Chapter Text
It’s a warm and sunny day and Diagon Alley is packed with witches and wizards strolling from shop to shop. None are boarded up anymore. There are no wanted posters or lists of Muggle-borns plastered onto the walls.
People rush past them, mostly uncaring of the two men walking down the street. Some address a muttered minister at Snape when they pass him. He merely nods, not interrupting his conversation with the man next to him.
It’s been fifteen years since Harrie summoned death in the basement of Gaunt Manor.
Fifteen years of peace and prosperity for the British Isles.
No wizards from the Confederation have dared to move against them in all those years. Even the pathetic remainders of the Order dropped their fight eventually, once Snape and Harrie stopped the persecution of Muggle-borns, and they were forced to acknowledge the good Voldemort’s other laws brought.
Wizardkind is in a crisis, standing neck-deep in water, about to drown. Not only the Pure-blood families are dying out. Magic is dying out. Where the Statute of Wizarding Secrecy had saved wizards in the Dark Ages from persecution and cruel murder, it had become the noose around their necks!
Britain seems on the verge of solving these issues. And the world is watching them. Demanding their governments to follow in Britain’s footsteps or simply immigrating to England with their families.
It’s a familiar sight, these days, for Snape and Voldemort to be seen walking together. Either through the park near the Ministry, veiled by magic to give wizards and witches more spaces to be themselves.
Especially children who often had to be kept away from the public in fear of their accidental magic suffered from that isolation. Now they have playground, age-appropriate and designed for their special skills.
One of many new all-wizard villages has been successfully completed and warded just a few weeks ago, just outside of London. It’s another step forward in Snape and Harrie’s plans to liberate wizards as it always was Voldemort’s wish - without enslaving and murdering Muggles and hunting Muggle-borns.
They cannot move against the International Confederation of Wizards and simply break the Statute of Secrecy - that would mean open war - but they can create more room for wizards to be wizards, safe and secret, instead of just hiding them away.
Wizarding villages give families with young, magical children more freedom and relieve them of the stress of worrying about them accidentally hurting Muggles or revealing their world.
In the first village of its kind, Harrie had a statue built. One of Ariana Dumbledore who might have never had to suffer the way she did, had her family always lived in Godric’s Hollow. Harrie sought out to learn more about Dumbledore a few years back, eager to understand how a man she had looked up to so much, could make such cruel and callous choices. She spent many evenings in the Hogshead Inn , talking to Aberforth. It was there she learnt all about Dumbledore’s youth, his father’s incarceration, Ariana, Grindelwald. Harrie doesn’t speak much about those evenings and what she learnt but Snape hopes she found some closure in Aberforth.
Snape implemented a new school system. Primary schools just for witches and wizards now give children born to Muggles time to be eased into the culture of their ancestors, and magical children get the opportunity to learn about the Muggle world, Muggle currency, technology, and history.
The Knightbus became one of many school buses that collect children all over the British Isles and bring them to one of - for now - three Primary schools and back home in the afternoons.
It’s a small step in the grand scheme of things but one towards inclusion, equality and peace.
Hogwarts is now truly the best wizarding school in Europe, perhaps even the world and not just in the make-believe world of Dumbledore’s sycophants. Lucius overhauled the entire curriculum together with Minerva and Pomona. He used his intimate knowledge of the Board of Governors to force them into compliance. They updated the classrooms and the library, even the house system to prevent prejudice. Every student now has to take at least one extracurricular course which is made up of students from all houses and all grades. The first success of that system is now bearing fruit after a couple of difficult first years.
Draco has taken over as Potions master from Slughorn who went to retire once more.
And while the rest of the wizarding world struggles with the rapid development of Muggle technology, Goblin resistances, House-elf rebellions and the decline of magical skills in young witches and wizards - all things Voldemort predicted would become an issue - England is doing better than ever. They might not be a democracy but the protest concerning that has long since ceased.
Life is good.
People don’t even flinch anymore when they see Voldemort walking down Diagon Alley.
Snape doubts all of his hatred for Voldemort and what he did to Snape and took from him will ever truly fade but it only rarely comes to the surface anymore. And even then usually when they are in bed, where Snape can let his frustrations at Voldemort’s teasing nature out on him by attempting to wrestle him down and shove his cock inside him. He usually loses. Voldemort is one conniving bastard and he hates to lose.
Voldemort has wrapped an arm around Snape’s waist casually. They are discussing the supposed ‘cure’ for lycanthropy a potioneer in Canada is claiming to have found. Both Snape and Voldemort are doubtful.
“Look!” An excited voice says right next to Snape. “Papa! Look! That’s mummy’s broom!”
Eileen pokes Voldemort’s arms while bouncing on Snape’s shoulders and pointing at a shop window displaying the latest firebolt. Harrie had been asked to test it and she ended up helping a lot in its development. It’s the fastest broom to have ever been launched, and despite having learnt unsupported flight - Harrie is still Harrie. She prefers a broom.
Snape instinctively puts his hand over his daughter’s thigh to prevent her from falling.
“Indeed.” Voldemort hums and returns to the initial flow of their conversation, pointing out some major flaws in the hypothesis of the Canadian potioneer.
Eileen meanwhile is playing with Snape’s hair. He wears it longer these days, much to the delight of both Harrie and their daughter.
“Look, daddy.” She shows Snape a strand of black hair she braided.
“Oh, that looks nice. Thank you, darling.”
Eileen giggles. She is seven now. She is his and Harrie’s but both of them insist Voldemort is just as much her parent as they are - something Voldemort disagrees with. Though even Lord Voldemort has been made softer by the presence of a child in Gaunt Manor.
Now that Snape thinks about it…perhaps a child has made him more ruthless. He’d never admit it but he is fiercely protective of Snape and Harrie’s ‘pets’, as he calls them. May the universe have mercy on whoever tries to hurt them for Voldemort will have none.
Voldemort pulls Snape against his side, digging his long fingers into Snape’s waist. “Are you listening to me?”
“Not really.” Snape drawls. “You started jabbering again. On and on- ouch!”
Voldemort pinched his side. Snape glares up at the serpentine features, twisted in amusement.
They have not changed in fifteen years. Neither has Snape. If anything he looks younger now than he did during the war. Now, that his biggest worries are deadlines for some paperwork or speaking at a press conference or finding plushies Eileen brings with her when she joins Snape on his search for potions ingredients, just like he had done with his mother at her age.
Eileen looks just like Snape. She has silky black hair and dark eyes. She is a little shy and doesn’t like crowds or too much noise. She can sit next to Snape while he is reading for hours, sitting perfectly still and either flipping through a picture book or drawing something for him. Just the freckles littering her small face she takes from her mother.
Elias Cassius Potter-Snape is the entire opposite. He has Lily’s red hair and the untamable properties of his mother’s hair and Harrie’s eyes too but Snape’s paleness. He has constantly scraped knees and a mischievous glimmer in his eyes that never means anything good and is made up of all of James Potter’s good traits.
He has an unapologetic laugh and a crazy optimistic outlook on the world for his young age. Just five years old but Snape already knows Elias will change the world. He’s just like his mother.
They reach Florean Fortescue’s Ice Cream Parlour. Harrie has her legs crossed and is holding onto the hood of Elia’s hoodie while casually chatting with Fortescue. Her eyes light up when she sees Snape and Voldemort walking towards her.
“There you are!” She laughs. “I thought you had gotten lost.”
Harrie doesn’t look seventeen anymore. They suspect she stopped ageing sometime around her twenty-fifth birthday, around the same time she had Eileen.
Snape sits down and lifts Eileen off his shoulders. She crawls into Voldemort’s lap. He allows it.
“I want a Dark Mark Sundae!”
“What an insult.” Voldemort grumbles. He is still not amused by the name, even five years later but it is Eileen’s favourite and a part of Voldemort has gone soft.
Snape leans forward to tie her long hair back so she doesn’t smear ice cream all over it. “Tom insisted on snail pace.”
“I did no such thing.”
“Of course you did.”
“I was merely following your lead.”
Snape snorts. “When have you ever followed my lead?”
Eileen giggles. She finds their quarrelling just as amusing as Harrie, who is smirking. She drags Elias towards her and lifts him into her lap. He squirms and fidgets to escape his mother’s grip but Harrie is an expert when it comes to unruly boys.
“We saw your broom, mummy.” Eileen says.
“We saw it too! Doesn’t it look awesome, sweetie?”
Eileen nods euphorically. One of, if not the, best thing about marrying Harrie is seeing her be the mother her own mum was destined to be but stripped of so painfully early. Harrie is brilliant with the children. She has the patience of a saint, which probably comes from putting up with Snape and Voldemort on a daily basis. She is always calm. But she is also always up for mischief or fun. She cooks with the children or comes up with fun crafting ideas to decorate the manor around any major holiday. She has water hose fights and snowball battles. She charms the floor of the parlour to look like lava and jumps over the furniture with the children. Harrie is always fun, always laughs and smiles that all their childhoods so painfully lacked. Thanks to her, their home is filled with the scent of biscuits, the screaming laughs of content children who’ll never once doubt they are loved, and love.
Voldemort stays out of most of what concerns the children. Snape is already happy that he stopped calling them pets now that they are old enough to understand what that means. In the beginning, Snape was pretty sure Voldemort was being honest too. That he actually didn’t see much of a difference between the adorable little infant and a pet but just looking at him rocking said child on his knees seven years later - he can’t fool Snape. Voldemort, the stoic son of a bitch, who’d never pass up an opportunity to call love useless and overrated, weak - loves Eileen Lily Potter-Snape.
When Harrie first voiced the wish to have children shortly after her and Snape’s wedding (Voldemort saw no reason for joining them, “Why would I want to declare my affection for you to a bunch of people I don’t care about?”) Voldemort seriously suggested they get another dog. (“Where’s the difference? Stella was at least house-trained before she came here! Can you say the same about that spawn you’re suggesting?)
It took some digging but eventually, Harrie discovered his apprehension came from a fear of losing them. Snape never thought he’d one day reassure Lord Voldemort of his love for him and that Snape isn’t going anywhere.
Eileen is holding Voldemort’s hand with one hand while tracing the lines on his palm with the other, pretending to read his future in them. Voldemort humours her by asking questions or insisting she elaborate. He isn’t one for child play. He won’t pretend Eileen’s plushie is drinking tea or that fairies live in her closet but he’ll indulge her in moments like these. He’ll read to her when she asks with big doe eyes - something she no doubt learnt from her mother. He also doesn’t care for treating children like they are stupid. He talks to them just like he does Harrie and Snape and he’d glare at Ronald Weasley whenever he used babytalk around the children.
(“The adults always thought I was too young to understand but I was smarter than them, I will not dumb down the world around them, Harrie. Either they understand or they get a learning opportunity.”)
Fortescue brings their ice cream. Eileen claps her hands excitedly and digs into the way too-big sundae. There is a fifty-fifty chance she’ll get sick from finishing the whole thing or make Voldemort eat the rest.
Who would have thought twenty years ago that he’d be sitting at a small table in the bustling streets of Diagon Alley with the Girl-Who-Lived, Lord Voldemort and their two children?
“And what are you staring at?” Voldemort smirks, parting his attention from Eileen. He lifts his hand and tucks Snape’s long hair behind his ear, brushing his fingertips over his cheek as he pulls away again. His crimson eyes are warmer these days.
Funny how just three days ago they fucked in the shower. Voldemort was in desperate need of one after taking care of an intruder trying to penetrate the wards of their home.
He’s still dangerous.
He’s still a fucking lunatic and exasperating and frustrating but he stopped calling love ridiculous. He would never say those three words to either him or Harrie - he’s too fucking proud for that but he says it every day with those eyes Snape used to hate so much.
Voldemort’s spidery fingers grip his chin and he pulls Snape into him, pressing his thin lips to Snape’s mouth.
Elias makes a grimace and gagging noise. Snape chuckles into the kiss and covers his son’s face with his hand which Elias isn’t happy with either. He pulls and tears at Snape’s sleeve, groaning an annoyed daaaaad .
Harrie is smiling, no doubt thinking the same as Snape.
Their twisted, fucked up little family…
And there is no place Snape would rather be.
Elias shovels another heaping spoon of chocolate ice cream into his mouth, smearing most of it around his lips.
Harrie brushes her unruly hair aside and picks up some of Elias' ice cream with her long fingernail. She offers it to Stella, who is content with lying on Harrie’s jacket on the chair next to her.
She is getting old. Her face is grey and the black spots in her fur have faded considerably over the years. Perhaps they have another good year with her. Pets were not included in the deal with death. Snape isn’t sure their kids are either. But the deal was never about immortality.
Stella lifts her head and sniffs. Her tongue is sticking out the side of her mouth due to a lack of teeth. She licks the chocolate ice cream from Harrie’s finger. Losing her will be difficult for Harrie, Snape knows that but if anyone can stomach that loss, it is her.
Hedwig still has many good years ahead of her, as does Nagini.
“Did Hermione submit those papers?” Harrie asks.
“She did this morning.” Snape can hardly believe he is admitting this, but Granger has become his best employee. She started in the office of the Minister right after graduation and Snape has no idea how the place ever ran without her.
Weasley started Auror training but dropped it halfway through to work at the joke shop of his brothers. Harrie dragged him to their wedding. Why he had to go but Voldemort was allowed to stay home, he’ll never understand.
Perhaps it’s the murderous tendencies.
“I think we can start next summer.” He says and steals a spoonful of Eileen’s ice cream. She is correct, the Dark Mark Sundae is the best ice cream Fortescue sells. “A magical summer camp. Here’s to praying no one dies. That’ll be a shitload of paperwork.”
“Dad!” “Daddy!” Two pairs of accusatory eyes glare at him. His children inherited his glare too, impossibly so.
“Sorry.” He grumbles, still pissed over the no-swearing rule Harrie made up since that time Eileen cursed up a storm in Primary school. Harrie doesn’t need to know about the chocolate galleons he might have slipped Eileen afterwards.
As expected, Eileen does not finish her sundae. And she makes Voldemort eat it, saying how it would be wasteful to not eat it. She simply ignored his objection that Snape or Harrie could eat it.
Both of them grinned, watching him eat the ice cream. No one has even looked so sourly while eating ice cream!
Elias wants up on Snape’s shoulders on the way back. He likes playing with Snape’s hair as much as Eileen does but he is much less gentle. Snape winces a couple of times on their way back home. Eileen walks between Voldemort and Harrie, holding one of their hands in each of her own. They swing her through the air every couple of steps and Eileen laughs and giggles loudly. Such happiness. Snape never once knew a minute of such happiness as a child. He strives to give them everything he never had.
Back at the manor, Elias almost throws himself off Snape’s shoulders because in his opinion Snape is too slow in putting him down and that is unacceptable. With all the energy of a five-year-old, he dashes down the gravel path. Stella barks and with surprising speed for her age runs after him. Eileen stays at Voldemort’s side. They are consumed by their own conversation. Eileen often asks him all sorts of questions about magic or the world. Why is the sky blue? Why do wizards have magic and Muggles don’t? (that question made both Harrie and Snape panic for a split second but to their surprise Voldemort’s answer had been entirely factual with not an ounce of his usual hatred) Why do we have five fingers? Do Goblins really not need a wand?
Voldemort takes every single one of her questions seriously. He takes his time to explain complex Alchemy to her, or advanced physics. He takes her seriously like no one ever took Snape seriously…until Voldemort.
Voldemort was the first adult who took Snape seriously. Who saw his potential and wits and not just his threadbare clothes and the greasy, uncombed hair. Snape is trying to see the good Voldemort has done for him before it all fell into manipulation. There are days when it is harder than on others. There are days Snape wakes from a nightmare and startles at finding Voldemort sleeping next to him, when he needs a moment to remember that things have changed, when Voldemort is woken by Snape’s rapid breathing, and sadness floods the crimson eyes he used to hate so much…
Voldemort is oddly gentle with Snape on those days. His kisses are gentler, his hands too.
He lets Snape win at chess and that is something that never used to happen. Every day Snape realises how much Voldemort has changed despite how much he seems to be the same.
And he is the same in many ways but not when it comes to Snape. Not when it comes to their family. Never their family.
In the entrance hall, Voldemort kneels down and helps Eileen out of her shoes. The little girl who looks so much like Snape hugs Voldemort and runs after her brother to go play.
“Are you alright?” Harrie asks quietly. Snape puts his arm around her shoulders and pulls her against his side. He presses a kiss against her scalp and smiles.
“Perfectly alright.”
Harrie tips her head back and cups Snape’s face. Her lips brush over his, a teasing, barely there point of contact. Snape growls against her lips. He sinks his hand into her wild curls and pulls her head back further, descending upon her to claim her mouth in a heated kiss.
Stella whines. She is standing on her hindlegs, her front paws braced against Snape’s leg.
Harrie breaks the kiss, laughing and glowing like the sun itself. She is so beautiful. Being happy suits her. Snape smiles. He has gotten used to it over the years. He remembers barely how strange it once felt to him but there is nothing strange about smiling or laughing anymore. His chest is filled to the brim with warmth and light and love. A love he never thought to be worthy of but found in these two people who are perhaps equally as broken as him.
Fate really must have a sense of humour.
“I love you.” He whispers and leans his forehead against Harrie, his hands resting on her waist.
“I love you too.” She grins and kisses him again before slipping out of his grasp to saunter down the hall, swinging her hips just to tease him. Snape bends down to pick up the whining dog. Stella licks his fingers and jaw, spreading her disgusting slobber all over him. How he used to despise her very existence because he thought she was nothing but a bribe to make Harrie forget about Voldemort killing her parents.
He’ll miss the little fucking rat when it’s gone.
Carrying Stella, Snape follows Voldemort to the sun room where their chess match from that morning is still waiting for them. Snape puts Stella down on his lap. She curls up, pressed snugly against his stomach, halfway under Snape’s jumper. Nagini coils around Voldemort’s chair. He runs his fingers over the scales and hisses some affectionate-sounding hisses.
Snape loses this match again. Voldemort saw right through his strategy. Snape hoped to be able to salvage the situation but who is he kidding?
Voldemort sits, leisurely reclined in his armchair with a complacent smirk on his serpentine features and watches Snape frantically trying to find a way out of his check.
“Fucking hell.” Snape mutters and knocks his own king over. “I fucking hate playing against you.”
“You’re just mad Harrie and I refuse to play poker against you.”
“Don’t pretend you did not enjoy it!” Snape grins.
Voldemort snaps his fingers. The pieces return to their spots. “Oh, I always enjoy watching our dear bunny strip her clothes.”
“And yet you refuse to play.”
“Because you keep counting the cards.”
“You’re just salty, I am better at something than you.”
“You’re a cheat.”
“I’m merely smart enough to beat the game.”
“By cheating.”
Snape’s lips curl. He folds his hand over his stomach and leans back in his chair. An arrogant expression slips into his dark eyes, lying on his master turned worst enemy turned lover turned reluctant unofficial husband.
“Sore loser.” Snape drawls.
A muscle in Voldemort’s jaw jumps. “Careful, Severus.” He warns. Darkness clings to each letter passing over his forked tongue, dripping down his lips, sweet as honey, as alluring as Snape’s cum running down his chin.
Snape raises a brow. “The children are still up.”
“They won’t be forever.”
“Is that a threat?” Snape can’t help the grin pulling on his lips, nor the sudden tightness of his trousers.
“A promise, my dear.”
“Good.” A blue light floods the sun room. Snape pushes himself up and out of his chair at the sight of it. Harrie’s doe Patronus prances around him elegantly, dragging floating lines of pure light behind her. Dinner is ready, boys , it says in her sweet voice. Snape lifts his hand to pet the creature made of light. It dissolves as soon as his fingertips touch its head.
“I’ll get the children.” Snape says.
He collects Eileen and Elias in Eileen’s room where they were peacefully playing a round of memory. Eileen has her plushie snake on her lap and her long hair tucked behind her ears.
Snape knocks on the doorframe. “Time for dinner.”
“Coming, daddy!” Eileen calls over to him. She quickly grabs her stack of won cards and puts it next to Elias' visibly shorter stack. “I win!”
“You always win!” Elias groans.
“Next time you’ll win, I’m sure!”
Eileen and her snake go ahead. Snape waits for Elias. He grumbles something under his breath and knocks the stacks of cards over.
“I always lose against papa too.” Snape says and offers his hand to the little boy. He huffs and takes it. “It’s frustrating, isn’t it?”
Elias nods. His red curls fly through the air as wild and untamable as his mother’s. As his mother.
“But it was fun to play, no? Did you have any fun at all?”
Elias shrugs.
“Winning is nice but not nearly as nice if you didn’t have any fun while playing to begin with.”
“I guess.”
“How about you and I team up for a round of Catan after dinner? Maybe we can get papa to join our alliance? Mummy doesn’t have the patience for the game.”
Elias nods enthusiastically and his smile returns to his round, freckled face. “Yes!”
“Alright.”
They reach the dining room. Elias lets go of Snape’s hand and runs over to where Voldemort is already sitting. He tugs on the dark wizard’s sleeve who leans down. The little boy whispers something into his ears. Voldemort’s eyes find Snape’s, who merely shrugs. A smirk pulls on Voldemort’s lips. He nods towards Elias and the little boy starts to beam.
Harrie comes in, surrounded by steaming bowls and plates floating around her. She still likes to cook, especially for her family and her babies. She plates the food for the children and then takes off her apron. Snape picks up her plate to fill it with a generous portion.
“Delicious, darling.” Snape says after his first fork of creamy mashed potatoes.
“Well, thank you.” Harrie smiles brightly and digs into her own food. There are few things that make Harrie happier than caring for her family and nothing that makes her happier than seeing her family enjoy the food she cooks them. Elias inherited all the terrible table manners of his mother and probably then some from the Weasley clan.
Voldemort hisses something in Parseltongue. Harrie smiles and replies. Eileen cuts in just to be interrupted by Elias.
Snape scowls. “Might I remind you of the No-Parseltongue-at-the-dinner-table- rule!”
Eileen giggles. Snape glowers at her playfully which only causes her giggle to grow in intensity. It hides his hurt effectively but not so effectively as that Harrie doesn’t notice.
“I’m sorry, darling.” She says and gives his hand a little squeeze.
Snape hates that they have something he’ll never be able to share with them. Moments like these remind him painfully of his abandonment fears but Harrie is always quick to reassure him. It’s not like Snape doesn’t want his children to speak Parseltongue. It is a dying skill and deserves to be preserved but it hurts and Snape has no idea how to shut the hurt off.
“Sorry, daddy.” Eileen looks guilty. It only makes Snape feel worse. He doesn’t want them to feel guilty. He doesn’t want to forbid Parseltongue. He sighs.
“Just please not at the dinner table, love.”
“We didn’t mean to exclude you.” Harrie says. Snape lays his hand over hers.
“I know.” He says with a sad smile.
“I was merely telling Harrie how pretty she looks today. The little ones agreed.” Voldemort says. A tiny bit of remorse seems to resonate in his words. Harrie and the children nod.
Now Snape feels guilty for ruining the mood.
“You did not.” Voldemort says softly. “I did. Let us talk about this summer camp young Ms Granger proposed. Tell me more.”
“Hermoine!” Eileen corrects Voldemort with an audible groan, the proof of this not being the first time she corrected him. “It’s just Auntie Mione, papa! Why do you always call her that.” She rolls her eyes.
“It is polite.”
“Stuck up.” Snape says between artificial coughs. Eileen giggles. Elias has smeared mashed potatoes all over his face and the front of his shirt.
“You’re mighty impertinent today, my dearest.” Voldemort’s hand settles on Snape’s knee beneath the table.
“What’s impenties?” Elias asks with a mouthful of food.
“It means cheeky.” Voldemort says at the same time as Snape says, “It means papa is sensitive.”
The two men smirk at each other.
“Oh?” Says Voldemort darkly. “Am I?”
“And dramatic.” Snape adds.
Harrie snorts. “You’re both drama queens now stop quarrelling and eat!”
As promised, after dinner they clear the table and Elias gets the cardboard box with their Catan game. He sits on Snape’s lap since he is too young to play on his own yet and as usual Eileen teams up with her mum. They stand no chance against Snape, especially since Voldemort agreed to the alliance Elias proposed.
They win.
Today it’s Harrie’s turn to do bathtime and tuck the children into bed. First, Elias wishes Snape good night by hugging and kissing his father, then Eileen.
“Goodnight, papa.” Eileen says and hugs Voldemort. He runs his hand through her hair affectionately.
“Good night, kitten.” Kitten . Baby bunnies are called kittens…It’s one of many small things Voldemort does that prove just how much he loves those children, no matter what he might claim.
Eileen lifts her plushie. “Say night night to Snakey!” She demands. They have this same argument every night. Voldemort refuses. Eileen pouts. Voldemort reiterates that Snakey is a plushie and not a real snake. Eileen glowers and crosses her small arms in front of her chest. Voldemort tries to squirm his way out but his daughter’s ire burns brighter than his disdain for playing pretend.
Voldemort sighs. “Night night Snakey.” He grumbles between clenched teeth.
“Snakey wants a kiss.” Eileen would make a great Dark Lady one day. She can be both terrifying and cruel.
Voldemort kisses the snake, then he grabs the screeching girl and throws her over his shoulder to carry her over to her mother and drop her in Harrie’s arms.
Snape has already shrugged off his jumper before he and Voldemort even reach their bedroom. And even before the door has time to fall shut, Snape finds himself swirled around and thrown against the wall. The air is knocked out of his lungs. His back hits the wall painfully. Voldemort’s mouth descents upon his, trapping him in a fiery, hungry kiss. Fangs scrape over Snape’s lips. A forked tongue swirls around his own, thrusts past his lips, deep into his mouth as though to show Snape what Voldemort will do to his mouth in just a few moments.
“Impertinent little thing.” Voldemort growls against Snape’s lips. His spidery fingers weave through silky black strands of hair. Snape’s head is pulled backwards roughly. Fangs dance along his throat. A barely there touch, a screaming threat, one that has Snape’s heart beat faster and his cock throbbing, one that Snape knows Voldemort would never make true.
“I shall give that pert little mouth of yours something to do.”
“Yeah?” Snape says challengingly and catches Voldemort’s lips in another feverish kiss. His hands roam over Voldemort’s chest, open the buttons of his emerald robes with ease. Snape has a lot of practice with buttons.
Voldemort allows Snape to steer him backwards, towards the bed. They tumble onto it in a messy heap of limbs and tongue and fabric. The latter is quickly disposed of. Shoved off the bed carelessly as hands seek naked skin, nails rake over it, leaving it red, marred and bloody.
Snape kisses down Voldemort’s pale chest, licks along red scrapes his nails left on his scaly, shimmering skin. Black eyes dart up to find a crimson pair trained on him with the same intensity of a snake watching its prey.
“Go on.” Voldemort purrs and playfully brushes Snape’s hair out of his face, wraps it around his fist. “Suck your master’s cock.”
“You’re not my master anymore.” Snape replies cheekily.
“Here I am.” Voldemort growls and pushes Snape’s head down. He doesn’t fight it. He quite likes the way Voldemort’s possessive side melts with his domineering side when they are alone.
Snape slips off the bed and settles on his knees, between Voldemort’s feet. His pale cock is quickly freed of its confines. Snape wastes no time. Voldemort cares little for foreplay. He takes the fat, leaking cockhead into his mouth and runs his tongue over the slit, putting pressure on Voldemort’s sensitive skin. He inhales sharply, one long hiss. Nails press against Snape’s scalp.
With his hand still tangled in Snape’s hair, Voldemort sets a brutal pace, moving Snape’s head up and down while thrusting his hips up, burying his cock deep in Snape’s throat on each thrust.
Snape sputters and chokes but that’s how he likes it. He lost his concerns over enjoying Voldemort using him in such a manner years ago.
He stares up at the dark wizard, at the serpentine features that once brought nothing but hatred and terror, and now hold an odd and yet familiar softness for Snape.
“Good little pet.” Voldemort coos and holds Snape’s head down, his big nose pressed against his pelvis.
“You started without me.” Harrie pouts as soon as she walks in and stumbles over the scene unfolding before them.
“Severus is repaying me for his insolence.”
“Sensitive old bastard.” Snape gasps, managing to free himself of Voldemort’s brutal grasp long enough to get the words out. Voldemort ignores him.
“Come here, my dearest.”
Harrie grins and crawls up on the bed, settling next to Voldemort on her knees. He grips her chin and pulls her down into a heated kiss. His hand finds the zipper of her jeans.
“Will you come on your master fingers, bunny?”
“Mhh…if my master puts in an effort.” She teases.
“When have I ever left you wanting, my soul?”
“Countless times.” She grins.
Voldemort considers her words for a second. “True.” And he claims her lips, shoving his tongue into her mouth as he had done with Snape moments before.
They get lost in each other. Lost in sweet and lust-drenched kisses. In the taste of salty pre-cum shared between tongues. Exploring each other bodies with their fingertips and lips anew, as though they had forgotten all the small details they had saved to their minds for the rest of eternity, overnight.
Snape gasps and moans between Harrie’s lips on his, Voldemort’s on his cock, both of them worshipping him-
Soon they are a tangled mess made of naked bodies, sharing their love between silk sheets, basking in their shared immortality until-
“I want a third.” Harrie gasps and frees herself of her lover enough to sit up and look down at both of them. “I want a third.” She repeats.
Snape has always known Harrie imagined three children. It came up the very first time they discussed the matter of children. Back then Voldemort had been very sceptical of the idea and wouldn’t even entertain the notion of fathering one himself.
“Sound fantastic.” Snape says breathlessly and sits up as well, just to tangle his hand into Harrie’s wild locks and kiss her. His hand slides down along her throat, over her collarbone. He cups her breast, plays with the bunny ear nipple shield.
Harrie disentangles herself from him. Her chest is heaving from missed breaths. Her lips are swollen and dark red.
“I want to make one now.”
“I am at your service.” Snape says, irritated as to why Harrie would keep questioning him. He agreed to three when they first talked about this. He was merely giving Harrie the time she needed and wanted between pregnancies. He tries to kiss her again but the kiss again doesn’t last long.
Her bright green eyes flick over to Voldemort who had gone suspiciously quiet.
“I want three.” She says, still looking at him.
“I know, darling.” Now Snape is confused.
“I won’t have another after.” She tells Voldemort.
Ever so slowly, Voldemort pushes himself up on his underarm. He cups Harrie’s cheek, rubs his thumb over her soft, sweaty skin, traces her lips.
“I’ll be the father of your child.” He says quietly. “But not just yet. Not yet.” I am not ready, his words seem to say. As though their true meaning is being revealed to them by magic only they can see. “If Severus will let me.”
“I’ve already told you,” Snape says, shaking his head. “They are as much yours as mine. Whether my or your blood runs through their veins. I’ll love a child of your blood as much as I love those we already have.”
“Can you wait, my soul?” Voldemort whispers towards Harrie.
“Of course.” She smiles and presses her lips to his forehead before wrapping her arms around his neck to hug him, her naked body flush with his. “Of course, I will. I am so happy, Tom.”
“The child won’t have my name.” Voldemort says, sounding almost as though he’s…choking up.
“No.” Harrie shakes her head. “Neither the Riddle name nor the Gaunt name. They both failed you so much, my love. I don’t care what name our child has. I just care about sharing this with you.” She takes Snape’s hand. “And you.”
Snape lifts her hand to his lips and presses a kiss to the sparkling sapphire ring adorning her finger.
Estelle Clara Potter is born three years later in 2017. She has keen dark eyes and ebony hair. She’ll grow up to have the aristocratic facial features as the young Tom Riddle Jr and a crooked grin she’d sport whenever getting into trouble.
Voldemort accepts the grizzling infant, wrapped in a pink blanket and freshly washed off the remnants of an easy birth. While Snape ensures Harrie is fine - she is, exhausted but fine - Voldemort holds the little baby reverently, saving every detail of his daughter’s wrinkled appearance to his memory. He has never held something more precious than little Estelle.
Her siblings welcome the latest addition to their family just as heartfelt and joyously as they had welcomed the brown Pomeranian puppy Chocolate who joined their family a year ago and now lies curled up in Harrie’s lap.
Estelle grows up well cared for and loved. Her clothes always fit, are always clean and always well-kept. She is as loved as her siblings and never for a single day of her life experiences the biting pain of a lonely childhood.
Harrie, Snape and Voldemort watch their children grow alongside their country, the country they wanted to create for them. One where they would not have to be ashamed of their talents.
Eileen is sorted into Ravenclaw. She is top of her year, every year. She becomes Prefect and Headgirl and achieves all twelve OWLs. She finishes school with a higher average grade in her NEWTs than Voldemort did. Eileen chooses to travel after school to see the world. Harrie struggled to let her little girl go but she’d wait patiently for her letters to arrive and would proudly tell anyone she knows what Eileen is up to in the world.
Eventually, Eileen takes a professorship at a renowned French uni before returning to England a few years later to follow her parents into politics.
Elias has more rowdy school years. He plays Quidditch for Hufflepuff and tends to get into trouble, being caught out in the corridors after curfew or perusing the restricted section without permission. He isn’t any less smart than his older sister but academic achievements clearly don’t interest him. He doesn’t need to study for classes to understand the subject so he doesn’t. Any lecture from Snape on how much more Elias could achieve with a little more diligence meets deaf ears. Elias finds his own way nonetheless. He gets discovered by a Quidditch scout and joins the English National Quidditch team. With him as seeker, England wins the Quidditch World Cup twice in a row before Elias retires from Quidditch to pursue his interests in herbology. Quite successfully two. Several of his books would later become school books in Hogwarts.
Estelle, to nobody’s surprise, gets sorted into Slytherin. She is witty and brave, loyal and sticks to her own rules religiously. Those are not always in alignment with the rules of Hogwarts. Whenever Lucius tries to speak about Estelle's nightly outings - Harrie always feels like Lucius is going to have a heart attack whenever he tries to be stern with Voldemort - Voldemort merely chuckles. Estelle also has a talent for not getting caught.
She does not quite reach her sister’s record in top grades but that only because Estelle deemed a lot of the teaching content as useless and chose to simply not attend those classes. She is wickedly smart, just like her father but has all of her mother’s compassion, love and benevolence.
She becomes a healer, finishing the apprenticeship in half the time and joins the International Healer’s Relief Organisation. Her combined knowledge of healing and dark magic makes her invaluable to the NGO that sends healers and nurses into regions of conflict. She makes a name for herself in the international wizarding community within a couple of years. She keeps getting offers from wealthy wizards to work for them as a private healer or from investors to finance her own hospital but Estelle always declines.
There is too much suffering in the world as that her mother’s and grandmother’s blood would allow her to choose selfish greed for gold over doing the right thing.
Together with her older sister, Estelle works on bills and laws that would prevent a lot of suffering.
In her late thirties, Estelle, as the first person in the whole world, cures an Obscurial, saving a seven-year-old boy’s life.
The boy, Malachi, gets adopted by Harrie, Snape and Voldemort who know better than anyone the scars a life of abuse and isolation leave on such a young soul. And between the three of them, they have enough magical know-how to deal with any magical tantrum or lingering residue of a powerful magical parasite.
It’s not easy to watch the world around them age, especially for Harrie. She has had to bury so many people already. But with every funeral Harrie attends, every friend she watches age while she stays the same, she meets an old friend again. One she can spend hours in deep conversation with.
And with every friend who passes while Harrie doesn’t age another day, Death asks her again. Have you grown weary of life? And Harrie will look over at her husbands and smile.
By no means.
And Death will make a knowing sound and tell Harrie, she’ll return when she takes another one of Harrie’s friends.
Harrie, Snape and Voldemort watch their children grow up, start families of their own. They watch grandchildren and great-grandchildren be born. They watch their children change the world and watch England prosper. They watch their children grow old. They hold their children during their last breaths. And while Snape helps carry their coffin he is not swallowed up by grief as he would have expected. He knows his children had the best life they possibly could have had. He remembers all their shared laughs, all the pranks they played on Voldemort. He remembers braiding hair and giving advice about boys. He remembers holding his daughter’s hands during childbirth and watching them grow into equally as fantastic mothers as Harrie had been, as Lily would have been.
And Snape is glad he was given this gift. The gift of being in their lives every step of the way. He is grateful they never had to feel the pain of seeing him go. He’d rather be the one to bury them, then having the burden of carrying him to his grave fall upon their shoulders.
There are tears, many, countless - of course there are but when Death asks Have you grown weary of life? Snape shares a look with his wife and husband and finds the same answer slumbering in his heart, resonating in their eyes.
By no means.
And so they travel. They leave their great-grandchildren in the loving hands of their grandchildren and England in the hands of those they trained to one day take over the governance of the country and together with Straciatella’s last remaining descendant, Pistachio, they travel the world. They start in New Zealand and don’t stop combing through the continents and countries until they have discovered every last secret they hold and then they turn towards the seas and explore those too.
Centuries go by.
And every time Death comes to ask Have you grown weary of life? The answer she gets is a confident By no means .
It is many, many years later, when every type of wine has been tasted, every possible cigar smoked, all thinkable chess matches won, all sex positions of the world tested and compared, when the world holds no more secrets, no more wonders they have not seen in one way or another, that Harrie takes Snape’s and Voldemort’s hand and all three look at each other. Voldemort is the first to speak, to say he is ready for the next great adventure, as long as they are by his side and so when Death asks the next time Have you grown weary of life?
The answer is By no means but we are curious what else there is.
And so they greeted Death as an old friend and followed her into the light, through the veil between the world.
The first thing Snape sees is white. A blinding white, so pure, his old eyes can almost not bear it. He feels lighter. He blinks and looks around. On his left, he sees Harrie in the distance and Voldemort to his right. They too seem confused, irritated.
“Severus.”
Snape’s head snaps up. He has not heard this voice in so long-
“Mum!” Harrie screams. She runs through the white, glowing vastness and flings her arms around a woman with long, red hair. Next to her stands a man with round glasses.
“Severus.” The familiar voice says again. Slowly, almost cautiously, Snape looks towards it.
Eileen Prince looked so different, despite never forgetting how she looked through the centuries, Snape struggled to recognise her - until he realised what was different about her.
She looked happy .
Snape doubts he has ever seen his mother happy.
“My boy.” She smiles.
“Mum?”
“What a man you have become.” Tears stand in her dark eyes. As beautiful as they were when he lost her. “I am so proud of you, my boy.”
Snape can’t hold himself back any longer. Not unlike Harrie, he slumps against his mother, allows her to wrap him up in her warm embrace, allows her to kiss his cheeks, to whisper to him how much she missed him.
From the corner of his eye, Snape sees Voldemort being hugged by a tall woman with dark hair. This must be the first time Voldemort ever got to see his mother…
“Daddy! Papa! Mum!”
Snape’s head whips around, almost at the same time as Harrie’s and Voldemort's. Eileen, Elias, Estelle and Malachi are running towards them with tears of joy in their eyes and they catch them in a big group embrace, holding their children for the first time in centuries. And their children’s children. And their children. Their legacy.
So many faces, people they’ve met and lost over the years. Minerva, Pomona, Remus, Tonks, Sirius, Lucius, Cissy, Evan Rosier, Mulciber, Avery, - Regulus .
Snape hugs his old friend.
“I destroyed the locket.” Snape says to him.
“I know.”
“I’m sorry you died.”
“Don’t be.” Regulus grins. “But it was about time you got your arse up here, mate.”
“Oh, sod off.” Snape grins.
Even Luca is there to greet Snape.
Luca, Snape’s best friend from Muggle summer school Tobias forced him to attend. Luca, who introduced Snape to all the music he likes to this day. Luca, who was unfairly and far too soon ripped from the world when he was killed during a knife fight in the dingy streets of Cocksworth. Luca, who still looks the same as he did at sixteen, mischief oozing off every inch of his face, with spiky hair and piercings littering his face. Without his signature leather jacket though because Snape is wearing that. Even centuries later he is wearing his best friend's jacket.
Snape still knows their handshake.
“Never told me you’re a bloody wizard, Sev.” Luca says with not an ounce of accusation or any hint of a grudge, just with his usual cocky attitude.
“I’ve missed you, mate.” Snape simply replies, still hugging Luca.
“You are the one who took his bloody time!”
Snape looks over his shoulder at Harrie and Voldemort who are having their own moments of reunion and smiles.
They notice him staring, and smile.
“And every second of it was worth it, mate.”