Disclaimer: Hey, don't look at me! I own nothing
Chapter 1:
Rainy Sundays
A flash of lightning cracked across the skies above the bowels of Cokeworth. Rain flooded the cobblestone streets all over town, forcing pedestrians under awnings and in buildings for shelter against the mid-summer storm. Not far away, thunder rattled the thin walls of a poorly maintained row house on Spinner's End.
A middle-aged man with ink-black hair peppered with gray at the temples looked up from his newspaper when he heard the thunder's crash from the safety of his living room. "I suppose this storm will put your mother back on her shopping." Tobias Snape said, breaking the hour-long silence between him and his son. His son, a loosely drawn image of him, only nodded in acknowledgment, then turned back to the black leather-bound book he had been cradling around the house for a number of days now. Homework, most likely.
The father returned to his own reading, determined to enjoy the only day off he would see that week and probably the weeks to come. Holding down two jobs made little time for anything else but still he would take a temporary third job next week. Tobias expected precious little sleep in the weeks to come.
He pushed work out of his mind for a change. Despite the gray skies, it was slowly creeping upon noon and his day to relax from the week's toil felt as if it were only just starting. He stretched his legs across the couch and flipped a page when he caught his son staring at him, knees drawn up in a childish manner, sitting in the thread-bare armchair.
He raised an eyebrow at the boy to catch him off guard and said in an even voice, "Problem, Severus?"
Severus was jolted out of his staring and looked to his father as if he expected more than those words.
"No," he started, "I was just… I mean, I was only…" for some reason he broke off and hung his head back over his homework.
Oversensitive. That's what the boy was. Two little words and Severus stammers and hides his nose in a book. But this was an improvement from three years ago, before he got his Hogwarts letter. Three years ago a few words from his father would have sent him straight up to his room for the rest of the day. That magic school kept him busy during the summer, at least. Thinking. Learning. Reading. Not flopping around the house or sealing himself off in his bedroom all day like he used to. He still flopped of course, like all teenagers do, Tobias could still sometimes hear him zapping down flies with his magic behind a closed door and even occasionally missing one and nicking the wallpaper instead. But it was different now and Tobias had his sneaking suspicion that his son's friendship with that red-headed girl, Lily Evans that lived on the better side of neighborhood was partially responsible for Severus becoming something other than a recluse.
Whatever the reasons, Tobias wasn't about to complain. Not today, because Tobias would like to think of this day as his own, to do what he pleased for as long as he pleased. And right now that was to read his newspaper in peace uninterrupted and say nothing to anyone. He flipped to the next page and found himself seduced by the silence.
Ring, ring,
The telephone resounded throughout the entire first floor and the two pairs of similar dark eyes cut to each other,
"Are you expecting a call?" Tobias asked.
Severus shook his head. Hating to remove himself from his comfortable spot, Tobias forced himself up and into the kitchen and picked up the phone that was mounted on the far wall.
"Yes?" He sounded a little less friendly than he meant to. There was a pause on the other line.
"Severus?" His wife's voice. What could she want?
He gave a good sneer and spoke in the smoothest tone possible, "Shame, Eileen, you obviously don't know your own husband."
"Don't be ridiculous," Eileen retorted, "The boy's sounding more like you every day. Shame on you for not hearing it."
"What is it you want? I was having a lovely Sunday with you out of my sight."
"Well, your Sunday has just gotten lovelier. It's pouring downtown and I refuse to drive that muggle deathtrap called a 'car' home until the rain lets up. You'll be on your own for lunch. Good day."
"Wait, where are you?" he spat out quickly before she could put the receiver down. It was her time to sneer.
"Pretending to care, are we? I'm in a phone booth in a little sandwich shop downtown."
She hung up loud enough to make his right ear pop. Wonderful. Tobias just loved Sundays.
A/N: Well, I hope you like my snarky Tobias. I wrote dialog for him much like I would have wrote for Severus if he was dealing with Neville Longbottom in potions class. I guess his relationship with Eileen is a bit different too from most fan fictions. I wanted his relationship with Eileen to be obviously strained from both ends. Eileen can certainly hold her own in an argument and isn't afraid to start one either! I made her a bit snarky and sarcastic as well; Severus must get it somewhere, why not both sides? Tobias seems a bit... classier than most portrayals of him and he doesn't drink in my story, so I hope you don't mind that. The next chapter(s) will be much longer I promise, I did leave you at a cliffhanger for a reason (wink,wink).