53: December (seven months later)
Harry's hands were shaking as they hadn't in so many months. He brushed them against his dress robes again, smoothing them out, wanting them to be perfect. Severus always joked that he loved how ruffled Harry was, but Harry didn't want to look ruffled today. He heaved a deep breath, fortifying himself.
"Okay. Okay. Ok-"
"Okay there mate?" Ron interrupted his mantra. He stood in the doorway, smirking at Harry's obvious nervousness. He laughed as he walked up to put his hands on either of Harry's shoulders.
It still threw Harry when he saw Ron with a serious expression on his face. They were all so old now, and it was even more evident when they were dressed up, not looking like kids playing pretend anymore like they did in the days following the war.
"He's in love with you. He's crazy about you. He doesn't see anybody else when you walk in the room. Godric knows how you did it, mate, but Snape's wrapped around your little finger. You have nothing to be worried about."
Harry looked up into his best friend's clear blue eyes and felt his nerves vanish when confronted with the truth in Ron's words. Though the ginger still felt weird calling their former professor by his first name - and he was a far cry off from calling him Sev as Harry, Hermione, and Draco did - he had never wavered in his support for Harry. Exactly as he had said all those months ago.
"He loves me." Harry repeated, just to feel the words on his lips.
Ron grinned at him, "Merlin, you're both puppy dogs. Let's go. He might love you, but he's still an impatient bastard.
Harry didn't feel weird like he thought he would walking down an aisle. He didn't carry flowers. He didn't have the traditional wedding march of muggles. In fact, he kept very little muggle tradition, though he had a few muggle friends in the chairs.
The two aisles curved on either side of the sitting area, and Harry followed Draco who followed Hermione, while Severus walked down the adjoining aisle following Ron who followed Minerva. The mix of the wedding parties was specific to just them although the two aisles were wizard custom.
Harry turned with the bend and caught sight of Sev for the first time. His step faltered as his breath left him, and he grinned. This was everything he'd been waiting for since the very day Sev proposed. He would have been perfectly happy to elope that night, but he was glad now that Severus had pushed him to wait. With their small ceremony, all of their closest friends were there to join in this beginning with them, and the blanket of snow in the small church in Godric's Hollow made their sparse but beautiful silver, white, and grey decorations seem magical.
Fairy lights glittered from the archway where they met providing a soft ethereal glow. Severus smoothed a wrinkled in Harry's white robes while faintly smiling. It was in his eyes where his true happiness shined. They clasped hands, for once, neither of them shaking.
The ceremony was short, but honestly, Harry couldn't remember a word that was spoken. He knew he stated his memorized vows clearly, though never as elegantly as Severus, but it didn't matter if the day was a blur from his excitement. He'd gone with Hermione to buy the very best parchment and had painstakingly written his vows out in his best scrawl. It was framed and wrapped to give to Severus as a wedding present, to sit on their mantle with Severus' matching vows for decades to come.
Harry felt his breath leave him again. "You may kiss."
Cheers went up from their friends and family as they ran back down Severus' aisle, hands still clasped, under a rain of rice.
December:
"Tedster!" Severus picked the young boy up and swung him in the air before pulling him back down to rain kisses all over his face.
Harry was accepting Teddy's things back from Andromedea and thanking her for taking the boy for the past two weeks. His eyes, however, never left his new husband, holding their child. The paperwork for Severus to adopt Teddy might not have gone through yet, but paperwork be damned. They were family.
He had a family.
He smiled.
February (two months later):
"Absolutely not."
"You know, I don't think you actually get to make that decision. Pretty sure that's a me and Daddy decision."
"Well pretty sure doesn't mean sure, and I don't want to."
"Hard to argue with that logic," Harry admit as he scooped the toddler up. "Too bad I'm stronger and I say it's bath time."
Teddy went limp in his arms, trying to make it more difficult for Harry to carry him, but as they passed the front door and Severus walked in, shrugging off his robes, Teddy immediately sat up and got excited.
"Oh Salazar, I can't wait for bath time!"
"That's my boy!" Sev said as he passed them, dropping a kiss on top of either of their heads, completely missing the triumphant look Teddy shot Harry.
That night as they lay in bed, Harry told him and smiled as Severus laughed.
"It's not funny!" He protested even as he started laughing too, "You're going to make him a Slytherin and I'm going to be outnumbered!"
"Why do you think it's so funny to me?" Severus' eyes sparkled as he pulled a pouting Harry into a kiss.
Harry forgot any further argument as he lost himself in the moment.
July (seventeen months later)
Harry slipped behind Severus, grabbing the spatula from his hand before he could protest. He wound his arm back, delivering a firm smack onto Severus' arse and laughing and Sev jumped and whirled around, hands protecting himself from further attack.
"That is so - it's so-"
"Funny?" Harry supplied, moving in to kiss his husband.
"Gross!" Severus and Ron shouted from either sides of the garden.
Before anyone could say another word, Harry supplied the clean spatula in his other hand to Severus, banished the other to the kitchen, and stolen his kiss. He turned to go rejoin his seat by the bonfire, but was trapped by strong arms instead.
"Is that how it's going to be?" Severus whispered low in Harry's ear, making Harry shiver. "Two can play like that."
Severus released him after a light kiss to his neck, and Harry went back to sit between Draco and Bill.
"I swear it's like you two never left your honeymoon," Bill laughed.
"We haven't." Harry answered.
September (fourteen months later)
Harry woke with a start, whole body still shaking in a cold sweat. Strong arms wrapped themselves around him, one hand going to his throat in a possessive gesture he loved and the other going up in a comforting run through his hair. Harry couldn't let himself relax into the embrace, holding his hands out in front of him in the dark, still too afraid to touch anything, lest it be destroyed.
Severus spooned up against him. "Again?"
Harry nodded. "E-every September. He's gonna leave, Sev. He's gonna leave us."
"And he'll write letters every single week and be home in four months."
"He's not ready."
Severus laughed. "Well I should hope not. He's five and a half, Harry. I think we have a while"
Harry knew his fears were silly, but it didn't make them go away. "I don't want him to have the childhood I had."
Arms tighter, Severus breathed in deeply, "You know he won't. He has us. He has a support system we never had. We'll take care of him, and he knows he's always got us."
"He should have had Remus and Tonks."
Severus nodded. There was no point in denying it, but he knew it would always hurt Harry to believe that Teddy shouldn't be theirs, and he knew they would both wonder if Teddy would rather his 'real' parents back.
"In lieu of them, I'm glad it's us." They were the only words he could offer, and he knew they weren't enough. Harry's breathing hitched, hands still floating in front of himself, even though he hadn't had an episode in years.
The next morning they pretending everything was fine for Teddy, but Severus would never stop mourning how it felt to hold Harry as he cried.
October (13 months later)
"ARRG!" Teddy jumped out from behind the doorway, but it was his hooked hand flying off that made Severus jump. They both stood frozen for a moment before dissolving into giggles.
"Fearsome." Severus drawled, his voice dripping in sarcasm, making Teddy laugh all the harder.
Severus looked up as Harry followed Teddy into the room, giving each other wry smiles. "We're working on it."
"EW! EW! EW!"
Harry's eyes went wide. "What? What now?"
"You and Daddy look at each other and then you kiss, and kissing's gross. One of the second years told me so." Teddy's voice was so matter of fact, it was hard to take him seriously.
"Ah, yes, the life lessons we send you to primary for," Severus deadpanned, scooping him from his feet.
"My aren't we in a sarcastic mood today?" Harry asked, stepping forward to sandwich Teddy's body between theirs as he gave Sev's lips a light peck, chucking at Teddy's screams.
January (27 months later)
"So." Teddy let his legs beat against his chair in the way Severus hated as they sat at the dinner table. He was tall for being nearly nine, and sometimes Harry was generous enough to let that be Remus' genes, but sometimes he suspected the boy was using his metamorphmagus abilities to stretch himself.
"So?" Sev prompted, and Harry could see him trying not to ask Teddy to quit his kicking as the boy was obviously struggling to come up with a coherent way to phrase his thoughts.
"Gay…" Teddy dragged the word out, almost as if he wished he hadn't started the conversation.
Harry and Severus shared a look. Gay relationships were completely accepted in the wizarding world as Ron had told him, but Teddy did go to muggle primary. They had sat up many nights wondering if they were doing him a disservice by exposing him to people who didn't support his fathers' right to legally marry.
"Yes…" Harry answered, dragging out the word in the same way for lack of better response.
"So like two boys."
They shared a look again as Teddy stared at his plate. He knew they were both men so they couldn't fathom where this was going.
"And no lady?" Teddy looked up this time, obviously wanting confirmation.
"Teds, we talked about this. Ton- Ny- Tonks is your mom. Just because Pa-Ha and I are your dad too, doesn't mean you weren't born with other parents-"
"No, no," Teddy waved his hand as if dismissing the words. Severus set down his silverware, clearly about to get upset at being dismissed in such a manner while Harry laughed as it was obvious that he'd picked up the gesture from Severus himself.
"Then what?" He interjected before Severus could voice his upset and put an end to this conversation that was apparently very important to Teddy.
"Well.. Boys can't… You know."
Oh no. Oh merlin, oh no. They were not doing this. Not again. They'd told Teddy in very basic terms what sex was a few months ago. They didn't not need to go into specifics so early in Teddy's life about exactly what adults got up to when the bedroom door was locked and warded. They should have years before they needed to answer questions about mechanics and condoms and birth control potions and spells.
Teddy looked up again and saw the distress and confusion on his fathers' faces. "You know," he clarified, "make babies."
"No," Severus said slowly. "Only ladies can carry babies."
"So, like…" Severus cringed but didn't say anything about their son's filler word. "Do I never get siblings?"
Harry grinned, looking across the table to see Severus was smiling his usual reserved smile too. They'd been talking about the subject for years, never knowing how to bring it up to Teddy without making Teddy feel insufficient.
"Is that something you might want?" Harry hedged, trying - and failing - to keep the excitement from his voice.
Teddy shrugged, noncommittal, but the glow in his eyes told them he was very much curious.
June (five months later):
The three of them sat waiting in small plastic childrens' chairs. It was the fourth time they'd been to this particular orphanage, and usually Harry was fidgety and nervous. It felt wrong, he always said, as if they were interviewing a child to be theirs.
Today was different. It was the first time they'd brought Teddy to meet the four year old boy who had been removed from muggle foster care systems to be placed in a magical one. After the war, many eyes had been turned to the orphanage system that had cropped up to take care of the children affected by the war. When Tom Riddle's childhood story was published - by Skeeter, and with no permission from any of the people involved, of course - the idea had taken hold to remove muggleborn kids from muggle orphanages so their caretakers were better equipped to handle their magical outbursts. Plus it gave them a chance to be adopted into a loving magical home, rather than with muggles who might not understand the oddities of their child.
Harry squirmed again and it was actually Teddy who reached to still him. The boy's eyes were deep and solemn, a perfect replica of his father's, and Harry wondered if it was natural or copied from photographs. "I'm going to love him even if he cries a bunch, Pa-Ha." Harry knew he was probably thinking of his smattering of younger cousins, all but Victorie were much younger than him and he wasn't too fond of the littler ones.
"He's not a baby. He'll not slobber on you, I promise." Harry reassured. Teddy simply nodded and sat back in his chair, folding his hands neatly on his lap before he subtly glanced up at Severus to make sure his posture was the same and squared his shoulders to match.
December (six months later, 7.5 years after chapter 52):
Harry had gone overboard and, looking at the tree now, he knew it. It was nearly reminiscent of one of Dudley's childhood birthdays with the way the brightly wrapped presents were packed under the tree. He covered his face with his hands. It did honestly look simply perfect, but Severus was going to kill him. He'd promised he'd pull himself in this year, but part of him still blamed Severus for giving him free reign and adding his own small gifts to the piles. It was Teddy's last Christmas before Hogwarts after all and the thought didn't terrify Harry as it once did, and it was Jeremiah's first Christmas with them. How was he supposed to keep it a small affair?
Jeremiah had just turned five and he'd been with them for four months by this point. The little boy had fit right in with their family and followed Teddy around with boyhood worship in his eyes. Harry was scared for what it would do to their new son when Teddy went to school, but also felt it might be good for him to have some space to get to know them and the house on his own, to make it his own home. He was still shy, both from bouncing around without a permanent home for so long and from the introduction of openly displayed magic in his life.
Jeremiah had been left at a firehouse with a letter saying too many weird things happened around the boy and his parents couldn't take it. He'd grown up being shuffled from home to home and while he didn't have the same cruel childhood Harry had, he still felt the similarities between their stories deep in his bones. He couldn't wait to see his boy's face light up as he got to truly experience Christmas cheer for the first time.
Arms wrapped around his from behind, and Harry's hands went back up to cover his face again, "I know, I know, please don't be mad."
Severus laughed, "It's perfect. They'll love it."
Harry smiled as he turned to kiss his husband, "Happy Christmas." His smile widened as Sev's reply was cut off by the scampering of Teddy's feet on the floor.
They heard his failings at whispering, "Miah, wake up! Wake up! It's Christmas!"
There was more scrambling and the dark skinned little boy was followed quickly by Teddy as they came down the stairs. Jeremiah's face was worth every galleon, sickle, and knut when his eyes widened, taking in the paper, stockings, and decorations through the doorway behind his fathers, and even Teddy's mouth had popped open in surprise, though their Christmases in the past could not by any means be deemed small.
They all moved to take their places around the tree, the boys on the floor and their fathers in their matching plush green armchairs. Grimmauld had never heard such light laughter, war forgotten, fears forgotten, worry forgotten. Harry looked out at his family and felt his heart swell. This was what happiness looked like. This was what living was for. With the simplicity that only came with habit but couldn't take any meaning from the motion, he reached out to Severus, hair going grey and face lined with laughter not pain, and linked together their hands.
A/N: I'm in literal tears. This is it, my friends, the end of this years-long journey. Thank you to everyone who has stuck by me even after all this time. I hope you've loved this story even half so much as I have.
With all the love in my heart, always,
~faceless
