Love Potion # 9
By BertaS
Description: Not my usual. This came to me while rereading the 6th book in preparation for the new movie. This is my take on what really happened between Mertrope Gaunt and Tom Riddle the elder.
Warnings: Death fic, sort of.
Disclaimer: I make no claim to owning anything that belongs to others. In other words: If you recognize it, I most likely barrowed it.
Love Potion # 9
She crouched in a tiny ball between the stove and the wall as the hexes, jinxes and curses flew in and around the cottage. She didn't move for a long time after all the shouting stopped.
When she did finally gather the courage to emerge she realized they had taken not only her brother but her Papa as well. She sighed, not sure what to do or how long the men would be gone.
She drifted about trying to maintain what she considered normal, but she found it difficult to ignore the handsome young man that frequently rode his beautiful horse past her window. It wasn't as though she would have the courage to do anything but look at him. She would never dare speak to him. At least that is what she thought until one hot afternoon, she drew the water bucket from the well just as he rode up alone.
She blushed, trying to think what to do. Snatching up the cup that was kept next to the well she dipped it in the bucket and held it up as she whispered, "Would you care for some water, good Sir?"
Within the next month she had a plan and had brewed a potion which she put in the young man's water the next time he happened by. It was a weak love potion by most standards, but it was the best she could manage and it worked. He took her up onto his horse and rode away to London.
Of course, neither of them really had any marketable skills and they were soon low on funds. This didn't worry the woman as she had never had any money. Her young husband, however, was used to being the lord of the manor and soon took to drink which rendered the small amount of love potion she had left useless.
They argued constantly and the night she reveled she was a witch and could possibly sell potions to support them, he left. He left, taking the small amount of money they had that she would have needed to buy ingredients, with him.
Over the next several months, she frequently thought about returning to the cottage, but she was afraid her Papa would kill the child she had discovered she carried within her after her young man left. She had no way of knowing that her Papa was dead and that her brother was still in prison.
Late in her pregnancy she sold the only thing of value she had ever possessed. She knew she was letting it go for much less than it was worth but had little choice. She needed to eat. She was once again broke as well as in labor when she knocked on the door of the orphanage.
She only spoke twice to the kindly matron that answered the door. "Please help me." was the first. The second was as the baby boy was placed in her arms she whispered, "Call him Tom for his father. Marvolo for mine, and Riddle for a sir name." The matron had not considered the incoherent raving and hissing during the actual birth worth remembering.
Then smiling in satisfaction, knowing she had used the last of her magic to insure her son was magically strong and physically healthy, Mertrope Gaunt Riddle closed her eyes, sighed and breathed no more.
End