Impurity

Impurity

She looked, and she was in love.

Somewhere...somewhere, she swore, she must have seen him before, that beautifully chiseled face that emerged from behind the trees in the morning mist. Shaking, she reached out towards his fading figure, her fingers spread, as if to pull in a dream that would never be realized. But he kept on whistling, nonplussed, his hands tucked in his pockets.

Before she could leave the garden, she felt her neck tighten instinctively. She tore at it with her unkempt fingernails, leaving great red welts on pale skin. The locket weighed significantly against her chest.

Dirty, dirty little Muggle fancier, you are. Nothing will become of it in the end. Squib, blood traitor -

Merope pushed the whisper from her mind and leaned against the tree, waiting, watching.

Behind her, the bushes rustled.

She made her way into the house without a sound.

-

A shuffle in the darkness awoke her. Outside, the moon lingered high beyond the stars, and she whimpered, pulling the ragged blanket tighter around her body. His knee grinded into her stomach; her teeth latched onto her pillow, determined to block any scream that threatened to escape her.

"Merope," came the low voice. Hot air crawled up her skin. Rough, calloused fingers trickled down her back, her sides, her hips. "Merope."

She clenched her eyes shut, praying for the grace of daylight but in the shadows seeing only a dark black stone, feeling only the cot shake violently below her.

-

He brought someone with him: a pretty thing with golden hair tucked beneath a wide-brimmed hat, clinging to his arm, her laugh like the birds that had long deserted the premises. Tom, she called him. Darling, he called her, the lilt in his voice handsome, airy, utterly and charmingly seductive. They disappeared down the path together. The train of her swishy dress followed them. Merope fought the urge to hurl her locket out the window and laugh maniacally as the panes of glass broke against her father's favorite possession. Attack it at the right point, and it shall all fall away.

She should feel dirty, impure, desiring a Muggle the way she's been doing, but the blood that so many have died to keep untainted, the blood that is the only thing left of the House of Gaunt, that blood only tingles pleasantly at the thought of his hands exploring her skin.

The door slammed shut. Her brother stomped in, his hands clutched around the thick midsection of a snake.

"What're you looking at?" he hissed.

She surveyed him, his wayward hair stuck at odd angles. "Nothing, Morfin."

-

She sat silently by the window as she stirred the night's dinner. Morfin was outside, magicking his dead snake up against the door and nailing it to the wood. He was strolling down the path again. He was alone. She got to her feet, the pot crashing to the floor, spilling stew onto the rough floors.

"Who are you, Muggle?" Merope peered out the window. Morfin had produced his wand and was pointing it at the other man.

Tom's face contorted in confusion. "Er, pardon me?"

Seconds later, a well-dressed man flew down the path, howling, leaving Morfin convulsed in giggles. She cringed.

"Merope, clean up this mess, you waste of Slytherin's blood!"

A pop resounded through the small house. She spun around as her father bore down on her, forcing her into a corner. "Yes, Father."

"You know what this means."

When all light had been sucked from the sky, Morfin lay snoring in bed, and an iron hand clamped her mouth shut, Merope let a tear fall from her eye.

-

"My daughter - pure-blooded descendant of Salazar Slytherin - hankering after a filthy, dirt-veined Muggle?"

How much more could her rusty little excuse for a bed stand, and were it to break, would she have anywhere to sleep? The uneven cut of the stones in the wall grew more and more pronounced her in back, and when he at last encased her neck in his thick hands, she was sure it was to save his locket from her traitorous ways than to kill her. She knew she wasn't worth the effort of killing.

Then he fell away, repelled by the Mudblood's spell. The Mudblood fled, followed by Morfin, his knife, and his wand. Slowly, painfully, her father stood up raised himself to full height. Merope trembled, her fingers grasping and clawing hopelessly at the wall.

"You." He strode over to her and slapped her across the cheek. The back of her head struck the stones; her eyes fell out of focus as she slid to the floor. Something wet dripped onto her neck. The dull colorless walls of the house were alive, brightened by a vivid streak of thick scarlet. "Speak to me, you traitor, you." He kicked her and kicked her again, screeching, "Speak to me, you bitch, you stupid little Squib!"

So she spoke for him, her father, whether out of underlying love or out of hate, obeying as she always did, and she spoke a long scream into the air, throwing her arms around his feet and clutching them tightly. She screamed until the wizards from the Ministry pried her shaking, sobbing form from his inert body, placed her in the armchair by the fire, and forced a cup of tea into her hands.

"Ar, you'll pay for your treachery!" he yelled as he was taken away. "I've never lied in my life...you'll pay!"

"Your father, Marvolo Gaunt, and your brother, Morfin, will be going to Azkaban prison for terms of sixth months and three years, respectively," a Ministry official told her. "You're - how old?"

"I'm of age."

"Right. Well, you're on your own, then, since you don't need us."

Merope brought the tea up to her lips and tilted it backwards. The hot liquid flooded through her mouth, and she was struck with a rather abrupt thought. "I'm free," she said.

The Ministry wizard was brushing dust off his robes. "Oh, yes, yes, indeed. Should any further problems arise, you ought to immediately send an owl to the Ministry of Magic in London."

He and his colleagues Disapparated. Merope sat before the dimming flames in the fireplace, the tea growing cold. She wondered what freedom felt like: any icy bath in midst of a muggy summer or the quietly pulsating heat of the sun on her face?

I'm free, she told herself. I'm free, I'm free, I'm free, she repeated to herself.

She wasn't sure if it was newfound freedom that flowed through her pureblood veins, but as she peered at her smiling reflection in the china cup, Merope thought she was the most beautiful woman in the world.

-

She accosted him on his daily walk. She made sure he was alone, and oh, how her chest contracted at the nearness of him, how she wanted to stroke his finely tailored suits, to feel their soft fabric under her rough fingers. It was an unusually mild day; Tom tugged constantly at his collar, gradually loosening it as Merope attempted to make conversation. Let's talk about the weather, or what is your favorite book, Mister Riddle? He yawned constantly, and her heart raced not with affection but an edge of desperation. The picturesque countryside hamlet of Little Hangleton drew nearer, shadowed by the dark outline of Riddle Manor.

"You look exhausted," she crooned, pulling out a small crystal blue bottle from inside her dress. "Surely you want some water to drink?"

He downed the contents on the glass after thanking her.

A few hours later, he had her pushed against a nearby tree, his touches gentle, insistent, moaning, and Merope learned what it meant to be a woman.

-

Her crooked script upon the parchment belied the surprisingly cognizant message it contained.

Dear Papa, I am leaving. Tom Riddle and I are to be married. Do not expect me to return. Your daughter always, Merope Gaunt.

She sealed it with a tap of her wand and left it on the table still cluttered with the day's dishes. There was no need to clean them, after all, when she would never again lay eyes on them, their cracked rims and blackened bottoms. She checked her two trunks carefully. In the first were, carefully folded, her new Muggle clothes, the latest fashions cut to fit her slight build. The second was magically locked, unbreakable by none but a wizard. She pulled open its lid.

The light thrown back at her from hundreds of glass vials was dazzling.

-

Her feet slid across the thick polished wooden floorboards, and she executed a small spin, laughing as her skirt spun with her. Tom took her in his arms and whispered, "I take it you like our new flat?"

She kissed him fully on the lips, overwhelmed by the scent of him, his body pressed into hers, and oh, Merlin, this is a fairy tale, isn't it, she thought as he carried and laid her down atop the fresh-smelling sheets.

She watched him working above, his thick hair tousled - she pushed it out of his face -

When she finally noticed the thin, barely opaque films, how diminished his smoldering, passionate eyes had become, she quivered as three months' guilt advanced upon her, her fantasy falling away to leave only Merope, ugly, ugly Merope.

-

His temper was furious in the mornings, sulking into the dining area like a petulant four-year old and wordlessly muttering while Merope prepared breakfast. An egg slipped from her fingers, spilling its innards as it hit the floor. Tom gazed sideways at her, his pupils almost lucid. Merope muffled a small cry, quickly disguising it as a cough.

Walking up to him, she placed a saucer of tea on the table and backed away, her hands clasped behind her back. The cup clinked against the saucer, once, twice, and then there was silence broken only by the Muggle on the street scrambling to get to work. He turned around to face her. She wondered whether or not he could see the clouds obscuring his own eyes.

"Good morning, m'dear!"

She moved closer. She breathed in, the cavity in her torso expanding, her abdomen lurching. "I'm pregnant, Tom."

His hand was silk against her cheek. "Oh, darling..."

Such were the times that vindicated her false and damning ways, when his beaming smile and soft caresses eradicated the singular unopened chest and its glimmering bottles, all stacked in perfect rows and columns.

-

Drops of congealed liquid littered the counter where she had sat for hours, lacing every edible and drinkable thing in the kitchen with potion, her thoughts numbed with exhaustion. An unending deluge of sweat had reduced her grip on objects to uselessness, and she struggles to continue her work, repeating under her breath, "One more...one more and then sleep."

She placed a hand over her belly, rubbing the roundness that was beginning to develop. Her baby. Tom's baby.

Unbidden, the tears poured down her face. How horrible she felt to be tricking him like this, deceiving him with the greatest lie of all: that he loved her, her and her lank hair and abnormal eyes.

The sobs trapped in her body doubled in intensity. Merope slammed the bottom of the little glass bottle onto the counter, potion splattering everywhere in a crystalline yelp.

And, there, that was the problem! There was no affection! There was nothing but her potion-brewing skills and her overpowering desire to please him, the piercing loathing in his stare when the potion's effects were waning...that, she knew, was the true Tom Riddle.

Merope hugged herself, fighting the swell of bitter, bitter defeat within.

She wanted him. She wanted him. She loved him. But he would not have her.

The descendant of the great Salazar Slytherin, with all her pure blood, could find no magic to disguise that.

-

She brought one other bottle with her. Unlike the others, it was made of darkened clay, not of glass. Unlike the others, she thought she would never have to use it - yet the action of preparing it, aware a possible situation in which it would be required existed, didn't that mean there had always been a doubt?

Tom was taking a walk in the city.

Merope tiptoed to the trunk in the closet, magically opening it with a flick of her wand. She retrieved that very bottle and carried it to the desk, where her husband's evening wine sat. Pulling out the cork with a pop, she tipped a spoonful of the bottle's contents into the slender flute of alcohol. The velvet-colored wine swirled ominously and stopped. She placed the bottle back in the trunk.

She carried the glass to the kitchen. On a piece of paper, she wrote that she was feeling quite ill ("I think my pregnancy must be entering its more trying stages, darling") and would be asleep in the bedroom, should he need to find her. Slipping back into her bedroom, she pulled out one last vial from the depths of her armoire and pried open the glass stopper.

It tasted of tears and a sparkling summer day as it seeped down her throat, and backwards she fell, falling...falling...

-

The clothes went first, exchanged for slips of paper and oddly formed coins. For those poor women on the dole, they told her as they folded her dresses, suits, and skirts away. Your kindness is appreciated. It is good of you to share.

She ate voraciously in the evenings, and she couldn't bear it when there was no food.

The flat grew sparse, but Merope always remembered to wave good-bye to the men lifting the furniture out of the door. They looked at her funny. She was alone now but for the kicking in her womb and the ghostly traces of him, drifting through her days.

When they told her she hadn't paid the rent for months, she merely gestured at her swollen belly. When she spent the next night huddled on a street corner, covered by a thin cloak, her eyes flooded with moonlight, a tender hissing snaked through her dreams. She awoke in a sweat and a fit of sobbing and shivers.

-

She slipped through the Leaky Cauldron, panting.

She stayed clear of the crowds in Diagon Alley, searching.

She found Knockturn Alley, weeping.

A dimly lit shop and a bellicose shopkeeper. No bell to greet her shoddy entrance into the room.

"Sir, I'd like to sell," she said quietly. The wizard behind the counter acknowledged her with a small recoil and then returned to polishing a pair of glasses. "I have...I have a family heirloom, sir, this locket - Salazar Slytherin's locket - and I was - "

The man yanked the chain from her neck with an angry pull and eyed her with the greatest contempt and revulsion. "Salazar Slytherin's? Likely story, a wench from the streets like you having a relic of Salazar Slytherin."

He took it into the backroom.

Merope lightly touched her neck. She touched it again. And again.

It was gone, the silky gold filigree, the burden against her beating chest.

And then it...something...it broke, and she gasped for air, and it filled her lungs but everything, everything was rushing out. She reached and reached as everything slipped away, flying, flying, and suddenly she was thrown back to her garden of weeds, his fine and handsome disposition approaching, and she cried for him, only to be replied by a leering scowl and a heavy-set ring slithering up her thighs.

The storekeeper walked back to the counter. "Well, it is indeed an article of Slytherin's. I suppose I have no choice but to accept. What's your asking price?"

"Anyth...anything, sir. Please."

"Will ten Galleons suffice?" His mouth formed a small smirk. "Decent, I say, once everything has been factored in..."

"Yes, yes, ten Galleons will be fine, sir, just give me the money."

A shower of clinking gold fell onto the glass counter.

She counted the coins. One. Two. Three. Four. Five. Six. Seven. Eight. Nine. Ten.

She swept them into her hands and left the store.

Behind her, the man broke into laughter and mirthfully set himself to the task of composing a letter to his business associate, relating how he pulled off the greatest bargain the wizarding world had ever seen.

-

Merope sat with her back against a brick wall, a small pile of twigs before her. She shivered and pulled her cloak tighter around her body. She rested a hand atop her stomach. In her other hand was clutched her wand, its rickety shape unsteady in her grasp.

Pointing it at the wood, she whispered, "Incendio."

A blast of wind tore through her cloak. She gritted her teeth and shut her eyes against the chill. "Incendio," she said again, this time more forcefully.

The twigs looked unchanged. "Incendio, Incendio, Incendio! Oh, Incendio, for Merlin's sake!"

She rapped her wand against the bricks. A numbing cold pervaded her thoughts: oh, it's not working, it's not working, it's not working, I'm going to die tonight, I'm going to die tonight...

-

"She was in a right state, poor thing."

"Carrying a baby and on the street? Simply outrageous!"

"We'll be taking care of her, then?"

"Until she's better and can take care of herself, yes." Her eyelids flitted open, the world a blur of soft blankets and affectionate voices. "Awake, dear? We'll bring you a hot meal in a bit."

A washcloth passed over her forehead. People bustled around her in an impenetrable world. Consciousness, memory, life itself ebbed away. There was a powerful kick inside her.

The baby was alive. She was broken.

Don't waste your food on me, she wanted to tell them as they lifted a spoon to her lips.

-

It was pain, raw and crimson. She pulled and wrenched on the damp towels tied to the metal bedposts until her hands were blistered and sore, and she pulled and wrenched some more, writhing and grinding against the blood-stained sheets of labor.

"One last push!" they said. "Just one more!"

Yet hadn't she been pushing, pushing even as she wished to death to relieve her already dead self? Let me go, she begged. Let this be over.

It wasn't supposed to be like this.

"Tom...Tom," she muttered in her delirium, her body jerking wildly. Where was the calming hand on her flushed face? Where were the comforting whispers of look-Merope-our-child? Where was the happy family of once-upon-a-time?

But the fairy tale was over long before it began. It had never existed but in her idealism and her mental delusions, and they were lost.

Somewhere, her father was cackling.

You'll pay for your treachery.

Your daughter always.

"Your baby, Merope." They placed a bundle in her arms from which emanated a newborn's mewing. "Your son. Baby Riddle. What'll you name him, dear?"

The infant struggled against the confines of the blankets, his dark eyes shining. She cradled his warmth against her shallow breathing. "Tom. His father. Marvolo."

"Excuse me?"

She raised her voice. "Tom Marvolo."

"Tom Marvolo Riddle it is. What a strong, beautiful boy, Merope. Very healthy, from the looks of it."

"Yes." She looked into his round face one last time as her vision faded. "He will do great things one day."