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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Over the next few weeks, the Children's Triplex seemed to explode in popularity.

The halls of each building bustled with activity as employees, patients, and visitors filled the spaces.

Hermione and Ron visited at least every other day to help where they could and keep an eye on things.

Regardless, the bulk of the work rested with the Minister's wife, who held no other official positions, unlike her friends.

Harriet didn't want to admit it, but she recognized the signs well enough to know that another heat was indeed on the way.

As one week turned into two, she battled against the headaches and breast tenderness her body issued in gentle warning of what would inevitably come.

The gradual sweetening of her scent hadn't escaped Tom's notice.

While he remained at a respectful distance in light of their recent issues, Harriet caught him gazing at her in the mirror of their bathroom while she bathed.

At night, although he pretended to be asleep, she remained unfooled as his dark eyes drifted over her while she changed into her nightdress.

Determined to show her alpha how much she held the reins, Harriet decided to make a display of herself one evening.

She took her time as she undressed and ran her hands over her sensitive skin.

In the reflection of her vanity's mirror, she noticed Tom's dark eyes staring at her, unblinking, from his hidden position under the covers.

Harriet made certain to bend all the way over and expose her bottom, covered only by the lacey scrap of fabric that passed as her panties while she opened a dresser drawer and pulled out a suitable, sheer dress to wear to bed.

She smirked as she heard the slightest rustle of fabric.

As she lifted a hand and scooped a stray, strand of long, dark hair behind her ear, it amused her to know that Tom laid there watching her with a death grip on the end of his fluffy pillow.

She forced herself not to laugh out loud at the mental image of him gritting his teeth in frustration.

Her patience had grown thin with her mate.

In Harriet's eyes, Tom deserved the torment he received.

Slowly, she walked over and laid down in bed beside him as she stretched herself languidly across the mattress.

Teetering on the verge of insanity by then, Tom practically smacked his lips as he rolled over, sat up, and gazed down at Harriet.

Her eyes closed as he leaned in, careful to break him by placing a finger over his lips just before they touched hers.

Tom could have groaned from agony as Harriet opened her eyes while she halted their kiss.

"No." She said firmly, "...I don't want you, whoever you are……This monster that discriminates against his own people and rejects his youngest son. I want my Tom, the Tom I fell in love with…..The Tom I married."

Tom frowned, "Sweetling, what are you talking about? You know I care for Mark! The laws I've enacted are only meant to-"

"-To limit muggleborns' rights and privileges in our society as much as possible without me noticing, aren't they?" Harriet snapped.

Despite her blatant anger and the condemning accusations she threw at him, Tom found himself without the ability to return her rage as he admired the beautiful blush that covered her cheeks as fury coursed through her veins.

"...That is," He began with a slow nod, "...In no way how I meant my actions to seem. However," He said as he looked away in thought for a moment before he boldly met Harriet's gaze once more, "I do see, now that you put it that way, the potential for my legislation to have become misconstrued."

"Misconstrued?" Harriet skeptically repeated.

"Of course." Tom frowned, "Sweetling, how could I possibly hold muggleborns in disdain? You and I are muggleborns!" Tom exclaimed with a devious chuckle.

Harriet failed to return his smile.

Tom's grin faded as he nodded again, "I vow to you, my love, I will amend each and every law that could possibly have caused any offense to persons who share heritages similar to ourselves or otherwise."

"When?" Harriet demanded.

Tom blinked, "I……beg your pardon?"

"You'll amend the laws, fine." Harriet shrugged as she crossed her arms where she lay.

She kept her frown as Tom's dark eyes instantly darted down to get a glimpse of the rolling, creamy cleavage that developed from her movement.

"When are you going to do it, Tom?" Harriet pressed, "I need a date."

His thoughts trailed off for far too long.

As he slowly recovered himself and remembered what exactly he had been doing, he glanced up at Harriet with wide eyes and exclaimed, "Tomorrow!...I'll begin tomorrow, sweetling."

"Brilliant." Harriet responded without a smile, "I'll go with you to your office in the morning."

He resisted the urge to grimace as he realized it would not be easy to assuage his mate with yet another lie.

As he pondered the heavy price of lifting his questionable decrees to obtain willingness from his wife to bear another child, Tom sought to reduce his costs as much as possible by ignoring Harriet's second request.

"Excellent, sweetling." He said with a charismatic smirk, "I'll change the laws and in return, you'll wait in your nest for me during your next heat."

Harriet purposely let him believe that he had won.

His smirk widened as he bent down, closed his eyes, and prepared to finally enjoy the kiss he had been desperate to taste.

Harriet spoke so that her lips brushed his as the words left her throat, "...What about Mark?"

Tom could have shrieked in frustration.

Willing to do anything to pacify his mate, he pulled back and put a smile on his face as he asked, "...What was that, sweetling?"

"Mark." Harriet said as she raised a hand to trace gentle shapes over Tom's collarbone. Her emerald eyes moved to meet his dark stare as she spoke, "...If you want another baby, first, you have to show me that you love the last one I gave you."

"I care very much about Mark." Tom said with a smile that conveyed what could easily have been mistaken for authenticity, "...As I do each of our children."

"...Then it should be incredibly simple for you to show that." Harriet said with an equally sweet smile.

Before Harriet had the chance to talk again, Tom all but dove in and captured her lips in a heated kiss.

He silently began to think of ways he could appear to meet Harriet's demands.

Amending the laws would be a challenge, but Mark?

Tom silently released his stress about the entire ordeal as he melted into Harriet.

He had made far greater falsehoods seem genuine than the lie of loving his squib son.

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James furrowed his brow as he tirelessly spent yet another night attempting his impossible task.

Careful not to wake his Gryffindor roommates, he held his wand out over the ancient, open book while he did his best to maintain the difficult spell.

Not many Hogwarts students could have been capable of wielding such magic so young, but James was as much his formidable parents' child as his villainous older sibling.

It had taken more work than he had anticipated but after he managed to collect letters from both Tom and Harriet, their handwriting had allowed him to utilize the antique magic to preview the trillions of potential people who may enter the world as his next sibling.

He sighed as the hours passed while he viewed dozens of men and women in the center of that swirling ball of mysterious purple magic.

Some were tall, some were short.

Some were smiling, some were frowning, but none of them caught his attention.

It would have been a lie for James to have said he wasn't growing tired of his search.

Night after night, he gave up sleep to pursue his dream of bringing his sister's tyrannous grip on their family to an end.

Was that even possible?

James let his tired head rest on the hand he propped under his chin as he flicked his wand over and over to peruse the seemingly endless preview of potential brothers and sisters his parents may welcome to the family.

Perhaps Mae had always been right.

Perhaps she really was unbeatable, special, their father's crowning achievement in life, the legacy of Slytherin house itself, destined to succeed.

The idea of defeated sleep seemed too tempting to ignore as James's eyelids grew heavy.

Slowly, gently, his body leaned forward as he began to spiral into drowsiness until a bright light demanded he rouse.

The blinding flash forced him to squint his cracked eyes into its jarring glare, but as James saw what had caused the sudden flash, he drew in a silent gasp.

There, in the middle of that brilliant light stood a woman, with vibrant, red hair, and piercing, dark eyes.

As James furrowed his brow at her, she held his gaze unblinking while a smile of kindness and strength boldly danced across her lips.

James's heart raced while he followed the instructions listed on the book's page to identify exactly where in the genome he had finally found his target.

After he ended his spell, he crawled into bed with a smile and a sigh of victory,

It was done, it was settled.

He would never win against Mae, but their future sister certainly would.