severity_softly

Title: Of Things Dead and Buried
Rating: R
Warnings: ***Click here to be spoiled for warnings***
Prompt: Epiphany (Gen) in the kinda_lush fest at LJ
Characters: Severus, Tobias and Eileen Snape, Alastor Moody
Word Count: 6,300ish
A/N: A million thanks to my wonderful BETAs, innerslytherin and lindy_grl123!
Summary: Severus returns home from Hogwarts over the summer between his sixth and seventh year to find his mother quickly becoming a shell of her former self. She might be willing to forget herself, but he won't.



Severus stepped inside his parent's home, looking around at the familiar cramped sitting room. He felt ill, claustrophobic, to be returning. He had finally hit a growth spurt over the last year, and the ceilings and walls seemed impossibly tight. The terraced houses, his clamped to the side of one of the factory buildings, and the stink and filth that still clung to everything and coated it all in grey film, even when the mill had closed down years ago; all of it made him ill.

The walls were lined with peeling wallpaper and old photographs. Many of them were pictures of him as a child, smiling and frozen in time. They were all unnerving and strangely still after coming home from Hogwarts, where the pictures moved at will.

"Severus is home."

"What?"

Severus shifted his bag on his shoulder, and continued moving along the wall, examining the pictures and pretending not to hear his parent's conversation. There was conspicuously not a single picture of him much older than the age of eight. That was around the time everything fell apart.

"Your son."

"My son is dead."

Severus turned from the picture he had paused at, one of him on a swing set, hair flying behind him, and turned to his father. Blank faced, he stared, silently daring his father to say that to his face. But Tobias only frowned, a crease forming between his eyes and genuinely looking as though he hadn't realized Severus was there. But instead of engaging his son, he only turned and left the room.

"Severus," Eileen said, making her way towards him.

"It's alright, mother." He adopted the regional accent halfway through the sentence, drawing a soft "oo" sound into the last word. He always made this a habit over the summers, ever since the first year he came home from Hogwarts. His mother had seemed overly emotional about him "not sounding like himself." He was never sure why it mattered. It wasn't as though his parents were even local to the area, he had only picked up the local accent from the classmates he had before going to Hogwarts. In fact, his mother's accent was almost un-placeable itself. "It is... mutual."

It was going to be a long summer, pretending not to exist. Not that he didn't get enough practice at that already. It seemed like ages ago when things stopped looking like those pictures on the walls and became the familiar game of hiding - hiding what he was and what Mum was, because Dad just didn't want to handle it, or hiding from Dad on the occasions he caught Mum teaching Severus magic behind his back.

After sidestepping his mother and making his way upstairs, Severus approached the door to his old room. The paint was peeling, but considering his welcome, he was surprised to find that it wasn't boarded up. He gripped the handle and pushed the door open.

It was a far cry from the rest of the house, which was cluttered, but obviously well kept. His room appeared to have been made into a storage facility during the last school year. Boxes were stacked on his bed and shoved into the corners of the room.

Pulling his wand from his pocket, he began to levitate the boxes off his bed, leaving wisps of dust hanging in the air behind them. He shut the door and crossed the room, pulling the dingy curtains on his windows shut, then shoved his bag under the bed, and flopped face down on the dusty mattress.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"Is there any pain potion?"

"No."

"What do you mean 'no?'"

"I mean I quit."

"You quit brewing? Because of him?"

Tobias was in the next room, sitting at the table and waiting for his meal. Severus couldn't care less if he could hear their conversation.

"Your dad?"

"Yes... Him."

"Severus," she sighed, "just heal it."

"You are still a witch, you know. No matter what he says." The years following his acceptance to Hogwarts, Severus had watched Tobias slowly push down every natural talent his mother had. Every summer she seemed weaker, less honest, but there was always that spark. The fire in her eyes that he recalled from when she taught him as a child was always there, even if it was buried.

Sure, she didn't necessarily seem unhappy, but how could she not be when she was hiding so much talent and passion?

He peeled the top of his shirt down and inspected his reflection's wound in the darkened window of their kitchen; a gash that ran from his collarbone to his sternum. "It won't heal," he lied. He had healed all the others. This one he was keeping, as a reminder that he now owed Black his revenge. He smirked to himself at the thought. Sod Dumbledore and his "life debts."

Eileen only blinked at his refection in the window. "What is that from?"

"Werewolf." Another lie. However, this one was really only half a lie. If Black hadn't led him down that tunnel, he never would have had to fight Potter in the first place. Bloody Gryffindor wanker with his hero complex.

She stared, unfazed. "Hmm." The self-satisfied expression on his face fell as she turned and left the room.

Severus turned and frowned at her back as she made her way back to the kitchen table.

"Werewolves don't exist," his father chimed in, keeping a harsh gaze on Eileen.

"You think so? Well, then I have someone I would like you to meet next full moon." He looked with disdain across the room at his father, catching his mother's glare out of the corner of his eyes. His father stared back at him, eyes cold. Severus continued, "I suppose you don't think wizards exist either, or is that just what you've been trying to brainwash Mum into thinking? That she's crazy."

Tobias stood, his chair sliding back. His jaw was set in a way that would have reminded Severus of himself, had he stepped back and looked. But no, the narrowed vision of an angry teenager kept him from acknowledging any similarity.

"Hit a nerve?" Severus sneered, and Eileen stood.

"Severus, that's enough."

Severus turned to his mother to find her staring him down as well. It was just like when he was ten and Tobias had forbidden her to teach him any more magic. She scolded Severus in front of his father, and then they would meet in the cellar after Tobias fell asleep.

Of course. She wanted him to continue to keep quiet. Perhaps she even continued to brew, but had been afraid to say anything in front of Tobias.

Reluctantly, he turned and stormed up the stairs.

Slamming his bedroom door shut, he made a few rude gestures at it before crossing the room and putting his foot through one of the boxes he had moved to the corner of the room. It caved in under his foot, and then spilled several dozen empty vials onto the floor. Dusty and discolored glass tubes rolled over the dull hardwood and he knelt to pick up the ones that weren't broken.

He remembered them well.

Mother didn't seem the same anymore. She didn't appear to sleep well anymore, and the more she and Dad argued, the sadder she seemed to get.

Severus sneaked down to the cellar after Tobias was asleep, stretched out in a ratty armchair, to find his mother cutting a deep purple root at the makeshift work table in the middle of the tiny room. He climbed up onto the box next to her that he always used so that he could help. She silently passed him a knife and one of the roots. Looking to see exactly what she was doing first, he slowly began to cut.

"What is this one for?" They had started with Amortentia, the results of which he had found boring, but the creation was interesting. Over time the potions they made had become more complicated and more volatile.

She passed her wand across the table to him, and he took it, Scourgifying the cauldron before she raised her head and replied. The cauldron's flames were casting long shadows over her face and her voice was flat and unamused.

"This is to kill."

But she didn't kill. He had often wondered why Tobias was still alive after that night, but they never talked about what they did in the cellar outside of the cellar. So, he never asked. It wasn't long after that that she seemed to give up on her powers, no doubt under the influence of his father.

Severus' brow furrowed, and he tore open the box. Bottles and vials lined it, but all her old potions ingredients had been emptied from them. The next box was filled with books, yellowed with age and dusty from neglect. Box after box contained something of his mother's, something of her power, that Tobias wanted hidden away.

It was in the fourth box, buried under quills and parchment with her loopy handwriting on it, that his fingers found a length of wood so familiar he would have known it with his eyes closed - fifteen inches of ebony with a chimera scale core.

He had learned with this wand. In fact, it had not been a surprise when he got his own wand that his was almost identical to hers, only an inch shorter and a bit more rigid, slightly less suited for charms and more suited for potions. He thought his mother would have been proud at the time, but she wasn't. Tobias had crushed her will.

He pulled her wand out, turning it in his hands in disbelief when he heard his door swing open. He bolted to his feet and spun to face the intruder.

Eileen stood in the doorway, staring at her things scattered across the floor, and for a moment she looked as though whatever she had come here to say meant nothing in the face of what she saw spilled across the scratched wood surface. She looked almost like she might cry. As soon as the thought crossed Severus' mind, though, Eileen closed her expression off and looked up at him.

"Severus, what are you doing?" Her tone implied more that she wished he would stop than anything else.

"What is all of this?"

"You're smarter than that. Don't play dumb." She leaned against the door frame, eyes narrowed and suddenly glinting. She looked more like the mother he remembered than she had since he had been home.

"Why are all your things, your wand, boxed up in here?"

"It's better this way. You--"

"Why? Because he doesn't hit you?"

In all honesty, he had only seen it happen once, and his mother was often as volatile as Tobias, but she had wilted after that night and Severus assumed that it had continued. It didn't really matter, however, as once had been enough for him to never forgive his father. He felt close to his mother, and her rage was always justified. Tobias had always caused it. He was, after all, the one who had driven them into hiding in their own home.

Severus had discovered at the age of ten that his ability to hold a grudge against just about anyone knew no bounds, and he saw no problem with that. That person had always done something to provoke it, after all.

She flinched, but recovered quickly and glared at him. "I wanted out."

"Then leave him," he said firmly, advancing across the room toward her.

"No!" He stopped in his tracks. His mother never yelled. If anything, she got quieter the angrier she got. "Of this. I married him because I wanted out. When you turned out to be a wizard, it all... I... I had been hoping you were a Squib." Regret flitted across her features before she, once more, shuttered her expression.

He expelled a breath as if punched, disbelieving, but only countering rather than questioning. "Well, I am very sorry to disappoint."

"You push too many buttons on purpose. Just now, downstairs... You need to stop. Just drop it. Put everything back, and drop it. You'll go back to school in a couple months, and things will go back to normal again."

"You're better than normal, and you're better than that filthy Muggle!" he shouted, face twisting.

He didn't even see it coming, he only felt the hot sting and pained tears welling in his eyes after the back of her hand collided with his face. "Don't you dare talk about your father that way! He saved my life!"

He stood there shocked. She had never hit him before.

Slowly he shook his head, and turned back to face her. "He didn't save your life, he's killing you."

Eileen looked as though she was barely controlling an explosion, and when she spoke again, her voice came out strained, through clenched teeth. "You don't know as much as you think you know. Just put everything back in the boxes and drop it." He could see the tension knitting her shoulders together. But, after a moment, she drew a steadying breath, her shoulders dropping back, and turned to leave the room.

He slammed the door and turned, leaning against it to look down at the boxes he had ripped open. He debated about flinging the boxes down the stairs, forcing the truth back in their faces. But eventually, rubbing his cheek absently, he aimed her wand at one of the vials. It rolled across the floor, then rose, teetering on its base, before it lifted into the air and deposited itself in the box.

He crossed the room and lay down, dangling half over the edge of the bed, strings of slick hair draping over his face, and continued to clear the floor from this position. Once it was clear, only taking slightly longer than it would have had he used his own wand, he pocketed hers.

She might be willing to forget herself, but Severus refused to.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

His scalp was itching again.

Severus sat on his bed, legs crossed under himself with his mother's notes spread out in front of him, craning his neck to the side to drag his nails up and down the irritated skin under his hair and feeling the dead skin cells collect under his fingernails as he did. He hated the idea of bathing here.

They shared an outdoor lavatory with the family next door, and he would much rather live in his own filth than bathe in someone else's. He hadn't exactly done much to amend his poor grooming habits at Hogwarts (although, part of it was being defiantly proud of the things he was teased about - if he gave in, his tormenters won), but it was nice to be able to wash it somewhere that was clean when it got to this point, when it felt like his scalp was crawling.

The scratching never helped really, and he knew that, so eventually he shoved it all back, pressing it against his head and out of his face, before leaning forward on his elbows to read.

There wasn't really much to it. Just notes in his mother's hand. They were mostly about potions, but a few here and there were little side notes, like where his mother had tried a different wand movement with a particular hex and had good results. The notes reminded him of his own journal, which was currently in his bag and guarded with the strongest protection charms he knew.

When Severus was satisfied that he had gained all he could from the few pages of notes he had pulled from the box today, he wandered down the stairs. His father was asleep in a tatty armchair, in the middle of the day. He wondered if this is what Tobias did all the time, now that the mill was closed. It crossed Severus' mind how easy it would be to off his father right now, but where would be the sport in that? So he wandered through the kitchen, out to the alley behind the house and Disapparated.

There wasn't much to this town. Even before Severus found out he was different - better - he hadn't exactly been a social butterfly. Still, it was better being out of the house than breathing in the oppressive air day in and day out. So far, he had managed to leave almost every day, with very little fuss from his parents. He assumed they didn't want him around, and he hadn't been proven wrong.

It also gave him ample opportunity to practice magic, whatever kind he was inclined to use, away from Tobias' watchful eye. He had been trying, of late, to work his way in with the wizards around Lord Voldemort, although it was difficult to gain enough trust to do so. He only hoped that one day the Dark Lord (he had learned quickly that he was not to be called Tom Riddle by those wishing to gain and audience with him) would see his talent. Then one day, he would have the kind of power he wanted.

Until that day came, he had to be careful to Apparate away from home when he intended to do anything the ministry might track. Once they traced the spells' location, they would overlook a dead rat or squirrel, but he couldn't take the risk of doing it near home. A cluster of Unforgivables in the area would surely give away who was casting them. In his neighborhood, as far as he knew, he and his mother were the only ones even capable of them, and he was beginning to wonder if his mother had ever cast one. She certainly was showing no backbone as of late.

After a long day out, getting in his own private study and alternating between his wand and his mother's out of boredom, he Apparated back home, into the alley behind the house, and made his way in the back door.

Walking into the kitchen, Severus shut the door behind him and made his way to the cupboards to get a glass for water, when he heard a scraping noise. The cellar door was opening.

He quickly forgot that he was thirsty and sprinted towards the cellar door. His mother. It had to be her. She was brewing again. It wasn't perfect, as she was still hiding in the cellar, but it was an improvement...

However, when he got to the cellar door, he almost ran straight into his father, who was walking up the stairs to the kitchen. He stepped back before they collided, blinking hard at his father, and Tobias stopped as well, staring up at his son with an unreadable expression on his face.

Seconds felt like eternities as they stared, and then Tobias side-stepped Severus and moved past him, rounding the corner out of the kitchen to head up the stairs. Severus moved immediately to the door of the cellar, peering down at the familiar tiny room. It was like looking at a memory that had somehow been altered. He was no longer down there with his mother as a young boy, and the room looked impossibly smaller than he had remembered it.

Tobias' footsteps clunked up the stairs, followed immediately by the opening of a door. He was going into Severus' room. His parents' room was farther down the hall. It would have been longer between Tobias reaching the top of the stairs and the sound of a door opening if it had been their bedroom door.

Severus spun and bolted up the stairs, stopping in the door of his room to find his father picking up one of the boxes in his bedroom. There were only a few left, and Severus noticed the thin sheen of sweat on his father for the first time as he lifted one of the remaining boxes. The notes he had left spread across the bed were gone.

"What are you doing?"

"It doesn't concern you."

"You are in my room!"

"Which is in my house, which I paid for. I can go in any room I like."

Tobias pushed past him, carrying the box down the steps, and Severus followed him.

"What are you doing?!" Severus repeated, sounding angrier now. Mum had told him about their talk, had told him Severus was digging through the boxes. That was the only explanation.

Tobias didn't answer until he was at the cellar door. "Keeping dead things buried," he replied gruffly, descending the stairs to the tiny room below.

"Like your son?!" Severus spat before he could even stop himself.

The creaking of the stairs stopped, and everything went silent for a moment. Then the noise resumed, somehow crisper than before, as Tobias made his way down the stairs and deposited the box on the cellar floor.

When he reached the kitchen again, Severus' pulse was pounding in his ears. Tobias moved toward him, and Severus stepped back. His body language spoke of years past, when he hid and cowered under Tobias' anger, but his eyes stayed defiant, locked on his father's.

Tobias raised his hand, looking for a moment like he might pat Severus' shoulder, but his fingers curled and froze mid-gesture when Severus' cold glare faltered into a look of confusion. Tobias dropped his hand back to his side. "Just watch yourself."

"Or what? You'll lock me in the cellar as well?"

Tobias looked down, shaking his head with a rueful smile curling his lips. "I am not the one you need to be afraid of, Severus."

"Well, I'm certainly not afraid of Mum," Severus bit off, watching his father turn and leave the kitchen. After a moment, he called out into the empty room, "I'm not afraid of you either!"


~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

"How did you expect him to react, Tobias?!"

Severus' reading was interrupted by his mother yelling downstairs. He closed his book, and slid off his bed. Pressing himself to the door, he slowly turned the handle and pulled it open, careful not open it past the point where it started to creak on its hinges.

"I don't know. I didn't expect him to come home as I was doing it."

"He would have gone to his room and seen everything missing anyhow."

Severus edged the door open farther and peered down the steps. He could see the line of his mother's back poking into his line of vision from behind the wall.

"I couldn't let him keep digging."

"It is not as though he hasn't seen any of it before."

"Exactly."

"He was a little boy."

"Ten years old is not so little. I'll bet he remembers plenty of what you showed him." For the first time in the conversation, Tobias' voice held a hint of disdain.

Severus sneered. Magic. Tobias would shove the whole magical world in their cellar if it would fit.

Eileen stepped back, her hair and ear, as well as the back of her arm and elbow, were in Severus' line of sight now. She seemed to be shifting her weight from one foot to the other.

"We need to tell him."

"What?!"

"If you're so worried, we'll tell him. I am sick of you punishing our son for my mistakes."

Her mistakes? He had her believing this was all her fault?

"No! We are not doing that!"

There was a shuffling, and Severus pushed his door mostly shut again.

"Why not?"

"God damn it, Eileen! He needs no further encouragement."

They were both shouting now, and Severus inched his door open again.

"What makes you so sure he'll–"

"Because he's your son!"

Severus could see his mother clearly now, and her face was lined with hurt. He watched her eyes slowly drop to the floor, considering, and then she looked back at Tobias. She smiled sadly, her brows knitting together with a look of reassurance. "He's your son, too."

There was a long pause.

"Not enough, I'm afraid."

"Oh, fuck, that's it. We're telling him."

Eileen shifted towards the steps and Severus pushed the door closed again, listening for the sound of them walking up the stairs before he jumped back into bed and pretended not to have heard. But the sound didn't follow. Instead there was another shuffling noise, followed by a small grunting noise from his mother, and then something hit the floor and shattered.

That was all it took.

Severus had stood by and watched Tobias' temper as a child, but he wouldn't now. Now, he could finally do something about it. He knew if he could just do something - anything, maybe intimidation would work - he might be able to get Tobias to back down. After all, he was immensely more powerful now than he had been at eleven. He bounded down the stairs.

His hand slid in his pocket, pushing both his and his mother's wands deep down against the bottom of it to compare their lengths, and then pulled out the longer one - his mother's. If he was going to hex his father, it seemed only fitting to do it with her wand. After all, she was the one who needed revenge on him, even if she was too weak to get it.

By the time he got to the base of the stairs, they had turned to look at him, frozen in their struggling position. Eileen's wrist was held tight in Tobias' fists, her hand balled up near his cheek.

"Let go of her!" he bellowed, thrusting his mother's wand in between his father's eyes.

Tobias' eyes flashed with fear, just for a moment, but he held his ground.

"Severus, just–"

"Is that my–"

"Shut up! Let her go!"

Tobias let go and backed away, but Severus followed, feeling his mother's presence not far behind him.

"We can explain all of this, Severus. There is a good reason," his mother said quickly.

Severus and Tobias spoke over each other, eyes glued on each other.

"Yes. There is. He's a bloody Muggle tyrant!" "We're not explaining anything!"

"Why aren't 'we?'" Severus demanded, catching his father's statement over his own. "Because there is nothing to explain other than your stifling–"

"There is bad and there is good, and bad things always maintain the propensity to be bad. I will not have that in my house. Your mother--"

"Are you talking Dark and Light?" Severus rebutted.

"Tobias, just let me tell him!"

Severus ignored his mother. "Lofty topic for a Muggle... But, there is no Dark and Light, only intent and power matter." And he intended to prove that to Tobias. He had the power now, and after a few well placed hexes, Tobias would understand that.

"What?" There was a surprised tone to his mother's voice. He wasn't sure why, but he didn't turn to look.

"Take this, for instance," Severus said, flicking the wand in his hand and slicing Tobias' shoulder open. "I meant that light-heartedly. In fact for every time you ever hit my mother, perhaps I should give you one of those."

"Severus!" his mother yelled.

But her call to end the argument got lost. It only took a moment for Tobias to recover from the shock and take in what Severus had said, before he lunged. He gripped Severus' wrists, trying to wrestle the wand away, and Severus tried to wring his hand away.

Even Severus hadn't been anticipating what happened next. Of course he'd daydreamed, but he'd never seriously considered it. But when Tobias fought back, Severus realized he would never give up fighting. It would take more than a few hexes to put his father in place and free his mother from Tobias' control. Tobais would never stop holding him and his mother back unless drastic measures were taken, and Severus was not going allow things to continue the way they were. He would not leave his mother this fall to live this life anymore, even if it meant...

"Avada Kedavra!"

His mother shrieked as, in a flash of green light, Tobias' expression blanked and he fell to the floor in a heap. Severus lowered the wand to his side and stared at the lifeless body. It had worked. He had never cast the spell on a human being before, and it had worked flawlessly. And there was no better target than the one he had just hit. The blank expression on Severus' face slowly turned cocky, a smirk tugging the corner of his lip.

He was vaguely aware that his mother's shuddering breathing was becoming louder. And then she collided with his back, grasping his clothes with desperate hands and forcing him to face her. "What did you do?!"

Caught off guard, he stumbled, "You know bloody well–"

Her fist slammed into his nose, effectively shutting him up when blood spattered down his chin and neck. He growled, reaching for her wrists, but her fists continued to come down on his arms and chest as he blocked each blow aimed at his face. "Mum!" he tried to calm her. "Mum!" She was stronger than she looked, and, in the tangle of limbs that ensued, as she fought to hurt and flee and he fought to control the fight, Severus finally struck back. It was the only way he could stop her long enough to capture her arms in his hands, and he slammed her back into the wall. They were both bloodied and pale.

She was shaking, breath coming heavy and ragged, and she looked up at him with fear in her eyes. "You're... How could you... Your father, your father..." she sobbed. Her face was smeared with blood and she looked at him with tears of hurt and fear running down her cheeks. Her eyes flicked down to her husband's body and back to Severus, new tears spilling over her eyelids. "You're a monster. I--"

He slammed her sharply back against the wall again and she let out a cry of pain. "Wh– Monster? He was the monster!" Her knees gave out under her so that she slumped against the wall. "You made me! Have you forgotten yourself!? You taught me everything I know!"

She blinked away tears, exhaling hard, and her expression softened in thought. For a moment, she looked almost calm, her breath evening, although her wide eyes never left his. She knew. She had to know, she had to have realized that he had saved her.

"I shouldn't have," she finally said softly, as if she had just realized it herself.

He stared at her, disbelieving. He had saved her, and she didn't want it. She didn't see. She wanted to take it all back? Every moment they had shared in his childhood?! His brow furrowed and he opened his mouth in question, just as three loud cracks echoed in the street just outside the house.

Severus jerked his head in the direction of the noise and then swung back around to face his mother. Fuck. Aurors.

She had turned towards the noise as well, but looked back at Severus when he shifted, her eyes pleading. Severus could feel her shoulders rising and falling under his grip as she began to gasp for breath. When she opened her mouth, she could barely speak for fear. "Severus, please."

He couldn't kill her, not when he had spent most of the summer trying to figure out a way to save her. But she was taking it all back, everything he had hoped to resurrect in her. She would tell the Aurors what happened, and he would be... But she just kept pleading with him - her voice soft, clouding his thoughts.

The Aurors were just in time to see the second flash of green through the windows of the house, before another loud crack announced Severus' departure, Eileen's wand clattering to the ground next to her body.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Severus had cleaned himself up by the time he returned to his home. He wouldn't have bothered to mend his nose (he was too numb to feel it anyway) if it weren't for fear of being questioned about it. With a loud crack, he Apparated to the back door, and unlocked it with his wand. He slipped inside, flipping the light switch on and blinking at the change in light.

"Severus Snape?"

He jumped, drawing his wand and pointing it at the source of the noise.

The man at the other side of the kitchen raised his wand in response. "You best put that down, laddie."

"Who are you?"

"Alastor Moody. I'm an Auror. Put. It. Down."

"Why are you here?" Severus sniffed loudly and brushed a stringy lock of hair behind his ear, keeping his wand where it was.

"Something has happened you would probably like to know about. Now put it down or I'll put you in a full body bind, boy."

"What happened?" Severus asked, trying to sound innocent and hoping it worked, as he shifted from foot to foot. He slowly lowered his wand.

"Only known living relative of either Mrs. Eileen Patricia Snape or Mr. Tobias Severus Snape, aren't you?" Moody paused as Severus rolled his eyes at the name, a knee jerk reaction to being reminded he was named after his father - the man who killed his family. "Mr. And Mrs. Snape your parents?"

"Yes," Severus grumbled.

"He a Muggle?"

Severus snorted derisively. If Moody had to ask, given their living conditions, he couldn't have been a very good Auror. "Yes." Severus was about snap at Moody, inquiring again what had happened, but Moody's next words knocked the wind out of him.

"Taking after your mother, I see?" Moody stood, taking a swig out of his hip flash, and paced around the kitchen. He didn't look to be very old; his gait was slightly slowed, but the man looked as though he had been through a blender not too long ago. Severus just assumed he had been recently injured.

"What are you talking about?" Severus tried to sneer, but Moody fixed him with a serious gaze.

"Been looking for her for years. Powerful witch, your mother." The tone in his voice was more accusatory than complimentary, and Severus made a rude face at the back of his head, careful to blank his expression when the Auror turned back to face him.

"Disappeared not long after I passed my Auror's exam," Moody said, his voice almost a growl. "Now we know where she went. Smart girl, running off with a Muggle. No one would have guessed."

Severus could barely comprehend what the other man was saying, and Moody was saying it all as if Severus should have known it already. Was this Auror saying that his mother had once---

"Alright. Give me your wand."

"What!? Why?"

"Can't trust what people say, only what they've done." Before Severus, sputtering in protest, could stop him, Moody yanked Severus' wand out of his hand and held the tip to his own. "Prior Incantato."

Severus had heard about this spell before. In spite of the fact he had spent most of the evening banishing rocks in an alley behind a boarded up paint shop, he held his breath when he heard the incantation spoken. He had used his mother's wand against his parents, but it wouldn't do for the last fox he had killed to spring from the tip of his wand.

A misty image of a rock hung in the air for a moment, then came another and another as Moody repeated the spell, and Severus let out his breath carefully, trying to keep it even to not relay his apprehension. Moody looked at the wand for a moment, and then handed it back to Severus. "Exciting summer?"

"Thrilling," Severus deadpanned, pocketing his wand.

"Your parents are dead."

Severus didn't even have to feign shock. That had certainly been abrupt. It was when Moody looked at him, as if expecting Severus to speak, that he had to think about what to say. "What?" Well, it wasn't brilliant, but he supposed if it had been real news to him, he probably wouldn't have been very coherent anyway.

"Murdered. Seems as though someone else found her before we did. Probably killed your father to eliminate witnesses"

"Who would have been looking for my mother?" Severus carefully maintained the surprised tone of his voice, which wasn't hard. He was flying rapidly from shock at what Moody was saying to utter relief at his pure dumb luck. No wonder Moody hadn't pressed for more information about where he had been all night. Moody already had other wizards to suspect.

"Name any one of those old pureblood families, any one of Tom Riddle's early supporters."

He's not called Tom Riddle anymore, Severus thought defensively, but the shock quickly quelled the upsurge of loyalty.

"And half the Ministry." Moody continued, raising a finger at him. "You're lucky you weren't here. Would have killed you too. You best be on your toes, boy." A scarred finger found itself between Severus' eyes. "Constant vigilance."

Severus only stared, hoping his shocked expression was a passable response to Moody's sudden lecture.

"You're of age, so you can stay here, but we're going to have Aurors keep guard around the house for the next couple of weeks until you return to school."

"I don't need–"

"You need more than you think. These wizards are not like you or me, Severus." Moody patted Severus briskly on the shoulder, causing Severus to pitch forward on his feet slightly, and then made sure his flask was attached properly, preparing to leave. "No, these wizards would kill their own mothers if they thought it to their advantage."