Chapter 1
Severus was reading on his armchair in the living room, when he heard some noises coming from the kitchen. He put the bookmark inside the book and headed toward the place where the noise was coming from: Rosie was sitting on the floor with her little legs wide opened and few pots in between them. She was rhythmically beating on them and Severus learned against the door to watch the scene: the little one was banging on the cookware and laughing.
“What a nice sound for my ears” he thought.
When Rosie realized he was there, she reached out to be picked up and Severus lowered himself and hugged her, kissing her puffy cheek. The baby girl laughed happily and clapped her little hands. She was looking at her dad with her eyes, dark as the starry night, that the man used to contemplate, loving to regain his own eyes in his daughter.
Even after more than a year, every time he thought of it, he couldn’t believe it: he, the most reserved and lonely person in the entire magic world, had found love, twice. First, when he had fallen in love with Hermione and, then, when their daughter was born, a baby girl who from her mother had taken the brown and rebel hair, the wonderful laugh and the sweet, but firm character when needed. Exactly the characteristics that had him fallen in love few years prior.
While he was making those thoughts, he heard the front door coming open and Rosie calling for her mom. He turned around and saw his wife smiling at the both of them, that smile she always had when she was seeing them together, those smiles that arise spontaneously when one is happy. He put Rosie on the floor and she crawled inside Hermione’s opened arms, she picked her up and, then, went kissing Severus, hugging his neck with the free arm.
Her lips strawberry-taste lips. He loved them.
They headed to the kitchen where Hermione set to the stove, while Severus was placing the little one in the highchair to feed her. It was their daily ritual. At the beginning, he felt a little bit stupid pretending that the spoon was an airplane to feed his daughter, but when it began to come naturally to him, he forgot about embarrassment. After Rosie finished her meal, they ate theirs, holding hands and talking about their days.
Winter breaks were coming, just a week left to work and then they would have had two weeks to spend together, only the three of them. On Christmas day, they had been invited to the Burrow for lunch with all their friends, but then they would have come back, cuddled, and played in front of the fire. Hermione, though, had an early present for her husband: at first, she wanted to wait for Christmas, but then she decided she didn’t want to wait. She walked in front of Rosie’s opened bedroom door inside which Severus was putting the little one into her bed, after she had fallen asleep against his shoulder while they were climbing the stairs. As soon as the wizard was in the hallway, his wife dragged him into the room, kissed him and asked him to sit on the bed.
Severus got a little worried, but looking at her smile, his anxiety turned into curiosity. She sat on his knees, pointing her own knees to the bed and bringing the man’s hand on her belly, keeping a 32 teeth smile. It took very little for him to understand, to take her face between his hands and kiss her as out of gratitude. After herself and Rosie, she was about to give him another beautiful present.
He laid her on the bed and raised her shirt to caress her bump and then kiss it, before taking it off along with her other clothes. Her little hands took off his and they made love. Sweetly, peacefully, as the night could never end. They stifled moans in each other's mouths.
They talked all night long, too excited to sleep. They chose few names: Annie or Sarah if they would had another girl, David or Edward if it had been a boy. Severus placed his ear on his wife’s belly as he could already ear something and he fell asleep like that.
Hermione was caressing his hair and couldn’t help but smile. Her life was perfect, even better than how she had pictured it. She was married to the love of her life, they had a beautiful daughter and another baby on their way, she had many friends and a job she adored. She fell asleep with her hand still interlock with Severus’s hair, dreaming about a baby boy with raven hair that toddled through a green meadow follow by Rosie, both waving at their parents sitting on a blanket, hugging. And a smile reached her even in the sleep.