The Heart-Stopping Truth

After saying goodnight to Riddle and returning to their respective dormitories, Xiwen opened another Dimensional Gate.

Stepping out of the golden halo, he returned to the corner of the Entrance Courtyard, where he stood beside Newt, Dumbledore, and Headmaster Dippet.

"What do you guys think?" he asked, shrugging at the three of them.

"What do you think?" Dumbledore countered.

"Don't tell me you can't guess which family is most likely to Heir of Slytherin," Xiwen said to Dumbledore and the other two, pursing his lips. "I saw Dumbledore winking at me and trying to get me to take Riddle away."

"Albus, your actions just now were indeed a bit too obvious," Newt nodded, offering a fair assessment. "And Headmaster Dippet was the same; who uses the excuse of being underage to send sixteen or seventeen-year-old wizards back to sleep?"

Dumbledore and Headmaster Dippet both coughed awkwardly twice.

"Ahem, is it really that obvious?" Dumbledore asked, looking somewhat embarrassed.

"Not bad," Headmaster Dippet replied. "After all, you usually like to make faces, so your behavior today isn't particularly strange."

Xiwen and Newt nodded silently beside them.

"Alright, let's not talk about that anymore. Let's talk about the Heir of Slytherin." Dumbledore immediately changed the subject, saying, "It seems you all have some doubts about Tom, don't you?"

"Yes, because we now basically know Riddle's background." Xiwen nodded and said in a deep voice, "His Parseltongue, coupled with his middle name, strongly suggests he is a descendant of Gaunt family. And as everyone knows, Gaunt family is the continuation of the Slytherin bloodline."

"There's another thing, I don't know if I've told you. When I went to the Gaunt family to try and persuade them to join the Pure-blood New Faction, I discovered that the entire family had been involved in some trouble recently."

"Morfin Gaunt inexplicably attacked a Muggle family, while his father resisted to prevent him from being captured by the Aurors and taken to Azkaban. In the end, both of them were imprisoned in Azkaban."

Upon hearing Xiwen's account, Headmaster Dippet frowned and asked, "I remember the Daily Prophet said that Morfin Gaunt confessed to his crimes. Was he forced to say that?"

"Not necessarily." Dumbledore said gravely. "In fact, getting Morfin Gaunt to confess to killing Muggle doesn't necessarily require coercion; it might be enough to make him believe that he killed those Muggle."

"The Gaunt family, being arguably the most fanatical and perverse Pure-blood -Pure-blood families, considers Muggle to be lower than ants. To them, killing Muggle is not a crime at all, but rather a trivial act."

After listening to Dumbledore's analysis, Headmaster Dippet looked at Xiwen with a serious expression and asked, "Xiwen, did you find anything else when you went to the Gaunt family?"

Xiwen thought carefully for a moment, and then his eyes flickered.

"Something does seem off." He suddenly widened his eyes and looked at Dumbledore and the other two, exclaiming in surprise, "The Muggle that the Gaunt family killed, their surname seems to be... Riddle?!"

"What?!"

After a heated discussion and analysis, Xiwen, Newt, Dumbledore, and Headmaster Dippet reached a conclusion that was quite perplexing—

That is, Riddle, who was not yet sixteen years old, went to the Little Hangleton at some point, went to the Gaunt family and found out the truth about his origins. Then he killed his biological father and framed Morfin Gaunt, sending him to Azkaban!

Having reached this conclusion, Xiwen immediately opened a Dimensional Gate to the Gaunt family's old mansion, summoned the Gaunt family's House-Elf, and learned some of the circumstances at the time.

In addition, based on the information Xiwen and Riddle had gathered over the years as friends, the background story of this young wizard from the orphanage could be roughly pieced together...

Riddle initially did not find Pure-blood families with the surname Riddle, but he always firmly believed in the extraordinary nature of his origins. Later, with the help of Xiwen, Riddle found a Pure-blood wizard named Marvolo Gaunt through his middle name, "Marvolo," and thus discovered his mother's origins.

Riddle's mother was named Merope Gaunt. Merope fell in love with Riddle's Muggle father, Tom Riddle the Elder. In order to make him fall in love with her, she used Amortentia on him.

After giving birth to little Tom with old Tom Riddle, she made another decision: she would no longer give old Tom the Amortentia. However, when old Tom awoke and learned that he had eloped with a witch, he was shocked and abandoned his wife and unborn son without hesitation, returning home alone. He left Merope to give birth to little Riddle at the orphanage gate, and then died in childbirth.

It was precisely because of his mother's death in childbirth that Riddle refused to believe she was a witch. How could an omnipotent witch die from something as trivial as childbirth?

After finding his mother's family, Riddle went on to investigate the origins and history of the Gaunt family, and further discovered the blood relationship between this family and Salazar Slytherin.

In his quest to uncover the secrets of Slytherin, he recently traveled to Little Hangleton to learn about his mother's family, where he met his uncle, Morfin Gaunt. Gaunt felt the young wizard before him "looked remarkably like the Muggle his sister had fallen for" —Merope's love interest, Tom Riddle the Elder.

Morfin Gaunt told Riddle the story of his Muggle father, using extremely sarcastic language. Riddle was furious about his father's abandonment of his wife and children and about his bloodline, so he went to Riddle House in a rage and killed his father, grandfather, and grandmother with Killing Curse.

Finally, Tom, who was not yet sixteen, used his superior Memory Charm and memory magic to alter Morfin's memories, making him believe that he was the killer.

The story ends with the entire Gaunt family being imprisoned in Azkaban...

After hearing such a thrilling story, Newt gasped.

"This child is only a few years old, how could he be so cruel?" he asked, puzzled. "And his behavior in front of us just now was so flawless, as if he wasn't the one who did it at all!"

"Yes, how could this be?" Headmaster Dippet sighed heavily. "I always thought he was an excellent student, both academically and in good character."

At this point in Riddle's story, Xiwen's expression turned quite grim.

"Dumbledore instructed me to guide Riddle properly during our second year," he said softly. "But after I obtained the Time-Turner in my third year, I was so focused on my own external affairs that I neglected Riddle's mental well-being."

"This is my problem; I ultimately failed to change him..."