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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The holidays came and went.
As the spring of Harriet's third year blossomed, it brought with it a sunny season of pleasantness for the Snape family.
Severus spent his evenings and his weekends home with Lily and the children, who seemed to grow startlingly quickly.
Oliver took his first steps and soon afterwards, joined his brothers in their enchanted playpen for games and silliness.
Albus continued to enjoy his arts and crafts, but Lily frowned when she noticed one afternoon that her eldest son was only a few years away from beginning his own Hogwarts journey.
It frightened her to think of how soon she and Severus would take Albus to Platform Nine and Three-Quarters as she lamented how much time had already passed since they had sent Harriet off to school.
Severus caught his mate in her sad musings as she sat stiffly on the sofa with her back straight and a sad frown on her lips.
Lily's hands were folded in her lap as her eyes darted from Albus, to the twins, to little Oliver as the boys played together.
Severus's sons were amusing themselves.
Severus's wife wondered how much longer her children would still need her.
It terrified Lily to think that she would blink her eyes and see four grown men standing there, ready to assist her with moving into a care home for elderly witches.
"...Lily, my love?" Severus asked in his low drawl as he gazed at his wife, "May I ask what troubles you so?"
Lily took a deep breath.
She closed her eyes for a moment after she listened to her alpha's soothing voice and allowed his tone to calm her.
"...Nothing, Sev, I'm just……..I'm just a bit apprehensive, I suppose? That's all." Lily explained as she opened her eyes and glanced over at her husband.
"Apprehensive about what?" Severus frowned.
"...It's nothing." Lily answered with a bittersweet smile.
"Clearly it's something." Severus frowned, "You know how much I despise seeing you unhappy…..What's the matter, Lily?...There's not a thing in this world that you should feel unable to tell me……..I beg you, don't torture me so."
Lily smiled and reached a hand up to cup Severus's pale face.
Their young sons laughed in the background as she confessed, "I'm afraid, Sev…….."
Severus narrowed his dark eyes as Lily went on, "I'm afraid that time is going to pass by and we won't even feel it as it goes. I'm afraid that I'll look up and Harriet will be off on her own adventures…..Albus will be grown, then the twins, then Oliver….What if those years slip through our fingers like sand?...Then you and I will be old…...and we'll only have our memories left."
Severus's frown deepened as he contemplated Lily's morose words.
"Lily……" He whispered while he pulled her in close and kissed the top of her head, "My love….don't dwell on such forlorn notions. Our sons still toddle about…...Harriet has a very long way to go until she comes into womanhood. There are decades ahead of our lives….with our family…...Besides…...You and I have had that particular discussion before……….Remember, we can grow our brood whenever you wish, my love."
"We can't just keep having children to fill a void, Sev." Lily laughed as Severus kissed her ear when he noticed that the boys paid them no attention.
"Who said anything about filling a void?" Severus whispered as his warm breath drifted down to ghost over Lily's pale neck.
She shivered as Severus purred to her in his decadent, velvet voice, "I am a proud, dominant alpha, Lily Snape…...I enjoy watching you carry my pups...birth them...nurture them….raise them…….Whoever told you that my joy ended with Oliver's arrival?"
Lily drew in a sharp breath as Severus whispered to her, "You'll carry as many as I say, omega."
Severus's sweetly authoritative words were a balm to Lily's aching heart.
She knew that her lover was right, they were young, the children were little, and they potentially had many more lives who may come into their family.
Not to mention all of the grandchildren that Lily knew would one day appear…..
Beyond those outward contemplations though, Severus's gentle mannerisms, the way he comforted her, and his enticing commands all made Lily want to put the children down for a nap and crawl over her alpha right there on the sofa~.
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A month later, on a warm Saturday, Severus sat next to Lily, with Albus seated on his lap as the family sat in the Slytherin tower on the Quidditch field.
Draven, Brendan, and Oliver had stayed safely at home with Eileen.
The entire school, along with Hogwarts' staff, several reporters, and many parents were present in the stands that day to watch Gryffindor and Slytherin face off in the year's final Quidditch game.
Quidditch had become difficult for Severus to enjoy since Harriet had joined the Gryffindor team.
He constantly ignored his loyalties to his own Hogwarts house in favor of supporting his only daughter in her athletic endeavors.
Albus sat on his father's lap with wide eyes as the game began and the players zoomed around the stadium.
"Look, Albus! There's Harriet!" Lily cried as she pointed her daughter out to her little boy.
Albus squealed excitedly while Severus grit his teeth.
Beside the Snapes, Lucius and Narcissa Malfoy watched Draco closely with expectant frowns on their faces.
As Harriet whizzed past a Bludger, Severus let out a breath of anxious relief.
Deciding which team to support was sometimes a difficult task, yes, but truthfully, he spent most of Harriet's games hoping desperately that his little girl didn't get hurt.
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Harriet tried to maintain her focus as she flew around the stadium that morning.
She knew her family was watching.
She knew it was the final game of the season.
Regardless, that didn't make it any easier for her to concentrate on her actions.
She hadn't felt well when she had woken that morning.
Her head hurt, her stomach churned, and there was a very odd, persistent, cramping sensation in her lower belly that she had never felt before.
When her symptoms had failed to become violent and no fever presented itself, Harriet chose to push her discomforts aside and participate in the game.
The only way that Wood would have excused her from playing that morning would have been if she had laid in an infirmary bed, halfway towards her grave.
As the game continued on around her, Harriet felt like her entire mental state had been thrown off.
The noise from the spectators hurt her throbbing head.
Her broom irritated her sore lower half and she frowned as she noticed her body trying to slip off of it a half an hour into the game.
Why did something feel...wet?
Harriet furrowed her brow as that cramping sensation in her lower belly increased.
Everything about the Quidditch game irritated her as she zoomed around in search of the Golden Snitch.
Her target was annoyingly small, the fans were obnoxiously loud, and the unpredictable movements of her teammates and opponents made her want to smack each person out of her way.
If she could just find that stupid little golden ball, then it could all be over.
She could go home and rest…...
As Harriet flew by the Slytherin box, Severus frowned as he noticed the uncharacteristic grimace on his daughter's face.
"Something's wrong." He murmured to Lily as Albus watched the game with wide eyes.
"...What?" Lily blinked. She glanced from Severus to their daughter as she asked, "Do you mean with Harriet?"
"Look at her face, Lily…….." Severus drawled as he watched a hateful snarl come over Harriet's expression.
As she finally spotted the Golden Snitch, she dove towards it with her hand outstretched, intent on capturing the treacherous trinket.
"Oh, she's just concentrating, love. Look, she nearly has it!" Lily cried.
Severus, Lily, and Albus watched with the rest of the spectators in the Quidditch stands as Harriet raced towards the end of the match.
It wasn't Draco's fault that the Bludger came after him.
He blew across the field from the opposite direction without even noticing Harriet or the Golden Snitch as he whirled out of the way just in time to avoid the brown ball of doom that seemed determined to crunch into his broom and bones.
That single, swirling glide sent Draco directly into Harriet.
If her arm hadn't been extended to catch the Golden Snitch, then perhaps she wouldn't have been knocked down so easily, but the brutal collision she had with Draco was all that she could take that morning.
The noise, the height, the pain, it was all nauseatingly dizzying to Harriet and as her broom spun wildly, she opened her mouth to vomit.
Her lips closed quickly as one of her legs slipped off of the magical vehicle's wooden handle.
Horrified gasps rang out across the stadium.
Draco's eyes widened along with everyone else's as Harriet's closed.
Silently, she fell towards the ground after she toppled off of her forgotten broom.
Severus and Lily leapt from their seats as Lily clutched Albus and screeched, "HARRIET!"
Dumbledore and Severus both murmured incantations under their breath to slow the speed of Harriet's fall while Draco boldly pursued her.
Slytherin's seeker gnashed his teeth and yanked his broom to point downwards as he throttled after Harriet in a desperate race to rescue her from smashing into the unforgiving ground.
The members of the onlooking crowd all held their breath.
Dumbledore and Severus continued their protective spells as Lily shrieked again, "HHAARRRIIEETT!"
Harriet was headed straight towards a pile of rocks that sat at the bottom of the sand pit, but Draco saved his lover from what would surely have been a nasty injury.
Lucius raised his chin and straightened his spine proudly when his son became the hero of Hogwarts.
Draco swept in and snatched Harriet out of the air in the second before her skull would have collided with the ground.
Everyone cheered as Draco drifted over to safely lay Harriet down in the soft sand.
As her broom crashed next to them and splintered into bits, Draco caught a glimpse of red on the ruined wood.
He hastily looked down and his eyes widened in horror to see drops of bright red blood on the sand.
The beige pants of Harriet's Gryffindor uniform had been ruined by the crimson fluid.
As Severus, Lily, Albus, several Hogwarts staff members, and the Gryffindor team scrambled to reach Harriet and Draco, Harriet's eyes opened to blink groggily up at her savior.
Draco said nothing for a moment, he only frowned down at his darling in worried sympathy.
"Malfoy……." Harriet whispered, weakened from the excitement and the pain, "...I hurt."
Draco didn't yet realize the source of Harriet's bleeding, although he saw the shadow of a bruise already starting to form on her face from the force of their accident.
He held her close as help encircled them, but from the stands, one spectator sat with an angry scowl of jealousy on his face and his hands balled into fists.
Tom Riddle did not enjoy being outdone.