Screams echoed throughout the wood of Little Hangleton. Screams that had echoed in her head after every beating. From time and expierence Merope had learned never to fight back and to take what her father told her she deserved. He would never think twice about who to blame for anything that went wrong in his household. Whatever in his mind was out of place Merope would receive the brunt of his temper. This was one of her luckier times where the beatings hadn't come yet. She knew they would before the row was over but the tiniest bit of hope remained within her that he would spare the blows this time. Sobbing on the floor he was shouting at her to pick up the fallen dinner dish that lay in pieces at his feet.
"Pick it up! I said PICK IT UP!" As her father began to kick her Merope's tears and wails of desperation became even more profound. Terrified human instinct took hold of her body and she curled up into a ball on the floor. Not knowing what else she could do to defend herself against him she lay there weeping like a rag doll being torn to pieces.
She had dropped that evenings dinner on the floor by mistake and the meal she had prepared now lay around her, sticking to her hair and clothes as she was brutally stomped upon by the large man.
"st-stop, please stop." She mumbled weakly. Her father looked down at her with disgrace. Snarling he grabbed her by her hair and forced her head so that she was looking at him.
"You think that you, a worthless piece of trash, has authority to even speak to me!" He roared. She flinched at the loudness in his voice. "Who's going to save you now? Your little mudblood lover? Is he guna save you? Do you think that I would allow anything of that sort to happen under my roof!?" He began screaming at her with more insults and curses still holding her head tight with a grip that was threatening to tear the roots from her scalp. She silently whispered a prayer that someone would come, any one would come to save her. Little did she know that within the hour her prayer would be answered.
One year later:
As she lay in bed Merope let her fingertips brush ever so lightly against the scar that lay strangely upon her calf muscle. A flash back of those horrible memories that haunted her dreams painfully burst through her thoughts. Thinking back on it now a little over a year later her past and it seemed like all a bad dream. A nightmare that she couldn't rid herself from. She now took up the task of teaching herself what she had been deprived of for so very long. It was her heritage and yet was never permitted to be a part of it. After the day her father had been taken from her, she found herself reading and experimenting with the old spell books she had found in his study. They had taken her brother as well leaving her in the house with everything from the pots and pans down to the last of the spell books. She was grateful for this seeing as it taught her the smallest of all things that she had only dreamed of someday being capable of.
Everyone has a story, a past a history of some sort that they either want to boast about or keep hidden. No one ever wants anyone to know about the secrets they want to keep hidden. Starting over is what you do in life when things turn around for you. Merope, starting over, will never let her past be discovered. By anyone. Even if it means using her magic to keep it that way.