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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During the next few weeks, although Harriet failed to experience a regular cycle, Tom had no trouble experiencing her.
He took every available opportunity to slither between her legs in between her nursing sessions with Mae while their baby slept.
Harriet could have easily pushed him away, but her alpha's touch was too intoxicating to refuse.
Still entrenched in a maelstrom of hormones, Harriet rather enjoyed the fact that unlike many omegas who struggled with their husbands' reaction to their changed bodies, Tom seemed more intrigued by her than ever.
Beyond the physical satisfaction of their intimacy, Tom hoped that by loving Harriet until she cried his name, she would soon find herself with child again.
One particular morning, as she sat up in bed and rubbed her face with her hands, a soft smirk graced Tom's lips while he watched.
"Is everything alright, sweetling?" He asked softly.
"Everything's fine, Tom, I just have a headache." Harriet sighed.
"Is there anything I can do to ease your pain, my love?" He pressed.
"No, I think it'll ease up on its own. I must have slept on my neck the wrong way." Harriet commented as she rubbed the sore area.
Silence passed between them until Tom asked, with eagerness evident in his smooth voice, "...Do you feel nauseous at all?"
Harriet turned to look at him with an incredulous scowl.
As soon as she noticed his hopeful grin, she spat, "I'm not with child, Tom!"
Harriet resisted the urge to slap his smirk off his face as his dark eyes glimmered.
"I'm still nursing." She huffed as she crossed her arms, "The midwife and the healer have both told us that won't allow conception…...Not to mention I haven't had a heat since Mae came."
"Why are you so angry, my love?" Tom asked as he smiled softly at Harriet.
It annoyed her that her fury seemed to entertain him while she answered, "Because I'm your wife, not a….not some sort of-"
"-You're my omega." Tom glowered.
Harriet pouted as he moved to be eye level with her while a dark possessiveness crept into his black gaze.
"It is your duty, sweetling, to give me what I want….In exchange, I protect and provide. Isn't that the substance underneath our love's many layers?" He asked as he took a strand of Harriet's soft, dark hair into his hands.
"And I suppose what you want is for me to lie about and rub my belly all day?" Harriet asked as Tom lowered her hair, slyly making sure his fingers brushed her upper arm, which lay teasingly close to her heavy breast.
"While that is a pleasant thought…." Tom chuckled as his dark eyes flickered up to her face, "I had simply envisioned you staying by my side and obeying my orders, as a good omega would."
Harriet caught him by surprise as she laughed and lay back on the pillows.
It made her smirk that he watched her breasts bounce once her body collided with the bed, "Don't lie to me, Tom. I may not be able to read your mind, but you know me and I know you. You would never have wanted me if I were a good omega, I would have bored you."
"You could never bore me, Harriet Riddle." Tom whispered as he leaned down and gave her a loving kiss.
His arms wrapped around her waist as she raised her hands to cradle his head until a wailing cry rang out.
"WWWWWAAA!"
"WWWWWAAAA!"
Tom pulled back and frowned at Harriet as she scooted away from him and stood.
While he watched her walk, she couldn't help but grin at the disappointed frown on his face.
"Remember, Tom…" Harriet cautioned as she walked over to Mae's bassinet and plucked her daughter from the small mattress, "The more we have of these….." She nodded while she patted the baby's back, "...The more interruptions we'll have too."
"WWWWWAAA!"
"WWWWWAAA!"
Tom stayed silent while Harriet kissed their crying daughter's tiny head and brought her into her nest.
His touch was gentle and his expression patient while he helped his wife get comfortable on the bed before she began to feed little Mae.
Jealousy flooded his system while he watched his daughter happily enjoy her morning meal, but as he lifted his gaze to Harriet, sadness filled his heart.
Tom wondered how he may possibly get his mate to understand that a family was the most basic form of his desires.
Tom wasn't some ordinary wizard who wanted a few sons to relinquish his books to when he left the world decades later.
No.
Tom intended to expand his reach far beyond the walls of Riddle Manor, even beyond the simple title of Minister for Magic.
He would be revered, applauded, and admired.
He would become a legend and as such, he wanted to pass on not only his wealth and possessions, but his legacy itself.
Tom dreamed of a life filled with children, grandchildren, and great-grandchildren.
He wanted his and Harriet's existence to be busy and fulfilled.
"I don't care about interruptions, sweetling." Tom mused as he looked at Harriet.
She blinked as he went on, "That wonderful belly of yours would be a lovely bonus, yes, but you don't understand……I don't merely seek heirs, I seek a lineage. A wretched boy raised by a single mother and a lonely orphan….You and I can do it, Harriet, together."
Her emerald eyes glistened as Tom gazed into her soul and whispered, "You and I can build an empire, born from our love, strengthened by our bond……..Does that not interest you at all, sweetling?"
"Tom……" Harriet laughed, "...I love you."
"...And I offer you an even greater amount of devotion." Tom purred as he leaned in for another kiss.
"But-" Harriet interrupted him as she laid a hand on his chest and blocked his affectionate attempt before his lips could touch hers.
Tom opened his dark eyes as an annoyed frown marred his handsome face.
"I'm not having another baby for awhile." Harriet declared, "In a few years, we'll see…..alright?"
"Yes, sweetling." Tom chuckled darkly as he gazed at Harriet, "I suppose we shall."
Harriet listened to the dominant growl that left Tom's throat as he gave her another long, passionate kiss.
She sighed as she eagerly accepted her mate's affection without suspecting the evil that lurked in Tom's heart.
Since the beginning of their relationship, Harriet had continued to make the same mistake of underestimating her lover.
She was content to wait for quite some time until they added a second child to their family.
Tom was not.
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As he continued his work as assistant to the Minister, Tom enjoyed the early days of his daughter's infancy more than most new fathers.
Mae had been born into a family who had genuinely anticipated her arrival.
Her parents greeted both the challenges and the triumphs of caring for an infant with equal joy.
When Mae spent one awful night running a fever, Tom and Harriet both paced the floor with her as Merope sat on the bed, worried and attentive, next to the team of healers Tom had summoned to aid his daughter.
On the day that Mae pushed herself up for the first time on her own, Tom and Harriet rewarded her efforts with happy cries and wide smiles as if she had done something no other baby had ever accomplished before.
It softened Harriet's heart when she came to her daughter's nursery each night, after Mae had moved into her own room, and saw her little girl resting in a scrunched up ball on Tom's chest while he read to her from The Tales of Beedle the Bard.
One evening, while the candlelight flickered as Mae slumbered on his chest, Tom read the last few paragraphs on the page when he felt Harriet's gaze drift over him.
He glanced up briefly to meet her stare as he found his wife looking at him lovingly from her position in the doorway before he smirked and turned back to the words.
Tom wasn't only trying to charm voters, he was doing his very best to persuade his wife that his selfish desires were worth her time.
Tom wanted to become Minister for Magic, but Mae's adorable whimper as she slept struck his soul with a grating sense of yearning.
Tom wanted to hold another baby in his arms as soon as possible.
As Harriet flashed him a warm smile from the doorway, he hoped his wife would change her mind about her previous conviction.
"I never knew you could be so adorable." Harriet teased once she and Tom escaped to the privacy of their room a few minutes later.
"I believe our daughter was the adorable one just now." Tom quipped as he began to unbutton his shirt.
He grinned as he noticed the way his wife's stare went straight to the exposed, smooth muscles of his upper chest, revealed by his open shirt.
"She loves you." Harriet said with a bittersweet smile.
"What can I say?" Tom asked as he slipped his shirt off.
He purposely laid it on the back of the vanity chair and stretched himself languidly to let Harriet have a good look at the smooth, lean muscles that lined his arms and torso, "...She's stolen my heart."
When Harriet fell silent, he glanced in her direction and frowned as he met not his wife's lingering gaze, but her deep, disappointed frown.
"Have I offended you, sweetling?" He asked.
"No, I just……" Harriet sighed as she sat down on the bed.
"What's the matter?" Tom asked as he rushed over.
"I'm not sure why my cycle hasn't returned yet." Harriet confessed as Tom knelt in front of her and took her hands, "I…..I thought it would by now. The healers did too, they're confused and I don't know…..I don't know, Tom."
"Sweetling…….don't worry yourself." Tom whispered as a confident smile spread across his face.
Harriet had not yet had a cycle since Mae's arrival, that was true, but it intrigued Tom to know his mate had begun to worry about her fertility.
He prided himself on his persuasive plan as he spoke, "Besides, should time pass and you come to me ready and willing, there's a countless amount of fertility potions that could be used."
"I didn't say anything about that." Harriet chuckled.
"You cannot hide your thoughts from me, Harriet Riddle." Tom said with a wicked smile, "Remember……I can see your mind and your heart…..I am after all, your alpha."
Harriet sighed as she stared into Tom's dark eyes for a long moment.
Silently, the couple moved towards each other and shared a deep kiss.
Tom knew well enough that fertility potions offered their own set of side effects, like any other magical mixture.
He suppressed a growl as he imagined Harriet wandering the halls with his twins growing in her rounded womb……..or his triplets.
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While Tom pursued his aspirations of grandeur at the Ministry and his dreams of another child, Harriet enjoyed being a wife and a mother.
During Mae's naps and Merope's generous assistance with childcare, Harriet began a distance learning programme with the Auror Department.
She spent the early mornings and late afternoons completing her assignments while one season faded into another.
Over a year passed before her regular cycle returned.
By the time Mae's third birthday approached, little had changed for the young Riddle family.
Merope and Tom senior remained doting grandparents.
Tom junior continued to plow ahead with his tireless work ethic and charming smile.
Mae grew into a beautiful little girl.
One evening, as Harriet stood watching in the doorway, Tom junior tucked their daughter into bed while he finished the final page of her nightly story.
Harriet smiled softly as she listened to her husband read, "And once he found his brother slain, the huntsman took up his axe and chopped the castle to the ground, stone by stone, until the great, black dragon fell into the sea……never to be seen again. And thus, the dark queen's reign ended and happiness returned to the land."
Harriet placed her hand upon the doorway while Tom glanced up to see their daughter's adorable pout.
Mae Riddle looked like one of the many dolls that sat on the shelves around her room, petite, cherub-cheeked, and flawlessly beautiful.
Her large, bright emerald eyes blinked at her father as she settled back against her plush pillows with a frown on her miniature, pink lips.
In coils that seemed hardly possible for a child her age, the brilliant, brown ringlets of her soft hair fell around her shoulders as the perfect compliment to her tiny, fluffy nightgown.
"What's the matter, my princess?" Tom smiled.
He had never expected that another woman besides Harriet would stake such a dangerous claim to his heart, but his daughter had kept him helplessly prisoner.
"I don't like that ending, Daddy." Mae frowned.
"Well, tomorrow, you may get another. There's one chapter left." Tom grinned as he closed the book.
"But I want it now." Mae huffed.
"Well, you can't have it now." Tom chuckled, "Only one chapter a night and no dessert for a week. Remember?"
"That's not fair, Daddy." Mae pouted.
"I think it's quite fair." Tom grinned again, "Why did your mother and I punish you?"
"Because I was a bad bitch." Mae sighed as she looked down at the covers.
Harriet stifled a chuckle as she clamped a hand over her mouth.
Tom clenched his jaw to avoid laughing out loud as he corrected his little one, "'Witch', you were a bad little witch and disobeyed us by going into that abandoned house when your grandfather wasn't looking. That was very naughty, Mae."
"But Daddy! If I hadn't, Polly would still be there on the floor! She'd still be all dirty! And alone! She was lonely!" Mae cried as she clutched the beautiful doll she held in her arms tightly against her.
In a fine, frilly dress and matching hat, the blonde, porcelain doll in Mae's arms had been rescued and retrieved days before by the little girl from its forgotten position in an old, abandoned house at the edge of the Riddles' property.
Mae had wasted no time in adding the doll to her ever growing collection after Harriet had cleaned the toy.
Polly and Mae had quickly developed the deep bond that young children often shared with their most preferred toy.
"Be that as it may," Tom nodded, "I expect you'll listen to your mother and I in the future. Do you understand?"
"I understand, Daddy." Mae sighed again.
"Good." Tom said as he rose from his seat beside her bed and pressed a gentle kiss to her forehead.
Harriet walked over and did the same before she left the room, knowing Tom would follow her.
"Goodnight, my princess." He said as he smiled over at Mae while he put out the glowing candle in the room.
"Daddy?" Mae asked in the darkness.
"Yes, my darling?" Tom answered.
"I don't want to be the princess, I want to be the queen." Mae frowned.
Pride swelled in Tom's heart while he chuckled and replied, "One day, my darling. Tonight, you need to sleep. Your mother and I are just down the hall if you need us."
"Alright, Daddy." Mae yawned as she rolled over in bed and turned her back to Tom.
Tom closed her door and stepped into the hallway to meet Harriet as he took her hand in his.
"When are you going to let us properly punish her?" Harriet chided as they walked towards their room.
"We have punished her." Tom scowled.
"She disobeyed us and you let her keep the doll." Harriet laughed, "All this has taught her is that naughtiness brings rewards."
"No." Tom insisted, "We took away her dessert and half her story time. That taught her that being overly ambitious can cause someone to lose the privileges they already have."
Harriet stayed silent until they entered their bedroom.
After Tom closed the door once they were inside, she glanced over at him while she slipped her robes off and sighed, "I hope you won't be this much of a pushover when your son is born in a few months."
Tom shot her an incredulous look as he asked, "My……….my son? Sweetling……Are you saying…...?"
"Yes." Harriet nodded as a bright smile spread across her face until she beamed at her mate, "Yes, Tom, I am!"
A noise between a sigh of relief and a growl left Tom's throat as he rushed over and pulled Harriet against him for a deep kiss.
His arms were around her waist in a second, though before she could protest, he lifted her in his grasp and carried her over to the bed.
Once her back touched the luxurious sheets that made up her nest, his lips left hers as he kissed his way down to cover her abdomen in loving affection.
Harriet sighed as she tangled her hands in Tom's dark, curly hair.
It was early, he couldn't quite make out the change in her hormones yet, but his reaction filled Harriet with joy.
There were few things more satisfying to a mated omega than pleasing their alpha.
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As soon as Tom closed Mae's door, her emerald eyes popped open.
She lay perfectly still as she listened to her parents receding voices until the resounding click of their door being shut echoed throughout the hallway.
Once she knew they had left, Mae wriggled out of her bed and shuffled across the room to sit on the floor with her beautiful doll in her hands.
"Polly." She whispered in the dark, "Polly, Mummy and Daddy are gone. Come out……Come out and play."
The night was perfectly still as Mae blinked at her beautiful doll.
The doll stared back with its unmoving eyes.
"...Polly?" Mae whispered again.
Another moment of silence passed and tested Mae's patience.
Once the toddler became frustrated with waiting, she grimaced as she shook her beautiful doll violently until a fine black mist erupted from its chest.
Mae frowned in irritation as that black mist poured into her room and filled the space in front of her from floor to ceiling as the oily, black body of a hideous monster appeared.
A corpulent torso with long, spidery legs of viscous black and no joints, the creature had been the last thing many had seen before it had snatched away their lives.
Its face was a different horror altogether, with constantly gnashing yellow teeth and no eyes, only pools of black that hosted licking, purple tongues to sweep away the dripping muck.
Mae stared up at that materialized nightmare with a frown of pure annoyance as she commanded with her chubby, little finger pointed authoritatively, "Dance, Polly! Make them all dance!"
The monster balked at her order.
With a cracking jerk of its pointed head, it forced the dolls in the room to stand, nod, and begin to twirl elegantly, until their dresses fanned out so that Mae could watch them all spin in sync.
She gasped with a happy smile as she looked around in wonder.
While the monster continued its work, Mae giggled to herself as she crawled back into bed and lay against her pillows to watch the show her newest friend so generously performed.
The only sound in the room was the monster's grating teeth.
"Oh, Polly! I'm glad you're here! I love all my dolls." Mae smiled innocently as she nonchalantly glanced over at the festering terror. She giggled to herself once more as she flopped back against her pillows and gladly confided in her friend, "...But my Daddy is my favourite one."