The Pureblood Prince
Chapter XXIV – A Flash of Black.
"Eileen."
Tobias marched back into the front room to meet her curious eyes. He pointed violently towards the door.
"Deal with this."
Her breath was caught deep within her. She knew that look of his. His features were twisted, distorted, with disgust… features that should never be associated with looking upon one's own child – but they so often were here. They were features that should have made her sick. But instead, in their twisted little world, they made her exultant. Eileen shot through the room so fast that she almost lost her footing attempting to dart around the furniture. She didn't know whether she would throw her arms around Severus or throw something a bit more solid at him; since both tenderness and hostility were equally fantastically atypical of her when it came to mothering– it wasn't an easy decision to make.
As Eileen faced the person in the doorway however, it was apparent that no decision needed to be made. The person was certainly of the wizarding world, but she certainly was a girl and certainly not her son.
"Uh… hi." Said the cloaked girl, her eyes still fixed curiously on the spot were Tobias has disappeared off to – she looked positively astounded.
"I'd appreciate it if you took that off around this neighbourhood," Eileen said coldly, gesturing to the long maroon cloak cradling the girl's shoulders. How she managed to get here in broad daylight without being assaulted by our charming local skinheads… "This isn't Hogsmeade."
"Yes, well," the young girl replied, unfastening the button attachment and gathering the horrifically unsubtle item of clothing up in her arms. "You tend to forget these things when you Apparate from your house."
"You Appar…? Forgive me for my brashness, but for what do I owe the pleasure? I didn't think Muggle neighbourhoods made the list of door-to-door Potions saleswomen," the older woman asked sardonically.
The girl gave a haughty scoff. "You're Sev's mother, I presume?"
Eileen's black eyes became instantaneously fixated on the girl's chocolate ones upon hearing this. "I am."
She willed her to follow the question with an explanation of his whereabouts, but instead she was met with an open hand.
"Aurora," the girl stated matter-of-factly with absolutely no air of affability. "Aurora Sinistra. I was at in the same year as your son at Hogwarts."
After a few seconds of apprehension, Eileen took the girl's hand. "Mrs. Snape. And I'm sorry to say that my son is presently absent - but I'll tell him you called. Was that all you wanted then?"
"Oh, I didn't really want to see him, " Aurora said – but, catching the peculiar look on Eileen's face, corrected herself. "I mean I don't really need to see him. I just wanted to return this and be on my way, that's all. I think I must've gathered it up with own textbooks when I was rushing around the Slytherin common room…"
Aurora rummaged through the pile in her arms and pulled out a very old book. Eileen looked upon the object now in her hands – it was her old copy of Advanced Potion Making.
"Well… thank you." Eileen said stiffly, still rather taken aback by Aurora's sudden appearance. No one had ever called for her son apart from that Lily girl, and even that was years ago. Besides, if she hadn't wanted to see him she could have very well posted the book… she would have offered the girl a cup of tea so that they could be properly introduced were it not for the impatient pacing footsteps coming from the kitchen, and the fact that she seemed eager to get away… and also the fact that Severus would hate her for it. "Was there anything else?"
"No. Guess not. Wouldn't want to annoy your husband any further…" Aurora bit frostily; clearly still affronted by the way she had been treated. Eileen could sometimes quite forget that Toby's behaviour was not quite as acceptable in normal society as it was in their house.
"Very well. I'll tell Severus you called."
"Yes," Aurora piped up. "Yes. Please do. If you could also tell him that it would be wise not to leave his old textbooks lying around for old friends to find – I'd be ever so grateful." Her eyes flashed briefly towards the book. "Pleasure to meet you, Mrs. Snape."
Eileen gave the lowest of polite smiles before Aurora had vanished before her eyes. Her brows immediately dropped into a glare… she hated it when they Disapparated like that; she found it the height of rudeness.
As soon as the clicking of the door handle exuded through the hallway, Tobias came marching back.
"Did yer know that bitch at the door?"
Eileen shook her head.
"But she was obviously one of… yours, weren't she?" Tobias protested. "Trying ter welcome yer back into the convent or sommet?"
"Please. You think someone with my sexual appetite could ever become a nun?"
"Oh, convent, coven! Yer know what I mean!"
"Contrary to what you may believe, I am not bosom buddies with all witches in Britain," Eileen snapped. "She was some friend of Severus's at school."
"Oh, that's all we need. Fer him to marry someone like you." Toby knocked on the stair banister in frustration. "Yer know, I at least hoped he'd get through this stupid phase and find some nice normal lass ter settle down with. Or should I just be thankful he found a lass willing to stare at that ugly sour mug every day?"
"You make it so easy for people to hate you, Toby."
"Do me a favour then!"
Her fingers itched with the temptation of swinging the heavy book in her hands right into his temple; right to that galling vein which pounded there every time he flared up.
"And besides!" Eileen continued, shouting a bit more loudly than she had anticipated. "She was only returning some school things. You didn't see every girl at your school as a marriage prospect, did you?"
"I wish I bloody well did now!"
He took a firm step toward her, making her instantly shift into a depressingly familiar defensive position. She closed her eyes and willed every magical cell in her body that the stair incident would repeat itself… but all he did was try to wrench the antiquated hardback from her arms; to which she vigorously resisted.
"No!" she objected – almost pleaded. She pulled it back and cradled it, like a jealous child. Seeing Tobias destroy another one of her memories might just be enough to finally break her in two.
"He ain't gonna come back for it, Ei, and even if he does he'll find nowt; I'm taking all that shit down the dump ter teach him a lesson!"
"Well this is mine, so you can't have it!"
Tobias didn't even trouble himself with following her when she stormed up the stairs and slammed the bedroom door in his imagined face. Eileen opened the wardrobe and dug through the furthest corners of it – finally placing her hands around an old box, which was settled between a broken gramophone (honestly, I don't know how many times I've told Toby to pawn off that piece of junk, she thought), a few dusty LP records and another box full of Severus's old paintings and stories from primary school; a lot of which had remained at the school due to the "questionable content" greatly concerning his Muggle teachers – even to this day Eileen had to avoid Mrs. Heptinstall's contemptuous eyes whenever they passed on the street… sanctimonious and naive old tart that she was.
She pulled out the box in question, which wasn't as dusty as the others, sat on the bed and opened it to a wonderful scent of dried beetles and ginger roots. The smell of it, along with the clinking of the potions bottles and the spectacle of the ingredients were more than enough to bring so many forgotten memories flooding back: of Professor Slughorn commending her on her Burn-Healing Paste, the nerves just before she captained the Hogwarts Gobstones team to victory during the inter-school finals, drinking Butterbeer with her friend Hagrid in Hogsmeade. It was so bittersweet it was almost laughable. She hastily averted her face away from the painfully delightful smells and picked up the old copy of Advanced Potion Making at her feet instead, which she nonchalantly flicked open – preparatory to locking it away with the rest of her memories.
Upon seeing the inside contents of the book, Eileen issued a mighty unimpressed scoff and flicked through the pages from back to front. He had graffitied the entire thing. Why on earth would he inflict such a disrespectful act on her old textbooks? As the flicking of the pages ceased, she slammed it shut and made to drop it into the box, but a flash of black made her change her mind. At first glance she assumed it to be the remnants of her name scratched into the inner sleeve of the book – but the clarity and intelligibility of the ink, highly implausible for something written more than twenty years ago, made her change her mind. She opened the sleeve and sure enough, the words 'Eileen Prince - Ravenclaw' in the far left corner had been all but scratched out completely… something else had been written in its place, and it was something that made Eileen's stomach prickle with the determination of a hundred baby Acromantula's…
This book is the property of the Half-Blood Prince.