Adult-FanFiction.org : Harry Potter

My Precious Jewel	By : sheherazade Category: Harry Potter AU/AR > Het - Male/Female Views: 3647 -:- Recommendations : 0 -:- Currently Reading : 0
Disclaimer: I do not own Harry Potter, nor the characters from it. I do not make any money from the writing of this story

Chapter List
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FOR ECLECTIC PET! And any others who have been following - here is a sequel to LOVE ON THE ROCK. Enjoy xxx.
“Let’s raise a glass to Harry Potter.”
Not something I would contemplate under normal circumstances, of course. But these are not normal circumstances, so I respect the esprit de corps and another shot of liquid heat joins the rest. Inebriety is such a distant memory to me that at first I wonder if somebody has slipped me a Befuddlement Draught, but then I remember. Alcohol. We are celebrating. I don’t have to keep my wits about me any more; I can sprinkle them to the four winds if I so wish. A stray word no longer holds my life in its careless balance and, with any luck, I may never have to practise Occlumency ever again. It’s a useful skill, but the headaches have become almost unbearable. So perhaps a charitable thought for Potter isn’t too much to spare.
He has, after all, finally seen off that insufferable prima donna, Voldemort. With the posthumous help of Dumbledore, and rather a large debt of gratitude to my own efforts, of course. But it’s an impressive feat for a boy of twenty one, I have to admit.
As the firewhiskeys slip with deceptive ease down my unaccustomed throat, my thoughts mix and blend and lurch into one another. Memories of dark times tango with the exhilaration of victory and when an overexcited Angelina Johnstone whips up her top and flashes her breasts on the other side of the bar, sexual interest joins the party. And then it strikes me. I can find Ruby now. I can go back to the Rock and look for that wide-eyed little ingenue whose eagerness to please made those dog days bearable. I drift into reverie, picturing her small pliant body beneath mine on that one climactic – very climactic actually – occasion. I should very much like to repeat the experience. I dash down another firewhiskey and growl under my breath a little as my plan begins to take shape. Find girl, order girl into bed, forbid girl to ever move from that spot. I deserve to treat myself, after all.
“You’ve gone quiet, Snape,” Lucius Malfoy accuses me. He has more cause than most to celebrate, having finally thrown off his association with the Dark Lord shortly before his downfall. Had Potter failed in his mission, Voldemort would surely have dispatched Malfoy and his family in the most brutal manner. But now Lucius has pulled off the seemingly impossible feat of avoiding both the Dark Lord’s vengeance and Azkaban. You have to admire the man’s Slytherin instinct for self-preservation. “Plans and plots? Surely those days are behind you now?”
I open my mouth to answer him, but before I can do so, Charlie Weasley staggers over and cannons into the small knot of men I am standing amongst, so that the back door we are leaning against flies open and we all spill higgledy-piggledy on to the Muggle street behind it. My vision is starting to blur, so at first I appear to be looking down at a fuzzy blonde shape with a small dark attachment.
“Mind your step, you inconsiderate…oh!”
The voice. Her voice. I squint and her edges focus. She looks so different, yet so much the same, and I cannot quite believe it could be this easy.
“Ruby.” My fingers close around her arm, and I pull her face a little closer, drinking her in thirstily. “Is it really you?”
Her eyes, so blue, are as wide as ever. “You!” she whispers. She remembers me. She has missed me.
Mildly agitated, I run a hand through my hair. What should I say to her? “My precious jewel,” is the first thing that springs, ridiculously, to mind. I may give up drinking again. But…she is not alone. She is holding a child’s hand. A small boy, maybe three or four…it was four years ago…oh, just a minute, Severus…it couldn’t be…could it?
“And who’s this?”
When she clears her throat, I know what the answer will be. I look at the boy – black hair, black eyes, pale skin.
“Your son,” she says.
The buzz of idle banter behind me ceases and her words ring violently in my ears. I take the arm that is not linked with the child’s and steer her away from the crowds, back into the Leaky Cauldron. “In here. Now.”
It is only now, my head instantly jarred into sobriety by her revelation, that I see the public house as it truly is – dirty, delapidated and full of drunks. “This is no place for a child,” I remark, and rack my brains to think of a place that might be suitable for children. I lead them out and by great good fortune, Florean Fortescue’s appears to be re-opening, its windows unboarded and the pavement tables reinstated on the cobbles. As I shepherd my…my…family…over the street, Ruby appears thoroughly discombobulated. “Where….where is this?” she asks.
Her questions can wait until mine are answered, however, and besides, there is little chance of coherent conversation while the child bombards us with exclamations of “Mummy! Mummy! Look!”
One table is free. “Yes, here I think,” I mutter, sitting them down, but it soon becomes apparent that we will have to change our plans. We are at the eye of a maelstrom of frenzied celebration.
“Is the war over?” asks Ruby. Really. What a question. I nod, but before I can expound further, a great surge of unwanted well-wishing is directed at me. I am a hero and the gods should bless me and mine, so I’m told. Me and mine. Yes. I uproot my unexpected guests and arrange a more private table in the back room. This conversation requires as little interruption as possible.
Once we have been supplied with coffee and ice-cream, I turn to my former lover and begin my inquisition.
“So then, Ruby. Explain.”
She pouts coquettishly – minx – and says, “It’s very simple, Professor, as I’m sure you’re aware. A man and a woman meet, they make love, the man’s sperm travels up…”
She is asking for a spanking, the cheeky little baggage. “Yes, yes, I’m fully aware of the mechanics of procreation, Ruby. But I…I didn’t realise you weren’t…protected.”
I could kick myself. In the urgency of the moment, the idea of asking her whether I should perform a contraceptive spell flew out of the window along with my reason. Not that there was a window in that beach hut.
“You never asked.”
Oh, so it’s my fault, of course! Silly of me not to realise.
“Is it incumbent on me to do so?”
“It’s a good idea.”
“I thought you and Pinkie…you would have something…arranged.” Ugh. Why am I reminding myself of that protozoan piece of slime? The thought of his hands on her…
“I never slept with Pinkie.” Is she serious? His hands might have touched her…but he never dipped his wick where I did…oh joy. My spirits lift.
“You never…?”
“No.”
She is mine. She is mine. I take a good, long look a the boy. My looks. Hopefully my brains too.
“What did you call him?”
“Tom.” Unbelievable! Of all the names at her disposal, she has to go and name my son after that madman. This will have to be dealt with.
“Not the name I’d have chosen. Not the best name to have around here, either. Does he have a middle name?”
“Severus,” she says, and the flush of her cheek combined with the way she says my name…delicious. She has pleased me.
“Much better.” I am struck by an urge to say her name. “Ruby.” I have said it so often on lonely nights. Which is to say, more or less every night.
“Severus.” Even better the second time, like a pleasurable zephyr drifting over my skin. I take her hand. No rings. Good.
“I didn’t forget you, you know. I planned to come and look for you once the war was over. And now you have found me, sooner than I expected. Though perhaps…you have another life now? Perhaps you have another lover?” I hold my breath.
“No, nobody since you. What with Tom and all…” Release breath. Internal Highland reel of celebration.
“Then you must come and live with me. In fact, as the mother of my child, I should marry you.” Her cue to fall at my feet in ecstasy and then smother me with kisses. Now, Ruby.
“God, you’re so romantic.” Is that pique in her tone? This is not what I envisaged.
“Have I given offence?” She wants to be a single parent? She doesn’t want me? What is her problem?
She giggles. “Forget it. You’re just so…clueless…in some ways.” Excuse me! I am a Master of Potions and one of the most brilliant and powerful wizards of my generation. I am not clueless!
“I beg your pardon.”
“Severus, I still love you. I’ve always loved you. But if you want my hand in marriage…you have to earn it. I’m an independent woman now, not the confused headcase you knew back on the Rock.” I liked the confused headcase I knew back on the Rock! Damned female empowerment. “If you marry me, it must be for love. Do you understand?”
No. She thinks I don’t love her? She is rejecting me?
“You don’t accept…my offer?”
“I haven’t said that. But I think it is too soon, and very objectionably couched.” Too soon? Four years after conceiving my child! I can’t really agree. “I would be very happy to enter into a relationship with you though. For my sake as well as Tom’s.”
“You want me to…court you?”
“It’s an old-fashioned term but…yes, I suppose I do. I think I deserve it.”
Her choice of words provokes a knee-jerk reaction in me. “Oh, I know exactly what you deserve, Miss O’Riordan.” Over the table, now! Maybe not in front of the boy. She bites her lip…ha ha! I know exactly how to play my sweet masochistic little Ruby. This could be interesting.
“You’ll have to catch me first,” she says provocatively. Oh yes. Just you wait, young lady…But she ruins the mood, taking the child’s hand and fussing, “Come on, Tom. We’re very late for creche.”
She yanks him up, heedless of his protests, and makes preparations to leave. “We’ll come back another day, I promise.”
Her demeanour is one of determination, and although I desire to bundle her and the child against me and Apparate us all somewhere they can’t possibly escape from, my reason is still present behind the fug of firewhiskey so I escort them to the back door of the Leaky Cauldron once more.
Putting my hand against the fire-exit bar so she cannot pass me, I take her upper arm and crush her against me, needing to taste those lips again before she leaves. She yields to the pressure of my kiss quite delightfully; I can almost feel her bones dissolving. And as an added bonus, she has clearly given up smoking.
“Tell me where you live,” I murmur into her ear on pulling away. She gives me an address. “I’ll be seeing you soon,” I promise her. “Very soon.”
I open the door for them and watch them recede along the street. The child looks back at me and waves, though Ruby does not honour me similarly. She thinks she can play hard-to-get with me. She will be changing her mind very soon. Very soon indeed.
Ducking back into the smoke-haze of the Leaky Cauldron, a number of strands of thought wrestle for supremacy in my weary head.
I am a father. I am a free man. My lover has come back to me. The war is over. Tired, very tired. Very, very tired. Hangover potion, sleep. Sleep wins the fight.
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My Precious Jewel