A/N: Y'all know the drill... The Queen owns everything, not me. Also, I apologize for not posting for so long. And I feel like this chapter is a little all over the place, style wise. PLEASE LET ME KNOW D':

Chapter 6: Mnemophobia

Harry felt his face blanch. There was something Snape had yet to see. Almost instantly his pulse shot up and the pace of his breathing grew rapidly. There was no way that Snape, or anyone, could ever find out about that. That was too private, too shameful, and he had no one to blame but himself. And besides that, it was something that he did not fully comprehend yet. He had long ago come to terms with the injuries he sustained at the hands of his uncle. This, however, was foreign and he was not willing to give it up before he understood what was happening to him. Not to Snape.

Harry stood up twitchily, nearly toppling over the sofa behind him. The weight was clouding his brain again and the scene in front of him zoomed past at amazing speeds. Yet even in this distortion of time Snape's arm seemed to crawl as Harry saw the man reach toward him. He thought he was going to be sick, but knew that he couldn't, not when no air could reach his quickly crumpling lungs. A strong set of hands clamped down on Harry's shoulders.

No. He couldn't let him touch him.

'Some Gryffindor I am.'

He would find out. He couldn't find out.

'Not good enough.'

God damnit, he needed this!

'Neither can live while the other survives. '

Somewhere in the whirlwind Harry felt something digging into the flesh of his hand, before the grip on his shoulders moved to take away what was clawing into him.

'It's your fault they died.'

Snape couldn't know. He just couldn't.

'Please, make it stop.'

And as his brain finally gave out from lack of oxygen, everything went black and Harry was once again lost into darkness.

It was hard for Severus to get a grasp on exactly what was happening to the boy before him until the episode was in full swing.

At his command Potter had stood up shakily, and even after several seconds did not seem to regain his balance. Fearing that the boy would topple over, Snape reached out his hand to steady him with a firm grasp. There could be any number of reasons really that the boy would unstable- he certainly wasn't in pristine, or even decent physical condition, by any means. Yet has his hands clamped down on Harry's shoulder in a vice-like grip Severus noticed something odd. The boy was clearly not looking at him, his eyes instead wide and unfocused on everything and nothing in the room, and his chest was heaving as though he might be sick. 'I swear,' Severus grimaced, the thought racing through his mind, 'if he vomits on me again, Dumbledore will have to retrieve his golden boy from my quarters in a match box…'

This thought was cut short however, by the sudden motion of Harry's hands flying up to his hand, which startled even Snape, and it took the man a moment to realize that Harry was clawing into his flesh with his long, uncut fingernails.

Merlin, what was wrong with him? Just as Severus tugged Harry's hands away from his bony hand so that the boy would not draw blood, he dropped back onto the loveseat with a thud, where he sat slumped and frozen for many a minute.

As quickly as it had come, Severus could see the episode begin to pass as Harry's breaths began to change from choppy and uneven back to a smoother, more normal cycle. It was as Harry closed his eyes that Severus realized that his hand was still clamped tightly over the boy's wrist. He threw it from him as if the boy's flesh would cause him to burst into flames.

"Potter," he said, reclaiming his cold demeanor," get up now so we can begin. Believe me, I do not wish to do this anymore than you."

For a moment, Harry sat still with his eyes resting gently and he looked as if he could have been dozing peacefully. The sight of that made Snape's blood begin to boil.

"POTTER! Get. Up." He hissed, wishing with each passing second that he had not given the boy an option and had instead taken him immediately to Madame Pomfrey. Why hadn't he? Had it been a moment of weakness, or emotion? No, he did not fall prey to that sort of silly, common-place foolishness. In his line of work, he couldn't afford to. Just as he reached forward to grab Potter's upper arm to yank him upright, the boy's eyes opened and he stared defiantly up at his professor, a certain blaze in his gaze.

"No," he said, pulling his arm away from the older man's out stretch arm. "I don't think that I will, sir. This is none of your concern. I appreciate what you did for me, but you're right; I'm an ungrateful bastard."

He stood up, standing evenly against a flabbergasted Snape, who stood rooted to the spot in the face of his student's cheek.

'Once again, Potter's arrogance has managed to go beyond what even I had expected…'

Harry moved around his teacher and started to make his way towards the door at the other end of the Potion Master's quarters.

"Excuse me, sir." He whispered coldly.

Severus turned on his heel, his voice dropping to a deadly quiet utter. "Get over here, Potter. Now."

"No."

Harry keep walking, his pace quickening. He didn't even bothering to look at his professor.

"NOW!" Severus heard himself shout, despite himself.

"NO!"

Severus felt his pale cheeks flush with anger, his lips forming a thin line.

"Why you little- LEGILIMENS!"

With a rush of cool air, Severus felt his conscious fly forward to probe into the uncheck thoughts his least favorite student. For once, since the previous year, Severus was pleased that the Potter boy had not bothered to diligently practice Occulemency.

Like having long, invisible fingers, Severus began to pry through the mess of swirling memories that now surrounded his own thoughts. They were tangible, and in a strange split of reality, Severus was aware of the movements and objects around him, as well as the contents of Harry's mind. It was something he was used to feeling. Harry, however, was not so used to the duel sensations, and Severus could feel the boy reeling.

'Serves him right, the bloody brat…'

Clawing through the boy's memories, perhaps with a little more force than necessary, Severus began searching for the information he knew was there, ignoring Harry's feeble efforts to push him out.

He worked his way back through his student's memories, to some of Harry's earliest recollections.

A green haze flew past him, and he glimpsed for a moment a small boy of perhaps only 3 enviously watching another, bulkier child riding around on a fire-engine red tricycle. As quickly as it had come, it faded away. It was followed a montage or what looked like several incidents of the same nature; A still quite young child sat in a dark, cramped space as a horse-faced woman yelled through a grate on the door… Being pulled out of that room by his arm as he tried to pull back… A skinny, black haired boy running from a small gang of larger, meaner looking children led by a bulky, blonde boy, and in an instant the black haired boy was on the roof of a nearby building…

The memories became faster, more drawn together, and Severus had to keep his eyes moving fast in order to see them all as they whizzed past. Straining his grasp on Harry's thoughts, he dug harder to look at each one clearly.

More and more of the clumps of memories grew cold and bleak feeling as Severus broke down Harry's mental blocks as if he was knocking over sand castles until he happened upon the cluster he feared he would find. Unlike the others, this group of memories was a deep, iron color that gave off a faint scarlet glow. Reaching out, he pushed Harry's grip aside and opened up the bulbous red mass.

A large man, grabbing the wrists of a small, green eyed boy as he dragged him through the halls of a house before shoving him roughly in a cupboard.

*'Get up Eileen, you useless slut!'*

The green eyed boy tapping his glasses with an old roll of scotch tape after a particularly hard crack across the face.

*Cowering under his thin sheets has he listened to the man raging outside his door. 'I should have known! The boy's a freak, just like you Eileen!'*

The same young boy held up his arms as a feeble defense against the hulking man's raining blows as an odd, twisted, and sparking mug lay dashed against the floor beside them.

"WHAT DID YOU DO!"

"Nothing, I swear!"

*Sharp strikes across his back made the boy shiver in pain. He felt the cool liquid run down his skin as his father continued. 'I won't have it! It'll come out of you one way or another!'*

The whale of a man flung a telephone against the wall as he advanced upon the green eyed, teenaged boy. "HOW DARE YOU GIVE THIS NUMBER TO- TO-PEOPLE LIKE YOU!" In a flurry, the memory became distorted amid screams and the crisp cracks of a long, thin Smeltings stick.

*'Get that whore out of my house! She's like you, isn't she?! Don't you dare bring her here again!' The hook nosed boy flung himself in front of a girl with beautiful red hair and shocking green eyes, just time to shield her from his father's clenched fist.*

The teenager stood trapped in his uncle's clenched hand around his throat as a fat blonde boy sat hunched over a bucket in a spotless kitchen. "I'VE HAD ENOUGH OF YOUR FREAKISHNESS IN MY HOUSE! GET OUT!" A hard knock cracked the boy's jaw.

*The hook nosed boy dragged his trunk to the door before stopping. 'It's my last year at school father…Goodbye.' The man did not look up from his half empty flask. 'You are no son of mine.'*

All of a sudden, Severus reached one of the last memories in this clump. It was new, and it gleamed with a particularly bright glow, indicating its freshness in Harry's mind. Urging his mind forward, he gently pried it open.

The scene-scape was blurred and distorted in a swirl of muted colors. In the background, heavy breaths were racing through the air against dream-like movements. The boy was sitting in an empty corridor, and was pulling out a small, squat knife from the pocket of his robe.

Severus concentrated hard to process the memory as it unfolded. 'What was the boy doing?'

Without so much as a blink, the boy jammed the edge of the blade into his skinny shin, pushing it hard to split open the skin. He repeated. And repeated. And repeated. After a few moments more, the boy stopped.

Severus felt the memory around him become clearer as the colors returned to their normal state and lines slide back into focus.

The boy took in a deep breath, wrapped his shin in an old rag, and made his way to the Great Hall.

From within the boy's mind, Severus could feel himself being ripped back through to real time. It seemed as though Potter had finally managed to grab hold of him long enough to force him back out of his thoughts.

With a thud, Severus fell onto the hard stone of his dungeon floor. He looked up to see that both he and the Potter boy were on the ground, sweating and panting. He stared shrewdly at the now pale and shaking teenager in front of him.

"Potter," he said slowly, regaining control of his legs to stand, his eyes still glued on his student who had not yet recovered from having his mind entered. There was something he had to be sure of. "Kindly remove your trousers."