The last day of the year 1926 had proven to be particularly bitter, even for a London winter. Snow had fallen steadily since morning, transforming the city's grime into something almost magical, though the effect was wasted on the few hurried souls still outdoors as the hour approached midnight. The shops had long since closed, the pubs were full to bursting with revelers, and sensible people were gathered around hearths with family and friends, bidding farewell to one year and welcoming the next.

  Along the Thames, factory smokestacks stood like silent sentinels, their usual billowing clouds temporarily stilled for the holiday. The grand buildings of central London wore blankets of pristine white, while in the poorer districts, the snow merely served to soften the hard edges of poverty for one merciful night. Though King George V had addressed the nation by radio earlier that evening, speaking of hope for prosperity in the coming year, few in the East End truly believed that 1927 would bring relief from the grinding economic pressures that seemed to tighten with each passing month.

  In a forgotten corner of London, a gray building loomed like a particularly unpleasant tombstone against the night sky. Wool's Orphanage had never been an inviting structure, with its severe Victorian architecture and narrow windows that seemed designed to keep light out rather than let it in. Tonight, snow gathered on its steep roof and collected in dirty drifts against its iron gates, and only a few windows showed the dull yellow glow of electric bulbs, recently installed and frequently unreliable.

  The orphanage itself stood as a monument to a particularly joyless form of charity. Built in the previous century by a wool merchant with more money than compassion, it had been designed to house the maximum number of children with the minimum amount of comfort. Its corridors were long and drafty, its dormitories spartan, and its communal areas devoid of any touch that might make a child feel at home. The only concession to aesthetics was the small chapel with its single stained-glass window depicting the merchant himself presenting the building to a group of suitably grateful orphans.

  Inside, Mrs. Cole sat at her desk, tallying the month's expenses with mounting dismay. The new year would bring no financial relief to the orphanage; if anything, the economic forecast grew bleaker by the month. Coal prices had risen again, the roof leaked in no fewer than seven places, and the donation box at last Sunday's service had contained more buttons than coins. She reached for the bottle of gin tucked in her bottom drawer, added a generous splash to her tea, and took a fortifying sip. The fire in the small grate had died down to embers, but she couldn't justify adding another precious coal. The children were all abed anyway, and she would soon follow, once the clock struck midnight and she could officially declare this miserable year finished.

  Mrs. Cole had not always been the sour-faced, gin-tippling matron she had become. Eighteen years ago, when she had first taken the position, she had been full of reformist zeal, determined to bring light and warmth to the lives of London's forgotten children. Reality, in the form of insufficient funds, indifferent governors, and the grinding toll of watching children suffer despite her best efforts, had steadily eroded her idealism until only a brittle shell of duty remained. Now, at forty-six, her hair had gone gray, her face had settled into permanent lines of disapproval, and her heart had calcified around a core of resigned pragmatism.

  The sharp peal of the front bell cut through the silence, causing Mrs. Cole to slop tea onto her ledger. She muttered a word that no proper matron should know, blotted the stain halfheartedly, and rose with a sigh that came from deep within her thin frame. Visitors at this hour, on this night, could only mean trouble. Perhaps it was the police bringing in another abandoned child found on the streets, or worse, one of the older boys who had run away last month, caught pickpocketing and being returned to her care along with a stern lecture about discipline and moral guidance.

  "Coming, coming," she called, wrapping her cardigan tightly around herself as she navigated the dark hallway. The floorboards creaked beneath her feet, and the walls seemed to exhale cold drafts with every step. The bell rang again, more feebly this time.

  Mrs. Cole unbolted the heavy door and pulled it open, letting in a gust of snow and freezing air. At first, she thought perhaps some drunk had pulled the bell as a New Year's prank and fled, for she saw no one. Then her eyes dropped to the bottom of the steps, where a figure had collapsed into a heap so still she might have mistaken it for a shadow.

  "Good heavens!" she exclaimed, hurrying down the icy steps with more speed than caution.

  It was a young woman, hardly more than a girl really, wearing a threadbare coat dusted with snow. Her face, when Mrs. Cole turned it upward, was deathly pale except for two bright fever spots high on her cheekbones. But it was the woman's enormous, swollen belly that made Mrs. Cole inhale sharply. This girl was on the very precipice of giving birth.

  "Martha!" Mrs. Cole called back toward the orphanage. "Martha, come quickly!"

  A plump young woman appeared in the doorway, her hair in curlers. Martha Jenkins had been at Wool's for only six months, hired after the previous assistant had run off with a delivery man. Young and not particularly bright, Martha nonetheless possessed a kind heart and a strong stomach, both essential qualities for work in an institution like Wool's.

  "What is it, Mrs. Cole? Oh!" Her hands flew to her mouth at the sight before her.

  "Help me get her inside," Mrs. Cole ordered, businesslike despite the unusual circumstances. Between them, they half-carried, half-dragged the semiconscious girl up the steps and into the building. The girl was alarmingly light for someone in her condition, as though her body had been consuming itself to sustain the child within. "Take her to the infirmary," Mrs. Cole directed. "And fetch hot water and clean linens. Quickly now."

  They laid the girl on a narrow bed in the small room that served as the orphanage's sick ward. The infirmary, a grand name for what was essentially a converted storage room with three metal-framed beds, smelled perpetually of carbolic soap and illness. In the harsh light of the bare bulb, Mrs. Cole could see that the girl's situation was even worse than she'd first thought. The young woman's face had a sunken, hollow look about it, as though something had been slowly draining her life away for months. Her clothes, though of surprisingly fine make, were filthy and hung off her frame. Around her neck was a heavy gold locket that seemed absurdly luxurious against her state of destitution.

  Mrs. Cole had seen many desperate cases in her years at Wool's, but something about this girl was different. There was a strange quality to her gauntness, an almost otherworldly fragility, as though she might not merely die but vanish altogether. Her fingers, when Mrs. Cole checked her pulse, were ice-cold despite the fever burning through her.

  The girl's eyes flickered open, revealing dark irises that seemed too large for her wasted face. They had an odd quality to them, almost as if they held some ancient knowledge ill-suited to one so young. "Help me," she whispered, her voice carrying an accent Mrs. Cole couldn't quite place.

  "You're going to have a baby," Mrs. Cole said unnecessarily, as she removed the girl's wet coat and shoes.

  "I know," the girl replied with the ghost of a smile. "My Tom. He'll look like his father." Her hand moved to her belly with a tenderness that made Mrs. Cole glance away, uncomfortable at witnessing such naked emotion. "He's beautiful, his father. So beautiful. But he didn't want..." Her words trailed off into incoherence.

  Martha returned with an armload of towels and a steaming basin. "Shall I fetch Dr. Crawford?"

  Mrs. Cole considered the girl's condition, the late hour, and the likelihood of finding the doctor sober on New Year's Eve. Dr. Crawford was a competent physician when in possession of his faculties, but his fondness for whisky made him unreliable at the best of times, let alone during a holiday. "No time," she decided. "We'll manage ourselves. I've delivered babies before."

  "Shall I wake Agnes to help?" Martha asked, referring to the night nurse who was likely dozing in the chair by the nursery.

  "No need for a crowd," Mrs. Cole replied. "Just do as I tell you."

  What followed was a birth unlike any Mrs. Cole had witnessed in her fifteen years running the orphanage. The girl was too weak to properly push, yet the baby seemed determined to enter the world regardless. There was remarkably little fuss, no screaming, barely a whimper from the mother, and then suddenly, impossibly, a child lay in Mrs. Cole's hands, so pale and silent that for a moment she feared he was stillborn.

  But then the infant opened his eyes, dark like his mother's but somehow colder, and regarded Mrs. Cole with an expression so intent, so aware, that she nearly dropped him in shock. Babies weren't supposed to look at you like that. Babies weren't supposed to be so perfectly silent either, yet this one hadn't uttered a single cry.

  "A boy," she told the mother, wrapping the infant in a clean but threadbare towel. "Healthy, by the look of him."

  The girl raised her arms weakly. "Let me hold him. Let me see Tom."

  Mrs. Cole placed the silent infant in his mother's embrace. The girl gazed down at her son with an expression of such naked adoration that Mrs. Cole had to look away, feeling as though she was intruding on something painfully private. For a moment, the girl's face transformed, the gauntness receding, a flash of what must have once been considerable beauty shining through. She whispered words to the baby in a language that Mrs. Cole didn't recognize, something with hard consonants and flowing vowels that sounded ancient and forbidding.

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  "I hope he looks like him," the girl murmured, switching back to English and tracing one trembling finger down the baby's cheek. "Tom Riddle. That's what I want to name him, after his father. Tom Marvolo Riddle. Marvolo after my father."

  Mrs. Cole nodded and made a mental note of the name. She had long since learned not to question the odd names that some mothers bestowed upon their children before disappearing back into the night or the grave. "Marvolo" was peculiar but hardly the strangest name in the orphanage records.

  "You'll need to rest now," Mrs. Cole said, concerned by the girl's rapidly deteriorating condition. The birth had taken what little strength she had left. The girl's skin had gone from pale to gray, and her breathing had become shallow and labored. "We'll take care of everything once you're stronger."

  But the girl clutched at Mrs. Cole's wrist with surprising strength. Her fingers were like ice, sending an unpleasant chill up Mrs. Cole's arm. "I won't get stronger," she said, her voice suddenly clear. "I can feel it. Just promise me you'll keep him safe. Promise me you'll call him Tom Marvolo Riddle."

  "I promise," Mrs. Cole said, hoping the reassurance would calm the girl. "But really, you mustn't talk that way. Once you've had some broth and rest..."

  "My locket," the girl interrupted, one hand going to her throat where the gold pendant lay. "It's for him. When he's older. It belongs to him by right. It's his heritage." Her eyes were becoming unfocused, her breathing shallow. Mrs. Cole recognized the signs; this girl would not see the dawn of the new year.

  "Martha," Mrs. Cole said quietly, "take the baby while I tend to his mother."

  Martha gently lifted the infant from the girl's weakening grasp. The baby still hadn't made a sound, his dark eyes tracking the movements around him with eerie intensity. Mrs. Cole had delivered dozens of babies during her time at Wool's, and all of them had announced their arrival with lusty cries. This one's silence was deeply unsettling, as was his gaze. Most newborns could barely focus their eyes, yet this one seemed to be studying his surroundings with cold calculation.

  "Heritage," the girl whispered again, her eyes now fixed on the ceiling. "Tell him... someday... Gaunt. The house of..." Her words faded into unintelligible murmuring. She seemed to be seeing things invisible to the others, her eyes widening with a mixture of fear and wonder. "The snakes... they speak... he must know... Slytherin's blood..."

  Mrs. Cole bent closer, straining to make sense of the girl's ramblings. Deathbed babble was common enough, but something about the intensity in the girl's fading eyes made Mrs. Cole pay closer attention. "Miss? Miss Riddle? What is your name? Do you have any family we should contact?"

  The girl's gaze suddenly fixed on Mrs. Cole with startling clarity. "He has power," she whispered, her voice barely audible. "Power beyond... be careful... my beautiful boy..." And then her eyes went glassy, fixed on something beyond the dingy ceiling of the orphanage infirmary. Her chest rose once more, a shallow, stuttering breath, and then stilled forever.

  The clock in the hallway began to chime midnight. The year 1926 was ending, and with it, the brief life of a girl whose name Mrs. Cole would never know. Outside, distant cheers and the popping of celebratory firecrackers could be heard as London welcomed 1927. The contrast between the merriment beyond the walls and the small, stark tragedy within the infirmary struck Mrs. Cole as particularly cruel.

  "Poor thing," Martha said softly, still holding the unnaturally quiet baby. "What happens now?"

  For a fleeting moment, Mrs. Cole felt the weight of it all, the endless procession of tragedy through the orphanage doors, the children who arrived wrapped in newspaper, the mothers who disappeared in the night, the fathers who never showed their faces. Sometimes she wondered if her own heart had calcified beyond redemption, if perhaps that was the only way to survive in a place like Wool's. But then her practical nature reasserted itself, pushing sentiment aside.

  Mrs. Cole straightened, smoothing the thin blanket over the dead girl's chest with mechanical precision. Eighteen years at Wool's Orphanage had left her with little capacity for sentimentality. Death was no stranger here, though usually it claimed the very old or the very young, not girls who should have been in the bloom of life.

  "Now we do as we promised," she replied, taking the baby from Martha's arms. "We take care of the child."

  She studied the infant's face in the harsh electric light. He was a handsome baby, with fine features that hinted at good breeding despite his mother's obvious destitution. His skin was pale as milk, his hair already showing signs of being as dark as a raven's wing, and his eyes, still open and watchful, were the color of dark chocolate. There was something aristocratic about the set of his features, something that spoke of breeding and lineage at odds with his current surroundings.

  Perhaps the father this girl had so clearly adored would come searching for his son someday. Mrs. Cole didn't hold out much hope for that scenario; men who left pregnant girls to fend for themselves rarely had attacks of conscience, but stranger things had happened.

  "First thing tomorrow, file the paperwork. Tom Marvolo Riddle, born December 31st, 1926, mother deceased, father unknown." She handed the baby back to Martha. "Put him in the nursery with the others. I'll deal with... arrangements... for the mother."

  Martha nodded and turned to leave, then hesitated. "What about the locket, Mrs. Cole? The one she was wearing? Quite valuable-looking, it was."

  Mrs. Cole glanced at the gold pendant still fastened around the dead girl's neck. It was an ornate piece, heavy and old-fashioned, with an intricate "S" inlaid with small green stones that might have been emeralds. Such an item could fetch a good price, enough perhaps to repair the leaking roof or buy coal for the rest of the winter. The orphanage was desperate for funds, and no one would know if such a trinket vanished. But something stopped her, perhaps the girl's final plea that it was the child's "heritage," or perhaps some superstitious reluctance to steal from the dead on the stroke of the new year.

  "Put it with the other stored items," she decided, removing the locket from the girl's neck with careful fingers. "If anyone ever comes for the boy, they can have it then. If not..." She shrugged. "When he's older, we'll decide."

  The locket felt strangely heavy in her palm, and oddly warm despite the chill of the room. For a moment, Mrs. Cole could have sworn she heard a faint whispering emanating from it, but she dismissed the notion as a trick of the drafty building's many creaks and groans. She wrapped the pendant in a handkerchief and handed it to Martha. "Store it in the safe with his file."

  After Martha left with the baby, Mrs. Cole stood alone with the dead girl for a long moment. Outside, faint sounds of celebration could be heard as the new year of 1927 began across London. Inside, the only sound was the buzz of the electric bulb and the slow drip of a leaking pipe somewhere in the ancient building. Mrs. Cole felt suddenly very tired, the weight of her years at Wool's pressing down on her like a physical burden.

  "Happy New Year," Mrs. Cole said dryly to no one in particular, and went to fetch a sheet to cover the body.

  In the nursery across the hall, Tom Marvolo Riddle lay awake in his crib, his dark eyes open and watchful in the dim light. Unlike the other infants who snuffled and whimpered in their sleep, he made no sound at all. He had not cried when Martha changed him into orphanage-issued clothes, nor when she had laid him in the metal-framed crib between two fussing infants. The other babies, as if sensing something amiss, had gradually squirmed as far from him as their cribs would allow.

  Agnes Miller, the night nurse, a heavy-set woman with a perpetually worried expression, looked up from her knitting when Martha brought in the new arrival. She had worked at Wool's for over a decade and had seen hundreds of children come through its doors, from squalling newborns to sullen teenagers. But something about this silent, staring baby made her uneasy in a way she couldn't articulate.

  "Another one?" she had asked, setting aside her half-finished scarf.

  "Just born," Martha replied. "Mother died right after. Mrs. Cole says to put him with the others."

  Agnes had taken the bundle from Martha's arms and felt an immediate chill that had nothing to do with the drafty nursery. The baby had stared up at her with eyes that seemed far too knowing for a newborn. "Doesn't he cry?"

  "Not a peep," Martha said. "Not even when he was born. Strange little thing, isn't he? But handsome, I think. Going to be a looker when he grows up."

  Agnes had been less certain about the baby's appeal. There was something almost reptilian about his unblinking gaze, something that made her want to put him down as quickly as possible. She had tucked him into an empty crib and hurried back to her chair, picking up her knitting with shaking hands.

  Now, as midnight passed and the nursery settled into the small hours of the morning, Agnes thought the new baby must finally be asleep. She continued her knitting, the click of the needles nearly drowning out the soft sounds of sleeping infants. She didn't notice how the shadows in the corners of the room seemed to deepen as the night progressed, nor how the temperature dropped subtly around one particular crib. She didn't see how the other babies squirmed away from that crib in their sleep, as though sensing something even in their newborn unconsciousness.

  And she certainly didn't see the tiny green garden snake that somehow found its way in from the cold and curled beside the silent infant's pillow, drawn by something it could not possibly understand. The snake, having somehow traversed the snowy grounds and navigated the drafty corridors, now lay coiled in a perfect spiral beside the baby's head. Its forked tongue flicked out occasionally, tasting the air, sensing the strange power emanating from the infant beside it.

  Tom Riddle's small hand moved in his sleep, coming to rest just millimeters from the snake's coiled form. The snake, rather than recoiling from the human touch, moved closer, its cold body seeking the warmth of the child as if recognizing a kindred spirit. And though it was surely impossible, impossible in all ways known to natural science, the snake seemed almost to be whispering secrets to the sleeping child, secrets of darkness and power that no human ear should hear.

  Tom Riddle slept, and dreamed dreams no baby should dream, while London celebrated around him, blissfully unaware that something momentous and terrible had been set in motion on this snowy New Year's Eve.

  In the years to come, Mrs. Cole would look back on this night and wonder if she had sensed, even then, that this child was different in ways that went beyond his unusual silence and disconcerting gaze. She would wonder if she should have recognized the signs, if perhaps she might have changed what was to come. But such thoughts were futile. Tom Marvolo Riddle had entered the world with death as his usher and a snake as his sentinel, and the path before him had been set long before his first breath.

  The future Dark Lord slept on, his first night in a world that had no idea what he would become.