A Mother's Prayer

Cold.

It was almost the only sensation left for her. And though the snow fell around, it was not the source. Such came from inside, spreading through her body by the paths of her nerves until it touched the skin, crawling between the dermis and the muscles. Not an uncommon state for her nowadays, yet tonight it clashed even more with the only remaining warmth in her, that was becoming a burning hidden in her womb.

She knew what was happening with the instinctual knowledge of a female.

Contractions.

The word pulled others in her mind, with a line of growing red that became a rope of flesh. And the red left almost no space for actual thought.

Contractions. Womb. Baby. Safe. Risk. Death. Baby. Death. Baby.

A spasm rushed from her insides again, shaking her organs and she had to force herself to keep going, not wanting to waste even a second. No sound came from her, which was more due to how she had often kept sobs and whimpers inside out of fear.

Her father never liked when she cried.

Well, her father never liked her at all.

Her gaze went around the street in the night that danced with white, finding no saving grace coming to her aid. Not that she expected any... No, what she needed to find was a place, a place she had heard about and that while not ideal, the only option left.

Merope Riddle (She wouldn't, couldn't, think of herself as Merope Gaunt, not again, not ever again, please, please, please, let she still hold to some reminder of other times, please?) felt the cold biting her flesh in a teasingly way with more cruelty than playful intention.

As she tumbled through the empty street, Merope tried to not listen to whispers that came from the dark corners of her mind, images of snow drinking red and the first touch of a new flesh with the outside world being cold before there was nothing...

"No, calm down. You'll find it. It's near here, it has to be..."

The closest thing to warmth to be found outside herself came from windows of homes (homes, when had she last had a home? Had she ever? Truly?) where people joined to celebrate, to exchange words of care and love. The shadow of the light touched the street, though no more than the inevitable... The world inside had no time for the pregnant woman in the snowy night, no more than it had time for any of the outcasts that had to beg for food everyday, whose houses had no warmth, the ones that struggled to keep whatever life they had.

The ones to whom words of love came rarely and far in between.

Merope didn't remember what they sounded like herself. And there was a pain in her heart now.

The words she had known were false in sound.

Despite her attempt to focus in finding the place she had heard about, there is a part of the mind that, by nature, can never be controlled and it was from there that fragments of Tom Riddle (her husband, her husband, the only person she had ever loved and that feeling even now was a light in a gray world) and the months they had lived together came to the surface of her conscious with purposely slow steps.

Pathetic bitch, her father would have sneered.

And she could very well imagine what her brother would have hissed in the tongue of serpents. Merope often thought that perhaps Morfin had forsaken the human language in favor of Salazar's Gift. Her father never seemed to care for what tongue Morfin spoke, just like he never cared if Merope never spoke at all.

And though she also had the Gift, she rarely made use. Her words so often became cause for pain, unless they were subservient or to announce a meal. And if not worded correctly, if they didn't like the sound or if they happened to just be in the mood... Well... Sometimes they had no need for reasons to give her bruises.

Merope would never understand. And had long ago given up on it.

Foolish, her father would have said.

Foolish she was, but not stupid... She knew well what she had done and accepted the consequences, it were her just desserts. Her child, however, was innocent. It was the last light she had left and she was going to save it, no matter the nature of the costs.

She had loved Tom, she truly did. Many in the village would have laughed at this, and threw needle-sharp words at her. Merope had no need for imagination to conjure this scenario, many of those words she knew by heart like she knew the stares and secretive, mocking smiles so alike that they stood out more than the faces. Most people didn't bother keeping a tone that couldn't reach her ears in the few times she had reason to venture among them. A ghost of the chant of children scrapped her ears and the woman bit her lip kissed by the snow.

Why it hurt? Why it hurt now? After everything, you would expect those details to have fallen in forgetfulness along with memories of her first years of life, would you not?

But her feelings for Tom...

Oh, despite what would be judged, they had not been born of desire for riches or better status or... No, she would have been happy to share a small cottage in the woods, a simple rented room, anywhere at all as long as he was with her... She would bear all pains, if only for him to look at her with kindness at least once...

Was her father right? Was she pathetic for falling in love? Was she foolish for loving at all?

She shivered and snuggled against the fabric that wrapped her body in an uncaring hug and her hands were against her belly, as if in fear that her womb would fail to protect the child from the dropping temperature.

"Mine and his, mine and his" And the thought warmed her a bit. Merope had never had anything that was truly hers... Her father allowed her to use Slytherin's locket (and even now her skin recoiled in fear of what he would do if he ever found out she had sold it) more as a collar, no different than a way to brand a cattle, though he often expressed how he thought it was a waste of Slytherin's precious, pure blood, to run in veins of someone such as her.

Her baby. Her little one.

Merope knew what she had done.

She deserved to be alone. She deserved to be in the street, to be scorned and rejected.

But not her child, please, please, not her child. The baby was innocent, let them see it was innocent and the crime was hers alone to carry.

"Is this too much to ask?" She wondered idly. If it had been too much to ask for someone to care for her, was it too much to ask for someone to take pity upon her child as well?

"Breathe, breathe" Another spasm provoked the mantra. She had to hurry.

When her pregnancy had made itself known through sensations of the flesh and she had sought a confirmation for what the components of her body knew, her first reaction had been the one she had been taught to the point of being instinctive for most of her life: Fear. How could she ever be a mother? How could she be responsible for this fragile existence? Her own mother had died too soon to leave any memory, even if subconscious-like, and thinking about her father... No, what if she became like that? What if one day her child looked at her like she had looked at her family?

Please, dear God, anything but that...

Oh, and there was another thing, was not?

How could she give birth and raise a child, when the father was caged by magical means?

Telling Tom had not been a simple task for her, even after months being together (had they? Had they truly been together?) and he had laughed her worries off, kissed her tears and assured her how they would love the child and how happy he was, how he couldn't wait and oh, he was just so happy...

And as it often happened in those moments, her entire being was tore apart for Merope was well aware of how those words were born not from the heart, but from a poison in his veins that fooled his senses.

Would there be actual love for the child or just an extended effect of his drugged state? Would he even care or merely act as if he did, due to what he believed to feel for her?

And was Tom there, chained in his mind and screaming? The thought often caused nightmares and the man that would never have looked at her with anything other than despise if it was not for that poison never understood why the woman he believed he loved often woke up crying and whimpering that she was sorry, so sorry, but she loved him so much and she was sorry, she should never had done such a thing, she was so sorry...

Unable to carry on with the life of lies, Merope had put an end to it.

It was hell disguised as heaven.

A nightmare badly-covered with perfume of dreams.

Almost with shame, Merope admitted that a part of her, that ludicrous part that dreams of the impossible against all the jeers of reality, had thought that... Maybe... Just, just maybe... Tom would remember the months they had spent together, during which she had been nothing but devoted and if not love her back, at least not hate her? Perhaps he would see how she had been moved by despair to be seen by him and at least offer some friendship?

He... He would surely understand, though, that their child (theirs, theirs) was innocent?

Merope had hoped so. Let her joy (as false as it had been) be over, but the baby...

Tom had not understood. Tom had not cared.

And as deserving as she was, it had been pain beyond pain to see in his eyes the length of his despise. Had it been out of what she had done...

But no. It was not so much due to her actions.

It was due to what she was.

"You're a witch..." The words were revived inside Merope again, crows pecking her sanity and pulling it apart as they would with a carcass they have for a meal and the sound of dead muscle ripping apart echoed with his voice.

"I'm... I'm sorry, I'm sorry that I..."

"What ever made you think I would want to be with a... A freak like you?" Merope had wanted to believe he meant her actions, her mind, her looks, yet there was no way to fool herself. "I'm normal! Not some sort of demon!"

At this, she had tried to protest, to say again that she was sorry and he had nothing to fear from her... And his bitter laugh had been a slap in her face. Whatever fear he might have of Merope lost to how repulsive she was in his eyes.

"Even if you had done nothing of this sort! I want to be with a normal person, not some... Some abomination!" He measured her up and down, as if there was betrayal in how it had been allowed to something such as Merope to develop as a fetus. Didn't nature tend to get rid of anomalies before they had a chance to be born or then did it as soon as their mother's body expelled them?

Tom didn't make secret out of his opinion and made himself clear. Magic in itself was unnatural, there shouldn't be such a thing... Therefore, there had to be something wrong in her to create it, for nothing human should carry this.

And Merope, bruised by his words, beaten by his disgust, had tried to mutter about their child, only because she wanted to keep the growing life in her safe from those emotions...

It would always haunt her how Tom's eyes had resembled her father's when he looked at her belly.

"This... Thing... Whatever that is inside you... It should be put down along with you"

He had left.

She had not tried to stop him.

And she couldn't forget his words. She couldn't forget his eyes.

As shattered as she had been, Merope had still tried to find a path, had tried to keep a simple job... She needed, she would be there for her child...

Her father had never had money for education and even if he had, Merope knew it would be for Morfin. As far as her father was concerned, her only usage was to keep the house and cook.

Merope never imagined how Morfin would fare in school and didn't want to. Her brother was always so... So unstable. As children, he would often play and hug her as much as he would tell snakes to wake her in the dark so he could hear her scream, would twist her arm and scratch her if she tried to approach and he happened to be in a bad mood. Those few gestures of care had died with time and Merope had took time to realize, since they hurt as much as anything else Morfin did.

She hadn't been able to keep a job for long. She had protested due to her condition, yet the favor tended to go towards beautiful people. The lost of the rich husband meant there was no need to her boss to pretend to care... True to his desire of not wanting anything to do with her, Tom had left all they had, money and house alike so Merope managed to try fighting for a while, even as things slithered through her fingers...

Alone, with no instruction and no one to ask for help, Merope had been frightened.

Her wand was left untouched since Tom had left. Every time her fingers brushed the wood, her nerves jumped and her insides were caught up in a storm that pushed whatever she had eaten (or not) up her throat in a reaction that had nothing to do with pregnancy. She just couldn't bring herself to do so, didn't want to feel the magic that lived in her veins anymore, would have broken her skin open with her nails if she could pull it out, get rid of that thing that now felt as worms living in her flesh... Any attempt of magic only worked to bring Tom's eyes and voice alive again.

If she had never been a witch, she would never been tempted to use a love potion... Even if she had nothing to curse but her own weakness... Even so...

Yet, thinking about her baby to strengthen her resolve, Merope had sought medical care in the world that no longer felt like hers, if she had ever belonged anywhere...

"I must be honest with you" A blonde Healer had said as he pushed his glasses up, with a sigh, his eyes on hers. "You're young, but... Your health has suffered greatly in the past years..."

Her whole life, he meant without saying.

"And you have a situation of conflict and the result of a great stress... The pregnancy... I'm very sorry to say this, but the way it will wear out your body and how it can react to the changes... I'm so sorry, but..."

He had not said, as there was no need and Merope had nearly cried. Not for what was being said underneath such terms, but because that Healer was one of the few people who had ever bothered to waste gentleness with her and Merope didn't mind if it was only due to professionalism, it was one of the first times the words were genuinely soft in sound and they didn't hurt.

She had thanked him for everything, but had not returned.

Oh, she had known what was happening even before going there, for she knew her own body.

Magic was not inside the wands, it was not in the words, it lived in the flesh, it slept in the blood. But unlike other components of the body, it was far more connected to the heart and mind than one might assume. To reject it was like rejecting an organ and her precarious health didn't help...

Her body couldn't take keeping a life, nurturing and letting it grow, not with the storm of the magic she no longer wanted and yet couldn't get rid of. Treatment would be possible, though, life for her would be possible...

The cost was her baby.

"Let me die, then!" She wanted to scream then when she left the building. "But do not ask me for my child! I will not give up on my baby!"

She cared for nothing anymore and only the life in her made her keep her own. Otherwise, her incapacity to exist would have devoured whatever remains that kept her heart working the body... So, through the next months, Merope had fought as best as she could in order to care for the life she carried inside, a life that she loved more than anything...

Turning a corner, the structure ahead dominated her vision as if it had been waiting.

Drops of sweat becoming cold against her skin, the woman sighed in relief as if before a glimpse of heaven. It was the only orphanage nearby and she had been informed how it often helped women to the brink of childbirth...

She couldn't risk going to a magical place, the risk of how they would chose to save the mother and not the child was too real to be ignored and her arms closed in protection around her belly as if the shadows around were just waiting for the moment to jump on her, thirsty for the blood of her baby.

"I love you, my dear, I love you, mommy loves you so much..." She whispered in her mind to her child, just now realizing she couldn't speak clearly, yet she hoped her baby could hear those words, words she had whispered so many times while caressing her skin, dreaming of her child.

The gates were not locked and it took all of her to go up the small stairs to the door. Her knock was weak in her ears and in the brief moment there was no answer, Merope feared it had passed by unheard. Her stomach was aflame now, she felt her baby moving around and those were not the soft kicks indicating the presence of life, but of a small being that is in a critical moment...

Light brushed her skin when the door opened a little and a woman spied.

"Please..." Merope forced her voice, her own mind lost in white and red, white and red. "My baby... Please... Help me..."

"Oh, dear!" The woman said at once, helping Merope to come inside, where the warmth of the room clashed with the cold she carried and only now Merope realized how heavily the snow had been falling. The woman's touch was gentle and felt safe, which was a give-away that this was not a first-time occurrence.

It brought a little comfort. It would be okay, it would be okay...

Merope's teeth held her lip as she tried to hold back a scream, waves of fire biting her flesh while her own magical reacted to the turmoil with a fury of its own. A sound of something shattering pierced the air, yet the woman was too busy calling out to notice.

"DIANA! ASHLEY! COME HERE!" Merope felt herself being lied down and the woman turned to her. "Poor dear, you're so cold! Breathe... Stay with me..."

Her tired brain could barely make out the meaning of the words and only now that she had stopped walking, Merope realized the echo of pain in her body... Was the taste of blood in her mouth or in her thighs?

"Mrs. Cole, what... Oh, god!"

"Don't stand there! Go call Dr. Carter! Ashley, help me!" And there were other hands, shivering but gentle all the same, a cloth cleaning her face. The air refused to enter her lungs and a hiss was all sound she could make, the scream dying in her throat.

"No time. Help me lying her down." The first woman, Mrs. Cole, was saying again and while her body was moved, a new face came to Merope's view and she almost wept in relief upon notice the eyes of this other woman were kind, were gentle, too.

"Stay with us. It's going to be okay, we've done this before" The young woman said in a reassuring tone and lifted her head to someone Merope couldn't see. "Bring the towels, Diana, you idiot! Does it look like we can wait for him?"

Would it be a boy or a girl? Merope hadn't want to find out, there was some pleasure in the not-knowing and the two names she had ready in case of either gender played in her mind, softly pulling it to a field of white. She felt hands upon her, spreading her legs as her body fought to bring life into the world at the same time it came undone. Her organs were burning and the little focus that remained in her was directed to the effort to her magic from hurting her baby.

"Not my baby, not my child... Take me"

"Okay, dear, listen to me" Mrs. Cole voice had a physical quality that helped to break through the mist. "Your baby needs you, okay? You need to push when I tell you..."

Merope fought for breathe, to regain control of her body and force it to obey the command. For how long she pushed, for how long she prayed, she wouldn't ever be able to tell. It felt eternity, but it could have been a moment... She felt blood, she felt tears and sweat, something that could be a towel and then...

A sensation of separation.

For a moment, there was no sound.

Her body, feeling hollow, barely keeping itself together under the skin, became cold... Even this sensation felt like an echo of the past, yet Merope was still able to feel fear.

"Is... Is..."

A cry started to fill the room and her heart felt peace, true peace, for the first time in many months and perhaps, the first time in her life.

"It's a boy" Mrs. Cole said. Merope felt herself smiling... A boy... Her baby boy, her beloved... She could barely see and wanted to raise her arm, but could only mutter "my baby"...

When Mrs. Cole didn't bring him to her at once, Merope felt tears cutting her face and she wanted to rebel against the mist grabbing her senses and scream.

"Not Tom, please, not Tom..."

"Breathe, please, breathe..." The other woman, Ashley was it? Had a towel against her forehead and couldn't disguise the worry in her voice. Merope knew the reason, she felt it as the warmth of her blood kept holding her, as her organs slowly seemed to break inside...

"My child, my child..." Merope muttered, she couldn't go, not without holding him at least once, just once, please. "My Tom..."

Then Mrs. Cole was there, helping her weak arms to hold her child and Merope forgot all pain when she looked at him. For the first moment in her life, there was no fear tainting the false peace, no darkness plaguing the love and that moment was heaven for the mother.

"Tom?" Ashley asked with a smile that tried to hide her worries, trying to keep Merope talking, to keep her awake.

"Yes... I... I hope he looks like him..." The words no longer came easily, her mind was numb. "Tom... Like his dad..." Merope had hesitated about his middle name, but despite all fear she had still had some love for her own father. Tom, her little Tom, he would be better though, she was sure. "Marvolo... For my father... Tom Marvolo Riddle..."

Mrs. Cole and the other girl who had helped her were still trying to do something, to keep life in her, yet Merope paid them no mind and held her child close to her chest, kissing his face, whispering as if it was a secret.

"Please, Tom... Please, be a good boy... I love you so much... I'm so sorry, mommy loves you, I'm so sorry..." Her eyes closed. She could smell him and it was soft, he was warm and alive. If words were coming out or if they sounded only in her mind, she no longer knew.

Merope Riddle closed her eyes, embraced by the sensation of her son's heart beating.

And slowly, drifted to a white sleep.

XxX

Mrs. Cole held the baby, rocking him gently as she took him from the arms of the dead mother. Tom Marvolo Riddle... A strange name, but they would honor the mother's desire as they always did.

Ashley still touched the dead woman's forehead and silent tears came down her face... Mrs. Cole felt like crying herself, though she had to appear strong for the others. She hated when things like that happened... And scenes such as this were not as uncommon as she would have liked. At the course of the years, she also had had quite a number of women that gave birth in the orphanage only to leave in morning, forsaking their children. Others were found at the doorstep, almost like a cruel fairy tale.

What had transpired now was not something that had never happened before...

Yet...

She looked down at the baby that slept.

Why did she feel so uneasy?

I've personally always felt that Merope actually did the same thing that Lily did: Died for her son. And just like Voldemort never understood Lily's sacrifice, he also never understood that his own mother had also gave her life so he could live.

Considering all she had been through, I wouldn't be surprised if Merope's pregnancy had been of high risk, to the point where she was aware that she would probably die if she carried it on. Honestly, despite of what she did with the love potion, I feel sorry for her.

With all this in mind, this little one-shot was born. I hope it was a good read.

Please, bear in mind that English is not my first language and if I made any mistake or if a sentence seems weird, please tell me. Criticism and reviews are really appreciated!