Chapter 7

"Sev, stop!" Eileen exclaimed. "You'll break it."

Severus, now six- months old, had just learnt to crawl. And, from that day onwards, he had become Eileen's living nightmare. He crawled around the house, trying to get inside all the nooks and crannies. He even tried squeezing himself into the smallest corners of the house and invariably getting stuck. An already exhausted Eileen was then forced to go an extricate him from those corners. He adored both his parents but was especially close to Eileen.

"Please stop, Sev," Eileen said, exasperated by her son's antics. "Daddy will be very angry if you break that."

Severus held the little glass bird in his plump hands and looked at it curiously. The glass bird was a gift from Tobias and Eileen didn't want Severus to damage it. She inched closer to him, intending to take it from her son's hands.

Suddenly alert of his mother's cautious movements, Severus clutched the bird tightly in his hand and crawled away quickly with Eileen hot in her pursuit behind him.

"Mama," he called out, as if to taunt her into catching him. Just then, there was a knock.

"Don't you dare do anything to that bird, Severus," Eileen warned and went to open the door. Her mother had come visiting and Severus, excited on seeing his grandmother, dropped the glass bird. It came crashing down on the floor and shattered into tiny pieces.

"Now look what you have done, Sev!" Eileen screamed while Severus cowered in fright. He crawled up to his grandmother and tried to hide behind her. Mrs Prince picked up her grandson and patted him.

"Stop yelling, Eileen," she admonished. "You are scaring him. He's just a baby."

"And stop supporting him always, Mama," Eileen said. "There's never a moment of peace when Sev's awake. He's always up to something or the other. Breaking something or getting stuck somewhere."

Severus, sensing his mother's anger at him, whimpered. He looked at his mother, an innocent expression on his face.

"Oh all right," Eileen said, her anger melting away at the look on Severus' face. "I'll go and clean it up."

"Yes," her mother agreed. "I'll get the lunch ready." And she put Severus down on the floor.

Seizing the opportunity, Severus crawled away and picked up something from the couch. Just then, there was a loud bang and the shattering of glass. Excited by the sound, Severus began to clap his hands and laughed.

"My wand!" Eileen yelled, turning around just in time to see Severus clutching her wand. "He's got my wand! And he's smashed the window now!"

Amused, Mrs Prince restored the glass bird and the window with a flick of her wand. "Oh, stop screaming, Eileen," she said. "You cannot expect a baby to be quiet and serious."

Saying nothing to her mother, Eileen threw herself on the floor and wrestled her wand out of Severus' surprisingly strong grasp. Severus, who was enjoying his newfound toy, looked put out.

"Why can't he play with the normal toys that Tobias and me bought for him?" she muttered, not noticing Severus who had managed to find yet another forbidden, fragile article to break.