Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
—————————————————————
Tom's dangerously persuasive charisma and impeccable ability to lie convincingly allowed him to appoint himself as the Minister's personal aide.
The Minister was well enough, everyone believed that falsehood.
He simply refused to leave his office and instead, had given Tom permission to deliver the documents he had signed that stated his wishes.
No one questioned Tom at all when he presented the parchments, which bore decrees Tom himself had thought up but signed with the corpse's hand that had been animated by a foul bit of Dark Magic.
Tom batted away his wife's suspicion by focusing on her and their family instead of dwelling on his days at the Ministry.
Despite Harriet's happiness about the life inside her, her discomfort only increased as she endured the final weeks of her second pregnancy.
She had purposely neglected to mention the baby to Mae for reasons she did not care to admit to herself.
Tom junior did his best to complete his work as quickly as possible to return home each afternoon and be by his darling's side.
He lamented the fact that his current position forced them apart for so many grueling hours.
All Harriet wanted to do was lie in her nest and sleep.
All Tom wanted to do was lie there beside her, with one hand covering her breasts and the other splayed across her huge belly.
A month before the estimated arrival of their new baby, Tom nuzzled Harriet gently while they lay together, bathed by the bright light of early morning.
"...I'm tired, Tom." Harriet confessed in an exhausted sigh, "I slept all night and I'm still tired."
"Then close your eyes and go back to sleep, sweetling." Tom chuckled as he stole a kiss from Harriet's soft, pink lips.
She frowned as she whispered, "Mae……."
"I'll ask mother to take Mae out shopping today. Perhaps they can find a new doll to add to her collection." Tom grinned. His dark eyes softened as he gazed into Harriet's face and nodded, "I want you to rest, alright? I'll leave your wand on the nightstand…..If you need me, I can Apparate here straight away. Father and Lawrence will remain in the house, you won't be alone."
Harriet didn't really mind if she was alone or not as she yawned and cuddled into the fluffy pillows.
A soft, purring groan escaped Tom's lips as he rose from his mate's warm nest to dress and ready for the day.
It broke his dark heart to know that he had no choice but to leave his beloved and go to work.
As Tom headed to the office that morning, he thought of nothing else besides his grand daydreams for the future.
Once he officially became Minister for Magic, things would be different.
He and Harriet would never spend another waking moment apart, even if he had to build a secondary room onto his office.
Once Tom became Minister for Magic, he determined he would finally have it all.
Prestige, power, wealth, family, and the adoring affection of his gorgeous, caring, perfect mate.
Eventually, he walked into the Minister's locked office to perform his daily "check" on the dead man whom everyone else assumed to be alive.
His lips curled into a wicked grin as he bent down to examine the gray face of the corpse, suspended in the early stages of decomposition.
If Tom could manage to cleverly play off his crime, he assuaged himself with the notion that he may very well slither into the coveted position far before his predecessors.
—————————————————————-
While Harriet slept through the morning, Merope took Mae to Diagon Alley on a quest to find her granddaughter a new and very unneeded doll.
Mae gladly went along on the trip, always eager to acquire another pretty toy.
Lawrence went about his household duties.
Tom senior spent the morning downstairs leisurely reading through the newspaper while he sipped his tea.
Birds chirped outside Harriet's window as if to announce happy news, but while she fitfully tossed in her sleep, she failed to share in their enthusiasm.
Deep in her dreams, she saw herself immersed in one perilous situation after another, with Tom and Mae at an unreachable distance while various torments punished her.
A rolling, metal ball rolled across her back to crush her spine.
Sharp, enchanted knives dug into her sides while she reached for her daughter.
She was strapped down to a board with weights placed over her pelvis in a sickening, crunching sort of-
Harriet gasped as her emerald eyes shot wide open.
She sat up with a low groan of pained surprise as she realized the agony she had felt in her dreams was……..real.
One hand flew to her belly as she reached over to the nightstand and pushed her glasses onto her face.
She struggled to her feet with a desperate groan before she staggered into the adjacent lavatory.
Harriet forced herself to breathe normally as the sinister pain slowly receded.
Her heart pounded in her chest as she made it into the bathroom and leaned over the tub.
In the tranquil silence of the still morning, she hung her head and closed her eyes.
The baby wouldn't come for another month, everything would be fine.
She probably had-
A hoarse cry erupted from Harriet's throat as a merciless cramp seized her in its ironlike grip.
She grit her teeth while her belly tightened as she fought against the urge to wail.
An odd sensation followed on the heels of her agony.
Harriet glanced down as soon as she felt drops of fluid splatter onto her bare feet.
Although she was spared the deluge Mae had caused during her birth, Harriet recognized the signal well enough as she called out, "TOM!"
Bent over in pain, frightened and bewildered, she hadn't remembered that her husband would still be at work.
Footsteps pounded down the hall.
The door to the bedroom flew open.
Harriet blinked at her father-in-law who stood in the bathroom doorway with his eyes wide.
Embarrassed but grateful someone had heard her, she managed to whisper, "Tom…..I need my Tom."
—————————————————————-
Tom senior had no idea how to help a labouring mother.
He possessed even less knowledge about the best way to send for the magical midwife Harriet had hired months ago.
Once she started to groan through another contraction, Tom senior did what any brave, muggle man in his position would have done.
He promptly scooped Harriet up, stuffed her into the Riddle family's luxurious car, and immediately drove her to the only hospital in Little Hangleton.
Harriet barely noticed the flurry of motion around her as Tom senior conversed with the staff while she was triaged, dressed in a gown, and given a room.
Someone asked her name and date of birth.
Someone else examined her.
There was a voice somewhere that whispered it was too late for an epidural, whatever that was.
Tom senior nobly assigned himself to guard the waiting room while Harriet focused on her work.
Sometime later, she became vaguely aware of the sound of her own panting as she lay on a stiff, unforgiving bed with her legs in cold, metal stirrups as she screeched through another pain, "AAAGGHHH! I NEED TOM! TOMMMMM!"
"That's it, push." A kind voice encouraged next to her ear as she sat up and involuntarily curled forward over her belly, "One, two, three, four, five…."
As Harriet cracked her eyes open, she watched a muggle doctor move between her legs in protective gear that the entire wizarding world would have deemed bizarre.
Frustrated with the pain and the hopelessness of her position, Harriet found herself annoyingly unable to do anything else besides groan, "NNNGGGGHHHHH!"
Before that single shove ended, the door to her hospital room swung open and in rushed-
"-TTTOOOMMMM!" Harriet cried desperately as she reached towards her alpha.
"I'm here, sweetling! I'm here!" Tom shouted as he dashed towards his darling with his dark eyes wide.
He nearly knocked over the two nurses supporting Harriet as he scrambled onto the bed behind her and let her lay against his chest.
The muggle doctor prepared to speak out in protest of his patient being too crowded, but as soon as Tom clasped Harriet's hand in his, she had already started to push again.
"I CCCCAAAAANNNN'TTTT!" She screamed against the pain.
"Yes, you can, sweetling." Tom murmured in her ear over the sound of her deafening scream, "You're strong and beautiful……flawless…..courageous...fierce. If anyone can do this, it's you, Harriet. Concentrate……I'm here beside you, sweetling, I'm right here."
Tom expected quite a journey as Harriet flopped back against him after her wild cry ended.
His eyes nearly bulged out of his head in shock as a shrill shriek rang out.
"WWWWWWWWWAAAAAAAA!"
"WWWWWWWWAAAAAAAAA!"
"Congratulations." The muggle doctor nodded at Harriet, then at Tom. Behind his mask and goggles, his smile was evident in his eyes, "You two have a very healthy, new son."
"WWWWWAAA!"
"WWWWWAAA!"
"How was it that fast?!" Tom snapped at the muggle doctor, "Our first wasn't born that quick! What went wrong?!"
"Nothing went wrong, Mr. Riddle! In fact, everything went perfectly right." The doctor said as he worked to swaddle the screaming newborn, "All babies keep their own schedules. This date was perhaps best for everyone. For a young man who's entered the world a month early, your son is……….robust."
The gasp of glad relief that left Harriet as the doctor quickly laid the newborn on her chest brought tears to the nurses' eyes.
Tom cradled Harriet in his arms as he glanced down at their baby.
His mouth dropped open in shock.
Long and chubby, the large infant appeared to be the size of a full term baby.
The muggle doctor chuckled, "It's my guess he's close to four kilograms at four weeks early. I would have pitied his mother even more if she had carried him to the end! He'll be a strong man one day."
Harriet laughed quietly as she glanced up at Tom with a proud, beaming smile on her fair face.
Tom's dark eyes flickered from the baby to his mate and for a moment, he bathed in the lovely glow of Harriet's ethereal beauty.
He had seen that same added radiance in her complexion before, just after Mae's birth, that awe-inspiring glow of new motherhood that no muggle hospital gown or dampened hair could dim.
While the doctor and nurses began to deliver the postpartum care mandated by the muggle world's medical treatment curriculum, Tom held Harriet in his protective embrace.
"You are devastatingly beautiful, sweetling." He frowned as he gazed down at his mate, "...And enviably strong. How can I ever repay you?"
Harriet laughed as she responded, "You can love me! And Mae…….and him." She smiled as she glanced down at their chubby baby.
The newborn seemed quite alert to be only a few minutes old.
With Tom looking on, Harriet smiled at their little boy and gladly announced to him, "I'm your mummy, sweetheart!"
There was no feeling of dread or hesitation like there had been with Mae.
No ominous lightning storms or eerie visions.
Instead, on the day of Tom junior's first son's birth, there was sunshine and pleasant birdsong that echoed through the hospital window.
The newborn curiously gazed up into his mother's face with his large, dark eyes.
Tom's chest proudly swelled as he looked down at his healthy, new son.
Harriet's smile widened as the cuddly, chubby baby boy cracked a wide smile of friendly greeting.
In response, Harriet bent forward and pressed a kiss to his round, little head.
The soft coo of loving gratitude that issued from the baby boy's miniature lips melted Harriet's heart.