Harry Potter and the Secret Treasures

This discovery indicated that after leaving Hogwarts, Voldemort had already begun modifying his own body.

He experimented on himself with various forbidden Dark Magic to make himself stronger.

Voldemort was neither the first nor the last Dark wizard to go to such extremes for the sake of gaining immense dark power.

There had been many similar cases. For example, some had used forbidden spells to reincarnate through different corpses, transforming their bodies into giant white snake-like monsters. Others had transplanted eleven powerful red eyes onto their right arm. Some had replaced their bodies with inorganic materials like metal, gaining immense destructive power. There were also those who grafted five hearts into their bodies, replacing their flesh with countless blood vessels to achieve immortality. Dark wizards had been utterly insane in their research on body modifications through Dark Magic, leading to many terrifying magical creations.

Compared to these, Voldemort’s current state — his eyes occasionally flashing red — was nothing remarkable…

Even when compared to what he would become later, the Voldemort before them still seemed far too restrained.

Although his outward appearance was no different from that of a normal person, Voldemort at this moment was already extremely dangerous.

Hepzibah was in a very dangerous situation after showing off two treasures in succession, but she was completely unaware of it and was still saying proudly, “— I daresay Burke paid her a pittance but there you are. … Pretty, isn’t it? And again, all kinds of powers attributed to it, though I just keep it nice and safe. …”

Voldemort did not answer. Hepzibah laughed for a moment and reached out to take the locket back.

For a moment, it looked as if Voldemort was not going to let go of it, but then it had slid through his fingers and was back in its red velvet cushion.

“So there you are, Tom, dear, and I hope you enjoyed that! Are you all right?!”

She looked him full in the face and for the first time, her foolish smile faltered.

“Oh yes,” said Voldemort quietly. “Yes, I’m very well. …”

“Oh, well, then… I thought — but a trick of the light, I suppose —” said Hepzibah, looking unnerved.

As expected, she should have seen the momentary red gleam in Voldemort’s eyes.

The old woman finally became alert. Even though she was stupid, she knew that this was not normal.

Anyone would feel fear upon seeing someone’s eyes flash red.

“Here, Hokey, take these away and lock them up again. … The usual enchantments …” she said a little flustered.

The little elf bobbed away bearing the boxes, Voldemort’s eyes following her.

“Evan, Harry, time for us to leave,” said Dumbledore quietly.

The three of them rose up through oblivion and back to Dumbledore’s office. It was already very late.

“Hepzibah Smith died two days after that little scene,” said Dumbledore, resuming his seat and indicating that Evan and Harry should do the same. “Hokey the house-elf was convicted by the Ministry of poisoning her mistress’s evening cocoa by accident.”

“No way!” said Harry angrily.

“It was Voldemort who did it. He used the same old trick again and put the blame on Hokey for the woman’s death,” said Evan.

“I see we are of one mind,” said Dumbledore. “Certainly, there are many similarities between this death and that of the Riddles. In both cases, somebody else took the blame, someone who had a clear memory of having caused the death —”

“Hokey confessed?” said Harry in disbelief.

“She remembered putting something in her mistress’s cocoa that turned out not to be sugar, but a lethal and little-known poison. It was concluded that she had not meant to do it, but being old and confused —” Dumbledore paused and continued, “Of course, Voldemort modified her memory, just like he did with Morfin. And, just as with Morfin, the Ministry was predisposed to suspect Hokey. They didn’t bother with a thorough investigation —”

“— because she was a house-elf,” said Harry. He had rarely felt more in sympathy with the society Hermione had set up, S.P.E.W.

It was likely because she was a house-elf. From what Evan knew about the Ministry of Magic, this was hardly surprising.

Due to long-standing concepts and prejudices, the Ministry, the only official administrative body in the Wizarding World, was not actually that fair.

Many of its key positions were held by pure-blood officials who discriminated against Muggle-born wizards, against Muggles who couldn’t perform magic, against werewolves and house-elves — non-human intelligent creatures — against those like Morfin who had no wealth, against…

The more one thought about it, the more apparent it became, discrimination was everywhere. The ideology of blood purity had always found strong support within the Ministry and the Wizarding World at large.

Even if Voldemort was ultimately defeated, these beliefs wouldn’t disappear so easily.

That meant there would likely be a third-generation Dark Lord, a fourth, a fifth…

Real change could only happen by addressing the root cause. Evan thought back to the future he had seen, eighteen years later. Suddenly, he felt he should support Hermione in running for Minister for Magic to bring true change to the Wizarding World.

“Hokey was a house-elf. Besides, she was very old. She admitted to having tampered with the drink, and nobody at the Ministry bothered to inquire further. As in the case of Morfin, by the time I traced her and managed to extract this memory, her life was almost over — but her memory, of course, proves nothing except that Voldemort knew of the existence of the cup and the locket. We later found the locket, which was made into a Horcrux by Voldemort and then used by Sirius’s brother…” Dumbledore did not continue, but turned the topic back to the Golden Cup and Voldemort. “From this, it can be inferred that Hufflepuff’s Golden Cup is also a Horcrux, unless my understanding is mistaken.”

“That cup should be a Horcrux, but it and the homeland of the house-elves…”

Dumbledore waved his hand, signaling Evan to wait and let him finish speaking.

“There is no memory to prove what happened next. But I can tell you that by the time Hepzibah’s family sorted through Hepzibah’s belongings and realized that the cup and the locket were missing, the assistant who had worked at Borgin and Burkes, the young man who had visited Hepzibah so regularly and charmed her so well, had resigned his post and vanished. His superiors had no idea where he had gone. No one knew his whereabouts. Everyone who had known about this matter was as surprised as they had been when Voldemort first started working there.”

“He disappeared?”

“Yes, that was the last that was seen or heard of Tom Riddle for a very long time,” said Dumbledore quietly. “Now, if you don’t mind, you two, I want to draw your attention to certain points of our story. Although it is late, I hope you can keep them in your mind. These things are very important. We all know that Voldemort had committed another murder…”

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