This fic is written for, and dedicated to, my brother. He wanted something about Merope. So, here you go.
Disclaimer: I don't own any part of JKR's wonderful Potter universe. I get no money from writing any of this, only enjoyment.
Broken Wings
Merope could never figure out why her father had given her the necklace in the first place. He didn't love her- not really, anyway, just enough to allow her to stay in the house and cook and clean. He certainly didn't approve of anything she did, nor of her as a person... some days, she doubted he even considered her a person.
Yet he had given her the locket some years ago, tossed it to her carelessly with a gruff "Put it on," in English, not Parseltongue, because she didn't know Parseltongue. That had been the final straw, the last strike against her. And the ironic thing was, it was all a lie. The snakes had made it up, whispering their little falsehoods at every opportunity, daring her to contradict them, trying to draw her into their web.
But she refused. Merope had promised herself when she was just a child that she would never again speak in that poisoned tongue, never acknowledge that she understood it. Let the slippery bastards say what they would. And if her father believed them, if he was as cold as the reptiles he all but worshipped, that was his problem, she thought bitterly.
The day she'd made that vow remained one of her clearest memories, a day in the garden shortly before her mother's death, when it was still a little bit ordered. She was in a green dress and stained white gloves, like a princess, picking flowers. Today her mother might put them in water instead of fire, if Merope was lucky.
As she bent to pick up a scraggly daisy, a dark flash caught her eye, and she raised her little head up. A small sparrow, that most ordinary of birds, had just launched itself off of a tree branch. For one terrifying instant it plummeted, but then it found its wings, flapping them frantically, up down, up down, up down. The bird wobbled at first, but as Merope watched, mesmerized, it gained confidence and skill until it was finally rising, up up up.
A delighted giggled burst from her small pink mouth as the little creature swooped down to flutter past her head. Small arms came up to join in the celebration, to dance through the air as the sparrow did, free and happy.
She barely heard the hissed command: "Now!" but Merope definitely saw the lithe blur spring from the branches, mouth agape. She didn't have time to scream before her little sparrow was firmly in the snake's mouth, wings flapping desperately against the hard, unforgiving scales.
Morfin caught the snake roughly, cackling wickedly. At last, the wing grew still, and in the space of a breath Merope heard a small crack as it broke. Tears sprung to her eyes and she fell to the grass, screaming out loud.
"No eye-water, missssssy," said the snake around its mouthful of friend. "Ccccyclesss are perfectly natural."
"No! No, no! Little birdies fly free and clear. The air is theirs, theirs, not yours. Y-you have the ground, you share the trees. The skies are safe!"
"Poor little hatchling," said the snake coldly. "Sssso naive."
Morfin picked up his laughter again, now hissing at the same time. Cackle hiss hiss hiss hiss hiss cackle cacklehiss...
The fire hissed angrily, the tinder crackled, and she stumbled over to the stove, feet eternally bruised from going barefoot over the untidy tiles. Merope stoked the fire rather roughly, jabbing at the base of the flames with pent-up anger.
Then, in the distance, the sound of hoofbeats on cobblestone. She always picked up on it, no matter how distracted she was, because hoofbeats meant him, and he meant escape, freedom, love. Happiness.
Merope wiped her hands on her ratty apron, trying in vain to clean them of omnipresent dust and grime. Her father was passed out on the table, yet again, after his sixth bottle of rum, and Morfin was off Merlin knows where; she had long since stopped keeping track. Now, then, there was nothing to stop her, no barriers, no reason she couldn't walk down that winding path to the road, hail him as he passed, beg and plead to accompany him. Even servitude at the big manor house would be better than life here.
She paused, one foot out of the threshold, hovering over the ground. A stray beam of sunlight caught the edge of the locket, drawing her eye. The locket was all she had to her name, the one nice trinket she'd seen in her short life. But it meant nothing to her, nothing- but her father... Marvolo loved that locket; it was his point of pride, showing the family's Slytherin ancestry. He had so little to be proud of these days...
Merope sighed bitterly, withdrew her foot, and shut the door. The darkness in the hut was complete, broken only by the flickering fire. It was cackling, now, and hissing... hiss hiss cackle cackle hiss hiss hiss hiss cacklehisss...
Suddenly, she knew. The eyes of the serpent on the locket gleamed maliciously in the light, mocking her, taunting her, the coils seeming to undulate, constricting. Pulling her down.
She was the sparrow in the garden, reaching for the sun. And the locket- the snake was meant to break her wings.