Severus kept his eyes trained in front of him in the direction of the Christmas tree. He could feel Potter glaring at the side of his face from where the boy was standing next to him. He ignored the boy. Potter had refused to answer any of his question after Severus’s own refusal to talk about the latest memory.

He cast a quick glance at Potter’s wristwatch. If he was correct, the next memory was about to unfold in front of them in about a minute. He had studied the patterns in the memories, it alternated between Potter’s and his own memories, with approximately six to seven minutes between each memory. The memories seem to be taking place in chronological order, but he wasn’t sure about that yet.

There was a sudden rise in temperature, it went from cold to hot. Severus felt the sunlight hit his exposed skin which was cool a minute ago, he shivered due to the sudden change. He glanced at Potter and saw him scratching at the burn on his palm absentmindedly while looking around searching for something. Severus sighed in frustration, they needed to get the burns looked at.

He felt an overwhelming fear seize him. He watched as a group of boys around seven or eight years old came running, two of them were blonde while the other one, the shortest one of them was dark haired. The dark haired boy was obviously Potter, he had his round glasses perched on his nose, unlike in the previous memory where he didn’t have the glasses on. Potter was running as both the boys chased him.

Potter was panting with exertion but he kept going, the blonde boys on the other hand were starting to slow down behind him. Severus felt his heart lurch in fear when Potter hit a dead-end. Potter turned around with a terrified look on his face, when he realised that he was backed in a corner and the other boys were blocking his only escape route.

The boys that were chasing him smirked at the boy.
“What are you going to do now, Potter? You have nowhere to run now.” The blonde with shorter hair asked with a smug grin on his pudgy face.

“Leave me alone Dudley or I will tell aunt Petunia that.. that you-” Potter stuttered but was cut off by the pudgy boy.

“What are you going to tell Potter? Mum doesn’t care if I hurt you Potter. She doesn’t care about you.” The boy cackled.

“Shut up!” Potter shouted, with tears in his eyes.

Severus stiffened when the boy whom Potter had addressed as Dudley leapt at Potter. The other blonde followed after him. Potter quickly darted to his left, getting on his knees and squeezed through a small hole in the wall behind him. Severus assumed that the hole didn’t lead anywhere since Potter didn’t make any move to get away. He just sat there curled in a ball, hugging his knees to his chest. But with the way he was sitting only half of his body was visible.

“Really, Potter you are just going to sit there like a wimp?” Dudley asked, with a snort.

“Get out, freak.” The other boy shouted.

“Yeah, Potter get out, you don’t want to go home late do you, you haven’t even completed your chores, mum and dad are going to be so mad. You don’t want to make them mad do you?”

Severus frowned, why would Dudley’s parents be mad at Potter. Unless, he was Potter’s cousin, but the boy didn’t look anything like Petunia, She was thin as a twig, with a rather horsey face and long neck. Dudley on the other hand was rather large in size. The only resemblance he had to Petunia was the blond hair.

Severus watched in horror as the boys started throwing rocks at Potter. He could hear as Potter whimpered from where he was trapped in the hole.

Potter crawled out of the hole after the boys had left saying something about getting bored of Harry hunting. Severus was gripped with sadness and longing. Potter had small red bruises on his forearms and knees. There was also a small crack on his glasses.

Severus felt the snow falling on him, and he knew they were back in front of the garish tree.