The Important Memory

                                    

                                          
The next evening, after Aragog's burial, Teddie and Harry stood in Dumbledore's office facing the headmaster. He had returned the previous evening, but it had been gone midnight when Harry and Teddie had left Slughorn and Hagrid asleep in the hut.
"This is spectacular news, you two!" said Dumbledore, delightfully. "Incredibly well done, I never doubted that you could do it."
"It took some work, but we managed," said Teddie, grinning at Harry.
"Indeed, it did, my dear, indeed it did," Dumbledore agreed. "So, I did say that we would not be discussing anything further until we have seen this memory. Should we proceed?"
Teddie and Harry nodded. They were both eager to see what Slughorn had told Tom Riddle about Horcruxes when he was just seventeen years old.
Retrieving the Pensieve from the cabinet, Dumbledore took the phial with the untainted memory inside, uncorked it and emptied it into the basin. "After you," he said.
Harry bent forward, his face disturbing the swirling waters, and he surged forward. Teddie followed suit, and this time, so did Dumbledore.
~X~
The office was the same as before. A younger Horace Slughorn sat at the head of a long table, his feet up on a velvet pouffe while he ate crystalized pineapples from a box to his left, all along the table sat half a dozen teenage boys, amongst whom was Tom Riddle, his grandfather's black and gold ring gleaming on his finger.
"Sir, is it true that Professor Merrythought is retiring?"
"Tom, Tom, if I knew that I couldn't tell you," said Slughorn, chuckling. "I must say, I'd like to know where you get your information, boy, more knowledgeable than half the staff, you are."
Riddle smiled; the other boys laughed.
Teddie rolled her eyes.
"What with your uncanny ability to know things you wouldn't, and your careful flattery of the people who matter – thank you for the pineapple, by the way, you're quite right, it is my favourite -"
Several boys tittered again.
"– I confidently expect you to rise to Minister of Magic within twenty years. Fifteen, if you keep sending me pineapple, I have excellent contacts at the Ministry."
Tom Riddle merely smiled as the others laughed again. "I don't know that politics would suit me, sir," he said. "I don't have the right kind of background, for one thing."
"Do many at the Ministry?" Teddie asked.
Harry bit back a laugh.
"Nonsense," said Slughorn briskly, "couldn't be plainer you come from decent Wizarding stock, abilities like yours. No, you'll go far, Tom, I've never been wrong about a student yet."
"Slughorn didn't know that Riddle was a Halfblood?" Harry questioned.
"Can't have," said Teddie, shrugging. "Although, I don't think that is what he means. I think he means that the Gaunts were known by the Ministry for being Muggle haters."
Harry nodded once. "Oh," he murmured.
The small golden clock standing upon Slughorn's desk chimed eleven o'clock, and the Potions master looked around in shocked surprise. "Good gracious, is it that time already?" he asked. "You'd better get going, boys, or you'll be in trouble. Lestrange, I want your essay by tomorrow or it's detention. Same goes for you, Sutherland."
"I still find it strange that my grandfather was in Voldemort's group in school, but he never sided with him during the war," said Teddie, "according to Marcus and the others, the Sutherland family puts the Blacks to shame when it comes to hating the Muggle Race, but they never lifted a wand to them, either."