As Potter’s memories solidified around them, Snape and Dumbledore found themselves outside, in a street that could not have been more different from Privet Drive. A row of run-down houses lined it on either side. Some of the windows were broken, others missing entirely and boarded up with cardboard. The dustbins looked as if they hadn’t been emptied in weeks, their contents spilling onto the pavement. Snape guessed that they were somewhere in London, in a part of the city neither Petunia nor Vernon Dursley had entered before.

But they were here now, hurrying along the street without so much as a look at their surroundings. They had their coats pulled tightly around them against the crisp autumn wind. The sky above was grey, beginning to darken.

“Come on, boy,” Petunia said without looking back, and only then did Snape see Potter. He was following the adults at a distance, struggling to keep up with them. His flimsy anorak, baggy though it was, did little to keep out the biting wind. The boy drew his hands into the sleeves as he ran to catch up with his aunt and uncle.

“Where we going, Aunt?” he asked breathlessly, giving his uncle a nervous side-glance.

Neither of the adults answered his question. They kept up their brisk pace, walking past broken-down cars and graffitied walls with a silent determination that seemed to unsettle Potter. Snape saw the boy throw a look over his shoulder, as if he were contemplating to run for it. An irrational part of Snape’s mind almost wished that he would. Everything about this memory felt dark, and it had nothing to do with their bleak surroundings.

Finally, they came to a halt in front of a wrought-iron gate. Dursley pulled a piece of paper from his pocket, read it and nodded at his wife. “This is it.”

Snape took a look at the place. The house, a cheerless brick affair, looked as run-down and decrepit as its neighbors. Behind the gate, he could see a front garden littered with trash and over-grown with weeds. One of the first floor windows was broken, allowing a glimpse of a dark, empty room behind it. In fact, the only striking feature of the place was the angel. It was positioned on top of the right gate-post, made of wrought iron like the rest of the fence. One of its long, thin arms was stretched out towards anyone who entered the gate, in a gesture that could have been both defense and supplication. The figure’s blank face revealed nothing about the artist’s true intentions.

Petunia and Dursley hardly looked at it, but Potter lingered by the gate, staring in fascination. As his aunt and uncle approached the house, he carefully stretched out a hand as if to touch the little statuette.

“Harry!” snapped Petunia, and Potter flinched, drawing his hand back.

“Look, Aunt,” he said, pointing at the angel, but she only spared it a fleeting glance.

“Don’t dawdle, boy. Come here. And remember what I told you!”

“Yes, Aunt,” Potter said obediently, trotting down the garden path towards them. Snape saw that his left eye had nearly healed.

Dursley looked around for a door bell, found none and knocked on the door. Petunia threw a glance over her shoulder, as if to make sure that no one was watching.

“I don’t like this, Vernon,” she said under her breath. Her husband ignored her, raising his hand to knock again.

When the door opened, Snape’s first thought was that the Dursleys had come to a wizard’s home, for the man in the door looked nothing like your average Muggle. Tall and very slender, he wore a black, ankle-length robe not unlike Snape’s own teaching garments. His grey hair was tied back in a pony tail, emphasizing his gaunt features and deep-set eyes. The expression on his thin face could have been mistaken for benign, but Snape was too experienced an observer to miss the look in those shadowed eyes. He’d seen that look before, on the mad face of a young woman kneeling at the Dark Lord’s feet as if she’d never wanted to be anywhere else.

“Erm – Father Pius?” Dursley asked.

“Yes,” the man said in deep, slightly hoarse voice. “You are Vernon Dursley?”

Dursley nodded. “My wife, Petunia.”

The man inclined his head towards Petunia without looking at her.

“And this is the boy.”

Dursley pushed Potter forward. The boy looked scared, but didn’t seem to dare hide behind his aunt and uncle. Father Pius eyed him for a long moment.

“I see,” he said finally. “Come in.”

As they entered the house, Snape caught Petunia’s look of disgust. To her over-sensitive standards, the place must seem positively infested with dirt. The narrow hallway looked as if it hadn’t seen a broom in ages, and its many shelves bore a thick layer of dust, as did the countless statuettes that stared down at the visitors. They came in all shapes and sizes, some equipped with haloes, some with wings, others subjected to various forms of torture and suffering. Snape saw Potter glance at the figure of a screaming woman tied to a stake and surrounded by brightly colored orange flames. The boy quickly looked away again and wrapped his arms around himself.

“In here,” Father Pius said and opened the door to the left. Reluctantly, the Dursleys followed his lead.

The room was as neglected as the hallway had been. Martyrs and saints stared from every corner, most of them only visible as silhouettes in the gloomy semi-darkness. A huge crucifix was mounted on the wall opposite the door, the empty eyes of the crucified figure greeting the visitors. The room’s only furniture were a table and a few chairs in front of a huge fireplace. For some reason, its flickering flames did nothing to soften the harsh atmosphere of the place. The heavy, black curtains of the only window had been drawn closed.

“Please,” the black-robed man said, pointing at two of the chairs. Petunia and her husband sat down, looking tense.

Father Pius turned to Potter. “Do you know how to say your prayers, boy?”

Potter stared at him.

“Your prayers,” the man repeated. “Do you pray to our Lord Jesus Christ?”

“We’re C of E,” Petunia said hesitantly when Potter continued to stare. “We, er, we’re not really practising…”

Father Pius silenced her with a sharp gesture. “Kneel, boy,” he pointed at the floor in front of Potter. “Show Him your humility, if you have any!”

Potter looked around helplessly. “I…”

“Kneel!” the man bellowed, and Potter flinched, hurrying to obey. Father Pius took a piece of paper from his pocket and dropped it in front of the boy. “Read this, and pray that our Lord may have mercy upon you, demon child!”

Potter stared up at him, his mouth slack. “What?”

“Do as he says!” Vernon barked. Potter picked up the piece of paper, unfolded it and began to read.

“From all evil, deliver me, o Lord. From all sin, deliver me, o Lord. From your wrath, deliver me, o Lord…”

“Go on,” Father Pius instructed, then turned to the couple at the table. “You have brought this child unto me so that I may cast out the unclean spirit inside him. Do you believe in your hearts and souls that the power of Christ will deliver him?”

“Er…” Petunia and her husband exchanged a look. “You said you could help us,” Vernon said finally. “Just, er, go ahead and do whatever’s necessary.”

“You said the boy is tainted,” Father Pius continued as if he hadn’t heard him. “You said he was given to you by Satan’s servants. Is that correct?”

“Well, his mother… my sister… she was one of them. You know.” Petunia seemed determined not to give a name to the beast. “So was his father. They’re both dead. His lot left him on our doorstep.”

“His blood is tainted,” the priest said. “But he is still a child. May Christ have mercy.”

“…on the day of judgment, deliver me…”

“Enough,” Father Pius ordered, and Potter lowered the paper, giving the tall man a frightened look. “You are a sinner, boy, as your parents were sinners before the Lord. Your unclean blood has allowed Satan’s demon to take hold of your soul. Your hope, your only hope is the mercy of our Lord Jesus Christ. Will you accept deliverance?”

Potter bit his lip, and Snape saw tears pooling in the boy’s eyes. “I…”

“Will you accept deliverance?” the priest shouted in the boy’s face. “Will you let God’s mighty hand cast the demon out of your soul, will you let him strike terror to the beast laying waste his vineyard?”

The tears ran down Potter’s face. “I… d-don’t…”

“He is still resisting,” Father Pius grabbed Potter’s shoulders and shook him. “Demon, I am speaking to you, unclean spirit! I command you to answer to me!”

Sobbing, Potter tried to squirm out of the man’s grip.

“Answer me!” The priest straightened up, one hand clamped on Potter’s shoulder, the other fisted in the boy’s hair. “I command you!”

“Let me go!” Potter cried, trying in vain to beat at the hands holding him. “No!”

“It is He who commands you,” Father Pius said, grunting with the effort of keeping a grip on the boy. “He who flung you headlong from the heights of heaven into the depths of hell. You root of vice and evil, do you stand and resist?”

Struggling even harder, Potter struck the man’s solar plexus with his elbow, and the priest let go with a gasp. The boy lost no time and ran for the door.

“Boy!” Vernon shouted. “Get back here!”

He jumped up from his chair, but Father Pius reached Potter first, grabbed his hair and yanked his head back.

“Do you fear Him?” he snarled at the terrified boy. “Do you fear His power, enemy of the faith?”

Not waiting for an answer, he began to half drag, half carry Potter over to the fireplace and pushed him in front of the flames. “Do you see the fire, demon child? We used it against your kind when you still dared to live openly, not in hiding as you do today! It is written in the Holy Bible that thou shalt not suffer a witch to live!”

Potter seemed to understand what the man was threatening to do, and it was enough to send him into a full-blown panic.

“NOOO!” He began to claw, kick and bite, beside himself with terror. “NO, NO, LET ME GO-”

“Help me,” the priest snapped at Vernon, but Petunia and her husband only sat there as if frozen into place.

“NOOO, DON’T BURN ME, DON’T LET HIM-”

“Silence!” Father Pius grabbed the boy under the arms and flung him down on the table.

“Take his arm,” he ordered Petunia, who had jumped up from her chair. She backed away, her trembling hands hovering in front of her mouth.

“Vernon,” she whispered, “Vernon, let’s go, he’s mad-”

“Take his arm!” the priest shouted at Dursley. “He must be bound for this! The demon is resisting!”

Dursley didn’t move.

“Help me!” Father Pius yelled, half-lying across Potter to hold the struggling boy down on the table. “Help me, or he will unleash his madness upon us!”

Startled into action, Dursley got up and grabbed Potter’s left arm, holding it down on the table while the priest wrapped a rope around Potter’s right wrist and tied it to the table leg.

“No,” Potter whimpered, “no, Uncle, please, I’ll be good, I won’t do it again, please don’t let him hurt me...”

“Satan’s wiles,” Father Pius snarled as he fastened the knot on Potter’s left wrist and pulled the boy’s arm across the table. “Listen to him whine and beg, now that he knows he shall be cast back to hell!”

The boy lay prone on the table with his arms outstretched, a grotesque caricature of the crucifix on the wall. Snape glanced at Petunia and saw tears on her face.

Father Pius grabbed a wooden cross from a shelf and held it over the boy. “I adjure you, ancient serpent, by the judge of the living and the dead, by your Creator, by the Creator of the whole universe, by Him who has the power to consign you to hell, to depart forthwith in fear, along with your savage minions, from this servant of God, who seeks refuge in the fold of the Church!”

Potter trembled and sobbed, wincing as the priest touched his head none-too-gently with the cross. “To what purpose do you insolently resist? To what purpose do you brazenly refuse? For you are guilty before the almighty God, whose laws you have transgressed. You are guilty before His Son, our Lord Jesus Christ, whom you presumed to tempt, whom you dared to nail to the cross. You are guilty before the whole human race, to whom you proferred by your enticements the poisoned cup of death.”

“It is God himself who commands you!” he shouted, whacking the side of Potter’s head with the cross. The boy yelped with pain. “It is the power of Christ that commands you!”

There was a crash from the corner of the room, and Snape saw that one of the figures – a statuette of a woman holding a child – had fallen from its shelf and shattered on the floor. The other figures began to shake and rattle, as did the table and the chairs. Petunia shrieked and grabbed her husband’s arm.

“What’s happening?”

“It’s him!” Father Pius shouted. “It is the transgressor, the unclean creature! I cast you out, demon! You are nothing before our Lord! The power of Christ compels you!”

Suddenly there was a loud bang, and the man was flung backwards, almost colliding with the wall as he crashed to the floor. Potter’s magic was rising to protect him, swirling around the boy and blasting the martyrs and saints off their shelves. One by one, they shattered on the floor.

“I cast you out!” The priest had gotten back to his feet. His face was distorted in some kind of mad ecstasy, and he was breathing harshly. “I cast you out by the word of our Lord! I cast you out of this worthless shell of flesh! Yield to the power of Christ!”

He stumbled over to the table and grabbed hold of the boy, tearing Potter’s thin shirt down the back.

“I cast you out as our fathers did before me! By word of prayer and by scourging of the flesh!”

He went over to the fireplace and pulled something from the flames, causing a cloud of sparks to rise like fireflies. He held it up; a long iron poker whose tip was glowing white.

“My God,” Petunia shrieked and took a step towards the table, her fingers clawing her cheeks. “Vernon, no-”

“Stand back, Daughter of Eve,” the priest screamed, brandishing the poker at her. “Your sex is weak, easily corrupted by Satan and his angels! Stand back, I say!”

Dursley grabbed his wife’s shoulders. “Don’t, Pet-”

Father Pius approached the boy, holding the poker so that it was easily visible from Potter’s prone position. “Do you see this, demon child? Your evil powers cannot overcome the mighty hand of our Lord! Depart then, transgressor! Begone, unclean spirit, or you shall feel the fires of hell!”

“NOOO!” The boy yanked at the ropes that held him fast, insane terror on his face. “NOOO, HELP ME, HELP ME-”

“No one shall help you, demon! Sorcerer’s child! May Christ have mercy on you!”

As he lowered the poker towards the boy’s bare back, Snape knew that Potter’s magic had, in the decisive moment, deserted the wizard it was supposed to protect. Much like people who froze in the face of danger, a wizard’s magic could leave him in moments of emotional upheaval – or extreme terror, for that matter. Many books on magical history glossed over these things, covering the witch-burning era with a few amusing anecdotes on flame-freezing charms and leaving out the uncomfortable fact that many magical men and women had died horrible deaths at the hands of their Muggle neighbors. Watching their loved ones scream as they burned to death had sown hatred in many purebloods; a hatred that, in true wizarding tradition, had been nourished and cultivated over the centuries, giving people like Lucius Malfoy all the ammunition they needed to justify their contempt of all non-magical life.

A hand grabbed his shoulder, and Snape turned to see Dumbledore as ashen-faced as he had ever seen him.

“Severus,” the old man whispered. Snape knew that it was a plea for help – help that he, of all people, could not provide.

Potter screamed as the iron touched his back. Snape had heard a dog scream like that; the dog he had seen next to a Muggle motorway, its lower body a mass of blood and intestines.

Petunia leaned forward and vomited onto the carpet, then, her hand pressed against her mouth, ran from the room. Her husband glanced after her and back at the priest, pale and helpless.

“Look… I think we’d better take the boy and-”

“It’s the seducer speaking through you,” Father Pius whispered. He had lifted the poker and plunged it back into the fire, not sparing a glance at the trembling, whimpering bundle on the table. “Go! Go tend to your wife! I shall finish the Lord’s work.”

“Sir,” some of Dursley’s old bluster returned, “I think you’re forgetting that we’ve a business deal, and we paid-”

“A business deal!” shrieked the priest. He yanked the poker from the fire and stepped towards Dursley. “I am saving this child in the name of Christ and you speak of payment! Go, you defiler, you corrupter!”

“Mad,” Dursley muttered, his eyes on the white tip of the poker. “Completely barking-”

He fled from the room, slamming the door so violently that the crucifix rattled on the wall.

The priest turned to the boy on the table. Half-conscious, Potter was keening like a wounded animal, his face blotchy and wet with snot and tears. A dark spot was spreading slowly between his legs.

“Pray, boy,” Father Pius said, lifting the poker. “Pray for mercy from our Lord, for He is good and gentle.”

The iron came down again, and Potter finally, mercifully, lost consciousness.

###

They sat in silence for a long time; a silence only broken by Dumbledore’s sobs. The old man had his face in his hands and was crying softly, his shoulders shaking. Snape had no idea what to do. He had never see Dumbledore cry before.

Eventually, he could stand it no longer. Pointing his wand at one of the man’s infernal lemon drops, he transfigured it into a handkerchief and pushed it towards the man. “Here, Albus.”

Dumbledore looked up, and to Snape’s astonishment the man smiled at him through his tears. “Thank you, Severus. Forgive me.”

Snape muttered something indistinct. He was feeling faintly sick, and it had nothing to do with the sound of Dumbledore blowing his nose. The smell of burnt flesh, the screams… Lily’s son on that table. Lily’s son, tortured.

“Why, Albus?” he asked quietly, and he didn’t give a damn when he saw the old man wince. “Why did you leave him with these people?”

“They are his family,” Dumbledore replied, and there was a world of betrayed trust in that simple sentence. Snape could have screamed. Family, the one thing that counted above everything else in the traditional wizarding world. Family was family, blood was thicker than water, and magical blood was the thickest of all. To wizards and witches of Dumbledore’s generation, the fact that Potter had been left with family was justification enough.

“Severus,” Dumbledore said. “It was a mistake, and I don’t deny it. But please believe me when I say that I never knew about any of this.”

Snape stared at him. “You should have known.”

“Yes,” Dumbledore lowered his eyes. “Yes, I should.”

“What happens to Potter now?” Snape asked finally, when the silence became too oppressive.

“I believe he should stay in the hospital wing for a while, until we can be sure he has recovered from his recent ordeal,” Dumbledore said, sounding more like his usual, confident self. “After that, there is, of course, the safety of students and staff to consider.”

“Meaning…”

“Meaning, Harry should not be left unsupervised. He can participate in the normal school routine-”

“Albus, are you mad? Are you saying you’re going to let the Dark Lord loose among the student population?”

“Harry is not Lord Voldemort,” Dumbledore replied; quite calmly, although there was a sharp tone to his voice. “As soon as Tom makes an appearance, I shall know, and I shall be there. It won’t do to deny Harry a normal school life.”

“He can’t stay in the dorms,” Snape said firmly. “It’s too great a risk.”

Dumbledore leaned back in his chair and folded his hands. “What do you suggest, Severus?”

“Someone must stay with him at all times, someone who knows about his situation. Poppy…”

“… is needed in the infirmary and must be available in case there’s an emergency.” Snape did not like the way Dumbledore was eyeing him across his half-moon glasses. “Severus…”

They stared at each other, locked in a silent argument that was fought with looks rather than words. Eventually, Snape exhaled loudly and stood up.

“I suppose I brought this upon myself,” he said. “No doubt Potter will be overjoyed at the news.”

“The boy trusts you, Severus.”

“And you are deluding yourself,” Snape muttered. If Potter trusted him, it was only because he was the only adult in the boy’s environment who was not a complete stranger and had not done him any physical harm. And yes, he did count Albus’ Protelo spell as harmful. He was certain that Potter saw it that way. The boy was, after all, a Slytherin.

“Are you going to talk to him, Severus?” Dumbledore asked quietly.

Snape didn’t turn around. “I’ll do what is necessary, Albus.”

He always did, didn’t he?