Who let this Dementor into Hogwarts!

Chapter 565 Orphanages and schools are very much like prisons
“Melop was alone in London late in her pregnancy, suffering from hunger and cold—” Dumbledore said.

"But isn't she a wizard?" Harry asked, puzzled. "She could easily get her own food."

“Perhaps,” Dumbledore said. “But Harry, I think after being abandoned by her husband, she probably didn’t want to be a witch anymore. She felt that being a witch had cost her a love that shouldn’t have existed. The unrequited love and the resulting despair greatly weakened her—in the end, she didn’t even want to lift her wand to save her own life.”

“But even if he survives, it probably won’t affect Voldemort’s life,” Cohen guessed. “Think about it, his son is just as good-looking as the husband he seduced with aphrodisiacs. She’ll definitely try to use the child to seduce old Riddle again, only to be harshly rejected, heartbroken, and then she’ll vent all her anger and resentment on her son. In the end, Voldemort will still be Voldemort. Whether he has a mother or not, it’s all the same.”

"No way..." Harry said, somewhat incredulously.

“Not everyone who has a mother is a human being,” Cohen said.

“The words may be rough, but the truth is sound,” Dumbledore said. “Voldemort is a product of love potion and is inherently incapable of understanding love between people—perhaps after reading the next memory, you will have a clearer understanding of this fact.”

Then, Dumbledore poured another bottle of memories into the basin.

“This part will be clearer, because it is my memory,” Dumbledore said. “We can go in now.”

“What terrible lines,” Cohen grumbled. “Why don’t you…”

Before Cohen could finish speaking, Dumbledore pushed Cohen and Harry inside together.

The scene around them transformed into an old-fashioned London street, where a man with long, swaying gait walked past them—he had long, auburn hair and a long beard, and wore a crimson velvet suit.

"My fists are trembling. There are definitely two old men next to me I want to punch," Cohen said, rubbing his fists together.

"Don't hit my stomach, my dinner hasn't been digested yet," Dumbledore comforted him. "But I didn't push you very hard, and if it had been any later, you might have missed a lot of the content."

"Is that you, Professor Dumbledore?" Harry asked, pointing to the man with the auburn beard.

“It’s me,” said Dumbledore. “Come on, let’s follow him. Our destination is nearby.”

The young Dumbledore stopped at a corner and walked through a large iron gate next to him.

Inside was a bare courtyard, and a row of old-fashioned and gloomy buildings, all surrounded by railings taller than an adult's head.

“It looks like a prison,” Harry said.

“It’s an orphanage,” Cohen said, “but I guess you’d say it’s better than the Dursleys.”

“If it weren’t for the human experimentation and beatings, it would certainly be better than the Dursleys,” Harry sighed.

"Good afternoon. I have an appointment with a Mrs. Cole, and I think she is the steward here?" The young Dumbledore knocked on the building's door.

He was greeted by a disheveled girl wearing an apron. "Oh... um... wait a minute—Mrs. Cole!" she called out, turning her head.

A voice answered her loudly from inside the house, and then the girl turned to Dumbledore and said:
"Come in, she'll be here soon."

Cohen and his companions followed the young Dumbledore into the house. The first thing they saw was a foyer with black and white tiles. The wallpaper on the walls had turned yellow, but overall it was quite clean.

Soon, a thin, bony woman appeared in their field of vision, and hurriedly turned to instruct another helper wearing an apron, muttering about getting iodine for a child who had scratched their chickenpox and finding a musical instrument for a child who had lost their harmonica.

Then she saw Dumbledore and seemed somewhat surprised, as if she hadn't expected him to come at all.

“Good afternoon.” The young Dumbledore extended his hand. “My name is Albus Dumbledore. I wrote to you requesting an audience, and you very kindly invited me to come today.”

“Oh, yes, okay, alright…” It took Mrs. Cole a while to make sure that Dumbledore wasn’t a hallucination before she led him to her office—or rather, her bedroom, as Cohen had never seen an office with a bed.

In the memory, Dumbledore is discussing Tom Riddle's enrollment with Mrs. Cole, who is skeptical that Tom would be invited to a school she has never heard of.

What kind of school is this?

Why would you be interested in Tom?

"He never applied, so why did he receive a grant from your school?"

"You mean the school has his records? Who registered him? His parents?"

Mrs. Cole's series of questions were extremely difficult to evade, so Dumbledore used some magic to get her to agree.

“I’ve always been reluctant to use the Confusion Charm on Muggles, but Mrs. Cole is very shrewd and a very responsible woman for the children at the orphanage, and Hogwarts isn’t actually on the list of schools authorized to teach by the British Muggle government,” Dumbledore explained to Cole and Harry. “Using the Confusion Charm could reduce some unnecessary trouble and mental burden in her busy life, it’s just a pity…”

"Voldemort went back?" Harry asked somewhat uneasily.

“The people here died in a fire the year before Tom Riddle graduated, and an office building has been built on the site,” Dumbledore said. “It’s hard not to suspect that he was behind it, and he has more than once hoped that he would not return to this place during his holidays.”

In his memory, Dumbledore was drinking with Mrs. Cole, and Dumbledore listened very patiently as Mrs. Cole introduced Tom Riddle.

“He was born in this orphanage,” Mrs. Cole said, her cheeks slightly flushed after several drinks. “I remember it clearly. It was snowing outside, and the girl—not much older than me—staggered up the front steps. We’ve seen this all the time, so we helped her in. Less than an hour later she gave birth, and less than an hour after that she died.”

She took a few more sips, saying the words Melop had spoken before she died.

"She wants the child to look like his father—and she's right to want that, because she herself... to be honest, she's not very good-looking."

(End of this chapter)