A/N: Starting out, this was supposed to be about giving Merope a happy ending (make her not a rapist, make Tom Sr. a good husband, give Tom Jr. a chance of being a good person). Then... well, you'll see.

It's also an excuse to be self-indulgent (write a somewhat OP female Harry, among other things). Hopefully nothing too ridiculous for other people to enjoy it as well, but hey, not everyone likes the same thing.

It had been sunny the day she met her. Bright and warm, with just enough of a breeze to keep the sun from becoming hot. A gorgeous, perfect day, made all the brighter because her father and brother were no longer there to make her life so very, very miserable.

She had sat in the shade of an oak in the garden, pretending not to watch through the hedge as Tom Riddle rode with Cecilia Abingdon down the lane. Handsome Tom Riddle. Gorgeous Cecilia. Laughing and smiling, without a care in the world. So happy.

She watched them with envy, with jealousy, wishing that she was the one sitting there, merry and carefree, with the Muggle man she pined for. Wished he would look at her like that, laugh at her jokes – wished he would take her home to that house on the hill, where they would live happily ever after. No more taunts from Morfin, no more disappointment and anger from her father – she would be free of them.

In her worst moments, she thought about the potion she could use to make that fantasy a reality. Thought about it – sometimes gathered the ingredients together. Sometimes lit the fire under the cauldron, began to brew. Thought about how she could offer him a drink on a hot day, how she could slip a few drops into his cup – how he would look at her, as if seeing her for the first time, and tell her all the things she had always wanted to hear.

This was rapidly becoming one of those moments. But then, quite suddenly, she was there, standing beside her in the shade, peering through the hedge as Tom Riddle and Cecilia Abingdon went around the curve and were lost from view. She had long, long black-as-shadows hair, much longer than the fashion currently was, that she wore haphazardly pulled back from her face, but still it fell loose down her back in a cascade of curls and waves, thick and luxurious, but too messy to be pretty, and green, green eyes, the color reminding Merope of the darkest of curses.

When she met those eyes, she was caught – caught in their emptiness, caught in their depth, the secrets they promised and the nothing they revealed. Whatever surprise she might have felt for the presence of this stranger did not manifest, not even when she spoke, saying so calmly, so matter-of-factly that it could not be mistaken for a joke, that she could make her beautiful. And when Merope questioned her, disbelieving, she had said it again, so simply there was immediately no room to doubt what she claimed.

"I can make you beautiful."

There had been no kindness in those green, green eyes – there was nothing at all, so flat they should have been inhuman. Merope had narrowed her crooked eyes and asked the obvious thing, because despite the madness and violence that ran in her family, she was no fool: for what price?

For a brief second, those empty eyes flashed with bright, sickening amusement, and her lips quirked into a faint, barely there smile, and her reply was so casual, so flippant, that Merope had taken it for a joke.

"Only your firstborn, of course."

It had seemed so silly, those eyes alight with that amusement, her voice almost teasing – Merope did not take it seriously. Not with the prospect of being beautiful, being appealing. Not with the idea of turning Tom Riddle's head burning bright in her mind.

She had let her do it, that stranger with the eyes like Death – she had let her make her beautiful.

There were potions for her hair and skin, spells for her teeth and eyes. The potions made her feel like she was burning, like she had been dipped in acid and thrown on hot coals – but they made her skin flawless, a perfect shade of alabaster, without a hint of a blemish; her hair became thick and silky smooth, shining darkly in the light, and it always held the style she put it in. The rearranging of her teeth had left her crying and unable to eat, and light felt like a host of stabbing needles for the entire day after she had fixed her eyes.

The worst part had been when she had instructed her to lay down on the bed, on her stomach, and had trailed her wand – holly and phoenix feather, eleven inches, she had told her once – down the uneven curve of her spine, just slightly crooked, hardly noticeable, but she had said it would only become worse with age. She had lain awake all that night, biting the pillow she had given her to hold, screaming as her spine straightened and everything else moved to match its new shape. She had sat beside her, stroking her hair and soothing her, reminding her that this was what she wanted, that beauty was worth the price of this pain, was it not?

And oh, how beautiful she had been, when they finished. She had stood straight and just tall enough, a princess in that shack, with hair like the night sky and eyes that were straight and bright and focused in a face that was no longer heavy, but light with happiness. She had promised her, promised her and Merope believed, that the beauty would not fade, that she would never go back to looking the way she had before they started – she would never be ugly again.

She taught her spells then, opened her up to all the magic that she had been too scared to use with her father and brother. Magic for everyday tasks, like cleaning, cooking, weeding and laundry, mending and altering clothes. She taught her stranger things too, things to make her smile and marvel at what she was capable of. There were spells for if her father and brother ever came back as well – defense and offense, hexes and curses, wards and shields. They would never be able to torment her again, she told her.

There were other lessons – dance and history, etiquette and all things Muggle – and a great deal of advice on how to make Tom Riddle fall in love with her, without the use of magic to make up his heart and mind for him. She paid special attention to those, but it was the magic she liked the best, because it was always a surprise, how wonderful it was, how good she managed to be at it.

Snaring Tom Riddle had proven easy after all that she had done for Merope, and before the year was out, they were married – she had never been so happy. The wedding was held at the Riddle House, and while his parents could not have been said to smile, at the very least, they did not disapprove of the new addition to their family – not when she was so pretty, soft spoken and polite (not at all like her horrible family) and made their son so happy. There was gossip, the good kind and the bad kind, but most of the town agreed – the Gaunt girl had really flourished without her father and brother to drag her down. Not to mention how she managed to mellow out that prat Tom Riddle.

They went to London for their honeymoon – she had seen them off, and Merope had hugged her tightly, thanking her with tears in her eyes for making it all possible. For not letting her do what she might have done, purchasing happiness with a potion, creating love with magic – for making her dream real. After the months they had spent together, learning to read those strange green eyes, she still barely noticed the jaded irony that flashed in them, and had laughed away the strange reply, the almost bitter smile.

"Don't thank me yet."

When she returned to Little Hangleton, Merope had very little trouble convincing the Riddles to let her 'cousin' stay with them in the manor house – she was a little odd, sometimes, but it was the quiet sort of odd that was easily ignored. It was only right that Merope have some family around, so long as it was not her brother or father.

It was only right that she be there when Merope realized she was pregnant – it should not have surprised anyone, but it seemed to anyway. Everyone except for her, of course. She had smiled, that same little quirk of her lips as that first day, her green, green eyes flashing with a kind of anticipation – for the first time in too long, Merope had thought of that joke, the 'price' she owed this woman for her help.

"Only your firstborn, of course."

It haunted her, but only for a moment before it was forgotten again, swept away by all the things that had to be done to prepare for the coming baby. It was just an old joke, after all.

She was always there, ready to see to her needs, to keep her healthy and happy – water, Merope? A bite to eat? Here, you look tired; why don't you have a lie down? As she had been since she stepped into Merope's life, she was wonderful and so, so helpful – even Tom's parents, who never quite warmed to either of them, acknowledged how the young woman seemed to make everything go more smoothly.

It was only natural that she attend Merope when the baby was born. Calm and steady, soothing, but even through the pain and effort, she saw something, a bright and strange something, in those Death-like eyes when she pushed the baby boy into the world.

"Tom Marvolo Riddle," she had said, and Merope had agreed without even thinking on it – for his father and for her father, of course. It was just right – hating her father did not matter when the name balanced wizard and Muggle together, making her son a perfect blend of both. It was right.

Right as the way she smiled at little Tom, how she cooed and whispered to him. How she played with him as he grew. The unease Merope felt when she watched her with him, her little boy, was pushed aside time and again, by how good she was with him, how happy he was, and how happy she and his father were.

There was never another child, a fact that Merope wondered about sometimes – but they did not need one, did they? Not when they had Tom; brilliant, beautiful, magical Tom.

And of course he was magical – more magical than anyone she had ever seen, more magical than her father, brother, and herself combined. As magical as she was, as powerful. Of course she helped with that too – making the senior Tom Riddle understand, accept, even be proud of his wizard son and his witch wife.

When the letter came, the response was a forgone conclusion – Tom would attend Hogwarts, as none in the Gaunt family had done since Corvinus Gaunt. The excitement as they sent him off on the train was as palpable as how much they would miss him while he was gone.

He wrote to them often, to her even more – about his classes, his Slytherin housemates, his professors and how well he was doing. His intelligence was a point of pride for both his parents – it reflected well on them, did it not? And he was so very bright, Tom was. The brightest student to ever enter Hogwarts.

Every holiday he spent at home, happy, healthy, and full of stories that delighted them to no end. And always, always, her son sought her out, asking questions, learning more about magic, going back to school eager for more – it was as if he expected her to know more than his professors, know more than anyone he could talk to. The unease was constant at those times, whenever she saw them together, Tom's face animated as he spoke to her, and on her face a smile that reminded Merope too much of those words, that offer.

"I can make you beautiful."

"Oh yeah? For what price?"

"Only your firstborn, of course."

That she was a witch was something Merope had always known – who but a witch could make such a claim and actually follow through with it? But as time went on, more and more she wondered if she was entirely right about that – there were things, little things, bigger things, that made her think that maybe she was not a witch at all, but something else. Something stranger.

She tried to convey this to her husband one day – she told him what she had done, how she had made her beautiful and taught her all the things that had helped her catch his attention. Tried to make him see what worried her about the woman who had brought them together, who sat in the garden with their son and utterly enchanted him – but she could never tell him those words, because how could he forgive her if she had agreed, however unknowingly, to such a terrible price? So he just smiled and kissed her, saying he was glad that she had been a part of their lives, because he would never have been so happy without Merope, beautiful and whole, as his wife.

(She never admitted what might have been, had she not been there that day. About the potion she might have brewed and the plans she had half-made, dissolved into a distant nightmare when she had approached her.)

Barely into Tom's Hogwarts career, war came – like many larger homes, they were asked to house refugees, and the Riddle House was filled with children, laughing, playing, more than it had ever seen before. Merope thought that, had things been different, the Riddles never would have taken those children into their home – but things were not different, and for close to five years, they hosted over a dozen, some for only a few months, others for the entirety of the war.

When the first ones arrived, she hoped that Tom would take a liking to these children, who were close to his age, who were normal, who were not her. But though he was always polite, unfailingly kind to them all, he never sought out their company – for him, when he was home, she was always his first choice. For her part, she was as good as any of them with the children – better perhaps, though it was obvious, to Merope at least, that she favored Tom above all others.

They were getting closer, she knew, with every day he was home, with every moment they spent in each other's company. And that was when she noticed it – perhaps because she was looking so very closely for something wrong – how this woman, despite the years, had not changed at all, how she looked no different from that very first sunny day. Her hair was still black as shadows, without a hint of gray; her skin as smooth as marble, not a wrinkle or laugh line to be found; and her eyes the green of Death – she did not age.

She said nothing, and if anyone else had noticed, they did not speak of it either.

The first time she saw them kiss was the summer immediately following Tom's graduation from Hogwarts – Os on all his N.E.W.T.s, truly the best student the school had ever seen. She had gone out to the garden to get them – they had a surprise dinner planned – and stumbled upon the scene, which was clearly not meant for anyone else's eyes. The familiar tilt of his head, bent toward hers; the ease of his hands resting on her waist; the casual way her fingers played in his hair – it was plain to see that this was not the first time they had stood thus. Merope wanted to be sick, wanted to burst upon them with all the fury of a mother, to snatch her son from that woman's arms and whisk him away to safety. But Tom… he looked so happy, and his quiet laugh at something she said made her heart twist. And she did nothing.

Because it was clear, so very clear then, that he was already under that woman's – that creature's – spell. Her son was in love, ensnared by her. And it occurred to Merope that this was what she had meant, almost two decades ago, when she had told her the price of her help. She knew then that there was nothing she could do, had never been anything she could do – because in allowing her to make her beautiful, she had agreed to what she had thought was a joke. She had given her exactly what she wanted.

"Only your firstborn, of course."

A/N: Now that you've read it, let me know if it's up your alley - or even if you totally hated it. I'm rather fond of it.

So review. If you'd like.