Epilogue: December 25, Ten Years Later: I Want a Hippopotamus Hippogriff For Christmas

Severus Snape was not always a happy man.

Erase that. At one point in his life, he had not been a happy man. Before his son, he had been bitter, lonely, and angry.

After his son…after Lily Evans had given him the greatest Christmas gift imaginable, his son.

“Granpa!” a small, red headed, brilliantly green eyed child, four years old, came running into the living room. Severus scooped the little girl up and threw her into the air.

“What are you doing running through my house, Lily Eileen?” Severus asked sternly. The little girl giggled as Severus tickled her ribs.

“I know what I want for Christmas, Granpa! I know!”

Severus looked at the little girl. She was his pride and joy. He loved his granddaughter to death and she had him wrapped around her fingers.

Lily Eileen had come three years after the war. So many had been lost, but despite all of the deaths, Severus had mourned the loss of his son’s innocence more. He had watched his son hunt down death eaters and kill them without a thought except to protect those he loved. It was necessary. He had missed his son’s Christmas when he had been seventeen. Severus, a man who rarely cried, had shed tears that Christmas.

By the time Severus laid eyes on his son, it had been six months since he had seen him.

Severus fought beside his son, wanting nothing more than to protect him. He had been unable to save Dumbledore from that bloody curse, but damned if he was going to lose his son.

They won the war, but it took Harry nearly a year to recover from his six months on the run. He still felt like he was being hunted.  He stayed at Hogwarts with Severus, (Severus made him go back to school anyways [“Harry, you can’t do a damned thing in this world without your education. You bloody well will go back to school, I don’t care if I have to drag you to every class and sit with you!”]) and Severus and Harry got through Harry’s nightmares and stress together, despite the fact that several times Harry decided that he was grown and could do as he wished.

While it was fact, it was also fact that Severus Snape was his father, and what Severus Snape wanted, he tended to get, no matter what.

The Christmas Harry was nineteen, Harry proposed to Ginevra Weasley, and they married the next Christmas.

The greatest gift any of them had received in years arrived on Christmas Day the year Harry was twenty-one and Ginny was twenty: Lily Eileen, a baby born with eyes of emerald and already a mop of curly red hair.

Everyone immediately fell in love with the child.

“And what is that, Miss Lily?” Severus asked.

She grinned a mischievous grin, one that was the exact replica of her own father’s.

“I want a Hippogriff for Christmas, Granpa!” the little girl screeched.

Behind him, Severus heard stifled laughter.

“I think that you are a bit small for that…do you not think?” Severus asked her.

She merely smirked, arched her left eyebrow, and shook her head. Just like her Grandpa.

“Dad, I tried to tell her! I mean, when I rode that Hippogriff in my third year, you grounded me for weeks!” Harry said.

Harry didn’t feel the need to mention that it was actually because he had knocked his father unconscious in the shrieking shack that Severus had actually grounded him for. Some things, your kid just didn’t need to know.

“Hmpf. Well, we will see, Miss Lily. Right now, I believe that it is time for grilled cheese and tomato soup.”

Harry grinned. It was still his favorite meal. Together, the three walked into the kitchen to finish their cooking and to help a highly pregnant Ginny set the table. (Severus and Harry still demanded that cooking this particular meal together was tradition…one that now included Lily.)

Together, the family ate with contentment, while one little girl, and her overly excited father, both with twinkling green eyes, eagerly awaited their Christmas Eve present.

~*~*~*~Twelve Days Of Christmas~*~*~*~

Severus Snape sat in a chair in the living room and stared at the couch where his son had fallen asleep with his granddaughter. It was still his favorite thing to do. It was the one chance he got to see part of the boy that was replaced by the great man his son had become.

“You always watch me sleep, Dad?” Harry muttered silently, slightly amused.

“Do you watch Lily sleep?” Severus countered, his fingers threaded together around a steaming mug of tea.

“Every chance I get, Dad. It’s like…I don’t know, like there is something amazing about her. I mean, there is, she is amazing, and brilliant, and fantastic. But to watch her sleep…it is breathtaking. To know that she is something I helped create, something so innocent and flawless… I love her so much that I can’t explain it.” Harry said, shaking his head in wonderment.

“Yes, Son. I know. That is the exact way I feel every single time that I look at you, and every single time that I have watched you sleep. Even now, Son. I am still amazed that I helped create something so flawless and pure.” Severus ended it the sentence quietly.

Harry looked at his father. For the first time in his life that he could remember, he saw a gleam of a single tear settle in the corner of his father’s eye. It did not shed, but it was there.

“Even when I was naughty and got on your nerves?” Harry whispered, only half joking.

Severus looked at his son, let a small smile grace his lips, and nodded, “Especially then, Harry; especially then.”

“Merry Christmas, Dad, I love you.” Harry whispered, kissing his daughter’s head lightly.

“And, I love you, Son.”

Harry smiled, content, and soon fell back asleep.

Severus continued to watch the two miracles in front of him for a while longer before he finally allowed himself to go to bed, but not before threading his fingers carefully through his son's hair.

It was a Merry Christmas indeed. They all were, as long as one was surrounded by family and the love that family brought.