She's kept her promise. Today there's something that looks like the entrance to a tomb in the garden – instead of the inconspicuous pile of soil with scattered grass above it.
She probably had a few years between the first and second of her memories, because immersed in the contents of the vial with the inscription Memoria II, I still can't recognize anything like that.

But when I see her again, I'm almost a little startled.
Her previously childlike round face got alarmingly marked by the sheer poverty of her family in the meantime. Her skin is no longer just pale but, apart from dark circles under her eyes, she's unhealthily sallow. Her long hair, dull and almost grayish, is nothing less than the testimony of her devastating malnutrition.

But it's not just her appearance – her aura is radiating resignation. I was brought up in an orphanage, and yet I don't think I've ever seen a more defeated person in my life, not even in the Old Compton Street in London. The little world Merope is trapped in has crushed her, and without an ounce of hope, all resistance is extinguished.

Morfin and Marvolo, unlike her, may look alive and prouder than ever, but they're both unkempt beyond measure – something that cannot, in fact, be said about Merope. Yes, her dress may be dirty, but her hands and short nails are clean, her hair isn't stringy like her father's or Morfin's and, unlike the two gentlemen, she doesn't have dark, discoloured teeth in her mouth …

Who the fourth person in the rotten forest hut is, I only learn from his conversation with the Gaunts. The stranger's name is Bob Ogden, and he's hopelessly lost. Working for the Ministry, he tries to complete the unpleasant task of summoning Morfin to a hearing for assaulting a Muggle from Little Hangleton. But the perpetrator doesn't show himself concerned at all – and his father seems rather amused by the fact that the Ministry's even worries about a Muggle.

Meanwhile, Merope, tired as she is, tries to avoid the conversation altogether. But when one of the ancient pots on the shelf – I see The Tales of Beedle the Bard hidden right there – hits the ground with a loud metal noise, Odgen pauses with his accusations.

They all hold their breath.

Even I do, and I almost get angry in her place when Marvolo barks, "Pick it up! Pick it up right now!"

And then, all at once, there's something on her face that I know only too well. I know it of myself. It could possibly be misinterpreted as restraint, but it's nothing but swallowed anger. Cold, suffocating anger that might well drag the purest of intentions to hell if there were only a glitch in self-discipline.

But she comes to her senses and just as she's about to start moving, her father murmurs, "No, not like that! What have you got a wand for? You're a Gaunt – don't dig in the dirt like an unworthy Muggle!"

She rises in utmost lethargy, and what looks like a complete lack of pride is in truth mainly dispassionate hate. She drops the pot again and then draws her wand.
But she doesn't levitate the pot, no – she silently curses it against the wall so that it breaks in two.

"Excuse me," she then quietly says and yet I can see the satisfaction flicker across her pale face.

Raw calculation, I must have inherited that from her. She acts, much like me, not obviously, not loudly – she much rather clouds her true feelings and thoughts by an innocuous mask.

"Make it whole again!" Marvolo immediately rages, completely blind to the intellectual and magical potential of his only daughter. "You good-for-nothing, make it whole at once!"

He doesn't see what I see. He doesn't see how much she despises him. He thinks he's the man who taught her fear, but nothing more than a life like this was necessary for that. And fear has long since turned into disgust. As soon as the slightest opportunity will present itself, she'll betray him.
Foolish of him not to suspect it.

But how could someone like him understand? It's a dangerous game he played with her psyche. Trauma and torture can shatter a soul and drag it into a horrible abyss. Yet if you endure certain torments a little too long, you become strangely immune to it. And if this state lasts just a little too long, every defensive reaction of the body and mind, however healthy, turns into a perversion of its intention. Where the pain was previously too deep, it soon simply cannot reach the heart at all.

I know that. I've been there.

But even Odgen doesn't seem to realise that she's already past that point. He only sees a pitiful, poor girl who's horribly mistreated by her family. And so he tries to provide for her short-lived salvation as he hastily places his wand on the pot and applies a Reparo to it.

"Lucky you," Marvolo sneers, "that the kind man from the Ministry is here today, mh? Maybe he'll take you away from us. Maybe he won't mind a dumb squib who can't even levitate a pot!"

"Mr Gaunt," Odgen admonishes the unjustly proud head of the family, "I beg of you, leave the poor girl alone! I'm here solely for your son. Due to his attack, he has to answer the Wizengamot and –"

Marvolo holds out his hand to him, and for a moment there, I think he intends to attack the man from the ministry. But he only wants to stick his ring right under Odgen's nose.

"Do you know what this is?" he asks and proceeds to reveal it right away. "Owned by our family for centuries. Kept pure, we never gave our heirlooms away. Do you know how much I was offered for it? With the Peverell sigil engraved in the stone?"

Peverell. There it is again, the other side of the family …

"Mr Gaunt," Odgen groans, "that doesn't matter now."

"Come here!" Marvolo demands. And when Merope doesn't move, refusing to obey out of sheer self-protection, he makes a dash for her and drags her along roughly, squeezing her neck until they stand right in front of Odgen again.

She gasps as he chokes her, just like he did when she was still a child. And under the shocked eyes of the Ministry representative, he tears out a chain with a pendant, up to now hidden underneath her grey dress. The locket. Odgen has no choice but to look at it the way Marvolo holds it right into his face.

"From Slytherin! From Salazar Slytherin himself! We are his last, living descendants!"

"For Heaven's sake," Odgen shouts, "I can see it! Let go of your daughter's neck already, I see it!"

Marvolo magnanimously nods and pushes Merope away just to focus on Odgen again. "So don't speak to us as if we were commoners. The bloodline that stands before you is ancient. Pure for generations – more than you can probably claim."

"Neither your ancestors nor mine have anything to do with the matter at hand. I'm only here because of the Muggle your son has attacked last night!"

Barely catching her breath, and disgustedly, Merope mumbles to her brother, "If only he knew that was nothing. I wonder what he'd say to the things you've already done to the village girls down by the riverside."

Morfin only chuckles, but both he and his sister are reprimanded by Marvolo in Parsel, and so they fall silent for the moment.

Marvolo turns back to Odgen. "What is even the matter? I'm sure you've taken the memory of the useless Muggle."

"What difference does it make! Your son has –"

He pauses as Marvolo spits on the floor. "Muggles are filth. My son only treats them as they deserve."

Odgen acknowledges this with a fateful sigh and firmly repeats, "The hearing is on September 14, Mr Gaunt. You shouldn't miss that appointment."

Just as Morfin is about to walk away cackling, the trotting of horses and laughter can be heard through the open window behind his chair.

Marvolo instantly listens up, as if he hasn't heard anything more interesting in days, and Morfin also looks around right away. Merope, however, freezes.

"My, what a shame," we hear a girl sneer, still quite far away. "Couldn't your father have had that shack torn down, Tom?"

I get hot and cold, I realise why Merope is suddenly so stiff. I rush to the window as well, just to see the two people riding past after my name was mentioned.

Our resemblance is even more striking than this morning in front of the café.
I'm the spitting image of him, and to see him at a comparable age is simply grotesque.

Merope's wish came true.
The Gaunts only inherited their dark green eyes, everything else about me must obviously, and luckily, be attributed to the Riddle family.

"This piece of land doesn't belong to us, Cecilia," we hear him say. "Everything on the other side of the valley, but not this. Belongs to an old tramp called Gaunt, he lives here with his children. His son is completely mad if you ask me. You know what they say about him …"

The clatter of horses' hooves grows louder and thus comes closer.

Morfin wants to jerk up, but Marvolo admonishes him in Parsel to stay seated. Yet they certainly wouldn't see us through the dirty window …

"Tom," the girl then whines as they ride right past the hut, "look – someone's nailed snakes to the door!"

"Probably the son," he gathers. "As I just said, he's out of his mind. Don't look at it, love. Come on, let's move on quickly."

They ride off, unaware of the argument escalating in the shack.

"Love," Morfin whispers. "Love he called her, Merope. So he doesn't want you anyway, see?"

I would've put my hand on it that she couldn't possibly get any paler, but I was wrong. She glares at Morfin with suppressed anger, but it's already too late.

"What are you talking about?" Marvolo hisses. "What did you say, Morfin?"

"She likes to look at that Muggle," he readily answers. "Whenever he passes the garden, she swoons and stares at him. And last night –"

Merope tries to stop him, quickly shaking her head, and yet it's only a half-hearted attempt to silence him.

Odgen has been completely forgotten by everyone. He can't understand a word, but Morfin doesn't even consider sparing his sister. "Yesterday she was also hiding at the window again, waiting for him to ride by …"

"For a Muggle?" Marvolo growls. "Is that true? My daughter, pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin, fancies a filthy Muggle?"

She shakes her head again, it's just intuition, but she's basically already given up.

"I taught him a lesson though, Father," Morfin proudly claims, "I cursed the Muggle when he came by. With the rash all over him, he didn't look so handsome anymore!"

They fall into laughter like maniacs until Marvolo remembers how angry he actually is.

"You dirty blood traitor," he grumbles, already coming for her.

Instead of denying it all again, she just whispers, "Father, you can chain me up in the forest for days, or punish me with snake bites that make me choke – but it doesn't change a thing. You don't see clearly, the craze for purity is killing us. Morfin is proof of that, just look at him. This family is dying if we don't involve healthy blood –"

"Shut your disgraceful mouth!" Marvolo, losing his temper, slaps her face so hard she goes down.

Odgen promptly forces him to his senses. "Relashio!" he shouts. "Mr Gaunt, she's almost fainted!"

Their anger subsequently turns on him, the very next moment Morfin and Marvolo draw their wands. And the ministry worker is visibly worried about leaving Merope in the hell she's living in, but he's forced to take flight – and the memory fades right when Merope loses her consciousness from the heavy blow.