For the first time since waking up in the attic that morning, Severus felt like a child. Trapped. Helpless. Small.
Tobias Snape sneered at them. "What's this, then?"
Severus instinctively hid his bandaged eye behind his hand. His heart was pounding.
He didn't have a wand. His magical core wouldn't be developed enough to use wandless magic. Conversely, he didn't even know if he was capable of accidental magic, anymore. He was an adult and an Occlumens. Wild, emotionally fueled magic might be beyond his reach.
He hated feeling like this.
"Severus has an eye infection," Eileen said, calmly. It was a forced calm. Severus knew it wouldn't hold.
Tobias scoffed. "The boy's faking. He's always tugging at your skirts for a bit of attention."
"He's not faking this. The healer said-"
"The healer, is it? What's that freak charging us to make up some wishy-woo-woo problems the boy can cry about?"
Severus frowned. Tobias was itching for a fight. This was an overreaction.
"It's not that much… I made sure to get the medicine the boy needs, so we won't need to go back. Please, we aren't going back. It's fine."
"It's not FINE! You keep sneaking around behind my back, consorting with freaks, and spending my money faster than I can earn it. You're both conspiring against me."
Tobias was drunk. He only talked like this when he was drunk. Why was he drunk so early in the day?
Had he lost his job around now, last time around?
Severus didn't think so. He didn't remember. They had never been a 'sharing is caring' type of family though, had they?
Severus had always avoided his home like the plague.
Something was wrong, though. He could feel it.
This wasn't a normal drunk rage. There was something boiling up beneath the booze, beneath the threat of domineering violence. Tobias was stalking their living room like a trapped animal, a predator gearing up to tear itself free.
Severus had seen this type of thing before, in the actions of Death Eaters decompressing from a particularly difficult raid.
There was blood on Tobias' sleeve. It was a splatter pattern.
Severus didn't think it was Tobias' own.
Something bad had happened.
"Da," Severus said, as calmly and respectfully as he could manage. Contrite. "There's blood on your shirt. Are you alright?"
Tobias looked down at his arm as if it belonged to someone else. He stared for a long time, before scratching at his skin, with jerking, frantic motions. "It's nothing boy. There was an injury at work. A real injury, not whatever you've gone crying to your mother about."
"What happened?" Eileen asked, stepping forward. Severus was careful not to hide behind her, that would set Tobias off, but he didn't follow her forward, either.
Tobias scowled. He looked down at Severus, hesitated, then decided to say it anyways. "Peter Johnson got his arm caught in the press. It was crushed to hamburger. Had to get it amputated just below the shoulder."
Merlin. Severus did not remember this. His parents must have hidden it from him, last time. It was a traumatic thing for a child to hear. Even now, he could not stop his mind from conjuring up grizzly images of the horrific injuries. He felt a little woozy, which was odd. He'd seen much worse things first hand, in his real life. He was used to graphic violence.
He needed to sit down.
"Is he alright?" Eileen asked, aghast.
Tobias scoffed, tugging up his sleeve to hide the blood. "Who cares? Shit happens. They had to shut the plant down for the rest of the day, though. Can't re-open until there's been a 'review'. Stupid pansy-arses interfering with an honest man's work over nothing."
Severus stumbled over to the wall, and slid down onto his butt, with his knees pressed to his chest.
His father was lying. He wasn't worried about the unpaid time off. Well… he probably was, he was always worried about money, but that wasn't the main thing.
Peter Johnson was one of his drinking buddies. He'd been close enough to the accident to get blood on his sleeve. He'd seen the injury. He might have even seen it happen.
And now he was drunk.
Severus would have gotten drunk too, under the circumstances. He hated feeling empathy for his father.
The man could burn in hell.
Still… what a thing to witness.
He'd decided to throw it in Severus' face, this time, when Severus and Eileen had cornered him on it, but last time… last time he'd kept it hidden, from Severus at least. He had lived under the same roof, eaten meals at the same table, and he hadn't said a word.
Severus wasn't sure what to make of that.
Eileen and Tobias were yelling above him, now. He could hear the words, but they didn't penetrate the buzzing in his ears.
He should get out of their way, in case things got violent. He should go lay down.
He must still have a fever.
Maybe, if he went to sleep, he wouldn't wake up again. Maybe he'd finally die, and be done with it.
Half stumbling, half crawling, he made his way to the steep ladder-stairs that led to his old, childhood bedroom.
It felt like sentencing himself to life without parole of solitary confinement, climbing up those stairs.
He hated it up there.
He hated it down here, too.
He had sold his soul and allowed himself to be branded like cattle to escape this fate, last time around.
If it hadn't been for that damned prophecy, he might never have brought himself to regret it, either.
He was in hell.
This was hell.
It had to be.
Severus sighed, and climbed the stairs. He needed sleep.