A Woman lost to Time.
The Limbo was neither warm nor cold. Neither dark nor light.
It was simply waiting.
These were the kind of privileges you get when you are the "Master of Death." Or in other words, free visitation rights to Death's domain.
Harry moved through it without urgency, his steps soundless against the pale nothingness beneath him. There was no ground, no sky—just an endless expanse of mist shifting between substance and void.
And then, he saw her.
A woman, small and frail, sitting alone in the mist.
Merope Gaunt.
She did not look up as he approached.
She sat with her hands folded in her lap, her posture one of quiet defeat. Her dress was faded, tattered at the edges, as if time had worn it down. Long, limp hair framed her gaunt face, and her eyes—when she finally raised them—were dull.
"You’re waiting," Harry said.
Merope blinked slowly. "Yes."
"For what?"
A pause. Then, "I don’t know."
Harry tilted his head, considering her.
"You drugged him," he said, voice light, conversational. "Tom Riddle Sr."
Merope flinched. Just slightly.
Her fingers twisted in her dress, but she did not deny it.
"I did," she admitted.
Harry sat down across from her, folding his legs beneath him.
"Why?"
She swallowed. Her throat bobbed.
"...I wanted to be loved."
A pathetic answer. A desperate one.
Harry studied her, unreadable.
"And when you stopped drugging him, and he ran?"
Her breath hitched. "I let him go."
"And then?"
She hesitated. "I—I had his child."
"Who you abandoned."
The words were not accusatory. Just factual.
Merope curled in on herself slightly. "I was dying," she murmured.
"You gave up," Harry corrected.
A sharp inhale.
A flicker of something—anger? Shame?—passed over her face.
Harry’s gaze was steady. "You didn’t fight. You didn’t even try. You left him alone in the world. And he—" He exhaled through his nose, leaning back. "—he never forgave you for it."
Merope's hands trembled in her lap.
"I know," she whispered.
Silence.
Limbo shifted around them, neither kind nor cruel.
After a long moment, Merope swallowed again. "Do you hate me?"
Harry arched a brow. "Should I?"
"I don’t know."
She looked away, her expression tight. "I… I loved him," she murmured.
"No," Harry said simply.
Merope blinked, startled.
"You didn’t love him," he continued, tone quiet but firm. "You wanted him. That’s not the same thing."
Merope’s breath came quicker now, her chest rising and falling.
"I—"
"Did you love your son?" Harry asked, tilting his head.
She flinched.
A long, aching pause.
Then, finally—
"I was afraid of him."
Harry's lips curled in something almost like amusement. "Good instincts."
Merope let out a shaking breath, pressing her hands to her face.
"I was weak," she admitted.
Harry shrugged. "Yes."
Merope closed her eyes, looking impossibly small.
"...Would it have mattered?" she whispered.
A sad question. A hopeless one.
Harry watched her for a moment longer.
Then he stood.
"It always matters," he said simply.
Merope looked up at him, searching his face for something.
And Harry—who had lived and died and seen the cycle turn more times than he could count—just turned, stepping back into the mist.
"Even if you can't see it."