"What you're waiting for?"
I look back at Harper, but she stops in the doorway.
"Tom, watch that without me." She gives me a worried smile. "We mustn't both let Morfin out of our sight, and initially, you shouldn't share your mother's memories with anyone. This moment must be yours alone."
"Don't get sentimental now, come on – I'm not leaving you alone with that lunatic when you can't even do magic thanks to the trace!"
"I'll just call you if anything happens. He's tied up, I'll be fine."
"Damn it, at least take that …" I move back towards her to hand over my wand. "The trace only records that magic is being cast, not by whom, and in case anybody ever checks, your wand will be fine. If Morfin so much as blinks, you use mine. Will you?"
She nods.
"No misplaced pity," I warn her, "he survived Azkaban. He's violent and dangerous. Do you understand?"
"Sure, yes," she claims. "And Tom, whatever you're about to see –"
I wave it off, forcing myself to shrug. "It can hardly be worse than this …"
"Take your time."
I watch her walk back into the main room of the shack, calmly pointing my wand at Morfin.
And as much apprehension as I have about delving into the memories Merope has kept here all these years, I know for certain that if I don't, I'll spend my life wondering what stories they hold …
So I approach the supposed well. Standing there like an oversized trophy from a Triwizard Tournament, it actually does turn out to be an old, ruined Pensieve.
"Reparo!" I whisper, channeling my magic through my bare hands with quite some concentration so bit by bit, what belongs together is reassembled – until in the middle, the typical, ocean-like liquid bubbles up and begins to glitter.
My skin burns as I reach for the first vial.
They are marked with Roman numerals on grubby stickers, I to V, and skeptically I open the first small glass vial to see its contents under the dense treetops of the forest after so many years of doubt and ignorance.
A deep breath, then I finally plunge my face into the cold surface of the Pensieve and instantly lose my ground …
Until I end up in the same garden, long before I was born.
Birds are chirping and a balmy summer breeze makes the tall grass and its wildflowers dance around the Pensieve, then much less weathered.
Intuitively, I gaze to the hut, but it's by no means more inhabitable than it is today.
When I hear a soft humming, wistful, almost mournful, I slightly flinch – annoyed at how irritable I am right now – and turn around.
A girl is picking flowers beside the house, lost in thought. She probably intends to preserve some in the book she carries with her.
She can hardly be older than 14, but profound sadness surrounds her like an invisible veil. Her pale skin, the grey, dirty dress, the long, thin hair and her tired eyes testify to too much apathy in her young life, and yet she concentrates alone on her little bouquet of flowers, as if drifting away.
And the song she hums sounds suspiciously familiar.
Until it dawns on me. Hogwarts' school choir often sings it, but only in mourning …
Ferte in noctem animam meam, illustrent stellae viam meam.
Carry my soul into the night, may the stars light my way.
Aspectu illo glorior, dum capit nox diem.
I glory in the sight when darkness takes the day.
Cantate vitae canticum, sine dolore actae.
Sing a song, a song of life, live without regret.
Dicite eis quos amabam, me numquam obliturum.
Tell the ones, the ones I love, I never will forget.
As she finally rises with the bouquet, her lips curve into a vague, tired smile. The various colours in her hands brighten up even her grey features, but it's just the calm before the storm. The very next moment a boy jumps out at her, he was likely just waiting behind the shack to finally annoy her.
He wants to snatch the flowers from her hands, but she won't let go. As if her life were at stake, she defends them, even if she soon drops her book in the process.
I glance at the title – The Tales of Beedle the Bard – and it's just the reminder I needed.
The Peverells, centuries ago also interwoven with the Gaunts' family tree … Is all of that not mentioned in the same breath as the Tale of the Three Brothers to this day? The one that holds the legends of the Deathly Hallows?
I really have to look into this as soon as possible.
"Those are my flowers!" Merope protests, startling me out of my reveries. The two are still fighting. "Morfin, let go! They're for mother!"
"Curse me then!" Morfin cackles.
Interesting. Here he still speaks of himself in the first person. Life seems to have broken him piece by piece, too …
"Take your wand and curse me!" he adds, chuckling. "But you can't, am I not right?"
With brutal force he finally rips the bouquet from her thin hands and throws it away into the meadow as far as he can.
"Mother is dead, Merope, don't you get it? She's never coming back! She's left us here forever!"
Merope sinks to the ground, sniffling, and tries to regather her flowers in quite the frenzy.
"But I promised her she would get some," she mumbles. In the low afternoon sun, her tears glisten in silent lethargy on her cheeks. "Maybe it's all just a bad dream, Morfin, maybe we'll wake up tomorrow and –"
"He killed her!" her brother hisses, pulling a tortured, writhing snake from his coat's pocket. He wraps his hands around her head, as if he'd break her neck at any moment. "She wouldn't listen and so he killed her!"
"Leave the snake alone," Merope wearily demands.
Morfin grits his teeth before abruptly switching to patting the animal's head all while cackling.
"Mother just wanted him to finally come to his senses," Merope whispers, her grief seems to turn more into anger with each word. Suppressed, cold anger. "That he'd realise how we live. What we have become. The honorable House of Gaunt …" She bitter indeed. "Look at what's left of it, Morfin. Descendants of Slytherin, yet we live like vagrants! Not being taught at the school he himself founded –"
"I've been to Hogwarts, but what's the point of a girl like you being there," Morfin scoffs, stomping on some flowers he must particularly like. "You don't learn anything useless there anyway, just filthy mudbloods all around …"
"I'd rather marry mud than family!" she hisses, and heaven alone knows how Marvolo – it must be him – could hear just that.
"What were you saying?" he shouts from the hut, and the very next moment he's already running towards her.
He's a bedraggled man with broad shoulders and arms that seem far too long for the rest of his body. The crouched posture is something he's clearly passed on to his son, but nevertheless, he reaches Merope in a flash and strangles her, completely beside himself.
He seems even more manic than Morfin …
"You ungrateful brat! What was that? Prefer mud?"
As if she could answer him, now that his filthy hands are constricting her throat …
"Beneath our dignity! Muggles won't ever taint our blood, do you hear?" He roughly pushes her to the ground, still not letting go of her neck. "It's everything we have left! All wasted on your mother's addiction, but on my soul – you don't soil this family, too!"
She gasps as he finally lets go of her and leaves her lying on the grass. He spits at her feet and Morfin seems to thoroughly enjoy it.
"But don't you see?" She's bold to even try, still barely catching her breath. "Father, do you not see that this madness must end? The bloodline you hold so dear is dying!"
"It is not!" Marvolo barks. "As long as I have two healthy children –"
"Morfin is all but healthy!" she almost shrieks, and as if to prove it, he at once drags her to her feet by the hair.
"Morfin isn't healthy," he mimics her. "I'm ten times healthier than you! Mother always liked me better!"
"She didn't, she was ashamed of you!" Merope frowns, yet she falls silent when Marvolo grips her by the collar once more, too.
"What's even healthy?" he growls. "The focus is on purity! Now shut up and be of some use, you ungrateful squib!"
He pushes her off him again just to limp back to the shack, but Morfin continues to tease her with his distraught snake. He acts like he'd press it to her face, then finally throws it on her dress.
The animal squirms and wiggles as it falls to the ground, until Merope takes it and probably whispers a tad more to herself, "It's all right, he won't hurt you anymore …"
"Let it be afraid of me!" Morfin whispers, grabbing the viper in a rush again. He hurls it to the ground, but before he can step on it, it's already hastily made its escape.
"Why are you like that?" Merope asks, unable to hold back her tears any longer. "She hasn't done any harm to you!"
"We aren't squeamish with snakes," he claims. "And as long as you can't cast a spell, you'd better not talk to me like that!"
Morfin cackles before he finally moves on into the woods, at least and at last leaving Merope all alone to herself in the garden.
Occasionally sniffling in silence, she eventually collects the flowers that Morfin hasn't trampled on. And right when she's done, she's almost calmed down again. She strolls to the end of the garden with the bouquet in hand, and now I notice the grave for the very first time. No cross whatsoever blessing that heap of earth, no memento of any kind, just loose soil. As if it had only been days …
"Why did you leave me alone with them?" Merope asks as she puts the flowers down. "When will the stars light our way again? You often sang the song they taught you at Hogwarts, and yet you didn't keep your promise. I was never allowed to sing it there. Father's been so different since you left. He's becoming more insane by the day. And with you around, I could indeed do magic, but now … I feel like I'm suffocating. Just like I did after all those bites. I probably should've died from them. If it weren't for your book, all this misery would already have been over for me … This family is ending in dust, but before that happens for good, I'll gather all my magic for a real grave for you. I just need to trust and –"
"Merope!" we hear Marvolo shout. "I said make yourself useful, I want to eat!"
She wearily wipes all her tears from her face and looks up at the sky for a moment. It seems like a silent reproach. Like a lament for having her hands so tied in this life.
"Don't forget me," she mumbles to her mother, then Marvolo calls for her again.
As she hurries back into the shack, everything around me dissolves into blackness.