Written for the QLFC, Kenmare Kestrels, Chaser 1, Season 6 Round 5

CHASER 1: Use the title of a story written by your Chaser 2 for inspiration - Used Suffer Me

Extra prompts: 7. (quote) I loved you the same way I learned to ride a bike- scared, but reckless. - Rudy Francisco, 15. (object) candle, 5. (song) Brightest - Copeland

Word Count: 1036

You were born by candlelight, back when Mother was alive and when our cottage was something still vaguely resembling a cottage. By which I mean not yet completely the rundown rumble we'd grow up in. Mother had been sick, and weak, and scared. You're a lot like her, you know. You have the same dull hair, the same haunted look in your eyes.

At first, I really loved you. I loved you with that pure, passionate fear only a child can love with, a child understanding the meaning of care and protection for the very first time. I was allowed to hold you. Then Father spoke to you in Parseltongue, and you laughed, and for a few moments our family was happy. My little firefly, he called you.

I kissed you on the forehead. I felt you were our anchor to happiness, you were the thing I would cherish most all my life. We heated some water and bathed you, and put a simple green sash over your swaddling clothes. It looked so very muggle.

And then Father squeezed the candle so hard the wax melted all over his hands and he shouted and shouted for Mother to heal it, and of course she was weak from the birth and could barely sit up. He shouted that he was the Heir of Salazar and that you, mewling and pathetic little thing that you were, that you were Salazar's too, and that you would be great someday. He shouted that you, and he, and I all deserved far more from a woman than our Mother, and he struck her.

Of course, she was in so much pain she barely noticed. That's one difference between you too. You always noticed.

They all thought I hated you. Maybe I did. Probably, I did.

I think far more than the candle smashed that night.

We bought other candles, of course. From then on, whenever father was angry, he would break candles. Reparo was the first spell I learnt, barely a tool against his rage. Once all the candles were broken, he would hit Mother. Once she had stopped crying, once she would sit in the corner with her face in her hands and her eyes listless, he would know he had broken her too.

Sometimes, then, he would hit me. So I would hold you, cling to you while you screamed. And he would never hurt you. He would coo at you and call you his firefly and his little snake and talk about how you would be the future of Salazar's line.

Because I held you, he would never hurt me. And I thought that was love.

My fear of him became conflated with my love for you. Scared and reckless, I think we all threw ourselves into that. We gave you the love we could never give ourselves, and used you to free ourselves from the fear we gave each other.

I think Father did love Mother. He would apologize in the mornings, apologize for ever fighting, tell Mother how she warmed his heart, that she was perfect.

That we were descendents of Salazar - our love was stronger, our passions fiercer.

I don't know if she believed it, but I think I did.

So when you and I had our first fight, I told myself it was because I loved you.

And I think Father did love you. I think that was why it was so hard. You betrayed him, and I can't forgive you for that.

We buried Mother near where they would marry your filthy husband. Maybe some irony, maybe something foretold. We buried her by candlelight, because it seemed appropriate, and long after Father left, I buried the wax of his smashed candles with her. I used my wand to light them and I melted them all over the tombstone, a million tiny ghosts of a broken past. They gave some light, and I thought about that name - my firefly.

I was frightened, and I knew you were too, so I hugged you. We walked home to find Father drunk and a dead black serpent nailed to the crumbling door.

He whispered to it, and of course it couldn't respond, and he laughed and staggered, the smell of whiskey on his breath. "Kill, Nagini."

His murmurs scared me to the soul. But you didn't understand.

The snake had the same blankness as Mother. And, so did you. You stared at him with blankness in your eyes. And I think that was the end.

The thing is, Father did not love me.

So when I whispered "kill" and "Salazar" and "Muggle filth" to the snake on the door he could laugh with pride and clap me on the back.

When you would stare, open eyed and clueless, he felt betrayed. He would hit you and curse at you and hope you would understand, hope to drive our Mother out.

Do you understand Parseltongue, Merope? Are you a Squib? I suppose not, or how could you have bewitched the Muggle? You did understand. I think I hate you more for it. Why would you lie to Father? Make him think he had no hope? I could forgive you many things, Merope, but why did you betray us?

Somewhere in there, I stopped fearing Father. And I think that made me hate you.

Do you think I didn't suffer, seeing you watch that Muggle? You think I didn't look at his very-nice suit and his fancy-arse horses and proper little carriage and feel my own jealousy? You think I didn't see that he had a Mother and Father who adored him and made him their pampered little prince and probably had never hit him? You think I didn't want food in my stomach and a roof that wouldn't leak and a woman who loved me?

I am the true heir of Salazar Slytherin. And some filthy Muggle made a fool of me. You took from me my Father, Merope. You took my Mother. But now I don't even have you.

You're gone, Merope. You ran away and took everything from us.

You were my love, Merope. You took my life.

Someday you'll lose everything.

And you deserve it.