November 1997
Victor and Isabella Spiro both came from different parts of Italy to study at Oxford. They met in school and decided to marry. However, instead of returning to their homeland, they fell in love with the English countryside. Both Victor and Isabella's families were wealthy and the couple bought a charming 17th century manor a few miles outside London. The young, ambitious couple had dreams of raising a huge family as big as the ones they'd left behind in Italy. However, after almost a year of trying to have a baby, Isabella learned she could never give birth to her own child. It seemed like a singularly lucky twist of fate when, on their way back from the clinic, a distraught Isabella asked her husband to stop at the church to pray. St. Elizabeth's was not a particularly impressive church. It was an unremarkable brick building and the stained glass windows depicting the Visitation of Mary were cracked and dusty. The roof leaked, but the small parish could never seem to raise enough money to fix it. However, on the starry November night, there was a special charm to the old building. A light in the back of the church showed the Spiros that old Father Geral was still up, and Victor decided to oblige his wife's request.
As they got out of their car and made their way up the cracked stone steps, Isabella suddenly stopped. "Do you hear that?" she asked.
Victor looked at her. "What?"
"It … it sounds like a baby. Crying."
Right… Victor looked at his wife, studying her. She'd always seemed stable enough … but was the doctor's news too much for her? He felt a twinge of guilt for begging her for a big family that they now both knew she could never give him. "Bella," he coaxed, "come here. You're just -"
And then he heard it, too.
A feeble cry echoed through the otherwise silent churchyard. Isabella ran up the church stairs to follow the sound of the cries and dropped to her knees in front of the door. "Mio dio," she breathed, looking down at the bundle that lay on the step before her. "Victor, it is a baby!"
An hour later, the young couple sat in the small kitchen in the back of the church. Father Geral, an elderly but gentle man, gazed down at the baby. She had fallen asleep in her makeshift cradle, clutching Isabella's finger. The young woman watched her fondly, stroking the bright red curls. "I don't know whose child it could be," he mused. "This isn't a large parish, after all, and she doesn't look very familiar." There aren't many redheads around here, Victor thought with a worried smile as he watched his wife. Already, she was so attached to the little baby. He knew Isabella would want to keep the girl, but what if they couldn't?
"I think it's a sign," Isabella said. "Don't you agree, Father? God sent me this little baby because I cannot have one of my own. He sent me a little daughter to care for, to raise as my own child."
Father Geral smiled fondly. He'd always liked the young couple and now pitied poor Isabella, who loved children so much. "I do believe you, Isabella. But we don't know if the baby has family or any relatives to care for her."
"But, Father, surely you're not well enough to take care of a little baby. Can we take her home with us? You know, to take care of her until her family is found?" Isabella pleaded.
Father Geral smiled indulgently. "I don't see why not…"
Victor sighed. He knew Isabella would never be able to let go if they took the baby home. But if they didn't, he could never forgive himself for breaking his wife's heart again.
"Very well," he said. "We'll take the child for now."
Isabella carried the little bundle of blankets out into the night air. As they stepped into the dark night, the little girl woke up, her bright green eyes blinking up at the young woman. "I don't care what they say," Isabella whispered, clutching the child to her heart. "I'm keeping you, my angel. I wanted a child more than anything and God sent you. Marietta. My angel." Of course, it's altogether lovely that young Isabella Spiro believed it was God who sent the baby to the doorstep of that very church, God who led her to the child, God who sent her a baby. Yeah right.
Well, maybe that was partially true. But if it was, he was working through someone else.
People say it's hard to lose a child. But it's even harder to give one up. And yet, sometimes, you have no choice. In the long run, perhaps, Ginny had a choice. She could have kept her baby, could have told him, could have created a family. But a sixteen-year-old girl only has so many brains, especially when found in a situation like hers. She could have kept the father a secret, but surely everyone would have known once the child was born. The child was bound to have one of his or her father's distinctive traits. And no one could miss those emerald green eyes or that unruly, pitch black hair.
One part of the girl desperately wanted to keep her child. For, although Ginny wasn't an overly sentimental person, even about her own child, she wondered about keeping the child as a safeguard. She couldn't help but wonder if, one day, that child would be all she had left of him, should anything happen. Being who he was, it was all too likely that something would.
But then there was the slightly more sensible part of her that was not connected to her hormones. She was still in school, for goodness' sake – Hogwarts was hardly a place for a baby. And that baby would just be one more thing that could be used against both of them – used to hurt him.
And she could never hurt him.
Not him.
