Another glass of Firewhisky went down, and Mrs. Cole gave a drunken belch, her eyes growing a little hazy.
"Yes! Tom was a child born in the Orphanage." She seemed drunk, yet also as if she were recalling the past. "I remember it was the last day of '26..."
"It was freezing that day! A girl... about the same age as I was then, braving the heavy snow, just appeared on the steps of the Orphanage like that..."
She recounted the circumstances of Voldemort's birth, and Dumbledore sighed softly. "If a wizard wants to survive, there are far too many ways! But she chose none of them..."
In Mrs. Cole's telling, Voldemort was a very special existence. Even as an infant, he rarely cried, and the things that happened as he grew up were all summed up by her as "strange."
"Strange?" Young Dumbledore asked with great interest. "Madam, could you be a little clearer?"
"Oh! It's like this..." Mrs. Cole paused. Much of the haze in her eyes faded, replaced by an even more complicated look. "I mean... Tom will definitely go there to study, won't he?"
"Of course!" Young Dumbledore nodded. "That absolutely will not change."
"Absolutely will not change?" Mrs. Cole narrowed her eyes slightly, and a detective-like sharpness flashed through them again, as if she were weighing something. "No matter what I say, that won't change?"
"Of course!" Young Dumbledore assured her again.
Mrs. Cole confirmed once more, "Truly... no matter what, you'll take him there to study? That boarding school?"
"Madam, no matter what!" Young Dumbledore's expression turned serious, and his tone grew solemn. "He will certainly go to Hogwarts."
Mrs. Cole straightened her back, her gaze flickering constantly, as though she were weighing something, considering whether or not to trust the man before her.