Tommy Riddle's birth (was No Sex, Please)

[grannybat84112]

No: HPFGUIDX 84038

Ginger noticed: 
> 
> we've  overlooked one little detail:  Mrs. Riddle probably didn't  
> plan to die. Tom the Muggle left her to go home to his parents.   
> She would still have the house or flat or whereever they were 
living.  

Not necessarily. If wealthy, spoiled Tom Senior was still living in 
the family mansion 16+ years after the marriage, then the new bride 
probably moved into the house with him. The grandparents might even 
have given them a wing of their own.

> She may well have had the notion that the baby 
> would fix it all.  Her husband would see his son and her parents 
> would see their grandson, and all would be well with the world. Hey,
> sometimes it actually works, especially with disgruntled parents.

But if the grandparents were disgruntled because of the pregnancy in 
the first place...

Consider: Charming, handsome Tom Sr. seduces a village girl for his 
own amusement. Village girl confronts him with evidence of pregnancy, 
demands he do the decent thing. Charming Tommy gives the standard 
excuses and accusations–that kid can't be mine!–but in the end his 
parents pressure him to marry the girl. She's not the kind of 
daughter-in-law they would have preferred (in GoF the grandparents 
Riddle are described as wealthy, aloof, and very class-conscious), 
but they won't risk losing their what could be their first 
grandchild. (Charming Tommy is an only child; Diary!Riddle never 
mentions any other Riddle relatives, and no other Riddles claim the 
family mansion once parents & son are found dead.) So this is a 
grudging, loveless marriage from the start. If the expecting bride 
were living in the same house with her resentful in-laws, that would 
only have compounded problems, particularly if the pregnancy had 
complications.

Then, late in her pregnancy, evidence of her Magical nature comes to 
light. Not just a suspicion, but incontrovertible proof. (Maybe the 
husband and in-laws walked in on her when she was attempting some 
magical method to heal herself.) Charming Tommy sees his chance and 
pounces; he's been waiting all these months for an excuse to rid 
himself of this unwanted wife and child. The grandparents are so 
shocked by the magic they've witnessed that they offer no resistance 
when their son renounces his pregnant wife and tosses her into the 
street. The Riddles hush up anyone who might breathe a word of the 
scandal, then resume living as if no marriage had ever happened. 
Riddle's mother, penniless, friendless, battered emotionally and 
physically (bereft of her wand?), creeps off to seek the shelter of 
charity.

It's the only explanation I can see that explains why a Slytherin 
witch powerful enough to produce such magically strong offspring 
didn't blast her faithless husband and uncaring in-laws to cinders... 
or put them under the Imperius Curse in the first place.

Grannybat