Notes: Um. Chapter. Here. Hope it works, am a bit nervous about this one...

Additional note: Part of Severus' monologue in the first half is adapted from Chris Suellentrop's Slate article entitled: "Harry Potter: pampered jock, patsy, fraud."

Safely barricaded in his room from the pandemonium outside, Severus sighed, looking up from his ingredient requisition forms. It was late; he'd been doing paperwork for the better part of the afternoon, and now it was early evening. He toyed with the idea of Flooing the kitchens for something to eat, but decided to wait until he'd finished the task at hand. He had no idea why he was so tired: he'd done nothing but laze about all day. He pinched the bridge of his nose for a moment, then looked back at the shelves, shaking the jar of belladonna extract. Belladonna extract – 125 grams, he thought to his quill across the room; the ostrich plume obediently filled in the appropriate box on the parchment lying on the table. He moved to another jar and shook it. Dried arrowroot – 2 kilos, the quill scratched on the paper. Powdered unicorn horn – 250 kilos.

What? Hold on, that couldn't be right. He walked over to the form where it lay on the preparation table and scanned it, frowning. He scratched the offending line out and wrote: Powdered unicorn horn – 250 grams.

Losing concentration. Not a good sign. Acknowledging he needed a break, he sank down tiredly into his chair. His amused euphoria from watching the reporters get what they deserved had long since faded, replaced by a kind of post-excitement let-down. It was damned disorienting to be thinking of the miracle – not a miracle, not a miracle, just ordinary magic, he thought – every five minutes. To top it all off, after the fiasco with the press, the entire journalistic complement of the Wizarding World was clamouring for an interview with the Boy-Who-Lived.

Severus tiredly Summoned a bottle of Firewhisky and Transfigured a mortar into a glass, pouring himself a stiff one. "The Boy Who Lived," he murmured, taking a sip. A curiously passive accomplishment, Severus mused as the liquor flowed into his veins, akin to "The Boy Who Showed Up." The fuss should have been about Lily, not her son, he thought, allowing the old familiar annoyance to creep back. It was Lily who'd sacrificed her life. There was nothing special about Potter; having had the dubious pleasure of teaching him for years, he should know. Just another dunderheaded halfwit who shirked as much homework as possible; nothing brilliant or even diligent about him. Granger, while not brilliant, was at least hardworking, and he was willing to wager she'd done most of the Horcrux-hunting, helped along by the information he'd managed to pass along to the Order before Dumbledore's benighted will. Potter was a fraud, a glory hound who unfairly received credit for the accomplishments of others. He didn't even have proper respect for authority; a singularly poor soldier, bad at taking orders, no deference to superior age or knowledge at all, always assuming he knew better than anyone else, always content to go haring off on some scheme or other without consulting those who did know better. Everything Potter had done, including defeating the Dark Lord, was a combination of sheer luck and being loved.

Which brought him back to that irritating question. Who the hell was Harry Potter to warrant that kind of love, anyway? Who was Harry to have his redheaded sweetheart survive when his own had died? Potter had never done an honest day's work in his life. Everything was given to him on a silver platter. What did he know of hardship, of fighting to survive, what did he know of hard work? Nothing, Severus snorted. And now he had his friends back, as well as the adoration of the Wizarding world. Not that he regretted having fought so hard for their lives, of course, but Potter had been spared even the relatively small pain of having to deal with loss. Oh well, he thought, sipping at his drink, there were those who were born lucky and never had a day's hardship in their lives, and those who had everything snatched away from them. Life was so unfair.

"Severus?"

"Yes, Poppy?" He looked up to see her face in the Floo. Her hair was a violent neon pink. On her shoulder perched an Asian boy, his hair a similar screaming shade. "What happened to you?"

"Do you think you could just check on Hermione and Ron and Harry?" she asked. "We've got a case of Fuchsia Fever in the children's ward, it's all the excitement, I think, and I can't spare a moment, and someone ought to check on them in the next half-hour. The medi's have already given them all their potions and everything, but I'd feel better for knowing someone senior with experience was…"

"All right, all right." He heaved himself up from the desk, downing half his drink in one gulp. Lord knew if he was going to face the Brat-Who-Lived, he needed a little liquid fortification.

The operating theatre was quiet when Severus stepped in, in sharp contrast to the corridors. He'd had to walk through pandemonium to get there, milling throngs of patients leaving and families on every floor. He'd given his best billowing-black-shadow impression and managed to slice through the crowds like water, pushing aside a tiny pang at all the happy reunions and tears of joy. Such things were not his lot. They were just not meant to be.

In here, though, it was peaceful. All the makeshift beds had been cleared away, leaving a large, empty room, roughly the dimensions of a Muggle school gym. A gentle twilight reigned, magically maintained after sunset; the hall was bathed in a soft pearly grey, the floor reflecting the quiet glow. A soothing breeze, laden with the scent of wildflowers and herbs, swirled and eddied across the room – and mixing the potion for that had been a right pain in the neck, he thought uncharitably. Still, it was a welcome change from the metallic scent of blood and the acrid tang of potions, not to mention the stench of rotting curse-scars and burning flesh. Severus hated to admit it, but the room was calming him.

The brat's bed had been pushed all the way off to one side, surrounded by monitoring spells. Severus stepped close to it, letting his footfalls ring on the tile; if he knew his potions, they'd be knocked out till at least tomorrow morning. No need to be quiet.

His lip curled as he looked down into the bed. Granger and Weasley were snuggled into either side of Potter like babes in their mother's arms, a look of such profound contentment on their features, even in sleep, that he felt an inexplicable pain in his heart. Banishing it with the ease of long practice, he flicked his wand, reading the diagnostic spells. Disregarding the wand's "and it's a bloody miracle they're alive at all, mate" – his wand had always tended to be a bit on the snarky side – he scanned the medical information and nodded briefly. Healing well, all except the nasty burn on Potter's head. That would have to wait until his friends awoke and were well enough for him to coax a few tears out of them. Severus wondered why someone like Potter, so used to getting his own way, hadn't insisted they heal him. But that didn't jibe with the hysteria Potter had shown when he'd been told his friends were dead, Severus thought almost reluctantly. Well, he supposed, even the most spoilt brat had people he genuinely cared for.

Severus stared down at the face that so resembled his hated enemy's, eyes closed and muscles sleep-slack, and wondered what there was about this spoilt brat that made the Wizarding world lose its senses, what it was that inspired such love. He was missing a piece of the puzzle. He knew it.

Shaking his head, Severus thought, I'm getting silly in my old age. Well, spoilt brat or no, there was no need for the burn to get infected. He palmed a handful of his specially brewed antiseptic salve, and laid his hand on Potter's brow, intending to spread it onto Potter's burn.

He never managed it. The moment he touched the boy's head, he felt himself falling, as though he were looking into a Pensieve.

"What the—"

Severus had to blink a second before he got his bearings. A Muggle primary school, he could see, and a pretty suburban one at that. It was break, by the looks of it: the children were all in the playground, clustered in a loose circle watching some game, he supposed. Football? But no – there was something crackling in the air that Severus' Legilimency picked up on at once: predatory excitement, something primal, fear.

He supposed he should be more surprised, but the alcohol in his system was hitting now, calming him. A memory, eh? He thought. Let's have a look…

He moved closer. His instincts had been true: the children had cleared the floor for an extremely fat boy, a stocky blonde boy and a scrawny little midget. The midget was being held captive by another blond boy, arms twisted up behind his back, fighting tears, by the looks of it. Severus watched the drama with quickening, though mild, interest; even though he couldn't quite see what this had to do with Potter, he tended to identify with children being bullied. As was normal with Pensieve-generated memories, he found himself able to slip through the tightly-packed crowd of chilren to get a better view.

"I'll prove it to you!" the thick blonde boy was crowing to someone in the crowd. The midget struggled harder and his captor twisted his arm up a hitch, hard enough to dislocate.

"You're just talking through your hat, Dudley," said a tall boy with coffee-coloured skin. "Bet you a quid you're making it up."

"A quid? Why not a fiver?" the fat boy who had been addressed as Dudley shot back with a confident smirk. Snape began to seethe at the conversation they were holding while the small boy was being held captive, his shoulders and elbows stretched to breaking point. His own arms were beginning to ache in sympathy. But the boy had the pride and discretion of a Slytherin, he noted: while he lacked the brute force to escape, he refused to give his captors the advantage by showing his weakness. His face was an impassive mask.

"A fiver it is," said the boy who'd suggested the bet. "But if you don't show us right now, the bet's forfeit!"

Dudley smirked in triumph, then turned to the crowd with the air of a showman. "As you know, today's bet was that Potter's so pathetic he even has to wear hand-me-down yellow pants..."

Severus' mouth dropped open. He stared at the black-haired boy. Potter? But then who was...

"...because his parents didn't leave him enough dosh to buy any of his own! So without further ado, ladies and gentlemen..."

'Dudley'? Snape had heard of a cousin, but surely this couldn't be...

"Why don't you tell them the truth, Dudders?" the little boy's -Potter's- voice rang out. "That you're growing sideways so fast they've given up on Marks and Sparks and started getting you fitted at Omar the Tentmaker's!"

Typical, thought Snape, glad of something to hold onto. Same as his father, mocking the fat boy for something he can't help, the situation ought to be humiliating but it's water off a duck's back to him...

The cheers - or was it jeers? - from the crowd broke his train of thought to show that Dudley had made good on his threat. Potter stood there, his trousers pulled down to his ankles, kicking and fighting furiously but ineffectually. Underneath the trousers was a pair of pants so baggy that his waist could have fitted into each leg. Tied in place with an old bootlace, the material around the waist was so tightly gathered that the garment resembled bloomers more than anything else; the resemblance was more pronounced because the pants in question were bright yellow with polka-dots all over them.

Potter's face burned.

It burned scarlet with humiliation; it burned with shame; it burned with anger and indignation. Perhaps it was the boy's magic, but in that moment, all he could see was flame.

The cheers had devolved into a chant, and Severus was reminded again how children could be like savages, moving in for the kill on any one of their number who had appeared weak: "Pot-ter's a wal-ly! Pot-ter's a wal-ly! Pot-ter's a wal-ly!" He found himself trembling, thinking back to that awful day at Hogwarts. He knew it was a memory, but that would not have stopped him pulling out his wand and raining ineffectual hexes upon them had Potter not suddenly stamped on the foot of the boy holding him. As he yelped in pain, his captive took the chance and darted off as though the hounds of Hades were after him.

But he didn't get very far; the pants pooled around his ankles meant he thudded to the ground not a metre from the big boy, who wasted no time in sitting on his chest. "Ah, ah! Can't have you running off now!" Dudley crowed. Severus found himself feeling very cold. The little boy was fighting for breath, in real danger of dying. The fat boy was cutting off his air supply. Don't be ridiculous! he told himself. Potter is alive, there's no danger of his dying. Even if this isn't a dream, which it is, this can't have happened to famous Potter, this only happens to unfortunates like me…

The fat boy had hold of the waistband of Potter's pants and was pulling them down. The children chanted and jeered. Potter squealed like a stuck pig. Snape turned away. This was too much like his worst nightmare.

"I'll kill him!" yelled a strong voice.

Snape whipped round. Ah, maybe help had arrived for the boy. A red-headed teacher, tall and powerful with it, pounded across the playground. Severus waited for him to put a stop to the bullying; eyes down, he listened for the teacher's shouts that would tell him this farce was over, but instead he only heard, "I swear I'll kill him, Hermione! Let me go! Let me go to his family's house when we're out of St. Mungo's and strangle him!"

Ah, Snape realized, decidedly unchuffed. How weaker than a pink blancmange it is to hear a Weasley's rant.

Standing right in his path were Granger and the Weasley, blocking his view of the screaming boys. She was holding him back as he struggled ineffectually. Well, he'd have none of it; he'd conduct this silly dream, if dream it was, on his own terms! "Would you mind stopping all that racket and getting out of the way?" he said, pleasantly enough.

They both whipped round in shock, and the memory stopped. "What are you doing here?" the Weasley asked, in his typical loutish fashion.

"I might ask you the same thing," Snape said. "This is my dream, after all."

"Dream?" Weasley snorted. "These are Harry's memories. What are you doing here?"

"I assure you I do not want to spend any more time with the Potter brat than I can help," Snape stared icicles at the red-faced child. Still a child, he thought. He's just never grown up.

"Professor…" Perhaps the insufferable girl could be reasoned with. "This… since this morning, we've been falling into Harry's memories whenever we fall asleep. My guess it's because of the healing web we're sharing while we sleep. I haven't read enough about them to know whether it's temporary or…"

"Enough," he cut her off coldly and Weasley bristled like a donkey in rut. He ignored him with supreme aplomb and swept on. "The – effect – the three of you share is quite rare, but when it does happen, from what I have read, the sharing of dreams and memories for a night or two is fairly common. My guess is that the effect is, indeed, temporary. My only question is why I am here."

"That's what I want to know!" said the blockhead.

Ignoring him, Snape mused, "I was touching Potter's head just now; I was the attendant healer, so the web may have mistaken me for one of your circle."

"But why Harry's memories?"

Snape couldn't help sneering. "Everything has to be about precious Potter, doesn't it."

"Now look here…" Weasley began, but the girl shushed him. Snape pursed his lips. Usually, the one whose natural magic was most powerful imposed his memories on the others, but he'd be damned if he'd admit it to the Gryffindors, because not only did they not need to know that the brainless whelp had more powerful magic than any of them, but he would also be admitting that this was not a dream, but a memory.

Which meant it had actually happened.

"Who's Dudley?" Snape asked, looking at the still tableau, wondering what it would take to unfreeze it again.

"Bloody cousin," Weasley growled. "If I had my way…"

Severus remained calm. "He does not bear much resemblance to Potter."

"Night and day." The yob narrowed his eyes at Snape. "Having fun watching him thump Harry?" Snape did not dignify this with an answer. He saw Granger pull at Weasley's sleeve and after a second, the belligerent posture slumped. "Sorry," he muttered. "Just… the times I've seen him come to the Burrow banged up because of that miserable cousin of his…"

"What is the meaning of this!" a teacher finally shouted as the memory restarted. Snape wondered who was controlling it as a sandy-haired middle-aged man in a dark green jersey jogged towards the children. 'Dudley' lumbered up off Harry quickly as the crowd scattered.

"Disgusting little vermin, watching something like that and not lifting a finger," Snape thought.

"Too right," Weasley responded vehemently and with a shock Severus realized he had spoken aloud. "Bloody enjoying it, too. Poor excuses for human beings, Wizard or Muggle."

"Indeed," Snape growled, then blanched: he had just agreed with Weasley! "What happens next?" he asked hurriedly, eyeing Harry. The boy apparently lacked the strength to get up; he lay there, panting from having his upper half crushed by his massive cousin, his little-boy privates hanging out in front of the whole school, his face a mixture of rage, humiliation and oxygen deprivation.

"Dunno," Weasley blurted. Sometimes it was a nuisance being a Legilimens, especially in a dreamspace like this. Snape could feel a blast of protective rage from the tall young man next to him, see the mental picture of him running to the poor little boy and scooping him up in his arms. Perhaps it was this that made Weasley sound vaguely more civil when he spoke again. "Never seen this one before. Not too keen on seeing it, either."

"You know what happened the other time," Granger warned softly, touching Weasley's arm in what Severus considered a disgustingly wanton gesture. He hoped she would refrain from pawing him in his, Snape's, presence. "Whichever way you turn, we've got to …"

"Watch, yeah, yeah," the boy responded. "Still don't have to like it, though."

The teacher was hauling Harry up by the arm. The little boy tugged his pants up valiantly. "It was your cousin, wasn't it?" the teacher snapped.

The boy jumped. "No!" he shouted wildly. "No, it wasn't!"

"It's very noble of you to want to protect him, but this isn't…"

"No, no it wasn't him, it wasn't, I tell you!" little Harry insisted desperately.

"What the hell's he on about?" Weasley muttered. "We all saw him. Bloody teacher saw him, does Harry think the teacher's an idiot?"

Severus agreed with Weasley again, which disturbed him more than he cared to let on.

"I shall be writing a note to his parents about this," the teacher said sternly.

"A note? They should have him chucked out," Weasley fumed.

"No, no, please don't!" the boy next to him almost shrieked, a note of panic in his voice. "Please, please don't!"

The teacher merely smiled and patted Harry on the head. "Such a noble little boy," he opined. "I'm afraid you can't get your cousin out of trouble this time. He'll just have to take his medicine." With that, he disappeared into the building, leaving a despairing Harry behind.

"Why on earth is he defending Dudley?" Granger mused. "Surely a letter from school will make the Dursleys sit up and take notice? They can't ignore that, can they?"

"I dunno, Hermione," Ron muttered, and Severus heard a note of uncertainty in his voice. Then he said, audibly trying to cheer himself up, "Anyhow, that's just what he needs. A note telling his parents they won't put up with the bullying at school. Yeah."

He wasn't sure how much time had passed in this timelessness, but the next thing he saw was the children walking out of school, shouldering their bags, heading for home. Dudley didn't seem too upset about the note; he was swaggering out of school with a jaunty air. "He doesn't seem to mind it much," Weasley observed.

But then they saw Harry. He sprinted out of school, not pausing to look behind him. "What's up with him?" Weasley muttered.

"Do you expect me to know, Weasley?" God, was the whole family this garrulous? And he was planning to marry the know-it-all, as well. Good Lord. Maybe their offspring could find employment with the WWN.

"No, of course not, I just…"

"Ssh," said Granger, and her tone was so gentle and motherly that he did, indeed, allow himself to be shushed, instead concentrating on Potter. The short little boy – he had to be seven or eight, Severus mused, but he looked stunted for that age – had reached the town centre, and was now skulking along the back entrances of the shops. "Whatever is he doing?" the girl wondered.

Harry was – no, he wasn't! – yes, he was – poking along the row of dustbins that lined the narrow lane. "Potter's a beggar! Looking in dustbins! Dustbin Potter!" taunted two girls riding by the mouth of the alley on bicycles, but Harry ignored them as though they weren't there. Severus felt a surge of righteous indignation from Weasley, coupled with first-hand knowledge of what it was like to have so little that you were obliged to use someone's leftovers. It was so intimate that he squirmed; he had no desire to understand a Weasley.

As they watched, Harry lifted the lid off a dustbin at the back of a shop called Flour Power. Setting his bag carefully to one side, but not too far off, he rolled up his baggy sleeves and rummaged inside. "Ah!" he shouted with glee, and his face lit up. His hand emerged bearing an intact steak and kidney pie with a crumpled-up tissue sticking to the top. Pulling off the tissue and flaking off the bit of crust it had been stuck to, Potter sat down in the lane and proceeded to stuff his face, an expression of pure bliss spreading over his features.

"What the fuck…" Weasley expostulated, while Granger whimpered. Severus wanted to tell them to shut their traps, but he couldn't. He could feel the pleasure at finding food radiating off young Potter in waves, and was too busy trying to Occlude to shut them up. The bliss on his face touched Severus' heart in a way that made him angry. "Harry…" Weasley whispered in a strangely tender tone that made Severus want to punch him in the nose.

"Will you shut up, Weasley?" he snapped.

"Can't you see what's going on?" Weasley rounded on him, fire in his eyes.

"Boys!" Granger hushed them, then turned bright red as Severus turned to her, incredulously, and fixed her with a stare. "I'm s-sorry, Professor, I'm terribly sorry! I didn't mean to, it just…slipped out…"

He searched for his cold mask, found it. "See that it does not slip out in future, Miss Granger."

"Yessir."

Little Harry had finished his pie now, and rooted around in the bin some more, fishing out three half-eaten sausage-rolls and one intact one. He punched the air triumphantly, and proceeded to roll them up carefully in the cuffs of his ridiculously too-large, too-baggy trousers. "What now?" Weasley huffed.

"I should have thought it obvious even to one of your limited intellect, Weasley," Severus drawled to hide the ache in his own heart. "The boy is hoarding food. Obviously he is not satisfied with what he is given at home."

"But why doesn't he just put them in his pockets?" puzzled Granger, logically.

"Not satisfied? They starved him, Snape!" Weasley swung round to face him, ignoring Granger's logic as Snape deduced was his habit. "They always did, back when we were first years! They locked him in his room and gave him short rations! I had to pull the bars off his window to get him out! He only started to get taller after he came to Hogwarts and started eating properly! Merlin, I was this close to killing them so many times. The way they treated him…"

Severus looked at the ranting young man, vaguely amused, as a thought occurred to him. He couldn't say it out loud, so he deliberately let it escape through a chink in his Occlumency. "The reason you hated me so much was because you perceived me as someone who would hurt Harry, didn't you?"

That brought Weasley up short. If Severus had had a camera, he would have snapped a picture of the fish-out-of-water flap-jawed image, and framed it to hang on his wall: Weasleyus Stupidicus. Rare moment of self-awareness. Photographed in the wild, twentieth century.

"Look!"

Granger's voice snapped them out of it. What on earth was the boy doing?

He was hiding behind the hedge in somebody's back garden. Using his hands and a piece of sharp rock, he dug a small hole in the dirt. As they watched, the child turned and relieved himself into it, like a cat.

"Is he mad?" Severus wondered aloud.

"No." Severus chilled at Weasley's tone, cold and bleak as a blasted heath. Weasley seemed to understand; his tone was filled with dread. Severus needed someone to enlighten him, but he wouldn't ask them for information, so he watched instead.

As Severus looked on, boy cleaned himself up with leaves ripped from a nearby bush, covered up his excrement with more earth, and washed his hands on the garden hose, bending to take a deep drink of water. Then he set off for home with an air that was almost jaunty.

Severus looked away, thinking furiously. He knew, he knew, of one thing that could reliably make a child do this. But not spoilt Potter, he thought determinedly. He's probably playing at camping and such-like, he reassured himself. Silly, childish pranks.

"So!"

That was the voice of Petunia Evans. Petunia Dursley, rather, he corrected himself. She did not sound pleased; in fact, he would venture to say she sounded more shrewish than when he had first met her. His head came up sharply. Harry stood at the door to his house; Petunia loomed over him from the boy's lower viewpoint.

"Getting my Dudley into trouble, are you?"

"What!" Weasley bellowed. "Getting HIM into trouble, you wretched, disgusting…"

Granger merely emitted a squeal of outrage.

"…making my poor boy look bad with false accusations, turning the teachers against him! I knew nothing good would come of taking a freak like you in! Give you everything and this is how you repay us? Well, I'm not going to stand for it! Come here!"

She dragged him inside. Harry's porcine cousin waddled out from where he had been hiding behind his mother's skirts, clapping his hands gleefully. "Oh, you're going to get it, Potter," he cackled.

Severus chilled when he remembered how Harry had been so desperate not to have his cousin sent home with a note from the teacher, how confident Dudley had been that no consequences would befall him. But Harry seemed unfazed, though most of that was probably bravado. "Oh, you're here," Harry drawled with Slytherin sarcasm, looking over at Dudley. "Thought the zoo might have spotted you on the way home and taken you back."

Meanwhile, Petunia had pulled out one of the dining-room chairs and was hauling Harry over her lap. An animal growl came from Weasley as Mrs Dursley pulled Harry's baggy trousers down and they saw how thin his little-boy bottom was. Severus suddenly understood why he hadn't put the sausage-rolls in his pockets; the way his trousers were hanging upside-down, they might have fallen out. He closed his eyes against the knowledge of how familiar the boy would have to be with this position to have thought of that.

"Bring me the brush, Duddikins," Petunia said briskly, and as the boy set off upstairs, she began to spank Harry hard all over his bare bottom and thighs, which began to pinken immediately. "Ungrateful freak! Nasty little monster! How dare you get my precious Diddydums into trouble!" she shouted, her hand slapping the thin limbs again and again. In contrast to the desperation in his face when he had entreated the teacher, now that the punishment was actually happening, the eight-year-old's face was a smooth, cold mask. Again and again Mrs. Dursley's hand smacked down, Harry's rear end going from pink to red, but the boy did not even move, just clenched and unclenched his fists in a way that tore at Severus' heart.

"Here's the brush, Mummy!" the fat boy grinned cheerfully, panting from the exertion of going up and down the stairs. He held out a shiny item to his mother.

"Thank you, sweetums," Petunia held out her hand to take the implement from him. "I'm going to teach Harry a good lesson about getting his betters into trouble."

She raised the brush, and Severus chilled as he got a good look at it for the first time. It was one of those modern metal-backed brushes with deep zigzag grooves going through the length of the flat end. That was a barbarous instrument to punish an adult, he fumed, let alone a child that age! It would bruise and blister! He caught a flash of agreement from the Weasley, followed by a blast of protectiveness and sorrow that nearly drowned out Granger's whimper. Out of the corner of his eye he could see the girl burrowing into Weasley's arms and weeping as Lily's sister began to whack away at little Harry with the hairbrush. "Worthless—disgusting—little freak!"

Granger's eyes were closed, but her body jerked with every cracking impact. Severus, though, could not tear his eyes away. The very first impact of the brush on the child's already tender flesh raised bruises, and the bruising darkened into black and blue as Petunia continued to whack him with the brush, the flesh serrated with lumpy wheals. This wasn't a child's spanking – it was torture! Severus fumed. But the child, while he jerked with pain – and it had to hurt abominably – made no sound.

Shame burned through Severus as he saw how wrong he had been about Harry being spoilt, knowing nothing of suffering. It was obvious that the boy was used to being hurt; it was second nature to him. He had known what would happen when his teachers accused his cousin of bullying him. He was used to holding back his cries while being punished. No wonder, Severus realized, no wonder he doesn't trust authority figures.

Only now, after a good sixty or seventy whacks with the awful brush, were Harry's tears starting to fall. Mrs Dursley was still ranting on between whacks. "I'll teach you—to get your cousins into trouble—your weirdness—nasty little useless brat…"

Severus heard a sob, and wondered if it was coming from Harry. No, it wasn't. Another guttural, manly sob cut through the relentless crack of the beating, and Severus turned to see Weasley ridiculously blubbering aloud, full-voiced and without shame, his hands clenching on his fiancée's shoulders. He turned to the man, fully intending to snap, "Stop that racket, Weasley," but the moment he looked into the blue eyes, the wave of anguish that blindsided him was so intense that it rendered him speechless. He felt the protectiveness reaching out from the Gryffindor, felt it reaching out to grab the child in an insubstantial, impotent embrace.

Little Harry's face was streaming with tears now. The small, clenched fists pounded the floor involuntarily, and a tiny "Uh" was forced out of him with each subsequent whack. The child's bottom and thighs were turning white, blistering as the skin separated from the flesh beneath it and filled with fluid. And still the metal brush impacted the blisters, bursting them and making Harry's head lash from side to side with the pain. Weasley whimpered aloud. "Harry," he blubbered ridiculously. "I had no idea… I never knew…" Searing rage blistered the edges of Severus' awareness, a rage so strong that Severus took a step back, pouring off the young man as he clenched his teeth and shook with silent sobs. "I should have killed them when I had the chance!"

Severus barely had a chance to look at him before Petunia released Harry, his flesh deeply bruised, the blisters on buttocks and thighs broken and leaking fluid. He dropped off her knees onto the floor, panting and gasping in agony, but his tear-streaked face remained impassive, his chin stuck out defiantly. Foolish Gryffindor, Severus found himself thinking out of habit. He would have probably got off much lighter if he had screamed and cried and begged for mercy.

"Pot-ter got a span-king! Pot-ter got a span-king!" Dudley crowed, dancing around the chair. "Pot-ter got a span-king! Pot-ter got a span-king!"

"Oh, shut up!" yelled Granger, obviously at the end of her patience.

But the nasty, taunting boy kept up his infuriating chant as Potter stumbled to his feet, scarcely able to walk – Weasley growled like a wild animal to see him stumble – and, holding up his pants with his hands, hobbled to the cupboard under the stairs. Severus wondered whether that was where they kept the first-aid kit, but then the boy stepped inside and they were in there with him, although the cupboard hadn't looked big enough for Harry let alone the three adults. One adult and two children, he corrected himself hastily. It was dark and cramped and…

The boy lay down gingerly on his stomach on a sort of pallet-bed, pulling down his trousers to carefully bare his bottom and legs; no wonder he can't bear to have anything touch them, Severus thought. He heard the sound of a key being turned in the lock. "And you needn't think you'll be getting out before Monday morning or getting any food, either!" Petunia screeched. This was so strange that Severus reluctantly turned to the couple next to him for help.

In this confined space, Hermione Granger's and Ronald Weasley's sympathy and overwhelming, protective love for the child filled the darkness, palpable and fragrant like the smell of sweet basil or panaceum root, edged with pain and sympathy like the bittersweet tang of almond oil. "I…assume they lock him in here when he has… committed some sort of transgression?" Severus asked, hesitantly.

Ronald snorted. "Guess again, mate. It's his room. That's where they kept him until he went to Hogwarts."

"What?"

But Ronald's answer was drowned out by the welter of Harry's thoughts, which were coloured by one overriding emotion: triumph.

Wait a minute: triumph?

Severus unwillingly reached out with his mind. Yes, there it was. "I didn't make a noise or show weakness! And I got in a word against stupid Dudley! All right, it hurts, but I've got two whole days with no chores, I can rest as much as I want! I'm so clever, I thought to go to the toilet, I can last till Sunday before I have to beg them to let me use the loo, and with any luck I'll last until Monday morning! And I had a meal without their knowing, and" – the child fingered his treasure – "I have THREE sausage rolls for tomorrow and the day after!"

Severus gaped as the monologue continued. "I can take care of myself! I can take care of myself! Mum and Dad would have been proud of me! They did their worst, but they didn't break me! They didn't break me today!"