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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Severus looked at Lily like she had slapped him across the face.
"You……...what?" He asked as his brow furrowed in concern.
"My cycle's late, Sev." Lily confessed with a worried frown, "I've been so tired the past few days that I can barely keep my eyes open and my nipples ache...I felt the same way when I first conceived Harriet."
The ring in Severus's pocket suddenly seemed insignificant.
He swallowed thickly as a rush of sudden nausea forced his focus to waver slightly.
"We've…….We've used contraceptive charms." Severus calmly reasoned, "...At every appropriate occasion."
"That's not true and you know it, Sev. There was no such charm cast on the night that you brought your...friend...home." Lily said as she tucked a stray strand of crimson hair behind her ear.
Severus drew in a silent breath as he looked at his beloved in horrified realization.
She was right, they hadn't used a contraceptive charm that night……..
His double had barely been patient enough to get Lily upstairs and Severus had been too preoccupied with trying to maintain his place in his lover's arms to consider the need for reducing the risk of a pregnancy.
The anxious silence that followed worried Lily.
She frowned as she pleaded with Severus, "Sev, please don't be angry with me. I haven't done this on purpose. I haven't-"
"-It pains me…..Lily," Severus began as he interrupted his lover in his low purr of a voice, "...That you believe I would be angry with you for bearing my child. If your suspicions are correct, then have I not been the one who placed the babe in your womb?"
"Well…...yes." Lily said with a shy chuckle as she blushed slightly.
"Then you are no more to blame for the circumstances than I." Severus replied.
"I'm frightened, Severus." Lily confessed as she used his full name.
The uncharacteristic way that she addressed him sent him reaching for her hand. He squeezed her knuckles with his fingers as he nodded and replied, "It's certainly not the best time for a child to be born…...It's all we can do to look after Harriet and safeguard her."
Lily wiped away an unwelcome tear while Severus let his fingers drift over hers as he added, "Although, if your suspicions are correct…...If you are with child, Lily, then I will care for him or her with the same ferocious sentiment that I hold for you and Harriet."
"Sev…….!" Lily whimpered as she looked at him with her cheeks red, unable to hide the tears that poured from her eyes.
In the glow of the crackling fire, Severus gazed at Lily reverently while he slipped off the sofa and sank down onto his knees in front of her.
"I love you so much……" Lily sniffed as she raised her free hand and combed her fingers gently through Severus's black hair, "I…..I made mistakes, Sev, and you've been generous enough to forgive me for them. I just….I just want all this ugliness to go away! I want to have a life with you!...With Harriet!"
Severus knew somewhere in the rational part of his mind that he should respond.
Yes, responding would be the proper thing to do…...but as Lily hypnotized him with her bright, green eyes and poured her heart into his hands, she rendered him speechless.
"If I'm right, if I am……with child…." Lily sniffed as she squeezed Severus's hand, "...Then I want this baby, Sev. I want to love and nurture this piece of you. Is that so terrible? Is that such an awful thing in this world?! Why can't everyone leave us alone and let us live?! I want this baby and I'm going to have it no matter what I have to do! I'm going to protect the piece of yourself that you've given me!"
Severus felt the drool rising in his open mouth as he imagined Lily, round with his little one, then her cheeks glowing as she held their newborn.
She would surely give his son or daughter the tender care that he had never enjoyed in his own childhood……
Severus didn't know if he wanted to cry or free his arousal from the prison of his trousers to pounce on Lily then and there, but his tongue moved outside of his brain's direction.
The atmosphere was raw and intimate.
The best moment that he would ever have to ask his question had come.
"I have something for you….." He whispered to his distraught lover in a voice so low it was barely audible.
"...What?" Lily frowned while Severus released her hand and slipped the velvet pouch out of his pocket.
He opened the pouch and slid the ring into his palm before he held it up to his lover and asked, with deadly seriousness in his deep voice, "Lily Evans, I have loved you since I first saw you when we were children, that day by the river. I will love you past the day that I die, and after we've both left this world, my spirit will search the stars until it finds yours……Please, if you have any mercy about you at all, will you agree to be my wife?"
Silence followed as quiet tears dripped down Lily's cheeks.
She gasped out a great, shuddering sob as she clasped her hands over her face and nodded vigorously.
Severus breathed a loud sigh of happy relief as his brow furrowed and his own eyes shamefully clouded with tears.
"Yes, Sev!" Lily gasped between the heaves of her chest, "It will be my honor to marry you!"
Severus no longer worried about what he wanted to do.
With tears streaming from his black eyes, he placed the exquisite ring on Lily's finger.
She barely had a moment to admire her token from her new fiancé before Severus caught her lips with his.
Their kiss was as hungry as it was needy.
They clung to each other with more than their lips as Lily pulled Severus on top of her as she laid back on the sofa.
Severus's black robes lay over Lily's red dress on the floor.
The fire crackled in the hearth to provide some background noise amidst the grunts and whimpers while the future Mr. and Mrs. Snape celebrated their love.
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Voldemort had not only freed Lily from her need of wearing a disguise, he had also made it possible for her to openly pursue healthcare in the wizarding world.
News spread quickly about Severus's engagement and his lover's suspected pregnancy.
He had easily scheduled Lily an appointment with a renowned midwife less than a week later.
As they sat in the healthcare provider's office that afternoon, Severus used his free hand to hold Lily's.
In his arms, little Harriet cooed curiously at her mother who lay on the examination table.
The ring that Severus had purchased shone proudly on Lily's finger while she gave her lover a happy smile.
A knock came at the door before it swung open a moment later as the midwife stepped inside the room.
"Alright, then, we have Miss Laima's sample. The testing charm will be complete in about three and a half days. I'll see you two back then for the results?" She asked the couple.
Lily, who continued to masquerade as her alter ego, Laima, and wisely kept up the ruse that she spoke little English, looked at Severus.
He nodded at the midwife as he asked, "Of course……...Are we finished for the time being?"
"Yes, Mr. Snape." The midwife nodded, "Lots of fluid and rest in the meantime. I'll contact you to schedule an appointment as soon as we know something."
"Is there a way to speed up the process?" Severus asked, eager to discover Lily's true condition.
"I'm afraid there's not." The midwife nodded with a smile.
She always found it refreshing to see an excited father.
The midwife looked at Severus and Lily as she spoke, "I'll give you two a moment and then I'll have you both meet me out in the hallway, alright?"
"...Yes." Severus nodded.
Once the midwife left the room again, Lily let out an exasperated sigh as Severus frowned down at her.
"Three and a half days isn't long, my love." He comforted his darling while Harriet pulled at the white edge of his collar.
"I wish you'd just let me take a muggle pregnancy test." Lily laughed as she sat up from the table, "They're much faster, Sev."
"...And much less reliable." Severus quipped as he rose to stand near Lily in case she needed help.
Her empty stomach let out a loud growl.
Lily blushed as she placed a hand over her belly and blinked at Severus.
The look of genuine concern that he gave her put a wry smile on her face.
"You need something to eat." Severus urgently assessed.
He glided towards the door in a hurry, as if Lily's survival depended on how quickly she found food.
She laughed at the way his concern softened his black eyes while she stepped through the door that he chivalrously held open for her.
Severus had been protective enough when she had carried Harriet, a child fathered by the man that he despised.
It made Lily weak in the knees to imagine how loving and possessive Severus may become if his own child grew in her womb.
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The couple had decided that they would prepare their lunch at home but as they left the midwife's office and walked through the streets of Diagon Alley, Lily couldn't resist the smell of the roasted, cinnamon chestnuts that cooked openly on a street vendor's cart.
Severus stood beside Lily, with Harriet still in his arms, while they purchased a warm bag of treats from the wizard's cart when a voice suddenly called out, "Snivelly!"
Severus's blood ran cold.
Lily blinked as they both turned to see James Potter striding towards them.
Severus glanced at Lily and whispered a thought inside her mind as he skillfully used nonverbal Legilimency, "Stay calm, my love. Let me confront Potter…..Remember, Laima is not skilled at English."
"Snivelly!" James called again as he approached with a sneer.
He stopped abruptly when he saw Lily standing there.
James's face paled as he called out incredulously, "...Evans?!?!"
Severus handed Harriet to Lily and rushed forward to silence his idiot nemesis before James succeeded in securing them all a spot on Voldemort's kill list.
"Potter, what an unpleasant surprise." Severus glowered as he stood eye to eye with James.
He tried at least, it wasn't Severus's fault that he was taller than his foe.
"Are you……?" James asked as he peered past Severus. He squinted at Lily for a moment before he exclaimed, "That's Evans! Is that Evans?! She just turned around, I can't see her anymore…...That…..Yes, that woman looks exactly like Evans!"
"A mere coincidence, I assure you." Severus replied dryly, "I hardly think the woman in question has anything to do with your late wife, Potter. She comes from a foreign land. She can't even speak our language well enough to hold a conversation, much less to have been married to you."
When Severus noticed that his enemy's eyes traveled over Harriet, he drawled, "I will humbly request that you stop staring at my daughter. She doesn't enjoy the company or the admiration of strangers."
"...Your daughter?" James asked with a disbelieving laugh.
"Indeed….." Severus replied, "Surely you don't think a schoolboy crush would haunt me for the rest of my life?"
"So you set yourself up with a woman who could pass for Evans' twin?" James sneered mockingly.
"An affinity for redheads is hardly illegal." Severus countered.
In Lily's arms, Harriet squealed to protest her father being away for an unacceptable amount of time.
In response to her cry, Severus cut his standoff with James short as he nodded, "If you'll excuse me, I have a family to look after."
"When was that child born, Snivelly?!" James demanded as Severus turned and hurried back over to Lily and Harriet.
James grit his teeth at Severus's silence as he demanded, "Snivelly! Answer me!"
Severus reached Harriet and Lily in time to apparate all three of them back to their cottage.
James snarled in defeat.
Lily's former husband gnashed his teeth as he stood on the crowded street there in Diagon Alley.
Severus Snape's excuses hardly seemed feasible to James Potter.