Severus rushed into the Deputy Headmistress' quarters, eyes wide, hair wild, robes in disarray.

"You have to give me an alibi, Minerva. For the love of Merlin, don't tell Hermione where I was in the last half hour!"

"For heaven's sake, Severus, dinna' tell me you set off your wife's temper again!"

"I didn't mean to, but I just know she is not going to be happy with me!" Severus' left eyelid twitched as he spoke.

"Come now, man, tell me what you did, and I will see if I'm willing to help you," said Minerva.

"I painted the nursery. She had said she wanted to do it, but I was inspired by a memory of one of my mother's stories, and I painted the room to look like a corner in a forest, with trees and sunshine and benign animals. But the last time I did something she said she wanted to do, she hexed all my robes fuchsia for a week!"

Suddenly, there was a weepy wail from outside the door. Minerva and Severus rushed to open it. Hermione, well into her third trimester of pregnancy, fell into Severus' outstretched arms and sobbed happily.

"I wouldn't change one single brush-stroke, love. What a beautiful story to tell the baby once she gets here!"

Severus could hardly believe that this was the same witch he had overheard declaring to her house-elf only minutes before that if she got a hold of her husband she was going to castrate him for messing up her nesting process, but he kept quiet. He was starting to learn.

A/N: Many thanks to Melenka for the beta!

A/N2: This was in answer to twilexis' prompt: Snape is scared of something/one. What, Who, Why? No more than 500 words please.