There are so many ways a child can be abused, this has to be one of the worst.

Oh, wow! Thank you for sharing this heartbreaking story. Well done!

How terribly, heart-breakingly sad! Incredibly effective use of dialogue - so much back story fitted into so few words . . . So good, but so sad!

This is sadly very likely what Severus' home life was.

I think we find it very easy to condemn Tobias for his stubborness and viciousness - but if you read very carefully between the lines here, so much of his inner pain comes to the fore - the man does love his little girl but he's just so damned afraid of his wife and his son - and I suspect of himself as well.  So he clings to his mindless litany  - the doctor will make it all right, my little girl can't die - there's naught to it all... naught... And the litle boy trapped in the middle of it all - how could he not come out of that home deeply wounded in his heart and spirit...You've written a piercingly painful portrait of despair here... Well done. 

Incredibly powerful.  The drabble contains so much in so few, yet elegant words, and yet it inspires so much... so many thoughts, regrets, demands... so much pathos.  Excellent read, thank you.

Oh wow.  That was like a punch in the gut.  You know what got me most after reading it?  The title. The only place her name is mentioned.

It's always hard visiting Severus' childhood. You did a good job capturing 'abuse' that isn't always physical. :(

Violence against a child is so incomprehensible an evil... This is just terribly plausible with what we know of Tobias, isn't it? That poor family. The dialogue-only format allows for abuse to appear rather effectively here as well. 

Another harrowing take on the prompt. So sad.

 That was very well written.poor little julia. you have conveyed how awful Severus' homelife must have been.it sounds like some northern kitchen sink drama.....like 'cathy come home'. I liked this a lot. 

This is a perfect response to the prompt. Your story explains everything that ever formed Severus's childhood. I might have found my winner. But it also forces one to think of the exact conditions of the Statute of Secrecy. With Merope and Eileen, it seems that their partners learned of magin only after marriage. Granted, Merope was an extreme, but still. This is very sad, yet, I can fully believe it happening. Exceptional story.

very curt and terse and thereby imitating his being hard, free of empathy free of anything for his lady and children. your style reflects his self perfectly.All in a nutshell.What a pity. Just to think so many people had to suffer.Some had to live with it, some had to die because of it.Rude people were here, are here and always will be.Somehow good to knowl that his son became something so precious and able to love so intensely.

Achingly sad and painful to read, but exceedingly well done. This is exactly the type of non-father I always imagined Tobias Snape to be.

Yes, Tobias is one filthy piece of work - 'wonderfully' done! Love this depiction of one of the many miserable times in poor Severus' & Eileen's lives... Very effective, poignant work!

Ugh, that's awful.  Nice use of the prompt, though.

Very sad, but nicely done. :(

Boy, he's a real piece of work.  Very sad for the rest of the Snape family.

Yes, this fits with what we know of Snape's boyhood.  I'd like to say it serves Tobias right, but it certainly doesn't serve Severus, Eileen or little Julia right.  Poor things.

*sniffles* I can see this very, very clearly.

How horrible! What a great burden to have, both father and son. 

Poor Severus, what an awful childhood for the boy. Very well written.

Oh no. That's horrible. Poor little Julia. Poor Severus. Damn it, Tobias.

Oh... crushing... poor things.

Bastard.  Sounds about right, too.