Work Text:
The day Eileen Snape —or better yet, Eileen Prince— drew her last breath, I was only sixteen. The day I bid farewell to her, was the day I almost committed a crime.
I still remember it as vividly, as if it happened yesterday. It was a cold February day, when Minerva McGonagall of all people, asked for me–pulling me out of a Herbology class. At the moment, I didn’t think it was anything serious; she could be calling me for any reason related to her precious Gryffindor cubs. I thought that maybe she wanted to pin one of their misdeeds on me again, it wouldn’t be so strange —Headmaster Dumbledore seemed to relish in doing exactly that, anyway— so I didn’t think much of it.
Not until I saw her face, grave and —should I say?— full of pity, looking at me, at least. But who could be ever sad on my account?
Then, I heard all about it.
Mother had just passed away, she informed me. Her cause of death? Unknown (“An untreated Muggle illness, probably”, the witch had said back then, an unneeded apology hanging on her lips). But I wasn’t so sure about that…Why would a witch that was supposed to be in her prime, perish so easily at the age of forty-six? Granted, she avoided using magic around Tobias, lest he used his methods to remind her that magic is a grave sin that she shouldn’t indulge in (“like your little bastard does”, as he would probably add, to remind her that she had passed her cursed abilities to her offspring. As if he wasn’t my father, too), but if she knew that things were serious, she would have found a way to treat herself and stay alive, somehow.
Which made me think that either she didn’t know that whatever had happened would happen, or that she didn’t want to go on living and just…gave up. In any case, I knew Tobias was probably responsible for this. Was his contribution to my mother’s demise direct or indirect? I didn’t know. I didn’t care. At this point, a part of my life, the only part that still held a morsel of kindness, was crumbling underneath my feet and I felt powerless against it. No matter if one was a Muggle or a wizard, a man or a woman, an old or a young person —death came for all. It is the most formidable form of magic.
Quietly, I accepted McGonagall’s condolences, thanked her for the few days she allowed me to leave the castle in order to prepare for the funeral and left her office. I searched for a quiet corner to hide my sorrow at, without being interrupted .
***
It took a few days to prepare for the funeral. So many things I didn’t know were needed; so many little details I could hardly handle on my own.
The Princes didn’t deign to show up for the funeral. I knew they had given up on both her and myself, but I stupidly held onto the hope that, in death, they would forgive her for marrying a despicable Muggle. That they would care about the child she left behind, even if sixteen years had passed already without them caring. But they didn’t. They took offense at her choices, and their grudge followed my mother to her grave. It was a loud absence that conveyed their message loud and clear: the Prince family didn’t forgive defiance, not even at death’s doorstep.
Equally loud was Tobias’ absence during preparations, as if he was admitting his part in his wife’s death. He didn’t even show up at his own house, for all the days that I remained there. I was alone, confused, and yet, relieved that he wasn’t in my presence. During the days leading up to the funeral, I was busy in a whirlwind of preparations —all those little details to Muggle funerals that could wrench the soul of the grieving people anew, those frivolities Muggles stubbornly adhered to so they wouldn’t look to the bigger picture— and during the nights I walked around the empty house, seeking any mementos I could find of her, any signs that her presence wouldn’t be completely forgotten. During those nights I indulged in drinking —something I had tasted before, thanks to Lucius Malfoy and the choice Firewhiskey he smuggled into the Slytherin dormitories— and smoking —something I wasn’t familiar with, but who really cared, now that she was gone and there was no one around to chastise me on any bad habits?
I was almost an adult. I was almost there, almost free. I was someone who endured and looked unaffected by things, yet I missed my mother during those nights. I took solace in the little corners we used to call our own during my childhood: the attic, where she taught me the basics of magic, where we stored plants that we could use in basic potions; my bedroom, where we had a stash of books on magic, hidden under a concealment charm so Tobias wouldn’t rip them to shreds; the kitchen, the one room Tobias never visited because it wasn’t a place for men , where my mother would sit me down and tell me stories of her student days in Hogwarts, and tales of her once prestigious family. I grieved for her in each and every one of those rooms, as the days marched ahead towards the day of the funeral. Yet Tobias didn’t show his face, not even once.
Death had come knocking on my door, but unfortunately, he had taken the wrong parent , I couldn’t help but think, full of bitterness and sorrow. But no matter how much I whispered that out into the —now empty— rooms of Spinner’s End, my mother wasn’t coming back.
***
The day of the funeral was a challenge in and of itself. I had to stand all prim and proper, pretending that I appreciated the presence of our nosy neighbours on my mother’s final journey. Everyone was here, attending, commenting on everything. Where had all those people been when my mother was alive and in need? Where were they when she cried, when she was struggling to hide, when she was protecting me from the horrors Tobias’ presence caused in our lives?
Now, they were all standing in a line, dressed in black, their eyes closely observing me. And I hated them all.
When it was time to say goodbye, I had to come close, to see her face for the last time. Making sure no one would notice me, I slipped her wand and a gobstone into her still arms, to accompany her in the Great Beyond.
That was when I saw him .
Tobias, at some inconspicuous moment, had slipped among the mourners, and was staring hard at me. There he was, the bloody charlatan -crowded by the neighbours who were equally pretending to be sad about poor Eileen ’s demise. Bloody liars, the lot of them. No one was sad—especially not Tobias.
I don’t know how I managed to push through the rest of the ceremony. How I managed to accept their condolences. How I shook hands, thanking people that I definitely didn’t feel the need to thank for anything. How I kept silent and somber, when all I wanted was to scream at them that they were sullying my last memory of my mother with their incessant chatting and their curious gazes. How I sat there, on the wake at the pub (because of course the wake would be held at a pub, Tobias wasn’t eager to leave his drink even for a single day, not even to honour his wife’s memory). When the funeral director told me that he had everything under control, he probably meant that he was following orders on the way things would be carried out, probably by Tobias. If they had asked me what to do, I would have opted for a wake outside, because I know my mother would prefer the clear (as clear as air in bloody Cokeworth could be) and cold air in the closest park, the one she forlornly watched from the window since Tobias turned their marriage into her everlasting prison.
In the pub, mourning turned into laughter, into casual chattering, into vain words, into eating and drinking. I sat in a corner with a drink someone put in my hand (“It’s okay to have just one for this occasion, lad” I’d been told, probably by an understanding bartender), watching everyone promptly forgetting why they were here within a few moments after arriving. And I was… angry . Angry at the world, at fate, at Tobias. At myself, because I hadn’t saved my mother, and at my mother, who dared leave this world before I had enough time to pull her away from Spinner’s End.
We had made a pact, mother. You broke it.
Tentatively, I spent some quiet time testing out my Occlumency. It wasn’t a skill taught at Hogwarts, and I’d been working with myself for a few months. I probably shouldn’t be seen practicing a magical skill —International Statute of Secrecy and all— but it was all I could do in order to keep calm and not start shouting at everyone, consequences be damned. Breathe. Clear your mind. Empty yourself of emotions. Think nothing, feel nothing.
When I caught sight of people urging Tobias to make a toast on Eileen’s memory, I realised just how handy Occlumency was at the moment. Because I stood there, listening to him praising Eileen for being a beautiful and smart woman, a good wife, a loving mother, mentioning how she gave him a good life and that he would miss her, and yet I didn’t grab him by his coat and—
In life, the truths are meant to be carefully concealed, but the lies are celebrated, it seemed like.
***
All the previous nights, I was alone in Spinner’s End. Tonight though, I wasn’t granted the same courtesy.
The neighbours followed us on their way back home, each of them stopping at their doorstep and bidding us goodnight, so Tobias couldn’t leave for whatever place he was holed in all those days. He had to keep up the pretense of mourning, of helping his poor son cope with the loss. So we walked together in silence, until we passed through our own doorstep. I felt my mother’s loss more acutely, a piercing pain in my chest that left me struggling to breathe.
I tried not to pay any attention to Tobias’ presence; instead, I went straight to the kitchen to fetch some water. Maybe that would ease the breath back into me. But the cursed man still wouldn’t leave me alone. He followed me into the small room, and opened the cabinet where my mother kept the spirits. She was hiding the bottles there under key, so she would serve them to him with moderation—not that he needed her in order to get pissed out of his mind.
He poured a generous drink for himself, and then poured a second one to give to me. I stared at the glass he was offering, then shook my head and continued to nurse my water.
“Come on lad, be a man and have a drink with me,” he said. I remember, I was holding onto the counter at this particular moment, and I could feel the wood splinters digging into my palm as I gripped with every bit of strength I still had.
“No,” I only said, holding onto the last bits of sanity I still had. My Occlumency shields were already failing me —I was still too young and inexperienced to keep them up for long— and I tried not to talk too much.
“Doesn’t your kind drink?” he then said, and I swear, I saw red. “Suit yourself, then,” he continued and finished his glass in a few big gulps, as if it were water, before reaching out to refill it.
I was struggling to keep my shields up, I really was, and every moment spent in the presence of that man, without my mother serving as a buffer was excruciating. “My kind?” I asked, as calmly as I still could.
“You… wizards,” he spat the word at me. “Anomalies. Don’t think I didn’t see you slipping those bloody trinkets into your mother’s hands! You don’t set her free from sin even in her death!”
At those words, I realised that my last defenses had failed me. I rounded on him. “Don’t you dare start on that! Her wand was part of who she was! And I found it abandoned ! How do you call yourself her husband, when you’re the one who led her to the grave?”
“What are you talking about? She caught pneumonia! And she didn't say a word until it was too late!” Tobias bellowed, making my blood boil at his poor attempt at explaining himself.
“She would have saved herself! She had magic, she would have cured herself! But you—you took from her the will to live! You useless, loveless drunkard—”
At this point, all the hateful feelings that were festering inside of me burst forth with a vengeance. I had him across me, and no Eileen to stand between us and calm me down with one of her warning looks.
“You killed her,” I snarled. “You deprived her of her true essence bit by bit, until all that was left was an empty husk. And you dared to show up at her funeral and pretend to be a good husband, you fucking liar!”
I was spewing words upon words, and yet, Tobias was still sitting calmly across me, sneering at me, making me even angrier. I was breathing hard, I was trembling, and yet— the man looked absolutely unaffected.
“I was a good husband, until I learned of her lies,” was his level answer. “She lied to me, she never told me what she was. And she made you just like her sort, an abomination. And I tried, oh I tried to put both of you on the right path in life. But you were just as bad as she was,” he continued, his sneering getting worse. I knew this calmness of his; it was the drink—induced calmness before the storms he always unleashed upon us when angry. “I’m only sorry you got my name, boy.”
“Believe me, I’m more sorry than you, father,” I replied, spitting his title as if it was the greatest insult.
I always prided myself on being more like my mother; that I was fundamentally a Prince, not a Snape. That the only thing I had inherited from Tobias was his name.
Oh, how wrong I was.
Without even thinking, I reached into my sleeve and pulled out my only stable companion, my wand. I was pretty skilled for my age; I had a curious mind, and I had come up with quite a few spells that could inflict pain, that could slash and tear and burn and—
A voice in my head was probing me to use them all on him. To make him suffer the way we suffered at his hands.
“You’re a bloody coward, Sevvy,” Tobias’ voice cut through my jumbled thoughts. “I know your lot will punish you if you harm me with that stick. You can’t do it.”
He was right, and I hated him all the more for it. I couldn’t do it. I couldn’t lose the only source of identity left for me, no matter how much I craved watching him suffer.
My mind was… empty . Only a singular thought pushed me. Hurt him. Hurt him. Hurt him. He deserves it. He has been doing this to you for years.
I didn’t realize I had moved towards him, or that I had grabbed him by his collar. I only felt my knuckles burn as they made contact with his face, producing a sound that was both sickening and gratifying. My brain unhelpfully supplied an image of myself, hitting him again and again until he was an unmoving mass on the floor, and by the gods, I would do it, I would—
You really grew up lad, you are exactly like your father , a neighbour had told me earlier in passing, and that thought made me stop in my tracks before I delivered a second blow. I was really becoming like Tobias, if I had the gall to deliver a hit. As if scorched, I let him go, and he fell on the floor on his backside. His eyes roved over me as if he was looking at me for the very first time.
“I don’t want to see you again,” I told him quietly, and promptly turned on my heel, leaving this place, and this man, behind me for good. I never looked back to see if Tobias had heard me.
***
The day Eileen Snape —or better yet, Eileen Prince— drew her last breath, I was only sixteen. The day I bid farewell to her, was the day I almost committed a crime.
It wasn’t only the day I lost my mother, but the day I also lost my father.
That was the last time I saw Tobias Snape. What he did from this point onwards, I know not. I only know that he passed away when I was twenty-four. Like before, Minerva was the one to deliver the news to me, this time as a colleague. I only shrugged and thanked her for informing me -but in contrast to the day I had learned of my mother’s demise, I didn’t shed a single tear…