A/N: Written for the Harry Potter Day Competition 2015 for the Dark Lord and Co. Category and the "Not a Bad Word Count" Category.

Thank you to my wonderful brother for beta reading this.

Word count: 1149

She was an abused princess waiting atop her stone tower for a dashing prince to come and steal her away from her captors. Her guardians might not be chained dragons or greedy goblins or even magical wards, but her father and brother kept her captive nonetheless. No one could enter or leave the house without their knowledge, and unapproved travel was not tolerated. After all, she was a Gaunt; they might say that she was worthless as an individual, but her bloodline and potential influence contradicted that. They had need of her, as a housekeeper and as a potential bid for power. She could leave the house, but the world outside their property was forbidden to her. It was the kingdom that she must have come from once upon a time – she had not been born on that property, surely – and longed to one day return to.

The unknown beckoned her; good or bad, it called for her to go and explore its beauties and offerings and dangers. Anything had to be better than her fenced prison of crumbling walls and dead shrubbery. The adage about the grass being greener on the other side might have been a cautionary tale warning people of the dangers of envy and greed, but it was literal in her case. The grass on her side of the fence was yellowed and roughly cut and unappealing; not even the most desperate cow would have grazed there. On the other side, however, it was lush and beautiful and wild.

So she made a habit of sitting on her veranda and watching the townsfolk as they passed her by. Some nodded a curt greeting to their lank-haired observer; most ignored her. Acknowledgement denoted awareness, and awareness implied a duty of care over her. Still, their disinterest did not dissuade her. She stared and imagined and waited and hoped. Each passer-by was given a story and a quest that might one day entangle with hers and set her free. Nods were given meanings; they were signs that they would find the key to her captivity and return for her. Smiles were cherished even more; it meant they had taken a liking to her and that the heist would be more than duty for them.

None of them mattered on a personal level. They were all just ways out, tickets to elsewhere, lampposts cutting through the darkness of her ever-lasting night. She hardly cared about the structural design or embellishments or individual worth of each post; all that mattered was the light they shed.

All, that was, until she saw him.

She knew instantly that he was her prince. The others had been princes and princesses from faraway kingdoms, come to inspect the land and its people before leaving once again, their reports and observations in hand and mind. He, however, was the one who would eventually save her. His intense gaze was forever fixed on other things – other sights, other properties, other girls – but she knew that it would one day turn his attention onto her and actually see her for the first time in her life.

She longed to be seen, to be understood, to be valued.

He would do that; she was sure of it. He could do that. Watching the way he interacted with the people with him had become a habit of hers, a way to dream the day away, and everything she saw suggested that he would make a wonderful prince. He was handsome and the girls were always laughing or blushing or smiling in contentment, so he had to be charming and sociable. The carriage would come by at the same time every day; that, to her, denoted dependability and consistency.

He was all the things her father and brother were not. He was all the things that she was not.

While she scuttled around, failing to do the thing that was supposed to have been her birthright, he was stepping into his with grace. Her too-pale face and outwards-looking eyes were no comparison to his stunning looks. Fading into the background was her forte, her way of escaping punishment, but he rose up to rule and command attention from everyone around him.

He was more than she had ever hoped to wish for.

She wanted him.

The longing only got worse as time wore on. Her brother found out and, like the enemy's sentry, reported it back to her father. Rage wasn't an unusual state for him; in fact, it was rather the opposite. But she had never seen him so infuriated, so irate, as she did in that moment. Her father set upon her and all she could think was please come save me and don't let it be too late and I don't want to die, but she was resigning herself to that eventuality when a wizard from the Ministry burst in and stopped him and saved her. Her captors were taken away and locked up, and she was finally free from them.

Except she wasn't. Morfin had cursed her beloved, and the injuries had been so severe that he could neither show up to rescue her nor attend to his usual routine. She waited and waited for him to come by on his loyal steed, but he never did.

Then, eventually, he did. From that point onwards, however, he was only ever with one girl. She had seen him with him before, but never with such regularity. As she stared out the window at them, she realised that she had to act before the evil witch snagged her hero. If her prince wasn't coming for her, she'd just have to orchestrate her liberation herself.

Spellwork had always been difficult for her, but brewing was another matter entirely. It wasn't hard to find a useful potion and brew it to perfection. The sweet smell of horse and grass ensnared her senses, and she spread herself out on the dusty floor and basked in the scent until she fell asleep where she lay. The next day, the couple came past as they usually did. That time, however, she was waiting by the road with two glasses of cooled orange juice. Steeling herself to pass the fence line had been a victory in itself, and she had no doubt that she would follow it up with even more success.

Sparing only a brief thought for the letter that she had left behind on the decrepit table, she brushed a strand of lank hair behind her ear and, smiling with cracked lips and yellowed teeth, ran onto the road to divert their attention. The carriage came to a swift halt, the horses rearing up at the sudden jolt on the reins as the inhabitants exclaimed in shock. Undeterred, Merope Gaunt turned to face them, well aware of the hand that held the spiked drink.

It was time to snag her prince.