A.N.: Hello, everyone, I'm back! This is a new story that has combined three prompts for my three forums (listed below) and I'm very excited to be writing one-shots again for the new year of the Houses Competition (which is kinda how my schedule runs with these one-shot compilations, but we'll see how it goes with the other forums) and be writing stories for my other forums.

This story was written for:

the Slytherin house of the Houses Competition forum as a short story

the Wampus house of Ilvermorny school for the Severus Snape- Always challenge on the Golden Snitch forum

the Hufflepuff house of the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry (Challenges and Assignments) forum.

Prompts:

Houses Competition:[emotion] anger

The Golden Snitch: (scenario) the day Severus was born

Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry Challenges and Assignments: Sex ed. class, task 2: someone getting pregnant

Warning: verbal and physical abuse

Word Count: 1,971

Enjoy!

"Tobias?" Eileen whispered, opening the door to their grimy, rickety house carefully, mindful of the way the door hinges squeaked. She didn't want to disturb, and then anger, her husband. "Tobias? I have something to tell you. It's important this time, I swear," she called again, a little louder this time. She drew a sheet-thin gray sweater around her too-skinny frame as an evening draft swept through the house. "Tobias?" she called one last time, before giving up and entering the dining room, which was really a space cleared to make room for an old, rickety table, without permission.

Not again, Eileen thought. Her husband was slumped over the table, an entire bottle of putrid whiskey still clenched in his hand. Eileen sighed. Her husband had… a problem. Some would call him an alcoholic, but when Eileen had brought that up once, she'd been punished, so she ignored the subject as best she could. Nevertheless, Tobias was passed-out drunk almost daily, and though she knew the drink made him angry – at her, at the world, at anything in sight – he was angrier when he was sober, or when she tried to get him to be, but maybe that was just because she'd try to take away his drink. At least, that's what Eileen told herself while she waited out the time he was raging about, scaring her into the corner unless she'd have to come and face a punishment for something that she hadn't been able to control. But he'd always collapse in the end. Thank Merlin for that. Dealing with an angry Tobias on a daily basis was nerve-racking at best, and one would not want to deal with an angry Tobias "24/7", as the Muggles said.

Eileen hesitantly reached out to touch his shoulder. When she got no response, she prodded more firmly. The only sign of life in him was a snort and a turn of his head to rest it on his other elbow.

He was almost peaceful sitting there. He was certainly quiet, a rare occurrence; when he was awake he was either angrily raging at one thing or the next or angrily raging at Eileen. His mouth was a straight line, but it was an improvement from the constant scowl he wore whenever possible. Did it make her a bad wife for almost wishing he'd stay that way? But no matter, Eileen had big news.

She sighed again. Now that he was like this, there was only one way to wake him: to take away his drink. It really did make him angry when she did that, but this was important. And so, with practiced speed and dexterity, Eileen plucked the bottle from his grasp.

The reaction was almost instantaneous. The man sat bolt upright, roaring animalistically as he fought to become alert. In her fright, Eileen threw the bottle across the floor and it shattered, spilling the whiskey and intensifying the vile smell. The sound of smashing glass seemed to bring the drunken animal to his senses, and he focused, beady, angry, red-rimmed eyes on the spill before moving them slowly to fix the mutinous gaze on his wife.

They stood, locked in a staring battle for a second before Tobias erupted.

"What is wrong with you, woman?! I've told you again and again: don't touch my liquor!" he screamed, his face beet red as his wife shrunk back, terrified. "And my head bleeding hurts and come in here and wake me without permission?!"

"But, Tobias, this is important," Eileen whimpered.

"Oh, important is it? What's important is that I get my bleeding sleep!" Tobias grabbed her arm, digging his nails into her flesh and squeezing in a way that would surely bruise. He pulled her towards him and leered over her, and Eileen fought to keep from sobbing. Crying did nothing. "You'd best remember that."

"But I'm pregnant," she breathed.

His grip slacked and he stared into her eyes blankly in shock. For a moment, Eileen dared to hope he wouldn't be angry, might be happy even, but when she looked up, she saw he had gathered his wits and his eyes had darkened even more dangerously than before.

"You're what?"

"Pregnant," she squeaked.

His breath quickened, and soon his chest was heaving. "How dare you? How dare you?"

"What–? Tobias, this is not my fault–"

"It bloody well is your fault! You landed me with a– a– baby?! An offspring! An urchin!" He stopped, and the only sound was his ragged breathing as Eileen waited, trembling. He was angry, and when he was angry, the consequences were… severe. Maybe because she was pregnant it wouldn't be as bad?

But with his first blow, he that faint hope was extinguished. She cringed and cried, praying for the pain to end; when he finally tired of hitting her, he staggered to the liquor cabinet and let her sobbing on the floor.

Nine months later

Eileen walked down the busy street as quickly as possible, the bags of groceries and liquor she carried digging into her sides, her feet aching and swollen. She was almost due now, just another week until her baby would be born.

Of course, as pregnant as she was, Tobias still had her do her regular tasks and chores. She cooked and cleaned and went out and bought all the liquor she could carry. She also still worked her two jobs to make sure they had enough rent money for the month, especially with Tobias's drinking habits and the supplies she'd bought for the baby (with only her small share of money, as Tobias "refused to contribute to the wellbeing of someone he had had no intention of creating"). She groaned a tendril of pain gripped her like a vice.

It's probably a false alarm, Eileen said to herself even as she stopped to rest until the pain passed. Eventually, the pain subsided, and she continued to walk for another few minutes before the same pain laced through her back again. Eileen took deep breaths, setting the bags carefully on the floor for a minute before continuing. And then, just a few minutes later, she was in pain again.

Eileen waddled over to an alleyway on the side of the street before setting the bags on the ground once more. She felt her stomach. It was rock hard.

Could the baby be coming? Here? Now? she wondered, even as her breath quickened. She glanced up and down the road. In the distance, the faded gray sign of the corner store she worked at was just visible. Eileen left the bags and hobbled away.

She was going to die. She was sure of it. The pain was unlike anything she'd felt before, worse than Tobias's punishments by far. Eileen burst into the corner store (finally) and held onto the counter for dear life as the other hand clutched her stomach. "Baby," she gasped.

The cashier, a young girl who couldn't be older than seventeen, was frozen in shock. The entire store looked at the gasping, paling, sweating, pregnant woman with wide eyes.

"Someone call an ambulance!" a person yelled. "And get a chair!"

After ten minutes, Eilen was finally led outside, with assistance from the old woman and the cashier, to a Muggle truck that had a bed in it. She laid down gratefully, and the cashier got in before the doors closed, leaving her with only a window in the doors for light, and the ambulance started to move.

Eileen clutched the cashier's hand in a bone-crushing grip as the old ambulance bumped and clunked its way to the local hospital.

"You'll be fine, you'll be fine," the cashier said fretfully, almost as if comforting herself. "We're almost there, just stay calm." Eileen tried to focus on that whispered mantra instead of the pain as the hospital came into view.

Eileen didn't remember much at all after she was taken out of the ambulance, but she found herself in a new bed, wearing a thin, blue, robe-like piece of clothing, with her legs spread apart and a strangely-dressed Muggle looking down her private areas telling her to "push just a little more!"

A woman dressed much like the Muggle telling her to push came and crouched next to her. "The doctor needs you to push, honey."

Doctor? Weren't those the Muggles that cut people up? Why, of all places, did the ambulance take her here?! Eileen tried to push herself up. She needed to get away! "No… no doctor!" she gasped, her voice ragged. Suddenly, the pain intensified and Eileen screamed.

"It's okay, it's okay," the woman soothed. "The doctor is going to make sure you and your baby are healthy, okay? I promise, if you can just cooperate, everything will be fine." Eileen looked at the woman fearfully. "I need you to cooperate with the doctor, sweetie. I know it's hard, but your baby will be healthy. Can you please just do what the doctor says? For your baby?"

Eileen screamed again as another contraction seized her. Oh, what choice did she have anyway?

"For… baby," she heaved.

The woman smiled and held out her hand. "Yes, for your baby. Now push."

Eileen took the woman's hand and did just that.

Six hours later

A cry split the air. The cry of a newborn baby.

Eileen breathed a sigh of relief and collapsed back into the lumpy bed. Shouts of joy and cheers came from all the Muggles as they saw the baby. Eileen groaned as watched as the "doctor" took what she assumed was her baby into another room and the small crowd followed. Wait… where was he taking her baby?

She sat up with great effort, desperately wishing for her wand so she could hex the stupid Muggle, but it was hidden under the floorboards back at home. Where was he taking her child?

Eileen moved one leg over the bed, then another. She took a minute to stabilize herself against the bedside table before standing up. The world tilted dangerously for a minute, and as Eileen was trying to regain her bearings, the woman who had sat by her through the whole thing came into the room.

"Miss!" she said, sounding horrified. "You need to be in bed."

"They… they took my baby," she said, pointing at the door. "Why did they take my baby?"

"They're just going to clean him up in the other room, wrap him in a blanket. You'll be able to see him soon," she said, leading Eileen gently back down onto the bed.

"'Him'?" she asked dazedly. "It's a boy?'

"Yes, he is. You have a beautiful baby boy."

I'm a mother, Eileen thought as the woman went to the far side of the room. I have a child. "I'm a mum," she said to no one in particular.

"Yes, it's quite amazing, isn't it?" the woman said with a smile. "Oh look, here he comes now."

The "doctor" came into the room once more, the little group following behind him once more. But Eileen was only focused on the bundle in his arms.

The man lowered the baby into her arms. "Meet your son."

Eileen gave a little gasp as the small, warm weight settled into her arms. He was a small thing, with a tuft of his mother's jet black hair, his father's obsidian eyes, and a tiny, adorable scrunched-up face. The baby himself was so tiny, so fragile. A ball of warmth unfurled in her stomach as she realized that this small thing, this amazing tiny person, was all hers, hers to protect and to nurture and to love.

A smile crept its way onto Eileen's face and she gasped as the baby yawned and shifted a little.

"Hello, my son," she whispered. "Hello, Severus Tobias Snape."

~Fin~

What'd you think? Please leave a review!

P.S. If you follow my other story, To Raise A Saviour, Ch3 is coming, I promise!