In early August, sixteen year old Harry Potter lay in his room, lethargic.

The room reflected his own state of mind - dark, dirty, in disarray.

His trunk was open, his things strewn about in it.

The broken mirror shards atop his robes.

Sirius was dead.

And Harry was to blame.

Harry startled up in bed as flames burst in the middle of his room.

A familiar sight met him: Fawkes the phoenix.

Fawkes was perched on a large basket handle, twine, a bundle of blankets inside it.

Harry approached, curious - not afraid. Fawkes had never done him harm.

He peered into the basket and gasped.

It was a baby!

Harry saw the note atop the blankets, and he took it quickly - but gently, trying not to wake the baby.

Dumbledore's initials were on the face of the parchment.

Harry unfolded it, and began to read.

Dear Harry,

After recent events, I'm terribly, terribly sorry to have to burden you yet again - especially in your hour of mourning - but the life of an innocent baby girl is at stake, and so I must ask you to shoulder this new burden. For her sake. If this letter has reached you safely, then so has she, with Fawkes. What I am about to reveal to you next is of the utmost importance, and secrecy - no one in the Order knows this information, save you and I, Harry. And I wish it to stay this way. I know I can count on you to keep this a secret.

The baby girl you are doubtless seeing slumbering before you right this very moment, her name is Delphini Riddle, Harry. A child, a daughter, born of Tom Riddle and Bellatrix Lestrange. How this event precisely came about, I have not yet discerned. For what reason she was born, I do not know - but, knowing Voldemort as I do, it was likely not for any decent reason. There are numerous rituals and potions that involve blood and flesh of one's child, just as we know there are those of one's parents. Rituals and potions that would involve great harm, mutilation, or even sacrifice of the life of one's child. The darkest of magics, Harry; it is for this darkest of magic that I surmise Delphi was born for. Her sole purpose, and nothing else, was meant to be to increase her father's power.

She was born several days ago. Severus was able to abscond with her, and deliver her to me safely - taking her out of reach of her parents, and out of harm's reach. Whatever harm they had planned for her in life. A life doubtless that would have been so brief. And so I deliver her to you now, in hopes that she will continue to remain out of harm's reach, safe behind the blood wards, safe with you, Harry, where Voldemort cannot dare even enter. Not with the most powerful magic available. Not him, not any of his followers wishing to harm any inside that house.

Whether that be yourself, your relatives, or Delphini there, now.

But this protection of hers must last beyond the summer; her stay there, like yours, will be temporary only. After which, I hope you will bring her to Hogwarts with you - where you will then continue to protect her, Harry. I ask a great deal of you in this, but for her sake, could you claim her as your own? A sufficient cover story ought to be created, to leave no question that she is yours. I trust you can come up with something - if you'll accept the task. If not, I can make other arrangements for her after the summer's end. But none of those will be as safe as Hogwarts.

You will have the rest of the summer to decide whether you wish to take a more permanent role in her protection, in safeguarding her from her parents, and whatever malevolent intentions they had in bringing her innocent life into this world.

Again, I apologize, Harry. But I hope you are up to the challenge.

Yours most sincerely, Albus Dumbledore.

Harry stared at the letter, reading it over again three times. He sat on his bed, feeling nothing but total shock. He hardly even noticed when Fawkes disappeared in another flash of flames.

He looked to the baby, setting the letter aside. The baby girl. Delphini. Delphi...Riddle.

Voldemort's daughter. Bellatrix's daughter. Murderer of his parents, murderer of Sirius...

But this tiny, frail little thing in the basket had nothing to do with either of those things. She had no concept of such evil, did she? No idea how to even talk, let alone understand who her parents were. All the atrocities they'd committed in this world. Her own birth maybe planned to be one more atrocity, the thought of which sickened Harry.

How could you just bring a baby into this world, just to use in some dark ritual? Just to hurt, to...? How could anyone do that, think like that? Think so little of an infant?

Well...this was Voldemort, after all. He'd had no problem trying to kill Harry as one! But...even his own...? To mean nothing to him like that? Not a shred of regret, hesitation, not an inkling of love or concern?

And Bellatrix, too? Well, she had killed her own cousin, and was so fanatically devoted to Voldemort that she had probably jumped at the chance to be useful like that - to make a baby to be useful...a baby to be sacrificed for him...

No!

Harry wasn't going to let this innocent baby girl be brought anywhere near her parents again. What did family really mean? Birth family? Blood? Look at what Harry had for family, for blood! It didn't matter where Delphi came from, who she came from. What mattered was that she was here, and she was innocent, and so blissfully unaware of anything her parents were doing in the world. Their evil intentions and plans. She didn't deserve to be judged by them any more than Harry deserved to be judged by the Dursleys!

Delphi could grow up better than either of her parents - she could know true love, affection, joy, happiness, friendship and loyalty! She could grow up to be good, not evil, not like her parents were. The very parents so evil they wanted to use her as a tool in some ritual! Who didn't even see her as a person!

Well, Harry saw her. He saw her, and he saw a baby, an innocent girl, a new life in the world - no matter why or how she was even here.

She was here, and where she went from here...that was always open to change. It could always be something good, and right - not bad.

Babies were the ultimate blank slates, weren't they?

This baby girl could grow up to be nothing like her parents.

She had that chance, here, with Harry now.

To live a full, good life.

Harry just had to protect her long enough to see her get to live it.