I finally finished unpacking, except the things for your lab. The back garden is huge and bordered with fruit trees. Pomona's sending over some potion ingredient-type seedlings for the greenhouse, but, if you want bubotubers, they'll have to wait. You can't expect a pregnant woman to wrestle with those things. The house looks out on the loch. It's beautiful, especially at sunset. There's a little village about a mile away, so Baby Snape won't be lonely. It's a perfect place for a family, but I'd swap it for Spinner's End if you could be with me instead of in Azkaban.

"He's not doing any harm under there," Hermione wheedled, as Severus approached the bed on all fours, his wand ready.

Severus glared back at her. "Under there, no, but we both know that it won't stay there once we're asleep. You do remember how I spent my morning, don't you?"

"He didn't do it deliberately. It was just a few hairs. You didn't have to wash everything over again."

"A few hairs?" Severus snorted. "That monster of yours sheds enough fur for a woolly mammoth... and if it's such an accident why's it always my clean laundry he nests in?"

"Severina Jane Snape!" her father bellowed. "Do I even need to ask where you got that thing?"

Even through her mane of thick black hair, it was plain to see the three-year-old's lip tremble and Severus flinched and immediately softened his voice. "You're going to have to give it back, honey."

"B—But she was my birthday present... And you said I could have a puppy when I was older and now I am."

With a resigned sigh, Severus pulled the three-headed puppy from beneath the bed and turned to his wife. "You just had to ask Hagrid to be godfather."