Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy!

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Tom looked up from his work as the door to the Minister's office creaked open.

"Hasn't anyone mentioned it's polite to knock, especially when you enter the Minister for Magic's office?" He asked as a wide smirk spread across his handsome face.

"I imagined being his wife would exempt me from that rule." Harriet chuckled as she closed the door behind her.

Tom was out of his seat and in front of her before she could approach him.

The delicious laugh that escaped her lips as he cupped her face and kissed her made him shudder with want.

"Ready to go home for the night?" Harriet asked once Tom reluctantly pulled away.

"I'm surprised you are." He quipped, "I usually have to drag you out of the office."

"Tonight's a different sort of night though." Harriet shrugged, "It isn't every day anymore that we have a family dinner."

Tom pressed one last, lingering kiss against his darling's lips before he offered her his arm, which she gladly took.

Together, the Minister for Magic and Head Auror apparated to their family home.

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Riddle Manor had been thrown into joyful chaos that evening.

Once every few months, the vast family managed to coordinate a time when everyone could gather at the estate and share a meal.

The servants grew to despise those occasions due to the sheer amount of work they demanded, but Harriet and Tom delighted in their family meals.

Both sets of triplets returned with their spouses and children for those events.

Harriet and Tom could barely hear the person they spoke with over the noise of so many chats, laughs, and babies' squeals, but the cacophony never bothered them.

By then, Merope had advanced in years, yet she always delighted in holding her youngest great-grandchild on her lap or in her arms, whoever it happened to be that year.

As Tom watched his second youngest son whisper a secret to his wife while they sat at the table that night, a fleeting memory from years gone past echoed in his mind.

"Pardon me for a moment." Tom nodded at Harriet and those seated closest to him while he stood from the table.

"Where are you going, Tom?" Harriet asked as her husband walked away.

"I'll return soon!" He called over his shoulder.

The stillness of the hallway seemed like an insulting reality compared with the franticness of the dining room.

Instead of solace in that quiet, Tom only found loneliness.

Desperate to enjoy his nostalgia and return to his family as soon as possible, he escorted himself down to the cellar deep below the impressive mansion.

He glanced over his shoulder once to ensure no one had dared to follow him before he shuffled a few items around and removed a dark, wooden box from behind a loose brick in the wall.

A pleased smile danced on his lips as he opened the box's lid and gazed at its contents.

Silently, secretly, Tom raised the bra and panties he had stolen from Harriet years ago to his face and inhaled deeply.

As he clutched his beloved's worn garments to his chest, his dark eyes rolled back in his head with the pleasure her lingering scent brought.

Their mating bond, the years they had spent together……

Tom Riddle would forever be obsessed with Harriet Potter.