A Pensieve's shimmering light deceives many a mind. It's creating expectations of a chilling, wet feeling on the skin whenever one delves into a memory. But just as the tides and the wind within those are not real, nothing truly touches my face as I dive into Merope's story for the fourth time …
I find myself in front of the Riddle family estate in Little Hangleton, and Merope is hardly recognizable.
Time and again, I'm forced to admit that I'm not half as individualistic as I'd wish to believe. Apparently, a free choice of clothing leads her to choose all black also …
The bodice of her dress is decorated with lace, and Slytherin's locket around her neck has never looked more intriguing. Her dark hair, now much less grayish, shiny even, is pinned up, and her green eyes look brighter than ever. She seems … alive. Awake. For the first time ever. She's left the Gaunts' gloomy woods, immersed herself in light – and it changes everything.
She may not be a conventional beauty, but a good look at her, even in the forest, would've made a rational person easily recognize that there is an abstract grace in her obvious determination.
Even more so now that she's made up. Very few people are truly ugly. They're only poor …
For better or worse, she finally represents what the Gaunt family always intended for its lineage. Pride. Rooted in her origins, in the present and the future.
I follow Merope's steps – she's rushing at exactly my pace, or rather, I always have at hers … And while spring is in full bloom, we cross the crunchy gravel in the courtyard of the Riddle manor. The wind carries the scent of freshly cut grass over the roofs of the old building, and just as nature is changing, the estate and its people also seem to be in turmoil.
"Cecilia!" I suddenly hear my father call out as I continue to follow Merope to the stables. "I love her! You have to accept it, everything has changed!"
"Can't you see it?" Cecilia cries, deeply distressed, as he tries to push her out of the yard – almost as though she was insane. "She's put a spell on you, Thomas! What else would it be? We were so happy! And suddenly, you don't love me anymore?"
"The time with you was wonderful," he reassures her, looking rather possessed while doing it, "but she and I – we explore the universe, you see? We read, we discuss, we dwell in unimagined dimensions and grow spiritually … And you call her a witch for that? That doesn't seem fair to me."
Cecilia looks as though she could hardly believe her ears. "We might also read together, Thomas!" she sniffs, closing the distance between him and her again. "Stop pushing me away, can't you see you're not yourself?"
"For heaven's sake!" Mary now shouts from the house. She quickly rushes out to her son and his former lover to appease them as well. "Don't let him throw you out, Cecilia, darling, what has gotten into him? He's completely blinded by his … obsession …"
"He's confused, isn't he?" Cecilia is desperate to agree with his mother. "And I know exactly who's fault that is, it's that insane daughter of –"
They all stop immediately, speaking of the devil … When they notice Merope approaching, Mrs Riddle and Cecilia at once rush towards her in their fury.
"What have you done to my Thomas?" Cecilia sobs. "You need to burn! And they ought to hang your crazy brother, too! And your father, that filthy tramp! You should be ashamed of yourself!"
"I'm not responsible for my father nor my brother," Merope states surprisingly calm before Riddle takes her by the shoulders as if to protect her from the world.
"Don't talk to her like that," he demands with a frown, "she is –"
"Not welcome in our home!" Mrs Riddle lets her voice cut across his. "She's scum, and now she's supposed to be by your side in Cecilia's place? Just because you've lost your mind?"
"Mother, don't you dare!" he growls, lowering his voice. "You will never call her scum again! And I have long since made up my mind, you cannot change that – we are going to get married."
The two women's faces immediately freeze.
"No," Cecilia breathes out in horror, "don't you say that! No!"
"My son," Mrs Riddle whimpers, "that penniless woman with hateful parents?"
"You didn't know my mother," Merope is quick to say. "You mustn't judge her, Mrs Riddle, please do not …"
"I only have to look at you to know in which regards she's failed!" Mary hisses and walks away with furious steps, Cecilia linked to her arm. Within earshot still, we can hear, "Oh, Cecilia, darling, I'm heartbroken – believe me, once his father finds out about that …"
"They'll tell him everything, and he won't tolerate us around here any longer," Merope speculates, turning back to Thomas. It's just the two of them standing in front of the stables now, and a very strange picture they make. Merope, manipulative darkness, Thomas, naive light. "And then," she whispers, gulping, "the whole village will turn against us because they're all just waiting for us to break."
"No," Riddle decides. "None of that will happen. We'll run away. Merope, we don't need this house and its library. We can dance anywhere! Who needs Little Hangleton? We don't need anyone. Not the Gaunts, not the Riddles – just each other! Let's start a family, far away from here. Just you and me, and our children."
Her eyes are welling up, probably at the mere thought of it, and the green of her irides is glowing like the apology that she'd obviously be only too happy to make at this point. "If only you knew that this is not what you want …"
Genuine tears of remorse and shame start running down her face.
She blames herself. And obviously not just since a moment ago.
I have to at least let that fact put my opinion about her into perspective.
She's also not an abomination of creation. More so a child of her terrible circumstances. Poverty, violence and madness have shaped her world, but she even manages to display a surprising amount of compassion. She knows her actions are sinful, now that she's touched by love …
Can any soul be cleansed by it? Can love heal – even when only brought forth by Amortentia?
Are we reborn, more innocent than the first time, once our hearts are touched?
"How can you even think that," he says under his breath, clearly dismayed. "Merope, you have shaken my world –"
"I have –"
"I was living, but I was never alive! Do you understand? The last few weeks with you – listen, I have never felt this free! Your world, it's so … utterly magical!"
She looks so caught, peeking over her shoulder to be sure they're undisturbed. "The mere illusion of freedom seems enough to survive in a cage – I'm the best proof of that."
"So be it." He shrugs. "I'm crazy about you. Obsessed! With you and no one else! I have never loved like that before, Merope, I swear."
"That's exactly your cage." She gulps, gently stroking his cheek as another tear drops onto Slytherin's locket. "And I'm so deeply sorry about that, Thomas, because I do love you sincerely … And yet I'm nothing but a walking contradiction, I should've never tied you to me. Not like this …"
"What are you talking about – Let's just start a new life together!" He winks. "Far away from here. Let's run away tonight."
She holds back more tears, even as her lips tremble.
"Say yes," he asks, giving her his warmest smile. "Just say yes, Merope, please …"
She can't voice it, but she nods. With the miserable hope in every of her features that at least a spark of Thomas's enthusiasm is genuine.
"I'm just yet to keep a promise in the forest," she finally says.
"Fine by me, meanwhile I'll prepare everything else. Tonight at midnight we leave this place forever. And then, Merope, daughter of Atlas, we follow your star to London before the moon dares to hide it."
She closes her eyes in agony, resting her forehead against his for a moment there, before she takes a deep breath to look at him in silent grief.
"Out of this hell?" she asks, so infinitely lost, longing for his immediate nod.
"To world's end, if you wish."
Tears are streaming down her face all the way back into the forest. In her memory, time passes us by much faster than in her past reality, but she sobs even more when she uses her new-found magic to transform her mother's grave. With each day of independence and determination she gets better at controlling her abilities, and once more I'm certain that power and talent are but shaped by strong will. The blood pumped through her veins is just the same as when Marvolo and Morfin still lived here. Her magic – my magic – is only as strong as we are. No blood, no inheritance, no history and no family tree in the world plays into that. We define our fate, not fate us.
And after she's curated four memory vials to hide them in the shack – it's a mystery to me how the fifth memory is supposed to find its way here – midnight comes.
In exhausted despair she throws herself into the strong arms of my father, he catches her to whirl her through the air. He laughs with her and finally leans into a kiss so passionate that her tears dry up.
She loves him with all her heart, willingly.
And yet he doesn't know what he's doing …
"You're the only anchor I've ever had," she whispers to him before they ride off through Yorkshire at night. She whispers to the universe, "How could I give that up again?"
"Just don't," he charms her. "Off to London!"
Perfidious how the chains she's created now get renewed by her victim, with Riddle appeasing her guilty conscience himself.
Cruel to call that love.