When Professor Grapeland finished assigning the homework essay and the students were packing up to leave, she called Snape back and handed him a rolled piece of parchment.
As he walked out, Snape unrolled it. On the parchment was a line of long, thin, slanted handwriting,
"Dear Severus,
If you have no other arrangements today, please come to my office at seven o'clock this evening.
Yours sincerely,
Albus Dumbledore
P.S. I do not like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans."
"He doesn't like Bertie Bott's Every Flavor Beans?" Abbott said, leaning in to read the note, looking puzzled.
"Good boys are better off not knowing what that means."
Ignoring Abbott's protests, Snape folded the parchment and put it away.
That evening, he followed the familiar corridors once again to the door of the Headmaster's office.
"Ha ha, of course I know you, the pair of stone beasts outside the staff offices are my brothers."
"Yes, yes, we've been separated by stone for hundreds of years."
The gargoyles responded in low, gravelly voices as Snape passed by.
After exchanging a few words with the stone beasts, Snape stepped onto the moving spiral staircase behind them and ascended to the door of Dumbledore's office.
He raised his hand and gently knocked.
"Come in," came Dumbledore's cheerful voice at once, as if he had been expecting Snape all along.
"Good evening, Professor," Snape said as he opened the door and stepped inside. "You wanted to see me?"
"Ah, good evening, Severus. Have a seat," Dumbledore said with his usual mild smile, gesturing toward the chair beside him. "How was the first week of the new term?"
"Not bad, Professor," Snape replied, sitting down. Then he asked directly, "Are we leaving?"
"Not yet," Dumbledore shook his head. "Before we set out, there's some preparation we must do."
"Dumbledore, this time your choice is a wise one," said one of the portraits on the wall, a former headmaster who had been asleep until now. He yawned and opened his eyes. "You can't solve any real problem without a Slytherin."
The speaker was a wizard with a clever look, a pointed goatee, and silver-and-green Slytherin robes.
"Phineas," said Dumbledore, addressing the clever-looking wizard by name, "Slytherin has always been part of Hogwarts."
"You must be the legendary headmaster who earned the unanimous 'praise' of all four Houses?" Snape looked up at Phineas, his tone curious, but he gave special emphasis to the word praise.
"Oh, my dear boy," Phineas said, seemingly missing the sarcasm, "sometimes the young people of Slytherin do see things quite clearly."
"You're quite right, Phineas." Dumbledore turned back to Snape, still smiling. "I called you here because, since you already know that Voldemort was once Tom Riddle, and that he chose Ravenclaw's diadem as one of his Horcruxes, it's time you learned more."
Dumbledore paused for a moment before continuing.
"Last term, through your research into history, you deduced Tom's identity. Because of your insight, I realized how important it was to further understand his past, so I conducted some investigations of my own."
"I went to Borgin and Burkes and had a friendly conversation with Caractacus Burke."
"'Friendly,' meaning you put him in St. Mungo's?" Snape's lips curved faintly upward.
"Oh, that was an accident. You know how uncooperative Mr. Burke can be."
As he said this, Dumbledore stood, circled around the desk, and walked past Snape.
Snape turned in his chair, watching as Dumbledore went to a cabinet by the door, the one filled with books about Horcruxes, and bent down to open it.
When Dumbledore straightened again, he was holding a shallow stone basin carved with strange runes, the same Pensieve Snape had seen before, when visiting Slughorn with him.
Dumbledore placed the Pensieve on the table in front of Snape.
"We're going into Burke's memory, Professor?" Snape asked.
"No," Dumbledore shook his head. "This time, we'll enter mine. You first, Severus..."
Snape leaned forward and plunged his face into the cold surface of the memory inside the Pensieve. Immediately, he felt himself falling helplessly through darkness. A few seconds later, his feet landed on solid ground.
Opening his eyes, he saw that he and Dumbledore stood on a busy, old-fashioned London street.
They walked unhurriedly, following a young Albus Dumbledore dressed in a finely tailored dark purple velvet suit across the road, to a square building with a plaque on the wall that read: "Wool's Orphanage."
Passing through a tall iron gate, they entered a bare courtyard.
At the far end stood a square, grim, and old-fashioned building, surrounded by high iron railings.
"This was where Tom lived as a child?" Snape asked.
At that moment, the younger Dumbledore was speaking to a slovenly-looking woman in an apron.
"Yes," the older Dumbledore nodded, his eyes reflecting a trace of nostalgia. "Let's follow them."
The anxious-looking Mrs. Cole led them into a room that seemed half parlor, half office.
The furnishings were as plain and shabby as the entryway, old, mismatched furniture, and a faint smell of disinfectant.
"You personally invited Tom to Hogwarts?" Snape asked again, though he already knew the answer. "And how does this help us find the Horcruxes?"
"Patience, Severus," Dumbledore said, nodding toward Mrs. Cole.
Mrs. Cole was holding a glass of gin and recounting the story from years ago in a flat, steady voice:
"I remember it all very clearly, because I'd only just started working here. It was New Year's Eve, snowing outside, cold as the devil himself...
"There was this girl, barely older than I was then, staggering up the front steps... less than an hour later, she'd given birth. And less than an hour after that, she was dead."
Mrs. Cole nodded meaningfully and took a large swallow of gin.
"But no one named Tom, Marvolo, or Riddle ever came looking for him. No relatives at all, far as I know..."
Absentmindedly, she poured herself another full glass, her cheekbones flushing red.
"What was Voldemort's mother's name, Professor?" Snape asked.
"Merope Gaunt, or, Merope Riddle," Dumbledore said. "Come, Severus. Let's go meet eleven-year-old Tom."