warning: character held at gunpoint; if you aren't comfortable with it, skip the entire part of Tobias' POV

"I find it things went awry with your old friend, Mr. Lupin?"

That disembodied voice spoke out of Remus' own thoughts as he read the news of what happened during James and Lily's wedding for the umpteenth time, wondering when exactly had things gone wrong. If only Sirius was still around, he could give James some logical advices… but he had killed him with his own hands, didn't he?

Should he still care for his friends, who threw him in Azkaban without much thought? Had they tolerated him just for being the outlier, got to be exempted from many rules during their school years?

At that, Remus quickly shook his head. James was the leader of the Marauders; surely he and Peter would do just fine fighting under Dumbledore's orders to win the war. But he was conflicted to be on whose side as of now.

"I do believe it's time for us to make our escape," the phantom spoke into his mind and Remus could barely register the words before everything went black.

When he came back to his senses, he found himself to be blindfolded and restrained to… something. It was as if he was lying on a wooden platform, and his limbs were stretched so far and tied tightly that he felt very uncomfortable.

A series of footsteps – two or three of them, he noted – approached him, and Remus found himself to be glad to hear the mysterious voice again. "Don't be afraid of him, he is your benefactor for your escape," it said rather giddily, "the least you can do is to be a good pup."

Pup?

As his blindfold was thrown aside, Remus tried to scream only to gasp out faint, panicked breaths when he saw who it was.

"Hello, little wolf." Fenrir Greyback grinned.

"I'm telling you, that boy is a menace."

Albus Dumbledore could only sigh to himself as he heard Alastor Moody was ranting on and on about the one person that had been playing in their mind ever since he made his reappearance after a year in James and Lily Potter's marriage.

Severus Snape.

The unexpected news over the two's coupling out of wedlock was such a shock it remained being the headlines of the Daily Prophet for almost three days, with scornful eyes trailing after them and spiteful whispers entered their ears on a regular basis even to this day. The Potters were by means not as famous as the Blacks and the Malfoys but James' father, Fleamont did create a wondrous hair potion and for the son to do such act… well, it was more than just a disgraceful mistake as Snape had put words to it.

"As much as a troublemaker he was, one can't deny the brilliant mind he has, Alastor," the wizened wizard muttered. Indeed, it had been nearly two months since the marriage fiasco and Snape was featured on the newspaper again, this time for his third-degree Order of Merlin for creating a new cure to the dragon pox disease. On the parchment, the young man's dour expression stared ahead monotonously, though Albus could see his eyes were subtly glinted with pride as he held the award given by Minister Milicent Bagnold.

"And that's what you got to recruit him into our cause?" Moody questioned with a raised eyebrow. "I don't believe you. He already made it clear that he hated your guts on that day."

"I'm only human, Alastor; sure was a surprise to know no one despise me even once," Albus said morosely, "but I do think we can get quite the benefits of having an extraordinary Potions Master in our hands." He hated how those people looked up to him like some saint whose words had to be revered by others after he defeated Gellert Grindelwald. It was why he thought Snape would make a better leader than him, as seen with his intricate plan to expose Remus Lupin's condition.

In a way, he was glad to be stripped off from most of his positions.

Moody snorted, "You told me he's once friends with Lily Evans-Potter?"

"Yes; it's the reason why I believed we could still reel him in, to ensure the safety of his oldest friend and in turn, of us all."

The other man narrowed his eyes. "Your talk of love may sound rubbish, but suit yourself." With that, he left the old wizard to his own thoughts, who wondered how else they could try to win the ensuing war. Flipping through the newspaper, Albus sighed on the next issue that plagued his mind.

Remus Lupin had escaped from Azkaban for almost a month now, and was still nowhere to be seen.

Tobias Snape was by no means a great man.

He knew he was an outsider to the other two members of his family from the moment he knew their secrets, so was it wrong for him to balance the sides for a bit? Was it really his fault for establishing a fearful household just so that he could live for another day; that he was not to be trodden by the two? Where logic was almost nonexistent due to strange forces called magic?

"Please," he heard Eileen mutter and he almost sighed audibly at her pathetic voice. Why couldn't she be like the damned boy? At least he knew when to be quiet and to avoid his sight in general, not groveling over his feet like some damsel.

(He used to like such attention, but nowadays it only made him sick. And besides, it wasn't like he was going to use his new weapon out of fun. He already got a license for it especially after reading about some unnatural attacks in the newspapers. Yes, he had reasoned to himself, it was only for protection; nothing more, and nothing less. Eileen would be grateful to him when she finally saw the truth.)

Three knocks on the wooden door startled him out of his thoughts and after checking the safety was on, Tobias put his weapon in his jacket's inner pocket while Eileen opened the door to see who it was.

"…Severus?" she started, and he couldn't help noticing the slight lilt in her voice. "Here to celebrate Christmas?" Stepping aside, she let their estranged son in with a weak smile.

Tobias merely huffed under his breath, barely listening in to the two's conversation after a quick lunch (Severus had brought along some food from wherever he stayed at) and he briefly frowned upon seeing the wooden cane in the other man's left hand and a brown owl on his right shoulder, muttering in distaste to himself on how old-fashioned wizards were.

But then something caught his eyes and he quickly readied his weapon.

"What are ye wearing at yer eyes?" he barked, "Ye think I'm that daft, eh; to be fooled by some colored lenses! Ye must have poisoned us back then!" He cocked his gun with a click.

Tobias might have been a drunkard over the recent years but when he was sober, he was observant; very much so. And he knew enough that with the exception of the nose, the mother and the son were nearly identical of each other.

Right now, the difference of the eyes already told him much.

"NO!" Taken aback, Eileen cried out and she stood in defense for the newcomer, her sallow face was grief-stricken. "A- Ask him questions, Toby, then we will truly know who this is!" She then grabbed a small mirror that was hanging on the wall and turned to the supposed impostor. "Take them off if you want to live!"

The man who was wearing his son's face had his eyes widened in both puzzlement and horror before he hastily took out a handkerchief and wiped his hands, with Tobias and Eileen watched closely as he carefully took out the black contact lenses to see what their true color was after he kept the lenses in a capsule.

It was a pair of orange eyes.

"Ye bugger-!" he started, pointing the gun right at the possible impostor's face but when Eileen shrieked in terror again, he clicked his tongue in utmost frustration and asked the man who he was.

(He might be prone to anger, however he took time to listen to his wife's requests; that counted as being a good husband, right?)

"I am Severus Snape, born on 9th January of 1960. My parents are Tobias Snape and Eileen Prince," the man uttered shakily, holding his cane in a tight grip. The brown owl too, had its orange eyes wide; claws digging into the silk cloak he was wearing.

"Anyone could've said that!" Tobias roared, "Tell us something that only the three of us knew!"

"I'm not supposed to be here in the first place!"

Silence quickly fell into the house, and with a grimace Tobias watched as Eileen shook her head tearfully, seemingly reminded of that fateful day nearly twenty years ago.

"W- When I was four, you told me I nearly didn't make it through my first day of living, that the winter almost got me," the boy – his son – said, his strange orange eyes looked up to him defiantly, "It's why you named me 'Severus', because I already had it rough since I was born."

"Your eyes…" Eileen began slowly.

"It's a potions accident, Ma." He sighed before looking back at Tobias. "…Was that enough reason to prove that I am your child?" he continued rather timidly, "…Am I to expect this again in the future?"

Tobias could only blink his eyes. But before he managed to utter out an answer, Eileen lifted the boy up and pushed him to the door, causing the cane to slip out of his grip.

"D- Don't bother coming here ever again," he heard her hiss as she passed the wooden cane back into their son's hand, "Merlin knows what's going in his head. I already made my choice, Severus. Just… just go on living where you're supposed to be. You are already a better person than I was."

The boy didn't get to say another word when she slammed the door in his face.

When Eileen turned to him with teary eyes before going to the basement, Tobias couldn't help but to wonder: was it really his fault to protect himself against wizards who could change their appearances at will? That he would someday not know who was the real person and the fake one?

What was exactly the right thing to do in the midst of a possible, unknown attack?

Lord Voldemort had not expected much as he followed Severus Prince to his parents' house in Spinner's End, Cokeworth on Christmas in his Animagus form. He even wondered how the young man's life was during his childhood years, seeing that the house was draped with different shades of grey and covered in soot. Was Severus striving to be part of his Death Eaters to improve his mother's life? That the Statute of Secrecy should be changed so that wizards could have equal rights to defend themselves from wayward Muggles?

He certainly didn't foresee such fright from his heir when Tobias Snape pointed a gun mere inches from their faces, questioning whether they were in disguises or entirely being someone else. The Dark Lord admitted it had been decades since he directly got in touch with the Muggles (no, the meetings with Vernon and Petunia Dursley didn't count) and for the elderly man to hold onto such item… it was a miracle that Severus managed to stay calm and they got out of there alive.

But the young man didn't return to Prince Manor straight away. Instead, after a long time of him trying to sort out what had happened just then, Severus went to the park.

The thin blanket of snow crunched under his feet as he walked, with his wooden cane made a faint thud in every other step. Lord Voldemort didn't know whether he should fly away and let Severus have a moment of peace, but a mere glance from the young man told him otherwise so he stayed on his shoulder.

When they reached a huge oak tree, Severus sat at its base and he leant against the trunk with closed eyes. "Heh, sure didn't expect that from him," he finally spoke as he ran his spidery fingers along his hair.

The Dark Lord hopped off from his perch and after transforming back into his human form, he could only watched in gradual horror as Severus huddled close to the tree and kept muttering to himself, "It's not like I hadn't seen death right in the eye or anything; I should've gotten used to this... Why? What did I even do..?"

Steeling himself, Lord Voldemort crouched opposite of the young man and gently shook his shoulders, "Severus?"

But he remained lost in his own mind, orange eyes were wide and his visage was utterly white.

"Severus!"

"What?" With a blink, Severus looked at him as if in a daze.

"…What do you mean, you had seen death?"

There was a moment of silence before Severus laughed bitterly. It was so jarring to the Dark Lord's ears; Severus had never laughed out loud. His laughter was often soft, with him partially covering his mouth to stifle most of it. "How else do you think I knew of Lupin being a werewolf?" he asked.

"I- I thought…" Lord Voldemort almost stammered, already dreading the answer, "I thought you figured it out by yourself, reading books and all that."

"Yes, I did all of that, but I was also naïve," Severus sighed morosely; the Dark Lord noted in utmost relief that his heir was distracted enough. "I had known that they were up to no good, but I wasn't satisfied with only the descriptions from the books. When Black- Sirius Black, that is; when he told me of the way to bypass the Whomping Willow, it had seemed the right thing to do, to see what it was, you know."

Lord Voldemort could only nod, remembering well how Severus liked to see something by himself, to make his own observations rather than taking accounts from other people.

"I… I just couldn't look away from it," Severus went on, "I practically recounted the damned thing when I was answering the question in the D.A.D.A written exam for the O.W.Ls, had even hoped for the Ministry to come over but…"

At that, the Dark Lord frowned. Could it be that Severus' answer was so detailed that the examiners did not take it seriously, seeing that no one really survived an encounter with such creature without getting bitten?

It was all the more reason for him to win the war at a faster rate. To make a better world so that everything was in order, where no one should ever face the same horrifying events like his heir did.

"I- At least I could see the old man's reasoning for having the gun," Severus muttered, and Lord Voldemort braced himself for the inevitable. But much to his surprise, the young man only heaved out a sigh before taking his cane and got up.

A squeak entered their ears and with a quick Accio, a rat shot into the Dark Lord's hand with Severus' face contorted into an enraged expression upon seeing it.

"Pettigrew."