Severus woke from sleep reluctantly, his face burrowed against the scratchy wool blanket. He was all turned around, and the limbs that had curled around him the previous night were stretched now, his bare feet upon the pillow.
Outside, the sun was shining an annoyingly cheerful yellow. Everything was fresh and new, the way it always is after a heavy summer downpour. The withered grass had been reborn a verdant carpet, cool underfoot, and the sun had coaxed the flowers to unfurl, revealing colourful blossoms to attract the circling bees. The last of the previous night's rainwater dripped slowly through the leaf-clogged gutters, tap, tap, tap, and in the distance a dog barked, defending its property from intruding squirrels. Severus opened one eye and uttered a sound that was half a violent sob, half a helpless whimper.
His skin felt stretched, yet at the same time shrunken, dragged across the rigid features of his face hot and close. His cheeks were stained with salt from last night's tears, and his violated mouth tasted of come and his own coppery blood. The pain in his side, which had subsided to a dull ache in sleep, was intense. Severus gritted his teeth and drew his hand up, his fingers gingerly exploring, tracing the smooth curve of the bones until they united with his spine. Nothing felt broken, which came as no surprise; Severus had never broken a bone in his life, despite the abuse his body had tolerated at Tobias' hands.
As yesterday's memories flooded him, Severus found himself sobbing hard, so violently that his body quaked, upsetting his bruised side and sore limbs. It hurt, and worse it added to his complete and utter humiliation, but Severus found he could not stop. He hated the slickness of his mouth, the dabs of crimson streaked across the blanket, and the recollection ineffectual struggle of the previous day, which he failed to win. Tears, hot and somehow sticky, dripped down his face in big, rotund droplets, streaking along the salt trails of their predecessors and wetting the bedclothes. He wept.
He had not done so since childhood, despite the routine battles of the hallways and the names they had for him at school, the worst of all being Snivellus, uttered like a dagger from Sirius Black's lips, striking him straight in the heart. He'd admired Black, admired Potter too, on that first anxious train ride to school. They had loomed so large, two beautiful purebloods like the kind his mother had sometimes spoken of, the recollection creasing her lips into a smile. They wore crisp, new robes, not faded hand-me-downs like the ones Severus had, his dead uncle's ill-fitting cloak wrapped around his shoulders, but Severus had more admired the way they grinned and laughed, looking like they belonged. With their books and their broomsticks, they had ruled the halls by second year. Even the older girls, the giddy, chubby-cheeked Hufflepuffs and studious Ravenclaws with beautiful figures hiding underneath the drape of robes, had known of Sirius Black and James Potter, the troublesome twosome, those beautiful Gryffindor boys.
They had never given Severus a second glance. When he quoted, from memory, the ancient tomes he had discovered in the attic, they laughed at him, and when he tried, despite his ungainly limbs, to fly, they'd shoved him from his broom into the dirt, amused at his pallor, his awkwardness. Nothing pleased them, and Severus never knew why. They'd taken up with Remus Lupin, after all, who was the quietest boy in school after Severus, his amber eyes always studiously watchful, hands clasped around books. They had chosen Lupin over Severus, embracing Lupin's silent curiosity while rejecting him, who knew more about the Dark arts than any of them ever would.
He had grown to hate them all by third year, when James, in bored moments, tried to cheer Sirius by hexing him, making the parchment he had worked on for hours burst into sudden flame, stripping the clothes from his body, giving him fangs, antlers, additional sets of ears, making him levitate and then fall with a comical crash. He had found his own friends: shadow boys like himself, who snarled after hours, in the dark cool of the common room. Among them, Severus described his vengeful fantasies without fear of retribution, letting his hair fall over his face to hide his wary eyes, listening to the hatred that brewed among them like some mysterious potion biding its time, and he had never cried. But now, the wool blanket working up a heat rash on his chin and forehead, Severus cried like he would never stop, hating himself more with every spilt tear, listening to the hitch and catch of his throat, the wet burst of emotion from his lips, until at last he had cried out every remnant of sorrow and rose, somewhat unsteadily, onto his elbows. He slid from the bed, making his slow, painstaking way to the bathroom.
The bathroom tile was cool and clammy, and Severus nearly sank down against it, welcoming the chill against his bruised skin, but he could not bear the slick sweat of his body anymore. Grabbing a cloth from the sink, he climbed into the shower, letting the water beat a steady rhythm against his sore shoulders and back. It dripped, icy, down his back, but although his skin called out for the embrace of heated water, Severus refused to turn the hot tap on. It was punishment, the prickles of cold that beaded down his skin, washing away the dirt of the previous day's encounter. Severus let the water sting him, numb him, as he lathered shampoo into his hair, wincing at the feel of the soap against the places in his scalp where his father's fingernails had gouged him.
For a long time, Severus let the water run. At first he stood, then later he sank down to his scraped knees, kneeling as if at prayer, his hands on the white porcelain beneath him, cold water on his skin, the fresh scent of shampoo in his nostrils. His hair, the same length as Sirius Black's gleaming locks (for hatred did not stop Severus from longing to emulate Sirius in every way) fell over his face, shading him. In his mind's eye, he saw his father stomping up, unhitching his belt, lowering his trousers. The roar of falling water was not enough to blot out the eerie hitch and cough in his throat as the silent war between himself and tears waged. He perched there, on all fours, his head bent so that his nose touched the shower mat, remembering.
"I didn't!"
"You did!" Tobias' voice boomed down the hallway, sliding in through the crack between the door and the floor, meeting Severus' ears. "Don't lie to me -- slap --bitch!"
Severus bit his lip, turning away from the sound of his mother crying. He wanted to have the nerve of a hero, to rush outside and defend her, leap onto Tobias' back and pummel him into unconsciousness, but Severus Snape was no hero, not after what had happened the previous night. He had brushed his teeth four times, spitting green froth into the sink and rinsing with copious amounts of spearmint mouthwash, but his mouth still tasted dirty. He wished no repeat incident.
"You're drunk!" came the retaliatory call.
"Two litres of dandelion wine to each quarter ounce of Hemlock stem," Severus recited to himself softly, his fingers exploring the smooth, aged parchment of the text he was attempting to read. "Two litres wine, quarter ounce of Hemlock stem." For some reason, it seemed of vital importance to remember that. Severus was certain, in that daydreaming, delirious way of someone indulging in magical thinking, that if he could only recite from memory the directions for each precise potion contained in the Complix Cordevaras potions manual, it would all be over. He would return to Hogwarts clean again, without that slimy sensation in his mouth, unafraid. He squeezed his eyes tightly closed, trying to remember the Rosemont formula for a poison nicknamed Serendipity. "Brew at eighteen degrees for two minutes over blue flame, stirring clockwise every four seconds."
"Leave me alone," Eileen shrieked, and there was a frantic scramble right outside Severus' bedroom door. Eileen clutched the door handle, shaking and twirling the knob in a desperate bid for entrance, while Tobias slammed his fists into the small of her back.
Severus kept his eyes closed, remaining motionless in his chair, hands clapped over his ears, which did nothing to drown out the sound. "Second stage," he said out loud, his voice shaky. "Five drops of willow sap, added in a star-shaped pattern: top left, bottom centre, top right, middle left, middle right. Continue brewing over low heat for forty minutes, stirring clockwise once each minute."
"Severus!"
Go away, Severus thought, and perhaps whispered. Go away and never come back, both of you. Curling his fingers to form a fist, Severus opened his eyes, glaring at the closed door as if glaring at his father. I hate you. He clutched the Potions manual to his chest as if hugging a lover, desperate for a return to the world of vanilla and absinthe, of toad's legs and dragon scales, where brews boiled violently over an open flame, and there were no parents shrieking in the hallway.
After a time, the noises died down. Severus heard the heavy fall of Tobias' old work-boots moving away, the slamming of the front door as his father went out into the star-dazzled night. Laying the Potions book aside, he rose timidly from his desk and cautiously opened the bedroom door, not knowing what to expect, only certain it would be bad.
It was. His mother sat on the floor, her knees pulled up against her chest, hands over her face. Her hair was a mess, flyaway strands darting out to all angles. Blood pooled from her nose, streaking down her face.
"Well don't just stand there," she said briskly, clearing her throat and steadying herself as she saw him standing in the doorway, fixing her with a look of apprehension and anger. She dabbed at her eyes with the back of her hand and wiped her nose on her sleeve, childlike. "Help me up."
"Why do you let him?" Severus asked, but there was no passion in his voice. He had asked the question a multitude of times, but never received a coherent answer. You're a witch, he sometimes said, energy brightening his black eyes. You could do something! He was nothing if not a conscientious researcher, and he had studied the methods in the Restricted Section of Hogwarts, the various poisons that slowed the heart, undetectable to Muggle science. The Killing Curse, deadly in its efficiency. You could end this! But his mother's response was always the same.
"What are you going on about? He's your father!" Eileen snapped, climbing to her feet and dusting off her skirt, as if she had merely fallen. Reaching up, she caught Severus' face in her hands, tilting his head so she could deliver a kiss to his forehead. "Merlin knows he's got his faults, but he's a good man underneath."
The words stung someplace deep inside, but Severus was in no mood to investigate. He touched the corner of his mouth gingerly and raked back his hair with his fingernails. "Do you want some tea?"
Eileen waved away the offer. "No, no, I think I'll just go to bed for a while. I'm so tired." She stifled a yawn, her face blank but her eyes betraying sympathy, regret. She touched Severus' shoulder, then offered a wan smile. Patting his hand, she looked at him sternly. "Be a good boy, Severus. Don't argue with your father when he gets home."
Wrenching his hand from his mother's grip, Severus took a lurching step backwards. It was his mother, the same familiar form he had known since birth, and yet, at the same time, she was not. He cringed, remember his father's attack. Hadn't she been at home? he tried desperately to remember. Why didn't she hear? There was an apology in the glassy sheen of her eyes, but something else too; her mouth was set, hardened, blame tracing lines around her lips.
"I'll be in my room." It was his protective voice, dead, refusing to betray the slightest feeling. The one he used in unprotected hallways, climbing to his feet after a hex felled him, stubbornly clinging to the shabby remnants of his pride even as he burned inside, drowning in humiliation, in wanting to belong.
His knees were weak when he sank back down to his desk, and his fingers on the manual shook. She knew, whispered a traitorous part of his mind, and Severus bared his teeth like a dog holding its ground, shaking his head, disbelieving. He thought of the damage she had withstood, the toll Tobias had taken on her body. His mother, lying white-faced and apologetic in hospital, blooms of purple shading her cheeks. He'd known too, for years and years, and yet he had never stopped it either. Theirs was a shared guilt, and they were both condemned to suffer it in silence.
The smack of leather across the polished floor roused Severus from his thoughts. He turned towards the door, already knowing what he would see.