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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When Harriet and Disencan returned from their work in the lavender patch outside, Severus sat waiting for them.
Maggie squealed happily as Disencan walked over and played with her while she gazed at him from her father's lap, but Harriet frowned at her husband.
"Was that…..Was that Kingsley I saw on our doorstep?" She asked.
"...Indeed." Severus nodded.
Harriet blinked before she shrugged at her mate, threw up her hands, and spoke, "Care to tell me why he came? What did he want?"
"Something very odd." Severus replied.
As he furrowed his brow in thought, Harriet frowned.
She sat down beside her husband while she waited for him to explain.
"The election of the new Minister for Magic will be held soon." Severus remarked.
"Yes…….?" Harriet hesitantly replied.
"Minister Shacklebolt is not interested in another term." Severus drawled, "Although he is on a personal mission now to eliminate corruption from our government….and he prefers his enemies to see him as dolefully distracted."
Harriet blinked.
"To do that……." Severus went on as his black gaze bore into Harriet, "...he's decided that he needs to have a false candidate whom the people will see him endorsing."
Harriet frowned.
"...He's asked me to…...agree to act as that false candidate." Severus nodded.
"Kingsley wants you…. to run in the election?!?!" Harriet exclaimed.
Severus quickly corrected her, "As a figurehead only……..Minister Shacklebolt assured me that on the rare chance my sham campaign would be victorious, I would be under no obligation to take office."
"What do you mean 'on the rare chance'?" Harriet frowned.
Severus wasn't one to smile but it did lift his spirits to hear the confidence that his mate had in his ability to potentially attain victory in the election.
"I wanted to discuss it with you first, my love. Minister Shacklebolt promised us that we'd be helping the greater good if we agree to do this. However…….if you speak against it, I'll decline." Severus said very seriously.
Maggie laughed as Disencan reached out to tickle her tiny tummy.
"...May I have your answer?" Severus asked Harriet.
Harriet stared at her alpha in thought for a long moment.
Severus frowned as he watched her look into his eyes and think deeply about their situation.
At last, with a great sigh, Harriet looked away from Severus and nodded.
"Kingsley has treated us well." Harriet quietly assessed.
"Are you giving me your permission to agree to this?" Severus asked with a scowl.
Harriet looked back at him as she added, "I think it's the least that we can do to repay him. The election period only lasts a few months. Why shouldn't we help out?"
Severus's face slipped into another frown as he looked at his mate in grim admiration.
Harriet possessed her mother's ability to be unyieldingly kind, but there were times when Severus wished that his wife was a bit more selfish.
A large part of him had hoped that Harriet would reject Kingsley's idea, although in his heart, he knew that his mate was right.
It would be kind of the Snapes to help Minister Shacklebolt, the man who had kept them out of Azkaban prison and freed them from a faulty trial.
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The next morning, Severus sent an owl with his response letter to Kingsley's proposition.
Life for the Snapes went on without issue for the next week.
The evening before Maggie's second birthday though, Severus honored the tradition that he had set into place the previous year.
It continued to plague him, the horror that his wife had lived through, and the agony that the birth of their first child had been for her.
Harriet's screams still haunted Severus in his nightmares.
He couldn't change the past, yet he sought to make the future a better place for his mate.
Severus had taken a silent vow that every year, on the eve of Maggie's birthday, he would spend that day spoiling and pampering Harriet, more so than usual.
That evening, while Maggie slept at home in her tiny bed with Disencan diligently watching over her, Severus took Harriet out to Diagon Alley's finest restaurant for a spectacular dinner.
Harriet sat across from her lover at the fine, linen-covered table while they both looked over the menu.
Harriet wore a pleasant smile on her face as she sat in her new, green velvet dress which Severus had thoughtfully given her.
He wore his usual black robes, but his dark gaze kept flickering over the top of the menu to steal glances at his beautiful wife.
She had pulled her hair up and allowed only a few teasing tresses to attractively drape over her shoulder.
Severus couldn't decide if Harriet's hair, the hint of her cleavage, or the soft smile on her radiant face seemed more alluring.
By whatever combination of his lover's beauty, he sat across from her….hypnotized.
Harriet glanced up at Severus and smirked every time that she saw the look of awed reverence on his face as he stared at her.
Their waiter eventually came to the table, took their order, filled their glasses with a non-alcoholic cranberry drink, and left.
Harriet wasn't one to drink.
After witnessing his father's addiction during his childhood, Severus obstinately refused to ever ingest any intoxicating beverages.
"You don't have to do this for me every year, Sev." Harriet smiled softly at her mate, appreciative of the thoughtful kindness that he showed her by trying to heal the scars of the past.
"And you don't have to tell me that every year." Severus quipped as he took a sip of his drink.
Harriet smiled softly at Severus.
Under the table, she rewarded her alpha by discreetly allowing her foot to brush against his leg.
Severus eyed her carefully as he felt her move her foot.
Harriet's toes, which peeked out of her shoes, brushed against his calf.
She watched as a look of repressed longing settled in Severus's dark eyes as he frowned at her.
The expression on his pale face conveyed a need for something beyond a simple tryst or a quick kiss.
Harriet had noticed that Severus had given her that same look of yearning uncomfortably often during the last few weeks.
She chuckled as she asked him, "Sev? Are you finally going to tell me what's bothering you tonight?"
Severus's yearning expression changed into a suspicious scowl as Harriet went on, "You've given me that…..gaze….for months now, but you haven't said anything. It scares me, you know……..Are you unhappy?"
"...No." Severus replied without hesitation.
"Then what's the matter?" Harriet asked, "There's no use in pretending with me, I'm your mate. I'm your wife. I know when something's on your mind."
Harriet watched Severus visibly tense as anxiety welled in his chest.
He drew in a deep breath as she reached out, took his hand, and urged him, "Sev? You can tell me anything. I love you…….and I know that you love me."
Severus glanced at the way that Harriet held his hand and stroked the back of his knuckles with her fingers.
She watched as his gaze returned to meet hers.
There, in the middle of the restaurant, Severus decided that perhaps the time had come to speak of his true desires.
Severus's black eyes bore into Harriet's as he stared at her and spoke in a voice barely above a whisper, "...I want another child."
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Whatever qualms Severus had harbored about approaching his mate on the matter of an addition to their family were quickly dissolved.
He and Harriet had barely made it out of the restaurant in time.
The blush on her cheeks had been one thing, but the scent of her arousal?
It had taken every smidgen of control that Severus possessed not to lunge across the table to pull his mate into his arms then and there while they ate their meal.
The Snapes usually enjoyed privacy, but with the thrill of potentially conceiving again and the desire to forget the grim events that had led to Maggie's birth, the amorous couple hastened their quest for the relief they would find in each other.
Harriet gasped for breath as her nails dug into Severus's arms while she held onto him for dear life.
She could feel the bricks scraping the soft velvet of her dress as her back slid up and down against the wall while Severus claimed her in the deserted alley behind the restaurant.
Harriet's green eyes were wide as Severus stared into them.
He grit his teeth as he watched her face contort while they coupled, eager to bring his mate pleasure and by finding his own release, hasten the arrival of his next child.
When Harriet felt a delightful warmth start to spread through her center, footsteps were heard around the corner.
Severus growled in irritation before he slipped his wand from his pocket and apparated himself and Harriet out of the alleyway just before the wizard who walked around the corner managed to catch the Snapes coupling against the wall.
In case Disencan remained awake, Severus chose to land outside, in the tall patch of verdamin vines that he and Harriet had grown on their land.
Although their passion had been interrupted by their hasty travel, as they tumbled onto the earth, Severus quickly crawled over Harriet and kissed her lips as she welcomed him back inside of her, eager for him to pound her into the ground.
Harriet knotted her fingers in Severus's black hair while a gentle evening breeze blew past.
The earth quaked beneath her as a few gentle motions of Severus's hips sent her spilling over.
Her body clutched his as a low groan erupted from Severus's chest while he emptied himself deep within his omega.
"...Are you trying to force me into a rut?" Severus asked in a dangerous, low purr after they had stilled and slipped from one another.
Harriet lay on her back and gasped for breath as her heart pounded while Severus covered her in languid kisses, like an animal admiring its conquered prey.
"I ask for another child……..and you respond by spreading for me on the spot?" Severus purred as he nipped at the base of Harriet's throat.
She moaned when she felt Severus take his hand off of her waist and let it slide down, down, down……
Harriet groaned as her alpha's nimble, skilled fingers found the outer bits of her womanhood, still swollen, wet, and tender from the punishing plea that his body had finished imparting on hers.
"You're teasing me…..Mrs. Snape~." Severus rumbled as he stared down at Harriet with an intense scowl on his pale face.
Harriet cried out as Severus let his fingers slip over her most sensitive parts, determined to push her towards another climax while she lay helpless in the dirt underneath him.
Severus leaned down and let the strands of his black hair drift over his wife's face while he kissed her deeply as his fingers accelerated her path to pleasure.
"Don't be so cruel to me….Mrs. Snape~." Severus whispered against Harriet's lips as the moonlight shone down upon them, "Have another heat……….let me fill you with my next pup."
The cry that left Harriet's throat as his enticing words and velvet fingertips shoved her over the edge raised the hair on Severus's neck.
As he and Harriet lay hidden in the verdamin vines, he genuinely hoped that Disencan and Maggie were soundly asleep.
Any living thing nearby had surely heard his darling wife's shout.
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Kingsley was overjoyed that Severus and Harriet had agreed to aid him in his task.
Under official orders, campaign posters were printed, the newspapers were alerted, and statements were made from the Ministry about Minister Shacklebolt's newly endorsed candidate for office…...Severus Snape.
Severus, Kingsley, and Harriet expected people to be outraged, shocked, bewildered, or maybe even amused.
They hadn't anticipated for a moment that the main reaction to the news of Severus's campaign from the public of Britain's wizarding world would be…...intrigue.
Witches and wizards were fascinated that the man so deeply involved with the war, spurned by both light wizards and dark, retired from a long career, and finally at peace with his new family, would have any interest in running for government office.
The campaign posters were placed everywhere.
The Daily Prophet's sales skyrocketed whenever they ran an article about Severus, good or bad.
Kingsley began to receive more inquiries about Severus than himself.
Severus ignored the attention that he received, he only wanted to help Kingsley.
He had no interest in winning the admiration of others, his focus remained solely on his little family.
Harriet tried not to read the news or walk in the streets unless a complete necessity arose.
She had to concentrate on healing her body.
Mrs. Snape needed to have another heat.
Her alpha was waiting.