I Am Lord Voldemort by hotbutterbeer
Story Notes:
As always, credit goes to the wonderful J.K. Rowling for her amazing characters and settings!
Chapter Notes: This is my first fanfic :)... a look into Voldemort's life.
The night was still and cold, unusually quiet. A thin sliver of a moon hung low in the charcoal sky, its silver glow casting no light upon the dark streets of London. Dark shadows played across the alleyways; spindly trees stretched out towards the stars with bare branches. At this hour, a little after eight in the evening on the last day of the year, most families would be crowded into living rooms and kitchens; into neighbor’s houses with food and champagne. Waiting for midnight, children would pop crackers and play, and adults would talk the night away to usher in the new year. But for one person, a girl who stumbled blindly along the sides of a grimy alleyway in an unlit part of town, this night held no cheer.
Dark, lanky hair fell in front of a washed out face, obscuring her eyes and cheeks from view. As the girl slowly picked her way around piles of rubbish, she panted heavily, and a faded cloak hung limply around her shoulders, clinging damply to her sweat soaked skin, its tattered edges trailing along the ground as she walked. A swelled stomach protruded from the girl, who looked as though the burden of child was too much to bear. After several strained minutes, she leaned against the cold, dirty bricks, resting, her breath heaving and hanging in the air. She moved on, coming into the dim street, her head swiveling left and right, searching among the storefronts and brick buildings…
But she saw at last what she was looking for; a faded grey looking building, dismal even in the daytime, with square windows and a small plaque to the left of the door- Children’s Home for the Unfortunate. They would help her there. She had no other choice. He had left… With sharp pains shooting up her spine, the girl made her way across the narrow road, stumbling on the cobblestone lane a bit and pausing at the threshold of the Home. She lifted a hand to knock, but again hesitated. She closed her eyes and a face flashed across her heavy eyelids, a man...
“A child?” his voice echoed in her mind. An upset voice. Horrified, even. His expression mirrored his tone. Shock. Anger. Bewilderment. Horror. And to her disappointment, no love. What she had once seen in his eyes had vanished with the last potion she had slipped into his drink.
The girl choked on the doorstep, a sob constricting her airways. For a minute she sagged against the bricks, her hands resting on her womb, tears knotting up her hair and freeing tracks of dirt down her cheeks. She inhaled and exhaled shakily, rasping in the night air. If only she could stay right here, in the quiet of the street in the evening… But the baby would not wait. She felt it within her, pulsing, stretching. It wanted out.
“Quiet,” she murmured to her child, righting herself before the old wooden door. “So tired,” she added, before tapping twice on the door with a dirty finger. But with a cry of shock the girl felt something rip inside her as she waited for the door to open, please open, and hot fire filled her body from the belly up as the darkness took over…
“Good ‘eavens!” a young maid exclaimed, standing in the doorway. “Mrs. Ackley!” she called over her shoulder, taking in the girl with sympathetic eyes. “Bridget, Abbey, come ‘elp me,” she ordered, and the girl was helped immediately inside by two other maids in creamy white aprons and blue dresses.
The girl looked to be forty, but Abigail Drabbly knew she could hardly be twenty, a little older than Abbey herself- girls who came to the Home were always young, unmarried- the story was the same. Premature lines sketched deeply into her features; dark, permanent circles underlined slightly off eyes. The child inside her was impatient, eager to escape from her womb, so Abbey and another maid turned a bed quickly and lifted her onto it, shouting at the others, who were enjoying the slow evening, to fetch supplies to aid in the delivery.
“Yes, just lay down there real nice and everything will be fine,” Abbey soothed, propping a pillow and placing it behind the hot, sticky neck of the girl, who didn’t seem to notice Abbey was even there, but cried out in shock and pain. Mrs. Ackley, the head of the Home, came running from her room upstairs, her hands wringing worriedly.
“What’s her name?” she questioned, her voice hushed and directed at the maids. Abbey turned towards the girl on the bed, placing a hand on hers. The girl’s nails were grimy and long, filth lining the underneath of them.
“What’s your name?” Abbey asked firmly, speaking slowly and clearly. At first there was no response, but then the girl’s eyes rolled around to Abbey as if seeing her for the first time.
“Wha…” she muttered, her face suddenly flushed as with a fever.
“Your name, do you know your name?” Abbey repeated.
The girl showed no sign of recognition of Abbey’s question. But she was clutching her thighs, her stomach. She gasped again, sucking in air like a shored fish.
“The fire,” she moaned, “put the fire out.”
Abbey’s eyes grew wide as she looked at the others. “Something’s wrong with ‘er,” she muttered, scanning the girl’s frail body.
“Don’t be ridiculous, Abbey. She’s jus’ delirious from the fever, comes from the child,” Mrs. Ackley responded, hovering over the girl.
“It’s somethin’ to do with the child, I know it,” Abbey said, looking down at the girl.
The circle of maids waited worriedly for a quarter of an hour while Abbey alternated dabbing her forehead, cheeks, stomach, and legs. Her body was a feverish red color, blood rushing everywhere…
The girl’s lips trembled. A maid handed Abbey a damp cloth, which she placed on the girl’s forehead and dabbed her cheeks. As she cooled down, she seemed to be coming into consciousness.
“Mercy,” Abbey muttered, watching her patient closely and curiously.
“Where am I?” the girl whispered finally, her head swiveling to look at all of them.
“You’re at the Children’s Home,” Mrs. Ackley answered from over Abbey’s shoulder. “You came to us.”
“What’s your name?” Abbey asked kindly, a hand on the girl’s.
“Merope,” the girl muttered. “Merope Riddle.”
Abbey placed a hand on Merope’s head, running a hand through the tangled locks. Merope Riddle sounded like a name from the circus… maybe this girl had run away to join up and had gotten into trouble there.
With a start Merope attempted to sit up, but lay back with a cry. “The child,” she sobbed, “Where is my child?”
“Abbey- the child has to be delivered,” Mrs. Ackley snapped into her train of thoughts, bustling around the room importantly now that the tense spell had broken. “We must hurry if both are to survive- she has had a long, sad journey, it seems,”
For the next three hours, some of the longest in Abigail Drabbly’s life- though a very quick delivery- they encouraged and helped and cleaned and comforted Merope, easing her through the birth. But it was a difficult one. Abbey had never witnessed a more pain inducing, stressful labour in her time at the Home, and never did after. As the baby, a boy, appeared finally right into Mrs. Ackley’s arms, Abbey swore she would never have a child.
It cried out of the womb, but minutes after it had adjusted to the warm air of the orphanage, it quieted. A half an hour passed while they cleaned mother and child, rinsing the dried blood and changing the white sheets of the bed. Midnight drew closer. When they were through, Abbey helped wrap the baby in a dark blue blanket. It looked healthy, though pale. But as it gained strength, the mother on the bed seemed to lose strength. With care Abbey handed the bundle to her, placing it in her weak arms.
“His name,” Merope gasped, “Tom Marvolo Riddle… Tom’s his papa’s name; Marvolo his grandpapa’s… he would’ve wanted…” and trailed off, her eyes fluttering.
Mrs. Ackley gestured at the other maid, Bridget, to write the name down. “Very nice name, Tom, respectable,” she replied, looking down at the girl absentmindedly. “Now, we need to get you some rest, and some food”- here she motioned for Abbey to go to the kitchen- “And…” but paused as Merope shook her head against the words.
“Yes, my dear?” Mrs. Ackley questioned, leaning in towards her as if to listen better. Abbey turned towards the bed; she had already been on her way to the kitchen for a tray of soup, but hesitated at the doorway. The room went silent for a moment except for ragged breaths from their refugee and a small cry from the boy in her arms.
With a last struggling breath, Merope Riddle whispered faintly through chapped lips, “I hope he looks like his papa,” and shuddered back against the white sheets, her greasy hair matted against her forehead and sweaty face relaxing into sweet sleep for the first and last time in her life.
Chapter Endnotes: Thank you so much for reading! :] Please review!