Merope only hid four of the five vials before leaving for London, so the fifth and last memory puzzles me.
Still it found its way into my hands, and I see flashing images, one after the other, of fleeting happiness and supposed love of a young married couple in England's capital.
He looks just like me, and I have been acting a part throughout my life – just like her.
I watch how they dance, penniless, in an empty, tiny and run-down London apartment. How he breathes a kiss onto her bare shoulder while he holds her tightly in his arms on a tattered sofa. In nothing but candlelight he tries to protect her from the cold with a yellowed sheet. I see them in their poverty, still laughing until they cry because Merope can make him fly through their place. How they steal food on the streets of London with nothing more than the clothes on their bodies, and also how they use magic to grab daily newspapers only to look for work.
They both find some. Riddle as an editor for leaflets, Merope as a vendor for a fruit stand. Their little space is gradually filling up with second-hand belongings at least, and in one of the rushing memories I can now see a ring on her finger.
She's no longer Merope Gaunt, she is a Riddle …
And although she cries each time while brewing the key to her happiness on the little stove, she lets the love of her life drink from her poison every day.
It's difficult for her to accept that what feels so right to her, like a perfect world in her life for the first time, is infinitely cruel. On the other hand, Riddle seems ridiculously happy. It's outright grotesque, for both of them.
He's intoxicated, and as harmless as it may seem – he's not voluntarily with her. He did not leave Cecilia because he wanted to. Not his home, not his family …
No matter how often he whispers words of love into her ear while he pulls her closer to him, no matter how ecstatic he's kissing her – he's not in control of his senses.
And yet, with all this passing time, it becomes harder to distinguish between black and white. Apparently also for Merope. After weeks of morning sickness, a realization hits her with the same force as it hits me when I see it.
She's with child.
With me …
She intuitively smoothes a hand over her belly, smiling and crying just the same. "What was necessary …" she whispers into the universe, perhaps to her ancestors, but at the same time it seems to be the very moment she had vowed to give Riddle the freedom to choose again.
What was necessary …
Her goal only served the bloodline that had tormented her ever since she was born. But as she stops administering the Amortentia – it probably took a few days before Riddle could think clearly again – she's happier than ever.
She's excited to meet me. Very much so.
And this revelation is as unexpected as it is bitter for me.
Edwin was right all along. In all conflicted situations, there are overlaps. The concept of dichotomy is a lie.
Yes, I was intended as a means to an end – but from the day she realized that she was to be my mother, she loved me without a doubt. More than her own life.
And yet the world she would like to live in cannot exist. Riddle is more confused by the day, and when he wakes up one morning and entirely refuses to drink the coffee she brings, she probably already knows what that means.
"Where are we?" he asks, intuitively backing away from her. There is a dark foreboding glowing across his face, but he doesn't want to believe it yet.
"Thomas, we're in London." She bites her lip and holds out the cup to him again. "You can drink it. It's only coffee, I swear …"
"You …" In quiet horror he tries to keep breathing. "It's not the first time you offered me something to drink, is it? You also did that months ago. In the forest …" He's almost trembling. "Since then, my memory is a blur, I don't know –" He pauses and ruffles his hair like a maniac, then he paces up and down the tiny room, in circles like a tiger in a cage.
He tries to put the pieces together in his mind, every attempt she makes to speak to him while he does so is strictly prevented by him – until he stops in front of her to regard her intently.
"You've poisoned me. Didn't you? You've poisoned me! You tried to kill me!"
"No, Thomas, it wasn't poison, nothing was further from my mind than killing you, believe me."
"Believe you?" His eyes grow wide as he incredulously shakes his head. "Believe you, how could I believe you?"
"Thomas, calm down, let's talk about it." She tries not to lose her mind herself, I can see it. "Please …"
"What have you done?"
She swallows hard.
"What have you done to me?"
She hardly ventures to look up at him, she simply can't hold his accusing gaze. "You fell in love with me, Thomas –"
"I did what?" It's a bitter laugh he's coughing up. "Are you crazy? I'm in love with Cecilia! I want her to give me children! She's the only woman I've ever felt love for!"
Merope's heart breaks at that exact moment, I almost think I can hear the groaning sound of that organ shattering.
Meanwhile, a likely very gruesome thought seems to be plaguing Riddle. "Did you do something to her? Tell me! Did you hurt Cecilia –"
"No!" Merope is quick to vow. "She's fine! Your family is fine, I've never wanted to hurt anyone, least of all you, Thomas, I –"
"You kidnapped me!" The realization hits him so suddenly, but it leads to a panic attack for good. He can hardly catch his breath soon leaning against the wall, but he just can't calm himself down.
"Anapneo!" Merope calls out, and her words are followed by a shaky sigh from Riddle.
He may breathe, but now he's even more horrified. "What are you?"
Merope's first tear falls. "Thomas …"
"What are you?" He pushes her against the wall, rough and furious with all the emotions that'd been forbidden to him for much too long. "The devil's in you!" he yells – and he has no idea how ambiguous these words are. "Are you the daughter of a demon, mother of all evil?"
She desperately shakes her head, crying hot tears as she whispers, "Thomas, I'm so sorry, I –"
"Lies! All lies! Which city are we in?"
"London." She gulps, nodding. "That wasn't a lie!"
"How long?"
"About half a year, we've built a life together –"
"You and me?" He snorts, shaking her up. "No, no, you and me … How could we be together? You're completely insane! Like the rest of your family!" He lowers his voice to growl, "Just look at you." He does so himself, fixing her with a mad glance of his own. "What should I have seen in you? Half-starved …"
"That's just … the morning sickness," she replies suffocating, hardly daring to look him in the eye.
What a change of subject …
"Morning sickness," he's anxious to repeat. He slowly shakes his head. "No …" Lowering his gaze to her barely visible stomach, he tightens his grip on her arms. "No, that can't be … That can't possibly be … No." He stares at her in horror and repeats it, almost as if it were a plea. "No …"
She gulps and nods anyway. "We're expecting a child, Thomas. Your son – I'm certain it's a boy. You're going to be a father." She sniffles and forces a smile with the last bits of hope in her. "He'll look just like you, Thomas, and he will be clever and gifted – and so worthy of Slytherin!"
"Don't whisper to me like the devil, that old serpent!" he shouts at her, shaking his head in rising panic. "You used me! You've only used me!"
He keeps pushing her against the wall with each word – but given the violence she was so used to living with on the daily, she doesn't even flinch.
Nevertheless, she tries to calm him down. "Thomas, I understand how mad you are, but you're hurting me …"
Marvolo, even Morfin, would only just have started now. Riddle, on the other hand, lets go of her at once, horrified at himself.
"It's alright," she's quick to assure him, "it doesn't matter!"
"No, it does!" he snaps. "I'm not myself anymore!" He inches away from her, nervously shoving his hair back away from his face again. "And now you're with child – my child … That's … unbelievable! I can't remember a thing! I don't even know how the hell –"
"Thomas, I know how confusing and strange this must be to you, but we –"
"Strange?" he acidly repeats. "No. No, it's scary! A haunting nightmare! And what else could this kid become?"
Her logic is so twisted, she immediately nods and asks, "So you agree that we want him?"
"Want him?"
"Thomas, I know we're going to have a son. I'm sure of it!"
"But … we?" He begins to breathe heavily again, running his hand over his face in confused agony. "I mean, how can you even consider not having him?"
"I don't." Wildly determined she holds his gaze. "I would die for this child."
He nervously goes back to walking in circles again. "You've moved heaven and earth for this, but what else could he become other than the son of a witch?"
"He's just as much your son, Thomas. By the end of the year, you can hold him, you can –"
"No, I …" He takes a deep breath and glares at her like the stranger she is to him. "No, I can't do that. I can't. I need to get out of here. Now!"
"Thomas, wait!" she calls after him as he reaches for his coat. "If I could undo what happened, I mean at least the circumstances of –"
He turns around, one last time, and shakes his head before hastily closing the old door behind him. "You can't!"
What's left is an apathetic Merope that buries her face in her hands to cry. She keeps whispering, "What have I done … What have I done to you … Tom, forgive me …"
As the months pass, making Riddle breath again seems to have been her last spell for the time being. She's drowning in the same old lethargy she used to be so familiar with, despairing at the lack of perspective – touched by love, and yet alone again. She's tasted blood and for a short time she experienced what a normal life could be like.
Cruel indeed. And so she sings, quietly with her broken voice, each and every day, holding on to her growing belly – and me …
Ferte in noctem animam meam, illustrent stellae viam meam.
Aspectu illo glorior, dum capit nox diem.
Cantate vitae canticum, sine dolore actae.
Dicite eis quos amabam, me numquam oblitorum.
And when at some point all her tears have been shed and she can barely feed us anymore, there's a knock at the door.
She jumps up, probably daring to hope it could be him – but she's quickly disappointed.
It's just the landlord demanding money she doesn't have, eventually chasing a clearly pregnant woman away as though she was but a mangy rat.
Slytherin certainly had a more impressive path of life in mind for his heirs …
As she stumbles through the streets of London, I can't help but realise that she's still but a child herself. Hopelessly overwhelmed at dusk – with nothing more than the clothes she wears and the locket around her neck, like a silent witness of ancient glory days.
She keeps mumbling that she's sorry, she speaks to me like she's probably done it throughout her entire pregnancy. It seems to comfort her. She shares her hopes, apologies and wishes, but also confessions and all her despair with me.
"What are we going to do now, Tom?" she sobs as the night finally begins to swallow the streets of Soho in its darkness. "You need to be nourished. You mustn't freeze – you mustn't feel how scared I am …"
As if she wasn't starving herself, too. As though she wasn't shaking in that much too thin coat …
"I swear to you, if I could conjure up the tiniest spark of magic within me …" She sighs as she comes to a halt on a park bench. "I'd sacrifice anything for you, Tom …"
She speaks these words like a loving mother, maybe already hoping I'd one day hear them in her memories, and it makes them oddly intimate …
Then it hits me. I know the place she stops at, with the last of her might. I was there myself when my world imploded – as if it were mocking irony of fate how our paths crossed at different times, yet in the same state of mind.
Leicester Square seems to be the center of our universe, with its many park benches and even more people rushing past each other. With the theater and restaurants in direct proximity – as though life held just the same amount of joy for everyone.
Equality is but an illusion. Dignity is.
Penniless and condemned to watch the hustle and bustle of the capital, Merope wraps her old coat tightly around her body.
"This is all my fault," she whispers at one point. "I did this to us. We're born to endure this life, but I should've known better than forcing you, my most precious, into facing the ugly reality of this existence. Tom, forgive me – please forgive me what I've done …"
"Oh well, why so desperate, young lady?"
A strange man, perhaps in his mid-fifties and clearly drunk, comes staggering indecently close to her.
"Are you hungry, huh?"
Like a wounded deer Merope looks up at him – and in her desperation she brushes all skepticism aside just to survive. She nods in good faith.
"You're also freezing, right? You need money?"
She sniffles, nodding again, and she can't react fast enough to avoid his dirty hands on her fragile body.
"Stop crying and earn it then," he cackles, and although she's hardly been treated better by Marvolo and Morfin throughout her life – ever since a possessed Thomas Riddle showed her how a woman deserves to be treated, she knows her limits.
Still she can't seem to shake the man off, and here I stand – unable to change the past, cursing but a remnant of her memory …
"Get your hands off her!" we suddenly hear a bright voice shout behind us, and as I turn around – I almost forget to blink. "Don't you hear me? Leave her alone, now!"
It's none other than a very young Faye. Shirley, as I'll get to know her later at Jim's. "She's not interested in you," she yells out so the people walking by cannot miss the scenario. "Find yourself a girl who wants your money despite having to touch you! Off you go!"
He eventually backs away, however not without insulting Faye and my mother in shameless vulgarity all while doing so. But London's nightlife welcomes even people like him with open arms …
Merope tries to catch her breath before glancing at the first and only stranger that ever truly helped her.
"Thank you!"
"Are you alright?"
Merope simply nods, clearly only trying to pull herself together. "Yes, well – now, thanks to you."
"Bless this society!" Faye calls onto the square, deliberately loud and in glorious cynicism. "Gladly looks away whenever this city shows its depravity!" She rolls her eyes while the crowd collectively chooses distance, or even worse, to simply ignore her, avoiding any eye contact – and any humanity. "People can be so awful," Faye groans and lets herself sink onto the park bench next to them. "Especially men. Men can be so disgusting …"
"I've only ever known one that wasn't," Merope admits, soon staring into the city lights with Faye.
It's grotesque to see them like that.
Merope, with her dark hair and grey clothes, pale, hungry and tired right next to Faye, wrapped in a tight Charleston dress with blood-red lips and her light blonde curls.
"Why isn't he here then?" Faye asks at some point. "I mean, why do even the good men leave a girl all alone in this hell?"
"It's my own fault," Merope gloomily replies. "You, on the other hand … A man would have to be foolish to leave you. You look stunning." She gives her an admiring smile. "And you have a good heart!"
"Why thank you!" Faye seems quite moved, still she screws up her face. "Blessing and curse. Both, you know? My father didn't come back from war, and my mother … Oh well. Couldn't handle the loss, she soon passed as well. And suddenly no one was looking after me anymore. And my uncle also always thought I was so very pretty, and so kind … He didn't even have to keep it too secret anymore. But I'm still here, right?" I recognize her broken smile, it hardly ever reached her eyes even later on. "Some days I just start crying and I can't stop. No man wants to put up with that for too long. Basically only long enough to get dressed again, put money on the table and leave …"
"I'm very sorry about that," Merope quietly says. "About all of it."
"We all struggle, right? C'est la vie, as the French say."
"For a brief moment in time, I thought it might be better than just a struggle."
Faye nods, dreams shining in her eyes. "Yeah … Been there, done that. I'm Shirley, by the way. Well, no … That's not actually my name. But Shirley's the one that never cries, so … I try to be Shirley."
"I'm happy to meet you, Shirley. I'm Merope. But I'd like to be someone else, too."
"This world just costs you your soul," Faye sighs. "So I say, be whoever you want to be while you can." She grins. "Who would you like to be?"
Merope shrugs wearily. "It would probably be a start if I wasn't a liar."
"Please darling, don't be too hard on yourself," Faye immediately protests. "Sometimes the circumstances of our lives force us to wear masks. Or to shoot a touchy uncle with shaking hands. What's a lie other than a mask? No, none of us are born the way we die. Life just marks us. Don't you think?"
"I hope you're right," she sniffs and intuitively touches her stomach. "Anyway, this world is very cruel."
"Oh!" Faye's eyes widen. "You're with child! May I … may I touch your belly? People always say it's magical when babes move …"
Merope gladly nods before Faye reverently lets her hands wander along her stomach until she's startled with euphoric surprise. "Was that a kick?"
Merope confirms, laughing for the first time in months because Faye got so excited.
"That feels so crazy!" she whispers and giggles along. "Is it a girl? I'd hope not another girl has to deal with this men's world …"
"I'm pretty sure it's going to be a boy," Merope claims. "I'll know in a few weeks …"
"In case you haven't starved by then," Faye corrects her, visibly worried. "You look exhausted, Merope." More quietly she asks, "What has the world done to you?"
"Nothing, it's really all my fault …"
"So you've been a bad girl, huh?" Faye whispers before she winks. "But you know … Whatever you've done, it's not his fault."
"No – and yet one day he'll curse me."
"No, no, darling, surely not," Faye claims, beaming already – and this time, joy is very much reaching her eyes. "Someone who kicks like that and even makes a moon child like me laugh will not be defeated by life like we are."
"You think so?" Merope has lost everything, yet thanks to Faye, there's a spark of hope gleaming in her eyes again.
"Yeah, trust me, I just know." Faye chuckles. "Maybe he'll change the world one day!"
Merope almost whispers. "Maybe."
"Am I right in assuming that you don't know where to go?"
My mother looks up, caught and embarrassed, until she finally nods.
"See, I'm sharing a tiny room with someone else at Jim's in Soho. Do you know Jim? No? Everyone knows Jim … Well, anyway, you're coming with me. At least until you're back on your feet, yeah?"
"I can't accept that –"
"You have to, darling," Faye says at once. "You're not safe out here, and I could never forgive myself if anything happened to you or your baby boy. Vivian's trying to lose weight anyway, so she'll gladly share her food with you. Yes? Us girls, we have to stick together when no one else cares about us …"
Faye's a godsend, and Merope isn't used to help – but not too proud to accept it, for my sake at least.
Faye, Vivian, Jim – no wonder I've always felt comfortable around them.