Work Text:
Fatherhood
“Daddy.”
“Daddy.”
He barely heard the soft whisper that roused him from his sleep. He turned his head toward the sound, cracking one eye barely open. His daughter, Daisy, was outlined by the glow of the hall light behind her. “Hmm?”
“Daddy, are you awake?” Warm little hands pressed against his cheeks, sending the curtain of sleep away from his mind.
“I am now,” he exhaled heavily, opening his eyes and leaning up on his arms. He inspected her in the darkness, looking for signs that she was either injured or soiled herself in the night. In the dim light, he couldn’t tell what had her awake at this hour. “What is the matter, love?”
Her small voice trembled with fear as she launched forward, wrapping both her arms around his forearm. “There is a monster under my bed.”
He closed his eyes, reaching out toward the protective magic that he and Hermione had woven around their child’s bedroom before she was even born. The monitoring spell showed there were currently no signs of life within the room and no signs of anything trying to breach the wards.
“Are you sure?” he whispered, turning his head to see that Hermione was either fast asleep, or doing a remarkable job of pretending she was.
Daisy nodded her head vigorously, tightening her grip as she gazed toward the open bedroom door. “It’s scary daddy, it has big eyes and big teeth.”
“I believe you.” Knowing that he was dealing with a monster of the mind, Severus stood up, pulling her into his arms as he pulled his wand from under his pillow. “Better make sure I bring my wand then, if it’s so scary.”
Daisy wrapped her arms around his neck, her face pressed into his shoulder as he carried her across the hall. She was getting close to being too big to carry, but Severus would pick her up until she didn’t want to be picked up or he was physically unable to do so. It was one of his greatest points of pride that his child sought him for comfort, meaning he’d done exactly what he said he would, and not be anything like the man who raised him.
At her bedroom door, he leaned down, putting Daisy on her feet and moving so that she was protectively behind him.
“You stay here, Daddy will see what kind of monster it is,” he told her, gripping his wand in his hand as if he were about to enter a duel.
Dark chocolate eyes looked at him with worry, her small fingers still holding on to his arm. “Be careful daddy.”
Knowing that she watched his every move, Severus swooped into the bedroom as if he were stepping into a battlefield. Stopping just out of arm’s reach of the bed, he pointed his wand at it.
“Riddikulus!” he cast with a flick of his wand, a white beam of light hitting under the bed. He waited, turning back to see that Daisy had her hands over her face, but her fingers spread wide so that she looked at him through them.
“Hmm, it is not a boggart,” he informed her, turning back to the bed and kneeling beside it.
Severus ran his wand along the bottom edge of the bed, rumbling out another spell. “ Reveal your secrets to me .”
Nothing shimmered or changed, and he turned back to her again, giving her a knowing nod. “Not a disillusionment spell. I think I will have to go under the bed.”
“Don’t let the monster get you Daddy!” Daisy gasped out in a near cry.
Severus smiled reassuringly at her as he got down on all fours. “I won’t.”
Pointing his wand under the bed, shutting his eyes before he blinded himself, he cast another spell. “ Lumos. ”
Opening his eyes, he glanced around, looking for anything out of the ordinary. A handful of toys and a misplaced shoe were all that he found. As he moved his wand, he noticed how the shadows moved, finding the culprit at once. “Ah, I found our monster.”
“What is it Daddy?” Daisy asked from behind him.
“The shadows of your night light cast your Bowtruckle plush into a more sinister light.” Severus leaned back, sitting on his knees as he gestured for her to come closer. “Come, look for yourself.”
Daisy stayed still in the doorway, shaking her head. “I’m afraid.”
“I will never, ever put you in an unsafe situation, Daisy.” Severus whispered, getting to his feet and coming to kneel in front of her. He pushed her curls away from her face as he reassured her. “Nothing will hurt you while Daddy is right here. I promise, it is safe.”
It took her a moment, but she wrapped her fingers around his hand and took a step into the room. Severus walked with her toward the bed and knelt to the ground again, shining the light under the bed.
“Watch when I move my wand, look at the shadows, not the toys,” Severus told her. He moved his wand so that the friendly toy made unfriendly shadows along the wall.
“It was just my doll?” Daisy gasped, crawled under the bed and grabbed her toy.
“It was just your doll.” Severus moved his wand again, showing her that the shadows were gone now that the doll had been removed.
He turned to see her sitting on the floor next to him, her arms wrapped around the gift from Longbottom. Her eyes didn’t look as scared, and he hoped that by showing her the source of the monster, he’d helped her overcome the fear. Getting up, he sat on the bed, patting it so that she could get into it. “Come now, back into bed.”
Daisy climbed back into bed, and Severus pulled the covers over her, making sure they were tucked in around her sides the way she liked. She had placed the Bowtruckle doll on the covers next to her, and Severus checked the angle so that no more shadows would disturb her and send her from her bed afraid.
She yawned, and Severus kissed her head, moving to get up and return to his own slumber.
“Daddy, is it Father’s Day yet?” Daisy asked as he stood from the mattress.
Severus flicked his wand, checking the time and seeing that it was nearly two am, making it in fact Father’s Day. “It technically is.”
Dark brown eyes widened and she sat up, disturbing the careful tucking in that Severus had just done. She closed her eyes tightly and whispered, holding her hands open. “ Accio daddy’s gift. ”
Severus smiled, drawing his wand back up to summon what she asked for, and then stopped suddenly. He felt it before it happened, the wards they’d set to let them know if their child did accidental magic ringing in the back of his mind. He watched as a scribbled on paper floated sloppily and haphazardly toward the bed, landing on the foot of it rather than her hands. Severus looked at her with awe and shock, before briefly wondering if clearly saying spells around her will be something of a concern for them as a family.
Daisy was looking at him in wonder, obviously as surprised as he was that it had worked.
Severus picked up the piece of paper, placing it in her hands with a proud smile. “It looks like a little witch just did her first magic tonight.”
“I did!” she exclaimed, holding the paper in her hands and giggling. “I’m a witch like Mommy!”
“Yes, you’re a witch, just like her.” Severus told her, knowing that they would have to pay more attention to what spells they said around her, and that he and Hermione would need to talk about anti-summoning spells to put on certain objects going forward. He looked at the colorful paper in her hands, touching it with his index finger. “Now what is this?”
“I drew this for you,” she declared, putting it in his hands. “For Father’s Day.”
Severus could distinguish that the shapes were meant to be human-like with the circular shapes of the body and heads, and he could safely assume that the black scribble was meant to be him, but he looked to her expectantly. “Who is in it?”
Daisy scooted closer, pointing to each picture in turn as she spoke. “This is me, and this is Daddy, and you are holding Mommy's hand, and Mommy has a baby in her belly.”
His eyebrows arched, glancing at his daughter with interest. “Does she now?”
“It’s a surprise,” Daisy hid her mouth behind her hands, giggling as she looked up to him with mischief in those brown eyes that reminded Severus of her mother when she was younger. “But I can tell you now that it’s Father’s Day.”
“Thank you for my gift, I love it and I will put it up in my lab.” Something about the way Daisy said it made him think there was more there than the hope of his small child for a sibling. Rather than press her about it and potentially get her more wired than she already was, he tucked it away to ask Hermione about later. “However, it is late, and a powerful young witch needs sleep so that her magic will grow with her.”
At those words, Daisy flopped into her covers, pulling them over her shoulders like she was eager for her magic to grow with her. “Will you read to me again?”
He weighed the options before him. If he didn’t read to her, she would likely toss and turn and not actually sleep, giving him a grumpy six year old on Father’s Day. If he did read to her, he might get too involved and read longer than planned while she slept, and then everyone would have grumpy him on Father’s Day. Seeking a compromise, he reached out, wordlessly summoning the book they’d been reading together to his hand. “Only one page.”
“Front and back?” she pleaded, snuggling further under the covers.
He smiled as he climbed into the bed next to her, his back against the headboard. “Front and back.”
Severus opened the book to where they left off and summoned his reading glasses from the other room. Putting them on his nose, he began to read softly as Daisy curled against him. It was a muggle novel where the heroine saved herself instead of waiting for someone else to do it. Severus had not picked the book, it was one of Hermione’s choosing, but he appreciated the shift in dynamic from the traditional fairy tales. He had no desire for his little princess to think she belonged in any tower, well, except maybe Ravenclaw’s, but surely he didn’t want her to wait to be rescued unless it was by him.
Before he was done with the second page, he could hear her snoring, so he placed the bookmark where he left off, untucking from her as he slid out of the bed. The book he sent to the shelf while he covered her and kissed her crown of curls once more. Clicking off the light, he returned to his bed, letting out a soft groan of relief as he sunk into the mattress.
Hermione rolled over, slipping her arm around his chest and pressing against his back as her lips gently touched his shoulder. “Is she asleep again?”
“She is. She also did her first bit of magic,” he told her, moving his hand to lay over hers on his chest.
“I felt it. Thank you for being there with her,” Hermione breathed against his skin.
Severus remembered then what the source of the magic had been, and shifted to lying on his back so that he could look at his wife. “She gave me my Father’s Day gift as well.”
There was an almost unnoticeable squeak in her voice as she spoke. “She did?”
“Indeed, and she told me something I thought was quite interesting,” Severus explained, taking her hand in his and kissing it softly.
“Oh?”
He felt her shift against him.
“She told me a secret.” Severus cupped her face with his other hand, trying to see her expression in the darkness. “Mommy has a baby in her belly?”
The second she sighed, he knew that there was some nugget of fact to the statement his daughter had made. Hermione curled her fingers around his, turning her face into his palm. “I had hoped to wait until breakfast to tell you.”
His eyes widened, and he ran his gaze down the shadow shrouded line of her body. “So it is not our child’s active imagination?”
“It isn’t,” she whispered. “I’m pregnant.”
“How long?” Severus gasped out, turning fully toward her and wondering how she’d hidden it from him.
“I’m about ten weeks along, but I just found out three days ago. Daisy saw me taking the test and started asking questions, and I didn’t want to lie to her. I told her that Daddy had put a baby in my belly—without telling her how, I explained that it was more grown up magic—and that you didn’t know the magic had worked yet, and it would be the perfect surprise for Father’s Day,” Hermione confessed. Her hands skimmed over his bare shoulder as she snuggled closer to him.
He exhaled, feeling better that it was not something she’d been concealing for months, and he’d somehow not noticed. His mind immediately started thinking about the logistics of another baby. They would have to make some changes to the house, and he’d have to remove certain reagents from their places in the lab and away from where Hermione could accidentally come across them. Rather than the utter panic he felt the first time, when she told him they were expecting Daisy, he felt as if he were a little more prepared this time. They’d managed to take care of and keep one child healthy, another would surely be something they could do. Severus wrapped his arms around her, tucking her head under his chin. “I suppose this was to be my special surprise gift.”
“Happy Father’s Day, from me, Daisy, and our growing baby,” Hermione hummed, pressing a kiss to his chest. “There will be cake too, and we still have other things planned for you. Daisy didn’t give away all the surprise.”
“Thank you, it is the perfect Father’s Day gift. I love you.”
“I love you too,” Hermione hummed against his chest. “Now we better get to sleep before she wakes us both up at dawn.”
“Let me hold you just a little longer,” he rumbled, kissing her head gently as he ran his hand down her side.
She shifted against him, her hand resting against his waist as the other tucked between their two bodies. “I will never say no to that.”
He smirked into her hair, feeling like he was the luckiest man in the world. It was the only explanation for the love of the woman in his arms, who had brought him more than he ever thought he could deserve. Hermione’s love and compassion for him had brought redemption, healing, and a second chance to have all the things he never thought he’d have; a family, a child, now children, and a legacy to be proud of.