A/N: For Amy, on her birthday, and for the other Amy, one of Tom Riddle's first victims.
I do not own any of the characters.
Once upon a time, there was a little girl.
She wasn't always a happy little girl.
She could be angry.
She was tough.
She was a fighter.
She was abandoned.
Unwanted.
But she coped.
She survived.
She was a fighter.
Once upon a time, she was me.
Sometimes I think 'why me?' But see, I know what the answer is really – 'why not?' There's no reason for things, not really. It's not part of anyone's grand plan. It's just life, and it happens to you. That's all. I was just a little piece of grubby London refuse tumbling through it as best I could; nothing special, no hero, definitely no princess. One of the leftovers; the children nobody wanted. But I survived and it could have been worse. Until that day. That day.
Once upon a time, there was a boy.
Just one of us. And there were plenty of us who weren't quite right. Who'd seen bad things, done bad things, never been loved, never been wanted. He wasn't nothing unusual.
Except he was.
It was little things. We knew though; we all knew to avoid him, even if he never really did anything. It was the things he didn't do, not the things he did.
Until that day.
The day by the sea. It rained. It always rained. I didn't like the countryside – the grass made me sneeze and I missed the crowds and the noise and the comforting buildings. I wanted to go home.
The day of the cave. It was dark. It was wet. I didn't want to go. It started as an adventure, but it didn't end as one.
The day that a crack opened up in the world and a small, grubby piece of London refuse went tumbling through and nobody noticed except an overworked orphanage matron with a gin habit, who would have liked to catch her but didn't know how.
He's gone now, he's been gone for years and years. But somewhere, that un-special, ordinary little girl is still falling, like a star that falls through the night sky and burns itself into darkness.
She will be falling forever.
