The Pureblood Prince.
By AuroraSinistra87
Warning: Domestic violence, swearing.
CHAPTER III: Resting Here.
"It's beautiful! You made this yourself, my darling?"
"All on my own!"
Eileen forced her reluctant toddler to give her a kiss. "Then Mummy's very proud of you! Where shall we put it?"
Severus looked around fervently before pointing at the mantelpiece. "Make sure it don't fall into flames!"
"Come on then, let's put it up" replied Eileen, gathering Severus up in her arms and placing him on her shoulders, "reach, reach!"
"Reach, reach!" Severus obediently repeated in her exact tone of voice before carefully placing the messy ornament in the middle of the mantelpiece. Eileen slowly stepped away before removing him from her shoulders and swinging him around to her front and tickling him. She dropped onto one of the run-down armchairs with Severus, who squirmed for a few moments, before beginning to doze off as she rocked him.
"We should get you to bed, shouldn't we? It's very late." Eileen whispered into his ear.
"Mmmm!" the boy mumbled in protest, half-asleep against his mother's chest by this stage. Eileen looked down upon him, marvelled in him, and stroked his thick head of black hair – he had her hair, her skin, her eyes… but he had his fathers face.
The combination of rocking and stroking his hair soon put him right to sleep, as it did almost every night when she curled up with him. The evenings had always been 'their time'.
She laid him gently down inside his crib, and with one backward glance at the door – she took her ebony wand from inside one of the wardrobes and muttered an incantation. Thousands of stars abruptly littered themselves against the cracked walls of the nursery.
"You're greater than all this, my darling; no matter what Daddy says, you're going to find out why" she whispered, slowly moving towards her son and placing her lips gently on his forehead. "Mummy loves you more than anything in the world..."
A door slammed from downstairs.
The worst was yet to come.
"Severus?! What in Merlin's-"
"Eileen…" Tobias warned over his afternoon paper.
"What happened to you?" Eileen continued, as she swiftly crossed the room to examine her son's neck – which was currently wrapped in bandages. Before Severus could say anything, she had tipped his head to one side and had slowly pulled away the bloody dressing; both herself and Severus winced simultaneously. Tobias calmly turned the page.
"Mum, stop it! Leave it."
Stop pretending you care, mother, you're embarrassing yourself.
"Did someone curse you? Why didn't you - here…" she whipped out her wand.
Severus eyes flashed a desperate warning… not here, not here, you stupid woman, I'll do it myself when he's out of the room… but it made no difference. Tobias' hands came down upon the paper, crushing the Telegraph in one rapid stroke.
"Where did you -! What did I TELL you about that, Eileen?" he bellowed.
"Tobias," Eileen pleaded timidly, "it's obvious he was cursed, it won't heal the way Mugg-" she desperately searched for a word at Tobias' incensed expression, "- normal people's wounds do! He'll be scarred..."
She turned back to her son and raised her wand to his neck again. Severus gaped at her, wide-eyed in shock.
"You PUT that fucking thing away or I swear I'll-" he raised his hand, and though he was still sitting as he did so - Eileen moved slightly backwards towards her son, who instinctually swapped positions with her, willing her to stay confident.
Tobias gazed upon the two for a few seconds or more, before sniffing amusedly through his nose and lowering his hand.
"Severus, go to your room." He said with a nasty smile playing upon his features. He did not take his eyes off his wife. Severus felt a thin, cold hand come in contact with his own and clutch it tightly. All of a sudden, he felt fantastically empowered by her unusual defiance.
"No."
"Now."
"Did you not hear me the first time, Tobias?"
As he had expected, a rolled up newspaper hit him directly across the face. Eileen shrieked and pulled him backwards to safety. Severus had also stood his ground – not only to protect her this time, but to fight with her. Mentally begging his mother to keep up the shimmer of potency that she had shown earlier, he stepped towards his father once again.
"You give me cheek again, my lad, n' you will regret you'd ever been born." His face was now void of any colour, and his lips thin with seething rage.
"Mission accomplished! You must be very proud." Severus spat back with equal vehemence.
Tobias began to splutter and shake with fury – but before he could utter a word or inflict another blow, a faint-hearted voice emerged behind his back.
"Severus, listen to your father, go to your room."
Whatever act of obscenity came from Tobias after that, Severus would not remember for the rest of his life. He slowly turned to face his mother, witnessed her sad shadow of a face… her weakness blazing up at him as she pleaded desperately with her watery eyes. He felt sick to his stomach at the distorted and… diluted woman she had become. It was beyond shame. He could not bear to look at her any longer.
Tobias was now holding the door open for him and sneering profusely.
"As you wish… mother." He felt her suppress a sob; a razor-sharp pain shot through his stomach.
As Severus reached the landing, he heard the unmistakable snapping of wood.
Taking out his Advanced Potion Making book, he dwelled instead on fervently experimenting and scribbling notes. The ingredients from Knockturn Alley proved extremely effective, as Severus had predicted. He concentrated every fibre of his being onto the task the hand, before turning to healing the rest of his wound that he had been unable to finish by the time he had arrived home to his father. He was successful in drowning out the continuing clatter from downstairs, until the staircase creaked heavily and rapidly with the pressure of heavy feet.
The footsteps stopped, and the door to his fathers study slammed so raucously that the pane shook in protest. It was over. Severus glanced sordidly at the street below… study… "I'll be in the fucking study"… he mentally mocked. There's no use attempting to act refined, father, you need a study like you need a hole in the head.
Severus grimaced. He deserved a hole in the head.
A fly was busily rapping itself against the inside of the window; he shot it down with one jab of his wand.
Tobias had retired to his 'study' for the rest of the evening. Severus continued on with his experimenting, content with the fact the he was unlikely to charge around the house until tomorrow.
Coming back downstairs was always risky, but his grumbling stomach had coerced him into action. The Snape's kitchen could certainly rival Hogwarts feasts, indeed: a half full bottle of milk in the process of going off, cheese, a few cans of soup, perhaps some chicken if he was lucky. Christmas was the only meal that Severus could actually look forward to eating; however, the catch here was that he typically spent his Christmas's at Hogwarts – much to his mother's utterly fictitious objections.
As he entered the kitchen, he saw Eileen slumped in one of the chairs, clutching the two pieces of her broken wand. She had her arms folded over her knees and offered him a weak smile through her gaunt and hollow face, which he did not return. She returned to gazing into oblivion. He opened a few cupboards and had trouble with the Muggle stove as usual.
"Hole it down and twist, darling" Eileen said softly in her weakened state. She sounded wholly defeated. He twitched with anger and secretly wished she had told him to use his wand, but did as she said.
Waiting for the damn thing to heat up subsequently led to a ridiculously awkward moment. He did not turn around to look at her, even though he could feel her gazing at him.
He drummed his fingers against the kitchen table, leant backward and expelled a tired breath. Sick or not, Severus knew that Tobias had gone one step further with the restrictions he placed upon her. The only time she was ever allowed to immerse herself in their world was taking Severus to Diagon Alley and to see him off on the Hogwarts Express – and she didn't even do that last year. It was bad enough the drunk bastard had barred her from talking to any of her old friends from school, now he had made any sort of life she may have once enjoyed completely extinct all together – and she had allowed it. The worst part of all was that she allowed it!
She used to be a Prince.
Now she sat defeated and bruised. A Snape. And what for? For Tobias? No… for Severus… for her son… and suddenly Tobias's abuse appeared a nonentity compared to the pain and guilt Severus felt; of seeing a once powerful and strong witch crumble into nothing, all for her child, and at the hands of her husband.
He hastily poured the contents of the soup into a chipped bowl and run the saucepan underneath the sink before skirting around the kitchen table and away from that god-awful site. He needed to get out of this decrepit house. It did nothing but drive him mad.
One week of hell left…
~*~