Even though he was struggling to breathe with fingers locked around his throat, the distorted laughter still burst uncontrollably from Snape's throat.
He flung his wand aside, threw his head back, and smashed it forward against the man's nose.
A sickening, brittle crack.
"Ahhh-"
The man screamed in agony. Blood gushed forth at once, flooding down his cheeks and staining his collar crimson.
"You- you little bastard!"
A flash of disbelief crossed the man's eyes, quickly consumed by a surge of violent rage.
His fists pounded down on Snape like a hailstorm.
Yet Snape wailed all the more frantically, his hands clutching the man's shoulders, dragging him down as they tumbled onto the floor in a frenzy of blows.
Their bodies rolled across the wooden boards with heavy thuds.
In the midst of the struggle, Snape sank his teeth deep into the man's neck. His jaws clamped down, fangs biting into flesh.
"Ahhh, hiss-!"
The man's scream turned into a strangled roar. His hands clawed at Snape's hair, trying to wrench him away.
But Snape was like a hunting beast, unyielding, relentless, refusing to let go.
Hot, brackish liquid surged into Snape's mouth and nose, its metallic sting cutting across his senses.
The taste of blood spread across his tongue, searing his nerves, as though igniting a fire that could never be put out.
"Uhh... uhh..."
The man's struggles weakened, his movements faltering, the blood draining from his face.
Snape released his jaws.
The man clutched at the gaping wound in his neck, gasping helplessly. His legs kicked against the floorboards, convulsing, while a horrible rasp wheezed from his throat.
His black eyes, once full of malice, now swam with desperate pleading.
The fire was almost extinguished.
The woman shrank against the corner of the wall, staring in horror at the two figures on the floor. Her hands covered her mouth, tears streaming down her face.
Suddenly, as if struck by some thought, she scrambled frantically upstairs.
When she returned to the living room, she was holding a stick.
She had found her wand, dried and roughened from years of disuse.
"Haa... haa..."
Snape knelt at the side, chest heaving violently. Blood dripped steadily from his chin onto the floor.
The woman's face was pale as chalk. Trembling, she raised the wand, pointing it at the two men, her eyes filled with both terror and grim resolve.
The dim yellow light swayed before their eyes.
A flash of dazzling green erupted.
Tobias Snape stopped moving.
...
Eileen's face grew even whiter.
She collapsed onto the floor, unmoving for a long while, staring blankly into the void.
It seemed only after the last trace of warmth had fled that she finally parted her cracked lips to rasp:
"Go upstairs to bed."
Dragging his heavy body, Snape's numb hands clutched at the stair banister. Every step upward was a trial.
As dusk sank into night, he sat alone in the darkness of his room.
Before coming back, he had only wanted to find a reason never to return here again. When he opened the door, he had thought to teach Tobias a lesson. During the fight, all he had wanted was to hurt him.
But in that instant, he thought Eileen's wand had been aimed at him.
His head was a chaotic storm of thoughts.
One moment, he heard the crackle of firecrackers at Spring Festival. Another, he saw the snow-dusted statue in Godric's Hollow at Christmas.
He thought of a body collapsing backward from the Astronomy Tower at Hogwarts. He thought of the Malfoy family, huddled together amid the ruins of the final battle.
He even thought of Merope Riddle, staggering toward the orphanage doors on New Year's Eve...
Snape did not know whether he had truly fallen asleep that night, or whether he had simply drifted in and out of a hollow daze.
When he opened his eyes the next morning, his mind felt strangely clear, as if a layer of mist had finally lifted. For the first time in years, it seemed he was simply himself.
On the bedside table, he saw his wand.
After cleaning himself and putting his things in order, he hesitated before descending the stairs.
The living room was spotless.
The stains on the walls and floor were gone, leaving the house cleaner than his memory could recall, as though nothing had happened the night before.
Eileen sat in her chair by the sunlight, mending clothes as usual. Her wand lay quietly at her side.
Hearing the creak of the stairs, she looked up. Her hair appeared freshly combed.
"I'll make you something to eat."
"No, I'll do it myself."
Seeing her stir to stand, Snape strode quickly toward the kitchen.
"I mean it. I'll do it."
He toasted a few slices of bread in the pan, cut some hard cheese, and carried the tray out.
"Here... Mother, have some too."
Eileen took a slice of toast and nibbled it in tiny bites.
"You've grown fatter," she said, after looking at him carefully.
Snape noticed the coarse, callused texture of her fingers, hands worn down by years of endless labor.
"I had an uncle," Eileen suddenly said, "your great-uncle."
When he did not respond, she continued, "Charon Prince. You never met him-"
"No. You don't need to look for him," Snape cut her off. "Once term begins, I'll speak to the Headmaster, Dumbledore, and ask him to arrange a position for you at the school."
"But-"
"-He'll agree. I'll make sure of it."
"Charon... died when you were five."
"He... what...?"
In the morning light, her pale face seemed to gain a trace of color. She pressed on in one breath:
"After I ran from home, took a sack of Galleons, and married Tobias, I lost all contact with Charon.
"Until the year you turned five. A Ministry official came and told me he had died.
"Charon had donated his magical instruments, his house, and some of his belongings to St. Mungo's Hospital for Magical Maladies and Injuries.
"But in his will, he wrote: 'Though I cannot bring myself to acknowledge it, you are the last of the Princes.' He left the Prince family vault in Gringotts to me..."
Snape frowned slightly. "All these years, you've never gone to see it?"
"No.." Eileen said calmly.
"Why not?" Snape asked in confusion. He had never even known his family had a vault at Gringotts.
"He hated magic." This time, she said it in a normal tone.
"Did he know about it?" Snape asked curiously.
Eileen shook her head gently. "The Ministry official came when he wasn't at home."
Snape did not dwell on it. After all, he knew the Weasleys' vault was so barren the goblins could hold a dance inside it.
And as for the Prince family, they weren't one of the Sacred Twenty-Eight, nor any ancient pure-blood house of renown. What could there really be to expect?
Eileen seemed to read his thoughts. She said softly, "I think there should be some gold. Tomorrow, we can go and see."
"Alright-" Snape replied offhandedly. He picked up the empty tray in one hand and, with the other, gently lifted the sewing from the table.
"-Stop working for now. Rest a while."