Merope Viperius Gaunt was sweet sixteen and had never been kissed, and according to her brother, she never would be. Her mother had died when she was very little, and she had grown up always wearing Morfin's hand-me-downs, but secretly admiring the swishing gowns and skirts of the ladies of the town – even the baker's wife wore work skirts in a beautiful deep brown.
Recently, poor Merope had gone through "Preparing for the only important thing a witch can do," as her father had told her, practically spitting his hissing syllables. She often wondered if he could even speak the common tongue any more, or perhaps if he ever could. Merope finally becoming old enough to marry was a cause for celebration for her brother and father, and a cause of many tears for the girl, as getting married meant she would have to move away from the village, and the boy she longed to be friends with again, Tom.
Even though Marvolo Gaunt had glared and bared his teeth at the men from the local church and slammed the door on the suited man from the government, the children were still taken to Little Hangleton Primary School as the muggle law required, his wife insisted that they be educated, even if it was by muggles.
Morfin was disgusted by the filth surrounding him and refused to speak to any of them. He was rightfully picked on for his behaviour, and the teacher used the cane on his hands more than once for trying to bite another child, but he had left school two whole years before Merope started. His hatred of the villagers of Little Hangleton grew and festered with every sighting of the muggles.
Merope however, was quiet and shy, and the others felt sorry for her because of her poor quality clothes and messy hair, and the brute of a brother who made horrible hissing noises at her when he walked her to school.
Her teacher in the third year of classes, deciding to have a modern approach, mixed the sexes from their divided seating, and sat her beside a boy. His name was Tom Riddle. Tom was always very clean and very well dressed. He told her, in whispered conversations, that his mother and father were not very nice, and that when he was 16 he would run away and join the army. Merope thought that this was a wonderful idea, and, in the fashion that childhood friends do, they made a pact. Tom spat in his palm, and Merope spat in hers and they each swore to be friends forever and to leave Little Hangleton when they grew up.
Unfortunately for the girl, her magic bound her to her promise, and the spit was just enough body fluid to bind her to Tom, unknowingly.
Marvolo Gaunt had attempted to find a suitable match for his daughter for almost eighteen whole months from her fifteenth birthday. She was a plain looking young woman, and although she had slim hips, he assured potential partners families that her mothers had widened after the birth of Morfin, and if she hadn't caught dragon pox, they would surely have had more than two children.
At first, things had gone well.
He accepted the arrangement with the Todd patriarch for his youngest son Sidney, and the bonding ceremony was planned. Then something went very wrong when the handfasting ribbons were conjured by the blushing bride and groom, as Merope screamed as though she was being flayed, and continued screaming until they got her away from the man.
Her father had to use a memory charm to obliviate the memory from her head when she kept waking in the night, screaming.
He attempted to bond her thrice more in the months that followed, then came to the conclusion that she must be little better than a squib and magic would not allow her to sully the other pureblood lines. He began to beat her, and the obliviations and abuse soon damaged the girl's appearance: her eyes drifted and became unfocused, and she had small scars all over her legs from the snake bites he commanded against her.
Upon her seventeenth birthday, Merope woke to see that her brother, while despicable, had not, in fact, killed her in her sleep as he had threatened for years. Nor had her father banished her from the family home.
She saw to the breakfast, as usual, and swept the bare dirt floor of the leaf litter and shed scales. It was after this that her father announced that, if she had not found a husband by the day of her 18th birthday, she was to be bonded to her brother, Morfin, and would produce heirs to the Slytherin bloodline. Morfin looked embarrassed, but quietly let her know that her father permitted him to gift her their mother's clothes, and she spent the remainder of the day adjusting them carefully to fit her as correctly possible.
Days passed and, almost a month after her birthday, Merope decided to take a walk through the quiet fields surrounding the town. Her father merely grunted when she asked for permission, and Morfin told her to bring a basket and collect anything she thought might look like potions ingredients. Dressed in a long brown skirt, a soft cream shirt and a pocket apron that had faded to a muddy grey, she set off with her basket, through the bristly shrubs and trees that her father had charmed to keep the muggles away.
She wandered aimlessly, occasionally using her wand to lift a plant, roots and all, into her basket, and finally reached a large house, with a tall hedge and a familiar face called out a cheerful greeting. "Merope! My goodness, has it been so long? Come along dear, you must come inside for a cool drink." Mrs Riddle was a stately woman, and she had worried greatly when the girl her son was so fond of just disappeared when she turned 10. Judging from the gossip which the local ladies had frequently provided, the child's father had taken his son and daughter out of the public as quickly as permitted, and judging from the girls muddy and ragged fingers, put them to work. Mary settled herself at the kitchen table, while Mrs Edwards, the cook, fetched lemonade for the girl.
The years did not look to have been kind on the child, the lady of the manor surmised, looking at the purpling bruise at her temple and the way her eyes drifted apart. When Tom walked in to collect his after tennis snack, he stopped dead in his tracks. "Mother, what on earth is the Tramp's daughter doing here?"
Merope felt a sharp pain in her chest when she saw Tom again, and something akin to a painful pulling sensation. "I am deeply sorry, Lady Riddle," she said softly, with a low bow, "but I must return home. Father shall be expecting his supper soon. Thank you for the drink." With that, she fled and missed the guilty look from her once childhood friend.
Morfin had left out the book for her to look through when she returned so that she could sort through the plants and not annoy their father with such triviality. The peppermint would be able to be sold, as would the rose petals and thorns. She had a strange prickling feeling, something like when her magic knocked over the broom when she was frustrated, and the pages of the book fluttered like butterflies wings. Merope flicked through and saw a potion she had never noticed before and was unsure of what it was until she saw the word Matrimonium.
Her magic seemed to shiver, and the odd pulling sensation happened again, but this time, she thought of Tom. He had grown up to be a very handsome man, just like his father: tall, and broad-shouldered, dark haired and well featured. If only Tom would marry her, like he had joked about as a child, then perhaps she would escape from her father, and see the world outside.
The confundus charm, which she had been taught to keep her safe from the muggles, was used carefully on her father and brother before they awoke, and she hoped that she could get away from her family, even for one more day. Unluckily for Merope's plans of cloud gazing and river dipping, the moment she exited the barrier from her home, a man grabbed her by the upper arms. "Merope! Thank the Lord almighty that you are safe! There was a fire down the street and no one had heard from your family, and after I was so cruel… I apologise." Tom Riddle, well dressed and elegant, stood before her, looking down into her startled face. "Merope, I was hoping I could apologise properly. I have requested that Mrs Edwards put on a luncheon, mother and father will chaperone of course, but I have missed you all these years. Say you will come?" Merope merely nodded and allowed herself to be swept away into the most delightful afternoon of her life.
Mrs Riddle sent her maid to help her prepare and clean herself for the meal, and after it was finished Tom walked her around the gardens, gifting her with a small cutting of his grandmother's roses. Merope sat on her straw bed in a daze, thinking about Tom, and looking at the rose he had given her. Surely it was a sign that he loved her? After all, in the ladies books which once belonged to her mother, the handsome prince gave the princess a bunch of flowers, and there was always a rose. She looked again at the book. Her brewing wasn't as good as her fathers, but she would try her best. If it worked, it would be another sign that it was meant to be.
It took her a week to find an excuse to leave the house again, but when her brother didn't return from going to deliver the potions ingredients, her father stormed out to go and find him, and she took her chance. Quickly donning her mother's old tattered and faded black cloak, Merope walked to the Riddle house and crept inside. She remembered seeing Mrs Edwards using the servant's passages in the rear of the kitchen, and crept through, heart hammering in her chest. The sun had set, and the only light on in the manor was now the little lantern outside the groundskeeper's pretty little wooden hut.
Merope smiled at the sight through a tall window, remembering a story her mother had told her about a witch transfiguring a house from gingerbread and giving sugared fruits to the good little witches and wizards that found her home in the woods. She heard a snuffling snoring noise, and looked around a door, only to see Mr Riddle, fast asleep, his large moustache fluttering with every exhale. Trying hard not to giggle, Merope crept down the hall, checking each room until she found Tom.
He looked even more handsome sleeping, his blankets pushed down in slumber, revealing smooth skin and a broad chest nothing like the shape of the men in her home. She smiled at him, sighing as he rolled over away from her, and quickly poured the potion into the glass of water at his little table. "Goodnight Tom," she whispered, closing the door behind her quietly, and quickly running from the house to her own.
An hour later and Merope Gaunt was under her back itchy woollen blankets, dreaming about a muggle wedding, and babies with beautiful faces, just like Tom.
The next morning, she had woken and prepared the house, as usual, then quickly and quietly passed the shrubbery and sighed in relief when she saw Tom approaching. "Merope, you look more radiant than the sun," he said, beaming at her, and raising her hand to his lips.
Almost a year passed in this fashion, filled with stolen moments and days of separation when one or both of them could not escape from their familial constraints, then Tom arrived one crisp winter morning a week before her birthday, looking more rumpled than she had ever seen him. "My love, we must leave." Merope was speechless, blinking in the bright morning light him. "Come, Merope. Let us make use of my fathers driver. The time has come for us to leave Little Hangleton." Merope quickly agreed, and Tom headed back to his home to gather his belongings and arrange the auto-mobile to transport them.
Merope quivered with nervousness as she crept up behind her brother and her father, and whispered "confundo," for what she hoped was the last time. She trembled again as Tom helped her into the auto-mobile, and clasped his hand in a death grip as the muggle machine travelled faster than she had ever seen a broomstick fly.
Three weeks had passed, and Tom announced that they should be married, as they were living together unchaperoned, though not yet as man and wife. Merope happily wore the white dress and lace-trimmed hat he had bought for her and smiled contentedly at him as he spoke to the priest who would quietly marry them. She blushed when taken aside by the Sisters of the muggle church and was asked very plainly about going to bed with Tom, and her face went redder than it had ever done before when Sister Agatha told her frankly what was going to happen when Tom took her home. However, her decision never wavered, and Merope could even feel her magic stir around herself and Tom as the priest asked them questions, and the candles in the church flickered and flared as they spoke their vows to each other.
Living in London was harder than Merope and Tom had imagined. Tom had written to his parents about their marriage, and his father had demanded that the return to Little Hangleton. Tom thought that this would be disastrous and that his father would tear them apart. But Merope knew nothing could part them now, as she had stopped giving Tom the potion on the day they before got married, knowing that Tom really loved her and that she wouldn't need it any more.
Slowly the months turned and on the 15th of April Merope felt a different kind of pulling on her magic. She went to see the herbwife who lived across the town an afternoon while Tom had gone for a walk and was shocked to find out that she might be carrying a baby. Merope felt incredibly embarrassed when she remembered arguing with the wrinkled woman that babies were delivered by owl, and sighed in relief that the woman had been a witch and merely laughed.
She did think that perhaps Tom wouldn't be as excited about the baby, and therefore didn't tell him. He was exchanging frequent letters with his family, and sometimes she saw him frowning while looking out of the window. Their happy news could wait until he was less worried, and could be as happy as Merope herself.
At the end of September, when her stomach was swollen and her emotions were high, Tom got into an argument with a man on the street and returned home with a bruise on his face. "I have had enough of this festering sore of a town, we shall return to Little Hangleton in the morning," he announced, storming into the lounge. His eyes went wide suddenly, and then his brow furrowed, "Merope? How did we come to be here?" Merope was confused, and shook her head, "I don't understand, Tom. What do you mean?"
Tom, however, was looking all around him like he had never seen the house before. He looked at the walls and the furniture, then ran to their bedroom, then the dressing room. Merope found him staring in the mirror. "What am I wearing?" he said, taken aback at his modern cut suit. Merope thought he looked nice and shrunk away when he rounded on her, holding out his left hand, "What in the name of God is this?!" he shouted gesturing to his wedding ring. His eyes were almost feverish as he spotted hers, the telltale swell of her pregnancy, and he immediately shook his head, walking swiftly from the room. Unfortunately spotting her wand where she had left it beside her knitting. Tom lifted it and threw it at her, "Witch! You told me once you were a witch and I thought it the joking of youth! But its true, isn't it? You've enchanted me to do this, to leave my home and wed you? To become some sort of slave to your whims? Well, no more! Get out!"
Merope Riddle, sitting on the footpath outside what was once her marital home, cried as she pressed her hand to her rounded stomach, and staggered to her feet. A passing policeman shook his head, and a woman crossed the street with her children, guiding them away from her.
She waited, weeping, for two days for Tom to let her back in before the man who had driven her to this place opened the door and told her "Young Master Riddle has been safely delivered back to his parents. Lady Riddle has impressed upon me the necessity of you remaining here, away from her son, and has sent this. Please leave this street, or I will be forced to contact the constabulary. Goodbye, Madam." With that, he shut the door, leaving Merope with four one-pound notes clutched in her hand.
Not knowing what else to do, Merope headed back to try and find the herbwife, sobbing as she stumbled in the rain. A coughing and bedraggled Merope finally reached Diagon Alley and rented a room towards the end of the street from a lady with dark skin and eyes the colour of the firewhiskey her father used to drink. Merope wondered how everything had gone wrong, and why the horrible twisting feeling in her stomach was getting worse. She spent as little on food as possible, remembering how often her father made it clear that children were expensive and realised that she certainly could not make the shillings she had left stretch to cover a midwife helping her, food, and lodgings, and so she found her way to a shop that her landlady pointed out.
The only things that Merope had of value were her gold wedding ring and a necklace that her father told her belonged to his grandfather. Mr Burke told her that it was likely muggle, like the ring, and would need to be melted down, but that he would take pity on her and give her two whole galleons for both. This paid for her rent, right up until the middle of December, just before Yule, when her landlady died, and the wards of the house pushed her out into the street with none of her belongings, and the Aurors were called to remove her from Diagon Alley for causing a disturbance. She was banned from the alley for four weeks, but it was barely more than two when the horrible emptiness started.
She was surviving, begging for scraps of food and muggle money here and there, but one moment the painful twisting that she had become accustomed to stopped, and it felt as though all the joy had been sucked from her world. When the muggle street lamps shone with electric light, Merope felt a different pain than the haunting void behind her breast. and then blood ran from between her legs. A homeless boy flinched from the sight of her staggering and ran to the orphanage to see if one of the sisters would help her.
Sister Margaret was tutting at the fallen woman, shaking her head. "The pain is Gods punishment," she said, "for being wicked and sinful. You should be happy! In the book of our Lord, it tells us 'Unto the woman he said, I will greatly multiply thy sorrow and thy conception; in sorrow thou shalt bring forth children; and thy desire shall be to thy husband, and he shall rule over thee.' You understand, don't you? That this pain is to cleanse your wicked soul." Merope cried and wept and howled through the pain, and finally, she birthed a son, under the watchful eye of the Sisters.
"What is his name? If you are to give him to the orphanage, I must have a name." Merope tried to raise her head from staring at her baby to look at the woman, but felt a tearing pain inside and a gush between her legs, and kept her eyes on him. "My boy. Tom Riddle, Junior. Keep him safe." The sister was alarmed at the volume of blood and tried to shake the woman, ignoring the piercing cries of the newborn at being passed to a younger nun who wrapped him in a small blanket they kept for swaddling.
"Merope? Merope, come on, come on now girl," Sister Margaret was calling, but Merope lifted her left hand, the faded line from where her wedding band had once been stark white as she paled, and reached out for her son, giving him one last smile as she breathed her last.