Happy Days, or "When Tobias Snape Was a Good Father."

Now, Severus Snape had a childhood. Everyone does.
Severus's childhood was not the happiest but he still had happy memories. At one point, Eileen and Tobias were equals in the marriage. At one point, Severus could creep into their bed during loud fireworks displays. Here are some of the things Severus keeps inside him.

Toast
age:4

Severus, four years old, and dragging a raggedy old blanket behind him, wandered into the kitchen where his mother and father were already congregated as though awaiting his presence. He stopped and put the corner of the blanket into his mouth, looking up at the table.
His mother approached him and crouched down, reaching out to gently take hold of the blanket and equally gently ask the dark-haired, dark-eyed young boy, "Severus, are you going to let me wash it now?" She was clearly not a northerener like her husband or her son. Her accent was tempered with yorkshire notes, but was still the Upper Recieved Pronunciation that she had been forced to use in the nineteen years before she had met Tobias.
The aforementioned muggle was currently reading the papers and drinking a cup of steaming murky brown tea with a faint film on the surface of the liquid. He lifted the cup and gulped a mouthful of the tea, only pausing to add his own opinion to the conversation Eileen was attempting to have with their son. "Leave the lad be. Tha's worryin over nowt." He didn't even look up from the paper.
"Toby..." Eileen's reply was a little exasperated, like father like son did indeed apply to this particular situation. Tobias Snape owned a pair of boots that were filthy, old and torn. But due to their inherent ability to still be 'fine' they remained. Albeit outside the back door in the futile hopes that someone would steal them.
Tobias response was dismissive as he glanced over the top of the broadsheet with a wise tone as he sagely said,"Have to eat a peck o' dirt afore you die." Words to live by. His uncle had died from inhlaing a peck of dirt...Well coal dust. Still.. Nanna Thompson had always said it.
While the happily married couple were discussing this, Severus, having gathered that his mother wished to take the blanket away, quickly pulled it from her hand with a sharp tug and then, as his parents talked, clambered onto a chair and began emulating his father by trying to read the sport section. Manchester United, Leeds United and Chelsea were vying for dominance, but Severus wasn't aware of that because he couldn't quite decipher the unusually long words like "united" on the page.
The Snapes fell silent, looking at the serious scowl on Severus' face as he stared determinedly at a picture of Pete Brown, the golfer.
Tobias smiled at his wife broadly and tousled his son's hair. Eileen smiled back and then stifled a laugh at the pouting and deepening scowl as Severus attempted to flatten his hair back down again.
She had not been a Ravenclaw for nothing though and realised that as both hands were occupied with either holding the paper of pressing down his hair, the young boy had no hands free to hold onto the discarded blanket which she swiftly appropriated and dropeed into the washing basket.
Meanwhile Severus was far too busy rotating the paper and trying to get a better look at the pictures to pay her any attention until she asked, "So, Severus, would you like some toast?"
The four year old looked up from the paper. Then emphatically shook his head.
Still smiling, Tobias patted her bum, "Here, Leeny, Love, I'll have some."
She would have scolded him but for that charming smile to which her only response was to smile back.
Before Eileen could react to her husbands request, her son piped up suddenly,"I want some too!"
There was a pattern to this. One Eileen had seen before. "Sev, Do you really want some toast?"
With a scandalised look on his young features, Severus looked about for a supporter against this disbeliever, "Aye!"
He found his father. Who naturally took his side, "Let the lad have some toast, love, he's a hungry scamp."
Thus prompting a muttered response from Severus that sounded a great deal like,"not a scamp..".
Eileen shook her head with a sigh at the two boys in her life "Alright, Toby..." Here she turned to Severus,"But you'd better eat everything."
Severus ignored her and tried to climb onto the table in order to pick up Tobias' finished broadsheet. His mother pulled him back to his seat by his vest as the toaster went and three pieces of slightly burnt toast popped up. She bustled about, fetching plates, a knife and butter, "Here, Toby...Sev."
Tobias took his, smiling his thanks up at Eileen. Severus, on the other hand, frowned at the toast placed in front of him, then clearly said, much to his mother's annoyance, "Don't want it."
"Severus! I told you, Toby," came the exasperated reaction.
Calm as can be Tobias ate some of his own toast then cooly reached out to slide Severus's plate away from him.
"No!"
Severus scrambled to grab the plate, almost knocking the toast onto the table."My toast. You aren't allowed it. That's greedy!" he reprimanded his father, putting the toast back in front of himself.
His mother's hopeful voice spoke up, "Are you going to be a big boy and eat it then?"
It was in vain as Severus looked up at his mother, then The Toast, then back at mother. The boy was a born Slytherin from his saccharine sweet tone to his cute little smile, " 's Too black. Can you make some other, Mummy?"
Eileen may not have been that pedantic young girl she once was, but this was her son's grasp on the English language! And accent she could bear. Easily in fact, since it was one of the reasons Toby had been so attractive to her. But an inability to actually talk properly? That she would not stand for. " Make some more, Severus...?"
Severus' face brightened instantly, "Thank you!"
Eileen's reaction was stern, she wouldn't be tricked by any pretence of misunderstanding. He was a Prince, but not a prince. She was not his servant.
"No. No, Severus, I'm not making more, you have to eat that."
Severus merely shook his head, calm, nonchalant and stubborn as an ass. "Don't want it."
It was at this point Tobias decided to join in,"then I'll have it." And with that he took the plate slid it towards himself and took a sizeable working man's bite out of the toast.
All Hell broke loose.
Sev: NO! *feels stolen from and tears form in his eyes* Dad took my toast! *looks to mother for help*
Eileen: *scolding* Tobias! *yanks back plate and piece of toast* aw...come on, Sev, here you are...
Sev: *looks forlornly at the bite out of his toast*...You ate my toast.
Tobias: Yus I did, son.
Sev: *frowns, scowls, then screams* That was MY Toast! You ate it!
Eileen:*trying to calm everyone down, scolds her husband* Toby, How could you?
Sev: He ate my toast! *has been pointing at Tobias accusingly throughout the tirade* He had the First Bite! He's not allowed the First Bite! Never! `*`
Eileen:*glares at Tobias but smiles a little as she sees him laughing and Sev scowling alternately at father and plate* Oh Sev...Shall I make some more?
Sev: *Cuts his nose off to spite his face[forgive the expression]* You said I couldn't have any other. *pouts and glares accusingly at Tobias*
Tobias: *Smiles and goes back to own second piece of toast*
Eileen: Any more, Sev. Not other.
Sev: *has spotted the toast on his father's plate and reaches across, grabs it and bites a chunk off, smirking triumphantly* *or as triumphantly as one can with a full mouthful*
Eileen: Severus!
Tobias: Oi! Leeny! The little bugger just nicked my toast!
Eileen:Toby! Don't call him that!
Sev: *Has bitten off too much and cannot chew it* Mmm..mhm
Tobias: *a little angrily* Right, Lad. Speak up! What has that to say for thisen?!
Sev: *has realised he cannot speak with a mouthful* *puts hand in mouth and then takes out some half-eaten toast so he can speak* I said I eaten your toast! *Same wide triumphant smirk*
Eileen: Severus! That's disgusting! Never do that again, you filthy boy! *gripping his wrist to keep his dirty hand off the tablecloth and chair*
Sev: No. Let go. *pulling*
Tobias: *has already got a cloth* Here, Leeny.
Eileen: Ta. He's such a messy little scamp.
Sev: I'm not messy. You're messy...*muttered as his mother cleans the mush from between his fingers*

--A while later--
Sev: *clean* Mummy please! *when she arrives,* I can have some other toast now; I'm finished.
Eileen: Some more, Severus.
Sev:

`*` Severus has to be the first person to have a bite of what is his, whether it is the first sweet in the packet, the first bit of pie..whatever. thus the infamous First Bite is a topic of much debate in the House of Snape.