Disclaimer:
All things not Allosia or Gabriel belong to JKR.
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It took some time for me to recover from the events of my trip. The ankle bothered me well into the term, and my limp could at times be quite pronounced. Students asked after it, and I told them it was a flying accident, although I heard two Hufflepuffs speculating on a physical fight between Severus and myself at one point. I found the matter too sad to interject myself into, even to bother to take points for gossiping. I did not mention it to my husband.
My face, having returned to normal visually did not feel right to me for many weeks as if the tissue under the skin had become suddenly denser. Many a night was spent with Severus gently running his fingers over my face; it seemed to help, but I never knew why. He was careful of me in other ways as well, trying not to argue or raise his voice, trying to spend more time with Gabriel.
His caution though, made me more than a little insane, because I didn't know whether he was afraid of me or us breaking. Even in bed, for mere sleep, he would put his arm around me with a strange hesitation. I could not get close enough to him. Sometimes, I felt as if I were living with a ghost, in our circumstances, a thought too terrible to speculate on.
It was a few weeks before I was able to relate to him what I remembered of my time at the Malfoy estate. It was not something I had wanted to share, but eventually in halting detail I was able to tell him about the chase in the woods, the punches, and Draco whispering terrifying reassurances to me. The unfortunate and accidental pleasure of the rope around my neck was another matter entirely, although he understood how that had allowed my mind to find its way to him through the thick blood of that long day.
Of course, this was no accident. It was a message, less for me, than for Severus. The composure I had had, left me at that, and I had bawled for a good hour. Sev held me tightly throughout, and I was grateful for the lack of caution. I believe it was then that he'd begun to consider his revenge on Lucius. After my confessions the man I knew, and all the attendant difficulties of being with him returned, although he did spend more time with us than he had before my trip.
Watching him teach Gabriel to write was difficult. He was not used to small children, with motor control not matched to our own. To see his face contort as he tried not to treat the boy as he did his students was sad, not because he did not succeed admirably, but because of how much anger he clearly held for his own short temper. He would often stand and take a lap or two of the apartment to burn his energy and frustration before returning to the boy.
During term, we tried to balance the need of eating together as a family and the professionalism required of us as teachers. It was not easy. It was as inappropriate for us to avoid the Hall to eat meals with Gabriel as it was for him to sit at his own chair at the head table. While I could, and did often sit with him on my lap during breakfast, it was a matter of time before that arrangement became entirely unsuitable and the solution of Gabriel having a small children's table behind our seats was come to. It would have been much better, had other professors at Hogwarts had young children, but it did well enough. Although, I can only imagine how odd it must have seemed to the students, Severus alternating between glaring at them, playing miserably with his food, and turning to check on his boy. Amongst the students, Gabriel became known simply as "the spawn." I'm sure some of them expected him to grow horns.
Severus wore the watch I had given him often enough, although if he recorded anything with it, he did not tell me at that time. Of course, we fully intended to play with it for certain erotic purposes, but we both felt great caution over the artifact, considering unspoken that it might possibly record the stray thoughts and distractions of married desire.
Even as things improved between us, the months leading up to Gabriel's second birthday were exhausting, as Severus' duties as head of Slytherin House took on a supervisory urgency that was atypical of what was usually required of him.