A/N: Woohoo! New chapter! Woohoo! And as for the polls, here are the results so far:

Vote one:

1)   Severitus' Challenge- 2

2)   Harry/Snape slash- 1

3)   Just plain friendship- 2

Vote 2

1)         To be hunted down by Snape and killed. - 1

2)         To be hunted down by Snape and turned over to the proper authorities.

3)         To be hunted down by members of the wizarding community and killed. -1

4)         To be caught by the muggle authorities and charged with murder. - 1

5)         To get away clean free.

Also, there was a vote for one I didn't ask. That was by an anonymous viewer called 'me' who wanted Vernon to become a Death Eater.

There are the results as of now. Anymore are appreciated. It'll be in the next two chapters when I announce the over-all result. And if you decide to chose one of a couple, but no more than three, on vote two, or two on vote one, I will put you down for both.

And if you're wondering, this chapter has more details about why Vernon did it. I hope it won't force me to put the rating up (but since it's PG-13, and I'm 13, it should be okay).

Disclaimer: I, as Byproduct of Evil, lack the ownership of the characters that happen to belong to one Joanne Kathleen Rowling, which, in summery, means, I don' own n'em!

Chapter 5 - His Past

I can't believe some of this, even as I recall the tale, all this time later.  It seems impossible to believe, or at least parts of it do.

As I walked down to my office not long after I told Harr- Potter that he would be staying with me for the remainder of the summer (something which he took surprisingly well) again I was lost in thought, as was increasingly happening to me that summer.

Yet again, the boy plagued my thoughts. Harry Potter. Why was it that I couldn't stop thinking about him? I found out later, but for now I will just carry on with the story.

There was something about him that seemed different, though it could just have been the fact I had never gotten to know him, just assumed that he would have been spoilt, would be just like his father. No need to tell you that I now knew that I was wrong. You have already seen that.

No, I was certain there was something different about him. I just knew it. He wasn't himself. Before the start of the summer he was a perfectly happy person. Well as close to perfectly happy as someone who had seen their godfather, the closest person to a father they had, murdered before their very eyes, only to be told afterwards that the fate of the wizarding world, and maybe even eventually the muggle world as well, rested on his shoulders, and his ability to destroy a wizard that was stronger than any other.

I knew I would probably find out eventually, but I wanted to find out then. Normally I'm relatively patient about these things, but for some reason my instinct (damn them) would leave me alone. Since it was the second time that week, I decided that it could well change how things turned out in the future if I didn't listen to them. And there was also the fact I wanted to listen to them this time, as I, myself, wanted to know.

I knew that if I didn't try to get the whole truth out of Harry I wouldn't be able to let myself rest, that it would eat me up inside, no matter what. Yes, I do have feelings, though this may surprise many of my students. I've just learnt to keep them from affecting me ever since I was a child.

After a few minutes of deep thinking I got down to my rooms and made sure all of my work for the summer was shorted and packed. I usually stayed at Hogwarts for the summer. I had no wife or family, and I never wanted to go back to Snape Manor, one of the few places I really and truly hated. There were too many painful memories there for me.

Soon enough I had managed to sort out my things, find Potter, and get to the Manor. Arriving there for the first time in years was hard for me, but nonetheless, I kept my composure.

I looked down at Har- Potter, surprised at how quiet he was. They was a far away look in his eyes, like he was remembering something, and I had a suspicion that it was something terrible. We had travelled by portkey, so I guessed that it would be the night of the third task.

"Potter," I said gently, making him jump. I could understand this, as it was the first time I had ever spoken to him gently.

He looked up at me for a second, his eyes wide with fear, and I saw he was out of it still. I had no idea what to do. I stared into his eyes for a second, and saw that the rebellious spark was still there, like it always had been, but it was dulled slightly, as if something was blocking it.

Suddenly, I realised there was about one way out of this. Maybe there was more, but by the time I would have managed to do them, it would have been too late.

Swallowing, I muttered a spell that would allow me to enter his mind and pull him out of it.

The spell is different from Legitimency. Legitimency just allows you to see the memories of the person that you are entering the mind of, and see if that person was lying or not. The spell I used wasn't widely known, though the people that did know it specialised in bringing people around from comas and other such states of unconsciousness, just like Harry was going through at that moment.

I felt the familiar feeling of entering another's mind, one which I wished I never had to feel, and I saw the memories Potter was seeing over and over again.

'Kill the spare.'

'Take Harry and run!'

'Move aside you silly girl!'

'NOOOOOOO SIRIUS!'

'You're never going back to that freak school again!'

'Make Harry  get it!'

'I'll be in my room, making no noise and pretending I'm not there.'

The visions started going by more quickly, more coming, always repeating, until I finally found a memory that would possibly save the wizarding world.

A fat man, probably the uncle, grabbed Harry and threw him in a room, the same room I had found Potter in. It looked like the start of summer, as light was shining in through the window in the hall.

His eyes narrowed as he looked down on the boy. I could tell that the man had been drinking. Growing up as I had had taught me how to recognise the signs that most others couldn't without smelling the breath of the person who had been doing the drinking.

'It's your fault my company went bust!" accused Vernon.

'I didn't!' came Potter's reply.

'I know you did it!' snarled back Har-Potter's Uncle. 'You did it just like to cast that spell thing on Dudley last year! Admit it!'

' I- Didn't- Do- It," replied Pott-Harry, emphasising each word.

"I knew what was coming next," said a ghostly voice beside me. "I knew what Uncle Vernon was about to do."

I span around in Harry's mind and turned to face the owner of the voice. It was Po-Harry, only he looked like he was in a dream.

Hearing banging from the memory, I turned around, instantly regretting it.

Vernon was standing over Harry's blooded and bruised form, kicking and occasionally punching the boy that was entrusted to his family's protection each summer.

After a few more minutes of this Vernon took him and chained him to the bed, making sure he couldn't escape.

'This will make you learn not to use your devilish magic on me or my family,' said Vernon menacingly, a mad glint in his eye.

"He didn't do that every summer," came the same dreamy voice of Harry. "Just most of them."

His eyes were still as glazed over as before, an expression on his face as if he didn't really accept what he was seeing.

I turned back to watch the scene again, still horrified at what I was seeing, and watched for awhile longer, before remembering the true reason why I was here. I turned back to grab onto Harry, to bring him back to the real world. He wasn't there.

Sighing, I started going through each of the memories in turn, searching for the boy. Soon I stopped my search as I spotted him at another memory, he looked the same as he did when he had found me watching his memory of the summer, only this time he was actually taking part in the memory.

He ran breathlessly towards some bins, occasionally looking back over his shoulder to see if a gang of people, I recognised one as his cousin, were still chasing him. They were.

He picked up his pace towards those bins and jumped, disappearing in mid-jump with a pop.

He reappeared on top of a tall school building, looking terrified.

"Why are you putting yourself through this?" I wonder aloud.

Harry turned to face me, and I saw he had a black eye and a split lip.

'Because I deserve it,' he hissed to me.

The scene went, and another appeared. This time I hadn't willingly changed to another memory.

It was dark, really dark. He was in a cramped room, nothing more than a cupboard, I guess, and he was crying. He looked no older than five or six.

"What happened here?" I gasped out.

The boy in front of me looked up and stared at me with the same distant eyes as I had seen in the previous two memories.

'This was the time performed accidental magic. I turned ordinary water into grape juice. Aunt Petunia went crazy. I didn't understand why,' was my reply.

This memory faded again, without my doing it, and I visited several more memories. After a bit longer, I remembered again why I was here. The next memory was the first one I visited.

It went through the same things again, and Harry appeared beside me. I grabbed onto his arm, and pulled him out with me. Soon enough we were both back outside Snape Manor, me staring in shock at the person before me, now knowing only some of what he had been through.

"Professor..." Harry started, before falling into a dead faint.

A/N: Oh my, this chapter was so much fun to write. And it's about the longest so far. Snape's made it to an important milestone this chapter. Especially in his relationship (get your mind out of that gutter. Me too. Relationship could mean friendship or blood relative too, you know!) with Snape. For some reason I find Snape really easy to write.

Ckat44: Thanks for you opinion, but the only time I won't write slash is if the other options win. And so far, they are.

Asdf: Okay. I love slash too, but I'm not too bothered about whether this is or not. And I would certainly enjoy torturing Vernon (I hope people vote for something where that is possible)!

Me: You didn't like my options about Vernon I'm guessing? Oh well, I like your idea. T'would be fun! And t'would involve some torture of Vernon!

Neflanthir: Okay! You got it!

Gatogirl1: The Severitus' Challenge is where Snape is Harry's dad (though it has been done where Harry is Snape's dad, weirdly enough) and Harry has to go through a physical change process in his appearance. Also, Lupin has to be back at Hogwarts and the fic has to be mainly based around Harry and Snape (I got that last bit covered!). And I like slash! They're not my fave slash couple, but I like them together sometimes. Parts of the reasons are in this, but there are more. I just gotta think of them.

Okay, there you have it everyone. Flashbacks from Harry's past. There will be more, only Harry will be telling Snape about them, not Snape actually witnessing them, though they will be in Harry's POV (so be warned!). I hope your all ready for this. And my doubt in my ability to get this out before Christmas was unfound! Here it is! Super long for me as well. My X-mas gift to you all!