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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Alone in the hallway, Harriet reached out to yank the Minister's office door open.
She gasped as it refused to give way, but instead of crying out for Tom, she slipped her wand into her hand, pointed it at the door and shouted, "Alohomora!"
The lock clicked.
A mere second after Harriet heard the sound, she pushed the door open and rushed inside the room.
"Sweetling!" Tom cried as he glanced up from his seat on the sofa in front of his office's large hearth.
Although the evening was warm, the stoked fire crackled as Tom's dark eyes scanned Harriet's face while he stood, "What happened? Why didn't you come with-"
"-I stayed behind to talk to them, Tom." Harriet frowned.
Tom furrowed his brow as he placed himself in front of his mate and let his hands rest on the sides of her shoulders.
"There's no point in you being angry. They aren't going to help her!...They can't!" Harriet wailed, "If the International Board of Magical Medicine has no aid to offer, I don't know what to do for her!"
"What are you talking about?" Tom asked as he stared into Harriet's eyes with an incredulous scowl, "...What did they say?"
Harriet couldn't hide her distraught melancholy as she related to Tom her conversation with the board members.
Once she had informed him of every spoken word, he caught her in his arms as she covered her face to hide her expression of anguish.
Tom possessed no great understanding of mercy, yet he often showed it to his mate.
In an effort to soothe Harriet's broken heart, he brought her to the sofa and sat her down on his lap.
As Tom enveloped her in his protective embrace, he kissed her face and neck lovingly while he whispered sweet musings about the many happy memories they would make together as a family.
He told Harriet of all the good things Mae would do, and James as well, once they grew up.
With unwavering confidence in his smooth, seductive voice, Tom convinced his wife that the entire world was merely composed of fools.
The board members.
Britain's best healers.
What did any of them know, really?
Harriet held onto Tom and returned the kiss he eventually placed on her lips.
Despite the fact that she recognized the falseness of his many statements, she was not quite yet ready to accept the truth's grim reality.
"You and I have always fought against this world together, have we not?" Tom purred in her ear while she lay on him an hour later.
Their cuddling had failed to progress, regardless, they had both enjoyed the cozy closeness sitting privately by the fire had brought.
"This is different, Tom." Harriet sighed.
"Not by much." He whispered as he kissed Harriet's forehead, "You do trust me, Harriet, you've always……trusted me. I've cared for you, looked after you, and protected you….Haven't I?"
Tom glanced down at her until she frowned up at him, "Yes……of course you have."
"...And I will do the same for our children, sweetling." Tom vowed as he raised Harriet's hand to his lips and gave it a tender kiss while he stared into her emerald eyes.
Harriet did not recognize his covert seduction attempt.
As he pressed that kiss against her hand, he made certain his lips connected with the spot between her knuckles that linked directly to a nerve deep inside her body.
She gasped quietly as Tom teasingly lowered her hand while they held eye contact.
"Is something the matter?" He asked innocently.
Harriet gazed at him as she cleared her throat and confessed, "I need you, Tom."
He grinned arrogantly as he silently commended himself on successfully convincing Harriet his own desire had been hers first as he asked, "...Then how can I possibly refuse?"
They moved towards each other until their lips met.
As the fire crackled, the quiet became challenged by the sounds of satisfaction that escaped Harriet while they coupled.
Tom bathed in her cries as he flipped her onto her back and devoured her.
No matter what she faced, Harriet had to praise her alpha for being able to wipe her mind blank without the use of a single memory charm.
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While Tom junior and Harriet continued their attendance at the party, Merope and Tom senior looked after their grandchildren.
Up from his nap, baby James spent the rest of the afternoon and evening happily seated on his grandfather's lap as Tom senior read him one story after another.
Merope watched her husband tend their grandson with a bittersweet smile on her face.
As she looked at the little boy who reminded her so much of her own son, she couldn't help but imagine it was twenty years earlier and instead of James, Tom junior sat on her husband's lap.
Tears welled in her eyes as the gravity of her mistakes seemed to bear down upon her in one nauseating lurch.
If she had only tried harder to win Tom senior's heart on her own, without relying on a potion, then perhaps her struggles would have been lessened.
She wouldn't have found herself trapped in a world her son had cobbled together.
Riddle Manor had become a palace of lies.
Tom senior and James' preoccupation with their current story prevented them from noticing that Merope wiped her eyes as she stood and left the room.
She made the dangerous error of underestimating Mae.
As Merope walked down the hallway, up the stairs, and into her bedroom, her granddaughter silently padded behind her, with Polly clutched in her arms.
Merope eventually entered her bedchamber and sat down at her vanity with a chest-tightening sob as she put her hands to her face.
"...Why are you crying?"
The unexpected voice nearly jolted Merope out of her skin.
She let out a sniffling, gasping shriek as she turned around with her hand over her chest and sighed, "Oh! Mae!...You frightened me, my darling!"
Mae showed no remorse and offered no apology as she stood still in the doorway while she repeated her question, "Why are you crying?"
Merope laughed as she wiped her eyes and forced a smile on her face, "Sometimes grown-ups just get a bit sad, love, that's all."
"Why?" Mae pressed.
Merope inwardly chided the child's untimely curiosity as she nodded, "Someday when you're older, my dear, you may understand."
"Is it because you love him and he doesn't love you?" Mae asked.
The brutality of the child's calculated observation ended Merope's wistful weeping.
"...I beg your pardon?" Merope asked.
"Granddad." Mae said very matter-of-factly, "Are you sad because you love him while he doesn't love you?"
Merope bristled as she wondered how her young granddaughter had possibly been able to detect-
"Daddy read about that to me in my storybook once." Mae blinked, "A lady cried because her husband didn't love her, but she loved him."
Merope sighed as she berated herself for her own foolishness.
How could she have been daft enough to think a little girl would have been able to see through Tom junior's complex enchantment?
"That does sound like quite a sad story." Merope nodded, "Why don't you come here, love?"
Mae silently walked forward and let Merope help her climb onto her knee.
Grandmother and granddaughter stared into the vanity mirror as Merope wrapped her arms around Mae while she kissed the side of her head.
"You are beautiful, my dear girl." Merope said with a proud smile as she lifted a hand to gently stroke Mae's flawless, dark curls, "Beauty is one of this world's greatest weapons."
"Why?" Mae blinked.
Merope watched the child's green eyes wander over to the fluffy cosmetic brush that sat unused on the vanity's top.
As she spoke, she picked up the brush and began to dust its softest bristles over Mae's cherub-like cheeks, "Because people envy beauty……..and others want to possess it."
"Grandmum?" Mae asked.
"Yes, sweetheart?" Merope smiled softly.
They both stared at their reflections in the mirror as Mae asked, "Are you sad because you think Granddad wouldn't forgive you? For what you've done?"
The blood in Merope's veins froze.
A prickling sensation of horror crept up her spine.
Before she could reply, Mae finished the conversation for her, "You shouldn't be sad. It doesn't matter if he forgives you or not….You've won, he lives with us."
A morose frown planted itself on Merope's face as Mae promptly informed her, "Daddy says that winning is all that really matters."
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Tom eased Harriet's mind by assuring her that he would not abandon his quest to help their daughter.
He had already sent several letters to a few of his most unsavory contacts by the next morning, before his first full day serving as the Minister for Magic began.
Tom rose early.
Harriet had woken with him and sent him off with a loving kiss while Mae and James lay asleep in their rooms.
As Tom appeared in the Ministry's lobby and began his short commute to his office, his polished shoes clicked agaisnt the lacquered floor.
More than a few women noticed the handsome new Minister in his dapper, well-tailored black suit as he passed by with an arrogant smirk on his lips.
Fortunately for Harriet, Tom's dedication to her never wavered.
Once he reached his office, he stepped inside and gazed out the wide, glass window over the Ministry's vast lobby.
Tom had already achieved many of his dreams at an impressively young age.
Married to the woman he loved, a father of two beautiful children, the leader of Britain's wizarding world……..
His smirk widened as he looked down at the many people hurrying to their various destinations.
His ambition denied him rest.
As Tom sat down at his desk for the very first time, the notion that the previous Minister's rotting body had sat in that same chair for over a year stirred no guilt in his heart.
Success only paved the way for aspiration.
Tom took a moment before his busy day began to think up a new set of dreams; dreams that involved his career, dreams for his children, and most importantly, dreams of what would come next in his life with Harriet.