Title: Teach Us Something, Please.
Author: lannamichaels
Fandom: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Rating: G
Archives: Archive Of Our Own, SquidgeWorld

Summary: Merope Riddle is a disquieting little girl.



1.

Everyone agrees: Merope Riddle is a disquieting little girl.

In an orphanage full of little girls of all types, from the terrible to the tearful, Merope Riddle stands out for being extraordinarily strange.

She's one of the bullies, there's no doubt about that. She's vicious, she'll bite and kick and hold you down and tear at your clothes until she finds your treasures and then she'll keep them. She'll take your food, she'll take your clothes, she'll take your very dreams.

But she can also be charming. She's smart, too, there's no doubt about that.

She's no one's favorite. She's no one's friend. They say her mother came in on a stormy night and birthed her on the spot and then died, leaving Merope with only a name. Some say the mother didn't even do that, and they named the daughter after the mother.

Who was Merope Riddle, the dead mother? Just another dead mother among all the other ones. Who is Merope Riddle, the strange girl? No one wants to know, not really.

They don't want her attention.



2.

Merope discovers her own magic gradually. At first it seems too good to be true, and Merope is canny enough to distrust anything that comes too easily, too well.

But the magic works and it keeps working and one day a man arrives and tries to scare her.

Men who try to scare girls are nothing new to Merope Riddle, and she ignores everything he says in favor of what he does: magic. A lot of magic.

When she leaves the orphanage to go to school, she doesn't plan to ever go back there. When she arrives in Hogwarts, she plans to enter a whole new world, a world of magic, a world of possibilities, a new start.

That's not what happens.

She is sorted into Slytherin, alongside six other girls her age. They are friendly with her. They make the effort, and so does Merope. She doesn't steal from them. She doesn't hurt them. She tries, instead, for the first time in her life, to meet them as equals: these girls are not threats to her, they're allies.

Merope's books and supplies come from donation bins and the other girls find her replacements as needed, calling on older sisters and older friends for what's no longer needed and can be passed around. Merope's wand -- a cheap one that was all the Hogwarts scholarship fund was willing to pay for -- is replaced without fanfare three weeks into September, and when Merope tries to stumble over words of expected gratitude for the first time in her life, Maureen McPherson brushes it off and tells her, "this is what friends do," and won't hear another word.

Merope understands when the other girls start coming to her for help with homework, and in exchange, they keep being friends with her. Everything magic comes so easily to Merope and it doesn't come so easily to everyone else. And so when Merope needs help understanding the writing or the words in some of the books, it's all the same as when Rosie needs help calculating percentages for Potions.

It's a new home. It's a new start. It should be enough.

When spring dawns and summer approaches, Merope goes to her Head of House and asks to be kept on over the summer as a servant in the castle. She knows how to clean and mend and be invisible. She is willing to stay and earn her keep, if the scholarship fund won't cover summers.

Her Head of House sends her back home, kindly but firmly. Merope doesn't have a home. She has a battlefield and she won't go back.



3.

Merope Riddle leaves the Hogwarts train in London and there is no one there to say she has to go anywhere at all. She is prepared to run and hide, to use her magic to get herself away the way other witches do when they know more spells than Merope does, but Merope is smart, if she needs to learn to Apparate on the spot, then she will -- but she doesn't have to. There's nobody there.

Merope Riddle is in a train station, some money from her friends in her pocket.

She doesn't go back to the orphanage. Hogwarts will expect her back here in the autumn, and the owl will find her wherever she is. She doesn't need to stay here.

And so she doesn't.



4.

During the school year, Merope had discovered kindness as a sort of contract: friends help each other. In the summers, Merope begins to discover kindness that expects nothing back.

It takes two or three years for Merope to realize what she's seeing, because it's so unknown to her. But people will help her just because she's a young girl, an orphan alone in the world. She will approach some travelers, planning to steal from them, and often she does steal from them, but sometimes they turn and offer her what she wants with open hands. Oh, there's pity, there's plenty of pity, but there is also charity without the sting of charity. A woman with grown children takes Merope in for a week of traveling around the country, telling her about her own travels with a mixture of sorrow and joy, and for the first time, Merope longs. She longs for something other than magic, other than freedom, other than Hogwarts. Because magic is freedom and Hogwarts is magic and all of them mean that she's not stuck in the orphanage, in a life with no future, in a life with only two roads she can walk.

It's not adventure, Merope thinks to herself one night. That's not what she wants.

But she can't name what it is, that longing in her heart, what she wants more than what she can see right now.

And so she focuses on something she can know: her mother.



5.

In fourth year, Maureen McPherson carefully follows the instructions in a book her cousin had sent, all the other Slytherin girls standing around to help, and they perform a blood ritual to name Merope's parents by all names they were ever known.

And Merope learns that her mother was born Merope Gaunt, that her father is Thomas Riddle. That her father is.

She is not a fatherless orphan. Like so many others, she is merely a daughter of a father who -- did something. What it is her father did isn't told by the magic. Did he rape Merope's mother? Was it an affair and then he rejected her? Why did he never come for Merope in the orphanage for all these years?

Maureen transfers the ritual onto Merope's hand and then, over Christmas break, Merope follows the trail of the magic and meets her father.

He rants and raves. He says Merope's mother tricked him. He calls her a witch. He says many things. But Merope sees beyond what he says, and she knows: he doesn't want anyone to know about her.

Merope smiles. She names her price. The orphanage never taught her what it should have, but it taught her the skills she needs to look her father in the eye and blackmail him without a second thought, without a pang of regret. She doesn't care what might have been. This is the man who didn't help her mother. Merope knows well how easy it is for a woman to die in childbirth if everyone around her thinks she's trash, if they'd rather spit on her than help her. This is the man who condemned Merope's mother to death. There is a penalty to be paid for that, and Tom Riddle will pay it monthly.

And if he won't pay? Merope twirls her wand in her hand and smiles a perfect smile, the smile that had so disquieted everyone in Merope's youth. Oh, he'll pay. One way or another, he'll pay. Money or blood. His choice.

He chooses money.

Very sensible.



6.

The rest of fourth year brings changes. Having exhausted all there is to know about her father, Merope feels no desire to keep using his name. She makes a visit to the registry office; with a flick of a wrist, she becomes Merope Gaunt to Hogwarts and to the world.

Boys are starting to pay attention to Merope, complimenting her and making suggestions, and she ignores them. She knows what boys want from girls: to use them up until they are friendless, alone, and dead.

Merope has another path to walk. Hers takes her toward the laundry, where she watches from a quiet corner as the house elves do more magic without a wand than Merope has seen anyone do with a wand.

Over the years, she has noticed the house elves out of the corner of her eye and she slowly began making a calculation. That calculation has become a firm conclusion. The true magic users of Hogwarts Castle are the house elves. No one else can do a fraction of what they can do.

Merope has learned from the witches and the wizards, from books and from stories, from paintings and from statues. She has not learned any of the magic that the house elves do.

That will change, Merope has decided. Even if she can't do any of it herself, if there truly are species differences in magic, then she will still learn the theory of it and apply it to her own magic.

It doesn't take any time at all to convince the house elves to teach her, but they're bemused by the request. The one most willing to sit and explain things to her tells Merope to call her Peaseblossom; house elf names are communicated by magic and are unique to each house elf and so the ones who deal with humans like to pick out human nicknames. Peaseblossom is happy to tell Merope about the theory and feeling of house elf magic, but warns her repeatedly that Merope will likely never be able to do it. They've never met a human who could.

And house elves have met a lot of humans. They must think we're pets, Merope realizes after a few months of tutelage. The house elves think they own Hogwarts and that could well be true. They live long enough. They take care of the humans, who pass through and learn but are so much less powerful than the house elves. The house elves take care of the humans. And they're -- they're friends, Merope realizes.

She's still learning what a friend is, but she's aware, now, that it's something she's still learning. That it's something she has to learn, if she's going to fit in as a Slytherin and, now, as a person.

But house elves are friends to humans. Merope has been at Hogwarts for nearly a full four years now and everyone has told her that the house elves are the servants. But they're not. And they're not slaves, the way Merope had wondered. No, it's something else. Something more complicated. Something that the humans may have forgotten. The house elves don't want money -- it would offend them, because they're not servants. They take care of the humans in Hogwarts because Hogwarts is a school and it's a school that the house elves have dedicated their lives to help. Humans teach in the school. House elves keep the students clean and safe and secure. Both are necessary, and it wouldn't work if the house elves left, because humans can't do house elf magic. House elves can apparate within the school, the way no human can. House elves can clean a room by blinking at the mess, and no human can do that.

There wouldn't be a Hogwarts without the house elves and they are proud of their stewardship of the school and its students.

And some elves have adopted human families to shepherd -- we're pets, we're animals, we're companions, Merope thinks, trying out each word to try to find one that fits -- and if you offend them by offering them money, gems, or garments, they will never help you again. Payment makes servants; friends are not paid.

And the house elves know more than the humans do. They're stronger in magic than the humans are. To ignore them is to ignore the sun in the sky, the moon overhead. Only a fool would disregard a source of power, a universe of knowledge, simply because of where it came from, and Merope Gaunt is no fool.

On the last day of school before she has to leave Hogwarts for the summer, Merope asks Peaseblossom, "do you get bored?" and Peaseblossom answers, with merry laughter, "how can we get bored watching all the humans?"

Pets and entertainment and something to while away the hours, Merope thinks on the train back to London, a stone in her pocket if she needs to call on any of her house elf friends for help in the summer.



7.

She finds Peaseblossom visiting the old Gaunt house that summer. Merope had heard about it while visiting her father, but hadn't gone to look for it. And there Peaseblossom is, in the corner of her eye, talking to a house elf in dirty rags.

No. Not dirty rags. Merope grips the stone and closes her eyes and from behind her closed eyes, she can see the house elf dressed in starlight and peacock feathers, constellations that Merope doesn't know drawn on the feathers almost like freckles, and the house elf's hair is snarled tree branches, leaf buds about to bloom.

And then Merope opens her eyes and doesn't see any house elves at all.

She goes inside the Gaunt house. What she finds there isn't worth the time it took to get there, and when she leaves, she holds out her hand to the open air and Peaseblossom takes her back to Hogwarts.



8.

Merope leaves Hogwarts after seven years with ten NEWTs. Merope leaves Hogwarts after seven years with friends from Slytherin and allies from all four houses. Merope leaves Hogwarts after seven years knowing that she will never be able to do house elf magic but that doesn't mean she can't still learn.

In another life, one where Merope was too stupid to see what else Hogwarts could teach her beyond its books and its teachers, Merope may have gone far to learn more magic. In this life, she doesn't need to go further than the reach of her arm, because when Merope leaves Hogwarts, five house elves go with her to see if they can teach her house elf magic now that she doesn't have any more human magic cluttering up her time.

And she doesn't learn house elf magic. It's true that she can't. But what she learns instead is how to learn and then, how to teach.

She finds a magical orphan girl one day. Peaseblossom cleans her up and Merope fashions her a wand and little Isolde flourishes under the attention. She needs somewhere to live, so they move to the Gaunt house, and human magic and house elf magic transform it into a suitable place for a young girl to grow and thrive.

And Merope looks at Isolde and she remembers, the way she's never wanted to think about before, the way it had felt to be young and alone and terrified in that orphanage, to know that the only way to be safe was to be terrifying, to know that anyone could come at any time and take everything away. About how magic made her powerful, made her untouchable, made her special, but better than that, it kept her fed. It had given her everything she needed.

And Merope feels that ache again, the ache of fear and hunger and loneliness, and the anger of it, the anger that burned deep in her, that she could never allow out, because girls don't do that, girls like Merope grow up to be servants or worse, girls like Merope are trash like her mother was, good for nothing except the labor of work or the labor of childbirth. Girls like Merope aren't good girls. Only rich girls can be good. Girls like Merope have to survive.

And she's survived and she's powerful now, a true witch, and here's Isolde.

Merope takes the shape of the thought of Isolde growing up like Merope did and all she can feel is horror.



9.

Merope kills Tom Riddle. It's not in the rush of emotion. She understands that her father had chosen to doom her and her mother; she's heard his insults and has discarded them. No, she is careful. She casts the Imperius curse on him and started having more and money sent. She has herself named his heir. And, once there's nothing more to take from him, from the man who could have given her a better childhood and chose not to, she kills him and moves into the house, her and Isolde and the three other children who have found their way to Merope's care, two temporarily, one permanently.

Within two years, it has become the Gaunt School For Children. Peaseblossom and Maureen are uneasy allies at first, but when Rosie arrives, her children and husband in tow, to get their Potions lab up to standard, she also brings her family's elf who is curious to see what's being built here, an elderly elf whose magical name is the first one Merope is able to hear.

And then one day, Merope turns around and realizes her longing is outside of her now. Isolde is home for the summer, studying for her NEWTs. Margrethe and Cornelius are quizzing each other on their summer homework, and Bertha is following them around, trying to get them to tell her what house they think she'll be sorted into. Peaseblossom is arguing with a centaur about teaching alchemy to seven year olds, and Merope's students are four different species.

It's nothing like the orphanage. It's nothing like Hogwarts. It's everything like wandering the country, lost and alone in the summers, and finding people who took her in, who were kind to her when they didn't need to be, who never knew her name and didn't care that she lied to them. It's finding people who aren't scared of her, who she doesn't want to be scared of her.

The day-students arrive for summer morning classes, and a game of chess breaks out on the lawn, the students shoving each other and shouting out strategy, everyone is safe, no one is hungry or cold or alone, and Merope Gaunt realizes she feels happy.



10.

There is a knock on the door one morning. Mr. and Mrs. Evans open it to find a severe-looking woman on the edge of being tall, in an old-fashioned black dress and a wide black hat. Her name, she says, is Miss Gaunt, and she looks it, with hollows in her cheeks and a blazing look in her eyes.

"You must have noticed your daughter Lily is peculiar," Miss Gaunt states. Mrs. Evans bristles and Miss Gaunt holds up her hand. "I run a school for children as peculiar as Lily. She has magic, you see. She will not be old enough to practice magic until she is much older, and so until then, I accept magical children and their siblings as pupils. My fees are generous and many scholarships are available."

"How did you know?" Lily asks, poking her head into the room. Miss Gaunt does not smile at her. That expression would never be called a smile. However, it appears to be as tender as an expression on a woman as Miss Gaunt could be.

"You're down in a book, child," Miss Gaunt says to her. "At Hogwarts School, they find all the magical boys and girls and send them letters when it is time for them to gain a wand. Your education until then is left up to your parents. I provide schooling for children like you, whose parents are squibs. That is what we call," she says to Mr. and Mrs. Evans, "the relatives of magical people. You are part of our world, in a separate way. Have you other children?"

"Of course, there's Petunia," Lily says. "Does she have to come?"

Mr. and Mrs. Evans exchange looks. "We did want the girls to go to the same school," Mr. Evans begins.

"Perfectly understandable," Miss Gaunt proclaims. "Pupils at my school come and go by means of a magical portal called a portkey. It takes them to and from school each day, at the proscribed times. We provide breakfast, lunch, and an early dinner. Stipends are available for books, clothing, and other necessary supplies."

"We don't need a stipend," Mrs. Evan says. "But we would like to know more about this school of yours."

"Certainly," Miss Gaunt says, and when she leaves that day, it is with two more students enrolled in her school, two more children who will never grow up as she did. Two more children, and many more to come.