The summer sun blazes across the valley, heating the cottage to near misery when a cooling charm is not placed upon the interior. Outside, just beyond the garden, Lorna soars through the sky on her Cleansweep, followed closely by James Potter and Teddy Lupin. Each of them pouring sweat and squinting their eyes through the sun's rays.

Lorna's skin is olive toned due to the suntan she was currently sporting, her flesh peppered with freckles. No matter how many times her skin is lathered with sun cream, it never seems to be enough. Knowing that child, however, it is likely that she either washes it away, or her untamed magic simply vanishes it. Her hair is short and curly, ending just below her ears after taking a pair of kitchen scissors to it one evening two week prior after her hair tie had snapped while she was flying, and her hair wrapped itself around her head in the wind, nearly sending her into the side of the chimney.

She dismounted her broom, stalked into the kitchen where Danu was cutting vegetables for dinner and Severus was drinking a glass of water, and silently clipped her hair while the two of them had their backs turned. As Danu turned towards her to fetch a bowl from the counter, she dropped the knife she had been holding to the floor and covered her mouth with her hands. Lorna glared at her mother as chunks of her hair continued to rain to the floor at her feet. What remained of her hair had been so uneven and choppy, that Severus was forced to bribe her with a new record while he sat her atop the kitchen counter in an attempt to straighten it the best he could. Her hair, however, being so curly and unruly, had been near impossible to even out. Still, even two weeks later, they were finding long pieces and choppy bits when she emerged from the shower each evening, and then it was yet another battle to get her to sit still long enough to clip.

A dog; a yellow labrador retriever with golden ears and an over-sized tongue gallops across the garden towards a vegetable patch. Severus had gotten the dog as a puppy for Lorna the spring prior after the cat had died. Lorna had been inconsolable and had begged Severus to bring him back to life after he had buried the thing beneath the oak tree he had liked to lie under during the day. No amount of soothing had been enough to calm her as she wailed for days on end over the loss of the beast. He had felt guilty; even if he were not the cause of his death. The thing had been old, not nearly old enough to die of natural causes, but certainly not a young cat, either. He had been moving slowly and acting much more reclusive in the days leading up to his passing, and finally, one morning, Severus had looked out of the window and seen the poor beast curled up beneath the oak tree in the pouring rain. Knowing that something was wrong, he rushed out to check on it before the rest of the house had woke.

As he lowered the cats stiff, soaking body into a hole, Lorna came howling and screeching from the house and pounded on him with closed fist before finally resorting to kicking his shins and ankles. Danu pried her from him, and held her against her body in the frigid rain as Severus knelt to his knee and explained to her that the cat was dead, and not even he could bring it back to life.

She locked herself in her bedroom for three days, not allowing him to enter, not accepting food, and sobbing so violently that the candles flickered in the house. On the fourth day, Severus went to a reputable breeder in Surrey and settled on the only remaining pup that had not been claimed.

If he were going to own another pet, it would not be a cat, and it certainly would not be a tea-cup sized, yapping menace. The dog had proved herself to be loyal, obedient, and most of all, the children loved her. Even Severus himself had a soft spot for the dog Lorna had named Dorothy; after Dorothy Lawrence, whom she had learned about the week prior from visiting a museum in London with Rose and her children. They called the dog Dory for short, and Severus had trained her alongside Lorna.

Dory flops down onto a quilt where a chestnut haired, chubby cheeked toddler sits playing with a flower her mother had passed to her moments prior. She quickly abandons the flower and smiles so brightly that her hazel eyes are slits as she wraps her arms around Dory's neck as she pants and licks the child on the cheek.

The toddlers name is Elspeth Rose, and today she is exactly nineteen months old. Despite her chestnut hair and hazel eyes, she is the spitting image of her mother. A truly beautiful child, inside and out. She is sweet tempered and quiet, with a smile that brightens a room. She never cried, not even as a newborn, and certainly not on the day that she was born. Severus had been terrified, more so than the day Lorna had entered the world with a loud screech that went on for months.

It had been a difficult and terrifying birth, for both he and Danu, as well as Rose who was trembling so badly with fear and anxiety that she actually wrapped her arms around Severus to calm herself. The two of them had come to a truce after that day; the bickering and snide comments ending, at least in one another's presence.

He had been so convinced that he had lost both mother and child, that he cried openly there in the room in front of Rose and a half dozen midwives as they pushed him towards the corner as he pleaded with them to do anything to save his wife. Finally, after what felt like an eternity, her voice called weakly from the opposite end of the room, and he stumbled forward blindly to wrap her in her arms where he sobbed into her hair and told her over and over again how much he loved her.

"Born with a veil." The midwife announced proudly as she presented their daughter to them several moments later. "This one will be a Seer."

Severus had scoffed at this outrageous proclamation as he lowered his tear-filled eyes at the child nestled in her mother's arm. She was pink and perfect, with wisps of brown hair and a bright stork bite between her closed eyes, she grunted loudly as Severus cupped her cheek in his hand and pressed his lips to her forehead.

Conceiving Elspeth had not been easy, even though he had begged Danu time and time again to just take the fertility potion; it had worked for not only Draco and his wife, but also Weasley and Granger. She refused, and each month when she shut herself in the bathroom as yet another vial remained cloudy instead of the deep magenta to indicate pregnancy, she became increasingly more frustrated. Lorna's conception, one would call miraculous; it should not have been, yet, her she was. June's had been planned and relatively fast. They held their wedding ceremony in January, and by late March, they were expecting.

On the morning of thirty-first May, June was lost to them at nearly nine weeks. It had been devastating to them both, but Danu took it the hardest; she required another short dosing of Momentum Defensor.

Of course, there was no way of knowing for sure whether the child was a girl or a boy; it was much too early to tell. Severus knew, though, just as he had with Lorna. It was a feeling deep down in his marrow that consumed him. June was certainly a girl, she simply had to be.

A week after she had been lost to them, Molly dropped off a basket of pasties and biscuits, a sort of care package. She was the only other living soul who had known of the pregnancy, not even Rose had known. Danu had wanted it that way in the beginning; wanted her to be just their secret for a while longer. Molly had found out, though. She always had a way of knowing things.

Inside of that care package was a small stone ladybird with the date 31-05-2004 etched upon its side. Severus placed the small, colorful bauble next to his mother's resting place and lay two sweet pea blossoms from the front garden before it.

June will be safe with his mother, with her Lorna.

Eighteen months later, on third December 20006, Elspeth arrived bright and early during a thunderstorm so violent he had been worried the roof would be carried away. Lorna had been furious at her arrival, refusing to even be in the same room as her sister for the first three months of her life. It was not until Elspeth; or Elsie, as both Lorna and Danu refer to her as, began to become more cognizant of her surroundings that Lorna finally accepted her presence in the household.

It was not as though she had been surprised of the arrival- no, she knew and was made well aware that there would be another child joining their family for several months.

Danu was nearing her final month of pregnancy as she stood in the doorway of the nursery while Severus polished Lorna's old cot with a rag, Lorna had come barreling through the house, and stood panting in the doorway next to her mother, her arm resting against her mother's stomach, when Elspeth issued her mother a mighty blow, which could be felt by Lorna. She jumped away from her mother as though she had been struck, and in a sense, she had. Her eyes widened as she backed towards Severus cradling the effected arm.

"What was that?" She had breathed as her mother chuckled.

"That was the baby." Danu answered as Severus turned to see what the commotion was all about.

"Why did it move?" Lorna turned and clung to Severus shoulder, pointing a single finger at her mother accusingly.

"They're running out of room in there, I suspect." Danu turned away from them and begun folding small jumpers and socks from the clean basket of laundry and putting them away.

"How did a baby get in there anyway?" Severus cleared his throat loudly at Lorna's question, Danu simply giggled.

"Well, your dad and I—"

"You did this?" Lorna cut her mother off and released Severus' shoulder, her eyes impossibly large as her mouth gaped open slightly.

"Your dad and I made you, too, you know."

"Why did you put that baby in my mum?"

"Because," Danu answers for him, sparing him the awkwardness of the conversation. "We loved each other so much that decided we wanted to have another baby."

"But I'm your baby."

"Yes, you are. And we love you so much, we want another just like you."

"Perhaps not just like you." Severus jest as he took Lorna by the hand and pulls her in to a hug. "I could go for one a bit less smelly, myself."

A baby fusses behind him, and Severus turns from the scene out of the window and lifts the six month old child from the chair currently perched upon the kitchen counter and into his arms. A vial of Teething Tonic sits uncorked in the window ledge, Severus dips his index finger into the liquid and allows the child to suck on it to relieve the pressure in their gums, if only for a moment. The child gazes up at him, identical obsidian eyes and furrowed brow, the beginnings of an over-sized nose, and his chin all prominent on her. He had gotten lucky with Lorna and Elspeth; neither looked even a bit like him.

"Poor child." Severus thought to himself often as the girl gazed up at him trustingly. He pushes the thought from his head as often as possible. Josephine is beautiful.

Josephine had inherited everything he hated about himself, but loved tremendously when etched upon the small face before him. Though she is bald, had been since the day she was born, she has the faintest wisps of black eyebrows and thin lips. Outside of the current teething stage, there were few complaints from the child. She smiled often, had recently begun to babble incoherently, and was so close to crawling they would soon need to find a space of her own that was not his bed.

Thirteen months and four days after Elspeth arrived, on Severus' forty-seventh birthday, eleven years to the date since they had been wed, Josephine Maeve, nicknamed Josie by Danu, arrived late in the night during a blizzard which rendered the midwives hours late to her birth.

Danu had gone from furious with Severus, to sobbing on his arm, and finally acceptance in the span of thirty minutes on the evening they had found out that she was pregnant with Josephine only three months after welcoming Elspeth. She had not been planned, to say the least. Danu had been more than willing to never have another child, Severus, on the other hand, had no thoughts either way. He was content with what they had, but was not upset with the news.

It had been the first time they had lie together after Elspeth was born, and from first-hand experience, once was all it took. Elspeth had begun to cry downstairs in her cot, and Lorna needed help with something out in the garden. It was a quick moment alone together in the washroom while the girls were momentarily preoccupied. They slipped quietly from the washroom, Severus passing her a contraceptive potion from the vanity above the sink on the way out, Danu had carried it with her, no doubt planning on taking it as she fed Elspeth. It is their belief that she sat the vial down on the coffee table, and when Lorna and Dory came barreling into the house, one of them bumped into the table, sending the vial rolling onto the floor and under the sofa, for they found the still full, and hair covered vial under the sofa two months before Josephine was born. In the mayhem occurring around her that afternoon, Danu had not even realized that she did not actually take the potion.

"I'm sorry I couldn't give you a son." Danu murmured to him as he held Josephine for the first time. He raised a brow at her in confusion. "Don't most men want sons?"

"We have daughters. I am content." Severus replied truthfully. The thought of requiring a son seemed ludicrous, still did, in fact.

Lorna had been less than thrilled at the arrival of yet another sister, but did not outright hate Josephine as she had initially done with Elspeth. She would, at the very least, allow the child in the same room as her from the beginning, even going as far as noting that she was "a bit cute" on more than one occasion. She had also, much to Severus' dissatisfaction, not forgotten that it was he who, "put babies in Mum" and made it her mission to remind him at least once a week to never do it again.

"Are you almost ready, darling?" Danu's voice pulls him from his thoughts.

"Hmm?" He asks as he turns to take sight of her coming through the door with a basket of produce in the crook of her elbow, holding Elspeth by the hand.

Four pregnancies and three children had left her soft and plump, yet not nearly overweight. She reminds him of marble statues depicting women in robes dancing, or carrying jugs which he had seen at museums in London. Her hair gleams in the sunlight pouring from the window, small strips of silver glistening around her temple as she moves through the kitchen. She had turned thirty exactly one month ago today, and had not been pleased with the number, or the changes time had made to her appearance, despite being the most beautiful she had ever been. Severus no longer saw Lily when he looked at her, in fact, he had not seen Lily in her in nearly ten years.

"The game." Danu reminds him, likely for the second time already that morning. "We're meant to bring the kids to their quidditch game."

"Ah, yes." Severus steps forward and kisses her on the temple, Josephine grabs a fistful of her hair before he can stop it, and works to untangle it from the child's fat, tightly clenched fist. "I have not forgotten."

"I'll just pack a basket with some snacks for Elsie and Josephine and then we can go. I already called Lorna and the boys down, they're just packing their brooms away now."

Once a picnic basket filled with far too many snacks for two children had been packed, Severus begins loading brooms and quidditch bags into the boot of the black sport utility vehicle parked in the drive. After Elspeth came along, it just seemed necessary to purchase an automobile; upgraded with many magical aspects, of course, as side-by-side Apparition had become much too taxing on him, and Danu had adamantly refused to retake her Apparition exam after the spilching incident. Learning to drive the damned thing had been a challenge unto itself, and if he were being honest, Danu managed it far better than he could ever dream to, even with Potter's lessons on driving after they had bought it.

"Severus!" James exclaims loudly from the back seat after Danu had buckled the younger children into their seats and took her place behind the wheel. "Will you PLEASE teach me Occlumency too? I want to learn so me and Lorna can be the only first years at Hogwarts to know it!"

"You won't even be in my same year!" Lorna shouts as she slams her hands on her knees before reaching between the front seats to grab a bottle of water left there from who only knows how long ago now.

"So what?" Asks James as he snatches the bottle from Lorna's hands, spilling slightly down her shirt.

"If he learns Occlumency, then you have to teach me Legilimency!" Teddy Lupin chimes in as he grips the back of Severus' headrest to peer around the seat at him. "Please! I cleared my mind every single night just like Lorna told me to, and I still can't do it, she always gets in!"

"It means you aren't trying hard enough, right daddy?"

"Why are you all standing in your seats?" Danu demands as she puts the brake on and looks over her shoulder at the children squabbling behind her. "Sit down. Now, or we aren't moving."

"Why, might I ask, where you practicing Legilimency on young Mister Lupin, Lorna?" Severus asks with a smirk as the children take their seats with a huff.

"Because he lied to me!" Shouts Lorna

"I did not!" Counters Lupin

"Yeah but I thought you did!"

"How did you manage a wand to even attempt this?"

"I used mums!"

"What?" Danu exclaims as she whips her head around to glare at Lorna as the vehicle slows to a stop. "How many time must I tell you to leave my wand alone? You are too young to be using magic. Do you want your dad and I to get in trouble, or better yet, be expelled before you're even old enough to attend Hogwarts?"

"Daddy said the Ministry can't even tell if it's me or you using your wand!"

"That's not the point." Danu explains as the vehicle inches forwards through an intersection.

"You don't wanna go to Azkaban, Lorna." Lupin sings from the back seat with a giggle.

"Shut it. They won't throw me in Azkaban for that. Right, dad?" Lorna states matter-of-factly.

She had begun calling him "dad" rather than "daddy" more often the last several weeks. The first time she had done it, he nearly broke down in tears at the thought of never hearing her call him daddy again. She's eight and a half years old, he reminds himself once more. She is not a little girl, anymore.

"You won't go to Azkaban for that, but it's still against the rules. You shouldn't take me and your dads wands, you could get hurt. You'll have our own wand soon." Danu answers for him while watching the children in the rear mirror.

As they unload the children from the car, strap the two smallest into the pram, ensure each of the older children have their brooms, pads, goggles, and gloves, and then make their way to the stands, the players are on the field shaking hands and beginning to mount their brooms.

The little league Quidditch team was the brainchild of Potter's wife, Ginny. She had played for the Holyhead Harpies for a number of years at this point, and most of the players had children obsessed with the game as well. The children had voted to name their team Dragonsbreath, no doubt Lorna's idea. Lorna played Chaser, Lupin keeper, and young Potter was the Seeker, naturally.

Danu unloads the children and takes her seat next to Granger and her small child, Potter's youngest son, and Molly Weasley. Severus had been furious when he learned of the young boys name; it had felt like a slap in the face to have his name stuck between Albus Dumbledore's and James Potter's. He refused to so much as be in the same room as Potter for months following the announcement, hen finally relented and took to ignoring the child after Lorna had begged him to let Potter and his family come to her seventh birthday party.

Severus sits on the edge of his seat; his eyes are trained to the sky as Lorna takes flight and immediately scores within the first five minutes of the game. While a majority of the children are still shaky and unsure on their brooms, Lorna is fast and precise. Before the hour is up, she has ensured that the team was in the lead; fifty to ten. Severus watches proudly as Lorna zips from one end of the pitch to the other, as fast as lightening, in an attempt to cut off the other teams Chaser. Suddenly, the opposing teams Chaser throws the Quaffle in an attempt to make a long distance score, Lorna zips in front of it, no doubt attempting to catch it before the score is made. She flies left a bit too abruptly, and catches the Quaffle with her face.

Severus is taking the stairs two at a time before Potter, acting as referee, even has a chance to sound his whistle. A quick glance over his should, and Danu is standing, one hand over her mouth, and Josephine on her hip. Molly is clutching her shoulder, trying to get her to sit down, and Granger is looking towards him pleadingly. He straightens, and continues faster down the stairs. From this height, he can already see the blood streaming from her nose and down her chin.

He meets her on the ground, and instead of tears or whimpering as he expected with an injury such as this in a child her age, he is met with Lorna seething and sneering as she spits blood from her mouth and clutches her broom stick so tightly her knuckles are white. Severus grips her shoulder and steers her towards the Healer in a small tent on the edge of the pitch as Ginny comes from the sidelines and begins coaching the remaining children zooming in.

"I don't need a Healer." Lorna spits as they enter the flap.

"Your nose is broken."

"And I'm missing a tooth!"

"You—what? Let me see." Severus places his hand on her chin gently and pulls her bottom lip down, revealing a blood stump where her upper left incisor once was. "Not your loose one?"

"Nah. Loose tooth is still there." Lorna wiggles her loose canine, right next to the missing tooth.

"Sit." Severus demands as he pushes Lorna onto a bench as the Healer steps forward with her wand at the ready. "Get cleaned up and then we can head home."

"No!" Lorna shouts as she jumps from the bench. "I'm going back out there, we gotta win!"

"Your nose is broken, you are missing a tooth, your lip is busted, and you will no doubt have double black eyes. You are in no state to continue."

"I'm gonna kill him. Fix my nose and let me play!"

"Are you certain? You do not need to prove anything, Lorna."

"Daddy. Please." Lorna begs, her blue eyes filling with tears as her lower lip begins to tremble.

"Very well." Severus steps aside and nods towards the Healer.

Once Lorna's nose had been reset, the bleeding stopped, and the dried blood cleaned from her face, Severus escorts her back to the field, where she's off again before Severus has a chance to make it back to his seat.

"Is she okay?" The three women waiting for him demand in unison.

"Quite. Insisted on finishing the game."

"But is she really okay?" Danu asks as she passes a sleeping Josephine to his arms as he takes his seat.

"Broken nose, missing tooth, and insists that two blackened eyes are a new fashion statement."

"And you let her go back up?" Danu demands as she jumps to her feet and squints her eyes in the sunlight to find Lorna.

"You know how she can be. She allowed the Healer to set her nose. That is as much as I could get out of her."

Lorna scores twice more in the following ten minutes. Severus looks down at Josephine asleep in his arms and kisses her gently on the forehead as the crowd erupts in cheers. He lifts his eyes to see the teams each soaring towards the ground. Potter is the first to the ground, where he lifts his arm high above his head with a wide grin. He had caught the Snitch.

After having a dinner of pizza and ice cream with the Potters and Weasley's, the Snape's make their way home. Severus helps Lorna to bed, taking care to ensure she cleans her mouth well to ensure the injury to her mouth does not become infected, then reads Elspeth to sleep as Danu puts Josephine to bed in their room.

The two meet in the kitchen where Severus puts the dishes left drying in the rack away, and Danu sweeps the floor.

"Josie's going to need her own bedroom, soon." Danu announces as she dumps the dustbin in the garbage.

"I have offered to add an addition onto the bottom level. We could make that our bedroom so that all three girls have their own rooms."

"I don't want to add an addition."

"Unless you want to move—"

"No! I love our house; I don't want to move."

"Then…Why not move the books in the attic down here, I can build another shed in the garden as a brewing room, and we put Lorna in the attic. Josephine can have her old bedroom, and we can stay in ours."

"Why don't we take the attic?"

"There is no door. Besides, would you really like to chance having all three of them on the same floor unsupervised?"

"You think she'll go for it?"

"If we phrase it properly. I suspect she may be happier up there."

'Alright then. It's settled. I can start on everything tomorrow while you're at the shop. Lorna can stay home with me so that she can set everything up the way she likes it."

"That will be fine. Please do not forget that the list of herbs that I need."

"I didn't forget. I'll have them ready for you first thing."

His potion, now called Elixir of Life by the general public, had become so popular, especially with menstruating women, he could barely keep it on the shelves. It became approved by the Ministry two years prior after he and Gaultier showed their research. Word had spread like wildfire, and before long, women flocked the shop in troves to get their hands on a bottle of their own. His photo had been taken in front of the shop for an article in the Prophet. Lorna's hand clutched in his, his wife on his arm. The photo was framed and hung proudly behind the counter inside of the shop for all to see.

For the first time in his life, he no longer felt the need to look over his shoulder every time he stepped foot in public. He no longer felt anxiety at the thought of someone retaliating against him and harming his family. Potter, Weasley, Granger, and even Longbottom were permanent fixtures in his life, despite pleading to be rid of them during their Hogwarts years.

"Daddy." Lorna whispers in his ear the following morning as he sips his coffee and reads today's edition of the Prophet. "Give me a drink of your coffee."

"You know your mother does not like you drinking coffee." Severus whispers back to her as he cuts his eyes to his right to ensure Danu's back was still turned.

He tips his mug towards Lorna and allows her to slurp several gulps before pulling it away abruptly as Danu returns to the table carrying Elspeth and Josephine's plates of scrambled eggs and sliced fruit.

"Daddy, when we get to work—"

"You are to stay here with your mother today." Severus cuts her off before she can finish her thought.

"But..I always go to work with you."

"Your mother has a surprise for you. You are to stay with her today, tomorrow you can come to work with me."

"What surprise?" Lorna narrows her eyes at Danu as though she mistrusted her.

"Well, your dad and I thought you may like a new bed. Maybe even a new bedroom to put it in." Danu announces with a sweet smile.

"I like my bed. I don't need a new one, or a new bedroom."

"What if I told you that you were going to move to the attic. You're going to have the whole entire attic to yourself."

"I don't know…"

"It's okay if you don't want to. Daddy and I just thought you would like to have the biggest room."

"Can I bring the record player in there?"

Lorna's eyes move to the record player in the corner of the living room. The stack on vinyl's and player that they had danced to in the kitchen on more than one occasion. Severus had later learned that they had belong to Sirius Black. When Potter cleaned the place and moved in, he gave them to Danu. Lorna had treasured them much more than her mother had.

"If you take care of it, you can bring it to your room."

Severus drains the final dregs of his coffee and brings his cup to the sink to wash up, while Lorna continues her bedroom discussion with her mother. Dory stretches on the sofa and makes her way to the kitchen door to be let out in the garden when Severus leaves, as she does each morning. He kisses each of the girls on the forehead, and Danu quickly on the lips, and makes his way out into the garden to disapparate.