"Legilimens."

And suddenly the Potions classroom vanished.

Cassi had still been stunned from Snape's rant and wasn't ready to fend him off, but Snape didn't care. His conscience told him he was taking advantage of her, but he didn't care. He justified himself by saying that he was simulating real life circumstances. Deep down, he knew that was just a cover-up. He was here for revenge - to teach her a lesson.

Because she wasn't ready, Snape whisked through a whirlwind of memories, looking for her worst fears, her darkest secrets, memories she hated and had chosen to forget, pulling them to the front of her mind and not being any too gentle about it. She had betrayed him...he took guilty satisfaction in feeling her pain.

At first he didn't really care what it was he inflicted on her. Memory after memory crashed over her which, in turn, sent her pain crashing over him. Then, as he became more aware of what exactly those memories were, he paid less attention to how she felt about them. What was he seeing?

A toddler with frightened blue eyes. Cassandra. A middle-aged, filthy-looking man leering down at her, telling her with repressed frustration that her parents were dead. Snape mentally snarled. Waters. The girl not fully understanding until the man said she would be living with him now, and that there would be no more "hocus-pocus funny business." The girl panicking and trying to run from him, earning her first beating. The girl sobbing heartbreakingly for her father as the beating continued. That memory ended.

A complacent-looking seven-year-old Cassi sitting on the back porch of a rickety house, staring dreamily off into space with her chin in her hand as the sun came over the horizon. The girl being jerked to attention by the slamming of the door behind her and the hollering of the man, wanting to know why she had snuck out in the middle of the night and what she had done. Cassi explaining calmly that she had been out since just after dinner the day before, but the door had been locked when she tried to get in that evening. Waters demanding why she didn't knock, and her replying that she had. The man grinning and saying that he never heard a thing. Another beating. That memory faded too.

Another early morning scene. Cassi furtively trying to open a pantry door silently and being scared out of her skin by a menacing voice asking what in blazes she thought she was doing. The girl stammering something about being hungry - no meals in two days. Waters proceeding to relieve her of her next few meals as well. Suddenly Cassi straightening, the terror gone from her face, and beginning to rant at him, shouting and cursing. A horrible pause. Then the worst beating of her life, a steady stream of cursing pouring from Waters the whole time. About ten seconds in, Snape couldn't take it any more. He pulled out of her mind.

Suddenly they were both back in the classroom. Cassi now lay shaking and crying silently on the floor where she had collapsed, crushed by the revisiting of her worst memories. Snape stood looking at her, just now realizing how horrifying her short life had been. His earlier, unreasonable anger forgotten, now he was furious - and with good reason, he fumed. He knelt beside Cassi in the dim classroom, noticing for the first time the usually-covered scars on her neck and arms. He reached out and grabbed her wrist, causing her to flinch away and whimper. Suddenly she realized what he was looking at, and she realized that her choice of clothing showed the worst of the marks. She frantically tried to pull away, but his grip was like steel. So were his eyes.

Paying no attention to her struggles, he pulled her wrist closer to inspect the marks. He was boiling now. This isn't new, he thought. She lied when I asked if things were better. There must be memories from this summer...

Without another thought, he repeated the incantation and immersed himself in her memories.

This time, knowing more specifically what he was looking for, the memories came too fast to form into pictures. They were just fleeting impressions, scraps of what had gone through her mind as the events happened, sometimes bits of color or part of an image. Whatever the form, all the memories carried the same undertones - pain, despair, loneliness, fear, helplessness. It felt like the list of horrible memories went on forever. So many...

Then a single memory, unbidden and unexpected, appeared to take the place of the others. It moved in real-time, allowing Snape to fully absorb everything. It was of Cassandra standing in front of a mirror. Snape's anger slowly faded as he watched.

She stood there appraising her reflection. From the expression on her face and the undercurrent of her emotions bleeding through the mental connection, Snape knew she didn't think much of herself. That started to make him mad again. She doesn't know. She should know I would never have been this upset over someone who wasn't worth it. He didn't understand how she couldn't see how imoortant she was, but a moment later it didn't matter.

He stopped wondering. He stopped thinking. He stopped functioning. He stopped breathing. He just stood and stared.

He could have sworn that he had just heard Cassandra Renner whisper, "I'm...I love Severus Snape."

The shock of hearing it in real life, not just his dreams, sent him careening back to the Potions classroom, where he was still kneeling beside a shaking and sniffling Cassandra. He looked down at her, realizing how much pain he had put her through. Bewildered by his revelations and exhausted by his day, all he managed to do was stand, say "We're done", and help her up. She stood shakily for a few seconds, unsteady on her feet after her recent mental trauma, then made her way to the door. The second she left, Snape collapsed in his chair and sat like that for the next five hours.

The whole time, three words were pounding against his brain, never leaving him alone.

She loves me.