I've been thinking about this one for a while. Hope you like it!
Time-Turners were fragile machines.
Harry examined the small hourglass in the center of the necklace, seeing the cracks in its framework. It wouldn't work anymore; at least, not without great consequences. He tucked it back under his scarf before he could think any further about it. Better not to worry at the moment.
The orphanage loomed high above him, dark but welcoming with the warm lights still inside. His hands felt almost frozen in the brittle cold, and the streets were completely empty with blinding snow. Nobody would be stupid enough to have a morning walk in the middle of a blizzard, after all. He supposed he could count as an exception.
He remembered his purpose and his face hardened. His head turned to the right.
A shadowed figure came out of the alley, hunched over and struggling to continue walking. Harry came to intercept her just before she collapsed in front of the doors, one hand held protectively over her protruding stomach. She looked up at him in shock, but her knees quickly buckled as she grit her teeth in pain. Harry's expression turned to a steely confidence.
There was a young woman that came to attention as the two hustled in. Her face turned to alarm as Harry inclined his head toward the woman heavy with child, ordering her quickly to find a bed. "Please hurry."
They moved to a room further in the orphanage. He could see various heads peek curiously at them as they hurried through, but he had no time to look at any of them. He laid her down to stand at attention, watching evenly as the caretaker called a midwife to the door. The woman heaved, eyes wild with exertion, and Harry quickly cast a spell to ease her pain. He wasn't heartless.
He moved by her bed, and her eyes darted toward him as he walked in her peripheral vision. The caretaker glanced up at him nervously, but he calmed her with a grimace and a nod before sitting by the woman's side and she turned her focus back to the midwife. He bent down to whisper.
"I'll take care of him, Merope," he murmured, and her eyes widened even further. "Do not worry. He will become a fine wizard one day."
Her expression calmed with his words, and as he settled he placed two fingers on her forehead. Rest.
Her eyes fluttered shut just as they all heard a loud, wailing cry. The caretaker slumped with relief, but Harry did not. The midwife looked up at him as he gestured, in her hands the bundle-wrapped baby lay. Gently, he took the child and cradled it in both hands, and to their surprise the crying stopped.
"Wool's Orphanage, correct?" He addressed the caretaker. "I'm-"
To his alarm, he could feel the necklace beginning to spin again. He held it back firmly, his hand shoving itself in his pocket. He gave the baby back to the caretaker (who began crying again immediately after letting go), rubbing the back of his neck. "I'm sorry. I cannot adopt him now. I'll be back in a few years' time. His name is Tom Marvolo Riddle."
He placed a small trinket in the midwife's hands with his other hand, the one that wasn't in his pocket. It was a small, golden locket. "Take care of this, please. Put it on him as soon as he learns to speak. He'll need it."
He bowed his head before they could ask anything and walked out the way he came, briskly as he could. He was beginning to flicker out, starting from the tips of his fingers and up his arm. He burst through the entrance and back out into the drifting snow, glancing once behind him as the time turner grew hot underneath his clothing.
He disappeared on New Year's Eve during a cold, early morning in 1926.
-December-
The orphanage remained as bleak as it had been before, if not worse since the growing tension and the strain on food supplies. Prices, slowly but surely, were rising once again. The strikes last May have proven that. Cracks were beginning to line the walls, but Mrs. Cole supposed that they've always been there and had just decided to show themselves.
One year later, Tom Riddle had become quite the peculiar case.
Mrs. Cole pinched the bridge of her nose, attempting to push aside her brief migraine as she thought about the child. Both midwife and caretaker had been found with him, frantically babbling about the man who claimed he was to adopt the boy in a couple of years, and the locket he'd left behind. She turned the trinket in her hand, a bit apprehensive.
It wasn't as if Riddle was frighteningly talented. He'd learned to walk within the year, which a few others have done as well. However, his eyes grew aware soon after that, seeming as if he could see right through her soul. She disliked having to be near the boy; with those eyes, it was as if he could eat her alive.
She briefly collected herself and called him down. It was best to have a good impression on the strange man, even if from Riddle. "Tom! Come down! I have something for you."
Footsteps trekked slowly down the stairs, one hand keeping him steady by using the bars. That was yet another thing about Riddle, she thought, lip curling. He liked being independent. The other caretakers thought him to be cute, walking along by himself, but to her it was surely to find trouble, whether for him or someone else. She held up the locket with one hand, and instantly his eyes were taken to it.
"What is it?" He asked, head tilting a bit. He looked almost predatory.
"The...man who wants to adopt you gave this as well," she bit out. The midwife and caretaker had found themselves drawn to the boy, and every night they had come to tell him about the man who'd made him stop crying as soon as he held him, the man who had placed his protection over him, the man that even his mother had found captivating before she died.
"She opened her eyes soon after he'd left," she could hear Ms. Adeline, the midwife, gesture excitedly to Tom. He seemed to be staring right at the woman. "She said, 'that man. Please listen to him. He'll know what is best.' And as soon as she laid eyes on you, she closed her eyes and was gone."
Tom stood at attention as she placed it on him. He was entranced by the snake engraving on the front, and slowly his eyes widened. Mrs. Cole frowned. Did it mean something to him?
She stepped back quickly when she was done clasping it together. He gently picked up the locket with three fingers and turned it around before noticing she was still there. "Thank you, Mrs. Cole," he said, bowing his head, but she could see it in his eyes that he wasn't all there.
"Now back to bed, Tom."
Glad for his departure, Mrs. Cole turned to assess the paperwork on her desk. She sighed. She would have to do it, sooner or later. She shuffled off to work.
If she had turned to listen in at Tom's room that night, she would've heard a surprising bit of hissing noises occurring from its occupant. If she had nudged the door to peek in through the crack, she would've also noticed that the boy had opened it, along with the strange glowing that it emitted.
"Hello, Tom," the voice from the locket sounded faintly from within the room. The man on the other side sounded sheepish. "As you can probably tell by now, this is a voice recording. This locket was your mother's heirloom."
And behind closed doors, Tom first heard the man speak his name.
"I'm sorry I never got to meet you in person," he continued. The recording showed the man rubbing the back of his head. Tom stared at him, memorizing the dark hair, haphazard scarf, and glowing green eyes behind those oversized glasses of his. "When you were old enough to remember, at least. I'll be busy for the next two to three years. As soon as I've finished my tasks, I'll be coming straight for you."
That sounded a bit ominous, but Tom chuckled. Leave it to his unknown guardian to be straight to the point.
"To tell the truth, I don't even know if you'll be able to open it at this point. Wait, what if he..." The man turned from the recording to mutter furiously to himself, flailing a bit as he did so, and Tom nearly smacked his head in exasperation. "Anyway, the point is..."
His expression turned completely serious, and whatever amusement Tom had left died in his throat. "You're special, Tom. You're a child of magic. A wizard."
Tom hadn't had much of an impression when he had first accepted the trinket. He didn't have an impression at all concerning the man, either. But when he spoke those words to him - the man was still speaking, but Tom had tuned out by then - his hand froze.
He knew the stories in the orphanage, the ones about fairies and dragons and the ones far in between, but he hadn't expected the word magic. A grin began to light his face and he tuned back in as the man waved his arms. "-and the creatures! They're everything you can ever imagine, Tom, the hippogriffs are my favorite, but there are so many I can't even begin to think, phoenixes, unicorns, mermen..."
As Tom sat there, at the foot of the bed and entranced by the man on the other side of the locket, a seed of hope began to take root.
He laughed.
I'm in a writing phase and I don't think I've ever written this much in one week. I have so many drafts that I'm almost overwhelmed, but I'm going at them one at a time.