Hermione took in a tight breath, her chest feeling as though it had been sat upon by a hippogriff. Her heart, pulsing as though trapped in a twisting vice. Her fingers very lightly pulled back from his but she didn't move from beside him, her body locked in place by grief.

"What....did you...do to him...?"

Snape's fingers slipped from the page, his body turning just enough to examine her features, "I tried to remove what he'd seen..." His words lingered in the air, a small sound as though of sharp thunder from far away echoing through the void, "No child should ever witness the death of their parents..."

Hermione lifted her head, her eyes twitching as she took in his once more cool facade, his words lingering in the air feeling more like a double meaning. With another tight breath, she whispered once more, "Why did you..?"

"Comfort the son of a man who relished with pleasure in my pain?" He finished for her, his voice even and level as though nothing significant had happened, "I wanted to hate him, in that moment...but I realized...that I had taken from him the one good thing left in this world."

Hermione's entire body was beginning to thrum. Shivering as though she were stood out in a winter rain but it wasn't temperature that ravaged her body but pure emotion. Emotion without name, though wielded enough power to make the entire world come to a standstill.

Before she could question his motives again he spoke as though he already knew what she might ask next.

Snape merely turned a few pages in the book resting at his side, his frame still parallel to hers though he'd since turned his head away, "I built this prison to lock her away...guarded by the one person I could never defeat," his eyes turned toward hers again, "Myself..."

Hermione's head twitched, her brow creasing as she tried to find any words in her vocabulary adequate enough to respond. When he moved away from her and to the other side of the lectern she instantly felt a sense of loss, of warmth.

"So that if I ever found myself in a moment of weakness..." His fingers ran gently over the edge of the pages, his lithe digits slipping through, turning them back, back in time, "I could remind myself just what I was fighting for."

Hermione watched his fingers slip away, his back slowly being given to her once again. His sudden absence freeing her tongue enough to speak, "Did...you ever care...for Harry?"

His head shook ever so slightly, she could almost feel his brow cocking, "I don't know...to me...that was the day I died."

Hermione inhaled, she could almost smell the sadness, the pain, and the torment. It filled her soul but the weight she had expected turned into more of a strength. She could almost feel the walls that he'd built around himself, tall impassible towers of virtue only he could rationalize.

Her eyes languidly turned down to the pages that laid before her, an unfelt wind causing their well-worn pages to shift. Small lights appeared between the pages, some a soft golden hue while others held more azure.

How did it happen? How did this woman-Lily- find such a place in this man's heart? A man so deprived of love from the moment he took his first breaths and hated until his last? What had happened between them? Why had he clung to her memory so desperately?

She didn't realize then that she already had the answers to her own questions. Her very own life having followed a similar course with regards to her personal relationships if she'd only taken the time to step out of her own darkness and truly see. Perhaps that was why, when he turned to face her again she took his offered hand without hesitation.

As soon as his rough hand curled around hers a whirlwind of color and sound flew by, her senses overwhelmed by the presentation of it. She could hear snippets of conversations, arguments, and confessions. She could feel a rainbow of emotions, from fearful happiness to blind rage. All of it swirling like a tornadic wind about her frame. This time, she could still feel his hand in hers, her eyes having had closed against the brightness that assaulted her.

When the world grew still, though now filled with a muffled sound she instinctually held tighter. She could feel him still there in the corner of her eyes but her main focus was on the mashed memories that were slowly forming out of the darkness. The was a black path between them, reaching down far beyond them, acting almost like a line of time.

Hermione could hear muffled memories coming to form behind her as well though didn't feel the need to look behind her. To her left, she could see the pool scene slowly coming to, watching as Snape slowly then quickly removed himself from the pool fleeing from Lily's advance. The memory then began to loop on itself and she turned her attention to the right, it must have been shortly after the previous, the two teens were sitting in the library. Severus with a book he was trying to fall into and Lily who seemed very impassioned about what she was saying. As the scene became clearer the voices therein did too.

"I don't see the problem...you like me and I like you." Lily kept her voice quiet and finally stopped hovering over her friend taking the seat beside him. She very hesitantly reached out, letting her fingers run over his that held the book, "It's a bit like Romeo and Juliet don't you think?"

Severus' head turned, though he didn't pull his hand from hers, his lips frowning just a bit, "Did you even read the whole play?"

Lily scoffed lightly and rolled her eyes. Shifting a bit closer and took full hold of his wrist though despite her best efforts she couldn't catch his eye, "You know what I mean..."

"Why won't you look at her?" Hermione whispered despite herself.

"So many reasons..." Snape responded but didn't want the memory to be fully interrupted.

"Sev, look at me....please...?" Lily took his stone silence personally and when she reached to take his chin she frowned when he jerked back, "Please?"

Severus shook his head ever just so, "It's dangerous...I...I don't want to see you get hurt..."

Lily's face twisted with confusion, her hand that had reached for his jaw going to rest on his clothed forearm, "You would never hurt me...I know that, why would you say that?"

Instead of replying he lifted his eyes from the book, looking beyond to someone that was not formed in the memory. His face paled considerably and his eyes widened slightly.

Hermione instinctually turned to look but the person he was seeing wasn't there, a past memory was bleeding into the edge of the present. Like wallless dioramas, all she could see was a younger Severus sat beneath a tree, the movement inside it too slowed down to be of any consequence.

"Elsa." Snape supplied, his tone holding a sharp dangerous edge, "She was sat at another table, whispering to Lucius."

"Well..." Lily pushed herself up slowly, letting her fingers drag up to his shoulder, "If you change your mind, you know where to find me." Her heartbreak was barely concealed and she made to move around him before she leaned in close to his ear, "By the way... You're an amazing kisser."

Severus' head jerked to the side, his eyes wider than saucers. Her fleeting giggle as she made a quick getaway causing a right proper blush to flow all the way to his ears.

Hermione's own eyes widened considerably for a moment, her hand subconsciously holding tighter to the hand at her side. The memory began to repeat and Hermione had the urge to continue forward, this time she looked to her left. A darkened scene, the night sky glimmering through the archways of the astronomy tower. Hermione moved closer, just on the gently ebbing boundary. It took her eyes a moment but eventually, she could see a dark figure curled impossibly small in one of the alcoves.

Severus held his knees tightly, his pale fingers stark against the black fabric that was clutched so tightly, his hands trembled. His head was down, his dark hair hiding the silent tears that managed to escape his tightly shut eyes. Hermione could not hear any cries but once and a while he would sniffle. She was about to ask when just as the edge of the memory's boundary she caught a flash of red hair coming up the steps.

Lily came to the top, partially out of breath from the effort. She looked as though she'd been running through the castle for hours given her disheveled appearance. Her head turned over the space and her shoulders began to drop before a soft sniffle turned her in the correct direction. Had it not been for the sound she very much would not have seen Severus at all.

"Sev...?" Her voice was cautious and quiet, unsure that it was in fact who she had been searching the castle for. A low grumbling noise was her response and she tightened her jaw moving closer. A dim Lumos spell lit her way until she was finally able to see him, "Severus...I've been looking for you everywhere...You missed all of the day's classes...you weren't at dinner or anything...."

Lily was very careful when she knelt down beside him, her wand lowering down towards the floor as she tried to find his face through all of the blackness, "Are...are you crying?"

Severus made an odd noise, somewhere between a sniffle and a hiccup. There was a long pause before his head rose. His features were impossibly tight as if it were taking every ounce of strength to keep his tears from falling. His obsidian eyes sparkled in her light and he swallowed thickly his voice impossibly small, "Mother's dead..."

It was all he could manage with his grief-tightened throat. His eyes cast to the side as his body wound itself tighter. Like a roll of twine being ratcheted far too tight. His face twitched as he struggled to breathe through his nose that despite its relative size felt much too small.

"Oh, Sev... I'm so sorry..." Lily settled on her bent legs, her eyes watching him desperately struggle to appear strong. She reached out tentatively, resting her hand over the ones that still clawed at his robes. There was a pensive silence between them, Lily's eyes showing nothing but compassion and concern. While Severus did his best to simply keep breathing, his eyes boring holes into the old stonework.

"It's okay to cry you know..." Her words were kind and unbelievably gentle. Her fingers every so softly reaching up to his curtain of hair, tucking it behind his ear, "I promise...I won't tell anyone..."

Hermione watched the pain and anguish shift ever so subtly over Snape's face. She could easily recall how brutal his upbringing had been. Though there was something so comforting about Lily's presence that even she felt her own anxiety come to rest.

Silent tears slowly began to drop over his lashes, his Adam's apple bobbing as he tried to swallow down everything that was going through him. When Lily's fingers slipped into the hair at the back of his head he couldn't stop her from pulling him closer. Ever so slightly, his chest trembled, his eyes darting along the floor. Her hands moved ever so cautiously around him, one hand pulling his head to the crook of her neck, the other releasing his fingers from his slacks. She guided the latter towards her own waist where she felt him desperately cling to her robes before she let her fingers return to massaging circles along the back of his head.

The scene almost winked in and out, as though Severus had silently cried himself to sleep. Lily, who continued to hold him, had done just that. The top of her head rested over his as she kept them close. The sound of her heartbeat echoed throughout the memory. An immense feeling of calm and safety within its sound.

"This... Feeling of calm...." Hermione let her fingers very gently run through the boundary of the memory. Just that little touch filling her with such a sense of peace, "Is that what she did for you?"

"Every time... I'd looked into her eyes, or let her hand touch mine..." Snape tilted his head only just enough to give her his eyes.

"Your natural legilimancy..." Hermione looked away from the scene finding it odd that it hadn't yet repeated.

"Yes. It often clouded my mind with so many thoughts and emotions that weren't my own. I avoided eye contact with nearly everyone because of that...It wasn't until the end of my third year did I find a book on occlumancy did I learn that I could control it, even then I was not very good for some time."

Hermione let her head turn back to the scene though her own thoughts were running rampant. How awful it would have been to live in a perpetual state of emotion that wasn't your own? How frustrating and terrifying it must have been to be unable to do anything about it. Then, how unfathomable it would have been to finally find peace in someone so close to you.

How unbelievably difficult growing up in such a damaging household when one could actually feel the hurtful thoughts. A situation at the best of times would have damaged him only for his magic to completely ravage his emotional wellbeing. Then, to come to a large school where your very house immediately pitted everyone against you. Your own dorm mates bids for success and their ambition to have it no matter what the cost.   To feel all of that, all the time. To constantly feel your life in danger, the revolving feeling of flight or fight constantly thrumming through your entire body.

"How did you...help yourself control it?" Hermione was wary to ask, having remembered something else he'd mentioned in passing.

"Pain...has a unique way of clearing the mind." His words were even though had she looked at his face it would have looked most grim.

Hermione nodded numbly, her eyes watching as Severus began to lift his head, jostling Lily ever just so.

Severus' eyes were sticky with dried tears but he managed to open them just enough when Lily raised her head, a sleepy smile on her lips. In that moment, the blissful moment of safety and solitude, Severus returned her smile, though it felt rather foreign to do so.

"I will..." His voice could have easily been missed had the absolute silence of the void not been present.

Lily's smile grew, her eyes still lidded and her head still rather close. Her arms hadn't moved from his person and when he tilted his head, she could hardly breathe. Ever so gently, his lips found hers. Lily's smile blossomed beneath the kiss, her fingers coming up to tuck his hair away unawares that Severus had pulled his wand that was now resting by his hip.

Lily had just shifted closer, her head changing the angle to possibly deepen their little adventure when a bright red light flashed over the entire scene starting it over.

"What happened?" Hermione squeaked, suddenly taken aback. She'd thought she'd seen someone in the shadow of the stairs, having looked for only a second when Snape's wand had turned that way.

"Potter's little gang." Venom dripped from his tongue, "Sent me to the hospital wing from three stunners, nearly broke my skull into the stone from the force."

"Why did they attack you?" Hermione was greatly offended by the actions taken by the Mauraders having hoped they would have been at least sporting enough to announce their presence or ask for an explanation.

"They wholly believed that I had bewitched Lily. Claimed that I was assaulting her." Severus' jaw twitched.

"That's preposterous! She was pursuing you!" Hermione rounded on Snape looking up at him with her own eyes glowing like fire, "Please tell me they were punished!?"

"I was told they had detention for the week I was in hospital but I have no way of knowing if that were true." Snape raised a slight brow at the temper that was flowing from Hermione in waves, "Regardless, the damage had been done and it only fueled more arguments from there."

Hermione pursed her lips tightly, her brow still furrowed as she turned to the sound of said arguments. Only small wisps of incomplete conversations at first, she could clearly hear Snape's frustration growing with each one and in true form, Lily's was growing to match. It starkly reminded her of her relationship with Ron. Not only in the last year of their established relationship but through their school years as well. Though oddly, she found herself to be in Snape's position rather than Lily's.

Memories came in and out, too small to hold their own space but rather like small keyholes spread through the darkness.

"I am not a pet project!"

"No, Severus you're my friend and I just want you to be happy."

Hermione let her eyes turn to random visions. When her focus lingered long enough the words became clear enough to hear over all the other noise.

"Why don't you want to hold my hand?" Lily's voice sounded dejected.

"Why do you want to?" Severus' tone was filled with confusion, the small blip of the memory showing him turning before Lily's face appeared.

"Because that's what couples do!" Lily huffed.

"We're a couple?" Severus' brows rose high into his hairline.

"Hello? I kissed you! Of course, we are!"

"Oh..."

Hermione smirked at his younger self, how completely dumbfounded he sounded. Her attention was gradually drawn to the right where a larger memory had formed, completely unaware that she'd even been walking forward.

"It's like my very existence is one big cosmic joke!" Severus' voice was sharp, edged with danger. His eyes narrowed to small slits in the mirror, the left side of his face no doubt hit by a stinging jinx.

"Severus, you know that's not true..." Lily worried behind him, it appeared as though she'd followed him into the lavatory.

"And you! Filling my thoughts with all these confusing ideals of love." Severus spun on his heel, his shirt partially opened at the bottom. Small droplets of blood staining the dingy white.

"You deserve to be loved, Severus!" Lily all but pleaded, her eyes immediately snapping to his waist.

"How can I deserve something that makes no sense!" Severus was seething now but despite the jinx on his face he looked so helplessly lost.

"But it does, I promise you, please...don't let your head seal off your heart. I know, inside you, there is a truly wonderful person!" Lily took a small step but Severus' posture made her pause.

"And what? You're trying to save me? I am just another one of your little projects!"

"Severus....that hurts..." Tears had formed in Lily's eyes now, her hand coming up to her heart.

"Yeah? Well, imagine how I feel..." Severus' chest deflated, though emotion still tensed his body.

A deep silence grew between them. Though neither of them truly looked at the other.

"At least...let me help you to the hospital wing..." It was with pure bravery alone that Lily managed to break the silence.

"I don't need your help, with this or your Gryffindor buddies." Severus' voice warbled slightly, his hand beginning to tremble as a drop of blood fell from his belt to the floor. The sound of it nearly deafening. He turned away from her, having to brace himself on the sink.

"They're not my buddies and honestly I don't know why they go after you so much but I can't just let them do that!" Lily's words crescendoed.

Severus turned from the mirror, despite his shaking frame, raising himself up to his full height, "I am a man! I don't need your help!"

The heartbreak on Lily's face was palpable. Her head shook ever just so as her mind scrambled to find anything to say that would make him see. See how much she cared for him, worried for him, wanted him.

Hermione's own heart ached, her hand coming up to rub the spot as though it would help. How could Lily have missed the terror in Snape's eyes? How much he was fighting with himself to believe her.

Another memory across the way turned and shifted with the darkness and Hermione let her body move close enough to hear. Time had obviously passed, Snape's hair had grown nearly beyond his shoulders now.

"What are you doing here this is the boy's lavatory." Severus looked partially panicked, his eyes darting as though he were having trouble forming his thoughts.

"Well I don't care, and I'm not leaving until you tell me what just happened." Lily crossed her arms over her chest, blocking his way out.

"It... It was nothing I was just... Surprised is all..." Severus clawed at his hair, his eyes down at the floor.

"You mean that I would kiss you in front of people?" Lily's brow rose with her tone.

Snape frowned slightly, "Yes...I mean...no..."

"Am I that terrible of a kisser?" Lily came towards him cautiously.

"No...of course not... you're a....a great kisser..." Snape still didn't turn to look at her, "I just..."

Lily frowned a bit coming closer, "Is it that I kissed you in front of your Slytherin buddies?"

Snape turned then his face twitching, his lips pursed and flexed but he didn't speak.

"That's it isn't it? You're embarrassed by me!" Lily's concern flared into anger, hurt.

"No!"

"Yes, you are! I can see it on your face! What are you too good for me now?" One didn't have to be a legilimens to feel her protective walls coming up around her.

"No! That's not it." Severus' voice roared over hers stilling her continued ramblings into a stunned silence. When he had her full attention his face fell, "They know what you are...They know you're a... muggleborn..."

"You say that like it's a bad thing..." Lily could feel the tears stinging her eyes, "Why do you say it like that? What happened to the boy not too long ago who laid beside me on the grass, telling me all about magic? The same little boy who told me that me being muggleborn made no difference?"

Severus couldn't have looked more heartbroken.

It was unsettling to see Snape so out of control of himself. The rise and fall of his anger his lack of eloquent and well thought out responses. Succinct in their cutting edge. Hermione wondered idly when it had all fallen in place for him. When exactly his iron control over himself had become what she'd known him to be.

A small turn and Hermione's focus instantly zeroed in on another memory. The girl sat beside Snape vaguely familiar, it took her a moment to realize though once she had she gasped.

"Narcissa?" Hermione looked to Snape for confirmation. It never even occurred to her that she would have been at school with him. Though logically it made sense.

Snape nodded ever just so, letting her lead him closer so that the memory would become more clear.

"I guess you have to start somewhere." Narcissa drawled, lounging on one of the black leather couches in the Slytherin common room. Her dark head turned to look over Severus' shoulder as he organized his notes for end-of-term exams. He was sat on the floor using the coffee table but didn't so much as lean on the couch for support. Devoid of his robes and in his simple button-up it was very clear that he was growing more broad, still skinny but definitely larger.

"What do you mean?" His voice was a little deeper as well, though it was most certainly the same year as everything else that had been witnessed he was definitely starting to reap the rewards of male puberty.

"The mudblood, I guess it's better than a muggle but I mean honestly..." Narcissa rolled her eyes when Severus glanced over his shoulder to glare at her.

"Please don't call her that..." His tone was measured but carefully treaded as a plea.

"What? It's what she is..." Narcissa let out a deep sigh, bringing her arms up behind her head completely nonpulsed by her words. Slowly her head turned to the sound of a giggle, the memory twisting and warping to reveal none other than Lucius Malfoy sitting in one of the large armchairs that sat on the back wall.

As ever, he had a cocky smirk curling the corner of his lips. Definitely handsome by any standard, his conceit wafted off of him in large waves. In his lap sat Elsa, her head resting back against the winged rest beside his own. She certainly was very pretty, gorgeous even, her long raven hair twisted with loose curls. Her fingers idly played with his near silver hair. One of his hands rested possessively over her lap, his thumb teasing her shirt hem. They were speaking but were much too far away to be heard.

Severus raised his head only slightly not having to turn to feel the waves of jealousy rippling off of the girl behind him, "Why don't you just kiss him?"

"Don't be ridiculous."

"That's what Lily did to me." Severus' tone was innocently naive.

"Ugh, that's disgusting." Narcissa faked a gag, "Besides he's already promised to the Great Royal Prince family."

"Royal?" That piqued his interest and he lowered down the papers in his hand to give her his attention.

"Well they're not any more of course, but they used to be. Before their bloodline dwindled to nothing." Narcissa's was flippant, her hand accenting her tone.

"You had opposition on all sides..." Hermione frowned slightly, though that last bit of information was surely going to be looked into further.

"Indeed." Severus almost sighed, "It was only our youth that allowed us to last as we did..."

"She wanted something from you that you weren't yet capable of giving..." Hermione knew that feeling very well. Deeply and darkly throughout her entire body.

Snape nodded ever just so, "It came to a head that summer..."

Hermione followed his gaze towards a more fully formed memory that lay beyond the snippets and the arguments. As she approached it she felt an odd pull and without thought stepped over the invisible boundary.

As soon as she had the memory completely encased her. Like the previous ones, she'd found herself once more alone. Her hand felt cold in the absence of Snape and she absently brought it up to her chest, rubbing her fingers.

She could see the familiar tree that she had seen Snape and Lily sitting beneath many times. The sky was a beautiful amber mixed with a deep royal blue. Night was quickly falling but the pair, so relaxed against the warm grass didn't seem to care.

Lily was laid on her side, her head cradled in one arm while the other was stretched over Severus' chest. Her fingers tracing invisible patterns and teasing the buttons down his chest. Severus himself had his head propped in his hand while the other rested down at his side, his eyes were closed but his brow was worried. The hand at his side was absently plucking out strands of grass. 

The sky had completely turned before Severus managed to open his eyes. A resolute look shaping his features. Very carefully he turned his head down, looking into Lily's peaceful smile.

"Lily...?"

"Mm?" She breathed in deep, tilting her head back to his silent request. Her fingers ever so subtly slipping between the buttons on his shirt to the moonlight skin beneath. It was clear that she was ready to go farther than what they had especially when her slim leg curled over his causing him to lose his thoughts for a long moment.

"Don't...please..." Severus sounded most pained. His eyes shut tight as he worked on forming the right words in some semblance of order.

Lily pushed herself up, her brow furrowing slightly with worry that she might have hurt him. Her hand slipped out of his shirt to rest over his heart, "Sev... What's wrong...? Don't you want to...?"

"Want to what...?" Severus slowly pushed himself up with his hands, gingerly dislodging Lily from over his person.

"You know..." Lily blushed though it was hard to see in the darkness.

It took Severus a few ticks and a glance into her eyes for him to decipher just what she was on about. When he realized a deeply guilty look crossed his features.

"Actually...I was wondering if..." His lips twitched as he searched for the right words, "If we could go back...to how things were before...the kissing..."

Hermione's eyes widened considerably, she never once expected that Snape would deny Lily of anything. Given all that he'd done in her name. She watched the hurt roll down Lily's face and immediately felt her heartbreak as though it were her own.

'Oh..." Lily shifted just a bit, pulling her knees closer to her chest.

"It's not that I don't like you," Severus rambled, "I do, a lot. I just..." He pulled his own knees up a bit, "I just feel like... I'm not what...What you deserve..."

Lily turned her head to look at him, her bottom lip trembling, "You're breaking up with me..."

"I...I still want to be your friend," Severus attempted to console, much too young to understand the heart of a young woman.

Lily shook her head pushing herself up, her sorrow turning to anger, "I can't do this right now...I need time to...to..."

"I'm sorry..." Severus watched her move away, her hurried steps breaking into a run when she got over the rise.

Severus pushed himself up, mostly to watch her go. He followed her shadow at a great distance until he was sure she was safe within her neighborhood.

Hermione found herself fascinated by the emotions that were struggling to come free on Severus' face. As though he felt exceptionally guilty at standing up for what he felt was right. That somehow he'd ruined everything in his life. Regret settled lastly, and he turned away down the darkened road toward his own home.

Hermione had expected the memory to end there but as it continued on, she got a sickening feeling in her stomach. As though she also believed that the entire universe was to see to his complete destruction.

Severus' head hung low as he very quietly pushed open the door to his home. The lights were dim, but his nose curled to the smell of alcohol. With a firm brow, he closed the door, locking it and slipping the secret key he'd made for sneaking out into his trouser pocket. 

He made it past the living room without incident but when his feet hit the first step on the stairs he felt his arm taken in a vice grip. His head turned to that of his furious father, who for once hadn't been in the living room in a drunken stupor but rather hidden in the shadows of the dark kitchen watching him return. 

"Where've you been?" Tobias' growl was barely understandable, his dark eyes so narrowed that they almost dissolved in the dim light. 

"Out." Severus snapped back, flexing the arm in his father's grip. Surreptitiously, he pulled his wand from his pocket palming it with his free hand. 

"Out?" Tobias mocked, pulling him rather forcefully from the stairs to the hall. Their heights were nearly matched but the man still had at least four inches over his son, which combined with his massively large chest made the growing teen look rather small in comparison, "You know the rules of this house."

"Yeah well...it was a long walk." His sass was definitely not appreciated by his father, the result of which resulted in Severus' arm being held up just a bit higher, making his toes rise just enough to keep him standing. 

"You think you can just do whatever you want now?" Tobias snarled, "Think the rules don't apply to you anymore? That you're grown?" 

Severus sneered at his father, "Let me go." 

"You were out with her weren't you?" Tobias lost his grip when Severus pulled himself back, now standing a few paces away, "You were! I knew it! You better not get her pregnant! The little whore...I will not support another child in this house!"

"She's not a whore!" Severus felt his anger boiling to the surface and despite his fear of his father, found himself unable to control his tongue, "It's not her fault her father took your job! Leave her alone!" 

Tobias' temper was much stronger than his son's though when Severus had instinctually raised his wand at him his eyes flared dangerously wide, "You dare raise that stick at me?" 

Severus hadn't even realized he'd done it until his father's hand had ripped it from him. A cold shiver ran down his spine when his father raised it at him, the look he'd seen for so many years that preceded a beating rising in his eyes. Somewhat shocked, somewhat held still in fear, Severus could do nothing when Tobias snapped his wand over his thigh, tossing it to the side. 

"Now we're equals." Tobias rumbled dangerously. 

Hermione was absolutely certain she'd heard whatever strand of rational thought Severus had left snap with his wand. Her own eyes were wide with shock at such a derisive act but before she could even digest everything was moving again.

"I'll. Never. Be. Equal to you." Severus finally rose his eyes, seeing just what was behind the man he called father. His own fury had clouded his sight and in an instant, he lunged forward. 

His punch stood no chance of landing, it was in the blink of an eye that Tobias' military training kicked in and Severus found himself in a chokehold with his feet off of the floor. Severus' legs kicked out as his father's bicep threatened to take what little breath remained. By some stroke of luck, his heel made its mark and Tobias released his grip, though it was only to throw him bodily through the doorway of the living room. 

Severus' shoulder cracked hard against the paneling as he stumbled into the room. His hands wildly out in front of him as he tried to keep himself from falling to the floor. Managing that he spun around only to be met with a fist the size of his entire face, breaking his nose instantly. 

"You want to be a man!? Well, come on!" Tobias towered over his son, who now laid at his feet holding his profusely bleeding nose. 

Hermione pleaded with any god she knew that Severus would just stay down. Unfortunately for her, that was not the case. Severus pushed himself up, arming himself with an empty liquor bottle. His chest was heaving but she could see just how long he'd waited for this. 

Severus swung the bottle wide, too wide, his father instantly catching his arm with his hand. Another expert twist that was sure to have cracked if not broken Severus' elbow, and a steel-toed boot kick to his chest sent the testosterone-filled boy crashing back onto the coffee table, his arms splayed out to the sides. 

Hermione watched helplessly, her head shaking when Tobias retrieved the bottle that he'd liberated from Severus. The boy, now breathless and bleeding watched through hazed eyes when his father came to stand between his legs. 

"You're going to learn your place, one way or another." Tobias raised the bottle, and Hermione closed her eyes though the defining sound she'd been waiting for did not come. When she dared to open them it was just in time for Tobias to thump the glass bottle right beside Severus' ear, his point exceptionally clear.