Saved by Love (Severus Snape / Original Female Character)

And Another

June 1994

Snapes' family home

Florence woke up and rolled on the bed, finding her husband's pillow and wrapping her arms around it, letting his scent surround her; in her mind, her very well-behaved veela purred, feeling safe and loved.

She closed her eyes, trying to sleep again, but something was suddenly not right, the mystic being in her mind had strangely stopped revelling in the scent of her bonded mate and seemed to be in high alert instead - as if she had smelled danger.

What is wrong? She thought.

There's another. Florence heard the whispered reply in her mind in that inner voice she'd grown accustomed to hear begging for sex, someone's blood or other primal violent response.

Florence sat on the bed, grabbing her wand and looking around carefully, trying to find out if the veela meant there was another person in the room.

But she couldn't sense anything, and the only sound she heard was the voices of her kids' coming from the corridor.

Florence put her wand back on the nightstand and listened to them discussing boys – Liz and Nick's new favourite topic.

She allowed herself to relax again on the bed, still curious about what could have caused her veela's sudden alertness and distress.

What's wrong? She asked again, adding: The kids are all home. Sev is in the castle. She thought, touching her jade necklace and breathing in and out slowly. They're all safe.

Then she felt the veela magic slowly calm down and was able to breathe and think, realising that her sudden nervousness that morning wasn't an isolated episode – her anxiety and fear of the future had significantly worsened in the last couple of weeks. She found herself having small panic attacks during the day without any identifiable trigger.

The sound of one of the house-elves appearing inside the room interrupted her musings.

"Good morning, Mistress Flor. Tiffany brought morning tea. Iced ginger tea for my Mistress' summer morning!"

"Good morning, Tiff," Florence smiled at her dear elf, getting the tall glass of iced-tea, sipping and drinking nearly half of it before she stopped, "This is so good! What did you put in it?"

Tiffany's smile turned mysteriously tight-lipped, "Just ginger, sugar and lemon, Mistress."

"It's delicious!" she finished drinking it and gave Tiffany the empty glass, "Can you make some more?"

"Sure," the elf nodded, "Tiffany already has a large pitcher ready. Tiffany knows Mistress likes ginger when-" she suddenly stopped talking, covering her own mouth with a hand.

"When what?" Florence frowned.

"Mistress doesn't know yet. Tiffany said too much."

"What do you mea-?" then Florence's face changed in dawning understanding, "You mean... we did it? After almost a year trying to conceive...?"

Tiffany nodded.

Florence laughed and lay down on the bed again, not even bothering to go looking for a pregnancy test, she simply grabed her wand and cast: "Vide utero," and then she saw it: the small amniotic sac, the little peanut-sized baby inside of it.

One more baby. She touched her wand to her belly to listen to the heartbeat.

"This is so sweet, Mistress," whispered Tiffany, hearing the baby's fast heartbeat.