Written for the Achieve that OUTSTANDING Challenge, for Poor, with the music prompt "Demons" by Imagine Dragons
Word Count: 265
A Prescription for Love:
- One lie, administered daily
Merope has never had a problem with lies; giving them away now is no problem. Every day a love potion slipped into Tom's drink, an extra dash in his wine at dinner if he's acting hostile. Every day a lie fed into his unwitting brain. Nothing seems wrong, not to anyone the Riddles knew. It's a weak potion, nothing that's going to change Tom's personality.
She considers, sometimes, the possibility of refraining from slipping that potion into his morning tea. Surely, after all this time, he would finally love her, would finally have realized that the Muggle girl he'd been seeing was no good, would choose Merope. But when that idea comes to her consciousness, as it often does, it's pushed back so that she won't think about it anymore.
Merope doesn't want Tom to see who she really is: ugly and heartless. Her dark hair falling in front of her face, frizzy and untameable, and her sallow skin, would finally be rejected by Tom, the man with the impossible standards of beauty. He would see her ugliness.
And – as Morfin told her daily, back when she lived with the Gaunts (for she was a Riddle) – both the outside and the inside of her were hideous. Marvolo made sure that she knew she was cruel and rude and disobedient, a sorry excuse for a girl if there ever was one. If Tom saw the side of her that everyone else did, he would never stay with her.
So Merope continues her routine: one lie, administered daily.