A/N: Sorry it took so long. Apparently, school has started, and I'm already behind! So don't expect fast updates for a while, since I no longer have anything written ahead of where I post. Thanks for all of the lovely reviews, though!

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Six Minutes

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"Five times," Potter said softly, looking away and sounding mortified that he had spoken at all. A quick glance at his most superficial memories revealed that he was thinking about the summer, and the blows on the back porch of his muggle relative's home.

Severus nodded slowly, eyes unfathomable.

He had been surprised, though perhaps he shouldn't have been, when Potter had shown up at his classroom, at the appropriate time even. Apparently the teen fully believed that he would spread his little secret if he didn't comply with his terms.

If the stupid boy had thought about it clearly, he would have realized that there was no way he could send that particular secret around—not with his status as a double-crossing spy—since it would raise too many questions about why he knew so much about Potter without being able to bring him directly to the Dark Lord.

Of course, he'd never gifted Potter with much intelligence anyway, so even though Potter had shocked him by even showing up, he wasn't really surprised at the reasons.

Currently, the teen was watching him warily, eyes guarded. Apparently, he had let the silence linger too long. "You keep count?" he finally asked.

"Not for the little stuff," he admitted. "Just the...more memorable occasions, I guess."

"Such as this summer?" he pressed. Potter sighed.

"Yeah," he agreed. "He doesn't usually hit me more than once, since he's afraid you lot will come running one of these days."

There was a very telling pause, and Snape could almost hear the words the boy didn't say.

Except you never have, and you never will.

It was clear that the Order had let the teen down for many years, but again…the boy had said nothing!

"The other four times—were they as severe?" he asked.

"I dunno," Potter muttered. "The first time wasn't bad—but I was younger, and I didn't expect it, I guess. So I counted it as number one."

"What happened?"

Potter glared a moment, but sighed, clearly thinking that if he didn't give in, then Snape would run to Dumbledore. "I was nine," he said. "I tracked mud in the house after weeding the flowerbeds, and when Vernon yelled at me about it, I told him to bugger off…I heard some older kid at school say it when they were mad…and the next thing I knew, he'd gone red in the face and backhanded me off the stairs."

"And that was it?"

Potter reddened, and Snape gleaned from his thoughts that the teen thought he was making the incident out to be more important than it really was.

"Well, and then I spent three weeks in the cupboard," Potter muttered. "But Petunia shouted at him, sounding all horrified. I thought she was shocked that he'd hit me…but I figured it out, later. She was afraid someone would come checking up on me."

"But they didn't," Snape supplied. The teen nodded once, firmly.

"It kept the Dursleys on edge almost a year, and I had no idea why at the time. I thought maybe they were afraid someone had noticed the big bruise on my face…but my teachers all just thought Dudley and I had been fighting again," Potter explained.

"And you never mentioned this to the headmaster?" Snape asked.

The teen looked a mixture of embarrassed and angry. "Half the time he treats me like a stranger, and the other half like I'm his grandson," Potter said. "I don't know what I can or can't tell him."

"So…you just let the abuse continue?" Snape pressed, knowing he would antagonize the boy further. "Just kept going back, pretending everything was fine…"

"I asked if I could stay at Hogwarts during the summer," Potter broke in. "But I was told no, and I knew arguing would be pointless."

"Did you explain the situation at all?"

"Well, no…I thought if I said anything after Dumbledore said no, he'd think I was making it up."

Potter looked positively sullen now, eyes on the floor at his feet and arms crossed on his chest. His shoulders were drawn up tightly, though he kept his back straight and stiff. His unease with the whole situation was obvious, as was his unwillingness to go into more detail than necessary to keep Snape from prying for more.

Snape hesitated a moment, letting silence fall once more, as he contemplated what to do with the boy. Perhaps there was nothing he could do. He wasn't sure. Having never had children of his own, coupled with his unwillingness to delve into the personal lives of any Hogwarts students, left him with little experience with teenage troubles.

Of course, he'd expected more stereotypical shouting and melodrama from Potter, certainly, leaving him uncertain how to deal with a teen that, while not venting his emotions, was clearly feeling them.

"What were your plans for this summer?" Snape abruptly asked. "Going back to them?"

Potter glanced up, shrugged slightly. "Were?" he echoed. "I will be going back to the Dursleys—blood protection and all that." Potter unfolded one arm long enough to wave a hand as he spoke.

"You most certainly won't," Snape stated evenly, keeping emotion and interest out of his voice. "You can't possibly believe a student at this school would be knowingly placed back into a hostile environment."

"Hostile? I figure Voldemort's hostile," Potter snorted. "What he's planning to do to me when he next gets a hold of me is hostile," he emphasized, laughing hollowly. "The Dursleys—merely annoying."

"When he next gets his hands on you?" Snape echoed.

The boy sighed, as he tended to do, and cracked his neck before speaking again. "Well, it's not like he hasn't had trouble getting to me before," he pointed out. "I've been lucky to make it this long…between the blood protection with the Dursleys and the safety of Hogwarts, about ninety-nine percent of the time I figure I'm safe…it's that one percent that scares me."

The idea that the boy had spent any measure of time contemplating his relative safety, and what would probably happen if he were ambushed and taken to Voldemort, was surprising to Snape. He'd assumed, based on Potter's usual actions and words, that he spent most of his time absorbed in the rivalry with Slytherin, hating school work, flying, and everything else that normally occupied a Hogwart's student. He hadn't even been sure if Potter fully understood the serious nature of the situation.

He hadn't been there that night when Potter had been taken and Voldemort brought back to life…he'd had to beg his way back into Voldemort's good graces later that night, after Potter had come back…and he didn't have much direct evidence of what had transpired that evening. All of the other Death Eaters had been tight-lipped about it.

Voldemort hadn't spoken of it, either, and Snape got the feeling that he preferred it that way. So he wasn't reminded of the fact that a fourteen year old escaped him in an even duel.

Potter certainly hadn't won—not by any means—but he'd come out of it alive, which was more than most of Voldemort's targets could claim. Snape had been witness to Potter's return, clutching that damned cup…and the dead Diggory boy.

For a moment, then, he'd felt a slight pity for the boy…not for the horrors he'd faced, but for the abrupt and painful loss of any remaining hopes he'd had of making it to adulthood unscathed.

As much as he hated Potter—and he still had, did—he remembered clearly in his own youth, when he'd first come to Hogwarts and realized he wouldn't leave the school for a promising career or a wonderful life. Somehow, he'd known, even as a third year, that he wouldn't be like the majority—getting married and getting jobs and having babies.

And when he'd seen Potter reappear, clutching a dead teenager and covered in blood, he'd realized instantly that the promising future most worked for had just been stripped away. As much as Albus had wanted the boy to enjoy his years at Hogwarts, it wasn't to be.

Potter had a job to do.

In the silence that formed, they regarded each other.

"You can't help me," Potter finally stated, then stood. He left, and Snape didn't object.

He looked at the clock on the wall, though.

Only six minutes had passed.

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The problem, as he now saw it, was not that Potter didn't want a better situation or didn't see what was wrong. It was that he didn't see a need to change it. There were more pressing matters to deal with, as far as he was concerned.

Getting knocked around every now and then wasn't too big of a price to pay for protection from a wizard that would love nothing more than to skin him alive.

Literally.

And, as usual, everything ended up feeding back to Voldemort, back to the fact that the boy happened to have some stupid scar upon his forehead, forcing him to be the one that would supposedly destroy Voldemort or some such.

Despite the fact that he'd heard a portion of the prophecy himself, he still found it hard to believe that it was a solid fact—that because it had been made, it would happen. He much preferred to believe that witches and wizards tended to make decisions based upon what they had been told, making the prophecy truth. Potter had been told that he had been marked as the one to defeat Voldemort, and, without much fuss, had accepted it as truth.

If he'd never been told, he would probably have never set himself down this path. Potter just seemed to accept blindly that he was destined to fight the Dark Lord, no matter the cost to himself.

Something had to be done. Something that would take more than six minutes.

He contemplated the situation only a few moments more—it was time to come up with something extreme, something that would get the boy's attention.

And the more he thought about it, the more likely it seemed that he would need to let go of some his prejudices, and, perish the thought, trust Potter's discretion.

It was time to bring out his pensieve.

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A/N: Sorry on the wait. MASSIVE writer's block mixed with MASSIVE amounts of schoolwork, etc, etc, and so forth. This isn't a great chapter…kind of filler, almost. I wanted to just chuck the whole thing, but then some of y'all might think I moved too fast, didn't provide enough insight, etc. So here it is, and it's probably not 100 integral to the rest of the story.

Thanks for hanging in there!