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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For the entirety of the next week, Harriet's swims in the crystal sea ceased.

She was far too busy lying in Severus's arms to entertain any other plans.

Occasionally, when the lulls between hormonal bursts allowed them time to leave Harriet's nest, the couple would venture into the private pool behind Harriet's cabin for a romp in the water.

Splashing around under the flawless sky was impossibly romantic.

As Harriet spent evenings with Severus inside her as the warm water lapped over them both, dry moans escaped her lips as she stared up at the myriad of stars while her lover helped himself to her breasts.

Both Harriet and Severus had known pain and suffering, misery, loneliness…….sheer, mortal dread.

Regardless, that blissful week they spent together in the healing resort made those dark moments seem to have been nothing more than the shadowy nightmares of some other lifetime.

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It destroyed Severus when Harriet's heat ended and shortly after, both of their stays at the healing spa as well.

The colours in the sky had begun to shift with autumn's approach.

On the morning of their departure, Harriet knocked on the door to Severus's cabin one last time.

He answered too quickly for his own liking as he rushed over and threw open the door.

"Good morning." Harriet nodded as she blinked up at Severus.

Several strands of his raven-black hair had fallen in his face from his hurry. He tossed them aside as he jerked his head and replied, "...Potter."

Painfully unsure of how to proceed or what to say next, Severus's heart lifted as Harriet spoke first, "Well, I'm on my way out. Have to get back to the Ministry and all, but um….."

Severus's dark eyes softened as he waited for her to go on.

Although he was a strong, dominant alpha, a capable wizard, and the headmaster of one of the magical world's finest schools, Severus saw his own shortcomings as he balked at the chance to claim the heart of the woman who clearly held his.

"I dunno, I suppose I'll…….see you……sometime." Harriet nodded with a bittersweet smile.

Severus furrowed his brow as he cast her a pitying frown for their mutual plight.

Harriet cleared her throat as she turned and walked away with her trunk clutched in her hand.

Severus froze as he watched with the blood rushing to his ears from his own sense of unbearable remorse.

As Harriet went farther and farther away from him, two hearts were broken instead of one.

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Once their stay at Palingan's Tempest concluded, Severus and Harriet both resumed their normal lives in wizarding Britain.

Harriet continued her work as an auror.

Severus conducted his duties as headmaster once classes resumed and students flooded Hogwarts castle for yet another year of learning.

Neither were happy.

As each day passed, Harriet's frown deepened.

She declined attending outings with her friends as her sadness began to take on physical expression in the form of nausea and fatigue.

Eventually, unable to function through her long days without significant interruption, Harriet sought the advice of a healer in early October.

She came home from her appointment with her emerald eyes wide.

As she walked through her small flat in Diagon Alley, she sat down at the desk in her living room.

Harriet took a piece of parchment and a quill in her hand as she prepared to write a very important letter.

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The following morning, Severus brooded in the headmaster's office as he watched an owl soar up to his window with the day's mail clutched in its beak.

His body stayed rigid as he grasped his letters with a single hand although the bird barely slowed down long enough for him to collect his parcels.

Severus narrowed his dark eyes as he shifted through his mail, annoyed that most items were advertisements or simple correspondence from students' parents.

He only wanted to receive a letter from one person, the same particular witch he had not found the courage to contact himself since his return.

He-

His black eyes narrowed to slits as he stared down at the return address listed on the last letter in the small stack of the morning's mail.

Harriet Potter

123 Street

Above Gillingal's Shop

Diagon Alley

Severus instantly dropped his other mail on the floor as he ripped the letter open and yanked the parchment from the envelope.

Eagerly, he scanned over the lines Harriet had scrawled:

Professor Snape,

I hope this letter finds you well. May I come to the castle soon for a visit? I have something of yours I'd like to return.

Kind Regards,

Harriet J. Potter

Severus let out a dry gasp as he looked up.

His black robes billowed behind him as he rushed over to his desk and hastily penned his immediate reply.

At her flat later that afternoon, Harriet smiled to herself as she read the letter that had been slid underneath her door sometime before her return from work that day.

To Ms. Harriet Potter,

The headmaster's schedule is capable of accommodating unexpected events. My office door remains open.

Sincerely,

Professor Severus T. Snape, Headmaster of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry

Harriet let out a relieved sigh as she sat down on her sofa with Severus's letter in her hand.

She mulled over his words while she looked at the wall for a second and thought.

One of her hands snaked down to splay over her flat belly as she imagined how her visit to Severus would possibly play out.

Harriet cradled the portion of her abdomen just below her navel and hoped that Hogwarts' current headmaster had written truthfully.

For her unborn child's well-being, Harriet needed Severus to accommodate unexpected events indeed.

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Before Harriet went to work the next morning, she apparated to the hillside next to Hogsmeade and walked to Hogwarts castle.

The world seemed like a different place.

Harriet wore a soft smile as she passed through the grounds and glanced at the nearby forest.

Had the grass always been that green?

……Or the leaves on the trees as magnificent?

Upon entering the castle a few moments later, she was greeted fondly by Nearly Headless Nick, who happened to float by.

"Harriet Potter! How long has it been?!" Gryffindor's ghost proudly bellowed.

"Years already, eh, Sir Nicholas?" Harriet answered with a smile.

"Only years?" The ghost frowned, "Not decades?"

"Not quite yet." She chuckled.

"Ah…..I must have lost track of time again. I'm afraid the days all blur together when you're in my state!" Nearly Headless Nick explained.

"That's understandable, sir." Harriet shrugged.

"...Though should we talk about your state instead?" Nearly Headless Nick asked after he spent a long moment staring at Harriet curiously, "I see you haven't come back alone, Harriet."

She blushed softly as she realized the ghost had somehow recognized her pregnancy.

As she raised a finger to her lips, Nearly Headless Nick nodded in considerate discretion.

"I'm on my way to see the headmaster." She explained, "Look after yourself, won't you, sir?"

"I will…..and I trust you to do the same." Nearly Headless Nick replied as she continued on her way.

While Harriet walked towards the headmaster's office, the ghost called out, "Best of luck to you, Harriet!"

Harriet stopped and turned around to flash her transparent friend a bright grin as she responded, "Thanks, Sir Nicholas!"

Both Nearly Headless Nick and Harriet smiled softly as they went their separate ways, although as Harriet approached the headmaster's office, her heart clenched with anxious anticipation.

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A short trip up the moving staircase, a knock, an answer, and then at last, Harriet found herself entering Severus's personal domain.

As she walked across the room and up the steps that led to the platform upon which his desk stood, she immediately noticed the glimmer in Severus's black eyes as he saw her once more.

"Potter……." He murmured as he rose from his seat.

"Good morning, Professor." She nodded.

The formality of her address irritated him.

Had they not come to know each other more intimately than titles and stiff nods?

"I'm surprised you took time out of your busy schedule for a visit." Severus snapped, "...You haven't bothered to write in weeks."

"You'll have to forgive me, sir." Harriet frowned, "I've been too ill to do much besides get out of bed and go to work most days."

Harriet watched the anger leave his pale face as his brow furrowed and his mouth opened.

Instant, immediate concern washed over him as he dared to ask, "Is that why you've come today?...Have you seen a healer?"

"...Yes." Harriet shrugged as she silently counted her midwife as such.

Severus frowned worriedly while he asked, "When did your ailment begin? You visited a healing spa for months…..Surely it can't be serious?"

"I'm afraid it's quite serious, Professor." Harriet said as she gazed at him and irritated him once again by using his official title, "That's why I've come to see you."

Instead of berating her for not calling him by his first name, Severus glided over to his lover and knelt at her side.

Harriet frowned as he took her hand into his, stared into her eyes, and asked without hardly moving his lips, "Tell me, what can I do?...I will go to any lengths to ease your suffering, if you can only-"

"-It will be your choice….." Harriet said as she drew a deep breath, "...How involved you want to be."

Severus frowned.

She gripped his hand as she glanced down at her lap and then met his gaze while she confessed in a whisper to ensure the room's portraits would not overhear, "I….I'm with child."

His dark eyes bulged in stupefied shock.

His mouth dropped open as his face twisted into a mask of bewilderment.

"I have no intention of aborting or abandoning our little one. Whether or not you choose to be in their life, that's up to you, but this is your child too and I thought you had a right to know." Harriet whispered.

For a moment, Severus was too stunned to speak.

Harriet would have had her heart broken by disappointment if she hadn't seen the uncharacteristic look of loving tenderness that contorted his pale features as he returned her anxious grip.

"Every day since our parting, I have waited for a letter, a note, a line…..anything at all." Severus revealed in a low drawl. Harriet gasped as he straightened his long spine until they were eye to eye as he whispered, "If you think, Potter, that you'll evade me now and vanish with my child in your belly, you're more foolish than I ever imagined."

Silently, Severus cast a nonverbal veiling curse that concealed Harriet and himself from view by anyone or any painting that happened to glance upon them.

"Severus!" Harriet cried as they rushed together.

"You belong to me, Harriet Potter." He growled before their lips crushed together.

In the warmth of their fiery kiss, Harriet's heart skipped a beat as her alpha slid a possessive hand over her still flat belly.