Chapter 107: The Rift Between A Father And A Son
{A/N: Here's Another Update...Happy Birthday To My Late Grandfather {R.G. .}...R.I.P old man...late post}
{Sept. 2nd, 2016}
My Thanks To All My Readers And Reviewers...Enjoy-S.S
Summer 1975,Spinner's End, Cokeworth, England, Muggle World...
Blaring notes of heart pounding rock music filled the empty space of Severus Snape's cramped bedroom. It had been neat, like a walk in closet that didn't quite live up to it's potential with a worn old mattress regularly set out in the sun to avoid nasty cases of bedbugs or an infestation of fleas draped over a tattered box spring and lovingly covered with old worn sheets eaten by moths despite the obvious care taken to maintain them with little to no resources. The colors were dark as was everything in that place. It had been the kind of room that a little frightened boy might go to hide in the darkness from the monster that was his drunken brute of a father whenever he went on a rampage due to bills or lack of food.
The social awkward raven haired wizard had been brooding his way through a good book when he heard the sound of shattering glass, making a mental note not to travel to the kitchen for a drink of semi-rancid water should the need arise without proper footwear had been at the forefront of his mind upon note of the harsh sound.
"YOU TURN THAT FUCK FRUIT BOY MUSIC DOWN YOU LITTLE FREAK BEFORE I COME UP THERE AND TEACH YOU HOW TO BEHAVE!" shouted a drunken Tobias Snape as he stumbled through the sitting room below.
Not wishing to cause further trouble for his mother, Snape did as his so-called father asked.
He had only been back for the summer and already he longed for the Hogwarts Express to come and take him back to the school. For all it's faults and Gryffindors, Hogwarts was his home away from home...and at least he could have a decent meal there.
Things were quiet for a bit and Severus decided to take a bit of a nap. He had been rather exhausted from his travels between worlds and watching his back on the train.
An Hour later...
Severus awoke to the sound of flesh hitting flesh in a series of hard resounding slaps. Followed by a loud rumbling and finally a crash as someone fell to the floor. In seconds, the dour teenage wizard had been out of his bed and racing down the stairs. He hit her. He knew he had hit her. He always did. Severus reached the stairs and found himself face to face with his father. The brute had still been a big as a star muggle athlete of his caliber can be. Severus had still been a lean thing with hardly any muscle mass to speak of but he had inherited his father's towering height as well as his explosive temper.
Whenever the two of them were around each other it was like two wolves competing for the title of alpha. Ironically, Severus had never been much for the spotlight or overwhelming power. He was far more content to lurk in the shadows. That was until the drunken brute saw fit to lay his hands on his long suffering mother.
"YOU USELESS BITCH!" shouted Tobias enraged.
Severus saw only the image of his mother in a trembling heap sobbing on the floor of the kitchen and immediately his magic radiated off him in violent waves. He had not known where he had gotten the strength but he found himself going toe to toe with his drunken brute of a father. He had nearly lost control when his mother...of all people stopped him from delivering the killing blow.
Tobias had been bloodied and dazed as he staggered along the kitchen not yet comprehending that his son had delivered one of the most brutal of beating to him.
"Severus." said Eileen still sobbing at the fury that enveloped her son.
The teenage raven haired wizard backed away from the mess that was his father.
"Go to your room." said Eileen in a shaky tone. "I-I'll fix this...just..."
"He hit you mother." said Severus annoyed that she was going to try and salvage this bastard's ego via a well placed memory suppressing charm.
"Do as I say." demanded the weary older witch.
Severus sighed.
His mother had often taken to these drastic measures to give his father the illusion that he had still been the strapping athlete of old. Despite the fact that his son could wipe the floor with him given his new abilities and temperament.
The teenage wizard made his way up the stairs. He saw no real reason to keep up the charade, he had hated the bastard muggle and everything he stood for. The only reason he ever came back to this stinking dump in the middle of a cesspool was his mother. Whom he had loved as much as she had loved him. Despite their apparent distance, they had more in common than many people would believe.
Severus had once asked Eileen why she elected to put up with all that Tobias had done to them. The weary witch merely sighed and told him that she loved the man that he had been before the drunken brute took over, and it was because of that man...that she bothered to love him. The teenager scoffed at the notion of his mother purposely staying in what was a bad situation being made worse because of a four letter word and romanticized view of a man that no longer exists, a man whom Severus was sure never existed.
Love.
A pathetic, unnerving sickness that makes perfectly intelligent people into drooling fools, and the strongest of many weaker than the lowest specimen.
A one sided devotion leading one to uncertain doom.
That was how Severus Sebastian Snape viewed love.
At least until he was forced to marry Hermione Granger.
Then he began to understand the difference between real untouchable love an emotion more precious than the purest gold and more powerful than the strongest potion. Potent and refined not at all shaped by time nor space. It was something that not even he with his intellectual capacity at an all time high for his graduation year, could fathom.
The more the Potions Master thought about it, the more he began to realize what he had felt for Bellatrix and all the others was complex lust. What his mother felt for the drunken brute Tobias was merely an infatuation. What he felt for Lily Evans in their early days as best friends had been his love of the idea of her, a pure...good hearted witch with brains and loyalty beyond measure...he had not noticed that he had already acquired the necessary aspect of yearning needed for the introduction to his true hearts desire...Hermione.
This bushy haired witch had been destined for him as he was for her. And in that destined union their eldest son's birth only served to strengthen that bond.
Hogwarts Castle, Scotland, Wizarding World...
A cold reception had not at all been what Snape expected when he arrived at Hogwarts to see his elusive older son. Phaeron seemed to have been quite busy as of late with all the studying and chasing after his girlfriend. Severus had warned him time and time again that the girl was not all that she seemed. This only proved to make Phaeron draw away from him citing him as being intentionally rude to Ursula due to his past as a death eater. The dour wizard tried to get it through his stubborn boy's head that Bellatrix LeStrange, an old enemy of the family had been whom he was really dating. Even going so far as to prove to him that Ursula Black was a deceased old witch whom had lived long before even his parents were born and a great decedent of Bellatrix. She was also the wife of former Slytherin Headmaster Phineas N. Black.
"At least tell me what's going on with you." said Snape concerned about his son's drastic appearance. "Why do you look as if you have been malnourished?"
Phaeron rolled his eyes.
"I don't need your concern old man." he said in a bitter tone. "I've gotten along for most of my life without it."
Snape ignored the blatant remark about him not being around for much of his son's life, mostly due to Potter's antics in the second wizarding war.
"Phaeron...your mother is just as concerned as I am about what's been going on with you." he said keeping his temper in check.
"Tell her there is nothing to worry about." spat the annoyed teenage wizard. "I'm fine...no need to send the aurors...I just want to do my own thing."
"Your friends tell me you haven't been hanging around them much." said Snape with a raised eyebrow. "Any particular reason?"
"Why don't you lay off!" shouted Phaeron clearly annoyed by the interrogation from his father. "I was doing my classwork and I've got a couple tests coming up...sue me if I don't have time standing about and chatting about foolish things."
Snape folded his arms across his ebony clad chest. He looked Phaeron over for quite some time before he noted the boy would not be giving much insight into his day to day.
"Now if you're done with this pointless interrogation..." started Phaeron waving his father off dismissively.
Suddenly Snape caught sight of the eerie tattoo on his son's left forearm.
With the speed of a viper, Snape grabbed the protesting teenage wizard's arm and held it up for close examination.
"What the fuck is this!?" asked Snape so shocked his rage seemed to break through to the surface.
"Let go of my arm!" shouted Phaeron attempting to snatch away for him.
Snape's hold was solid and the boy did not budge. The obsidian eyes of the Potions Master had been a glow with unrelenting fury.
"Answer my question." said Snape in a dangerously low tone.
Phaeron rolled his eyes as if he had been un-phased by his father's anger.
"It's just a tattoo..." he said as if it were an every day teenage thing. "No big deal."
Snape couldn't believe his son would be so stupid as to brand himself with such a hateful symbol.
"No big deal?" he asked in a voice dripping with sarcasm. "YOUR MOTHER AND I LIVED THROUGH THE WORST HELL YOU COULD IMAGINE THAT WAS THE SECOND WIZARDING WAR...I HAVE BEEN IMPRISONED, HATED, TORTURED, AND SCORNED BECAUSE OF THIS FUCKING MARK AND YOU GO AND BRAND YOURSELF WITH IT!"
"I said it's no big deal." said Phaeron. "You, Draco, and Lucius have the tattoo what's so wrong with me getting it?"
"Stupid boy." said Snape so angry he had been nearly ready to strike the clueless Phaeron. "If your mother sees this..."
"It's just a tattoo." said Phaeron rolling his eyes again. "It's not like Voldy is going to show up and demand I be in his service."
Snape could take no more of the boy's insolence. He grabbed the raven haired Slytherin teen with both hands and held him against the wall until his feet dangled slightly due to the couple inches of height lacking to rival his father's size.
"You stupid insolent child, you are not me nor will you ever be me...I don't care how many times you stick your cock into that derange bitch's cunt...I fought like hell to give you the kind of life I never had and would not have even dreamed of...your mother has made sacrifice after sacrifice for you and this is how you repay her?" growled the angry Potions Master. "By wearing the mark of the fucking despot I've spent two fucking wars trying to kill...a despot who would not have hesitated to murder you the second he found out that you were the spawn of a Muggle-Born witch for that matter...wearing this fucking mark is a spit in the face of all those who have died to ensure you had a future!"
"Take your hands off me!" demanded Phaeron showing a little fury of his own.
The raised voices of Snape and Phaeron had gotten the attention of a passing fourth year Slytherin and they immediately went of to fetch Draco Malfoy who had floo called his father Lucius whom had also joined him in the Slytherin common room where the dispute had taken place.
The Slytherin Common Room, Hogwarts, Wizarding World...
Snape had been understandably furious as he glared rather murderously at his disrespectful son. The boy had the audacity to have that mark on him, that tattoo that had represented all of the Potions Master's failings and sorrow, and private demons that threatened to come to the surface. He had not been face to face with his eldest son with Hermione Granger, but with his own arrogant, needy, weak, past self...the version of himself that had gotten Lily Evans and James Potter killed, the part of him that needed to belong so badly to a particular group that he became the very monster he hated his entire life.
"You disgust me." said Snape bitterly as he threw his son in the opposite direction of the room.
Phaeron had not seemed phased by this as he scrambled to his feet and dusted off his robes.
"That's rich coming from a rapist, a murder, and a coward all rolled into one." he spat bitterly.
Without a single thought or a measure of control Severus Snape drew back his hand and slapped Phaeron across his sallow pale face. The blow had caught not only Phaeron who had immediately brought his hand to his aching red cheek by surprise but also Lucius and Draco as they entered the room.
"Severus!" said Lucius stunned.
Never in a million years would he have believed what he just witnessed.
The handsome blond raced over to his enraged old friend and pulled him away from the younger wizard before he did any major damage. Phaeron noted that his lip had been bleeding from the very calculated blow and licked the blood away. His obsidian gaze fixed on the dour wizard that stuck him.
"Did you rape my mother too?" spat the bitter Phaeron. "Is that how you get your kicks old man?"
Draco grabbed Phaeron and cast a silencing charm on him. The junior Malfoy could not believe the level of disrespect Phaeron had been showing his father. The boy had loved Severus Snape more than anything, dressed like him, spoke like him, emulated him whenever it was possible, it was clear to the young blond wizard that this behavior had been more than bazaar.
Lucius managed to get Snape through the floo and into Lucius Malfoy's study back at Malfoy Manor. Leaving Draco to take care of Phaeron and smooth over any grievances between the two.
Lucius' Study, Malfoy Manor, Wizarding World...
"Severus what's gotten into you?" asked the elder Malfoy. "You'd never attack your own child without cause."
"The stupid boy decided it would be a good idea to brand himself with that fucking mark!" shouted Snape still clearly enraged.
Lucius arched an eyebrow at this. He thought for a moment as to what could have been so bad that it upset his old friend to such extremes.
"Surely you don't mean?" he said stunned at the implications.
Snape nodded.
"The very same." he replied bitterly. "I will not let him be come me, Lucius...even if I have to beat the point into his thick skull!"
"Severus you must calm yourself." said Lucius concerned. "You are beginning to lose sight of the fact that he's merely a boy...teenage he might be but he is still a boy...he knows not the perils of the life we were forced to live...nor the hardships that had befallen you old friend."
"Stupid...insolent...brat." muttered Snape still angry. "How could he do this...how could he be so weak minded...he's my son for Merlin's sake...he's Hermione's son."
"We do not have very much control over the things our children do." said Lucius sadly. "We simply watch and wait...pick them up when they make mistakes and try to guide them along a more appropriate path."
"My son is not so weak that he needs to cling to the image of a old despot." hissed an angry Snape. "This is the work of that bitch Bellatrix...she's done something to him...I know it...Phaeron was too much like his mother to be this weak...this has got her written all over it."
Lucius had feared as much.
"Unfortunately no one has seen hide nor hair of my dear sister-in law for quite some time." he said in a bored tone.
"I have." replied Snape bitterly. "She attacked me a few months before Shiloh was born...she transformed into that witch Phaeron's been seeing...at first I thought she simply stole the girl's image in a bid to trick my son...but now...now I am convince that..."
"She's been masquerading as the young witch the entire time...biding her time until she could set her plans into motion." finished Lucius as understanding dawned on him. "Shit!"
"I have to find her." said Snape with his fists balled tightly to the point of turning red.
"It's not that simple." replied Lucius. "She's been on the move since we last confronted her at her hiding place. "
"Then we draw her out in the open." said Snape desperate for this to be over. "She'll come if she thinks I've fallen into her trap."
Lucius arched an eyebrow at this.
"Are you sure you want to play it this way?" he asked concerned. "Your condition is..."
"I will be fine." said Snape determined to get his hands on the slippery witch not matter the cost. "I've seen my daughter born...there isn't much a wizard such as myself could ask for given my history. "
"But Severus..." started the handsome blond.
Snape held up a hand and waved it dismissively.
"I will finish this thing with Bellatrix once and for all." he said serious. "It is the least I can do for my wife and children before my time comes to an end...if Bellatrix wants me so badly then she will have me...just not in the way she planned."
Lucius sighed.
"Very well." he said conceding the point. "I will assist you anyway that I can."
"That is very much appreciated." replied Snape taking a breath. "As was your assistance back at Hogwarts...I lost my temper..."
"No kidding." replied Lucius with a smirk. "Still...I can see why...and that his all that matters."
Snape had been truthfully disappointed with himself for his actions. Phaeron was his son. As such he should never have struck him, the action made him no better than Tobias in his own mind. He could only imagine what Phaeron thought of him.
"Go home." said Lucius being supportive. "Get some rest."
Snape simply nodded and took his leave of Malfoy Manor, but he did not head home. His reaction to his son's behavior had truly shaken him and it put him of the mind to travel to where his miserable existence began...Spinner's End.