All Severus could remember was the screaming.
His mother was shouting at his father again, and, also again, the subject was about him.
"I don't care if he got good grades, he should get a real job like a real man!"
"But Tobias, this could mean the start of a great education! He can get into a University, and be smart, and go somewhere, unlike…"
"Don't you say it. Don't you even start to say it."
"All I'm saying is…"
"Oh you're always just saying, Eileen…"
By this time, Severus knew that he should shut his door and tune it out. If he even so much as showed his face outside his door, his parents would drag him into the fight, and he couldn't stand to side with either of them. If he supported his mother, his father would go into a rage, setting impossible assignments for Severus to do around the house… without magic. If he sided with his father, however, he would see the hurt in his mother's eyes, the woman who supported him all of his life, who had taught him most of what he knew today, and who he had obviously inherited his brains from. He couldn't stand his father anyway… it was a lose / lose situation, and he refused to get involved. He decided to get up and close the door.
But his footsteps creaked on the worn wooden floorboards.
"Severus?"
Damn, he thought.
"Yes, mother?" he asked, but it was his father who responded.
"Come here, Severus, I want you to ask you something."
Suddenly Severus was very afraid. They had been going on in this row for quite some time, ever since he had graduated from Hogwarts… It seemed like only yesterday, but it had been well over a week before. He stepped out of his room, but suddenly halted. He grabbed his wand quickly from the desk before leaving.
Severus walked quickly into the living room, hands in the pockets of his robes, head inclined towards the floor in between his parents. His eyes peered up at them from in between the greasy black strands of his hair.
"Yes?"
"Don't say 'yes' like that, you brat. You show respect in this house."
"Yes, father."
"Yeah." Tobias stroked the stubble on his chin.
He's thinking up something, Severus thought. His father rubbed his chin whenever he thought about something very hard, and it was usually never anything good.
"Severus," his father began, "Your mother and I have been talking…"
"You mean shouting," he snapped, and immediately regretted it. He always did have a short temper, like his father, who raised the back of his hand quickly to Severus's face. He fell tumbling to the ground, then rolled to face his mother's feet.
"Get up, maggot. I'm not through with you yet."
He reached down and picked Severus up by the scruff of his clothes.
"You gonna shut up and let me finish, or do you need more red in your cheeks?"
Severus was quiet.
"That's what I thought. Now, before I was interrupted, I was just about to tell you that your mother and I have been talking…" he started, then looked to Severus to see if he had anything else to say. He didn't. Tobias continued. "…About your future. Obviously, you can't stay here forever… truth is, we don't want you. Never did. But here we are, stuck, and you need to decide what you're going to do with yourself. Your mother thinks you should get an education. I think you should get a job. What do you think, Severus?"
As if I had a choice, he thought. He reached his hands inside his robes, where his long, delicate fingers, much like his mother's, stroked against his wand. It was warm to the touch as his fist closed around it. Suddenly, he decided he did have a choice. And it was neither of theirs.
He whipped it out and turned it upon his father's chest.
"I think that you need to shut up."
"What was that?" his father yelled.
"Shut up! Silencio!"
Suddenly his father went mute, though his mouth continued to spew obscenities between Severus and his wand.
"Good. Now listen," he began. "You are an shivering, pathetic little worm in the pathway of my life. I will step on you like I have stepped on so many others. You are worthless to me, and I refuse to be under your thumb any longer. Do you understand me?"
His father suddenly lunged at his face with his fist, but it was almost as if he did it in a dream… he saw his father stretch back, then slowly start to extend his arm towards his face…
CRACK.
Severus had snapped his wand and immediately his father was up in the air, supported as if by a hook in his socks.
"Ha! Never saw that one before, did you?"
His father snarled. Severus glanced sideways at his mother, whose look of sheer horror was concealed by the hands in front of her face.
"Severus, let him down!"
He merely smirked at her.
"Let him down!"
He let his father down roughly on his head and removed the silencing charm. Immediately, his mother ran to his side, placing her hands on his shoulders and trying to help him up. He shook her off with his shoulders and attempted to stand, but he was still dazed from his fall and collapsed on his knees. He scowled up at Severus angrily.
"Monster," his father growled. "I don't ever want to see you in this house again! EVER! DO YOU HEAR ME!"
Severus only smiled, the first hints of the lines showing upon his face, foreshadows of the deeper ones that would etch themselves into his skin as the years went cruelly by.
"Good," he said. "I don't want to be here."
And with that, he cried "Accio trunk," and immediately his small trunk, worn from so many years of use at Hogwarts, flew into the living room and filled with his few belongings. He picked it up, light and insignificant, and walked out the door, not bothering to look back at his angry father or weak mother.
Severus calmly strode away from his childhood home, his father's bellows of rage following him along the path towards adulthood and the uncertain destiny that awaited him.