Written for the Quidditch League Fanfiction Competition. Lizzie did a particularly amazing job betaing this one; thank you!

Prompt: Shakespeare (A Midsummer Night's Dream)
(spell) Obliviate
(opening sentence) (S)He was too late.
(song) 'In The End' by Linkin Park

"And yet, to say the truth, reason and love keep little company together nowadays."

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Act I

Scene i. She is too late—

On her first day alone in the village, Merope learns that her name comes from Greek mythology. The strange book at the library says that she is the dullest of the seven stars. Merope doesn't know which seven stars—the pages have many words she doesn't recognize, and she has trouble understanding if this is a real book or not. The librarian glares at her over the edge of her spectacles when she goes to ask, and Merope loses her nerve and leaves the library.

The dullest of the seven stars. It's true fact, isn't it? Perhaps Papa knew it, when he named her. Or did Mother name her? She doesn't know. Papa never speaks of Mother. But Merope is a fitting name, and she clutches the book she has hidden in the depths of her cloak. She barely reads at all. Perhaps the librarian thinks she cannot read.

The tramp's daughter, say the whispers on the street. Mad as a hatter.

Merope doesn't know what a hatter is.

Scene ii. She is too late to catch up—

There is a book in her possession now, and it is a beautiful little thing, with painstakingly-drawn illustrations in black ink. She has never owned anything so beautiful, not even the locket around her neck, which she can't bring herself to take off even when it's heavy and makes her neck ache. The book beckons to something far beyond—something foreign, something sweet.

She reaches the house at sunset—her house, she reminds herself. Mine. Because Papa and Morfin are gone now; the Ministry has taken them away, leaving her here, leaving her free. And yet, she does not know what to do with freedom. It is another word she cannot understand. So she curls up in Papa's old bed, hole-filled grey blankets making a nest around her, and runs a finger over the book's pictures of lovers kissing under tapestries woven of leaves.

It is a simple, more beautiful world.

Scene iii. She is too late to catch up with the world that grew around her.

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Act II

Scene i. Magic—

Her book is about fairies, beautiful fairies with colorful wings, fairies that can make magic…it's been years since Merope has been a witch. Filthy Squib, says Papa inside her head. Would've been more useful to have a House-Elf, not your sorry weight wasting our food and our space.
The next time she goes to the village, she learns that there's to be a wedding. The groom is Tom Riddle, and the bride…Merope doesn't know the bride's name, but she wears pretty clothes and rides a sleek horse and keeps her chin stiff when Merope passes by.

And Tom, pale and white-teethed, with a lazy stroll to his walk and a laugh that is short and loud and beautiful—he does not know. He has not met Merope, though she has watched him from the window for years as he rode by. He does not know. When one knows, one loves…one falls.

Scene ii. Magic can—

She only has two frocks, but she picks the nicer one: the one with the ruffles on the sleeves and that just has one tear under the arm. It doesn't look good, but it looks better, and she whispers to herself confidence as she tries to pin up her hair. She has never owned a pin, and her hair just falls out of its place when she tries to use sticks, so she leaves it.

You've been following me, says Tom.

Scene iii. Magic can make—

When he speaks to her for the first time, she has to stop to catch her breath. She tries to force the words out of herself, but she feels stuck, frozen. And she turns to the woman—Cecilia, is her name; it clings to Tom's mouth like a parasite—sees her eyes like stars, her musical voice, and she wishes desperately that beauty were contagious.

I think she's fallen in love with you. Cecilia laughs, and the sound is too harsh for such beautiful lips. It shakes Merope, and she feels herself crumble. And she should say no, I didn't mean to pry, but Tom's dark hair falls so beautifully on his forehead, his dark eyes so handsome despite the scorn, and she cannot look away.

Like a spaniel to its owner, perhaps, Tom snorts, and Merope wants to speak up, to say that she would to throw herself down at his feet—yes, here on the street—but she can't move, and she can't open her mouth to say that it doesn't matter if he treats her like his dog, she wouldn't mind, even if he kicks her, hits her, neglects her, she will love him. Love him like she still loves Papa and Morfin, despite everything.

When one knows, one loves.

It makes me sick to look at you, he murmurs as he leaves. Merope slams her hands over her ears at the sound of Cecilia's laughter echoing in her head.

But it's okay. Muggles don't know anything, Morfin used to laugh when he came back from his wanderings. They don't have magic, so they don't know anything.

And she reaches out and feels the wand in her pocket and is suddenly aware of the possibilities.

Scene iv. Magic can make dreams come true.

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Act III

Scene i. Tom—

Tom sleeps just beyond the treeline of the forest behind her house, and it's three days before his wedding. Merope hides her smiles behind a tree, making sure not to fumble with the precious vial she holds against her breast. Amortentia, the book calls the potion, and for the first time magic has come easily. She'd stood over the cauldron and inhaled, savoring the scent of horses and fields and dirt roads and Tom…

She wonders what the potion might smell like to him, tries to imagine what her scent is, tries to forget that Morfin used to call her stinky and throw rocks at her. Morfin is wrong. Papa is wrong. Merope can do magic and she can do exceptionally good magic, and she presses a hand over her smiling lips as she peeks out from behind the tree again.

They've fallen asleep, here in the forest. Tom and Cecilia, hand in hand. Merope hasn't dared to look before now. She knows they are in love, knows that with love come kisses and I love yous and more…

Scene ii. Tom loves—

But now they are asleep. Tom's closed eyes are framed with dark eyelashes that are so beautiful Merope wishes she could count them each, one by one, wishes it was her fingers entwined with hers, not Cecilia's…

Soon, she murmurs to herself, and moves out of her hiding place to pour the potion into his forgotten half-full glass of wine. When he wakes later and takes a sip, just before they rise to leave, she sees the change in him, quivering, crackling, stretching out with magic.

Scene iii. Tom loves her.

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Act IV

Scene i. Merope—

Merope knows that Tom Riddle loves her; loves her. She knows this because he says it constantly, into her ear, into her hair, into her neck—he whispers that her eyes are crystals and her lips are cherries and her hands are snow, and Merope doesn't believe him, not at all, no…but maybe she will begin to, one day.

And Cecilia tries to stir up trouble, but Tom strikes her when she approaches him. He repeats the very words Cecilia herself had echoed when Tom had used them for Merope, and Merope grabs his hand and holds it tightly.

She leaves a note on the table at the house and tells herself that this is no longer Home. She tells herself that Papa will be all right when he comes back, that he will understand. The note has words Merope does not quite comprehend, but Tom says he agrees with them wholeheartedly, even as he drains his cup of tea—the tea he doesn't know is laced with her magic.

Love has no judgement, says the note. Love is a dream. Merope smiles.

Scene ii. Merope wants—

They move to London. His parents are furious, but Tom does not care. It is summer, and he takes her to the beach, kisses her in the water…and her locket feels light as a feather, and after living this dream she cannot believe that there was a time in which it all did not exist, cannot believe that somewhere out there there is still magic that thrums and flows and divides—

And she knows she ought not to care, but she feels something twist her heart painfully whenever Tom speaks of home, because there is nothing she can share of her past, not without using Obliviate on him, and she does that far too often anyway. Sometimes she lies awake at night and wonders how, and when, she's going to tell him, when his mind will finally connect all the dots and—

When one knows, one loves, she tells herself every night as she stirs the cauldron. When one knows, one loves.

Scene iii. Merope wants more.

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Act V

Scene i. When he—

She wakes up one morning to the sound of his gasp. She's nuzzling his shoulder, still half-asleep, and having forgotten that last night was the first night she neglected to lace his drinks with potion, she's shocked when he pulls away roughly and scrambles to his feet with the horrified look of a madman, glancing down at her belly which already shows the swollen signs of a child—Tom.

Scene ii. When he leaves—

And she's crying against the front door and London outside has never sounded so noisy, so dirty, so cruel. But when she'd tried to grab his hand, to make him stay, he'd lashed out, struck her in the shoulder the same way he had hit Cecilia all those months ago, back when the dream had just begun, and she curses herself out loud for ceasing to pour the Love into his lips. She's rid herself of the only thing that matters, that keeps her alive, that has kept her dreaming.

She has spent months convincing herself that his love was real. Hadn't he said she was the whole world to him? Did none of that matter, in the end?

When one knows—

But Tom had opened his eyes and he had not loved her.

Scene iii. When he leaves, she—

And suddenly the flat is too large, her pockets too empty and loose—did Tom take all the money as well? All their savings?—her body too heavy. The child moves within her, breathes within her, like a parasite she wants to hate enough to get rid of but which she can't hate, because it is a part of her now, and a part of Tom, the only part of him she still owns, and London is too loud, the clock ticks on the wall and it sounds unreal, the air circles around the window and it feels stuffy, sterile. It is all too overwhelming for a girl like her, a girl who is alone, the dullest of the seven stars, and she can't, she can't—

Scene iv. When he leaves, she wakes up.

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"So quick bright things come to confusion."