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"Merope"
When she was four years old, little Merope Gaunt knew that she came from a mean, stupid, ugly family.
MEAN. STUPID. UGLY. These were visceral words, but even a toddler could understand them.
"Mean." The dirty angry man who was her daddy. Of course, he'd beat her on her bottom and smack her on the face if she ever called him anything but "Father." In fact, he hurt her all the time...twisting her arms and pulling her hair when she wasn't quick enough serving his breakfast.
"Stupid." Her older brother, Morfin . He was cruel like her daddy. He liked to put spiders in her hair and trip her on the hard floor. He couldn't even spell his own name.
"Ugly." Daddy had a face like a scowling monkey. Morfin looked like a mountain troll but with worse teeth. She wasn't pretty, either. Her eyes and nose were crooked, and on the rare occasions that neighborhood children caught a glimpse of her, they made sure to remind her just how ugly she was.
But one day, something funny happened. The Gaunts (meaning her father and Morfin) didn't ever find things funny, unless it involved torturing a salamander or crushing the windpipe of a stray kitten. Morfin also found it funny when Father twisted her wrist til it broke.
But this was a different kind of funny...in fact, a wonderful kind of funny. Merope Gaunt discovered that she could do real magic. A magic powerful enough to actually frighten the rest of her mean, ugly, stupid family.
Ha!
One moment, Father was about to box her ears for not pouring his tea quickly enough, and the next moment he was floating up against the ceiling of their rickety shack, hollering in pain.
It all happened in a blur after that. Young Merope didn't know why she could suddenly do such interesting new things, but it was wonderful! It seemed every time someone tried to hurt her, she could stop them just by wishing! Later on, she learned she'd just shown her first signs of magic.
Father and Morfin were very careful from then on. Father even said she could call him anything she wished as long as she stopped choking him from across the room. Morfin merely sobbed whenever she came too close. She wasn't sure why...perhaps it had to do with the boils that were currently sprouting all over his lower body.
Daddy looked at her with awe and respect and muttered about the Gaunts becoming a powerful family again. Never would he use the word squib or any other kind of mean words when he talked to her. Daddy was like a little lamb, treating her like she was a princess. He gave her a golden locket and a thick, jeweled ring that hissed like a snake. He even showed her a rusted iron chest buried deep in the yard that was filled with musty old books. Merope thought they must contain wonderful and mysterious things, and decided she must teach herself to read.
Morfin just continued to sob and beg her to fix whatever it was she'd broken on him.
At six, Merope decided she didn't like living in a dirty, messy house with dirty, messy people. She made everyone take baths, cut their own hair and wash every speck of grime from the walls and floors of the rickety old shack.
At seven, Merope wondered what else her magic could make people do. She found that if she concentrated very hard, she could make the neighborhood muggles give her things.
If she wanted that pretty pink hair ribbon, it was the work of a moment to "will" the snooty girl, Tina, to take it out of her own hair and hand it right over. She could "convince" that handsome older boy, Tom, to give her the rest of his Dairy Milk bar. She'd never tasted chocolate before, and even the muggle kind was heaven. Later, during a jumble sale at the nearby vicarage, Merope merely had to point out all the pretty items she wanted, and even strangers seemed delighted to hand them right over.
By the time she was ten, Merope held the village of Little Hangleton in the palm of her hand. People felt compelled to please her. They wanted to please her more than anything in the world, it seemed. It didn't matter that she wasn't pretty. She also kept her own family cowed. Daddy disapproved of her dealings with the muggles, but grudgingly accepted it as all some part of some deliciously evil Slytherin Master Plan. Morfin still hadn't spoken since the boils on his bollocks, but his eyes blazed with a simmering hatred and jealousy.
Hatred she could handle. Jealousy could become a problem. Merope knew this instinctively. One day, she might be forced to eliminate the problem completely. Morfin would not be missed by anyone, after all.
There actually was a Master Plan. Merope knew what she wanted, and if one wanted something, one had to plan, after all. She wanted beauty. Not for herself, of course. She wanted to be surrounded by beautiful things and beautiful people. She wanted to wake up every day and see prettiness reflected in the world around her. A pretty husband. Pretty children. A pretty home. Her early life had been submerged in ugliness and filth. A future existence filled with beauty was one that promised joy and delight. Perhaps even true happiness.
Such was the ultimate goal of Merope Gaunt. She wasn't quite sure how this delicious ambition would be fulfilled, but at the age of eleven, a strange, tawny owl swooped down to deliver the parchment which gave a great clue:
TO MISS MEROPE GAUNT
SHACK IN THE WOODS,
THE HILL,
LITTLE HANGLETON
Dear Miss Gaunt,
We are pleased to offer you a place at Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry for the coming fall...
Inside, Merope was delirious with joy. Certainly, she had known she was a powerful witch, but this was the very first acknowledgement from the outside wizarding world. She'd vaguely heard mentions of Hogwarts from the drunken ravings of her father, but no one in the Gaunt family had received an invitation for the past several centuries. That was how low the Slytherin dynasty had fallen.
The depth of this fall was reflected in the coarse, primitive faces of her father and brother. In her own dreadful plainness. But the real damage went beneath the surface – it was the madness and violence induced by generations of inter-marrying. It had very nearly bred the magic from them all. Merope shivered to think of what repulsive destiny might have awaited her had she not possessed the magic to repel the drunken advances of her so-called "family."
Was this the ultimate fate of all purebloods? To have their magic whittle down generation after generation until they produced only madmen and squibs? If this were so, Merope vowed to never marry another pureblood. She wanted pretty, sane and powerful children. Even if that meant marrying a muggle.
She gazed up the hill at the imposing mansion, and considered the young master who lived there, all cosseted and clean, with his easy charm and handsome face.
Yes, Tom Riddle might just be the very thing.
In the end, it was the very attractive Transfiguration teacher who escorted her to a wonderful place named Diagon Alley to buy her school supplies. Everything was to be paid for from the school's own fund. Merope didn't care that it was charity. Nothing mattered except that the future was bright, and Prof. Dumbledore had sparkling blue eyes and lovely, long auburn hair. Looking at him gave her the same warm feeling in her tummy that she felt around young Tom Riddle.
The strange little wandmaker told her that the core in her new wand was a rare Phoenix feather, and she was destined for great things. She beamed and even Dumbledore seemed pleased for her.
When it came time for the sorting, the hat didn't even hesitate before screaming out "Slytherin!" No surprise there, of course. She was, after all, an heir.
But did she imagine it, or was there a slightly disappointed expression on Prof. Dumbledore's face, up there at the high table?
Well, you couldn't please everyone, of course. When she glanced around her new housemates, the majority of them rather unpleasant. Some of them wore expressions and even features vaguely reminiscent of her brother, Morfin. And the talk during the meal seemed to revolve around all the half-bloods and mudbloods that populated all the other Hogwarts Houses.
"We're the only pureblood House," sneered the girl sitting next to her, "only Slytherins have pureblood pride."
"Hmm," she nodded agreeably. No point making any enemies, but it was clear that none of her new mates understood the price of such "pride."
"You're that charity pupil," a boy wearing a Prefect badge declared.
"Yes," Merope smiled faintly, "But then, of course, not everything is about money, is it?" She brushed her hand casually across her hair, making sure everyone could she the glimmer of her snake-like ring.
There was an audible gasp from the older students, and surprisingly (or not) no Slytherin ever called her a "charity pupil" again.
The next seven years were the happiest Merope had ever known. She was quickly established as a leader within Slytherin, and a force to be reckoned with when it came to the other three Houses. She learned charms to permanently make her appearance more pleasant. Surrounded by wealthy classmates, she soon developed a taste for the finer things, and was determined to find new ways to acquire them.
Compulsion charms only went so far, and never worked as well with stronger-willed wizards. There were few really handsome Slytherins, and there was no way she could even consider marrying another pureblood, anyhow. She had a crush on Professor Dumbledore. He remained a distinct possibility until she learnt he was a pureblood, as well.
By the end of her seventh year, her companions in Slytherin were intrigued by her insistence on avoiding any pureblood marriage. Some of them, for all their anti-muggle bias, began to consider the possibility that Merope might have had a point. Very slowly, minds started to change.