Hazel's breath caught in her throat as her husband took a step back. She hadn't seen him in this kind of shock for a while. "You're what?"
"Pregnant," she repeated, trying to keep herself calm, if only for his sake. "Sev, I -"
"I... What if I turn out like him?" he managed, taking a deep breath and walking a circle around the living room. "Merlin, I never had... what if..."
"Like who? Oh, Sev, you won't." It suddenly hit her. He'd never had a decent father. The closest person he had was Dumbledore, and even then, Dumbledore had used him for his own ends. He'd hardly been happy for years, let alone had a decent example to follow. "You're not going to be like your father, Sev. I know you're going to do so much better. You are so much better."
He stopped, suddenly coming back to wrap his arms around her. "I'm sorry, I... I shouldn't be the one the one who's rattled by this, you're literally growing another human being and I -"
"Sev, it's alright. I'm scared too," she admitted, holding onto him tightly. "We'll figure this out together, okay? We're going to be fine," she told him, partly to reassure herself too. "You looked after all of the Slytherins for years, even when you were barely older than they were. You're going to be a good father. You've already chosen to be so much better of a husband than he ever was to your mum. It's going to be fine."
Though he worried about it constantly, all of his fear seemed to disappear when Eileen was born. He hardly ever let her out of his sight, even when he was working. Naturally curious, he would have his hands full keeping her away from the potion ingredients, but he managed. Late at night, well after she and Hazel had fallen asleep, he would find himself wondering if he was turning into his own father. Had he said anything too harshly that day? Had he missed something? But Hazel would reach out for him in her sleep, telling him that he needed to rest. Somehow she knew.
No one questioned how the little girl could make flowers grow by talking to them, or why she and her father would check at the post office for owls instead of regular mail. There were a few families in the village like that, families that had lived there well before the rest of them had moved in. No one quite understood it, but they knew well enough not to ask questions. After all, the best doctors were a couple who could heal injuries seemingly like magic. Everyone's favorite primary school teacher was a nice woman who was a little too sprightly for being - as most people believed - well over a hundred, though that was highly doubted. And the oddly private couple that lived out on the shoreline could brew up a cure for anything.
The little girl had been playing with magic since before she could talk, and she practically learned to walk in the garden that was full of the strangest, most delightful plants any of the Muggle neighbors have ever seen. Her mother was constantly ordering strange books with mysterious titles, and her father - well, no one quite knew what her father did, but he could cure everything from the common cold to what some people in the town called "dragon pox", though the Muggles didn't understand how a childhood illness could make someone sneeze sparks.
The witches and wizards of the town all knew each other, of course. They weren't all friends, but they tried their best to get along. There was one summer when one of the boys noticed the tattoo on Snape's arm, whispered about it to his mother, and suddenly half of the town was casting them suspicious looks whenever they were in any of the shops. But Hazel set everything right, taking her husband's hand and glaring at anyone who tried to say anything. She had a little help. Rita Skeeter's poison-pen biography made people detest him even more in the wizarding world, but a much larger bestseller suddenly appeared on the shelves, seemingly days after an autographed copy of Rita's nasty book arrived by owl post. Severus wasn't sure how she'd done it, but Hazel had a friend in the Ministry of Magic who must have been some help. She spent a feverish few days writing, sustained by coffee and whatever she'd been brewing in the cauldron that sat in the fireplace. She didn't let him get too close to her work, but every night he would fall asleep on the sofa next to the armchair where she was furiously typing hundreds of pages.
Eventually he would read the book, finding it to be well-balanced and carefully fact-checked, with dozens of citations to Daily Prophet articles and all sorts of other sources. It was much less of a tell-all than he'd been afraid of, and she'd left the ending open, merely saying he was attacked in the Battle of Hogwarts and presumed dead.
Once the book came out, those in the town started pointing and talking about them differently. Could it really be him? Had he actually survived? And was she the professor who dropped off the face of the earth a year after the Battle of Hogwarts? Impossible. Unless it wasn't. Then Eileen was born and the town gossip flipped, everyone wondering when she would start showing signs of the magic that her parents were so clearly capable of.
"Hey," Hazel whispered, shaking her husband's shoulder. "C'mon, wake up."
He bolted up in bed, instinctively reaching for his wand. It took him a second to realize where he was. "Sorry," he mumbled, putting his wand back on the nightstand next to his side of the bed.
"What was it?" she asked, reaching out for him in the dark.
"The snake." He still had nightmares about Nagini attacking him years later. "I'm sorry, I -"
"There's nothing to be sorry about," she assured him. She held him close, listening as he tried to catch his breath. "Come here. Sev, there's nothing to be sorry about. You've had a lot happen to you. We both have. You know I still dream about all of it too. It's okay."
He appreciated it, but, "I'm sorry I wake you up all of the time."
"It's fine. I'd rather have you wake me up than be stuck dreaming of all of that."
She didn't know how much that made him smile. Every time he'd had a frightening dream as a child, he'd be met with the same answer, occasionally accompanied by an extra insult. "Go away, Severus." His father would hurl his alarm clock at the door if he was particularly annoyed. By the time he was four years old, he'd given up on his parents ever giving him any sort of comfort. It was one of the many things he'd decided not to emulate when they'd had Eileen. He was always worried about disappointing her, about accidentally taking after his father. Hazel assured him he didn't have to worry, but he worried nonetheless.
"Thank you," he mumbled, kissing the top of her head. Since they'd moved into the little house on the ragged shores of Scotland, they'd never spent a night apart. Sure, they would stay up late, one of them in the middle of a project or a potion and getting to bed well after the other fell asleep. Or one of them would be up early to get something from the town a few minutes away. Or they'd take turns getting up, first to check on potions that required stirring every few hours, and then to check on their daughter. Even when they'd had Eileen, Sev had stayed at the local Muggle hospital with them, falling asleep in a chair by Hazel's bedside. They'd never spent a full night apart, and he was thankful.
The door creaked open, a tiny shadow hovering on the edges of the room. "What's wrong, Lee?" Hazel asked, sitting up in bed again.
"Bad dream," the little girl said, clutching her favorite stuffed animal (a well-loved thing that resembled a Niffler, hand-sewn by her Uncle Xeno) as she clambered into bed with them. "With big, scary monsters."
"Well," her father smiled, making room for her to sit between them, "I just had a bad dream too. With big, scary monsters." He glanced over at Hazel, who gave him an encouraging nod. "Do you want to stay here with us, or should we go back to bed?"
"Can I stay here?" She looked between the two of them, still clutching her stuffed Niffler tightly.
"Of course, sweetheart." He moved a pillow behind her head, Hazel tucking her into their blankets. "Now close your eyes and try to think of something happy. You know, I have to go and collect some plimpies from the shore in the morning. Do you want to come with?"
"Yes please," she yawned. Plimpies were little round creatures that could be summoned form the deeper waters of lakes and oceans. They would hop around like frogs, but they had taller legs. Eileen loved running after them with a net, trying to get them to stay in the bucket her father would carry as he trailed behind her. They had a fish tank with a couple in the living room. Sev would tell her that he would let them go and put new ones in the tank whenever they went fishing for them. So far she hadn't figured out that they caught a lot more than seemed to leave the house. Their eyes and their legs were useful in potions, but she didn't need to know that quite yet.
"We can go in the morning, then. I'd love to have your help," he smiled, the three of them settling in.
As their daughter fell into a peaceful sleep, Hazel looked over to her husband, whose silver wedding band glinted in the moonlight. He never took it off. A clever charm had made it impervious to even the most disgusting potion ingredients, very handy for his line of work. It was one tangible symbol of the life he led now. Whenever he caught sight of the fading Dark Mark on his arm, the sight of his wedding band would help to offset the revulsion he felt for the tattoo. Sometimes he'd take the ring off just to flip it over in his hand, smiling at the "love you always" printed in Hazel's handwriting on the inside. Hers had a matching inscription in his writing. She hardly ever took hers off either, preferring to enchant it to keep it clean. "Sev," she mouthed, not wanting to wake Eileen. He raised an eyebrow. "I love you."
"I love you too," he answered, smiling as he closed his eyes. This was exactly where he was meant to be.