She turns the little object over in her freezing hand. It was all she had left, aside from the clothes on her back, and even those were stolen from the Muggle woman who she had passed by, earlier that week.
The steps in front of the orphanage were cold, and hard. They had thrown her out, of course, just after they took her new born son. She had barely had the comfort of holding him for a few moments and whispering a name that was to be his, through her frostbitten lips. But she did not resent them for having no place for her in their little house. They had promised to take care of Tom, and she believed, despite herself, that they would do so well.
Besides, she had no one to blame for her plight but herself. It had been stupid of her to assume that her husband would fall in love with her, once the potion wore off. Who could love her, the daughter of the tramp, the pariah of the village, the cheat? For in her heart she knew she had cheated him, of a year of his life, of his chance at happiness, and his ability to love.
She sighs. Her gaze, which had drifted to the stars, at the thoughts of him, fall back to the broken trinket she is holding. An old time-turner, rusted beyond repair. A token her mother had thrust into her baby's tiny hands before she breathed her last. A gift she did not have the fortune to pass on to her own child, lest the muggles see and question it.
She isn't sure she would have liked to part with it, anyway. It is what has kept her alive through all the years of living with her brother and her father, neither of whom wanted her around. It was her solace, a part of her mother to carry with her. Sometimes, she would turn the twist the little part, pretending she could go back in time and carve out a happier life for happier. But it was only childish fantasy, in vain.
As she sits out in the snow, unwanted, uncared for, dying, she wishes she could go back to that time, where the younger version of herself believed her dreams could come true, with the same magic that she now curses as the bane of her life. Her breaths begins to grow shallower, but her fingers do not cease to caress the cracked knob.
In one last act of desperation, she turns it, just before she falls into the snow, lifeless.