Disclamer: I don't own anything so don't sue me!

I had a little trouble updating- sorry for the wait!

Chapter 3:

Bonding

"I don't know how the rest of the magical world judges one's self worth but I've always believed it should be based on one's ability to work hard and survive, not whether or not someone's father can wave a magic wand or travel the world through a fireplace."

The words Tobias chose may not have been perfect and they certainly didn't come easy to say. Tobias wasn't a very warm person, open to kind gestures or words of praise, but he meant that last part. About self-worth and working hard and surviving. And Severus did work hard, Tobias knew that, and he could survive in this world better than most if he only tried. He was like his mother in that regard, strong-willed yes, but always in a state of inner-turmoil about something impalpable. If the books he read about pure-blood wizarding marriage practices were correct, Tobias would dare to suspect his wife's family was prone to clinical depression due to probable inbreeding. Of course, he would never slander the almighty name of Prince to Eileen's face, lest she might decide to turn him into a footstool in the middle of the night (and he had no reason to doubt that she would).

It seemed the family curse of magical racism, however, would repeat itself one way or another.

Tobias wasn't prepared for this, Severus' obvious disregard for half of his lineage. It hurt, in a way, not that he hadn't expected it to happen eventually. He knew the day would come when he'd see his son on the street and Severus would only nod to him as he would a stranger and walk by. He just didn't think it would come so soon. He thought, he hoped, that he would have his son just a little while longer.

Tobias didn't know this person that Severus had become over the years. An image of what the Prince family wanted Eileen to be, what later on in her life she regretted not being. It was changing him, subtly, but it was there. She instilled his love of 'Dark Magic', giving him a Dark Arts book once he was old enough to read. He was far too young, Tobias felt, and would put his foot down time and time again, but it did no good for his already fragile marriage.

'He needs to learn magic,' Eileen said during a particularly bad disagreement on the subject, 'It's in his blood.'

'But he should decide that for himself, when he's older.' Tobias said firmly to her.

She laughed at him, told him he was only a muggle and couldn't possibly understand. He grew furious at that and shouted that he wished he'd never have married her. Eileen cowered at his words as if she hadn't expected them but Tobias didn't care by that point. It was only unfortunate that Severus was there to bare witness to that argument. He cried in his room for hours afterwards.

Even here, in the present time Severus withdrew into himself, hunching his shoulders and looking up at Tobias with deep-set black eyes. He had the book now and held it close to his chest as if he expected it to be taken from him

Tobias would do no such thing. He'd seen it already, cover to cover. The secret was out and there was nothing more. Or at least Tobias hoped there was nothing more, but with that boy one never could tell.

Caught in the awkwardness of it all, Severus put one foot behind him; he would turn towards the stairs and retreat up to his room, darkness or no darkness, and sulk just as he always did.

The firelight painted a picture of Severus that his father had failed to see all summer. He didn't remember his son like this; this nervous, pallid little thing, too thin to be healthy.

Suddenly, a paternal feeling of concern welled inside him, ridiculous as it may have felt at first. Severus ate well enough during lunch, didn't he? Weren't they feeding him at that magic school? He would have to get to the bottom of that later. One problem at a time.

"Severus," Tobias put a hand on the boy's shoulder, not even a rough one either, just firm enough to keep him in place, "Sit down. We can forget about that damned Potions book. Just don't hide in your bedroom again."

He didn't like the sound of his own voice. It was too…saccharine, almost as if he was coaxing a kitten out of a box.

"I hide from nothing." Severus said sharply, brushing the hand off his shoulder with a sudden burst of will. It was a move Eileen would make but Tobias could play that game too. He gathered up that familiar feeling of authoritative restraint and spoke a challenge that he knew Severus couldn't refuse.

"Prove that to me." he said,"Sit here and face me, look me in the eyes knowing that I know what I do. You can't change what I've read so you might as well get over it."

He gestured to the sofa, welcoming a reply one way or the other and got one when his son sat stiffly on the floor, face telling of his displeasure.

Good enough. At least he didn't seem to be going anywhere.

He noticed the boy's eyes glaring holes into him as he ran his thumb up and down the binder of his mother's old book, not even daring to open it now. For an instant, Severus opened his mouth as if to speak, then gave it a second thought and closed it, suddenly posed still enough to blend into the wallpaper.

Tobias sighed in irritation over the sudden episode of shyness.

"Speak up, boy, you won't be punished for it." Severus looked up with a peculiar look on his face.

"Would you be willing to put that into writing?"

"Watch your tongue though," Tobias warned, "I'm not angry as of yet, however I don't recommend you push me by being cheeky."

The boy seemed puzzled, like he'd suddenly realized he wondered into the wrong house.

"I…I don't understand it. You have to be angry. You always are. I would be."

Tobias shook his head, mildly amused at how young the boy sounded, "I'm your father, Severus. I don't have to be anything. Nor do you. Now if you have something to say to me I suggest you do so before I lose my patience."

It was Severus' turn to shake his head, "I suppose you're entitled to hear it then," He sat with his arms folded over his knees. Protective once again, Tobias noted. "I wrote that as a sort of reminder-"

"Of your mother's maiden name?" Tobias interjected.

"Now look who's being cheeky." His son scoffed, fiddling with the button on his shirtsleeve. A definite nervous gesture.

"I wrote that," Severus continued, "to remind myself that…that no matter how weak I may feel… I'm always stronger than somebody else." He said this without looking up. His eyes misted for a fleeting second but that disappeared with a quick wipe with the back of Severus' hand. The gesture was so fast it didn't even look like he was wiping away tears. His father wondered how many times he has had to hide tears before.

"Muggles?" Tobias asked.

Severus nodded. "That logic sounds very unhealthy now that I say it out loud."

He gave a grim little smile that Tobias didn't understand.

"Why do you feel weak, Severus? There's something you're not telling me."

The boy's posture stiffened.

"It's off the subject. Forget it." Severus shrugged dismissively.

"I'll decide what's off the subject in this house." Perhaps that sounded a bit scathing in retrospect, but his son didn't respond to it.

"You wouldn't care." He insisted.

"Try me."

Severus' head whipped around, cheeks flushed as he spat out, almost absent-mindedly, "It isn't your business!"

Severus' eyes grew in shock over his own words. He stood up and turned away, his face buried in his hands in a gesture of helplessness so foreign to his father, and himself.

"I-I didn't mean-" he stammered miserably.

"I'm trying to remain sympathetic," Tobias said coolly, getting a grip on his own anger. "Don't complicate things by making me want to throttle you."

Severus nodded, suddenly appearing young again. Usually Severus was such an old soul, Tobias could easily forget that he was still just a boy. He makes mistakes sometimes, as all boys do. He needed guidance, not just discipline.

"You need to learn to bite that tongue of yours, child. Speaking out of anger is one habit I intend to break you of."

"I learned it from you." Severus muttered.

"I have no doubt that you did."

A shift of tenseness hung in the air as Severus looked up at him expectantly,

"What will you do?"

"About what?

"A punishment."

"Asking for a punishment now, are we?" Tobias smirked, though he knew he shouldn't, "Give me time to think of one as I'm feeling a bit creative. For now though, your could answer my question."

That did it. He could see his son turning into a nervous wreck again as he paced around the room, an intense expression plastered on his face.

"The children in my year, they're all idiots you see. It's because they are children, immature and terribly stuck-up, always pretending to be 'somebody',"

He stalled a bit and Tobias urged him on.

"Yes, yes, I've been through high-school before. Out with it, boy, or I can't help you."

At this, Severus stopped and gave him a strange stare, like he was trying to pick apart his father's words to find a grain of insincerity in them.

"They don't care for me much. My year, my house, everyone else. They say I'm creepy…and greasy. I don't wear the right robes, so they say. Apparently even my muggle clothes aren't good enough."

"Who," Tobias asked "is 'they'?"

Severus looked to his feet, letting the hair fall in front if his face.

"Black, Potter and everyone. They all chime in eventually, the other students. Even my House doesn't really like me. The other Slytherins…well, they're all rich. And pure-bloods… "

It made sense now why Severus was so picky over the clothes his mother bought for him. It was only a shame that they usually didn't have money to buy any better. Perhaps, with some scrimping and saving Tobias could buy him a proper wardrobe by the end of summer. He'd best not tell him right away until he could be sure. Wouldn't want to get the boy's hopes up.

"Is that all they say about you? Jeers about your clothing, is that the extent of it?"

Severus scowled, "Not for Potter. He hates me. Always finding ways to humiliate me. Uses every spell against me that isn't a dark spell."

"A rivalry?"

"Hardly. Black is in on it too. And then there's Pettigrew and Lupin. But Pettigrew is a coward on his own and Lupin only fights back to prove himself to his friends occasionally. He rarely bothers me."

He hesitated before saying in a lowered voice, "Lately, I've noticed they've been… meeting me places. Like they know where I am and are lying in wait for me to arrive. I don't know how they do it, but they're somehow tracking me and they always know when I'm alone. I wonder if that's how they've been able to keep their secret."

He eyed his son suspiciously, not knowing where this was taking him. "What secret, Severus? You don't play a part in it I hope."

Severus' face grew stern and thoughtful. "Tobias, I think… no, I know Remus Lupin is a werewolf. He shows all the telltale signs. Absences that coincide with the full moon, general unwellness during the days prior. I've done all my research and he fits all of the criteria."

Now this was news to Tobias. Never once did Eileen explain the existence of werewolves before. But he had no reason to disbelieve it, not when Severus sounded so confident, so sure about it.

"I don't see where it matters, in a school where every student is a witch or wizard and the groundskeeper is the size of a large car."

"Werewolves are dangerous," his son explained, "If one was let loose in the castle during a full moon, who knows how many students would be bitten or die. And they are protecting him. The whole school is protecting him. If I were to suddenly become a werewolf just see how many people would cater to me that way!" He said bitterly, eyes fixed to the window. The rain poured so heavily someone standing outside couldn't see a few feet ahead of themselves. It truly seemed as if there would be no end to this depressing conversation. One thing didn't add up, however. If Severus was being made the target of so much animosity, where was the Evans girl in this tale?

"So, between a snarling werewolf and a group of predatory bullies, how does Lily handle herself?"

When Tobias asked Severus' face paled more his father expected. So this was yet another sore subject. By now Tobias was willing to believe nothing about his son's life could be discussed without the boy blanching or getting upset.

He raised and eyebrow at the reaction.

"That is her name, isn't it?"

The boy turned back to him and nodded his inky-black head, swallowing down whatever hesitance he had in his mind,

"They don't bother Lily. I mean they tease her, they tease everyone but I'm the only one they…"

"Pursue? Torment?" Tobias offered.

"Well worded."

"There's more, I'll bet." The man probed again, feeling perhaps the more Severus talked the quicker they could reach a breakthrough and be done with the whole thing.

Severus explained uneasily after a moment of thought, "Potter sometimes… always says things to her. Not nice things, but… interested things. Things you would say to get a girl to like you,"

"And you're jealous," He asked. This only made Severus sputter worse then before.

"Jealous? No! I'm just-I'm not jealous. James Potter-he's arrogant. She doesn't even like him-they argue, for goodness sakes!-I am not jealous of Potter!"

He flurried around the accusation, meeting it head-on with ineffective schoolboy denial. If he fancied that Evans girl he could have said so outright; it wasn't as if Tobias was a stranger to those feelings himself. But here he was, stammering and fidgeting and fighting his feelings back with a stick as if the idea that the red-headed, green-eyed girl from the next block might reciprocate was unfathomable.

The image would have almost been funny if it didn't come across as so pitiful.

"Four against one. They don't give you much of a chance, do they?" Tobias said, thinking of those boys again and what they've done to hurt what little self-esteem Severus had.

"I'm used to it." Was all Severus said in return and they were soon lulled into a serene silence until several minutes later when a knock at the front door called their attention.

It wasn't Eileen's knock; it was too fast and low placed on the wood of the door.

Tobias got up, grudgingly, and looked out the door's small window to see a familiar face with large tearful green eyes and a cascade of wet red hair strewn down her back.

"Severus, I believe you have a visitor." He said stepping away from the door. The boy looked frozen for awhile. Severus had only ever had one visitor stop by to see him and by the look on his face he hadn't expected to see her at all. His father remembered in passing that she wasn't supposed to be in town today; a family trip Severus had said. Something to do with her sister, or was it her mother? Tobias and Eileen tended to ignore Severus' schoolyard gossip but considering what was earlier revealed perhaps it's time that they finally start listening to the boy.

"Don't keep her waiting, you whelp. Answer it." Tobias snapped when his son seemed to linger back a bit.

Obediently for a change, Severus when to the door, wiping off the sweaty palms he was certain his father did not see and opened the door for her.

And when he did, an armful of teenage girl lunged at Severus, sobbing manically on his shoulder as if the world would implode beneath her feet.

Lily Evans, sopping wet from top of her head to tips of her toes, started tearfully on about a failed camping trip and some dirty trick played on her by her sister.

"She brought her friends along," She said and Severus obviously understood what she meant because he put his arms around her without hesitation, "Petunia wouldn't even speak to me!" the Evans girl sobbed harder.

Severus shook his head and tightened his arms around her, whether subconsciously or in attempt to comfort her.

"She's only a m-" He stopped himself and looked up at his father. It didn't take a wizard to catch what Severus almost said. Those black eyes begged to be understood, if only for a moment and Tobias would not deny his son that much. He turned to take his leave for the kitchen, taking a candle and a match with him. He looked over his shoulder at the scene. That girl in there didn't know pain. Tobias knew it by instinct. She was one of those people who expected good things. She expected a mother, a father, a sister, a home and friends, no strings attached and she was obviously disappointed that she got a little less in life than she expected.

Severus on the other hand expected nothing because nothing was usually all he got. He couldn't feel the way she did about the lows in his life; even at this young age he simply couldn't afford to.

And though at the time it was the Evans girl who was crying, Severus held her as if she were the only thing in life which he could depend on. And that made Tobias profoundly sad.