WRITING.

This blog is private which means that I will write with MUTUALS ONLY; as a result of this if you would like to send memes ( please make sure to send the contextual text when sending symbol memes ), respond to starter calls or open starters, IM me to plot and I’m following you back then you can but if I don’t please respect that and refrain from doing so. This doesn’t mean I will never write with you at all it just means that I just don’t feel able or maybe want to right now. I will also unfollow INSTANTLY ( or even block and in repeated cases report ) if you put my character in situations I don’t feel comfortable with participating in, you haven’t read my rules or have shown total disregard to my feelings as a mun. This is nothing personal, I just have to maintain my own comfort levels in order to maximise my enjoyment of the hobby we all share. Role-play is a platform I use to distract myself from every day stress, that being said due to my real life relationship I will NOT be writing any smut - if this is an issue then please don’t approach me for romantic shipping, after all there are plenty of other things we could write together. If I feel I have lost muse for a thread and wish to drop it then I will message you privately to inform you and hopefully plot something else. Please bare in mind that I am also a NOVEL BASED portrayal with many headcanon influences however if you are a movie canon muse, I will try my best to adapt.

EXCLUSIVES.

As far as exclusives are concerned we will have to have been friends for a long time and write together frequently; so far, on this blog, I am ONLY exclusive with one person and that is THIS portrayal of Pansy Parkinson. Please respect this and the fact that I will only write with this portrayal but also please bare in mind that I am more than happy to talk OOC with others.

SHIPPING.

First and foremost, shipping on this blog is very much chemistry dependent so even if I ship Merope with another portrayal of your muse it doesn’t necessarily mean it will flow the same with her and your portrayal. If we have a thread going and talk regularly out of character, I am more than happy to discuss a ship with you as long as it makes sense and doesn’t feel forced; I WILL NOT ammend my characters history or feelings about other characters just for a ship to make sense. ANY attempt at forcing me into a ship will lead to an automatic block. All of that being said, if you just want to see how Merope would react to your muse romantically then please feel free to send as many fluff orientated memes as you like just bare in mind that she is very much in love with Tom and has never shown any romantic interest in anybody else.

THE DOS.

PLEASE DO: Write with me, send me memes, send asks or IM me if you would like to ask about my muse privately, request more information about my portrayal of Merope or request my Discord to talk OOC.

THE DONT’S.

DO NOT: godmod me, reblog threads you aren’t a part of ( liking and commenting is perfectly fine and encouraged ), steal my headcanons / anything tagged “* mine.” / any of my headcanons for Merope without asking first / any of the graphics made for my use only by myself or any other person, tell me my portrayal is incorrect, compare me to other portrayals of Merope in a negative way or send hateful asks all of which will be deleted on sight and the IP blocked from accessing this blog.

THE TRIGGERS.

Due to me being mobile majority of the time I am online I am unable to filter out my triggers so I won’t bother asking for them to be tagged, HOWEVER I will tag the ones I know are more common like such “example trigger //” if you would like something in particular tagged please message me and I will do so. If a thread we are writing contains one or more of my triggers I will message you privately just to make you aware replies may take a little longer than usual.

THE MUN.

Hi, I go by the name Lola ( this is a penname, due to past experiences I do not give out my real life name. ), I am 24, an aquarian and my pronouns are she/her. I currently have numerous chronic health issues that I am working through so please respect that, although, I have a lot of free time I may not feel up to being on Tumblr. However, I am often available on Discord which is available by request from mutuals and via IM if you wish to talk OOC. I can often get overexcited and it is more than okay for you to POLITELY tell me to leave you alone for a while if it gets too much. I will never set out to hurt anybody’s feeling’s so PLEASE do come to me if I do so so I can love on you and apologise profusely. Angst and horror are my personal favourite things to write, so I will always be game for writing those. I am British so I will spell as such ( eg. Colour, grey, mum ).

• Merope Gaunt had lived in a shack near Little Hangleton with her father, Marvolo, and brother, Morfin. Generations of inbreeding left the Gaunts violent, mentally unstable, and poverty-stricken.

  Merope exhibited little magical talent in her early years, and as a result was mentally and physically abused by her father, who called her a "disgusting little Squib", among other things. However, this was actually a self-fulfilling prophecy, as Merope's magical abilities were suppressed largely because of her father's abuse. It should be noted that a person's magical abilities can be effected by their state of mind and powerful negative emotions endured on a chronic basis can interfere with or completely drain a person's powers as Albus Dumbledore points out. By extension, it can be inferred that Merope had magical powers, but had never really used them nor developed them.

  However, Merope's magical ability flourished after her father and brother were incarcerated in Azkaban and she was free from their abuse; she showed herself capable of significant magic, enslaving Tom Riddle either with the Imperius Curse or a love potion for an extended period of time. It is unlikely that Merope attended Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry, though she did have a wand; it seems likely that she was taught magic at home. Another possibility is that Merope disciplined herself to the extent to become self-taught, arguably taking posthumous tutelage from Zygmunt Budge by getting herself a copy of the Book of Potions, which is the most likely explanation for proving herself an adept novice potioneer. Merope seemed to be in charge of cooking and cleaning in her family home; it is unknown what happened to her mother.

  MARRIAGE.

  At some point in her life, Merope secretly fell in love with Tom Riddle, an exceptionally handsome and wealthy Muggle, and the only child of Thomas and Mary Riddle, who lived nearby. Her father was livid when Morfin revealed this to him in the summer of 1925, and attacked her physically, but was restrained by Ministry official Bob Ogden. Ogden arrested both Marvolo and Morfin, who had cursed Riddle because his sister found him attractive. With her family gone, Merope manipulated Riddle into marrying her. She left the shack with a farewell note revealing her marriage to Riddle, and her existence was never again mentioned by Marvolo.

  Although Harry Potter, upon learning of these events, speculated that she might have used the Imperius Curse or a Love Potion on Riddle, Dumbledore believed that she most likely used a Love Potion because it seemed more romantic. Dumbledore also speculated that Merope got hired alongside Frank Bryce on the Riddle estate ostensibly to earn a living, but covertly to get close to Tom Riddle Snr, in which she could administer the love potion to him while mixing it with water or some other beverage. In any case, Riddle became infatuated with her and they were married in late 1925, running away to London together. This caused great scandal in Little Hangleton.

  After a year of marriage, Merope Gaunt soon became pregnant and decided to release Riddle from his mental enslavement, having grown tired of living a lie. Dumbledore thought that she did this hoping either that her husband would have truly fallen in love with her by that point, or that he would at least stay for the sake of their unborn child. Unfortunately for her, Riddle did nothing of the kind. Riddle awoke into a nightmare and fled back to his family's home, believing to have been bewitched, although according to Albus Dumbledore, he probably did not say that exactly, for fear of being thought insane.

  CHILDBIRTH AND DEATH.

  After her husband's sudden escape, Merope soon fell into a deep depression and lived as a pauper in London, selling her valuables to survive in order to gain some gold. Specifically, she sold her locket, a family heirloom which was one of her father’s most treasured ones, to Caractacus Burke for only ten Galleons, either not knowing that it was a priceless artefact, no longer caring, or a desire to sever ties with her abusive father and valuing the paltry profits much more than the painful reminder of her family. With her heart broken and her dreams in tatters, Merope stopped using magic altogether after Riddle's desertion, not even willing to raise her wand to save her own life ( although, according to Dumbledore, it was also possible that her powers may have been sapped as a result of depression and also because of her unrequited love for Riddle. Nymphadora Tonks went through a similar rut with her powers for a very similar reason in 1996 - 1997 ). On the night of New Year's Eve in 1926 ( as described by Mrs Cole ), she staggered up the front steps of an orphanage, ready to give birth to a son. She told Mrs Cole, a woman who worked in the orphanage ( who was the matron ), to name him Tom for his father, Marvolo for her father, and Riddle to be his surname. Tom Marvolo Riddle, according to Mrs Cole, specifically, Marvolo was a "funny name", and she wondered whether Merope had come from a circus. Merope died within an hour, and her last words were a final wish that her son would turn out to look like his father, which Mrs Cole said that she was right to hope it since Merope was no beauty. This specific cause of her death is not stated.

  It is unknown what happened to Merope’s body after her death; However, as she had no family network to identify her corpse or mourn her, Merope's earthly remains were presumably interred by a Muggle funeral director and paid for by a Muggle charity.

  POST-MORTEM.

  Years later, her son would find it difficult to believe that she could have been a witch, as she succumbed to something as mortal as death; he was, however, forced to accept that she was indeed a witch once finding nothing of "Tom Riddle" in the history of Hogwarts. It seems she was too depressed to use magic after Riddle left her when he stopped being given the Love Potion.

  Her son would grow up believing his father married Merope of his own free will, only leaving her after discovering she was a witch. Although Merope had a choice, she chose death in spite of a son that needed her due to the utterly miserable existence to which she had been condemned. These circumstances caused even Harry Potter to feel a twinge of reluctant sympathy for Riddle. Merope's son would ultimately grow up to become the most dangerous Dark wizard of all time, Lord Voldemort. Albus Dumbledore hypothisised that if Merope had hung on, and been there to express love and affection for her son, Voldemort may have never come to be.

• Merope possessed lank and dull hair. Her hair framed a plain, pale, and heavy face. Her eyes ( like her brother's ) stared in opposite directions. She seemed to keep herself cleaner than her father and brother, but when Harry first saw her in a memory, he still thought of her as the most defeated-looking person he had ever seen.

  When she lived in the Gaunt household, she wore a ragged grey dress that blended in with the stone walls of the house, and her only adornment was Salazar Slytherin's Locket, which hung from a gold chain around her neck. Mrs Cole also described her to be "no beauty".

• Merope was physically and emotionally abused by her family, and as a result was timid and miserable for most of her life, traumatised to the point of being unable to perform magic well. She could perform magic, but having been terrified of her father and brother, lacked confidence; thus, her magic was haphazard at best. However, she grew bolder and happier once Marvolo and Morfin were sent to Azkaban and displayed enough cunning and magical skill to manipulate the man she was in love with into marrying her. By extension, she seems to have also been able to effectively manipulate her husband when he was under her control as to prevent him from becoming suspicious about the truth of their marriage and resisting her.

  She loved Tom Riddle Snr obsessively, given the lengths to which she went to obtain his affection and her morbid depression after he left. Even the responsibility of having a baby to look after was not enough to give Merope the will to live. Her obsession seemed to have grew into a desire for a genuine affectionate relationship as opposed to living a lie any further; she ceased her enslavement of Tom in hopes that he would have truly fallen in love with her, or at least remain for their unborn child. Her naivety proved to be her undoing, as Tom felt nothing for his captor, and fled to never return. Merope's belief that Tom would love her after what she did shows her lack of understanding of true love, which is doing everything for your beloved's happiness. This lack of understanding of true love despite having the ability to feel it could be attributed to the fact that she was never loved by her own family and starved of genuine, unconditional affection as a result, which made her more desperate to be loved by someone rather than earn her true love and the love of other people.

  Having lived a life where she had always been miserable, Merope had no hope left and could not find the courage to make her want to keep trying, even for the sake of her newborn son. This decision had a dramatically negative impact on her son's psyche. According to Albus Dumbledore, one should not judge her too harshly, as she had been greatly weakened by long suffering which resulted in her choosing to die instead of staying alive for her son, and she never had the courage and inner-strength of Lily Evans, Harry Potter's mother, who sacrificed herself willingly for her son.

  One reason as to why Merope chose to seek out a muggle location to give birth rather then to seek sanctuary with other witches/wizards may also have been influenced by the miserable life she had lived up-unto that point; it's likely that after everything that had happened, and now so traumatised to the point of being unable to perform magic, Merope came to view magic as having been the root of all her problems in life one way or another ( her father's treatment of her her whole life, etc. ), and that her choice to go to a muggle orphanage over Saint Mungo's after she'd already gone into labour may have been a final act of love on her part, wanting her unborn child as far from Wizardkind as she could get.

  It is possible that Harry Potter came to have respect for Merope, because of her having different beliefs of blood purity since she fell in love and eloped with a Muggle, while Harry, on the other hand hated her father and brother and most likely felt sorry for her since she had a miserable life.

• PARSELMOUTH.

  Like her famous ancestor, father, and brother, Merope had the ability to talk to snakes, which she later passed on to her son.
  

  THE DARK ARTS.

  Harry Potter initially speculated that Merope used the Imperius Curse (which requires a powerful bit of magic to perform effectively) to control Tom Riddle to fall in love with her. It is not improbable because of the history of Dark Arts within her family.
  

  POTIONS.

  Albus Dumbledore speculated that Merope used a love potion to have Tom Riddle fall in love with her, contracting Harry's earlier thought on the usage of the Imperius Curse, as the potion would seem more romantic. Dumbledore thought that it would be easy for Merope to persuade Riddle to have a drink of water containing a love potion on a hot day. Being able to brew an effective love potion indicates that Merope was actually a skilled potioneer, which remains unexplained if she did not attend Hogwarts.
  

  LOVE.

  Merope was one of the few members of her family who could feel true and unconditional love, as displayed by her love for Tom Riddle Snr, a Muggle man, despite her family's traditional beliefs about Muggles. However, her love borders on obsession, to the point where she would use magic to subjugate her target, which was what led to her downfall and loss of powers when she naively and incorrectly believed her love would be reciprocated if she freed him of such enslavement. It was due to this that her magical powers were sapped when her Riddle, without the love potion being given to him, left her and she fell into depression.