Fandom: Harry Potter
Title: Bad to Worse.
Spoilers: Books 1-7
Disclaimer: This is written purely for entertainment purposes and the no profit is obtained.
Warnings: some language? Mpreg...Don't like, don't read. Teen Pregnancy
Chapter 1 : Sick
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Summary: Things are bad, but they just got worse! What do you do when you are a 16 year-old wizard who finds himself pregnant?
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AN: Though Mpreg, this is not a sun shine and rainbows story.
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A knock sounded at simple wooden door.
A thin woman with black shoulder length hair, plain, but kind looking stood on the other side listening to the retching noises inside.
She knocked again. "Darling. Are you alright?" It was heart breaking for her to hear the sounds on the other side.
"Leave the boy alone," Shouted a man from down stairs. He sat in an old rustic armchair holding a glass of Scotch, his distinctive hooked nose sat upon a light toned (sallow) face adorned with a pair of dark eyes and short greasy black hair. Despite having a thin build he had pot belly rounded out from years of excessive alcohol.
The woman at the top of the stairs, his wife, ignored him.
She knocked again. "Darling. Please open the door." she pleaded.
The boy whom the man had spoke of and the centre of the commotion was bent over the toilet. Reaching up he pulled an old moth eaten towel, which many would thrown out, off the bar holding it, to wipe his mouth.
Grasping the side of the toilet he slowly rose to his feet.
He turned reluctantly to look at the image of himself in the mirror. Though currently thinner and paler, he bore a astounding resemblance to his father. He had the same hooked nose and dark features, though, much to his father's annoyance, his hair was much longer. There was one critical difference between them; unlike his father he possessed a gift. He could do magic. It was a trait he had gotten from his mother.
He heard the woman knock at the door and ask to come in.
He didn't really want his mother seeing him like this. He had been vomiting for nearly two weeks now, morning, day, and night. His already thin figure had started to lose some weight. He had hoped that it would go away. That he would wake up one morning and feel better. That he was perfectly fine. He had been insisting to his mother on the other side of the door to many days that he was fine. He wanted to believe he was, but he wasn't. No amount of denial would change that.
He took a deep breath and unlocked the door for the woman. He looked down at his feet.
As she opened the door her eyes widened as she examined his haggard appearance.
Her hand came to rest on his cheek. He looked up to her eyes which threatened to spill out tears.
"Come." She instructed. Before leading him down stairs to where the older man sat.
"And where are you going?" The older man demanded still holding his glass of scotch.
She stopped and addressed him "Our son is sick. I'm taking him to see someone."
"What are you taking about woman?" He grumbled "He has already seen someone. He's seen three someone's! And they all said the same thing."
"Well now he'll see a fourth!" She said handing her son a light jacket.
"It will pass." Her husband insisted.
"No it will not!" She yelled directly at him." It's getting worse Tobias! Eveyday!"
"Who are you going to see? What are they going to tell you that the other three can't?" He emptied his glass down his throat.
"It's been two weeks! Two weeks and it's getting worse! He needs to see someone who can tell if this sickness is caused by something... magical."
"Magical" his face stiffened. He got up from his chair, unsteady from the liquor he had drunk. "Magical! You promised me that you would not allow magic to affect this family anymore than it already has! God Damn it Eileen! You promised that when we got married."
Tobias had once been a charming young man as normal as they came. In the summer of his 19th birthday he met a young curious woman who had once confessed that she had never known a muggle before. She was quick to point out that she knew a few muggle-borns, but not one muggle. He had, of course, no idea what she was talking about. Even after years of marriage to a witch he had no idea what she was talking about half the time.
Eileen was plain. Her sister was the pretty one. She was the bright one; the top of her class, especially skilled in potions. Grades were important to her; more important than her pure-blood status, or making those connections which later suited any member of the 'pure-blood club'.
Her sister had always been her father's favourite. She had done all the right things. She had focused her attention on the right subjects in school, learning the right spells and eventually she married the right man, a pure-blood.
Already the black sheep of the Prince family with a fascination for the muggle world Her meeting with Tobias had made things worse between her the rest of her family.
It was seen as a disgrace, in her circle of family and friends, to have any contact with a muggle and in the eyes of her father anyone who did was the lowest of the low.
So proud of their blood status and assured of their superiority above non-magical people, known as muggles, that when it was discovered that she had been corresponding with a muggle through letters, secret meetings and even using a muggle device known as a telephone; the family had been furious.
What had started out as curiosity about a muggle known as Tobias, had soon lead to a romance. Before ether Eileen or the muggle, Tobias, knew, she was pregnant.
When Eileen announced her pregnancy by the muggle, her father who disowned her. From then on pretending he had only one child, the family followed suit.
It was then, in a conversation with Tobias, that the topic of magic had arisen. She thought it was necessary to disclose this detail to the muggle, Tobias. Like all muggles, except for a select few, he had been taught from early childhood that magic was all 'make-believe', that it did not exist within the confines of the real world or rational thought. Anyone who said otherwise was laughed at, usually publicly.
He too had laughed, at first. Then she showed him. He quickly stopped laughing and started running. Eileen had never seen anyone run so fast. He didn't talk to her for a few days afterwards. When he did, he was uneasy about it, as though he was not sure that what he had seen wasn't some type of hallucination.
Tobias decided they should get married before the pregnancy became noticeable. He had been raised in a religious household after all. His father had the family attend every Sunday, Every holiday and anytime the patriarch had felt it was for the good of the family; even if it was at 5:00 o'clock in the morning.
Tobias being disturbed by what he perceived as Eileen's demonic powers had made one demand of her. She had to give up magic.
It had been a tough decision. She would have liked to be a potions mistress, maybe even open her own potions shop, but her relationship with Tobias and the baby on the way, put a wrench into the cogs of her life. She decided it had been the right one at the time.
They rushed into a marriage. Eileen and Tobias were happy for a while. Not long after, Tobias's father died of cancer. Months later his mother, too died from a complication after a hysterectomy.
Without his parents Tobias lost any sense of responsibility. He started to drink eventually he lost his job due to alcoholism. He had never got his life back together since.
Eileen found herself having to support the family, sometimes working 60 hours a week, while Tobias usually sat on his ass day and night getting drunk in front of the television.
At times she wondered if they had ever loved each other. She wondered if maybe he had been so fascinated in her strange mysterious ways.
Like nearly all witches and wizards they could disappear and no one from the muggle world could find them. Several times she had said farewell to him before slipping into a hidden magical location, such as 'The leaky Cauldron.' He never had any idea where she had slipped off to. Tobias had found himself searching for where she had gone many times, trying to follow her. He never could find these hidden doors, as they were invisible to muggles who would walk past by them hundreds of times without ever seeing it. Maybe he had liked the chase, the puzzle that she had been to him.
Maybe, she admitted to herself, she too had been fascinated in him. He had been forbidden fruit for her. She had liked the chase of being pursued by someone who didn't know or care anything about magic or blood-status. Someone who was different from everyone she had ever allowed to associate with. Like an anthropologist finding herself drawn into another culture without truly leaving their own. The ways of muggles were as strange and mysterious to her as she was sure her ways were to him.
Tobias drank. As he did this he often dwelled on what could or should have been. Eileen might have done the same if she had not chosen to focus on her young son. She tried to care for him the best she could. But she had neither the money nor the time to give him the proper attention. Tobias had never been much of a father, provider, or anything.
Fighting.
They were always fighting. Always fighting about something.
Sometimes their fights became physical. Tobias, stronger, was always the winner in these. If Eileen were permitted to use magic these fights would not have been so one sided; though she did on occasion get a good hit in.
He would often remark that she had ruined his life. He was always saying that he could have been something if not for meeting her; Often remarking that she had bewitched him into falling in love with her.
She denied this empathically.
If you saw Tobias in a line of men, he would not be a man most would find attractive. She told him this. If she were to ensnare a muggle through magical means, she would not have chosen him. She had told him time and again how much better she could have done.
He was nobody, while she was a pure-blood, something of an ever shrinking supply. Her family was not rich like the Potters, the Malfoys, the Blacks, or many other of the old-blood families, but they did have money. More to the point, in the wizarding world blood-status still meant more to many with power and influence than skills. Last she heard her sister; possessing little talent had married a wealthy successful man. She too could have easily found a husband from a pure-blood family and lived a very comfortable life.
A pure-blood witch, giving up magic to marry a muggle. It would be enough to cause some to weep and other laugh.
All-in-all she had in comparison sacrificed more to their life, their family than he.
When their son started to accidently use magic the fights started to intensify. Tobias hadn't realized that magic could be inherited.
In more than one fight he had pointed at his son and remarked that she should have told him that the boy would be a freak, like her.
She had threatened to leave more than a few times, but her family and the few friends she had once had would not associate with her. To them she had disgraced not only her family but her people.
Tobias had made a bad reputation for the family. While out, even shopping people would point her and her son out and made remarks about them. Few people wanted to be associated with them. So Eileen didn't make, or sometimes even keep, any new friends.
When the fighting got bad. When they turned physical and he hurt her, She had nowhere to go.
Having been raised in the wizarding she had no skills in the muggle world. According to muggle society she didn't even had a high school diploma and she could very well explain Hogwarts. While she had considered getting those credentials, She had little identification in the muggle world, something which seemed to be required.
Everything the family had, the house, their car (Which only worked half the time.) was in Tobias Snape's name she didn't have a bank account in the muggle world. Despite her attempt the banks all required some of that identification she didn't have.
It was tragic. Even though she worked long and hard for everything they had, she saw little of the fruits of her labour.
Their son looked up from the floor. "Magic? You mean like a curse?" He asked speaking for the first time that evening.
"Yes." Eileen answered softly.
"But...school ended before-"
"Not all spells and potions are instantaneous." She reminded him.
"That right just like the-"
"I don't need examples darling."
"Hold-on a moment!" Tobias objected. "You are not going to take my son to some witchdoctor to be treated. If the doctors say he's fine, then he's fine!"
"I will not watch our son get any sicker."
"NO." Tobias blocked their path.
"No?" She smirked "Who do you think you are?"
"I'm your husband and the head of this family."
"Head of the family? No Tobias. I'm the head of the family. When was the last time you contributed to this family? You have not held down a job in years. Years! I provide for this family! Not you!" She pointed a finger at him. "Move!"
In the boy's younger days his mother had yielded to his father on nearly every decision. Because one way or another Tobias got his way. Tobias was a mean drunk and he was always drunk. But in recent years Eileen had been standing up to the drunk. The boy supposed that his mother had once felt it more important to yield for his sake. Now that he was older and perhaps she a little wiser, it was easier for her to do.
He was proud of her none-the-less.
The boy lifted his arm pointing his wand at his father.
"Wait!" his father held up his hands, "You can't do-"
"Obviviate-minito."
"How much of his memory will be gone?" She asked genuinely concerned.
"A bout of minute or so."
She nodded understanding the implications of the situation. Since her son was not allowed to do magic just yet, she would need to claim it was her doing. As for her husband he'd simply assume he blacked out and if mediwitch or mediwizard found something they could insist they went with his blessing. If there was nothing wrong, he'd never know.
She wrapped her arm around her son. "Come on Severus."
The two exited their spinners end home and quickly disappeared.
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END of Ch 1
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AN: Little is told of Snape's childhood, so I used some creative licence.
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Preview of the next chapter: Diagnosis
The moment Severus got home he collapsed face first on his bed. His mind was too wound up with worry that he hadn't even bothered turned on his bedroom light.
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