A/N: In addition to filling prompts, this acts as a companion piece to my AU fic, Rumpelstiltskin. This will make more sense if you have read that, but isn't strictly necessary. Just keep in mind that this is AU as well. To offer a warning suggested by a guest reviewer though: this does feature a female Harry Potter.
Prompt (Drabble Club): sentence - Rage, unadulterated rage, consumed his every thought.
Prompt (Quidditch Pitch): character - Marvolo Gaunt
Marvolo Gaunt was never a handsome man. He was never even a plain man. The entirety of his long, miserable life, he had been ugly – more than ugly, he had been hideous. Not just in appearance, but in personality as well.
Six months spent in the hell that was Azkaban had done nothing to improve either of these. Rather, the half a year surrounded by the darkest of dark creatures, being fed once a day, half-freezing in the chill of the Northern Sea had only made the traits worse.
Upon his release, the vile man spat at the Aurors that escorted him to the mainland, whose lips curled with disgust at the stink of his unwashed body as they handed him his wand. He thought wildly of cursing them – ah, the satisfaction of their imagined screams, their bodies twisted with pain, the crunch when their bones broke under the strain – but, as if sensing this, the pair of twits Apparated away, leaving Gaunt to make the rest of his journey home alone. With his magical core drained to dregs by the Dementors, not enough magic left in him even to Apparate, the despicable wizard was forced to travel the Muggle way – walking.
Hours later, he reached the wretched shack in Little Hangleton that had been his home. He should have realized from the moment the smokeless chimney came into view that something was wrong – he did not. Even when he entered the empty shack, cold and dark, it did not occur to Gaunt that this was not right or that something was missing.
"Girl!" he shouted, immediately dissolving into a coughing fit as his body protested the sudden outburst. "Girl!" he repeated, his voice lower and roughened when he got his breath back. "Where are you?"
Silence was the only answer – a telling enough response. Still the tramp had no inkling in his mind of what had happened, of why his useless daughter did not answer him. It was not until he had stumped through the tiny hovel that he realized what should have been obvious from the beginning – the girl was not here.
Judging by the amount of dust and mold creeping over every surface, she had been gone for quite some time.
As the knowledge sank slowly into his addled brain, two thoughts occurred with it. The first came in the form of an angry snarl: the ungrateful little bitch! How dare she just leave – he would hunt her down and curse her within an inch of her life! The second was simpler, if slower, surfacing only after several minutes of silently fuming – good riddance! What use was the chit anyway? Hardly capable of magic, she was practically a Squib – a stain on his family, not worthy of the legacy bestowed upon them as the last descendants of the great Salazar Slytherin!
Later, he cursed the absent girl again – not an ounce of edible food could be found among the cupboards. There may have been something in the garden, but he had not the energy, mundane nor magical, to go and collect it. That night held little difference from the nights he spent in Azkaban – his stomach ached with hunger and the meager fire he managed to coax into being did little to drive the chill from his bones. His thoughts were dark and foreboding, but at least the despair that came with the influence of Dementors was absent.
The next day was hardly an improvement, even if he managed to collect enough from the garden for a decent meal, and the day after was little still better. On the third day, he made the trek to the village, purchasing necessary items that he could not gather from his own home – if his magical core would have recovered more quickly, he would have Apparated to London and shopped in Diagon Alley. As it was, he was forced to take from Muggles, filthy, disgusting creatures – no better than animals. They did not even have the sense to use real gold and silver – but a Confundus was enough to convince them to give him what he needed, since he didn't have any of their paper money.
However, even Muggles had their uses on occasion. It was from one that he learned what had happened to his daughter – not directly, but from overhearing a conversation. The stupid whore had married one of them! A dirty, loathsome animal – and Merope had… It was almost enough to turn his stomach – fury and revulsion followed him all the way back to the shack, and he slept fitfully that night.
He resolved to go to London as soon as he had the energy to Apparate there and back – he had to disown the girl, blast her off the family tree. A Muggle – the slut did not deserve to be a Gaunt. She would have made their ancestors sick, laying with that lesser creature. He would sooner she fucked a dog than marry a Muggle! At least a dog could not sully their bloodline.
Days passed – his magical core was slow to recover from the mistreatment of Azkaban. The conditions he was forced to live in did not help – mold and damp and subpar food; even if it was more plentiful than when he was imprisoned, it did little to return him to health.
The days turned to weeks, which turned to months – more than once, he peered out the window when he heard hooves on the road, trying to catch a glimpse of the girl and her repulsive Muggle. Once, he thought he saw them – but the dark-haired girl could not be Merope. She was too pretty – beautiful really – and smiled much too easily. Ha! Gaunt thought. The little chit got what she deserved if the Muggle left her for this dark-eyed beauty – exactly what she deserved!
It was enough to bring a twisted kind of pleasure to the old man's black heart – for a time, he felt as if he were growing stronger, his body and magic healing from the ordeal of Azkaban. Not enough that he risked the trip to London, but enough that he took to casting little hexes at any creature he found skittling or slithering through the shack, a vile smile on his face at the animals' pain.
In January though, the mistaken assumption that led to this increase in vitality was abruptly shattered – because the girl riding with Riddle up and down the lane apparently was Merope. And she had given birth to a son. A half-breed – a sickening, repulsive, hideous half-blood. Not only that – she had claimed some green-eyed Muggle-born (had to be a Mudblood, no wizarding family was named Evans) as family, furthering sullying the Gaunt name.
This information sent Gaunt over the edge. Rage, unadulterated rage, consumed his every thought. The bitch would pay for this! Thought she could use a potion to make herself pretty, did she? Thought she could forget all about him and who she was, who they were? He would show her! She would be even uglier than she had started out when he was through with her – and that Muggle of hers, him he would turn into a bug to be crushed under his boot.
The Mudblood would suffer too – trying to claim relation to one of the oldest wizarding families in existence. The uppity bitch would have to pay for that – he would teach her where she belonged, her and her dirty blood.
He made it halfway to the manor house sitting on the hill – only halfway, because that was when she appeared. The green-eyed bitch Merope had been calling 'cousin'. Blinded by his fury, the old man did not notice how very green those eyes were – how exactly they matched the color of the Killing Curse. No, he did not see – if he had, perhaps he would not have been so foolish, would not have attacked the witch who had obviously been waiting for him.
The fight did not last long. Gaunt, already weak, could not match the Mudblood's speed – he knew enough to recognize that, even in top condition, the witch outclassed him. When she took his wand from his slack grip and pressed her foot across his throat, leaning down to put her wand in his face, the old wizard thought that this would be the end of him. Never one to play the coward, he attempted to spit on her – all he managed to do was drool spittle down the side of his face as she applied pressure on his throat.
With a casual flick of her fingers, she snapped his wand – a break that shocked through him like it was his very bones she had broken – and tossed the pieces off the road, into the ditch. Her eyes met his – he could finally see the color, the cold green of Death, and it sent a chill of fear down his spine.
"You will return to your shack," she said, her voice even and devoid of emotion. "You will not make another attempt to do what you intended tonight. You will not look at Merope – you will not look at Tom. You will not look at their son. You will have nothing to do with any of them, nor any Muggle of Little Hangleton."
Listening and obeying had never been Gaunt's strong suit. Snarling, he tried to grab the bitch's ankle, intending to throw her off him – his hands burned as if he had thrust them into a fire before he got them within a foot of her body. She ignored the sounds of pain he made, continuing as if nothing had happened.
"When you return to your hovel, you will crawl into whatever bed you fancy there. You will not light a fire. You will not attempt to cast any spells. You will not eat or drink anything. You will not leave that bed for anything – not even to relieve yourself."
She leaned closer, her foot digging further into his vulnerable throat, her wand dominating his vision as the tip nearly touched his nose. Her eyes – her eyes were empty, a void so cold – how could green look like that, how could it embody the end of all things so perfectly – filled the wretched man with fear.
"You will not leave that bed until you die and they find your corpse rotting in your own filth."
Then he felt the magic slip over him, a warm, agreeable lassitude. Her foot left his throat as she stepped away from him, her wand still aimed at his face, and Gaunt struggled to his feet.
"Do as I said," the woman commanded.
Marvolo Gaunt obeyed. His body was found two months later – curled on the bed, decomposing in filth.
A/N: Share your thoughts. Or not. Happy trails.