Chapter Text
“Grandpa Lucius! Grandma Cissy!” Daisy barrelled across the living room and hugged both of them around the waist in turn, then looked up at Narcissa without letting go. “You’re still my grandparents, right?”
“Yes,” Narcissa said, “because Draco considers you his daughter, and that’s all that matters to me.”
“And even if that were not true, we are now also your godparents,” Lucius added. He bent down towards her. “Which means there’s no getting rid of us.”
“And we have an excuse to give twice as many gifts.”
Athena snorted her drink up her nose and coughed, patting her chest to clear it. Severus patted her back to help. “Sorry, went down the wrong way.”
“You see how much space we have, Mum,” Draco said.
“It’s rather nice, actually. I thought it’d be cozier.” Narcissa gestured around the room. “Does this room go across both wings?”
“We put in a vanishing wall,” Chris said. “It’s open most of the time so we can spend time together and for parties and the like, but we can close it again if someone’s being a right prick.” Chris and Severus stared at each other until Athena stepped between them to break their eye contact.
“We’re considering removing the wall between Daisy’s rooms as well,” Draco said.
“I can’t decide if I want one big room or two little ones,” Daisy said.
“Why don’t you show me your rooms, and I’ll see if I have any ideas?” Narcissa asked.
“Right!” Daisy took her hand and led her to the stairs.
“What are you doing with that house in Cokeworth?” Lucius asked Severus.
“Draco has a business plan for it,” Severus said. “He’s going to turn Cokeworth into a second Hogsmeade.”
“More like Godric’s Hollow, perhaps,” Draco said. “There are so many empty houses on Spinner’s End that could be had for a pittance. We’re going to let out the Cokeworth house, use that and Chris’s Muggle earnings from MI6 to buy a few, and do them up with a few repair spells and protection charms. Once we have three or four occupied, I can bring in investors, buy the old mill, clean that up to make the neighborhood nicer, and turn it into a shopping arcade.”
“That sounds viable,” Lucius said. “Bring me the prospectus when you’re ready for investors, and I might be interested in buying into the scheme. Are you sure you’re quite all right letting the Cokeworth place go, Severus? I remember how hard it was for you when your mother passed.”
Severus nodded. “It’s time. This is a much better place for our family. Daisy loves it, it’s safer for her, and it made things much easier for Draco when he transformed as well.”
“It was brilliant,” Draco agreed. “We didn’t have to make a fuss going to a park; I just went out the back, chased some nifflers, and came back in to the fire whenever I felt like it. I am going to miss that Muggle lady who thinks I’m a Pekingese, though.”
“A Pekingese,” Lucius repeated.
“It’s a long story,” Severus said.
An alarm sounded on Athena’s watch pendant, and she pulled it out. “Oh, Hagrid’s will be here in a few minutes. Could one of you meet him at the gate? I’ll get Daisy and Narcissa.”
Both Chris and Severus moved to the door, and neither was willing to back down to the other, so they both went outside as Athena went upstairs.
“It is a very nice property,” Lucius said to Draco, looking out the bay window at the forest outside. “You have good taste.”
“Thanks you. I think we’ll like it here.”
An uncomfortable silence settled between them as they waited for the others. Say it now, Lucius thought. Don’t let the moment slip away. He took a deep breath and said, “I’m very proud of the man you’ve become.”
Draco turned to him in surprise, but if he stopped now, he’d never get it all out. “When you were bitten, and I found out you were in love with Chris, I thought I had ruined your life. It’s not that I held anything against Chris… Well, actually I did, and you know why. But more than that, you two were so young. I thought it wouldn’t last, that you would grow apart. When you didn’t, I thought you were just clinging because you had given up so much to be with him, because of the world I fought to build. But I see you now with him and with Daisy, and I see what you’re accomplishing at the Ministry, and I see I was wrong. I’m very proud of you. I’m proud that you’re my son.”
“Thanks.” Draco paused uncomfortably, then said, “Oh, fuck it. Werewolves are meant to be a cuddly lot,” and hugged Lucius. Lucius paused for only a second before hugging him back. “I love you, Dad.”
“I love you, too, Draco.”
They heard the ladies coming down the stairs and separated. Not everything could be changed in a day.
“Draco, Grandma Cissy had a really good idea!” Daisy said, running to him. “I could have a bedroom on one side and a playroom on the other with a door between them, and then I could go out to either side.”
“That is a brilliant idea,” Draco said. “Thanks, Mum.”
“Think nothing of it, dear,” Narcissa said.
“Is Hagrid here?” Daisy asked.
Athena looked at her pendant again. “Almost. Let’s go out to meet him, shall we?” They all went to stand next to Severus and Chris at the gate. A few minutes later, a burst of wind from a portkey blew their hair back, and Hagrid appeared on the drive with the baby unicorn he was fostering in his arms. It was docile at first, but when it saw Daisy, it struggled to get down. He set it on the ground, and it ran to her.
“Ah, you remember me,” she said, petting it. As Hagrid stepped forward, the gargoyles on either side of the gate stirred.
“Hagrid’s a welcome guest,” Draco said, and they settled back into their usual positions.
“Oh, those are grand-looking gargoyles,” Hagrid said, admiring them. “Proper beauties. They like quartz, do they?”
“He does. That one only likes chrysoprase.”
“Ever tried him with agate?”
Draco shrugged. “We’ve lived here for a week, so I have no idea.”
“Tell you what, I’ll bring some for Professor Snape next term, let you give it a go.” Hagrid leaned over Daisy. “Professor Snape, er, the nice one—wait, that in’t what I meant to say.”
Severus gestured to his wife. “No one would argue against Athena being the nicer of the two Professors Snape, myself included.”
“Granted, it’s a low bar,” Chris said.
Exasperation spread across Severus’s face, while Athena took an apple out of her pocket and tossed it to Chris. “Shut it and eat something, you little toerag.”
As Chris obediently bit into the apple, Narcissa leaned over Athena’s shoulder. “Is that really all it takes with him?”
Hagrid cleared his throat and returned his attention to Daisy. “Your mum, she was telling me the mummy unicorn let you stroke her nose the other day.”
Daisy nodded excitedly. “She came right up to me while I was playing. She only has one baby, too. You said you were looking for one with one baby, so maybe she’d take care of him, too.”
“That’s right. If she’s already trusting you, there’s a fair chance she’ll take him on, no trouble. But the rest of us, we've got to keep our distance, see? If she spots any of us, she won’t come out of the shadows. You wouldn’t be too scared to lead him down to the treeline, would you? See if she comes calling for him?”
She shook her head with a big smile. “No, I’m not scared. I live here now.”
Athena and Narcissa herded everyone towards the house. When they reached the door, Athena said, “We’re going to be right inside watching, Daisy. You’ll do fine.”
The adults all piled into the living room and lined up at the picture windows. The baby unicorn played with Daisy as it had at Hagrid’s hut, tugging at her robe and running so she would chase it. She did so whenever that would bring it closer to the treeline.
“She is so precious,” Narcissa said to no one in particular, clasping her hands in front of her mouth. “No wonder the unicorn came to her.”
“It in’t that unicorns don’t like folk, see,” Hagrid said. “They’ve just learnt to be a bit wary of us. That’s why they’ve got a soft spot for little ones.”
As the setting sun struck a rim of pink around the treetops, a spot of white appeared in the forest and grew larger. Finally, an adult unicorn emerged from the trees and looked at Daisy and the foal curiously.
“Hello,” Daisy said, holding out her hand to it. The unicorn came closer and sniffed her fingers, and the foal ran to them and made a bleating sound. At the forest edge, a second golden foal stopped beside a tree, watching as Daisy petted the one beside her. “His mummy left him and he needs a new one. Will you help him?”
The unicorn sniffed at the new foal, then licked his forehead. He bleated excitedly and rubbed against her, and she laid her head over his neck for a moment, then nuzzled Daisy before leading him back to the treeline. As the second foal joined them, the adult unicorn looked back, and Daisy waved. The unicorns disappeared into the woods, and Daisy turned back to the house.
As the others came back out, she smiled. “It worked! Did you see?”
“We saw, my little doe.” Severus bent down to hug her, then picked her up. “You did brilliantly.”
“Do you think he’ll remember me when he grows up?”
“Sure as rain falls, that little fella’s never goin’ to forget you,” Hagrid said. “Made a friend for life, you have.”
If someone had been in the old visitor’s centre, they might have noticed a new dot on the map: “Weasel - Ron.” But of course, the building was empty. The gargoyles always patrolled the property after sunset, so no one noticed as they converged on a single spot, either. And the gargoyles had been taught to ignore wildlife that crossed the property border, so they didn’t notice as a weasel squeezed through a gap in the wall and ran away. They only knew that the stranger they were looking for was gone.
Once the weasel was well out of sight of the border wall, it turned into a man with a soft ‘pop’ and vanished with a crack. He appeared again in a yard in the nearest Muggle town and popped back into a weasel, then ran into the house. The family eating around the kitchen table didn’t notice as he ran past them, but then again, they wouldn’t have noticed if he had walked in as a human, either. He climbed two flights of stairs and a ladder into the attic, where Hermione sat waiting, watching out the dirt-clouded dormer window.
“Well?” she asked as he popped into a human again.
“Daisy Snape,” Ron said, sitting cross-legged on the floor. “I still can’t believe Snape is shagging a werewolf.”
Hermione cursed under her breath. “Is there any chance Daisy’s his daughter in name only? That he hasn’t ‘taken her as daughter’?”
“Nah, he’s playing the doting daddy.” Hermione cursed again. “Hermione, be honest with me. On a scale from one to ‘Bloody Fucking Hell’, how stuffed are we?”
Hermione bobbed her head side-to-side, calculating. “Probably somewhere around ‘Oh, bollocks’.”
“Oh, bollocks?” Ron asked. “Seriously? We’ve been in far worse than ‘oh, bollocks’. Bloody hell, we live in ‘oh, bollocks’.”
“Yes, and apparently we’ll be living there for a while yet.”
“But we’ve got a chance?”
“Ron, we’ve always had a chance.”
“We’ve got a decent chance?”
Hermione bobbed her head again. “Maybe.”
“Maybe?”
“I don’t know! I wish I could give you a yes or no, but…” She shrugged. “Prophecies are slippery things. Maybe we’ve missed our chance for a generation, or maybe Daisy’s exactly where she needs to be. Either way, all we can do is keep fighting.”
“I suppose.” He sighed, and she patted his knee and pushed herself up.
“Come along,” she said. “Let’s clear out before we get this poor family killed.”