Written for hpdarkarts event, My Bloody Valentine 2019 mini-fest.
Additional Tags: Major Character Death, obsession, love potions, Hanahaki Disease AU
She had lived in a very isolated spell. With few people interacting and shaping her life. It had not been charming. It would never twist into a happy ending either; but Merope Gaunt had always been hopeful once she could find her own thoughts. Even when, it all felt terrible. That itself had been both her weakness and strength.
Between her life and her family, the cottage where she always knew had supplemented few truths into her blood. With lessons of patience and hard work. But it still hadn't taught her enough to fear the flowers she grew by hand. It had been a hushed language, of her dreams chasing her sleep and Merope wondering what laid beyond her cottage. During her youth, she had touched the fence that divided her from the world, and from the books she could reach where she imagined the rest. That had been her own life for the first nineteen years.
Of wondering. Hoping. And dreaming.
In a way, it had made sense why she was captured by curiosity. There had been too much she wanted to see, to feel and explore by herself. And though Merope was a dreamer, she had her own wits to know that she would have to be careful if she ever dared to leave her home. It came when she grew tired of her days. When a horse went into her line of vision, there had been a young lad sitting on top of the creature. He had been the real first sign. One that Merope wanted to reach out for.
It had started quite innocent. Of wanting a friend, a companion and lover. She had been naïve, and quickly swooned when his own eyes briefly glanced at hers. It had been swift; her own heart feeling like it had been pricked and sliced by a knife. It had been painful as it had been lovely to be taken off guard like that with a handsome face. She never knew nor expected to be thrust into thinking she finally experienced love, but she had been praying for it, to have a chance of that pure innocence. Her father nor brother didn't bother with or taught her much of it for other reasons.
But that day, when the sun was high and the horse had been striding close enough for Merope to get a look at him, she had literally felt so speechless that her own heart worked overtime to come back to reality. In the slowest tremors that she could hide she admired that memory. Of seeing a new emotion invading her own flushed cheeks.
The first flowers that had sprouted out from her lips that choked her and made her reel back from the sudden petals and blood mixing from her saliva had been jonquils and red carnations.
It had been a shock; it stirred and boiled her veins too as she fumbled. Her own palms and fingers had been stained by them. The floral scent had been tucked in the blood and spit, it hadn't been that romantic. Yet, Merope had gobbled back her courage to clean up the mess she created in a lone hallway. She had been lucky that morning that she had been left alone for most that day.
Inside the general levels of her family library, held little information for her find a suitable explanation. It had been a risk, when she ventured further into the more forbidden aisles. The older spins were dusty, worn and warm from the coat of magic that protected them. Merope had known that she grew up with little magic compared to her brother and father; but it had been the flash of flowers coming from her mouth and cold sweat she still felt from her brow that made it her mission to unlock the books she wanted to touch.
Besides her week riding into that scheme, Merope had kept discovering small specs of blood and petals on top of her pillows. Cleaning spells were a little tiring at the amount of times she had to use them, but she had griped at her own resolution once they progressed striped carnations and daffodils. Her own days since she had learned about the muggle's name and recognized his voice had sucked her in deeper. In her own journals she had pledged herself that after she could cure herself of the flowers that she would find a day to speak to him. Because, for all the strength that she still had, she knew that sometimes curses could be deadly.
And such, with the magic she did have, Merope wanted her happily ever after, no matter the costs.
The text that she had uncovered had been rather dry cut about the dangerous disease of one-sided love. Both muggle and magical kinds could be infected; and that had been a little easier for her to bear when she examined the wilting petals that she did keep under a preservation charm. And for Merope Gaunt, she had accepted that her fate laid in how fast she'd fallen then, and that she had a year or two before the flowers' roots would kill her. It should have been grim; with Merope crying earnestly, but she didn't. She instead planned ahead. For all the bumps that could come her way, for finding a way to speak to him and have the love she already wanted.
It took a simple plan of brewing a love potion. She had been somewhat realistic from the beginning, he needed to love her back. She wanted to live, love freely and ultimately, prove that she, Merope Gaunt, could find her own happiness. Essentially, she justified her use of the potion, for each dosage she had to use when she captured his attention. Geraniums still popped up, but that had been expected when Tom took his first batch. Their love was still new; they just needed time for Tom to get to know her. To feel entranced from her too.
(She didn't forget about the bouquet Tom had heaved. She jotted the flowers down. And frowned a bit when she had collected the names and meanings for them.
His dazed face had momentarily called to her, but in the back of her head and heart whispered them: Monkhood, Larkspur, Petunias, Primroses. They each had scraped her own heart. But Monkhood! That one had burned her. Because, who could be Tom and her foes?)
Eloping had been a natural move. Merope hadn't even had to incite it, of their union. Tom had been the one to ask for her hand and heart. Those months when the dosage was still high from her paranoia and desperate need of his love made it harder to chock on yellow carnations. They only came with the persistent second bouquet that had been hurled by Tom's lips. Lilies, marigold, and more petunias and primroses flooded their shared pillows. She hated how that floral scent mixed their blood. It hadn't been part of the plan. He had to love her too! The love potions had said that he would be infatuated with her.
She couldn't help but cry when they both coughed. Tom's face had been anguished too, each time one of them had felt ill from their curses. He hadn't uttered that girl's name either since she started her plan. It hadn't been like Celicia waited for Tom. Once he had married Merope, the muggle left to go follow another rich man. She hadn't cried much. Or so, Merope heard after some time after their honeymoon as they strolled in the streets.
It should have been solved. With their marriage going so well, of Merope with child. The first months she kept her secret; Merope knew that she had to conserve her thin magic to carry their child. As the months rolled and her own stomach becoming swollen, her own guilt too had built up its heaviness. She played with the dosages with the love potion. In some days, she saw Tom's face become a little colder, (that's when the petals burned her more) and when he was higher Tom was kinder. It should have been wrong, but Merope loved when he was kinder.
They didn't sound like lies to her when every time he kissed her gently. Or when he told her he loved her. They felt so raw and genuine. It could have been that she got used to him dosed with her love potions; but Merope's own body felt it too, that one day she either had to stop administering it or he would be over dosed by the intake he had since their first meeting. She didn't want her son or daughter to live like that, with a father having a clocked schedule for love potions.
That, and because, Merope wanted to know a Tom that said the same things without the potion. She wanted them cured too from the flower curse.
Terror. Pain. Disgust. Pain. And so much heartbreak Tom fled from her.
His running form had hurt more than she could have predicted, and as the sun rolled into a twilight, she couldn't turn off the way he had called her witch. He hadn't been wrong; but it still stung. He didn't touch her, but the way he had backed away felt as if he had struck her all the same. When she went to their bed, she clung to his pillow. Mere hours ago, he had kissed her warmly. And now, she was cold, alone with a child still inside her.
She didn't know what to do next.
Three months later, a languid Merope had stopped at front of a muggle orphanage. One hand protectively clung to her stomach, and the other with crushed petals of pink carnations and cyclamen. In the dark night of New Year's Eve, she gave birth with bloody hands and dress.
With her final breaths she named him, Tom Marvolo Riddle, and when she held him for the first and last time, she fell in love once again with dreams that her son finding his own path in the world without feeling the curse she and her husband had been planted with. Because for all the mistakes she had done, she didn't regret how her own heart yearned for her Tom. She could never forget him, nor would she use her last moments hating either Toms in her life. Since, they had given her two different opportunities of feelings of love, and that had been worth every blood speckled petal, she had to endure since she first fell in love.
It all had been as she kissed the forehead of her newborn son with the last bits of her strength.
Flowers used + Meanings (that are relevant to the story):
Carnation (Pink); I'll Never Forget You
Carnation (Red); My Heart Aches For You, Admiration
Carnation (Striped); No, Refusal, Sorry I Can't Be with You, Wish I Could Be with You
Carnation (Yellow); You Have Disappointed Me, Rejection
Cyclamen; Resignation and Good-bye
Daffodil; Regard, Unequalled Love, You're the Only One, The Sun is Always Shining When I'm with You
Geranium; Stupidity, Folly
Jonquil; Love Me, Desire, Desire for Affection Returned
Lily (Tiger); Wealth, Pride
Marigold; Cruelty, Grief, Jealousy
Monkhood; Beware, A Deadly Foe is Near
Primrose ; I Can't Live without You + Primrose (Evening); Inconstancy
Petunia; Resentment, Anger, Your Presence Soothes Me
Larkspur (Pink); Fickleness