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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Tom junior's obsession with Harriet only worsened.
As she battled the inevitable fatigue that accompanied early pregnancy, he took every available opportunity to lure her into his arms for a passionate tryst.
Satisfied but spent, whenever one of their lovemaking sessions concluded, the youngest Mrs. Riddle truly understood the meaning of exhaustion.
Tom always covered Harriet in gentle, devoted kisses until she fell asleep in his grasp, with his strong arms holding her protectively against him.
During the next month, the midwife assured Harriet that all was normal.
Harriet accepted her statements as absolute truth.
Unlike her first pregnancy, she had no nausea, no sickness, no pain, just a need for extra sleep and a pleasant glow on her cheeks that sent Tom spewing decadent compliments at her.
While the youngest Riddle couple delighted in their joyful news and contemplated how best to announce the pregnancy to their daughter, Mae soon demanded their full attention.
One morning, after Harriet rose and woke their little one up for breakfast, her eyes widened as she changed Mae's clothes and noticed something quite bizarre.
Tom entered the room in time to see Harriet squint down at their child while she squirmed in her mother's grasp.
"Daddy……" Mae whimpered as she cast Tom a pleading pout.
"...Is something the matter, sweetling?" He asked with concern as he walked over to Harriet.
"There's a…..bruise……on her arm….An awful one." She frowned as she gently touched their daughter's injured shoulder.
"A bruise?" Tom frowned incredulously as he came to stand behind Harriet while they gazed down at their little girl.
Mae calmly blinked up at her parents while Harriet gently showed her alpha the wound their eldest child had suffered from some unidentifiable source.
Harriet and Tom both narrowed their eyes to slits as they stared at the strange blemish on little Mae's otherwise flawless skin.
The bruise was exceedingly ugly, black and malicious.
Its purple edges seemed to create a sort of indention in the small girl's flesh with jagged edges all around that held a toxic green hue.
"Mae, what happened, my princess?" Tom asked.
"Nothing, Daddy." Mae shrugged.
"Did you hit your arm on something, sweetheart?" Harriet frowned.
"No." Mae answered with annoyance in her voice as she scowled at Harriet.
"Does it hurt at all?" Harriet asked worriedly.
"No, Mummy." Mae huffed, as if Harriet's questions were a grand waste of her time.
Tom's blood boiled with rage that something somewhere, somehow had dared touch his perfect little princess.
"...Have you dropped her?" He snapped at Harriet before he stopped himself.
"WHAT?...No, I haven't dropped her!" She gasped, "What on earth is wrong with you to ask me a question like that, Tom?!"
Mae frowned as she watched her parents argue.
"Forgive me, sweetling." Tom sighed as he continued to stare down at Mae's arm, "I…..I meant no offense, but I don't understand where this e from. Look at that, it's hideous…….I wonder if she fell yesterday while Mother was caring for her?"
As Tom raised his gaze to meet Harriet's, she fought against the shiver caused by her alpha's merciless, black stare.
Harriet wasn't certain Tom's love for his mother would have been enough to protect Merope if she ever dared to harm their daughter.
"No…..And if she had, it would have been an accident and your mother would have told us." Harriet frowned, "She's done nothing wrong, Tom…..and neither have I. Summon a healer and we'll ask them for advice."
"A healer for a child's bruise?!" Tom scoffed, "I think not…..Do you want them to accuse us of crimes against our own flesh and blood? They would try to take her from our arms, Harriet!...We would live the rest of our lives in hiding because I would be left with no other choice but to-."
Harriet quickly interrupted, "-Tom, Mae needs-"
"-She needs a dose of Children's Healing Potion." Tom nodded as he stole the conversation back, "It's only a bruise, sweetling. It breaks my heart to see our princess with any malady, but this can be cured easily enough……Comfort her and I'll have it ready in an hour."
Before Harriet could protest, he swept out of Mae's room and glided into the hallway with determination in his stride, intent on brewing the mixture their daughter needed.
"Daddy's a bit grouchy today, isn't he?" Harriet asked as she lovingly picked Mae up for a cuddle.
"No." Mae whispered.
Harriet silently wondered how she was supposed to soothe a child who seemed to have such little interest in being comforted.
"Would you like me to read to you, sweetheart?" She asked as she gently stroked Mae's dark, silky curls, "We could have a morning story instead of a night story, that might pass the time until Daddy comes back."
"Will you brush my hair, Mummy?" Mae asked.
"Of course, love." Harriet nodded.
She sat on her daughter's bed as she reached over and took the hairbrush on the nightstand into her hand.
Beside them, Polly watched from her position on the pillow.
Mae's many other dolls stood deathly still on the various shelves that had been hung across each wall during her brief life.
Little Mae crawled out of Harriet's arms and plopped down on her bed with the hem of her fluffy, frothy nightgown all around her.
The beautiful child could have easily been mistaken for one of her porcelain friends if she had sat unmoving.
Harriet smiled softly to herself as she took the brush and began to gently run it through Mae's curls.
For a moment, she wondered what it would have been like to have a mother do that for her when she had been-
"OW!" Mae shrieked.
Harriet blinked as Mae whirled around to look at her with a furious scowl on her miniature face.
"Don't do it so rough!" The angry toddler snapped.
"I'm sorry, sweetheart!" Harriet said quickly, "You had a small knot from last night. Don't worry, I sorted it."
Mae said nothing as she glared at Harriet in silence.
Harriet chuckled as she asked, "It's gone now……You can forgive me, can't you?"
"You're the worst Mummy I've ever had!" Mae spat hatefully.
Harriet refused to let her daughter's words hurt her as she recognized her child's age and patience level.
"That's not a very nice thing to say, Mae. I love you very much……And besides, I'm the only Mummy you've ever had." Harriet chuckled as Mae finally turned back around to reluctantly let her mother continue brushing her thick, curly hair.
The devious scowl on Mae's face was frightening to behold as she whispered, "That's what all the other Mummies said too."
Harriet paused for a moment as she forced herself to ignore her daughter's eerie statement.
Children were children, they often said odd things.
It was nothing to worry about, Harriet knew that.
Although, as she and Mae sat in silence while they waited for Tom to return, a heavy sigh left Harriet's lips.
Molly Weasley had been wrong.
Things with Mae had never gotten easier for Harriet.
She often found herself staring jealously whenever she saw a mother and daughter who seemed to share a tight bond.
Harriet held onto a silent hope that her second child would be a bit more………accepting.
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A short while later, Tom junior rejoined his wife and daughter with the fresh bottle of Children's Healing Potion he had successfully brewed.
Mae blinked up at her father while he uncapped the vial and nodded at Harriet, who sat on the bed with their little girl securely in her arms.
"Alright, Mae, Mummy and Daddy need you to take this medicine, do you understand?" Tom asked with a smile as he pulled a glass dropper that contained a single dose of potion from the vial.
"I don't think she's going to do well with this, Tom." Harriet whispered as Mae scowled and kicked her chubby, little feet while Tom moved forward, "...Perhaps we should get your mother to help hold her."
"We'll be fine, sweetling." Tom smiled at Mae while he spoke to Harriet, "Our princess listens to her father, make no mistake about that."
Mae made a quiet little grunt of displeasure as Harriet held her tightly and Tom approached.
Harriet's heart raced as she expected Mae to inevitably screech and flail.
It shocked her that instead, her little one opened her mouth as Tom pressed the dropper against her small lips and promptly swallowed the potion.
"Now, then, there's a good girl!" Tom exclaimed with an arrogant smirk at Harriet as he placed the dropper back in the vial, "What did I tell you, sweetling?" He laughed before he coped at Mae, "Don't worry, my dear one, that should make you all better."
Before Mae could respond, the potion sent her tumbling into a deep sleep while Harriet cradled her close.
"You did very well too, Mummy." Tom whispered as he gazed at Harriet with lust in his dark eyes, "Perhaps you'd allow me to……..reward your efforts? While baby sleeps?"
Harriet kissed Mae's head as she gently turned and settled their daughter into her bed before she rose to her feet.
As she walked toward the door to Mae's room, she glanced at Tom and quipped, "I think Daddy wants the reward for himself."
Tom didn't try to hide his sly grin as he followed Harriet out, shutting Mae's door quietly behind them.
A quick walk down the hallway brought them to their own bedchamber.
Tom seemed almost too eager to get Harriet into her nest.
As he guided her back onto the bed while Mae slept, he elicited quiet sighs and whimpers of happiness from his mate while he bathed Harriet in adoring affection with his mouth and tongue.
He sampled her milk, let her squeeze his face with her thighs………
Harriet was an exceptionally brave and confident omega.
Regardless, as she closed her eyes, wound her fingers in Tom's dark hair, and enjoyed the sensations he brought to her, she couldn't escape the fearful dread that lurked in her heart.