Author's note: In case you are of a more sensitive disposition I should give you a fair warning. This is not a nice chapter. There will be no snide remarks, no witty comments, no clever explanations. Instead there will be a lot of cruelty, violence, blood and death. So if you are not prepared for that, better don't read it.

Chapter 4: Blue eyes

Harry wrenched his eyes away from the look of pain on his teacher's face and directed his attention, in accordance with all the others, towards the bubble. The unstable images flickered from the third into the second dimension, lost colour and focus and overlapped each other. Dumbledore put some more effort into his spell, his hands clenched into fists, his face, however, relaxed and calm. Harry had no doubt the headmaster had had the opportunity of practising this spell.

A low moan escaped Snape's lips and suddenly the cinematic experience hit in. Clear sound, clear picture, life-like dimension – Harry found himself captured against his will by the scene that unravelled before his eyes.

A dimly lit room came into focus. Thousands of books on high shelves lined the walls and in the middle two figures were sitting at a table. The taller towered over the smaller one from which a quiet whimpering emanated. Harry tried to focus on the two people, tried to move forward like he had done inside the Pensieve, but he was not the one controlling and editing the scene this time. He would have to wait until Dumbledore chose to take a closer look.

The creaking of a door was to be heard and a soft voice said "Come back into the kitchen, Severus. You know your father doesn't want you do be here when they are working."

A woman's face became the centre of attention, a rather thin face with large blue eyes, high cheekbones, a very pointed nose and pale lips. Glossy auburn curls framed a somewhat forced smile and made her skin appear even more ashen than it actually was.

"But Mom, she's crying!" protested a shaky little voice.

Finally the scene expanded and showed the couple by the door, a tall, fragile woman and a skinny little boy with short black hair. The woman, evidently Snape's mother, tried to drag her son through the open door, away from the other couple and back into the unseen hallway.

"No!" yelled the man in the middle of the room who had to be Snape's father, and banged a fist on the table in front of the small figure cowering beside him. The small boy escaped his mother's feeble grip and took some uncertain steps towards the other two, his eyes opened wide in fear, his lower lip trembling. He couldn't be older than four.

"We have tried this a thousand bloody times and you still mess it up! Are you really this stupid or are you trying to annoy me on purpose?"

"I'm sorry, father." The voice definitely belonged to a girl. A face appeared out of a tangled mass of black curls, flushed from crying, and trembling hands wiped away the wet streaks that tears had left on her cheeks. She might have been pretty, had it not been for the slightly too prominent nose and the blue eyes that were just a notch too close to each other.

"I am really trying to do everything the way you showed me, but these spells are just too difficult for me."

"Too difficult?" The man's voice echoed through the high room and the little boy near the door clamped his hands over his ears. Neither he nor his mother dared to move.

"Too difficult? I had mastered those spells when I was half your age, because I – really – tried - hard."

Each word was punctuated by the sound of his open hand meeting the girl's face. She didn't even try to shield herself from his blows. She might have been ten or eleven, but she had the eyes of an old, tired woman who had seen and suffered too much. After each jolt she fixed her gaze on the book in front of her again.

"Maybe I'm really too stupid to learn it. Maybe you should just give up on me." Her voice was barely more than a whisper.

Her father slumped back into the chair beside her, letting out a frustrated sigh. He propped his head against his right hand, his elbow resting on the table, and studied his daughter's face with furrowed brows. Shoulder length black hair fell into his face, forcing him too look through a curtain. He didn't seem to mind, though, for he didn't bother to swipe it back. His dark eyes glistened maliciously, looking down a long, yet straight nose that gave him an aristocratic look. He was as pallid as his wife.

Suddenly he noticed the two figures by the door and straightened up. Shooting his daughter a nasty look he whispered "Yes, maybe I should give up on you. Or maybe I should make a little clearer what the precise effect of that spell is supposed to be."

Waving impatiently towards his son and wife he added loudly "Come over here, you two. Actually you are not supposed to be here, but since you are, you might as well help us."

The little boy scurried towards his sister, who put a warm smile on for him immediately as he skidded to a halt in front of her.

"Are you all right, 'Sanna?" he asked breathlessly, stroking her slightly swollen face with clumsy little fingers. She didn't answer but pulled him onto her lap wordlessly and held him tight, pressing her face into his hair.

"Susanna is having problems concentrating today", their father explained as if talking to a big audience. "She can't focus on what she is doing, which is why our little training object here hasn't got any exercise at all today."

He pointed onto the table where an indifferent looking frog sat, looking at all of them lazily with his big eyes and then turning his back on them to face one of the book-covered walls. The little boy tried to pat him, but his sister quickly snatched his hand away, watching her father nervously.

"Now, I've been thinking, maybe practising that spell on a frog is not exciting enough for the young lady. Maybe she needs a bigger challenge." The frog was impatiently swept from the desk.

He took his wife by the hand and positioned her in front of the table. Then he turned around and bent down, his face mere inches from his daughter's away. She pressed her little brother even closer to her chest as if trying to shield him from those cruel eyes.

"Your mother and I will demonstrate now what the outcome of this spell is supposed to look like." His wand appeared in his hand as if from nowhere and his voice sounded surprisingly shrill as he yelled "Imperio!"

As his wand jerked upwards and then swung down in a sharp arch again, his wife started bashing her forehead against the tabletop, again and again, until her pallid skin cracked open and blood added an unpleasant tinge of colour to her otherwise pasty face.

All this time Susanna had been pressing her little brother's face to her chest, covering his ears with her hands, while she herself stared at her mother with open revulsion.

"Thank you, my dear." Her father's voice was all silk now as he reached out to stroke a few strands of hair out of his wife's eyes, carelessly smearing blood across her cheek. There was a strange contentment in his eyes and something else that almost bordered on tenderness.

"So, your turn." He spun around to face his children and swept the little boy out of his sister's protective embrace with one swift motion. As he put him on the ground in front of the girl, he quickly ruffled the boy's smooth hair before flashing him a toothy smile that stopped shortly before it reached the eyes.

"Surely your little brother will gladly offer you the same assistance that your mother was so kind to show me. No, no, Severus, stay where you are." The child had tried to turn around and look at his mother, but his father quickly stepped between the two, blocking his wife from view. She was still smiling, though, absentmindedly licking away some of the blood that had trickled down onto her upper lip.

Snape's father looked at his daughter expectantly. "Let's go then. Take up your wand – there you go – aim it straight onto him and then – one, two, three …"

She didn't move. Her wand rested limply in her hand, aiming nowhere in particular. Silent tears were rolling down her face as she did her best to still smile at the little boy encouragingly. Then she slowly let her arm sink down. The wand dropped to the floor.

"You stupid, pathetic, brainless, useless excuse for a witch!" This time his hand was not open, but clenched into an angry fist. Yelling all kinds of obscenities he showered his elder child with blows and kicks, striking without any clear aim and without the slightest sign of mercy.

When it was over, the slumped form on the floor held only little resemblance to the girl that had protected her little brother only minutes before. Blood covered the floor, her father's shoes and hands. Her face was hardly recognizable anymore. Apart from her eyes. Those blue eyes, just a notch too close to each other, stared at the ceiling blankly, tears still oozing out silently.

"'Sanna?" the little boy asked carefully, taking a few hesitant steps towards the lifeless form. "'Sanna, are you all right? Do you want me to help you?"

He sank down next to her, dipping his knees in her blood, and touched her shoulder.

"Did I do something wrong? 'Sanna, please, don't be angry with me. I'll do it right this time. We can try it again. Can't we, father?"

He turned around just in time to see his father walk out the door. His mother pulled him up and tried to lead him away from the dead body that had been his sister. Dully he got up and followed, taking cautious little steps, evidently lost in thought. Shortly before they had reached the door his eyes opened wide and a silent whimper escaped his little mouth. He turned on his heels, ran back and crumpled down beside his sister, sobbing violently. His voice got louder and louder as he screamed himself into a fit.

Harry felt something wet on his shoulder. As he turned around he saw Hermione's face covered in tears. She had clamped both of her hands over her mouth to muffle her sobs and the tears were flowing all over her hands, dripping onto her knees – and onto Harry.

He could understand her. There was a big lump in his throat, too, and his eyes felt sore. Ron seemed a little paler than usual and Ginny had hidden her face against her brother's shoulder. This was definitely more than they had asked for.

Deep inside his mind, in a little corner far out of everybody's reach, Severus Snape clenched his fists and bit down on his tongue so hard that he tasted blood. He would not let them see how his father had made him help digging the hole at the far end of the garden. He would not let them see how her body had been dumped in there unceremoniously, like a dead cat's. He would not let them see how earth had started to cover her face, how the hole had been filled up and she had disappeared from his view forever.

He would not let them see.

He would not let them …