Harry rubbed his eyes tiredly, ribs still hurting and body aching as if he had slept on the floor. Uncle Vernon must have taken away his cot again, he thought tiredly. He didn't want to get up but he thought he'd better or else there'd be hell to pay if he was late getting breakfast on the table.

He opened his eyes and looked up to find Snape leaning on an old desk, a weak light filtering into the room from a small window. Suddenly there was a flurry of motion as covers flew off of somebody on a bed to his right and started rummaging through a wardrobe, changing quickly. And then before Harry knew what was happening, he was being dragged across the floor, out the door, and down a hallway.

"Wait, ow," he said as he slammed roughly into a wall and continued on. Snape was trailing behind him quickly. Harry tried to get up, but couldn't manage because he was being dragged along so fast. A quick look behind him revealed a set of stairs coming fast, and he tried again in vain to push himself up off the floor before he was dragged down and hurt even more.

At the last second a hand reached down and hauled him up to his feet, and then pulled him along down the staircase at a brisk pace.

"What's going on?" Harry asked, mind confused.

"We are in a memory. We obviously cannot leave the space the person in the memory is occupying. I suggest you keep up."

Harry obeyed and Snape let go of his shirt as Harry followed. He tried to catch a glimpse of whose memory they were in, but only saw shoulder length black hair disappearing around the corner. Finally they came to a stop in a tiny kitchen, and Harry watched as a boy just a year or so younger than him quickly pulled frying pans and other dishes from worn old cupboards and began frying eggs and bacon.

"Better not burn nothing either boy!" a shout came from another room, and the boy shouted back, "Yes dad!"

"Where-"

Snape glared down at him. "Do not dare ask me questions when you refuse to answer mine."

"Sir?"

"What have you done to bring us here?"

Harry shook his head. "I didn't do anything. I was leaving and then I felt cold and then we were here."

Snape scoffed. "Do not expect me to believe that we just ended up here Potter. A trip into a memory requires some kind of magic. And since we were not near a pensieve, and I did not do anything to cause this, that leaves you."

Another shake of the head. "No, I didn't do anything. I don't even know the magic to do something like that. I don't even know where we are."

He glared at him, and then felt a tug as the young man cooking breakfast moved off into another room with two plates of food. Harry and Snape followed into a very tiny dining room with a small square wooden table with three chairs. A man with messy black hair sat in one chair, and a fair-faced woman with brown hair sat in the other.

"Thank you Severus dear," the woman said with a weak smile, but the man cut her off.

"It's about time boy! You'd better learn some work ethic or you won't be going back to that freak school of yours! You better learn how to make it in this world first before you think about living in that freak world of yours!"

Harry stared up at his professor as the young boy shrank back into the kitchen slowly, and they followed.

"Are we in your memories?"

"Obviously Potter. Whom else do you know with long black hair named Severus?"

Harry frowned. Judging by the look on his professor's face, and the memory he had seen so far, this wasn't going to get pleasant all of a sudden.

Without any warning they were spinning again and Harry was once again on the ground, only this time he was outside in a tiny back yard, and the younger Severus Snape was on his hands and knees in the hot sun pulling weeds.

With some effort, Harry stood up, and noticed that his Professor hadn't fallen over as he had.

"How old are you here?"

"Between 13 and 15. I cannot yet tell."

"You don't remember?"

Snape shot him an icy glare and Harry braced himself as the world spun again and they were suddenly in a tiny little attic, where the younger Severus Snape lay on his stomach peering through a crack in the floor at his parents who were fighting below.

"Don't expect me to go easy on him Eileen! My da' never went easy on me! He needs to learn or else get the hell out!"

"But there's no reason to half drown him in the tub Tobias! He's our son!"

"He ain't no son of mine yeh whore. Who knows what yeh did fourteen years ago! Yeh sure didn' tell me teh truth abou' yer past or yer freakish powers! Yeh think I would'a married yeh if I'd known?"

"I thought you loved me." There was question in her voice. Harry was starting to feel very uncomfortable standing there watching his professor's memories.

He glanced up at Snape's face of stone as Tobias shouted, "I can't love no freak! Yer damn lucky I let two freaks like yeh stay in me house!"

When no emotion came off of the elder Snape, Harry turned his attention back down to the fourteen-year-old Snape, who had now rolled onto his back to stare mutely at the ceiling.

The memory was changing again and Harry was once more on the ground. He didn't bother to get up as he watched the younger Severus standing on a battered old playground, as if he were waiting for somebody.

"She's not coming Snivellus! Nobody would want to come meet a freak like you!"

"Shut it Tuney," he said. "Or maybe you'd like some green hair to go with that awful skin of yours?"

The thin girl his age sneered at him and said, "My sister told me, you're not allowed to use magic out of school! So don't threaten me!"

Both the elder and younger Severus sneered this time and the memory changed again.

"GET BACK HERE BOY! YOU AINT GOING BACK TO NO FREAK SCHOOL!" Snape hauled Harry to his feet as the younger Severus tore out the front door of the house, and they were forced to follow at a run. He had a broom in his hand and a tattered book bag slung over his shoulder.

"You better not come back then yeh filthy wretch!" Tobias was shouting after them as they ran down the dark street.

Harry was in very poor shape by the time they had stopped running, and he doubled over, not able to watch the scene unfold.

"Really Potter? Are you that out of shape?" Snape sneered.

He hit his knees on the cold, dirty pavement and looked up as the younger Snape pulled out his wand and looked around cautiously. Snape's house hadn't been in the best part of town to begin with, but now it seemed, they had run straight into the ghetto, and a pair of unsavory looking men had appeared from an alleyway.

"What ‘av we got ‘ere then? A lost little boy? Come ‘ere little boy, we'll take you home.'

Severus backed up and the two men with raggedy, holey clothes started to advance on him.

"Stay back or I'll hurt you," Severus said with a shake in his voice.

The men laughed. "Is that so? Come ‘ere and try then." They laughed again and kept walking towards him. Suddenly there was a bright flash of light, and the two men were on the ground.

Severus looked around quickly, obviously confused, when a red-haired girl appeared from around a corner. She motioned for him to follow, and he ran to her, forcing Harry to hurry to his feet and he and Snape to follow.

"How did you know where I was?"

"Your mum called and said you ran off. I thought you might be on your way to my house."

"We'll I'm glad you came for me. But they'll know you used magic you know."

"It's ok," she said. "We needed it. Let them come after me about it."

The two teenagers smiled, and the memory changed again.

Harry barely steadied himself as their locations changed once more, and stood his ground. They were in a nice living room now and Severus sat on a couch next to the girl. A man in his forties sat on a couch across from them as a woman the same age brought in a tray of milk and cookies.

"Here we are dear. You can have the guest room downstairs until next week when the train comes. Then the two of you can both be off to school together."

"Thanks," Severus said, smiling and accepting a cookie.

"Don't worry Severus, I'm sure your parents will calm down while your gone."

"I don't know. He seemed pretty angry. He said not to come back and I mean not to."

"What about Christmas dear?"

He shrugged. "I always stay at Hogwarts anyway."

"Well not this year. If your parents don't want you back for Christmas this year, then you're more than welcome to stay with us."

He grinned sheepishly. "Really?"

"Of course."

From the hallway the girl from the park, ‘Tuney' came in and sneered.

"What's he doing here?" she said with disgust.

"Severus will be staying with us for the rest of the week sweetheart," the man said. "Just until it's time for he and your sister to go back to school."

Harry thought there was something familiar about all of these people, aside from Severus of course, but he couldn't put his finger on it, and before he had a chance to think more on it, the scene changed again and they were once again in a dark room, Severus sleeping on a bed against a wall.

When nothing happened for a few minutes, and the scene didn't change again, Harry wondered if they would be there for the night. He was tired and he hurt badly, and was having trouble breathing.

"Is it over?" he asked quietly.

"What Potter, not entertaining enough for you?"

Harry frowned and looked away. That wasn't it at all. He didn't derive any pleasure from seeing how abused his professor had been, just as he didn't take any pleasure from living with the Dursleys.

"I just wondered if I could lay down was all." His voice was quiet.

Snape frowned and stared down at him. The boy did look a bit haggard, and he had been holding his ribs since he had woken that morning.

"You slept all night. You cannot possibly be tired."

Harry looked longingly up at the second bed in the room, but Snape said, "Don't even think about it. I stayed up watching over you. It is my turn to sleep." With that he lay down on his back on the second bed.

With a sigh Harry lay down on the hardwood floor, trying to get himself in the position where it hurt the least, but it wasn't possible on hardwood.

After a short while, Severus heard quiet snores, and turned over to see Harry asleep on the floor. The truth was that he hadn't felt physically tired since they'd gotten there, but he was definitely emotionally drained. Living through the horror once was enough, but a second time with a visitor was bordering torture. And God only knew what Potter thought about all of this and what he would spread around to his little friends once they got back to reality.

He heaved a sigh and wondered at the fact that Potter kept holding his ribs, and continued to moan in his sleep. It had only been hours, but he felt as if they'd been on a long, exhausting journey, and were still nowhere close to getting home.