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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Despite the fact that Mae was nearly eleven, Tom continued to read her a bedtime story each night while she cradled Polly in her arms.
Sometimes Harriet watched from the doorway, though she often found herself busy seeing to James or Mark's needs.
On the evening before Mae's eleventh birthday, Tom finished the chapter's final passage and closed the book in his hands just as Mae asked, "...Daddy?"
"Yes, my princess? He smiled.
Tom's dark eyes glowed with pride as he gazed at his eldest child, his perfect little girl.
"...James said I'll be going away to Hogwarts soon." Mae frowned.
Tom grinned, "Your brother's right. Your letter should come any day now."
Mae's fair face twisted into a sad pout as she sighed, "...Must I?"
Tom mirrored his daughter's morose expression as he spoke, "Going to Hogwarts is a great honour, my princess. You'll make lots of friends and have countless adventures……You'll learn all about magic and how to use it. Why would you not want to go, darling?"
Mae frowned as she glanced down at the bed covers.
She used her gloved fingers to pick at the nails of her intact hand before she sighed and whispered, "...This is my home, Daddy. I don't want to leave."
Tom drowned in his daughter's melancholy.
"But don't you want to learn?" He asked.
"You can teach me, Daddy," Mae blinked as she turned her sad, emerald eyes towards Tom.
Although Mae Riddle was still a child, as she held her father's gaze, she was brutally aware of the brutal way she pulled on his heartstrings.
"What about making friends?" Tom asked.
"I have you and James…….and Grandmother and Grandfather." Mae shrugged, purposely excluding Harriet and Mark.
Tom became desperate to endorse the idea of a Hogwarts education to his flawless progeny.
"...You'd be reunited with the Basilisk there. Wouldn't that be fun?" He asked Mae.
She shrugged as she sighed again and looked away.
Tom couldn't stand the look of despair on his precious little girl's face while she clutched Polly close and laid her chin on her beloved doll's porcelain head.
Mae had no desire to leave her home, her palace.
She would lose Tom, her guard and James, her king.
………..And for what?
To mingle with strangers and sit for long lessons?
No.
Mae had no intention of abandoning her comfortable world for a new one.
She knew well enough that her place in Tom's heart meant that her letter's imminent arrival would become an inconvenience she could easily ignore.
Careful to let him see the fat tears that welled in her emerald eyes, she gazed at Tom with a heartbreaking pout as she asked pitifully, "Oh, Daddy……..isn't there anything you can do?! I'm frightened!" Mae gasped as she grasped her gloved arm to invoke her father's sympathy, "I'm frightened the others will be rude to me!"
Mae expertly activated her father's instincts,
Protect.
Comfort.
Save.
Tom instantly reached around her in a tight hug and cradled her close as he kissed her hair and whispered, "There's no need to be frightened, my princess. There's no need at all. I'll write to the headmaster myself and explain the situation. You can stay here in your home with your mother, brothers, and I as long as you wish."
"Daddy……" Mae sniffed as she wrapped her free arm around Tom's shoulder.
With their heads turned in opposite directions during their warm embrace, Tom failed to see the dastardly smirk on his beautiful daughter's face as she whispered, "I knew I could count on you."
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An hour later, after all three Riddle children had been tucked into their beds, Harriet laid back on the pillows and welcomed her alpha's nipping kisses as Tom junior moved from her collarbone to her breasts.
"What…….was it that you……wanted to tell me?" Harriet asked as her husband let his hands dip under her thighs to get a firm grasp on the soft flesh there.
"You're beautiful." Tom whispered as he let his lips graze one of his wife's nipples.
Harriet let out a gentle sigh as he moved to the other side and whispered, "You're mine……."
A quiet moan left her as Tom trailed gentle kisses down her abdomen, making sure he touched each and every silvery scar before he positioned himself directly in front of Harriet's waiting center.
Harriet gripped the sheets and widened her knees as she let her head roll back in anticipation.
Her eyes closed as her heart pounded.
She already knew what would happen.
Tom would whisper her another sweet nothing in that seductively smooth voice of his and then-
"Mae and I have decided that she does not have to attend Hogwarts." He quickly revealed.
As he dove forward, Harriet's eyes snapped open.
"WHAT?!" She gasped in disbelief as she sat up.
Tom seemed determined to reach his target and hypnotize his spouse into a submissive haze again, but Harriet quickly sat on her legs as she threw him a scowl and demanded an explanation, "Sorry…..what was that last bit?"
A tense silence invaded the room as the romance evaporated.
"Mae thinks the other children will ridicule her for her……condition." Tom explained, "She was in tears, sweetling. Surely you don't expect me to enforce such an awful fate on our daughter?"
"'An awful fate'?" Harriet echoed as she narrowed her eyes, "I hardly think Hogwarts is an awful fate. She's using you, Tom! She knows you'll say yes to anything she asks!"
"Why do you never show our daughter any sympathy?" He snapped.
"I show her all the sympathy in the world!" Harriet glared, "Unlike you with Mark or James……I dunno, maybe they're already men in your eyes, so then, they should be tougher, but they could fall off a cliff and you'd barely blink! If Mae scratches her finger, you're ready to explode! It's not fair!"
"I want my sons to be strong. I see no problem with that." Tom retorted, "Weakness does not get anyone very far in this world."
"Then please explain to me how avoiding Hogwarts and sitting at home is going to build Mae's strength?" Harriet frowned.
Tom glared at his mate as he realized she had argued him into a closed box.
"Will you really have us send her away, knowing that she'll be miserable?" He asked.
"People teased me for my glasses!" Harriet laughed, "I moved on, didn't I? She can too, she'll learn."
"No, she won't!" Tom insisted.
"I beg your pardon?" Harriet scoffed.
"I am her father and the Minister for Magic." Tom said with a haughty sneer, "I can legally bar her from entering the castle if I so choose."
"Tom….." Harriet said as she shook her head, "Since the day she was born, you've given her too much slack, if you don't stop, she-"
"-I am the Minister for Magic and she is my daughter!" Tom declared in one defiant roar.
Harriet gasped as he lunged forward to press himself down on top of her as they lay together on the bed.
"...And you are my wife." He whispered as he traced Harriet's face.
She parted her lips as the soft pad of his finger circled her mouth, "...Which means I can do……whatever I want to you, sweetling."
If it had been anyone else speaking those words, Harriet would have been kicking and screaming in rageful rebellion.
Her deep love for her husband quieted her better judgment.
The only battle she pursued with Tom that night was a mutual race towards bliss as they grabbed on to each other in a flurry of clawing hands and heated kisses.
While they made love, as Tom whispered promises to conceive with her once more, Harriet thought back to Mae's birth.
A part of her wondered if separating their daughter from Hogwarts wasn't the best idea anyway.
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Mae's birthday came and passed.
She had the usual grand acknowledgemrnt of the day.
As he did every year, Tom presented his princess with loads of presents and his wife with a new pearl for the golden necklace she had received on Mae's first birthday.
Mae spent the day playing with James while Harriet, Tom junior, Merope, and Tom senior all chatted.
At Mae's request, no other guests were invited.
"I can't believe it's been eleven years already." Harriet chuckled as she sat beside of Merope and watched the children play in the parlor.
"Oh, my dear girl!" Merope laughed while she patted Harriet's hand, "Simply blink and all three of them will be grown, watch!"
As Lawrence came to serve the adults another cup of tea, the Riddle children paid little attention.
Mae was busy trying to free one of the many new dolls Tom had gifted her from its box as James did his best to help.
"Don't pull her hair." Mae frowned.
"We need some scissors." He mused while he did his best to break the fastened ties in the box with his small fingers.
Mark blinked.
Spotting an opportunity to help, he silently rose to his feet and padded out of the parlor.
As he slipped into the next room to retrieve a pair of scissors his brother had left on the table only an hour earlier, Mae sighed as she watched James valiantly come to her aid.
"Thanks, brother. It's been a lovely birthday." She smiled.
"I really wish you'd let Lily come one year." James whispered.
The grimace his confession produced on Mae's fair face would have startled anyone to behold.
Mark walked up to his siblings with the scissors in his hands as Mae quickly changed the subject while she spoke to James, "Someday when we're older, we'll still have that shop won't we? That sells dolls?"
"Sure." James shrugged, "We can sell dolls and wands and whatever else people want."
"On Diagon Alley?" Mae asked.
"Seems like a good place for it." James agreed.
"Can I work in the shop too?" Mark cautiously asked.
His face paled as Mae turned to glare up at him while he sheepishly went on, "...W-With you and brother?"
She glanced down at the scissors in his hands before her eyes snapped back up to his face as she hissed, "You?! You won't even be allowed in! People like you won't be welcome in our shop!"
Mark whimpered as Mae hatefully snatched the scissors from him, skillfully turning them mid-grab to ensure the blades scratched the very surface of his skin.
No blood was drawn but he felt pain.
Mae could sense it before her youngest brother ever cried out.
"OOOWW!"
Mark's suffering delighted her even in the wake of the backlash she received.
"THATS NOT TRUE!" James shouted.
"MAE!" Tom bellowed as Harriet's disapproving glare forced him to act.
Mae ignored everyone as she proceeded to free her trapped doll.
"MAE!" Tom shouted again, "...MAE!"
Mae finally looked up at her father.
"I'm glad you enjoy your gifts, but I need you to be less involved with the dolls, please." Tom ordered, "You can't hear me when you don't pay attention."
"Sorry, Daddy!" Mae giggled with a sweet smile, "I didn't hear you because I didn't want to."
Harriet shifted in her seat but Tom handled the situation as any father should before his wife had a chance to intervene, "Apologize to your brother! That was very rude."
Mark tried his best to hide the tears that ran down his cheeks as Mae looked up at him with a sinister smile of insincere remorse, "I'm very sorry for what I've done…….brother."
The last word was hissed as if it was a ridiculous ruse she was forced to uphold.
James scowled at Mae.
Mark practically flew into Harriet's arms as she stood from her seat and lunged forward to envelope him in a tight hug.
While Harriet and Tom scolded their daughter, James walked over to his brother and whispered, "Come on……..let's go."
Preoccupied with disciplining her eldest child, Harriet let Mark crawl off her lap without asking the boys where they would go to play.
James held his brother's hand as they quietly slipped out of Riddle Manor, down the hill, across the sidewalk, and up to the Trendells' front door.
Mark sniffled as James rang the doorbell.
Lily's mother opened the door a second later and smiled as she saw the Riddle boys standing on her front step, "James, Mark! What a lovely surprise!...Mark, love, are you alright?" She frowned.
Mark nodded as James explained, "It's Mae's birthday…….but we didn't play together very well."
"Oh, I see." Mrs. Trendell frowned. She gave the boys a wry smile as she widened the door and gestured inside, "Why don't you two come in? Lily's in the living room and I've got cookies in the oven!"
"Thanks, Mrs. Trendell." James nodded before he led Mark into the small house.
A few steps beyond the door, James found his darling lying on the living room floor while she used a box of crayons to colour a large picture.
"JAMES!" Lily exclaimed as she looked up with a wide smile, "...Mark! What are you two doing here?!" She asked as she scrambled to her feet and ran over to embrace both boys.
"We've just come to play for a while." James answered.
"Mae was cruel to me!" Mark whispered as more tears ran down his chubby cheeks.
Lily frowned.
She looked at Mark as she asked, "Well, she can't hurt you as long as you're here, alright? Would you come help me colour my picture, Mark? It's too big for me to finish by myself."
Mark sniffed as he nodded.
When he finally raised his eyes to meet Lily's, she gave him a warm smile which he gladly returned.
As James followed his brother to join his sweetheart on the floor, he gazed at her with deep admiration.
While Mark narrowed his eyes in concentration to do his best job at helping Lily, she and James exchanged glances.
James smiled.
Lily blushed.