Archive of Our Own ^beta

Narcissa Black has liked Tom Riddle before she can even remember liking him.

Who wouldn’t like the him, really? The man was perfect in every way except maybe his blood. But that didn’t matter, that was what all the Slytherin witches told themselves. It didn’t matter because everything else made up for the fact that he was a mudbl—Narcissa cleared her throat—a muggleborn, she corrected herself.

Narcissa supposed she could blame Sirius for what she was about to do.

Her cousin, the only Black ever sorted to Gryffindor had grinned at her—the usual warm grin that was uncommon to any Black descendant—eyes alight with mischief with the knowledge of Narcissa’s forbidden crush—and egged her on, teased her and encouraged her both, his casual familial treatment of Narcissa reminding her of why Sirius was secretly liked by her sister and their other cousins even though they would never admit it and treated him like the elders did. He was free, he could be himself, and all because he was brave enough to be sorted into Gryffindor.

Brave and stubborn as fuck, that was the Gryffindor motto, right?

“They’re not going to disown you, you know,” Sirius winked at her, comfortable in the knowledge that even when he was sorted into the wrong house, he still enjoyed the comforts of their house. “Aunt and Uncle love you.”

Narcissa highly doubted that.

“But—“

“C’mon, Cissy,” Sirius shook her shoulders. “Are you going to be like Bella, a no-fun Black through and through? Are you going to be perfect forever?” Sirius wiggled his eyebrows at her. “You know if you married another pureblood you’d have less freedom. Do it now while you can.”

It was true. If Narcissa married, there’d even be more expectation of her to behave properly. These were the years they were allowed to make some mistakes. Not everyone can be Bellatrix Black.

“I’ll talk to him,” Narcissa whispered quietly, more for herself than for her cousin. She will talk to Tom Riddle.

I mean, there’s no harm in that, right?

It turns out, Narcissa planned on doing more than talk to Tom Riddle, if the chocolates and letter—she refused to call it love letter—she was carrying was any indication.

Tom was surrounded by his friends, Rudolph Lestrange and Lucius Malfoy. Narcissa knew the boys to be bullies, but they wouldn’t dare do anything to her. She was Bellatrix’s sister, if they tried so much as touch her, they would be at the receiving end of Bellatrix Black’s infamous nasty hexes.

So she breathed in deep and gathered her courage.

She took a step forward to where they were seated at the Slytherin table, and then immediately stopped when a vision of red and gold blocked her line of sight. She frowned.

Blood traitor was the first thing that entered her mind.

It was the Potter heir, a smile at his lips that did not reach his eyes. There was something in his green eyes that Narcissa recognized she saw in her great aunt Wilburga’s eyes when she was about to do something cruel.

“Narcissa, right?” The Potter heir says, words clear and firm, articulated with a finesse that only came from being a pureblood. He looked down at what Narcissa was carrying. “I wouldn’t do that if I were you,” the smile in his face became wider, friendlier even, but the gleam in his eyes were harder too. “Your Slytherin prince doesn’t like chocolates.”

The Potter heir began to walk away but stopped and looked back at Narcissa, as if an additional thought just crossed his mind. Again, that smile. “He doesn’t like blondes too.” And Narcissa does not know if the smirk he saw at the Potter’s lips were real or not.

They were in the secluded parts of the library, in the restricted section where only they had access.

Tom was leaning against the wall, arms crossed; Harry was sitting on the table, one leg on top of the other.

“I don’t like you coming to the Slytherin table,” Tom says, command laced his words, a natural born leader that even his Slytherin classmates couldn’t help but obey him.

“And if I want to?” Harry looks straight ahead, not really looking at anything in particular, his face emotionless—a trait prized among many pureblood families. And though Harry was a half-blood, he was exceptional in it as though one muggleborn was not enough to sully the Potter blood that ran in his veins.

Then you’ll be raped sooner or later, but Tom didn’t say it, he instead said, “You’re a Gryffindor.”

“And we’re friends, aren’t we?”

Weren’t they? Tom didn’t answer. Harry jumps off the table, graceful as a cat. He walks towards Tom. Tom has always been tall. Harry looks up at him. “Why can’t we just let them know?” Harry often phrased it like that, suggestive. Cruel. Like they were always something more than what they were.

He was a Dark Lord and Harry was a Potter—the very reason for the Death Eaters’ existence. Tom saw the way his followers looked at Harry like a forbidden fruit—the lust in their eyes, the lewd fantasies they had, how they’d force his legs apart and fuck him until he was broken.

“I can handle a few Slytherins,” Harry says as though he knew the extent of their hatred for him was. “And they can’t do anything to me.” Harry looks at him through his eyelashes, green eyes big and almost coy. “You’ll protect me, won’t you, Alpha?” The omega whispers in his ear.

Tom would mutilate anyone who would dare touch Harry, torture them and skin them alive. Offer them unto Harry’s feet.

“We have to go,” Tom sidesteps both the conversation and Harry. “We’ll be late for class.” He starts walking away from the omega.

Harry watches Tom walk out of the restricted section.

The only reason he was in the Slytherin area was because he saw the Black heiress clutching those stupid chocolates and a letter, looking determinedly at Tom.

He couldn’t just stand and watch.

He waits a little while longer before stepping out.

It was because he was the Gryffindor’s golden boy, Dumbledore’s favorite and Tom was the sneakiest snake in Slytherin, adored by everyone including his Head of the House, Horace Slughorn. House bias was at large and both of them had reputations to protect.

They met here, Harry had been browsing some of the darker books, when Tom caught him. Not really caught him, but saw him. Harry had pretended nonchalance. He always had darker inclinations. Light magic was expected of him, but dark magic called to him. The sorting hat would have put him in Slytherin if he hadn’t insisted on Gryffindor. Harry still finds himself questioning if he’d made the right decision, if it was worth it.

There was a pause before the Slytherin moved, browsing at his own leisure. He didn’t say anything, but he took out a book, and then he sat at the only table in the room.

Harry pretended to browse some more, moving into the lighter books, running his hands slowly on the books’ spines.

“Read what you like.” The Slytherin drawled, his deep alpha voice making Harry stop what he was doing at once. Harry almost retaliated snarkily, his Gryffindor boldness wanting to make itself known in words.

But if he pretended now, he’d be pretending all his life.

And it looked like the alpha was a reader, and was here all the time.

So he took one of the Dark Arts books he’d been wanting to read. He takes a seat a few chairs away from the Slytherin and surreptitiously eyes what he was reading. Hm. A Light book. Funny that, they were reading something unexpected of them. Then he looked at the alpha’s face.

He didn’t know how long he stared.

Harry looked down on his book and began reading.

They sat in silence until it was curfew time.

They met again.

Harry had no strict schedule of when he would go to the restricted area. Between Quidditch and his prefect duties, he’d only come when he could. But that always seemed to coincide to when the alpha was also there.

Harry had become bolder, choosing the real dark magic materials he wanted to read. The alpha was always too engrossed in his own reading to notice. And why would he care?

Every time they sat in silence.

Until one day, they didn't.

Tom was taking out a book that Harry’s read in the past. Before he could stop himself—“That book holds the same information as the one you read last week.”

Last week. Those were three meetings ago. Harry wills himself not to blush. He had been interested in what the Slytherin was reading and keeping a track of the titles before he began reading his own.

The alpha lifts an eyebrow up.

“We have that book at home,” Harry defends himself, crossing his arms, and standing taller.

“That’s not really dark,” Tom says in turn, gesturing towards the book Harry was holding. He walks towards Harry slowly until they were mere inches apart. Gryffindor boldness planted Harry’s feet hard in the ground. The alpha reached up to the bookshelf behind him, not breaking eye contact, and gives him a book. “You’ll find this more up to your taste.”

That conversation broke the ice.

That conversation gave Harry the courage to sate his curiosity. “Why do you only read Light books?” Harry thought the alpha wouldn’t answer.

“I have already read all the dark magic resources.” He didn’t look up from his book but his answer made Harry braver.

“How Slytherin of you.” Harry says, a smirk at his lips. Typical.

The alpha finally looks up from his book, his eyes meeting Harry’s. “I could say the same thing about you.”

It was true. Harry has only been reading the Dark reading materials since he got access to the restricted section, so he smile prettily at the alpha. “I won’t tell anyone if you don’t.”

It was the low chuckle the alpha gave him that got Harry in the end.

He’d do anything to hear that sound again and again.

As their relationship progressed, Harry saw more and more of Tom outside the library. Not intentionally. But they seemed to see more of each other everywhere—the Great Hall, Hogsmead, the halls, the moving staircases—when they didn’t before.

Tom hadn’t given a sign of acknowledgement and Harry ignored the Slytherin.

But they were different creatures in the library.

It had become theirs.

They were the only students who had access to it. They were always alone. It would have been rather inappropriate if someone found out. An alpha and an omega, alone together—where no one ever comes, where it would be so easy—a silencing spell here, and a few minutes were all they needed.

They’ve come a long way from that now, Harry thinks as he continues to watch Tom’s retreating back.

Harry wanted more than those low laughs.

Tom watches the Potter heir in the Gryffindor table, laughing brightly at something the Longbottom heir said. Neville was an alpha. It was a pity he was not more handsome. You would not have known it though, by the way Harry was looking at him as though he was the funniest thing in the world.

Shouldn’t an omega exercise more restraint? It was improper, for their arms to be touching.

You’ve done more than that… a voice in his mind says.

It was hard to hold back when the omega looked like he did. An innocent little thing, reading the darkest books there were in existence, looking entirely enthralled by what he was reading. And sitting so closely to Tom, trusting the alpha when he looked so vulnerable, so defenseless.

But those little touches were entirely unintentional, educational, even. They were scholars engaging in higher conversation.

Tom stands. Professor Sprout was due for a visit.

“Neville told me the oddest story today,” Harry said turning the page on his book, waiting for the alpha to look at him.

“Hm,” the alpha hums but doesn’t make any other sound. Harry sneaks a look but the Slytherin looked uninterested.

“Someone visited him in the greenhouse. You know no one ever goes in there. Nobody likes Herbology.” Harry waits for Tom to say something. The alpha’s only response was to turn a page. “It was a Slytherin,” Harry paused. “Said Neville looked good with Luna Lovegood.”

The Slytherin makes a small resigned sound. “And you’re telling me this because…?” Tom quirks an eyebrow up in the air, finally taking his eyes off the book he was reading and looking at Harry.

“The strangest thing was,” Harry leans forward, voice turning conspiratorial. “Neville didn’t know the Slytherin, never even talked to him before.” Harry lifts his glasses, never breaking eye contact. “I was just wondering if you knew who among your serpents that was.”

“I would never debase myself to listen to common gossip,” Tom replies, face unreadable.

It was so much more delicious because Harry knew the truth. His six foot tall alpha was lying through his teeth to him—an omega.

“You’re adorable,” Harry says unable to keep the smile from his face.

“What?” The alpha’s tone was murderous.

“Don’t worry, alpha.” Harry purrs, looking at Tom coyly. “I’m not interested in Neville in any way.”

It never crossed Harry’s mind that Tom was older than him by a year.

The man has become a constant in his life, that Harry was surprised to find out that the man was graduating soon.

Harry had coyly varied his visits, coming without a schedule, sometimes staying as long as the alpha did, sometimes leaving a few minutes after he arrived. But Harry had lost all of that control when he found out that Tom did in fact come to the library everyday.

Now that was about to vanish as though it never happened.

Harry and Tom didn’t even talk outside of here.

It would be worse when he graduated, their chances of meeting slimming down to almost zero, their chances of talking going down to exactly zero.

The alpha enters the room now, looking like he always did. Confident. Secure. Unfazed.

It would be so easy, Harry thought. It would be so easy, no one was around. No one ever came. Harry could stop taking his suppressants, keep coming here. Keep coming to the alpha until it wore off. Tom wouldn’t be able to resist. Harry could never tempt the man, but he could tempt the alpha.

One shot was all he needed. One day. One heat. Just a knot and then a bite.

It would be so easy.

“You are uneasy,” The alpha announces as he scans the books in the bookshelf. It wasn’t a question. It was a declaration. He doesn’t talk again, but there’s a pause that suggests an elaboration from Harry.

“I am not—“ The denial comes fast. But something stops Harry. They’ve always danced around each other. No one spoke outright. But what good would it do now for Harry to play it safe? He squares his shoulders. He was a Gryffindor. “You are graduating soon."

“Indeed,” the man says, scanning a book. Did the man not get it? Did he really not hold the omega to some regard?

“We-we-“ Harry falters. “Congratulations,” he said instead. “Highest marks given in Hogwart’s history to a Slytherin.” The smirk is forced, the teasing in his eyes unreal. “The Ravenclaws will be livid.”

We are never going to see each other anymore. That’s what he wanted to say. He wanted to demand the alpha to take responsibility. Harry knew it was Tom who talked to Neville. Did Harry misread?

“Mmm,” the Slytherin hums noncommittally, waving his hand in a dismissive gesture. “You should expect nothing less.” The arrogant smirk that follows makes Harry’s heart skip a beat.

Harry returns it, not knowing what else to do.

Tom supposed it would have been easy.

He was physically stronger, faster. He could force the omega against the bookshelf, the table, and if he fought, it only took a spell. Tom just needed to knot inside him. A bite. Then it would be done. Sealed. Permanent. Stronger than magic. No man or god could separate them.

The omega would not be able to deny him after the bite.

He would not find it in his instinct to hate him. He’d be dependent on the alpha, aching for him in the most carnal ways, and Tom would not forsake the boy what his body wanted. And the omega would not be able to deny him either. Whenever Tom demanded it, Harry would only be obediently spreading his legs.

No one ever need know.

And Harry was an orphan. There would be no explaining to anyone, except an aunt who would be glad to get rid of him.

The omega is distracted, Tom immediately observes as he enters. It was one of those rare moments, when emotion showed at the omega’s face. He was often hard to read, all socialite smiles and manners, teasing and flattery, the awareness of his good looks and the complete belief that anyone would be affected by it.

“You are uneasy,” he remarks, hoping the omega would indulge him as to why. The omega’s reply comes hot and fast, Gryffindor temper preparing to strike. But Harry holds back. A sudden shift. The worry becomes clearer. His next words are something the alpha does not expect.

“You are graduating soon,” Tom surreptitiously looks at Harry’s expression. There was expectation in his face.

“Indeed,” Tom intones. He was, which was why he considered taking the omega here and now.

“We-we-” Harry stutters and its a first. Tom really looks at him now. His eyes wanted something from Tom. Hesitation. He backpedals. “Congratulations.” He says. Then the Harry he knows and everyone else knows comes back to him. He teases. Tom mirrors him.

Now, more than ever, he was tempted.

It was quiet without Tom.

In truth, it was also quiet with Tom.

But the quiet feels empty now. Harry reads, alone, in his seventh year.

Their last day was ordinary. No one alluded to the fact that they were not going to see each other anymore. Tom only read, didn’t try to start a conversation. Harry was too nervous and too troubled to speak, could barely process a sentence, trying hard not make his hands tremble as he turned the pages.

Then Harry watched Tom’s retreating back for the last time. Even in their final moments, they could not walk out of the library together.

It was also a quiet year at Hogwarts.

No giggling from the halls as the Slytherin walks by, house points rarely even given to Slytherin anymore, and… no letters. There would be no letters. Why would there be letters? They did not even converse outside the library. The man had no obligations to give him letters.

It felt like a blur, routinary. Harry did things mechanically, mind always blank.

There were no extraordinary events. Classes were normal. Students were behaved. There were no scandals. Nothing out of the blue.

This boring normalcy continued until there where whispers about a rising Dark Lord.

“Lord Voldemort…” they would whisper amongst each other.

“Killed three muggles…”

“Blood prejudice…”

Everyone started talking in hushed tones; there were still no reports about him in the Prophet. Others said the government was in denial. Others said the man was nothing but an exaggerated rumor. A Dark Lord just a few years after Grindelwald? No one would dare. Not when Albus Dumbledore was still alive, still fresh from his victory against the last Dark Lord. The Slytherins were oddly quiet.

Harry did not care.

The courting gifts and some letters started to come when Harry was about to graduate. It was the time for it. Purebloods were engaged and married at their age. Harry rejected them all kindly, smiling at them, and telling them that his mind was not yet for marriage.

Then, there is fresh gossip. Excited giggling from girls and omegas. Tom Riddle is officially hired in the ministry.

Harry cannot take the ache, and he caves.

He writes a letter.

It was Harry’s elegant scrawl, perfect and unhurried.

The content was undoubtedly Harry as well. Tom can almost see his face and hear his voice when he read it.

“I am graduating top of my class.” is the first line. Tom feels the sides of lip quirk up. “Congratulate me.” Was the second. An order. The spoiled little brat would be haughtily raising an eyebrow up, goading him, a self-important smirk on his lips.

Tom would have denied him and dismissed his abysmal grades nowhere anywhere near Tom’s final average. The omega would scoff and loudly bang his book on the table, muttering the whole time they read.

The letter ends there. There was no sign, as if he expected the alpha to know.

The temptation comes back, full force. The omega was of marrying age. There would be courting gifts, proposals… and Tom would not be there. The thought alone made Tom want to come back and do what he should have done a year ago.

The same thing stops him.

He was a Dark Lord. He had no need of Harry—an omega, a blood traitor, a Potter, a Gryffindor.

Yet one spell was all it took. He could have the boy as a slave to Tom’s every whim, corrupt him in all ways that he needed to be corrupted, see him totally submissive…

Tom burns the letter.

There were more important things to do.

The rumors are worse.

Death Eaters attacked a muggle town, leaving nothing but burned bones and houses. A terrorist group, the Prophet claims… but everyone knew it was him. The Dark Lord. Lord Voldemort.

Harry knows every spell he’s read. He knows the dark curses by heart. He hasn’t tried them all, but those barely safe enough for the ministry not question him… The rumor sparks something in him. He does not shake off the feeling; he does not dwell on it either. He knows.

It would not matter. The Wizengamot seat of the Potters were his now. He was of legal age. He would get his answers. The man would not be able to avoid Harry forever. He must have known that.

He dressed in best robes, expensively made from the best tailor in Diagon Alley. Harry does not spare an expense. It would be a reminder to him, a slap in the face; this heir was going to lord his superior birth.

He marches right into the ministry, wearing the Potter emblem in his chest, an heir ring in his finger like a second guarantee if the first was not enough. Everyone stares and they should—he was beautiful, he always has been. But today, he was especially unforgiving. He did not care to downplay his lineage, nor his beauty. His nose was up in the air and his walk was confident.

He charms the secretary in letting him squeeze in without an appointment. Lesser lords could wait. He was a Potter.

Harry does not dally and enters the office without knocking or announcement. He was too angry and impatient to care.

And there his alpha was, handsome as ever, completely unsurprised, as if this was expected, as if they planned on meeting.

“Harry,” Tom greets, nods his head, and motions for the omega to sit. He does not even stand.

Harry, offended, sits in all his elegance. “You did not write back.” He says without preamble, face devoid of emotion, tone heavy.

“I am a busy man,” The alpha says in casual dismissal. Harry does not plan to back down, or to be humiliated.

“I’m a Potter,” he informs Tom as if this were news. “I could demand your time. I’m a Wizengamot member.” The insinuation is clear: Harry could use his power to have Tom close to him. Wizengamot members were expected to collaborate closely with key members of the ministry.

“You do not need to, Mr. Potter,” the alpha says smoothly, a charming smile in his face. It’s been a long time since Harry saw it. “I will do anything for you.” How cruel. How easy it is for the alpha to do this to him, as if he has never been affronted, as if the man had no faults against him.

He switches tactics.

“What do you think about Lord Voldemort?” He asks, sounding genuinely curious, blinking his eyes innocently. The alpha looks at him in the eye. He does not miss a beat.

“A silly rumor.”

Harry hums. “He used that spell on that little town.” A trap. Harry didn’t have to mention which spell. They’ve discussed it briefly once before.

“Yes,” Tom agrees. “He did.”

“You think him real then.” He looks for something in Tom. He feels it in his gut but he needed the affirmation. He opens his mouth to speak again but Tom holds his arm, his eyes dark, his grip hurting. Harry flinches and the next thing he knows is they are in a different place, a house. No, it was too grand to be house. It was a manor.

“You think I am him,” Tom accuses.

“Yes,” Harry does not deny it. “I do not think, I know.”

The alpha does not talk but stares at him. Harry does not fidget under the stare. He’s been under it many times. And there was a determination in him now that would not surrender.

“You admit it then?” Harry asks as if this was trivial matter. He lifts his chin stubbornly. “You are the Dark Lord?”

The alpha looks at him. Harry stares right back, steeling himself from the alpha’s judgement.

The air around the alpha suddenly becomes more sinister, menacing. Harry has never felt this kind of dark power from Tom before. “I am Lord Voldemort,” he proclaims.

Something in Harry stirs, the same feeling he gets when he tries a dark spell, and it all but makes his magic purr.

The alpha was looking at him as though the simple admission was the end of it all. What they had for each other, whatever it was, impossible, because he was a Dark Lord.

Harry was tempted to laugh right at his face.

“Is that it?” Harry asks, unimpressed. Did the man think that their friendship, the relationship they built all those days in Hogwarts didn’t mean anything to Harry? “Then I’ll be your follower,” He says, voice determined, like it was that easy, like it was a natural thing to do. “I’ll join the Death Eaters. I’ll fight for you. We both know I’m a Dark wizard, Tom. I’ve never been light.”

There’s a pause as they both look at each other. It has grown darker, colder. Tom was not holding back any of his power now. His aura was unmistakably dark.

Harry wanted to drown in it.

“No,” Tom says. Harry steps forward, face in a frown, a dozen arguments at the tip of his tongue. “You will not be my follower.”

Harry scoffs How could Tom deny him? Weren’t dark lord always recruiting? He has nothing but loyal to Tom since. He may be a Gryffindor and a Potter but he was Harry first. “Why no—“

“Be my consort,” Tom says, walking towards Harry. He stops right in front of Harry, so close that Harry could smell him. The omega in him wants, Harry wanted to go nearer, and without realizing he does, his eyes glazed. His hands lift up to try and touch something that has been forbidden from him for so long. The man speaks again. “Bear my children.” The alpha says, Harry not so far gone not to recognize the command that laced his words. Instantly, his knees buckle. Tom’s hands are fast, his arms around Harry in an instant, supporting all of his weight.

Their eyes are locked, Tom’s eyes full of dark promise. Harry’s mouth opens, his pupils dilate, and his neck bares itself in submission. The promise of being knotted, of being pregnant, his belly round with Tom’s heirs… He purrs, and that seems to be all the consent the alpha needed.

Harry was carried into a bedroom, pushed in a bed, could only process that the alpha was ripping his clothes away, biting hungrily his neck, Harry too far gone to notice the lewd high-pitched sounds he was making. Years of accumulated longing makes the alpha wild and rough, the omega open and submissive.

That night, Harry was throughly bred and mated, Tom unsatisfied until every inch of the omega was marked. The alpha had knotted him multiple times before allowing him to rest, and even then they were both greedy for more. Harry, through tears in his eyes, begged the alpha for his knot again and again though the omega could barely move. He could still spread his legs and that was enough.

Narcissa kneels beside her husband in respect to the Dark Lord. On his arm was his consort—the same omega who stopped her from confessing to Lord Voldemort—belly swelling proudly with the dark lord’s progeny. There was a glow to him that being newly mated and being pregnant gave him.

Narcissa was relieved to be saved from the embarrassment. What did it do to listen to Sirius, who was now defeated for choosing the wrong side? It has all worked out well. She was married to Lucius now, a Malfoy herself. There was mutual respect. Lucius was handsome in his own right, the Dark Lord’s second-in-command. Lucius welcomed her into to the dark side. The right side. The winning side.

Harry Potter-Riddle walked tall and proud like his husband, though he was at least a foot smaller, carefully seated in his own throne.

Their lord’s followers did not take too kindly into accepting a Gryffindor and a Potter into their ranks, let alone a worthy consort to their lord, but the omega displayed a terrifying power on his first mission that no one could deny. He had dominated their enemies, flying like a god in the air, leaving a trail of destruction behind him.

Everyone had stared, awed.

This was their lord’s consort. They wouldn’t have expected anyone less. The whole army fought with high spirits that night, drunk with their landslide victory even for weeks after.

And now, he was carrying their lord’s heir.

The succession was secure.

He was now within his eight months, womb proudly showing, breasts heavy with milk; his temper even more terrifying than their lord’s, his tongue and wit sharper than ever. The Dark Lord’s torture at least showed strength in agony. Walking proudly the next day, as if there was no trace of pain. But there was no recovering from their lady’s words. It took weeks before you could walk face held high again.

In truth no one knew at which receiving end they would prefer to be—their lord’s ire or his wife’s sharp tongue.