She could feel nothing except the torturous pain erupting from her lower half. Her limbs valiantly tried to shift her disproportionate body up the path to the door, pausing only when she moaned in pain.
When she reached the door of the orphanage, Merope Gaunt threw her fists at the door, pounding on the wood with all the strength she could spare. After a few moments, the door opened, revealing a surprised-looking, grey-eyed young lady wearing a battered old apron.
"Oh dear!" She exclaimed nervously, surveying the scene in front of her before starting to shout. Merope had no idea what she was saying - she could only concentrate on the new waves of pain assaulting her - but the woman's strong hands were under her armpits and she continued to shout, hoisting her up and dragging her firmly towards a small room. Children thundered down a nearby staircase and stared at her with innocent, glassy eyes.
Maybe the pain would be bearable if… If he was here.
Tom.
New tears spurted from her eyes, not from the labour she was enduring but from the thought, the long lost memory of Tom Riddle.
He was so beautiful. So smart, funny, perfect… He was everything that she had ever wanted. She'd been stupid to think that a man like that would ever fall for a girl like her. She had been naive to think that maybe, just maybe, her Prince Charming had actually developed some sort of love for her. She had been utterly foolish, but tired too; tired of constantly slaving away at love potions and slipping them into his meals, of the voice in her head that kept saying "One more potion and I'll stop… One more potion…". And with the baby and everything, she'd thought he'd stay purely for the child's sake, at least…
But no. The moment she stopped feeding him love potions, he looked entirely disgusted with himself, especially when looking at the bump on her belly. She remembered the horrified look on his face when he realised that he'd gone anywhere near her.
"Tom." She whimpered, as two more young women sat her up against a sagging old armchair.
The next hour was pure, concentrated agony.
"I can't do this!" she screamed every so often, only to be silenced by a cool cloth on her forehead and a smooth hand gripping her own tightly.
"Only a little while longer!" was the constant reply, but it never ended. This excruciating process was endless, and it would surely kill her.
"Push! Push!" the frantic voices had changed their words from coaxing, gentle encouragements to urgent orders to push with all her might.
Beads of sweat dripped down the sides of Merope's head as she unleashed a new, agonised scream.
"Push!"
A moan.
"Push!"
A scream.
Merope's breath was in tatters, her chest heaving as she panted.
Finally, within the hour, she had given birth to a little boy.
Merope Gaunt could feel her life ebbing away from her.
She was going to die, and she did not care.
Surely magic would save her. Surely she could do something to stop her last dregs of life slipping away into oblivion.
She looked at the baby wrapped up in thick blankets beside her, squealing.
She felt no more love for it than she would anything else.
Merope Gaunt did not raise her wand. And even if she did, she doubted she'd even be able to perform Lumos, let alone anything more complex.
She wanted to die.
The young woman turned her head towards Mrs. Cole, whose name she had learnt a few moments before.
"Name him Tom, after his father." She said weakly. "And Marvolo, after my father."
Mrs. Cole hurried to her side, looking concerned.
After another hour, Merope knew that she was breathing her last breath.
"I hope he looks like his papa."
The young, greasy haired descendant of Salazar Slytherin spoke no more as her baby began to scream. Closing her eyes, Merope Gaunt welcomed death with a tortured smile.
