Author's Note: This is for Chaser 1's prompt for Round 8 of QL. Warning for SalemWitchTrials!AU. Warnings for a scene depicting someone being hanged. It isn't too vivid, but I'd like to warn y'all all the same. Also, Tom Marvolo Riddle isn't yet born in this fic, so Tom Sr. will be referred to as Tom Riddle. Please read and review if you have anything to say!

Title/Link: giving up too early

Team: Kenmare Kestrels

Position: Chaser 1 (no reserve position granted in the last 48 hours)

Extension Used: Yes

Season 6, Round 8: Rumour by KARD. Theme - falling prey to rumours (either the people involved in the rumour or the listeners).

Optional Prompts: (phrase) on his/her knees, (dialogue) "I believe you. But I believe everybody else too.", (song) Be Well - SECHSKIES (from Merope's POV)

giving up too early by ValkyrieAce

It was the early morning in the Riddle's cottage in Salem. It wasn't a day with great weather, mind. The rays of sunlight have barely started to filter through grey clouds, and the air was damp with moisture. The cold seeped through, even when the fires were burning strong and the blankets were piled on top of the inhabitants of the meager home.

Tom Riddle put on a robe and stumbled towards the kitchen, eager to sate the hunger in his stomach. He didn't bother waking his wife this early into the day. She had been sick and had been prescribed bed rest to help aid her in her recovery. He'd like to have as much quiet as he could, anyways.

Sometimes, he thought talking to Merope was likened to suffocation. He was sure he loved her, yes. But it confused him. She seemed to care about him, but she wasn't good at showing it. Her actions left him feeling a coldness in his chest, and the words that left her lips didn't hold his interest for too long. He didn't think he'd ever feel such a lack of conviction when it came to the woman he loved.

'I do love you. Isn't that so, Merope?' he thought. It had been so long since they'd gotten married, he'd become inure regarding these thoughts.

It was at this time that he heard a knock thud against his front door. Walking cautiously, wondering who would be visiting them at such an ungodly hour, he opened the door. Standing outside, behind the dull grey of the clouds, were two people. One had a scar over his left cheekbone, and the other looked nervous.

The man with the scar stepped forward.

"Mr. Riddle, sir. We, priests of the North Church, have just heard of the illness that ails your wife," he said, standing taller as he continued on. "We have come to inform you of the accusations held against your wife, one Merope Riddle nee Gaunt."

"Accusations? May I ask what for?" Riddle asked, the familiar coldness spreading through him. The priest sighed.

"Merope Riddle is accused of performing witchcraft."

Tom Riddle looked around the mess of their cottage. Used clothes were strewn all over, and papers and opened envelopes were thrown around in haste. The room was a sty compared to the days Merope took care of him.

In his anger, he threw the first object he could grasp at the other end of the room. It shattered, the minuscule pieces of glass glimmering like amethysts in the light of the cottage.

Having calmed his anger, he crossed over the room and looked down at the object. It was a picture of his wife taken on their wedding day. She wasn't gorgeous, but she had elegance in the way she held herself. The clean lines of her hair and soft arcs of her shoulders; they drew him to her.

'Oh, Merope…' he thought. 'She couldn't be a witch!'

'Would she really tell you if she was?'

The idea shook him to the core. It startled him out of his musings like a trainwreck. He had no idea where it came from, but he knew one thing. It couldn't be true.

For God's sake, he was still her husband! There was no chance of Merope hiding such a thing from him successfully. She was never good at keeping secrets from him. At least, that was what he thought.

Could this be the one secret she worked hard to keep?

He had to find out for himself.

It had taken him a few days to be able to get the permissions necessary to visit his wife in prison. It took him half an hour to make his journey there. The guards stared as he walked towards the are they'd designated for the people who were accused of performing witchcraft. Just as his wife was.

And that was just where he found his wife.

She sat on her knees, her hands cuffed behind her back with something he hadn't seen before, and her face hung limp against her chest, shielded by a curtain of matted and dirty hair. Even the dress she had been wearing looked bigger on her thin frame, though she had only been gone for less than a week.

Suddenly, her face lifted towards him, and their eyes made contact.

To say that her eyes were devoid of emotion would have been an understatement.

Her eyes didn't look at him. Instead, it felt as though her eyes looked through him. Seeing his soul, the curiosity and the vortex of confusion that overwhelmed his heart. Her face was stained with tear tracks and stains of dirt. Her mind was so far gone that he wasn't sure she couldn't recognise him any longer.

At last, he knelt outside the cell but in front of her, smiling. But the surprising thing was, he couldn't find it within himself to say that he truly loved her. Did he ever love her? How did he end up in this position in the first place? He caught himself at the last minute and held back the vicious attack of questions he had for her. Instead, he schooled his face into neutrality and watched as realisation set into her.

The reaction was instantaneous. She scrambled towards him, scraping and cutting through the skin of her knees in the process, and smiled a tortured smile.

"Darling Tom, finally you're here to free me!" she exclaimed, her eyes shining with renewed hope. He shook his head.

"I'm here because I want to know. Are you a witch?" he asked. He watched her closely for slight reactions to his question. In response, she flinched and turned away, her smile faltering slightly. Her eyes seemed panicked and despondent.

"I… I'm not a witch, Tom. How could you think such a thing?" she said, laughing awkwardly. He knew, if she was able to use her hands, that she would wave away the question at the drop of a hat. He frowned, unimpressed. This prompted her to stop laughing.

"Don't you believe me?"

"I believe you…" he started softly, almost wincing at the desperation that seemed to exude from her. "But I believe everybody else too."

She let out a cry as her eyes flitted away, refusing to make eye contact any longer. Her breathing got heavier and she folded in on herself, trying to restrain herself from showing her weaknesses. Once she was calmer, she sat back on her knees, her gaze colder than he had ever seen.

"I'm scheduled to be executed tomorrow at dusk," she said, "will you be there?"

There was a shaky quality to her voice, he could tell. He, himself, almost stopped breathing, the shock of the news reverberating inside his mind.

'Executed…' he thought grimly.

In a last show of affection, he grasped her face through the metal bars of the cell, and rubbed at her cheek with his thumb. She leaned into his touch, the tears in her eyes falling down her pale skin and onto his hand.

"Of course," he said.

But he knew his thoughts laid with another question.

'No, dearest Merope. I'm afraid I don't believe you.'

Tom stood in the crowd by the gallows, twisting and turning as he tried to find his wife. Catching sight of her, he maneuvered his way to her. He stood in front of her, though he was considerably under her in height. She smiled sadly as he came into her vision.

Here too, she sat on her knees, the noose already affixed around her neck. The soft ridge of her nose was clouded with a white chalk, and her hair was tied back, though it was still matted.

And the sight didn't bother him in the slightest. It didn't evoke any emotions within him.

'How could you sit there and accept death,' he thought angrily, 'when I was cruelly ripped apart from half of my youth by your hands? How did you justify dampening my free will?'

Her eyes were filled with the pain and sadness that she would never get to express. Tears rose into her eyes, but didn't fall onto her cheeks. She was broken. And still, she was trying to hold strong.

'Who are you trying to be strong for: yourself or me?'

The executioner had begun talking.

"Merope Riddle has been accused of performing witchcraft," the monotone voice started, "she will be executed by hanging."

The executioner turned to her, and said:

"May God cleanse you of your sins."

A single tear fell onto her cheek as she looked at him. As the executioner signaled to drop the lever, she mouthed a few words.

'Hate me so you don't forget about me.'

He watched as the ominous trap door opened, Merope falling through the hollow with a slight yelp.

The rope quivered for a short time, then stood straight.

Fin

Word Count: 1,487

Additional Prompts:

The Golden Snitch - Through the Universe - (AU) 139. Prominence – SalemWitchTrials!AU

The Golden Snitch - Ollivander's Wand Shop - Blackthorn: Write about a character's reputation being ruined.

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The 365 Prompts Challenge - 206. Plot Point - A character discovers treachery of some sort

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry - The Insane House Challenge - 413. Word - Inure