The Love Story of Harriet Potter and Tom Riddle

Chapter 58 - Friends

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!"