The Young Dark Lord

"Tell me, could you tell me something about Tom Riddle? He was an orphan from birth, wasn't he?" After three rounds of drinks, Professor Dumbledore was still going strong, smiling as he looked at Mrs. Cole, whose cheeks were already slightly flushed.

"Oh yes, you must want to know about his past. That's very, very normal." Mrs. Cole spoke somewhat unclearly, then poured herself more liquor. "I, I remember it very clearly because I had just started working here then. It was New Year's Eve, very cold, snowing, you know, a terrible night. There was a girl, probably not much older than I was then. She struggled up our steps. She wasn't the first we'd encountered in that sort of situation. We quickly opened the door and let her in. About an hour later, she gave birth to the child, and another hour after that, she died."

Mrs. Cole spoke wistfully, then took another large swallow of gin.

"Did she say anything before she died?" Dumbledore asked. "For instance, who the child's father was?"

"Oh, she did, she did. She told me, 'I hope he looks like his father,' and indeed, she was right to hope so. She wasn't very pretty, no disrespect meant. She was rather ugly, and a little deformed. Her two eyes—cough, cough." Seemingly realizing her impropriety, Mrs. Cole coughed lightly, took a sip of liquor, and continued. "Then she said she wanted to name him Tom, after his father, and Marvolo, after her father. Funny, isn't it? We wondered whether she had come from a circus. Then she said the child's surname was Riddle, and after that, she died.

"So that was what we named him. It seemed very important to the poor girl, but no Tom or Marvolo or Riddle ever came to take him