The Love Story of Harriet Potter and Tom Riddle

Chapter 119 - Rescue

Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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It had been decades since Merope had walked through the muggle world.

As she sprinted alongside the nurse who pushed Mark in a wheelchair through muggle London's largest hospital that night, she blinked in awe at the obvious technological advancements that had been made since she had last seen a non-magical medical facility.

Large machines and darkened equipment screens looked as if they are from another era compared to those she had encountered years before.

"His blood pressure may be dropping." The nurse pushing Mark's chair worriedly observed as he slumped forward and lifted a shaking hand to his head.

As the nurse shouted directions to the medical personnel following on her heels, Mark glanced through his fingers up at Merope.

The small twinkle in her eye sent an unintended smile of hope dancing on his lips for the briefest second before he and his grandmother were taken into a room and the brake placed on his chair.

"Quickly, let's lift him up!" The nurse shouted to those who followed in behind her.

"You said he has leukemia?" Another nurse asked Merope as the uniformed healthcare professionals gently lifted Mark from the chair and placed him into the waiting bed.

Merope's home-brewed potion had successfully stripped the last hair and pore from Mark's head, making their story that much more convincing as he laid on the bed and took a shaky breath.

"Yes, that's right." Merope frowned, "His treatments hadn't been working very well, but the last time we had to bring him in, they gave him a dose of that new drug…..Oh! I can't think of the name……the miracle one…..invented by Dr. Riddle?"

The nurses nodded at each other before two of them scrambled out of the room.

Mark had to do his best to lie there and look miserable, which considering what he had experienced the last few months proved to be an easier task than he had anticipated.

As the muggle doctors and nurses tended to him, Merope rattled off one lie after another until the pair recieved what they had come for…….

The entire bottle of pills hadn't been necessary, yet they left with them regardless.

Merope had no formal magical education, so perhaps her opinion was on instinct, maybe even something more, but she felt certain a single pill would be all it would take.

On their way home several hours later, while Mark's hair grew back as his grandmother's enchantment faded, he frowned at the bottle of pills in his hands.

"Are you certain this will work, Grandmum?" He asked, "One of these will wake Dad?"

Merope sighed as she glanced down at the bottle of pills too, "I never had the opportunity to study like your parents and brother did, so they'd know more about all this than I do, I suppose but……some things don't necessarily have to be learned in books." She chuckled.

"They don't?" Mark blinked.

"Your sister and father are the same…..in the absolute worst of ways." Merope frowned.

Mark mirrored her serious expression before she went on, "………It was a bit of her that's done this to him…..Perhaps a bit of her will bring him back to us."

"Like negating a charge?" Mark frowned.

"Sorry, love," Merope laughed, "What exactly does that mean?"

"Oh, it's um, it's really more with muggle things." Mark nodded, "Sorry, Grandmum, I know you don't really-"

"-Don't ever be sorry, Mark." Merope said as she clutched his hand and gave him a smile, "don't ever be sorry."

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Harriet laid on the simple bed inside her stark room and frowned at the ceiling.

Cut off from the world imprisoned inside those padded walls, she had spent her previous days and nights contemplating how she would-

A noise at the front of her door suddenly caught her attention before she turned her head towards the sound.

Her hopes that the door would swing open suddenly vanished as the single spat high above the handle finally parted to reveal her mother-in-law's face.

"Lady Riddle, you have a visitor." Harriet heard the familiar gruffness of the guard growl.

Although release remained impossible just then, a visitor was still a welcome gift.

"Merope!" Harriet called as she leapt over her bed and raced towards the bed.

"Hello, dear." Merope said with a gentle smile as Harriet clutched onto the bars that lined the heavy door's slat.

Harriet let out a quiet gasp of relief as she saw a familiar face for the first time since her abduction from her home.

The two women had developed a bond of almost mother-daughter fondness over the years, something unspoken that Merope acknowledged as she leaned in and let Harriet's fingertips touch her cheeks as she might have with a frightened child.

"You have to help me……" Harriet whispered, "She's taken over everything and Mark, he's-"

"……Fine. He's fine." Merope nodded as she gave Harriet a wry smile. She glanced over at the guard before she turned back to Harriet, pulled something out of her pocket that Harriet couldn't make out and widened the bars on the doors with a nonverbal spell to slip something inside Harriet's room, "And soon you will be too, love."

Merope's heart pounded with relief once she realized her mission had been successful as something soft rustled across the floor behind the door just as the guard turned his attention back to his prisoner, er, patient's visitor and hissed, "Enough……that's enough now. I'll escort you out."

"No, please!" Harriet pleaded while the slat on the door slammed shut before receding footsteps echoed from the other side.

Standing on the edge of despair, as Harriet's bare foot brushed against something silky on the floor, she frowned as she bent down to touch the bare floor.

Her confusion grew as her hand collided with something that whispered grand possibilities.

The light came back into Harriet's green eyes as she spread her hand across the floor, hooked her fingers, and realized she clutched her father's Invisibility Cloak.

After years of being locked away in storage, the only Deathly Hallow owned by the Riddles had been wisely retrieved.

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While Merope carried out her errand, Mark went about his own task.

Having been allowed to sit at Tom's bedside as the former Minister's son, Mark gazed down at his unconscious father while his brow furrowed.

"I know I'm not who you wanted." He whispered as he watched Tom continue his deep rest, "And I know I can't do the things that you or Mum can…..or the things that James could, but I can still do something, Dad. How big or small it may amount to be."

Tom kept his eyes closed as his chest rose and fell as Mark stood and leaned over him.

While Tom lay still, Mark gently pulled one of the pills he had been given at the muggle hospital from his pocket and pressed it into his father's mouth.

A serious scowl formed on Mark's young face as he watched his father furrow his brow in his sleep.

He could only hope that for the world's sake, his grandmother had been right,