In my opinion, the two encounters between Professor Dumbledore and younger versions of Tom Riddle that Harry experiences from within Dumbledore's own memories represent J.K. Rowling's writing at its very best.
The first takes place at the orphanage where Riddle grew up. Dumbledore has arrived to deliver the boy's Hogwarts letter and to explain to him that he is, in fact, "special". It's brilliantly paced and beautifully written.
And it opens with a wonderful moment between Harry and the Headmaster. When Harry first spies the younger Dumbledore on the bustling, old-fashioned London Street, he is amused to see that Dumbledore is sporting a garish plum-coloured velvet suit.
"Nice suit, sir," Harry says "before he could stop himself".
I don't know why, but that line and the fact that Dumbledore "merely chuckled" in response always make me laugh.
And then Rowling moves us directly into the austere and somewhat ramshackle neatness of Mrs. Cole's orphanage and the wonderful scene of Dumbledore plying the good woman with gin, trying his best to wheedle information from her about her youthful charge, Tom Riddle.
The conversation develops in a natural, almost poetic way and, when Mrs. Cole blurts out, "He's definitely got a place at your school", it's a nice, subtle indication of both how much she wants to tell someone of her suspicions respecting young Tom Riddle and how concerned she is to be rid of him.
Rowling is at her best when she finally leads us into Riddle's room. She knows that this a moment her readers have anticipated for some time yet she refuses to permit herself to indulge in any phoney melodrama.
It was a small bare room with nothing in it except an old wardrobe, a wooden chair and an iron bedstead. A boy was sitting on top of grey blankets, his legs stretched out in front of him, holding a book.
There was no trace of the Gaunt's in Tom Riddle's face. Merope had got her dying wish: he was his handsome father in miniature, tall for eleven years old, dark-haired and pale. His eyes narrowed slightly as he took in Dumbledore's eccentric appearance. There was a moment's silence.This is wonderful writing. Subtle, almost anti-climactic. The greatest dark wizard of all time is, at this point, just a handsome, quiet boy sitting on a bed.
And the ensuing conversation between the boy and the teacher involves a wonderfully slow evocation of several aspects of Riddle's character, aspects that Dumbledore later takes care to draw to Harry's attention: his independence, his distrust of others, his personal power and the streak of cruelty that comes with it, his certainty that he is, in some way, "special", his wish to impress but his refusal to trust, his interest in collecting trophies to mark his moments of greatest power and cruelty.
And then there are these paragraphs:
"Hogwarts," Dumbledore went on, as though he had not heard Riddle's last words, "is a school for people with special abilities --"
"I'm not mad!
"I know you are not mad. Hogwarts is not a school for mad people. It is a school of magic."
There was silence. Riddle had frozen, his face expressionless, but his eyes flickering back and forth between each of Dumbledore's, as though trying to catch one of them lying.
"It's... it's magic, what I can do?"This is the moment when Riddle finds out just how special he is, when it starts to dawn on him the possibilities that lie in front of him. For Harry, this moment led to a longer period of disbelief (that it simply wasn't true) and worry (that he would fail as a wizard). For Riddle, the moment was confirmation of what he had long believed: that he was special, powerful.
Later in The Half-Blood Prince, Harry experiences a second interview between Dumbledore and Tom Riddle from the past, this one having taken place several years after Riddle, now calling himself Voldemort, had graduated from Hogwarts.
It is another, gripping, evocative scene. And it begins with that wonderful moment when Voldemort asserts himself and his new name, an assertion of power that Dumbledore deftly turns aside.
Harry felt the atmosphere in the room change subtly: Dumbledore's refusal to use Voldemort's chosen name was a refusal to allow Voldemort to dictate the terms of the meeting, and Harry could tell that Voldemort took it as such.Harry's perception of the incident is, in my opinion, accurate and a reflection of how much Harry had already learned from Dumbledore with regard to the subtle ways power plays out in seemingly harmless conversations. Recall, for a moment, how deftly Harry had handled Rufus Scrimgeour when Scrimgeour had cornered him at the Burrow over Christmas.
Although not as courteous at every moment as his Headmaster, Harry proved himself to be equally adept at controlling the terms of the conversation, using his own silence to keep the Minister for Magic off-balance and uncertain.
Rowling does a wonderful job of building the tension in the Dumbledore-Voldemort scene slowly. She uses small details in the conversation (Dumbledore's refusal to use Voldemort's assumed name, Dumbledore's familiarity with the term "Death Eaters", and Dumbledore's detailed knowledge of the "friends" who had accompanied Voldemort to Hogsmeade and who were waiting for him at the Hog's Head) to render Voldemort increasingly ill-at-ease so that, when Dumbledore finally challenges him to be honest about why he wants to return to Hogwarts and refuses to offer him a job, Voldemort is enraged.
We, like Harry, wonder if Voldemort might draw his wand then and there.
These are two effective, wonderfully written scenes, real to the tiniest detail, enlightening for the reader in so many ways. They are Rowling at her very best.
It's almost like most of what took place in the five and half novels up until that point were leading directly to these moments of intense interaction between these two powerful, yet very different, wizards.
And Rowling doesn't disappoint.
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