Two hundred miles from London, there was a village called Hangleton.
Four or five miles from there was a large town, also called Hangleton.
Since both the town and village shared the same name, for convenience, people gradually began calling the town Great Hangleton and the village Little Hangleton.
Great Hangleton was nothing special in the Muggle world—just a large town, and there were plenty of towns this size throughout Britain.
In the magical world, it had even less presence.
Of course, wizards often lived scattered among Muggles, so there were naturally wizards living here too—the Muggles just didn't know it.
But Little Hangleton, the village, was different.
It might be nothing in the Muggle world, but in modern magical history, it held great significance.
Unfortunately, not many people knew about this.
In the center of Little Hangleton stood a very beautiful manor—the largest and most impressive building for miles around.
People called it the Riddle House.
As the name suggested, its owner was named Riddle.
However, the Riddle family, despite owning such a grand estate, didn't have a good reputation in Little Hangleton.
The elderly Mr. and Mrs. Riddle were wealthy but snobbish and rude, making them very unpopular in the village.
Their adult son, Tom Riddle, was even worse than his parents.
In summary. wealthy but unkind, tyrannizing the countryside.
Ordinary people naturally dared to be angry but not speak out.
Whether by karmic retribution or some other reason, one day, all three members of this family suddenly died.
On a clear summer morning, a Riddle House maid entered the drawing room and was shocked to find all three Riddles dead.
The sight left the young maid trembling all over. Despite the hot weather, she broke out in cold sweat, her hands and feet like ice. She ran screaming down the hill into the village, waking as many Little Hangleton residents as possible.
"They're dead, all dead! They're still wearing their dinner clothes! All lying on the floor with their eyes wide open!"
When there's a murder, naturally the police must be called.
For a village like Little Hangleton, this was already a monumental event.
However, since the Riddle family was wealthy but unkind, the villagers didn't even bother pretending to be sad—they were just curious about who this hero was who had rid them of this menace.
The situation was obvious—three perfectly healthy people couldn't all die naturally on the same night.
Eventually, the police arrested a man named Frank Bryce.
He was the Riddles' gardener.
Decades earlier, after leaving the battlefield, someone had introduced him to the Riddle House.
The war had left one of his legs stiff and unresponsive, and he had an extreme aversion to crowds and noise.
This man was solitary by nature, living alone in a dilapidated little cottage in the Riddle House grounds.
The police had their reasons for arresting him.
According to their investigation of the scene, the doors and windows were intact, so it could only be someone familiar with the house.
Frank fit this criterion perfectly—there was a spare key to the back door of the Riddle House that had always hung in the gardener's cottage.
As long as Frank snuck into the house while everyone else at the Riddle House was asleep, he could do whatever he wanted.
However, Frank, once at the police station, adamantly refused to admit he'd killed anyone.
He repeated the fact over and over—he was innocent.
But the police refused to believe him. Their investigation of the scene convinced them that no one but Frank had the means to commit the crime.
This situation continued until the autopsy report on the three Riddles appeared.
The police had never seen such a strange autopsy report.
None of the Riddles had been harmed by poison, sharp weapons, guns, or other murder weapons, nor had they been suffocated or strangled.
All three deceased were in perfect health—except for the fact that they were dead.
This was a completely contradictory, incomprehensible conclusion.
Precisely because they couldn't find anything wrong with the bodies despite exhaustive efforts, the doctors conducting the autopsy found only one suspicious point.
Each member of the Riddle family wore an expression of terror on their face.
But this was useless.
What could they have seen that would frighten three people to death at the same time?
In any case, since there was no evidence the Riddles had been murdered, even though Frank was highly suspicious—though of course after the autopsy report, he was no longer under suspicion—he was released.
As long as there's no evidence proving guilt, a suspect is innocent.
Ultimately, this became a cold case.
The police could only close the report with. "The three deceased died simultaneously from extreme fright."
This result naturally couldn't satisfy Little Hangleton's residents.
But the police said: whether you believe it or not, we believe it.
And so, the Riddle family was buried in Little Hangleton's churchyard.
For a long time afterward, their graves remained objects of curious attention for Little Hangleton's people.
For the others who had lived at the Riddle House.
With no master, the former maids and cook naturally left the Riddle House to seek their own livelihoods.
But what surprised and made everyone suspicious was that Frank Bryce, the gardener initially identified as the prime suspect, actually came back!
He returned alone to live in his cottage in the Riddle House grounds.
Even though the villagers all believed he was actually the murderer.
He paid no attention to this.
And so Frank stayed, tending the garden for whoever came to live at the Riddle House next.
The Riddle House changed hands several times, going through several owners.
But regardless of which owner, none stayed very long.
According to the new owners who lived there, once they moved in, they always felt the place had a sinister, terrifying atmosphere.
Supposedly, part of this feeling came from Frank—the former prime suspect.
Over time, with no one living there, the Riddle House gradually fell into disrepair and decay.
And so, more than half a century passed, and time came to the summer of 1994.
The wealthy person who now owned the Riddle House neither lived there nor put the house to any use.
According to the villagers, he kept it for "tax reasons."
But no one really understood what that meant.
When asked too many questions, the person who'd spread this information would say.
"Those who understand, understand. If you don't understand, explaining won't help, so there's no point. Don't ask me what's going on—the interests involved are too great. Knowing won't do you any good, so just act like you don't know. All I can say is the rivers run deep here, involving many important people. It's very hard for you to find detailed information yourselves—most of it's been deleted. That's why I can only say. those who understand, understand. Those who don't, there's nothing I can do."
It was frustrating!
In any case, this wealthy owner was still willing to continue paying Frank to be the gardener.
After all, having someone watch over it was better than no one and Frank was familiar with the place.
Only Frank's own condition wasn't very good.
He'd reached the critical age of seventy-seven. Not only was his bad leg stiffer than before, but he'd also become hard of hearing.
However, when the weather was nice, he would come to the flowerbeds and work slowly.
Only he himself knew that on one hand, this was his sense of responsibility at work—after all, he was being paid for this job.
On the other hand, elderly and without family, he could only seek a sense of self-worth through this means.
He tended the house and grounds with single-minded devotion, almost to the point of obsession.
But this was useless.
He was already very old—too old to hold back the spreading weeds.
Not only that, the village children always liked to throw stones at the Riddle House windows.
They would also ride their bicycles carelessly across the lawn that Frank had worked so hard to keep level. These kids did it deliberately—they were teasing Frank.
They most enjoyed watching this old man limp through the garden, waving his cane and shouting at them in his hoarse voice.
Whenever this happened, they found it especially entertaining.
Frank didn't believe these children were just having fun.
He was convinced they tormented him this way because, like their parents and even grandparents, they all thought he was a murderer.
Nearly eighty years old, Frank had seen through it all.
With Prejudice in people's hearts—no matter how hard you try, you can never change it.
Following the normal narrative rhythm, once Frank died of old age, all this would naturally end.
Perhaps the wealthy owner of the Riddle House would hire someone new to watch over it.
Perhaps that wealthy person would simply abandon it.
Or perhaps, like its previous owners, for reasons that "those who understand, understand," he would transfer it to someone else.
However, no one expected that an event capable of changing the entire magical world's landscape would occur here.
The sole witness to this event was precisely Frank Bryce, this Muggle who knew nothing about magic.
Time came to late July, the period when summer's fire flows and the weather turns cool.
When Frank woke at night from a slight chill, he suddenly discovered unusual activity at the old house.
He immediately realized those troublesome children had thought up new tricks to tease him.
Ever since being questioned about that case years ago, he'd developed a deep distrust of the police.
So he didn't call the police—he just took his cane, picked up that old spare key to the Riddle House's back door, and went out.
The Riddle House's front door showed no signs of forced entry, and the windows were intact. This made Frank smile bitterly.
He thought of that case from half a century ago.
Because there were no signs of forced entry, the police had believed he'd used the spare key to enter through the back door.
He knew clearly he hadn't done that at the time.
But ironically, years later, he was now doing exactly that.
Limping around to the back of the house, he stopped at a door almost completely covered by ivy.
Then he slowly took out that old key, inserted it into the lock, and silently opened the door.
Because he was so familiar with this place, even though it was pitch dark all around, he still remembered where the door to the corridor was.
He felt his way over, and a rotten smell assailed his nostrils—clearly, no one had been here for a long time.
Fortunately, the thick dust on the stone steps covered his footsteps, so the people inside didn't notice his arrival.
Soon, he discovered traces of the intruders.
At the end of the corridor on the stair landing, a door stood slightly ajar.
Flickering dim light shot through the crack, casting an orange-yellow glow on the black floorboards.
Frank turned sideways, approaching bit by bit as quietly as possible, gripping his cane tightly, as if this could increase his sense of security.
Until, a few steps from the doorway, through that narrow crack, he discovered the scene inside the room.
He was surprised to find the fire was actually burning in the fireplace.
Even more surprising, the voices speaking in the room weren't children's voices.
"If you're still hungry, you can drink a little more."
"Not for now. If possible, I'd prefer you move me closer to the fire, Mr. Smith."
"Happy to oblige, Mr. Riddle—Jon, didn't you hear what Mr. Riddle said? Get moving."
Then from the room came the harsh scraping sound of a heavy chair being dragged across the floor.
Through the door crack, Frank saw someone with their back to the door pushing a chair.
He wore a long black cloak but quickly disappeared from view.
However, Frank had no attention to spare for this—his mind was entirely occupied by that name.
Riddle!
When Frank heard this name, his heart shook violently.
Wasn't that his first employer's name?
But—but they were dead!
Whether it was the Riddle couple who'd employed him or their son Tom Riddle...
Frank forcibly suppressed his inner shock, pressed his good ear against the door, and listened hard.
"It's been a long time since anyone called me 'Riddle.' I think you should know very well, I'm now known as—"
"Voldemort, right? Of course I know what you're called, but no matter how your name changes, it can't change the facts. Otherwise you wouldn't have had us bring you here, would you, dear Mr. Tom Riddle!"
Tom Riddle—it really was him!
Frank was extremely shocked.
A handsome face quickly surfaced in his mind, along with memories related to that face.
At that time, Tom Riddle could be described as youthful and dashing, high-spirited.
Because back then, everything on one side of the valley belonged to the Riddle family, except for one eyesore of a little shack—that's what the villagers all said.
That cottage belonged to an old tramp named Gaunt and his children—a sister who was rarely seen and a brother who was always causing trouble.
That son was crazy, not right in the head. For some reason, he'd even nailed a dead snake to the cottage door.
For a rich master like Tom Riddle, his privileged family environment had bred an arrogant personality.
So toward people like Frank, the cook, and the maid who worked for his family, he never showed the slightest respect.
However, Frank was someone who'd seen life and death on the battlefield. As long as the Riddle family paid enough, he truly didn't care at all.
Young Tom Riddle also had a dear named Cecilia—also a young lady from a wealthy family, and quite beautiful too.
At the time, everyone in Little Hangleton thought they would end up together.
But somehow, one day Tom Riddle suddenly declared he'd fallen deeply in love with the daughter of that old tramp Gaunt.
This naturally met with firm opposition from Mr. and Mrs. Riddle.
Are you kidding? How could the Riddle family's son get involved with that kind of woman!
But incredibly, Tom Riddle, as if possessed, abandoned the girl he was well-suited with, abandoned his adamantly opposing parents, and eloped with the old tramp Gaunt's daughter!
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