Chapter Text
Once upon a time, in a small and quaint village that goes by the name of Little Hangleton, there lived a young woman known as Merope Gaunt.
Anyone sensible would find it strange that this story begins with Merope because, truth to be told, she was absolutely nothing special. She had ordinary mousy brown hair, dull dark eyes and that kind of face that one could not later recall if saw her in passing. She lived with her father and brother (both of who enjoyed quite questionable reputations amongst the respectable folk of Little Hangleton) in a small house just at the edge of the village. She lived her days, doing whatever it was young and insignificant people did, and no one really paid much attention to her.
However, under the perfect mask of utter unimportance, Merope had a few carefully guarded secrets.
First of all, she was a witch. She knew her way around the tricks of magic, the brewing of potions and even the Arts of Darkest kind. Oh, yes, what a witch she was, skilful and daring in her arts and always curious to learn more. Not that anyone knew of her hidden magnificence, of course. Those foolish muggles were too blind and ignorant to notice, and her father and brother too absorbed in their own arrogance to care. But Merope didn’t mind. She knew herself that she was an exceptional witch and that knowledge was enough to sooth her restless soul.
Miss Gaunt’s second secret was a bit more delicate matter. It was a secret she couldn’t feel proud of the same way she took pride in her skills in witchcraft. You see, she was in love with a muggle.
That secret was one that bowed down her head when she first stood up from her bed in the mornings and weighed on her shoulders when she finally went back to sleep when the night fell. Loving a muggle was the worst thing she could have done, a foolish and dangerous thing. But before young Mr. Riddle’s handsome face and beautiful dark eyes, Merope had little choice on the matter. Even though she was a sensible woman most of the time, there was something about the man that sent all her usually level-headed thoughts running and crashing in terrible chaos around her head every time she saw him. It was very disgraceful and infuriating, but unfortunately she was unable to do anything about it.
Merope’s third little secret held hands tightly with the second, because the moment when Merope had first laid her eyes on Mr. Tom Riddle and fallen arse over cauldron in love with him, she had also made a decision. She had every intention of having young Mr. Riddle’s child, whether the man liked the idea or not. The reason behind this decision was that Tom Riddle was an exceptionally nice looking man and Merope had wanted a son for a very long time. Why not to get two pixies with one curse? She might as well have a beautiful son, now that she finally had an appropriate definition for male beauty. She had harboured the image of her son for quite some time now, savouring it like her most precious treasure. Oh, how she would care for him, love him and utterly spoil him. So far, the only complication on her way to make the image into reality had been Mr. Riddle’s problematic lack of cooperation.
Until, on an unusually bright spring morning, she finally spent her moment of triumph listening to the confessions of eternal love and promises of a shared future from Mr. Riddle, after she had just moments earlier drugged him up to his eyeballs with several interesting love potions, with a few cheering and persuasion spells thrown into the mix. It was a delightful morning, truly, and it only got better when Mr. Riddle made it quite clear that he was very determined to run away with Merope in order to achieve marital happiness with her. It was maybe a tad bit too much cheesy romantic drivel for her liking, but she agreed finally, coming to a conclusion that it was better to humour the stubborn fool than waste time arguing. After all, that wasted time could be used much more productively; like making her baby, for example.
And so it happens that during the following months scandalous rumours ran wild in the village of Little Hangleton, whispers rang from every pair of lips and the whole ordeal was highly frowned upon. Not that the people in the middle of the whole scandal cared in the slightest, because Mr. Riddle and the brand new Mrs. Riddle were too busy enjoying life’s little luxuries, while spending carelessly the notable amount of money they had stolen from Mr. Riddle’s parents right before their departure. Frankly, Merope was quite enjoying herself during their little escapade. Mr. Riddle was a very charming young man, especially when appropriately under the effects of Amorentia, and he showered Merope with attention and extravagant gifts the way that Merope hadn’t hoped for even in her wildest dreams. Still, no matter how happy Merope was, when March arrived and there were still no signs of her baby, she started to get worried.
But as we have earlier established, Merope was a very determined and clever witch. For the following weeks she concentrated on research with all her heart and mind, skimming over book after book in search of a spell or ritual that might solve her problem. Mr. Riddle seemed momentarily confused by her change of heart—after all, previously they had spent most of their time in the bedroom, whilst now she wasted it in the library—but after getting used to the sight of Merope reading nearly obsessively, he proceeded to declare that he was a very lucky man, indeed, to have such a smart and wise wife who enjoyed her literature appropriately. Hearing this, Merope gave the poor fool the gentlest smile she could muster and assured that she would be done shortly. It wasn’t her Tom’s fault that even though he had a pretty face he wasn’t the brightest spell in the book.
It turned out that Merope had, indeed, been telling the truth when she said that she’d be done shortly. She was quick to find a very good—even if very Dark—ritual in one of the thick, old tomes she had been studying lately. It was a quite simple spell in all its brilliance and Merope had no doubts that she could pull it off successfully. So, when the night fell that evening, she knocked her husband out with a neat Stupefy. She couldn’t take any chances, since he might not entirely approve of her methods. Sometimes Tom was a bit too uptight with his morals.
Besides, he would have probably fretted uselessly over nothing when Merope pulled out a very large and beautiful ceremonial knife and sliced open her wrist. She collected the freely flowing blood into a silvery bowl before healed the gaping wound until there was no flaw on her skin anymore. Then she turned to her husband and did the same thing to him. After healing him as well, Merope mixed the blood carefully in the silver bowl and walked into the sitting room of their small and cosy house. She had earlier pushed the rugs aside and lit the room with dozens of candles and now the room was consumed by restlessly flickering light.
“Soon, soon,” Merope whispered to the room, like reassuring some kind of creature that hid in the silence. Her narrow lips tugged up into a small, excided smile as she kneeled to the floor and dipped her slender fingers into the blood. Carefully she drew a red circle on the wooden floor, just big enough for her to lie in it, and then painted several runes around and in the circle with the rest of the blood. After she was finished, she undressed quickly and drew a few more runes on her pale skin, along his arms and on her flat stomach. She spent a brief moment just admiring her handiwork and the sheer brilliance of her plan. The Dark Arts had always been close to her heart, but this was simply beautiful.
Satisfied, Merope set aside the empty bowl and carefully lay in the middle of the circle, taking care that she didn’t wipe away any runes while doing so. Once she had settled as comfortably as she could, she whispered a few hissed words to the dark. It was Parseltongue, the language of her respectable ancestors, and it had been a long time since she had last spoken it. The words felt good, right,when they rolled from her lips and the smile on her face widened. As soon as the echo of the words had faded a cold breeze run through the room, blowing out all the candles and leaving deep darkness behind. A slight shiver ran down Merope’s spine but she remained relaxed and calm.
Her voice was unwavering and steady as she spoke the spell, a mixture of latin and parseltongue running from her lips easily. She spoke in careful, gentle whispers, asking and pleading for the magic to complete her wishes. The silence seemed to deepen as she spoke and Merope took that as a good sign.
“I want a son,” she told the magic, “A son with skin as white as snow, lips as red as—“ Here Merope paused for awhile, realizing that asking for her son to have lips as red as blood was quite ridiculous. She wanted a beautiful son, not one that was pretty. “—I mean, eyes as red as blood, and hair black like ebony. That is what I want and this is how I get it.”
Another breeze blew through the room and slight tingle run over Merope’s skin, assuring her that her spell had worked. A wide, full-blown and nearly feral grin danced over her ordinary face and she quickly climbed onto her feet. She was too excited to pay much attention to the fact that her skin was still marked by the blood runes, but luckily Mr. Riddle was too disorientated and confused to notice it either, when Merope Renervate’d him and informed him that they’d need to have sex right away.
Merope’s excellent spell work and the lovemaking that followed paid off, and barely a month later Merope became the most ridiculously happy person ever, when she finally turned green at the sight of breakfast and spent that morning throwing up in the bathroom. When it had gone on for a few weeks the first excitement started to die down as the morning sickness got worse. Mr. Riddle tried to comfort her by telling her that the miserable grimace on her face was, in fact, rather endearing. That moment became the first one when Merope quite seriously considered hexing the daylights out of the man.
In the end, ironically, it was the morning sickness that sent things straight to hell. In early July, when the sickness got exceptionally bad and Merope felt horrible for the most parts of the day, she made her first grave mistake.
She forgot to add the daily dose of Amorentia into Mr. Riddle’s morning tea.
At first she didn’t notice anything out of ordinary, mostly because she was too busy trying to keep her breakfast in, but around midday she realized that usually cheery Mr. Riddle was wearing quite a serious and thoughtful expression. When Merope asked about it, Mr. Riddle just smiled genially and assured that everything was better than alright. When Merope used a few casual cleaning spells, the kinds that she had used in her husband’s presence several times before, his eyes narrowed a little and his smile turned into a slight scowl. That was Merope’s first warning, but it came too late.
By the time Merope had connected the dots between her absentmindedness and Mr. Riddle’s strange behaviour, Mr. Riddle had already packed his things, pulled on his boots and told her calmly that he’d be going now. Merope tried to reason with him, reminding him about their son and their status as a married couple. She tried screaming at him, but Mr. Riddle was deaf when he wanted to be. She even tried cursing him, but Mr. Riddle’s exceptional stubbornness was enough to beat even the Imperius Curse. In the end, Mr. Riddle smiled at her sadly, kissed her forehead lightly, dodged a couple of curses and walked out of the door into the rainy summer night. After the door swung closed behind him, Merope spent a few hours screaming and cursing his name, until weariness won over her body and she fell asleep on the cold floor before the front door.
After Mr. Riddle’s rather abrupt goodbyes, things started to get ugly. Without Tom, and especially without his parents’ money, Merope was left hanging on nothing. Gone were the days when she could lie in bed till noon and listen to sweet nothings Mr. Riddle insisted on whispering to her. Gone were the days when she had to worry about nothing else but which of her new dresses she should wear for the day. The house turned cold and lifeless around her and the calm silence she used to enjoy became deep and intimidating. The time she used to spend reading or chattering with Mr. Riddle turned into silent, depressing hours, during which she wondered how she could ever make it by. She worried about herself and about her son and cursed her love for one Tom Riddle time and time again. She couldn’t buy food and she couldn’t pay her bills. By the time when November turned into December she had enough debts to get her thrown out of the house.
Being a lone, pregnant and homeless woman in the middle of a winter was a rough life to lead but somehow Merope managed. She had mostly her skills at magic to thank for her life, as days became colder and nights longer. She had made up her mind that she would survive this; not for herself but because of her son. She had gone through too much and sacrificed too many things to give up on him now. Her son deserved to live, he deserved to see the world and Merope refused to take that right from him by dying.
Besides, her son was supposed to take revenge on Mr. Riddle. Oh, yes, Merope was sure of it. Her son would make that damn muggle pay for what he had done to the two of them. After all, despite of being a halfblood, her son would be a Gaunt still, the heir of the long and great line of Slytherin, and revenge was in his blood.
With sheer determination Merope survived the long and dark December. She had grown weaker and thinner, her ordinary face gaining nearly skeletal features, and deep lines of worry and anger marred her brow. However, she couldn’t afford to waste too many thoughts on her looks, when most of her energy went into worrying about her failing health. She had fallen severely ill sometime around Yule and now, with each breath she inhaled, she felt an aching burn in her lungs. Every cough brought the taste of blood into her mouth and every step she took made her fragile body ache and tremble. It soon dawned to her crystal clear that at this rate she’d never survive the birth of her son. It was a painful thought, yes, but Merope was a very rational being. Her son’s survival was her first priority now and her own death, whenever she rarely thought of it, seemed nearly trivial in her eyes, in comparison to the miracle of her son’s birth.
The last day of December fell cold and hard on Merope, covering her world with a thin blanket of fresh snow. That day also turned out to be the one when she finally felt the aches in her body intensify, and she knew that the time had come. She fought her way through the winter storm to an orphanage she had spotter nearly a month ago and knocked at the door.
It was a very nice orphanage, Merope decided, when she lay in a bed and several people fussed around her. Those people seemed to be nice, since all of them obviously avoided telling her the bad news that she was dying. Instead they gave her small, reassuring smiles and told that everything would be fine. Merope smiled right back at them through the sorrow and pain she was in to express her quiet gratitude.
That small polite smile turned into a real, honest beam of happiness when Merope caught the first sight of her child, her son, who was simply perfect. He seemed rather pinkish at first, but Merope knew that when he grew older he’d be pale, white as snow, just like she asked. On top of his small head was a turf of faint, deep black hair. When he stared bemusedly back at Merope, she could see the slight reddish tint in his otherwise brown eyes. Merope’s smile melted away the weariness on her face, making her look nearly beautiful.
“His name is Tom, after his father,” she whispered as she held out her arms, wanting to hold her son for as long as fate would allow it. An elderly midwife passed the new born baby to her, as she nodded her understanding at the words. “Not that the bastard deserves to give his name to our son. But the baby looks like Tom,” Merope explained, “I hope he looks like his father even when he grows up.”
“I’m sure he will,” the midwife assured with a sad smile, thinking to herself that the baby would be lucky to look like his father. The mother was hardly a beauty. She wasn’t tactless enough to reveal her thoughts to the dying girl, though.
“His middle name is Marvolo,” Merope told then, “After my father, because the boy deserves to have something of mine as well. And his surname is Riddle. My son’s name is Tom Marvolo Riddle.” Merope’s voice was calm and unwavering when she told all these things to the woman whose name she didn’t know, but who she had to trust to take care of her son, because she didn’t have a choice. It was important that the woman listened. Names were important. Besides, the name should be enough of a hint for her son to find his useless excuse of a father eventually and take revenge upon him like appropriate.
When the old woman nodded again, indicating that she had understood, Merope finally let the darkness claim her and lull her into oblivion.
She didn’t wake up again after that.