The pain was the first thing Eileen Prince Snape registered. A throbbing, all-consuming ache radiating from her ribs, her face, her—well, everywhere, really. The second thing she registered was the taste of iron, thick and metallic on her tongue. Blood. My blood. Eileen—or rather, the woman currently puppeteering her battered body—groaned. "Christ on a cracker," muttered the intruder in Eileen’s skull, her voice a whiskey-rough drawl that didn’t match the frail woman lying on the floor. "What kind of back-alley, Dickensian nightmare did I wake up in?" Eileen tried to move, to scream, to do something—but her limbs refused to obey. Instead, she was forced to watch helplessly as someone else sat up, spat blood onto the grimy floorboards, and patted herself down with clinical detachment.

"Okay. Broken rib, probably. Split lip. Black eye. Bruises everywhere. And—oh, lovely—a husband-shaped problem lurking somewhere nearby," she said. A whimper came from the corner of the room. The intruder’s head snapped up. A small boy—Severus, Eileen’s mind supplied—was curled into a ball behind the stove, his too-big eyes wide with terror. "Oh, shit," the woman said, her mental voice suddenly softer. "Hey, kid. You okay?" Severus didn’t answer. He just stared, trembling, as if waiting for another blow. "Right. First order of business," the woman decided, forcing Eileen’s body to stand with a wince. "Find alcohol. Second order: figure out how the hell I ended up in Snape’s mum. Third order—" She looked at Severus again. "—kid’s getting a hug whether he likes it or not."

Tobias Snape stumbled through the door three hours later, stinking of cheap whiskey and bad decisions. The house was suspiciously quiet. "Eileen?" he slurred, kicking off his boots. "Where’s my damn supper?" Silence. Then—"Oh, darling," came a voice like honey laced with arsenic. "Supper’s cancelled. We’re having consequences instead." Tobias barely had time to blink before a cast-iron frying pan met his face with a resounding CLANG. He hit the floor like a sack of bricks, howling. Standing over him, Eileen—not-[Eileen](#)—grinned like a shark. "That was for earlier. And this—" She kicked him square in the ribs. "—is for the kid."

Severus, peeking from the hallway, watched with something dangerously close to awe. Tobias groaned, clutching his nose. "You bitch—" "Ah-ah-ah!" She wagged the pan in his face. "New rules, Toby. You raise a hand to me or the kid again, and I’ll turn your bollocks into earrings. Understood?" Tobias opened his mouth—then wisely shut it when she raised the pan again. "Good boy," she purred. "Now. Apologize to your son." Severus’ breath hitched. Tobias sneered. "Like hell I’ll—" WHACK. "Try again." Tobias spat blood. "…Sorry." "Louder." "I’M SORRY, ALRIGHT?" Not-[Eileen](#) smirked. "See? Was that so hard?" She turned to Severus. "Kid, you wanna kick him too?" Severus, eyes wide, shook his head. "Pff. Your loss." She stepped over Tobias’ groaning form. "C’mon, mini-mortician. Let’s go raid the liquor cabinet."

The horror struck on a Tuesday. Eileen—well, Not-[Eileen](#)—stood in the middle of the dingy kitchen, clutching an empty bottle of what had once been cheap gin, and felt true despair for the first time since possessing this sad, abused body. "No," she whispered, shaking the bottle as if it might magically refill. "No, no, no—this can’t be happening—" A single, tragic drop slid down the glass. She let out a noise like a wounded animal. Severus, sitting at the wobbly kitchen table and carefully dissecting a stolen potions manual, glanced up. "…Mother?" "WE’RE BROKE, SEVERUS," she announced, slamming the bottle onto the counter. "Do you know what this means?" Severus blinked. "…No more… gin?"

"NO MORE ANYTHING." She gestured wildly at the house—the peeling wallpaper, the cracked dishes, the general aura of depression clinging to every surface. "Look at this place! It’s like a haunted crack den! We can’t live like this!" Severus, who had been living like this for years, said nothing. Eileen—no, Captain Eileen now, because if she was going down, she was going down with style—paced the room like a caged tiger. "Right. New plan. Phase One: Clean this hovel until it’s livable. Phase Two: Make money. Phase Three: Buy all the alcohol." She paused. "And maybe feed you. Occasionally." Severus looked skeptical. "How?" "Magic, kid."