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scroll of parchment — "is that Morfin performed a jinx or hex on the said Muggle, causing him to erupt in highly painful hives." Morfin giggled.
"Be quiet, boy," snarled Gaunt in Parseltongue, and Morfin fell silent again.
"And so what if he did, then." Gaunt said defiantly to Ogden, "I expect you've wiped the Muggle's filthy face clean for him, and his memory to boot —" "That's hardly the point, is it, Mr. Gaunt." said Ogden. "This was an unprovoked attack on a defenseless —" "Ar, I had you marked out as a Muggle-lover the moment I saw you," sneered Gaunt, and he spat on the floor again.
"This discussion is getting us nowhere," said Ogden firmly. "It is clear from your son's attitude that he feels no remorse for his actions." He glanced down at his scroll of parchment again. "Morfin will attend a hearing on the fourteenth of September to answer the charges of using magic in front of a Muggle and causing harm and distress to that same Mugg —" Ogden broke off. The jingling, clopping sounds of horses and loud, laughing voices were drifting in through the open window. Apparently the winding lane to the village passed very close to the copse where the house stood. Gaunt froze, listening, his eyes wide. Morfin hissed and turned his face toward the sounds, his expression hungry.
Merope raised her head. Her face, Harry saw, was starkly white.
"My God, what an eyesore!" rang out a girl's voice, as clearly audible through the open window as if she had stood in the room beside them. "Couldn't your father have that hovel cleared away, Tom." "It's not ours," said a young man's voice. "Everything on the other side of the valley belongs to us, but that cottage belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, and his children.
The son's quite mad, you should hear some of the stories they tell in the village —" The girl laughed. The jingling, clopping noises were growing louder and louder. Morfin made to get out of his armchair. , "Keep your seat," said his father warningly, in Parseltongue.
"Tom," said the girl's voice again, now so close they were clearly right beside the house, "I might be wrong — but has somebody nailed a snake to that door." "Good lord, you're right!" said the man's voice. "That'll be the son, I told you he's not right in the head. Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling.
The jingling and clopping sounds were now growing faint again.
"'Darling,'" whispered Morfin in Parseltongue, looking at his sister. "'Darling, he called her. So he wouldn't have you anyway."
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