Severus Snape has lost too many friends. (potion_master) wrote in find_horcruxes, @ 2009-12-30 23:11:00 |
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Entry tags: | eileen prince, severus snape |
RP Log: Eileen & Severus Snape
Who: Severus & Eileen Snape
When: 30 December 1979; Early Evening
Where: Snape Residence; Spinner's End
What: Motherly advice.
Rating: Low
Status: Complete.
Severus stared into the bathroom mirror. Despite the bruise paste he'd slathered on his face, it seemed to be puffing up and he definitely had a black eye. There wouldn't really be any hiding the fact of the fight from his mother and he almost didn't care. Everything hurt and it wasn't just from the bruises Lupin had given him. Caoimhe's face, the note in her voice as she'd sent him off hurt far more. He'd thought that he'd given up on the possibility of Caoimhe, but it was very clear to him from the way he was feeling right now, that he hadn't actually. He shoved the paste back in the cabinet and pushed away from the sink, slipping out to his room. His thoughts that he would study tonight seemed to be highly optimistic and he sunk down on his bed which creaked under his weight. How had things gone so wrong? The week had started out stressful, but he'd been hopefully optimistic, but then Lily was pregnant with Potter's child and she hadn't even seen fit to tell him before the rest of the world had found out. He'd had to find out from Potter's entry like every other person in the Wizarding World. People that Lily actually considered her friends knew before hand - Lupin had known before hand - and that made Severus groan audibly and sink his head into his hands. He wasn't going to cry over this. He was much bigger than that. He was practically twenty years old and this wasn't what he'd thought his life would be like now. He heard movement from the downstairs and he raised his head, chewing on his bottom lip. His mother was home and it was entirely too much to ask that she wouldn't notice. Eileen had taken a little extra time after work to go and buy Severus' Christmas present. It was early but she'd seen something perfect and she still had a little money left over from the jewellery she'd pawned before Christmas so she'd decided to spend it on that rather than have to rush around later. She tucked the present in one of the downstairs cupboards that Severus knew better than to go poking into then looked around for her son. Usually he came downstairs when she got home unless he was neck deep in study. She rather thought he was worried about her which she found rather sweet of him since she was of the opinion that it should be the other way around. She walked up the stairs and saw that the door to Severus' room was open. "I'm home, dear," she said as she walked in that direction. "Sorry I'm a bit late. I got a little held up..." She trailed off at that point as she was now standing in the doorway and she could see the state of her son's face. She gaped for a moment then she hurried forward. "Severus! What in Rowena's name has happened?" She touched the side of his face near his eye lightly, her expression becoming fierce and angry. "Who did this to you?" she demanded. Severus flinched slightly. He felt exhausted and despite the fact that his mother seemed to be more concerned for him than anything else, he still didn't want to talk about it. This entire week had just gone precisely the opposite of how he had thought it would. He'd thought 1979 couldn't throw anything else at him, but apparently it could. "I'm fine," he moved a shoulder and ducked his head. "It just - I got -" he sighed heavily. "I got in a fight at work. But I'm fine. Really, I mean, I know it looks bad, but nothing is broken and I've put bruise paste on and it's fine. I'm fine." He was really anything but fine, but he didn't even know where to being to actually tell her any of the reasons behind the fight, or why it had felt like such a good idea in the first place. For a moment Eileen was tempted to let him get away with it, to let things slide, just as she had always done while Tobias was alive. But the conversation she'd had with Lily had reminded her that things had happened while Severus had been at school, things that had had a profound effects on him. She'd seen it when he'd come home in the summer and she'd let it slide then as well. Maybe she shouldn't have but keeping that barrier of herself between Tobias and Severus had seemed more important. Maybe she should have taken the time to find out what had happened. Well, she wouldn't make the same mistake now. "Severus," she said, crouching down in front of him and gently raising his head so he was looking at her. "You are not fine. You're upset and you've been beaten. That is a very long way from the definition of fine." She sighed and brushed his hair with one hand. "Sev darling, I know you don't want to be seen as weak or unable to look after things for yourself and your father and I are responsible for that but I'm not fragile and I can help, you know? Even if it's only an ear to listen and a shoulder to cry on." She paused again and her voice was a little harder when she spoke again. "And contrary to what your father thought, it's not wrong for a man to cry. It's normal." His head was pulled up, but he couldn't keep his eyes looking at her, and they darted downwards as she spoke. He didn't know what to say - what to tell her. He'd never told either of his parents much of anything. Even when he'd sometimes wanted to - which granted had been more when he was younger than recently - he hadn't really felt that he could. But it was just him and his Mum now - not his Dad. Not the man he'd grown to despise so much. If Remus Lupin had become his scapegoat for all of his problems this afternoon, Tobias Snape had probably been his scapegoat for his problems his entire life. He swallowed, his throat thick with embarrassment, anger, humiliation, and a thousand hundred things he wished were different. "You can't," he mumbled finally, and his voice sounded odd to his ears. "I - don't- I think I fucked up," he blurted out then. "Caoimhe offered me a job and I was at work and I hate Lupin, but I was at work. I shouldn't have - He started it but I shouldn't have-" He stopped and swallowed then. Whatever his mother might say, nearly twenty years of his father's voice were telling him that it was very definitely not all right for him to cry. "Why do I mess up everything?" His voice seemed insistent upon betraying him, and it faltered unevenly with the question. "I'm sorry. I'm fine, really." Eileen refrained from sighing. It was starting to become clear that she was going to have to pull every bit of this out of him piece by piece. He'd hate the comparison but he was just like his father when it came to being stubborn. Though admittedly she could be pretty damn stubborn when she wanted to as well. "Well, no, you shouldn't have let yourself be goaded into a fight at work," she said as she sat next to him on the bed and wrapped her arms around him. "But I'm sure if you apologised to this Caoimhe, she'll forgive you." She hesitated for a moment then dived into the teeth pulling. "Who is this Lupin boy and why is he goading you into a fight?" She smoothed back his hair. "You don't mess everything up. You're so smart. You did so well on your NEWTs and now you're well on your way to your Mastery. All this while working at the library. " She smiled slightly. "And protecting me. I know you've been doing that." She sighed, a worldweary sound that made her seem far older than she was. "Not everything is going to go well, Sev. Sometimes it's going to seem like the world is crumbling around you. You have to hang onto the good things in your life when that happens and just hunker down and get through it. And you can get through it, Sev. If I can, you can." He stiffened at first, but after an instant decided he didn't want to fight her hug. Even if his rib was incredibly sore from where Lupin had punched him. And as nice as it was to know that his Mother believed in him - something she seemed to be more insistent on now that his Father was no longer around - her opinion wasn't going to be the one that was important tomorrow and her opinion hadn't mattered when Lily had gone off with- He closed his eyes tightly and pushed that thought away. "I don't - I feel like such an idiot," he whispered. "I mean, it doesn't matter. Caoimhe wouldn't - but I'm sure she thinks-" He shook his head, shaking the thought away with it. Caoimhe's thoughts really weren't that important in the scheme of things. Particularly not as they were never likely to be favourable towards him anyway. "Lupin just -" Did his promise to Lily count when it was his Mum? He wasn't certain, really. "Just someone I went to school with," he finished, feeling as if it was wholly inadequate to describe everything that Lupin was. "One of Lily's friends," he shrugged and drew in a deep breath, feeling dangerously close to losing control completely. "You don't have any idea, really," he muttered. "Things never work. I try - and I always end up making the wrong choices on things. And Lupin just - how does -" He felt incoherent now and he pulled back and folded his arms over his chest defensively trying to figure out what to say. And there were too many things to tell her that he didn't know how to tell her, and he didn't know if he could tell her. How much it hurt that every time he had a conversation with Lily he felt like he was walking on needles around her and that they couldn't actually be friends, because he couldn't stop wanting something from her that she was never going to give him. And after a moments silence, he opened his mouth again, his voice wavering. "I feel like I'm wrong, Mum. And I don't know - I can't fix it." Eileen gave him a patient look. "I'm sure Caoimhe's a reasonable person. Go in tomorrow and apologise for what happened. You don't have to explain the reasons behind it, just apologise and promise it won't happen again. Or even do it tonight over the journals. She might be angry with you but a genuine apology will go a long way towards solving that problem." She wanted to try and say something to this Caoimhe herself but it was best if she stayed out of it. She didn't want to embarrass Severus after all or make things worse. She set that thought aside as she listened to his rather incoherent explanation and she frowned with concern. Clearly she'd left Severus to his own devices for far too long. Yes, she'd had reason but she should have made the time somehow to keep that connection with him when he was younger. Still, there was no point chewing over old regrets. It wouldn't help now. "Just someone you went to school with?" she said dubiously. "Severus, you don't get into fights for no reason. Why did you get into a fight with Lupin?" It pained her to watch him withdraw and become so shielded and defensive. Bad enough that he did it in the first place, knowing that she and Tobias were responsible for it just made it worse. She was determined to try and get through those monumental walls her son had built over the years. She had no idea if she was going to manage it tonight but she was going to make a damn good try. "Wrong about what?" she asked gently. "What can't you fix?" Severus shook his head and shrugged vaguely. Despite his continual blaming of other people for his problems, his Dad, Lupin, Potter, the truth was that he was afraid that the problem was him. That in the end it really had been him that had driven Lily away after all and that he continued to do so because he couldn't- didn't want - her to be happy with Potter. And yet, clearly she was, and although he should have been happy that she was happy, it only made everything worse. He glanced up at his mother who didn't look ready to go away just because he'd fallen silent and he inwardly wondered why in Merlin's name she'd chosen today to want to know what was happening in his life. "Lupin, Potter, Black, they were all Gryffindors in my year. Lupin was the prefect who liked to sit behind a tree while Potter and Black were -" torturing me seemed dramatic and also made him feel like he was somehow to blame for all of the abuse he'd put up with - and not that he'd been completely innocent, but he hadn't had a prefect friend who could simply turn their back and ignore point taking. "It doesn't matter," he shook his head and sat up, wincing slightly as he did so. "We don't get along. We've never gotten along. Today, apparently the breaking point was 'quills'. At least that's what Lupin thinks we should tell Caoimhe, as if that's going to provide any reasonable explanation to her. And I do have to go in and see her tomorrow anyway, she wants to talk to both of us. As if the fact that she broke up the fight wasn't humiliating enough, I have to go and stand in her office tomorrow and try to explain, without actually explaining anything because Merlin forbid anyone be aware of the truth, what happened." ...And bloody hell. Lily would probably hear about this, Severus realised, and he nearly wanted to just lay down on the bed and never come out of it. Lily would blame him - why would she blame Lupin, after all? It would just be one more thing- and this one actually was Lupin's fault. His shoulders sunk a little. "And of course I'll get blamed. I didn't start it - but everyone will think I did, why would they think he did?" Eileen frowned at the way Severus just broke off and dismissed whatever these boys had done with an 'it doesn't matter'. He'd said enough to give her something of a picture of what had happened. These boys, Potter and Black, had bullied her son while their friend, a prefect, had turned a blind eye. Now she wasn't foolish enough to think that Severus hadn't retaliated - her son was a Slytherin after all - but this... this spoke very poorly of this Lupin boy. To simply let his friends get away with such appalling behaviour? Well, he must be a very unpleasant young man. Then again, they were all Gryffindors. She'd never had a high opinion of Gryffindors. Far too many of them were all brawn and no brain and what was worse they seemed to be proud of that as though being smart and thinking were bad things. And this Black boy... that must poor Regulus' older brother. The one who left the family and left that lovely young man to fend for himself. She did however have to assume that Potter at least had improved himself. She couldn't imagine Lily marrying a bully and toerag. "It matters to me," she said firmly before setting it aside for now. She might talk to Lily about this and see what she had to say. For now thous there was a more important matter to work out. "Sev," she said patiently, giving him an expectant look. "You're a Slytherin, dear. You must start thinking like one." She smiled slightly. "I'm not normally one to encourage House prejudices because frankly it's illogical. We used to have endless debates on the illogic of it all in the Ravenclaw common room. But in this circumstance, I think it's permissible." She drew in a deep breath and let it out slowly as she thought things through. "There's no denying the fact that it happened since she caught you both and you both do deserve a dressing down, which you will undoubtedly receive. You must apologise for fighting, Severus, because irrespective of who started it or why it started, fighting in the workplace is wrong. So when you go in, you apologise for fighting, you acknowledge that it was unprofessional and you say that it will never happen again on your part." Her smile became rather cheeky. "You're a Slytherin, dear. You know better than I do how to say that so those last three words are emphasised without appearing to be emphasised." She frowned thoughtfully. "I think that telling her that you've never particularly gotten along and what happened today was a mistake that shall not be repeated on your side of things and that you'd rather not go into details as to the cause because it was petty and stupid and just a case of the being in the wrong place at the wrong time and casting blame would just be childish and stupid should work well. It implies a maturity on your part - you've acknowledged your mistake, promised it won't happen again and declined to lay the entirety of the blame on any one person thus proving you're not a martyr and you're not a tattletale." She raised an eyebrow at him. "How does that sound as a working plan?" Severus pushed his hair back from his face and looked up at his mother. It all made sense, really. He just hated that he had to see her with Lupin. If he could just meet with her alone, he could probably say all of that and possibly even manage to say it in a way that wasn't completely awkward and inarticulate, but with Lupin in the room... He'd just have to do his best, he supposed. And he was sorry. He should have ignored Lupin. It would have made the other man probably more furious to have his attempts to get a fight started ignored. "Yeah," he admitted quietly. "Okay. I just always seem to lose words around Caoimhe," he sighed. "But you're right and that all makes sense. You weren't almost a Slytherin were you Mum?" He gave her a smallish smile and then winced as he shifted positions. "Lupin has a damn strong punch. I think my ribs are all bruised. But I will be all right," he added slightly rushed. He didn't really want his Mum worrying about him more than she might already do. She had enough to think about and he'd just probably given her more reason to worry about him. Yet another person he'd potentially disappointed with this incredibly stupid move. "I'm sorry," he looked down at his hands. "I knew better." Eileen smiled at the idea of Severus losing his words around Caoimhe. Obviously he had something of a crush on her. "Just stay focussed," she said. "You can lose your words again afterwards." She chuckled. "Well, the Hat did hesitate over me for a little bit but no, it was quick enough to put me in Ravenclaw. We Ravenclaws like to look at things logically though." She frowned again and pulled out her wand. "Let me bind those ribs of yours. Even if they aren't broken you'll find the extra support gives you a bit of ease." She paused when he apologised then smiled fondly and brushed his hair back from his face. "You don't need to apologise to me," she said quietly. "We're all a bit foolish when we're young. It's what youth is for, doing all those foolish things that embarrass us when we look back on them." She chuckled softly and kissed him on the cheek. "I know you won't do it again and that's good enough for me. I'm proud of you, Sev. Not for fighting but for owning up to your part in it. Many people wouldn't do that." He nodded. He still felt stupid and worried. He could see Caoimhe firing him and he really didn't like the thought of it. Ignoring Lupin, he really liked the work at the Library. It was quiet and he didn't mostly have to talk to anyone and when Lupin had actually been gone, it had been almost perfect. Not quite the same as the Potions work he did, but nice, anyway. And even if she didn't fire him, he'd have to be very careful or he'd never be able to make-up for what he'd done today... and he wasn't certain he'd ever regain Caoimhe's respect. He leaned back so that she could bind the ribs, because honestly, anything at the moment to make them feel better was going to be appreciated. His mother kept saying that things would change for them, and certainly she'd never given him advice so easily before and for an instant he wondered what it would have been like to be able to actually talk to her when he was younger - if his Dad hadn't been there. He supposed it didn't matter because it wasn't as if either of them could change the past, but he half hoped that maybe they would get to be different. Things weren't always how you wanted them to be, and it occurred to him that maybe his Mum had wanted things to be different when he was a boy but if she'd tried it hadn't worked out. "I need to study," he added with a glance at the books at the end of his bed. A pain potion would be likely to make him loopy, but without one he wasn't certain he was going to be able to concentrate. He sighed, "that exam is still tomorrow afternoon." Eileen gave a quick flick of her wand that sent bandages flying out the end and wrapping around his ribs. She wanted to push for more but decided that now was not the time. Severus had quite enough on his mind right now and having his mother push at him might make him growl and lose his concentration. She wanted him to pass this exam after all. She also wanted time to consider what he'd told her tonight. She pressed a kiss to his forehead and got up. "Did you want something to eat, dear? Something light maybe?" He nodded, suddenly realising that he hadn't eaten a single thing since before he'd gone to work. "Yeah, I think I do. And maybe some tea, actually?" He pushed slightly at the bandages and found that his Mum had been right, it did feel better, less painful. His eyes fell on the books at the end of the bed. He really had to study them now. He wasn't at all certain that it wasn't already too late, but he'd try anyway. "I think I'll stay up here and start on this," and he reached forward, pulling the top one towards him and pushing it open to the chapter he'd stopped at the night before. Eileen pushed his hair back and smiled. "Tea, soup and some toast, I think. I'll bring up a tray when it's ready." She headed for the door and gave one last bit of Mum advice before she headed downstairs. "Don't stay up too late." |