A flood of emotions washes over her as she stares down into her daughters blue eyes. Guilt, relief, terror, and so much love she felt she may burst. She didn't love this child while she was swimming inside of her, but now, holding her in her arms, she felt as though she had loved her for all eternity. She was a stranger, yet her best friend at the same time. Danu couldn't pry her eyes from her daughters, couldn't risk allowing her to leave her arms should she simply disappear. The months of anxiety and discomfort as she carried the child within her, the days of panic as she paced the floors while wave after wave of pain coursed through her body, the hours of doubt and agony as she fought against her body trying desperately to push the child into existence, all of it fades away as she looks down at the beautiful child suckling at her breast.
Danu counts her daughters fingers, only to start over and recount them once more. Not in fear that she were missing any digits, but in awe at the fact that they had grown within her, made after a single hour alone with her husband on the worst day of their lives. One single hour, and nearly forty-one was all it took to create the most perfect being she had ever laid eyes on. Lorna was equal parts her and Severus, equal parts Sirius and Eileen. The whispers of her ancestors are etched on to her angelic face. The wisps of black hair upon her head are a gift from her grandmother, the slight point of the tips of her ears from her grandfather. As she holds her daughter and watches in disbelief at the fact that she was indeed real, she wonders briefly if Eileen had felt this same rush of love and devotion as she held Severus in her arms, if her own mother had felt it as she held her for the first time. Lorna had been taken from her arms only once, and only long enough to be weighed and have a nappy and small hat placed on her, then she was placed back in her arms. Suddenly, and without warning, Danu begins to sob uncontrollably as she clutches her daughter protectively to her chest.
"What is the matter?" Severus whispers as he tucks a strand of her hair behind her ear and produces a small blanket which he drapes over her arms to cover their child's soft skin and her exposed breasts.
"I love her so much."
"Naturally." Severus murmurs as he strokes Lorna's cheek with a single curled finger once more.
"We made her." Danu sobs as Lorna's eyes begin to flutter open.
"I suppose we did, yes." He answers from a distance, his voice drowning out as she dries her tears and fixates on her daughters eyes once more.
"Have you ever seen something so perfect?" Danu whispers to no one in particular before leaning forward and kissing the child's brow tenderly.
She couldn't be sure whether it had been minutes, or hours since the birth of her daughter. The midwives had left, she knew that for certain. Severus was no longer in the bedroom; he had left the room as the midwives did. The home was silent, peaceful. The exhaustion and mind altering pain she had endured for days lifted from her body, leaving warmth and tranquility in its wake. Nothing had ever felt this good, this calm. The room is dim, a soft glow of candlelight fell upon her and her daughter as they silently communicated with one another on the bed.
A small sound catches her attention, and Danu pries her eyes from Lorna's face to catch sight of Severus coming through the door with a tray of food. He is freshly bathed and shaved and is wearing a clean black robe, Danu offers him a small smile as he makes his way towards her before she averts her eyes back down to their daughter sleeping securely in her arms. Severus places the tray across her legs and takes his seat next to her on a rocking chair he had brought into the room at some point over the course of the last three days.
The smell of the food piled high on the tray wafts towards her, causing her stomach to rumble aggressively. She hadn't realized until that moment just how hungry she actually was. Severus had brought her an array of food. Apple slices, banana slices, pancakes, eggs, and bacon, along with a large glass of water and a piping hot mug of tea that she recognized by smell, his favorite ginger and orange spice tea. Her stomach rumbles again as she darts her eyes back and forth between Lorna and the tray of food, trying to determine how she would manage to hold the baby and eat without dropping food all over the both of them.
"You should eat." Severus begins softly. "Then I will help you bathe, and you can sleep until she becomes hungry again."
"I don't want to let her go." Danu mumbles as she traces her index finger across Lorna's thin black brow and down the bridge of her nose. Lorna scrunches her face for a moment before lifting her brow, the motion making her look strikingly like her father.
"I assure you; she will be quite alright for a few hours. She has eaten, I will change her. You need rest."
"I'm not that tired. I can stay awake for a while longer." Danu says, her body betraying her at the end with a deep yawn and watering eyes.
"It is important that you rest. I can manage things while you sleep. Now, eat."
Danu leans down and rests her nose atop her daughters head, breathing in the sweet scent of her new skin. She smelled so familiar, yet so foreign. She lets her lips graze the soft flesh of her forehead before straightening once more and placing both hands beneath Lorna's head to remove her from her chest. The blanket Severus had covered them with falls to the bed as Lorna curls her legs to her chest and tucks her fists beneath her chin as her head rests securely in the palms of Danu's hands, and her lower back is supported on her stomach.
"Would you like to hold her?" Danu finally murmurs as she watches Lorna lift her brow and pull her chin up into a frown, as if she were trying to wake.
Severus stands as he clears his throat, his feet move slowly and carefully on the floor as he makes his way to the edge of the bed in preparation to hold his child for the first time. His large hands reach out to grab her, before he stops. Danu lifts her eyes to see him gulp deeply and wipe his hands down the front of his robes before reaching out a second time. This time, one hand goes beneath Lorna's head, replacing her own, and the other goes beneath her bottom. Danu watches as he lifts their daughter in the air, his eyes never leaving his daughters face as she scrunches her little body up. Severus sits carefully back down in the chair, keeping Lorna held in the same position he had picked her up in for several moments while he studies her face. Finally, he tucks her head tenderly in the crook of his elbow and pulls her body against his chest. Lorna seems much smaller in Severus' large arms, her entire body barely the length of his forearm that she rests on.
Danu pulls the tray of food closer to her but remains fixated on the father and daughter before her. Severus studies his daughter intently, his brow raised ever so slightly, the crease in his forehead smooths as his mouth opens just a sliver. Lorna begins to stir, making soft grunting noises as she stretches her arms above her head, Severus catches one and rubs her tiny fist between his fingers. Her legs stretch slightly, then curl back into her chest. She is wearing only a nappy and a hat, her fresh white skin has a thin layer of hair covering it, and her legs are long, thin, and wrinkly, looking oddly like a plucked chicken. Danu passes the discarded blanket over, and Severus drapes it over Lorna's small body before he rubs his eye with a curled finger and pinches the bridge of his nose. She couldn't be certain, but she had a suspicion that he was trying to conceal the fact that more than one tear escaped his eye.
"I would like to ask Draco to be her godfather." Severus says after a few moments.
—
The next four weeks pass in a haze of nursing, crying, and unstable magic. Due to stress and exhaustion, her magic was acting as if she were ten years old again. More than once a glass exploded in Severus' hand as he sat at the table eating dinner, and candle flames had a tendency to rise and dance so aggressively that they were now banned in the parlor near the books. Tensions were high in the Snape household, to say the least. While Lorna had been an angel the first two weeks of her life, things took a drastic and exhausting turn at exactly two weeks and one day.
Lorna simply did not stop crying, even in her sleep she still whimpered and whined. The only time the household had any semblance of quiet was when Lorna was lying on her stomach on Severus' forearm, her head resting on his palm, and either leg straddling his elbow. Nights were spent pacing the nursery floor, patting her back as she screamed and raged in Danu's ear while Severus slept. The days were mostly the same, her pacing either the garden or the kitchen with a screaming newborn while Severus was at work. Danu and Severus often snap at one another, more so than usual, resulting in Severus needing to take a walk to cool down while she is once again left with a screaming newborn. Due to staffing shortages, and Severus' inability to not work for extended periods of time, he had gone back to work when Lorna was three weeks old. If he had asked Draco to be Lorna's godfather, Danu did not know of it. Draco had not visited their home since the day she had walked in on Severus and Draco fighting many months before.
Molly Weasley, Hermione, Ginny, and Fleur come by almost daily to pace with Lorna while Danu gets an hour or two of sleep. Molly had taken to referring to Lorna as her first granddaughter, which would have sent a warmth through her, had she been able to form any coherent thought. Severus would return home from Saint Mungo's every evening with a single yellow primrose in his hand, looking surprisingly refreshed, which sent a momentary flash of anger and jealousy through her each day as he welcomed the screaming baby into his arms and patted her back until she quieted, then he would replace the new primrose with the one from the day before in a small glass tube on Lorna's vanity, and read to her before the fire as she squirmed and whimpered on his arm.
The midwives called it colic, swore that Lorna would calm in a few months, but Danu wasn't sure if she could last another few months. Severus brewed potion after potion in an attempt to ease Lorna's constant screams and read countless books, both Muggle and wizarding, in an attempt to find a cure. Nothing worked long term. There was one potion that had forced the screams to come out silently, but neither of them had been able to stomach watching her flail as big tears streamed down her face, not to mention the blue tinge that it left her with as the potion began to wear off. Instead, Danu would cast a Muffliato spell when the cries became too much for her to handle, but the side effects of that was near debilitating tinnitus due to the strength at which the spell needed to be cast at, and the buzzing it filled her ears with.
At six weeks, something inside of Danu snaps. Lorna had been especially hard to manage that day, Severus had yelled at her earlier that morning for exploding his mug of coffee as he was walking out of the door for work, causing him to be late and Lorna to wake with a howl as he slammed the front door behind him, a candle flame had nearly sat one of Lorna's blankets on fire, Bram had vomited on the sofa, and it wasn't even ten in the morning yet. Lorna knew, could sense that she was not wanted during her pregnancy and was now taking it out on both her and Severus. It was the only explanation, the child simply hated them both, Severus slightly less than her.
Danu places Lorna in her cot, kisses her red scrunched forehead as she screeches in protest at being put down, and walks out of the garden door to get away from it all. While she hyperventilates before Eileen's resting place, her hands on her knees and her hair spilling around her face, a warm hand is placed on her shoulder. She doesn't have to look up to see who it is.
Molly pries her hands from her knees and pulls her into a warm, soft, motherly embrace. She wanted to be like Molly, to be a comfort to her daughter, but she couldn't. The only time Lorna wasn't arching her back as if to escape her embrace was when she was nursing. The rest of the time, it was as though her mere presence physically pained her daughter. Danu rests her head on Molly's shoulder as the kind woman pats her back before gripping her shoulders and pulling her back to look in her eyes.
"It won't last forever." Molly reminds her for the hundredth time.
"She hates me." Danu whimpers as her bottom lip quivers.
"She does not hate you. This is normal. Percy, Fred, and Ron all had colic and we got through it."
"How? How did you get through it? Because I'm starting to lose it here."
"Just take it one day at a time, love." Molly says with a smile as she smooths her hair from her face and leads her back to the house.
Inside, Harry and Ginny are there trying desperately to calm Lorna. Ginny shows Harry how to hold Lorna across his forearm the way she had seen Severus do on more than one occasion when her and Molly came to visit. Lorna stops screaming instantly. Danu herself had tried the position a dozen times but had never gotten the same results. Molly sends Harry, Ginny, and Lorna upstairs to the nursery and sits Danu down at the kitchen table with a mug of tea.
"Is Severus helping you?" Molly asks with a raised brow between sips of tea.
"Yeah, Severus helps. He has to work though, so he needs to sleep at night, then he's gone all day. She gets worse right before he gets home, but he's able to calm her down."
"Good. Now, want to tell me what happened today?"
"She just won't stop crying. I needed some air. Nothing I do works." Danu mutters, defeated as she throws her head down on the table with a deep sigh.
"You are a good mother." Molly tells her sternly as she takes her hand into her own.
—
Lorna looks up at Danu with a large, toothless grin which reaches her bright blue eyes, causing them to gleam. She is nearly eight weeks old now, and crying far less than usual, though she still had bad days. She is truly a beautiful child, and not just because she was her child either, people stopped her in shops each time they went out to marvel at the beauty of the life she had created.
Her eyes are large and blue, the exact color and shape of her own. Everyone, including herself, had been so convinced that Lorna would have dark brown eyes like Severus. Black wisps of hair cling to her now rounded head, and she looked far less like a plucked chicken now that she was beginning to gain weight. She would likely be tall like Severus, her legs remained long, but were now chubby with several rolls. Lorna was now gaining more control of her hands and took advantage of grabbing anything she could and holding on for dear life. Whether it be Danu's hair, Severus ears or nose, or Bram's tail if he ventured too close.
Danu holds Lorna on her lap, her legs curled towards her chest, with her feet sticking straight up as Danu tickles and kisses them while making exaggerated kissing sounds and saying nonsense in a high pitched voice. Lorna had smiled during it for the very first time that morning, which meant Danu had naturally spent the remainder of the day doing whatever it took to make her do it again.
Severus bursts through the front door just then, a scowl on his face. Danu turns her head towards him, the huge smile on her face fading slowly as she realizes that he is, in fact, still in a foul mood. He had been for days yet refused to tell her why. Lorna could feel the tension and would arch her back and fuss each time he had held her for three days now, something she had never done before. Severus had always been a source of comfort for his daughter.
"Watch this." Danu says proudly, not allowing Severus' bad mood to take this moment away from her.
Danu waits until Severus stands next to the sofa and brings Lorna's feet to her mouth once more and kisses her feet repeatedly as she makes the ridiculous kissing sounds and shakes her head back and forth. Lorna's face breaks out in another large smile as she gurgles and lets out a sloppy, wet sound from the back of her throat. Danu looks to Severus expectantly, a smile plastered on her own face. Severus merely grunts, raises one brow, and stalks towards the kitchen. Danu bundles Lorna in her arms and follows Severus to the kitchen, partially to check on dinner, also to get Severus to acknowledge them.
"You haven't seen daddy all day!" Danu says in the high pitched voice she had been using just for Lorna the last week, since she learned that it made the child cease crying and look around.
She lifts Lorna beneath her arms and turns her around to face the room as she rests the back of her head between her breasts. Lorna had recently demanded to see the goings on in the room around her, now that her eyesight had gotten slightly better than it was at birth.
"She's been very good today, only cried for three hours. That's a new record for Miss Lorna!" Danu exclaims before kissing the child's head as she flails her chubby arms.
"Hmph." Severus grumbles as he turns from the sink, a glass of water in one hand as he brings it to his lips and raises a brow at her.
"We missed you today." Danu tries, taking a step closer to Severus.
"Ah, yes. All smiles while I was away, I see." Severus' voice is deep and ominous as it vibrates in her chest.
"It was the first time she's smiled. I wanted you to see it, too." Danu attempts a small smile up at him, but he could sense that it was forced as he sneers down at her.
Later that evening, after putting Lorna down for the night, Danu creeps down the stairs to find Severus sitting in his chair in the parlor sipping a cup of tea. She comes up behind him and places her hands on his shoulders, he tenses slightly, but relaxes as she massages his neck with her thumbs.
"I really did miss you today." Danu whispers as she leans down and kisses his cheek gently. "I miss you every day."
"You should go to bed." Severus sighs as he leans his head against the back of the chair.
"I want to sit with you for a while. I feel like I never see you anymore." Danu says as she makes her way around the chair to perch on the arm. Severus puts his mug down on the table and rests his hand on her bare thigh.
"We see one another every day."
"Yeah, but it's different, not like it was before. We used to talk, read, make love." Danu nestles her head in the crook of Severus neck and whispers the final word into his ear. He shutters slightly.
"You gave birth two months ago." Severus reminds her as he lifts one brow.
"Yes, and we've been cleared to do that for two weeks now." Danu kisses just below Severus' earlobe, the sweet spot she knew would get him going.
As exhausted as she was, she desperately needed to know that Severus still wanted her. Severus shivers slightly as her kiss and rubs his calloused thumb along the bare skin on her thigh. She kisses him again, making her way up to his earlobe before taking it between her lips and tugging slightly. Severus grips her thigh firmly in his large, strong hands and leans his head back further into the chair. Danu trails one hand across his firm chest, then further down to grip his crotch beneath his trousers. He tenses slightly, and hisses between his teeth as he hardens slightly in her hand. She keeps going, nipping and licking at the exposes skin on his neck. Danu brings her hand back up, removes her lips from his neck, and cups his face in her hands.
"I love you, Severus." Danu whispers as she leans forward and kisses his lips hungrily before running her tongue across his bottom lip. "I love you so much. I miss this. I miss touching you, feeling you."
"Are you going to take your potion this time?" Severus asks after clearing his throat, his voice thick with desire.
"Are you going to try to die this time?" Danu counters with a small smirk as her fingers work to undo the many buttons of his shirt.
"Humph." Severus grunts as he pulls her down onto his lap and grips her rear tightly.
Severus pushes her back slightly, just as she had finished with all of the buttons and pulls the thin straps of her nightgown down her shoulders slowly. With the pointer finger on either of his hands, he pulls the front of her nightgown down below her breasts and cups them gently in his hands. Pregnancy and breastfeeding had caused them to grow several cup sizes, and by the look on Severus' face as he studied them intently, he was a fan of the change.
He leans forward and buries his face between her breasts, his breath hot and uneven on her bare skin as he kisses the tops of her breasts. One hand grips her thigh tightly, the other trails up and down her spine. She could feel him growing harder beneath her, pressing against the inside of her thigh beneath the prison of his trousers. Danu shifts and grinds herself against him and smirks as he groans against her flesh as she cups the back of his head with one hand and grips his shoulder firmly with the other.
Severus shifts suddenly and pulls her back away from him. He grips the bottom of her nightgown to pull it off, but she grips his wrists to stop him. Her body had changed, was no longer lean and supple as he had known it to be for so long. He hadn't seen, not since Lorna was a few days old, what pregnancy had done to her body. The stretchmarks were still visible, the flesh on her lower stomach was loose and pouch-like, her hips wider. Still though, Severus shook her hands off of his wrists and pulled the silk fabric up her body before tossing it to the floor and pulling her back against his chest. He goes to work on her neck, causing her to squirm and moan on his lap, each time she moved against his growing erection, Severus would growl against her skin. His hands explored her body, caressed her back, squeezed her hips, massaged her breasts.
"You are divine." Severus groans against her neck before standing abruptly and helping her stand before him.
Slowly, Severus undoes his trousers before her as she bites her lip. If she were anyone else, if she didn't know each of his expressions like the back her hand, if she didn't love the way his eyes roamed her body, she would think he was angry with the intensity at which he glared at her over his nose, one brow raised, his nostrils flaring. When he is aroused, his expression and glare becomes much more extreme, much more ominous. If she didn't know him, she would run. But she does know him, she knows every inch of his body just as he once knew every inch of hers. The glare, the way his eyes burned black with desire and bore into her soul, filled her with such a rush of arousal each and every time they passed slowly up and down her body. Everything about Severus is intense and passionate; his voice, his gaze, from the way he loves, to the way he hates.
As she bites her lip and watches his erection spring from his trousers, Severus grips her elbow and jerks her closer to him. Her breath hitches slightly as she presses her front to his, her mouth open slightly to greet his lips, her eyes fluttering with arousal. His lips never meet hers, though. Severus spins her around suddenly and pushes her over the arm of the sofa. Danu attempts to look back, but he presses her shoulder down further into the sofa's cushion. The warm batting inside of the arm of the sofa does nothing to keep the wooden frame from biting into her skin as Severs leans over her body, his breath hot in her ear. Before she can make sense of what is happening, he is inside of her.
Danu gasps at the sudden intrusion, the fullness of the position, the pinch of pain at being filled. Severus doesn't move, not at first. He moans into her ear and grips her hip before massaging the thigh of her right leg. He shifts down to grip her leg behind her knee, the movement causing her to gasp once more. Severus lifts her leg, the act causing a momentary discomfort before relieving some of the tightness inside of her.
"Better?" Severus murmurs before kissing her neck tenderly.
"Ye—yes." Danu replies breathlessly as Severus begins to slowly rock in and out of her.
"Mmm." Severus replies as he allows her knee to rest on the arm of the couch.
He lifts himself from her, his stomach no longer resting on her back pinning her to the sofa and presses one hand down on her lower back, the other snakes between her legs and begins to press into her, rubbing tight circles. Danu is moaning before she knows it, her breath heavy and labored and Severus moves slowly in and out of her.
"Sev—ah….Severus. A bit faster, please." Danu begs as Severus moves so slowly it felt like he was teasing her.
"If I go any faster I won't last another minute." Severus grunts as he slows himself even more.
"I don't—I don't care. Please!" Danu begs as she arches her back more and sticks out her bottom further to prove her point.
Severus delivers, he pumps in and out of her harsh and fast, pushing her face further into the sofa's cushion as his fingers work expertly on her clit. The pressure begins to build within her already, the feeling of him deep inside of her at this angle, filling her to the brim, and hitting the back of her aches, but feels so incredible at the same time. She cries out each time he slams into her, which only fuels him more. Just as promised, Severus does not last much longer. He stills and lets out a deep, guttural moan as he finishes deep inside of her. Danu lets out a huff of annoyance, she was so close. He did warn her, after all. Danu attempts to right herself as Severus pulls out, but he places a warning hand on her lower back to keep her still.
"I apologize." Severus begins as he smooths his fingers between her labia, spreading both of their juices around. "I warned you; told you exactly what would happen."
Severus voice is deep and smooth as he whispers to her, his stomach pressed against her back once more as two fingers slip inside of her, the other hand still drawing tight circles around her clit. The pressure builds once more as he works her deliciously, his long elegant fingers moving expertly in and out of her body. Danu pushes her bottom out more, desperate for more as Severus kissing and nips at her shoulder.
Finally, Danu releases with such an explosion beneath Severus that she is surprised she doesn't throw him across the room. Severus continues to curl his fingers within her, easing her out of her orgasm and into the real world. He extracts his fingers, leaving her empty as their fluids seep from within her and down her thighs. He smooths his hands down her back, the callouses creating the perfect amount of friction as they still on her bottom and squeeze each side firmly. Danu stands abruptly, Severus drops his hands from her body with a sigh. She turns and collapses into his arms as she rests her head on his chest.
"I miss you, too." Severus whispers against her hair as he rests his chin on the top of her head.
—
Three days after Danu and Severus had made love in the parlor as their daughter slept upstairs, Danu wakes to Lorna's high pitched squall. This is odd, because always Severus calms the screeching infant and gently wakes Danu with a glass of water and buttered toast in bed, where she will nurse Lorna and put her back to sleep. The two of them then have their coffee together in the kitchen before Severus leaves for work. This had been the routine since Lorna was born, and not once in the two months had she been woken to Lorna screaming with such intensity.
Danu opens her eyes and looks around. The room is empty besides her and Lorna, and the door is shut, another unusual sight. Even if Severus had to use the restroom, or got up before her, he always left the door open to listen for Lorna. Danu sits up and reaches into the bassinet to collect her screaming daughter, the confusion of the morning would have to wait until after Lorna had nursed.
Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Lorna had finished her breakfast and drifted back to sleep. She would wake soon, and stay up for a longer stretch of time, before repeating the process. The tiny house remained silent, there are no footsteps, sounds of running water, or opening cupboards in the kitchen. Danu slips from the bed, the chill of late spring nipping at her arms and legs.
Once downstairs, the scene before her knocks her to the floor. Nearly every book in the parlor had been removed, only a small section outside of the kitchen door remained; the section of the bookshelves that housed her own personal books. Danu sits at the bottom of the stairs, her heart pounding in disbelief as she stares at the empty shelves as if willing them to change. Willing what she knew to be true to change.
Severus is gone.