“Who wants to see me take off Snivelly’s pants?”

But whether James really did take off Snape’s pants, Harry never found out. A hand had closed tight over his upper arm, closed with a pincer-like grip. Wincing, Harry looked round to see who had hold of him, and saw, with a thrill of horror, a fully grown, adult-sized Snape standing right beside him, white with rage.

“Having fun?”

Harry felt himself rising into the air; the summer's day evaporated around him; he was floating upwards through icy blackness, Snape's hand still tight upon his upper arm.

Then, with a swooping feeling as though he had turned head-over-heels in midair, his feet hit the stone floor of Snape's dungeon and he was standing again beside the Pensieve on Snape's desk in the shadowy, present-day Potion masters study.

“So,” said Snape, gripping Harry's arm so tightly Harry's hand was starting to feel numb. “So, been enjoying yourself, Potter?”

“'N-no,” said Harry, trying to free his arm. It was scary: Snape's lips were shaking, his face was white, his teeth were bared.

“Amusing man, your father, wasn't he?” said Snape, shaking Harry so hard his glasses slipped down his nose.

“I - didn't –“

Snape threw Harry from him with all his might. Harry fell hard on to the dungeon floor.

“You will not repeat what you saw to anybody!” Snape bellowed.

“No,” said Harry, getting to his feet as far from Snape as he could. “No, of course I w-“

Harry’s words were cut off in a flash of blinding pain as Snape’s fist connected with his jaw.

“Oi!” Harry shouted, raising his arms in a futile attempt to block the blows that started raining down on him. He heard the cartilage of his nose snap as pain thundered mercilessly through his head. Snape was muttering something about Potter and Black and righteous, arrogant purebloods thinking they were better than everyone else. Through rapidly swelling eyes, Harry could see that Snape had taken complete leave of his senses. He looked demented and deranged as he continued to blindly vent his anger.

“Stop,” Harry hissed. Another forceful punch knocked Harry’s teeth loose. He began to choke as blood poured down the back of his throat from his broken nose and teeth. He rolled to his side, trying to get away from the vicious blows.

“Please, stop,” Harry pleaded, as his vision began to blur. He curled in on himself, coughing up blood and gasping for breath.

With the next blow, he felt his head bounce off the cold stone floor of the dungeon. There was an ominous ringing in his ears which blocked out Snape’s continued crazed ramblings. Then, everything went dark.

Snape pummeled Potter for all he was worth, venting years of pent up anger at his tormentor. He wondered vaguely where Black was and why he wasn’t defending his best friend. He knew that Lupin and Pettigrew were too cowardly to intervene; likely they’d run off to get a teacher.

Each punch felt like vindication for all of the cruel jokes that Potter and Black had played on him since he’d arrived at Hogwarts. Potter didn’t look so big and strong anymore. His glasses hung broken off his face as blood ran from his nose and mouth.

“Stop …”

“Why, Potter? You and Black never stopped.” Another blow. And another. “How does it feel to be on the receiving end for once?” He felt cartilage snap and bone breaking beneath his fist. “This will show you to pick on students you perceive as weaker than yourself.”

“Please, stop …”

The pathetic pleading grated on his nerves, driving Snape to punch his nemesis even harder. Potter had rolled onto his side, and the next blow drove the boy’s head into the cold stone floor.

The sound of Potter’s skull cracking ricocheted in Snape’s mind, jiggling loose some small strand of reason. Snape froze with his arm raised in mid air, ready to deliver the next blow.

In a haze of utter horror, the curtains of Snape’s rage parted to reveal not his childhood nemesis James Potter, but his wayward son Harry, lying bloodied and unconscious on the dungeon floor. The child’s face was swollen, bruises blossoming beneath the pale skin. Blood ran from his nose and mouth, from a gash on his forehead, and most ominously, it trickled from his ears. A rasping, gurgling sound came from the boy’s mouth as he struggled to breathe through the blood that was clogging his throat.

As Severus stared in shocked realization of what he’d done—his skin breaking out in an icy sweat as a metallic taste flooded his mouth—the boy started to convulse on the floor, gagging while he seized. Spurred into action, Severus scooped the boy into his arms and ran for the floo. He threw more than a pinch of green powder into the hearth as he shouted for the hospital wing.

“Poppy!” he bellowed as he came through, struggling to hold the convulsing teen in his arms.

“Merlin, Severus,” Poppy said in alarm. “What happened?”

“He’s having trouble breathing,” Snape stated, ignoring her question.  He placed Potter on the nearest bed. “Can you stop the seizure?”

“Wizards don’t have seizures,” Madam Pompfrey snapped, “unless there’s been severe head trauma.” She spoke quickly as she positioned the boy’s head in an attempt to free up his airways.

Severus pulled out his wand, meaning to help in some way, when Poppy shouted, “No!” She smacked his wand away, before adding, “Magic cannot be used on a wizard who is seizing. It could kill him.”

“Kill him?” Snape uttered. “How?”

“Never mind that now,” she said. “Go to my office and get the case labeled ‘Muggle Healing Kit.’ It’s in the wooden cabinet, on the right. Hurry!”

Snape did as he was told, and watched in astonishment as Pomfrey pulled a rather archaic looking device from the kit which she used to suction fluids from Potter’s airways. The boy’s rasping eased somewhat.

Next she pulled a Muggle penlight from the kit and checked the dilation of the boy’s pupils. The sound of distress she made caused Snape’s heart rate to increase a notch.

 “What is it?” Snape asked.

Hastily, Madam Pomfrey wrapped the gash across the boy's forehead with gauze. “I suspect he has bleeding on the brain. We need to get him to St. Mungo’s.”

Snape’s eyes widened, meeting Poppy’s gaze for the first time. Then he glanced at the boy on the bed who, finally, was lying still. The odd way his limbs twisted in on themselves, however, boded ill. Snape felt bile rise in his throat and fought the wave of nausea that washed over him.

“How did this happen?” Madam Pomfrey asked again.

Snape pressed his lips into a thin line.

Huffing with impatience, the mediwitch demanded: “Tell me who he is.”

Severus glanced between the unrecognizable form on the bed and the agitated mediwitch. As his hands balled into fists, he noticed her gaze drop, and quickly clasped his fingers behind his back. Too late, he knew, as he saw the realization dawn on her face at his bruised and bloodied knuckles.

 Resigned to his fate, he forced himself to choke out the two words he dreaded most: “Harry Potter.”

Severus paced his study, going over his options in his mind. He was of two minds: to pack his belongings and leave immediately—for surely that was what Dumbledore would insist upon at the very least—or to try and defend himself—though even he himself could not find a way to justify what he had done. He picked up his glass of brandy for the hundredth time, only to set it back down again. It had been over two hours since Madam Pomfrey had taken Harry Potter to St. Mungo’s. Surely Dumbledore would be arriving soon to confront Snape. Snape couldn’t afford to be inebriated when his employer—as well as his judge and jury—paid a visit.  He wondered vaguely if Dumbledore’s delay was some sort of well thought out torture to make Severus repent his sins.

When Dumbledore finally arrived over an hour later, Snape knew that the headmaster’s delay had not been contrived. Dumbledore radiated fury. Unleashed magic swirled around the powerful wizard, flaying Snape’s faults bare for all to see. Snape had only seen the headmaster this angry once before, and that was when he’d gone to Dumbledore seeking protection for the only woman he had ever loved—Lily Evans. Just as he had that doomed night, Snape found himself once again fighting the urge to cower before the man.

Instead, he raised his eyes to his employer and submitted to what he knew must be done. Dumbledore met Snape’s gaze and tunneled into the younger man’s mind without so much as a by-your-leave. Snape hadn’t expected as much, nor did he fight the intrusion. He let the headmaster see how he had found the younger Potter snooping in the penseive, viewing the memories he had not wished anyone to see. He stood by as the headmaster observed Snape pull the boy out of his memories and throw him across his office, intending to bade him never to return. As the younger Potter looked up at him from the floor, however, he was the spitting image of James Potter, and in that instant, anger and hatred overcome all else, setting into a motion of chain of events so volatile and violent that even Snape was shocked to witness it. He fought to stay present as Dumbledore rode the waves of Snape’s rage before finally crashing against the jagged edges of the younger wizard’s shocked realization and horror at what he had done. When the headmaster finally pulled out of Snape’s mind, Snape was panting.

“Headmaster…” he breathed.

“SILENCE!” Dumbledore roared.

Dumbledore’s eyes glittered with a cold fury the likes of which Snape had never seen before. Snape bowed his head, awaiting his sentence.

“Do you have any idea how close you came this evening to killing a student? A student you have sworn to protect?”

Snape held his tongue at the rhetorical question.

“There is only one reason why I am not firing you outright and turning you over to the Ministry.”

Snape looked up in surprise.

 “I feel I bear some responsibility in all of this. I should have removed you from your abusive Muggle father when I had the chance. In addition, I should have reigned in James Potter and Sirius Black when you were in school. I believed at the time the old Muggle saying that boys will be boys. I was wrong. It went too far and I did not act in your best interest to stop it. I believed that the scars would heal with time. I can see now that I was wrong about that too.”

Snape had the grace to look ashamed.

“Therefore, I am giving you a choice. You can either pack your belongings and never set foot in this castle again, or you can accept an indefinite suspension from your teaching and head-of-house duties and assume the 24-hour care that Harry Potter will require for the foreseeable future.”

Snape felt stunned. “After what I did, you’d trust me with him?” Severus choked out.

“If he dies, you’ll go to Azkaban either way.”

Snape swallowed. “How likely…”

Dumbledore scoffed. “You have no right to even ask that question, but let me tell you this. The damage you caused to the boy is likely permanent. There’s no telling what he’ll be like when, or even if, he wakes up. Your care of the boy could well be a life sentence,” Dumbledore added cruelly.

Snape knew without a doubt that Dumbledore believed he deserved it.

“Assuming he does wake,” Dumbledore continued, “he may be less than happy to see you. Let me remind you, as I have all along, that none of the other teachers have ever had a problem with Harry. Therefore, any disrespect that he directs towards you is entirely earned and deserved on your part. One reaps what one sows. You decided that the boy was the image of his father from the moment you laid eyes upon him. I can only hope that your abominable display this evening has taught you the error of your ways.”

Snape swallowed uneasily.

“To ensure that I do not make the same mistake again, you will agree to see a mind healer on a weekly basis, if not more, to work through  the trials of your past.”

Snape opened his mouth to protest that that wasn’t necessary, but Dumbledore raised a hand to quiet him.

“This is not an option, Severus, it is a requirement. Furthermore, you will grant unrestricted and unannounced access to your quarters to myself, Minerva, and Poppy, as we will be checking in on Harry, and your treatment of him, if you agree to remain in this castle under my protection and take on his care.”

Severus grimaced at the thought. He valued his privacy. He wondered what sort of hoops Dumbledore would have to jump through to get McGonagall to agree to all of this.

“Lastly, in an effort to ensure that you remember that Harry Potter is not his father, you will call him ‘Harry’ at all times. Not ‘Potter’ or any other name, derogative or otherwise. Do I make myself clear?”

Severus nodded.

“You have 48 hours to make your decision,” Dumbledore said. He turned his ancient gaze on Severus, studying the younger man that he had taken under his wing like a son. “I am immensely disappointed in you.”

Snape bowed his head once more. Hearing those words from his mentor hurt more than he’d ever admit. He waited until the headmaster had taken his leave before sinking down into his chair, his head in his hands, and lamenting his failings.

Through the black curtain of his hair, he could see the shadowy imprint of Lily. She was always there, just out of reach. More often than not, when it came to his dealings with Harry, she stood with her arms crossed, one foot tapping, lips pursed. She never spoke, but her body language conveyed her annoyance with him well enough. Now, as his eyes glistened with unshed tears, he could see her standing there, arms wrapped around herself, sobbing. The sight of her grief was like a knife in his heart, sharp and unforgiving. Was there anyone at all that he had not failed? Bowing his head, he let the tears of remorse fall.