days at Hogwarts

Chapter 646 Mrs. Cole
"Take the iodine upstairs to Martha. Billy Stubbs has scratched all his scabs..."

"Eric Wallace's chickenpox must be treated regularly. The child scratched the bedsheets until they bled..."

"Be careful not to let other children sneak in. Chickenpox prevention is the most important thing right now!"

Mrs. Cole was not an easy lady to get along with. From the way she gave instructions to her assistants with a stern face, it could be seen that the director of the orphanage was a tough person.

Mrs. Cole walked quickly through the black and white tiled hallway, her eyes scanning the shabby and narrow room, making sure every corner was tidy and spotless, before looking at Dumbledore who was waiting in the room.

She wore an apron like the other nurses, but it couldn't hide her fierce aura. She was skinny, with a sharp face and slightly protruding cheekbones, and her eyes were so sharp that it was hard to look directly at her.

The three of them, immersed in distant memories, stood silently in the corner. Harry unconsciously averted his eyes from Mrs. Cole, even though he knew that she couldn't see him.

"Can a supervisor like this really take good care of those children?" he muttered softly.

"The orphanage is in financial difficulty. The funds provided by the Muggle government, donations from churches and charitable foundations, combined, can barely sustain their basic needs..." Loren explained calmly, "As the director, only a tough attitude and drastic measures can keep the orphanage running."

"..."

Harry fell silent.

Dumbledore put his arm around Loren's shoulders, patted him gently, and said nothing.

Loren looked at Mrs. Cole and felt that her severity was different from that of Professor McGonagall or Professor Snape. She looked tired and more anxious than vicious.

The heavy and tedious work made her breathless.

"Good afternoon, Mrs. Cole. My name is Albus Dumbledore." The young Dumbledore said softly, with a gentle smile that was hard not to be liked by people. "I wrote to you and asked you to make an appointment with me. You were very kind to invite me to come today."

Mrs. Cole narrowed her eyes and looked him up and down. After a few seconds, she forced herself to say, "Oh, yes, I remember this... Let's talk about it in the room."

"Yes, Mrs. Cole."

"..."

The two left one after another.

The old headmaster's eyes fell on the back figure, and he said with some nostalgia: "At that time, I was the school's Transfiguration Professor. Just like Minerva now, I would visit new students who had difficulty in entering school every summer vacation. It was really a meaningful job..."

Loren and Harry didn't say anything. They turned and walked towards the right wall and went straight into another small room.

Just then, Mrs. Cole pushed the door open with this strangely dressed guest. The room was half living room and half office. Its furnishings and decoration were as simple and shabby as the entrance hall. The furniture was very old and mismatched. It must have been donated from various places.

She motioned Dumbledore to sit on a rickety chair, and she sat down behind a cluttered desk, looking at him a little nervously.

"I have already stated my purpose in the letter. I am here to discuss Tom Riddle's affairs with you and arrange a future for him."

"Are you his relative?"

"No, I am a teacher, and I am here to invite Tom to study in our school."

"So, what kind of school is this?"

"The name of the school is Hogwarts." "Why are you interested in Tom?"

“We thought he had some of the qualities we were looking for.”

"You mean he won a scholarship? How could that be? He never applied for it?"

"..."

Mrs. Cole, the director of the orphanage, is shrewd and sharp-eyed, and can always see through the flaws in a story.

A school she had never heard of, a weird professor... She sincerely hoped that Dumbledore could bring good news to the children in the school, but she couldn't put her trust in him, so she racked her brains to find out the whole story, which was a headache.

Watching the young Dumbledore take out his wand and wave it at a Muggle lady when he couldn't answer, Loren and Harry silently looked at the old headmaster beside them.

Although they were not as familiar with the legal provisions as Hermione, they were sure that this operation was definitely against the rules!

The old headmaster blinked and chuckled, "A little trick for parent work, a Confusion Charm plus a little gin..."

"Tsk..."

This technique was very effective. The blank paper was transformed into a document that complied with the procedure under the effect of the Confusion Charm. After two glasses of gin, Mrs. Cole completely relaxed her guard and had no idea that the bottle of wine had appeared out of thin air a few minutes ago.

"I wonder if you could tell me about Tom Riddle's background? He seemed to be born in this orphanage?"

The visiting professor of Hogwarts and the new guardian of the orphanage began to open their hearts and chat without any reservations.

"It was New Year's Eve, a nasty night, snowing outside, freezing cold. This girl, not much older than I was at the time, who had just come in to work, stumbled up the front steps... well, we've been through this before. We got her in, and within the hour she had the baby.

"She told me that the boy's last name is Riddle, and his middle name is inherited from his grandfather Marvolo. He is named Tom after his father. She hopes that the child will look like his father...

"Then she said nothing more and died soon after."

"The poor girl seemed to take it very seriously, but no Tom, Marvolo, or Riddle ever came to see him, and he had no relatives, so he stayed in the orphanage until today..."

The gin and the Confounding Charm completely wore down Mrs. Cole's defenses. She drank glass after glass, two blushes on her cheekbones, her consciousness gradually blurred, but she was still thinking about Tom Riddle.

In response to Dumbledore's inquiries, he repeatedly confirmed that Hogwarts would definitely accept him before he felt relieved and began to introduce Riddle's situation.

"He's a weird kid."

"He was very strange when he was a baby, and he hardly ever cried. Then, when he got older, he became very... weird."

"He likes to bully people, but it's hard to catch him in the act. There have been some accidents, or rather, some vicious incidents..."

"Billy Stubbs's rabbit was hung from the rafters, and Tom says he didn't do it, and I don't think he could have done it, but the rabbit couldn't have hung itself from the rafters, could it?"

"Amy Benson and Dennis Bishop haven't been feeling well since they came back from the beach. When we asked them, they just said they went into a cave with Tom Riddle..."

(End of this chapter)