He left flowers for his mother and grandmother, lighting a few candles and before he left the crypt, he placed a couple of things down for Reggie.
One was a copy of an old polaroid photo. Alongside the photo, sat a copy of his son's birth certificate.
Born on the 1st of May, to Severus Snape.
Alexander Regulus Snape.
oOo
In no time at all and yet a lifetime all the same, 6 months had passed of Severus and his son, living with Hermione and her daughter. It had taken that long to get the licences, approvals, equipment and wardsmything done on the garden shed to make it into a potions laboratory with a safe and acceptable brewing area.
Severus had not been idle in the meantime, despite Hermione's (and Harry's) assurances that he was neither a leech nor a burden, despite the fact he'd be technically 'employed' by the foundation for a number of months and was yet to do any level of what he would consider truly productive brewing, Severus had turned around the cottage garden, taking action on Hermione's offer of utilising the previously neglected gardens. Despite the December chill creeping in, a number of plants both magical and muggle were now flourishing in the previously unkempt and overgrown space.
The small gardens in the front of the house were home to purely muggle plants, nothing that would unduly draw the attention of any passing muggles more than a cursory appreciative glance, but would still be useful in potions such as lavender, chamomile and small fruit trees. Mixed within were various decorative flowers, all of which would bloom at different times of year, serving no purpose other than surrounding the house with colour and life, regardless of the time of year.
The rear gardens were a different matter entirely , already surrounded by a wall , the long and expansive cottage gardens were now organised into neat rows with intricate and intimidating wards that both protected and provided for the plants within.
Hermione was surprised though , when Severus only utilised about 2/3rds of the large first 1/3rd of the not unsubstantial sprawling garden was left to lawn, Severus had even bought muggle turf and laid it down, installing a small pond and water feature that bubbled happily, going as far as installing a small wall that separated the lawn from the rest of the gardens and shed beyond.
When Hermoine had questioned why he'd left the large space empty but for the grass, pond and small vegetable patch, and if they served a purpose she wasn't familiar with, when he could have easily added a great deal more rows of ingredients, he'd answered somewhat shyly, with a pink flush creeping up his neck that this was a family area, for her, for Sacha and for their children. She'd smiled at him so warmly then that it had been worth every moment of manual labour to see it come to fruition, and the final touches had been a comfortable swinging wooden bench, suspended from the large rowan tree in the garden, that was big enough for them all to sit on together and admire the garden in all it's glory.
Severus had seen the old peeling, painted and rusted wooden swinging bench being given away after a local gardens was revamped. It was twice the size of a normal garden bench, as it had come from a public gardens, when it had arrived Hermione had looked incredulously at the flaking paint, rusted metal, rough splintered wood and graffiti marked bench and said nothing to Severus, though had been fairly certain her expression had said everything required about her opinion on the newest addition. She'd been left to eat her hat though, because Severus had painstakingly by hand, stripped off the old paint, which should never have been added in the first place according to him, as he'd grumbled his opinion about the 'heathens' who'd been too lazy to protect the victorian bench properly. Over the space of a week, he'd smoothed and sanded the old antique bench until it was smooth as butter, and waxed and fed the wood until it shone with health and vigour. The rusted metal was stripped, resealed and painted in a deep black, and when he was finished, Hermione ran her hand over the beautiful Victorian wood and the carvings that had been revealed under all that old paint, and idly thought that she'd be more likely to get a splinter from a ruler than the lovingly smoothed wood below her hand.
And if Hermione had thought she'd been overly paranoid when setting protective wards when Rose was born, it paled in comparison to the wards that Severus had drawn up for the plants, bench and pond to protect the children.
Severus had seemingly thought of every thing that could possibly go wrong along with things that quite impossibly could go wrong and though It was Hermione who did the final casting, as her wardsmything ability was 'frankly outstanding' in Severus' own words, the extensive instructions he'd given on exactly how he wanted the wards to work and what he wanted them to do, had her falling back into complex arithmancy equations to see if it was even possible to do what he was asking.
As it turns out, It was , for Hermione at least, but it had taken the better part of two weeks, in which time Severus took almost sole care of both children, even bottle feeding both when she'd pumped milk for him to use, because she'd been too embroiled in complex wardsmything to break away for frequent feedings.
Severus had shouldered this task with all of the intense focus and determination he was known for, and had taken to the task with all the seriousness of a man headed into war.
As both babies were now able to roll over, sit unaided and had started showing interest in both picking up items, and placing said items in their mouth, it was somewhat of a handful to ensure both babies were kept safe and occupied, as well as cleaned and fed, while trying to maintain conversations with both children who had begun laughing, babbling and attempting to communicate with their parents in addition to becoming excessively clingy and wanting to be held often.
Hermione had walked in on him more than once, crashed out in his bed, with both sleeping babies on his chest, and Sacha along his legs and had more than one sneaky photo stored on her phone which she would never admit to anyone.
oOo
Despite Severus' belief that he hadn't contributed 'enough' over the past months, he had been producing a steady supply of potions, from the makeshift lab they'd put together in the study, using little more than Hermione's old school supplies, which were no doubt maintained better than most students would care to, but were still fairly rudimentary. As the laboratory equipment was not going to be delivered until the laboratory was finalised, Severus had decided to do what he could with what was available… which for Europe's youngest ever potion master, turned out to be quite a lot.
When Hermione had first discovered Severus trying to stealthily brew a few potions for the knockturn alley brothel, he'd thought that she might have been angry or disappointed in him, and had frozen like a deer in headlights, not expecting her to have stumbled upon his indiscriminate late night brewing after she'd gone to bed. Instead, she'd simply told him to make sure he made records of everything he used so the bill could be put through the foundation. Hermione had insisted that regardless of just how they made a living to put food on the table, the brothel workers would never be excluded from help from the foundation just because of their line work. Or as Harry had put it, nonchalantly over tea one day, with an eyebrow arch that would rival Severus's "The foundation is there to help those who needed it, for Wixen who were struggling, and it doesn't matter whether they sell sex or shoes." Hermione had nearly choked on her tea and Severus had snorted so loud he started coughing, which had led to the three of them chuckling at each other around the coffee table, and for the first time in a long time, Severus had looked at Harry and seen Lily, not James.
oOo
Severus had taken to walking around the local village, he'd spent so many years traipsing around a castle after students, then traipsing across the country for two masters that it was hard for him to stay still in one place, and even with two babies and plenty of work with the gardens and budding potions business, he still often found himself a little stir crazy with pent up energy and no way to release it. When he'd cautiously asked Hermione if she could watch the babies so he could go out, she had not been offended in the slightest by his wanderlust and encouraged him to do whatever he needed, and had once more insisted that she was not his keeper, it was his home as much as hers and he didn't need her permission to go for a walk. Sacha however had instantly perked up at the word 'walk', approaching Severus eagerly, and Severus thinking about the useful social buffer that sacha would make had shyly asked Hermione if he could also borrow her dog, to which Hermione had promptly handed him the lead and much to his disgust the little plastic dog bags.
It was a beautiful village and he and Sacha had become frequent amblers amongst the town, Severus had gotten a few odd looks to begin with, as he'd often go for a walk straight after he'd finished brewing, to clear his head, and the severe black button down robes paired with the scary looking white dog had drawn a few odd glances, though after a few weeks he'd become just another part of the scenery in the village and Hermione had assured him that there was no doubt most of the villagers probably just assumed he was a goth or a rocker and didn't really think much more beyond that.
He'd even begun to be, dare he say it, friendly with some of the villagers. He and Hermione still didn't eat meat at home, but he'd often pick up meat or bones at the butchers for Sacha or stop in to the bakery for local produce and as such he'd began to be on first name terms with some of the villagers, going so far as to make idle chat before heading onwards. He and Hermione had even ventured to the village pub once or twice, babies and dog in tow, which in such a small village, meant they knew pretty much all of their neighbours well enough to say hello and ask about how they were getting on .
It was on one such walk with Sacha that Severus began to feel a creeping unease as he passed through the winding roads that lead to the small village. Shaking it off as nothing more than a cold chill of December winds and recent snowfall, Severus carried onwards to the village, intent on his goal of finding someone who could tell him where he'd be able to get a locally grown Christmas tree.
More that once on his journey, that same cold chill ran up his spine though he shrugged it off. After the time he'd spent on the streets and in the decrepit bedsit, he'd come to hate the cold and it was simply a knee-jerk reaction to the memories it brought to the surface, or so he convinced himself.
It wasn't until he was on the road home that he finally stopped trying to kid himself. Halfway down the country lane to home, Sacha stopped dead in the path, sightless eyes staring into the dense woodland and growling low and deep in his throat. There was silence in response, and Severus cursed himself at his own foolishness. Silence. In the countryside. Why had he not noticed when the bustling countryside had become silent? The noises around him had ceased. No birds sang in the trees, no squirrels or rabbits chittered, no pheasants called. Just pure utter silence rang out in the woods. Until… a branch snapped in the murky dark of the forest beyond the wall.
Without hesitation, Severus grabbed hold of Sacha by the scruff of the neck and apparated home, landing safely within the wards of the cottage.
In an instant he was met with a wand at his throat , then everything went black.