#so if Tobias is ever annoying to YOU in This sense... feel free to put a lego or a dozen in Elijah's path the next time you meet

[yeonban]

Tobias and Nikolai simultaneously started laughing at this so if that's not an admission I don't know what is

[snxvellussnxpe]

&& PROMPT, FAMILY TIES 

death tw / death of a parent tw / abuse tw / domestic abuse tw / child abuse tw / violence tw / blood tw / injury tw

I. “ IT’S OKAY. ”

“But he hurt you.” 

“Severus, I’m okay.” Eileen paused her search of the floorboard pharmacy, as she called it, the collection of potions and books she kept out of Tobias’ sight beneath the floorboards in the pantry. “There’s a little bottle down there labelled ‘dittany’, can you find it for me?”

Severus reached his hand down into the floor and rummaged around for a moment, picking up a few bottles before he found the one that she wanted. Eileen took it carefully from him and turned back to her arm. The cut wasn’t deep, but it was enough to bleed. She removed the cap from the bottle and carefully applied a few drops to her arm. “See?” she said softly as the cut began to close up. Severus stared at it in wonder. “Magic is beautiful, Severus. You are half magic, and that makes you beautiful.”

“But I’m half not,” Severus pointed out. His mother sighed softly and took his chin between her fingers. 

“We are all like magic,” she told him softly. “Magic can be used to heal, but it can also be used to hurt. And you must always heal, Severus, do you understand?” Severus nodded his head, and Eileen smiled at him. “We’ll be okay. I promise.”

“Okay.” And he believed her.

II. “ I THINK I’M DONE. ”

Severus watched his mother adjust his robes on his shoulders and didn’t speak. He didn’t want to leave. It was maybe a childish thought, a bird afraid to open its wings, a moth afraid to fly at a streetlight, but he didn’t want to go. He knew he should, he knew he wanted to, he knew he wouldn’t be alone, but the concept of leaving his mother alone with his father felt wrong. His father. More often than not, Severus referred to him as Tobias. He wasn’t much of a father. Severus didn’t want to give him the title, which felt like it should be sacred, but it also annoyed Tobias, so maybe he did. Eileen smiled at him and put her hands on his shoulders. 

“Are you nervous?” she asked. Severus shook his head. He wasn’t nervous. He was terrified. Eileen pressed a kiss to the top of his head. “You’re going to be wonderful, Severus.”

III. “ IT’LL BE OUR SECRET. ”

Severus liked having secrets with his mother. They had many between the two of them, many that they kept from Tobias. This was just one of them. The two of them sat on the floor in Severus’ room, Severus’ cauldron between them, and worked their way through his potions book, over each of the recipes. Eileen’s directing hand was gentle, and her instructions were scribbled in the margins of the book so when the next school year came, he would be ready for it. 

He made additions too, and notes of his own. It wasn’t all of his mother’s making, but he shared all of it with her. Holidays would bring him back home-- sometimes-- and the two of them would look over his freshly annotated books before his life would be returned to the trunk under his bed where no one would find it. And Tobias was no one to him. He didn’t matter. But Eileen asked Severus to keep it hidden, keep his magic a secret, out of sight and out of mind, so he did. 

IV. “ I COULD STOP HIM. ”

Eileen’s hand brushed against his face. “No, Severus,�� she said quietly. “You don’t need to do anything. This is just how things are.” It didn’t make sense to a boy, it didn’t click. Why was it how things were? Why did that have to be how it was? It made no sense to him, and yet, he wasn’t permitted to argue it. Eileen hushed him softly and put the book down in front of him. “What’s this one?”

Severus looked down at the scribbled handwriting and frowned at it. “It’s just something I was trying,” he told her. “A variation on the directions in the book. It works better than the original...”

Eileen smiled at him, brushing her fingers through his hair. “Are there more?” she asked, and he nodded. “Show me.”

V. “ KEEP IT HIDDEN. ”

And he did. Severus slid the trunk reluctantly under his bed, shoving a few items of dirty clothing and books he never read in front of it so his father wouldn’t see. He could fit his entire life under his bed, every secret and strength and weakness he had into a trunk. He knew there was no point in asking Eileen why he had to keep it hidden. He knew the rules. He knew better than to ask. 

VI. “ WHAT’S THIS ? ”

Severus looked up from the newspaper at Eileen pointing down at something in his book. He got up and moved around the table, touching the pages with his slender fingers to turn it towards him. His head tilted to the side. Sectumsempra. He shook his head. 

“Just something I was trying,” he told her. Eileen mouthed the word as she looked down at it before she looked up at him again. 

“What does it do?”

Severus shook his head. “Cuts things,” he told her. “I was trying to make a spell for potions, but I must’ve done something wrong...”

But Eileen was hushing him, putting down her cutting knife to pull him into her arms. She kissed his temple, and he wrapped his arms around him. “There is nothing you could do that would ever be wrong, Severus,” she told him firmly. Severus’ shoulders trembled. It wasn’t true. He could see Lily’s face in his mind, stunned and hurt. Mudblood. 

VII. “ WHAT THE HELL IS WRONG WITH YOU? ”

“Stop! Please, Tobias, stop!”

Tobias shoved Eileen back into the hallway, and she stumbled backwards until she hit the wall. His focus was entirely on Severus, cowering next to his dresser trying to protect his head from more blows. Tobias hurled one of Severus’ potion books at him. “What the hell is this? What the hell is this?”

“Stop--!” There was no point in asking, he didn’t know why he even bothered. He wished he could sink into the wall, the floor, the dresser. He wanted to vanish. It wasn’t the first time. His wand was across the room, though, he couldn’t apparate-- “Dad, I’m sorry, stop!”

Tobias’ arm went up, and Severus cringed. His mother’s voice rose in a scream, then a shout--

“SECTUMSEMPRA!” 

Tobias dropped. His blood splattered across Severus’ face and he dropped. No one moved except for Tobias, writhing on the floor, trying to stem the bleeding as it seeped across the floor. Eileen’s gaze was cold, Severus’ stunned, and they watched. Tobias slowed, then stilled. They watched, and they were free. 

Severus didn’t look at his mother. He kept staring at his father on the floor. Eileen took a few hesitant steps into the room. She was breathing hard, wand clutched in her hand. She walked to Severus and looked down at him. “Are you alright?”

Severus shook his head slowly. He thought he was going to be sick. He hated Tobias, but he didn’t want this. Not right in front of him, not because of Eileen. He looked up at her, and his voice quavered. “Mum, what are we going to do?”

Eileen shook her head at him. “I’m going to fix this,” she said quietly. “It’s going to be okay.”

VIII. FOR ENEMIES.

Severus stood alone in an empty house an orphan. 

His mother was as good as dead, gone for all intensive purposes where he could only see her on visiting days. His father really was dead, and he was fine with that. But he wasn’t, not when it had taken Eileen away from him too, when Spinner’s End was all that he had left. Everything had been cleared away, his father buried, his mother taken. Severus walked back upstairs to his room, since abandoned and cleared up from all manner of sins that had taken place in there. 

It was still a mess. His books were everywhere, torn to pieces, tossed against walls. The stain on his floor could be fixed with a flick of his wand, but the rest... the rest was Severus’ mess to clean up. He walked around the room slowly, picking up books and keepsakes that Tobias had destroyed and putting them on his bed. 

His copy of Advanced Potion Making was splayed open near his window. He crouched and picked it up, holding it to the light to examine the page it was opened to. 

Sectumsempra. 

Severus paused and looked down at the word. He didn’t quite know how to feel about it, but he felt something, and it wasn’t good. He stared at it for a long moment, seeing his father on the ground, bleeding out, dying. This wasn’t a harmless charm, this was a death spell. Severus took the book over to his desk and pulled out a quill and ink. Cross it out, his mind told him, and he dipped the quill into the ink and held it above the page. Get rid of it. 

But he couldn’t. Severus looked down at the little word, and he couldn’t destroy it. It was his finest creation, his crowning achievement. He couldn’t destroy it. He paused a moment longer before he touched the quill to the page, scribbling out a neat little not beneath it,

for enemies