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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A year of growing, learning, and waiting passed.
Harriet questioned Merope through letters, but her responses never changed.
Merope insisted she was happy, healthy, and that all of Tom's claims had been true.
How could Harriet possibly argue?
Tom junior became his father's delight; strong, strapping, and handsome.
Tom senior viewed his offspring as every bit the ideal heir to the noble Riddle line.
Tom junior and Harriet remained close, though he grew more desperate with each passing day to lure his beloved into the nest that waited in the Chamber of Secrets.
His academic skill, heritage, and charm had allowed him to advance in the wizarding world.
The month before his seventh year at Hogwarts began, Tom traded his job at the apothecary for a very prestigious internship at the Ministry for Magic in which he worked directly underneath Lucius Malfoy as his assistant.
That title, on top of the honours of prefect and Head Boy which he had earned, made him a formidable enemy to many of his peers and a beacon of respect to his friends.
Harriet had done well for herself too.
She had undertaken the role of Gryffindor Quidditch Captain and hurtled through the curriculum set in place for potential aurors who hoped to gain entrance into the training programme.
Though Harriet hadn't harbored the same immediate plans for a family as Tom, it had concerned her that she remained the only potential omega left in their year who had not experienced a heat.
By September, out of sheer concern, Harriet contacted a healer in Hogsmeade and scheduled an appointment for the following month.
Perhaps something had gone wrong somewhere inside of her?
Perhaps the issue could be remedied with a potion or charm?
Hermione chatted with her about it on occasion, but Harriet hated discussing the topic.
She had seen the great displeasure in Tom's dark eyes that she had not yet presented.
Whenever that expression crossed his face, Harriet always wore a frown for the rest of the day.
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The new season of Quidditch began a month before Harriet's scheduled visit with the healer.
She woke on the morning of Gryffindor's first game feeling as if she had made a dreadful mistake to wait that long.
Harriet put her hands to her throbbing head as she sat up in bed to fight the nausea that churned her stomach.
She noticed her roommates had already left for the Quidditch stands as she lowered her hands from her face and pressed them into the mattress with trembling arms as she shakily stood to her feet.
Her emerald eyes widened.
Her knees threatened to buckle underneath her.
Harriet swallowed thickly, but as she pressed a hand to her chest, she became aware of the suffocating warmth that caused her clothes to stick against her dampened skin.
She gasped as she raised a hand to hover over her cheeks and felt the heat that wafted from them lick her fingers.
She laughed to herself as she thought…..
A fever.
She had come down with some unknown illness on the morning of the year's first game!
Harriet would have laughed out loud at her own misfortune if she hadn't had to clamp her hand over her mouth and race into the girl's lavatory across the hall.
She gasped as she made it to the sink in the nick of time, clutched onto its porcelain sides, and bent over to vomit violently into the bowl.
Harriet hadn't quite finished retching when she heard footsteps approaching as a familiar voice called out, "Harriet?...Harriet?!...Harriet?!"
As she lifted her emerald eyes from the sink's basin, she sputtered once more while Hermione stared at her with her amber eyes wide in concern and a frown on her face.
"Goodness, Harriet! What's happened?!" Hermione gasped.
"I'm fine, Hermione." Harriet croaked as she turned on the water in the sink to rinse her waste down the drain, "I….I need to change into my uniform."
"Your uniform?!" Hermione scoffed, "Harriet, you can't be serious! You're not intending to play like this, are you?"
She watched in disbelieving horror as Harriet straightened herself and stumbled back into their dormitory room to rummage through her things until she found her Quidditch gear.
"I don't have a choice, Hermione." Harriet said with a resigned sigh as she began to change clothes, "I'm the captain, remember?"
"But you can't fly like this!" Hermione exclaimed as she raised her hands and dropped them quickly, "You…..You're ill! You need to let me take you to the Hospital Wing, not go zooming about on a broom!"
"That zooming about on a broom is what everyone's waiting for me to do." Harriet huffed as she pulled on her socks.
Hermione studied her friend closely for a second.
She narrowed her eyes as she considered the red flush of Harriet's cheeks.
"Harriet…..?" Hermione asked hesitantly, "Do you think….. Do you think you're going into heat?"
"Oh, Hermione, no!" Harriet huffed as she reached for her shoes, "Heats don't feel like this, I've heard the other girls talk….I've heard you talk. Who vomits with a heat? I've probably caught that virus Neville had last week, three other boys in Gryffindor got sick too, you've heard about it."
"I vomited with my first heat." Hermione retorted as she crossed her arms.
Harriet blinked up at her as she replied, "No, you didn't."
"Yes, I did." Hermione insisted.
"Then why didn't you tell me?" Harriet asked.
"Because it was embarrassing!" Hermione laughed.
Harriet put her hands behind her on the bed as she closed her eyes, heaved a weighty sigh, and fought against the awful, sickly feeling of lightheadedness.
Slowly, Harriet stood and staggered out of the room.
"Harriet, you certainly can't play a match if you're going into heat!" Hermione called as she followed her friend.
"I'm ill, Hermione, that's all." Harriet flatly insisted as she clutched onto the railing while she stumbled down Gryffindor Tower's winding steps.
Once she reached the bottom, she paused to lean against the wall with a soft groan as a deep, low cramp erupted within her empty womb to express its rage that no alpha happened to be nearby.
Hermione placed her hand on Harriet's shoulder with a frown as she listened to her friend whisper, "It's alright…..I can make it through the match."
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Tom hadn't seen his darling since the previous evening, but when the game was delayed due to Harriet's tardiness, he clenched his jaw in worry.
It wasn't necessarily unlike his lover to be less than punctual, but Harriet was always on time for Quidditch.
Once she finally arrived and the two teams took the field, Tom narrowed his dark eyes to slits as he squinted at her from Slytherin's section.
He watched the way she shakily held onto her broom as the Gryffindor team soared through the air.
It bothered Tom to see her confidence gone.
The look of miserable anguish on her flushed face sent his insides twisting into nervous coils.
Tom rose from his seat as the Gryffindor team waffled past.
As soon as Harriet flew by the Slytherin stand, Tom's dark eyes widened.
His heart clenched in his chest as drool threatened to drip from his open mouth.
Tom sucked in a breath of pure excitement as he let the supple perfume of his mate's sweet, enticing scent hit him full force in the face.
He closed his eyes as he inhaled every molecule he could of Harriet's delightful smell.
At last, after years of tedious waiting, his beloved Harriet Potter had gone into heat!
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Harriet didn't have the time to notice Tom's reaction to the potent combination of hormones and pheromones that wafted from her skin as she zoomed around the field on her broom.
The cool air that whirled past her served as a merciful comfort to the feverish, sickly heat which had engulfed her body.
Regardless, sitting with her sensitive, swollen center on the hard wood of the broomstick did nothing to ease her cramps.
Harriet usually enjoyed flying, but that day, every dive, duck, and turn she made on her magical vehicle threatened to send vomit spurting from her mouth.
If she could only find the Golden Snitch, she could end her torment and retreat to the safety of her dormitory room.
The Golden Snitch, the Golden Snitch…….
While the game continued, Harriet barely took notice as the quest for the elusive little orb became her main goal in life, her ticket to comfort.
Harriet didn't realize that as she flew, the enticing scent of an omega in heat spread from her skin, through the rustling fabric of her uniform, and into the air.
A hush gradually fell over the crowd.
Every alpha Quidditch player on the field stilled their broom.
Tom narrowed his dark eyes as he watched closely.
Eventually, Harriet noticed the eerie silence that had fallen around her once she momentarily paused her pursuit of the Snitch.
A feeling of great unease overtook her as she saw the predatory glares she received from each alpha present.
Her eyes widened as she gripped the handle of her broom.
Hogwarts' professors took the appropriate supplements to control their own primitive desires, but the same could not be said for the castle's students.
To Tom's horror, every unmated alpha rushed forward in the house stands as they reached towards Harriet amidst a cacophony of shouts and jeers.
Harriet gasped as the alpha players on the Quidditch field flew towards her.
She yanked her broomstick to quickly zoom in the opposite direction.
In a frantic grab, she pulled her wand from her pocket.
Tom snarled as he pushed his way through the crowd, raced down the steps of the Quidditch stand, and sprinted across the sandy bottom of the field's center.
He smirked as he withdrew his own wand and prepared to demonstrate the raw power he held as Salazar Slytherin's descendent.
Harriet busily whizzed through the air as two of her teammates gained on her while she forced her hazy mind to focus on a suitable spell to safely repel them.
On the field, Tom raised his wand as he shouted in one, primitive cry, "PROTECTUS SILENEN!"
A burst of blinding light erupted from the tip of his wand.
Every eye closed as the entire field became encased within a massive, gelatinous bubble.
The watchers in the stands realized they could breathe but not move while they watched Tom Riddle move in the oozy covering.
The substance held a strange, light blue colour, which seemed to oddly compliment its soft texture as Tom clawed his way up through the slime's jiggly layers to reach Harriet.
She hung suspended, frozen in place on her broom with the rest of the Quidditch players, ensnared in Tom's trap.
The professors watched in silent awe as one of their most promising students burrowed through the gelatinous substance, pried Harriet off her broom, and promptly tapped his wand once he held her in his arms.
Another shout from Tom sent him and Harriet whirling away from the field in a single blast as that jelly-like substance rapidly melted away to leave everyone gasping in confusion.
The Quidditch players floated in the air as Hogwarts' unmated alphas frowned at each other in embarrassment once Harriet's maddening scent had been mercifully removed.
"Shall we pursue them, Headmaster?" Professor Snape asked Dumbledore as McGongagall blinked at them both in great concern.
"We may try, Severus." Dumbledore nodded, "However, I'm not sure even our combined talents can manage to locate, open, and infiltrate the Chamber of Secrets in time."
"The Chamber of Secrets, Albus?" McGonagall asked incredulously.
"Yes, Minerva." Dumbledore replied as his eyes moved to meet her stare, "I have several reasons to believe that Tom Riddle is in fact, the heir of Slytherin."
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Albus Dumbledore was an old, wise wizard.
His methods could be questionable, but his conclusions were rarely wrong.
Moments later, exactly as Dumbledore surmised, the heir of Slytherin did indeed open the Chamber of Secrets once more.
Harriet whimpered in Tom's arms as she writhed uncomfortably against the torment her empty womb forced upon her.
"Don't worry, sweetling." He purred to his darling as he carried her down the main walkway of the chamber that had been lined with statues of snake heads, "I'll end your pain soon enough."
As Tom approached the hidden room he had spent years perfecting, he swallowed the saliva that pooled in his mouth from Harriet's temptingly sweet scent.
He could hardly wait to show the hidden room to Harriet.
He would patiently watch her arrange her first nest, with an adorable pout on her lips, before he pounced and claimed her as his mate.
Tom's wait was over at last.
Harriet Potter would soon be his.