Blood Brother || Tom Riddle Era

Part I: Prologue

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It was a particularly warm September morning when Arlene Merle stepped off the train and sped quickly toward the platform's exit.

After waiting over two hours in King's Cross at the wee hours of the morning for her train, then spending a whopping four more in transit, she was quite content to never board a train for the rest of her God-forsaken life. She had spent the four hour transit sharing a carriage with a group of ladies who smoked nearly as often as they breathed, and by the time the train squealed to a stop, Arlene's eyes itched and watered, and she was one inhale away from succumbing to what was sure to be the mother-of-all coughing fits.

Fortunately, there didn't seem to be many people getting off at this platform, so she was able to make her escape unhindered. The ticket boy seemed a bit startled by the force Arlene used in thrusting her ticket into his open palm, but before he could remark, she was through the gates and hurrying down the cobbled path leading into the town. She cleared her throat, hoping to sooth the burning even a little bit, but that slight action sent her into a horrid coughing spell. She was lucky enough that it was early Sunday morning, so any potential witnesses to her horrid state were all at the chapel.

Though she was London-bred and certainly no stranger to factory smog and cigarette smoke, the climate had never agreed with her. In London everyone and their mother smoked at any time, any day, anywhere. Arlene's mother had dropped the habit after Father passed, more because they could no longer afford trivial expenses than a real desire to quit, and so Arlene had a relatively pleasant set of teenage years without feeling as though she was slowly suffocating in an every-present gray cloud. It was when Arlene's mother remarried that her life descended into ill-health and asthmatic attacks yet again.

Mrs. Sayer became Mrs. Merle, and it was within the Merle household that Arlene decided she might be better suited to country life. She was happy for her mother, she really was; Mrs. Merle had never quite recovered from everything she lost in the War. Arlene had been too young and sick to remember the telegram that arrived, reporting her father unaccounted for after their company was overrun by the enemy, but she remembered the telegrams about her uncles, their funerals, how her mother had once been sister to eight brothers and was now an only child. Arlene sincerely hoped that meat-grinder of a war would be the first, and last, of its kind — but she was paying attention to happenings in Germany, and the future did not look bright...

Arlene couldn't imagine the immense suffering her mother must have felt. Mother kept it all tucked neatly under the surface, instead throwing herself into supporting her family. The pair of them worked as seamstresses in a shop for a long stretch. Arlene went to school during the day, then joined her mother in the evening, oftentimes working well into the night. Arlene looked back on these nights fondly — although Arlene had eventually taken up sketching as well, Mother was the real artist. Arlene was her mannequin and, sometimes accidentally, pincushion.

Mother was so kindly regarded at the shop that she was often given excess fabric to do with as she pleased. With these, she made clothes for herself and Arlene. They were very lovely pieces, and the fabric was of a sort that they would have never been able to afford otherwise. Perhaps it was this dash of extravagance that initially attracted a  noble gent to Arlene's mother. She was usually scorned by neighbors for dressing 'above her station,' whatever that rubbish was supposed to mean. But it was Mother who had the last laugh when someone 'above her station' walked into her life — or rather, her and Arlene's life.

He had barged in abruptly and obtrusively.

Arlene had just turned sixteen, and her Mother took her to the park. Mother was subdued as always and off in her own little world while Arlene used her new watercolors to paint the autumn-glazed landscape. While they were seated on a bench, a man across the park spotted them. He was dressed in a finely pressed suit, tweed jacket, cuff-links and all; Arlene knew not his profession but she was sure it was of the respectable kind. The moment he saw Arlene's mother, he took off his hat as though it was a reflex. He had behind him a gaggle of five girls, most in their teen years and a little one that only came up to his knee; all had brown hair and resembled him closely. Without even a glance at them, he strode quite confidently over to Arlene and her mother and introduced himself as Ebenezer Merle. Arlene remembered her mother smiled.