Chapter Text
It wore off in the morning. He remembered everything, and nothing made sense.
The dawn was quiet in Little Hangleton. No carriages. No footsteps. No servants up and bustling yet — just the thin mist curling around the windowpanes and the faint hiss of the wind as it slipped past the great Riddle Manor.
Tom Riddle Sr. stirred.
His body was warm. Not unpleasantly so. The bedsheets were soft. His arm, draped over something — someone — was relaxed.
Her hair was dark and damp against his bicep. She breathed shallowly, her back to his chest, fingers curled gently around her own belly.
His brow furrowed.
What was she doing in his bed?
That was the first thought. The wrong thought. The thought that triggered everything.
His eyes snapped open.
It all crashed down at once.
The fog lifted from his mind with a clarity so sharp it nearly made him sick. He pulled back from her like he’d been burned.
No.
No, no, no — this wasn’t right. This wasn’t real. This wasn’t his life.
He shoved the blankets away and lurched upright. The woman—Merope—stirred in confusion, murmuring his name like a fragile prayer.
He stared at her.
She looked… familiar. Not unfamiliar enough to be a stranger, but not right enough to be a lover. Her cheek was rounder than he remembered. Her body fuller. Her skin pale, like porcelain left out in winter.
But he knew her.
She was the filthy little thing from the edge of the village. The mad Gaunt girl.
The girl he’d seen once or twice from the carriage. The one who never looked up.
So why the hell was she in his bed?
“Tom?” Her voice was quiet, raw from sleep. “You’re trembling.”
He stared at her in horror. Then at his own bare chest. The sheets. The room.
She reached for him instinctively, perhaps to soothe, perhaps to explain. But he recoiled like her touch was poison.
“What is this?” he asked.
Her hand hovered midair. Then, slowly, she retracted it.
She sat up — carefully, with a hand under her abdomen — and wrapped the blanket around her shoulders. Her lips were parted. No words came.
He stood. The chill of the morning didn’t matter. He paced to the window, then back. His hands shook. His heart was racing.
“I don’t—” His voice cracked. “How long have I been… how long—?”
Merope’s gaze dropped to her lap. “Seven months.”
He blinked at her. “What?”
“I’m seven months along.” She cradled her belly as if to make it visible. As if to make it real. “With your child.”
Tom Sr. backed away like she was a rabid dog.
“No,” he whispered. “No, I would never— I would never lay with someone like you. I— What did you do?”
She flinched, as if she’d been slapped. But she didn’t deny it.
She just swallowed.
And said, softly, “I stopped giving it to you. I haven’t dosed you in weeks.”
He stared at her, stunned.
“You—” His throat went dry. “You drugged me.”
“It was a love potion,” she said.
Her voice wasn’t defensive. It wasn’t even pleading. It was defeated. Hollow.
“I didn’t mean to… I just wanted you to notice me. And you never would have. You never would have. And I thought—maybe if I could show you I wasn’t awful, maybe if you saw me—”
“You tricked me into this!” he roared. “Into— into fathering a bastard child with you!”
Merope curled further in on herself, blanket pulled tighter, eyes wide and shining. “I didn’t want to trap you, I swear. I thought—when I stopped giving it to you, I thought… maybe you’d still care. Even a little. And if you didn’t, you could leave. I would never stop you.”
His laugh was sharp and bitter.
“So I had permission to leave, did I? After you fucked with my mind?”
Silence.
She shook her head, trembling. “I loved you.”
“You don’t even know me.”
“I loved the way you laughed when you rode past the fence. I loved how you never mocked me, even when the others did. I— I loved your face. I—”
“You loved an idea.” His voice cracked again, this time less furious, more hollow.
She nodded, once.
Tom Sr. turned away, running both hands through his hair.
“I should throw you out.”
That made her eyes shut tight.
She whispered, “I know.”
“Out into the snow, to rot like you were meant to. A disgrace of a girl from a house of beasts.”
Still, she nodded.
“I should tell the entire village. Let them know what kind of creature lives in this house.”
She didn’t move.
“I should—”
“Then do it.”
Her voice was low. And strangely steady.
“If that will make it right,” she whispered, “then do it. Just—let someone take the baby when it comes. Don’t let it die. Not because of me.”
Tom Riddle Sr. looked at her. Really looked at her.
Her hands were trembling over her belly. Her lips were chapped and bloodless. Her eyes—those tired, dead eyes—were brimming with tears she didn’t let fall.
And she meant it.
She expected to be punished. Expected to die.
She expected him to hate her so deeply that even her child wasn’t worth keeping.
And for some reason — some sick, twisted, maddening reason — he couldn’t say the words. He couldn’t tell her to go. He couldn’t raise his voice again.
Because she hadn’t run.
She hadn’t begged.
She had told him the truth, knowing it might kill her.
That silence stretched like a taut wire between them. Until finally, he turned on his heel, crossed the room, and yanked open the door.
Her breath hitched.
She looked up.
And watched as he paused in the doorway — just long enough for her to hope or fear something else might be said — before he said nothing at all and slammed it behind him.
But he didn’t leave the manor.
He didn’t call the servants.
He didn’t tell a soul.
And that night, the door to the bedroom stayed locked. But not by her.
She stayed curled on the bed, hand over her stomach, eyes wide open in the dark.