Chapter 2
Merope stuffed the recipe and a note for Tom into her herbology bag and slung it over one shoulder so it hung across her belly. Her belly, which had been itching ever since her father cursed her. Then she quietly left the house, hurrying into the woods. The clearing her family used for rituals called to her like always - the latent Gaunt magic, accumulated over generations, begging for a member of the line to work with it. It pained her to deny it once more, but if her father or brother found her magic here, they'd surely kill her.
It took all her willpower to move past the clearing. Her feet moved slowly as though she were walking through molasses. The influence of the ritual circle diminished as she walked away, and finally gave up its hold on her entirely. Her walk turned brisk once more as she traversed the thicket. Despite the season, the evening chill gave her goosebumps. Yet she knew she couldn’t waste her magic on a warming spell, the ritual would take a lot out of her on its own. After trudging through the forest for almost an hour, she finally started to sense the soft hum of her magic beckoning her. She carefully stepped out of her shoes as she neared the brook separating her from her circle. Merope walked through the babbling water, cleansing her energy through the running water. Her ritual area was small, barely different from the rest of the woods around it, and intentionally overgrown.
She inhaled sharply through clenched teeth as she stepped on the thorny bramble branches. It was an unfortunate, but necessary safety procedure. Only her blood, willingly given, would reveal her circle underneath the numerous sprouts and grasses. It emitted a light glow as it shimmered into her perception. Merope sat down on crossed legs in the middle of the circle and started to meditate. Her mind calmed as she focused on the forest and let all other thoughts drift away. She imagined growing roots in the soil beneath her, staying with the forest that she protected and that, in turn, protected her. Only once she felt that she and the forest were breathing as one did she open her eyes to start the ritual.
Merope set a bowl in front of her and then read through the recipe one last time before grabbing the ingredients from her bag. 7 seeds of rue, 7 berries of mistletoe, one chili pepper, and one clove of garlic, the recipe called for. All of them were strongly protective plants, and all were highly toxic to wixen. She took a fortifying breath, asking the forest to protect her, then shoved the plants into her mouth. Ten minutes of uninterrupted chewing were required to make sure enough of her magic entwined itself with the plants - and to make sure she swallowed enough of them. The burning pain, ever increasing as her spit and magic made the plants more powerful, caused her to cry and shiver uncontrollably, but Merope forced herself to continue until she felt her magic tell her she had done enough. Hurriedly, she spat the mixture into her bowl and let her tears fall ontop of it as an additional anchor. Once her tremors subsided, she fished the last two ingredients out of her bag - a strand of her hair and one of Tom’s. She grabbed some hair from each strand and combined it into a third. As slowly as she dared, Merope wove the hair together into a bracelet and dropped it into the bowl, working the mixture inside it until the bracelet had soaked it all up.
She put the bracelet and the bowl away and stood up on shaking feet, letting her blood nourish the earth in thanks to the forest that had protected her and stumbled out of the circle.
As soon as she had left it, she fell to her knees and started drinking from the brook as quickly as she could. The cool water slowly balanced her system out and finally stablised her to the point where she could walk again. Merope put on her shoes and started her trek to Tom’s house.
Her gait remained unsteady while she wove herself through the trees on the way to the village, only escaping painful scratches by the grace of the forest. The short way to one of the muggle paths to the village took her over an hour. When she was finally approaching the Riddle residence, dawn was approaching fast and she knew she wouldn’t make it back before her family woke up. She shuddered at the repercussions she would face, then forcefully pushed the worry away. This was an issue for later. Now, she needed to get the bracelet to Tom without anyone noticing her, especially not him.
She decided to hide it in the stables. The stable boy would’ve been finished by now, so she should remain undetected without having to call on her magic which was still working to heal the damage caused by her ritual. Checking that nobody was around, she crept into the imposing building and went straight for Tom’s horse, a bay stallion called Marshall.
The horse blew out a breath in greeting. He saw her often when she met up with Tom, and she’d taken care to always bring him a treat to get in his good graces. Merope fished a carrot out of her bag and entered the stall while Marshall began to munch on it. With the help of two ribbons, she tied the bracelet and note into the horse’s mane. She was just finishing when she heard the door open and heavy footsteps approaching. Hiding behind Marshall’s back, she glanced at the direction of the door to see her worst fear realised. It was Tom, dressed up for a ride - likely to meet her. She wished she could disillusion herself, but what magic she had kept was too tied up in healing to listen to her. Even if the other horses would remain silent, it was too late to climb into another stall. Merope braced herself for the inevitable as Tom approached the stall door.
He didn’t see her at first, hiding behind his horse as she was, but when he did, he gasped in horror. “Merope!”, he shouted. “What has happened to you, my love? Are you ill? Shall I call on the doctor?”.
Him seeing her like this, thinking she was ill, that she could be healed, made it all too real. Merope had tried to push the knowledge of what happened out of her consciousness, even as she scratched at her skin, but it proved to be too much. She broke down into quiet tears, shaking like a leaf as she curled in on herself. Tom rushed to her and embraced her protectively. He rubbed her back and whispered “All will be fine” over and over again. He had never been very good at verbal reassurance and was firmly out of his depth. She sensed his alarm and worry with every fibre of her being, and somehow, it slowly pulled her back into the present. Her sobs slowed and eventually subsided.
She didn’t dare to look Tom in the eyes, her tearstained face had to make her look like a monster, and she didn’t know if she could survive it to see the disgust he’d surely feel towards her once he knew. “There’s nothing that can be done”, she said, her voice warbling. “My father did this. There is no cure for curses like this, and no way to hide their results”.
“This is awful”, Tom yelled, outraged. Merope tried not to wince at the rejection she’d know would follow.
“That man truly is a monster! How dare he hurt you like this!”.
She looked up at him, confused. All she found in his eyes was anger - righteous anger, the kind of anger he showed when someone broke a moral principle of his - and love. No disgust, no regret to have gotten involved with her, no bad feeling against her at all. Merope gaped.
Tom seemed to notice her surprise. “What, did you think I’d cast you out, now that your hair doesn’t shine like copper anymore and your skin is a little dry?”. He sounded slightly offended. All she could do was nod, ashamed.
“Look at me, darling”, he said with that tone he had, the tone that may as well be a compulsion spell with how loved and safe it made her feel. Her eyes met his again.
“I love you for you. Not for your looks, not for your skills, not for any of these silly things. I love you because you are kind, and you are smart, and you are strong, and you are everything I’d ever want in a wife”.
His passionate tone made her shiver. “You still want-”, she started, but he cut her off. “Of course I still want to wed you, my silly dove”. He brushed her hair out of her face. Her heart fluttered at his loving touch. At the fact that he still wanted to be with her.
“Now, tell me what has happened”, he said.
“I will as soon as I can. But that is not the important thing right now”. Tom opened his mouth, ready to object, but she just continued.
“Morfin is out to hurt you. I have brought you something to keep you safe”. She removed the bracelet and the note from Marshall’s mane and handed them over.
“You must wear this bracelet. Always. It will protect you. I can’t stop them from going after you entirely, but their minds will slip away from the more dangerous spells when they see you. I can’t promise you they won’t hurt you, but I can promise you they will do nothing with lasting damage”.
Tom looked at the bracelet as if he were holding the crown jewels, then back at her. “You did something dangerous to make this, didn’t you”.
“I did what I could to keep you safe”.
He pulled her in for a kiss. “You are incredible, do you know that? Utterly fearless. Like a warrior”.
Then he held out his hand. “Will you put it on?”, he asked.
Merope obliged with a soft smile.
“You still seem anxious”, Tom observed. “Is something else the matter?”.
“I must be home soon, or they will know that I was gone for the night. I can’t walk that fast - I don’t even know if I have the strength to walk that far at all”, she explained.
“Well, that, finally, is something I can help you with”, he replied, sounding pleased.
Merope looked at him, non-comprehending, but then he pointed at Marshall.
“You’ve always wanted to learn, and it seems that today, you will. It won’t be the most enjoyable first ride, but I can have you back in less than an hour”.
Shaking with excitement at the thought, Merope nodded, and Tom started to saddle the horse up.