The Pureblood Prince
Chapter XXI – Can't Live With Them, Can't Live With Them.
Tobias's birthday. It was a day that Eileen had begun to increasingly look less and less forward to as the decades droned on. When they had first married they would spend the entire evening with his family – and it was never as bad as Eileen assumed it was going to be; Tobias's parents had never trusted her, but at least Veronica attempted to love her as a daughter-in-law… the same could not be said for Toby's brother and his wife and children, but it was something that Eileen could certainly deal with.
In the years that followed, the amount of time that the Snape's spent at Spinner's End grew remarkably less and less, and the rate at which Theo Snape and his much prettier, much dimmer wife threw snide insults in Eileen's direction, assuming that she was as dull in the mind as she was in her looks, grew more and more. Last year they had come for one brew and a couple of stale biscuits and left poste haste; this year looked to be following quite the same decline of time spent and incline of attempted provocation.
"S'all downhill from 'ere yer know!" Theo smirked, as the six family members congregated just within the front door as Tobias answered it. He clapped his younger brother on the back and lazily threw his smoky leather jacket around the banister of the stairs.
"Yeah, yeah, yer remind me every year." Toby replied quietly, giving a quick kiss on the cheek to his sister-in-law. "Alright, Sarah?"
"Hiya, Toby." The pretty blonde woman replied as she squeezed past the tiny corridor.
Eileen could not hear the rest of their conversation as they moved into the living room; most of it was drowned out by her two niece's loud chattering. She rested her head against the bathroom door and gazed up at the mouldy ceiling uneasily. She didn't think she had enough strength in her to face all six of them alone – she especially hated the way Sarah Snape would smirk in victory every single time she caught her eye…
Knock! Knock!
"Ei?" came Toby's voice from beyond the door.
"I'll… I'll be there in a second." She replied loudly.
"Let me in, Eileen."
She could almost feel him leaning upon her on the other side. With a heavy sigh and a swift hand through her hair to at least tidy it up just a tiny bit, Eileen clicked the lock over and walked over to the bath.
"I think yer've been wallowing in here enough, don't you?" Toby asked, sounding a lot less angered now that he hadn't been forced to ram his body through the door like he had done several times before.
"Sorry, Toby."
She genuinely was. If there was one day that she should try her hardest to make him happy, it was this day.
"They're waiting downstairs for you and I'm runnin' out of excuses here," Tobias said, sounding rather anxious.
"It's a bit difficult to socialise over tea and biscuits when my son has gone missing."
"Our son."
"You should've told them not to come!"
"And-!" Tobias had to stop momentarily to lower his voice back to a whisper. "… and cut myself outta my own family even more than I have done? All you would've done is sit here and waste away anyway! I deserve some company for a change! And don't say I haven't tried to find him!" He added as Eileen opened her mouth to speak. "Yer the one who told me to put down the phone when I was gonna call the police – believe it or not my son's disappearance doesn' actually make me leap for joy."
She couldn't fault him there… she had stopped him from calling the Muggle police, and as much as Severus would never believe it in a million and one years, his father had wanted to call them; but she knew it would do no good. If she had really opened up to herself Eileen would have admitted that, deep down, she had known from the start where Severus had gone, and as much as it tore her insides apart she knew that she could not do a single thing about it… Eileen had promised herself to let him make his own way for himself after he had come of age – it was gift that her own parents, the richest of people, could never afford to give her. She was pretty positive that Tobias knew that she knew something of their son's whereabouts, too.
"I know."
It was all she could say.
Toby's demeanour seemed to soften a tad as he gazed at her; Eileen figured he perhaps did have enough sense to see that she was at breaking point already. "Come on, Princess," he whispered as he moved toward his sickly wife and kissed her icy lips.
"Don't call me that anymore," Eileen snapped as she kissed him back – hating him, loving him.
"Don't embarrass me in front of my brother by locking yerself up here then."
His tiny wife put her hands on hips that were barely there. "Give me five minutes."
By the time Eileen had brushed her hair into a semi-presentable ponytail, pulled one of her nicer outfits on and arrived in the living room, the Snape's were already drinking the tea that she had made sure to buy especially for today.
"Hello, my pet!" Veronica greeted as the others mumbled a less boisterous greeting. "We was wondering where yer had gotten to!"
Eileen smiled timidly, feeling extremely uneasy with so many faces on her.
"So where is young Severe-us today?" Theo asked with a cheeky smile toward his two daughters who both grinned back at their father. Eileen was very happy to see Toby cast a dark look upon his older brother.
"Stayin' at a school friends house in Spain for the holidays." Tobias answered without missing a beat… when it came to lying he was as sharp as a tack.
"Spain?" Sarah piped up over a teacup, with an expression that was a mixture of astonishment and disbelief, and an expression that Eileen was itching to slap off.
"Yeah?" Toby retorted defensively. He was constantly on edge around Theo and Sarah, whom Eileen knew led considerably more lucrative lives in Leeds – while not the richest of people in the slightest, they certainly earned more in a week than Toby did in six months.
"Oh, Majorca were beautiful last summer…" Theodore said, oblivious to the sight of his younger brother sinking deeper and deeper into the couch. "Carla and Rachel 'ere had a whale of a time at the beach didn't yer, girls?"
Toby and Eileen's nieces nodded enthusiastically. Tobias forced a smile and replied "did yer now?" at Rachel, the youngest girl of eighteen, when she looked at him.
"Have you been to Spain, Uncle Toby?" Carla asked inquisitively.
"Nah, too hot for me." Tobias replied quickly.
"What about you, Eileen? Ever had a holiday before yer met this tight arse brother of mine?" Theo joked; it was probably fortunate that he didn't hear Tobias scoff in the distance.
"Just camping around the country. Severus will have to tell us all about Spain though," No one needed to know that she had, in fact, travelled all over Europe with her parents by the time she was eight and most other continents during every school holiday… least of all Tobias.
"Yeah he will; by heck, who'd 've thought…" Sarah muttered.
"Anyone for some cake?" Eileen addressed a little too loudly.
The simple birthday sponge cake moved from the kitchen to the living room at a snails pace. Eileen stomped into the kitchen and pulled out her ponytail violently, letting her black hair tumble down around her face like a curtain – she felt somehow safer that way. She made far too much noise taking out all of the cutlery, and cursed herself when she saw that there were not enough plates to go around. Perhaps Sarah Snape wouldn't eat any… Merlin knew the woman probably wouldn't eat anything that hadn't been freshly plucked from an exclusive organic meadow in the south of France somewhere. She hoped her sister-in-law would get enough evidence from this household to give her superiority complex a supply of yearly sustenance so that she could bugger off back to Leeds as soon as possible.
The youngest Mrs. Snape spitefully shoved an entire piece of cake into her mouth and closed her eyes, momentarily savouring the sweet, saccharine taste that coated her palate; a flavour she seldom experienced.
"Ei!"
Her husband's head appeared around the wall. Upon the sight of his wife standing in the middle of the kitchen with a face full of cake he grinned.
"Couldn't wait to shove yer face into my birthday cake?"
"Not – enough – plates - " Eileen mumbled through sponge. She swiped away a bit of cream from her lips and went to wash it under the tap before re-considering and decided to lick it off her fingertip instead. No use wasting such a treat. She almost laughed at herself for thinking that thought… I lived in a manor with servants who cooked me Wizarding delicacies from around the world on a daily basis, and now I'm scoffing every single last bit of a two pound fifty pence cake from the specials fridge in Tesco's…
"Just put them on kitchen roll and forget the plates," Toby said as he begun to hack at the cake with a knife.
"We don't have any kitchen roll."
Eileen didn't need to explain why. Toby looked up at her with his almond coloured eyes and a stare that made her feel extremely sorry for him. He worked so hard, especially now that he had started full-time work at the cotton factory again, and he couldn't even afford his family the simplest of usual household utilities.
"Ah… and yer can't…?"
"No. I can't do any Transfiguring without my wand."
Some of the old resentment came trickling back, but it wasn't enough to make her detest him again – not yet.
"Pity…" Tobias leaned against the counter and gazed out of the window that looked nothing more than a plain red-bricked wall separating them from the rest of the cramped council houses. "Was hoping yer could somehow wave that stupid stick and make time go faster or sommet."
A wave of what almost could be considered joy, given the circumstances, flooded over Eileen. It was the first time that night she hadn't felt like a complete outsider seeing that her son was not there to be an outsider with her.
"Not even a wand could do that, Toby; you couldn't even do that with a time tu... never mind," Eileen dismissed her own words, she didn't want good Toby to turn into bad Toby over her nattering on about the subject matter that annoyed him most in the world; he might take off to the local and the whole cycle would start again. "Just take out the damn lump of lemon sponge and then we'll be alone in half and hour."
Toby picked up the big plate that he cut the cake into very misshapen slices with and smirked at her. "Alone is soundin' good right now. You know, I haven' had me birthday present yet…"
"Oh? And what do you call what you had this morning?"
"I call that sommet a husband and wife are meant to do tergether; doesn't count as a present if I get the same thing every day…"
Eileen scoffed.
"…Now twice in one day, Ei…"
"Yes, yes, Tobias Snape – I understand the concept. But just so you know: this morning was a present; tonight is marital."
The curve of Toby's lip curled in satisfaction. He made to return to the living room before his wife grabbed his arm. She took another piece of cake from the plate and opened the fridge door.
"Let's take Sarah's piece and eat it later."
"Won't stop yer there. Arrogant bitch."
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