For it is only when the veneer of love is stripped away, that we see ourselves together, and who we really are.

~.~

He sat her up tenderly and held her to his chest, their heartbeats combining in one, perfect symphony. It was, she thought, the most beautiful sensation she had ever felt, love was. Except it wasn't real. It painfully, horribly, wasn't real.

Although it might be real, she told herself. She told herself over and over that eventually, maybe, oh Merlin, hopefully, when the lies were all done and drained away he'd still look at her with the expression he had on his face at that moment. But for Merope, that was also a lie.

Lies were all she had, aside from the brutal realities which darkened and demeaned her. Those painful memories in that house, only strengthening the need for someone like him, who loved her and appreciated her despite her looks and her past and her capabilities…

Only he didn't. Not really.

A small part of her realised that, on that one day in August. Perhaps she'd known it all along, but it suddenly hit her hard in the face on that cool, autumn night. It was sort of auspicious, she would later lament, that the beginning of her demise was the beginning of the cold that fell over the town. Prophetic, if you will.

And perhaps at that moment she realised the necessity of truth and love, and that for the latter to exist so too did the former. It was a matter of reality. Reality that, for Tom Riddle (her adoring, perfect, loving husband) simply did not exist.

Perhaps it was at that moment that the letter seemed necessary. It wasn't a letter of sorts, she'd never meant to send it (or merlin forbid, owl it), but she meant it to be found. A diary of sorts, although it contained little more than twelve, dirty pages. It was meant it to be discovered in a fashion by which it looked inconspicuous. Its purpose was to convey the truth without addressing anyone but herself, because then she wouldn't have to apologise for the deceit and lies, but he would understand as if looking into her blackened soul itself.

And then he would stay. Surely he would stay. For the good of the child if not for her.

Carefully she wrote:

5th August 1926

Love is a strange emotion. It's completed by a mixture of joy, relief, jealousy and sin. It seems like nothing in life is ever perfect, love being the least perfect of them all. For every positive emotion that co-exists with a loving relationship, there is an antithesis, something which drains you away. And yet, we choose to live with it. It holds a power from which no human being can escape.

My father tried to live without love, as did my brother. I've tried to live without love, and it was a horror. Love is, for all purposes, a lifeline. A lifeline thrown to us from the least expected places, and firmly grasped when tossed within our reach. For some, it is unlikely that love will ever come to them, so they seek it out like a beggar and pure gold, and wish until it should stumble across their path.

Love is full of those beggars, holding onto that little light which shines onto them. It is only appreciable that they see, most clearly, the darker side of love. The fragility and impermanence, the insecurity which forces them to cling on, so firmly, like a choke-hold onto those who first stumbled across their path.

In love, there is no bigger sinner than I. In love, there is no more desperate beggar, no one who better knows the insecurity which love brings.

I proclaimed it necessary, what I did. Because I knew that he could love me as I did him, if only he gave me a chance. One chance would be all it took to realise the attraction which lay deep beneath my superficial skin and bone. There was a love willing to grow and foster, based on personality and amicability, not simply the artificiality of physical features.

But how was I to ever get that chance, if I did not take the initiative to grasp what could rightfully be mine, when it stumbled under my nose? I knew I had the ability. I knew I had the resolve. I knew I had the love which it took to convince someone else to take that chance. Only, it wasn't enough for me to know it. He had to know it too.

Of course, in the beginning he was perfectly horrid. Teased and taunted me like the rest of the town boys. But I saw through the façade. I knew, from the moment in which I first laid eyes on him, that he could love me just as perfectly, just as sincerely.

All I needed was one chance.

And so I took it. Took it with the firm, desperate grasp of the beggar. His heart was mine after all, I had seen it. I had abilities to see such things, which his muggle mind did not. I was Merope Gaunt, was I not? Only, I could be far more with him. Far, far more.

From that moment on, he was mine. Artificially at first, maybe, but that love could grow. I knew it could. It had the chance now. It had the ability. I had given it that much.

It was a sin, I know, to take love like that. To force it upon someone, somewhat against their will, despite one's premonitions. I can only hope that one day, in the face of love, it will all be forgotten and forgiven. It will be forgotten and forgiven, because love has grown over these few years, it is self-evident.

He will surely feel betrayed, and angry. But this is simply the other side of love, is it not? The uncertainty and insecurity, especially when it is all revealed from a different angle. But now it is time to let the love grow honestly, in the light of truth, and with the conviction I know I have placed in his heart. The conviction which I have transferred directly from mine.

Surely it is enough, from the raw happiness on his face when the child moves in my belly, to see that love is growing despite the artificial sheen of chance that I placed over it. Surely it is evident, that such distinct emotion could not be the product of a simple potion. Love is, after all, the most potent potion of them all; strong and everlasting.

Love is Tom and Merope Riddle.

Surely that, is evident.

Slowly and deliberately, she signed her name with the feather quill, scratching across the parchment as her heart pounded in her ears.

Tomorrow would be the beginning of the beginning, rather than the beginning of the end, she decided. Tomorrow Tom Riddle would wake as he always did, and kiss her on the cheek with that love which shone through his every pore, even when she didn't put the potent potion in his tea that night.

The only difference would be, that tomorrow, Tom Riddle would wake, and really love her.