Chapter Text
Chapter One: The First Shame
She saw him once.
Just once.
That was all it took.
Merope Gaunt came down from the north with a cracked suitcase and a face that made people look away. Not because she was shy. Not because she was sad. Because she was wrong. Her features didn’t line up. Her eyes didn’t blink at the right time. Her mouth hung open like she’d forgotten how to close it.
She smelled like damp wood and old spells. Her clothes were stitched together with desperation. Her bloodline was pure, but so is poison.
She had lived in a shack outside a dying village, surrounded by mildew and madness. Her father hit her. Her brother cursed her. She believed love would save her.
She saw Tom Riddle Sr. in a bar in Mayfair. Banker. Handsome. Cruel. He was speaking to a woman who had never had to ask for anything. They disappeared into the bathroom. He left her there before he’d even buckled his belt.
Merope watched.
She followed him home.
To the Riddle townhouse in Kensington.
She watched him eat dinner with his parents. Watched him laugh. Watched him sleep.
She did this for three weeks.
Then her father summoned her back. Morfin was out. Marvolo was drunk. He asked where she’d been. She said nothing. He hit her. Of course he did.
But Merope had a plan.
She sold everything. Bought love potions. Enough for six months, maybe more if she timed it right.
She waited at the bar.
She spiked his drink.
They spent three days straight together. He didn’t want to leave her. Couldn’t bear it. She thought he loved her. Really loved her.
When the potion faded, she dosed him again.
And again.
And again.
They moved into a rented room above a tailor’s shop in Soho. Somewhere no one asked questions.
She got pregnant.
She ran out of potion.
He woke up.
He screamed.
He looked around and kept screaming. The belly. The woman. The room.
He fled.
She sat by the window and watched him go.
She didn’t cry.
She didn’t scream.
She just stared.
That was his first shame.
His second was letting her run.
Solene Selwyn.
She hadn’t fled in fear, running and screaming. She had stabbed him. Right in the chest. Missed his heart by less than an inch. She knew exactly where to aim.
He had collapsed.
She had walked out.
That was the head start. Not a gift.
A wound.
Now he imagined the path she must’ve taken when she left. The alleys. The train stations. The people she passed who didn’t know they were looking at a ghost. The places she’d been hiding in, new name, old shame.
He should’ve stopped her.
He would.