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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Upon her release from the Hospital Wing, Harriet went home for the weekend.
Draco badly wanted to protest having his darling out of his sight even for a single moment, but he recognized Harriet's needs as greater than his own.
While he wallowed in guilt on Saturday morning, Harriet woke and took a sip of Anti-Nausea Potion from the glass vial on her nightstand.
Despite his anger and disappointment, Severus had lovingly brewed a second vat of the healing mixture for his daughter.
Lily slept late that morning, but through Harriet's cracked bedroom door, she spied her father as he silently walked down the hallway and headed towards the staircase.
The silence of the house easily permitted Harriet's question to reach Severus's ears as she called to him, "...Dad?"
Harriet heard nothing for a moment before her door gently creaked open as her father poked his head into her room with a frown.
"I….I'd like to talk to you." Harriet said with a soft smile.
Severus scowled at his daughter as he swept through the door, walked over, and sat on the edge of her bed.
He narrowed his dark eyes as Harriet reached out and touched his hand.
She sighed as she looked down and spoke, "I want to apologize, Dad."
"Words will do little to remedy the situation." Severus coldly huffed.
"You're right." Harriet pouted as she dared to lift her gaze and meet her father's black stare.
Severus's expression softened as he listened while his daughter went on, "Still……I….I can't stand to have you look at me with hatred. I made a mistake…..I…I should have known better. I was frightened and uncomfortable and I just...I…Draco and I..."
Harriet stopped speaking when she noticed the remorseful frown that crossed Severus's features.
After a silent moment passed, he questioned her, "Harriet…….Am I your father?"
Harriet blinked as she nodded and replied, "...Yes."
"I know you've heard the story many times….was I not the first one to hold you after your arrival in this world?" Severus asked.
"According to Mum, you were, yes." Harriet said as the hint of a smile tugged at her lips.
"Then please do not insult me so as to doubt my love for you." Severus said as a serious scowl formed on his face while he gazed at Harriet, "You were the first gift your mother gave me, the physical product of our love……..Nothing in this world or the next will ever change that. I may not be pleased with your decisions, but I am incapable of hating you…….It wounds me…deeply…..that you could even consider such a notion to be remotely possible."
Severus wasn't prone to show affection to anyone except Lily, but Harriet lunged forward and enveloped him in a tight hug.
He blinked in surprise for a moment before he slowly lifted his hands and placed them on his daughter's arms to accept her embrace.
Harriet squeezed her father tightly as she closed her eyes and whispered, "I love you, Dad."
She couldn't see, but as Severus returned her hug, he closed his eyes as well.
His eldest child had displeased him, certainly, but that morning, he found Harriet's sentiment to be a hugely ample reward.
Severus Snape thought of fatherhood as the most frustrating, difficult, and blissful job he had held in his life.
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Dumbledore granted Harriet and Draco permission to continue their studies at Hogwarts as long as they did their best not to draw attention to their scandalous situation.
Gossip abounded that the headmaster's decision would have most likely been quite different if Draco had not been the son of a Hogwarts Governor and Harriet had not been the child of the Potions Master.
Regardless of how they had won Dumbledore's approval to finish their magical education, the young couple's seventh year seemed to become infinitely more complicated after the conception of their baby.
Draco spent so much time worrying about, focusing on, and staring at Harriet that he found it difficult to concentrate on his class work.
Harriet battled through the fatigue that came with pregnancy, although her father had mercifully reprieved her nausea through daily doses of his wonderfully comforting potion.
She had been hastily discharged from the Quidditch team and in an effort to stand beside his mate, Draco ended his athletic career as well.
He let Harriet rest on him whenever they sat under one of the courtyard's trees.
He went out of his way to bring her whatever food she craved.
As thoughtful as Draco attempted to be, it seemed like a mocking torment that he and Harriet still had to spend each night apart.
Harriet usually slept peacefully, worn out by the activities of the day.
Draco tossed and turned fitfully in his bed as the unrelenting need to protect and care for his mate refused to let him relax.
Unbeknownst to his darling, on a rainy, November weekend, he spent the majority of his Saturday perusing magical Britain's finest jewelry shops with Lucius and Narcissa.
Two days later, while Harriet walked down the hallway to breakfast, she rubbed her eyes groggily.
No matter how early she went to bed, it never seemed to be early enough.
A sudden burst of black darted out from the side of the adjacent corridor and caused her to gasp as her green eyes widened.
"Draco!" Harriet shouted when she realized her assailant's identity. She placed a hand over her pounding heart as she exclaimed, "Didn't your mother ever teach you not to jump out at people like that?!"
"I wanted to surprise you." He answered with a haughty smirk.
"Well, I'm surprised." Harriet huffed as she threw up her hands, "I don't mean to sound rude, but could we go to breakfast now? Your little one's starving me."
Harriet watched Draco keep his smirk as he dropped down on one knee and reached into his pocket.
"...What are you doing?" She asked as she narrowed her eyes.
Harriet furrowed her brow while Draco pulled out a golden ring, encircled with bright, red rubies and a large, flawless diamond in its center.
"Harriet Snape," He asked with a wide grin as he offered Harriet the ring, "...Will you marry me?"
His lover laughed.
She didn't understand why she felt surprised or what she had expected.
Although they had mated, she hadn't really taken Narcissa's remark seriously.
"Did your parents put you up to this?" Harriet asked as Draco continued to kneel.
"No." He frowned, "We're already mated, Snape, whether we marry or not, you belong to me and I belong to you…….I would rather you be a Malfoy when you bear my pup, though."
Harriet laughed again as she held her hand out and let Draco slip the gorgeous ring onto her waiting finger.
"Yes, Draco!" She exclaimed as she watched, "I'll marry you!"
Draco clasped Harriet's hand as he rose and pulled her in close for a sweet kiss.
While they enjoyed their private moment before they joined their classmates in the Great Hall for breakfast, Harriet placed her hands on the sides of her alpha's face and breathed in his soothing scent.
For the young couple, school felt like little more than a distracting chore.
Harriet and Draco were both eager to marry, graduate, welcome their little one, and get on with their lives.
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As autumn drifted into winter, the children that Harriet and Lily carried began to announce themselves by rounding their mothers' bellies.
The Malfoys had generously invited the Snapes to the manor for the winter holidays, an offer which Harriet's family had graciously accepted.
The setting proved to be far more romantic than Severus had anticipated.
During those cozy, cold, grey mornings, Severus spent the hours before everyone else roused kissing, cuddling, and loving Lily.
Mrs. Snape's brilliant smile never faded.
She had nearly forgotten how much a pregnancy excited her alpha.
Severus's appreciation for her changing form was evident by the gentle attention she received from his kiss and touch.
"I love you, Sev." Lily sighed one morning as she lay in a blushing heap under her mate.
Professor Snape and his wife were both bare as they tangled together in the sumptuous mass of silky sheets that covered the plush bed in the opulent guest room they occupied.
Lily missed her nest at home, although the Malfoys had been more than accommodating by allowing her to construct a secondary respite she deemed suitable.
Severus gently rubbed his hands over the small mound on Lily's belly in silent reply.
He would have whispered sweet words back to his love, but he deemed himself too busy suckling from Lily's fattened, wet nipples to abandon his delightful task and speak.
Lily showed her appreciation as she tangled her hands in Severus's soft, silky, raven-black hair and massaged his scalp while he thankfully eased some of the weight from her chest.
Severus knew that his beloved flower's milk came in alarmingly early whenever she carried one of their children.
Mr. and Mrs. Snape had learned over the years to make the most of that unfortunate situation.
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The families agreed that the first day of a new year would be an opportune time for Harriet and Draco to wed.
On New Year's Day, Severus held Lily close while she looked on with tears in her eyes as Harriet stood in a long dress made from ivory lace and held Draco's hands.
The groom had dressed in his sharpest black suit, but the officiant who conducted the ceremony could have cared less what the bride or groom had chosen to wear.
As the Snape-Malfoy wedding unfolded in Malfoy Manor's parlor, Harriet's little brothers looked on curiously while Narcissa clutched Lucius with her lips trembling.
Severus held Lily more tightly as he noticed that his wife wiped away the wetness that poured down her cheeks as she watched their eldest child become someone's spouse.
"And do you, Draco Malfoy, take Harriet Snape to be your wife and mate, as long as you both shall live?" The officiant asked Draco with a stern, serious frown.
"I do, for as long as I live and after." Draco nodded.
Harriet smiled at the wording her alpha had chosen to add.
The officiant cleared his throat as he turned to Harriet and asked, "And do you, Harriet Snape, take Draco Malfoy to be your husband and mate, as long as you both shall live?"
"I do, for as long as I live and after." Harriet smiled as she repeated Draco's vow.
He gazed at Harriet as a grin danced across his lips.
"Then according to Ministry law, I now pronounce you husband and wife, Mr. and Mrs. Draco Malfoy…..Mr. Malfoy, you may kiss your bride." The officiant nodded.
Draco leaned down as Harriet closed her eyes.
Their first kiss as a wedded couple rang with sweet innocence while they became lost in the meaningful moment.
The joy of their union was expressed by the sounds of Harriet's brothers' cheers, their fathers' applause, and their mothers' joyful weeping that filled the room.