A/N: Title taken from the lyrics of Come On Eileen by the Dexys Midnight Runners. Nothing about the song even remotely relates to this fic, but the title, well… I feel like the title is very relevant here. Come on, Eileen. Seriously. :p
Thank you to Bex (DobbyRocksSocks) for being absolutely, brilliantly fantastic in cheerleading and motivating me with this thing. I owe you, really. You are the bestest of the best.
Disclaimer: J.K Rowling is not a goddess, but her writing is magical, and I can never compare. So, she keeps the characters, the places and her own created world, while I borrow them all every now and then like the pathetic human I am. The plot is all mine though!
Written for multiple challenges on the Hogwarts School of Witchcraft & Wizardry forum.
Assignment #10: Culinary Arts: Types of Knives: Slice & Dice but not Stabby
Task #3: Utility Knife: Write a fic featuring a minor character you've never written or hardly written before
Word count: 10118 words
Warnings: abusive/unhealthy relationships, domestic violence (on-screen and off-screen), alcohol, slurs, violence and negligence.
They wonder why she hasn't left him yet.
But they could never understand why she stays.
.oOo.
She remembers the beginning of their story vividly. The youngest of the Princes, the "happy" accident. Her sister was the heir, she was the spare. Her only use to her family was to be married off to someone of influence. She was never wanted, just… there.
And then there was Tobias.
She had met him in the local Muggle marketplace, quite a way away from her family's mansion. Fresh out of Hogwarts, all she had under her belt were her N.E.W.T.s and the draft of a marriage contract between herself and the second-eldest of the semi-prestigious house of Nott. She had met the father—a cold, calculating, unfeeling man. From his mentions of his son, she could only surmise that her soon-to-be betrothed took after his sire.
It was never hard to sneak out of the mansion—her presence was never needed, and so more often than not, the house elves were the ones to keep tabs on her. And the house elves loved her.
She had already been familiar with Muggle culture when they met, her habit of sneaking out to the markets and streets being a steady ritual, but Tobias Snape made her want to learn it all.
She can hardly forget the charismatic man she had fallen in love with all those many years ago. Tobias had everything going for him—looks, money, charm. He was a dreamer, hopelessly optimistic; the kind of Muggle who believed in love and magic.
But she never knew what he saw in her—her manner of engaging people was lacklustre at best, and her inheritance was conditional and kept secret. As far as he knew, Eileen Prince was a socially disadvantaged young woman who could be found around the market, roaming about the stalls to get away from her intimidating family.
And everyone who passed her by knew that she was no beauty.
Eileen had a long history with failing to meet standards. And her looks were by no means the exception—her face was too angular, her skin too pale, her hair too stiff and her nose too prominent. She had no curves to speak of, no proficiency to boast of, and no virtue to be marvelled for. She was never enough.
But Tobias Amerius Snape had made her his world. And for the longest time, that had been everything they needed to be happy.
.oOo.
Having never been in love before, it made her giddy. Impetuous. The quiet, unassuming Ravenclaw disappointment of the Prince name defied her family for the love of her life, and it was worth it. The family who loved to ignore her before suddenly needed her, but it was too late for them. She made them revoke the bonding contract, she gave up her name and title and walked away. And it was all worth it, because it was the beginning of them.
Tobias' parents welcomed her with open arms. They were astounded at her magic and heritage, but not once did they despise her for it. And Tobias loved her with all his heart, and she loved him with all of hers, and then they were married.
She walked about the town with her head held high, and her too-pale face was vibrant with freedom. The people around knew her as 'young Tobias Snape's wife', and she was always met with smiles and greetings. She belonged.
But of course, Eileen Snape's happiness wasn't meant to last.
.oOo.
The people at Cokeworth don't know her name, nor do they know her story. They know what they see; and what they see is a weary, greying, plain-looking woman cowed into silence by an alcoholic drunk of a husband. The town's pity-figure, always seen around Spinner's End with a sullen little boy trailing by her skirts.
They never speak to her, content to ignore her hunched, too-tall figure—but she knows from the look in their eyes exactly what their thoughts are.
Pathetic.
The man she calls her husband looks, at first glance, like nothing more than your typical abusive arsehole. Past his prime, beer gut, thinning hair, stumbling around with bleary red eyes and a too-loud voice. Tobias Snape looks like a man beyond redemption. And no one in the town understands what she still sees in him, why she hasn't yet run away.
But the truth is, Eileen remembers the beginning of their story vividly. Too vividly.
.oOo.
Tobias had been a happy man, easily pleased. He was very close to his parents, and he had a little sister eleven years younger to him who looked up to Eileen like she had hung the moon. Eileen loved the Snape family, and they adored her. Tobias wouldn't ever consider leaving his parents and moving away once they were married—not that Eileen particularly cared for the idea of living separately either. She finally had a family who loved her, and people around who respected her. They had been happy living together in the Snape home.
But when tragedy struck, it struck Tobias hard.
Eileen had picked up the telephone, the morning the hospital called to proclaim his parents and sister no more. Dead on arrival, they had told her. The Snapes had been on their way back from a concert little Amelie had wanted to see, and they got caught in the storm. Swerved off the road, crashed into a tree, and they knew nothing.
Tobias was broken. She remembers sitting by his side for days on end, rubbing his back while he wept. He wept and wept and wept, until one bleary evening when he straightened his back, hardened his eyes and pushed away her hand, commenting harshly that real men don't cry.
That was the day he threw away his dreams.
That was the night he picked up his first bottle.
That was the beginning of her hell.
.oOo.
Eileen Snape didn't have much in the way of merit, but for Tobias, she gave a valiant attempt at perseverance. She tried her best to help him heal—but the one thing Eileen Prince had passed down to her was failure.
With his entire family to support him, Tobias had made her his world. But with his family gone… she was no longer his everything. Tobias had lost a part of himself that morning when the telephone call came in—and with it, she had lost a part of him. And it hurt, it did, but she supposed that if Tobias wanted space, the least she could do was give it to him.
And that was her first mistake.
In doing so, she aided his descent into madness. She let him take the reins of his life and theirs, hoping it would help gain him the perspective of control—and he never shared the reins with her since.
It was Tobias' idea to move out of his hometown. He couldn't live with the ghosts of his family, he had said, and she saw sense in his declaration and agreed. The stagnant merchant business his father had passed to him in death was abandoned for good, and when they moved towns, he never looked back.
Cokeworth was a big town, the kind one could get lost in. She didn't much like the anonymity of the place, but Tobias liked it. He particularly liked going out to explore the area every day, and coming home to her late at night with liquor on his lips, wordless grunts and no explanation for where he'd been. She hadn't liked that either—but anything to help him heal.
Eileen, as could be seen, had a habit of making consistently poor choices.
But Eileen, since she'd had her first taste of freedom, didn't have much in the way of patience any more. They had no income since Tobias quit his job and shut down his father's business, and they couldn't keep living on their savings forever. Eileen herself had nothing to show for Muggle education, so the breadwinner had to be him.
And so, she tried to cheer him up another way. She used her magic.
To her, her solution was perfect. Tobias had always loved her magic, and while she didn't use it so much anymore, she used it freely. What better way to remind him that he had someone to care about him than to show him?
She… did not expect his reaction.
Tobias, kind, gentle Tobias, who was so fascinated by the sparks from her wand. Tobias, who urged her to hold his hands, magic thrumming through her fingers and warming up their joined palms. Tobias, who looked on with wonder every time she cast Lumos Maxima and called upon that shining ball of white light.
Tobias, who slapped her across the face and told her to never do that freaky magic around him ever again, glaring her down with rage in his dark eyes.
That was the first time Eileen didn't recognise her husband. But yet, she remembered their beginnings vividly. Too vividly.
.oOo.
Eileen keeps her head down when she hears each shuffling thump get louder.
She can smell his presence as he stumbles towards her, the sharp, pungent stench of straight brandy surrounding him like a foreboding aura. Her body is poised for danger; it makes her mad at herself. Why should she fear him? He is her husband, she loves him and he loves her. They are married. He is Tobias Snape, and he loves her.
She puts her head down and scrubs harder at the steel plate in the sink.
"Ei—Eils, m'love," he mumbles, and she hums noncommittally in response. He is still in his pyjamas. It is three in the afternoon. "Eils, where's the cash I stuffed in that bloody vase? I need more."
She freezes.
"Tobias… you already used it."
Tobias blinks, and his face twists into sudden anger.
"USED IT?" he roars, his voice hoarse and cracking. She flinches at the volume. "YOU STOLE FROM ME! THAT'S WHAT IT IS!"
She recoils again, as much at the accusation in his words as the pure venom in his tone.
"You filthy bitch!" he continues, growling as he advances towards her. "How dare you! You dirty little cun—"
A dark shadow flits the corner of her frightened gaze; her husband crumples at her feet before the empty bottle clutched in his sweaty fingers strikes her. It shatters into large pieces as it hits the cracked tile, and one little glass piece nicks her bare foot in its momentum.
When she looks up, her young son stands in the doorway to their tiny kitchen, his large black eyes huge with terror.
"I did magic again," he whispers in his crisp child's voice, his words sharp and laced with shock, far too mature for his little years. One little hand fists the bottom of his grey shirt.
She swallows.
"Daddy's going to be mad if he finds out," she murmurs to him, skirting around the body of her husband. "You have to not tell him."
His eyes don't leave his father's prone form. "Okay."
She shoos him away quickly, afraid that Tobias might wake up and spot him. But snores away peacefully on her kitchen floor, even as she cleans away all the glass around him. She leaves her scrubbing in the sink and tiptoes away, fearful of his wrath should he set eyes on her in his waking.
He doesn't wake up till the early evening. Her son has settled himself in his go-to hiding place, a little linen closet in the hallway that Tobias doesn't glance twice at. It's unnecessary, however—because when he walks out of the kitchen, he walks out sober. Sobriety is a rare occasion for him, one that has been getting rarer over the years.
He's rubbing his head, his face scrunched in agony at the splitting headache of his hangover, and she holds her breath.
"Eileen?" he squints against the dim light of dusk when he spots her standing by the sitting room window. "Eileen, what happened? I was on the floor." He glances back at the kitchen in confusion, and she breathes a sigh of relief. "Did something happen, love?"
He doesn't remember.
She closes her eyes and calms herself before coming up with an excuse. He seems bemused at her quick story, but doesn't question her. He is gentle as a lamb for the rest of the night, nursing his headache in quiet silence as he aims her fond looks every now and then, and there is no sign of recognition when his gaze travels to the antique brass vase—one of the few things they had brought over from the Snape family home—which caused all the trouble that afternoon.
He doesn't remember. But if he did, he would have apologised. And he would see how he has been hurting her, and she would get her old Tobias back. That's what she believes.
But even as she entertains him over the evening while he is still sober, she takes a few minutes to sneak some scraps from dinner to her son in his linen closet, and she cautions him to not come out for the rest of the night.
.oOo.
She can never forget the look on his face the first time he hurt her.
He had left not five minutes after he slapped her, and she only belatedly recognised the whiff of brandy that followed him out of the room, too frozen in shock to think.
And an hour later, he stumbled back to their bedroom where she hid to process what had happened, eyes red as he mumbled apologies to her over and over again. For the first time in the longest time, he sobbed. And she patted his back like she did for him months before, murmuring that she understood, that he was forgiven. For a while after that incident, he gave up his brandy and came back to her, and her brief period of misery was simply something her helpless mind had dreamed up.
Tobias took up a job at Cokeworth's main newspaper office. He didn't earn much, but they were comfortable and that was all that mattered. They were happy again, and she got back the life she loved so much.
But it wasn't quite the same. Because there was always that ever present darkness lurking in his expressive eyes, and that darkness seemed to come out most when he spied her wand in her hand, or sparks flying from her fingers.
The darkness forced her to recall those words he spat the first time he raised his hand against her. That freaky magic.
The sparks died from her fingers, and she never dared use magic again.
She thought it would be enough.
.oOo.
The one year anniversary of the car crash hit Tobias hard.
Eileen tried to change the course of his liquor-induced coping mechanism by giving him a new one. Herself.
And spending time with her seemed to lift his spirits for a while, but she didn't keep his interest for long.
It wasn't long till he was out seeking the bottle again. Eileen tried everything, but once again, she had to get used to not being enough. It hurt—but Tobias hadn't given her up completely. He simply made room for something else to stand beside her.
The brandy.
She felt a bit silly, having to complete with a bottle of murky liquid for her husband's affections. But the competition didn't stay for long, because this time, it took him less to re-adjust to their new life without the rest of the Snapes. The brandy stayed, but it was sidelined, only being brought out on occasion.
But Eileen—Eileen stayed by his side permanently.
.oOo.
She walks around the park holding her little son's hand, the strong afternoon sun beating down on her back. No one is out around this time, and Tobias is in a drunken stupor back home, undoubtedly sleeping off the alcohol again.
This is the time she takes her son out to play.
He is four years old, her precious boy. He doesn't look like a typical toddler his age—much like how she's been all her life. Not enough. His skin is too sallow, his face bony. He has no chubby cheeks or arms, no fluffy curls. His hair is dark, black like hers, too-stiff like hers. His features sport a permanent scowl she has never seen on any other four-year-old. His nose is so large, it takes up a third of his face.
He has magic like her. Her little prince. He is a freak like she is.
They come out here every week for an afternoon, mother and son. She is unwilling to let go of his hand for fear that if he strays too far and his magic lashes out, she might not be able to control his magic in time. Someone could see.
No one is around to see. But someone could. And that fear is enough.
So he has to tag along with her, and every time she glances down at him she cannot unsee the mighty scowl he aims at their joined hands.
They walk to a nice, clean bench tucked in a corner of the park, shaded from the sun. She refuses, as always, to let go of his hand, so he sits quietly beside her on the robin egg blue bench and stares out at nothing. It's what they do every week.
Her boy gets to experience an alternate environment, something less depressing than the dark little place they call home—and she gets two hours to breathe.
They have been coming here for two years, and she forces her son to sit by her side and stare out at nothing for every visit. She picks a new bench every time, and together they have memorised this local park from every possible angle. She knows that her son never understands why they come here.
But he is always silent, and he never speaks a word.
They sit in complete silence together. She knows that he might not get it, but to her, it is peaceful.
.oOo.
She remembers the day she told Tobias she was pregnant.
It was only a couple of months after the one year anniversary of their family's death that she found out. She told him that very day when he came home from work, joy shining in her eyes, and he set down his work bag and hugged her tightly, picking her up in his momentum as he swung around.
That was their saving grace. Their little miracle child. Tobias was thrilled to be having a little one to dote on, and Eileen couldn't be happier to see Tobias back to himself.
Tobias treated her like royalty for the nine months of her pregnancy, and every day he would rush home from work to take care of her. Everyone at the newspaper office knew by the second month that they were expecting, and Tobias grinned at everybody they saw out on the street the few times she went out with him.
Two of Tobias' coworkers visited them at home bearing little gifts for the baby during her eighth month. She was touched at their thoughtfulness, but nothing could lighten her heart more than when they commented on how contagious Tobias' joy was. That was proof that her husband was back to being the man she loved, just as much proof as the completed crib in their bedroom, made by Tobias' own hand.
And in a month, Severus Tobias Snape was brought into the world, a healthy, squalling, red-faced baby boy.
In his first year, little Severus had none of the defining features that would come to grace him over his childhood. He looked like any normal child out there, but to them, he was special. Tobias adored him much like Eileen knew he would, toying with his tiny fingers whenever he had the opportunity. He rocked Severus to sleep every night while she sat on the edge of their bed contentedly, listening to him murmur and hum to their child. They had saved up for months before so that Tobias could buy them an instant camera, and she kept a little blue box in their room where they stored all their palm-sized black-and-white photographs of Severus. It was their treasure.
Life was exactly the way she dreamed it would be.
And she fooled herself into thinking that their darkest moments were past them.
.oOo.
The sound of the slap echoes in sharp rings around the dark room.
She flinches, eyes wide, but her five-year-old son's eyes are wider.
"You little shit!" Tobias shouts at him in his scratchy voice. "I saw that! What did you do?"
Severus' eyes are dark and wide and defiant. And not for the first time, Eileen wonders where her child got his obstinacy from, because it's certainly not from her.
"Well?" Tobias asks when he gets impatient, bunching up the fabric near the neck of their son's oversized shirt and shaking him roughly.
Severus stays stubbornly silent.
There's a loud rip in the air as Tobias yanks harder at the shirt, nearly strangling the boy as he pulls him up. It makes her reach out a hand for her son, but there's nothing she can do to save him.
Besides, it's Tobias. Her son shouldn't need saving from Tobias. Any time now, Tobias will stop and come back to himself. He has to.
"Talk, kid!" Her husband rasps. She can see little drops of spittle fall on Severus' pale face. The little boy silently shakes his head, and it angers Tobias more. "I KNOW YOU DID IT!" he shouts, pulling the boy up further till he's dangling by his shirt, his toes barely skimming the ground, and Eileen winces at the resulting second rip. She'll have to mend this shirt for him again; it's one of his last ones.
"No," Severus utters, and the second the word escapes his lips, Tobias releases his hold on the shirt in his hands and lets the boy fall.
Severus barely has time to balance himself before the second slap hits him, reddening his already bruised cheek to an angry red. A third slap, this time on the opposing cheek, and he goes down.
She gasps silently as she witnesses her son fall to the hard tile, curl into a ball on the floor like he anticipates the kick Tobias delivers to his side.
"You sick little fuck," the enraged man hisses at Severus, "I'll make you pay for being such a freak." He looks like he's about to deliver another kick, but she stops him before he does more damage the only way she knows how.
"Tobias," she murmurs hesitantly from her dark little corner of the sparsely-furnished sitting room, "Tobias, maybe a drink will help? There's… there's another bottle on the kitchen counter."
At that, he looks up. She can see the way Severus has his eyes closed tightly shut. She hopes Tobias doesn't see her looking at her son, because it will draw attention to him once again.
"A drink… yes. Yes, a drink will do. I need another drink," he says assessingly, and she breathes out a sigh of relief. "Get me the bottle," he demands, and she rushes to comply. She has the heavy glass bottle—three-fourths of its contents still waiting to be drunk—in her hands before she can blink, and she's handing it to him on the next breath.
He wobbles as he turns around to accept it.
She doesn't quite go back to the corner, but she definitely sticks to the shadows while she waits for him to get tired of standing and head to their bedroom to drink in peace. Severus' eyes are still squeezed shut, and he doesn't move a muscle till they both hear the shuffling steps get softer and softer and finally cut out entirely with the slamming of the bedroom door.
She sighs as she crosses over to her little boy. He flinches at her tap, but straightens and sits up, letting her inspect his slowly swelling cheeks. Red streaks mar his skin, looking like they've been coloured with smudged crayon. Paired with his bony face and pale skin, the puffy flesh looks so much more prominent. So much worse than it actually is.
She consoles herself by telling herself that it's not so bad, it looks worse than it is, Tobias would never hurt their son too terribly, he would never cross the line.
"How many times have I told you not to do magic in front of him?" she demands, muttering as she lifts his chin to see the swelling better. It doesn't look too bruised—that's what she can lead herself to believe if she tells herself that enough. It's not hard to convince herself. She's done it for years.
The scowl on her son's face tells her that he is fine. Her little prince is fine. He always is.
"Your side?" she asks when she's done inspecting his face. He shakes his head, wispy strands of chin-length dark hair flying about his face.
"M'fine," he replies sullenly, not letting her look. She sighs and gives it a rest, giving him her hand to help him up instead. He glares as he stands up, his hand faltering in its instinctive attempt to hold his side. She pretends she doesn't notice.
"What did you need magic for, anyway?" she asks him softly as she leads him to the kitchen with slow steps. He shuffles along behind her, refusing to hold her hand.
"I was cold," he answers when she settles him in a corner on the kitchen counter, safe from view should Tobias decide to come out again. "The magic warmed me up."
She frowns at him, crossing her arms. "Why did you not wait till he left? I've taught you and told you so many times, Severus—no magic near Daddy. You broke the rule."
Severus crosses his own, smaller arms to mirror her position, his thin dark brows furrowing as his nose flares. "But I wanted to be warm then! I didn't like the cold, Mum."
She opens her mouth to reprimand him again, but his words halt her. Sometimes… sometimes she forgets that Severus is a child. He acts so grown up all the time, and as uncanny as it is to look at, she's grown used to it over years of caring for him. But it is in times like these when he acts like the five-year-old he's supposed to be, too impatient to think of the consequences of his actions, that she remembers that her little prince is, at the end of the day, still a child.
And she feels guilty.
She shushes him quietly, patting his knee in comfort, and resolves instead to heal the burning in his cheeks.
She places her palms on each side of his face and tries to call upon her magic. It takes her three tries and three failed attempts to give up, hanging her head with the realisation that once again, she is unable to take care of her son. Her hands release his face, patting down his squirming form once before she lets go of him and steps back.
"You'll have to heal yourself again, little prince," she murmurs and wrings her hands, finding it hard to look at her son. "I'll watch by the door to make sure Daddy doesn't come back. Make it quick."
"I got it," her son says, and she spies the bright blue sparks from his magic out of the corner of her eye as she turns away and makes for the sitting room. Her eyes stray to the platinum band on her ring finger, and the resulting sigh that crawls its way up her throat makes her feel one hundred years old.
She can only convince herself that Tobias hasn't crossed the line for so long before she runs out of lies.
.oOo.
The first time Severus did magic, he was little more than two years old.
She thought—she had hoped—that her magic hadn't been passed down to him, that he was safe; and by his first birthday, she was convinced that little Severus possessed none of her hidden talents.
It was common for magic to manifest in children right from the stage of infancy—it was something they grew up with, it was a part of themselves. Their magic could easily go unnoticed, but with time their little feats of magic started to grow more extraordinary. It could start with something as simple as a light breeze in the air, cooling and gentle. Over time, as their magic grew more prominent, they could be doing anything from changing the colour of their cribs to summoning their favourite toys to play with.
Eileen watched her son like a hawk every minute of every day, and she noticed nothing. Not a twitch, not a sound, not the barest hint of coloured sparks or tiny glowing fingers. And every day that went by with no sign of magic, she breathed a bigger sigh of relief.
Life was normal for the three Snapes. Mother, father and son, they were the perfect little family and Eileen adored her domestic life with both her husband and her little boy. She felt free again, daring to take her son out to the nearby parks in his stroller and point out all the birds. The Cokeworth townspeople didn't know her like the nice folks from her old life, but they were pleasant enough to her and the regulars at the park nearest to their house adored her young son. Severus never threw many tantrums, not even when he was in distress.
Eileen and Tobias provided well for him, and he loved them. He especially adored his father, and would always run excitedly to the door when Tobias came home from work every evening. Tobias kept on the tradition of putting him to bed every night, and the little blue box she kept in their bedroom was stuffed with all the photographs they amassed together. Life was mundane and normal, just the way he liked it.
And then one night, Severus did magic.
It was the first thunderstorm of his young life, and the echoing crashes and lashing of the rain terrified him. Eilleen and Tobias woke to his frightened screams, and ran to his room to see him screeching terribly at a particularly menacing flash of lightning. Eileen rushed to soothe her baby, only to be kept back by a powerful shield of pure energy. Trying to fight it only made the energy push back harder, causing her to stumble.
Tobias' eyes were wider than she'd ever seen them.
Severus was hysterical, his eyes squeezed shut, blanket clutched tightly in one hand and something unidentifiable in the other as he sobbed his little heart out. She kept trying to get to him, all her efforts fruitless as the bright white shield kept her son away from her reach. She turned to her husband in desperation, hoping for some kind of assistance, only to see him standing transfixed, eyes drawn to the object clutched Severus' right hand.
"Tobias, do something!" she had screamed at him, her eyes wild, but he simply didn't budge. His eyes wouldn't leave their son. Severus continued to cry over her distress and Tobias' silence, fat tears rolling down his reddened cheeks.
It's only when she well and truly gave up fighting against the barrier that she noticed what was clutched within Severus' grasp.
The bronze mini-statue. One that belonged to Tobias' father, and then to Tobias; the one that they kept proudly on the shelf and Tobias let Severus play with only under his careful watch. A delicately carved angel, feathered wings sculpted in fine detail.
The shield blurred her view a little, but she could still see his fingers glow around it as he clutched it tight.
The shape didn't look right.
A gasp escaped her lips, unbidden. She clearly remembered wrenching open Severus' closed door—Severus hadn't Summoned it the way babies did, but somehow pulled it out from thin air. And the magic in his fingers ruined it.
She couldn't remember much beyond that point. There was shock, there was anxiety; there was the bright flare of pain in her wrist where she sprained it against the force of her son's shield. There were tears; they blurred her eyesight. And throughout it all, there was the gut-wrenching, pulsing, abject terror interlaced throughout her fragmentary memories of the night—and the knowledge that this was the event that would unravel it all.
Tobias didn't touch Severus that night. When the storm finally eased and her son had calmed himself enough for his magic to relinquish the barrier, she pried out what was left of the statue from his red fingers. Tobias held the misshapen, clay-like blob in his palm for hours, and he wouldn't speak a word to her all night.
The next night, he went out with his co-workers after work, and he came back blissfully intoxicated. He didn't put Severus to bed that night, and every night since.
.oOo.
It's the last customer on her shift, and she keeps her head down as she checks out the woman's groceries. It's a familiar face, one she has seen around at the park, and she's fairly sure that the woman knows where she lives and who her husband is.
She recognises the pity in the woman's eyes, and the underlying derision that shows itself as the woman looks down her nose at her. Pathetic.
Eileen keeps her head down.
Her eyes track the floor as she makes her way to the back room when her shift ends and changes out of her uniform. Her eyes track the ground as she exits the store and shuffles down the dusty main roads to the park she leaves her son at every weekend when she is at work. The dull gravel seems fitting for her gaze—bleak, pathetic, trampled. Just like her.
She picks the weekday afternoon shifts at the local supermarket, when Tobias is out at the metal fabrication factory he now works at. He doesn't know about her work, or her meagre earnings from it. She's never been able to tell him.
If he knew about her savings, he'd waste it all away on his brandy.
She knows the route to the park like the back of her hand; she can recognise the difference in the colour of grey and the size of the stones and the width of the road. Every day, she walks with her head down and her hands covered by her skirts, not that there are many out and about to notice her at this time of day.
The park is never crowded in the late afternoons; the sun is still high. The parents and their kids aren't due for another two hours, and there are only a handful of people around. But she doesn't fear for the safety of her son, because of the two little girls who are always near at his side.
Or maybe, she realises, as she observes her son from the shade of a nearby tree, it's the other way around.
She knows the Evans family. They live right on the opposite side of the road, the park visible through their window, and every day, whenever they send their two daughters out to play, they keep a watchful eye on the children. The mother is very kind, always sparing her a smile, and she knows that Mrs Evans looks out for her Severus as well.
And Severus seems quite taken with the younger Evans girl.
She watches her son as he stares at the little red-head from the vantage of his chosen bench. He's never quite broken out of the habit she started when she brought him out to the park as a toddler to sit by her on the bench, and now, she finds, she can never get him off the bench to play with the other children, or even by himself—not that she's ever tried particularly hard.
"Tuney, look at how high I can go!" the girl exclaims, propelling her swing with more force, and her long red hair fans out with the breeze. Her sister stares up at her with an odd mix of fascination and jealousy, but Severus just looks at her with awe.
It's a rare look on her son's face.
She stands back hidden, taking the time to observe her seven-year-old son in this new light. She has never, not once, seen him without the dark, gloomy air that haunts his sullen features, and seeing him without the cloud of misery etched into the lines of his face makes him look like a different child entirely. Happier. Brighter. Normal.
He looks like every one of his seven years, and it chills her heart to know just how much their home life has set back her child. It hits her yet again, the breathtaking depth of her failure. With every day that goes by, the platinum band on her finger feels more and more like a vice, and every night as she counts the ever-dwindling change hidden around the house, kept secret from her husband because he consumes all the money he gets his hands on, she has to convince herself harder and harder to stay.
Why does she stay?
The thought makes her flinch—it hits too close to the radical part of her that she tries so hard to silence. She can't leave, she can't leave Tobias. Tobias was her freedom, she loves Tobias. He'll come back to them as he always does, just simply has to wait it out. And even if she takes Severus and runs, where would she run to? Her freedom is in Tobias. Beyond him, she has nothing.
She has to stay.
With this firm thought in mind, she starts to stride forward to take Severus home—but it is at this moment that the Evans girl calls out to her son, and she cannot help but notice the change in him at her address.
Instinctively, Eileen knows that the second Severus spies her, his face will close off again, and he will once again become the unsociable seven-year-old boy who looks far too old for his young age. She cannot bring herself to become the cause of his misery. Not right now, not when she's battling to stave off the overwhelming guilt at the many times she has already failed him.
And judging from the eager way he gets up from his bench and settles into the swing beside her, shy smile teasing the edges of his thin lips, she surmises that he has been yearning for this moment for a long time.
She has never in her life seen him interact with anyone besides her and Tobias, and it is eye-opening. The brightness in his young face is too startling, too overwhelming. His happiness feels like an accusation; she cannot take it.
She walks away, and sits down at the far end of the park, where her son will not see her.
When she returns to his spot over an hour later, the Evans girls look like they're about to leave. Severus is two benches away from them again, sitting still and silent, and the girls do not seem to notice him, chattering between themselves. But the younger girl turns to wave him goodbye when they pass him by, and when Severus waves back, he waves back with a smile.
The smile, of course, falls when he spots Eileen a few feet away. She swallows down the guilt, schools her features into its usual blank look and gestures at him to follow. He tags along behind her sullenly, and doesn't even ask why she's gotten back later than usual to pick him up today. It's likely that he simply doesn't care.
"Lily is like us," he uncharacteristically offers on the way home. "Well," he amends, looking down at her hands skeptically, "like me."
She ignores the barb at her now-dormant magic, feeling the puzzle pieces slotting together at his comment. "Lily is a witch?" She doesn't ask how Severus knows. Her son is extremely perspective; she wouldn't put it past him to catch what others wouldn't.
"Yes," he replies with a nod, "but Lily is not a freak." She aims him a look at his confusing addition, and he goes on, "She is nice. She is not a freak like us; she is normal and nice and everyone likes her."
"Do you like her too?"
He kicks at a little stone on the road, his eyes downcast. "She's nice to me. And… there's something about her magic. It's bright and happy and it makes me feel safe."
"Do you want to be her friend?" she asks softly, pushing aside the hurt at what he unintentionally implies—that she doesn't make her son feel safe.
He doesn't answer her, growing silent once again, and he doesn't look at her for the rest of their walk home.
She is ashamed to admit it—to herself, because she would never let it slip to another soul—but there was a period in her life when she resented her son. It was that instinctual surge, that vicious whisper in the back of her mind that never let her forget that things were fine before his first bout of accidental magic. She was happy and safe, Tobias was happy and carefree, and Severus was happy and adored.
It was that toxic voice in her head that made her hide her son away from his father's eyes, and it was that same voice which made her try so hard to conceal his magic. It was that lingering hope in her heart that convinced her that should Severus act more like a normal Muggle child, Tobias wouldn't be spooked by their magic anymore, and things would be fine again.
But Severus… Severus had an inner sense of self that she never herself understood. There was that innate pride towards his curse—he saw it as a gift. A part of himself. He never got rid of that part of himself, not like she did. In that, they were different, and her lack of understanding made her view him as a hindrance. But now, she can look at him and appreciate his quiet strength as something that sets him apart from her—in a good way. He had learned from her mistakes, and at his tender age, he had learned to make himself better than her.
Her little prince.
Her son is his own person, and if it wasn't for the similar physical traits she shares with him, one could hardly believe they were related. But the longing in his gaze when he looked at the Evans sisters… she recognised the look. It was that old, familiar yearning for freedom and companionship, made particularly consuming to a lonely person like herself. She supposes he got that from her.
And in his attitude to magic, he reminds her of Tobias.
Not the Tobias who is going to stumble drunk through their door in a few hours, no. Severus, in his pride for his magic, reminds her of the man she fell in love with, the man who firmly believed in magic and hope and love and dreams. He was the man who defended the outcasts, who shunned the norms, who believed only in his beliefs and no one else's.
And she wonders how Severus—who has grown up with a father like Tobias who beats him for his magic and a mother like her who forces him to hide it—believes so strongly in what he should, by all rights, consider a curse. That, she feels, is something he inherited from his father. The wonder and love for all things magic.
Looking at her son, she wonders who's fate he will grow up to inherit. Will his personality die out like a spark in his chest, depending on the bottle to get him through life? Or will he grow up stuck in the past like her, clinging to the idea of an idealised future that will never happen?
.oOo.
No one ever understood why she stayed with Tobias Snape. But she knew.
Tobias started out as her freedom. He showed her the world, and the world was bigger than she thought it'd be. He made her realise that some things were worth fighting for, that some things were worth the sacrifice.
Her mistake, however, was that instead, she learned to fight for him. Not herself. She hadn't known then that that was her first true mistake, and she hadn't known that there would soon be many more to follow.
Tobias was her happiness. And even once he started being the source of her anxiety, he never stopped being the source of her happiness. And when the misery overtook the happiness she found in him, Tobias was her comfort. And when the comfort was overshadowed by the hurt he brought her, he grew to be her constancy. And even as the stability of his presence turned cold and gripping, he was still her familiarity.
And once that familiarity started to choke her in its vice-like grip, the taste of his name turning sour in the back of her throat, she realised—after years and years of suppressing herself to fit his ideals—that Tobias Snape had now become the source and entirety of her identity.
And in her identity, lay her freedom.
What would happen if she snatched away her identity—him—from herself? What would she do without the freedom of knowing she belonged somewhere? Where would she go without Tobias to lead her? How would she face struggles against the unknown elements of the wild world outside? For the longest time, all she has known has been Tobias.
Tobias Snape was a known devil. And she could work with the knowledge of his vices and the predictability of his actions. It never changed. It always stayed the same.
Tobias would drink. Tobias would curse. Tobias would demand more money—money they never had, money he accused her of stealing. Tobias would slap her, or punch her, or throw an object at her. If the object was sharp, she would bleed. Her son would come around and heal her, glaring at her cowardice as he used his magic freely behind their closed door. Tobias would notice her newly healed state the next day and go after Severus. Tobias would hurt her son, her son would defy him in stubborn silence, and then he would heal himself. Tobias would notice, and he would drink. The cycle would continue.
The cycle kept her safe. The cycle was her solace. The cycle was never-ending.
But what would happen, she wondered, should that cycle change course and switch direction? What if that never-ending cycle met an abrupt end?
.oOo.
Another day, another cycle.
She heaves a sigh at the sight of the swaying man before her, and her very bones seem to rattle with the effort. Tobias, of course, is too bleary-eyed to notice her exhaustion. He lets out a burp, and she sighs again. Familiarity may be comforting, but this endless loop is just tiring.
"What now?" she mutters to herself, her lips setting into a thin line. Tobias waves the old bronze vase menacingly, but the threat doesn't even faze her. She's used to it.
"That… freak!" Tobias growls in her face. "Your fucking son. I've had it with the bastard!"
She frowns—while the curses are nothing new, something about the way he says it is… concerning. On impulse, she stretches her neck over his shoulder to survey the darkest corner of their tiny sitting room and… oh.
Bloody hell.
She never curses, but the sight of her son crouched in the corner amidst the broken glass shards of Tobias' latest bottle, with cuts on his face and blood on his hands and crying—that moment is clarity.
That is the moment the fog lifts, and she sees the vast, vast hole she's been digging herself into all these years. She cannot help but stare at her Severus on the floor, her brave little eight-year-old boy, and both Tobias and his worrying rants are forced into background static.
All the years, the decade she has bowed and scraped to the wants of her husband—bending herself backward and forward, twisting herself into knots, changing her very identity to fit that of the woman Tobias wanted her to be. The decade she spent trying to be enough to a man who had long since stopped seeing her as enough. A decade of mistakes upon mistakes, choices rooted in cowardice and quiet acceptance; six consistent years of failing her only son, her flesh and blood. Six years spent thinking that this was her battle to fight, fooling herself into believing the lie that her son was strong and unaffected and forever getting back up again and so not part of her struggle at all.
Nine years spent finding reasons to stay, when she should have held onto that one glaring reason to leave.
All of her best efforts at cowardice, unravelling like ribbon off a reel at the sight of her little boy crying into the floor with wracking, silent sobs, dark red blood smeared on his face and utter defeat set into every line of his body. Familiarity was an old friend, her endless cycle a familiar foe, but this… this was not familiar at all.
Her little prince was never meant to be broken.
Tobias seems to be winding down when her attention shifts back to him, his muttering softer but no less vicious. "—should throw him out on the streets, the miserable whelp. I won't stand for such freakishness in my house."
She sees red.
He doesn't see the slap coming.
"You sick, sick man," she hisses, pushing herself up to her full height after years of making herself look small. Her body thrums with righteous anger and she feels powerful, not unlike that cold afternoon in her family manor where she defied her father for this very man before her. She could scoff at the irony.
"Eileen?"
She slaps him again, the sharp sound ricocheting louder around the room. He looks dazed, and surprisingly, less drunk than before. Was this all he needed to sober up? she wonders. But no—this time, she won't stick around to find out if this could be the way to redeem him. She is done.
A third slap.
Tobias stumbles back on unsteady feet, clutching a hand to one scruffy cheek. "The fuck, Eileen? What's your problem—"
"You! You are my problem!" she screams back at him, and he flinches at the raw fury in her hoarsely cracking voice. A small voice in the back of her mind smugly points out how the tables have turned—it's hardly significant to the hurt she has caused her son, but this could possibly be the start to her atonement.
She advances on Tobias, dark eyes burning as she clenches her fists. Warmth gathers in her palms, but try as she might, no magic sparks forth. She has well and truly suppressed her magic, it seems—but she has no time to dwell on it this time, because she has a task to finish.
"You," she starts, pointing a vicious finger in his face, "are a monster."
Tobias blinks, and the daze in his eyes clears up some more.
"For years—years, Tobias." Her voice cracks again. "Do you have any idea how miserable you've made us? How much you've hurt us? Do you even remember the times you've caused us pain?"
His eyes are wide, darting around half in confusion and half in shock, and when she grabs his wrist to let her message sink in, she lets her nails dig into his fleshy skin.
"You sprained my ankle, you scratched up my arm, you nearly gave me a concussion," she lists off, watching his eyes widen more and more. "You broke my wrist, more than once. You burned my side. And that," she adds, shaking his arm for emphasis, "is by no means the length of the list. Do you want to know what you did to your son?"
Tobias swallows, his eyes darting over to Severus' curled up form on the floor. "I…"
She watches him struggle for a short while before her patience gives out. "I'm leaving," she declares, letting go of his arm. "And I'm taking Severus with me. So congratulations, you're getting your wish. Enjoy life without us."
"Wh-What? Eils?" He stammers in confusion, one hand involuntary reaching towards her. She flinches reflexively—because not even when she is as furious as she is can her body forget that his touch inflicts pain.
She stares back into his red-rimmed eyes, glares at him and walks away.
Crouching at Severus' side as she keeps an eye on her husband, she taps him gently on the shoulder. His muscles shiver, and he looks up at her with wide, teary dark eyes. His cheeks are wet, his face uncommonly filled with colour, and his eyes show fear. It is not right.
"Come on, Severus," she murmurs as decisively as she can, keeping her hand on his shoulder, "We're leaving. Come on."
"M-Mum?" he asks, blinking back the wetness from his lashes, and her heart squeezes in her chest, because she cannot remember the last time he called her that.
"Yes, little prince," she murmurs, brushing back his hair, "I mean it. We're getting out of here. Come on now, you have to help me."
"O-Okay," he whispers, struggling to his feet. She clutches his arm to help him up.
"Eileen, what are you doing?" Tobias says, and she can feel her little boy flinch at his voice. "Eils—Eileen. Stop right there."
She pays him no mind, leading Severus into the hallway and telling him to go to his room and pack the things he wants to take with them. Severus aims his father a wary glance, but he goes.
"Eileen. What is wrong with you? You're being stupid. You can't leave."
"I can and I will," she retorts, spinning around to face him. "This has gone on long enough, Tobias Snape. I'm having it no more."
He wilts, and with his slumped shoulders, he looks like a broken man. "I… I'm sorry. I'm so sorry, Eileen. I won't… I'll stop, I'll stop drinking, please. Don't leave. I love you."
Her eyes fix on him, pained. Isn't this what she wanted? For him to come back to her? For him to stop? But he has promised her this before, and all his past promises have been stacked against her with no resolution. It's too late for him to change.
"You wouldn't keep doing this if you loved me like you say you do," she says with certainty. "If you loved me, you would let me leave."
"But I can't," he stresses, "I need you too much."
"Then, I suppose, you don't love me enough."
She turns around before she can see his face, not wanting the look on her husband to tempt her to stay. She opens the little linen closet in the hallway, the one Tobias wouldn't glance twice at. Going in, she fishes around for her two most priceless treasures in this house.
"What are you doing?" she hears his muffled voice from behind the door.
"Taking what's mine," she mutters to herself. She pulls out the two boxes hidden behind the sheets, one a big wooden box and the other a little blue one. The big box contains all her hidden savings from the past few years, and while she doesn't know if it's enough to get them through, it should suffice till she can get back on her feet again. And the little blue box holds her most precious memories, her old happiness. Her little Severus. She cannot leave it here to rot in this house.
She ignores Tobias as she exits the closest, and his wide eyes watch her disappear into their bedroom. "Get it done quickly now, Severus," she calls to her son, peeking her head out before she goes back in. Even as she ignores her husband, however, she keeps tabs on his position through the corner of her eye, not wanting him to confront her son while she is distracted.
Pulling out an old duffle bag, she stuffs some clothes and other odd items into it. The last of her jewellery. A couple of photographs. Barging into their tiny bathroom, she grabs the nearest toiletries and throws them in too. She hopes she hasn't forgotten anything in her haste, but she cannot afford to linger.
Sometime while she packs, she notices her husband leave, but he doesn't head for her son's room so she doesn't bother going after him.
"Severus?" she calls out when she is done, striding out into the hallway, and Severus opens his own door and comes shuffling out, dragging a worn duffle bag of his own. "Ready? Good."
When they make their way out to the sitting room again, the first thing they see is the newly opened bottle in Tobias' hand. She notices that he doesn't seem to have taken long to revert back to his drunken, aggressive self.
The second he spots them, he sets his bottle down on the table nearly with a clunk.
She lifts up her chin. "Goodbye, Tobias."
"Get out," he growls, thankfully staying where he is. "Now." She swallows, but listens. This is the last time she'll ever listen to him.
"Come on, Severus," she murmurs, taking his hand, and they both leave.
When they walk out the door, neither of them look back.
.oOo.
"Mum."
The quiet voice pulls her out of her musing, and she glances down at the boy attached to her hand. This is the second time he's addressed her as such, and she wonders now how all these years, she didn't consider leaving Tobias worth it to have this.
Mum.
"What do we do?" Severus asks her, dragging his feet as he walks beside her. When he looks up, his eyes are once again filled with fear.
"We'll be fine, my little prince," she replies, "I'll make sure of it."
"Okay," he says, looking back ahead. And as they cross another street, "Where are we going?"
"Right now?" she asks, "We're going to find a nice little inn to stay in for the night. And tomorrow, we'll go to my old hometown and we'll find a place to stay there."
"Okay."
They walk on in silence.
"I should have done this sooner," she murmurs to herself. Severus looks up, but he doesn't say anything. His silence, however, speaks volumes in agreement. She sighs. "I've failed you, Severus, and for that I am sorry. But… we're going to make the best of this, alright? I promise to take care of you from now on. Properly, as a mother should."
Severus shrugs silently, but aims her another look, this one less hostile.
"What about Lily?" he asks after a while.
"What about her?"
Severus' lips turn down. "Lily was my friend. I'm never going to see her again, am I?"
She frowns for a moment, thinking of a way to console him before a thought strikes. "You said that you think Lily was magic?"
It's Severus' turn to frown. "I know that Lily is magic."
"Well, if she is a witch, and you are a wizard, then you will see her at Hogwarts," she explains with a small smile, "And you'll get to go to Hogwarts when you're eleven, so that's only a few years from now, isn't it?"
Severus' eyes grow wide. "I can go to Hogwarts?"
"You're magic too, aren't you?" she says with a sad smile, dragging a light hand through his hair. He doesn't push it away. "So talented, my little prince. Of course you're going to Hogwarts. You'll get your letter, Severus."
He smiles at this, a soft, content one. "We're going to be okay?"
"We're going to be okay," she confirms, taking his hand again. Looking up, she spots a sign come into view in the distance, bold letters spelling out Cormorant Inn in grimy but relieving certainty.
Her forehead is clammy from walking in the afternoon summer sun, the strap of her duffle digs into her shoulder and the hard edges of her precious wooden money box poke insistently into her side. Severus' grip is tight on her hand, and their selected shelter for the night looks in no way clean.
So this is what freedom feels like.
She'll take it.
[May] Writing Club:
Bromance to Romance: Dialogue: "What's your problem—" / "You! You are my problem!"
Record Collection: She Don't Know Me, Mullally: Write about realising that you were wrong about someone.
Written in the Stars: (trait) inflexible
Book Club: Hrothgar: (emotion) sadness, (plot point) waiting, (trait) intelligent, (relationship) father
Showtime: He Lives in You (reprise) - (restriction) Character under 11 years
Lizzy's Loft: (plot point) Finding out you're going to be a parent (BONUS)
Elizabeth's Empire: (platonic pairing) James Sirius&Hugo Weasley / alt. (song) Left Behind - Spring Awakening
Liza's Loves: Great A'Tuin (Discword) - Write about someone carrying a large weight (doesn't have to be a physical weight)
Angel's Archive: Crookshanks: (scenario) Sensing something or someone is bad/wrong
Scamander's Case: (plot point) attacking someone
Film Festival: (Action) Shouting
Marvel Appreciation: Sakaar: (plot point) Physical fight
Lyric Alley: I've tried to be patient
TV Spree: Kelso: Plot Point: Write about someone in charge
The Forecast Says: 14th: Sunny: Dangerous
EnTitled: The Harvest - Write about a strained relationship with a parent
Hobby Hole: Song: Dancing on My Own - Robyn / alt. "Stilettos and broken bottles, I'm spinning around in circles."
Gen's World Tour: Zinedine Zidane - Write about someone losing their temper
Resolution Evolution (Writing): Write a fic with the following trope: In Vino Veritas
Spring Seasonal Challenges
Days of the Year & Religious Events: March 22nd - As Young As You Feel Day - Write a De-Aging fic.
Aquarium Month: Filtration system - Write about someone cleaning.
Karaoke Week: These Boots are Made for Walkin' - Nancy Sinatra
World Theatre Day: Moulin Rouge!AU - alt: 'Love makes us act like we are fools'
Crayon Day: Antique Brass
Children's Book Day: The Cowardly Lion - (Trait) Coward
World Autism Day: Write about someone feeling anxious.
Zoo Lover's Day: Penguin - Write about two people who are together for many years.
Siblings Day: Lily & Petunia Evans
Space Day: Uranus - Trope: Childhood Friends
Spring Colours: Robin Egg
Spring Flowers: Bluebell - "You wouldn't keep doing this if you loved me like you say you do."
Locations: Park
Crystals and Gemstones: Sunstone - (weather) Sunshine
Hufflepuff Challenge: Horses Through a Rainstorm - CSNY: Write about someone playing it safe
Brand Wars: Valkyrie - Brunnhilde
Plot Point: Falling off the radar
Trait: Drunk
Action: Burping
Color: Platinum
Genre: Suspense
[May] Geek Pride: Divergent - (Prompt 2) Plot Point: Making a choice
[May] Build-A-Book: Villain - (emotion) rage
[May] Founder Says: (Salazar's Angst) "Get out. Now."
[May] Pop Figures (Fantastic Beasts): Jacob Kowalski: (Character Type) Muggle
[May] Fortnightlies:
Bon Appétit!: (Appetisers) Fried Macaroni and Cheese - (AU) Muggle
Throwback Tunes: I Want To Break Free - Queen (1984): Write about someone breaking free from a bad situation. [BONUS]