Chapter Text
Chapter 19 - Resumption
“We have nothing to lose, and a world to see.”
- Unknown
Shell Cottage
Late Spring
It was one of those evenings, where Asra did not wish to settle, and Severus took his due turn in bouncing and walking with him across the nursery room to try to wear him out. Severus was sure it actually wore him out more than Asra, but eventually his son had succumbed to slumber, staying asleep as Severus gingerly put him in the crib. When Severus made it to the door without Asra making a noise, he knew he was out.
He collapsed on the settee, exhaling and hoping his son would not rouse again in the next few hours.
“Did he finally go to sleep?” Hermione asked him from where she was sitting on the floor.
“Yes,” Severus responded, shifting so that he could see what she was doing. She was sitting cross legged on the floor, a blank book open in front of her, and all the printed photos of their journey spread around her. Among them were also their newest photos since their son had been born. Severus could see one of her breastfeeding Asra, another of Severus dead asleep on the bed, with Asra sleeping in a similar position next to him, and photos of the three of them taken by Luna. Hermione picked one up, inspected it, and moved the order she had them in again in a way that made no sense to him.
“What are you doing with that love?”
She smiled over her shoulder at him. “I am making a family photo album for Asra when he grows up, but I don’t know if I should do it chronologically, or order of importance, or by my favorite ones. Do you want to help?”
The book in her lap now made sense—it was a larger photo album than he was used to seeing.
“If you would like me too,” he responded, sliding from the sofa to the ground beside her.
He picked up the most recent photo he’d taken of Hermione holding Asra on her hip as she paced and read from a children’s book floating before her. Asra was not interested in the book, but rather sticking his mother's hair in his mouth and tangling his fingers in it. Severus had thought the entire thing was amusing and wanted to preserve it, so he’d quickly fetched his camera and snapped a photo before she could protest that she looked a mess. Her version of a mess was his version of a goddess, but she would not hear that argument either.
Severus held the photo in his hands, letting the happiness it brought sink into him as he looked at it with a more critical eye. The improvement in his work was clear to him, especially when he compared it to his first photos in Paris or Salzburg. Part of Severus wanted to revisit those places with her and retake them over again, this time with Asra, but the other part looked at them and knew that he’d never recapture the emotion in them, and that was what he treasured most about them. The slightly out of focus photos told a story that he cherished immensely—one of healing, recovery, and falling in love with Hermione. A well of emotion pressed against his Adam’s apple as he realized this would be the story they told their child too.
“I think you should do them chronologically,” Severus offered, trying to conceal his emotions. “If he's anything like us, he will prefer it that way, so that the story of how his parents ran away and fell in love will make sense to him.”
She gave him a knowing look, before leaning her head against him. “I have a feeling it will be my favorite story to tell him, it is my favorite story to remember.”
He pressed a kiss to her head, picking up the photo of them in Dubai. Severus remembered the hot dry desert, and how he loathed the temperature there, but enjoyed the night life. There was a longing in him for the freedom they’d had then, to see new things everyday. Here, they had fallen into a pattern of the same day over and over again. “Do you miss it?”
“I do. I miss seeing the world and having our own space, not that Luna is a horrible hostess.” Hermoine admitted, sitting up and starting to organize the photos according to when they were taken.
She was right, Luna was an excellent hostess, basically giving them a total run of her home, but they still existed in the same space as someone else, even when she was off running around the world with Rolf Scalmander.
“Do you miss it?” she asked him softly.
Severus nodded, helping her organize the photos as she began to adhere them to the pages of the book. “I do, and I miss working for the magazines.”
Severus had taken leave from his work nearly seven months ago, when they returned. He’d told the editors that he would be gone for a while, as his wife was about to have their first child. His editors understood, and asked him to simply let them know again when he was back at work. He’d sent in some photos of London, and Hermione had written a small piece before Asra was born, but that was the extent of his work since they’d returned.
Hermione let out a sigh, looking at the photo of them in the oilseed flowers in Austria. “It is not that I think poorly of our life now, but I enjoyed traveling a lot.”
Severus understood completely, as traveling the world has been his first taste of freedom. Seeing the world helped him identify who he was and who he wanted to be as a person. He mulled over the time they spent on the sea in Barcelona, how every step of their journey had taught him something new about himself, and also helped him fall in love with her. He glanced around the cottage they were staying in with Luna Lovegood, and felt the draw of wanderlust calling him to someplace outside of those four walls and from the now all-too-familiar shore. There was also this desire to give his son the life he never had, to show him those distant shores and vibrant cities. He wasn’t sure he wanted Asra to grow up having only seen the small portion of the world that was the British Wizarding Community.
An idea crossed his mind, and he stilled Hermione’s hand with his own, a question poised on the tip of his tongue. “He’s old enough, correct?”
“Hmm? Old enough to do what, Severus?” she asked, having not been privy to his internal dialogue.
“To travel safely?” Severus elaborated. “There is no danger to him from Portkey, Floo, or Apparition at this age, granted as long as he is securely attached to one of us. I don’t know how you would feel traveling with him still breastfeeding, but he’s old enough.”
Her eyes lit up as she looked at him, as if she caught on to the track his mind was on. “He’s six months, so safe for travel to be sure. And I’ve not started weaning him yet. I just started introducing him to soft foods, but he’s starting to grow in teeth, so that might be happening soon enough.”
Severus watched as Hermione rubbed her breast with one hand gingerly.
“He bites me one more time, and we are going to the bottle anyways,” she grumbled. “So yes, I would say he is old enough to travel with us.”
“Is that what you want?” Severus didn’t want to pressure her to do so if she wasn’t ready, if she didn’t think Asra was ready for it, or if she simply didn’t want to go. He could easily shelve his desire for travel to a later date, when Asra was a more suitable age, if she didn’t wish to go now.
“I wouldn’t mind it,” she stated, her hand coming to touch her chin. “I think it would be great for him, and us as a family. What do you think?”
“I think being back and knowing that the two of you will not be ripped away from me is comfortable.” Severus ran his hand through the hair on top of his head, seeking the right words. He knew that comfort was what many families strove for, but were they that kind of family? Severus didn’t think so. “But I miss the world, the adventure, and it being the two of us with no one nosing about in our business.”
“It’s now the three of us, but I agree, I miss our privacy,” Hermione nodded, her eyes darting toward the stairs where Asra slept on the second floor. “We could easily find rooms to accommodate a crib.”
Severus smirked, handing her another photo. “Then we are both in agreement.”
“We are. Asra is old enough to travel, and we could manage traveling comfortably with him,” Hermione replied with a grin on her face.
Shifting his body so that he could face her rather than her project on the floor, Severus took her hands in both of his. “Can I ask you something then, my love, my life, my wife?”
“Anything?” Hermione’s eyes were staring into his curiously.
A feeling as if she were trying to read his thoughts came to mind, amusing him.
“I ask you to promise me something, like the promise asked of me two years ago.” He kissed the back of her hand, letting out a breath as he asked her with all the seriousness he felt the moment deserved. “Will you follow me around the world, you and Asra, and we can see the things we didn’t get to during the first go around?”
“Yes, I promise.” Her lips curved up, her smile widening as she pulled her hand from his, grabbing his cheeks and pulling him into a deep kiss. “I’ll follow you anywhere Severus. Where do you want to go first?”
Severus glanced down at the photos splayed across the floor, his eyes catching the photo of the ofrenda she’d made when they were in Mexico. Instantly, he knew where he wanted to go, what he wanted to do. “I think it’s time we went to Australia.”
The Daily Prophet
May 1st, 2000
Lucretia War Orphanage and Safehouse welcomes students for summer!
This morning, Molly Weasley, Narcissa Malfoy, and the staff of Lucretia’s Safehouse welcomed the first batch of summer residents. Lucretia’s Safehouse provides at-risk students, and those with poor homelife, or no family to speak of, with a safe place to stay over the summer holidays. This is a program pushed for by Draco Malfoy and Ronald Weasley, who both believe that if such a program had existed, there would have been no war in the first place. It is known now that You-Know-Who was an orphan forced to return to an orphanage every summer, which fed into his resentment of Muggles and Muggleborns.
This year, seventeen students came to stay at the Safehouse, joining the twenty four war orphans that live there year round, who came to stay when the location opened ahead of schedule in March. Amos Diggory, the newly hired director of Lucretia’s Safehouse, was delighted to welcome them.
“I have found my purpose in life again,” Amos was quoted when interviewed by Daily Prophet correspondent Dennis Crevey. “It’s not about the pay, or having a job again either. My boy, my Cedric, would have wanted this for me, he would have wanted me to continue to share all the love I have in my heart with those who do not get it elsewhere. I will never forget Cedric, and everything I do to help these young men and women is in his honor. It is a pleasure to be part of this, and see how old houses with bad blood, such as the Malfoys and the Weasleys, can work together for such a noble cause.”
If you are, or know, a young witch or wizard with unstable housing over the summer, please contact the Safehouse, and the staff will do what they can to aid you. Your blood status doesn’t matter, Muggleborn, Pureblood, Half-Blood, even if you are a squib, you are welcome
For a list of summer activities being hosted at Lucreita's Safehouse that all young witches and wizards can attend, check page 3.
The Daily Prophet
May 2nd, 2000
War Memorial Opens Two Years After Battle of Hogwarts!
The Wizarding community gathered today at the newly finished War Memorial, honoring the fallen fifty and those who survived the war. In attendance were many members of Dumbledore’s Army, the remaining members of The Order of the Phoenix, and several students who had lived through the battle.
Harry Potter was not permitted to attend, still in custody at St Mungos, but his two former best friends, Ronald Weasley, and Hermione Snape, gave speeches about how brave he’d been during the war, and that if he were well, he would surely be there remembering those who gave their everything to stop the Dark Lord.
Neville Longbottom, and his fiance, Ginvera Weasley, recognized the efforts of the staff at Hogwarts to keep them safe during that last hard year. Mister Longbottom even acknowledged that the then Headmaster, Severus Snape, had done what he could to keep the damages to a minimum.
The event ended with a reciting of the names of the fallen fifty and the lighting of a Gubraithian Fire Candle in front of the memorial where the names of all those who died during the war existed. The black granite wall included all the names of those who died during He-Who-Will-Not-Be-Name’s first uprising, including Lily and James Potter, Marlene McKinnon, and other now known members of the Order of the Phoenix.
“We should celebrate the life that we can now live, but never forget those who sacrificed everything to give it to us.” Minister Shacklebolt said. “Today, when we look back, we remember why it is that we must continue, as a community, to move forward, away from the old prejudices that fed this war. I want this to be the last war memorial that any Minister of Magic ever has to officiate, I want that for our future, our children.”
The Daily Prophet
May 5th, 2000
The Snapes take to traveling the world again!
Hermione Snape sent a letter to the editor this morning in which she informed us that her family would resume travelling again now that her young son was old enough. The letter was short and to the point, but came with a unusual request.
The Snapes offered to write for the Daily Prophet of their adventures, granted that they be allowed to maintain their privacy without our correspondents following them around the world. It appears that while they were travelling the first time, Severus Snape became a photojournalist, and Hermione a travel writer under pseudonyms, which is seemingly how they could afford to travel throughout the year and a half.
In addition to announcing that the Snapes are leaving the country to travel again, we wish to announce the introduction of a new monthly section, featuring the writing of Hermione Snape, accompanied by photos from her husband.
We at the Prophet are excited for this new and interesting addition to our paper.