He remembered it well, so well, how the sun shone brightly that summer morning. How the breeze rushed through the foliage of the mighty oak tree behind his house. His house? Yes, his house was close by. Now it started to carry a woman's piercing shriek against a man's thunderous roar. They were at it again. Then he heard a chair crashed onto the ground; a woman's cry. He could almost see it in his mind – the bruises on the woman's face where the man had just struck. How she would sob and spit at the bitter fate of this ill-fated marriage. A lifetime wasted with a drunk! A dead beat father! His father.

He heard the front door swung open. He heard the door bounced off the walls, rattling the window sills as it went. He heard heavy clamouring of boots on the dry soil. Footsteps that sounded clearer with each taken. He knew he had to run for it. Run away as far as he could or end up bloody on the floor like his mother. He sprinted towards the hedge and he knew he was discovered. Found out. He heard angry words and curses behind him. Something about don't darken our doorsteps again. What lie! He would be expected for dinner later. He probably should expect a good round of beating for supper too.

He ducked under the thicket and continued his run to the neighbouring house. It was a lovely house. He saw two girls skipping ropes near the front yard. He ran harder. He was so close. He could hear them laugh, could see her red hair reflecting the midday sun. And she turned to him. Saw him. Smiled at him. Almost greeted him hello when a pair of thick, hairy arms seized him by his collar.

"Crucio."

A dark figure writhed on the stone floor. Silent screams reverberated within the dungeons. His hands grappled madly at stray straws littering the ground. His back arched. His nerves fried. His heart threatened to give out. Then it ceased. His chest felt so tight he could hardly breathe. He was not even aware of his torturer crouching beside him.

"Severus… how disappointing."

Snape barely registered his name. A hissing, so uncouth spilled from his Master's sneering lips. He blinked away the delirium that was clouding his vision. He looked into his Master's red eyes, seething, wrathful. Then he felt the familiar tip of a wand pressing into his side. Shakily, he breathed, "My Lord…"

A burst of white filled his eyes and his blood splattered against the wall. His sides, punctured and torn, stained both the grimy floor and his Master's offending wand red.

"Legilimens."

Neighbours often wondered at the queer sight of little Severus Snape with his newfound friend. The boy had always been a loner. And now look at him! He had found himself a little girl for company. A pretty one at that. And not just any pretty little girl; the Evans were thought to be pretty strict with whom they allow to mingle with the girls. What an odd couple they make. A rowdy looking chum with a dainty little thing?

But Lily did not care. She saw something else in him.

"Hey Sev," she said one day, throwing a polished apple at him. With her other hand, she brandished a scroll bearing the grand crest of Hogwarts School of Witchcraft and Wizardry. "Where's yours?"

He smiled. "We'll actually go to school together, Lily!"

Snape gasped, his breathing rattling his laboured lungs. He could not think, he could not move, he could not feel. His memories now lay bare before Lord Voldemort. Naked, helpless as the Dark Lord Crucio'd and raped the very fabric of his consciousness for what seemed like eternity. He could no longer tell apart the present from the past. Lily fleeted in and out of his mind. Once he thought he had died, and that she had come to collect him, until pain seared through his broken body again.

"Is this memory important to you, Severus?"

Snape coughed wetly. He was so close to seeing Lily's smile again.

"Why the need to shield this with your mastery in Occlumency? What is the worth of this memory?"

Voldemort's weight shifted. He could be magically hovering above Snape's prone figure; he could be straddling his sides. All Snape could see was how close his Master's visage was to his. Voldemort's cold breath caressed his clammy face, and the next sentence was as poisonous, "So I see now that your heart lies with Lily Potter." Voldemort drew himself up. "Love," he hissed vehemently, "Is that what I sense?"

He saw it all; Lily charging towards a brick wall with a trolley full of stuff. Lily sharing a compartment on Hogwarts Express with him. Lily sitting beside him on the boat as they drifted steadily towards the grand castle beyond. Lily putting on the Sorting Hat. Lily…

"Fool. Crucio."

"OH YOU DISGRACEFUL THRASH, ABOMINATION TO THE HOUSE OF BLACK! WHAT WILL MY FATHER SAY OF YOUR INSOLENCE –"

"Oh, shut up."

With a lazy flick of his wand, the black drapes closed over the abusive portrait. As if that helped anything at all, Sirius sighed. Outside, trees almost bent over double as they stood staunchly against the wind. Rain drops splattered over his roofs and window panes. The hurricane was atrocious it probably could have drowned his mother's screams. As thunder boomed, the house shook and the black drapes over the portrait curled upwards again. Obviously fed up with his fruitless efforts in earning some peace of mind (Mrs Black was pulling a banshee again), he turned his back against the stupid hallway, heading for his room. Halfway up the first flight of steps though, he heard a loud thump on his front door. Did a tree just got uprooted? Well that could be a good thing. No more stupid members from the Order coming in to take advantage of what warmth and shelter this stupid house could provide from the stupid hurricane. Sirius started upwards again when he heard the unmistaken pounding on his door. Twice.

Irritated, he bellowed from where he was, "Just open the bloody door, would you!"

The door silenced.

Sirius tore down the hallway. Now he had got to be the bell boy too, huh. He pulled the door open with such a force that put Hagrid to shame, and felt the storm pouring on him. But at his feet, a black hooded figure lay slumped. Rain droplets washed crimson down his sides and there was a stillness that unnerved Sirius as his eyes roamed over his visitor.

Lightning flashed, illuminating a slither of the face.

Sirius scowled. "Snape?"