Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

Then there was a rustle and a crack, and a man in rags dropped from the nearest tree, landing on his feet right in front of Ogden.

Ogden was startled and leapt backward so fast he stood on the tails of his frock coat and stumbled.

“Hiss!” The man standing before them made a strange, menacing sound.

He had thick hair so matted with dirt it could have been any color.

Several of his teeth were missing, and his eyes were small and dark and stared in opposite directions.

He might have looked comical, but he did not.

The effect was frightening, very frightening; prompting Ogden to back away several more paces before he spoke.

“Er ̶ good morning, I’m from the Ministry of Magic…”

“Hiss, hiss!” he shouted, brandishing a wand in one hand and a short bloody knife in the other.

Evan initially thought the man was making meaningless sounds, but now it seemed that this was not the case.

It was Parseltongue!

This guy was Voldemort’s uncle Morfin Gaunt, a guy who only spoke Parseltongue.

This had once been a talent that Salazar Slytherin had been proud of, but Evan knew from Elaine that no one among the vampires could speak Parseltongue.

Perhaps, when they became vampires, they had abandoned the snake part of their blood.

Therefore, there were only a few people in the world who could speak Parseltongue. This was a kind of blood inheritance.

Only the Slytherin bloodline was so powerful, or rather, only the Gaunt family, so conservative in their insistence on inbreeding, could pass down blood magic after a thousand years.

As for other families claiming pure bloodlines, like the Malfoys, they were now just a name.

The bloodline inheritance of the Ravenclaw family was to abandon one’s own emotions for the highest wisdom, so what was the complete bloodline inheritance of the more famous Slytherin family?! It was definitely more than just Parseltongue, but no matter how powerful it was, no one knew it now.

“You should have understood, Evan?” Dumbledore asked softly. “Didn’t you?”

“Yes, Professor, this is Parseltongue,” said Evan. “What is he talking about?”

“Oh, I suppose it’s something about Ogden being unwelcome. This family is notorious for being restless and hot-tempered, they don’t welcome outsiders.”

“The family of Voldemort’s mother, the Gaunts…”

“It seems you’ve done a lot of research!” Dumbledore wasn’t surprised at all, but rather pleased. “Now please continue to watch. This will be helpful for our journey ahead. If you have anything to say, we can talk about it when we go out.”

At this moment, Morfin, who was dressed in rags, was advancing on Ogden, knife in one hand, wand in the other.

“Now look …” Ogden began, but too late: There was a bang, and Ogden was on the ground, clutching his nose, while a nasty yellowish goo squirted from between his fingers

“Morfin!” said a loud voice.

An elderly man had come hurrying out of the cottage, banging the door behind him so that the dead snake swung pathetically.

This man was slightly shorter than Morfin, and oddly proportioned. His shoulders were very broad and his arms overlong, which, with his bright brown eyes, short scrubby hair, and wrinkled face, gave him the look of a powerful, aged monkey.

He came to a halt beside Morfin, who was now cackling with laughter at the sight of Ogden on the ground.

“Ministry, is it?” said the older man, looking down at Ogden.

“Correct!” said Ogden angrily, dabbing his face. “And you, I take it, are Mr. Gaunt?”

“That’s right,” said Gaunt. “Got you in the face, did he?”

“Yes, he did!” snapped Ogden.

“I don’t think it’s his fault. Should’ve made your presence known, shouldn’t you?” said Gaunt aggressively. “This is private property. Can’t just walk in here and not expect my son to defend himself.”

“Defend himself against what, man?” said Ogden, clambering back to his feet. “I had no intention of harming him.”

“It’s not just you; we always have some nosy people here; busybodies, intruders, Muggles and filth.”

Ogden pointed his wand at his own nose, which was still issuing large amounts of what looked like yellow pus, and the flow stopped at once.

Mr. Gaunt spoke out of the corner of his mouth to Morfin, still in Parseltongue, which Evan couldn’t understand.

But Morfin understood what his father meant, though he seemed reluctant and wanted to argue.

But when his father cast him a threatening look he changed his mind, lumbering away to the cottage with an odd rolling gait and slamming the front door behind him, so that the snake swung sadly again.

“It’s your son I’m here to see, Mr. Gaunt,” said Ogden, as he mopped the last of the pus from the front of his coat. “That was Morfin, wasn’t it?”

“That was Morfin,” said the old man indifferently. “Are you pure-blood?” he asked, suddenly aggressive.

“Yes, on both sides,” said Ogden coldly. “But my family doesn’t adhere to that.”

“Hmph!” Mr. Gaunt squinted into Ogden’s face and muttered, in what was clearly supposed to be an offensive tone, “Now I come to think about it, I’ve seen noses like yours down in the village.”

“I don’t doubt it, if your son’s been let loose on them,” said Ogden. “Perhaps we could continue this discussion inside?”

“Inside?”

“Yes, Mr. Gaunt, I’ve already told you. I’m here about Morfin. We sent an owl…”

“I’ve no use for owls,” said Gaunt. “I don’t open letters.”

“Then you can hardly complain that you get no warning of visitors,” said Ogden tartly. “I am here following a serious breach of Wizarding law, which occurred here in the early hours of this morning…”

“All right, all right, all right!” bellowed Gaunt. “Come in the bleeding house, then, and much good it’ll do you!”

The house seemed to contain three tiny rooms. Two doors led off the main room, which served as kitchen and living room combined.

Morfin was sitting in a filthy armchair beside the smoking fire, twisting a live adder between his thick fingers and crooning softly at it in Parseltongue. Evan didn’t understand what it meant, but he could imagine the lyrics were not pleasant.

After they walked in, they heard slow footsteps in the corner beside the open window.

A girl came out. Her ragged gray dress was the exact color of the dirty stone wall behind her. She glanced at the strange visitor cautiously, standing beside a steaming pot on a grimy black stove, and fiddling around with the shelf of squalid-looking pots and pans above it.

Her hair was lank and dull and she had a plain, pale, rather heavy face. Her eyes, like her brother’s, stared in opposite directions. She looked a little cleaner than the two men, but equally listless!

There was no need to say more; she was Voldemort’s mother, the beginning of all evil.

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