Chapter Text
Hannibal stirred, something within him tense like a coiled snake waiting to strike. Yet, the sensation was not one of power that he was familiar with- rather, that he was the prey, frozen in the gaze of a snake, petrified for if moving would only stir the predator to strike.
Before he opened his eyes, he could hear the steady breathing of his mate next to him. His right arm, dominant and the hand that could deliver a heavier strike, was resting over the growing swell of sweet William’s stomach.
The soft rising and falling of his stomach assured Hannibal that his mate was not the one causing such sensations of his instincts.
Expanding his senses to his nose, he could smell the new fawn within his room, having somehow crept past him, to the deepest part of his den.
Two predators of their own caliber waited for the other to move.
Caught up in the sensation of another predator outside his bed, Hannibal didn’t notice Will’s change in breath.
Such sudden movement from stillness brought a cacophony of sounds. Tom moved forward towards the bed with a viper quick movement that Hannibal met with his own speed, catching the hand that reached for William’s womb.
The size of his hand dwarfed Tom’s slight wrist, squeezing with enough pressure that his fawn dropped the knife with a gasp, his knee buckling to the floor as Hannibal twisted the bones and ligaments into submission.
In response, Tom’s magic began to reach up from his flesh, the black specks of his magic beginning to rip himself apart as he panicked under Hannibal’s strength.
Distracted by his fawn, Hannibal did not notice the waking of his mate; who rather than continue to attack Tom, reached a hooked elbow around Hannibal’s throat, pinning him to the bed with his grip and vibrant blue eyes, impossible to tear away from, completely hypnotic.
“Freeze,” he growled, the word pulled from his subconscious days as a police officer.
Blue frozen eyes pinned Hannibal to the bed, his nerves seizing in his body, stiff as a board. His body felt like it had been plunged in a river of ice- unfit to move lest he snap a piece of his body in half. Hannibal could do nothing as Tom pulled his arm out of his frozen grip.
Forced to watch in stillness at whatever spell his mate put him over, Hannibal witnessed Will’s gaze move to Tom, on the ground, his body petrified that he’d been caught.
This was a new development for Tom; of the two adults, it was Will that Tom deferred more towards, that he first learned to trust. Still bound under Will’s spell, he was only able to witness the withering look that his mate sent Tom’s way, the boy’s eyes shimmering with tears as he held his breath for judgement.
“Go to your room and stay there,” Will said.
Hannibal witnessed Tom’s body become stiff and puppet-like, walking on strings, Tom moved by the command of Will’s magic, stiff legs walking out of the room leaving fear and panic behind.
The door to their bedroom opened, Hannibal could hear Tom’s door open down the hall and click shut.
Will sighed as he sat up from the bed, a hand rubbing over the swell of his stomach.
“You can’t kill him,” Will said, chuckling darkly to the echoing void that surrounded their bedroom. Will shook his head, his smile oddly joyful for nearly being stabbed in his sleep. “We should have expected this,” Will said, seeming to speak more to himself and the life he was growing.
Hannibal would say otherwise if his mate hadn’t hypnotized him.
“Hannibal,” Will said, moving to lean against his body, spreading warmth along the frozen muscles of his body. He could make no facial expression other than the one glued to his face- not even his feathers capable of bursting through the seams of his flesh. “Why does a child fear their mother giving birth?”
Through his fear and rage, Hannibal knew the answer. While he did not make it a practice of mending the minds of children, knowing himself well enough that he would slaughter those that dare hurt precious young to a pattern leading the FBI to his practice. All the same, Hannibal learned of the taboo of their minds.
The chronic, lingering terror of a child’s mother being lost to the life of a babe during birth.
Children had mixed reactions to news of a new life. Many times, they grew angry that would foster a placating nature of the parent and the child’s regressive sense of codependency to reestablish themselves in the heart of a parent before a new sibling was born.
“Harry needed a shield,” Will said, his gaze boring into Hannibal’s eyes, the ice of his glare cutting into his body to the point his feathers began to peek over his bare chest. Will hummed as his fingers stroked the black ends, feathers reaching to meet his flesh on instinct.
Having been a tool for so long of his life, Harry’s body was burnt out, exhausted of resources and depleted of energy. His physical form and mental state needed time to heal before it could grow new roots.
As the Boy Who Lived, Harry was expected to be the flaming sword of Michael, combatting the darkness with his own light, at the expense of burning himself out to save the world. Hannibal would prevent that with every measure. He would kill anyone who dared try to harm his fawn, the Husk, Verger, even if it meant dying himself- he would be Harry’s shield.
“Tom needs a blanket,” Will whispered, a heavy hand resting over his breastbone, pushing until he felt pressure pushing against his lungs. “He’s been abandoned, alone, and finally has a family he can connect too.”
Will put a hand over his stomach.
“He doesn’t want to lose that. To lose us, Hannibal.”
Will’s fingers turned blank, sharp enough to push through his night shift and leave behind slight welts of blood over his breastbone.
In rare cases, children would become violent upon seeing a new sibling. Another child would take away resources and, more importantly in the case of Tom, valuable time that was once lost. These children were often ones that had once been cast off or abandoned; when they found themselves wrapped in the embrace of a new family- nothing could compromise that.
“It doesn’t take a psychiatrist to know Tom has a deeper trigger than this,” he said, removing his hand from his chest to rest over his womb.
Hannibal, frozen in the bed, was forced to confront the logic of Tom’s actions.
“ You,” Will said, pinning him with the same magical gaze. “Need to reassure him of his place here. That this new fawn will not replace him.” Will’s violently gentle hand carded through Hannibal’s hair. “That he is not responsible for his past sins.”
Will gazed into the depths of Hannibal’s eyes, seeing the man, the creature, without his walls or carefully tailored person suit. With blue eyes, he could cut through Hannibal’s defenses and find himself walking without hindrance in the man’s extensive mind palace. He smiled at Hannibal, like an angel over a person waiting for death’s kiss.
William Graham, his beautiful, monstrous, angel of mercy...
His hypnotic spell broke when their lips connected, Hannibal breaking his arm out of the magical jacket to wrap his fingers in his mate’s curls, seizing the opportunity of his open mouth to feed his hunger. His hand went to the swell of his stomach, quaking with relief that he and the fawn were both safe.
When he broke away from Will, it was only as far as their foreheads were touching.
“Go,” Will said, a hand on his breastbone as he was pushed from the bed. “And be gentle with him.”
Hannibal found himself outside of Tom’s room, a measly piece of wood standing between the young Dark Lord and the Chesapeake Ripper. He raised his hand to the door, his knuckles rasping along the frame quietly to not disturb the peace of night. He received no word of acceptance or denial.
He pushed the door open to find Tom sitting on the edge of his bed, his spine hunched over in defeat, hair covering his face from expression. Hannibal saw his hands resting on his knees, fingers curled in a half open position, leaving him completely vulnerable and the language of defeat open to communication.
Hannibal stepped into the room and closed the door behind him with a click, watching as Tom gave a low sigh, resigning himself to his fate.
He did not even tense when Hannibal walked towards him, not lifting his gaze or gathering his magic, only accepting whatever fate the man decided for him.
Tom shifted in surprise when Hannibal sat down next to him rather than wrap his hands around his neck. Hannibal couldn’t help but feel his lips lift slightly with a smile to see his fawn so unsure of his place in the Herd, knowing it was years of abandonment that left him like this.
“I,” he startled, his fingers beginning to move with his anxiety. Hannibal could smell it picking up from Tom as he started to speak but made no gesture to stop his son. Tom shook his head, his breathing stalled as he tried to hold his panic within his chest.
Hannibal placed a warm and grounding hand on Tom’s back, immediately pleased to feel it rise to his palm as his fawn responded to the silent command to breathe.
“I- I-” he stuttered, his hand beginning to curl around his waist, a sign of dropping into a fetal position. This wound ran deep in the folds of Tom Riddle’s mind, laced into the psyche of his soul as he became more vulnerable, hovering over the edge of confession.
“Hush, fawn,” Hannibal said, leaning over to take Tom so he was leaning against his chest, able to feel the calm swelling breathing from Hannibal, to connect with his heartbeat as all children benefited from. So young, his hands gripped and released in a physical state of regression.
From their touch, Hannibal could feel the fabric on his nightshirt dampen with Tom’s tears, feel the hyperventilating of his breathing. Tom’s body was starting to shake as he felt the rope of control slipping from his grip.
“I killed her,” Tom wailed, his hand clutched to his chest. Hannibal continued to hush his fawn, rocking him side to side as a lifetime trigger exposed itself within the darkness of their home. Hannibal rested his chin over Tom’s hair, scenting his distress.
“Killed who?” Hannibal asked, knowing the answer, needing his fawn to acknowledge the truth to heal the wound.
Tom shook his head against his chest, a new wave of tears bursting from behind his eyes as he denied the truth. Hannibal moved his hand higher up his spine to where his neck revealed a speckling of feathers, tying themselves together as a Herd; Alpha to fawn. He rubbed them softly, resigning himself to approach, as his mate ordered, gently.
“Killed who, Tom?”
Tom growled, the truth forced to remain behind his teeth. A lifetime ago, Tom had slaughtered his paternal family. The bones of his grandmother and grandfather helped build the structure of the ritual potion, the large femur Will collected from the grave of Tom’s father adding another generation of DNA to the potion. Will described the bodies were perfectly intact, no signs of a struggle other than the peaceful exhale of the Killing Curse.
Hannibal reached behind Tom’s neck, grabbing at the black feathers that were rising along his spine as he cried, the need to regress to a simpler animal rather than face the trauma of man would only make this injury worse. He scruffed his fawn, pulling a surprised cry from Tom’s lips rather than one of pain, his hand clenched only hard enough for the pain to ground him.
“Killed who?” he asked.
Scruffed, vulnerable, in the presence of an Alpha Ravenstag, Tom closed his eyes as he confessed with nothing more than a broken whisper:
“My mother.”
Hannibal changed his grip immediately at his fawn’s confession, releasing the scruffed feathers to embrace his fawn completely, resuming the gentle rocking that would soothe him as it would any baby, humming softly to fill the room with noise beyond his aborted breathing.
“I can’t,” he said, Hannibal feeling the charge of electricity prickle the air. “I can’t be alone again. I can’t-”
Before his fawn could panic and launch his magic around the room, Hannibal tipped them over so they were laying on the bed. The inverted movement stunned Tom for long enough that his obscural magic receded back into his body. Hannibal brought his feathers to his own flesh, feeling Tom’s brushing feathers pull at his own, making him wince at the pain at which Tom’s feathers dragged Hannibal’s together.
With their feathers conjoined, Tom began to finally unravel, his anxiety and panic submitting to Hannibal’s calming methods.
As Tom relaxed, the numbness of his mind kept away by the instinctive bonding between a Ravenstag and his fawn, Hannibal thought about the heart of Tom’s confession- that he could not be alone.
Buried under the action of trying to kill the life in Will’s womb was a desperate need to be seen; to have the total attention and affection of a parent. Childbirth was dangerous, even by today’s medical and magical standards, the human body did not always cooperate when birthing another, endless complications for both mother and babe could rise at any moment, swiftly changing the energy of the room from one of welcome to one of great burden.
From his time in Hopkins, when Hannibal was in the thick of his rotations, he was assisting a team of doctors and nurses to help a woman deliver her son. The umbilical cord was wrapped around the baby’s neck, cutting the oxygen from the baby even as the mother tried to push him out. Too far in the birth canal for a cesarean, the team was forced to find a way to drag the child out without killing either of them.
The mother must have seen something in Hannibal’s eyes as he thought of tearing her in two to pull the baby from her womb. She grabbed his arm, her blood pressure having long dropped, a cold sweat over her eyes.
“Save him,” she ordered, teeth clenched in a pained growl that Hannibal found he could admire.
They did. With Hannibal assisting, they saved the child, healthy cries covering the sound of a flat lined patient. As Hannibal cleaned the blood that dripped in the room, her body removed and placed in the morgue as her child was placed in the father’s shocked arms, Hannibal wondered if that child would ever feel guilty for killing his mother.
Tom’s reaction was clear that he did.
Hannibal ran his fingers over Tom’s hair, threading between a mix of feather stalks and strands of hair.
“I am equipped with years of medical knowledge beyond the magical community, fawn,” Hannibal said, his hushed tone breaking the silence. “I spent years in muggle hospitals. While it was not my passion, I studied it relentlessly on the chance I would find a mate and bring life into this world.”
Tom was a magpie- one that collected powerful magical artifacts and horded them with the ferocity of a dragon.
“The fawn is increasing Will’s own magical ability,” Hannibal said, still passing his hand over Tom’s head as if he could rake the toxic thoughts from the folds of his brain. “He was able to use the imperius curse from the dead of sleep.”
Tom gave a wet chuckle, sniffling as he buried his head deeper into Hannibal’s chest in comfort.
With enough obsessive need to protect Will that it led to Tom wanting to cut the fetus from his womb, Hannibal could tie the obsessive thoughts to his unborn fawn. Tom collected magically powerful things, either from his affinity as a Dark Lord recognizing power or his scavenging roots, Hannibal could manipulate his fawn into protecting the Herd.
No matter the cost of other’s lives.
Hannibal lowered his face near Tom’s ear, sensing his fawn was listening to his words, that his magic was eager to be forgiven for attempting something horrible.
“The fawn and Will are working together, their magic finding synergy,” he said, pulling on the same words that Harry used to describe his and Tom’s nature. Tom’s fingers tightened against his chest marginally, hearing Hannibal’s words. “As much as Will is protecting and growing the fawn, the child is doing the same, giving magic to Will- enough power to stop even you.”
Tom gasped without sound, Hannibal only able to feel the hitch in his breath. As his fawn put together the strings of Hannibal’s web, he relaxed completely against the man for the first time- the battle having ended now.
“Why am I such a monster?” Tom whispered, warm tears growing on Hannibal’s nightshirt. He did not change his comforting patterns, stroking his hair, humming and hushing his fawn.
“Dear fawn,” he whispered, continuing to groom him. “You cannot ask the butterfly to return to a pupae once it has emerged from the chrysalis. Only relish in the beauty of triumph through pain.”
Many of Hannibal’s patients entered his office with the thought they could revert back to their livelihood and patterns before the trauma they endured. It was the role of any therapist to allow their patient to understand it wasn’t about going back, but moving on with the scar of a once held burden.
Humans were the same, muggle or magical, it did not matter the nature/nurture argument- all humans wanted to connect, to be seen, and like every member in the house, they would kill to have that.
“You’ll be a big brother,” Hannibal said, sweetly tying another knot between his fawn and the unborn one. Tom’s magic fluttered along his feathers, warming the ones that connected to Hannibal as he clearly liked the thought. “Watch the fawn grow, teach them,” he said, remembering the old curse laid over the defense position of Hogwarts from the very fawn in his arms.
Tom’s feather’s fluttered with anticipation on his head. He shifted in Hannibal’s embrace, his body stiff as he looked up.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his eyes red rimmed, tear tracks like a network along his cheeks and chin. Hannibal hushed him, brushing the evidence of his tears with his thumb, knowing that Tom’s words were genuine as the pleading in his eyes was authentic.
Tom lifted his head to the door. He looked back at Hannibal as he went to sit up.
“I’m sorry,” he whispered again, wiggling to be let free. Hannibal released his fawn, following after him where he threw open his bedroom door and stumbled into the hallway. Hannibal witnessed from the threshold of his bedroom door as Tom ran to Will, wrapping his arms around the man completely, a new set of cries muffled in his chest.
“I’m sorry,” he said, his feathers breaking through parts of his shirt as his feathers reached for Will’s, forcing them from his own skin as he beckoned them to connect. “I’m sorry, mother,” he said.
Only to gasp, a vision of his magic pulling from his flesh as he recognized the word that slipped from his mouth, awaiting violent rejection like he had in a past life.
“Stop,” Will commanded, freezing Tom’s magic where it was hovering an inch from his flesh. Will weaved his hands around Tom, their feathers connecting as Will brought Tom into the bed. Hannibal smiled, walking to his side of the mattress as the three squeezed together.
Much like the first night after recovering Harry from the Verger Estate, Tom was regressing, his mental state battling against a lifetime of festered injuries. The closeness to the Herd would be a soothing balm to his mind, magic and soul while further tying Tom to the fawn as they slept in the nest as humans.
“It will be your job to protect her,” Will whispered, the three of them pushed together with feathers meshing against skin. Tom’s eyes were heavy, his panic having sapped energy from whatever reserves his soul had. He hummed, his hand resting over Will’s stomach.
“Her?” he heard his father whisper from behind him, moving closer to his mother in the nest of blankets that bid away any cold that dared seep in.
Her...a sister...Tom felt his hand was covered by Hannibal's, his warmer fingers reaching between the cracks of Tom’s to touch...to touch her.
“Call it mother’s intuition,” his mother said above them, sharing a moment with Hannibal as Tom felt his own magic extending down his arm, fizzing and popping within his bones as he gently wrapped it over Will’s...of her…
To protect her against every leeching darkness of humanity.
“Even from myself.”
This, Tom swore.