Loving Lily: A Snily Story

Chapter 59 - Looking Forward

Thank you for reading! I don't own any of Harry Potter! Please let me know if you enjoy! Updates every Saturday!
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News of Tobias's illness played a larger role in Severus's life than he wanted to admit.

Lily noticed her husband's frown had deepened.

Severus carried himself with a heightened, somber seriousness during the next few weeks that followed, but whenever she approached her darling about the matter, he took every available measure to avoid the subject.

Sensing that her husband preferred not to discuss the past or his feelings towards his father, Lily wisely supported him in gentle silence.

She cooked Severus's favourite meals and baked the lemon shrewsbury biscuits he loved so well.

She cuddled him more tightly each evening and let him claim her whenever his dark eyes glimmered with smouldering want.

She stood beside him whenever she caught him staring contemplatively into the forest.

Although no words passed between them in those quiet moments, Lily would take Severus's hand and give him a gentle squeeze of reassurance.

It made her smile that although Severus remained silent, he returned her gentle show of affection with a grip that matched hers in a quiet expression of grateful sentiment.

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Another phone call had eventually reached the Snapes' cottage from London Morning's Hospice and Palliative Care.

Harriet and Ellery mourned their grandfather's passing in a state of regretful musing.

They wondered what Tobias had really been like and what they could have learned from him or heard from him if they had had the chance.

Months later, once the school year finished and the summer began, there were entire afternoons where brother and sister chatted about that very topic.

"Do you think Dad would be angry if he knew we had gone to see him?" Ellery asked Harriet as they walked through the edge of the forest next to their family's cottage, ".........I think he'd be furious."

"Well, we were furious with him for not taking us." Harriet shrugged, "Besides El, it's over now. If he finds out, what can he do about it?"

"Nothing, I suppose." Ellery shrugged.

"As sad as everything's been, you should be excited, I know I am!" Harriet said cheerfully.

"Excited for what?" Ellery asked.

"Excited for the meeting, of course!" Harriet laughed, "Dad said everyone's going to be there! We never get asked to come to one.....I think it'll be brilliant, don't you? To sit with all the adults?"

Ellery shrugged.

Harriet stopped abruptly as she looked at her brother and flashed him an incredulous grin, "You don't want to......to be in the top ranks one day?"

Ellery scowled.

"What's the matter?" Harriet blinked.

"Harriet, come on....." Ellery sighed as he raised his hands and let them fall in a gesture of exasperation, "You're Harriet Snape, Quidditch extraordinaire, popular, pretty, outgoing.....Lord Voldemort's Chosen One."

"I am not Lord Voldemort's Chosen One!" Harriet laughed, "I'm not any of those things, El!"

"Yes, you are." Ellery said with another weighty sigh, "He's said several times over that you're 'his favourite of the next generation'. Perhaps the meeting is something for you to celebrate, sure, but I only got invited because I'm your brother and Dad's son. I'm just the quiet boy standing in your shadows."