1Chapter 9

Owing fifty percent of your genetic make-up to someone you loathe is an annoying prospect in life. As if to accentuate this point, I had been doomed to bear a marked resemblance to him. My father had passed along all of his worst features to me. Every time I looked in the mirror I was greeted by his Roman nose and thin lips. For as much as I tried, I would never be completely rid of the man. It was simply one more mark on the list of things I would not forgive, yet it was a minor note in comparison to the fact that I was being forced to actually see the man.

My mother had made arrangements to meet him at a small café in Manhattan. It was neutral territory, best for all parties involved. We arrived late simply because my mother's passive aggressive nature demanded it. My parents had seen each other even less over the years than I had seen my father. As soon as we entered the restaurant, I knew this was going to go badly. He was seated at a table with a stunning blonde, and that was the first strike against him. The second strike was that my father had, to my mother's chagrin, aged well. The third…well, that was entirely due to the blinding rock on the blonde's finger.

"Toby," my mother said in a sickeningly sweet tone, "How wonderful to see you!"

My father laughed. "You haven't changed a bit."

Only the blonde seemed to acknowlegde my existence. She gave me a genuine smile, and offered her hand. "You must be Severus. I'm Isabelle, but you can call me Belle."

"Hello." I shook her hand and examined my soon-to-be stepmother. She wasn't much older than I was. Tall and thin with warm blue eyes, she was the all-American beauty queen type that turned heads on the street.

"And I'm Eileen Prince," my mother cut in. The deaf man in the next building over could hear how she emphasized her last name.

Belle, foolish as she was, gave my mother that same smile. "It's so nice to finally put a face to the name. My grandparents know your parents. They're about the same age, and I hear all about your mother from them."

My mother's eyes glittered with animosity, and I could see the proverbial claws about to come out. "And just who might your grandparents be?"

"Oh, sorry. Silly me! I'm Isabelle Hayneworth. My grandfather is Sir Joseph Hayneworth," she said with a flighty laugh. The Hayneworths were Old Money from England. I had even heard my grandfather talk about Sir Joseph and his publishing company. Though not as rich, Hayneworth certainly trumped my grandfather's prestige with the "Sir" before his name.

My mother sniffed. "Oh, I may have heard the name before."

Undeterred, Belle nearly bounced in her seat with excitement. "Severus, I can't wait to get to go out and do things this week! I'm trying to get you're father to spend a few days on the Jersey shore."

I fought back the urge to tell Belle that I hated the beach and wouldn't want to go anywhere with her and my father. Ironically enough, my father came to my rescue.

"He hates the beach," he said blandly. For the first time that day, my father looked me in the eye. "I remember we took you to Coney Island when you were four and you screamed the entire time because you hated the sand."

I didn't remember going to Coney Island with him, but if it got me out of a trip to the ocean, I would let it ride. "I still do," I agreed.

"Oh," Belle said dejectedly. "I'm sure we can think of other neat stuff to do."

I only nodded.

My mother laughed bitterly. "Of course, you two will have fun. You are about the same age."

Belle blinked. She looked as though she'd been slapped in the face. Finally, my mother's venom had seeped through. Helplessly, Belle looked in vain to my father for help. "I…I have always been more mature for my age."

"Such an old soul!" Mother sipped her tea with a victorious smile. "I don't doubt that you're more than mature enough for Toby."

"Eileen," my father warned.

Her work done, mother slipped on her sunglasses with flair. "I'll see you in two weeks, Sevvie," she told me. "Try not have too much fun, and put Belle to bed on time."

"Bitch," my father murmured as she walked away.

Belle put a hand on his arm. "Really, it's ok. We've got a lot to do in two weeks." She kissed his forehead. "And I've got to get going if I want to get to my next class."

My father nodded. "You'll be at my place tonight?"

"Wouldn't miss it," she replied with the cheer back in her voice. "You two have a nice lunch. It was nice meeting you, Severus."

"You too," I said awkwardly.

With Belle gone, the table was considerably quieter. Neither of us knew what to say—not that I had anything I wanted to say to him. The waitress brought our food, and we ate in total silence. Every so often, I would catch my father watching me. He was studying me and didn't seem all that impressed with what he saw.

"How was school this year?" he asked finally.

I shrugged. "It was ok."

"Any girls at school?"

Inwardly, I grimaced. "No," I replied flatly. I momentarily considered telling him about Remus in hopes that his disgust would make him leave me alone.

Tobias Snape was nothing more than a sperm donor in my eyes. His duty to my mother and I had promptly ended the day he decided to take off to Vietnam in search of "the defining picture of his career." The divorce papers my mother served him with on his return only sealed the deal. I was six years old when he left, and in the years between six and seventeen, I had only seen him a total of four times. Mostly, he blamed his career in photojournalism for his absence, but that excuse had been dispelled a year before when he took a position as a professor at NYU. I did not lament his hands off approach to parenting. I had never been close to my father, and I had never felt the need for it.

I can recall living in a shabby townhouse in Queens when I was a little boy. It wasn't much, but it was what my parents could afford back then. Between my mother being cut off and my father not having any luck selling his work, things were tight. That house was a breeding ground for discontent. Mother was used to all of the finer things in life that being a Prince had provided. She always told me that we deserved better, and she made no secret of it. I'm not sure if he had always been that way, but somewhere along the line my father had become very bitter. He was always screaming at us or finding some way to make us feel small. I hated him for that, because I knew—as my mother had told me—that I was better than this, better than him. I was glad to see him go. Forced visitation was not going to change the past.

"Belle's been wanting to meet you for a long time," he told me when the meal was over. He lit a cigarette and frowned. "I knew you didn't want to come, but she seemed to think it would help."

"It won't." I looked him in the eye and swallowed hard. "You should have told her that I didn't give a damn about you or about her."

Eyes slightly lighter than my own held strong against my scathing glare. My father had a will that rivaled my own. "I give a damn. Maybe it's too late, and maybe it's not as much as it should be. I'm not a good father. I'm not going to ask you to go fishing or any or that bullshit. I think I'd settle for being able to sit in the same room and share a goddamned meal."

It sounded reasonable enough, and maybe it wasn't too much to ask for. Still, I was reluctant to give him even that. I could remember the bite of his words and the feel of his hand as it made contact with my cheek. Our last meeting when I was eleven had been enough to make reasonable suggestions sound ridiculously hopeful. I swallowed hard. "I thought I wasn't worth the effort it took for you to screw me into my mother," I said harshly tossing his own words back into this face. I hadn't forgotten, and judging by the look on his face, neither had he.

"I shouldn't have said that," he told me in a voice thick with regret. He didn't bother to apologize. It wouldn't have mattered.

We said virtually nothing to each other for the remainder of the day. After a silent taxi ride to his apartment, he showed me to the guest bedroom, and I spent the majority of the time unpacking. I turned what should have been a twenty-second job into a painstaking task simply so that I didn't have to spend more time with him.

Belle arrived at about six with pizza boxes in hand. "How's it going?" I heard her ask in a hushed voice.

"About as well as I thought it would," my father drawled. She said something comforting, but I couldn't make it out—didn't really care, to be honest. They spoke in quiet tones for a few minutes more before I appeared in the kitchen.

God, how I was already beginning to despise Belle's bright smiling face. She was one of those happy people who honestly believe that smiling can make a bad situation better. In a rather ridiculous attempt to make me smile, Belle held up the boxes. "I hope you like pepperoni!" she said in an all too chipper and all too fake voice.

I did actually like pepperoni, but I would have rather cut my tongue out than said so. I simply shrugged.

Belle's smile lost a little of its glitter, and she set the table. My father made no move to help her nor did I.

Dinner was a drab affair. Even Belle fell into silence after her initial attempts at cheerfulness. She didn't stay long after we ate, and I was thankful for that small miracle. On the way out, she did try to give me a hug, but I managed to sidestep it. I ignored my father's glare and Belle's hurt look. I didn't care. After all, I never wanted to come here in the first place.

I shut myself in my bedroom and pulled out the book Remus had given me. I couldn't help the sudden need for something familiar.