Fic: The Persistence of Hatred
I'm home. :) As in not Las Vegas, as in Maryland. This is a magnificent day. Night. Pretty much yesterday. Anyway, I committed some angsty gen upon poor, innocent *cough* Merope on the plane, so for my own purposes:
Title: The Persistence of Hatred
Summary: She knows they cannot abandon her, that they are bound to help her by the blood that they share. Merope trusts this completely. And that they are silent now is maddening to her.
Disclaimer: JK owns her, I just like to play with her all the time once in a while.
Rating: PG, because what is Merope's life without abuse?
Characters: Merope
Words: 500 exactly. I'm just that cool.
A tear drips onto an ancient page, flowering there with the intricate text. Merope’s heart shudders in her chest, begging her to put the book back, but she recognizes that she has come too far to give up now.
The cauldron is ready in the next room, and the fire crackling makes her jump from time to time. She knows that she is alone, as she has always been, but still she is terrified that her father will walk through the half-opened door at any moment and seize her by her wrist, that her brother will sneak up behind her and whisper some sordid lechery into her ear, then straddle her, spitting into her face and cackling when she will not look at him.
But Merope wants this too much to give in to hesitation.
Each page takes her further into her family’s history, deeper into their deteriorating minds. Her ancestors’ magic is much stronger than her own, she knows, but she can learn, she will learn. She is, after all, the same as they are.
Though, as both her mismatched eyes begin to lose focus, she also feels her fingers begin to tremble over the mottled pages. She knows there must be a way, and that if anyone knows what it is, it is her family. Her magic is not enough that she can do this on her own, and the injustice is that they know this also, and offer her no assistance. She can just hear Morfin and the snakes laughing; can feel her father’s fist against her cheekbone, the Peverell ring burrowing into her eye socket.
She is distraught.
The Family has never failed her before, had never failed her mother, had never failed any of its members. Merope subdues her emergent despair with a bitten lip, and flips a page with more force than needed. She knows they cannot abandon her, that they are bound to help her by the blood that they share. Merope trusts this completely. And that they are silent now is maddening to her.
Very calmly, for she must be calm as the alternative is to sink further into the instability so characteristic of her line, she rests the book on her lap and quietly, politely, asks, “Show me.”
The tome slams shut, refastening its leather binds and rusted locks that guard its secrets, crushing Merope’s heart between its pages.
* * *
The door swings on its hinges.
* * *
Merope is unsure how long she had been screaming her anguish before someone tore the book from her hands, or whom it was that yanked at her hair versus who had bitten her on the cheek. But she is wretchedly certain why it had all intensified when she threw herself at overlong legs and looked up into eyes identical to her own.
Of all the magic the House of Gaunt has devised over a millennium, it has yet to concoct a potion that can make a father love his daughter.
~ finis ~
The relationship between Merope and her family fascinates me.