Harry Potter and the Half-Blood Prince - J. K. Rowling [162]
The younger Dumbledore seemed to be waiting for something, and sure enough, moments after their arrival, there was a knock on the door and he said, “Enter.”
Harry let out a hastily stifled gasp. Voldemort had entered the room. His features were not those Harry had seen emerge from the great stone cauldron almost two years ago: They were not as snakelike, the eyes were not yet scarlet, the face not yet masklike, and yet he was no longer handsome Tom Riddle. It was as though his features had been burned and blurred; they were waxy and oddly distorted, and the whites of the eyes now had a permanently bloody look, though the pupils were not yet the slits that Harry knew they would become. He was wearing a long black cloak, and his face was as pale as the snow glistening on his shoulders.
The Dumbledore behind the desk showed no sign of surprise. Evidently this visit had been made by appointment.
“Good evening, Tom,” said Dumbledore easily. “Won’t you sit down?”
“Thank you,” said Voldemort, and he took the seat to which Dumbledore had gestured — the very seat, by the looks of it, that Harry had just vacated in the present. “I heard that you had become headmaster,” he said, and his voice was slightly higher and colder than it had been. “A worthy choice.”
“I am glad you approve,” said Dumbledore, smiling. “May I offer you a drink?”
“That would be welcome,” said Voldemort. “I have come a long way.”
Dumbledore stood and swept over to the cabinet where he now kept the Pensieve, but which then was full of bottles. Having handed Voldemort a goblet of wine and poured one for himself, he returned to the seat behind his desk.
“So, Tom … to what do I owe the pleasure?”
Voldemort did not answer at once, but merely sipped his wine.
“They do not call me ‘Tom’ anymore,” he said. “These days, I am known as —”
“I know what you are known as,” said Dumbledore, smiling pleasantly. “But to me, I’m afraid, you will always be Tom Riddle. It is one of the irritating things about old teachers. I am afraid that they never quite forget their charges’ youthful beginnings.”
He raised his glass as though toasting Voldemort, whose face remained expressionless. Nevertheless, 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.
“I am surprised you have remained here so long,” said Voldemort after a short pause. “I always wondered why a wizard such as yourself never wished to leave school.”
“Well,” said Dumbledore, still smiling, “to a wizard such as myself, there can be nothing more important than passing on ancient skills, helping hone young minds. If I remember correctly, you once saw the attraction of teaching too.”
“I see it still,” said Voldemort. “I merely wondered why you — who are so often asked for advice by the Ministry, and who have twice, I think, been offered the post of Minister —”
“Three times at the last count, actually,” said Dumbledore. “But the Ministry never attracted me as a career. Again, something we have in common, I think.”
Voldemort inclined his head, unsmiling, and took another sip of wine. Dumbledore did not break the silence that stretched between them now, but waited, with a look of pleasant expectancy, for Voldemort to talk first.
“I have returned,” he said, after a little while, “later, perhaps, than Professor Dippet expected … but I have returned, nevertheless, to request again what he once told me I was too young to have. I have come to you to ask that you permit me to return to this castle, to teach. I think you must know that I have seen and done much since I left this place. I could show and tell your students things they can gain from no other wizard.”
Dumbledore considered Voldemort over the top of his own goblet for