Beta: lil'hawkeye3, the awesome

Disclaimer: For obvious reasons, not mine.

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Time – the centre of human life. Mankind needs more time than life granted to it apparently. Men and women have always congratulated those that went against time, against aging process, against death. Some people believe that one can only be the result of the time in which one lived.

He was born at the end of the year of United Kingdom general strike, the sixth year of the decade called Roaring Twenties, the Jazz Age. This last day of 1926 brought the birth of a monster, some would say. It was a freezing dawn, the snow hadn't fallen in London yet, but rain had taken over the streets and created a ferocious havoc, something to be mirrored in this child's life. His mother died seconds after naming him for his father and grandfather, before she had the chance to hold her son.

Perhaps the fact that he had never known the warmth of mother would be catalytic in the upbringing of the boy named Tom Riddle Jr., who one day would be reborn as Lord Voldemort, the most feared Dark Lord of Modern Age.

Some tend to think that the foetus, which had lived in the womb of a witch called Merope Gaunt, was already psychotic. If one was to ask Anya Donbyre, the person who most would consider a specialist on the subject, she would deny that theory – if Tom Riddle was born in different circumstances, he would have been a normal boy; after all, everyone has a dark side. It's the environment in which someone lives that brings the worst inside of us. At least, this is what she would like to think.

Yet our story isn't about said deranged child, but about the girl who had the misfortune to hold his affections – though, it would be impossible to say that they had shared a common relationship. She would be known as the person that the Dark Lord would never harm for his pleasure, but also the person he wouldn't think twice of imprisoning just to keep her around. Her name? Anastasia Donbyre.

While characterizing Tom Riddle was a fairly easy task to perform, the same couldn't be said for Anya. The wildfire in everyone's heart, the frosty past everyone carried, the light that attracted all insects and caught the attention of the human behind it, the darkness that lured into your conscience. A girl who held a mysterious openness, who was sincere beyond her lies, sarcastic in her respectfulness. She wasn't a genius like her counterpart, but instead a prodigy. No one knew her true age; to people she was immortal. The only agreement about her person was that she was entirely made by Riddle, and the same could be said of him. Perhaps, if they had never met, nothing would have happened.

Such fatal meeting happened in an autumn afternoon, it was a cloudy day in London. Tom Riddle had completed his fourth month two days before…

The young woman who had lost her husband ten years ago called Cole held the baby that strange woman had popped out at New Year's Eve. It was a difficult baby, if not a bit precocious. She was aware that most babies wouldn't be such a hassle at four months, but if she didn't know better, she would say it had already reached his six months. She remembered her little Willy, who had died when she was still eighteen, and he used to be an easy-going child. The same couldn't be said of it. It was easily upset and it would constantly click its tongue, in a manner that she would sometimes think to be disapprobative. It would constantly cry and throw tantrums. An annoying baby, in fact, nothing like her Willy.

She had recently grown the habit of ignoring the child at nights, like her co-workers did to him and the other children. But during the day it was impossible to do it. It would cry until the other children at the orphanage got moody, like a little demon upsetting the peace. She would take it to the garden and leave it on a bench. Mrs. Cole had gathered that it didn't like to be ignored, or maybe it enjoyed the light breeze. Once she had tried to make it speak to her, as it was supposedly precocious, but it seemed to take pleasure in watching her make a fool of herself in response to its silence – she had never tried again.

She left it on the bench near the walls of the orphanage tiny garden and went to check the gates. Most people who lived in the neighbourhood wouldn't care for the children that lived in the haunted looking orphanage enough to criticize her for leaving a baby alone, but you never knew if a sponsor wouldn't try to take a look previously.

Unfortunately, what she found wasn't exactly a possible sponsor, but an abandoned baby. A new-born girl, wrapped in an ancient-looking cloak. Great, one more child to feed. Sometimes she thought that it was pretty irresponsible to think that only because it was an orphanage they were obliged to take it. Although it was an accurate way of thinking, as everyone would reprove an orphanage that left a kid in front of its gates.

It was silent, but breathing. Oh god, what a useless baby…who didn't cry when someone left you in front of an unknown place just after your birth? Well, maybe the other one would learn with her how to keep quiet.

"Mr. Wool! There is one more to the nursery!" She shouted, carrying the baby-girl in her arms into the insides of Wool's Orphanage.

"Put it with other one." It was the response for the other side of the office's door. "The crib is big enough."

And so she did. She brought a calmer Tom to the indoors and left both of the babies in the crib inside of room 27. If she had stayed for some seconds more, she would have noticed that for the first time in his life, the boy smiled – and the girl tried to copy it, even if she couldn't be older than a few days.

It's interesting how fate works. If those two had never been reunited, maybe Tom Riddle would have been just another neglected orphan. Maybe if fate hadn't given both of them magic, the Wizarding World would never had the need to fear for their lives a short time after the dismiss of Grindelwald. It was possible that if fate had chosen for keep those two apart, nothing would have happened.

Or perhaps, it would have.