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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Birds chirped overhead on the sunny afternoon while Tom junior stood with his children, close to the forest near the outer edge of the Riddles' property as a huge spider charged towards them.
"Daddy……."
"Hush." Tom junior whispered as he wrapped his arms around his small son, who stumbled back against his father's legs for protection, "Watch."
Tom had spent the last eight years gloating in the glory the position of Minister for Magic had brought.
Harriet had become a beloved public figure, revered as a supportive wife and loving mother, praised by wizarding Britain's citizens for her great kindness and the generous way she poured herself into the many different charities she had founded.
While Harriet had used her station for helping others, Tom had used his prestige to help himself.
He pretended not to notice when one of his new laws had a negative impact on the average person.
However, Tom junior had become painfully aware that his youngest child had shown no magical inclination whatsoever by his fifth year of life.
Mark Riddle, born three years after James and six years after Mae, had been welcomed into the family with his father's dark hair and his mother's green eyes.
Mae had quickly grown bored with him.
Tom's frustration grew as each day passed.
Harriet loved all her children equally.
"Dad, just send him back inside." James frowned, "He doesn't like it!"
At only eight years old, little James couldn't rid himself of the notion that he had to constantly defend his younger brother from their father and sister.
Mae giggled as Mark whimpered and turned his head while the massive spider approached, crawling towards the four of them across the green grass of the Riddles' estate.
"Don't you see?" Tom junior asked his youngest son with a wicked smile, "There's no need to fear, Mark. She'll come in a moment and-"
Before he could finish speaking, Asherah shot between him and Mae in one smooth motion.
Mae squealed in delight as the impossibly large anaconda lunged towards the sizable spider.
"NO!" Mark wailed as tears of sympathy pooled in his green eyes.
"The spider deserves to die." Mae scoffed, "You saw it attack Father, didn't you? Surely, you aren't that stupid."
"Mae!" James snapped.
Mae narrowed her eyes at her favourite family member for a split second before a pout of feigned remorse formed on her fair face.
"It bothers him!" James explained to his sister before he looked at Tom again and begged, "Please, Dad, won't you let him go? He doesn't want to see!"
"Your brother and your sister are descended from the same great wizard as you." Tom hissed in reply as he fought to wrangle the wriggling Mark into a position of forced stillness, "All three of you will watch as our enemy is vanquished…..Then each of you will understand victory's sweetness. There is no greater bliss than triumph."
"DADDY, NO!" Mark begged as he sought to bury his face in the trouser fabric around his father's knees.
"MARK, WATCH!" Tom barked as he bent down.
He took Mark's small face in his hand, squished his chubby cheeks between two fingers, and forced his son to look at the brutal fight while it unfolded.
The spider raised its forelegs.
Asherah opened her mouth.
She struck.
The spider dodged.
Tears poured from Mark's eyes.
James gnashed his teeth, "Dad, stop it! He doesn't like it!"
Tom junior shot James a dangerous glare.
Asherah struck again and hit her target with deadly accuracy.
Mae laughed as if she had heard a great joke.
Sickening, crunching noises rang out as the spider's weighty body splintered under the steel-like grip of Asherah's formidable jaws while she coiled around her prey.
Mark finally broke free of his father's restrictive hold with a desperate cry and dashed off towards Riddle Manor.
"NNNNNNOOOOOO!"
"MARK!" Tom shouted as he turned and narrowed his eyes at his fleeing son, "MARK!...Come back here! That's an order! NO!...Don't run to your mother!"
Terrified his youngest pup would garner Harriet's sympathy yet again, Tom pursued Mark while Mae and James lingered to passively watch Asherah ingest her meal.
Mae looked over at James with a delighted smile, an expression which he returned with a disgusted frown.
No healer in the entire magical world had managed to correct her unknown condition.
Mae's startling beauty had only increased, although her wounded arm had continued to rot.
A black sleeve from fingertip to shoulder still covered her affected arm, which lay hidden underneath, scarred and oozing.
"A useless heap, isn't he?" Mae giggled.
"Just because Mark doesn't like watching things like that," James nodded towards Asherah and the spider's back two legs that hung from her mouth, "...Doesn't make him useless."
"Fine, then." Mae smirked, "What good is he? All he does is cry."
"That's because you and Father give him too much to cry about." James retorted with a wisdom far beyond his brief eight years of life.
Mae frowned at the venom in James's accusation as he scowled at her condemningly, "You're both mean to him!"
"James!...I'm not mean to him!" Mae cried defensively, "I'm only teasing him. He's too dull to understand, that's all."
"Well, you better never try to tease me like that. I won't put up with it like Mark does." James defiantly warned his sister.
"Oh, James!" She giggled, "I could never tease you!"
James shook his head with a heavy sigh to express his exasperation as they both turned and slowly walked towards the house.
Behind them, Asherah slithered into the surrounding woods to search for dessert.
As they walked, Mae slipped her hand into James' over and over again, but each time, he shook her off with a disdainful grimace.
"What's the matter?" She frowned, "I'm your sister, don't you want to hold my hand?"
"No, I don't want to hold your hand, it's weird!" James insisted.
"We've always held hands." Mae pouted, "Ever since you were little."
"Well I'm not so little anymore, am I? We're getting too old for that now." James sniffed, "I expect you'll be going to Hogwarts in a few months."
"...I expect I won't." Mae smirked.
"How's that?" James blinked, "Mum's sure they already printed your letter. Your birthday's next week. You know they'll send it by then!"
"I don't want to go." Mae confessed, "I want to stay here with you and Daddy…..and Polly…..and my dolls. Why would I want to leave home to go to some dusty old castle?"
"I don't think you have a choice." James shrugged as they arrived at the house's front door.
"James…….!" Mae laughed as she paused to look at her beloved brother. She gave his cheek an affectionate little slap before she cast him an arrogant grin and replied, "I always have a choice!...Don't you remember? I'm the Princess!"
As James opened the door and Mae flounced inside, he rolled his eyes.
The sound of Mark's morose wailing could still be heard from his room down the hall.
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"Sweetheart……Sweetheart……It's alright! I'm here! Tell me what's happened!" Harriet whispered to her little boy as she lifted him from his bed and held him on her hip.
Mark's woeful screams had sent her and Merope, along with Arthur and Molly Weasley who happened to have stopped by for tea, straight to his room as soon as he had dashed into the house and pounded upstairs.
"There, there, little one, it's alright!" Molly comforted Mark as she patted his small back.
His worried grandmother stood in the doorway with a frown on her lips as she watched Harriet and Molly coo to the distraught child.
Arthur silently stood beside Merope, not wanting to overwhelm his adopted grandson.
Born nearly two months early, Mark Riddle had not received a particularly easy first five years in the world.
Once his tiny body had recovered from the shock of his premature birth, he had been faced with the stress of entering a prestigious wizarding family while possessing no measurable magical ability himself.
Mark suffered from severe allergies each spring.
The mere outline of his shadow on the sidewalk would cause him to shriek in fright.
He had so far failed to utter even a single hissing syllable of Parseltongue.
That alarming realization had been the occurrence that placed Tom junior on edge.
Fearing the nightmare that one of his children may actually have been born a squib, Tom junior hovered over Mark, keen to watch his every move and educate at every turn, as if knowing about magic would somehow reveal some deeply-hidden talent from his youngest child.
Through his tears, Mark whispered to Harriet and Molly exactly what had happened just as Tom junior appeared in the doorway next to his mother and Arthur.
While Harriet narrowed her green eyes at Tom in rage, he slowly slipped one of his charming smiles onto his handsome face.
Molly frowned.
Arthur glanced at Tom junior questioningly.
Merope cast her son a disapproving frown as he looked over at her.
"Oh, Tom….." Merope huffed, "What have you done to the poor boy now?"
Tom junior had managed to get away with a great many things, however, his cruelty towards his youngest son was not one of them.
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After Harriet had calmed Mark, Merope and the Weasleys read the little boy a happy story while the youngest Riddle couple retreated to their bedroom for a…..chat.
Tom flashed Harriet a shameless smile of false innocence as she closed their door and faced him with her arms crossed.
"Care for a tryst, sweetling?" He audaciously asked.
His boldness made Harriet laugh out loud, a dry, gasping sound.
"What are you playing at?!" She demanded, "You have the gall to treat our son that way and then think….for the slightest second…..that I'd let you…..you…….?!"
Tom's smile fell away when he realized his flimsy ruse would not easily sway his mate.
To defend himself, he explained, "The boy is too sensitive, sweetling. I only showed him a bit of nature and he collapsed like a-"
"-'A bit of nature'?!" Harriet thundered, "He's five, Tom! He's five! Children usually don't enjoy watching animals have their bones broken by other animals!"
"Mae and James both watched Asherah eat when they were Mark's age." Tom shrugged.
"Mark isn't Mae or James!" Harriet fumed, "The sooner you learn that, the better off we'll all be!"
"...I'm sorry, sweetling." Tom sighed as he shifted his approach.
He lowered his head and placed one of his elegant hands over his heart while he looked down at the floor for a moment before he met Harriet's gaze with a sad frown, "I……I fear that-"
"-That he'll have to live in the muggle world?" Harriet quipped, "That terrifies you, doesn't it? Why?...What's so bad about it if he does, Tom? He's still your son, magical or not!"
"My fear is that this world will break him, sweetling." Tom admitted as he calmly continued, "...His heart is too soft and his aura is too sweet. This world will have no problem eating him alive, don't you realize that? We have to find a way to help him…….before it's too late."
Harriet sighed as she rested her fingers on her temples while she turned and walked towards the window, "There's nothing wrong with being kind, Tom……….Sometimes I wish you could be softer and sweeter…..more like Mark, you know? The second son I bore you? The one I nearly gave my life for? Do you remember how the midwife hurried to stop the hemorrhage?"
Tom clenched his jaw while Harriet glanced over her shoulder at him and snapped, "You're brilliant with James and Mae, but If you could be somewhat kinder to Mark, that'd be very much appreciated!"
"Oh, sweetling….." Tom whispered as he stepped forward.
Harriet tried her best to cling to her rage, but their bond was too deep and their love was too strong.
Silently, Tom invaded her subconscious with flashes of their most intimate memories.
Harriet sucked in a breath as her eyes widened while she recalled some of her best orgasms.
Tom's seductive scent eased her unbridled vexation as he slipped his arms around her lithe waist.
She huffed as she turned her head from him, determined to resist.
Instead of backing away, Tom dipped down and began to kiss her neck, making sure to focus on the spots he knew were most sensitive.
One swift slide of his hands had his fingers splayed across Harriet's hips before he slyly moved up to palm her breasts, which had retained an exaggerated fullness after the births of three children.
"You and our family are my world, sweetling. Mae…..James……Mark too……" Tom whispered between his kisses.
Harriet sighed as she let her hands tangle in Tom's dark hair while he nibbled on her ear, "Everything I do is for you and them, to protect all of you……..Don't you understand, sweetling? It's an alpha's place to teach his children what they must learn…..The world is brutish, sometimes my lessons must also be."
The gentle sound between a moan and a cry that escaped Harriet's lips let Tom know he had secured his stubborn bride in his grasp.
"...Alphas must also please their mates." He added with a purr.
Tom wisely decided not to risk letting Harriet slip out of the enchantment in which he had captured her.
She leaned against the wall for support while he knelt down, placed one of her thighs over his shoulders and dove under her robes.
As he began to devour his wife at her center, Harriet's fingers knotted in Tom's dark curls.
Whether Harriet liked it or not, the passage of time had failed to douse the flames of their passion.