A/N: Wassup! I hope y'all are enjoying the quarantine...I just wanted to remind you that I love you and we'll get through these political shenanigans. Yes it would suck to get a highly unstable virus, since you cant actually cure them, but as long as we all do our part, (and hopefully stop this needless panic which always does more harm than good) we'll make it. I hear humans are annoyingly resilient as a collective. Enjoy your slightly early Monday/Sunday night chapter! (I get a little overambitious about posting when my weekend feels long in the wrong kind of way x.x I am a Slytherin after all...) Your continued audience means the world to me and reading your comments always make my day!
Without further ado:
Severus walked into an interesting scene.
Tobias was sitting in his usual chair, that was about the only usual thing though. His telly was off and his bottle of whiskey was still sealed and positioned on the coffee table in front of him.
The man looked over at Severus when the door clicked closed behind him. He had an odd expression during the brief glance, but returned his full attention to the bottle shortly after.
"Evening, Da." Severus tested.
Tobias grunted.
He entered the kitchen to find his mother fixing their evening meal and...chipper? He wasn't sure he had ever seen her...well, not tense when Tobias was home.
"Hello, Severus, how was your day?" She greeted.
"Fine…" He said, pointing in the direction of the living room with a question in his eyes. "yours?"
"Promising." She smiled and continued her task.
Severus felt like he missed something...Did Eileen have her 'talk' with Tobias with satisfactory results? Or were they still in limbo? Or perhaps his parents were just victims of polyjuice?
He went upstairs to give Amun his dinner and dose of potion.
Heading back to the kitchen, he stopped by the living room. He stood in the entrance, studying the man having a staring contest with a glass bottle.
After what felt like an eternity of silence, he spoke. "Something's wrong with the whiskey."
"All of it, or that one specifically?" Severus quipped.
His comment spurred no reaction from his father. He was pretty sure the talk was pending, for Tobias was uncertain and anxious.
Had his mother been waiting for him to return?
"Are you alright?" He asked his father.
"I'm sober."
"Ah." Severus had no idea what a response to that should be. "Is that...bad?"
"I haven't decided." The man suddenly turned his attention to him. "Have you done something to the whiskey, boy?"
He frowned. "I haven't."
"You didn't cast some evil spell on it?"
Severus bristled. "I haven't done anything to it."
He leaned towards him. "Well you must have done something!"
"Toby!"
Both of them turned to see Eileen in the doorway.
"Supper is almost ready." She said.
Severus fled to the kitchen and set the table.
Supper was an awkward affair. Tobias sat with them at the table, though he spent more time glaring at Severus than actually eating.
"Something I can help you with, father?"
He watched as fury slowly ignited in the man. "Fix my whiskey!" He demanded.
"That can be arranged, though I'll probably have to use magic."
Tobias flinched at the word.
Severus leaned back in his chair and crossed his arms. "What seems to be wrong with it?"
"Toby…" Eileen interrupted. "We need to talk."
"Then talk!" He pointed to the two of them. "One of you did something! I can't drink without getting sick!"
"Yes." Eileen admitted. "I wanted to have a conversation with my husband, not the drunk who has taken his place for the past twelve years."
Tobias started turning angry shades of red. "You have no right-"
"I have every right to talk to you!"
"You could have! At any time! You don't have to poison me!"
"I tried, Toby! For years I have tried! I sobered you up so we actually could!"
He stood. "Bloody WITCH!"
"Okay!" Severus joined in the shouting match.
"You are both miserable, all the damn time!" he pointed to his father "you're always pissed and either aggressive or too far gone to function," he turned his finger to his mother, "and you brood or sulk or hide in your room!"
"And what do you do, boy!?" His father retorted.
"Watch my parents wage war! You two are constantly fighting or ignoring each other and I don't know what I'm supposed to do about it! You're bloody married! That means you had to have at least liked one another long enough to exchange vows. Does that mean nothing to either of you?"
"She lied to me!" Tobias bellowed.
"About what!? Being a witch? So what? She can do magic and you can't. It's not exactly something she can go around telling people. You can do loads that she can't too! I've seen you build or fix things a wizard wouldn't even think of!
You've fixed the telly more times than I can count, though most of the time you are the one to break it in the first place. You used to work on the car, not sit in your chair and drink yourself legless. It used to run too, I remember you would take us to London for ice cream when I was little...when we were a real family-"
Severus sucked in a shaky breath.
"You used to make me toys. Then you just stopped because you were mad at me and mum...and for a long time I didn't understand what we did wrong.
But it's magic...Magic tore our family apart because you hated it."
Tobias stood there, fists clenched and knuckles white. "You were supposed to be my son. You were supposed to like cars, and build things with me, and go fishing on the weekends...like my father did with me…"
He turned to his wife.
"But you," he seethed at her, "you lied to me. I had hoped I would have a family, a real son, a legacy. But all I have is a liar for a wife and a scrawny ponce you claim is mine! It's a wonder I drink my life away!"
Severus chose not to move. He feared that if he so much as twitched he would murder the man.
"I never lied to you." Eileen began.
Tobias stormed towards the door.
"Toby! Listen to me!" She rushed after him, she managed to grab his hand as he jerked on the handle.
"Release me witch!"
She held onto him when he tried to shake her off. "I didn't think that anything so trivial as magic mattered because I loved you...I still do. I thought you had loved me as well."
He shoved her away and slammed the door behind him as he left.
