Chapter One: How to Save a Life

She was only eighteen and her heart had already been broken. Not to mention she was also very much pregnant.  Why does everything always have to happen to me?   she thought before taking a deep breath and walking through the doors.  As soon as the doors slammed shut behind her water broke.  That’s just great, she thought grimly.  At least I got here.  

It was true at least she had gotten there, she was safe, for the most part, being here.  Although there wasn’t much saving her from her fate.

“Sweetie, we need you to push harder.”

“I can’t,” she said with tears and sweat droplets rolling down her face.  “I just can’t.” the young woman pleaded with the older woman.

“Please push sweetie or else this is going to be much more painful”

“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!” she screamed, clearly, in much pain.

“It’s a baby boy, sweetie.”  The woman handed the new mother her newborn child.

The new mother looked down at her little child and smiled for the first time in a long time.  She forgot all about her broken heart and her horrid family.  She had a new person in her life that she now loved with every inch of her being.  She was glowing with the magic, once again, running through her.  

“What are you going to name him, hun?”  the other woman asked.

She thought about for a moment before she answered, “Tom,” she answered with new tears now in her eyes, “Tom Marvolo Riddle.”

“Okay, let me take him to the nursery for some rest for you both.”  The woman replied.  She took the little boy, from the younger woman.

“Alright, by the way I go by Merope, miss.”  Merope told the woman before she left with her new son.  “Thank you for all your help.”

“You’re welcome, Merope.  They call me Miss. Leer, Jessa Leer.”  Jessa said smiling as she left looking back one time to see the glowing mother asleep.

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~Ten Years Later~

“Mum…MUM!!!  THE LETTER CAME!!!”

“Calm down Tom, we’ll open the letter after breakfast.”  Merope stated with a hint of laughter in her voice at seeing her only son’s reaction to getting his letter for Hogwarts, a school for young wizards and witches, as she set his plate of eggs and toast.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry is a very old school in the magical world and Britain and Ireland’s only Magic school.  You see, Merope and Tom are both magical beings.  In magical families it is very exciting the first time you get a Hogwarts letter when you turn eleven.  It’s said that the school itself is even better than just getting the letter.  

Merope was so proud of her son for getting in.  Another thing about the wizarding world is that the parents are always proud when they’re kids are shown to magical, no matter what the circumstances they will find a way to get them to Hogwarts.  Even the littlest bit of accidental magic is important to the parents.  Merope was never able to go to Hogwarts due to her strict father.  He hated her, but she loved her son…love something her father would never know about.  Sure, she was treated horribly but there were worse cases of abuse.

Tom quickly shoved the food down his throat, surprisingly without accidental magic.  “Mu-uuuum can I open it now?”  He whined making Merope snort, already opening the letter.

“I GOT IN!  I GOT IN, MUM!”  Tom yelled in joy when he saw his very first letter from Hogwarts Witchcraft and Wizardry.  It said:


                                           HOGWARTS SCHOOL
                                 of WITCHCRAFT and WIZARDARY
                                                -------------------
                  Dear Mr. Riddle
                     We are pleased to inform you that you have been accepted
                  at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry.  Please find
                  enclosed a list of all the necessary books and equipment.
                  Term begins on September 1.  We await your owl by no later
                  than July 31.
                  Yours sincerely,

                  Armando Dippet,
                  Headmaster


“Mum, send him the owl, send him the owl!”  Tom said while waving the letter excitedly in front of his mum’s face.  She then took the letter and booklist from her son’s hands and read them over before send the owl to the Headmaster.

“This is going to cost a lot, isn’t it?”  Merope asked herself.  “Tom go get dressed we’re going to Diagon Alley today, just for your birthday.  I’m sorry but the supplies for school this year is going to have to be your birthday presents this year,” She solemnly said to her eleven year old son, who just nodded as a response, “and happy birthday, sweetheart.”

Her son ran up the stairs so fast to get dressed that he didn’t hear her say happy birthday.  She smiled to herself remembering when got her letter and how happy her dad was to find out that she was a witch.  Merope Gaunt never got to go though; her dad could never afford that, so she never found out how to control her powers.

Well, that is, until she was so sad she was unable to use magic at all.  When Merope was about sixteen years old she fell in love with a muggle named Tom Riddle, he never even noticed she was alive.  That was until her brother and father went to Azkaban, the wizard prison, then she brewed a love potion that she feed to Tom Sr. daily.  They fell deeply in love, but never got married, so technically Tom Marvolo is a bastard child.
  
After awhile Tom Sr. became immune to the potion because it was given to him so much, he figured out who Merope was and left her.  His love might have been fake, but hers was so very real.  She got hurt, unbearably that she wasn’t really there anymore.  Merope ran away from the Gaunt House when her brother came home from Azkaban.  She didn’t want him to find out about the baby.  

Merope has always loved Tom, still to this day, her love for him lives on in her son.  Tom Marvolo Riddle was born exactly nine months after Tom Sr. left her.  She walked around, sleeping in bushes and on benches for four months until she found an orphanage that let her work there.  You see, Merope was basically already dead, she had nothing to live for so why should she live.  She couldn’t use magic because she was so weak, it was horrible.  

Merope gave birth to her son thinking that this would kill her, but when she saw that precious face she fell in love.  This love was different somehow, she couldn’t put her finger on it, but something was different.  

What should have happened never did.  Love may have saved the world once but now the whole wizarding will suffer because of love.  Isn’t irony just wonderful.