Snape strode down the corridor to the Headmaster’s office, scowling at two Hufflepuff second-years who quickly scrambled out of the way. Their startled expressions told Snape that he must look quite a sight. Well, a sleepless night showed even on the bat of the dungeons, never mind the fact that he hadn’t had a change of robes in more than twenty-four hours. Contrary to popular opinion, Snape did value his daily shower, and he hated presenting himself to the Headmaster in such a state. Not that Dumbledore would care. More likely than not, he’d only have eyes for the small vial that was currently tucked away in Snape’s inside pocket.

“Coffee toffee,” Snape snarled at the gargoyle, which moved obediently to reveal the entrance to the spiral staircase. Why the man couldn’t choose less annoying passwords was beyond Snape. Besides, the current one reminded him that he hadn’t had his morning dose of coffein, either. Pomfrey had pushed a cup in his hand and he’d drunk it without looking, too occupied at the time to care that it was some kind of ghastly herbal tea.

As he entered the office, he found Dumbledore seated behind his desk, the Pensieve standing in front of him. A cloudy figure was hovering over the transparent surface, revolving slowly on its axis. The old wizard contemplated it for a moment before he waved his wand, banishing the memory back into the basin.

“Severus,” he greeted Snape. “Please, sit down. I’ve taken the liberty of having your favorite brand brought up from the kitchens.”

He nodded at a large, steaming mug on his desk. Snape grabbed it without further ado and took a long gulp. Indeed, finely ground Arabian Cauldron, undiluted by sugar, milk or any other contaminating additions.

“Thank you, Albus.” Snape sat down. “I appreciate it.”

“I knew you would, my boy,” Dumbledore smiled. “As for myself, a lemon sherbet or two usually does the trick, but then, one of the advantages of age is that one requires less sleep. How is Harry?”

“Asleep,” Snape replied, refusing to sound as if he envied the boy. “It has been a long night.”

“I imagine it was, and I owe you my thanks,” Dumbledore said. “I assume you have been successful in extracting the memories?”

Snape took the vial out of his pocket and put it on the table. The misty substance inside swirled and spun, as if trying to escape the confinement of the glass walls.

“I gathered as much as I could.”

“I’m sure it will be more than sufficient,” Dumbledore said, his eyes on the small container. “I knew you had the boy’s trust, Severus.”

Snape said nothing. You didn’t need a little boy’s trust to convince him; all you needed was a child starving for praise and acceptance. Potter had not wanted to give up his memories, not for Dumbledore, Snape or anyone else; what he wanted was an adult’s approval. Once Snape told him that it would be a brave, a good thing to do, that he and the Headmaster would be proud, the boy had caved. A few promises of extra flying lessons and a visit to Hogsmeade, and Potter had been exactly where Snape wanted him.

Strange, that he should not feel the slightest bit triumphant about it. Perhaps he was too tired. He’d spent the entire night sitting at the boy’s bedside, his wand gently touching Potter’s temple while he waited for the silvery memories to manifest themselves. When dawn broke, the vial had been nearly full.

“It was the right thing to do, Severus,” Dumbledore said, and not for the first time Snape thought he’d felt the brush of another mind against his own. “We’re trying to help him.”

Snape didn’t look at his mentor. “Let’s begin,” was all he said.

Dumbledore uncorked the vial and poured its content into his Pensieve. There was a soft hiss as it plunged past the shimmering surface, mingling with the substance within. Snape leaned over the stone basin. His and the Headmaster’s reflections stared back at him, distorted by the swirling of the liquid-like fog.

He suddenly realized that he had no desire to see whatever was hiding in there. Not that he had any choice in the matter. None of them, it seemed, had much of a choice in any of this.

Taking a deep breath, Snape leaned forward into Harry Potter’s memories.

A little boy was sitting on the floor. His appearance looked at odds with the over-decorated living room, the expensive sofa set, the mahogany wall unit and the gleaming brass accessories. Nothing about the place gave the slightest hint of neglect or indifference, whereas the same could not be said of the toddler. Grubby, was the first word that came to Snape’s mind as he looked at the child; the kind of grubby you’d expect in a dump littered with bottles and covered in grime.

The boy seemed to be about two years old, but he lacked the chubby, rosy look of children his age. His sallow, unhealthy complexion made the scar on his forehead stand out like a fresh wound, and his black hair was a greasy rat’s nest in dire need of a cut. Someone had dressed the boy in a baggy blue shirt with a stained collar. Apart from the shirt, he wore only a nappy and a pair of graying socks.

Not exactly the kind of toddler people wanted to pick up and cuddle, even if they pitied him. The expressions of the man and the woman on the couch suggested as much. They looked at the boy as if he were a stain on their white rug - annoying, disgusting and just the slightest bit frightening, a thing that did not belong.

Snape recognized Petunia at once. She hadn’t changed much, apart from a few lines around her eyes and mouth, and a housewifey skirt instead of the schoolgirl jeans she had worn twenty years ago. The fat man next to her must be the husband, the person to complete her little domestic idyll. He wasn’t a handsome man in any aspect, but there was a pragmatic, no-nonsense air about him that Snape knew must have appealed to Petunia Evans. Far from being a James Potter, this man lived and breathed the kind of normalcy that came with double-file kitchens and a Rover in the driveway.

He and Dumbledore were standing near the door that led to the hall, with a clear view of the room and its occupants. The old wizard had folded his hands behind his back, watching the couple on the sofa as calmly as if they were part of an experiment he was conducting.

“Look, Petunia,” Dursley said. “I’ll admit there’s something… funny about the boy. But your sister – she was one of them. So was that lay-about husband of hers. I mean, it’s to be expected, right?”

“You don’t understand.” Petunia’s voice was quiet, and her eyes never left the boy on the floor. “This has nothing to do with him being a freak. My sister was a freak, and she bloody well didn’t-“

“Yes yes,” Dursley said hastily, and Snape had the distinct impression that the man didn’t want his wife to finish her sentence. “And I don’t want him staying in Dudley’s room any longer, either. But-”

“I came in and the bed was floating, Vernon! Floating! And his eyes-”

“A trick of light,” Dursley interrupted. “We’ve been over this, Pet. You were upset, understandably so, of course, and you thought you saw-”

“Don’t you tell me I’m seeing things!” She turned to her husband now, who almost recoiled at the anger on her face. “You have no idea, Vernon. It isn’t just about pulling rabbits from hats and turning frogs into turnips. They’re – they’re mad. They’ve got things you wouldn’t imagine in your nightmares, ghosts and werewolves and-”

“Pet!” Vernon Dursley grimaced, as if her words were causing him physical pain. “We agreed we wouldn’t stand for any of this – this abnormality, and I stick to that. The boy’s not staying in Duddy’s room if he’s dangerous. And if I ever catch him floating things, I’ll make ruddy sure he doesn’t do it again! Boy!” he bellowed. The child on the floor flinched and looked up. “Get over here!”

Petunia sighed, pinching the bridge of her nose. “Vernon…”

“I’m only going to talk to him, Pet. Get a bloody move on, boy!”

The child had gotten to his feet, but was hovering out of reach, clearly frightened to come closer. Scowling, Dursley leaned forward and dragged the boy to him by his arm.

“Listen to me, boy! You never – ever – do that kind of thing under my roof again, or you’ll be in big trouble! It’ll be the ruler, you hear me?”

The boy’s eyes filled with tears. “No, no…”

Dursley shook him. “Do you understand, boy?”

“B-boy be good…”

“Of course he doesn’t understand,” Petunia snapped. “Let go of him, for God’s sake! Go, boy,” she gave the child a slight push. “Go play.”

Sniffling, the boy went back to where he’d been sitting before. Snape noticed that he wasn’t “playing” or doing anything, really; he just sat there, his small fingers buried into the soft surface of the rug.

“It happens to them when they’re young, Vernon. Shouting at him won’t do any good. What I want to know is how you’re going to protect our son!”

Dursley winced at his wife’s accusing tone. “Well, he’s not staying in Duddy’s rooms, obviously...”

“Obviously.”

“What about the garage?”

“No. The neighbors might see.”

“Yes, well, we don’t really have… unless we clean out the cupboard under the stairs. We could put a cot in there…”

Petunia nodded curtly. “I’ll take care of it. And you’ll have to buy a bolt or something. I want to make sure he can’t get out.”

“Fine,” Dursley said. “The cupboard it is.”

A wail came from upstairs, and Petunia got up.

“Duddy’s awake,” she said, and her voice had changed, becoming soft and gentle in a way Snape had not believed her capable of. “I’d better see if he needs the potty.”

Dursley smiled. “The tyke’s becoming a proper little man, isn’t he?”

“All grown up,” Petunia replied. “Come on, Vernon, I’m sure he’d like to show daddy how well he can use the potty.”

They left the room, walking past the boy on the floor as if he were another piece of furniture. The child didn’t seem to notice. He was sucking on his fingers, lost in his own little world.

Snape glanced at Dumbledore. The old man looked pensive, almost sad, and Snape quickly looked away. If the Headmaster caught his eyes, he’d feel obliged to say something, and there was nothing he could think of.

The living room dissolved around them, memories flashing past them like a Muggle film played at high speed.

The boy – Potter – growing, losing the nappy.

A dark cramped space; the cupboard, Snape thought.

The family at the table, eating dinner. Exploding glasses, a pudgy child screaming and grabbing his bleeding arm. A large hand crashing down on Potter’s cheek. Shouts, rants. Sobs. And then, the family back at the table, minus one place setting.

It was the last memory of Potter eating with his family. After that, his food was consumed in the dark cramped space, in a corner of the kitchen, or not at all. The boy became thinner, the shadows under his eyes deeper. In one particular memory, they saw Potter slipping into the kitchen, pulling open the cabinet under the sink, diving into the trash can. Potato peels, bread crusts, something that looked like half a fried sausage. The boy wolfed it all down, throwing frightened glances over his shoulders; the same boy who’d be labeled “weird about food” by his Housemates five years later. No bloody wonder, Snape thought. He hadn’t expected any of this to make him angry, but it did. It made him furious.

The memories changed again, now involving the pudgy cousin. Some moments reminded Snape of a “prince and pauper” scenario – the fat boy in front of the TV, eating crisps and slurping soda through a straw while Potter moved quietly in the background, dusting Petunia’s collection of knickknack. The fat boy on the front seat of a car, munching on sweets while Potter helped his aunt load groceries into the boot. Other scenes showed “Duddy” and Potter at play, which involved a lot of punching and pushing on Dudley’s part and ducking and dodging on Potter’s. Potter’s second-hand glasses broke time and again, and more than one memory involved Potter sitting on his cot, clumsily mending the broken frame with Muggle adhesive tape.

Some memories flashed by so quickly Snape wasn’t sure he had actually seen them. A dog, barking in front of a tree. Vernon Dursley shouting, raising a hand. A motorbike of a hazy, dreamlike quality, flying. Green light…

Then, quite suddenly, they were standing in a corridor that was obviously not in No. 4, Privet Drive. Doors lined it on either side, and there were pictures and posters on the wall, most of them done in watercolor. Snape’s own primary school had been far less cheerful, but he recognized one when he saw it.

One of the classroom doors stood open, and outside the door there was Potter, sitting on a chair with his head lowered and his hands folded in his lap. Inside the classroom, a middle-aged woman was seated at the teacher’s desk, and in front of her, on what was obviously a visitor’s chair, Petunia. Neither of the two women seemed to want to be there. Petunia’s mouth was a thin, angry line, and the teacher’s worried frown suggested that she wasn’t enjoying this particular parent-teacher conference.

“…really not sure why you needed to see me,” Petunia was saying when Snape stepped closer, followed by the Headmaster. “I know the boy’s difficult. He’s nothing but trouble at home…”

“Actually, Harry’s a very sweet little boy, Mrs. Dursley. A bit quiet, but not a trouble-maker at all. I sent you a letter-”

Petunia laughed nervously. “Really, Mrs. Martinez, there’s no reason to worry. Boys will be boys, and my Duddy can get a bit rough when he’s playing…”

“Harry said he walked into a door. He never said anything about his cousin.”

Petunia looked as if she could have kicked herself. “Yes, well, he did walk into a door. He’s such a clumsy boy.”

“Mrs. Dursley… the reason I wanted to see you is rather serious, I’m afraid.”

“What did the boy do? If he’s been climbing school buildings again-”

“No, nothing like that,” Mrs. Martinez said quickly. “Harry… you see, Harry had a seizure today.”

“What?”

“Today during morning break. John - Mr. Kelley – was there when it happened. Harry fell down and went into convulsions. We’re lucky he didn’t hurt himself. John tried to talk to him, but Harry… well, he wasn’t aware of his surroundings. John said he made some strange sounds, rather like hissing, and something seemed to be happening to his eyes-”

“A trick of light!” Petunia interrupted, her voice rising shrilly. “There’s nothing wrong with the boy’s eyes.”

“Mrs. Dursley… I realize this must come as a shock to you…”

“The boy was probably pretending. He does that, you know, to get attention-”

“Harry was not pretending,” Mrs.Martinez said firmly. “We took him to the school doctor, and he spent the morning asleep. Dr. Rowe told me he was completely exhausted, as if he’d run a marathon. Mrs. Dursley, you need to take your nephew to see a neurologist.”

“A neurologist? Whatever for?”

“A seizure in an eight-year-old is no joking matter. Dr. Rowe… he said there might be a number of causes.”

“Such as?”

“Well, it could be harmless, of course, but…”

“If it’s harmless, I see no reason to drag the boy around town to see some kind of specialist.”

Having sat through enough parent-teacher conferences himself, Snape could see that Mrs. Martinez was quickly running out of patience.

“Mrs Dursley,” she said, “I thought I made it clear that a seizure in a child is anything but harmless. Harry might…” She hesitated, glancing at the open door. Then she took a piece of paper from her desk and wrote one word on it. Epilepsy.

Petunia’s mouth became a thin line. “He is not epileptic.”

Startled, Mrs. Martinez looked at the door and then back at Petunia. “Really, Mrs. Dursley, think of your nephew. Harry’s probably frightened by what happened.”

“You don’t understand,” Petunia said quietly. “That boy… he’s not normal. He’s dangerous.”

“A neurological disorder isn’t a sign of mental instability,” Mrs. Martinez said. Her voice had changed again, from impatient to concerned; concern that might be for the little boy in the corridor, or for the family that was so obviously unable to cope. “It’s disturbing if it happens to a child, and I understand your-”

They never learned what Mrs. Martinez thought she understood, for Petunia didn’t let her finish. “No. It’s not like that. The boy’s not ill. He’s just… abnormal.”

Mrs. Martinez shook her head. “I understand this has come as a shock, Mrs. Dursley, but I must insist that you take Harry to see a neurologist.”

“I don’t believe this is any of your business,” Petunia bristled.

“I think you’ll find that it is,” the teacher said, quite calmly. “If you refuse to take Harry to a doctor, I’m afraid we’ll have to bring in social services.”

The word had a devastating effect on Petunia; far more so than the news of her nephew’s seizure. Her eyes widened a fraction, and her mouth opened slightly, as if she couldn’t believe that anyone would even mention the s-word in her presence.

“What do you take us for, some sort of scum? My husband’s a hard-working man, and-”

“That’s neither here nor there, Mrs. Dursley.” Mrs. Martinez sounded almost weary now. “If we feel that one of our students is being neglected, it’s our job to intervene.”

“Neglected – we took that boy in, we feed him, clothe him-”

“Mrs. Dursley,” the teacher interrupted. “This isn’t helping. I believe we both know that Harry could be a lot happier than he is. Frankly, I’ve been concerned about him.”

Petunia got up from her chair. “Frankly, I see no reason to continue this discussion. Thank you for your time, Mrs. Martinez.”

“You’ll take him to a doctor?”

“I don’t seem to have much of a choice, do I?” Petunia snapped. “One would think you people had better things to do than meddling with people’s private affairs. My husband will hear about this.”

“I hope he will,” Mrs. Martinez said. “Your nephew’s health concerns both of you.”

Petunia snorted and turned to the door.

“Come on, you. We’re leaving,” she snapped at Potter, who obediently slipped off his chair and trotted after her. Snape watched them go. Petunia never once looked at the boy, not even when Harry quietly spoke.

“Aunt? What’s epilepic?”

“Don’t ask questions,” Snape heard her say before the memory began to fade.

The school corridor became blurry, its uniform doors melting away into a swirl of colors. This time, it took only a few seconds before their surroundings solidified again. He and Dumbledore were standing in a room with many chairs and a number of potted plants in the corners. Pictures of landscapes on the wall and a table with magazines indicated a doctor’s waiting room. There were only two people present; Potter and on the chair next to him, his fat cousin Dudley. Potter looked much like he had in the last memory; same over-sized clothes, same tousled hair. The cousin had put on at least another stone since he had last appeared. As Snape watched, the pudgy boy began to poke Harry, chanting in an annoying sing-song voice.

“Potter’s potty in the head, Potter’s potty in the head, Potter’s potty in the head…”

Potter moved away from his cousin. “Leave me alone, Dudley.”

“Potter’s potty in the head, potty in the head…”

“Am not!” Potter slid off his chair and went to sit on the other side of the room. “Shut up, Dudley!”

“You’re potty in the head!” Dudley crossed his eyes and stuck his tongue out. “They’re gonna cut out your brain and stick wires in it! They’re gonna lock you up in the loony bin with all the other freaks!”

“They’re not,” Potter said with a nervous look at the door. “You’re just a big dirty liar.”

“Potty in the head!” Dudley stuck out his arms and staggered around in a very bad imitation of a walking zombie. “Uuhh, look at me, I’m potty Potter and I’m gonna get you! I’m a crazy freak and I’m after your blood!”

“Shut UP!” Potter grabbed one of the magazines and threw it at his cousin. “Shut up, you – you fucker!”

“Oohhh, I’m gonna tell Mum!” Dudley smirked. “I’m gonna tell her what you said, Potty.”

“I don’t care,” Potter muttered. “Leave me alone.”

He picked up another magazine and sat down pretending to read, but Snape noticed that he wasn’t turning the pages. Dudley, meanwhile, seemed to have lost interest in bullying his cousin. He pulled out a small rectangular device and began pushing buttons on it, absorbed in whatever was transpiring on the tiny display. A gameboy, Snape remembered. They had been all the rage a while ago; he’d had to settle more than one argument in the common room about the infernal things. The little dunderheads didn’t mind that electronic devices wouldn’t work properly inside Hogwarts; merely owning one and boasting about its various features seemed enough to sent the wizard-borns into fits of jealousy.

Of course the spoiled Muggle brat would have one. And, Snape thought with a glance at the skinny boy across the room, he was willing to bet that Potter wasn’t allowed to touch the thing.

The boys spent the next ten minutes in silence, disrupted only by the gameboy’s racket (Snape noticed the Headmaster giving the thing an interested look, and made a mental note never to introduce Albus to the joys of Muggle electronic entertainment).

Then, the door opened and Petunia came in, looking sourer than ever. Dudley jumped up.

“Mum, Mum, Harry threw a magazine at me, and he called me an f-youknowwhat-er!”

“What?!” Petunia grabbed Potter’s arm and shook him. “As if you haven’t caused enough trouble! And if I ever hear you use such language, I’ll-”

“Mrs. Dursley?” a woman’s voice came from the door. Petunia let go of Potter’s arm, plastering a smile onto her face as she turned around.

“Yes?”

“Dr. Douglas is ready for you now,” the woman said, smiling at Potter. “Come on, Harry. Do you want your aunt to come with you?”

Potter said nothing, staring at the floor. Petunia cleared her throat.

“Harry’s a big boy, he’ll manage on his own, won’t you?”

“You promised we’d go for hamburgers while Potty’s with the doctor,” Dudley said. “You promised, Mum!”

“Yes, Duddy, don’t worry,” Petunia made a shushing gesture, glancing at the receptionist. “Well, then, behave yourself for the doctor, Harry.”

The receptionist took Potter’s hand, her smile never wavering. “Come on, Harry, it’s going to be fun. We have this huge imaging machine called a CT scanner. It looks really cool, and you’ll get to see it from the inside.”

Potter did not seem to find this prospect very appealing. “Does it hurt?” he asked quietly.

“It doesn’t hurt at all. And we have a special stash of toys and treats for kids who go in the scanner.”

Potter perked up at this. “And I can pick one? Really?”

“Really,” the receptionist said, leading him to the door. “That’s better than hamburgers, isn’t it?”

“Yeah,” Potter said, smiling for the first time. Snape smirked at the identical looks of outrage on Petunia’s and Dudley’s faces, hoping that Harry had liked his toy, whatever it was.

Strange, that he should care at all, but he did.

The door closed behind Harry and the woman, and the memory began to dissolve. The vortex of colors grew, swirling around them like a silent cyclone. Scenes flashed past in a matter of seconds; Petunia holding an official-looking letter, showing it to her husband. “Nothing wrong with his brain, see, just as I told that teacher woman, but of course they had to interfere…”

More seemingly unconnected glimpses of Potter’s life at his relatives’. The boy sitting on his cot with an exercise book on his knees, coloring a drawing he’d done. Green and black seemed to dominate the picture. Potter on his knees in the bathroom, scrubbing the toilet. A large, red-faced woman with a bulldog on her lap, laughing at something. Potter in a supermarket, glancing nervously over his shoulder before his hand darted out and grabbed a chocolate bar from the shelves. Once outside, the chocolate bar was quickly consumed, the wrapper stuffed into a nearby dustbin. It happened regularly from then on, although sometimes Potter stole things other than food; pencils, notebooks, and on one occasion, a pair of cheap gloves. He was never caught; not, Snape knew, because the nine-year-old was so proficient a thief, but because the adults nearby simply overlooked him, compelled to do so by a strong notice-me-not charm. Children’s magic was uncontrolled, but it would always ensure survival.

Another memory, darker than the previous ones. Dudley and a group of boys on a playground, laughing, brandishing plastic toys that resembled Muggle firearms. Potter was on the ground, protecting his head with his arms as the boys hit him with their “guns” and pretended to shoot him.

“Mission completed, sir,” one of the boys said to Dudley. “We caught him.”

Dudley grinned. “Good job, Sergeant. Let’s show this Nazi bastard what happens to scum like him when he tries to kill English soldiers.”

What happened was more poking with the plastic guns and several kicks in the ribs. Potter stayed curled up on the ground, making no sound. Somehow, this seemed to instigate the boys to kick even harder, their trainers leaving muddy prints on Potter’s trousers and baggy t-shirt. Eventually, one of the boys picked up a walnut-sized rock from the ground and threw it at him. It bounced off Potter’s head, and the boy on the ground cried out in surprise and pain. His reaction could not have been worse for the response it got. Gleeful at having found a new and better way of punishing their victim, Dudley and the others picked up more rocks and, in effect, began to stone Potter.

If Snape had caught any of his students doing something of this nature, he’d have made sure to get them suspended. Children could be cruel, yes, but there were boundaries even an immature mind should be expected to recognize. He glanced at the Headmaster, and saw shock and disbelief on the ancient face. For all his experience, Dumbledore always had trouble believing that sometimes there was no redeeming excuse, only malice and joy in another’s pain.

“Get ‘im!” Dudley shouted, grabbing a fist-sized rock from the ground and hurling it at his cousin’s head. Had the rock hit home, it might have smashed in Potter’s skull, but it never reached its destination. It was as if an invisible barrier had been erected in mid-air, causing the rock to bounce off it and fly back towards the attacker. Dudley screamed and ducked. The other boys stood transfixed, rocks in hand. Potter had gotten to his feet. Blood trickled down from grazes on his arms and face. Potter dragged his index finger across his bloodied cheek and stuck it in his mouth, his eyes closing. When they opened again, his irises were gone, replaced with an opaque, milky white.

The boys screamed and ran. Potter did not follow them. He watched, licked a trace of blood off his lips, and then flicked a hand in an almost lazy gesture. The rocks rose from the ground, surrounding Potter like a ring of tiny gray satellites, and began to fly towards the fleeing boys. One by one, they hit their targets, bouncing off arms and legs, bruising shoulders, cutting into cheeks. The boys wailed in pain and fear. Dudley shrieked and stumbled, blood pouring from his forehead where a particularly large rock had hit home. Potter hissed and brought his hand to his mouth, biting down hard. Blood dripped down his chin, onto the ground and the world grew black, slipping away as suddenly as if someone had cast a darkening spell.

The next thing they heard was the sound of two people sobbing. It was still dark, a stuffy and confining darkness only found in small, hidden places. By the laws of non-magical nature, he and Dumbledore should not have fit in here, let alone been able to stand comfortably next to each other. It was the cupboard under the stairs, Snape realized as his eyes began to get used to the dark. There was the cot, complete with a faded blanket and a small pillow, a cardboard box containing Potter’s clothes, a shelf with broken odds and ends, a schoolbag half-hidden under the bed. On the cot, curled up and face hidden, was Potter. His shoulders shook, his sobs muffled by the blanket.

Somewhere outside, someone was crying with far less restraint. Petunia, Snape realized. She sounded almost hysterical.

“… could have died!”

“This is it,” a male voice bellowed, and Snape recognized the husband, Vernon. “I’ve had it. He’s not staying a minute longer in this house! I don’t care if the orphanage won’t take him – by God, I’ll drive him to London myself and put him out on the streets!”

His voice had risen to a shout with the last few words, and Snape saw Potter wince, burying his face even deeper into the pillow.

“They’ll bring him back,” Petunia said. “That man… the one who sent the letter… he’ll know.”

“Then you can ruddy well write to him and tell him that we’ve had it!” Dursley shouted. “Who do they think they are, tipping their rubbish in front of our door and expecting us to take care of it! Endangering our own son, no less!”

“It doesn’t work that way, Vernon,” Petunia said quietly. Her sobs had abated to an occasional hitch in her voice. “They’d never listen to people like us.”

“They’re not that stupid after all, are they? They don’t want the freak any more than we do, so they palm him off on us! That boy has the devil in him.”

“Don’t say that.” Petunia’s voice had become almost too soft to understand. “Don’t say things like that, or I’ll swear I’ll lose my mind! And Duddy… all pale and ill in that hospital bed…” She began to cry again. “Five stitches! And the doctor said there might be a scar.”

“The freak’s going to regret ever using his abnormality against my son. And if I have to beat it out of him – every – single – day!” Dull thumps accompanied the last three words, as if Dursley had brought his fist down on a hard surface.

“As if that’ll help,” Petunia said.

“What’s that supposed to mean?”

“Don’t you understand? It’s what he is, what his mother and father were. It’s – genetic or something. You can’t beat it out of him.”

“Then we’ll have to put him out, won’t we?”

“We can’t,” Petunia said wearily. “They’ll find out, and they’ll come after us. There’s no telling what they might do. What if they hurt Duddy?”

“But-”

“Listen, Vernon, I don’t care. I want our son to be safe, that’s all I’m asking. And if there’s no other way, I’ll take Duddy and go.”

A short silence followed. “You’d… leave?” Dursley no longer sounded angry; his voice had become rather quiet.

“I’ll do whatever is necessary to protect our son. And if that means leaving, yes, I will. I can’t live like this.”

“Pet… don’t, alright? I’ll think of something. There must be something…”

Another brief silence followed, then there was the sound of a chair scraping on the floor. Steps came closer, and Snape saw Potter tense on his cot, lifting his head. The boy’s left eye was almost closed shut, surrounded by discolored, swollen skin.

The steps passed by the cupboard and a dull clump-clump over their heads indicated that the person was walking up the stairs. Potter seemed to relax momentarily. They must have punched the boy, Snape thought. There had been glimpses of physical abuse before – Potter being slapped, shaken, walloped with a wooden ruler – but until now, Petunia and her husband had not crossed the line to uncontrolled violence. Potter’s black eye indicated that the rock incident had changed this.

Heavier steps entered the hallway, and Potter tensed again, curling up on his cot. There was a loud rattling of metal on metal as the bolt was pushed back, then the cupboard door flew open. Vernon Dursley’s angry face loomed over the boy.

“You listen to me, boy,” the man hissed, and Snape saw his meaty fist opening and closing, as if he were barely restraining himself. “You will not threaten my family, you hear me? You will not use your abnormality against my wife and son, or so help me God, I’ll send you back to whatever pit of hell you crawled out of!”

Potter was shaking, his back pressed against the wall behind his cot. Dursley advanced on him, grabbing the boy’s hair. “Do you understand what I’m saying, boy?”

Potter couldn’t nod, tears trickling down the sides of his face as he tried to speak. “Y-yes, s-sir.”

Snape’s hand itched to grab his wand and petrify the fat idiot, never mind that he was only a memory. He could understand bias – his uncompromising protection of his snakes testified to that – but this was ridiculous. Dudley and his little group of sycophants had been well on their way to killing Potter, and none of them had been seriously harmed by the rocks.

Dursley gave the boy one last shake before he let go of him. The cupboard door was slammed shut and locked, the metal grille rattling against the wood as it was closed with more force than necessary. Potter curled up and hid his face in his arms. His thin shoulders shook as he sobbed quietly.

As the scene faded, a strange feeling took hold of Snape. He and Albus were plunged back into the vortex of Potter’s memories, glimpses of the boy’s life swirling around them almost too quickly to recognize. Something had changed, though. This time, they seemed to be drawn down, deeper and deeper, their surroundings darkening as they descended into the very depths of the child’s mind. The images around them became distorted, dreams and thoughts mingling with actual remembrance. They saw the screaming face of a red-haired woman, a face Snape knew so very well. They heard a voice hiss and laugh, caressing a frightened mind with promises of darkness and pain inflicted, not endured. They could feel its presence, its lure and its power, growing stronger as they delved deeper into Potter’s mind.

As their surroundings slid into focus again, blurry shades becoming sharp outlines, Snape couldn’t help but wish that what he was about to witness would be over soon.