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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Later, after everyone had gone to bed, James decided to hold another secret meeting with his little brother.
He silently crept out of his room and tiptoed down the hallway to Mark's, careful not to disturb Mae or the sleeping adults in the house.
Mark blinked his eyes half open as the door to his bedroom creaked to announce his brother's entry.
"...James?" Mark frowned.
"It's me!" James whispered in the darkness.
Mark yawned as James closed the door behind himself and shuffled over to sit on his little brother's bed.
"Why are you still up?" Mark asked sleepily, "Mum and Dad will be angry if they-"
"-Do you remember when we talked about the new baby? That we can't stop it from happening?" James interrupted.
Mark blinked his large, sleepy eyes, "...Yes."
"That's just it then, isn't it?!" James exclaimed with a sense of giddiness that seemed far too exuberant for the late hour, "I was right! You and I can't do anything to stop it!"
Mark blinked again, ready for his brother to leave and let him sleep.
"Don't you understand?!" James asked with a frustrated hiss, "The only reason Lily didn't die today is because Mae got distracted. Mae's stronger than I am, Mark, and I have the awful feeling she always will be……That means to stop her, we have to find someone who's stronger than her!"
Mark frowned, "Aren't Mum and Dad stronger……than her?"
"They won't be once she's graduated." James scowled.
"...But if they are now, then they can sort it all for us before then." Mark said with an exaggerated yawn.
"When have they ever done anything about her?!" James snapped. To get his brother's attention, he grabbed Mark's hands and gave him a small shake as he gazed into his eyes, "Listen! You know she's Dad's favourite, he'll do anything to protect her! He is not going to stop her! Mum….." James's voice trailed off for a moment while he thought, "Mum may be able to hold her off for a while, but I don't think she'd be able to…..to hurt her if it came to that. Mum loves us all. I don't understand it exactly, but she does. It's up to us to find someone, Mark! We have to be the ones!"
Mark sighed as he realized his energized brother had no intention of giving up soon, "How are we going to do that?"
"We…." James smirked, "...Are going to select our next sibling."
Mark blinked.
James blinked back.
"We're going to…..WHAT?" Mark repeated incredulously as he narrowed his eyes and furrowed his brow.
"We're going to choose the new baby!" James cried.
"James, I'm very tired and you aren't making much sense." Mark said as he yawned again, weary of his brother's riddles.
"Listen, before I left school, I was leafing through the library for some essay research….I saw an old book on soul selection and how a person can choose someone to live…..to be born. I didn't bother looking into it any further because I had no need at the time, but I'm assuming it works like choosing someone to die…..similar to execution, right? Instead of dying, you choose who's going to live!"
"That sounds bad." Mark frowned.
James' enthusiasm began to melt as he watched his little brother's hesitation manifest on his young face, "Is that the sort of thing Dad does?"
"What, do you mean Dark Magic?" James asked, "I…..I mean, yes, technically, I found the book in the Defense Against the Dark Arts section, but this would be different! We would be using it for a good purpose!"
"Mum said Dad does a lot of dangerous things." Mark frowned, "I don't think we should do dangerous things too, brother."
"Does Mae not do dangerous things?!" James snapped, "She almost killed Lily today! Would you be saying that now if she had died?!"
Driven into a rage by the thought of his brother not placing utmost importance on his beloved flower, James relaxed his clenched jaw as he watched fat tears gather in his sensitive little brother's round eyes.
"Sorry." James breathed, "I'm sorry, Mark. I…….I didn't mean to upset you, I just want to-"
"-Why are you even talking to me about this rubbish?" Mark snapped.
James raised his eyebrow at his sweet little brother's resilient reply.
"What does it matter to me what happens next?" Mark huffed, "There's nothing I can do, James! I'm the outsider, the leftover, the unfortunate combination of Mum and Dad that just didn't quite turn out right!"
"Stop it, Mark." James scowled.
"Why should I?!" Mark huffed, "It's true! Mum pities me! You should see the looks Dad gives me when you and her aren't around! You'd think I was some sort of monster! Go on, choose the baby, don't choose the baby, save Lily, don't save Lily, stay here or go back to school and leave me all alone again! What does it matter? There's nothing I can do about any of it!"
"You're my brother!" James scoffed, "Mark, you already-"
"-Please, James, go to sleep!" Mark snapped, "And let me do the same!"
Before James could retort, Mark pulled the covers over his head and rolled over to indicate he had finished talking for the night.
Rejected and disheartened, James slowly stood, shuffled out of his younger brother's room, and across the hallway.
He grit his teeth as he thought.
It didn't seem right.
It hadn't been fair.
What Mae had done went unpunished.
Mark refused to help.
In the midst of it all, Lily had been bullied and terrorized.
She could have been killed.
His darling Lily could have been killed and James had stood powerless to stop any of it!
He chewed his lip as he thought.
Perhaps he could make that bit of magic work, find someone to battle Mae…..
What if he couldn't?
He sighed to himself.
What then?
James was Tom's son too.
A hopeful smirk danced across his handsome face as he passed by his sister's room and found it empty.
The curtain on the open window blew as the cold winter night's breeze wafted through the room.
As James slowly stepped through her open door, his smirk widened once he realized Polly was also missing.
Tom's spell may have edited out the memory of the dragon's attack, but James was as sly and as stealthy as his father.
He had seen his sister out of his window in Gryffindor's tower flying around at night on the back of her scaly, winged friend.
James let out a breath as he marveled at all of Mae's many gifts.
Wandless magic, her many dolls, a dragon…….
Her many dolls.
A path to revenge suddenly unfolded before James.
Without using a bit of magic, he picked up the pair of muggle scissors he found lying on the desk in his sister's room.
Knowing his eldest sibling would be busy for quite some time, James set to work.
Three hours later, he walked out of Mae's room with a smile and a heart full of satisfaction, confident he had taught his sister what it felt like to lose something precious.
Mae's room had been left in shambles.
Every single one of her beloved dolls had been mutilated beyond recognition, their hair and dresses hacked to pieces, their eyes gouged out, their heads pulled off.
Years of collecting had been rendered meaningless.
Thousands of Galleons worth of value had been utterly destroyed.
James' only regret was that he could not put an anti-repairing charm on everything in the room, knowing that the Ministry would detect magic cast from the tip of his wand in a single second.
If only he had been born with a cursed arm like Mae, then he could have enjoyed the same freedoms as his older sister.
As James went to his own room and settled himself in bed at last, a smile rested on his lips.
He sincerely hoped he woke to the sound of his sister's anguished screams.
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"Are you ever going to let me sleep?" Harriet asked that night while she lay awake in Tom's arms.
Although she felt no closer to a cycle, she feared Tom ran the risk of beginning a rut.
She could feel her center throbbing from the previous hours they had spent coupling.
Her reddened nipples had been sucked sore.
Bruises lined her body from chest to thigh as a result of Tom's greedy pinches and nipping kisses.
He growled in response as he began to lap his way across her exposed collarbone and throat.
"Tom, love, please……" Harriet begged as she instinctively widened her legs to allow her husband in for another round.
"That's exactly what I'm going to do, sweetling……….I'm going to please you." He grinned.
As their lips found each other once more, Harriet groaned into their kiss while they began to make love again.
While Tom held Harriet in his arms, a part of him wanted to abandon the idea of using the Fertility Potion completely.
If his darling smelled even sweeter once her next heat finally arrived, he didn't see any necessity in seeking magical assistance to conceive.
Tom had already been driven mad by Harriet's incredibly intoxicating scent.