When I was 17, it was a very good year...
Just so I could throw my last issue of Previews away, this is my comics list for November, posted here because I really need to keep better track.
Subscriptions
Superman/Batman #24
JSA #79
Nightwing #114
Detective Comics #813
Batman #647
Wonder Woman #223
Amazing Spider-Man #526
Wolverine #36
Captain America #13
Fantastic Four #533
Buy at the store
Conan #22
Conan and the Demons of Khitai #2 (of 4)
Superman Secret Files 2005
All-Star Superman #1 (of 12)
Green Lantern #7
New Thunderbolts #15
The Thing #1
Black Widow 2 #3 (of 6)
Defenders #5 (of 5)
Geez, I buy a lot of comic books. It's a good thing comics rule or I'd have to do something about that. Now, down to business.
Chapter 17: A Sluggish Memory
(Original Japanese Title: "'I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing!' Slughorn-sensei's Shameful Remembrance!!")
Tearfully, Mrs. Weasley sends the kiddies back to school, via a magic fireplace specially arranged by the Ministry. A security precaution, y'see. I don't know why no one thought of this at the start of the school year, since it would have saved several limo rides, armed escorts, and at least one bloody nose, but better late than never, I guess. This'a'way, Harry, Ron, and Ginny can just toss magic powder into an open flame, step in, tell it where they want to go, and they're teleported there. It's like Instant Transmission, except its the powder doing all the work, and it makes the flames burn green, which reminds me of the Golden Age Green Lantern, and that's always a plus. If some jackass tries to tell you Hal Jordan is the real Green Lantern, you kick 'em squah in the nuts and shout "Alan Scott, muthaf***er!" as you run away, and tell 'em Mike Smith sentcha. Because Alan Scott was the Golden Age Green Lantern. And he had a purple cape. And I think his son is gay.
Where was I? Oh, right, this book that never ends. Naturally, the Floo Network, which is what the kids these days like to call it, is a pretty safe way to travel. But, since I'm getting kind of weary of this story in general, and Ron's surging testosterone in particular, let's assume for a moment that it's not especially safe, and that Ron is in fact teleported by some freak accident to some unknown location in interstellar space. This is no passing fancy on my part. I put a lot of thought into what I'm doing. One might even say that I have summoned Ron here for a purpose.
"Oi, no one summons Ron!" Ron might argue, were he to have watched a certain 1986 children's movie over and over and over again. In this case, it pleases me to be the first.
The fact of the matter is that while I'm willing to see this book through... well... this whole "Ron" thing, it's just not working out. He's abrasive, he's impetuous, he's clearly letting other body parts do his thinking for him. If I'm gonna put up with this, then there's gonna have to be some changes. Fortunately, I got a pretty good idea from the spellchecker in Microsoft Word, and I think with some minor adjustments, everything can proceed on course. I will give Ron a new body, and new troops to command and nothing. From this point on, Ron belongs to me now.
Of course, being a stubborn cuss, Ron would refuse my largesse. Perhaps I have misjudged him. Proceed then, Ron, on your way to oblivion.
"Blimey, I accept your terms! I accept!" Ron might then finally say, and so I'd set to work retooling his form with LVPro, molding and shaping him to serve as the perfect killing machine, far beyond the Ron of the present day. His power would be augmented a thousandfold. His hed would be pasted on, yay. His voice would be altered to resemble either an irate Mr. Spock, or Fred from Scooby-Doo in the late stages of a syphilis infection. Either's cool.
Behold: Galva Ron
Ahhhh, much better. Satisfied, I send him on his way, knowing Hogwarts will be much better off for the experience. Destroy the Matrix.
Galva Ron's first act of the new semester is to get into Gryffindor Tower, which requires you to give a password to a painting. Remember, Hogwarts is like Super Mario 64, I think. Galva Ron confidently states the password as "Baubles", but the painting went and changed the password and never told anyone, and so Galva Ron calmly turns himself into an electrochemical plasma-beam tank and blasts the painting into ash. Hermione shows up about now to provide the new password, but well, we hardly need it now, do we?
Hermione also delivers a message from Dumbledore, informing Harry that their next private lesson is tomorrow night. Harry wants to catch up with Hermione about everything that happened in the last two chapters, but before that can proceed, here comes Lavender Brown to pouncetackle her beloved. "Pouncetackle" is one of those made-up words I picked up from #subcafe, but damned if it isn't the best descriptor of what she's doing.
BROWN: Won-Won!
CYCLONUS: You mean Galva Ron!
SWEEPS: Hail Galva Ron! Hail Galva Ron!
MOTORMASTER: Yeah, well they were the same guy...
Harry checks to see if Hermione is still bitter about Ron, and big surprise, she still is. So they talk about what happened in the last two chapters. This conversation really doesn't go anywhere new, except when Harry mentions Remus Lupin's tale of spying on Fenrir Greyback. At this Hermione reminds Harry that this was the guy Señor Draco had mentioned when he threatened the shopkeeper way back in Chapter Six. That's right, eleven chapters later and we're still piecing that mystery together. An association with Voldemort's werewolf ally might prove that Señor Draco is a bona fide Death Eater, but for all anyone knows, that could have just been an empty threat, and Señor Draco was just talking out of his bony little arse. Nonetheless, Hermione is now fully convinced that Señor Draco is up to something. Well it took 225 pages to get THAT far, so something tells me we'll be two-thirds of the way into Book 7 before anyone actually figures out WHAT that something IS.
So it's the start of a new term, and that means a big-ass sign gets posted for all the sixth-year students, informing them of Apparition Lessons. See, if you're turning 17 before August, you can get your license to teleport under your own power. Galva Ron is quite pleased to see this, and immediately signs up, but not before Lavender does more of that PDA stuff in front of Hermione, thus pissing her off and making Galva Ron all disgruntled. But no matter. Galva Ron turns 17 in March, and even though he's forbidden to use Instant Transmission in the school, he'll at least be able to say he can do it. In fact, he's so excited over all of this that he accidentally lets it slip that Harry's already Apparated in Chapter 4. He stops short of actually explaining who it was who took him along for the ride, but methinks Galva Ron should have kept his fool mouth shut on this one. Oh, well. If I could talk like Fred from Scooby-Doo with a severe mental disorder, I'd never shut up either, I guess.
Anyway, this gets all the kids in Harry's year to pester him for information on what it's like to Apparate, to the point where he has to lie to get away for his secret lesson. This kid has stupid problems, that's all I know.
Back in D-Dore's Fortress of That Flighty, Temptress, Solitude, Harry and Big Al discuss the Ministry's visit to the Burrow in the last chapter. According to Dumbledore, the idea of making Harry a mascot for the Ministry goes back to the Cornelius Fudge Administration, so he's not surprised that Rufus Scrimgeour would try the same tack, in spite of all the crap the office has put Harry through in the past. Harry mentions that Rufus accused him of being "Dumbledore's man", a title Harry is proud to accept, which actually gets the big guy all misty-eyed. "I am very touched, Harry." Geez, get a room already.
Harry then goes into the whole Snape/Señor Draco discussion he won't ever shut up about, and D-dore just tells him not to worry about it, because it's not that important. Yeah, I'm sure that'll happen. Harry tries to ask again if Dumbledore still trusts Snape after hearing this, but Dumbledore is all "I already toldja once, bitch, so lay off." So I guess he's sticking to that whole "trusting Snape implicitly bit."
Now this is what annoys me about Dumbledore. From what I gather, the main role of this guy is that he's a friend to Harry, because he's an orphan, and thus somewhat lonely and isolated when he first got of the train to this school. Harry could respect Dumbledore just because he's the headmaster of this fershlugginer school, but more than this, he confides in the man because he seems to be one of the few characters over the age of thirty who never once treated Harry like a wad of gum on his shoe. Stop me if I'm off-base here. Even if I'm wrong, Harry would seem to suffer the same misunderstanding. Ever since that Christmas party, he's told everyone who'll listen about Snape and Señor Draco, but on top of that was always "Wait until I tell Dumbledore, because HE'LL take care of all this. And indeed, this isn't such a ridiculous boast. I would think it'd be the headmaster's job to straighten out stuff like this, and it's not like Harry wouldn't get the chance to tell him. The alternative, as several characters have already suggested, is that Snape was acting on Dumbledore's orders during that exchange, and thus, he already knew all about it. The breakdown, as we see, is that whenever Harry TELLS him crap like this, he doesn't react one way or the other, nor does he bother to explain his indifference to Harry. This is his prerogative of course, since it's not like he owes Harry an explanation in the first place, but then what was the point of all this in the first place? Why tell Harry not to worry about this without bothering to explain WHY he shouldn't worry about it? In short, Dumbledore can't have it both ways. He can't treat Harry like some impertinent student one minute and then talk to him like some cherished comrade in the War On Voldemort the next.
By the same token, of course, Harry can't have it both ways, either. All through Christmas break his nipples were hard from the anticipation of what Dumbledore would do upon hearing about Snape's actions, like Dumbledore was supposed to rip open the earth and smite all of Harry's enemies in the fiery bowels of hell. And then when Dumbledore tells him not to worry about it, he immediately starts to wonder what Dumbledore's problem is. Either you're Dumbledore's man, or you're not. I'm a "not" kinda guy, myself. But you probably already knew why I hated Harry, so the main purpose of this is to rag on Dumbledore for a while. At this point, he's only being cryptic and vague for the sake of being cryptic and vague.
So on to the Secret Origin of Voldemort. In Chapter 10, we learned that Voldemort may as well have been born from the copulation of that mountain man from Deliverance and Ned Beatty. In Chapter 13, Ned Beatty gives birth to Voldemort and drops dead, leaving him in the care of an orphanage, which he proceeded to terrorize until Dumbledore enrolled him in Hogwarts, on about a hundred-odd years ago. For some reason, D-Dore feels the need to explain that the kid ended up in Slytherin House. Yeah, I really never saw that coming. Though thoroughly E-ville, Young Tom Riddle, Jr. made sure not to show it around the staff, since he had realized through Dumbledore's reactions that any outward signs of E-Ville might stand in the way of his ambitions. Before long, Riddle had a stable of underlings, much like what Señor Draco's got going now. This of course, would be the core roster of what would eventually evolve into the Death Eaters. The book doesn't mention their names, but I think it's fair to infer the following:
--Hercules Hernandez
--Andre the Giant
--Mr. Perfect
--'Ravishing' Rick Rude
--The Barbarian
--Haku
--Brain Buster Arn Anderson
--Brain Buster Tully Blanchard
Together, they mainly spent their years at Hogwarts trying to destroy Hulkamania, and making fun of the Big Bossman's mother. Further driving Voldemort's hatred for his fellow man was the time the Ultimate Warrior defeated him and dressed him in a Weasel suit in Madison Square Garden in 1988. Oh, and they also opened the Chamber of Secrets, but I'm pretty sure Dumbledore is just thinking of something he saw on an old WWF show. "Chamber of Secrets", indeed.
D-Dore goes on to tell the story of how Riddle started looking into his roots, specifically focusing on his father's side of his family, since he believed it was through his dad that he inherited his magic powers. Eventually, he learned that Riddle, Sr. never set foot in the school, and this is when Dumbledore believes he created the whole "Lord Voldemort" moniker and turned to his mother's side of the family.
This leads to another flashback scene where Voldemort finally tracks down his only living relative from his mother's side. As you might recall, his uncle Morfin (Mastadon!) was in prison when Voldemort's mom left and his father died. By the time Voldemort tracks him down, Morfin (Pterodactyl!) is living alone in the Gaunt home, which he apparently hasn't cleaned since that last flashback from about fifteen years or so prior. When Voldemort arrives, the old man confuses his nephew for Tom Riddle, Sr., but then Voldemort speaks Parseltongue to stop him from blindly attacking him. Voldemort demands to know where Marvolo is, only to learn that he's been dead for years. After listening to his uncle's deranged ravings, Voldemort approaches him, and the scene fades to black.
This, Dumbledore explains, is because Morfin (Triceratops!) simply doesn't remember what happened after this moment. D-Dore takes over here, explaining that not long after this confrontation, Tom Riddle, Sr., along with his mother and father, had mysteriously died. While the Muggle authorities remain perplexed over the cause of death, the Ministry quickly deduced this was the work of a wizard who used Avada Kedavra, which is like the Harry Potter version of "Fatality" in Mortal Kombat. This led them to Morfin (Sabretooth Tiger!), the only wizard in the area who had already been convicted a number of times for this sort of thing, and surprisingly he confessed to the triple-murder and allowed himself to be carted off to jail.
From this, Dumbledore and Harry deduce that Voldemort stole Morfin(Tyrannosaurus!)'s wand, used it to kill his father and grandparents, then implanted a false memory into his uncle's mind so he'd confess to the crime. Finally, Voldemort stole the Slytherin ancestral ring and took off. As to Morfin (Dragonzord!) while the real memory was still in his mind, no one bothered to check for that, since it seemed to be an open and shut case. Harry finds this absurd, since Voldemort was underage at the time, and should have immediately been spotted doing all this illegal magic, but as D-dore explains, the Ministry can only detect the magic itself, and not identify the person using it. Since this all took place in an adult wizard's home, Voldemort was never even suspected. The Ministry assumes that the parents are going to keep kids like Voldemort in line, which obviously doesn't work in instances where a kid murders his own father. This is, of course, bullcrap, and Harry wastes no time in saying so. Dumbledore agrees, which was why he made the effort to extract those memories from Morfin (Go go, Power Rangers!) just before his death in the first place.
With enough time for one last memory, Dumbledore shows Harry a flashback from Slughorn's past, when he was speaking in his office with Voldemort and his proto-Death Eater squad. In spite of Voldemort giving Sluggo a bunch of candy, and in spite of Slughorn starting out with a bunch of unctuous praise for the ambitious little go-getter, there's a white fog that appears for no reason, and Slughorn suddenly shouts at Voldemort like he's angry with him. Voldemort asks him about something called "Horcruxes", and though Slughorn seems to answer, the fog reappears, and Slughorn unexpectedly shouts that he knows nothing and Voldemort's in big trouble for even asking.
When the flashback ends, Harry is confused about all this, until Dumbledore explains that this memory has been tampered with, most likely by Slughorn himself. Whether out of fear of Voldemort or of Dumbledore, D-Dore speculates that Slughorn is ashamed of what he remembers from that day, and so he's edited it for content, albeit crudely. So Slughorn's memory is kind of like watching anime on Cartoon Network, to give you an idea.
And so, Dumbledore gives Harry his first "homework" for this whole private class shtick: Talk to Slughorn, and somehow get him to fess up about what really happened. Harry wonders why Dumbledore can't do this himself, what with all the scary mind reading powers he had already used on Morfin (Go go Power Rangers!), but D-dore explains that Slughorn would be expecting that, so he's hoping Harry can succeed with guile where advanced sorcery would surely fail. Yeah, because Harry's so scary good at this sort of thing. I'm starting to wonder if all those candles in Dumbledore's office haven't messed with his brain or something. Anyway, seeing as Voldemort buttered up Slughorn with pineapple candy, I'd recommend a similar tack. If only Hostess made a pineapple fruit pie. But alas.
As before, I feel pretty neutral towards this chapter, and since I gave the last one a pass, that means this one should probably fail, just to be fair. This is not entirely unjustified, as the only real development of note here is that Slughorn knows something about "Horcruxes", and Harry has to find out what it is. Oh, and the emergence of Galva Ron, but that was my idea, so it doesn't count. I was kind of enjoying this whole series of interludes to provide Voldemort with some backstory, but so far we're about 1-for-3 on this bit, since this third installment really doesn't establish anything that shocking. Sure, Voldemort killed all his living relatives, but I didn't really expect them to resurface anyway, so killing them doesn't seem all that important. And it's not like Harry learning about this means a whole lot. I doubt he was surprised to learn that Voldemort would stoop this low, you know what I mean?
RATING: BAD
NEXT: This is the end of the road, Galva Ron...
Subscriptions
Superman/Batman #24
JSA #79
Nightwing #114
Detective Comics #813
Batman #647
Wonder Woman #223
Amazing Spider-Man #526
Wolverine #36
Captain America #13
Fantastic Four #533
Buy at the store
Conan #22
Conan and the Demons of Khitai #2 (of 4)
Superman Secret Files 2005
All-Star Superman #1 (of 12)
Green Lantern #7
New Thunderbolts #15
The Thing #1
Black Widow 2 #3 (of 6)
Defenders #5 (of 5)
Geez, I buy a lot of comic books. It's a good thing comics rule or I'd have to do something about that. Now, down to business.
Chapter 17: A Sluggish Memory
(Original Japanese Title: "'I Can't Believe I Ate the Whole Thing!' Slughorn-sensei's Shameful Remembrance!!")
Tearfully, Mrs. Weasley sends the kiddies back to school, via a magic fireplace specially arranged by the Ministry. A security precaution, y'see. I don't know why no one thought of this at the start of the school year, since it would have saved several limo rides, armed escorts, and at least one bloody nose, but better late than never, I guess. This'a'way, Harry, Ron, and Ginny can just toss magic powder into an open flame, step in, tell it where they want to go, and they're teleported there. It's like Instant Transmission, except its the powder doing all the work, and it makes the flames burn green, which reminds me of the Golden Age Green Lantern, and that's always a plus. If some jackass tries to tell you Hal Jordan is the real Green Lantern, you kick 'em squah in the nuts and shout "Alan Scott, muthaf***er!" as you run away, and tell 'em Mike Smith sentcha. Because Alan Scott was the Golden Age Green Lantern. And he had a purple cape. And I think his son is gay.
Where was I? Oh, right, this book that never ends. Naturally, the Floo Network, which is what the kids these days like to call it, is a pretty safe way to travel. But, since I'm getting kind of weary of this story in general, and Ron's surging testosterone in particular, let's assume for a moment that it's not especially safe, and that Ron is in fact teleported by some freak accident to some unknown location in interstellar space. This is no passing fancy on my part. I put a lot of thought into what I'm doing. One might even say that I have summoned Ron here for a purpose.
"Oi, no one summons Ron!" Ron might argue, were he to have watched a certain 1986 children's movie over and over and over again. In this case, it pleases me to be the first.
The fact of the matter is that while I'm willing to see this book through... well... this whole "Ron" thing, it's just not working out. He's abrasive, he's impetuous, he's clearly letting other body parts do his thinking for him. If I'm gonna put up with this, then there's gonna have to be some changes. Fortunately, I got a pretty good idea from the spellchecker in Microsoft Word, and I think with some minor adjustments, everything can proceed on course. I will give Ron a new body, and new troops to command and nothing. From this point on, Ron belongs to me now.
Of course, being a stubborn cuss, Ron would refuse my largesse. Perhaps I have misjudged him. Proceed then, Ron, on your way to oblivion.
"Blimey, I accept your terms! I accept!" Ron might then finally say, and so I'd set to work retooling his form with LVPro, molding and shaping him to serve as the perfect killing machine, far beyond the Ron of the present day. His power would be augmented a thousandfold. His hed would be pasted on, yay. His voice would be altered to resemble either an irate Mr. Spock, or Fred from Scooby-Doo in the late stages of a syphilis infection. Either's cool.
Behold: Galva Ron
Ahhhh, much better. Satisfied, I send him on his way, knowing Hogwarts will be much better off for the experience. Destroy the Matrix.
Galva Ron's first act of the new semester is to get into Gryffindor Tower, which requires you to give a password to a painting. Remember, Hogwarts is like Super Mario 64, I think. Galva Ron confidently states the password as "Baubles", but the painting went and changed the password and never told anyone, and so Galva Ron calmly turns himself into an electrochemical plasma-beam tank and blasts the painting into ash. Hermione shows up about now to provide the new password, but well, we hardly need it now, do we?
Hermione also delivers a message from Dumbledore, informing Harry that their next private lesson is tomorrow night. Harry wants to catch up with Hermione about everything that happened in the last two chapters, but before that can proceed, here comes Lavender Brown to pouncetackle her beloved. "Pouncetackle" is one of those made-up words I picked up from #subcafe, but damned if it isn't the best descriptor of what she's doing.
BROWN: Won-Won!
CYCLONUS: You mean Galva Ron!
SWEEPS: Hail Galva Ron! Hail Galva Ron!
MOTORMASTER: Yeah, well they were the same guy...
Harry checks to see if Hermione is still bitter about Ron, and big surprise, she still is. So they talk about what happened in the last two chapters. This conversation really doesn't go anywhere new, except when Harry mentions Remus Lupin's tale of spying on Fenrir Greyback. At this Hermione reminds Harry that this was the guy Señor Draco had mentioned when he threatened the shopkeeper way back in Chapter Six. That's right, eleven chapters later and we're still piecing that mystery together. An association with Voldemort's werewolf ally might prove that Señor Draco is a bona fide Death Eater, but for all anyone knows, that could have just been an empty threat, and Señor Draco was just talking out of his bony little arse. Nonetheless, Hermione is now fully convinced that Señor Draco is up to something. Well it took 225 pages to get THAT far, so something tells me we'll be two-thirds of the way into Book 7 before anyone actually figures out WHAT that something IS.
So it's the start of a new term, and that means a big-ass sign gets posted for all the sixth-year students, informing them of Apparition Lessons. See, if you're turning 17 before August, you can get your license to teleport under your own power. Galva Ron is quite pleased to see this, and immediately signs up, but not before Lavender does more of that PDA stuff in front of Hermione, thus pissing her off and making Galva Ron all disgruntled. But no matter. Galva Ron turns 17 in March, and even though he's forbidden to use Instant Transmission in the school, he'll at least be able to say he can do it. In fact, he's so excited over all of this that he accidentally lets it slip that Harry's already Apparated in Chapter 4. He stops short of actually explaining who it was who took him along for the ride, but methinks Galva Ron should have kept his fool mouth shut on this one. Oh, well. If I could talk like Fred from Scooby-Doo with a severe mental disorder, I'd never shut up either, I guess.
Anyway, this gets all the kids in Harry's year to pester him for information on what it's like to Apparate, to the point where he has to lie to get away for his secret lesson. This kid has stupid problems, that's all I know.
Back in D-Dore's Fortress of That Flighty, Temptress, Solitude, Harry and Big Al discuss the Ministry's visit to the Burrow in the last chapter. According to Dumbledore, the idea of making Harry a mascot for the Ministry goes back to the Cornelius Fudge Administration, so he's not surprised that Rufus Scrimgeour would try the same tack, in spite of all the crap the office has put Harry through in the past. Harry mentions that Rufus accused him of being "Dumbledore's man", a title Harry is proud to accept, which actually gets the big guy all misty-eyed. "I am very touched, Harry." Geez, get a room already.
Harry then goes into the whole Snape/Señor Draco discussion he won't ever shut up about, and D-dore just tells him not to worry about it, because it's not that important. Yeah, I'm sure that'll happen. Harry tries to ask again if Dumbledore still trusts Snape after hearing this, but Dumbledore is all "I already toldja once, bitch, so lay off." So I guess he's sticking to that whole "trusting Snape implicitly bit."
Now this is what annoys me about Dumbledore. From what I gather, the main role of this guy is that he's a friend to Harry, because he's an orphan, and thus somewhat lonely and isolated when he first got of the train to this school. Harry could respect Dumbledore just because he's the headmaster of this fershlugginer school, but more than this, he confides in the man because he seems to be one of the few characters over the age of thirty who never once treated Harry like a wad of gum on his shoe. Stop me if I'm off-base here. Even if I'm wrong, Harry would seem to suffer the same misunderstanding. Ever since that Christmas party, he's told everyone who'll listen about Snape and Señor Draco, but on top of that was always "Wait until I tell Dumbledore, because HE'LL take care of all this. And indeed, this isn't such a ridiculous boast. I would think it'd be the headmaster's job to straighten out stuff like this, and it's not like Harry wouldn't get the chance to tell him. The alternative, as several characters have already suggested, is that Snape was acting on Dumbledore's orders during that exchange, and thus, he already knew all about it. The breakdown, as we see, is that whenever Harry TELLS him crap like this, he doesn't react one way or the other, nor does he bother to explain his indifference to Harry. This is his prerogative of course, since it's not like he owes Harry an explanation in the first place, but then what was the point of all this in the first place? Why tell Harry not to worry about this without bothering to explain WHY he shouldn't worry about it? In short, Dumbledore can't have it both ways. He can't treat Harry like some impertinent student one minute and then talk to him like some cherished comrade in the War On Voldemort the next.
By the same token, of course, Harry can't have it both ways, either. All through Christmas break his nipples were hard from the anticipation of what Dumbledore would do upon hearing about Snape's actions, like Dumbledore was supposed to rip open the earth and smite all of Harry's enemies in the fiery bowels of hell. And then when Dumbledore tells him not to worry about it, he immediately starts to wonder what Dumbledore's problem is. Either you're Dumbledore's man, or you're not. I'm a "not" kinda guy, myself. But you probably already knew why I hated Harry, so the main purpose of this is to rag on Dumbledore for a while. At this point, he's only being cryptic and vague for the sake of being cryptic and vague.
So on to the Secret Origin of Voldemort. In Chapter 10, we learned that Voldemort may as well have been born from the copulation of that mountain man from Deliverance and Ned Beatty. In Chapter 13, Ned Beatty gives birth to Voldemort and drops dead, leaving him in the care of an orphanage, which he proceeded to terrorize until Dumbledore enrolled him in Hogwarts, on about a hundred-odd years ago. For some reason, D-Dore feels the need to explain that the kid ended up in Slytherin House. Yeah, I really never saw that coming. Though thoroughly E-ville, Young Tom Riddle, Jr. made sure not to show it around the staff, since he had realized through Dumbledore's reactions that any outward signs of E-Ville might stand in the way of his ambitions. Before long, Riddle had a stable of underlings, much like what Señor Draco's got going now. This of course, would be the core roster of what would eventually evolve into the Death Eaters. The book doesn't mention their names, but I think it's fair to infer the following:
--Hercules Hernandez
--Andre the Giant
--Mr. Perfect
--'Ravishing' Rick Rude
--The Barbarian
--Haku
--Brain Buster Arn Anderson
--Brain Buster Tully Blanchard
Together, they mainly spent their years at Hogwarts trying to destroy Hulkamania, and making fun of the Big Bossman's mother. Further driving Voldemort's hatred for his fellow man was the time the Ultimate Warrior defeated him and dressed him in a Weasel suit in Madison Square Garden in 1988. Oh, and they also opened the Chamber of Secrets, but I'm pretty sure Dumbledore is just thinking of something he saw on an old WWF show. "Chamber of Secrets", indeed.
D-Dore goes on to tell the story of how Riddle started looking into his roots, specifically focusing on his father's side of his family, since he believed it was through his dad that he inherited his magic powers. Eventually, he learned that Riddle, Sr. never set foot in the school, and this is when Dumbledore believes he created the whole "Lord Voldemort" moniker and turned to his mother's side of the family.
This leads to another flashback scene where Voldemort finally tracks down his only living relative from his mother's side. As you might recall, his uncle Morfin (Mastadon!) was in prison when Voldemort's mom left and his father died. By the time Voldemort tracks him down, Morfin (Pterodactyl!) is living alone in the Gaunt home, which he apparently hasn't cleaned since that last flashback from about fifteen years or so prior. When Voldemort arrives, the old man confuses his nephew for Tom Riddle, Sr., but then Voldemort speaks Parseltongue to stop him from blindly attacking him. Voldemort demands to know where Marvolo is, only to learn that he's been dead for years. After listening to his uncle's deranged ravings, Voldemort approaches him, and the scene fades to black.
This, Dumbledore explains, is because Morfin (Triceratops!) simply doesn't remember what happened after this moment. D-Dore takes over here, explaining that not long after this confrontation, Tom Riddle, Sr., along with his mother and father, had mysteriously died. While the Muggle authorities remain perplexed over the cause of death, the Ministry quickly deduced this was the work of a wizard who used Avada Kedavra, which is like the Harry Potter version of "Fatality" in Mortal Kombat. This led them to Morfin (Sabretooth Tiger!), the only wizard in the area who had already been convicted a number of times for this sort of thing, and surprisingly he confessed to the triple-murder and allowed himself to be carted off to jail.
From this, Dumbledore and Harry deduce that Voldemort stole Morfin(Tyrannosaurus!)'s wand, used it to kill his father and grandparents, then implanted a false memory into his uncle's mind so he'd confess to the crime. Finally, Voldemort stole the Slytherin ancestral ring and took off. As to Morfin (Dragonzord!) while the real memory was still in his mind, no one bothered to check for that, since it seemed to be an open and shut case. Harry finds this absurd, since Voldemort was underage at the time, and should have immediately been spotted doing all this illegal magic, but as D-dore explains, the Ministry can only detect the magic itself, and not identify the person using it. Since this all took place in an adult wizard's home, Voldemort was never even suspected. The Ministry assumes that the parents are going to keep kids like Voldemort in line, which obviously doesn't work in instances where a kid murders his own father. This is, of course, bullcrap, and Harry wastes no time in saying so. Dumbledore agrees, which was why he made the effort to extract those memories from Morfin (Go go, Power Rangers!) just before his death in the first place.
With enough time for one last memory, Dumbledore shows Harry a flashback from Slughorn's past, when he was speaking in his office with Voldemort and his proto-Death Eater squad. In spite of Voldemort giving Sluggo a bunch of candy, and in spite of Slughorn starting out with a bunch of unctuous praise for the ambitious little go-getter, there's a white fog that appears for no reason, and Slughorn suddenly shouts at Voldemort like he's angry with him. Voldemort asks him about something called "Horcruxes", and though Slughorn seems to answer, the fog reappears, and Slughorn unexpectedly shouts that he knows nothing and Voldemort's in big trouble for even asking.
When the flashback ends, Harry is confused about all this, until Dumbledore explains that this memory has been tampered with, most likely by Slughorn himself. Whether out of fear of Voldemort or of Dumbledore, D-Dore speculates that Slughorn is ashamed of what he remembers from that day, and so he's edited it for content, albeit crudely. So Slughorn's memory is kind of like watching anime on Cartoon Network, to give you an idea.
And so, Dumbledore gives Harry his first "homework" for this whole private class shtick: Talk to Slughorn, and somehow get him to fess up about what really happened. Harry wonders why Dumbledore can't do this himself, what with all the scary mind reading powers he had already used on Morfin (Go go Power Rangers!), but D-dore explains that Slughorn would be expecting that, so he's hoping Harry can succeed with guile where advanced sorcery would surely fail. Yeah, because Harry's so scary good at this sort of thing. I'm starting to wonder if all those candles in Dumbledore's office haven't messed with his brain or something. Anyway, seeing as Voldemort buttered up Slughorn with pineapple candy, I'd recommend a similar tack. If only Hostess made a pineapple fruit pie. But alas.
As before, I feel pretty neutral towards this chapter, and since I gave the last one a pass, that means this one should probably fail, just to be fair. This is not entirely unjustified, as the only real development of note here is that Slughorn knows something about "Horcruxes", and Harry has to find out what it is. Oh, and the emergence of Galva Ron, but that was my idea, so it doesn't count. I was kind of enjoying this whole series of interludes to provide Voldemort with some backstory, but so far we're about 1-for-3 on this bit, since this third installment really doesn't establish anything that shocking. Sure, Voldemort killed all his living relatives, but I didn't really expect them to resurface anyway, so killing them doesn't seem all that important. And it's not like Harry learning about this means a whole lot. I doubt he was surprised to learn that Voldemort would stoop this low, you know what I mean?
RATING: BAD
NEXT: This is the end of the road, Galva Ron...