Chapter 2: Merope Dreams

As the drug made her feverish mind swim, Merope's thoughts drifted in and out of sleep, and she heard, as if from a great distance, her own shrieking laughter. She was sitting on the edge of a large bed -- their bed -- the one she and Tom had shared together in France.

They'd run away to Monte Carlo and had rented a lovely flat near the sea. They often walked the beach together, hand in hand, and the locals remarked pleasantly just how happy the handsome young man and his homely wife seemed.

"Must be under a love spell, that one," chortled a nearby fisherman to his companion, and the two of them snickered as they watched Merope amd Tom stroll by.

But now, Merope was sitting on the edge of their large and lavish bed, leaning back on her hands as Tom massaged her feet, and now she threw her head back and laughed. The wind had given her pale cheeks color, her lanky hair was decorated with flowers, and in those happy months she had spent with Tom, there had been a certain cheerful fire in Merope's crossed eyes. With Tom, she was almost beautiful. Almost.

"Don't, Tom! You know my foot is ticklish there!" Merope shrilled, squirming, and Tom smiled at her mischeviously and suddenly pounced upon her and pinned her to the bed. They laughed together, rolling over on the sheets until Merope was lying on top, and Tom smiled up at her and stroked her stringy, colorless hair.

"Tell me," Tom said, laughing, " . . . how did we meet again?" and he frowned as he strained to recall, his lips still wearing that horrible vacant smile.

He was so handsome Merope thought her heart would break as she watched him struggle to remember the lie she had told him, a meeting that had never taken place.

She hated that emptiness, the shell he seemed to have become once he'd drank the love potion. She wanted him there, the real Tom, loving her and desiring her of his own free will . . . and she twinged with a pang of regret, wishing she had thought of this before. Yet she hadn't imagined it would be this way. She thought love potions made people . . . well . . . love. But Tom Riddle was not in love with her, but infatuated. This wasn't the real Tom, but the potion speaking through him. He was a mindless shell through whom magic made itself heard.

"I was working in my father's garden . . ." began Merope, her voice trembling now. It was becoming harder and harder to lie to this man, this creature who had been so blindly obsessed with a young woman even yet he still did not know. She cringed as his empty, helpless eyes stared up at her like the glass eyes of a doll and could not go on with her story.

"Yes?" Tom pressed, looking worried. "Merope -- what is it?"

"No, no, this is wrong -- WRONG!"

Merope shook her head and backed off of Tom's chest and into a corner of the room. She kept a wooden chest there, locked, in which there was a hideous supply of her own batch of love potion. The cauldron was sitting peacefully within the chest, its black lid clasped down tight, and she hefted it in her arms and turned to the door.

"What is that?" Tom demanded in confusion, sitting up on the bed, and then angrily, "Where are you going?" He rushed at her and, with sudden violence, barred the door with his body. "You can't go anywhere without me, remember?"

Merope stared up at him, her heart pumping with sorrow and fear. She would end this today, and he would realize who she was, that she was ugly, and that he did not love her. He would break her heart all over again, just as the day she had first seen him with that other girl, and she would be left here alone in Monte -- ugly, unloved, and unwanted.

She hesitated, wondering whether or not she should lock the potion away again and forget that she'd ever felt guilty, but his empty, glassy eyes stared mindlessly down at her with a hopeless comical sort of ecstacy and she strengthened her resolve. He was pathetic this way and suddenly repulsive, and she realized that she was exactly the same.

"The potion made me see myself for what I was," Merope whispered, her crossed eyes growing distant as she spoke to herself.

Tom had a sickening, puppy-dog expression, "I don't want you to ever leave me! I'm coming with you -- let me carry that -- " and he jostled the cauldron of pink fluid out of her arms and into his own. "Now -- where is it we're going, darling?"

Darling. Merope flinched. What names would he call her when the potion wore off?

"Remember that high cliff overlooking the sea, love?" she said lightly, twisting her fingers.

Tom smiled mechanically. "I remember . . ." he said, and his eyes traced her body up and down hungrily.

Merope shuddered and turned away. The cliff was the first place they'd really been intimate and, therefore, the best place for her to destroy the potion. He'd been wild and frightening then, a hungry animal that could not control its urges, and she closed her eyes, trying hard to forget that night.

The love potion was disposed of that very day, and the lovers returned to their flat together. Tom was very much still obsessed with Merope and was vaguely puzzled by the girl's increasingly dismal, even wary manner as the days progressed.

"What the deuce is the matter with you?" he demanded one night from behind a newspaper. "You sulk around as if you're waiting for me to strike you!"

"I -- I'm sorry . . ." Merope muttered, fumbling to pour the tea and sloshing it over the table.

"Let it be! I'll clean it up!" Tom snapped, looking at her in bewilderment. "Everyday I see it more and more, Merope. You seem less and less like the woman I married!"

Merope's lip curled, and she shrank into herself, crossing her arms over her chest. "And what was the woman you married like?" she asked timidly.

Tom paused and stared off dreamily, "Ah, she was beautiful! Beautiful! Just perfect! So cheerful and loving . . . There was nothing wrong about her -- nothing!" He looked at Merope and cupped her face tenderly, "What happened to her, darling, hmm? You seem so . . . gloomy lately and . . . gray."

Merope gave a small phony cough, "The weather in Monte doesn't agree with me, I'm afraid. That's all."

"Then we must leave at once," Tom cried, springing up as if Merope's life depended on moving. "You pack the laundry, I'll ring up my agent -- "

"No, wait, Tom!" Merope cried, her heart in her throat. "Please! Sit down."

Tom stared at her, unblinking, and obeyed.

"Then what do you want to do?" he said earnestly, the puppy-dog face making another appearance.

"I want . . ." Merope stopped uncertainly and bit her lip, glancing across the room at the closed door to their bedroom.

"Oh. . . . I know what you want!" cried Tom mischeviously. He sprang up again, scooped Merope up in his arms, and kissed her neck where he knew her to be ticklish; Merope laughed shrilly inspite of herself. Then he sprinted off the to the bedroom with her in his arms and shut the door.

Merope awoke the next morning when someone ripped the sheets from her naked body. She shivered and clutched blindly at nothing, then opened her eyes to see Tom towering over her, wrapped in the blanket and incensed.

"Who the hell are you?" Tom demanded. He stared around the room wildly, "And where am I? Why am I in bed with you -- and --" He lifted his hand to the sunlight streaming in through the windows and gaped at it incredulously, "is this a wedding ring?" He stared at Merope accusingly, "Are we married?"

Merope cringed under his shouts. She couldn't answer. Her mouth opened and closed, but no sound came out, and her body felt rigid and frozen with terror.

"WELL?" exploded Tom, his eyes popping.

He looked very handsome, like a Greek god, standing there with the white sheet wrapped partially around his body and his lustrous black hair mussed and falling into his eyes. He'd always been so so handsome, and the sight of his beautiful eyes glaring at her made tears start to her eyes.

Tom began to pace the room feverishly, talking loudly to himself. "I've been drugged! Drugged! No wonder I'm seeing five of everything! You!" he shouted, turning to the bed and jabbing an accusing finger at Merope. "You drugged me and married me, didn't you?" and when she didn't answer, "DIDN'T YOU?"

Merope still could not speak. She felt as if her lungs had ceased to draw air. Why, why, why had she destroyed the love potion? She'd been so happy. But he had not, she reminded herself. He had not been in his right mind: it wasn't fair, it wasn't right.

"Wait a second . . ." Tom whispered, his handsome eyes narrowing. "I know you! You're that ugly little ragamuffin from the Guant house! That crazy old man's daughter!"

Merope cringed and covered her ears, her face contorted. She heard Tom rush at her and screamed as he dragged her up by the hair and shook her.

"Answer me, or so help me god -- "

"It's true! It's true!" Merope sobbed, feeling sick and dizzy from the shaking. Her scalp was on fire and torn and bleeding in places, she knew, and he threw her to the floor in disgust.

"A hideous scandal," Tom muttered, panicking, as he wiped the scent of her skin from his hands with distaste. He went to his scattered clothing and began dressing with great haste. "The whole town will be talking! I have -- have to set things right -- You! What day is it?" he spat at Merope, and when she told him, his eyes popped again.

"You've been drugging me for this long?" he snarled at Merope, towering over her where she cowered on the floor. "You sneaking harlot! See if I don't have you arrested for this!" His teeth flashed and spit flew from his mouth, and suddenly he was not so handsome anymore but dangerous and wild.

Merope pulled the neglected bedsheet around her naked body and crawled slowly from the room.

"No, you don't!" Tom yelled, going after her in his disheveled clothing, and he grabbed her and yanked her back by the hair again.

Merope heard her own animal grunts of pain as he jerked her back and shoved her roughly onto the bed. He pulled her head back by the hair, forcing her to look at him.

"You're going to pay for this," he growled at her, shaking her by the hair. "And you'll never be able to show your ugly face in Little Hangleton again!"

She could apparate. She could disappear . . . but if she performed magic in front of a Muggle it would mean with wizarding police on her back as well . . . Merope would have to make due and escape the Muggle police the best she could with what little powers were left to her. After she'd destroyed the love potion, she'd watched with intense guilt as Tom slowly came back to himself, and her powers had been draining away with the overwhelming feeling.

On the pavement in Little Hangleton, Merope stirred in anguish, willing herself to wake and let go of the disturbing dreams that recalled so clearly her memory of her last partings with Tom. She jerked back into the waking world with a soft scream and was mildly astonished to find herself lying on her back in the rain, her arms and legs spreadeagle.

"But it was so real . . ." Merope muttered to herself, trembling. "So real!"

"Miss? Miss!"

Merope looked around to see a police officer standing over her, frowning the same frown she'd seen so many others wear when confronting her. He was wondering if she was crazy or ill or gone into labor or all three. Merope struggled to sit up on her elbows and begged the officer to get her someplace warm. She could read the sympathy in his green eyes as he drank in her ugly, sullen features and played it to her advantage, begging that he carry her because, oh, her feet ached so terribly . . .

"We can't keep you at the station, ma'am," the officer told her once they were driving against the rain, "but there's an orphanage that might give you room and board until the baby's born. Would you like that?" He looked at her in the rearview mirror, flashing eyes of appeal.

"That sounds perfect," Merope called from the back of the car, her bare and blistered feet touching with pleasure the cool pane of one of the windows. And by perfect, she meant the perfect place to die.