AN: All recognisable characters belong to J.K. Rowling.
If he was asked, if he tried to look back to the beginning, he'd say something extremely insignificant led to the way his life was now.
He'd been having dinner with his parents when he was six. His father had been an impressive man, strong and loud. He'd be even more so after a hearty meal and several glasses of red wine. It was that wine that made him see the lighter side of his father; it made him think wine would make him happier, too.
After the red wine, after the posh facade of a meal, the real business happened.
Friends of his father would arrive for a few hours in front of the television, smoking and playing poker. As a young child, Tobias would watch them. He wanted his father's appreciation, like all children do. Drinking and having rowdy conversations in a smoky room while playing poker became his biggest ambition.
As he grew older, his family began to lose money. Supporting two gambling, alcoholic smokers began to take its toll. The loss of funds made the occupants of the house even more sullen and prone to shouting matches which soon became the norm.
And then the violence started. It was occasional at first, perhaps once a month, when his father came in from a particularly heavy alcohol binge. His poor mother, the only one in the family who worked—since his father was fired for constant tardiness and rude behaviour—bore the brunt of the beatings. She never complained, and she never let Tobias see any of her injuries. She would make up excuses if he caught any evidence, and he would be so far drunk that he didn't usually care.
Two years later, when Tobias was twenty-one, his mother died. She had been stabbed in the chest by his increasingly-insane father, who was charged with murder and sent to prison. Alone, jobless, penniless, and depressed, Tobias wandered the London backstreets, contenting himself with whatever he managed to steal from the garbage bins.
The last sane thing he remembered was a warm cup of coffee that eased his sore, cold stomach.
He awoke to a grim parody of a posh dinner, a glass of red wine in front of him. He knew the woman who sat across the table from him. He knew the little boy in the corner belonged to him. He knew the story, but the details were hazy, vague. As if he'd lived through his life without being him, as though living his life from within a dream.
He noticed the eyes of the woman: calculating. He knew her name, of course. Eileen. He dimly remembered telling her he loved her, but why did he? He felt no attraction or affection for her whatsoever.
Slowly, he tried to piece the puzzle together. He remembered her saying something about magic. Or had he? Was there really such a thing as outlandish as magic? Was he dreaming? Was he living in a dream?
When the little boy in the corner started bawling, he snapped out of it. He was going crazy, and it was all because of that woman. She'd tricked him, somehow. He was Tobias Snape; no one ever got the better of him.
The red of the wine mingled with her blood as he threw the glass at her face.
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AN:
Incredibly short one-shot for homework =D
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