Severus' nose trails down the sensitive part of her neck; the moan this elicited from her was beyond words. The way her skin prickled with anticipation each time she felt his lips move against her shoulder blades, or his fingers trail down her spine made his mouth water.
She is a Goddess.
He will worship her until his dying breath.
Her fingers tighten in the pillowcase above her head, her hips press firmly against his own, greedy for the love he is giving her. She is ever so smug with her advancements, so eager to pleasure him. He slows down so painstakingly slow to feel her release as it ripples and courses through her body, leaving him to chase his own just as her pleasure has run its course.
Severus buries his nose in the crook of her neck and breathes in the intoxicating scent of her flesh. It mattered not how many times he found himself inside of her, each and every time was better than the last. Every time made him hunger for the next. She made him weak in the knees with nothing more than a grin, and the way her eyes sparkled when they turned up towards him had his heart fluttering. Should men approaching fifty still feel such a pubescent desire? Should he not be experiencing adverse manifestations of his age?
Though he would rather overlook the fact that he had, in fact, lie with another in the past, it did not give him the same sense of ecstasy as he experienced each time he had ever been with his wife. Surly, no other man had ever experienced the sheer tranquility and satisfaction that washed over him. It must be an anomaly; an exception which pertains only to him.
She felt it, too; she had to. The way her body molded perfectly with his, the way her skin came to life with only a finger trailed down her spine. The sounds he could elicit from her throat with his tongue. Yes, she felt the hunger as well. She permitted him, him of all people, to continue to devour her; to worship her. What she saw in him was unknown, but goddamn was he forever grateful.
"Severus." Danu hisses as he rolls off of her back and pulls her against his side. "I love you."
"And I, you." Severus murmurs against her hair as she nuzzles her head against his chest and wraps her arms around him.
It felt as though it had been ages since he had been inside of her, and truly, it had been. She had not let him enter her since Josephine was born, and she was but one month away from her first birthday. Though she had helped him find release using her hands, and often times her mouth, it was not the same as being buried inside of her. It was only after he had sworn to her that he would do everything within his power to prevent her from falling pregnant once more that she finally relented and allowed him to have her.
In truth, he had scoured the Eastern globe in search of a remedy. Finally, with Gaultier and Miss Fischer's assistance, they were able to concoct a recipe including stoneseed root Gaultier had acquired from the America's, thistle, and ginger to inhibit ovulation for upwards of six months with but one dose. The potion was now in its trial phase, and with any luck, will be their next best seller.
The two lie in a tight embrace, the only sound around them is the periodic tick as ice pings against the frosted window. It had a been a brutal winter thus far with no end in sight. They should get up soon, they each know it, yet the warmth and comfort of one another's skin kept them grounded to the bed.
Elspeth's second birthday party would take place in only a few short hours. The child had turned two four days prior, yet Danu had insisted that the party be today so as to accommodate their extended family and friends schedules. They had a small dinner and a cake for her on her actual birthday, including a phone call from Rose and her family, and Molly and Arthur Weasley stopped by early that afternoon to shower her in hugs and kisses. Lorna had even gone as far as wishing her sister a happy birthday, choosing to omit the hugs and kisses herself.
Lorna had heed his warning and begun treating her sister with something resembling respect, for the most part. She still, despite his glaring stare and punishments, had her moments of cruelty in which Danu had to remind both he and Lorna to take a walk to compose themselves. Elspeth, he had noticed, was much less tense when Lorna was around, but sill did her best to avoid her.
Suddenly, and without warning, a bass tune from the attic causes them each to jerk from their relaxation and sit bolt upright in bed. Severus grinds his teeth as Josephine's cries of surprise mingle with the guitar melody and kick drum intro of The Rolling Stone's Sticky Fingers album rattling the windows throughout the house.
"I thought you took that from her." Danu shouts as she searches frantically for her bathrobe.
"I did." Severus seethes as he ties his own bathrobe and flings their bedroom door opened.
Danu matches him stride for stride as they make their way down the hall. She veers left and enters Josephine's bedroom, he turns right and begins to ascend the attic stairs. As he rounds the banister, he is met with Lorna slung over the arm of a sofa she had her mother drag up the stairs, her black curls nearly touching the floor as she reads an old copy of The Quibbler upside down. The stuffed hippogriff she has had since she was in her mother's womb tucked neatly behind her neck as a pillow. With the flick of his wand, the music stops with a screech and the vinyl record floats towards his outstretched hand.
"Hey!" Lorna shouts, sitting upright on the sofa. Severus watches as the stuffed hippogriff, now looking more than a little worse for wear, falls to the ground. "I was listening to that."
"So, I heard." Severus grits his teeth and glares down at her. "It is but half past six in the morning. You have woken your sisters, and somehow have managed to get the highly inappropriate album that I took from you a week ago."
"It isn't the one you took from me!" Lorna exclaims as she jumps from the sofa and beings shuffling through the crate of albums on the floor. "There was two of them."
"Of course there was." Severus sighs and slides the vinyl back into its equally inappropriate cover and tucks it under his arm; the crotch of the man of the cover pressed against his side so as to keep it hidden from his daughter, who had definitely already seen it. He steps towards the record player and gestures down at it. "Blare this damned thing throughout the house again, and I will take it."
"You can't take it. It was my grandpa's." Lorna states defiantly as she matches his glare.
"It is in my house. I will do as I please."
Severus narrows his eyes at the child standing defiantly before him, hands on her hips and those eerie blue eyes narrowed right back at him. This child will be the death of him. What has happened to him? Ten, fifteen years ago, he would have never accepted this level of insolence from a child under his care.
"You sisters birthday party is today." Reluctantly, Severus is the first to back down. "Do try and behave yourself."
"Is Draco coming?"
"No, Mister Malfoy will not be in attendance."
Although Potter and Draco had been civil towards one another, for Lorna's sake in the beginning, they had each adamantly refused to be in one another's presence, Potter more so than Draco when his children began to arrive. To keep the peace, and allow Potter's children, who vastly outnumbered Draco's by this point to come to all gatherings and parties, Draco begun to deny invitation to parties or get togethers if Potter expressed interest in coming.
Severus saw Draco frequently, at the least twice a week. He came to the shop, always alone, to purchase various pain tonics and headache droughts for his wife. He had once confided in Severus that his wife would not allow their young son out of her line of sight. She coddled the child, overindulged him, and would fall in to fits of despair and sobbing if she could not find him. Despite being two years old by this point, Severus had only seen the child twice, Danu only once. Draco had stated that it was due to the fact that they had lost so many pregnancies prior to finally having Scorpius, and not knowing how long she would have left in the world. She had deteriorated drastically since the birth of the child, just as Severus had warned that she would. Severus himself had not set eyes on the woman since the days following the birth of her child, when her and Draco came to the cottage one rainy afternoon to show off their new child as though it were a trophy, he knew without a shadow of a doubt that the woman was likely in an unrecognizable state as the Blood Malediction ravaged her body as though it were a cancer. In a truth, that is precisely what it was. An incurable, terminal cancer that would consume her.
Whomever ad placed the curse upon Missus Malfoy's ancestor wrote her death sentence before she had ever even been dreamed of. From what he had discovered, it went back as far as ten generations, the reason for which remained unknown. Whether her female predecessor deserved this curse upon herself also remained unknown; her descendants, however, did not deserve the curse, that much was certain. Unless they were able to find a descendant of the original curse bearer to lift the curse, they would not be able to spare the young woman's life. Severus and Draco had spent her entire pregnancy scouring archives and genealogy documents at the Ministry in an attempt to uncover this information, but ran in to yet another dead-end in their haste to cure the woman before the birth of her child. They could not even be certain that the curse stopped ten generations prior, it was very well possible that it was far more ancient than that, meaning they would be more likely to capture a graphorn unarmed than they were to ever heal the woman.
He felt a deep sorrow for Draco, truly, he did, but there was nothing more that he could do for either of them. He ached, and often had nightmares, imaging himself in the same situation of Draco, powerless to help, desperate to heal his beloved, and knowing that ultimately, anything that you do will offer no semblance of relief.
Severus sighs, kisses his daughter on the top of the head, and makes the trek back down the attic stairs and to his bedroom. Upon opening the bedroom door, he is greeted by the other three women in his life each perched upon the bed. Elspeth was in his spot thumbing through the copy of Atlas of Celestial Anomalies by M.P.N. Carneirus that Lorna had gifted him for his birthday years prior, which the child had found buried in one of the bookshelves in the attic and had become obsessed with. Her chestnut hair had come loose from the braid which he had secured the night before after her bath, and stuck to her face with sleep. Her hazel eyes scan the page with haste and excitement, despite the fact that she was still unable to read, though she did know her letters. Next to her is Danu, nursing a still fussy Josephine, her hair sex ruffled and a mess of fiery curls. Josephine, on the other hand, now had an intense receding hairline. What little hair she had is thin, pin straight, and black as night, just like his own. Her coal dark eyes scan the room upon his entrance, and lock in on him. She smiles a nearly toothless smile up at him, forgetting her breakfast entirely, and spraying herself in the face with milk.
He kneels down on one knee to retrieve the lock box hidden under their bed containing important documents, an emergency fund of both Muggle and Wizarding money, and objects confiscated from Lorna. Severus had bewitched it to open only to he and his wife's touch, making any attempt Lorna may have of breaking into it to retrieve her seized items impossible. He places the Rolling Stone's album on top of the previous one, and lock the box securely before pushing back under the bed.
"There were two of them." Severus announces with a groan as he uses the edge of the bed to help himself back to his feet.
"Of course there was." Danu sighs as she sits the small child in the center of the bed.
Josephine immediately makes a B-line to the book her elder sister was thumbing through, but Severus is faster. He scoops the toddler from the center of the bed and holds her above his head and blows on her exposed stomach. Josephine cackles loudly and flails her legs in midair. He brings her back down and wraps her in his arms where she begins her morning chant of "DADA DADA DADA" entirely too loud for his liking. Although, he would be lying if he said he did not enjoy hearing all three of his daughter call for him.
No amount of reading prepared him for the reality of watching your child grow and learn. He had missed all of it with Lorna, and by the time Elspeth arrived, he was terrified each time she did something knew. Would she be allergic to something and they not know it? Would she roll off of the bed or changing table when they turned their backs for a moment? What if she fell from the sofa, or worse, down the stairs? With Josephine he had been less frightened, but still weary each time he watched her take a step, or pull herself up using the edge of a table or the arm of the sofa.
"What time is your mother set to arrive?" Severus asks as he rests his chin on the top of his daughters head.
"She said by noon, but I'm worried about the roads. It looks like it might get bad out there, and it's nearly a four hour drive."
"One of us must go to Diagon Alley today to drop the order of belladonna and hemlock at Slug and Jigger. I can go, retrieve your family, and use the Floo at The Leaky Cauldron to return home with them."
"Would you?" Danu asks, her eyes pleading with him as she stands before her dresser next to the bed.
"Of course. Ring your mother and tell her not to leave, yet."
"Come on, Elsie." Danu says sweetly as she makes her way to the bedroom door. "Let's go call Grandma Rose and get some breakfast started. We've got a big day today."
"Okay, mummy." The girls says obediently as she closes her book and clambers from the bed, both feet searching carefully for the floor over the edge.
Finally, with her father's help, both feet are planted firmly on the ground. She smiles warmly at him, the candlelight flickering throughout the room making her hazel eyes look like honey. She truly is a beautiful child; smooth porcelain skin like her mother, wavy chestnut colored hair that glistened with red streaks in the sunlight, and under certain lighting conditions, the edges or her iris look to be lined with a green color, and streaks of amber connect these to her pupil. Genetics are a strange thing, everything that he thought he knew of it was completely thrown out of the window upon the arrival of each of his children. What should have been, based on his dominant traits, simply was not. All three of them should have inherited his large nose, dark brown eyes, and straight black hair. While Lorna did, in fact, have black hair, it was clear to anyone that had the displeasure of meeting her grandfather that he had been the one responsible for damn near every one of her features. His genes only diluted Danu's slightly where Elspeth was concerned, it was clear that she would look just like her mother, and grandmother. Poor Josephine, she received the brunt of his genetic code. While he had never seen a photograph of himself at this age, and doubt one even existed in the first place, he could imagine that Josephine was a spitting image of what he had been.
Danu's voice rings up the stairs as she speaks with her mother on the telephone in the kitchen. Lorna races down the stairs just as Severus, holding Josephine on his hip while gripping Elspeth's hand, reaches the bedroom door.
"Mum!" Lorna cries as she jumps down the final three stairs instead of walking down them. "I'm STARVING!"
"I'm on the phone with Grandma Rose, Lorna, hold on a minute."
"Can I start making the eggs?" Lorna asks as she flings the icebox door open and pulls out a glass bottle of milk, which she drinks directly from the bottle before wiping her mouth on the back of her hand.
"Lorna, use a cup, please." Danu sighs as she cuts her eyes at Lorna before turning back to her conversation with Rose. "Okay, mum, that's fine. Yes, Severus is bringing you, Vincent, and the girls. Yes mum, I promise it's not a problem. Mum, it's getting pretty nasty out, you shouldn't be driving. Mum, please just wait on Severus. He'll be there in about an hour, and then you and the girls can help me set up for the party before everyone gets here. Okay, mum, okay. I'll see you soon, bye."
Danu hangs the receiver back on the wall and sighs loudly as she pinches the bridge of her nose. Lorna is climbing the counter to reach the bowls in the cupboard, Elspeth is stacking blocks discarded in the floor from the night before, and Josephine squirms on his hip with her fat little arms reaching out to her mother. Her face begins to redden, indicating that she is seconds away from screaming at the top of her lungs to get her mother's attention. Severus turns her away from Danu to face the window, an attempt to get her attention elsewhere before a complete meltdown of all four of the Snape women.
"Why don't I take Elspeth and Josephine with me, while you and Lorna make breakfast?" Severus offers as he places his hand on his wife's shoulder.
"No, I wanna go with you!" Lorna shouts as she pushes herself off the counter and runs to his side.
"I was under the impression that you wished to help your mother cook eggs?"
"No, I changed my mind. I wanna go with you!"
"I stay here, mummy." Elspeth's sweet voice rings from behind them.
"See, Elsie doesn't wanna go. Me and you can go get Gran, daddy!" Lorna offers him a gap toothed smile and bats her eyes up at him.
"We are taking Josephine, at the least." Severus counters.
"No." Danu begins as she removes her hand from the bridge of her nose and pushes herself off of the wall. "That will be too many people packed in for the Floo, and too much on you to Apparate there. Leave the girls with me."
"I can manage. Besides, I can take three, plus Josie through with me, and Lorna can manage it with one."
"I can, mum! I've used the Floo by myself loads of times!"
"It was twice, and just from the shop to here, and your dad was right behind you. I don't like you going that far alone." Danu reaches out and plucks Josephine, who was now starting to squirm and fuss loudly, from his arms and cradles her in her own.
"I will send you through, first. All will be fine."
"Daddy, PLEASE take me with you!"
"Lorna, I am speaking to your mother, do not interrupt."
After several more moments of back and forth, Severus and Lorna are dressed and walking out to the garden where the ice has now turned to snow and has begun to stick to the grass and roof of the house. Lorna skips ahead of him to the bare spot on the lawn where they Apparate from each time they leave the house.
"Our spot doesn't have any grass, daddy." Lorna states as she kicks at the frozen dirt with the tip of her green Wellington's.
"We stand there often. I suppose we had better chose a new spot in the spring and allow the grass to grow back in this one."
"Yeah. We'll find a good one." She smiles up at him and lifts her arms up for him to lift her into his own. His back screams in protest. She was becoming much too heavy for him to continue doing this.
Severus Apparates the two of them to the alley behind Mister and Missus Jones home, and walks hand in hand with Lorna around th front to ring the bell. Lorna bounces excitedly from foot to foot as they wait for someone to open the door. Mister Jones opens the door with a warm smile and shakes Severus' hand firmly before scooping Lorna off of the ground and into a tight hug.
"Ladies!" Mister Jones shouts over his shoulder as he puts Lorna down on the ground and grabs his coat from the peg behind the door. "Our chariot awaits!"
"Severus!" Each of the twins exclaim as they rush from the door. Severus had still not learned to tell them apart. "Mum says were doing something called 'floom'? What's that?"
"Floo!" Lorna corrects them with her hands on her hips. "It's called Floo, and it's cool. You can come through with me and Gran and Pop can go with Daddy."
Severus Reducio's the two large cardboard boxes Rose had hauled out of the house, places them in his pocket, and walks sandwiched between Rose and Vincent as the three girls lead the way down the street towards The Dogsmouth Pub which he had brought Danu through nearly ten years prior when he first took her to her mother's house as part of her Christmas gift. So many things had changed since that day.
"On your left, Lorna." Severus instructs as he points to a dilapidated looking building with newspaper covered windows. The sign, which had once held the name of the pub, was missing several letters and was not hanging on by a thread. One of these days, some unlucky pedestrian was bound to be hit in the head with it.
"A pub?" Rose questions with a raised brow. "At eight in the morning?"
As they push their way inside, several patrons turn their heads at the intrusion of sunlight. Some still wore their pajamas and were likely only down from their roofs above the pub to get a bite of breakfast before departing. Others still carried the stench of a late night, with no plans on stopping any time soon.
Severus glances up at the sign above the fireplace indicating the rate charged for Floo access, and removes the leather coin pouch from his inner breast pocket and places two Knuts on the bar to pay for their transport. Far more than what the going rate for Floo ought to be, but he supposed this place saw far less business than Diagon Alley. He removes the ornate canister from the mantle and holds it out to Lorna, who takes a large handful and steps inside of the fireplace.
"Remember, we are going to The Leaky Cauldron in Diagon Alley. Speak clearly, do not get out before your stop, stay close together, and once your grate opens, step no further than the edge of the mantle. I will be directly behind you."
Lorna nods with a smile and gestures for her aunts to join her. They look around nervously, perhaps hoping that this were a joke. He had forgotten that Rose was the only one to have traveled via Floo before. She nods back at her daughters with a smile, and the two take their place on either side of Lorna.
"The Leaky Cauldron, Diagon Alley!" Lorna shouts as she throws the fistful of Floo powder into the grate and disappears in a sea of emerald green.
Severus takes a handful of the powder himself, places the canister back onto the mantle, and steps forward. Rose and her husband fall in on either side of him, and the three are off before Lorna's powder even begins to settle. The moment the return grate opens, he is immediately met with a dozen questions from the twins.
"Can we do that when you aren't with us?"
"Where is this place?"
"How come we're allowed to be here?"
"Girls," Rose begins. "One at a time, please."
"To answer your questions, no you cannot, we are in London, and you are only allowed to see this because you are accompanied by Lorna and I." Severus dusts the soot from his robes, grabs Lorna's hand, and gestures with his chin for the rest of the crew to follow him out of the pub.
"Where are we going now?" Vincent asks as his eyes travel the length of the pub while simultaneously trying to stand on his toes to see out of the window on to the street.
"I have some business to attend to quickly, will only take a moment, then we will be off again the same way we came."
The six of them file out onto the snow covered streets only to be met with no less than half a dozen house elves fluttering about the streets, no doubt running errands for their master's before the day truly starts.
"What is that?" One of the girls whisper yells next to him, causing the nearest house elf to turn it's over sized head in their direction and bow deeply before scurrying off without a word.
"A house elf!" Lorna answers excitedly. "Daddy, why don't we have a house elf?"
"We will not have a house elf."
"Draco has one, and so does Teddy's nan!"
"Draco does not have a house elf; his parents do. Whatever Missus Tonks does in her house is her business, not ours."
"What is a house elf?" One of the girls asks.
"A slave, essentially." Severus answers honestly and continues walking down the street towards Slug and Jigger's Apothecary.
Once inside Lorna rushes behind the counter to the owl cage to fawn over the tan and cream colored bay owl named Symphytum which she had grown rather fond of. Aloysius Fellow, the old, jolly Saint Nicholas looking man who owned the shop comes limping from the storeroom just as Lorna reaches into the bag behind the counter to fetch a treat for the bird.
"Ah, if it isn't Miss Lorna Snape. How lovely it is to see you, my dear!" Aloysius bellows with a laugh as he reaches into his breast pocket and produces a sweet, holding it out to Lorna who rushes towards him and accepts it with a hug.
"Mister Fellow, can I please hold Symphytum before we go?"
"Why of course. I'm sure she would like to stretch her wings before she goes to sleep for the day at any rate."
Lorna beams up at Severus as Aloysius opens the cage and the owl flies straight for Lorna's outstretched arm. She turns her body towards her aunts, who are staring at her wide-eyed with opened mouths. As Severus makes his way behind the counter to exchange ingredients for payment with Aloysius, Lorna had convinced one of the twins to reach a timid hand out to stroke the owls beak.
"Family?" Aloysius ask quietly as he gestures towards his wife's family circles around Lorna.
"My in-laws. Just retrieving them from Surrey for my Elspeth's birthday party this evening."
"Muggles?" He asks, Severus nods. "Careful leaving. I saw old Lucius Malfoy sauntering up the street just now."
"Of course. My thanks for the warning." Severus shakes his hand as the finalize the exchange and turns back towards his daughter. "Lorna, thank Mister Fellows and return his owl so that we may leave. I'm sure your mother is wondering what has taken us so long."
"Soon." Lorna mutters to herself and kisses the top of the owls head. She nudges her slightly, and the owl takes flight around the shop before returning to her perch inside of the cage and tucking her head into her wing.
She had not forgotten the deal he had made with her on the day of Granger and Weasley's wedding, and was hell-bent on reminding him on a weekly basis that she expect her owl no later than the day of her eleventh birthday.
Severus catches sight of Lucius Malfoy's stride passing the window of The Leaky Cauldron as he tosses down a handful of Flood powder and breathes a sigh of relief that he had missed a confrontation with the man in the streets. He had not had the displeasure of seeing him since he had thrown a second bag of gold on his counter the morning following the birth of Draco's son. He had donated that bag of gold, and the one prior, to the Ministry to help pay for an underprivileged child's Hogwarts supplies, and smirked to himself at the thought of bragging about it to Lucius should he ever see him again, but thought better of it. The man would probably barge in to the Ministry and demand the gold back should he ever find out.
Once back home, it does not take long for the small cottage to be alive with the sound of children, and the voices of just about every Weasley to exist. Molly sat rocking Josephine in the living room next to her husband who was playing Exploding Snap with several small Weasley children. A heavily pregnant Granger nursed a bruise on her daughters knee, while an equally heavily pregnant Potter ate cake batter from a spoon while Danu decorated the birthday cake. Rose and her daughters were stringing colorful paper throughout the room and blowing up balloons. Children ran in and out, tracking snow with them. Severus sighs and steps outside to get away from the noise and commotion to find Vincent sitting at the garden table smoking a cigar and sipping a glass of wine. Severus reaches into his breast pocket, lights a clove cigarette, and joins him. In the distance, Elspeth, Lorna, Teddy Lupin, James Potter, two or three Weasley children, and the dog are playing some game they had made up involving snowballs and Gobstones. He did not understand the premise of said game, however it kept them occupied, and most importantly, not fighting, so he decided that it was worth dealing with the bright colors they would no doubt be sporting all over themselves when they were called in for cake.
"We are lucky men, Severus." Vincent says with a smile as Severus takes a seat next to him.
"I must agree." Severus takes a drag from his cigarette and watches as the smoke lingers around his head for a moment before drifting off.
"I must admit, I thought you all were pulling my leg when you first told us about this magic shit." Vincent chuckles and leans forward to clear the ash from the end of his cigar. "But I would be lying if I said I wasn't a bit jealous. The possibilities are endless."
"It is a lot to take in." Severus agrees, keeping an eye on his daughters still playing in the distance.
"Were your parents like you as well?"
"My mother was."
"And how did your father take it?"
"He did not like much of anything." Severus admits as he stubs his cigarette in the ashtray.
"I've got one of those, too." Vincent raises his glass of wine in a toast. "Here's to being better than our fathers before us."
Severus nods in acknowledgment of the toast and sits up straight as he spots Elspeth's shape come running towards him, Lorna and the rest of the children following close behind. As she nears closer, he can see something cupped in her hands, tears streaming from her face. He stands abruptly and quickens his stride to meet her halfway. Behind him, he hears Vincent place his glass on the table and follow.
"Daddy." Elspeth sobs as she nears him, holding out her hand to show him a mass of black, wet fur. "Help."
Severus bends down to one knee and prods the mass with his finger before turning it over and revealing a young, very dead, and very frozen niffler.
"We gotta get him warm!" Lupin demands as he skids to a halt at Elspeth's side.
"Elsie got him from Dory, Daddy. Please help him!" Lorna shouts at him as she clings to the sleeve of his robe.
"Girls." Severus begins, just as the once dead niffler takes a long, shallow breath. Elspeth shoves the wet thing into his hands and wipes her nose on the back of his sleeve. "I will do my best. Run inside and get me an old towel, and then go wash your hands. All of you."
All of the children, besides Elspeth, dart past Severus and Vincent and into the house. He can hear Lorna shouting commands the moment the kitchen door opens. Severus turns and looks Elspeth in her tear filled eyes before standing and taking her hand to lead her back to the table he had been sitting at moments before. She felt everything so deeply, just like her mother. If he could not save this damned vermin, it would destroy her.
Severus takes a seat at the table while Elspeth grips the edge of it with her fingers and rests her chin on top of them, eye level with the niffler's. Lorna comes racing out of the house with a hot water bottle and an old tea towel and shoves them into his lap before turning and attempting to flee once more. The boys come out just then, and begin crowding around the table as well.
"Lorna, go to the potion's shed and get me some Pepper-Up Potion." Severus instructs her.
"Can niffler's have Pepper-Up Potion?" Lupin asks as Lorna darts into the newly constructed shed next to the greenhouse.
"No idea." Severus answers truthfully.
He wraps the beast in the towel and places the hot water bottle beneath it on the table and watches as the towel slowly rises and falls. So, this was parenthood, huh? Sitting around a frozen niffler because you could not bear to see your child cry. Of course, if it had been him who had stumbled upon the thing, he would not let it suffer, but certainly would not go out of his way to wrestle it from a dogs mouth as his daughter had clearly done. Dory comes sniffing up to them just then, her nose working frantically to search for the niffler treat she had nearly had.
"No, Dory!" Elspeth shouts and stamps her foot at the dog who just turns her head sideways at her.
Severus raises his brow for an instant. He had never heard the child shout at anyone, much less the dog whom she loved. Perhaps a bit of her sister was buried in there, after all. Lorna arrives just then and passes him the bottle of potion he had asked for, and all of the children watch with bated breath as he unstoppers the vial and drips a minuscule drop onto the animals tongue which he had pried from its mouth. Steam flows from the beasts ears and nose before it yawns deeply and opens one eye, then the other, and stares up at the hoard of people surrounding it with shocked, terrified eyes. Lorna grabs the dog by the collar and drags her into the house the moment the niffler begins to struggle at its tea towel confines.
"Good as new." Severus announces as he bends down in an attempt to release the beast.
"Can I keep it?" Elspeth asks as her eyes begin to fill with tears once more.
"No, darling, you may not. It is a wild animal."
"Okay." She says sheepishly as her lower lip begins to tremble.
Severus opens the towel and lets the niffler jump from his hands. All of the children watch in amazement as it darts from his hands and runs off several feet before burrowing down into the snow. Severus gathers Elspeth in his arms and pulls her onto his lap, where she lies her head against his chest and cries silently.
"Hey." Danu begins as she sticks her head out of the kitchen door. "Time for—is she okay?"
"She is alright." Severus kisses the top of Elspeth's head and stands with her still wrapped in his arms.
"Severus saved a niffler!" Lupin announces loudly to Danu.
"Yeah, he was all froze and Elsie brought him to Daddy and he saved him!" Lorna states proudly as she leads Lupin and Potter into the house.
"You helped Daddy save a niffler?" Danu asks Elspeth as she strokes the hair from her face and kisses the tip of her nose. Elspeth nods her head meekly and reaches out to her mother. "That was very nice of you. Let's get you cleaned up and have some cake. Would you like that?"
Danu leads the children into the house just as an idea strikes Severus.
"I will be right back." Severus announces to Vincent who was nearly through the door and Disapparates from the spot.
Arriving in Diagon Alley for the second time that day, Severus rushes down the packed street until he reaches the small toy shop a few doors down from Flourish and Blots. Once inside, his eyes scan the stuffed toys, flying gadgets, and useless colorful objects littering the walls.
"Looking for anything in particular?" The sells clerk asks with a smile.
"A niffler." Severus answers, perhaps a bit harsher than he had intended.
The clerk gives him a knowing smile, disappears around a corner, and reappears with a bright pink stuffed niffler.
"We have other colors, but this is the most popular."
"Do you have black?"
She disappears once more and comes back with a black and cream colored, absolutely hideous stuffed thing that he knew without a doubt that his daughter would love. He thanks her profusely, pays for the damned thing, and Disapparates back to the cottage. As he steps through the doorway, Danu is wrangling everyone to gather around Elspeth, still red eyed and saddened, sitting behind a flaming pink tower of a birthday cake. Severus hides the niffler behind his back and takes his place next to his wife at their daughters side. The chores of happy birthday rings around them as Elspeth sits quietly, knotting her fingers in her lap nervously.
"Blow out your candles, honey." Danu says as the song comes to an end.
Timidly, Elspeth leans forward and lows the two candles atop the cake out one by one and the crowd erupts in applause. As everyone takes their plate of cake, and the crowd surrounding Elspeth begins to dwindle, Severus bends down next to her and kisses the top of her head. He pulls the stuffed niffler from behind his back and holds it out for her. She raises one brow, looks at it for a moment, then flings herself into his waiting arms.
"Thank you, Daddy." She whispers against his chest as he holds her close.
"Happy birthday, my girl."