Title: giving up the ghost

Pairing: Merope/Tom Riddle Snr

Disclaimer: Disclaimed.

Summary: Merope loses the will to go on.

AN: Thanks for reading!

Three months after Merope's escape, the full moon shines bright, its silvery rays glancing off their humble furniture in her lonely, threadbare abode. Motes of dust dance in the moonlight, a silent performance for the insomniac, who tosses and turns, and finally throws the covers back. Her eyes open; she is through with counting sheep and waiting for sleep to claim her into the land of dreams. But it seems there is no rest for her tonight, and on the morrow, she will wake with deep shadows under her puffy eyes, and Tom will ask her tenderly why she looks so exhausted.

But she fears sleep too. Merope doesn't dream like other women, doesn't dream of the pitter-patter of tiny feet, of lace and white silk, of stone cottages and swanky apartments. She doesn't aspire to that, oh no. Hers are dreams of cauldrons and snakes and her father's lined face, dreams of whippings and taunting laughter and Morfin's crazy eyes.

Some nights, she wakes up in a cold sweat, and wonders how the Gaunts have managed to fall so low. Their blood – her blood – is pure, she knows, from her father's fixation on their noble blood, from Marvolo Gaunt who is so studied in the lore of wizarding blood and ancestry, and yet so cruel and ignorant, this last seed of the ancient, revered Salazar.

Then she turns in her cold bed, hears the spine of the bed creak, and stretches beneath the sheets till she finds Tom's warm hands. They are poor – they eloped – and their little cottage is falling apart at its seams, at its hinges, and the winter wind blows cold in their bedroom, slipping in through the cracks in the windows. I love you, she thinks, tracing the smooth skin of his arms. I love you so, so much.

Sometimes he wakes, in turn, and pulls her close, whispering into her ears. Merope, he says, sometimes, Merope, stay with me forever.

There's power in words, she thinks, because she doesn't want to let him go. She holds him tight at night, and in the daytime ignores the whispers of their new neighbours.

I don't understand that couple, she has heard them say. He couldn't possibly love her, others say. She's too ugly for him, for such a fine young man. Some have even ventured, maybe she has a baby. Maybe she tricked him into having a baby with her.

Maybe we should try for a baby, she thinks, as the wind whistles in their leaky bathroom and creeps its way into their blankets. Maybe we should start a family.

Their neighbour's cat howls at the sliver of moon in the dark sky, and a nearby dog barks its anguish into the night. Above all, she thinks to herself, maybe I won't need to brew Amortentia any longer, after we have a baby. Maybe we could be happy. Maybe I could be happy.

:::

Eight months after Merope's escape, she looks into the mirror and wonders who could ever love her. She doesn't look anything like the village girls who frolic through the woods nearby, those girls with their short, curled hair and slender figures, those girls who go to the village dances in shimmering short dresses, the waists of their floaty dresses falling low on their hips. She is ungainly and dumpy; her eyes are dull, her hair lank and frizzy and hanging flat against her rounded back, the result of centuries of misguided inbreeding gone awry.

But Tom loves her. He brews coffee in the morning while she is still asleep, so that she wakes to the cold breeze and the warm, heady scent of coffee beans. He cooks her an omelette every breakfast, the crackling noise of oil spluttering loud in the kitchen as he wrestles with the saucepan, wrestles with the stubborn eggs.

"I love you," he says, as she eats, and rubs her growing belly.

"I love you too," she says, caressing his cheeks.

As she feels the baby kicking in her belly, and Tom's fingers in her hair, she thinks, is this what happiness feels like? Could we be happy forever?

:::

Ten months into their new life, Merope, six months pregnant, stares at an empty crystal bottle which used to house part of her store of Amortentia. There is only one filled bottle left; she removes the cork and stares at it, relishing the woody scent of the earth after the rain, the fragrance of ripening apples, and the toasty smell of cinnamon.

I need to brew more, she thinks. Then, another thought flitters through her mind. But we've had ten beautiful months together. Surely – surely Tom loves me now. He does, he has to.

And so Merope neglects to add the usual spoonful of Amortentia into Tom's coffee the next day.

All hell breaks loose.

Tom storms the house the next evening, demanding to know how Merope hoodwinked him and snared him with a baby.

"I don't remember a thing!" he shouts, pushing over a bowl of cookies.

The glass bowl hits the floor with a resounding crash, and Merope pulls her legs up onto the settee as the glass bits go flying around the room. Tom himself sustains a small cut on his foot.

"Let me see that," Merope says, reaching out her arms.

"No! Stay away from me, tramp!" Tom says, pushing away Merope's hands. "I don't know how I ended up in this bloody place!"

"Tom, be calm, our baby –"

"To hell with our baby!" Tom says. "You've deceived me, tramp. Just stay away from me from now on, you understand?"

Merope leans her forehead against the cool back of the settee. "I – Tom, please, don't do this!"

Tom walks away, still bleeding from his foot, slams the bedroom door. Merope hears the lock turning, the scratching of the key loud in her ears. She cries herself to sleep on the settee.

Tom's gone, the next morning. He leaves at dawn before the milkman comes, leaves with his luggage and his clothes. Merope wakes to an empty house, an echoing house, a house that doesn't know itself. She walks into the bedroom and sees herself in the mirror, forlorn and tired and twenty years older.

:::

Eleven months after her unfortunate elopement, Merope tries to kill the unwanted baby, because without Tom she has no hope of raising the child in a world she hardly understands. She tucks her hair into an old, discoloured hat, wraps a dark coat around herself, and steps into a dark alley and from there into a dim, dusty clinic. The muggle doctor looks at her, sees her protruding belly, shakes his head and says he knows of no method of destroying a child carried by a woman that many months along.

Merope walks out quickly, guilt tightening her gut, and fear wringing her heart. She dares not step into St Mungo, and so she takes a last, desperate step. She waits in the chill of her kitchen, stirring a pot, and attempts to make a secret and most evil potion to purge the child out of her. Then she closes her eyes and remembers Tom's eyes and his hands warm around her waist; she remembers his thick mop of hair and that one lock that falls over his left eyebrow; she touches the pots and cutlery and sees him washing them at the sink.

Merope's will falls away.

She collapses beside the cauldron, pulling her legs under her, sobbing and half-crazed with grief. She doesn't make the potion, after all.

:::

Twelve months after Merope's escape, she leaves the rented house. She can't stay there any longer, not in that place of broken dreams. She sees Tom in every corner of the house. Walking into their bedroom, she sees the dresser where he used to stand, combing mousse into his dark thick hair; while lying in the bed, she remembers the warmth of the bed and his hands on the coverlet, joined with hers.

And so Merope wanders, big-bellied and heavy on her feet, trudging down the cobble-stoned pavement with no regard for where her feet take her. With dirt in her fingernails and tangles in her limp hair, she is a sight to behold. Witches and wizards wandering through Diagon Alley avoid her as they would avoid someone with Dragon Pox, and she averts her eyes in return.

There is a shop here, a shop which will take what she has, and give her what she needs. Merope walks in, flinching at the display of dark objects. The proprietor looms over her, tall and pudgy, ashes in his limp hair.

"What do you want, beggar?" Caractacus Burke asks, menace in his eyes. "Get out here and don't touch anything, or by Merlin's blood, I'll skin that dirty hide off you."

"I would like to make a sale," Merope says, meek and humble. She pulls out the family heirloom, the golden locket she wears around her neck. "Here."

Burke takes the locket and turns it over in his fingers. "Five galleons," he says.

"I – it should be worth more –" Merope says, pulling at Burke's sleeves. "Please."

Burke glares at Merope and shrugs her fingers off his clothes. "Ten galleons. Take it or leave it, beggar."

"T – I – ten galleons," Merope says, bowing her head. She is tired, and she is hungry, and she doesn't quite care anymore.

And so the locket changes hands. Merope barely manages to walk out of the shop before she feels the world spinning around her.

:::

The new year looms; 1925 is coming to an end. London is cold in winter, and Merope feels her bones chilled under her thin overcoat. She can't quite feel her feet, and her toes poke out of her battered leather boots.

There is an orphanage before her, and Merope stumbles up the steps, slipping on the ice. She catches herself, and pulls on the bannister, the labour pains starting again, as if her abdomen was pushing in on itself.

Merope knocks and knocks, and out comes a young woman, who gasps and helps the Merope in, her two strong arms almost dragging the expectant mother in. There is pain, lots of it; there is blood, rushing out; there is noise, and Merope forgets to cry.

Then a woman hands a bundle to her – her son. Merope can see his beautiful buttoned eyes and his shapely nose. She hugs him and sees the world fade around her.

"Please," Merope says, grabbing the woman. "Name him Tom – for his father – and Marvolo – for his grandfather. His surname is Riddle."

"That's a funny name," the woman says.

Merope manages a weak smile. "I hope he looks like his father," she says, and closes her eyes.

This is the end for her. Merope dies before the year is out, leaving her infant son behind. Even he could not convince her to safe herself, to stay. In the end, Merope, the last of the Gaunts, exhausts her meagre courage and finally flees the tiring, frightening world she has always inhabited.