Glancing down, Harry's brow furrowed. There, on his feet, were his trainers, the only shoes he had, courtesy of Dudley. He returned his gaze to his Professor, brow furrowed in confusion. "Shoes, Professor. Those are my shoes."

He wasn't entirely sure how he had ended up here, in this situation. He was sitting in an empty compartment at the very end of the train with Professor Snape, perhaps the one person he hated more than his cousin Dudley and less than Voldemort.

Only he didn't hate the Professor. He wasn't sure that he ever did. Sure, he wished the man would stop picking on him, would stop sneering and snarling and taking points and such just because he looked like his father, (he was not his father!), but he didn’t hate the man.

And, right now, it seemed as if his wish had been granted. The Professor had found him a weeping mess, and hadn't said anything even borderline mean. Maybe someone had slipped him a personality altering potion, he considered. But it didn't seem likely. And neither did the thought that the Potions Master had botched up one of his own. Whatever the reason, Harry was glad.

It made the things he'd planned on doing much easier to carry out.

He just wished he wasn't faced with the most difficult of them so soon.

Because while telling an adult exactly what went on inside Number Four Privet Drive every summer, and even before he started Hogwarts wasn't at the top of his list of things to get off his chest, it was by far the hardest.

And he had chosen Snape to tell it all to.

It was really a split second decision. One he wasn't even sure he had made. Maybe he decided when Snape passed him the handkerchief. Maybe when he ushered him into the compartment, then layered the corridor outside with Repelling and Silencing Charms, so no one would come barging in. Maybe it was when he decided to answer Snape's question. It seemed likely. He knew that when the Professor asked why he had none better, he'd tell him everything, even if he was on he school train.

Because Harry wasn't sure how much longer he could keep it up.

He could feel the glamours on his face and hands wavering. He'd thought that since he let up those under his robes he could concentrate on these better, but that didn't seem to be the case. The glamours were acting like part of a whole, and one part had broken, so the others were constantly teetering back and forth on the verge on collapse.

And when they did, Harry hoped they were far away from prying eyes. And away from the Headmaster.

He didn't blame the old man, exactly. Harry was just sure he didn't want to see him just yet. And he was sure if the Headmaster heard even a whisper that Harry was hurt, he'd be forced to deal with Dumbledore's well being attempts at comfort.

Tearing his gaze away from the compartment floor, he looked up to meet the narrowed gaze of his Professor.

"What do you mean, shoes, Harry?"

The boy's eyes widened.

Damn.

'You owe me three Galleons,' said voice number three, the Granger sound-alike. There was the clink of coin against coin, accompanied by much grumbling, followed by a resentful 'Here', and a self satisfied humming Severus was sure the real Granger would be doing if she ever indulged in such horrendous affairs as gambling.

The boy was still staring. Severus was becoming vaguely worried. He wasn't sure eyes were supposed to be able to be that big.

"Its a simple question," he said, not managing to snap in his usual manner. It worked, nonetheless, and those enormous green orbs shrunk down to size. They still gazed at him curiously though, even as the boy answered.

"They're my cousin Dudley's hand me downs, sir."

Severus' best mask was up. "I see," he said softly. "And where are your school shoes, child? I was not aware that these......shoes... were a part of your wardrobe during your previous tenure at Hogwarts."

Merlin, but this was harder than he thought. "They weren't." Harry bit his lip. Hard. He blinked back the tears threatening to spill onto his cheeks. "My uncle threw them away."

Of course, Harry was ashamed. But not that his relatives treated him horribly, because he knew that was not his fault. He was, rather, ashamed that he had done nothing he should have, he had engaged in foolish, reckless behavior and put himself in danger summer after summer for years by not telling someone, anyone, just how bad it was at 'home'.

But Harry knew that wasn't his fault either. He had told someone something, or at least he'd tried. And he knew that he deserved to be treated like any other child, like Ron and Hermione, or maybe even a bit like Dudley, at least on his birthdays. Harry knew that he deserved love, something he had never, ever had.

The professor's expression was as unreadable as ever, but Harry still felt like a particular interesting (read: disgusting) potion ingredient being thoroughly inspected.

After a while, his face began to burn. Why was he staring so? Was there something on his face?

He raised a trembling hand to his cheek, and barely suppressed a scream of pain. The glamour had dissipated in a shower of faint sparks, and the train hadn't even started yet. Through tear-filled eyes he looked up to see if Snape had noticed, and found himself locked in a gaze with intense, concern obsidian eyes mere inches from his face.

The older man silently extended a hand, concern written across his sharp features. Flinching, Harry tried to turn away, a small, anguished "No" escaping his split lips.

Severus froze, staring at the child's features before him. His stomach churned, and then clenched and then tried to empty itself in burning rotation. The skin that had been pale and smooth a minute before was now bruised all over, almost beyond recognition. One pale green iris flickered onto him for a moment, the other a violent purple swelling crusted with blood, before slamming shut again, accompanied by the faintest whimper from is owner.

But that on brief look was all Severus needed. Instantly, his brain leapt into action.

'Harry! How did this happen? Who did this? Was it Death Eaters? No, I would have heard about it.......So much pain.....Those green eyes......Does Dumbledore know?.....Oh, I‘m going to kill somebody….... Don't die on me child.....I couldn't explain it to the mutt......BREATHE! Breathe you idiot child.......He's not breathing....He's not breathing and he's bleeding and I killed a child and Albus is going to kill me and BREATH CHILD!....and he's bleeding and loosing s much blood and he's bleeding and no oxygen and - '

'Stop it!' a voice cried in through his mental panic. 'Are you a trained healer or not?'

"Right," he said, heart thudding painfully in his throat. "Right."

'First,' he thought, intently studying the boy, while extracting emergency potions from the many pockets of his robes, 'something for pain.' To his immense relief the boy actually was breathing, but they were ragged, shallow breaths, indicating a fractured rib in there somewhere. Magicking the table over from under the window, he set the many different colored vials atop it. "But before that, let's lay you down, Harry."

Said Harry opened his eyes, or tried to, and blinked up at his professor. Everything seemed blurred and unreal, despite his glasses, and Harry was very sure that Potions Master had called him by his given name, again.

But everything hurt, down to the hairs on his arm, and Harry didn't want to think about that. He didn't want to think about anything. Not Uncle Vernon's large, heavy foot connecting with his head, not his Uncle's belt cutting into his skin, not the way he threw him into a wall every time he had a nightmare, which was practically every night that summer...

But he did, and he couldn't stop the thinking. It carried on, bringing back to him vision upon vision of the past summer, past pain colliding with present, tearing through him, and over him and on and on and in him till he saw nothing and knew nothing and felt everything...till all his inner space was used up and still pain and pain and pain… and then soft hands connected with flesh and everything flowed out.

Severus, having just decided upon the best way to lower the child onto the now transfigured cot, froze. The skin beneath his hands was rough and clammy and burning to the touch, but he could feel none of that. All he could feel was the mental equivalent of a bone breaking as his Occlumency shields were violently torn down, and watch in horror as the visions unfolded.

A snowy white owl, fear radiating from her large amber eyes, seconds before a blurred metallic something flew into view and then it lay limp and bleeding at the bottom of the cage.....A man hitting a small black haired teen about the face with his fist...the same man cornering the child in a small room, brandishing a thick, black belt...."No, please Uncle!"...."Ungrateful whelp! I've had enough!"........the child curled into a ball as the man kicked him....... the heavyset man tossing books and cards and pieces of clothing into the fire, the same thick belt lying at his feet, while the green eyed child watched from his place, bound to a chair, tears streaming down his already bruised face...a woman, tall and pointy, screaming at the thin child laying at her feet...."I'll never feed you again! You don't deserve it!....the child throwing up blood in the hallway..... a thin hand swinging to connect sharply with heavily bruised cheek.....the child seated at the table, watching hungrily while the man and woman dined on a feast, blinking back tears... the man again, the belt, his fists, the crying, the pain, the scent of liquor invading his senses......"Don't hurt him, Tobias! NO!"...... the pain, those green eyes...the whip cutting into his back...the child again, more screaming, more pain....a hand fisted tightly in his robes....more screams more yelling, more pain, more tears, more visions, more and more and they all blurred together to form one continuous scene of pain and begging, four people begging and begging and begging for it all to stop and then suddenly… it did… and the world faded to black.....

~*~*~*~

When Severus awoke, it was to find that he was holding somebody.

The Hogwarts express was moving, the passing trees casting brief dark shadows across the compartment around him in the light of the setting sun, his knees were sleeping in that you-can't-feel-me way that suggested painful re-acquaintance with oxygenated blood very soon, he had a terrible headache, and he was holding someone.

Someone who was breathing on his neck.

Annoyed, Severus pulled back, only to find that his arms were very much trapped under the person who was now oh-so-contentedly snuggling into his chest.

He looked down.

Eurgh.

Potter.

He hastily unwound his arms from around Potter's torso and under Potter's head, and, ignoring the child's sounds of protest, dumped the child rather roughly onto the cot. 'Now I'll have to have my robes cleaned again,' he thought with a sneer. 'I do so hate that laundry elf.'

He gazed at the sleeping child, whose forehead was furrowed in sleep at the loss of his warm, beating pillow. Of seemingly their own volition, Severus' hands came up, one resting atop the child's chest, the other submerging itself its nimble digits into the inky black mass that was the child’s hair. The forehead promptly smoothed, and its owner sleepily tried to bury himself in the embrace.

Something passed through Severus then. 'Maybe he isn't so insufferable when he's asleep.' He studied the child intently, his mind for some reason insisting that he’d missed something big.... 'With the help of a permanent sleeping draft I may survive till his seventh year.'

He blinked. There it was, right there on the boy's face. How could he not have seen it sooner? It was right in front of his eyes, yet he hadn't seen it.....

Nothing.

There was absolutely nothing on the child's pale face, save his glasses, which were horribly askew and terribly distorted, when there certainly should have been something. There were no bruises, no split lips or cuts that had been there before....

His eyebrows conferred with each other over eyes that raked the now considerably less clothed Harry, while his mind worked double time to explain his lapse of consciousness. 'What was that? Could the child have somehow learned Legimency?' he asked himself, absently taking note that the boy had no broken or fractured bones like he should have, no bruises at all on his pale skin that Severus knew without a doubt had been there only moments before. 'But how?'

Only it wasn't just moments, he considered, just as the compartment's overhead lights flickered on. 'It was hours ago.' Hours ago the boy had torn down his carefully constructed walls and he’d witnessed, he’d sat in horror and watched as the child’s memories unfolded before his eyes. A wave of dizziness made him close his eyes. He had been so wrong. He had been so wrong and Harry, Harry had been through so much, it was a wonder he hadn’t turned bitter. And from there, to the Dark.

Because Severus could tell he hadn’t. There was no resentment, no thirst for revenge in all the torrent of pain and emotions that had incapacitated him earlier. ‘And as long as I have life I’ll try to keep it that way.’

Taking out his wand, Severus absently transfigured two buttons from his robes into a set of warm pajamas for Harry, and banished the rags the child was wearing to the farthest point away from him. After quickly checking the time, he slipped the garments onto the sleeping child, and turned to claim a seat to better consider the situation.

Or tried to, before he was afflicted by the Cruciatus Curse' second cousin three times removed, better known as 'stupidly-trying-to-move-on-still-sleeping-limbs'.

And so, Severus lay on the compartment floor in agony, unable to do anything at all but clench and unclench his jaw as thousands of little Cornish pixies wearing spike-soled boots trampled over every inch of leg he had, sending the occasional shock of electricity up his spine, and therefore increasing the sensation.

Finally, after what felt like an eternity, Severus was finally able to get up from the floor, just as the train began to slow down. It seemed, though, that while most of his brain had been occupied with the Skelo-gro rivaling pain, one part of the grey matter had come up with a plan of action.

Though, really, for even a quarter of Snape's brain, it wasn't much.

Severus raised an eyebrow. 'Tibet?'

Severus' brain huffed. 'Ok fine. I have a fascination with Tibet. Are you happy? Is it a crime? NO! But fine, go ahead, take it off the list. Not like I care, or anything.'

Severus gave a short nod. 'I shall.' And he did just that.

'Now, back to item number one.' He gazed at the sleeping teen. 'This will prove interesting.'

The train had stopped completely , the sounds of happy children (Severus made a face) disembarking drifted back down the corridor to meet his ears.....

'Put Harry to bed...'

Severus huffed. Considering that they were aboard a train, that was easier said than done. And he couldn't exactly take forever either..... He sighed again, and drew his wand.

And stopped.

He could not levitate the boy. Levitating him felt too.....impersonal...what with everything that had passed between them, whether the boy knew of it or not.

He could always carry him. But didn't that feel too personal? He wasn't exactly familiar with the boy....

Too late. The boy was already wrapped quite firmly in his arms, a cloak, having materialized from somewhere, was snuggly wrapped around the boy, tucked under his chin and over his head so that only his sleep-smoothed features showed from the man's arms.

Raising his brow but making no further comment, he made one last visual sweep of the room, flicked his wand to banish the potion vials back to his study, and made for the teachers' exit.

Out in the night air, Severus stealthily made his way up to the castle, his precious cargo pressed close to his body to ward off he chill, (it was then that he discovered the mysterious origin of Harry's makeshift blanket) using every shortcut and covered path he knew. He'd use the side entrance used only by Filch, and follow a hidden passage to the dungeons. No one would see him, of that he was certain, and determined.

Because he was damned if anybody did.