Things Learned from Old Tobias

He was seventeen and barely free from school, from the stupid teachers, from Potter and his marauding friends - and yet he felt empty, incomplete. He tipped his head back and closed his eyes, listened to the hum of the pub around him. It was filled with working men from the local mill where his father worked. His father was probably among them, but Tobias wasn’t one to acknowledge his freak son. After Mother died last summer, Tobias and Severus said nary a word to each other. Tobias wanted Severus to get a job in the mill, do something useful with himself, make himself a man, but Severus refused. He’d done well enough under Slughorn’s tutelage that he could sit his exams, attain his potions mastery, and be useful to the Dark Lord. Severus didn’t know why he’d bothered to come back to this place, why he hadn’t taken Lucius up on his invitation to spend the summer at the manor, but he knew he had to finish things here before he moved on.

A fist thumped down on the table in front of him, and Severus opened his eyes. The other boys he would have gone to school with, soot-stained from working in the mills all day, stood over him. Severus gazed up at them, impassive, as they spewed long-used and tired, repeated epithets, and when they were done he rose up. They wanted a fight, and they would get one. Severus had learned a thing or two from old Tobias. He shrugged off his coat and rolled up his sleeves, drew his fists up like a boxer. The boys took one look at the Mark on his arm and backed away. Severus smiled grimly and rolled his sleeves back down. He had work to do.

(Word count: 298)