
“He used the killing curse on you, sir? But why did you survive?” Dumbledore ignored this point before continuing. Harry got the impression this was deliberate ignorance to the question in hand. He’d had to ask him later, he thought.
“I thought I was going to die,” he went on, his voice fragile and not like Dumbledore at all. “I am not afraid of death, Harry, but I was still, in that very moment, more frightened than I’d ever been before. My entire life flashed before me,” He paused for a breath again. He continued in more of his usual voice. “The clichéd subject has presented a difficulty studying. I believe the Department of Mysteries has an interest in it. It is an ancient magic, but the laws of no and then are still the same. I should have died, Harry. Just like you, if your mother had not died for you. I thought at that point Voldemort had complete control over me. I was open to him; I’d given my soul to him for one single moment, my knowledge, my existence, everything. At that point I was thinking of little but my want to destroy him completely and Voldemort saw the memory. This memory was likely to be the thing Voldemort saw and he may have guessed the truth.”
The paintings on the wall were now all drifting off to sleep. The lights in the stone castle slowly going out and the faint rustling of a hundred house elves moving around the castle could now be heard.
“Our next memory, Harry,” said Dumbledore, awaking him from his gazing. “Is not as interesting, exciting or as important as the others, yet that is not to say it is not useful. It is simply a memory of Riddle when he was at Hogwarts. Yet it holds clues to our mystery. It is a simple school day of Riddle and his friends at the end of an O.W.L, yet it shows us how he acted, how he was treated, how he treated others.” Dumbledore bent round to pick up a glass vial and Harry noticed Dumbledore’s blackened hand once more. He was about to say something, however before he had the chance, Dumbledore turned to face Harry once more. Dumbledore poured the contents of the vial into the stone pensive and gestured for Harry to put his head in.
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The Reserve Soul by JoshB
Story Notes:
Thanks to alex, my great BETA as well as Marauder by Midnight, by first mod to look over story =]