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FIC: Chance Encounter (Cecilia, Merope, Gen)
Title: Chance Encounter
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Cecilia (Tom Riddle's girlfriend), Merope Gaunt, Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word Count: 437
Summary: Months after Tom Riddle jilted her, she meets the one he left her for.
Notes: Written as a gift for lareinoire in the ownficfest Free-for-All Mini Giftathon.
Link to ficlet at ownficfest
The homeless woman is huddled in the road right at the turning to our townhouse. I doubt we would have noticed her had the horses not shied and caused the carriage to jolt horrendously.
'Really,' says Mother irritably, while I poke my head out of the carriage window to see what the commotion is about. Outside, our driver has jumped down and is trying to chivvy what looks like a pile of rags off the road.
The woman hobbles to the kerb. As she does so, I see the bulge of her belly before her, the arch of her back as she cradles her hands across her roundness. She reaches the cobbled sidewalk and turns her face towards the carriage, which is when I notice with shock that she is young, hardly more than a girl. For the briefest moment, our eyes meet.
In that fleeting second, there is a flash of something terrible in her eyes. None of the resentment or envy these beggars usually hold for those of us with breeding; no, this is a gaze of pure venom. I shrink back, alarmed, and my mind jumps, unbidden, to a lazy afternoon many months ago and a buggy ride past a tramp's hovel marked with a dead snake nailed to the door where a number plate would have been in a respectable home. For a moment I fancy I hear a faint hiss.
'Cecilia,' Mother snaps, 'stop staring.'
I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, but the voice I am hearing in my head is not Mother's; it comes to me out of the depths of my memory, a low, pleasant tone that conjures up images of a handsome, dark-haired boy.
'Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling.'
I shake my head to clear the memory of Tom Riddle, the scoundrel who played me false. I heard he returned to Little Hangleton months ago, bleating about being bewitched. I suppose that means he's left the tramp of a girl he'd run off with. Not that the taint of scandal will ever leave him.
I wonder how that tramp's daughter has fared without him. According to Father, no one has seen hide or hair of her, but that's not surprising considering half the town never even realised she existed before she eloped with Tom.
Merope, I think suddenly, remembering her name although I have only ever heard it the once. My eyes open and there she is, still, the ragged girl with her full belly, eyes boring through the carriage window. Only her expression has softened. Now her eyes only seem to harbour regret.
Author: shiiki
Rating: PG
Characters/Pairings: Cecilia (Tom Riddle's girlfriend), Merope Gaunt, Gen
Fandom: Harry Potter
Word Count: 437
Summary: Months after Tom Riddle jilted her, she meets the one he left her for.
Notes: Written as a gift for lareinoire in the ownficfest Free-for-All Mini Giftathon.
Link to ficlet at ownficfest
The homeless woman is huddled in the road right at the turning to our townhouse. I doubt we would have noticed her had the horses not shied and caused the carriage to jolt horrendously.
'Really,' says Mother irritably, while I poke my head out of the carriage window to see what the commotion is about. Outside, our driver has jumped down and is trying to chivvy what looks like a pile of rags off the road.
The woman hobbles to the kerb. As she does so, I see the bulge of her belly before her, the arch of her back as she cradles her hands across her roundness. She reaches the cobbled sidewalk and turns her face towards the carriage, which is when I notice with shock that she is young, hardly more than a girl. For the briefest moment, our eyes meet.
In that fleeting second, there is a flash of something terrible in her eyes. None of the resentment or envy these beggars usually hold for those of us with breeding; no, this is a gaze of pure venom. I shrink back, alarmed, and my mind jumps, unbidden, to a lazy afternoon many months ago and a buggy ride past a tramp's hovel marked with a dead snake nailed to the door where a number plate would have been in a respectable home. For a moment I fancy I hear a faint hiss.
'Cecilia,' Mother snaps, 'stop staring.'
I lean back in my seat and close my eyes, but the voice I am hearing in my head is not Mother's; it comes to me out of the depths of my memory, a low, pleasant tone that conjures up images of a handsome, dark-haired boy.
'Don't look at it, Cecilia, darling.'
I shake my head to clear the memory of Tom Riddle, the scoundrel who played me false. I heard he returned to Little Hangleton months ago, bleating about being bewitched. I suppose that means he's left the tramp of a girl he'd run off with. Not that the taint of scandal will ever leave him.
I wonder how that tramp's daughter has fared without him. According to Father, no one has seen hide or hair of her, but that's not surprising considering half the town never even realised she existed before she eloped with Tom.
Merope, I think suddenly, remembering her name although I have only ever heard it the once. My eyes open and there she is, still, the ragged girl with her full belly, eyes boring through the carriage window. Only her expression has softened. Now her eyes only seem to harbour regret.