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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Harriet didn't know what to expect as she woke the next morning, but she hadn't anticipated how…..different….she would feel.
She considered herself as innocent as the other inexperienced girls of her year, but as she showered and readied for the day, she noticed a sort of smug satisfaction as she interacted with Hermione and the others who were truly, completley virginal.
Regardless, the biggest changes for Harriet over the next few days were the ones she noticed in Tom.
He declined to tell her exactly what had happened that night before he had slithered into her bed.
Whenever she asked him about his secret errand, he either changed the subject or silenced her with a kiss.
Harriet frowned as she realized that unless she was beside him, Tom became broody, angry…….volatile.
Regardless, their secret, intimate experience had only deepened their bond and in between their classes, they still met for their daily kisses in the hidden sections of the castle they used as shelter from prying eyes.
Tom held his beloved more tightly after he had sampled his first, delicious taste of his omega.
The heightened possessiveness in his grip made Harriet's heart race.
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The new developments in her relationship with Tom did not make Harriet's world a perfect place.
She sighed as she stared down at the letter in her hands while she sat at Gryffindor's table in the Great Hall for breakfast the following Friday morning.
Ron and Hermione sat involved in conversations with some of their housemates as Harriet furrowed her brow.
Her emerald eyes narrowed as she read over the lines on the letter once again:
Harriet Potter,
I hope this letter finds you well! I'm very sorry to trouble you, dear, but I desperately need your help. I'm afraid Tom and I had a bit of a disagreement and he's quite angry with me. He won't return my letters, though I send them every day. He came home unannounced a week ago and then left after we spoke, with no trace of himself! Please, can you send word that he returned to school safely? I don't want to contact the headmaster and get him into any trouble. Please dear, help me in any way you can. When you have children of your own one day, you'll understand my situation.
Merope Gaunt
Harriet turned her head to look across the Great Hall.
She knew she would find Tom staring at her as he always did during their meals.
As soon as their eyes connected, he flashed Harriet a charming smile to initiate their usual, long-range communication.
Tom would smile.
Harriet would grin back.
If she felt particularly generous, she may lift her hand and move a bit of her dark, messy hair for him to admire its sheen, but that morning was different.
Instead of responding with a grin, Harriet promptly threw Tom a frown of deep disapproval before she turned and put her back to him for the rest of the meal.
Tom mirrored her expression at first before his eyes narrowed.
As minutes passed and Harriet refused to turn back around, he began to grow anxious.
Across the Gryffindor table, a second year boy innocently spoke to Harriet and asked her to pass a plate of bacon his way.
An innocent exchange was all it was, but that didn't matter.
Tom Riddle's handsome face twisted into a dangerous scowl of pure, unashamed jealousy when he saw that his Harriet had the audacity to ignore him in favor of speaking to another.
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As breakfast ended, the students of Hogwarts began to make their way to their first class while the professors used the staff's tunnels to head to their respective teaching rooms.
Harriet and the boy who had asked for bacon were some of the last Gryffindor students to leave by coincidence alone, but Tom purposely lingered behind as he watched them both while he gnashed his teeth.
Ron and Hermione had gone on ahead as Harriet stood from the table to pocket Merope's letter before she walked out of the Great Hall with the second year boy following behind her as he stared down at his open Potions book.
Harriet hadn't even noticed the boy was behind her, nor had he paid particular attention to the fact that she walked in front of him.
However, once they both entered the stone hallway, a great shout rang out, "LEVICORPUS!"
"AAAAGGHH!"
It was the second cry that sent Harriet whirling around in a hurry to see what had happened.
A bloodcurdling scream of terror left the second year boy's lips as his body lifted into the air to dangle helplessly from a height that may have been deadly if he were to fall.
In a split second, Harriet's emerald eyes moved from the second year boy who flailed above her to……..
"TOM!" She shouted in disbelief.
Across the hallway, with all of the castle's staff members conveniently out of sight, Tom glared up at the second year boy with a sneer of utmost loathing on his handsome face as he pointed his wand at his victim.
"P-PLEASE!...PUT ME DOWN!" The second year boy screeched.
His Potions book fell from his hands and smashed against the stone floor in a mocking demonstration of what would surely become his fate if he fell from his suspended height.
"Tom, stop!! Have you gone mad?!?" Harriet hissed as she rushed towards him.
Tom took a cautionary step back as he held his wand in place and scowled at Harriet.
"How dare you ignore me to speak to someone else!" He snarled. Harriet blinked at the look of unbridled rage that crossed his handsome features as he snarled at her while he went on, "You purposely turned away from me to converse with this…..this whelp?!? I'll tear him limb from limb right here, Harriet! He can't possibly withstand the Separation Curse!"
"THE SEPARATION CURSE?!?!" Harriet exclaimed.
The boy shrieked above her, but the sound only vexed Tom more as he glared up at him with his teeth gnashed.
"Tom, stop this! Stop this nonsense! I love you, you know that!" Harriet tried to reason as she took a step forward and he took a step backwards.
"You looked away from me this morning….." Tom growled as his eyes bore into Harriet, "I saw the expression on your face! Like you….Like you thought you had made a terrible mistake to be with me!"
"That's not at all what I thought!" Harriet gasped as she raised a hand in defence to soothe Tom, "Look! Look, I can prove it!"
Tom watched her closely as she pulled Merope's letter from her pocket.
"Here." Harriet nodded as she offered him the parchment, "Read it, it's from your mother….I was disappointed in you, that's all. That's all, Tom! You know I love you! Stop this lunacy before someone gets hurt! Please!"
Tom lunged forward and snatched the letter from Harriet's hands.
He hurriedly began to read the written lines on the paper as he held his wand and let the second year boy continue to dangle, flail, and shout.
"HELP ME! PLEASE!...SOMEONE HELP ME!"
His dark eyes hurriedly scanned over the letter before he glared at Harriet.
She pointed up at the boy as she cried, "He only asked me to pass a plate of bacon, Tom! For goodness' sake, calm down!"
Tom held Harriet's gaze as he slowly lowered his wand and with it, the boy.
Once the second year Gryfinndor was close enough to the floor that a fall would cause no real injury, Tom ended his spell with one abrupt slashing motion of his hand.
The boy tumbled down with a great shout as he painfully smacked against the floor.
"TOM!" Harriet cried.
Before she could help her lover's unfortunate victim, the boy clambered to his feet and scrambled away.
"You belong to me, Harriet!" Tom roared, "You said you'd always love me! You said you'd depend on me! You-"
"What is wrong with you, Tom?!...I DO LOVE YOU!" Harriet shouted back as she narrowed her eyes, "Is everything that I've done and let you do not enough to prove it?! What are you playing at?!"
Tom blinked as Harriet stepped towards him and seethed, "You're not speaking to your Mum, eh? I don't care what's happened between you two, you know she cares about you! Don't be so cruel to her!"
Tom swallowed as he tried to calm himself before he began, "Sweetling, you don't understand what's-"
"-No, I don't understand!" Harriet interrupted as fury twisted her fair face, "I don't understand at all, Tom! What I know though, is that if I were fortunate enough to have my Mum still alive, I'd write to her every day, angry or not!"
Tom frowned at Harriet as if she had just slapped him while she pointed to the place the second year boy had hung in the air as she snapped, "...And what was that about?! If someone asks me for help, I'm not even allowed to speak to them?!"
"I want you to be mine and only mine, sweetling." Tom said quietly, "It frightened me….to see you converse with a stranger after you turned away from me."
Harriet laughed mirthlessly as she snatched Merope's letter out of Tom's hands.
"Are you going to write my mother back?" He scowled.
"Yes, I am." Harriet defiantly retorted as she crossed her arms, "And there's nothing you can do to stop me……I love you, Tom, and I always will, but I wish you'd tell me what's going on! You're acting very weird!"
Harriet turned and started to walk away but Tom stopped her as he called out in exasperation, "Why is it that suddenly everyone thinks I'm a villain?!"
He blinked as Harriet turned back around and glanced at the place on the floor where the boy had fallen before she stared at Tom and asked, "...You certainly don't seem to be much of a hero lately, do you?"
Harriet's words sliced into his broken heart more than she realized as she turned around and disappeared down the hall.
In her absence, Tom grit his teeth as he soldiered through his day.
A few hours more…..only a few hours more until he could leave the castle for the weekend and begin his quest.
For various reasons beyond sheer curiosity, Tom had waited since his meeting with Morfin to seek out Tom Riddle senior and discover the muggle who had sired him into existence.
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Harriet and Tom didn't speak for the rest of the day, though Harriet did reply to Merope's letter and inform her of Tom's safety.
Merope went to work the next morning with the lingering sadness of her estrangement from Tom hanging over her like a shadow.
At least she found comfort in knowing that her son had safely returned to school.
Tom's mother worked two grueling jobs, as a housemaid during the day and then a janitor at a muggle business by night.
Her work was hard, dirty, and unforgiving, but her toil had seemed to become more of a burden since discord had arisen between her and her only child.
Tom had been the sole reason for Merope's continued existence.
With him and his love for her gone, what motivation did she have to continue her meager life?
She sighed as she trudged up the steps to her apartment later that night, tired and bone-weary.
Merope dreaded walking into her shabby apartment with no one but Asherah to keep her company, but her dark eyes widened as she reached the top of the steps and found Harriet standing outside her front door.
"...Harriet?!" She blinked as her son's lover ran up and embraced her in a tight hug.
"You have to help me…..you have to help me!" Harriet begged as she pulled back and gazed at Merope with her emerald eyes wide.
"What…..What's the matter? What's happened?!" Merope asked.
She frowned as she hurriedly scanned Harriet's face.
"Tom's missing!" Harriet exclaimed.
"...Missing?" Merope scowled, "What do you mean he's missing?! Your letter said he was fine!"
"He was but…now he's gone!" Harriet cried, "He's left to go somewhere by himself…..and…..and we had a spat….and….he usually tells me things….He's….He's stopped telling me, though! I don't know where he is and neither does anyone else! The staff are all looking for him! Please! You're his mother! Do you have any idea where he might have gone?"
Merope's expression of worry switched to a solemn frown as she stared at Harriet and spoke, "No……but I heard my father mention something once who may……Can you take me to the castle?"
"...To Hogwarts?" Harriet blinked.
After Merope nodded, she and Harriet set off into the night together.
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Far away, on a remote hillside close to the village of Little Hangleton, Tom's dark school robes swept through the grass in a quiet, slushing, swish as he approached Riddle Manor's massive grandeur.
A smile curled his lips as he looked forward to meeting his father at last.