Tobias didn't speak again that night.
He stumbled into the house, slammed the door so hard the frame rattled, and then fell quiet—eerily quiet. No shouting. No accusations. No threats hurled through the thin walls like broken glass. Just silence, heavy and wrong.
Elias didn't trust it.
He had pushed too far. He knew it the moment Tobias's voice had strangled into nothingness, as though plucked out of the air. Mind magic wasn't meant to be wielded out of instinct or anger—it wasn't meant to be wielded by a boy at all. Especially not untrained. Especially not in plain sight.
Yet he had done it.
He walked home with Severus and Lily without speaking. Lily's hand remained clasped around Severus's until they reached the fork in the lane where their paths divided. Only then did she let go—but she didn't walk away.
"Tomorrow," she whispered, trying to catch Elias's eyes.
But Elias didn't look at her. Couldn't.
Instead, he murmured, "Go home, Lily."
She inhaled sharply—not in offense, but in hurt.
Severus reached for her wrist. "He didn't mean—"
"I know what he meant," Lily said softly.
Elias closed his eyes.
When he opened them again, she was gone.
Inside the Snape house, the silence was suffocating.
Tobias's boots lay discarded near the door. His coat hung crookedly on the peg. The stench of ale hung like a cape over the entire entryway. But the man himself was nowhere to be seen.
Not asleep on the sofa.
Not sitting in his chair.
Not in the kitchen muttering to himself.
Eileen found them first.
She stood in the doorway between the sitting room and kitchen, a dish towel clutched in one hand. Her eyes flicked over Severus, then Elias.
"What happened?" she asked.
Elias met her gaze evenly. "Nothing."
Eileen inhaled sharply, as if she could smell the lie on him. "Where is he?"
"I don't know."
"He went quiet," she murmured. "He never goes quiet."
Elias said nothing.
Her eyes sharpened. "Elias… what did you do?"
Severus jumped in. "Nothing! He didn't do anything. Dad was shouting and then—then he wasn't. That's all."
Eileen's gaze shifted to Elias again. She studied him in a way only a mother could—reading the tension in his jaw, the stiffness of his shoulders, the restrained hum of magic around him.
"You can't keep doing this," she whispered.
Elias didn't answer.
"Do you understand me?" Eileen took a step forward. "You can't use magic on him. Tobias is cruel, yes, but he's still a Muggle. And you—your magic is—"
She faltered.
Elias's voice was steady. "He won't hit Severus again."
"That is not the point."
"Yes, it is."
Her breath caught, and for a moment, her eyes filled with something like grief.
"It feels powerful now," she said in a hollow voice. "It feels righteous. But magic like yours has consequences, Elias. Wizards are terrified of mind magic. Some governments outlawed it completely. If anyone—anyone at all—suspects what you can do, they won't protect you. They'll fear you."
Elias stared at her for a long moment.
Then he walked past her without a word.
He went straight to the bedroom he shared with Severus, closed the door, and sat on the edge of the bed. Severus followed, hesitant, unsure whether to speak.
"Elias?" he whispered.
Elias didn't respond.
Severus swallowed. "You saved Lily today. And me again. And even Dad."
Elias's eyes snapped toward him with a sharpness that made Severus flinch.
"Don't call him that," Elias said. "Not now."
Severus nodded, cheeks going pink.
They sat in silence until Eileen crept down the hallway and softly pushed the door shut the rest of the way, leaving her sons in the darkness.
Elias didn't sleep.
Whenever he closed his eyes, he saw the warehouse beam suspended in the air—Lily's pale face beneath it, wide-eyed and breathless. He saw Tobias stumbling away in a daze, unable to speak. He saw Lily's face again, the question trembling on her lips—
What are you becoming?
Elias didn't know.
At some point, Severus fell asleep beside him, curled tightly on his side facing the wall like he did every night after Tobias drank. Elias pulled the blanket more securely over him and stared at the ceiling until dawn broke, sick with the knowledge that something in him had shifted, like a door had opened and couldn't be closed.
He wasn't sure if he wanted it closed.
He wasn't sure if he could close it.
By morning, Tobias was sitting at the kitchen table.
Elias froze.
Tobias wasn't raging.
Wasn't muttering.
Wasn't even looking at them.
He was staring at the wall, expression blank, as if the night before had been swallowed by some hole in his memory.
"Tea?" he asked distantly as Eileen entered the room.
Eileen froze. Her hands trembled. "You—you made tea?"
"Mm," Tobias grunted. "You were sleeping. Thought you'd want some."
Severus blinked. Elias stiffened.
This wasn't normal.
Tobias didn't make tea.
Tobias didn't behave gently.
Tobias didn't forget his rages.
But he didn't look bruised or harmed. He looked… empty. Like someone had wiped the slate clean behind his eyes.
A cold sickness rolled through Elias's stomach.
He hadn't meant to push that hard.
He hadn't meant to scrape Tobias's mind the way someone might scrape rust from metal.
But maybe he had.
And that scared him more than anything.
Lily's voice echoed in his head again.
What are you becoming?
He didn't know.
He wasn't sure he wanted to.
They met her again that afternoon, but the usual excitement was tempered by something unspoken—an invisible tension stretching between all three of them.
Lily stood at the riverbank, arms crossed, watching the water churn as if it held answers she desperately wanted.
Severus bounded up to her immediately.
Lily smiled—small, warm—but her gaze slid instantly to Elias.
"You didn't look at me this morning," she said.
Elias froze.
"You looked at Severus," she continued quietly. "At the ground. At the wall. Just… not me."
Severus watched them both, uneasy.
Elias shifted his weight. "I was tired."
Lily's jaw tightened. "Lie better than that."
Severus blinked. "Lily—"
"No," she said. "He thinks I'm fragile. Or stupid. Or that I'll panic and tell someone what happened."
She took a step closer. "I won't."
Elias held her gaze.
Lily's expression softened. "I just… want to understand."
Elias turned away, staring at the river.
"Understanding isn't safe," he said.
"Neither is climbing an iron bridge," Lily replied. "You still saved me."
"That was different."
"How?"
Elias clenched his fists. "Because I didn't think."
"Then think now," Lily said, stepping into his line of sight. "Tell me what you're afraid of."
Elias's voice was low. "Hurting you."
Lily's breath hitched.
Severus looked between them, worry creasing his brow.
"You won't," Lily murmured. "You keep saying everything is dangerous. But you aren't. Not to me."
"You don't know that," Elias whispered.
"But I do," she insisted. "Because when you used that magic—whatever it is—you didn't hurt me. You saved me."
"That's how it starts," Elias said. "People convince themselves they're safe because the person with the power hasn't hurt them yet. But magic isn't predictable, Lily. Especially mine."
Lily stepped closer still.
"You're not your magic."
Elias stiffened. "What?"
"You're not," she repeated. "You're Elias. You think too much. You worry too much. You protect too much. And yes—you have dangerous magic. But you don't use it lightly."
Elias said nothing.
Lily's eyes softened. "You use it when you have to."
Severus suddenly spoke. "Lily's right."
Elias blinked.
Severus did not often contradict him.
"You've always used magic to help," Severus said quietly. "Whenever I got hurt as a kid… you fixed it. Or protected me. Or kept Dad away. You've never used your magic to hurt someone."
Elias swallowed. "I wanted to."
Severus's voice cracked. "But you didn't."
Lily looked between them, something dawning slowly across her expression—understanding of the depth of the bond between the twins, of the years of bruises and fear and silent promises.
She stepped close enough that her shoulder nearly brushed Elias's.
"Whatever's happening to you," she whispered, "it isn't making you a bad person."
Elias closed his eyes.
"And even if your magic is something older, or stranger than you expected," Lily said, "I'm not afraid of you."
Elias's breath shook.
That sentence.
That one.
It struck something deep and fragile inside him.
He opened his eyes.
Lily met them without flinching, without wavering.
Severus whispered, "Neither am I."
Elias looked down at his hands—steady, cold, powerful in ways he was just beginning to understand.
"If anything ever happened to either of you," he said quietly, "I wouldn't stop."
Lily swallowed. "We know."
"No," Elias said, voice tightening. "You don't. I would use everything I have. Everything I am. Until there was nothing left in me but the need to make whoever hurt you pay."
Severus shivered.
Lily inhaled sharply.
"Elias…" she whispered. "That's not comforting."
"I'm not trying to comfort you."
They stood in tense silence for a moment.
Then Lily gently reached out and touched his wrist.
His entire body went still.
"You don't have to be a monster," she said. "You choose every day not to be one."
The touch burned through Elias like a shock.
He didn't pull away.
Lily lowered her hand. "And if your magic gets stronger… or stranger… then we'll handle that too. Together."
Severus nodded quickly. "Always together."
The wind tugged at Elias's coat.
He didn't speak.
But something inside him broke—
broke and then mended into a new shape.
A dangerous shape.
A determined one.
Lily stepped back only when his breathing steadied.
"Tomorrow," she murmured.
Elias exhaled. "Tomorrow."
As she walked home, Severus turned to Elias with a shy smile.
"She's not afraid of you."
Elias watched her vanish around the corner.
"That," he said softly, "is exactly what scares me."