Merope Gaunt staggered up the steps of the London orphanage as her water broke.
"Ah!" she cried in agony as she slipped in the fluid and landed on the cold hard steps.
Lights turned on inside the orphanage as the mother-to-be continued to crawl up the steps, her gray, tattered and much too tight second or third hand witches robe clinging to her and ripping in the rain.
The front door of the orphanage swung open, the light spilling forth onto the steps was the first warmth Merope had felt in months.
"My goodness!" screeched a woman who had had too much brandy as she came forward, helping Merope up and into the orphanage. The older children who were allowed to stay up for New Year's Eve all looked at the young girl curiously, wondering what was happening as they had not yet been taught about the so called 'miracle' of childbirth.
"Come with me, ducky, I'll take you up to the infirmary." she soothed, breathing brandy down Merope's neck.
"Thank you," she groaned through the pain.
"It's alright ducky, you're not the first to come to us," she explained, hiding her looks of disgust from the girl.
"I hope it looks like its father," she moaned as she sat down on the bed.
So do I, ducky, so do I. She thought to her self as she looked at the girl's worn face, lank, grey hair and eyes that stared in either direction. Not to mention to submissive look about her.
The orphanage nurse came out and started asking questions.
"Well Miss, how far apart are the contractions?" she asked routinely.
"Less than a minute," she whimpered clutching her stomach.
"And your water has it broken?"
"Yes, yes, please…" she whined.
"Is the father here?"
"No!" she was scrunching her face up in pain.
"Very well then, here we go," she put on her rubber gloves and lifted the girl's worn dress past her hips to find she was not wearing any underwear. Prostitute no doubt, no underwear makes easy access, she scoffed to her self. "Now then, on the count of three, push," she commanded completely monotone.
"Yes, yes," she whimpered.
"One, two, three, push!"
"Ah!" Merope screamed, waking many of the children including some of the babes who lived in the nursery.
"Push!" the nurse commanded with the same monotone voice that partially enraged Merope.
Within the hour, Merope had given birth to a little boy; he did indeed look like his father, black hair, with those menacing maroon eyes.
"What will you name him ducky?" asked the woman who had helped her up the steps.
"Tom, for his father, and Marvolo, for my father." she sighed weakly, breath was coming harder and harder to her with each passing minute.
"Last name?" the woman who still stunk of brandy asked.
"Gaunt, but I want his name to be Riddle, for his father," she wheezed.
The drunken lady looked up at this, she had heard of the Gaunts from a friend who lived near Little Hangleton, and apparently this was the girl who was abused by her insane and murderous father and brother for years until they were shipped off to some prison. And then the girl had had a whirlwind romance with a man who later left her pregnant and alone, returning to Hangleton telling wild stories of bamboozlement. And to think, his name was Tom.
"Ducky, what's your name?" she asked with a touch of drunken sympathy.
"Merope Gaunt," she answered.
Yep, that's what Mel said 'er name was.
"Ducky," she started, actually sympathy in her voice now. "Are you alright?" she asked, noting that Merope's face had turned blue.
"Tilly!" she called for the nurse. "The poor dear is dying!" she was steadily becoming more sober by the minute.
Tilly rushed in and tried a number of things, but with the technology of 1926, she died within the hour, leaving her unusually calm baby boy staring at the two live women with his big, red, eyes with the cat like slits as the nurse dressed him in a cloth diaper.