"Kiss me now, Hold me tight, Hope for the best, Don't say goodnight, The worst is yet to come, And so my darling, Don't let go," a very heavily sweating Merope Riddle rocked her newborn child in her arms soothingly, singing in a quiet voice. The baby looked up at her with wide brown eyes and curious dimples, yawning softly as she stretched out her small arms.
At the time, Merope didn't know that the worst really was yet to come. All she really did know was that she wouldn't survive the night. She wasn't a particularly clever woman, but she was smart enough to know that jumping off a moving train during childbirth and giving birth alone in the middle of nowhere under the October sky wasn't really good for her health. She could tell that her breath was growing shallower by the second. She could feel her blood heating to an insufferable temperature.
Although it was so early in her life, Merope Riddle already knew that she was dying.
And she couldn't care less.
She had no job, her husband had long since abandoned her, and her last child had only recently sent her a letter saying that he had been set free from the orphanage and was attending Hogwarts. She could only hope that her only daughter would have a better life than she.
The baby gave a small sob and curled up into a ball to keep herself warm. Merope smiled and held her close, hugging the child to her chest.
"What to name you?," she jokingly whispered to the baby girl. "Elizabeth? Alexandra? Lily? Linda?," she smiled. "I think that you should have a name starting with an L. It just fits."
The infant grunted, which Merope accepted as a 'Yes'.
"Lillian? Lilith? Uhg, too formal. It sounds like something out of a textbook. How about Lark?," she paused, letting the names sink in. Merope glanced down at her child for an opinion, and the recently crying baby smiled. "You can put a bird on anything and call it art," she reasoned. "Lark it is!"
The infant squealed with the happiness and excitement of having a name, and Merope smiled.
"I love you, baby girl," she grinned. "I hope the world treats you well."
And with that said, Merope Riddle drifted off into an internal sleep.
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A/N: First chapter to be posted on ____day, depending on how many votes, reads, and comments I get.
Happy reading, my young padawans!
~R O S E
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When She Spoke (Marauders Era)
FanfictionWithout your voice, who would you be? Lark Riddle knows what it's like to be in love. In her short sixteen years of life, she's come to know all different sorts- false love, hopeful love, desperate love... true love. At times, it's been hard for her...
