Mettle

The week following the incident with the Black boys was a trying one. Her son broke down into tears at odd intervals, woke in the nights quailing for it all to end and Eileen didn't care to admit it, but she got lost in herself a lot more than she should have that week. Every time her son began to cry, she would wonder if he was seeing some awful vision and when he came into frightful alertness in the dead of night she wondered if the fates were trying to break him.

(Her beautiful boy was hurting and she...was cracking)

And Eileen knew she oughtn't, but sometimes, instead of tending to him like a good mother would, she fell away. She'd take her leave from the world and absorb herself in the safer one that lay in her head. It was the pretty world she'd built up as a little girl; it was open and it's skies an always morning sunrise hue where she could lay beneath trees and rest and dip her toes in brooks and lakes and relax.

Her mother became increasingly short with Eileen during the week. She did not mind tending to her grandson, because unlike Eileen, she felt no need to escape reality. The older woman had always been good about facing things head-on, not like Eileen. It was one night, quite late, definitely past midnight, but not early enough for the birds to begin their morning's songs when Eileen's mother grew scant in her patience. As she had been soothing Severus almost solely on her own for the past day and a half.

Severus wailing against her front, she'd gone to Eileen who was upright in her bed, but immobile and slapped her. And then she slapped the younger woman once more. Sputtering, Eileen had turned wide, disturbed eyes on her mother.

"What…?" she'd whispered, feeling the tingling skin of her cheek.

Eyes glittering like cut diamonds, the older woman snarled, "You can't continue to do this! You can't hide when things get hard, Eileen!"

"Mum..." the younger whimpered, tears spilling down the expanses of her face and dripping off the point of her chin.

Sighing, her mother sank down beside Eileen and brought her in close; she settled Severus, the poor boy, to finish his sniffling between them. "Eileen, oh Eileen," the elder mumbled, taking her daughter in her arms.

Rocking her like she'd once done when she'd been terribly small and upset over something much bigger than herself, her mother kissed her brow. "You probably don't remember, as you were barely out of nappies at the time, but...you had night terrors. They scared your father and I very terribly, you'd wake shrieking like someone was killing you and when we'd come to your room, you'd look like you were having a fit."

Lifting her eyes to meet the older woman's, Eileen felt very much like a child as she whispered, "What did you do?"

"Your father couldn't bare to see you, he'd sit out in the hall and talk to himself. From what I remember, it was usually some litany along the lines of 'it's okay, just a terror, no one's dying...' I, though, would go in and hold you. Like I am now, actually. Sometimes, if you didn't go right back to sleep, I'd ask what you had seen. Usually, you couldn't tell me. Once, though, you had an answer for me that was quite cryptic. I must say, though, dear, I don't even quite recall it now. But...you said something like, 'bad stuff, Mummy. There was yelling and screaming and crying and then I saw green. It hurt, Mummy.'

"You can imagine that scared me quite a bit. I tried to take you to some fortune tellers, but all they gave was rubbish about you being a powerful witch, marrying well and baring many fine sons that would prove to be equally powerful. Now, I never doubted you'd be an excellent witch, but I could tell even when you were all of three that you were going to be a stubborn one. That you were going to make a little path for yourself, not follow the dream I had for you - which, actually matched quite well with what the tellers gave me."

Musing on what her mother was telling her, Eileen looked to where Severus had fallen back asleep against her middle. He was a dashing boy. Fit for old Roman statues and Italian paintings, she thought.

"When did I stop having the terrors?" she asked.

Her mother stroked Eileen's hair. "Funnily enough, it's after you told me what you dreamed that you stopped having them. I suppose it carried on for, oh, eight or so months."

"Severus tells us all the time what he sees, but they never stop."

Eileen's mother's countenance twisted with grief. "No, they haven't."

"Do you think we should ignore them? Maybe they'd stop if we didn't pay them attention..." Eileen suggested.

Her mother's face sharpened. "What? Don't act like a silly girl, Eileen. These - visions - are not going away! They never will I bet and I will not have you become an idiot on my watch! What would your father say?"

Shamed, she cast her eyes away and whispered, "Mother, I fear it's my fault he sees what he sees."

"Why?" The elder demanded. "Have you done something?"

Taking in a ragged breath, she shook her head and whispered, "I-I never wanted Severus, Tobias, he-" Turning into her mother's shoulder, Eileen cried.

"What did that filthy ape do to you?" her mother hissed.

Eileen knew her mother had the wrong idea instantly, and despite all her loathing for what her husband had done, she loved him yet. "No, n-no. We fought when he proposed. I told him I wanted none and that didn't please him at all. It was an awful fight and he even hit me. He'd never done that before, and I - I conceded to his wishes. I told him one child."

"Severus," the elder remarked, faintly.

"Yes, he was it and I hadn't even wanted him. I had to learn to like him - love him! I fear that I am being punished because I did not want him!"

Eileen's mother grabbed her chin and pushed it up so she was forced to stare straight into her eyes. "Don't be a ninny, Eileen. The fates are not punishing you through Severus, they are challenging you, yes, but that little boy is a gift. Children are always gifts, do you understand, Eileen? I can't tell you how many children your father and I lost before you. When you were born...we were elated and even though we never seem to see eye to eye, I would not change anything."

Her eyes softening, the old woman touched the little boy's crown. "If I wished for things to be different, who's to say we'd still have little Severus, here? Eileen, I love him - so, so much. And even though he'll never be my equal - and never yours, I adore him too much to care."

"Oh, Mum," Eileen sniffed.

Patting her daughter's hand, the elder raised up and out of the bed. "Get some sleep, love. Severus is going to undoubtedly need you tomorrow," she reminded her.

"What about you, Mum? Shouldn't you get some sleep?"

"I will, I will," her mother grumbled, "Eileen...tomorrow I'm going out. To tea and likely dinner, at the Malfoys. You have to be able to handle him. Keebler's pants with children and Tack's too old to be soothing tantrum prone boys with her frail bones."

Snuggling her son close as she lay down, she agreed. "Yes, of course, Mother, for you."

Kindly, the woman smiled and tipped her head at Severus. "No, my dear, for Severus."

"For Severus..." Eileen repeated as her and her son's bedroom door closed.

Watching the rise and fall of her son's chest, the woman once again considered his Romanesque features and wondered, as she drifted off to sleep, if he wouldn't fit in among the fables of demigod children.

He had the looks and powers for it, after all.

-v-v-v-v-v-

"Give me a kiss goodbye, Severus," Eileen's mother insisted as she fixed her hat to leave.

The little boy threw himself at the older woman instead. "Do you have to go, Granny?" he whined, his little fingers bunching in her robe.

Sending Eileen a look as she held the boy close, the elder sighed and answered, "Yes, my dear, I must."

"You'll be home soon, though, right?" Severus demanded.

Smiling, she gave the boy's head a kind pat. "Before you know it," the grandmother answered. Stepping away from boy and mother then, the woman took some floo powder and stepped into her fireplace, calling her destination and disappearing.

Putting in as much exuberance as she could in her voice, Eileen asked her son, "What would you like to do this afternoon, Severus?"

He gave a shrug in reply.

"Hm..." the woman murmured. Eyeing the frosty white ground outside the kitchen's tall window, Eileen recalled how the pond had iced over around Christmas. Her son might like taking a stroll, the pond always did look prettiest in the winter, she thought. "How about a nice walk outside?"

Severus peaked around his curtain of hair. "Can we go to the pond? Granny and I went ice skating on it before."

Pleased by the response, Eileen gave a grin full of teeth and declared, "Of course, love!"

Together, the duo bundled up for the chilly weather and headed down to the pond.

Eileen was relieved by how peaceful an afternoon it ended up being, they skated around for an hour and when Severus began to complain about being cold, she cast a warming charm on him and let them skate some more.

After a while, she had to admit that she was tired and called Severus along. The boy, scrubbing at his eyes, was more than happy to take her hand and together, mother and son went back to their home.

"Did you have a lot of fun, this afternoon?" Eileen asked her child.

Severus bobbed his head, "Uh-huh." Then, with very big eyes, he looked up at her, "How come we don't play together every day, Mum?"

Stiffening, Eileen asked in a painfully breezy tone, "What do you mean?"

"You teach me potions and stuff - which is wicked, Mummy, but we don't play a lot. Usually, it's Granny who goes on walks with me and plays soldier and cars with me."

Eileen didn't know what to say. What could she say? All this time...all this time she'd been scared. Very scared. She didn't know what was wrong with her son and feared for him so much that she didn't want to even dare touch him lest she break him further. But, her mother, she'd said it wasn't Eileen's fault. If Eileen were to admit it, she'd say she had logically known that all along, but it hadn't stopped the guilt that had festered in her heart. It hadn't stopped her from fearing and loathing and hiding from her son, because Eileen believed she had ruined him.

Clearing her throat, she told her son about his grandfather instead; hoping he was still young enough to be mislead, hoping he was still young enough that he didn't realize how terrible a mother she was. "My father did not play with me much, either, you know. But, I suppose I didn't care much for playing. I preferred potions to games and books to dolls. You though, my love, are a little different. You like potions and books and all the same things I did as a little girl, but unlike me, you want to play with your toys and games."

"How come you didn't want to play when you were little, then?" her son asked.

Wistfully, Eileen can remember how she'd always been looking up at her father's broad shoulders. How she wished to stand beside him instead of having to watch from behind. "I suppose I wanted to be an adult. I wanted your grandfather to look at me and see me as his equal - not as a silly child. And thankfully, he understood this. He helped me learn enough so he could do exactly that and so, I never had to be much of a little girl. I didn't have to play with dolls or occupy myself with games of pretend. He saw me as an intelligent mind and treated me as such.

"You might not understand this yet, Severus, but some adults are going to look at you with your big eyes and tiny stature and think you deserve nothing more than to be seen and not heard. They will think you should be shooed off to other rooms to 'play' while the adults 'talk'. They will feel you are a lesser simply because you do not have age or experience."

Mulling this over, the child concluded concisely, "You don't play with me a lot because adults don't play?"

"In a manner of speaking, that's right," Eileen replied. Trust that her son would find reason in her ramblings. "It's more like I never got the hanging of play because I was always catching up with the adults around me."

Severus squeezed her hand. "I think that's sad, Mum. You should have played. It's fun! Especially cars and soldier."

Chuckling, Eileen swept her boy into her arms and kissed his cheek. "Maybe I'll try it, just for you, my love."

"I love you, Mummy," Severus sighed into her hair.

Squeezing him close, the woman returned the adoration, "And I love you, always and forever."

How do you like this chapter? Any thoughts on what was said?

To reviewers, KodeV, Syl, 1, Professor Radar, Saint Snape, Emma C.C.S., The Dark One Rising, Tarnished Libris, and Jemmennuie; thanks so much for your feedback :)

Thank you very much for reading and pretty please review!

UPDATED: 5/24/15